Its Been an even longer while...

Well, its been awhile, but something finally caught my attention and got me riled up enough to bang away on the keyboard here...

I was sitting in the local Starbucks and read an incredible piece or tripe written by the supposed towering intillect and aspiring Liberal leader, Michael Ignatief. Now Mr. Ignatief is widely regarded as an intillectual of sorts but one would never know it from the column - it reads more like a useless pile of feel good rhetoric designed to appeal to the lefties in the country who truly believe that by gutting the military and assuming a position of neutrality in any conflict, that Canada can somehow then exert any kind of influence...

Mr. Ignatief makes such bold statements that Canada should immediately call for a ceasefire...and once Hezbollah & Isreal immediately stop shooting at each other (since its Canada asking after all - they have to listen to us!)...oh wait, thats right...who the hell is going to listen to Canada??? Does he really believe that Hezbollah will stop launching missiles into Isreal or would in anyway honour a "ceasefire"? Does he truly believe that anyone in the world is waiting for dear old Canada to stand up and demand a ceasefire?? Only those people who are seriously deluded about our position in the world, I suspect, would believe that.

The real howler comes when Ignatief proposes an international force to create a buffer zone in southern Lebanon. Thats all they would be there for - to create a buffer between the 2 warring parties...um, but then he also goes on to say that to stop the flow of weapons to Hezbollah, this international force should also assume control over all Lebanon's border crossings and sea-ports. Excuse me??? We go from creating a "buffer zone" to, essentially occupying the entire country? And does he think that this will go over well with Hezbollah and the other Islamofascists? Or does he realize that putting American, Canadian, European soldiers at every Lebanese border crossing & sea-port would really just create a 'target rich' environment for every wannabe suicide bomber who can't get all the way to Iraq to become a martyr? I found it a little stunning that such a supposedly smart individual could contradict himself in such short order within the same column...

What I read from Mr. Ignatief shows me that he is a typical Liberal - great at dealing out high minded rhetoric - but it amounts only to wishfull thinking...and continues this distortion of Canadian history that we are seeing in the media nowadays - this great line of b.s. that Canada has always been "neutral" and an "honest broker"...we need to stop feeding people the kind of leftist crap and teach them the real history of Canada. Personally, I am getting sick to death of people like Ignatief &Jack Layton defining Canada & Canadian history to fit their own leftist ideologies -

Its been awhile

So here we are, 100 days into a Harper government and what do you know - the sky hasn't fallen, we haven't become a US state, and a dose of realism has entered into the discussion.

As much as the left (represented by Mr. blowhard, er, Jack Layton) likes to whine, the Conservative position on Kyoto seems to me to be quite realistic. The targets the Liberals "negotiated" were never realisitc, and the complete lack of any planning or strategy to meet them speaks to the fact that they were aware of this, and were signing on for purely political purposes - so that they could parade around as the "environmentally conscious" party in front of the Canadian people, and paint themselves as the party that maintained Canada's reputation as a "good citizen of the world". But that's all it was - posturing. There was never any substance behind it, and its high time someone started injecting some sanity into the conversation. The fact that our emissions are up 35% would seem to me to be a concrete sign that we are unable to meet our Kyoto committments - short of shutting down the Canadian economy.

Injecting some sanity into the conversation starts with blowing away the useless hot air in the discussion. Anyone who believes that Kyoto will somehow 'stop' or prevent climate change is living in a fantasy world. The whole debate thus far pre-supposes that climate change is being driven by human activity and that human activity can somehow put a halt to it. Simply put, climate change is incredibly complex - and has been going on since, well, since the earth was formed some 4 billion years ago. The idea that there has been some "normal" climate on the earth is pure fantasy.

So - what is wrong with a made in Canada approach - especially one that tackles more than just Greenhouse gasses - but also other types of pollution - especially the ones that cause all the smog that people fret so much about during the long hot summer...

Afghanistan

So - Afghanistan has been in the news quite a bit over the last few days - which means that your average arm chair pundit has a few things to say on the subject...

- I find the recent howling from the left for "debate" on Canada's role in Afghanistan anywhere from disengenuous to simply pathetic - particularly when these calls for debate come from the Liberals (you know, the ones who sent Canadian troops to Afghanistan in the first place). People seem to be attempting to put all this onto Stephen Harper & the Conservatives - as if Stephen Harper simply could not wait to jump on George W's war bandwagon and get Canadian troops out into the field and, in defiance of our much vaunted "peacekeeping" reputation, actually engaging in *gasp* combat. Well, its time for people to get a grip. First, as stated above, it was the Liberals who initiated the Canadians current mission - including the current aspect of the mission, which includes engaging Taliban insurgents in combat operations (you know, what we actually train the military for - the guns are not meant for show after all).

