Those Libranos And Their Clever Little Budget Cuts

Political Animal 6 Comments

With the children all safely locked up in Federal Government Indoctrination Centres, who needs to worry about solving crime anyway? To pay for vital Liberal programs like government day care, the gun registry, and Adrienne Clarkson’s overseas entourage, the money has to come from somewhere…

The cost-saving measures will see one of six RCMP forensic labs closed …

Well, let’s be practical. So long as the RCMP are short 2500 officers, closing detachments in grow-up regions of Quebec, and a month and a half behind in processing Interpol terrorist alerts, it’s just a little silly to get twisted out of shape about backlogs in forensics. It’s not as though the Canadian justice system actually locks up criminals when they do bother to convict them.

To boost revenue, the Liberal government will hire collection agencies to recover debts owed to Human Resources, Social Development and Industry Canada.

“CreditScam” has a nice ring to it. Just remember where you heard it first.

The feds will fire armed fisheries officers who enforce habitat protection and the Fisheries Department will ground five of its 27 helicopters and mothball one of three research trawlers.

Maybe they’ll cut of some of the Oceans and Fisheries officers inspecting culverts in grid roads in Saskatchewan.
That’s not a joke, by the way.
More here

Marine Shooting In Fallujah

Military 5 Comments

The report is in on the highly publicized shooting of an unarmed wounded Iraqi during the battle for Fallujah last November.

Military investigators have decided there is not enough evidence to bring formal charges against Marine who killed an unarmed Iraqi while his unit searched a Fallujah mosque, CBS reported on Wednesday.
The Marines entered the mosque last fall during an offensive aimed at clearing insurgents from Fallujah. They were seeking the source of insurgent gunfire and found several men wrapped in blankets on the mosque floor.
After what he reported as movement, a Marine fired at one of the men on the floor, killing him.
“The insurgents, it turned out, were unarmed,” CBS reported. “But investigators say the Iraqi the Marine thought he saw moving could have been going for a weapon.”
“At the very least, Navy legal experts believe the situation is ambiguous enough that no prosecutor could get a conviction,” the network reported.
Any decision on punishment within the Uniform Code of Military Justice was to be made by Marine commanders, CBS said.

Good news.
hat tip – Wizbang

Missile Defense

Moonbats 32 Comments

Readers here won’t exactly be sitting on the edge of seat to find out what I think about the quivering, stammering display of Prime Ministerial followship in cowing to anti-Americanism in Ontario and Quebec by turning down Canada’s participation in ballistic missile defense.
The Toronto Sun’s Greg Weston explains nicely why the decision may really be in everyone’s best interests;

IF AVERAGE Americans had been following Paul Martin’s stand on U.S. missile defence, they would surely be relieved by yesterday’s announcement that Canada will not be part of it. An Armageddon warhead incoming at 4 km per second is no time to be sharing command and control of North American air defence with a dithering prime minister.

Exactly – and consider, if you will, a future prime minister in the persona of a Jack Layton, Sheila Copps or similar creation of the far left.

So, I do not condemn his decision. Instead, I thank Paul Martin for his foresight. I’ll sleep more soundly knowing that the political authority overseeing Canadian defense has finally been turned over to saner heads and surer hands. rumsfeld.jpg

update: Paul Martin’s timing, as usual, is impeccable.

PACIFIC MISSILE RANGE FACILITY, KAUAI, Hawaii, Feb. 24, 2005 /PRNewswire/ — The Aegis Ballistic Missile Defense (BMD) Weapon System and Standard Missile-3 (SM-3) destroyed a ballistic missile outside the earth’s atmosphere during an Aegis BMD Program flight test over the Pacific Ocean. Raytheon Company develops the SM-3. Lockheed Martin develops the Aegis BMD Weapon System.
The Feb. 24 mission — the fifth successful intercept for SM-3 — was the first firing of the Aegis BMD “Emergency Deployment” capability using operational versions of the SM-3 Block I missile and Aegis BMD Weapon System.
This was also the first test to exercise SM-3’s third stage rocket motor (TSRM) single- pulse mode. The TSRM has two pulses, which can be ignited independently, providing expansion of the ballistic missile engagement battlespace.
The SM-3 was launched from the Aegis BMD cruiser USS Lake Erie (CG 70) and hit a target missile that had been launched from the U.S. Navy’s Pacific Missile Range Facility on Kauai, Hawaii.

via Drudge.
One of David Frum’s readers responds to Paul Martin’s assertion that “”We would expect to be consulted”prior to a BMD deployment.

