Next thing you know, your laptop is confiscated and brought to an off-site location, your data is being distributed to third party, non-government agencies, and they don’t even need to have any suspicion of wrong doing on your part. At all.

But don’t worry, you’ll get your laptop back after “an indefinite amount of time”, and all copies of its contents will be destroyed. All the private entities are allowed to do is keep any and all notes they make of your laptop and anything you have saved on it. That’s not a breach of civil liberties, is it?

Somewhere, Thomas Jefferson is rolling over in his grave.

According to the investigation, Bernier entered Ms. Couillard’s apartment with the documents. He left without them. He didn’t take them out, but the inquiry manages to avoid pointing the finger at Couillard. Also according to the inquiry, Bernier was completely honest throughout this affair. He didn’t know of her biker ties, didn’t know he’d left the documents at her house, and the list goes on.

While this sentence does seem rather strange to be coming from myself, I have to agree with Bob Rae here.

The fact that they didn’t interview Ms. Couillard means that the report is frankly useless.

I can only imagine Bernier’s response when he was informed that an inquiry was going to take place.

You mean I have to undergo an investigation about my actions, done by my friends and colleagues, all of whom have a vested interest in me being found innocent? It’ll be a tough couple of weeks, but I’ll do it. For the children.

President Robert Mugabe threatened a state of emergency if businesses profiteer from the economic crisis, a move that could give him even more sweeping powers to punish his opponents in the event that political power-sharing talks fail.

The real profiteering in this economic crisis comes from the government, the issuer of the currency.

This is beyond horrifying. The Mugabe Solution to control astronomical price inflation — which is a direct result of the government printing and printing worthless money while forcing people to use it — is to:

• change the digits on the bills
• put time limits on how much can be used
• to print more money!

He must believe in magic!

They do not believe in magic. They understand full well the economics of what they are doing and the government is using it to their advantage as much as possible. They are doing what all governments do: print money, hand it out selectively, tax and let the tax-payer pay more through consumer price increases. The outrageous inflation rates are a direct reflection of the outrageous tyranny and parasitism of the Mugabe government. Effectively, the government is forcing wealth away from the poor Zimbabwean towards the pockets of the government.

Get a load of this:

“No financial institution shall impose any fee, commission or other charge whatsoever in respect of the conversion from the old currency system to the new in terms of Subsection (9) or (10),” read the regulations.

A financial institution caught contravening the section would be liable to a fine of up to or exceeding Level 14, the highest level available.

I do not know what a “Level 14″ fine but I notice they are not denominating it in the form of a currency. I wonder why.

Historically, these disastrous hyper-inflationary episodes usually resolve themselves quickly if the printing press stops. My prediction is that once Mugabe is completely paralyzed with his own useless paper — i.e., his thugs are incapable of buying anything — a foreign country will wave a rescue package in front of him and inflation will disappear overnight. Such a rescue package will not come for free, mind you. Zimbabweans will have to concede some level of sovereignty which will likely be condemned as foreign imperialistic control when, in fact, it will all be solely Mugabe’s fault. Unfortunately, the poor Zimbabweans will continue to suffer until that day.

The Justice Department in 2002 told the CIA that its interrogators would be safe from prosecution for violations of anti-torture laws if they believed “in good faith” that harsh techniques used to break prisoners’ will would not cause “prolonged mental harm.”

Maybe they offered crash-courses on “How To Think You Are A Doctor 101″ too.

Sponsored By: Gift Baskets for Men Select or design your own, save money, & impress.

I’ve linked to the image above because I’m getting the impression that many Canadian readers aren’t aware of what it is. Most of you would say that it’s a map of what, at any given time in its 1000 year history, was part of the massive Roman Empire of old. I wouldn’t blame you if you thought that because the resemblance is uncanny. Here’s what the Roman Empire actually held at any given time in its history:

Chop off a bit of modern-day Iraq, add on some of the Baltic and Nordic states and you’ve basically got the same thing.

So enough mystery; what you’re actually looking at in the top picture is the, as of this Sunday past, the new “Union of the Mediterranean”, a political entity which was born of such ridiculous circumstances, only the Eurocrats could’ve come up with it. This new union, which includes every current EU state, along with all but one country which borders the otherwise unimportant body of water is the baby of French President Nicholas Sarkozy, who was inspired to create the otherwise-pointless entity because the Europeans couldn’t decide whether they wanted to let Turkey into their cucumber-counting club or not. The official mandate that Sarkozy sees for the new UM (or MU?) is to promote trade, environmental protection and, eventually, European-type administration over the new conquered territo–err, members of this body that come from north Africa and the Middle East. One might suggest that the Europeans are trying to *civilize* Rome’s long-abandoned off-continent holdings again!

What strikes me as particularly amazing, although not all that surprising in retrospect, is that we now have a political entity that can in actuality become the reincarnation of the Roman Empire again not only in its ability to let western Europe influence and even dictate the domestic policy of other countries, but also in its ability to do so in a sphere of influence almost perfectly mirroring history’s most influential empire. I’m also obligated to point out that, as much as it’ll probably make Atheist dogmatics scream in agony to the contrary, it’s pretty hard to see how this new body couldn’t be capable of becoming the reincarnation of the sixth empire that the Bible says will come about again in the last days to serve as the political vehicle through which the antichrist will rule the world. To put this in perspective, what were the chances that an empire so geographically difficult to conquer on the first go and culturally diverse (see Mid-East Conflict) would become the mold through which a modern-day, diplomatic political territory be created, and in such a perfectly symmetrical way?

