“”Hello Facebook” – More Dion Antics

Stephane Dion has a new video up on the Liberal website that should amuse the masses. Does anyone over in the OLO not edit these things, or are they meant to be this zanny?!

Update: Transcript for the video…

Hello Facebook, thank you so much to all of you to participate in it. I’m very impressed and very encouraged… it is a great support I am receiving and let me tell you, it will motivate me a lot to win the next election to offer Canadians in deed what we believe in… that means a more prosperous Canada, and more just Canada, and a more sustainable Canada.

We’ll succeed altogether.

CBC, Tackling Tough Questions: How Many Wives are to Many?

Little Mosque on the Prairie ad, taken from today’s National Post,

Bob Rae on Dion’s Anti-Terrorism Stance

Dion is at it again! Despite sitting in the cabinet which passed the Anti-Terroism Act, he has changed his position on yet another important issue facing Canada today. His collegues in cabinet, Bob Rae and the Liberal-dominated Senate have all urged Dion to reconsider this stance which jeopardizes the security of Canadians at home, but Dion has chosen to side with the radical members of his party in opposing legislation that Jean Chretien, Paul Martin, Anne McLellan, Irwin Colter and Bob Rae knew was necessary if Canada was going to be effective in protecting its citizens from the threats of dangerous terrorists.

This latest flip flop on Dion’s part demonstrates once again that the Liberal Party leader is being held hostage by the extremist elements in his party and that he has neither the leadership qualities nor the vision to challenge the true powers in the Liberal Party of today. Sadly, because of Dion’s blatent inability to make tough choices, or even to seek a compromise with Canada’s New Government, it is every Canadian citizen that will suffer as a result. This is not the issue nor the time that Dion should be playing politics with. It is only with the passage of the ATA that the government can ensure both security and prosperity for each and every Canadian. Stéphane Dion should ignore the extremist elements in his caucus, reverse his flip flop and allow his MPs to vote for the renewal of the ATA.

National Black History Month: Distinct For All The Wrong Reasons…

I wanted to spend some time this month, before it expires mind you, to address an issue that is oven foreign to us here in Canada. As I have been made aware for the last decade or so, February is designated as Black History Month, both here in Canada, as well as in the United States. Watching the development of a Canadian campaign to blame society for the social ills experienced by African-Canadians in our larger cities has been amusing especially while it has coincided with a backlash against such attitudes south of the border.

The chief roadblock for those who wish to guilt the rest of Canada into recognizing the black community, in North York for example, as being oppressed by a dominering, white, elitist system has for years been that it is proving more and more ridiculous when you simply look at the reality of the situation. It is simply too absurd to see how Canadians who, on average, are wealthier, better educated and lack the history of segregation that existed in the United States (over fifty years ago, mind you) can be just as poverty-striken and crime-ridden as their American cousins just because the rest of us look down on blacks.

Rather, as many prominant black celebrities like Bill Cosby and Morgan Freeman demonstrate, even the Americans who have been culturally sensitive to such race relations for the better part of the twentieth century are starting to realize that maybe after fifty years, it’s not about the skin colour after all. Cosby has become a piriah among many black activists south of the border for suggesting that the wounds African Americans suffer from today are mainly self-inflicted, that it is a sub-cultural tendancy that is holding blacks in Detroit, Harlem and other major city communities back, not the actions of white America. Freeman goes a step further by suggesting that events like Black History Month are more detremental than helpful since it intentionally singles out black Americans instead of trying to harmonizing them with the rest of the country. Both men, along with media like the recently released movie, The Pursuit of Happiness, are starting to paint a different picture of the black struggle in which the battle is not black vs. white, but man vs. himself; in other words, poorer blacks are holding themselves back while those who wish to succeed, can and will if they put in the hard work and effort.

This contrast became clearer for me when you listen to arguements from the other side of the fence. Levar Burton, famous for hosting Reading Rainbow twenty years ago and for playing Lt. Cmdr. Geordi La Forge in Star Trek: The Next Generation, did an interview for the season three DVDs of the latter show in which he lamented that the show explored the romance of old men, klingons, women and even an android, but that it never tackled the romance of the black man! It took me a bit of reflection to realize just what he was saying since Geordi has a handful of romantic episodes in the series but after a while I realized that he wasn’t criticizing the lack of opertunities to do an on-screen kiss as much as he wanted Geordi’s romances to be done *the black way*. I didn’t know that black people fell in love so differntly from everybody else; as far as I’m aware, the mechanics are the same for blacks as they are for everybody else.

