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.

Two of these seats are Liberal stronghold ridings and the other one was previously held by the Bloc. The Liberal candidates could run on a crazy platform of raising taxes and they would probably still get their seats. Oh, wait a minute…

She’s been through a bit of a rough patch, but since returning has been positively prolific with her wit and observations on all things that cross her path.  Venture on back to the Lasso of Truth - you’ll be glad you did.

A liberal representative tells a tasteless (and unoriginal) joke about the Conservative Prime Minister and his wife dying in a plane crash.

Then when the fact that this first Liberal had the bad taste to tell this joke hits the media and is held accountable for his tastelessness, another Liberal steps up and claims the fact that the first Liberal told a tasteless joke and someone noticed is in fact a super secret smear campaign, designed to discredit the Liberals by those dirty dog Conservatives who obviously hate everyone and must say many worse things behind closed doors, but are trying to entrap the otherwise noble Liberals, who care about everyone equally except for Conservatives - who are obviously sub-human.  It is perfectly permissible to assume the worst of Conservatives, mock, revile and make tasteless jokes about them in public.

Because they obviously deserve it.

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…

After The Garth TM (Lib - Halton, ON) made headlines two weeks ago for saying something that most people interpreted (and quite naturally, I might add!) as a patronizing slur against the people of Quebec, Saskatchewan and Alberta, another Ontario Liberal Ken Boshcoff (Thunder Bay - Rainy River) has just come out and, in so many words, admitted that the Dion Tax Grab is officially the NEP 2.0. Much like it’s predecessor’s apologists, the current batch of Liberals are unbashful in admitting that this social engineering project is designed to benefit those whom they see as worthy, at the expense of those they see as unworthy. Incidentally, it once again will take money from the rest out the country and dish it out to the Ottawa-Montreal corridor, and the province of Ontario — two areas that the Liberals have historically won their majorities through. There’s no shame in the fact that this will continue to fuel the regional alienation which threatens to break up the country; after all, if it helps the Liberals thrive, then that’s good for Canada!

As an urban Ontarian myself, I have to apologize to the rest of the country. Some of us here actually value fair play, individual and corporate (as in family, not just business) rights outside of my province, over the selfish and self-righteous mentality of many of my neighbours. The rest is the reason our flag is currently a red propaganda poster today and why the likelihood of a Dion election this decade could continue the trend of us having a Quebec referendum every 15 years — every time under a Liberal government! Funny that…

P.S - Saskatchewan will clobber Hamilton this afternoon!

Obviously, we differ on issues of the economy. Liberals support a welfare state, a “trickle-up” sort of economic policy, if you will. However, on this issue we disagree with Conservatives as well, most of whom are exponents of a “trickle-down” economy.

The reason that we libertarians find ourselves here is because unlike both of these two ideologies, who make a clear distinction between social and fiscal issues, we do not. We oppose government intervention in the economy on a moral level, not a practical one. My business is my business. Not yours, not Harper’s, not Stelmach’s. Be it concerning money or not, they government can just stay out.

Worse than regular welfare, what the Liberal’s propose, is Corporate Welfare. Perhaps one of the sickest, vilest, most disgusting practices of government, this is when the nation gives a boost to a company, often to a company that supports the government.

On to social issues, where many are tempted to lump us in with the Liberals. Yes, we do tend to oppose social conservatism on most issues, like the Liberals. however, once again, our motives are different.

We often do not believe that gay marriage is morally right. We often disagree with people who do drugs. However, we believe it is their legal right to do so, whether we agree with it or not. We don’t legislate morality.

Some issues, most notably abortion, are very divisive for libertarians. I am personally against it, as I see it as murder. Nobody has the right to take the life of someone else. Other libertarians do not see a fetus as a living person, so they see no problem in aborting it. That’s not what I want to debate here.

However, it shows another difference between us and the Liberals. We do not support absolute freedom, we support freedom as long as it does not interfere with the freedoms of others.

