My letter to Mars Incorporated.

To whom it may concern:

I am disappointed to learn that you have cancelled advertising on SUN NEWS in 2012 because of political pressure applied by organised socialist email campaigns.

I'd like to remind you that these sorts of people are brand snobs and only eat locally grown organic foods.  They don't like wholesome, longstanding staple brands like Uncle Ben's.  They would never put your products in their mouths let alone serve them to others.

I enjoy eating Mars products including UNCLE BEN's rice and I expected more from such a quality food corporation.  Unfortunately this expertise does not apparently extend to your marketing department. 

I am gravely disappointed to see you manipulated so easily by your enemies and opponents to SUN NEWS.  There is a wide variety brands to chose from and unfortunately I may cease my patronage to Mars Incorporated and its affiliates. 

SUN NEWS viewers are good and decent people who appreciate corporations with the moral fiber to stand with their customers.

I do hope you reconsider your decision and reaffirm that Uncle Ben's and Mars Incorporated is the kind of organisation I  bring into my home on TV and feed to my loved ones.

Thank you

Alexander Fernandes

Can you do better?  Give it a go and post your own here.   Remember they aren't up for a blog rant.  They are in business to please you, their customer who loves them.
(h/t Craig Smith)

Where was the CBC then?

Where was the Media then?


Stooges with their cameras
Watch our every move
Waiting for that one mistake
Some footage they can use
To smear the ones the fear the most
The ones that they despise
And fill the minds of spiteful pawns
With anger, hate, and lies

Exploit the children
Puppet the weak
Rile the masses again

Chorus:
Justify!
Where was the media then?
Tell us why!
Where was the media then?
But every time the truth came out
Where was the media then?
After fifty years of all your lies
Where was the media then?

When vegans kill in the name of peace
Holy men curse the white
Beheadings in Afghanistan
They vilify the Right
Voter fraud is just ignored
Acorns don't exist
But when the lies are exposed
It's Murdoch they insist

Exploit the children
Puppet the weak
Rile the masses again

Chorus

Hypocrisy is all we see
Hostility and misery
Always condescending
Until your mind in numb

Defenders of the free
The forth pillar they were meant to be
Masters of duplicity
The fifth column they've become

Exploit the children
Puppet the weak
Rile the masses again

Chorus
by Madison Rising

Happy Friday!  Merry Christmas!

Kepler-22b and Social Engineering

I call bull crap on this "Earths Twin" hype.   

Recently NASA found another extra solar planet but this one is special.  It's in the "Goldilocks Zone."  The Goldilocks Zone is a region around a star that can support life.  It's not too hot, not too cold.  Its just right for liquid water on the surface. The new planet, Kepler-22b, is supposed to be in this habitable zone.

I wouldn't be sending colonists there even if we could.  I think Kepler-22b is a poisonous, toxic, hellhole.  My guess is not only typical, but probable in this case.  Let's look at NASA's diagram comparing the Solar system with the Kepler-22 system.

Notice how large the Goldilocks zone is?  In our system, it includes the orbits of lifeless waterless Mars and Venus.  Things could be different though.  If Mars had a thicker atmosphere, its greenhouse effect could keep it warm enough for water and life. 

Kepler-22b is 2.5 times as large across as the Earth and 15 times as massive.  Pilots black out at 9 Gs, so you couldn't even stand up and stay alive on this planet.  If it was as far from its own star as Mars is to the Sun then I would be much more optimistic.  Unfortunately it's in the other direction.  Not only is it more than double Earths size, it's closer to its sun as well.  Not good.  Kepler-22 is supposed to be slightly dimmer than our sun but I don't think its enough.  A planet that big, that close to a star like ours, is going to be an oppresive smothering choking hell hole.  (like the ideal government of the left)

Venus is a little smaller that the Earth but being so close to the Sun it has had a runaway greenhouse effect.  It's too hot for any ocean.  The atmosphere is a soupy poison.  All the probes we've sent are now melted slag.

