Lethbridge MP Hillyer Keeps on Embarrassing Himself

It’s almost too painful to watch:

Here’s the video of him firing his air guns!

All of this isn’t too surprising considering his stellar performance during the last election campaign:

The corruption of modern central banking

It is time that the inherent corruption of our modern central banking becomes public knowledge for our own sakes. I certainly would not want this fascist crony-capitalism poison to be secret nor to go unnoticed by my neighbors. The leaders are printing money and giving it to their friends before it cycles through the economy to cause price inflation:

“The bottom line is that senior-level people in Washington, in the name of keeping in touch with their stakeholders, are tipping their hands,” says Adam Zagorin, a senior fellow at the Project on Government Oversight, a Washington watchdog group. “You can’t prosecute them for insider trading if they didn’t trade the shares. You may not be able to even reprimand them. What the hell are the rules?”

An official such as Paulson has no legal obligation to keep material nonpublic information to himself, says Phillip Kaplan, partner for litigation at Manatt Phelps & Phillips LLP, where he specializes in securities and class-action cases.

– SNIP –

Morgan Stanley and BlackRock Inc. both helped the Federal Reserve and OCC prepare the reports on Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac that Paulson told the New York Times would instill confidence the morning of the Eton Park meeting.

This is not coming from a gossip tabloid.

Fed Tories, pork-barrelling and the G8

Praise to the NDP’s Charlie Angus! I hope all of the opposition keeps hammering away at this crap from the Conservatives:

The NDP said one of the emails suggests Clement (then federal industry minister) concurred with a local Huntsville official that federal bureaucrats at Infrastructure Canada were getting in the way by conducting a review of planned G8 spending.

The local official wrote to Clement, saying “this is totally unacceptable — I am sure you agree,” according to the email. Clement responded right away, saying, “I agree. I’m working on it.”

People wonder why young kids have no interest in voting. It is pretty hard to blame them when the Tories act like the Libs and the Libs act like the Tories.

For the Liberals, MP means Missing Parliamentarian!

So, below is a list of all those Liberal MP’s who did not show up for work, or were directed not to by their unelected leader when it came time to vote on the Budget [h/t to Alberta Ardvark & The Phantom Observer]:

MP = Missing Parliamentarian

Bagnell, Larry – MP – for Yukon, Yukon
Bennett, Carolyn – MP – for St. Paul’s, Ontario
Bevilacqua, Maurizio – MP – for Vaughan, Ontario
Byrne, Gerry – MP – for Humber–St. Barbe–Baie Verte, Newfoundland and Labrador
Cannis, John – MP – for Scarborough Centre, Ontario
Coderre, Denis – MP – for Bourassa, Quebec
Cotler, Irwin – MP – for Mount Royal, Quebec
Dhalla, Ruby – MP – for Brampton–Springdale, Ontario
Duncan, Kirsty – MP – for Etobicoke North, Ontario
Eyking, Mark – MP – for Sydney–Victoria, Nova Scotia
Foote, Judy – MP – for Random–Burin–St. George’s, Newfoundland and Labrador
Fry, Hedy – MP – for Vancouver Centre, British Columbia
Garneau, Marc – MP – for Westmount–Ville-Marie, Quebec
Kania, Andrew J. – MP – for Brampton West, Ontario
Karygiannis, Jim – MP – for Scarborough–Agincourt, Ontario
LeBlanc, Dominic – MP – for Beauséjour, New Brunswick
MacAulay, Lawrence – MP – for Cardigan, Prince Edward Island
Martin, Keith P. – MP – for Esquimalt–Juan de Fuca, British Columbia
McTeague, Dan – MP – for Pickering–Scarborough East, Ontario
Murphy, Brian – MP – for Moncton–Riverview–Dieppe, New Brunswick
Murphy, Shawn – MP – for Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island
Murray, Joyce – MP – for Vancouver Quadra, British Columbia
Pacetti, Massimo – MP – for Saint-Léonard–Saint-Michel, Quebec
Patry, Bernard – MP – for Pierrefonds–Dollard, Quebec
Regan, Geoff – MP – for Halifax West, Nova Scotia
Sgro, Judy – MP – for York West, Ontario
Silva, Mario – MP – for Davenport, Ontario
Russell, Todd – MP – for Labrador, Newfoundland and Labrador
Trudeau, Justin – MP – for Papineau, Quebec

Why am I posting this when so many others have? Well, I believe it important to make the information as visible as possible to as many people as possible. Even if one person sees this list and chooses to contact their MP about it to demand answers about their lack of representation, then it was worth it.