And there you have it, from a living, breathing libertarian.

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!

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.

Immigrants coming from other countries tend to make less money than people from Canada, which has one of the highest standards of living, worldwide. Not to mention that they have to go about finding a job in a new country, sometimes when they don’t even know one of the languages.

Also in the story, it mentions how companies are demanding people with higher levels of education, which is making the average wages of the middle class flatline. How dare employers seek people who have some kind of confirmation of their knowledge? I’m not saying that they’re neccassarily better employees, but I know I’d rather see some kind of affirmation when a young gun walks into my office, if I’m in charge of hiring for a company.

Mind blowing, isn’t it?

(5) “Good news” stories about the bright side of runaway fuel, food and energy prices. For example, when they get high enough that people stop their discretionary spending, thus leading to a recession, thus dramatically lowering greenhouse gas emissions the way that great environmental leader, Russia, did, after the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 — meaning we, too, will now have billions of dollars worth of “hot air” to sell to other countries under the Kyoto accord.

That pretty much nails it.  Want to fight global warming?  Send the world into recession… or better yet, depression.  That will curb emissions and save the planet.  Perfect.

(Yes, I know global warming prophets don’t actually recommend economic depression as a tool for fighting climate change, but it sure would work, wouldn’t it?  And food shortages coupled with skyrocketing transportation costs will get us there in a hurry.)

Hat tip to Kate.

“Having Boris as mayor would be like reliving the Black Death of the Middle Ages or almost as bad as that.”

Kind of dramatic, eh?

Hillary Clinton is currently written off by almost everyone, including me. She will inevitable finish second to Obama in delegates heading into the convention, regardless of how Pennsylvania and Indiana play out. North Carolina is the other remaining state with any considerable number of delegates, and Obama has that one wrapped up, I’d say. She could carry both of them by 60-40, which is the outside limit to how big she could, I think, and still end up behind him. In the end, Obama took a lot of little contests throughout the race that pretty much won it for him.

However, voters are refusing to listen to the numbers, the pundits, and political experts. They’re still turning out in amazing numbers to vote in a race that’s already “decided”. And lately, they’ve been voting in favour of someone who’s “already lost”.

And lots of the places she’s won are big states that the Dems will have to win in order to have a shot in November. She took the popular vote in Michigan, Florida, Texas, California, New York and and Ohio. She’s won many of the more recent primaries, and she claims to have a lead in the “super-delegates”.

Not only that, but she has more of a chance of swaying moderates than Obama does. He may have a monopoly on charisma, but in a long, drawn out election policies will start to come out, and Clinton is far more a middle of the road democrat. Obama is one of the most liberal sitting-Senators, and even a cursory read of “The Audacity of Hope” would make many conservatives shy away. She has the better organization, has an easier time getting donations from corporate America than he does, and is all around a better campaigner.

Still, for her to win the nomination, she’ll need a lot of super delegates. Now, to get a lot of them shouldn’t be hard. They are, after all, politicians. They’ll want to be on the side that chooses the President, so as to get in his, or her, good graces. So I’d expect that many will wait until the last minute, see how the tide is going, and move en masse to the winner’s circle. And they aren’t going to go against the delegate count. They are humans, they are politicians, and they need to be reelected. That won’t happen if they ignore the will of their constituents.

So even though Hillary may look like a winner, it won’t matter, and I’m one conservative who is sad about that. 

While it is true that blogging and other types of electronic dissemination are changing how people get informed, turning the news into something interactive and globalized, but also grouped into special interests, it occurs to me that this will not solve the problem of the overwhelming leftist bias in the news.

This isn’t because reporters will remain leftist. Reporters are becoming irrelevant as everyone gains the ability to “create” news. The broader spectrum of information sources will remain.