Atmospheres make a big difference.  Mercury is not even close to being habitable but because of a quirk of its axial tilt part of Mercury is in perpetual darkness.  Without any atmosphere at all, its been theorized that ice could form on Mercury.  There isn't a single ice crystal on Venus because of its thick humid atmosphere. Not even at the poles. 

It's very likely Kepler-22b is a super sized, super terrible, version of Venus.  Its not an earth like planet.  Not even close.  When you look at the actual press release from NASA it says "scientists don't yet know if Kepler-22b has a predominantly rocky, gaseous or liquid composition."  They have no idea if Kepler-22b is habitable or not.  In fact Kepler-22b is just one of over 40 extra solar planets that might be habitable if they are very very lucky.

So how do we go from that to the hundreds of articles from so-called science journalists declaring the discovery of "Earth's Twin."  Google it.  Its amazing.  They are like a school of fish.  Each individual a dummy but they swim together.  No wonder they are into collectives.  Not an original thought to be found in the lot of them.

There is something directing the group think however.  Its what I'll call Social Engineering License.  You've heard of poetic license and artistic license?  Artists and poets can break the rules of grammar or accepted practice to make a point or enhance meaning.  I believe science journalists take queues from the PR departments at places like NASA or NOAA to bend the truth such that it influences general public thinking.

Social Engineering.

Lets look at an example close to home.  The Toronto Star headline is "A new Earth? Eerily familiar planet ‘a phenomenal discovery’".  The article makes many fantastical claims that are purely unreasonable speculation.  The claims get the headlines.  When you take skeptical position scientists, whatever the discipline, will then reply that they need more research.  They need more money.

A related article in the same newspaper claims Kepler-22b has:

a comfy 21 C surface temperature;
a rocky surface;
an ocean;

Where does that come from?  21 Celsius eh?  600 light years out and the Toronto Star knows the surface temperature is 21 degrees C (with light showers expected later in the day).  You can disagree like I have, but  the skilled progressive will lead you into a discussion of climate, atmosphere, and the greenhouse effect.

It's fallen out of fashion but Venus' runaway greenhouse effect used to be one of the scary scenarios for a man-made runaway greenhouse effect.  It was one of my favorites because it allows the skeptic to point out that the Earth has had both hotter global average temperatures than today and higher CO2 levels (sometimes during ice ages).  If the greenhouse effect was going to runaway it would have done so already at many different opportunities in Earths natural history.  The key difference between Venus and Earth, obvious to anyone but a eco-minded green priest, is that Venus is closer to the Sun.  The Sun drives climate morons.  -Directly and indirectly.

This is why science news is skewed to outlandish and often nonsensical claims.  You have the scientists who want to ensure a steady flow of grant money on one side and you have journalists on the other side who aren't there to report but to influence and change for their social engineering ends.  Both of them bend the truth for their own agenda.  They tell a 'white lie' for a 'good cause.' 

Social Engineering.

We see this Social Engineering License effect in things as harmless as astronomy.  The Climategate and Climategate 2.0 emails explicitly show this effect in areas of science that have great social implications like Anthropogenic Global Warming.  Climate Scientists are very political.  Many of them want massive global taxes and global government to administer and enforce it.  Science journalists concerned with Global Warming are on a moralistic mission to implement global socialism.  Social Engineering white lies masquerade as science for political ends with the moral justification of saving the earth. 

-Oh and NASA doesn't know if Kepler-22b is a rock, gas, ice or ocean planet, but they provide a picture of it.  Would you like to buy a few acres of land there?

The CBC Plot Thickens

Uh-huh.  Do you see what I be see?  I knew it all along.  It must be a conspiracy.  Just look at those coconuts! 

