Jack Layton: Fish Out of Water (The flip-flopping is spectacular!)

It is no big secret that I’m not a fan of Jack Layton. I openly smile any time I see him make a fool of himself, and I make no apologies for it. His most recent penning is no exception. Now I know I’m not the first to comment on this, and I’m sure I won’t be the last. I just couldn’t resist.

What amazes me is that this man actually believes that people take him seriously these days, not that there was much stock in that to begin with. As I’ve said in other places, The NDP has been banished to obscurity in the House of Commons, and Jack has only himself to blame.

First, it’s fine and dandy for there to be a “Coalition“, just so long as the NDP are in and the Conservatives are out. The bitter comments about a “New Coalition” and his attacks on Michael Ignatieff only make him a fair-weather friend to anyone who speaks to him, and he’s put out both the Conservatives and the Liberals with his actions here. I’d argue that he continues to push the Liberals into the arms of the Conservatives.

Second, Jack Layton and the NDP insisted that Canada adopt a “Buy Canadian” policy in the wake of the “Buy American” flap. And yet, in his Open Letter to President Obama, he goes on to extol the virtues of maintaining open borders and markets. “By working together, our economies can come out of this recession faster, greener and stronger in a more prosperous North America.” This coming just after his speech to Parliament. I’m laughing.

Third, Jack Layton must be confused. There are no Tar Sands in Canada. Alberta has a widely known and currently-being-mined Oil Sands, but there are no Tar Sands. You’d think that after all his speechifying about the evil oil-based economic engine in Alberta where “Big Oil” is making a fortune, he’d know better. But maybe I’m expecting a little too much from Jack.

Forth (and probably finally as I think my point is being made), Jack Layton goes on to magnanimously offer Canadian assistance in the future of the campaign in Afghanistan:

“We support your call for a full strategic review of the mission in Afghanistan and the adoption of a much more comprehensive approach that respects human rights and places dialogue at the centre of a comprehensive peace process.”

“Canada can help you in charting a new path in Afghanistan“

The reality is, Jack Layton and the rest of the NDP have been aggressively antagonistic as they continuously insist that Canada immediately withdraw it’s troops from Afghanistan and that we have no business being over there. Now it appears that Jack Layton wants to assume the role of a blushing Canadian Bride to the Obama Administration. Hell, Jack Layton has lifted the NDP skirt and kicked off it’s knickers for everyone else, why not give the Americans a spin?

Game Theory versus Reality; NB race-based lifeboat exercise

Just like the Unambiguously Ambidextrous, I am outraged too. Go to his blog and you will see what I mean.

I would not be surprised if the teacher that presented this exercise had genuinely good intentions but was too stupid to realize how warped it may turn out to be. The way I see this exercise is that it demands that each child makes an evil choice in an unrealistic scenario. After this exercise, a child may fully understand that there is no logic that dictates a moral choice here — that is likely the intention of the teacher. The teacher wants the child to consider everybody equal. However, applying that understanding of logic can go either way. The child may become comfortable thinking that there is no valid argument against picking mortal winners and losers.

Now, I want to explore a different angle about why this exercise is warped by focussing on it as a game theory model.

The wise way to approach this unrealistic scenario is to accept that the future is uncertain. That is the main weakness of applying game theory to the real world. Nobody knows whether the world will truly explode or whether only three out of the four people could physically fit in the lifeboat. This could simply be a demonic evil test. For all we know, the tester or the teacher in this case is playing a sick joke whereby people who chose to leave Ethnic Person A to die on the exploding planet are actually told: “Ha! Ha! Tricked you! It is YOU who are going to be left to die because you made the wrong choice!” or some such reneging on the rules. In the real world, rules are broken all of the time. A child knows that. I think it is prudent to expect a child to have the clear intelligence to know that there is no magical political force in the universe that prevents people from lying, stealing, cheating in games or reneging on contracts.

In my opinion, there is no lesson a child can learn from this exercise that is both intelligent and moral. There is a greater chance of creating harm and dreadful fear of our neighbors:

“She definitely found it was upsetting. She felt it was wrong, she didn’t understand it,” she said.
“It’s also terrifying for her. She’s the only child of any other racial or ethnic group in that class. To then be walked through this exercise with limited understanding, to her it’s terrifying.
“It’s as though she is set in an environment where this is a possibility in Canada.”

I wonder what moral lesson the teacher would have fostered if the vast majority of children in the class chose to leave the same ethnic person to die. In our current democratic state of affairs, what argument would the teacher have against a mob rule lynching?

Abolish legal tender laws, Wall Street Journal

Wow. Some clear-headed thinking is starting to infiltrate into the main stream press:

So we must first establish a sound foundation for capitalism by permitting people to use a form of money they trust.