Speaking too of the Middle East, it is curious to see how the first meeting of the UM was so focused on reconciling the Palestinians and the Israelis; the National Post’s cover yesterday plastered the proud father-French President smiling as he hugged the Israeli PM and P.A.’s Chairman. I suppose this isn’t the time to bring up the fact that the whole tribulation is started with a peace treaty between Israel and it’s new best friend, antichrist?

I digress on the MU for the time being though. It’s still in its infancy and has yet to make any waves significant enough to reach this side of the Atlantic. It also doesn’t concern me if the usual suspects show up here to say how wrong I can be, no backing evidence or proof in hand as always! This post was more for the crowd that was expecting it sooner or later anyway, but just didn’t know when. It’s a public service message to those people because the MU was so quietly born that hardly any editor took notice…one might even say that it came “like a thief in the night!” Now I just await that talk of inking peace treaty…

1)The Garth — Got the reception that he deserved for the “Screw the West, We’ll Take the Rest” redux. I hope he doesn’t come back to tell us he’s inclusive the next time a homosexual agenda issue comes up, but if he does, it won’t be the first time he’ll be caught directly lying to Canadians. That last note makes his quote from today all the more amusing (emphasis added):

For writing and acting in defence of my country, for opposing those who put self interests before Canada, for the decisions I have made, and the consequences they have yielded, I regret nothing.

Who knew Turner had such self-hatred?

2) Regarding the most recent evolution post, “Tom” has actually posted alleged proof for macroevolution (the effort is appreciated). Two problems though; First, after being told repeatedly by PZ Myers’ fanboys that we’ve had proof for years, this opening statement from Tom’s article doesn’t sound too compatible (emphasis really added!):

A major evolutionary innovation has unfurled right in front of researchers’ eyes. It’s the first time evolution has been caught in the act of making such a rare and complex new trait.

So, before June 9th of this year, would Darwinists have happened to have been acting on some level of faith or is the article, written by a well-respected science publication, just wrong and in need of serious correction? Secondly, I’m happy that the bacteria have discovered some new munchies, but as was brushed upon in the definition of a species argument, can we indicate if these lemon-sucking bacteria are in fact a completely different species from their brethren and not just hungrier?

3) I cannot sit by any longer when it comes to Harris-Decima. The Toronto Star’s resident polling firm (that should tell you a lot about their credibility right there!) has been doing weekly polls recently that indicate a trend in which the Harper Government is now on par with dog food in popularity questions they ask. However, their latest butcher job shows over 60% of Canadians preferring massive carbon taxes if

the rising price of fossil fuels is a reason we must move even more aggressively to reduce our dependence on fossil fuels

.

That’s a big if to be assuming there, and one that even I would agree with, were I actually polled. However, I thought the article the quote appears in was called Canadians want climate action now, poll suggests, not (oh, I don’t know), Canadians want action now to end addiction to high gas prices, addiction to oil, poll suggests. Oh, The Star…

4)Finally, it’s always cute to see the NDP attempt to orchestrate some sort of public backlash via the government. Of course, what will really happen is that NDP will fail but consumers will take care of themselves by canceling phone plans and the sort. The phone carriers might think that their government-mandated cartel creates a highway robbery scenario, but there are still millions of us non-mobile Canadians who make do just fine without cells, and it’ll stay that way until someone approaches us with a reasonable cell phone plan!

SEE ALSO: Joanne indicates she’ll be first blood if the new texting fees come in; looks like you got a winner here guys! Right From Alberta also noticed an interesting point about the NDP’s petition to stop these fees.

As for the latter though, wouldn’t it be interesting if we, for one moment, got truly investigative and turned the tables on the all too comfortable Darwinians who have become yet another group to hijack our education system for their own self-preservation and motives? After all, in the noise of bitter reviews, intimidating threats and exhaustive and bewildered requests to anti-Darwinists to just shut up, I think the evolution debate has failed to examine a key component: whether the theory of Charles Darwin is truly something worth wasting time on in the science class to begin with. After all, a physicist who learns anything from F=MA to the hydrogen fusion reaction that is continually taking place at the centre of our sun to even string theory is able to take that knowledge and apply it to the benefit of mankind in a strictly physical sense. Even if the highly controversial string theory proves to be a dead end, what it would tell us about how elementary particles don’t interact would help us to zone in on other understandings and ultimately give us a better way to understand the very microscopic. In turn, that would allow us to apply our knowledge one day to advancements that might, for example, allow for microscopic computers that write data onto quarks, just as F=MA gave us the first building blocks we needed to put a man on the moon. Chemistry need only need mention of companies like DOW or Pfizer to prove its contribution to our modern society and even a late-comer to quantitative analysis, biology, will soon prove invaluable to an entire generation of baby-boomers who are in the midst of retiring from the workforce currently. In fact, the driving force behind science is not just getting to have a better understanding of the world around us, from the very small to the very large, but also being able to apply that knowledge in some fashion.

When it comes to the necessity to teach Darwinian evolution in a grade 7 classroom, or high school, or even university, what is the purpose? I mean, we can keep clubing each other over the head about how detrimental it is to society for the other side to get a voice in on the debate, but as I noted above, the debate always ends up in the realm of the meta-physical; things pertaining to the existence, or lack thereof, of God! Has evolution allowed us to come up with any great invention or advancement? Is it so essential to our understanding of biology or chemistry that twelve year-olds need to understand it if they are going to pass their high school biology or chemistry courses? Or are we all fooling ourselves here, using findings that more properly belong in the hit-or-miss fields of archeology and social science to indoctrinate young minds with what is practically nothing more than a contemporary, social statement?

