The U.S. economy “will probably remain weak for a time,” even if the credit crisis eases, Bernanke said yesterday in his speech. While the Fed can’t push interest rates below zero, “the second arrow in the Federal Reserve’s quiver — the provision of liquidity — remains effective,” he said.

Maybe eventually — after the Fed prolongs the recession and fuels malinvestments — more Americans will wake up to the fact that inflating the money supply is not about stimulating the economy nor about helping the public. It is all about giving new money to the banks first. In Canada, monetary inflation goes unnoticed or without debate.

The Liberals have prepared a motion saying the House of Commons has lost confidence in the Conservatives, their economic strategy is insufficient in the face of the global financial crisis and they’ve failed to introduce a plan to boost the economy.

Uh….. OK. So, the House has lost confidence but what should be the economic strategy??? Let me be clear: I am not saying that the Conservative strategies are fine. I just find it hilarious that the Opposition has not presented any alternatives. You would think they would have at least something. Maybe Canadians should fear the Opposition parties more than anything else!

If anybody has found something resembling a shadow budget from the Opposition parties, please let me know.

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Liberal MP Dan McTeague says it’s “absolutely paramount” that Foreign Affairs Minister Lawrence Cannon take steps to get Canadians out of Bangkok as soon as possible.

The PFPDF is never going to happen, and I’ll tell you why. First (and most glaringly obvious), the Bloc is never going to sign onto something like that. They’ll do exactly what they’ve done in the past, which is reviewing legislation on a case-by-case basis, which is not enough to convince the GG that the PFPDF is viable.

Second, and only slightly less damning, is the fact that anyone who claims to be able to unite the Jack! guys, the Rae guys, and the Ignatieff guys around Stephane Dion (who doesn’t even HAVE guys anymore) is either fooling you, or fooling themselves.

And finally, Harper is just so smart to lose to the PFPDF. Of all the politicians in Canada today, he is undeniably best at the game of politics.

So can all of us pundits please just calm down? Our government is not collapsing.

Now, in a time of economic crisis, the Conservatives are looking for things to cut that will save us from more taxes, a very bad thing when people already are paranoid they might not have any money or employment to tax.  They recognize that Jean Chretien, a decade or so ago, came up with the brilliant idea of addicting federal political parties to the government’s largesse.  He had this clever scheme, you see, of making sure that rich people (or any organization with a vested interest in the political process) could not give scads of money to political parties to curry favour.

The less well-publicized reason was to handicap conservative political foes with business contacts.

Still less publicized was the fact that Chretien still needed money coming into Liberal offers to run things like elections, which he preferred to call every 3 or so years because that was when he could most handicap his opponents, despite the cost to taxpayers for an election.  So he decided to make elections even more expensive - he dreamed up the current system where the parties get money, for free, from the government, instead of having to fundraise.

Conveniently, the Liberals were running high in the polls, so they got most of the money.

However, because of this program, parties which have become immensely lazy and poorly organized can now garner national attention and spend money on advertising and campaigning, without expending hardly any effort to fundraise.

So now the Conservatives, having prudently planned for the future (something most leftists aren’t familiar with), have a solid fundraising infrastructure and no debt.  If the government teat for political parties gets shut off, sure as the party polling highest, they will lose the most funding, but they know they will hurt their opposition more because the opposition has not created the fundraising infrastructure to seriously compete.

Is this the Conservatives’ fault?  No.

But the media is surely working hard to frame them that way.  They are trying desperately to make this cost-cutting, pro-democracy, populist, conservative move to do away with federal funding of political parties into a totalitarian move bent on crippling any voice of dissent.

Funny, the media isn’t affected by this cut.

To de-fund political parties is a brilliant move to save this country tens of millions of dollars per year.  Political parties were never meant to be funded by government.  It is crazy to think that Canadians for the last 10 years or so have been forced to contribute to political parties via their taxes.  I can’t believe that law was ever passed.  If I contribute to a political party, it is because I choose to, based on their positions and their platform.  If I disagree with them all, I should be able to take my contribution and move it to another party that better reflects my viewpoint.  That was how the Reform Party was begun.  That was how every party in existence began.  Forcibly requiring all Canadians to contribute to political parties is completely undemocratic and only serves to entrench the current parties as the only options.  It makes it doubly hard for any new party to arise to replace moribund or untrusted parties.  Any new party starting up faces the uphill battle of raising all of their support from the grassroots, while those they fight against simply siphon off the government the money they need to beat back any competitors.

