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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:

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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.

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

Support big freedom, eat a KFC Double Down

On June 22, 2010, at National Review, the Hoover Institution published the second installment in a five-part Uncommon Knowledge series on Ronald Reagan, with Mark Steyn and Rob Long providing commentary. This second episode was about Reagan’s stand against socialized medicine on the ground of its inherent limitations on personal freedom. After listening to a brief 1961 LP recording of Reagan, Mark Steyn comments thus.

He’s right. Everything that people thinks sounds ridiculous actually happens in countries with government health care systems. He’s quite right. In the province of Quebec, for example, they tell doctors, “No, you can’t practice in Montreal, you have to go and practice up in Lac Saint Jean… because they need a doctor there.” He rightly identified, I think, what is at issue here, which is that once the government is responsible for your health care it licenses the government to regulate every aspect of your life because everything you do – what you eat! – impacts on your health.

Fast-forward four months, almost to the day. The KFC Double Down – with all its saucy, salty, chickeny, greasy, cheesy, bacaony goodness – officially lands in Canada, the Mecca of socialized health care, Trudeaupian cradle-to-grave Nanny Statism and government dependence. Almost immediately, as if on queue, governments are considering “investigating” the chicken sandwich, while some people are calling for government to protect us from corporations and sodium in general.

You couldn’t make this stuff up if you tried.

Protect us from the evil salty corporations, O Government!!

Consumer specialist Trevor Norris, a U of T professor who’s written a forthcoming book on corporate social responsibility, said he believes it’s time the government stopped leaving it up to the consumer entirely.

“We should be asking our government to protect us from corporations who are creating a major burden,” Norris said. Corporations, he argues, should not be free to pass the burden of future health-care expenses to taxpayers if a grossly unhealthy fast food product is wildly popular.

Investigate this sandwich of concern, O Government!!

The arrival of KFC’s 540-calorie Double Down sandwich has caught the attention of the Ontario government.

Health experts and nutritionists expressed concerns this week when KFC started selling the Double Down — two slabs of seasoned fried chicken sandwiching bacon, cheese and secret sauce — in Canada.

Health Promotion Minister Margarett Best was asked about the Double Down today, and said it was something the province could investigate.

The Double Down flies in the face of Canadian values, O Government!!

An initiative to put the pinch on global dietary salt intake would save Canadian health care systems alone billions in related costs.

That was the message delivered by the University of Calgary’s Dr. Norm Campbell on the eve of a two-day World Health Organization conference taking place in Calgary. [...]

As the Calgary conference kicked off, so too did the Canadian arrival of KFC’s Double Down sandwich – a bacon and cheese sandwiched between two pieces of boneless fried chicken which 1,740 mg of sodium.

Piazza said such a sandwich flies in the face of everything the Heart and Stroke Foundation is working to curb.

Which makes me say, based on pure principle of personal freedom, I’m getting me a KFC Double Down.

Here’s to you, Ronnie!

Update 1: Ontario backtracks.

Update 2: Peanuts. A concerned mother takes “reasonable accommodation” to the next level.

A spokesman for the Ministry of Education said that school boards are responsible for drafting the policies that govern teacher behaviour during school trips [, including what they eat during off hours in the teachers' cabin away from the kids, apparently. -ed]

Update 3: There are worse things than the Double Down.

Update 4: Double Down becomes KFC’s best-selling new item ever. Never forget, socialists: the consumer is king.

Dueling Videos about Michael Ignatieff

Remember long ago when the Conservative Party released a series of “Just Visiting” videos about newly-appointed/elected Liberal leader Michael Ignatieff? Here are three of them and their titles: Just Visiting, Economy, and Arrogance.

Recently, the Liberal Party released a video of its own. It’s a four-minute video that serves to introduce–or rather, to re-introduce–Ignatieff to Canadians. Here it is.

It is effective. Actually, it is very effective.

But it may be too late to undo the image of the Liberal leader that has already hardened in the minds of Canadians.

The moral of this story is clear: define yourself as you want to be seen before your opponent defines you the way he wants others to see you.

Let her cover her face!

I think the three judges at the Ontario Court of Appeal made the right decision.

[I know, I know, the socialist law and order control freak types (along with other confused socialists) will probably get their knickers tied in a knot over this one but they deserve a bit of discomfort.]

Regardless, this case just highlights the absurdity and waste of money which is inherent in monopolized government services. It is bad enough that this poor gal was allegedly sexually assaulted. It is bad enough that this trial has dragged on for two years. Now, the judges want “a more thorough inquiry” to deal with this nonsense.

The whole thing is stupid if a trial decision hinges on assuming a person is telling the truth.

Won’t back down

QOTW, Foreign Minister Lawrence Cannon, via Stephen Edwards.