Vote in The Coprolite Awards for COP-17

Fossils are cool.  I collect them.  They are geology, biology and paleontology cast into a physical, often beautiful, artifact.  The Royal Tyrrell Museum in Drumheller is a temple to my beliefs and a house of wonders and treasure. 

Fossil Bone Bed in Dinosaur Park

I'm quite proud that Canada receives fossil awards.  When you look at the eco-lobby that gives them out for ignoring them, it is quite a prize.  It would be very disappointing if we didn't get at least one.  A fossil award is something that every nation should strive for.

Make no mistake.  Environmentalist are solely lobbyists for an earth cult.  They produce nothing at all but complaints, propaganda and hyperbolic emotional fear campaigns.  There is no pleasing them even when appeasing them.  Money spent on these eco-lobby groups is utterly and ironically wasted.  Their only solution is socialism, which is their motivation in the first place. 

I do thank them for their cool awards however.  In return I'd like to establish the Coprolite Awards at COP-17.  A Coprolite is not a fossil.  Coprolites are lithified poop.  Like fossilized footprints they are not actual fossils.  Coprolites are preserved prehistoric animal turds.

Coprolite: Ewww

What better metaphor for the eco-lobby than ancient lithified poop?  Its perfect.  Global Warming being the ultimate pile of outdated bull crap where eco-hypocrite crusaders retain their defecated shape and nothing of their original ideal.  Fossilized crap has never in history deserved such recognition.

The Categories will be:

• Grand Coprolite Nation: given to the Country that stands out for its righteous hand ringing and hypocrisy.
• Coprolite-in-Chief: The top non-scientist who has made the most fantastical claims and money off of AGW.
• Coprolite Wizard: The scientist who distinguishes themselves for activism, forgery, withholding data, and skewing results.
• Coprolite Quisling: The politician who bows lowest to the eco-lobby.
• Coprolite Cache: the stupidest and shrillest ENGO.
• Tax Funded Coprolite Cache: The government organisation that spends the most tax money in order to raise the taxes of its citizens. 

I'm open to ideas on other categories I may have missed.  Perhaps a lifetime achievement coprolite.
I'm also open to nominations for each of the awards.  Vote for each category on the left and leave any suggestions below. Put Durban in the dirt bin like all the other expensive hypocritical climate junkets.

Coprolite jewlery is not glamorous

A Basis for Atheist Conservative Partnership

The basis for atheist conservative cooperation is liberty.  Core conservative values include Free Markets, Security and Defence, Personal Liberty, Nationalism, and the Rule of Law.  Personal Freedom includes freedom of religion or lack thereof.  The same values protect the rights of atheists as they do the rights of the faithful.  We all want the same thing.  Freedom.

There is no reason for any conflict between atheism and conservative values, even those of social conservatives.  The faithful believe that rights and freedoms come from God directly.  There is no government or even a religious official that can revoke the rights of a Human Being.  Freedom is divine.

The thinking atheist, ones who take the time to think about the nature of freedom, knows that rights and freedoms are inherent to Human life.  There is no government or scientist that can revoke the rights of a Human Being.  Freedom is Human.

The theological and philosophical debate as to the existence of God should not have any bearing on policy or politics at all.  The true God would never revoke the free will and divine rights of humans.  A non-existent God will never be able revoke the free will and divine rights of humans.   Effectively the atheist conservative and the conservative believer have the same position on liberty whether God exists or not.

The left wing view is that rights come from government.  They replace God with government and submit to the dictates of men with power.  A right can't be over ruled by definition.  Rights are not rights if they are subject to the approval of others.  Rights supersede laws, opinions or policy.  The idea that rights come from government is internally inconsistent like so many ideas on the left.

The conflict between many atheists and conservatives also comes from the left.  Too many atheists enjoy a feeling of superiority that enables them to belittle and insult believers.  The main target of this branch of atheism is social conservatism.  This has been the case since Marx called religion the "opiate of the masses."  Extreme socialist regimes have adopted atheism primarily to take power from religions and to encourage the same sort of intolerant superiority that pervades the left today.  Left wing atheists are tools of the left.  They mobilize one group against the other to further their socialist agenda.

