A Voice from the past to haunt Bill

What made his self-righteousness especially burn for me is that fact that Clinton pardoned terrorists from the group that killed my father – and did it simply to help his wife’s (successful) bid for a Senate seat. Now he wants me to believe he took the threat seriously?

Too Many Quebecers and not enough Albertans in Parliament

Not Dead Yet reports the good news:

BC and Alberta’s population is larger than Quebec’s for the first time in history.

With the sort of annoying rejoiner that westerners are so used to hearing:

“…a total of 64 members of Parliament are chosen from B.C. and Alberta, compared to Quebec’s 75 seats.”

The reason for this, of course, is that electoral commissions have a tough time dealing with population growth of the sort that has occurred in the west. The current distribution of seats is based on the 2001 census.

Is this an excuse? Of course not. Even tolerating differences in the populations of riding, the votes of Quebecers carry considerably more weight than do the votes of Westerners. Take the city of Calgary as an example. Even discounting the population growth of the city since 2001, which has been significant, the city’s population is expected to grow by 83,600 over the next four years. That’s an entire federal riding. Together with the lag in the last redistribution and the number of immigrants to the city between 2001 and 2006, it’s obvious that the west is indeed getting screwed.

So is Canada. Instead of responsible, forward-looking Calgarians in Parliament, we have an inflated number of backward separatist buffoons from Quebec (emigration from rural Quebec is as dramatic as is immigration to rural Alberta, particularly the Corridor). It’s time to update the redistribution process.

The Hurt Feelings of Belinda Stronach

Women first, children a distant second. Joan Tintor takes Belinda to task for her self-centered reaction to the coverage of the Domis’ divorce:

Stronach has decided that what is important in the Domi divorce is not the break-up of a marriage nor its three children, but that yet again she is the victim of a political culture that is biased against women in general and her in particular.

The interview includes this gem of a quote from Paris….er, Belinda:

“When I decided to enter public life, I didn’t realize how public it would be.”

Same-Sex Marriage: Revolution in Parenthood, Part 3

The current state of marriage is a parody of itself, though that doesn’t prevent country music from drawing upon its backwoods roots to parody it (scroll down to video).

Click here for previous installments of this topic.

Same-Sex Marriage: Revolution in Parenthood, Part 2

The Globe and Mail reports on an Ontario court case involving a lesbian couple who want one of the partners named as a legal parent – the 3rd parent:

The application, if allowed, would be believed to mark the first time in Canada a child would legally have more than two parents, and would fundamentally change the definition of the word “family.”

For problems with 3-parent arrangements, see Same-Sex Marriage: Revolution in Parenthood. On polygamy and other complications deriving from same-sex marriage, see here and here.

H/t: Dust my Broom

Same-Sex Marriage: Revolution in Parenthood

The Institute of American Values has a new study out that looks at legal changes to parenthood in light of same-sex marriage legislation, and also has data on children born as test-tube children, of gay and lesbian parents, etc.:

In Canada, with virtually no debate, the controversial law that brought about same-sex marriage quietly included the provision to erase the term “natural parent” across the board in federal law, replacing it with the term “legal parent.” With that law, the locus of power in defining who a child’s parents are shifts precipitously from civil society to the state, with the consequences as yet unknown.

Donor-conceived young people point out that the informed consent of the most vulnerable party—the child—is not obtained in reproductive technology procedures that intentionally separate children from one or both of their biological parents. They ask how the state can aid and defend a practice that denies them their birthright to know and be raised by their own parents and that forcibly conceals half of their genetic heritage. Some call themselves “lopsided” or “half adopted.”[39] At least one uses the term “kinship slave.”[40] Some born of lesbian or gay parents call themselves “queer spawn,” although others in the same situation find the term offensive.[41] No studies have been conducted focusing on these young people’s long-term emotional experience.[42] Clearly, rigorous long-term studies need to be done. For now, we should listen to their compelling voices.

Click here for the full study (pdf).

H/t: Barbara Kay at National Post

Liberals’ Dreamworld

Plato wrote that the tyrant’s restless soul gives him difficulty falling asleep. When he does, he has many feverish dreams and nightmares.
American researcher Kelly Bulkeley has published a paper on the dreams that conservatives and liberals have. The key difference is that liberals dream about their fantasies while conservatives’ dreams are rather mundane:

Among his findings, Kelly Bulkeley discovered liberals are more restless sleepers and have a higher number of bizarre, surreal dreams including fantasy settings and a wide variety of sexual encounters. Conservatives’ dreams were, on average, far more mundane and focused on realistic people, situations and settings.

“Conservatives seem to have more of a focus on the here and now and the material world, whereas liberals, in contrast, seem to have a much wider sphere of imaginative activity,” he said. “They don’t just dream about what is, but what could be or what they wish could be.”

Liberals were far more likely to have sexual dreams about strangers and a variety of partners, while liberal women showed a greater tendency towards same-sex fantasies than their conservative counterparts (24 versus four per cent).

“Especially for liberal women, there was a far greater variety in sexual partners and incidents of homosexuality,” Bulkeley said. “Liberals tended to show a greater willingness to experiment with different things.”

Conservatives, by comparison, were far more likely to report having sexual dreams about their spouse or current partner.

While left-wingers might be more adventurous in the subconscious bedroom, they’re also more likely to wake up in a cold sweat.

Liberals showed slightly higher levels of nightmares than conservatives.

And the perfect conclusion:

“There may be a lot of hidden distress and unpleasantness in the liberal mind.”

Dalai Lama Canadian?

Expressing his view that there are too many killings in Iraq, the Dalai Lama said he hoped that both sides in the conflict would soon be able to get closer together to better know one another. I hope so too. That would be terrific, although maybe just a tad more opportune for suicide bombers.

I can’t say I find such sentimentalising all that encouraging. It’s one thing to give people hope by pointing to a light that can be found amidst the darkness of war; a way to peace, or to maintain the integrity of one’s character in the chaos around them. It’s quite another to wistfully dally in wishful thinking, telling how nice it would be if we could all just get along.

Even more troubling,

The Dalai Lama said he has distilled his personal beliefs to a simple phrase: “My religion is kindness.”

Maybe he’s spent too much time in Canada.

For all you kids not enrolled in an Alberta school

Here is what you have to look forward to. As goeth the elite, blue state schools of education, so goeth yours, and so goeth your schools. City Journal gives us all the good news:

America’s historical ideal of public schooling as a means of assimilating all children (and particularly the children of new immigrants) into a common civic and democratic culture is already under assault from the multiculturalists and their race- and gender-centered pedagogy. Now Ayers and his social justice movement, by dismissing the civic culture ideal as nothing more than “capitalist hegemony,” subvert the public schools even further—while subsidized by the taxpayers, including the capitalists who supposedly control the schools.

And it’s not just from his government-funded outpost at the University of Illinois that Ayers is spreading the word about radical social justice teaching. He maintains a busy lecture schedule at other ed schools around the country, and he does teacher training and professional development for the Chicago public schools. All that still leaves him enough time to give nostalgic lectures on college campuses about his Weather Underground experiences

Non-Belinda Bonking News

Bill Bonko endorses Gerard Kennedy!

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