“We will not back down from our principles that form the basis of our great country, and we will continue to pursue them on the international stage,” Cannon said. “Some would even say that, because of our attachment to those values, we lost a seat on the council. If that’s the case, then so be it.”

Also at Nat Po…

Kelly McParland: It’s Canada’s foreign policy, stupid!

Getting rejected by this lot is no embarrassment; if anything it’s something to be proud of. It illustrates exactly how the UN works: You start with a set of beliefs, and then you compromise them over time, currying favour with other countries. The mystery remains why the Conservatives took such a belated interest in the council in the first place. Its most recent display of international leadership was … uh … well, I’m sure we’ll think of something. Given the anti-Israel bias that pervades the UN, campaigning for a seat on the Security Council — if it requires the OIC’s approval — is the international equivalent of applying for membership at a club that bans Jews.

John Ivison: You can’t blame it on Ignatieff. (I agree.)

Canada’s foreign policy should not be held to ransom by attempts to bribe small countries into voting for us at the United Nations.

The Conservatives are proud of what they call their “principled” foreign policy — an agenda driven by “right-wing ideology,” according to the Liberals.

But the lesson from this loss is that you can be “principled” or you can be popular. The Prime Minister should have figured out much earlier that you can’t be both.

Lorne Gunter: a meaningless seat in a dysfunctional organization.

Too much to quote. Read it all.

Update Oct 20, 2010: Wall Street Journal – “Bravo, Canada”. And, Charles Adler, you need to run for office. H/T

Trade with the Jooos, risk your Security Council seat

Jew-hatred runs so deep and wide at the UN that trading with Israel is a negative. It’s like red ink on a soldier’s file.

International Trade Minister Peter Van Loan has announced a bid to strengthen the trade relationship with Israel — a move whose timing could affect Canada’s bid to win a seat on the United Nations Security Council. [...]

Since Arab and Muslim countries either control or have varying degrees of influence over a majority of the votes in the assembly, Van Loan’s announcement has the potential to lose Canada support in the ballot.

Well, pardon this lowly Canadian, but… if we have to tiptoe around and kowtow to xenophobic Muslims to get a Security Council seat then you can take your SC seat and shove it.

If Canada is to hold a Security Council seat then let us do it with our affiliations on our sleeves and sovereignty written on your chests. We’re pro-Israel. We’re pro-democracy. We’ll trade with whichever nations we want, and we will not abide anti-Semitism in order to garner support for a Security Council seat.

Soviet-Gitmo style interrogation coming to Canada

Great news for the Law And Order Control Freak Socialist types.

Murdering the disabled and “defective”

The specter of a couple urging a surrogate to abort an unborn child likely to be born with Down’s Syndrome is causing a bit of a stir. Of course, children are aborted every day due to anticipated “defects,” but now that a contract is involved we have a problem.

Meanwhile, British pro-abort columnist Virginia Ironside has taken the issue of compassionate murder by loving mothers to a whole new level. If you love your disabled unborn child, you’ll abort it. If you love your suffering ex utero child, you’ll smother it.

And then there’s Gianna Jessen.

CINOs sell out

Liberals and NDP, too.

“That this House, while recognizing the importance of vigorous debate on subjects of public interest, expresses its profound sadness at the prejudice displayed and the stereotypes employed by Maclean’s Magazine to denigrate the Quebec nation, its history and its institutions.”

The “Quebec nation?” Are you kidding me? And still nobody in the Big-3 voted against the motion after hearing that phrase? No, not one. In a delicious irony, the only MP to object, independent Quebec MP Andre Arthur.

What’s that, Jane? A “separatist trap,” they say. Oh, it was a trap alright, but here’s what this lowly peasant doesn’t understand….

How is it that career politicians and alleged “smart people” could not figure out that there was no way out of what the Bloc had planned? How is it that the lot of them, like a pack of fools, thought there would be any good come from pandering to the Bloc and Quebec just one mo’ time? How is it that not a single Big-3 MP possesses the balls to kick the Bloc in the crotch when they introduce asinine motions?

Instead, now, in addition to selling out on free speech and freedom of the press, we have the Big-3 on record endorsing the “history” and “institutions” of the “Quebec nation.” Nice. Real nice. Can’t wait to see how THAT plays out. Morons.

And you wonder, dear CINO party phone worker, why I won’t take out membership or give another dollar to the party?!?!

Answer: my money is going to Andre Arthur, the only MP in the House who didn’t sell out to appease the Separatists.

Tories plan to spend more money on prostitution

I am having a difficult time understanding why the government should spend more taxes to maintain a strangle-hold on the prostitution industry. Yikes! One of the most obnoxious Dippers shares my view:

But NDP MP Libby Davis, a longtime advocate of sex trade workers, questioned why the government would waste money on a costly and lengthy appeal — money it could spend instead on helping affected communities.

Maybe there is something I am missing. Can somebody help me out here?