It was 33-35 degrees every day we were there.  The humidity was ridiculously high.  As a Canadian, I expect when it rains for the temperature to drop a few degrees.  Not in Florida.  It just made you hot and wet.

The only respite was air conditioning.  The sad thing is air conditioning burns lots of energy.  Lots.  And every door was open.  And every ride had the A/C on full blast.  It was a welcome respite to get on a ride.  But I can’t imagine how much energy this place was burning through.

And then there are the rides themselves.  Lots are electrical, but the car ride was a smog generator all by itself - hundreds of little lawnmower engines running continuously all day long, spewing fossil fuels into the air right next to Toontown.  What kind of sadistic child-hater pumps pollution into the air where little children are hugging Mickey and Donald?

I don’t see it possible that this place can make money without air conditioning.  And if Algore gets his way, energy costs will make this place unfeasible and soon.  Enjoy it while you can.

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?”

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Witness:  Venezuela

Witness: South Africa
The Death of Johannesburg picture blogs. Note the before and after photos especially. 1980’s: Joubert Park

Today: Joubert Park

There are places that are getting more civilized and technological. I should be grateful for those. But it is the loss of civilization that really gets me down.

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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.

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His comments are highly informative to the debate actually.  Some commenters of like mind express their disdain for reproductive outcomes (though they clearly enjoy the process).  It was interesting to read a couple of commenters point out a drawback to pursuing permanent birth control may be an increased likelihood of decreased pleasure - both in the case of the removal of a uterus and in the tying of the vas.

It is common in North American culture to see only the net expense of children, but it shouldn’t be surprising.  Considering only the immediate ramifications of anything is a major downfall of our collective thinking, and is certain to bring about the downfall of our civilization.  Most of the best arguments against the childlessness position are based upon the long term consequences of such decisions.  I will concede that Captain Capitalism’s numbers on the TCO of children are legitimate.  However, there are major rational arguments for childbearing, despite the cost.

Demographics

Steyn makes the point: since we’ve turned to immigration to keep our populations trending upward, we are dealing with higher and higher assimilation costs as the places in the world that have excess populations are more and more foreign to the western style of life.  We are also facing the consequences of cultures and religions that in some cases actively work against the organization of our western free state.  If we don’t have kids, in a few decades our countries will be transformed into states much like where the immigrants are coming from.  It’s not fearmongering - it is just a statement of fact.  We are spending so much time telling people to not change that sooner or later, we will be the ones to change.

A nation is made up of citizens.  If the citizens all (or mostly) opt individually not to reproduce, they sentence themselves to planned obsolescence in 50 or so years.

Services

We live in a socialist state.  We have very expensive social programs that are designed to give everyone the benefits of familial support even if we don’t have any.  Because people don’t need families to help them health-wise, retirement-wise, we aren’t having kids.  We are trusting in government to be there to prop us up and nurse us as we sicken, and we trust government to give us what we need to live out our lives after we cease to be as productive.  Yes, I know most people don’t expect government to literally have the money in the retirement plans once we get old (though if they keep up the immigration and those immigrants don’t change the face and aims of our government there still might be CPP in 40 years), but I have news for even those people: even with a fat RRSP portfolio, you are still trusting in your government to be your sustainer.  The government manages your currency - that which gives value to your RRSP’s.  The government manages your economy - that engine that sustains the value of your RRSP’s.  The government manages the peacefulness of your society - that which keeps you alive and unaccosted by those who would take advantage of you.  If the government fails on any of those fronts (as governments are wont to do), then you have nothing.  All you can hope for is that you can somehow maintain a prescience about impending societal change, and can get out before you lose out.

How likely is the government to let you down?  Well, let’s see.  How many nations in the world have been in existence for more than 50 years?  Now, subtract all those which have faced wars on home soil in the last 50 years.  Now, subtract all those who faced massive natural disasters on a national scale.  Now, subtract all those who have faced massive civil unrest in the last 50 years.  Now subtract all those who have faced massive economic upheaval in the last 50 years.  How many are left?  What are the odds of your country bucking the trend for another 50?  What I am saying is that in the event of any of the above, your investments in paper and banks will avail you next to nothing.  Only human capital will be of any worth in any of those situations.