—SNIP—

Given that the driving force of free-market capitalism is competition, it stands to reason that the best way to improve money is through currency competition. Individuals should be able to choose whether they wish to carry out their personal economic transactions using the paper currency offered by the government, or to conduct their affairs using voluntary private contracts linked to payment in gold or silver.

There may be hope yet.

Finally Something I Can Really Get Behind

Harper’s Tories have been giving us a whole lot of fiscally irresponsible spending lately, so it’s always refreshing to see them give us something I can really support, and this is a big one.

According to this story at the G&M, the Tories are planning legislation that will restrict all Senators to an eight year term, starting with the ones appointed a month or so ago by Harper himself. While this alone is a good thing, the article also mentions that the government is considering a bill that would allow Ottawa to hold elections for Senators, rather than waiting for the provinces to do it.

While it waits to be seen how dedicated the government will be to this movement, it can only be seen as a good sign.

Greenspan makes a plea for crony capitalism

Greenspan, “who for decades was regarded as the high priest of laisser-faire capitalism,” now makes an about-face and throws a buoy out to corporate welfare:

The former Fed chairman said temporary government ownership would ”allow the government to transfer toxic assets to a bad bank without the problem of how to price them.”

But he cautioned that holders of senior debt – bonds that would be paid off before other claims – might have to be protected even in the event of nationalisation.

”You would have to be very careful about imposing any loss on senior creditors of any bank taken under government control because it could impact the senior debt of all other banks,” he said. “This is a credit crisis and it is essential to preserve an anchor for the financing of the system. That anchor is the senior debt.”

I do not think that cronyism can get less subtle. Some guy thinks that Greenspan “seems to be changing his views incrementally.”

Of course, Greenspan is never going to assume any blame for inflating the money supply. Here is how he deflects things:

Responding to questions after the speech, Greenspan blamed insufficient regulatory oversight in part for failing to recognize the degree of risk that was accumulating in the banking system.

‘Behind the Curve’

“The regulatory structures, especially internationally, were way behind the curve,” he said.

He is just singing the same old socialist song: any problem is a result of a lack of regulatory oversight blah blah blah. That is what the socialists want to hear. We need more government.

Well, Mr. former-Chairman of the Fed, did those regulatory structures just creep up on us all of a sudden? I think not. Even if a lack of regulatory oversight is the source of the problem, it is still your fault. You should not have been so loose with the money supply. The source of the problem is the printing of money which fuels malinvestment.

This is an astounding economic experiment to witness. Unfortunately, we have to endure it. This must really confuse the socialists. On the one hand, they are getting their state control in the financial market but on the other hand, it is the rich crony elite who are benefiting and not the proletariat. God help us! Are the Americans just making economic policy up as they go along? Throwing money around willy nilly until the only strategy left is to nationalizing the banks! Cui bono?

A Muslim and A Delusional Mammal Walk Into A Bar…

…and ouch!, is this one ever going to hurt once it gets up to full speed! Courtesy of Damian P., a link to Atheism’s revered high priest Richard Dawkins lashing out at moral relativism? My, how the times have changed. If Dawkins said such words even twenty years ago, he’d certainly be firmly labeled as a paleocon who was trying to impose his values upon the rest of society.

Admittedly, I don’t think much of the Muslims who are hell-bent (literally) to keep me from treating my sister as an equal, bacon cheeseburgers, or writing what I actually think on this blog, but in this case, I’m more than happy to sit back and watch the fireworks. Who knows, maybe it’ll make the Darwinists honest and if so, kudos to the Muslims if they pull it off. Maybe we’ll even get the added bonus of seeing a science classroom that is free of antiquated, irrelevant pseudo-science finally (150 years antiquated this year from what I’m told!).

After all, the monkey-worshiping crowd doesn’t want anything to do with a dirty creationist like me anyway, so I’ll just step out for a bit and let you and your Middle Eastern friend there have it out…survival of the fittest as they say! You’ve certainly earned it Richard! Just don’t say that nobody warned you that cutting those Christian ties wasn’t hazardous to your health… As for me, I’ll be out in the parking lot to take you to the hospital when this is all over! What a nice guy, eh?

EndTheRecession.org misses the boat

At EndTheRecession.org, very astute observations of the structural flaws of modern central banking are made but the author offers silly solutions:

So what should we do now?
We need to prevent the banks from creating money every time they create a loan. We need to change the rules of banking to prevent the end the system under which, the more debt we get into, the more money the banks have available for lending!

Basically, his solution is to change the regulations in the money markets preventing lenders from lending in excess of their reserves. I am not sure people want that. They might want that but with regulations, we would never know. All we know now is that with a central bank providing loose credit and a history of inflating the money supply, consumers take loans. Can we trust bureaucrats to know what is good for us? I would not expect them to help worth a damn.

Whether we like it or not, we can not separate the creation of money from the creation of loans. That is part of the inherent nature of money and consumers demand that to a degree. Likewise, we can not separate entrepreneurship and capital growth from risk.