It is because the “Mainstream Media” will change form. What we think of now as the monopolists of media, the Ted Turners, the CBC’s, the AOL Time-Warners, the Bell Globemedias, the New York Times, the Toronto Stars, will fall by the wayside. This is inevitable.

What will rise in their stead will be the gatekeepers of information. Those gatekeepers will control what information we are allowed to know, and who we are allowed to know it from. They may or may not create content themselves, but they will permit or deny access to the already created content that they do not wish to have us know.

It occurs to me as I wrote the above, that this sounds very paranoid - even Orwellian. Sorry for the phraseology, but this is already in play. Take a look at how Google behaves. It is already well known and documented that a Chinese citizen utilizing Google within Mainland China will not be permitted to view results for terms like “democracy”. Google is complicit in the censorship of information conducted by the Communist government of China. How many deals will Google strike with governments to permit or deny access to information by citizens? How long will it be before the Canadian Human Rights Commissions find against Google for permitting “hate” speech to be read in searches performed on their systems, since it is obviously within their control to prevent access to it?

It is also borne out in Google’s news aggregators. Now, this one is a little harder to prove as it is based on my personal experience, but having used their aggregator for at least 3 years, I have observed during the last federal election and after, Google News listing press releases from www.liberal.ca as “news”, alongside content from well known liberal message board www.rabble.ca and extremely leftist newspapers like the Georgia Straight. To date, I have never seen content aggregated at Google News from well known right wing news sources like www.lifesitenews.com or www.worldnetdaily.com. You can guess, and you would be correct that they never aggregate press releases from www.conservative.ca.

Just because blogs are winning the battle for information now, friends, doesn’t mean that we will win the war. We need to start standing up for freedom of expression, freedom to communicate, and the freedom of the internet for all.

It is no longer even marginally cost-effective to own my truck.

I love my truck, don’t get me wrong.  It has been my goal to own a truck since I got my first car.

My Dad always had a truck.  I grew up with a truck in my family.  I remember back in Prince George in the early 80’s me and my brother sharing the center seatbelt in a ride into town, with my sister in my mom’s lap.  No crew cabs at that time.  It was just a ‘78 GM Sierra, with a whole passel o’people.  3 on the column, so I only had to watch my knees when Dad hit 3rd gear.

I learned to drive in that truck.  I remember at age 14 barrelling down a dirt range road outside of Edmonton with my Dad in the passenger seat, doing about 70, when I realized the road took a hairpin turn to the left.  I slammed on the brakes and made the turn at about 50.  I don’t know to this day how I managed to keep us out of the ditch.  Dad drove the rest of the way home.

We used the thing for everything - hauling garbage, moving stuff.  Camping.  We had an old Okanagan camper, that my brother and I rode all the way to Thunder Bay in, looking out of that little front window.  That truly was the best way to see the country - no seat belts, we could lie on our backs and read comic books or look out the window or whatever.  This was in the days before seatbelt laws were as draconian.  Would I do that now?  I don’t know.  Traffic is 100 times worse now than back then (especially since I live in Metro Vancouver, and I grew up in smaller towns elsewhere), so I think that it is more dangerous not to wear seatbelts.  But I digress.

That truck meant a lot to me growing up, and I figured when I had a family of my own, I’d have one too.  Not from some status thing (though it probably has a small part of my image of an ideal family), but from usefulness standpoint.  The things I knew I wanted to give my kids pretty much required a truck.  From hauling camping gear to hauling bikes to moving garbage to the dump, I couldn’t conceive of life without one.

When I got married though, my wife’s family never had a truck.  In the early years, her folks played a large role in how we spent our money, because they helped us out a lot.  When my wife didn’t support me getting a truck, and her folks didn’t either, and my folks were 2000km away, then I pretty much had to settle.  I did manage to get a 4×4 though - another of my passions.

It would be 8 years later that I was starting to think about something else.  My wife always knew I wanted a truck, so when I mentioned, at a time when we had the money to get something new, that I was thinking about getting a little commuter car and a beater 4×4 for the weekends, she said to me, “I thought you wanted a truck!”