Genetics

From a strict genetic standpoint, not having kids is stupid.  The lowest rates of reproduction are found in the highest earning, highest educated, highest standard of living brackets.  Therefore the smartest, wealthiest people in society - the ones who contribute most to the society - will not be replaced.  Their children, should they have them, have the greatest statistical chance of success and adding to the value of society.  But they are not.

Increasingly, it is the ones who are least disciplined, the ones who make the most rash choices, or the ones who simply don’t get it are the ones who are reproducing.  Promiscuous sex, young, unwed mothers, young men with no sense of responsibility, dropouts, seem to be the childbearers of today more and more.  I am generalizing - obviously I have a bunch of kids, and I don’t fall into any of the previous, but the percentage of people having kids that do fall into those groups continues to climb societally.  It is a problem that gets worse with each generation - if your mother was an unwed teenager, the odds are much greater that you will be an unwed teenage parent.  Where does that take us societally?  See the Services section above - it will either bankrupt the system or send the country into chaos sooner or later.

Loneliness

Number one on my hit list is still emotional.  It was something my grandfather found out when he moved into a mature living community.  Those gated communities that don’t allow anyone under 65 to live there?  Those ones.  After he moved in, we were over for dinner one night and he told me that despite all the programs and activities organized by senior’s groups and even the residence, the most consistent indicator of happiness in advanced years was kids.  Those with none were sad.  Those with were not.  Those with none had nobody in their lives.  They had fewer visitors.  They had nobody to give to.  They had nobody to receive from.  As society is increasingly mobile, people live farther and farther from siblings - and when you get old they all start dying anyway.  Friends are not as consistent because they move closer to their families and away from you.  In the end, you are alone.  And they uniformly wish they had kids when they were younger.

There are exceptions to the rule, but it is ludicrous to base your future on being the exception.  That’s like taking the financial argument and saying, “well, I don’t need kids because I will win the lottery and I won’t need financial support.”  Yes, you might live out the perfect storm of friendships and retain some into your advanced years.  But the vaast majority won’t.  At the same time, a person with kids may screw them up so bad that they all hate his guts and never want to see him or her again when they are old.  But they most likely won’t.  It takes a lot to alienate family.  A lot.

Ultimately, the way I see it, there’s a lot of things I can’t control.  But one thing I can control is how I raise and treat my kids.  If I love them, they will love me.  Then, no matter what comes, whether new taxes, no taxes, revolution, recession, I’ll have them to count on.  When I focus on giving emotionally to someone else, then I ensure I will have more in the future.  There are only two reasons not to have kids: 1) believing you will fail to raise them properly (and I don’t fault you for thinking that if you come from a rough background, but I would encourage you to believe in yourself - love is really easy to learn); and 2) believing that you will have to give up something for your kids.  It is true - you will.  But if your reason for not having kids is self-interest alone, well, that’s just sad.  A penny clung to does not give you more money.  Emotions wrapped up in yourself never make you happier.  Only investing in others, giving of yourself -  reliably leads to true happiness.  And that’s what kids are really all about.

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Days after a major news magazine uncovered a teen pregnancy pact at a Massachusetts high school, parents and school officials struggle to understand the reasons why the girls may have participated in the scheme — and what could have been done to avoid it.

What could be done to avoid it? Well, that depends on who is intervening and when that intervention takes place. From a school nurse’s perspective, I suppose force-feeding contraceptives would probably be the only strategy because clearly these girls wanted to get pregnant.

I have an old-fashioned solution: make girls earn their allowance (cell-phone, movie money, computer privileges, etc.) by baby-sitting their neighbor’s kids. That would be a great preventive measure.

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I’m talking of course (see title) about libertarians, or specifically about what libertarians are considered today. While the term could apply to many distinct schools of political thought, including the one that I subscribe to, the libertarian moniker in 2008 refers to one who is adamant about reducing government spending and intervention in the economy, while also subscribing to the secularist interpretation of human rights. I say this, instead of saying that they are “socially liberal” like libertarians like to describe themselves, because I’ve found that description to be a simple matter of opinion and not a quantifiable statement like one’s opinion on government spending levels can be.

