“Take Down that Maple Leaf: You’re Offending People!”

And you thought only the Union Jack could really offend people…

Apparently, the Maple Leaf is too vile to be displayed as well.

No word yet on what exactly was so offensive about it.

Another Sign Idea for the Protesters Outside Steyn’s BC Show Trial

One word.

“SILENCE!”

If that doesn’t catch the uninformed’s attention about what is being done inside the hearing room by BC’s Human Rights Commission, I can’t imagine what will.

Maybe stick it under that spooky OBEY face.

Side-note to make clear what’s at stake – before even finding in favour or against, Mark Steyn could be banned from ever having any of his work printed publicly in Canada, on the very first day. He may not say things nicely, but he says things that people need to hear, things that are true whether we would like it or not. It would be a shame that Canada would allow his voice to be silenced.

Gomery complains over delay in Mulroney-Schreiber inquiry

Gomery is making a big mistake if he thinks Canadians want to pay high-priced professionals to hear some more he-said she-said. If Gomery wants an inquiry, he is free to go make an honest living as an investigative journalist on his own.

It was a different story, said Judge Gomery, when former Liberal prime minister Paul Martin gave him a broad mandate to delve into the sponsorship affair that erupted under predecessor Jean Chrétien.

If I was paid by the hour, I would ask for the broadest mandate possible too!

Elvis to Olympians: Take a stand

Sure, Elvis Stojko may seem to be telling the young ones to forego benefits that he enjoyed in the past but his opinion is still valid. He is not telling them to boycott but rather to take a stand. He wants them to be a little more aware of the context in which they are competing.

I say tough luck for the current athletes if they get offended. They may want to think they are separated from the politics — fine — the athletes benefit from state privilege and my taxes go to fund their activities without my choice, mind you. Therefore, their connection to politics is fair game. Without political power, they would not be there and the Olympics may not even exist. If every single Canadian voted to abstain from participating in the Olympics or to even fund the sports, well, sorry! they are out of luck. What the state giveth, the state can taketh away. They should be grateful that they are not competing 25 years ago.

If athletes compete in China, any of them who step on the podium should have the courage to make a real difference like these guys did. Maybe they could just stick their tongues out and take a bow:

TIBETAN SALUTE
In Tibet when one man greets another it goes beyond the mere shaking of hands. A Tibetan bows, extends both hands palms open and sticks out his tongue!

By the way, Matthew was right first.

Global Warming and Vaclav Klaus – Blue Planet in Green Shackles

Here is a snippet of Vaclav Klaus’s presentation of the book “Blue Planet in Green Shackles”, at the National Press Club, in Washington D.C.:

It is in the hands of climatologists and other related scientists who are highly motivated to look in one direction only because a large number of academic careers has evolved around the idea of man-made global warming. It is, further, in the hands of politicians who maximize the number of votes they seek to get from the electorate. It is also – as a consequence of political decisions – in the hands of bureaucrats of national and more often of international institutions who try to maximize their budgets and years of careers as well regardless the costs, truth and rationality. It is in the hands of rent-seeking businesspeople who are – given the existing policies – interested in the amount of subsidies they are receiving and look for all possible ways to escape the for them often merciless, but for the rest of us very positive, general welfare enhancing functioning of free markets. An entire industry has developed around the funds the firms are getting from the government. [Emphasis mine]

Via: http://gayandright.blogspot.com

The company you keep

Contrary to the childish detractors, I applaud Goodyear for firing this gal. I have to bet that she knew damn well she was doing something wrong because there are more than enough laws in this country to make it incredibly difficult to fire an employee even with just cause. Nobody should take their job for granted.

If Bernier is going to be pre-judged (the prejudice just happened to provide convincing scoring points for his opponents) based on the company he keeps, I would like to see more politicians discard the company they keep — that includes careless employees.

Carbon Ration Cards – Considered “ahead of its time” by British Government

Forget about personal ID, just wait till a Bobby catches you without your carbon ration card.

Every adult should be forced to use a ‘carbon ration card’ when they pay for petrol, airline tickets or household energy, MPs say.

The influential Environmental Audit Committee says a personal carbon trading scheme is the best and fairest way of cutting Britain’s CO2 emissions without penalising the poor.

Under the scheme, everyone would be given an annual carbon allowance to use when buying oil, gas, electricity and flights.