Especially in light of a party like the Liberals, so close to simply collapsing, they are being propped up by the government after their fundraising and all public faith has evaporated in them.  If this program didn’t exist, a new, energized form of Liberals (or something) could arise with a strong network of support on equal footing.  The Liberals’ waste and corrupt ways would drag them off the political map in a well-deserved hurry.  Then we would have true renewal.

Keep in mind, it isn’t that I don’t think there should be opposition.  But there should be effective opposition.  There should be opposition that actually listens to its roots, and doesn’t simply tell them what is good for them.  Whether it is left or right or center, this is the way politics should be.  As long as the government props up failed ideologies, we will suffer under a lack of true democracy.

Wow.
Thankfully, there was the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act to get her on a technicality otherwise the world would be anarchy! I guess I am not the only one who is less than impressed.

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The hit men – John Reeves, 55, of Adlington Road, Sheffield; Naveed Mahmood, 23, of Granville Road, Sheffield; and Sam Lee, 30, of Deerlands Avenue, Sheffield –- had been hired as contract killers by Arza Khan, 28, of Parkinson Road, Halifax – Mr Mehmood’s brother in law.

I think Detective Superintendent is only partially right when he declares:

It is my opinion that this murder had nothing to do with honour in the ordinary sense of the word, and everything to do with power and control over a young woman.

It is quite simply the most extreme form of domestic abuse.

There can never be any justification for murder and those convicted today will have a long time in prison to reflect on their actions.

We justify murder all of the time. We hire police officers and soldiers to do our bidding in exercizing deadly force. The way we justify “murder” is simply semantic: we change its definition. It was not long ago that the thought of marrying a woman after consulting her parents — nay, asking them for permission — was completely normal throughout the entire world. To do otherwise was dishonorable and asking for trouble.

“We are very much intent on policing the site and making sure Facebook is not seen as a place for spammers to target,” O’Rourke said.

To which I say: “No, sir, you are NOT intent on policing the site. Rather, you are doing the opposite. You are intent on making the tax-payer police your site. You should be cutting out the spam yourself instead of wasting tax-payer’s money seeking court judgements. Clean up your own site!”

Spam should be treated like a technical problem. The operators of Facebook should prevent it and police it internally. Tax-payers who do not avail themselves of the entertainment of Facebook should not subsidize the business of solving Facebook’s problems filtering spam.

Instead of Canadians wasting time, effort and money to determine whether Hassan Diab should be extradited, the French police should face the following choices:

• come to Canada and hold their trial in Canada open to the Canadian public — all costs fully paid by the French
• invite Hassan Diab to voluntarily submit to a trial in France or convict him in absentia

I see no reason to trust a foreign judicial system.

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Last time I outlined the positives for Obama, but this time I’m aiming for the bad, and the ugly. I’ll begin by looking at his stances and promises, in his own words. That’s right, GlacialGal, they’re still on his site!

For starters, there is his policy on service. While not in and of itself disturbing, his intention to require all high school graduates do 50 hours of public service bears similarities to the draft. While there are difference, his intention to require all teenagers to serve the country differs from the draft in degree, not in direction.

He also intends to further regulate the health insurance industry, reverse the Bush tax cuts and seems ready to target high earning citizens for tax increases.

To find more of his opinions, check out the link above. In short, Obama is a liberal (SURPREEZ!). He’s not a Marxist, no matter how you try to paint it, but his views on many positions are worrisome.

I chose to combine Parts Two and Three due to time constraints, similarity of the subjects, and the fact that most of our readers are conservatives who have already been informed of his many policy weaknesses.

I say, fine.  Make the display a corridor.  Put a big sign at either end saying, “Do Not Look.  The University Doesn’t Want You To See This.”

Guaranteed you’d have twice the foot traffic and engagement.  Everyone wants to see what is forbidden.

An international coalition of warships patrols the area off Somalia to prevent such hijackings.