As I said above, I consider myself a libertarian, but one of the Lord Acton (a 19th century Catholic and noble) brand, not of the modern rendition. Therefore, it’s fairly safe to say that I typically agree with most modern (secular) libertarians and find their reasoning to be typically sound on fiscal matters. I’ve spoken and debated with many over the years and have observed their frustration at many on The Left who like to believe that the economy is a macro-sized golden goose which you can feed government dollars and have it produce a “just society”. Many have lamented just how emotionally-based liberal arguments are and how they don’t hold up to the real world realities or mathematical proofs that we now know.

As such, it might come as a shock, but I find that libertarians too easily fall into the irrational and overtly emotional impulses of their liberal friends when it comes to the topics of drugs, abortion, marriage and the family’s role in society. In essence, I believe that modern libertarians have to answer a very difficult question which is why they tend to be onside with the likes of the NDP when it comes to issues like this, despite their dramatic opposition to that party’s attitudes in almost every other policy arena. Put another way, if it that if government endorsement of “gay marriage”, aborting fetus lives and marijuana for all is liberty, how did the NDP arrive at these conclusions and for the same reasons expressed at libertarians. Granted, a broken clock is right twice a day, but simple analogies don’t do justice to over a century of political philosophy development; either socialists and liberals are capable of spearheading liberty as they use national kangaroo courts to squash our speech freedoms, or modern libertarianism has gone astray.

After debating many libertarians, I have come to the conclusion that it is it the latter: when it comes to such issues, libertarians have let their angst for authority cloud their judgment and sense of natural order with emotional impulses, thus letting them arrive at the conclusions they do. Otherwise, why is it so well known that a great majority of self-described libertarians are pro-abortion, instead of pro-life? As I inferred above, if libertarians were naturally and neutrally socially liberal, shouldn’t a sizable minority (at the least) arrive at the conclusion that an unborn fetus’ right to life outweighed a woman’s right to terminate a pregnancy that she played a pretty intimate part in creating? It’s too lopsided to be a simple matter of rights since both sides of the debate have a well-defended right they’re trying to argue in favour of. I hope that one day the libertarians in Canada see this as well, and begin to connect liberalism’s attack on free society with our destructive social policy and not in spite of it!

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However, looking past the obvious we see what is perhaps a more serious issue. While the UN didn’t actually “do” anything in this situation (as per the usual), I think they still might be overstepping their boundaries.

Supporters of the UN are so happy when we go in and tell some little Third World Country what to do. But what happens when it comes home to us?

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However, I don’t doubt that in a city of 4 million people, there may be thousands of people who are willing to pay for that.

The question is, are the people who will buy tickets to an NFL team in Toronto the same people who will buy tickets for a CFL game in Toronto?

The National Post is doing a series on the question of an NFL team in Toronto.  Politicians are weighing in on it as those against the move are looking to find support from politicians to protect “Canadian heritage”, or to protect Canada from a “monopoly”.  I was sent Bob Ackles’ article in the series (it was dated today, but I didn’t see it online so I won’t reprint it) and he is obviously against the move in the interests of preserving his interest in the BC Lions.  He along with many others, believe that if the NFL comes to Toronto it will lead to the death of the CFL.

I think the question I posed at the top is the real one: are the two markets the same?

From a fans standpoint, I don’t think so.  I think given ticket prices that were similar, a good number of people may choose to go to an NFL game, simply from the marketing and hype of the NFL.  However, the prices are not similar.  Toronto Argonauts sell their tickets at between $20 and $80 for single games.  The Seattle Seahawks sell theirs for between $37 and $360.  There is a different clientele that can afford NFL tickets it seems to me.