Why is this important? Because these so-called Parliamentarians appear to be more interested in playing games rather than actually representing the people in their constituencies. In the same vein as my previous posts,

• Lions and Tigers and Budgets! Oh my!
• Michael Ignatieff is playing games with Parliament
• Michael Ignatieff: Recent History Repeating

the Liberal Party of Canada is content to usurp the values of democracy and opt instead for gamesmanship to say one thing and do another. There’s another word for that; it’s liar.

As identified in Alberta Ardvark’s comment section, maryT noted the phony photo-op the Liberals posed for regarding the “locked doors” of Parliament, which were actually open behind them [FAIL].

Yeah, so after making such a huge stink about Proroguing Parliament, they don’t even have the guts to show up!

Now THAT’S Leadership eh?

Forcing perceived entitlements on others

The Quebec HRC has abhorrently ruled to force a condo-owning 60+ year-old woman, who herself suffers from a shoulder injury, to relinquish her paid parking spot near the door of a condominium building to her mobidly obese neighbour, who, incidentally, “weighs nearly 400 pounds… has diabetes and heart and respiratory conditions… [and] needs oxygen to breathe and rides a handicap scooter [AND yet is allowed to drive a motor vehicle -ed]. Additionally, the QHRC is forcing the neighbours of the obese lady to collectively pay $10,000 in damages for “…[violating] the inclusive values promoted by our society.”

It got me thinking about a recent episode with an obese person who likewise felt entitled to force others to accommodate her needs wants.

A couple weeks ago my family and I entered a Burger King to grab a quick bite as part of our hectic Saturday routine. At this particular BK there is only one blue-painted handicapped parking spot though there are at least six parking slots within 10 paces of the entrance. With our burgeoning family, I certainly appreciated being able to park the van and unload the tribe near the entrance.

Seated and munching, I notice a rotund woman park her minivan in a spot about 100 feet from the BK, literally kick the driver’s side door open, gingerly roll herself out of the van, and slowly lumber across the parking lot to the BK.  Used to determining the weight and size of moose and caribou at 100 and 200 yards, I estimated her weight at 350 lbs.

My brother’s fat humour echoed in my brain, “Warm up the fryers! Everyone out of the pool!” My wife, noticing that I had picked up on the “big-boned” woman making her way to the BK, and perhaps observing a rye grin on my face, jabbed me in the ribs. “Stop it,” she said with her eyes, seemingly knowing what was going on behind my eyeballs. Then audibly, “Don’t be so cruel. You don’t know why she’s like that.” You get the picture. Shame on me, but don’t act so innocent, dear reader!

Anyway, said rotund individual entered the BK, walked into the middle of the room and roared, “WHO IS PARKED IN THE HANDICAPPED SPOT?”  Startled at the rude interruption of the consumption of their flame-broiled whoppers and trans-fat sticks (fries), everyone turned.  Most muttered, “Not me,” except for one, an older woman in her 70s, sitting by herself enjoying a sandwich.

“I am,” she said.

Rotund woman, growing more agitated and pointing her finger: “I don’t see a handicapped sign hanging on your mirror. Do you have the right to be in that spot?”

Older lady: “Yes. My tag is in the glove box and I forgot to hang it on the mirror before coming in.”

Rotunda: “Really? Well, I WANT that spot.”

Older lady, with poise and dignity, “I’ll move as soon as I’m done, dear, but there are a couple spots right next that are open.”

Rotunda: “Doesn’t matter. I want that spot and I need you to move.”

The old lady looked away and started eating again. The men in the joint were observing closely, waiting for Roti to do something even more stupid.

Alas, with a “hmph” Large Lady exited the BK, trudged the 100 feet back to her van, damn near ripped the driver’s side door off her van whilst opening it, squeezed inside, somehow managed to reach out and close her abused door, and waited. And waited. Then waited some more. All the while no less than three parking spaces remained open next to the sacred blue slot, presumably the result of people being very accommodating indeed.

We were in the restaurant for 15 minutes beyond this and Double-L didn’t avail of the non-blue parking spaces during the entire time. Our tribe left the BK, jaunted across the parking lot to a market where we spent another 10 minutes or so before returning to our van by the BK.  Lady Large was still in her van.

She had walked at least 200 feet, attempted to run roughshod over an elderly woman, ignored her desire for food, and waited for at least 25 minutes for the privileged blue paint nirvana to open up, even though she could have easily DRIVEN THE FRIGGIN’ VAN into the spot next to the handicapped zone and proceeded to walk the 10 paces into the restaurant.

My wife and I looked at each other, “Unreal.”

In light of these coincidental travesties, I am caused to ask, Why do people, obese or not, feel entitled to certain things that they clearly are not entitled to?  And why, I wonder, do they feel the need to leverage the State to nourish and enforce their believed entitlement and so force their will upon others?  What drives that behaviour?  Finally, why does the State feel the need to involve itself in a disagreement between two renters of condominiums whom have each paid for parking?  And “violating the inclusive values of society”???