Yet, this attitude of special treatment and acknowledgement, whether it’s coming from Levar or the dozens of black rappers still looking for “respect” as they drive down the highway in a new BMW in their latest movie video just goes to show just how immature the civil rights movement has become in the States, even for those who actually gave it some legitimacy decades earlier. Now this might be out of character to suggest that shun American institutions as we in Canada search to grow and develop, but this is one lesson we don’t want to import from our sourthern neighbours, yo!

Public Dollars for Votes: Potential Abuse of Public Financing of Parties?

Globe and Mail:

A recent court ruling that gives small political parties $1.75 for each vote cast in their direction is ripe for exploitation by any mischief-maker or frat-house drinker who decides to run a fake party in the next federal election, a federal prosecutor warned yesterday.
…
“One can only imagine that in a city like Kingston . . . a student union may decide it wants a bigger budget for beer,” [Crown counsel Roselyn] Levine said. “It can have 10,000 students vote for its Beer Party; $17,500 is not a bad take. I don’t want to single out students, but it is open to abuse to any entity that wants to obtain public funds.”

It seems Ms. Levine is not particularly familiar with riding-level campaigns, or with university students.

First, 20,000 votes is often sufficient to win at the riding level. Many candidates from legimitate parties fail to get half that number. If one-issue campaigns like promising beer were all it took to get 10,000 votes in a single riding, this would be being done already.

Second, speaking as a university student, I would be shocked if 10,000 of us voted for anything. Hell, I’d be shocked if there were 10,000 students in a given riding who knew there was an election happening.

Levine’s general point is sound though. Public funds going to political parties of any size is a terrible idea. Public funds going to fringe parties is even worse. Thanks to the recent court ruling, we can’t have the former without the latter.

Contra Levine, however, I don’t think it’s going to be funding for frats that will cast light on the true asininity of this policy. But if a Canadian version of, say, the National Front were to contest an election, and win even 0.5% of the vote (with the accompanying public funding) — I think we would then see the type of outcry necessary to abolish this ridiculous legislation.

Atheist Dweeb-Bots Strike Again!, Get Everything Wrong

Benjamin A. Plotinsky eviscerates the most recent attempt by militant atheists to write “mumbo jumbo” in as many ways as possible, this particular effort by Michel Onfray. Did you know, for example, that Judaism was responsible for the Holocaust?:

Judaism is partly responsible even for the Holocaust, it seems. Though Onfray chiefly (and bizarrely) blames Hitler’s inclination for genocide on the passage in John in which Jesus scourges the moneylenders from the Temple—“Unfortunately, the metaphoric scourge permits the dialectician and the determined theoretician to legitimize the gas chambers”—he also argues that a motto stamped on German soldiers’ belt buckles, “Gott mit uns,” derives from Deuteronomy. “These words were lifted from the speech Yahweh addressed to the Jews leaving to fight their enemies, the Egyptians, to whom God held out the promise of unspecified extermination,” Onfray explains.

Fabulously important philosopher Onfray is wrong in this regard, as in so many others. Click the link to find out how.

I’ve always thought that it would be frustrating to be one of these book-writing atheist dweebs like Onfray or Richard Dawkins, a Mr. Bean clone if ever there was one. They fancy themselves the greatest minds in the world and they’re spoiling for a fight with the pushers of The Root of All Evil. And yet religion’s greatest minds are preoccupied with theology, not pointless arguments with atheist dweeb-bots, and could likely barely tell you who Richard Dawkins is.

Special Ed Fails to Impress

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So far, it’s as if the province is on a blind date with Ed. After an hour he hasn’t thrown up on our shoes or made a grab for the goodies. So far so good — but is there really any chance of a lasting union?

New leaders have about three months to plant a vivid image in the minds of voters. If they fail, opponents will draw the picture for them, and it won’t be pretty. Stelmach, sworn in last Dec. 14, has a month left.

Global Warming Dialog – Who Makes More Sense?

Lorrie Goldstein and Paul Berton battle it out over Global Warming and Kyoto, while humor columnist, Tom Purcell, has a dialog with himself about futility of the pursuing any action based on the “science” of global warming.

Make sure to check both out…

Chocolate Demographics

Both the population of Alberta and the Ontario welfare rolls will soon grow:

The Hershey Co. chocolate factory in the eastern Ontario town of Smiths Falls will close, the company told employees Thursday morning, laying to rest any uncertainty about the plant’s fate.
The plant employs about 500 workers…

Video – Why You Should Vote Republican

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