Left wing atheists typically ignore those believers who think the job of government is to enforce the social moors that come from religion.  Take the blind leftist support of totalitarian Islamists over freedom loving Jews in the middle east as a prime example.  Atheists are free in Israel while they can be murdered or executed in most of the middle east.  What other word than 'tool' can be used to describe a left wing atheist.  A person turned against themselves for no better reason than their political faction is allied against people they locally dislike.

Left wing atheists have been marshaled into war with social conservatives for a long time.  Now is no different.  Religion is not the enemy.  Overbearing government is the enemy of all humanity.  Conservative atheists have a responsibility to turn other atheists back to liberty through solid reasoning.  They also have the responsibility to defuse the tension created by the left towards all atheists.  Believers are good, hard working, intelligent and freedom loving people.  They deserve respect even while we might respectfully disagree on the remote yet fundamental aspects of nature. 

A excellent lecture on Ayn Rands Theory of Rights by Objectavist Craig Biddle can be viewed below.  He has a corresponding essay that goes deeper into the ideas here.  

 
Ayn Rand was a great atheist and philosopher who discovered and put into language what many atheists already believe but are unable to express.   Religion has had thousands of years to refine their arguments while the atheist awakening is still rather new.  Not enough time has been spent by atheists on the questions of rights and morality resulting in many minds lost to socialism. 

Alberta is strong and free for now

Alberta has improved its economic freedom as of 2009 says a Fraser Institute report.  Thanks to Obama the rest of North America has fallen, leaving Alberta in first place.

We even beat Rick Perry's Texas.

While I'm sure the Redford government is clinking champagne glasses and patting backs over this, all I can do is face palm.  Why?  Because this is it.  Alberta is now (or was in '09) the best part of the best part of the world.  There is no grass that is greener anywhere.

The Author of the report said "the biggest thing is that the United States’ jurisdictions have been trending down."  It's as if we are the flotsam left after a great ship sank.  I'm happy for Alberta but sad for the ship, sad for the world.

The Redford government days ago floated the idea of a provincial sales tax.  Part of the consideration for economic freedom is taxation.  Higher taxes allow bigger governments, which would negatively impact our standing on this important measure. 

It is clear that Allison Redford brings the wrong kind of change to Alberta.  -The change that brought down the western world.  They aren't just resting on their laurels, they are actively working to discard them.  Redford had nothing but praise for Ontario's McGuinty policies last week which scores 49th out of 60 on the economic freedom index.  It's those policies that are currently wrecking the economy of central Canada.  It's McGuinty's policy that has driven them into 'have-not' status.  

Many people, including myself, chose Alberta as their home for precisely the reasons that Alberta won the top spot in the economic freedom report.  You could turn this report upside down and say that Alberta scores last in socialism (thank goodness).

The Redford PCs best ideas are about increasing government scope.  Socialism.  They don't care if we beat Delaware by a little or a lot.  They don't care about our economic freedom at all.  For them its about short term power, and they plan to bribe us with our own money to keep it. 

Wildrose does care about personal and economic freedom.  Wildrose does not plan to top the freedom index by watching everyone else lose theirs.  Leadership of the free world may have fallen into our lap by default, but it won't stay there by overspending like a Red Tory.  Alberta should be looking at ways to enhance our economic freedom and the Wildrose Party are the only ones able to do this.

F-bombs and stuff

So Putz Martin tweeted some foul language.  There should be some conduct unbecoming of an elected official bylaw I suppose but why give parliament the excuse to commission a gold plated swear jar?

It just shows what we all knew about the pond scum already.  Putz Martin is a classless douchbag, about as smart as a bag of hammers with about half the character.  Nobody is surprised, but we sure like to talk about it.

