… for some Bull:

Anyone who was a founding member at 1 dollar has now lost 90% of their investment.
Tough noogies for them.
In other news, Zimbabwe dollars are still selling for higher value than CCX CFI’s on Ebay.
I wonder if this fellow might have to drop his price for the domain name? Maybe he’d take a barter deal for some CCX instruments?

Things don’t look good for Carbon Credits … or for Hockey Sticks.

… then get on over to BCF and do your part.

The CHRC has mounted a Kamikaze effort to defend the odius Section 13 (1). It is imperative that we ask those organizations who support 13 (1)’s repeal to seek Intervenor Status in the upcoming judicial review of Warman v. Lemire .

Do your bit, write the organizations listed below, where appropriate ask if they plan to seek official status at the judicial review, offer to assist if at all possible with a donation. Nag Harper, nag Nicholson nag your MP, nag the members of the Justice Committee. Send a letter to the editor of your local daily, or write your favourite columnist.

In a failed attempt to sway the the IOC’s selection committee into awarding Chicago the 2016 Summer Olympics, which went instead to Rio de Janeiro (see Paul’s vid below), the ever-grinning Barack Obama landed in Copenhagen yesterday to deliver a four-“I” plea:

“I’ve come here today to urge you to choose Chicago for the same reasons I chose Chicago nearly twenty-five years ago – the reasons I fell in love with the city I still call home.”

Michelle Obama plied the “wife of I” gambit:

“I was born and raised on Chicago’s South Side, not far from where the Games would open and close,” she said.

(….)

Michelle Obama talked about her late dad who suffered from multiple sclerosis.

Alas, someone in Brazil’s delegation once lived in Rio, and had a great-uncle with angina.

Update: Not Racism … Bush.

“Shovel ready project” before stimulus money

And after stimulus money

Now one would think, one WOULD THINK that the classic;
“If the government pays workers $30,000 to dig a ditch, but then another $30,000 to refill that same ditch back up, it records $60,000 in GDP.”
would show that it is improvements in standards of living that matter, not bean-moving-accounting tricks to boost GDP figures.
But when you’re Barack Obama and the representative whose district this “stimulus” package was in (Nancy Pelosi), don’t confuse us with facts and common sense and just plain FREAKING REALITY.
You can thank the Major for doing the research and homework on this one. I strongly advise pouring a drink before reading it because it is just gut wrenching the waste he’s found.

“The system is not set up to help somebody from the working class make a movie like this and get the truth out there.”

So the extent to which your films are successful indicates the degree to which the truth is absent from them?
I think you might be on to something there, Mr. Moore. Touché.

Afstan: What the Commons’ resolution says and what the government says.

Lowering standards so that all may suffer.

The federal Liberals’ chief organizer in Quebec recently resigned after Michael Ignatieff overruled his decision about a particular nomination battle. Denis Coderre, who is still sitting as the Liberal MP for the Montreal riding of Bourassa, made clear that his decision to resign was propelled by his anger about the Toronto-centric nature of Ignatieff’s inner circle, which Coderre referred to as the “Toronto palace guard.”

“The message delivered by these recent events is as follows: ‘If you want to have your way in Quebec, you just have to bypass the Quebec officials in the party, going instead to the inner circle from Toronto.’ “

Torontonian Susan Delacourt, writing in The Toronto Star, suggests – cue the tiny violins – that Toronto is being singled out in a way no other city would be, and that a federal leader with an inner circle comprised of people almost exclusively from, oh, say, Calgary, would not face such criticism:

“It is hard to imagine anyone taking to a podium to denounce the preponderance of Montrealers working in politicians’ offices – a fact of life stretching back decades in Ottawa – or Calgarians, for that matter.”

Actually, what’s hard to imagine is the possibility that there would ever be a preponderance of Albertans in any federal leader’s inner circle; it’s easy to imagine the widespread denunciations that would surely follow. Here’s a – non-imaginary – statement from Michael Ignatieff himself:

“(Stephen Harper) is a politician formed and shaped in the radical conservative ideological world of Calgary and Calgary think tanks.”

Take special note of his use of the word “and,” through which he makes clear that he is referring not just to “Calgary think tanks” but also to the the city – the people – of Calgary. Fortunately for Ignatieff he can get away with it, because he and his inner circle are not formed or shaped by any particular regional ideology or viewpoint. Yes, make no doubt, my friend, that as Michael Ignatieff spelunks further and further into the political catacombs of the downtown GTA – where the CBC bunker also happens to be located – he will find not a regional ideology, but rather this great country we call Canada.
(*cough cough*)

Some lighter fare of the inanity of American labor markets.
Out of curiosity, is the Canadian labor market as inane?

What’s Obama to do about Afstan? And what about the Afghans?

On September 10th a now-famous video was released showing an Acorn official explaining to a couple posing as a pimp and prostitute how to submit fake tax forms and how best to procure illegal benefits for some “very young” girls they wished to bring in from another country to work as prostitutes. Within hours the story was all over the blogosphere and Fox News; the following day a flood of news outlets including the Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, ABC News online and even MSNBC began covering the story, and over the next several days the Boston Globe and others weighed in.
The uber-Democrat New York Times, though, remained silent as the days passed; even when the US Senate voted to cut off all federal funding to Acorn they didn’t see fit to mention it. Finally, six days late, the NYT published an article headlined “ Conservatives Draw Blood From Acorn.” The piece fairly screamed between the lines of resentment at having to publish a story so unhelpful to the Obama Administration, and began not with the gist of the story but with editorial context meant to mitigate the damaging information they were about to reluctantly provide:

“For months during last year’s presidential race, conservatives sought to tar the Obama campaign with accusations of voter fraud and other transgressions by the national community organizing group ACORN, which had done some work for the campaign…”

This tone continued: “Conservative advocates and broadcasters were gleeful”; the Acorn tape was “the latest scalp claimed by those on the right who have made no secret of their hope to weaken the Obama administration..” “Conservatives believe that they have hit upon a winning formula for such attacks: mobilizing people to dig up dirt, trumpeting it on talk radio”; a quoted member of a liberal think tank said conservatives were using “McCarthyite” tactics and “harping on minor failings and distorting records.” “This is dangerous stuff,” he added.
Several days ago, after prolonged criticism of the NYT, Public Editor Clark Hoyt finally gave the reason for the NYT’s blackout: turns out they simply hadn’t been watching the news:

“Jill Abramson, the managing editor for news, agreed with me that the paper was ‘slow off the mark,’ and blamed ‘insufficient tuned-in-ness to the issues that are dominating Fox News and talk radio.’ She and Bill Keller, the executive editor, said last week that they would now assign an editor to monitor opinion media.”

Ah, that explains it: the Senate’s decision to cut off funding to Acorn was actually just an assertion made by members of the “opinion media“, and the statements coming out of the mouths of Acorn officials on that tape were merely the opinions of conservatives.