Have we lost of freaking minds?

Economic Recession Looms while the Civil Service Booms

No big surpise here, when government’s go on uncontrolled spending sprees, the only one who benefits are those who work for and in government:

The highest-paid federal employees are doing best of all on salary increases. Defense Department civilian employees earning $150,000 or more increased from 1,868 in December 2007 to 10,100 in June 2009, the most recent figure available.

When the recession started, the Transportation Department had only one person earning a salary of $170,000 or more. Eighteen months later, 1,690 employees had salaries above $170,000.

The trend to six-figure salaries is occurring throughout the federal government, in agencies big and small, high-tech and low-tech. The primary cause: substantial pay raises and new salary rules.

What are the odds the same result isn’t occurring in Canada?

Years Later, DND is Concerned About Torture

Sure, it’s a little late, but General Walt Natynczyk wants to know what happened to the report on the torture by Afghan personnel of a detainee we handed over to them (and whom our soldiers then rescued from his torturers).  From CTV.ca:

The Canadian military has ordered a formal investigation into how a critical report on the beating of an Afghan prisoner remained buried at National Defence headquarters.

In June 2006 soldiers captured a suspected Taliban fighter and handed him over to local police, who then beat him to the point where the Canadians had to intervene.

A report on the incident, which undermines Conservative government claims that no prisoners handed over to Afghans faced abuse, was apparently uncovered only in December.

Chief of Defence Staff Gen. Walt Natynczyk ordered an investigation, which is headed by Rear-Admiral Paul Maddison, commander of Joint Task Force Atlantic.

Natynczyk’s deputy, Vice-Admiral Denis Rouleau, says the probe will look at the incident itself, why soldiers took the actions they did and how it was reported.

The report of the investigation is due March 1 and is to be made public shortly after.

Diplomat Richard Colvin testified before a special House of Commons committee in November that he repeatedly warned federal officials in 2006 and 2007 that prisoners faced the possibility of torture in Afghan jails.

This is good news, a little late, but good news nonetheless.  Will this help end the contention that no one was tortured, or that the torture was nothing more than just being beaten by a shoe.

I have more thoughts on the matter here, but I’d like to ask why it’s so controversial to suggest that we shouldn’t be complicit in torture when, apparently, our troops on the ground think we shouldn’t be involved in torture?

The Olympics, Prorogue and the Moral Vacuity of the Conservative Party

Well, the rumours aren’t true… well, at least the part about them being rumours are no longer true.

Parliament will not resume on January 25.  It will resume in March.  On March 3rd, we’ll have a speech from the throne.  On March 4, we’ll have the joy of a budget presentation.  There is a lot of conjecture as to why Parliament will be prorogued for two months, from the trite (MPs want to go to the Olympics) to the strategic (Mr. Harper wants to send some more Tories to the senate) to the abhorrent (the Conservative Party wants the whole Afghan detainee scandal to go away).  No matter the reason, it is cynical and distasteful.

If it is all about the Olympics – whether the desire to attend or the desire to avoid a tough session of Question Period during the Olympics – the Conservatives are children playing in an adult world.  Suspending a democratic legislature for the sake of international spectacle is not what a mature nation does, not when there are important issues to deal with.

If they are doing this to stack the senate, well, then they are who we thought they were: Politicians, of the same ilk as any other cynical politician, be it Jean Chretien, Belinda Stronach or Brian Mulroney.  In such a case, they deserve not only our scorn and ridicule, but also a little – just a little – of our pity.

But I’m not an idiot.  These issues may play into the political calculations (rarely would a government act without considering a variety of implications), but there is little doubt that they are trying to make the populace forget that this government is an accomplice to torture.  The Conservative Party has attempted to thwart investigations into the question of the treatment of prisoners in Afghanistan for months.  More and more evidence is appearing implicating various members of our government of, at the very least, unacceptable ignorance of torture.  As this story has grown and evolved, the government has acted all the more guilty, all the more complicit.  Where we once might have accepted a mea culpa, we must now only accept a scalp.  Sadly, not since Brian Mulroney was burned in electoral effigy, via the repulsion of Kim Campbell, has the Canadian electorate taken serious their duty to repudiate a governing party so greatly steeped in political transgression.  It is my worry that when responsible government returns in March and, later, when our current government is forced to stand before voters, the voters will shrug.

Writing at what is, generally, a fairly conservative web site, I fully expect vitriolic responses from Conservatives.  Once, reading about Levi Strauss, I witnessed him described as a conservative, in that what he wanted to conserve is liberal democracy.  It is those conservatives to whom I write.

(As always, you should be reading Scott H. Payne for insight on these matters.)

