Cosh, Kinsella, and JFK

NatPost columnist Colby Cosh recently made the mistake of buying a new computer game which allows you to re-create the assasination of JFK, and made the further mistake of writing rather gleefully about the game on his blog:

You can’t say Dallas doesn’t love you, Mr. President

“With the “chaos level” of the motorcade increased in the game settings, shooting the driver can create what I am obliged to describe as frankly delightful pandemonium; sometimes his weight falls on the gas pedal and the limo shoots off crazily into the distance, hitting a tree or jumping General Lee-fashion over the entrance to the Triple Overpass. Often the passengers end up flying through the air like ragdolls and dying without having even been wounded. (The ballistics report that follows the gameplay is careful to fill you in on stuff like that.)”

Now, Cosh took an enormous risk in writing such a post when the forces of political correctness are forever thoroughly marauding the internet. I am speaking, of course, of Warren Kinsella:

“A Canadian newspaper columnist has purchased the infamous “game” in which players get to assassinate John F. Kennedy…A game in which you get to murder John F. Kennedy (or George W. Bush, for that matter) isn’t even remotely “funny.” That is so obvious it barely merits saying. What isn’t obvious is why the columnist in question is still employed by a reputable Canadian newspaper. If I ran it, he’d be gone, and pretty damn quick, too.”

In sum: In Warren Kinsella’s world, people are fired for playing video games. I’ve heard of hard-ass managers, but this is ridiculous.

And rather amusing given the pride with which Kinsella wears the label “liberal.” I visited the game’s site, and was frankly repelled. My fiance empathized with the pain that such a game would inflict upon the Kennedy family. Certainly, I would neither buy nor play it myself, but it does not follow from this that I think people who do so should be fired from their jobs. Tolerance, putting up with that which you hate, is apparently an aspect of liberalism that is lost on Kinsella.

Not that we should be suprised by this, given his difficulty in applying labels to himself. For example: Kinsella identifies himself with the “Albertan Diaspora” which apparently exists in Ottawa. Except that a diaspora consists not simply in displaced peoples, but in a cultural and sentimental attachment of those peoples to the “mother ship.” Obviously Kinsella, given his propensity to turn his back on his native province, has no such attachment to Alberta.

More chatter on Alberta politics

For political junkies, nothing rocks more than leadership politics. Which is why Alberta is going to be such a hot item of discussion for the next while.

Which brings us to two new items. First, Klein failed to appoint Ted Morton to his new cabinet. Second, he brought back Rod Love as his chief of staff. Seemingly unrelated, these two developments are strongly intertwined and good news for the leadership aspirations of Morton.
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Ukraine’s Future

Adam Yoshida presents a negative, but intriguing, interpretation of the events unfolding in Ukraine:

Are We Back in 1938?

“My expectation is that, at the present time, President Putin is waiting for some pre-arranged signal. Probably rioting by opposition protestors which spins “out of control” which will be followed by a request for the assistance of Ukraine’s Russian allies in the restoration of order. Then the tanks will come to Kiev like they did into Prague in ‘68 and Budapest in ‘56. And they won’t go home.”

Reflections on the Alberta Election

Was I hasty in the last post on the Alberta Alliance? Yes indeed. But election night was full of interesting tid-bits anyway. Here are a few observations, listed in order of importance.

1. Ralph Klein won a massive majority government, four in a row. No matter what wet blanket election-night commentators could find to toss on that accomplishment, it remains a remarkable one. As the Globe headlined the next day, “Klein goes out a winner.”
2. Ted Morton was elected for the first time with a massive lead in Foothills-Rockyview, the first step in his leadership campaign. We’ll see if Klein lands him a cabinet position.
3. Mark Norris was a frequently-mentioned potential successor to Klein. He was the only cabinet minister dumped. Too bad, one less challenger to Morton.
4. Of the three remaining candidates, Morton and Gary Mar are on their way to the Legislature. But where was Jim Dinning last night? Oh, thats right, Mr. Dinning does not need to earn the trust of the electors of any particular riding before he benevolently graces us with his leadership. Upon the given hour, he will ascend the premiership without having dirtied his hands in any sort of mucky democratic contest. How very, very lucky for us.
5. The two most prominent members of the Alberta “Firewalls Committee,” which masterfully stonewalled public consultations and rejected the Alberta Agenda recommendations, were dumped. So long Ian McClelland and Jon Lord. Maybe the Reform Party and Calgary municipal council respectively will have you chumps back.
6. Outside of Edmonton and Calgary, a transformation of the Alberta party system is occurring. In most cases, the Tories came in first and the Alberta Alliance came in second. The Liberals and New Democrats weren’t on the map. The Alliance won a single seat (in Cardston, suprise!) but were competitive in many more, particularly in Dunvegan.
7. The Liberals and the NDP increased their seat shares. In particular, the Liberals cleaned up in Calgary’s inner city ridings (with the exception of the downtown Buffalo riding) and took the Varsity university riding, which suprised Klein. With typical Liberal humility and virtue, the Liberal victor in Varsity celebrated his win by criticizing Klein for sitting down during the past leaders debate. Then again, who cares what the Alberta Liberals and NDs do.
8. Kevin Taft has one evil smile, but thats OK. The funniest moment of the night was during his speech when he was listing off the victorious Liberal candidates (the fact that he could do so in a reasonably short span of time is in itself fairly funny) and suddenly shouted, “MEEEEEEE!” before letting loose with one helluva cackle.