If you take away government guarantees from the money markets, there still might be customers willing to deposit their money in the banks that lend in excess of their reserves — possibly in exchange for higher interest rates or lower transaction fees or both. The future is never certain. Some people may want to take risks more than others. Those people should be free to do so at their own expense. The true problem with modern central banking is that the risks taken by lenders is often borne by tax-payers in the form of bail-outs, insurance and price inflation.

I think a wiser and more responsible solution is to stop central banking altogether, leave markets alone and let them fend for themselves. If governments stop insuring commercial loans and the central banks stop printing money entirely — even if it is only 5% of the over-all supply — the banks will be more diligent in how they lend money. Simply put, they will not have any other choice. Any mistakes that the banks make will be borne by their customers as it should and not by the lowly tax-payer.

The real Obama Girls.

In 1995, Barack Obama wrote “Dreams From My Father”.   In 2009, Judith Warner writes “Wet Dreams Of My President.” In her New York Times blog, Warner relates her erotic dream, in which the President emerges from the shower as she’s shaving her legs in her bathroom.  (If the dream had a soundtrack, I imagine it probably sounded something like “Bow-chicka-wah-wah!“)  Judith discussed her dream with a friend who confessed that she’d likewise dreamed about the President,  and sensing that there was a trend afoot, solicited other women to write in with their Obama-related fantasies.  They obliged, as Warner explains in sordid detail.

The readers are not merely interested in bumping off Michelle and stealing President Hotstuff for themselves. They’re not just after sex. They daydream about having the Obamas over for an evening of “dinner and a game of Scrabble.”  People feel like the Obamas are the dream couple they wish they were friends with.  Some of this turns a little creepy, as readers express their Obama envy, wondering why their own marriages are not as idyllic as the Obamas’ marriage seems, or wondering why their kids can’t have sleepovers with the Obama children.

For those who were disappointed to find out that Obama Girl was an actress whose sympathies actually lay with Mrs Clinton, take heart. There are real Obama Girls, with real crushes on the President. They are, apparently, middle-aged women with boring marriages. Some of them even blog for the New York Times.

Dog attack linked to Leftists

If you thought my hate-on for socialists gets a bit far-fetched, take a look at how bovination.com lays the blame:

Haven’t enough children been killed, maimed or permanently scarred by vicious dogs for people to understand that keeping large pack animals around small children will result in many of them being eaten alive? Apparently not.

Dogs are of course, much like Leftists.

• They are supposedly loving, warm and only want to be friends with everyone.
• They are cowards when they are alone with something bigger and more powerful than they are.
• When they mob together in sufficient numbers they attack anything and everything weaker than they are.
• They have no responsibility for anything they do.

This, of course, qualifies them to be ‘man’s best friend’, or maybe even ‘friends of the Earth’.

Valentine’s Day… the new Red Menace?

There are a lot of people who hate Valentine’s Day, and I’m not just talking about bitter singles.  Valentine’s Day has some people are up in arms… literally.

Celebrating Valentines Day is forbidden in Saudi Arabia, where this “pagan festival that promotes immorality” is viewed with such severity that even red wrapping paper could get you in trouble.  Last week an Egyptian cleric declared Valentine’s Day to be a virus more deadly than ebola or cholera, a disease waiting to “attack the hearts of the nation’s youth, and to destroy our relations with God.”  He says that Valentine’s Day makes the prophet cry. You don’t want to make the Prophet cry, do you?

It’s never a big surprise to hear this sort of talk from conservative Muslims, but they aren’t the only ones who have an axe to grind.

In India, a conservative Hindu group has threatened to march affectionate couples to a temple and force them to marry on the spot. The group, called Shri Ram Sene, had earlier attracted attention when a mob of 40 members entered a bar to beat up women inside, and even abducted a girl who had been behaving immorally by riding on a bus with a Muslim boy. With the pub attack still on peoples’ minds and the group’s Valentine’s threat looming, police were taking the situation seriously.  As it turns out, with good reason. Early returns indicate there were a number of incidents and 600 arrests.

Indian women are not taking this sitting down. The Consortium of Pub-going, Loose, And Forward Women has launched a campaign to bombard the group’s leaders with pink panties, and thousands of supporters have signed up. They also vowed to pack pubs in defiance of the extremist intimidation.

As one considers this intimidation of women in India by religious zealouts, it’s hard not to note the similarities with conservative Muslims, and with the Christian puritans of days gone by. What is the root of this dislike that religious conservatives hold for women?

I personally suspect that guys probably don’t like Valentine’s Day and all the commercial shenanigans that go with it.  But, today as you’re out with your special someone, consider having a big sloppy kiss in public. You’ll be striking a blow for freedom.  And, if you’re feeling especially generous, consider sending some pink panties to the Shri Ram Sene. They’ll be appreciated.

« Previous Page — Next Page »