The coalition includes vessels from NATO and the U.S. Navy.

The merchants should pay for their own damn security. Those costs should be included in the price of oil faced by the consumers. Armies should not be securing merchant vessels.

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If you’re at the Convention and you have a reasonable alternative, drop me an email or txt me at, (403) 634-8888.

I presume there were more than a few undesirables the Party and the RCMP would rather not attend.

The second curiosity was the event itself. While there was a substantial police presence directly outside of the Convention Centre, there were only a few identifiable police officers inside the building. While I’m fairly confident there were plenty of under-cover police officers available to spring to action if so needed, I was surprised to see no metal detector or bag searches.

Once I entered the Convention Centre floor, I was again surprised to see a fairly dark room with long straight aisles leading directly up to the centre podium. In the back of the room, where the various TV networks had setup there podiums, it was a mess of wires, cameras, technicians, video equipment and TV personalities. I would imagine a perfect place for someone to stage an attack.

Perhaps I’m over-analyzing the security threat to the Prime Minister, what do you think?

For more information on the Canadian Human Rights Commissions and their various corrupt and unethical actions, go here.

The Bank said it plans to introduce a Canadian Dollar Term Loan Facility (TLF) in four auctions of $2 billion each in the coming weeks.

Under the plan, qualifying financial institutions will be able to offer non-mortgage loans as collateral — meaning they can offer most loans currently on their books.

This will prolong the recession by feeding malinvestments. I do not like this socialist / crony-capitalist trend of our supposedly “conservative ” government. The real solution to financial woes is to let businesses fail.

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First off, allow me to dispense with the obvious. The fact that America has elected a black man as their President and that coming generations will never remember a world where a black President of the United States was any stranger than a white one is a good thing.

More substantially, however, I would argue that there are upsides to his policy as well. He favours focusing efforts on Afghanistan and removing the forces from Iraq sooner rather than later. I think at this point we can all agree that Afghanistan is the “right” war, and this can only be seen as a step in the right direction. He’s promised to cut billions of dollars from the budget (of course, we can only wait and see if this will happen). He’ll most likely give the world a more favourable view of America, and while he may not have had as large of an impact as many thought, he’s clearly energized the youth of the country.

To ignore his positives is to close your mind completely to outside thought, and does both yourself, and conservatism at large, a disservice.

I’m not saying this will make him a “good” President, or that it won’t. I am saying these are his positives, and they aren’t negligible.

“This [economic slowdown] is different. It will call for different kinds of solutions,” he said.

But I don’t see a lot of originality in begging for handouts and corporate welfare.  Isn’t that what we’ve always done in the face of economic slowdowns?

His top priority, however, is to ensure that banks are lending to each other, and that credit is available to corporate and household borrowers at a decent price. A well-functioning credit market, he said, will help the manufacturing sector as much as any kind of direct aid.

Getting the money first into the hands of the bankers seems to be the priority of our leaders.

Hat Tip to Briggs Armstrong for Yet Another GM Bailout which not only prescribes solutions but also has the courage to point to the irresponsibility and immorality of such bailouts.

Also, the Blogging Tories suck.

The comments are beauty, too.

1. The only real contender with debts from the last convention is Gerard Kennedy, who placed fourth on the first ballot, just behind Dion and Rae. He’d be the biggest name to be prohibited from running if Quebec’s motion is accepted.

2. As a grassroots candidate, Kennedy has a lot of support across Canada, especially in BC and Alberta where the other candidates are rather unpopular. He has the most to lose by seeing the convention move East.

I’m probably being too paranoid, but I could be right.

“After Bill Clinton won the 1992 presidential election, Hillary Clinton announced that, henceforth, she would be known as “Hillary Rodham Clinton”. So maybe Obama can now become B. Hussein Obama, his rightful name.”

Classy.

And let’s not forget this tasty tidbit…

[T]he only good thing about McCain is that he gave us a genuine conservative, Sarah Palin. He’s like one of those insects that lives just long enough to reproduce so that the species can survive. That’s why a lot of us are referring to Sarah as “The One” these days.

I wasn’t aware they’d changed the meaning of “conservative” to “corrupt, big government, lying friend of pork barrel funding”.