From a sponsorship standpoint, there may be problems.  Canada’s corporate community isn’t all that big to begin with, since free trade opened up all kinds of big American corporations much freer access to our marketplaces.  The few big ones there are want maximum exposure - and will go anywhere to get it.  Witness the Royal Bank of Canada buying naming rights to the Carolina Hurricanes’ hockey rink!  Why spend a little on CFL sponsorship and get a little exposure when you can buy NFL sponsorship and get exposure in both America and Canada?  I can see where this could cause problems, but is being protectionist the solution?  I don’t know.

What I wonder is whether or not we can look to other sports to test feasibility.  The NHL is the big dog in most of Canada.  All the big corporate sponsors go NHL if they want exposure to hockey fans.  Yet, in recent years we have seen successful Canadian Junior Hockey franchises begin to crop up in NHL markets: The Calgary Hitmen and the Vancouver Giants are the two closest to home for me.  Both of them seem to be thriving, with lower ticket prices making the games more approachable for families and the less wealthy (while NHL ticket prices skyrocket, putting them out of reach of average Joes).  They don’t seem to be lacking in corporate sponsorship and they seem to make all kinds of money.

We shouldn’t kid ourselves: the CFL is a minor league.  There has not been a time in the last 30 years where CFL and NFL teams could even compare with one another skillwise.  Yes, they play different games, but it’s still football, and the best players in the CFL all grew up playing college football at American four-down schools.  The CFL will always be a minor league - Canadians are not willing to pay NFL money to attract NFL talent, and CFL owners do not have the deep pockets required to begin to simply hire players away from the NFL.  So if the question becomes, will the big league kill the minor league?  The answer, as witnessed by AHL, CHL and NHL hockey teams coexisting in many cities, seems to likely no.  It doesn’t have to, but we need to look carefully at how teams like the Giants and the Hitmen successfully markets and positions their clubs for profitability in the face of the big league in town.

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So it is into that context that I thought it could be appropriate for you readers to find out exactly what started all this.

Homosexual Agenda Wicked

The following is not intended for those who are suffering from an unwanted sexual identity crisis. For you, I have understanding, care, compassion and tolerance. I sympathize with you and offer you my love and fellowship. I prayerfully beseech you to seek help, and I assure you that your present enslavement to homosexuality can be remedied. Many outspoken, former homosexuals are free today.

Instead, this is aimed precisely at every individual that in any way supports the homosexual machine that has been mercilessly gaining ground in our society since the 1960s. I cannot pity you any longer and remain inactive. You have caused far too much damage.

My banner has now been raised and war has been declared so as to defend the precious sanctity of our innocent children and youth, that you so eagerly toil, day and night, to consume. With me stand the greatest weapons that you have encountered to date - God and the “Moral Majority.” Know this, we will defeat you, then heal the damage that you have caused. Modern society has become dispassionate to the cause of righteousness. Many people are so apathetic and desensitized today that they cannot even accurately define the term “morality.”

The masses have dug in and continue to excuse their failure to stand against horrendous atrocities such as the aggressive propagation of homo- and bisexuality. Inexcusable justifications such as, “I’m just not sure where the truth lies,” or “If they don’t affect me then I don’t care what they do,” abound from the lips of the quantifiable majority.

Face the facts, it is affecting you. Like it or not, every professing heterosexual is have their future aggressively chopped at the roots.

Edmund Burke’s observation that, “All that is required for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing,” has been confirmed time and time again. From kindergarten class on, our children, your grandchildren are being strategically targeted, psychologically abused and brainwashed by homosexual and pro-homosexual educators.

Our children are being victimized by repugnant and premeditated strategies, aimed at desensitizing and eventually recruiting our young into their camps. Think about it, children as young as five and six years of age are being subjected to psychologically and physiologically damaging pro-homosexual literature and guidance in the public school system; all under the fraudulent guise of equal rights.

Your children are being warped into believing that same-sex families are acceptable; that men kissing men is appropriate.

Your teenagers are being instructed on how to perform so-called safe same gender oral and anal sex and at the same time being told that it is normal, natural and even productive. Will your child be the next victim that tests homosexuality positive?

Come on people, wake up! It’s time to stand together and take whatever steps are necessary to reverse the wickedness that our lethargy has authorized to spawn. Where homosexuality flourishes, all manner of wickedness abounds.