Parrish Gets Pruned

So finally Parrish gets a thigh strapping for her idiocy and leftist emotional anti-USA rants. It’s about time, talk about a loser statesman. It seems the only feat of political ‘Ich bin ein Berliner’ this ridiculous mouthpiece has ever had is, well, her Bush bashing. ‘Lord, please give us some originality,’ some may pray, but they won’t find any in her. While her vocal disapproval of this subject is vilified by a good number of Canadians already, her comments on Kim Jong and Saddam seem to be muffled as I heard nothing of those.
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UPDATE: Alberta Election Results

11 minutes after the polls close, and the CBC is showing an Alberta Alliance sweep!

Oh, those mischevious Medicine Hatters…

UPDATE: OK, that was fun. The first poll to report was one from Medicine Hat, and the Alliance was in front. In the meantime, the Tories have surged ahead and the Liberals have around four seats. But the Alliance has held on to Medicine Hat, and not by a slim margin. The Alliance has 150 votes to the NDP’s 20 and the Liberals’ 1. The Tories are not yet on the board. Is this just a deviant poll?

Probably, but it was fun while it lasted.

Ontario to court foreign doctors

The Ontario government has set aside $1.7m to help foreign-trained doctors to find work in the province, which is suffering under the nation-wide doctor shortage. There are many foreign-trained doctors in Canada who do not yet have licensing.

Is this seriously the first time this idea has occurred to anybody in government? Let’s see, we have a terrible shortage of doctors. We have loads of foreign doctors in this country, who can’t work only because we say they can’t. What could the solution be? The answer, evidently, thudded into the dull brains of Ontario officials with the speed of molasses on a January day in Yellowknife. What’s the next revelation – turn on the lights when it gets dark? Is there anybody who still believes that government is competent enough to run a faucet?

Province to spend $1.7M to help foreign doctors

The Ontario government will spend $1.7 million over the next three years to make it easier for foreign-trained doctors to work in the province.

Of the two programs announced yesterday, one helps internationally trained physicians prepare for the exam that kicks off a lengthy licensing process while the other offers those who don’t qualify a chance to retrain for health-related careers.

What is the matter with Bill Clinton?

Bill Clinton has unveiled his “gift to the future” (his own words). What is this gift, you ask? A $165m museum of himself! It contains 80 million items from his eight years in office documenting his “building of bridges from today to tomorrow, across racial and religious and ethnic and income and political divides” and other such buzzword-laden rubbish.

Clinton seems to be desperately clinging to his former glory and unwilling to gracefully step aside. He doesn’t seem to remember that he was impeached for misconduct in office, the incident of which is very briefly documented in his museum in an alcove entitled “politics of persecution.” Give me a break, Bill, if you want to see the politics of persecution you should go to your beloved People’s Republic of China and see what they do to Tibetan Buddhists.

The arrogance and pomposity of this man beggar belief. It reminds me of the old USSR, when apparatchiks competed to see who could get the most things named after himself. He seems to have a very mistaken sense of his own achievements, which as I recall were starting a recession, selling military secrets to China and failing to broker an effective peace in the Middle East. Get over yourself, Bill.

Clinton Says Library Represents His Hopes

To Bill Clinton, his newly opened presidential library represents what he tried to do in the White House and what he still hopes to do – build bridges. The main structure itself, a span of sorts, even carries that theme, jutting out over the Arkansas River.

Beer Brouhaha

Platt provides an excellent, if crude, example of the organic culture that has developed in Alberta. Thousands of Albertan families, including my own, share in the folklore of the National Energy Program, which informs the thoughts and behaviors of Albertans to this day:

Beer brouhaha

“The mid-’80s were grim in this province, with crashing oil prices combining with fallout from the notorious National Energy Program to steal jobs, homes and businesses…

So here we are, nearly 20 years later, and Alberta is the envy of Canada, with plenty of good jobs, and workers who can afford any beer they want — beer that tastes even better with the spectre of layoffs gone.

Big Rock, the company that took a chance when most wouldn’t, offering jobs when others were handing out pink slips, is thriving too.”

Ralph Klein focuses on results

Alberta premier Ralph Klein went on record stating that he had no preference for private or public healthcare, as long as results were delivered. He said that the most important thing was the health of Canadians.

This type of thinking is a breath of fresh air. Too many in Canada are obsessed with socialist mantras, caring more about the method than the results. To believe that we need healthcare but to commit to only one method of provision is akin to entering a boxing match with one hand tied behind your back. If the goal of good health is supreme, then whatever method gets there fastest, best and cheapest is the right method. To state that all methods are not acceptable is to state that the actual goal is not good health at all, but something else, in this case statism, and good health can be and has been allowed to fall by the wayside if it is not connected to the true goal.

A little intellectual honesty is welcome. Now we need a little more, to recognise that state provision of goods and services is always inefficient and frequently fails completely, whereas free markets provide optimum efficiency (the best for the least cost) and the best guarantee against failure to provide.

The notion of feasible state healthcare is founded on a lie, and like all institutions built on lies it cannot last. Hopefully, Klein’s comments will illuminate the writing on this wall a little better.

Doesn’t matter to me if health care is privately delivered: Klein

Alberta Premier Ralph Klein acknowledged Tuesday that he personally doesn’t have a problem with private delivery of health-care services.

In his strongest endorsement of for-profit health care since hitting the campaign trail for Monday’s provincial election, Klein said he doesn’t think it matters whether Albertans receive treatment from private or public health providers.

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