The fact is that evolution is still very much stuck in in the past, and will continue to be until it can offer actual testifiable evidence of one species giving way to another over the course of two or more generations. It’s all about the findings in the dirt, the rock layers and the pretty pastel pictures that appear in text books. The funny thing about history is that as it becomes more remote, the possibilities of the imagination grow exponentially. It’s also the truth that if evolution was so essential for our children to learn, I should have never graduated from university, nor anyone else who currently walks to Earth and believes that evolution deserves a more skeptical analysis, since the understanding of that knowledge should have been essential in understanding everything from RNA-DNA reactions to the immune system. Evolution should have to be to biology what F=MA is to physics if the official story is to be believed, wherein a student that fails to acknowledge the very foundations cannot comprehend or excel while studying the more advanced topics.

So as Expelled comes out this weekend in a fraction of the theatres it did in the US back in April, you’ll probably see a few fireworks fly as the Darwinians campaign to remain the only kid on the block. What the movie will continue to do though is extend a debate that has lasted for over 150 years and certainly isn’t going away; a debate where a lot of questions could be and should be asked. Ultimately, the most dangerous of those question for Darwinians isn’t “Can you prove it?”, although they certainly hate that one. Rather, if they want to spend valuable class time teaching my son or daughter about their great theory about nothing, the worst thing they could hear back from my kid is “So what?” The runner up might sound something like “Why are you so concerned about us hearing from the competition?”

Sponsored By: Gift Baskets for Men Select or design your own, save money, & impress.

This is all over the French language news but not a word among English Canada. Maybe Anglophones are bored of this story or maybe they are too prudish? Who knows?

UPDATED: (June24th, 2008 — 9:30AM)
I have not been able to find any written online support of this but the radio broadcast says that these brothels serviced businessmen, diplomats and politicians.

Sponsored By: Gift Baskets for Men Select or design your own, save money, & impress.

A long time ago in Vancouver, the earth was green.  Except before that, it was denuded at the turn of the century by logging companies - which is why 90% of the massive “old growth” trees in Stanley Park are less than 100 years old, and the forested mountains the give our fair city it’s emerald wreath are all “second growth” which isn’t supposed to happen according to the enviro-mentalists.

But I digress.

In those halcyon days, the evil supermarkets used these harbingers of the apocalypse: the brown paper bag to hold groceries.

Of course, the righteous ecological denizens of Vancouver rallied to fight this plague.  Our groceries were decimating the forests!  The owls, the bears!  They would have no home because of our evil bags!

Enter the plastic bag.  Ah, these little marvels cost us nothing, and they could be recycled into all manner of useful things, like fleece vests and children’s playground equipment!

But sadly, people couldn’t be bothered to recycle.  They used them as trash bags instead of stockpiling them and handing them into the local recycler.  Hence, off to the dreaded landfill, to fill up our world with non-bio-degradeable petrochemically based waste!

Now a new solution arises: the reusable cotton bags!  Now we have to worry about washing our bags, and now we have to pay for our garbage bags - plastic is still going to the landfill with every trash run, but now we can feel better about ourselves as we shop… and pack our own bags… and worry if they are dirty or not… and pay more for both them and for the garbage bags we have to use anyways…

Never mind the otherwise arable land that could be used for foodstuffs instead of growing cotton…

But I digress.

But this history is not just about groceries.  Now the history affects not just the buying of plants, but the discarding of plants.

We used to just load up our trucks, drive out to the sticks, and dump our grass clippings alongside of the road in the ditch.  Same went for sticks, weeds, etc.  We thought it was good - the green waste would just be absorbed by the forest or dirt, naturally compost back into the ground.

But no, in the big city, that is far too messy.  They started fining people for “dumping” leaves twigs and grass in amongst the naturally occurring leaves, twigs and grass.  Then they sent around “green waste” trucks and charging us for the convenience.  They demanded that we put the “green waste” in clear plastic bags.

Now, it seemed silly to put stuff that will ultimately pass into the soil in non-recyclable bags, but we did so because the pickup guys said they had to “see” that we weren’t stashing garbage in with the green waste.

Now however, the environmentalists have finally gotten wind of the evils of plastic bags.  “Cease and desist!  Evil clear petrochemicals!”  Now we must use…

Yes!  The paper bag!  Because they are bio-degradeable!  Where they used to be free at the grocery store, it’s now 5 for $3!

Funny thing is, with the old clear bags, they never cared how much I put in them.  I could stuff them as full as I want.  But now in this brave new world of paper bags and labelled receptacles, I have twice been denied pickup because it was “too heavy”.

With grass clippings.

And the forests will still be chopped down, mercilessly.

And we have to pay.  And pay.  And pay.  And pay.  And pay.

Sponsored By: Gift Baskets for Men Select or design your own, save money, & impress.

At a news conference, Mr. Tsvangirai, who leads the opposition Movement for Democratic Change, or M.D.C., said he was unwilling to ask the party’s supporters to go to the polls on Friday “when that vote will cost them their lives.”

Giving up their lives just to go through the motions of an election would be a foolish sacrifice. No matter what the result of the election, a peaceful transfer of power would never take place.

Sponsored By: Gift Baskets for Men Select or design your own, save money, & impress.

