Inspired by the Right Wing News selection for “The 40 Most Obnoxious Quotes Of 2007”, I am opening the comments for your submissions for Obnoxious Quotes Of 2007: Canickstan Edition.
My nomination:
“All these workers living too fast for the easy money in the north. It’s not good for the economy.” – Stephane Dion
Let’s see what others you can come up with, and I’ll post the selections in a few days.
Update – Related!
Answer: They already have one.
It is a red-letter rule in business that transactions between a company and its insiders or employees must be disclosed. Some of the most egregious breaches by Enron were its attempts to avoid disclosure of writeoffs by selling worthless assets to the infamous limited partnerships organized by company insiders for equally worthless paper issued by the partnerships. Company insiders cannot evade securities laws by pretending to be be acting in a “personal capacity”.
The U.S. federal government has a detailed set of regulations requiring scientific information to be peer reviewed before it is disseminated by the federal government. NASA, which says that it has “employs the world’s largest concentration of climate scientists”, has carried out an interesting manouevre that has the effect of evading the federal Data Quality Act, OMB Guidelines and NASA’s own stated policies. Once again, the system involves an employee purporting to be acting in a “personal capacity”.
[…]
NASA has carried out an interesting manouevre that has the effect of evading the federal Data Quality Act, OMB Guidelines and NASA’s own stated policies.
NASA says that it “employs the world’s largest concentration of climate scientists”. It has plenty of opportunity to use product from those scientists that has been produced in accordance with NASA quality procedures and subject to the Data Quality Act. Instead of doing so, NASA’s webpage on global warming relies on non-peer reviewed material, including material produced by one of its own employees as a “private citizen” at a “personal” website where his contributions have not been subject to mandatory NASA quality control procedures.
Emphasis mine. This comment lays things out in plainer language.
The [US] economy added more than 1 million new jobs last year. It grew at an annual rate of between 3 percent and 4 percent. Share prices rose by over 5 percent, with tech shares up by double digits, these gains being recorded in weeks in which the financial markets are said to be in turmoil.
Exports soared, bringing down the long-standing trade deficit. In November, supposedly traumatized consumers splurged, increasing spending by the largest amount in 3½ years. Final figures for Christmas are not yet in, but my guess is that early pessimistic estimates will prove wrong.
Meanwhile, Peter Wehner and Yuval Levin point out in Commentary that crime is way down; teenage drug use, pregnancies, smoking and drinking are all on the decline; welfare reform is working, bringing down child poverty; and the divorce rate is falling.
Most important of all, unlike their counterparts in most industrialized countries, Americans have enough confidence in the future to make lots of babies. Hardly a society in the winter of its discontent, no matter what Americans are telling pollsters.
I’ve said it before – the more things change…
Famous Vegetarians In History: The family man.
Lions and tigers and CHRC, oh my!
Don’t like the GST cut? No problem. Sit down and cut the federal government a cheque. Then we’ll all be happy!
An argument in support of national IQ.
Your tips in the comments.
What was to be a carefully staged photo opportunity;
… with the Clintons and NBA legend Magic Johnson at a Des Moines, Iowa, coffee shop veered into near-bedlam, as Bill Clinton broke away from the small dining area and wandered through an adjoining grocery store, chatting up patrons and salespeople along the way.
Reporters, who had been stuck behind a rope line so as not to disturb the coffee shop customers, scurried to follow the garrulous former president as he meandered through the store. He stopped at one point to speak with a TV crew from “Entertainment Tonight,” ignoring his handlers’ pleas as he described how he and his wife spend their private “human being” time.
Hillary Clinton, meanwhile, stayed in the coffee shop area, nearly alone and mostly ignored amid the mayhem her husband created. It took several more minutes, and entreaties from her campaign staff, before he returned to stand by her side and cede the spotlight … if ever so briefly.
Bright side? It probably diverted attention from her “World Leader Pop Quiz” moment.