That was July of 2006.  By the end of the month, I had my shiny red Dodge Ram.  I picked Dodge because at the time, they were the only of the full-size truck manufacturers who offered the ability for half the cylinders to be shut off on the highway for cruising, for fuel efficiency.  And it did save me.  I probably got at least 100km more out of a tank than regular trucks.

Since then, I have done everything I envisioned.  I have taken it four-wheeling, hauled at least a dozen loads of garbage, helped many people move stuff, pick up stuff.  I’ve picked up all kinds of building and renovation materials, IKEA furniture, and lots of stuff that no way would have fit in our minivan.  We’ve gone camping with it, loaded the back up with all kids of good stuff and headed off to the hinterlands.  I’ve really used it.

But the problem is primarily, I have used it to commute in.  My work is 30km away from home, and half of that is through the city.  Stop and go, hurry up and wait, idle and burn gas.

When gas was 60 cents a liter, it was no problem.  When gas was 80 cents a liter, it started to hurt how much gas was costing.  When gas broke a buck a liter, I started asking questions of myself, but I still thought  all the benefits I was getting from the truck were worth it.  And I enjoyed being able to help people out with my truck so there was a community benefit too.

But now, with gas holding steady over $1.20 and we aren’t even at the May long weekend yet, I have to reconsider.  When I am commuting in the truck, I will drop nearly $400 per month in gas.  Add to that a $450 lease payment.  Add to that my insurance, already pretty much maxed out in terms of ICBC discount, which when subdivided by the month works out to $210 per month.  That means, not even including maintenance costs, this truck is costing me $1060 per month to run.

Wow.

Now, compare this to a compact commuter car.  I don’t think it is unreasonable to expect half the gas costs - most of them have a 40 liter tank, and my truck’s was 100 liters.  I expect I will get a little more km out of a tank in the car (that was true with my old ‘86 Hyundai Excel, my first car) than I did with the truck, so count on 3 fills a month.  That’s $150, maybe $200 if I have to do 4 fills.  The lease (or financed) monthly cost would be in the neighbourhood of $250.  Insurance will probably be less, though I am not counting on that, so say $175 per month.  TCO/mo = $625.

That means I will save the family $435/mo from a downgrade.  We will still have the van (which I don’t really like to haul stuff in because if things spill, it’s carpet and I can’t just hose it out).  I could always get a utility trailer, or if I need a 4×4 a few times a year (really, I have only gotten to 4×4 3 or 4 times a year for the last couple years), I can rent one.  The savings will still be significant.

If I wasn’t commuting, I could rationalize keeping it.  But given the primary usage, it simply doesn’t make sense anymore.  It sucks, because it represents the death of a dream, an ideal.  It will also effect my whole social network, who may not have relied on me for my truck, but certainly appreciated when I was there for them with it.  Sadly, they did not subsidize my truck (and couldn’t be expected to anyway - its primary use was mine and it only makes sense I should bear the burden for its cost).

Life could change in the future.  If I change jobs to something closer to home, it could become affordable again.  But for now, it seems like the best decision.

But at the same time, Christianity - what it means, what it claims, and how it affects those who follow Jesus - is big news too.  Many people who discuss religious extremism like to compare radical Islam to fundamental Christianity.  But is this a fair comparison?  Is it appropriate for TV shows like Law and Order to product episodes that paint an extremist Christian group stoning people as a conceivable reality?  These types of questions cannot be answered without an understanding of what religions teach and how they differ.