In other words, Canada wants no part of missile defense right up until the time of incoming. At that point we can count them in.”

Jack Layton’s Exploding Organ

Great Moments In Socialism 5 Comments

Monte Solberg understands blogging.

Jack Layton, sans appendix, was back in the House today and received a standing ovation for ridding himself of that exploding organ. I blame it on all the tofu, alfalfa sprouts and lack of trans fats.

Entertaining writing style, a touch of irreverance, and to the point. All that, and useful information, too. Like this;

We won the vote tonight on our supply motion to have the government implement the Auditor General’s recommendations regarding foundations.

(I wrote about foundations a couple of weeks ago, for those of you who don’t know what this refers to.)

Fact Checking: More Trouble Than It’s Worth?

Media No Comments

This Bram Cohen (BitTorrent) piece turns the common complaint about the “lack” of fact checking in media on its head;

After a journalist finishes writing their story, it’s generally sent to a fact checker. Fact checkers serve to avoid embarassing gaffes, such as getting a person’s name wrong, or saying that they work for the wrong employer, or some other such straightforward, objective fact.
[…]
The fact checker, unlike the journalist, has usually spent no time researching the subject whatsoever, and so as a lay person reading the story they slightly misinterpret it, then paraphrase their misinterpretation and ask me if it’s correct. Inevitably this bastardized explanation says something grossly misleading or not quite factual, and though I’ve long since learned that I really ought to say ‘yeah, whatever’ and have them leave the story as is, I can never resist the temptation to provide a correction, at which point they go back to the story and rewrite some sentences based on their incorrect understanding of my correction of their paraphrasing of their incorrect understanding of the original explanation. Unsurprisingly, this always makes the explanation worse.

Or, to put it another way – the product of multi-level incompetence.

Prairie Centre Policy Institute

Gopher News 7 Comments

I was invited today to a luncheon debate hosted by the Prairie Centre Policy Institute (which could probably be described as a Saskatchewan based conservative “think tank”), as a guest of a friend who knows of my interest in politics and reads the blog.
The debate, which was on the role of federalism in the Canadian economy, featured well known Saskatchewan entrepreneur Herb Pinder Jr. and left-leaning U of Sask professor Red Williams. Pinder’s premise – that Canada has become a “country of mediocrity”, due to our culture of entitlement, high taxation, equalization and politically motivated federal infiltration into provincial responsibilities – recieved no rebuttal at all from Williams, which I thought was odd. Instead, he devoted his portion of the debate to defending government involvement in the economy and weakly excusing the excesses by reminding everyone of just how darned hard a job it is to run everybody’s lives.
There were a number of business leaders and provincial MLA’s in attendance at the small gathering, including former SaskParty leader Elwin Hermanson, Ken Cheveldayoff, Ben Heppner and June Draud, who was seated beside me at our table. Prior to the serving of lunch, she described her frustration at how difficult it is to get a clear message from the SaskParty out through the media – unless the ideas are picked up by the governing NDP, who then get the press and the credit.
She also shared that small local newspapers have recieved threatening calls and subsequent withdrawel of government advertising for giving “too much space” to SaskParty media releases. My ears perked up. What bloggers couldn’t do with a story like that.
In the short time available, I tried to explain to her the concept of the blogosphere and how it has become so powerful a force in the US. She seemed to be interested enough and asked if I had a card. I didn’t. (An interesting notion, though – who has business cards for their blog?) Shortly afterwards, the speakers began so there wasn’t enough time to go into things in more detail.
At the wrap-up, Pinder suggested that we take the ideas presented “back to the workplace, talk to your friends”…
Urgh. How…. 1980’s.
When, oh when, are Canadian conservative parties going to wake up and realize that one of the most powerful tools for uniting conservative voices and bypassing the mainstream left-leaning press is already here, is proven to be both powerful and successful, is ridiculously inexpensive and right under their noses?
I dug up the address to the PCPI website from the back of a booklet they provided, entitled “Creating Wealth In Saskatchewan”, with plans of linking to the info on the Pinder-Williams debate and adding the site to the permanent sidebar.
There was nothing there. The page hasn’t been updated since Christmas.
I can’t say that I was surprised.

Where Have The Rivers Of Chocolate Gone?

Insufferable Twits 8 Comments

The Canadian Islamic Congress is now trying its hand at parody.