Officials have called the matter to the attention of U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) headquarters in Washington, urging it to prevent any repetition of the incident.

As far as the state is concerned, the main difference solely seems to be administrative:

It is illegal in Virginia for a social worker to sign a parental consent form for an abortion.

The morality of the actions do not seem relevant.

Nobody can possibly know the motives of the people who facilitated this girl’s abortion. All we can do is respond to their actions which, in my opinion, sabotage the Church. I find this whole thing to be demonically appalling and my rage is directed at Catholics. Any and all of the Catholics who knowingly facilitated this horror should be publicly shamed.

I want to re-iterated my recommendation that the Church should stop any partnerships with the state.

Sponsored By: Gift Baskets for Men Select or design your own, save money, & impress.

The Competition Bureau devotes considerable resources to investigating allegations that competitors have engaged in price-fixing, also referred to as cartel activity.

Cartels are not stable. For any hypothetical cartel, each member can always profit by cheating, under-cutting and breaking the cartel. It makes no sense to think they can be a real threat to the consumer for any considerable length of time. Furthermore, there is nothing morally wrong with one retailer calling to find out the price of a competitor particularly when the goal is to under-cut his price. Just placing a telephone call is not proof that collusion occurred to raise prices. I have not found transcripts anywhere on the Bureau’s website or elsewhere on the internet. If somebody can direct me, I would be much obliged.

Blaming rising prices on cartels is too easy and getting governments to intervene can be foolhardy. In fact, government threats and interventions may contribute to anti-competitive behavior in the market and make things worse for the consumer. The Bureau offers immunity to retailers who participate in the investigations — that can actually subvert competition in the market by pitting one retailer against an other. To illustrate, an evil-retailer can instigate the formation of a cartel and rope his unsuspecting competitors into a trap. Once the cartel is rolling, the evil-retailer gets immunity after informing the bureau of a cartel in his local market.

So, at the end of the day, if one of these alleged cartel gas stations in Quebec goes out of business as a result of these penalties, I doubt the consumer will be better off — but his competitors will certainly be happy. Will the taxes spent in this investigation be a worthwhile investment? I doubt it.

Sponsored By: Gift Baskets for Men Select or design your own, save money, & impress.

Crash! Five years ago today, gay marriage became the law of the province – and, I note, no sky has fallen yet, has it? Nope. The Dominion remains strong. Nice piece by Martha here – but it would have been nicer if she had mentioned our mutual former home that largely financed the litigation: McMillan BInch

,

but he obviously didn’t look too hard since the very debate on the issue was enough for a government institution to convict a preacher of thought crimes. Alas, there is that small polygamy matter that Kinsella’s buddy Dalton is letting slide under the rug despite the law as well — and guess what precedent the Muslims are using? (first one to post the answer in the comments wins a prize!*) But ya Warren, if you mean that Church Street hasn’t transformed into Michael Jackson’s Neverland Ranch, then I guess you could say that calling the marriage apple just a plain old fruit (thus, making it less offensive and restrictive) did nothing to our poor old Dominion. Unfortunately for Warren though, life isn’t a political campaign, so he can’t attack ad his opinion into reality.

*-like Warren’s definition of “Catholic”, or “Christian”, terms are subject to change. See store for details.

Sponsored By: Gift Baskets for Men Select or design your own, save money, & impress.

The very fact that this site is designed for children makes what would be an outrageous site even worse, especially when you consider that your carbon-fattened pig explodes into a pile of blood at the end of the quiz(see image). It is also the latest evidence that the movement spearheading the climate change cause simply does not value human life and in fact sees each human as a virus leeching off the planet’s life source.

When you throw in the comments by a Elizabeth May confidante earlier this year that it would’ve been less tragic for seal hunters in Newfoundland to die and another story from Australia that I reported on earlier this year in which a doctor down under wants to tax families for every precious child they bring into the world, a clear pattern starts to emerge among those for whom the Earth is of chief importance. I don’t suppose that the original claim by environmentalists that we had to protect the planet for future generations of children holds much water anymore as they either want to tax said children out of existence or blow up the ones that slip through anyway when they reach age 8. Let’s just hope for everyone involved at the ABC that no child decides to be a good little trooper and take one for the Earth!

(welcome Newswatch readers!)

Sponsored By: Gift Baskets for Men Select or design your own, save money, & impress.

Sponsored By: Gift Baskets for Men Select or design your own, save money, & impress.

First, to understand the blatant hypocrasy and moral inconsistency (or “intellectual dishonesty”, as our seculatarian friends like to say) of the YFS, you need not read the pages of the National Post, Michael Coren’s column, or the Blogging Tories; just head on over to the Federation’s website, where a big red button titled “Denial of Free Speech at McMaster” which links to this — a letter attacking McMaster for banning “Israel Apartheid Week”. That’s right, the YFS which is making national headlines this month for trying to oppress diverse views on its campus, was the same group that was also making headlines back in March for vigorously defending a campaign that wasn’t just about free speech but was also known for a history of violence and harassment of an prominent ethnic group on campus.

This inconsistency might go a long way to explain why, in the months and years ahead, when Canada starts to examine whether a primitive primate can “argue” for human rights, the YFS will probably be there, strongly backing the cause and at the same time oppressing groups which speak out for unborn humans which can also not speak in a court of law but can, unlike chimps, meet the biological argument for species validation in that all non-genetically defective fetuses have the capability of breeding with humans and producing sustainable, fruitful offspring. Save the primates, scourge the people, as it were. Don’t expect facts to get in the way of York’s student leaders or their cheerleaders on The Left as the entire abortion argument for them has long been one about passion and emotion, but not much beyond the principle that guilt-free sexual incidents should be an absolute right that trumps all others.