I learned a long time ago.  Don't put anything in writing you don't want anyone to see.

Back in grade 5 I thought it would be funny to write a juvenile parody of Twas the night before Christmas.  It made me laugh.  My teacher, a very Christian man involved with the Knights of Columbus, did not appreciate my humor at all.  I think we were asked to write a Christmas poem.

Anyway, I got an F and letter home.  The F was for funny as far as I was concerned.  I could care less.

The letter home though was very very unfunny.

My Father never hit me.  Mom would break wooden spoons over my insolent bum.  Dad though used to say "if you ever make me mad enough to hit you, you'll be sorry."  I believed him.  I never crossed that line, but looking back I suppose he didn't either.      

This time though Dad was very upset.  It wasn't about blasphemy or vulgarity or making a farce out of my teacher's holy assignment.  That was Mr. KofC's problem.  It was hard evidence that I was an idiot.  Undeniable.  My Dad made it very clear that I was a stupid idiot fool.  He had the physical proof by my own hand with my own signature.  I could only agree.

I've taken this lesson to heart.  I swear and curse as much as the next guy, but I will never publicly lower myself to writing that's fit only for a bathroom stall.  I'm better than that.  My readers should be proud to admit they've graced my site. (thank you reader)

People like Bill Maher think cussing is some kind of high art.  Making your point as strongly as you feel it without resorting to sexual or excretory ultra cliches is the real challenge.  Common language is common and because its common its opposite of any kind of talent or skill.

Putz Martin's twitter account is nothing but a bathroom stall.  An Occupy bathroom stall provided by hardworking taxpayers to people who would otherwise defecate in the street like animals.  A filthy place, only to be visited if inescapably necessary.  That's Pat Martin, member for Winnipeg Center..  It suits him well.       

Redford and McGuinty: peas in a pod

Awe aren't they cute?  Just look at this picture.

Two Liberal politicians chatting by the fire.  Tax money can conveniently go up in flames any time they choose.  It's good to be Premier. 

Alison Redford went to Ontario.  She went there to learn a few tricks from the master.  The master being the same guy who sent ministers to Copenhagen to bad mouth Alberta and generally make Canada look bad. (link)  You remember those dinks Quebec and Ontario sent right?  All the same people are still in government.

All you have to do is say some progressive jargon and its all water under the bridge.

"We are a mosaic of peoples, regions and interests and we have always celebrated this diversity." (link) Wow huh?  Steyn's leftist keywords uttered by our own Premier.  It really is a Liberal government we've got here.  She even spoke of a "National Energy Strategy."  Because one National Energy Program wasn't enough.

I said before that Redford belonged in Ontario and there she is rubbing elbows with the biggest failure since Bob Rae. 

When you have a permanent deficit, you are a failure.  You are taxing the future when you spend more than you earn.  There is no magic in this.  There is no flowery progressive platitudes that are going change this.  There is no amount of 'coming together to establish a dialog in the cultural mosaic spirit to celebrate diversity' that is going to change the laws of mathematics so you can spend more than you earn forever.  Something has got to give.  All over Canada, we are sick of being the ones giving it up all the time. 

Voters know this, even if politicians don't.   

My one and only face to face run-in with Joe Clark

Joe Clark!  That proud old progressive wind bag who couldn't hold a minority parliament together for more than 9 months and actually sided with the Liberal Party over the Reform Party.  The template Red Tory and benefactor, mentor and inspiration to Alison Redford. 

We only met once and I don't care to repeat the encounter.

It was cold. So very cold that day.  Liberals were in power.  The West was out.   Klein was in.

Downtown Calgary was a deserted windswept canyon of polished stone and glass.  I was a broke student, on my way to the Y to workout.