I guess you learn something new every day.

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While he may or may not be a great president - only time will provide that perspective - one thing is for certain, President Obama can’t pay your mortgage or put gas in your car:

I’m fairly certain there isn’t a single politican - Republican or Democratic - that could come even close to satisfying the high expectations some have for this new leader…

The party of big government has lost the White House, to be replaced by the party of even bigger government.

The fact is, Manley won’t win. He’ll pick up less than ten percent of the vote. He’s splitting the economic center to center-right vote with Ignatieff, who has more popularity than Manley could hope for.

He doesn’t have the right background to be a renewal, “308″, grassroots candidate either. He has all the negatives of an establishment candidate, but having been out of politics for a while he seems to have lost his core team.

He has all the personality of a smoked eel, too. He’s not Dion 2.0 (he can communicate fine, at least in English) but he’s too mechanical.

The fact is, he won’t win. He ain’t even a contenda.

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There will forever be young people born gay, so the demand for same-sex marriage will never go away. Furthermore, children have television, movies and pop music. There is no way to escape the reality that homosexuals exist. The latest argument in support of Proposition 8 is how it will potentially impose requirements of teaching same-sex marriages in schools. Well, I suppose it might hypothetically lead to that but I believe there is a lot of nonsense and bad influence in schools anyway. Teaching same-sex marriage is pretty low on the Richter scale compared to drugs, promiscuity and history classes, in my opinion.

Both sides of the debates involving Proposition 8 and same-sex marriages are nonsense. People are locking horns when they can easily seek common ground: deny the government any authority in such private matters. I believe that is where the modern civilized world is heading anyway. No matter the result of this vote, the only thing this ballot initiative will do is delay the inevitable. As governments create market failure, people are forced to become a little creative and more responsible for themselves. I see the future development of a new industry called the Marriage Registration Bureau or something like that.

If the right to same-sex marriage is forever denied through Proposition 8, I would suspect that homosexuals will still demand to be married. Therefore, they will have no choice but to create a parallel market in the marriage recognition industry in California.

If Proposition 8 is rejected, opponents of same-sex marriage will have no choice but to deny the legitimacy of the state’s recognition of marriage — unless they are happy living their moral lives in cognitive dissonance.

This act is unfair. This absurd SCAN Act gives coercive powers to the municipality to force landlords to do the job that the police are paid to do. If a neighbor is being disturbed by a crack-house, he is free to call the police. Only an irresponsible supporter of the state monopolized security industry would be blind to the obvious fact that there are enough layers of legislation to deal with disturbances already.

Hat Tip to CLEOnet. This act can also be quite unfair to tenants.

Columnist Michael Malone agrees, and tries her best to explain why:

If the current polls are correct, we are about to elect as president of the United States a man who is essentially a cipher, who has left almost no paper trail, seems to have few friends (that at least will talk) and has entire years missing out of his biography.

That isn’t Sen. Obama’s fault: His job is to put his best face forward. No, it is the traditional media’s fault, for it alone (unlike the alternative media) has had the resources to cover this story properly, and has systematically refused to do so.

Why, for example to quote the lawyer for Republican presidential nominee Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., haven’t we seen an interview with Sen. Obama’s grad school drug dealer — when we know all about Mrs. McCain’s addiction? Are Bill Ayers and Tony Rezko that hard to interview? All those phony voter registrations that hard to scrutinize? And why are Sen. Biden’s endless gaffes almost always covered up, or rationalized, by the traditional media?

[S]he is presenting herself to the public with an eye to her own long-term political career and a possible presidential bid in four years.

An unnamed source told CNN that “she is playing for her own future and sees herself as the next leader of the party.”

Be afraid. Be very afraid.

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In a PR system, there is no individual accountability for MPs. They have no particular jurisdiction they are responsible for that has the power to vote them out if they fail to represent them. People like our old friends Garth Turner and Belinda Stronach could switch parties without any repercussion.

In my Canada, MPs represent the public interest, not the political.