Regardless of what you hear, the militant homosexual agenda isn’t rooted in protecting homosexuals from “gay bashing.” The agenda is clearly about homosexual activists that include, teachers, politicians, lawyers, Supreme Court judges, and God forbid, even so-called ministers, who are all determined to gain complete equality in our nation and even worse, our world.

Don’t allow yourself to be deceived any longer. These activists are not morally upright citizens, concerned about the best interests of our society. They are perverse, self-centered and morally deprived individuals who are spreading their psychological disease into every area of our lives. Homosexual rights activists and those that defend them, are just as immoral as the pedophiles, drug dealers and pimps that plague our communities.

The homosexual agenda is not gaining ground because it is morally backed. It is gaining ground simply because you, Mr. and Mrs. Heterosexual, do nothing to stop it. It is only a matter of time before some of these morally bankrupt individuals such as those involved with NAMBLA, the North American Man/Boy Lovers Association, will achieve their goal to have sexual relations with children and assert that it is a matter of free choice and claim that we are intolerant bigots not to accept it.

If you are reading this and think that this is alarmist, then I simply ask you this: how bad do things have to become before you will get involved? It’s time to start taking back what the enemy has taken from you. The safety and future of our children is at stake.

Rev. Stephen Boissoin

And now for my comment. As a piece disseminated in the public, I think it lacks tact. I think that the caveat emptor he issues to lead off the piece is true and heartfelt, but this guy I don’t think has heard of the term, “you catch more flies with honey”.

I think it is true that somewhere along the way, the homosexual lobby ceased to press for equality, and is now demanding acceptance and celebration. Witness gay pride parades, which regularly feature explicit behaviour and nudity, but yet are billed as “family events”. I think that people need to demand clarity from our politicians, and even hold the myriad homosexual lobby groups to account, with what they are doing. A civil society doesn’t mean one where nobody ever disagrees. Dissent is necessary for progress, in all areas - moral, scientific, economic, political. If everyone is forced to agree, then you have totalitarianism, Stalinism, take your pick of socialist dictatorships.

Yet that is exactly what we are moving towards if we prosecute everyone for having bad manners. If the mode of the day is respect, then surely we can respectfully disagree with one another. Why does disagreement necessarily have to mean disrespect?

But back to the subject. I will go farther: Boissoin’s letter was inflammatory. It consistently characterized the homosexual lobby as some kind of militant organization bent on destroying… presumably heterosexuality. I think there is a desire that is common to all people to convince others to be as we are, that is just part of human nature. However, if you want to argue with someone, you won’t get very far by using rhetoric like this. The call he makes, not unlike an Old Testament prophet or a Great War recruiter from the early 20th Century, is to rise up and defend against the evil. It is surprising that he elected to use a public forum like a newspaper to make such a call. It is kind of like going to Nigeria to recruit people to combat radical Islam - a good chunk of the people there will actually be opposed to you, so why appeal to them to rally to fight… themselves?

It was not necessary. I do not support the HRC’s decision in this regard. In fact, I find the ruling to be more disgusting, more inflammatory, and more of a challenge to our way of life in Canada than anything Boissoin said. To think that a pseudo-court has the audacity to force someone to apologize for not offending anyone? To think that a tribunal could award “damages” to a person who was not damaged? To think that bad taste is a crime - well, why hasn’t anyone taken Don Cherry to the HRC for offending Canadians’ eyes with those ghastly plaid suits he wears on Hockey Night in Canada? I am sure he has actually caused damage in that case, whereas in the Boissoin case, there is no damage.

Lastly, as a postscript, as a Christian, I firmly believe that Boissoin’s post should have ended with paragraph one. While I believe the Scriptures are clear that homosexual behaviour is an offense against our maker (much as using a pencil sharpener to manufacture nails is an offense against the manufacturer of a pencil sharpener). It just isn’t what our bodies were designed to do. It’s not anyone’s fault. The reality is there are lots of people who for many reasons, prefer to do things with their bodies that are contrary to their design. As a Christian, my job is to introduce people to their creator, and their saviour. If you don’t believe in a creator and redeemer of the universe and mankind, well, then the conversation stops there. But even failing that, I will stand up and fight for a society that gives me the freedom to believe as I wish and the freedom to talk about it in public. Just as I will stand up and fight for the freedom of those with whom I disagree to do the same.