Obligatory Copenhagen Post

Having not authored a post in a while, I figured I would rise today and wax polemic about Copenhagen, the massive  conference at which our government and all enviro-sinner nations, i.e. the West — of which Canada with its oilsands is the worst, we are told — will be compelled to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by set proportions regardless of the detrimental, yea disastrous, effects it might have on our economies, while also promising to transfer even more wealth from the ingenious companies and hard-working citizens of this nation via taxation to the governments and companies of poorer nations so they can combat “climate change” without hurting their economies.

Vox Day rightly argues that this is historically, scientifically, economically and politically insane.

It is historically insane because we know the planet was more than two degrees warmer as recently as 500 years ago. It is scientifically insane because we know beyond any shadow of a doubt that the world is not warming according to any of the predictions based on models which are based on the idea that higher carbon dioxide levels produce higher temperatures. It is economically insane because it strengthens the contractionary forces that are already in the process of plunging the world into the greatest depression of the modern era. It is politically insane because it reverses more than 300 years of advancing human liberty and democracy.

Adding to the insanity is the specter of “approved” middlemen, a global governance structure, managing the transfer of wealth and enforcing environmental targets.  The rank hypocrisy on display at Copenhagen leads one to believe the scams resulting from global emissions management, some of which have already started to unfold in Europe, would make the UN Oil-for-Food scandal look like petty theft.

The first impression one receives of the summit is the sheer hypocrisy of it. Here are green campaigners who damn the rest of us for the size of our “carbon footprints” and challenge us each to reduce our carbon output by one tonne per year. Yet they themselves are flying in using a squadron of private jets, hiring a fleet of limousines and gorging themselves on expensive food flown in from around the world.

In all of Denmark, there are only a few of dozen limousines for hire. So more than 1,000 of the gas-guzzling, carbon-belching behemoths have been driven to Copenhagen from Sweden, Germany, the Netherlands and France. Since, at most, 140 heads of state and heads of government will attend the week-long conference, the bulk of these land yachts are being delivered for use by United Nations officials, the heads of environmental organizations and celebrities. All these people preach environmental sustainability for others, yet do not practice it themselves.

Digressing a bit, I suspect the governing “Conservatives” are thinking long and hard about their play at Copenhagen given their stronghold in Western Canada, oil country.  I’ve no doubt they’ve been inundated with queries and demands from the grassroots in light of the CRU leak, and I suspect they will take a beating on the hustings and in the pocketbook should they capitulate to the anti-freedom forces in Copenhagen and/or align Canada in any way with a carbon trading scheme.  If the CPC has any hope of forming a majority government, they’d best steer clear of these local landmines.

Back to Copenhagen, which, of course, is merely step one in the twisted world of enviro-fascism.  Oh, you didn’t hear?  Yes, the AGW prophet, Al Gore, served notice that the bar has already been raised.

Even if a deal is reached at the UN climate change talks in Copenhagen next week it will only be the first step towards the far more radical cuts that are needed in global carbon emissions, Al Gore, the former US Vice-President, told The Times last night….

He insisted that the present goal set for Copenhagen of stabilising world emissions of carbon dioxide at or below 450 parts per million — enough to prevent a rise in average global temperatures of no more than 2C — was insufficient and a safer target would be 350 parts per million.

“Insufficient.”  A fitting conclusion to an obligatory post about Copenhagen, for it reminds us that no matter what we do it will never be enough for the enviro-fascist leftards seeking to destroy Capitalism and Western freedom.  It reminds us that environmental policy has a fascist chassis and a socialist economic engine.  It reminds us that Copenhagen and all such global management endeavours are fundamentally about the transfer of power from the individual to the State.  It reminds us that freedom is being bartered under the guise of “being green.”  It reminds us to punish the CPC if they buckle.

Update 8 PM EST: Ice core context.  An absolute must see.  (Hat tip SDA.)  As has been mentioned previously, the issue is not whether we are currently in a warming period. It’s whether it is unprecedented and whether the cause is assuredly carbon dioxide and man-made emissions.

Blogs v. The Legacy Media

Occasionally the question comes up as to why I get my news from blogs instead of conventional big media news sources. Blogs are written by amateurs, they’re full of unsourced opinions, they’re poorly edited. Journalists writing for the legacy media are trained professionals following relatively strict codes of conduct, with layers of editing and access to vast amounts of well-sourced information. All true.

For an up-to-the-minute example of why blogs are superior to, for example, big newspapers, look no further than one of the least reputable of my favourite American blogs, Ace of Spades HQ: ClimateGate gets real legs – London Times reports on CRU’s thrown away raw data:

Their data ditching is actually old, high profile coverage of it and its implications, not so old.

Exactly my point. I read about the data loss weeks before the CRU email scandal broke. People relying on the London Times are only reading about this today.

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