… to everything on the ground, above it, and below it:

A battle is brewing between the Saskatchewan government and First Nations over the province’s potash riches.
Energy and Resources Minister Bill Boyd says the government’s position is clear — it is happy to work with First Nations, but potash and other natural resources are under the exclusive control of the provincial government.
A group of First Nations preparing to launch legal action on the matter says the issue is not so black and white. Led by former Federation of Saskatchewan Indian Nations (FSIN) chief Perry Bellegarde, they say First Nations never surrendered any resources below the “depth of a plough” in the treaties.

Previous

Geert Wilders isn’t the only enlightenment-minded European facing severe penalties for expressing his views.
Austrian Elisabeth Sabaditsch-Wolff is an English teacher, a mom, and a self-described “classic conservative libertarian,” who is active in a group called Pax Europea, a “non-partisan, not political” human rights organization that “focuses specifically on the growth of Shariah law in Europe, and the erosion in Europe of free speech in relation to Islam.” In 2009 a reporter saw her giving a speech at a seminar and promptly reported her to the Austrian authorities; she was charged with hate speech, and now faces a three-year prison sentence for “defamation of religion.”
She didn’t exactly have a parochial upbringing. The daughter of a diplomat, Sabaditsch-Wolff has lived in Iran, Iraq, Libya, and Kuwait. She makes clear in this interview that she’s not afraid of Muslims, only of “political Islam,” and that her goal is to “preserve Europe and it’s democratic and secular values.”
She believes she has a right to speak her opinion of the spectre of political Islam in Europe; in this speech at the Freedom Defense Initiative in Washington D.C., she expressed her belief (in German) that she alone decides what she will think and say.
She questions the validity of the case against her:

“Where am I currently preaching hate when I say I’m a defender of democratic values, of freedom of speech and of conscience, of individual self determination?”

It will be interesting to watch for further developments in her case.

Seventeen days ago the Federal Court ruled that CBC must hand over information, requested under the Access to Information Act, about the travel and entertainment expenses of Louise Lantagne, one of it’s television directors. The CBC, who had redacted 110 pages of Latagne’s expense reports, is appealing the ruling, on the grounds that “Lantagne’s activities and related expenses are most of the time deeply intertwined with our programming activities.”
Seriously, that’s not a joke: the CBC grants itself this seemingly all-encompassing exemption in its own Policies & Guidelines:

In addition to other relevant exemptions and exclusions, you should be aware that Section 68.1 of the (Access to Information Act) provides CBC/Radio-Canada with a specific exclusion for any information that is under the control of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation that relates to its journalistic, creative, or programming activities.

That pretty much covers everything, doesn’t it?
It’s not hard to figure out why the CBC, a Crown Corporation that receives over a billion dollars a year from Canadian taxpayers, refuses to comply to the Federal Court’s ruling, or to respond to so many Access to information Requests: in recent years CBC execs have expensed – among other things – $800 per night hotel rooms (with their own personal butlers in some cases), $450 theatre tickets, and $1,400 in booze over two days.
In addition to refusing to release the 110 redacted pages from Louise Lantagne’s expense claims report, the CBC has also been steadfastly refusing to comply with numerous other Access to Information requests, including a simple, straightforward request to find out what Peter Mansbridge – one of the most prominent and almost certainly well-paid employees of this taxpayer-funded crown corporation – earns annually in salary and benefits.
The hypocrisy is sickening. In recent months the CBC’s reporters stood self-rightously on camera, for weeks on end — and we’re talking top-of-the-hour coverage, coast-to-coast — to relentlessly demand, in the name of the Access to Information Act, the release of classified military documents which, for all the CBC knows, may contain the names of Afghan informants whose lives could be at risk if the unredacted documents were released, yet the Mother Corp has the chutzpah to thumb its nose at straightforward Access to Information requests about its own wining and dining habits, on the grounds that the requested information pertains to the CBC’s “journalistic, creative, or programming activities.”

The rats are slinking away:

Mr. Soros, a champion of liberal causes, has been directing his money to groups that work on health care and the environment, rather than electoral politics. Asked if the prospect of Republican control of one or both houses of Congress concerned him, he said: “It does, because I think they are pushing the wrong policies, but I’m not in a position to stop it. I don’t believe in standing in the way of an avalanche.”

I don’t think they’ve removed “Stand up for Canada” from the CPC bus:

“The next election is going to be a choice…When the next election does come the entire future of this country is at stake… Let’s be blunt: A far left coalition’s only priority seems to be shutting down Alberta energy industry and putting thousands of Albertans out of work.”

Coalition or us … how does that work for you?
via

Hillier:

“What crap!” Hillier writes in the new edition of A Soldier First, an advance copy of which was obtained by The Canadian Press.
“The National Defence Act is clear — our sons and daughters need to have direction from the leaders that Canadians have elected, and they need to have that direction passed through the Chief of Defence Staff without interference from bureaucrats who have no preparation or training for this task, and no responsibility for those lives.
“Any governments who permit anything different should have their rear ends booted out of office by moms and dads of those serving sons and daughters.”

By Delingpole:

1. Encourage Daddy to convert his Aston-Martin or Kenneth-Noye style Range Rover to biofuels, like the Prince of Wales has. Biofuels are great for the environment because they lead to higher food prices and starvation in the Third World. And the more people who starve to death in the Third World the better it is for nature. Because remember, overpopulation is the real problem.

… rest of the list.