I exited the LRT and was immediately blasted with blowing -40 Celsius.  I'm not really into windchill.  It just seems like hyperbole to me.  "Holy jump'n its -80 C with windchill!"  That really means nothing to me.  Wind changes and is especially unpredictable amid the tall buildings.  I want to know the real temperature.  I expect wind.  Its winter.  How cold would it be if I hid in a car without the engine running?  That's what the daily "High" is all about.  Its the best temperature you can expect for the day.  

Any temperature below -20 is kind of irrelevant.  -20 or -40 is just too damn cold.  A high of -40 will literally freeze your eyelids shut.  When you make it back indoors, the vitreous fluid in your eyeballs stays cold for a few minutes.  It's an odd feeling.  Your circulatory system regulates your body temperature among other things but it doesn't interact with your vitreous humor.  You can't feel your vitreous humor, its just a space with fluid in it.  You can feel the heat lost form the little blood vessels all around your eye.  Once your fingers and toes stop burning, a perceptive person will realize their eyes are cold.

There I was in that kind of weather.  I started down 3rd street.  The Y was 7 blocks away.  I walked the first block and then I started running.  It was a simple decision, less time in the cold, more heat generated by the activity, and I was heading to the gym for exercise anyway.

I'm running along, breathing hard, tears streaming down my face.  Eyelids sticking shut with every blink.  I stop at a stop light on 4th Avenue.  I know.  I'm a well trained citizen.

Standing there at the light with his wife (I presume) and decked in fine furs was Joe Clark.  There was Joe Clark sneering at me.   

'F--k you,' I thought and jaywalked (ran) across the road then all the way to the gym.

Not much of a meeting, but I'll never forget it.  Whenever I think of Joe Clark or progressives in general I see that sneering elite in furs judging me.

Smashing the progressive disease is not only good for the country and good for the whole world.  It's good for all of us as individuals.  Had I never run into Joe Clark, I would still do my best to stamp out progressive attitudes and ideas wherever their ugly specter rises.  There is a personal satisfaction in it for me however.

Vitriolic Humour

Those professional politicians that kiss babies for the camera's but sneer at random people on the street, their day is gone.  Their wordy nap-inducing pacifying verbal hypnosis is utterly meaningless.  We know them now.  We can spot progressives; smell them from around the corner before they even come into view.  What are these sneering progressive elites but Liberals who've convinced themselves they are too good for Liberals?  They might be fine bankers or whatever, but snobs like these should never have the wheel of public office for long.  Like a self serving taxi driver, they won't take us where we really want to go and leave us with a huge bill when its over.    

Albertans are PST

Pissed off with Alberta's Progressive Party?  You aren't the only one.  Liepert floated the idea of a Provincial Sales Tax (PST) today.  This isn't the first time either.  We all know what the left wing party that governs Alberta is itching to raise taxes.  They can't turn around without stepping in their own poop because they are full of it.  Political speak for this sort of thing is a "trial balloon."  Basically they dip their toes in water to see if they can swim.

Albertans do not want a PST.  Albertans have already been humbled by this governments inefficiency compared to other  provinces and its unprecedented deficit.  Now they want a new tax.  

How many public sector unions does Redford intend to buy off?  Anyone with two or more brain cells to rub together can figure out that if the PC's hang on to power through the next election, we will get a PST.  No two ways about it.

Danielle Smith asked us this morning: "What do you think of the Redford Tories proposal for a provincial sales tax?"

My Answer:  "I think I want to knock every door in Alberta to tell them there is a way out."

You better believe it.  I didn't move here so Ontario's disease could follow me.  Not on my watch!

The next trial balloon will involve filling in the Alberta Badlands by levelling Alberta's Rocky Mountains I'm sure.  Isn't that fair?  Isn't that how progressives think after all?  That's the PC way these days.  We should all be made to write a $400 check to Premier Redford right now.  Call it a Prosperity Penalty.  Alberta advantage hah!  Not with this dead weight in our provincial government.  