Sadly, religious literacy is becoming rarer and rarer in the 21st Century.  Unless you are an active follower of this or that religion, you may have no idea what they actually believe and how that affects them.  It used to be that Universities, as part of their goal of a “well-rounded” education, would make mandatory comparative religion courses.  Few now do.  Even the options are scarce.  It also used to be that the average citizen knew what the Bible said.  They knew the content, they had memorized passages, they knew the stories, they knew the characters, their virtues and their failings.  They may not have been followers of Christianity, but they knew what it was about.  I am a part of the generation that came after.  I didn’t even know that King Solomon was a Biblical character until I was 16 years old.  I knew the name Jesus, but I couldn’t have named any of his 12 followers.  I had heard the names, Hezekiah, Ezekiel, and Jehosaphat, but I thought they came from tales of the Old West, not from the Kingdom of Israel ca. 1200 BC.

People think they know what Christianity is and stands for, but they know it second, or third hand.  It is something their parents, or grandparents believe, and that’s because they’re old and stuck in their ways.  They’ve probably never even asked them what their faith means to them or why they believe it.  However, now more than ever, a knowledge of what people believe and why they believe it is critical.  What makes today’s situation so concerning for many is that the public thinks they know what Christianity is about, and so makes judgements (incidentally, the exact same judgements they rail against from “Christians” who are thought to be “judgemental”) based on erroneous information or simple ignorance.  If people acknowledged their ignorance, the problem wouldn’t be so bad.  It’s the fact that people think they know but don’t that can and will lead to bigger and bigger problems and conflicts between those who are religious and those who are not.

The reality is, for those many who are religious - whether Jewish, Christian, Muslim, or Buddhist, their faith doesn’t just play a part in their life, it defines their life.  Their religion informs not only their daily decisions but also governs what issues in the public sphere are important to them.  At first glance, this could look extreme, but take a step back.  What do you believe?  Everyone believes in something.  If you don’t believe in a God or Gods, then you are your own god.  Everything you do, everything you consider important stems from your belief in yourself as the primary purpose and priority in your life.  This is not extremism.  This is internal consistency.  To condemn another for having consistency with their faith is to condemn yourself and your own consistency with what you believe in to be important.

This is a very important concept.  People who are religious have every right both to express their faith informed convictions in public and to hold public office.  To deny them such is to discriminate against people by religion, which is expressly forbidden by the very tenets of freedom this nation was founded upon.  Yet, we have seen in the ridicule of Stockwell Day’s leadership campaign and the more subtle statements made against many politicians of faith in recent elections, that there is an undercurrent of opposition and censorship against those who exercise these fundamental freedoms.   An opinion is an opinion, and it should be irrelevant whether the opinion was arrived at via reading the Bible or via reading Rene Descartes.

Which leads me to my last point.  Debate surrounding abortion, and also surrounding the gay marriage issue has often been framed by leftist writers and speakers as being about the “religious” trying to impose “their morality” on “the rest of us”.  This is a false assertion because there is no such thing as a faith-neutral political position.  We are all informed by our beliefs, and so our political positions all have equal weight.  There are many people who do not believe in the God of the Jews or the God of the Christians or the God of Islam, who were and are opposed to gay marriage, or abortion for that matter.  It is ludicrous to suggest that all arguments against those two issues, or any other issue for that matter, are only founded upon the principle of “imposing your religious belief” on people.

This is not to say that there aren’t people who are Christians, or Jews, or Muslims (I should have said earlier, these are not meant to be taken as an exhaustive list, but just as examples) who seek to impose their morality on everyone.  Sadly it is true that there are traditions in Christianity who have in the past sought to implement “Christendom” (and most Muslims today still appear to ascribe to the belief that Islamic Law or Sharia Law should be the law of all lands).  I believe that this has no place in politics myself.  However, there is a big difference between believing that certain political positions are in fact quantifiably the best for society, and believing it is “God’s Will” to impose certain political positions on everyone regardless of their religion.  The religious have every right to state what they think is best, and vote for what they think is best, regardless of the reason - that is what democracy is all about.