I have no problem with people believing differently from me. I do have a problem with them, or anyone else telling me that disagreeing with them is a hate crime.

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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.

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Get real people. The previous $500 per game contract was a colossal rip-off and never should have happened. The artist is just trying to milk the tax-payer further. With this contest, the CBC is telling how much they are willing to pay the artist of the current theme. No more and no less. Have no fear. I like to call this whole thing a game of poker or chicken. My guess is that we will get the old theme back. My bet is that the CBC is this artist’s biggest source of income.

I recommend that the owners of the current Hockey Night In Canada theme submit their old theme to this contest and take the prize money. Since the winner will be chosen by the listeners, I figure it would be a shoe-in. Anything the CBC offers is a cash cow.

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Some of the artists have provided a ray of clever insight:

Une solution semblait faire consensus chez la plupart des participants : la souveraineté.

I agree with that and thus, I have a suggestion to all of the Montreal-Quebeckers who are worried about losing their culture and their language: promote sovereignty or forever hold your peace.

I would also recommend that Quebeckers keep their children in school. Their high drop-out rates seem related specifically to French language studies.

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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!)

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HOWARD KNOPF in the Hill Times states the ill-advised bill would:

Put digital locks on our computers, cellphones, iPods, other gadgets and tools, and, ultimately, our culture and make it an infringement and maybe even a criminal offence to try to circumvent the sometimes malignant and much-maligned technology known as Digital Rights Management (DRM) and Technical Protection Measures (TPMs).[…]

Make it possible for the big four foreign record companies to sue ordinary Canadians whom they suspect of file sharing. […]

Head on over to Digital-Copyright.ca for more details on why this Bill is a bad idea.

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Busy creating a wonderful international family with children in every shade imaginable (an admirable task), I guess she has turned her concern with how to mould her children to looking blindly at the physical signs of genetic variation found in people from different areas of the world.

What - Princess Jasmine not black enough for you?

Believe it or not, it is possible to do this without having Walt Disney’s marketing department involved, Angelina!

I don’t pretend to be perfect as a parent, but I know one thing is for sure - your kids will be as racist as you are, or less. We know black people, Filipino people, Chinese people, Indo-Canadians, etc. When we meet them, we treat them like anyone else. My kids never see us act differently, so they don’t either. I recall just last week, a lady and her two sons came to our church for the first time. They were Indo-Canadians. I wanted to make sure her kids were having a good time, so afterwards I quizzed my 7 year old about the new kid. My son is almost as bad with names as I am so I asked him if he noticed a new boy in his class. I asked him to describe the boy. He told me everything about the boy but no matter what I did I couldn’t get him to volunteer the skin colour even though it was the most obvious difference between himself and the boy. I didn’t teach him that - it just doesn’t register when you have been raised without being told that people are different.

It doesn’t matter if Disney has made a movie about their culture or not. In fact, it is insulting to think that you can’t teach inclusivity without inculcating it into every single media your children interact with.

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I’d just like to point out in light of the stupidity that is occurring with the Human Rights Commissions in Canada right now, that this story highlights just how close Canada is to sinking into a morass of self-destructive correctness.  Vigilance is the only defence.

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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…

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

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

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“SILENCE!”

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

Maybe stick it under that spooky OBEY face.

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

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A few child support orders, all from different ex-wives, enforced by the garnishing of wages.

When you have 4 exes with kids and they all come asking for $1000 a month in child support, you will be destitute.

And it will serve you right for entering into such stupidity.

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Quebeckers are not better than anybody but they are individuals. Demanding patriotism is not my style but I enjoy seeing people celebrate their origins and their community. This Bouchard-Taylor recommendation would lead to the demise of an exciting aspect of North American culture.