Informed Canadians get their news from the Brits these days;
Today, we put him in the spotlight again by naming Gen Petraeus as The Sunday Telegraph’s Person of the Year, a new annual accolade to recognise outstanding individual achievement.
He has been the man behind the US troop surge over the past 10 months, the last-ditch effort to end Iraq’s escalating civil war by putting an extra 28,000 American troops on the ground.
So far, it has achieved what many feared was impossible. Sectarian killings are down. Al-Qaeda is on the run. And the two million Iraqis who fled the country are slowly returning. Progress in Iraq is relative – 538 civilians died last month. But compared with the 3,000 peak of December last year, it offers at least a glimmer of hope.
h/t Joan Tintor.
“Gotcha. The essence of contemporary British national identity is defined by waiting two years for a hip replacement.”
More – slow-mo euthanasia. Why not? It works for us.
Not a good start to the New Year.
(h/t Drained Brain)
More – “why does this guy seem to be channeling Jean Chrétien and Maurice Strong?”
(You may use this thread for your reader tips today.)
A single source has logjammed CBC’s Access to Information office. Of the 500 ATI requests received since September 1, a whopping 450 came from a single source.
This volume means that CBC now has to bring in a consultant to enhance workflows and hire more people to work in its ATI office.
The CBC had not anticipated this kind of volume, having based its estimate on the volume of ATI requests received by organizations about its size and with a similar scope. (For instance, 500 requests are more than the number of requests typically received by the Department of Industry. For an entire year.)
But clearly, nobody could have forseen that a single person or group has filed 90% of the requests, causing this logjam.
Here’s a math question: If 500 SDA readers filed 2 requests a week, how long would it take to suck their budget dry?
On Friday, congregations at some of Canada’s mosques made their contribution to remembering Ms. Bhutto. At one Mississauga mosque where supporters of Ms. Bhutto had requested a prayer for their departed leader, the imam refused to utter her name from the pulpit. After the prayer, he was asked why he had not mentioned Ms. Bhutto by name. He responded in a nonchalant manner, “It was not necessary.” When pressed to clarify, he said, “I did not wish to name a specific person.” He was reminded that in his sermon he had mentioned the name of a man, why not Benazir. This time, Imam Mohammed Moutaz Chara, a Syrian-American, touched the questioner’s chin in a condescending manner and gave him a huge smile as he walked away.
A few kilometres away in one of Canada’s largest mosques run by the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA), Skeikh Ala ElSayed refused to utter the words “Benazir Bhutto” from the pulpit, as if it was a profanity.
He talked in convoluted language expressing “condolences to families of beloved brothers and sisters who died in the incident.” When asked by a Toronto Star reporter why he had deliberately avoided mentioning Ms. Bhutto’s name, the imam snapped back: “Why? This is not a political arena. This is about religion. That’s politics.” How convenient.
At other mosques, the story was the same. Not a word about Benazir Bhutto. Reporters at one mosque seemed bewildered and asked why her name was not being mentioned. What no one was willing to tell them is that perhaps the imams consider the words “Benazir Bhutto” unclean and unIslamic. After all, she had vowed to take on the Islamic extremists and hence she was an adversary; the mere mention of her name may pollute the sanctity of the mosque.
And if there was any doubt about the agenda of the Islamist enterprise, it was on full display at the so called “Revival of the Islamic Spirit” conference held in Toronto this weekend. Among the dozens of Islamic speakers, there were only two women and they too were assigned the role of addressing issues such as pornography. There was barely any mention of the assassination of Benazir Bhutto, other than the rhetorical praying for victims of violence. While men commanded the podiums, young women manned the clerical work as receptionists. There were no Benazir Bhuttos at the conference; only those who had not noticed her death.
In another twist, the mosque hosting the prayer event to commemorate Benazir Bhutto missed the point altogether. Instead of honouring the women who came to attend the prayer event as a mark of respect for Benazir Bhutto, they were told they would not be permitted to enter the prayer area from the main entrance.