Their argument, founded around the reality that men can walk away from affairs without the risk of pregnancy while women cannot, betrays this in that their natural conclusion is that women should have the freedoms that men do in this regard, instead of examining whether men should have the responsibilities that women do for a pregnancy instead. Nor does the rights and realities of the growing child become a discussion point during this whole debate either. Wouldn’t you expect more from scholars, charged with examining all aspects of the issue at hand?

Update:Steyn’s insight into the future of abortion, and a small tip ‘o’ hat to the York affair…

Sponsored By: Gift Baskets for Men Select or design your own, save money, & impress.

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!

Sponsored By: Gift Baskets for Men Select or design your own, save money, & impress.

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

Sponsored By: Gift Baskets for Men Select or design your own, save money, & impress.

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.”

Sponsored By: Gift Baskets for Men Select or design your own, save money, & impress.

Yes, it is theoretically possible that a government could calculate the possible revenue generated by a new tax, and reduce other taxes to balance the budget.

But, I do not know of this EVER happening in Canada.  Government always miscalculates and apologizes later.  The reason is that it is expedient to lie to get your way, if your only cost is to apologize after.  It is always easier to get your way then apologize later than it is to suffer the ignominy of not getting your way, even if you were wrong.

Every tax increase ever introduced in Canada has been accompanied by the promise that it will be “revenue-neutral”.  It has never been true.

I defy anyone to prove any assertion of this post wrong.

If there is any way forward, it is the passing first of legislation that forces government to dedicate revenue from certain taxes to certain services.  This needs to be done for every tax in existence on the books.  It is only with accountability for income and expense that this promise can be seriously meant… and kept.

If this was done, then the government may actually become accountable to the people.  But we know that nobody in government wants that.

Sponsored By: Gift Baskets for Men Select or design your own, save money, & impress.

It’s not the concept of rights that conservatives like myself hate; in fact, the United States — a country many of us neo-cons look to favorably — had natural rights embedded in its system far earlier in that country’s history. Rather, what bothers us the most with our rights is that they are so ambiguous and mailable; so much to the point that the courts could actually use the wording of the Charter’s introduction to justify locking up all Italian-Canadians…or rule just about any other reality into being just by a pronouncement. What good are rights if you can’t be certain that they won’t be written out of the Constitution 20 years from now when social culture shifts a tad, or, as today’s ruling demonstrates, the justice system we all depend on for stability is no longer in vogue over on the real estate west of Parliament Hill?

The credibility of today’s ruling isn’t also helped by the strong dissenting opinion of four of the court’s nine sovereigns. Strong language was used by Justice Rothstein in writing on the dissenting opinion, giving hope that this ruling could be overturned with a modest change in the line-up of court judges. Again, even the most partisan individual has to acknowledge that possibility and by extension, that rights are only as good as the ideologues in high courts who defend them!

Unfortunately, any change that may come down the road won’t come soon enough for the victims of violent crimes, or their families, who go on to see their perpetrators go on to receive a Happy Meal sentence, even when the crimes they commit are anything but a “diminished moral blameworthiness” act, as the court would have you believe!

Sponsored By: Gift Baskets for Men Select or design your own, save money, & impress.

As a Christian, I won’t ever own the game and highly doubt whether I’ll ever play a friend’s copy, although GTA IV did strike up some curiosity last week when speaking to one of my gaming friends who holds no allegiances to God but is pretty observant. He mentioned that the game, with fancy next-gen graphics and a deeper, longer story was different than its predecessors since, in this new, more detailed version, the wounds you inflicted were actually graphic and not fuzzy, pixilated renditions; the game code was more realistic so that people didn’t just keel over and die but actually begged for their lives, cried out in agony and added a sense of victimhood that never existed before; and the game was more open-box (a challenge given the freedom this game gave you before) where as the anti-hero, you are now charged with making moral decisions as you go about your life of crime and immorality.

Yesterday, while visiting another friend, I got a chance to see the game in action by watching a mission through which the hero, Neco, was sent to kill the biker-boyfriend of the mob boss’s daughter. The mob boss, my other friend observed while we were chatting, was messed up — there was a strong correlation between his drug habits and the deteriorating relationships he had with friends, family and *business colleagues*. Later on, during online mode, the game spit out “player 1 2nd amendmented player 2″ after the former shot and killed the latter in an airport. It seemed to me like the rumours of hidden messages in this game were true, even to the point where I now wouldn’t be surprised if I was told that Nico could get STDs from some of his dating activities that take place in the game (and which caused the infamous “Hot Coffee” affair in the last GTA game). Could it be that publisher Rockstar games is actually trying to explain to young and impressionable gamers that bad choices in life have consequences?

While it’s still a little premature to say, it might also be suggested that just by striving to give gamers that more realistic experience — right down to going to a bar to play pool — Rockstar is inadvertently making its games so life-like that the ugly side of crime, promiscuity and general ungodliness are all seeping out of the woodwork. If it is this intense, the publisher of GTA IV might have also found a way to reach out to a demographic law enforcement, governments and churches have struggled decades to make contact with. Ironically, Rockstar’s realism might just have the unintended consequences of making the acronym GTA a cultural fossil, given enough upgrades to gaming hardware.