It seems like Falardeau-Poulin were able to see this coming more than twenty-five years ago:

ELVIS GRATTON : Moi je suis un Canadien québécois, un Français canadien-français… Un Américain du Nord français, un francophone québécois canadien… Un Québécois d’expression canadienne –française française. On est des Canadiens américains francophones d’Amérique du Nord… Des Franco-québécois…

I hope Quebeckers do not get sucked into the trap of political correctness.

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Ontario already has a program by which people who are on welfare, who are overweight, are given more money for food to support their obesity?

And now they want to give them even more money because and extra $20 isn’t enough?

1.  The treatment fat people need to deal with their fatness because obesity is a health problem, is less food!

2.  Therefore giving them more money to spend on food is like buying heroin for addicts giving a stipend to welfare smokers to support their habit.

3.  If they need more money for food they can work for it.  There are thousands of jobs that people can do that require minimal training and minimal physical activity (thought if they are obese they could probably do with more physical activity, but I am willing to grant that some obese welfare recipients may be obese because of physical problems that inhibit them getting proper exercise).

4.  If someone can’t work and the government is supporting them, then they have agreed to accept that the government will act as their caregiver and steward.  As such, this means that Welfare will act in the interests of the person’s welfare.  Which means they will take such steps as to maintain the person’s optimal health given their situation.  Which means we should not be giving them more money for food when they are already fat!

5.  If a person doesn’t want the government telling them how to eat, then they should quit accepting the government’s money for food and make their own choices about what to, or not to eat!

End rant.  Hat tip to FFoF and Halls of Macadamia.

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I’m glad to see the Liberals are going to the fringes again with their plans (Ontario Health Minister and notoriously dogmatic homosexual activist George Smitherman bragged about how this would only affect about a dozen people per year) since it will allow us Conservatives the opportunity to point out the folly to a health care system which on paper is completely financed by the government but in reality is only as good as the government decides to make it. On the provincial level, it would be hard for Dalton McGuinty to justify how he can allow thousands in the province to go through life with debilitating back pains or limited eye sight but hey, at least Fred is happy with that new figure we bought him when we dressed him up and called him Sally! Well, at least it would be if there was actually an opponent out there who wasn’t a complete pushover or leading a party with even less hope of winning the top prize than the Leafs.

All of which makes one happy to see our national government contains MPs who are willing to go to bat for us average Ontarians whose self-esteem issues are generally limited to the names our parents gave us and foregoing extremely expensive cosmetic surgeries for a shopping trip on the weekend. It’s nice to know that somebody out there still get the notion that “public” health care is supposed to cover more than one out of every one million people in this province!

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Both the mother and the daughter freely admit that he had nothing  to do with her failure to pass her GED.  They both contend that he should not be held responsible for her daughter, who has an infant and is engaged, almost 19 years old.

So then why did she not pass her GED?  Surely this did not come as a surprise to them.  They knew he was going to be sent to jail if she didn’t pass.  But yet they did nothing to stop it.  The daughter herself I hold in particular contempt.  It doesn’t sound like she hates her father.  But she has sure acted like it, forcing him to take upon himself the punishment that she probably deserves, if for no other reason than being so selfish as to send her father to jail.

The libertarian in me questions the point or need for truancy laws, or what the government even cares if a person simply refuses to permit herself to be educated.  But I am disgusted that this man has to pay the price for someone else’s misbehaviour, when he had absolutely zero control over the situation.

Might as well just sentence him to jail for allowing a stray dog to pee on the lawn in the middle of the night.

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Apparently the woman had a falling out with Megan, and decided to take her vengeance in the way of a “MySpace Romance”. After several months of having a “relationship” with Meier, Lori Drew broke off the relationship and told the 13 year old that the world would be “better off without her”.

Make no mistake, this is horrendous. A moral atrocity has certainly taken place here, and I have nothing but contempt for the woman who did something like this. The family of Megan must be distraught, and I can see how they would want to take revenge on her through the courts.

However, I am persuaded to believe that Lori Drew is guilty of no crime. She is being charged with “accessing a protected computer to obtain information”, something she clearly did not do. This charge is usually used when someone hacks onto a government or military computer, and she did not.