It should also be noted that much of what we here in Canada considers leftist, socialist style government has its foundations not in Marxism but in the social gospel movement of the early 20th Century, where many churches began to support governmental advocacy and service to the poor and the ill.  Previous to this, churches did this work apart from government.  During that period, for the sake of efficiency, advocacy was made to centralize such social programs to prevent redundancy and make it easier on everyone.  Because at the time, church and country were much more synonymous than now, nobody minded giving more in taxes if they didn’t need to give to support the program offered through a church.  The best illustration of this trend is the fact that Tommy Douglas was a baptist preacher.  They believed at that time, that making the government more Christian would make society more Christian - the Christendom idea mentioned above.   The ideals they held of charity and mercy are admirable, but the question about the best means to go about them are political.  Hence, they need to be discussed.

So, what I am trying to say is that while this site is called “The Politic”, I do believe that religion has a place and should have a voice in the political discussion.  We need to make clear for people what is at stake, and also communicate what beliefs are and mean so that the dialogue can be with understanding instead of ignorance.  Discussion is about understanding the other side and finding common ground.  Ruling the other side out of hand simply because your faith is different from theirs only results in alienation, xenophobia and fracturing of the body politic.

What he is really saying to every single Canadian Conservative who writes anything on the internet is “Shut the hell up!” He wants us silent, so that he can go on extorting funds from libraries, students, and everyone who dares to think differently from his brand of political orthodoxy.

This lawsuit will be won, but the costs are being footed by the defendants in these early stages. Their fight is our fight. Their fight is for every conservative voice in Canada. I for one stand behind them 100%.

If you read this, stand up for freedom of speech. Pick one or all of the defendants, and give through their sites to their paypal, to support their defence. Not all of them have responded on the net, but here is Kathy’s post on the subject - a link to her paypal is at the bottom. Here is Ezra’s. Here is a post from Free Dominion.

It’s the same when it comes to politics. Certain ideas and concepts get repeated over and over, until they become the conventional wisdom. Some of these things can be disproved simply by looking a little, but no matter how untruthful it is, the facts will always be mismangled into an unruly juxtaposition of figures that morphs reality to fit into the “conventional wisdom”.

One of these such fairy tales is thus: The Republicans cannot win in ‘08.

The facts say otherwise. All you have to do is glimpse at a recent Gallup Poll to see that McCain, the Republican nominee-in-waiting, holds a marginal lead over either of the two remaining Dems. While this could very possibly fade once one wins the nomination and memories of the bitter primary battle fades, the fact remains that the decision is far from set in stone. And yet, talk about it in conversation and most people will tell you that George W. ruined any chance the Republicans had at the White House.

Another is that Conservatives have only a slight chance of forming the government here in Canada at any given time. That the left wing is far more powerful, and holds a strangle hold on Canadian politics. While I would have to agree that the left (NDP) and the centre (Liberals) tend to be more powerful combined against the right (Conservatives, PC, Reform, SoCred, etc), you have only to look at history to see that the Liberals are not so dominant when facing a united right. In recent history, they haven’t bested one since Wayne Gretzky’s rookie season.

You can’t just accept the overplayed, conventional wisdom. Even the media can see through it, when they choose to do so.

I’ve noticed that a lot of youths are jaded and cynical, their hellishly asinine cosmion of meaning offering little by way of hope. It seems to me that a lot of urban youth are lacking the interest, the opportunity, to take on some kind of character forming responsibility or challenge; dismissed by too many adults as just stupid kids.

People tend to blame disinterested, or deranged, parents or even lax young offender laws for vicious youth. And while I suppose they are to blame in part, there’s only so much self-pitying contempt to go around before teenagers accrue the pathologies of perpetual victims.

When you consider the rate of obesity among youth today, the constant “noise” of the angry music iPod, video gaming, cell phoning, and celebrity following tv generation, the teenage years appear to be a bitter dawn of nihilism.

More police, aggressively empowered, and more silly welfare schemes for single parents are not necessarily the answer. Initiatives like Big Brothers Big Sisters and The Duke of Edinburgh’s Award seem like a good antidote to me, providing a path toward adulthood, toward some measure confident self-reliance that isn’t feeling sorry for oneself, then terrorizing others.