Second - what do these people think peacekeeping is? Riding into a the middle of a situation, standing between two formerly hostile parties and having everyone act all calm and rational because, by god, those are peaceful Canuck's seperating us? Or does it mean providing some level of peace and security to a volatile area so that the citizens can live in some modicum of peace? Which might involve fighting the actual people who wish to destabalize the country (in case you were wondering, that would be the Taliban insurgents who like nothing more than killing foreigners and other troublemakers, like female teachers, and anyone else who dares to try and live their own life outside their strict, unbending Islamic code). Isn't that also peacekeeping? Or are we to be forever bound to the Trudeapian fantasy of peacekeeping (enshrined on the fiver) of blue capped "peacekeepers" handing out teddy bears & candy and gosh darn it making everyone feel good. Actually, if anything, this current mission should serve to put and end to that lofty myth - nothing like a dose of reality...I also find the calls to immediately pull the troops coming from certain lefties to be equally pathetic - I guess it would be much more humanitarian and good to abandon the folks in Khandahar to the Taliban so that the womanfolk can go back to being prisoners in their homes etc...

And one would do well to remind Jack Layton, who has never met a microphone he didn't immedialtely fall in love with, that we had a debate, in Pariliament, back in November - which he didn't bother to show up for (too busy trying to prop up Paul Martin's Liberals so that he could extract another $billion from that desperate weasel). So his pontificating now about the urgent need for a debate strikes me as, well, pathetic politicking - which is business as usual for smiling Jack...

- On a related note - how is it that that loathesome toad Dosanji is still a member of parliament? The man, like Layton, has never stepped in front of a microphone into which he could not spew some inane bullshite. While saner heads in the Liberal party have voiced their support for the Canadian troops in Afghanistan (Dion, Graham for instance), Dosanji steps up to the plate and spouts off about how we really, really need to have a debate about this whole Conservative plan (er, Liberal plan, which the Conservatives inherited, but why split hairs?) This is the same guy who, as Minister of Health, encouraged innovation in our healthcare system by telling organizations like the CMA that they shouldn't even think of thinking about anything but Complete Public Domination of the Healchcare system - or else...nothing like encouraging honest and open debate about the issues eh? Oh, and lets not forget his voice, on tape, using terms like "plausible deniability" and talking about how the right vote at the right time could be rewarded (the Grewal scandal)...but oh no - it wasn't all that talk about buying votes that was the issue - it was taping a fellow MP! Can't have that - otherwise, how would the business of government go on, if one was not free to discuss bribing the opposition with positions of power, etc...what a jackass (Dosanji for his various bouts of verbal diareah, and Bernard Shapiro for letting him off the hook on the Grewal scandal)...

- Back to Afghanistan - Canadian troops killed a guy on a taxi recently. Now the man's family want, as compensation, Canadian citizenship. Frankly, while this is obviously a tragic circumstance, I would say "no way". We are supposed to take these 9 non english speaking people and just plunk them down into Canada? To do what? Not to be cruel, but I am assuming that they would be coming here with 0 skills, 0 education, and no fluency in either official language. So in effect, we would be saying "as compensation, please enjoy the hospitality of the Canadian government for the rest of your life"). Tough issue, but I don't know that what they are asking for is fair to either side in the long run...

This would also set a very bad precedent (in my opinion, anyway). Everytime there is a car accident over there (or a shooting - I am sure that will not be the last accidental shooting over there) - we are just supposed to hand out Canadian citizenship cards? Not a good idea at all...

Cartoon controversy - Steyn style

Once again, Mark Steyn hits the nail on the head regarding the ongoing cartoon controversy. A sample:

"In a world in which Danish cartoons insult the prophet and Disney Piglet mugs insult the prophet and Burger King chocolate ice-cream swirl designs insult the prophet, maybe it would just be easier to make a list of things that don't insult him. Nonetheless, the Muslim Association wrote to the Ann Summers sex-shop chain, "We are asking you to have our Most Revered Prophet's name 'Mustafa' and the afflicted word 'shag' removed."

If I were a Muslim, I'd be "hurt" and "humiliated" that the revered prophet's name is given not to latex blowup males but to so many real blowup males: The leader of the 9/11 plotters? Mohammed Atta. The British Muslim who self-detonated in a Tel Aviv bar? Asif Mohammed Hanif. The gunman who shot up the El Al counter at LAX? Heshamed Mohamed Hedayet. The former U.S. Army sergeant who masterminded the slaughter at the embassy bombings in Kenya and Tanzania? Ali Mohamed. The murderer of Dutch filmmaker Theo van Gogh? Mohammed Bouyeri. The notorious Sydney gang rapist? Mohammed Skaf. The Washington sniper? John Allen Muhammed. If I were a Muslim, I would be deeply offended that the prophet's name is the preferred appellation of so many killers and suicide bombers on every corner of the earth."