Related: Canadian feminists take up the quarrel with the foe…
h/t Darcey
Are welcome in the comments. Remember – I said three.
Where the foxes caper unmolested, the government packs your school lunch and all heed the call to prayer;
The deeply English, deeply Christian city of Oxford, one of the homes of free thought, is now being asked to accept the Islamic call to prayer wafting from mosque loudspeakers over its spires and domes.
If that is not a threat to our “way of life”, then I don’t know what is. Allowing the regular electronic proclamation of Allah’s supremacy in a British city is not tolerance, but a surrender of the sky to a wholly different culture. Just you wait and see what opponents of this scheme are accused of.
And enjoy the Rachel Carson bite.
Who to believe – the CBC, or my own lyin’ eyes? Stephen Taylor shreds John Cruikshank’s response to Doug Finley;
I understand that a private association like the Conservative party does not have the sort of transparent and reliable complaints process that we have at the CBC. That is regrettable.”
You say “private” like it’s a bad thing. Besides, it is not the transparency and accountability of the Conservative Party that is in the spotlight here. Again, it is that of the CBC.
Read the whole thing. As commentor “BB” notes, Cruikshank’s “transparency” stops short of naming the reporter.
… the zoo, located in Zawra Park, was home to more than 500 animals, officials said.
Some of the animals escaped as mortar rounds slammed into the zoo during fighting between U.S. troops and the Iraqi Republican Guard.
After the fighting subsided, many of the smaller and tamer animals, such as goats and pigs, were stolen for food. More exotic creatures, such as rare species of birds, were sold on the black market or smuggled out of the country.
The zoo reopened in July 2003, and most of the employees returned. But fewer than 100 animals remained.
“It needed medical supplies, and power generation was an issue,” said Maj. David Shoupe, a public affairs officer with the 2nd Brigade of the 1st Cavalry Division, which includes the 15th Brigade Support Battalion.
The zoo was dependent on the city’s power supply, which meant it typically received electricity for only three hours a day.
So when the battalion assumed zoo duty in April of this year, it brought several generators to ensure the electrical supply.
Next came refurbishing of the clinic, which got new equipment, to the delight of the zoo’s 10 veterinarians.
Then, on Nov. 1, the zoo’s four bears got a new home, a large compound with natural vegetation and a more wildlife-friendly environment.
It was a dramatic change from the small cages with tile floors where they had previously been confined separately, said Wassem Sarih Ameen, the zoo’s chief veterinarian. The floors were hard on the bears’ feet, and one of the animals in particular had leg problems, he said.
“Now her health has changed,” Ameen said. “She walks better. Her legs are healing.”
This month, the support battalion unveiled a new indoor horse stable with 20 individual stalls, along with a washroom and a birthing area. Before the renovation, the horses had to share stalls in an area severely damaged by artillery fire.
Cronin, whose unit is in the process of returning to its base in Ft. Hood, Texas, said the zoo projects were being funded through a $2-million grant from the Army Commander’s Emergency Response Program. The city of Baghdad has provided about $500,000.
I’m still battling the effects of the flu, a festering migraine being today’s puke de jour. So until I get this thing beaten, things will be slow around here. You can entertain each other in the comments until then.
Just in time for Canada’s top weather story of 2007…
Alexandre Aguiar, MetSul Weather Center, Brazil;
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Today I had this story written about me regarding what I said at a Town Hall event in Burlington, Iowa by a reporter who wasn’t even at the event. Incidentally, I declined to be interviewed by this particular reporter yesterday for reasons which will soon be apparent.
In referring to me, she reported “he doesn’t like modern campaigning, isn’t interested in running for President, and will not be devastated” if he doesn’t win.
Below is a transcript of what I actually said in response to a question by a local Burlington resident which was the basis of the reporter’s story.
It is clear that there are those in the media who will exact a high price for candor and from those whom they consider to be insufficiently ambitious. But it is with increasing amazement that we see that those who are willing to slant or leave out important parts of a story to make their point.
More here at the Campaign Spot.
And counting.