The above chart shows a 20 year rolling average in RGDP growth contrasted with the 20 year rolling average standard deviation of that growth.
English translation – Economic growth is going down, BUT so is the volatility of the growth. It implies we’re sacrificing economic growth for increased stability.
Why?
Regulation
Increased taxation
Larger public sector
Feminization
Equalization
Wealth transfers
Tony Stark would never make it in this economic environment.

British Culture Secretary Jeremy Hunt created a bit of a stir recently when he said that jobless people should stop having babies if they they can’t afford to look after them. While some defended his statement – “It is important not to think of poor people as being complete victims of circumstance,” said David Green of the think-tank Civitas – others found his statement offensive; Labour MP Kate Green, for example, described Hunt’s comments as “unreasonable and very cruel.”
It’s debatable just how cruel the British benefit system is. This couple, for example, who have ten children, live rent-free in a four-bedroom house, get free breakfasts delivered to their door, and receive the equivalent of over $153,000 CAD annually in benefits.
A thank-you would be nice:

The jobless couple still moan that is not enough to keep them and their brood, aged from five months to 14 years…in the comfort they think they deserve. The house is ‘cramped’, they say, and they already complain that their children can only have one Nintendo Wii games console between them…

‘It’s not really that much money we get,’ said Mrs Smith, 36…

In Saudi Arabia, they take this whole “there is no god but Allah” thing really seriously:

Twelve Filipinos and a Catholic priest have been released on bail in Riyadh after being arrested at a rest house in the city’s Rawdah district last Friday. The arrests followed a raid by members of the Commission for Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice on the premises, where 150 expatriates were said to have attended a Catholic mass.

A source told Arab News that only the priest and the 12 Filipinos were arrested for allegedly being the organizers and leaders of the group while the others were let go because they could not all be accommodated at the police station.

“They were charged with proselytizing,” confirmed Ezzedin H. Tago, chargé d’affaires at the Philippine Embassy in Riyadh.

… of foreclosure fraud:

More than two-thirds of state attorneys general plan this week to launch a joint probe into charges some banks used fraudulent paperwork to kick struggling borrowers out of their homes, a source familiar with the effort told Reuters on Sunday.

Morality:

Actually, as the communists proved in 1917, the Nazis proved in 1933, Europeans prove with hate-speech laws and Islamists prove the world over – and as history has consistently taught – ideological conquest is, has been and always will be the case. The story of man is one of spiritual, cultural, political and physical warfare, and each chapter has victory and vanquishment. Zoroastrianism was extinguished by Islam, the Ainus have largely been subsumed by the Japanese, and the Maldives’ native Giraavaru culture is now only a memory. Just like animals, countless languages, cultures, beliefs and peoples have become extinct, often the victims of invasive entities that, through superior morality or might, won that inevitable battle.
And that is the battle for civilization. It may sound very noble to say, “. . . believe what you want to believe – I’m ok with that. After all, I am a Libertarian,” but when enough people believe the wrong things, you will not be OK with it. You will be living under a regime that enshrines those things in law – you’ll be living in tyranny.
Like it or not, imposing values is what arranging civilization is all about. And like it or not, you’re part of this process. The only difference among any of us is in what and how much we impose – and in that some of us actually understand this is precisely what we’re doing.

Rick Santelli is often given credit for inspiring the Tea Party movement.  He’s given us a few deliscious rants over the past couple of years, but he also offers sobering and informed opinions on how the US government is dealing with recession. You can find the interview audio HERE:
Glossary for those not sure of some terms:

CPI – A consumer price index (CPI) measures changes through time in the price level of consumer goods and services purchased by households.
QE – Quantitative Easing is a monetary policy used by central banks to increase the supply of money by increasing the excess reserves of the banking system.
Monetization is the process of converting or establishing something into legal tender. It usually refers to the printing of banknotes by central banks, but things such as gold, diamonds and emeralds, and art can also be monetized. Even intrinsically worthless items can be made into money, as long as they are difficult to make or acquire. Monetization may also refer to exchanging securities for currency, selling a possession, charging for something that used to be free or making money on goods or services that were previously unprofitable.
Securities – Securities are any form of ownership that can be easily traded on a secondary market, such as stocks and bonds. It also includes their derivatives, such as futures contracts, options, or mutual funds.

Excerpts from Adrian MacNair’s first post upon his return:

…
For now, my foggy impression of Afghanistan is that it’s a country we’ll have to spend a generation and tens of billions of dollars [if not hundreds] to keep from becoming a failed state again.
On the military side it would be inaccurate to say we are winning. Not that NATO was ever losing any war against the nebulous, shadowy insurgency that continues to wreak havoc against the people of Afghanistan…

Young and confident Afghans in Kabul make up a demographic of modernized, literate, and progressive men and women like these two journalists working at Tolo TV [more here and esp. here in the New Yorker]. Oct.5, 2010.
Flying over the craggy brown mountains of southern Afghanistan’s sand heading for Kabul, the sporadic oases of greenery can be seen in the valleys of the inhospitable landscape below. One can’t help but think that the Taliban will never be extricated from the thousands of tiny nooks and crannies in a land that seems impenetrable to change.
Yet one is also left with the metaphorical impression that the lush valleys snaking through the mountains are symbolic of the resilience of an ancient people. The hardships of the past 30 years are but a footnote in the history of a people who still bear the genetic mark of Alexander the Great. Though Afghanistan is referred to as the graveyard of empires, it is a mistake to think that it has repelled all outside influences.
There is sincerity both in the work ethic of the soldiers who believe in a mission they are willing to die for, as well as the anecdotes of Afghans who seem to have more patience and optimism than the Canadian public. The latter, after all, have a much larger stake in this struggle than we do.”..