Read the whole thing...

Post election blues - What were they thinking???

Well, here we are after the first full week of the new Stephen Harper squeaky-clean Conservative government - and already, the honeymoon has come to an abrupt end, and a great deal of political capital has been blown.

It seemed like such a good idea - that the folks coming in to run the government would not be the same folks who ran the campaign - but in practise, it seems like the people running the campaign were the smart ones. They were the disciplined team that cranked out policy announcements, kept on top of the issues, and were smart about communication.

But this first week, well, it tells a different story. In making a cabinet Harper, in a couple of strokes, managed to dispel a great deal of goodwill from the press, the public (who were told that the Conservatives were going to different), and within his own party - all those competent, hardworking Conservatives who dreamed of a spot at the Cabinet table, only to be snubbed in favour of a Liberal turncoat and an unelected backroom boy parachuted into the Senate.

To say that this has been a disappointing week would be an understatement.

Parliament does not resume until April 3rd - so there is time for them to recover - and who knows? This whole ‘controversy’ might blow over by then and become a distant memory - provided that when Parliament does re-convene the Conservatives govern smartly and don’t fuck that up too...Otherwise, we might just as well start writing cheques to the Natural Governing Party - because if the Conservatives screw this up, than it’ll be a loooong time before we see them back in the driver’s seat.

Cartoonish protests?

Cartoon protests - well, that says it all, doesn’t it.

The level of "outrage" being expressed across the Muslim world over the publication of cartoons is staggering. Embassies burned, angry mobs rampaging through city streets, Westerners of all kinds (Europeans, Americans -well anyone with a pale complexion) fleeing for their lives - what a scene the world has been presented with. But come on - all this over a bunch of cartoons that were published 4 months ago in some obscure Danish newspaper? Cartoons?? However supposedly inflammatory these particular pieces might have been (showing Mohammed wearing a bomb shaped turban might have been going a little far, for instance), the reaction by the radical Islamists across the globe is entirely out of proportion.

All these calls for the Danish government to apologize, and for anyone ‘blaspheming’ Islam to be punished - give me a break. How about y’all collectively go fuck yourselves. Its called freedom of speech and freedom of the press for a reason. It means that speech, even speech you might, in your narrow minded little world, find offensive, is protected. Give an inch here - oh my, someone’s religious sensibilities were offended - and where does the next line get drawn? Given the virulently anti-semitic speeches, cartoons, etc routinely published in these vast centers of Islamic outrage, are they really the ones to be lecturing us on what constitutes "acceptable" speech? I guess its only un-acceptable when the object of caricature is aimed at them.

I find it odd that there is so much outrage over depictions of Mohammed in the first place. Ok, I get that there is supposedly a ‘ban’ on images of the prophet - designed, I believe, to prevent the sin of idiolatry - they are supposed to worshiping god, not the prophet - right? But does all this anger, protest, and righteous indignation seem to indicate that all these supposedly pious Islamists are already committing the sin anyway, by practically worshiping the Prophet? Maybe if these folks spent a little more time learning how to think, and less on dreaming up anti-American slogans (how many ways are there to chant "death to the great Satan", anyway?) than they might see for themselves the irony here. But thats just my view as a rational, atheistic Canadian.

Personally, I also find it quite ironic that these are the same people who begged that we not tar the entire Muslim world with the same brush after September 11, - that we continue to be tolerant and not overreact. Overreact?? A dozen cartoons trigger off rampaging mobs across the Islamic world, people are threatened (and in some cases killed), and there are calls for extreme violence (unless you consider calls to "behead the blasphemers" to be a message of tolerance) - and we are the ones who are not supposed to overreact when people identifying themselves as Islamist (and praised in many Muslim countries) fly planes into buildings and murder thousands. Hmm...To me it seems clear which is the more offensive crime - but the nutcases seem to believe that we should be tying ourselves into knots and bending over backwards because the entire western world is somehow responsible for the publication of a bunch of cartoons in a Danish newspaper. I find the hypocrisy here staggering.