Off the chart stupidity in Obama Nation

Obama is a total train wreck.  Obama's incompetence strains the English language to find adequate the word to define it.   Stupid?  Idiotic?  Moronic? Idealist?  Timid?  Wrong-headed?  Clueless?  Obama is all those things, but more so.  It's not enough to call him stupid.  The moron freezing his loser butt off in an open sewer that was once a city park tonight, that's stupid.  Obama takes it to a whole other level.

This is the kind of stupidity that lends half a billion to negative cash flow companies like Solyndra for a flawed ideology at best, and/or to give heavy Obama campaign donor George Kaiser a bailout at worst.  That bad loan was in turn loaned to the US with no realistic plan to pay for it.  Some unborn tax payer was sold as a slave to Obama's political cronies.   


Why does he and his administration need to think so hard about the Keystone XL pipeline?  It's a "no brainer," said Prime Minister Stephen Harper, a man known for his wise strategic decisions.  Obama's eco-nut base is so fickle that Obama is afraid to lose them in the upcoming election over this.  He would stand to lose a lot of campaign money and a host of volunteers.  The Keystone XL and its tens of thousands of permanent American jobs will have to wait until after the election.  Those workers can go camp in a city park or something.  The only thing important to Obama is campaign donations from the special interests that own him. They are the special interests that made him.

This campaign cash gain to Obama comes at the expense of real revenue at a time when the US needs it the most.  The US deficit is 1.3 trillion!  US Unemployment is at 9.1%!  


I suppose he really does think Americans are stupid.  Never mind Solyndra, Fast and Furious, Canadian oil indecision, snubbing friends, groveling to enemies, and the trillions spent with nothing to show for it.  Nah.  All America really needs is a slick 2012 election campaign and all will be well.  Obama needs to continue to nap in the Oval Office and golf.  That is all that really matters to the administration.    It's not their money after all.

The leftards are right about America.  America does suck.  They should know, they did it.  They are doing it.  They, the left, is responsible for the hole America is in.  Mark Steyn pointed out the on Sun News the other day that all this play money comes from China, and the US still gives millions in foreign aid back to China.  What a deal!  Take a bow progressives.  You have really out done yourselves on that one.

America is insane, completely insane.  Not Americans, the people, but the United States is crazy.  Spending like there is no tomorrow and turning away good jobs.  If a person acted like the US they would be locked up.  Progressives have talked all the sense completely out of politics and pat themselves on the back for it.  The entire western world is sick with this Progressive/Liberal/Socialist/Marxist disease we can aggregate as The Left. 

Stupid can't begin to describe the Obama administration.  The word is just too soft for the insanity unleashed by this community organizer and his pack of Marxists.  This little rant started with my inability to concisely state the scale of the Obama administration's stupidity in one word, but I think I've found it.  Obama is Leftist.

Occupy LOL Street

Happy Friday!  As snow descends on Calgary in big beautiful conglomerate flakes, I thought I'd share some funny-but-true graphics I picked up from occupylolstreet.com.

This Venn diagram will help you understand what makes Occupy Wall Street tick.  It wouldn't be so funny if it wasn't so true.

Next up.  A typical occupy child of privilege.

hahaha!  So good.... and true.

I've never been so happy to see snow!  I hope our set of occupy wastrels are becoming well acquainted to life without fossil fuels.   I've been winter camping.  Its not as fun as it sounds.  Its going to be a long cold winter my little numb skulls. 

Today

Periods of snow. Amount 5 cm. Wind north 20 km/h becoming light this afternoon. Temperature steady near minus 9.

Tonight

Periods of snow ending near midnight then cloudy. Amount 2 cm. Low minus 10.

Halloween Book Review: World War Z

World War Z is a thoroughly enjoyable read.  If you ever watched a Zombie Apocalypse film and wondered "what happened to the army?"  This is that story and many others.

World War Z is probably the most hopeful horror book I have ever read.  Its told from the perspective of survivors of the Zombie War who were being interviewed by a reconstituted UN.  Its as horrifying as any zombie tale except you soon realize that every survivor story must have a happy ending.  Happy enough anyway.