Sponsored By: Gift Baskets for Men Select or design your own, save money, & impress.

Rae was angered by the generalization for which he says he sees no basis in fact.

-Toronto Star, Saturday May 10, 2008

That quote, and that link, refer to a story by Toronto Star reporter Tonda MacCharles today that suggests that Prime Minister Harper is wrongfully smearing the opposition with an anti-semitic brush. Rae’s charge is quite simply not true, which isn’t shocking to Ontarians who remember his expert opinions on the affairs of government nearly 20 years ago. However, Tonda MacCharles, a journalist, is not presenting a full picture of the situation in her write up and all it takes is a quick Google search to prove it. That’s right! Three MPs, including Bloc MP Giles Duceppe and Montreal Liberal Dennis Coderre marched alongside Hezbollah flags in downtown Montreal back in the summer of 2006 when the Israeli-Lebanon strike was going on those two years ago. The three MPs never publicly denounced their actions and as public representatives, ignored the due diligence that they are expected to practice as such office holders.

That is because Hezbollah is a radical and dangerous group that wants nothing more than they physical obliteration of Israel and all Jews in the world. That’s the sort of allies that the three MPs above-mentioned had on that summer day two years ago and that is why the Prime Minister is accurate in asserting

Canada, under this government, is never going to cater to that kind of opinion. You know, I am disturbed that there are some elements in our political system; there are even some members of Parliament – we saw during a confrontation between Israel and Hezbollah a couple of years back – some that were willing to cater to that kind of opinion.*

So in other words, the Montreal rally was exactly what the Prime Minister was referring to, lest the opposition now suggest that his “blanket statement” could imply other anti-semitic occasions that opposition members indulged in (a Freudian slip, if it comes?). It will come too though as the Montreal event was pretty cut and dry, something that even the most hardened partisan should see if they simply put the shoe on the other foot and tried to imagine Conservatives marching alongside someone holding a “God hates fags” sign…hey, even having an MP holding hands with somebody down the street would even be fair game I guess!

So are the Liberal and Bloc caucuses full of raving “drive ‘em into the sea” anti-semites? Hardly. Are their numbers, however, including those who give legitimacy to an organization that deserves to be destroyed and at the same time associating themselves with a toxic philosophy that the civilized world should not entertain? Absolutely!

*-emphasis added

Sponsored By: Gift Baskets for Men Select or design your own, save money, & impress.

In California the Salvation Army was forced to close down several inner city missions because officials refused to sign a document approving of homosexuality. The destitute suffered terribly as a consequence. In Britain the Roman Catholic church similarly was obliged to shut the doors of its adoption agency.

Aside from also speaking about our government-imposed unhealthy relationship between employees and employers, Coren got me thinking by phrasing the incident that sparked this whole thing in the way he did:

One employee announced to colleagues that she was a lesbian and began discussing her sexuality. Eventually she was let go. She complained to the Human Rights Commission, which fined Christian Horizons and demanded the change. Demanded, in fact, that they not be Christian.

I hadn’t considered it until reading Coren’s column, but what if we flipped this around and an employee started sharing their Christian faith with colleagues? I doubt it would end up before a HRC. And even if we buy into the secularist axiom that homosexuals are born wired to be homophilic (one that, like all such axioms on fetal tissue, the origins of life and the universe, and climate change conveniently lacks that indisputable proof that axioms usually come with), can the state successfully argue that a believing Christian isn’t just as equally inseparable from their faith and what it makes him or her? Think of the parallels: some people in churches leave to join other religions, and some homosexuals realize they just aren’t homosexuals any longer; both groups claim that their respective affiliations colour everything they do; and both groups have their affiliations protected under the current legal community’s consensus.

It’s an interesting situation: one where a group tasked with going out into all the world to spread their Good News has their constitutionally recognized right to do so repressed, while another had beneficial rights literally penciled into the highest document of the land is allowed to ignore the acronym every employee should know: NSFW (Not Safe For Work). It wasn’t the lesbian woman’s decision to become a lesbian that got her fired, it was her insistence on preaching the news to the rest of her co-workers that did. Curious that, when any Christian who pulled a similar stunt would be out by 3pm, box of belongings in hand. To use Coren’s wording, a sane nation would actually follow it’s own laws and both groups would be able to share away but that would also presume that groups like HRCs would be under the law too, now wouldn’t it?

Sponsored By: Gift Baskets for Men Select or design your own, save money, & impress.

If you scroll through the article (and just a warning, there is vulgarity used), you’ll find that he doesn’t mince words when talking about how the actual abortion procedure “killed” the unborn child or how he doesn’t skim over the details of his then-girlfriend’s painful day in a London hospital executing her control over her own bodily functions. In fact, I figure that if Emery’s piece were published in something like, say, the Toronto Star or the Globe, there’d be letters of protest screaming about not needing to know the ugly science behind abortion so long as it works — ignorance is bliss to the nth degree.

Of course, I think Emery is closer to the heart of the abortion issue than he knows when he questions whether sending literally hundreds of thousands of men and women to prison for murder (a scenario that would have to occur if we pursued every woman who had an abortion and every husband/boyfriend/fling who was an accessory); it’s true that if we did that we would have an amazingly guilty society. However, while I respect and understand where Emery is coming from on this one (he is, after all, the man who wants to overcome narcotics laws by viral marketing), I doubt our society would be nearly as nice if we didn’t pursue a society just as infiltrated with thieves; there is a reason we have justice systems in civilized societies.