Someone forgot to tell British Environmental Audit Committee about the fact that theses carbon trading schemes are a scam.

Update:
More carbon trading fraud:

Billions of pounds are being wasted in paying industries in developing countries to reduce climate change emissions, according to two analyses of the UN’s carbon offsetting programme.

Leading academics and watchdog groups allege that the UN’s main offset fund is being routinely abused by chemical, wind, gas and hydro companies who are claiming emission reduction credits for projects that should not qualify. The result is that no genuine pollution cuts are being made, undermining assurances by the UK government and others that carbon markets are dramatically reducing greenhouse gases, the researchers say.

No surprisingly, the UK government rejects the criticism:

The UK government last night defended the CDM. “We completely reject any assertions that [it] is fundamentally flawed,” a spokeswoman said. “We’ve worked consistently for and seen improvement in CDM processes over the past few years of its operation. We believe the CDM is essentially transparent and robust, though we will continue to press for the environmental integrity of projects.”

Pat Buchanan, Churchill and Mussolini

I just came across this piece on townhall.com about “How the West Was Lost“. It focuses a large amount of criticism on Sir Winston Churchill. Now, I am not averse to looking back at historically idolized figures and seeing them for the fallible humans they were, but I don’t know where Pat gets off writing some of his tripe.

The article actually started out kind of interesting and plausible. He talked about Mussolini:

A fourth British blunder, which Neville Chamberlain called the “very midsummer of madness,” was the 1935 decision to sanction Italy for a colonial war in Ethiopia. London destroyed the Stresa Front of Britain, France and Italy that Mussolini had forged to contain Germany, and drove Mussolini straight into the arms of a Nazi dictator he loathed.

Now, I don’t know much about the pre-WWII politics of Italy, but I always thought Mussolini was a Fascist from the beginning. But I suppose it is possible that he may not have aligned with Hitler had Britain not opposed his Ethiopian invasion.

But the fatal blunder was not Munich.

It was the decision of March 31, 1939, to hand a war guarantee to a neo-fascist regime of Polish colonels who had joined Hitler in the rape of Czechoslovakia.

Britain gave Warsaw a blank check to take her to war over a town, Danzig, the British themselves thought should be restored to Germany. Result: a Hitler-Stalin Pact and a six-year war that left scores of millions dead, Europe in ruins, the British empire bankrupt and breaking, 10 European nations under the barbaric rule of Joseph Stalin and half a century of Cold War. Had there been no war guarantee to Poland, there might have been no war, no Nazi invasion of Western Europe and no Holocaust.

Now, hold on a minute, chum. You’re honestly trying to tell me that if England had not opposed the invasion of Poland by the Germans, Hitler would have been pleased as punch never to invade France or Belgium?

Sorry, I do not buy that at all. His was the “Third Reich” – called so because he saw his government as the successor to Rome, then to the Holy Roman Empire (founded by Charlemagne), and finally himself. All of these empires included France.

Besides, wasn’t Chamberlain still in charge, making that call?

He makes some thought provoking points about where the West began a “moral decline”, but doesn’t do a very good job of speculating where the West would have ended up if it had sued for peace with the likes of Adolf Hitler and Josef Stalin.  It’s questions like these that make me doubt the validity of the whole argument.

Bloggers Wanted – Join the Group Blog, ThePolitic.com

In an effort to expand ThePolitic’s scope and coverage of Canadian and world politics, we are looking for more writers to contribute. We’re interested in finding writers who can provide insight into the following topics/areas:

• Canadian Politics (National and Provincial)
• US Politics
• Middle Eastern / Israeli Politics

If you’re interested, please contact us. Prior experience writing for the Internet (or weblogs) isn’t required, but strongly encouraged. Please include your name, contact information and any relevant writing examples.

Also note, we will not be accepting any candidates who intend to cross-post between multiple weblogs – contributed material must be original. However, writers will retain copyright and ownership of contributed materials.

If you have any questions and or you want to apply, please contact Greg Farries.

Indiana Jones and the Cold War

You can thank George Lucas and Steven Spielberg for causing another Cold War between the Americans and the Russians:

The Associated Press news agency quoted Moscow Communist official Andrei Andreyev as saying: “It is very disturbing if talented directors want to provoke a new Cold War.”

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