Has it come to the point where we have to treat the Islamic world like a giant, tempermental two year old? Tread carefully, lest you wake the monster and it throws a tantrum? Are we supposed to all fall in line and abandon our ideals (free speech among them) to appease an angry mob? I do not find the statements coming from Western leaders comforting. Too many of their statements seem to be aimed at appeasing the two year old - ok, from a practical point of view I can understand, since there are may westerners (journalists, aid workers, etc) whose lives are at risk - but still, it seems to me that we are playing a dangerous game - if we fall back here, as I said before, than where does the next line get drawn? Like with the temperamental two year old, if they get their way here, their demands will only grow...especially as they see how fearful we have become - tread carefully, lest you wake the psychotic neighbour.

All in all the situation is seriously deranged...

Election Thoughts with 2 weeks to go...

Some thoughts about the election:

- the Liberal "attack" ads - wow, how original. These are perhaps the most loathsome, laugh out loud examples of negative advertising I've ever seen. They are chock full of false innuendo, quotes from 10 year old speeches taken out of context, and outright lies. Basically, I guess they are trying to say that Stephen Harper is a radicalrightwingRepublicanmilitarydictatorbabykillingnotwithstandingclauseusing crackpot. Whew. I never knew!

I guess when you have nothing positive to offer Canadians there is nothing left to do other than lash out and attempt to slander the oposition. Will it be effective this time around? Who knows...we'll see on the 23rd.

- What really gets me in all this is that every time he is near a microphone Paul Martin calls for "civility" in the campaign...and then, in the next instance, he's getting out the mud cannon and firing away at Stephen Harper as if he were talking about the devil himself. Can we all say "hypocrite"? I wonder how Martin can actually keep a straight face as a spews this bullshit - I'm kind of waiting for the internal contradictions to finally collide within that overwrought cranium if his and simply cause his head to explode.

- If it wasn't obvious before, after the way Martin deftly reached behind him during Monday's debate and pulled a new notwithstanding clause policy out of his ass it should be obvious now that PMPM is just making this up as he goes along. Proposing a major constitutional change, basically as a crass political ploy in the middle of an election campaign, surely should be evidence that Martin is categorically unfit to lead the country. The man will literally say anything to get elected, and as a result, you can trust nothing he says. Nothing. I'm still waiting for word, for instance, on how that war on the politics of cronyism and corruption is going...or does that end only when he runs out of cronies to appoint to the senate? How about that democratic deficit? Still there? Right...

- Its getting to the point where I am going to have to buy a new TV. Everytime I see smiling Jack Layton on television begging us to elect more New Democrats because they work for "people" I throw something at the damn TV set. What an idiot. That and his constant railing against corporate tax cuts infuriate me. Who employs those "people", Jack? Especially union members? Oh, right - Corporations. And in a competive global economy what is a good way to attract more of those companies to your jursidiction? Oh, right, don't tax them into the ground (see Ireland - great example of what can happen when you try and create a business friendly climate). Jack should pay a little more attention to 21st century reality and less to his class-warfare ideology. More companies choosing to do business in Canada means more jobs (yes, for people, Jack) and more revenue for gvernment to throw away on all your pet projects.

Inneffetive? Hmmm...lets take another look...

So, Jack Layton has decided that since attacking the Liberals has failed to bump up NDP support beyond its entrenched 17% level, the time has come to join Mr. Dithers in attacking the Conservatives. His latest spin - that the Conservatives have been an "inneffectual" opposition. Really? Jack likes to brag that he is getting things done for "people" - pointing of course to the NDP hi-jacked budget this spring as a triumph (yeah, extorting $4.5 billion out of a desparate to cling to power Dithers is a real triumph...and working for "people" includes cancelling corporate tax cuts that might *gasp* actually make it more attractive for companies to locate in Canada, and create "jobs" for "people"...ah but for Jack & the Dippers job creation is the work of government - waving its magic wand...but I digress..).

But lets see...Jack extorts $4.5 billion for his pet causes - whether that money is wisely spent or not matters little to him, so long as he gets the headline. But have the Conservatives been "inneffectual" - hmmm...would we be talking at all about tax cuts if it were not for the Conservatives? That would be tax cuts for "people" (you know, Jack - letting those hard working people you profess to represent keep more of their hard earned money so that they can save for their future, invest, or make purchases that just might lead to more economic activity and create jobs). Would we be talking about rebuilding our broken down military (so that they could be effective in the "peacekeeping" missions you so favour). Would we be talking about corporate tax cuts that will make Canada a more attractive jurisdiction for companies to business in? I would argue that all these things are on the agenda because of the strength of the Conservative opposition (they have been, in fact, remarkably successful in pushing the Liberals to the right over the past 10 years). Therefore, contrary to Jacks latest spin, I would have to say that the Conservatives have been quite influential as opposition. Sure, they are not sitting in hotel rooms and having terms dictated to them by a powerful union boss, and making backroom deals...but influential nevertheless.

Merry Elexmas!