Furthermore Emery’s admission that something died in the womb of his girlfriend 20 weeks after it came to be there is revealing in itself and a mature observation that many today are simply not capable of making. It is, for me, the thing Emery writes that is only trumped in significance by the bit Emery writes on having to name his dead child Ben.

When I read that part, I honestly got thinking and I wonder just how many abortions would go through in Canada if we made the mother give her “collection of cells” a name before the little bundle is escorted out of her. I don’t think that it will stop more abortions because people feel it is wrong, but rather because those who would find the simple act too much to bear wouldn’t be convinced that it was undoubtedly right. And that, my friends, makes the notion all the more significant when we realize that choices are the domain of adults, and not children who want to play grown-up.

Sponsored By: Gift Baskets for Men Select or design your own, save money, & impress.

Oh, and just regarding the actual laws surrounding this whole issue, Andrew had it covered last week.

Sponsored By: Gift Baskets for Men Select or design your own, save money, & impress.

So when it comes to the case of Waterloo region’s Christian Horizons, the first thing that we should keep in mind is that the government came to them first, not the other way around. If the government didn’t like the way that the outwardly Christian organization did business, or specifically how it hired it’s employees, it shouldn’t have agreed to whatever contracts were set up with CH — after all, with a name like Christian Horizons, it’s not like they were hiding a secret agenda or anything! Now we can debate on whether the government has any business funding any philosophically or ethically-biased group (it’s certainly hard not to, and even liberal atheism has certainly gotten its share through causes like the Court Challenges Programme), but we have to start here with the understanding that the government of the day entered into a deal with CH knowing, or responsible for knowing full well that the organization was guided by divine principles; in the private sector, if you partner up with another company and then expect a change, not only do you become a laughing stalk but chances are you’ll also see your business deteriorate soon afterwards. What the crowd who cites CH’s government funding are trying to do is bad business and bad manners, period.

Next, as far as employment laws are concerned, I have to admit that it’s no surprise that John Tory has once again demonstrated that his lust to win seats in Toronto trumps all common sense and principle, not to mention the desire to hang onto that rural rump that his party currently possesses in the legislature. If a company decides to abide under Charter-protected freedoms of religion as it conducts its business, what right does the state have to come in and impose its own morality. If what the company does is bad practice, won’t its reputation get around and the court of public opinion weed out any unwarranted behaviours? Who would want to buy from a reseller who refuses to hire women when they know full-well that a boycott could be right around the corner? Likewise, we expect Christian organizations, Muslim centres and urbane companies to all hire and work according to what their respective entities stand for. If the public tolerates it through their business practices, so what? Or are we actually, finally brave enough to admit that this is just an attempt to impose state-sanctioned atheist secularism into every aspect of society? I didn’t think so.

Much of this will matter very little though as we will once again see a rip-roaring battle ensue where the God-haters and religiophobes of our society once again rise us to defend a separation of church and state concept they barely understand and always reinvent to suite the flavour of the day. Nowhere will be hear of the 500+ years of jurisprudence that has allowed Christian organizations to serve the public good over that period of time and gave Canada, in particular, such bedrock foundations as the Sisters of St. Joseph, the YMCA or Christian Horizions — all of which have, by a desire to serve a higher calling, given us cheaper, wholesome and quality social services than we would’ve had if we just had the state do it all itself from the beginning. Certainly there will not be a mention of that. Of course, once the crusading secularists have weeded out every vestige of Christian presence in our society, who will be left to do all the things that government is too incompetent to do properly and the rest of us are too selfish to do willingly?

Sponsored By: Gift Baskets for Men Select or design your own, save money, & impress.

While the reasons for the union, essentially a private organization unaccountable to voters, to reject such a honey of deal remains unclear at this time, it might be time to eulogize this sort of hostage-victim relationship that the transit workers have enjoyed with the city over the last few decades since it’ll never be sweeter than this again. Combined with an illegal strike in 2006, today’s sudden cancellation of service will likely mark a turn in already sour public temperament after the aforementioned week of learning from the media just how much they had to empty the cupboard this time to appease the already well-compensated workers. As a general rule, you don’t come back to the kid you just stole lunch money again for another sucker punch indulgence. That’s exactly what the TTC has done here, prompting both Comrade Miller and a formerly reluctant Dalton McGuinty to reach a deal legislating back-to-work orders, on top of considering a further provision making the TTC essential service. If that last part is successful (and it should be since paying our taxes to public unions is also an essential service), the TTC will have lost most of the ridiculous bargaining powers it used to hold the 2 million-plus city at bay. The threats of literally shutting down the city will evaporate over night and Toronto might actually be able to keep new contract raises under the rate of inflation.

If, on the other hand, the TTC fights back and takes a page from the teachers unions’ during the Bill Davis years in the 1970s, we’ll enter into an ugly, painful, but necessary stage where the public’s outrage with an out of control union will flare up so quickly that we might actually begin to see private transportation grow to a significant level of business. Fleets of shuttle cars, taxis and other creative means of moving people would remove any necessity for the TTC, which would be relegated to a poor cousin dependent on government honey for survival, and much akin to the CBC today. We might see a Mike Harris-type Premier come along and ask why the TTC’s subway service just couldn’t be privatized like the 407 was nine years ago, since commuters already pay for the TTC as it is.

In short, the TTC is about to be de-clawed, and if it shows any teeth because of the procedure, it might find itself further surgically altered. The TTC’s literally putting all it’s stakes on the line today though. Enjoy the nice Saturday weather and smugness today though, for tomorrow you find out that you’ll get more than you bargained for!