Schools should promote these initiatives with more enthusiasm, a respite from their constant barrage of tolerance and sensitivity training.

UPDATE: “Does affirmative action hurt kids?”

While this continues, the world seems to pass thepolitic by: Afganistan and military spending on used German tanks for spareparts that don’t really fit the tanks currently in use, candidate nominations in the US, upcoming federal Budget speculations, provincial budgets being passed, introduction of a carbon tax in BC, the impact of the high dollar on Canadian exports - and China now surpassing Canada as the leading exporter to the US, etc, etc, etc, etc.

Those are definitely contemporary  Why haven”t we addressed them?  I’ll take a guess.

I don’t know a lot about tanks, and neither does anyone here, unless I miss my guess. It isn’t surprising that people are reticent to talk about what they don’t know a lot about.

Candidate nominations in the USA frankly, bore me. At work I have a cubicle-mate who loves talking about them, but really, there is so little separating the candidates that I can’t find it in me to be that interested.  Forgive me for not holding my breath from the beginning of primaries to November.

Speculating on the federal budget? Speculations tend to be boring too, especially when everyone and their dog is in on it.

The BC provincial budget was moderately interesting, and the carbon tax issue begs to be discussed, but geez man. It only happened yesterday! Is there a rule amongst blog commenters that they expect all bloggers to comment within 12 hours on any given issue or they are publicly flogged?

The high dollar and Canadian exports - more of an economics question. I can’t claim to be an armchair economist any more than an armchair quarterback for the NFL, so I wouldn’t tackle that one but lightly.

China surpassing Canada as the leading exporter to the USA - I am surprised this is news. I had thought that was the case for decades by now. Heck. I look around my world and I don’t see much of anything not made in China. That does seem to be cause for concern.

So, thanks. I like to think that blogs are a better place because of commenters, and this comment was actually thought-provoking. I can’t speak for everyone here, but as I have time, I will definitely address at least one of these suggestions.  As for the rest, I have read elsewhere that we should be providing more insightful political commentary.  That challenge is appreciated, but asking us to write about subjects that we don’t have any knowledge of seems like a good recipe for bad commentary.  I’d rather stick with subjects I know enough about to defend my positions on.  You may not agree with me, but at least I can take a bash without a second thought.

Are we done here? Oh good.

Sorry for any inconvenience that was caused by this interruption.

Greg F

On Monday, President Bush awarded Biscet the Presidential Medal of Freedom, one the United States’ two top honors for a civilian (the other is the Congressional Gold Medal). Winnie and Biscet’s stepson, Yan Morejon, planned to attend the ceremony.

It’s an honor that will cement Biscet’s growing role as the face of Cuba’s jailed dissidents, even though the Afro-Cuban doctor is far from a household name in his own country, where the media are under strict state control.

“My mother told him that, unlike us, he had the greatest friend of all: He had Fidel.”

But, doesn’t that go without saying?

TTFN

(From the good folks at Wikipedia):

The genetic fallacy is a fallacy of irrelevance where a conclusion is suggested based solely on something or someone’s origin rather than its current meaning or context. This overlooks any difference to be found in the present situation, typically transferring the positive or negative esteem from the earlier context.

The fallacy therefore fails to assess the claim on its merit. The first criterion of a good argument is that the premises must have bearing on the truth or falsity of the claim in question.^[1] Genetic accounts of an issue may be true, and they may help illuminate the reasons why the issue has assumed its present form, but they are irrelevant to its merits. ^[2]

According to the Oxford Companion to Philosophy, the term originates in Morris Cohen and Ernest Nagel’s book Logic and Scientific Method.