Finance: Jim Flaherty
Industry: Maxime Bernier
International Trade: Lawrence Cannon
Foreign Affairs: Jim Prentice
Defence:Peter Mackay
Environment: John Baird

The only real changes there are Bernier to industry, and Cannon to International Trade. Both have held these portfolios before, either federally or provincially, and both deserve to hold them now. Bernier was given a huge mandate by his constituency, and it looks like all has been forgiven.

Ambrose, Van Loan, Strahl, Ritz, Ablonczy, Finley and Day will all be picking up more minor roles in the cabinet.

Still, it could be fun, right?

The natural suggestion is Peter MacKay. He’s not from the West, he’s popular, he’s moderate, and seems pretty charismatic. I’d say he has a shot in any hypothetical leadership decision.

As sad as it is, Jason Kenney seems to be in a perpetual state of denial, which includes him thinking he can be Prime Minister someday. I’m afraid that’s not happening.

Due to Canada’s tradition of a strong federal Liberal party and a strong provincial Conservative party, I’d wager a guess that there is a great chance that a former Premier might take a run at the leadership. Not Klein, but someone.

Thoughts?

I call shenanigans. In this situation, they really only have two choices. Either a) Abstain in critical votes and preserve the minority, or b) vote against the government and plunge the nation into ANOTHER election.

Which would you choose, if you had just come out of your worst general election, ever?

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If what the minister says is true, why are we not seeing insurance companies from “around the world” taking on the risk of these insured mortgages which “provide a reliable backstop for Canadian mortgage-backed securities, which are well accepted around the world” instead of the government? The truth is that these securities are only accepted because the people around the world expect the government will bail them out — at any cost, I might add — when they fail. I say let them fail. The more bitter truth is that the insurance companies and the banks do not have any money to do so even if they wanted to — their money depends on constant inflation of the money supply.

This temporary program will be offered to lenders on commercial terms so there is no expected fiscal cost.

Why is he calling it temporary? It makes no sense to call this temporary when the mechanism and the reliability of these markets hinges on bailouts.
No expected fiscal cost? Yeah, the money will fall from the sky!

Many countries have recently announced new and comprehensive policy initiatives to restore or protect the stability of their financial systems. “I welcome the decisive and far-reaching actions that many countries are taking, which will provide critical support to financial stability,” said Minister Flaherty.

I beg your pardon, Mr. Minister? Countries around the world are just printing money, nationalizing their banks and now you are doing the same.

Ladies and gentleman, friends and neighbors, get ready to enjoy more socialism and price inflation in Canada.

For 14 years Schmidt, who grew up in Germany, has struggled for the right to sell unpasteurized milk, forbidden under the Milk Act.
Michael Schmidt was found guilty Monday of contempt-of-court charges for breaching a court order requiring him to stop his unpasteurized milk operations in and around Newmarket, Ont.
—
At present, he says 150 families each own a share in one of his 30 cattle, who graze on pasture in Grey County about 200 kilometres northwest of Toronto.

The shares allow each family to a share of a cow’s milk production.

Like other government dependent producers, these people are the villains:

If selling raw milk were legal, it would in short order become a big business. The Ontario government, knowing the statistical risks of raw-milk distribution, would be legally and morally responsible for ensuring that no one got sick as a result.

Stop demanding that the government is responsible for everybody’s welfare!

I do not trust that these cronies actually give a damn about preventing people from getting sick. I think they only care about protecting their own market from competition. They want to eliminate competitive suppliers by making it more expensive to operate. If it becomes a big business — an absurdly debatable assertion — that would mean that a lot of customers would want it and they would prefer it over the other choices.

Check out Where Can I Find Real Milk? if you want to get your own.

The girl’s mother was upset by Wednesday’s ruling, saying she believes the onus was on Armstrong to determine the girl’s age.

“My daughter’s life has been changed because of this,” she said. “We don’t have our little girl any more. She has problems with her peers and she has problems making friends.”

Lady, where have you been? Clearly, you do not know your daughter. [It would make more sense to blame rock and roll like they used to do!] Whatever “changed” your little girl happened long before this trial and likely long before she sent naked pictures of herself to older men on the internet.

Call me a knuckle-dragger if you want but I have to ask: What does her father have to say about all of this??? Can we get a quote from him too? I think this girl is a victim of bad parenting. Compared to her peers, the main difference in this kid’s environment is her home.

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