To date, the American-led invasion of Iraq has resulted in the deaths of more than 100,000 Iraqis and thousands of Americans. Iraq has been transformed from country with 100% employment and a stable public service infrastructure, into an impoverished nation in disarray, with more than half of its adult workforce jobless. From being one of the leading Middle East states in administration, education and health care, Iraq has fallen to one of the world’s most disadvantaged societies.
The CIC is charging that America’s aggressive Middle East policies are designed primarily to shore up Israel’s military power and economic advantages in the region, while attempting to divert world attention from Israel’s territorial expansion into the West Bank through illegal Jews-only settlements.

CIC national president Dr. “Anyone over the age of 18 in Israel is a valid target*” Elmasry can be contacted at np@canadianislamiccongress.com.
Via Uncle Meat.

“Nothing There You Need To Know”

Media No Comments

Retired CBS news correspondant, Tom Fenton is going public with criticism of CBS and TV news in general, in his upcoming book, “Bad News.” ;

“Once you get halfway through the CBS Evening News, the rest of it you can turn off,” Fenton told the News. “There’s nothing there you need to know. It’s an attempt to entertain people and pump up ratings. If I want entertainment, I’ll watch ‘The Daily Show.'”
“We have literally dumbed down our public,” he continued. “We have trained them to accept the coverage they’re getting. We so rarely explain what’s going on, there’s no context. So, people of course, aren’t interested. They have no idea what’s going on.

The rest is here.

Snowball’s Chance In Darfur

What He Said 7 Comments

Damian Brooks is wondering if Paul Martin and Pierre Pettigrew actually, like, talk.

First, credit where it’s due: if your strategy isn’t working, better to change it than to cling stubbornly to it out of pride or fear of bad press. Good for Martin for realizing Canada’s current strategy just wasn’t working.
But…GEEZ! What sort of a farm-implement-IQ hack figured Canada’s “Walk softly and carry absolutely nothing” Sudan policy had a snowball’s chance in hell of succeeding in the first place?

The Canadian Example

Great Moments In Socialism 16 Comments

The perennial question of defining Canadian identity may have finally been answered. Canadian identity is not, as commonly thought, our socialized health care system, the Trudeaupian mosaic of multiculturalism or even a fanaticism for hockey. At one time any one of those might have been true, but no more. No, we’ve moved well past that.
Today, our national purpose might best be described as “simply to serve as a warning to the United States”.
Via Neale News;

“Please be advised that effective immediately the Ontario region of the Correctional Service of Canada is no longer maintaining an inventory for parole officer applications from the general public.,” the Feb. 19 letter reads.
“Due to staffing resources we will continue to accept applications from aboriginal and visible-minority candidates only.”
CSC is committed to having a “skilled, diversified workforce reflective of Canadian society,” the letter continues, adding that future vacancies may be posted that are open to the “general public.”

The depressing part is that a good percentage of Canadians would think this is perfectly reasonable.
Last weekend a woman who was purchasing artwork from me at the dog show began to ask about “what it was like to live in Canada”. She confided that they had to sell their house while it was “still worth something” and leave before the country was completely destroyed. Her young son’s skills made him very attractive to the military and there was no doubt he’d be drafted. She was enthusiastic about our health care system, and wanted to live in a “more socialist” country.
Sometimes I wonder that there may be some force …. (fate?) …. that places people like myself in just the right place, at just the right time. For a moment I felt a twinge of guilt in the realization that my Canadian citizenship had been twisted into cruel bait for a hapless little moonbat – like savory French cheese perched temptingly in a leg hold trap.
In the end, I let her go – shaken, but unharmed. I’ve promised to only use my powers for good. But I think I detected a stagger in her walk as she made her way back to safety.

Life In The Rall World

Moonbats 7 Comments

As gifted a writer…

“Bloggers are ordinary people, many of them uneducated and with nothing interesting to say. They’re sitting in their rec rooms, regurgitating and spinning what real journalists have dug up through hard work. They don’t have sources, they don’t report, and no one holds them accountable when they make mistakes or flat out lie. Yeah, there’s a new sheriff in town. Unfortunately he’s drunk, he’s mean, and he works for the bad guy.”

as he is a cartoonist.

condirall.jpg

Canadian Save The Blogger Fund

Blogging 9 Comments

Here in Canada, where bloggers are so blessed, where simple basics like connectivity and a healthy hard drive are taken for granted, there is a tendency to forget that others are not so fortunate as we.
Miles to the south, in a remote urban jungle, a CITIZEN JOURNALIST sits facing a darkened screen. The hard drive has fallen silent. The electrons vital to blogging that are so often wasted meaninglessly, have been cruelly denied him.
Look into those sad, dark eyes, the pain only partly concealed behind bloodspattered *, yellow-tinted glasses*.
Help end the suffering. Only you can bring back the Martha Stewart Chronicles. Only you can restore Ted Rall’s Internal Monologue. Only you can grow the facial hair he so longs for.
Give. So the rest of us can go back to ripping off his best stuff.