UPDATE: Views from Joanne and Tony, with more to follow I’m sure!

Sponsored By: Gift Baskets for Men Select or design your own, save money, & impress.

“It’s objectionable and deplorable that this government would not want to know why an innocent person could be convicted in the first place, would not want to know why it would take so long for that person to be cleared by a process in which the Crown tenders no evidence whatsoever.”

Kormos is right.

What the hell is going on? We should not employ prosecutors to take non-cases to court. Less than a month ago, they went into jury selection. This did not have to go to court. Tax-payer’s money did not have to be spent to have a prosecutor go to court just to say they have no evidence. I think the judge should have penalized the prosecution for wasting everybody’s time and money. It really is insulting. Maybe the take-home message is that the prosecution is not to be trusted.

Does John Baltovich deserve compensation? Yes but remember: any sort of public compensation just makes the tax-payer pay — again. This is an abuse of public office. Somebody should lose a job over this.

I wish I could spend my employer’s time telling him that at the end of the day, there is no work for me to do and still collect a pay cheque!

Sponsored By: Gift Baskets for Men Select or design your own, save money, & impress.

Today’s events have given me that something, as a couple of friends and I hopped in my car and spent the day (fittingly “Earth Day”) traveling 2.5 hours to Buffalo to see the movie because the powers that be here in Canada feel us Canucks are too fragile to be introduced to dangerous, untested ideas that aren’t directly from former Democratic VPs or Michael Moore. It was a fine day with pristine weather, and as much as Buffalo isn’t exactly the Emerald City, it also has a certain charm for me dating back to frequent trips with my grandparents during the Reagan/Bush Sr. eras. Plus, entering the States, you feel that while people aren’t as polished, but they (be they Democrats or Republicans) are more sincere and rooted in their national values.

Regarding the Expelled movie, I start off with what I was going to suggest earlier this week had a post actually emerged: it is not about destroying evolution nor was that the purpose (see the video clip for more verification). Instead, the Darwinists, who are so scared about what this movie could do in the court of public opinion that they even attack a small-fry blogger in Ontario for merely showing interest in this movie, have failed to address the question this movie raise on why scientists (those with PhDs and impressive resumes) who discuss Intelligent Design are ostracized. Science is man’s study of nature and being a human construct is prone to faulty theories and conclusions; just as the ancients observed the universe revolving around the Earth, or the enlightenment folks developed sophisticated alchemy charts to explain compounds, so too have many scientists throughout many centuries observed, but come to the wrong conclusions because of their perspectives. Even Einstein’s speed of light barrier is now being treated as a special case these days and that mathematically-postulated equation was only invented within the last century. From a political perspective, I have to warn the Darwinian forces that continuing to ignore the argument that Expelled makes only risks their side’s own peril. Doing so only reinforces the statement Ben Stein has made that Darwinian scientists are not interested in the continuous defence of their conclusions that has been and should be inherent to the work of science.

Next, on the appearances in the movie, I noticed a striking difference between PZ Myers and his buddy, Richard Dawkins. Myers, who in the movie gushes about the day when God is marginalized in our society despite the recognition of North America’s founding fathers (not to mention even the UN’s approval…) of the freedom of religious beliefs (and not just on the weekend PZ!) was far more confident in his opinions, whereas Dawkins, who wrote “The God Delusion” was surprisingly stuttery and uncertain as he spoke. Being a political animal who specializes in electronic media, I did pay careful attention to see when cuts were made in the scene (which could suggest editing and misleading question-answer sets) and at the end of the movie when Dawkins was being interviewed with Stein one-on-one, these cuts did not exist in a way that could’ve edited the detailed answer that Dawkins gave — namely that he could see the possibility of aliens seeding the Earth via some sort of ID that they developed. In other words, Dawkins agreed on camera that ID could have merit…but as long as we’re not including God in the equation. A rather meta-physical assessment for a biology professor to make, yes, but he also failed to explain how the A* I discussed a few weeks ago came into being (remember, nothing + nothing != something!). I would also note that nothing that any of the Darwinists said in the movie, when taken at face value, could be taken out of context; one guy actually suggested that molecules attached themselves to crystals and *poof*, we had life on Earth — you just can’t splice that kind of stuff!

The movie also did deal with the Hitler-Darwin connection, admitting that not every Darwinist will become a Nazi, but suggesting that Darwinism does lend itself nicely to eugenics and the bloodbath that has been many atheistic regimes throughout the 20th century (see current news on China for more details…). Could the Darwinists counter this claim? I don’t know, but that’s only because they haven’t seriously tried yet except to collectively say “nuh-uh”!

Ultimately though, the movie sets up a dangerous potential for those who follow the status quo. If the movie does well and becomes as recognized as Bowling for Columbine did years ago, it will either force the Darwinists to adapt to a new environment wherein they actually offer a credible rebuttal to ID or, poetically, are cast off into the great waste-bin of historical movements no longer among us. This will include a healthy debate with the scientists who openly challenge the doctrine of Darwinian evolution. It will also mean contending with the large number of scientists, teachers and faculty who, though afraid for their careers now, will down the road get the protection of tenure and management, thus bringing a delayed, but more potent threat to Darwinian group-think. Who’ll win in the end? Well, it’s all about the survival of the fittest, right?

Sponsored By: Gift Baskets for Men Select or design your own, save money, & impress.