First of all, the internet is not “owned” by any one country, so we’re already on unstable ground by having this trial in US courts. Second, you can’t really criminally charge someone for pretending to be someone they’re not, or for taunting a girlt his way via the internet. As horrible as this is going to sound, it’s called suicide because the person chose to do it.

Lori Drews did not kill Megan Meier.

Maybe if Al Gore had gotten off his ass and invented the internet sooner, like when America’s founding fathers were drafting their consitution, this wouldn’t be such a grey area. As it is, there is no way Drew is guilty.

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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.

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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

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So why is everybody focusing on what Hilary will do right now? Well, the cultural side of me likes to think that she’s America’s version of “nobody’s baby”, Shelia Copps; the woman who was able to turn some of the cogs behind the scenes for a while but got shafted when she went for the brass ring herself. In other words, it’s just melodrama right now. Don’t expect Barack Obama to draw too much attention to himself though; doing so will only expediate those tough questions that will eventually come to the eventual Democratic nominee and the man who built his entire campaign around “Yes, we can!” doesn’t come across as much of a policy wonk.

Clinton, for her part, is now just like the NDP; incapable of winning the top prize, guaranteed third place, but still naive enough to think there’s still a shot that she’ll drag down her closest neighbour. How the media doesn’t know or, if they do know, act on this is no longer in the realm of good journalism. It’s Barrack, not Hillary, whose opinions will be debated in the fall; she’s just a sad sideshow now.

Of course, the respectful thing for Clinton to do right now would be to drop out of the race, sparing the world from more of her sob story. She won’t do that though, since she was in it for blood from the get-go, trying to finally establish her decades-long goal of becoming the first three-term president since FDR. If she can’t have the cake, no one in the Democratic Party can, and from here until August, she will be a loadstone around Obama’s neck, dragging him down long enough and far enough to secure a McCain victory in November. If she pulls it off gracefully, something as doubtful as her becoming the 44th President, she gets another chance in 2012; if she fails to make a difference and Obama wins, she won’t have her next shot till 2016. The choice is pretty obvious when you consider the ego of the Senator from New York.

It’s Obama’s story that is really the more important issue right now though. Surely his advisors must be drafting up who his running mate will be already. They can’t and won’t go with Clinton; she’s not a very good second fiddle as I just mentioned. The race has been very divisive though and this is a major problem for Obama. He’ll have to secure a major Clinton supporter whose personality and record would naturally add to the ticket but also symbolize an olive branch to the Clinton faction. The real story also is that while Obama will win the nod, and has performed well over the past year, he is still only running a demographic campaign that is tailored to the Democratic Party — and even at that, he’s only winning within 10% in most of his victories. Break down the numbers further and you begin to see that he’ll definately lock down the black vote come the fall, but then, when hasn’t the Democrat?

Furthermore, his message of hope is only a one-trick pony, good enough to get like-minded people to give him an initial consideration. What happens when he tries to appeal to independents and soft Republicans? What happens as well when his message isn’t reinforced by a primary adversary who practically parrots every left-wing note he sings, but is challenged and attacked by an ideological opposite like McCain? While the Obama campaign has won the battle against Clinton, it really hasn’t demonstrated that it is capable of delivering the war, and that’s why there is such uneasiness in the many quarters of the Democratic Party about his candidacy.

This week’s results aren’t important because of what the Democrats are doing, but what the Republicans aren’t. If the Dems want to follow through on that desire to retake the White House after eight years of GOP control — something history gives them the advantage for — then they’re going to have to smarten up and soon. Personally, as a political observer, I know that Clinton would be a more formidable foe than Obama. Yes, she’s polarizing, screechy, and egocentric, but she can also stand her ground in a debate. Obama? He’s just riding the outsider’s wave right now and when he moves onto the next round, the fact that nothing’s really happened now will come back to haunt him. That’s because the silence you hear is really the GOP, watching, waiting, and taking notes; they’re effective under pressure and the Democrats have been kind enough to spare them three extra months they didn’t need but will aptly use. As soon as the convention ends, if not sooner, the tanks’ll roll out. And that’s why Obama might be better off shifting attention from Clinton after all!

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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