Illustrative Example for those who may have failed their logic course:

From Attacking Faulty Reasoning by T. Edward Damer, Third Edition p. 36:

“You’re not going to wear a wedding ring, are you? Don’t you know that the wedding ring originally symbolized ankle chains worn by women to prevent them from running away from their husbands? I would not have thought you would be a party to such a sexist practice.” There may be reasons why people may not wish to wear wedding rings, but it would be logically inappropriate for a couple to reject the notion of exchanging wedding rings on the sole grounds of its alleged sexist origins.

H/T to Five Feet of Fury 

Addendum: Visual Aid:

You are like a hurricane
Theres calm in your eye.
And Im gettin blown away
To somewhere safer where the feeling stays.
I want to love you but Im getting blown away.

I am just a dreamer, but you are just a dream,
You could have been anyone to me.
Before that moment you touched my lips
That perfect feeling when time just slips
Away between us on our foggy trip.

You are like a hurricane
Theres calm in your eye.
And Im gettin blown away
To somewhere safer where the feeling stays.
I want to love you but Im getting blown away.

You are just a dreamer, and I am just a dream.
You could have been anyone to me.
Before that moment you touched my lips
That perfect feeling when time just slips
Away between us on our foggy trip.

You are like a hurricane
Theres calm in your eye.
And Im gettin blown away
To somewhere safer where the feeling stays.
I want to love you but Im getting blown away.

—Neil Young, Roxy Music cover

To sum up: Galileo was a very popular and prominent Astrologer, as was typical for natural philosophers up until the 17th century.  Much of the corroborating evidence was only found recently. In addition to botching the Galileo story (Galileo was condemned for a far different reason than most people think),  it turns out that the Church backed off from what was a legitimate prosecution of heresy for — wait for it — political reasons.

As we’ve come to expect, the true story is much more intriguing than the urban mythology would have us believe. Critics of pseudo-science note well.

Here is the pope’s reply:

“THE GREAT GALILEO SAID THAT GOD…”

by Benedict XVI

The great Galileo said that God wrote the book of nature in the form of the language of mathematics. He was convinced that God has given us two books: the book of Sacred Scripture and the book of nature. And the language of nature – this was his conviction – is mathematics, so it is a language of God, a language of the Creator.

Michael Ledeen, not a practicing Catholic

That’s from the previously mentioned article God and Evolution by Cardinal Avery Dulles. For those who can provide a philosophical reason for this philosophical change, have at it in the comments.  For those looking for some homework help for their assignment, here’s a link to Aristotle on Causality at the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy .

Vae victus.

Fr Raymond De Souza weighs in

They Thought They Were Free

We’ve been expecting you

And Dawkins insists, and I agree wholeheartedly, that there aren’t any good compromise positions. Many have tried to find a compromise position, which salvages something of the traditional right-side-up view, where meaning and purpose rain down from on high. It cannot be done. And the recognition that it cannot be done is, I would say, the mark of sane Darwinian fundamentalism.

Daniel Dennett quoted via First Things via Amy Welborn 

And here’s the aforementioned Mr. Shermer debating Dinesh D’Souza

So is Dawkins running scared? I hate to think so, because in truth I am an admirer of Dawkins. I learned a lot from The Selfish Gene and while I don’t agree with its conclusion I think The Blind Watchmaker is a beautifully written, brilliantly argued book. I’ve also praised Dawkins in my earlier work, citing him favorably in my book What’s So Great About America.

Read the whole thing 

— Michael Shermer,
Publisher of Skeptic magazine

…where the victim is “tried” before a secretive chamber, often in absentia, or without proper representation. Where the charges are vague; where he cannot face his accuser; where there is no presumption of innocence; where there are no rules of evidence, or of procedure; where there are no fixed penalties; where he will be shaken down financially and put under extreme stress whether or not he is nominally “cleared” at the end of the day; where there is no recourse against a frivolous suit.

Damian Penny links to a discussion of why charging indulgences to a Jewish man to escape Islamic purgatory is a good thing if presided over by a female priest.