Home

stuff 5 Comments

Well, the dog show turned out to be a waste of time and effort. I don’t get shut out very often, but it happens. I should be more reasonable in my expectations – I do more than my fair share of winning, certainly more than most owner-handlers. However, it does suck to lose. I hate losing, I really hate losing to entries I know are inferior, and I utterly despise driving halfway across a continent to discover the judge has a few “favorites” and favours to hand out.
Yeah, I’m a bad loser. A really, really bad loser. I don’t make scenes or get in people’s faces, but I bitch and complain with the best of them. I don’t apologize for it, either. An aversion to losing is a fundamental ingredient to competitive success.
“Show me a good loser, and I’ll show you a loser”.
It’s true.
Back to regular blogging shortly. I’ve been out of the loop and have some catching up to do myself.
In the meantime, if you haven’t read the updated link on my brief Hunter S. Thompson memorial post below, here it is again. Song of the Sausage Creature is a classic.

Hunter S. Thompson

What He Said 3 Comments

Some people will tell you that slow is good — and it may be, on some days — but I am here to tell you that fast is better. I’ve always believed this, in spite of the trouble it’s caused me. Being shot out of a cannon will always be better than being squeezed out of a tube. That is why God made fast motorcycles, Bubba…. – HS Thompson.

“Rest in peace” has been sent back for a rewrite..

Heavenly Daze

Blogging 6 Comments

Well, so far the show has been successful, in a communal, if not a personal, sense. Which means everyone who came on the trip has won nicely, to the exclusion of my dog.
So far, high point has been an evening with Jeff Goldstein and friends at a small pub they located after directing me to meet them at one called “Heavenly Daze”… which turned out to be closed. No small feat finding a locked, dark warehouse type of building in a strange city, after dark, having lost the directions and the address. But all’s well that ends with several pints of Guiness and shooters.
Jeff is having a hard time remembering events after 10:30.
Heh.

Dinner Conversation

stuff 18 Comments

I’m sitting here after dinner, a glass of wine at my side, in a home with automatic gates, servants, and wonderful hospitality, somewhere in Englewood, Colorado. There’s a chocolate dish with Tahitian vanilla ice cream on the dessert menu shortly.
It’s shirtsleeve weather (at least for a Saskatchewanian). You can be jealous.
Listened to Hugh Hewitt on radio for the first time and it reminded me of how far behind the curve Canadian conservative talk radio is in this aspect. I’ve been reading him pretty regularly for a year or so, and it reminded me of one of the frustrations of being a Canadian “amateur” blogger. Why isn’t Canadian talk radio moving into the world of blogging? Ignorance? Station policy? Laziness?
On his Monday show Rawlco radio’s John Gormley mentioned – I believe for the first time – the Eason Jordan affair. That’s all well and good – he certainly beat the news department on the “scoop” – but when a medium as immediate as talk radio is two weeks behind the curve, it’s pretty stale stuff.
On the other side of the fence, bloggers here dig, work to get reader tips due exposure, and swarm as best we can on stories we believe deserve attention. But there’s little chance for momentum to build in a country where television and print media is a virtual house organ of the Liberal party and talk radio has not yet produced a Rush Limbaugh. If they continue to plod along in their insular little regional am wave world, they’re pretty damned unlikely to, either.
The blogosphere in Canada will continue to lag behind the US in our ability to coalesce around a story and move it forward, so long as Canadian talk radio plods along in a 90’s mindset about the internet as little more than a convenient, but largely unreliable source for out-of-the mainstream show fodder.
C’mon you guys. Get on board. Get your blogs up – and by blogs, I mean the real deal, with trackbacks and a blogroll. See Hugh Hewitt. Hell. he has an email address – ask Hugh Hewitt.
Here’s another suggestion – local talk radio has weekly features with regular guests – contests, movie reviews, dvd release shows, “mornings with the mayor” etc. Why not try this – a weekly round-up of the stories perculating in the Canadian political blogosphere?
Stop playing catch up. Get in front of a story for a change.

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