Its very realistic once you accept the idea of a virus that can reanimate infected dead and turn them into hungry flesh eating ghouls.  They use everything from nuclear weapons to baseball bats but nothing stops the zombie hordes except geography and some very tough decisions.  Read the book to find out how.  I don't want to spoil it.

There is even a lot of Canadian content.  One story was of an early encounter with zombies as told by a soldier with the PPCLI.  Another tells of a family's early escape to Canada before "The Great Panic."  This isn't special since there are tales from every part of the earth including a civil war as fought by Chinese submarines and the plight of astronauts stranded on the International Space Station. 

Even the Joint Strike Fighter (F-35) makes an appearance at The Battle of Yonkers.  Its stealth profile and surgical precision are useless against millions upon millions of undead walkers.  The Battle of Yonkers is sure to become an instant legend when the movie comes out next year.

The Battle of Yonkers

IMDB reports that the film will star Brad Pitt.  I'm not sure how they will adapt the book for the big screen.  The oral history of many different viewpoints from around the world won't lend itself well to a movie.  I'm hoping the director, budget and screenplay of the film will be as big as its main star.

In any case, World War Z is a fantastic read this Halloween.



A zombie outbreak is a useful exercise to help us think outside the box of a comfortable civilization.  Zombies allow you to think about the worst case scenario without naming an enemy.  You can laugh and joke about it without being that paranoid guy.  There are elements of society that resemble the dirty brainless shuffling mobs who want to consume everything and contribute nothing.  Some people identify with zombies (I identify some people as zombies) while others see themselves as survivors.  Which are you?  It's not going to happen of course, but you should be ready to preserve yourself and your family in the event of a catastrophe.  It could be a tornado, a tsunami, a major industrial accident, disease, shortages, a crippling attack from a hostile state or even a revolution.  Sometimes these things even come in groups as we saw in Japan.  Are you ready for the apocalypse?  Don't count on bureaucrats to save you.

Leftist Atheists on the Attack

I'm an atheist.

It's with some shame that I say this.  The shame doesn't come from my non-belief,  it comes from the behavior of some of the people and groups who share my non-belief. 

Atheism is becoming more than a simple understanding that God doesn't exist.  Atheism is being turned into an anti-religious movement.  Somewhere, somehow, the atheist movement has picked up the iconoclastic fervor seen only in fundamentalist Islam today. 

The group at the vanguard of this growing secular intolerance is the FFRF or the Freedom From Religion Foundation.  I would support them if they were serious about actually freeing people trapped in a religion or some crazy sect.  They don't go after cases of honour killings or institutionalized abuse, arranged marriages, forced polygamy, genital mutilation, sexual segregation, nothing worthy of real opposition.  No.  They want to protect my atheist eyes from seeing a religious symbol in public.  

The latest victim of iconoclastic fury is directed at a statue of Jesus on a mountain in Montana.  The Calgary Sun reports that it was erected in 1955 by World War II veterans who admired similar monuments in the old world.  It's kept by the Knights of Columbus who have held a special lease for the memorial since 1953.  The FFRF press release claims that its unconstitutional and urges readers to call the US Forest Service to thank them for not renewing the lease for that reason.

While I demand equal treatment under the law for atheists or any other type of believer, I do not subscribe to the idea that a statue can oppress me in any way.  It was there before I was born.  What right have I as an atheist to remove it?  Its there.  That's it.  What are we the Taliban?

Must we erase everything from the past?  Just because I don't believe doesn't mean I can remove the fact that there were war heroes who did believe.  They made their mark and passed on.  I'd like people a thousand years in the future to know who they were and how they thought.

I fail to understand why people get so bent out of shape about Christian symbols in particular.  Could you imagine this selectively righteous group getting so worked up about a Buddha statue?  The Calgary Zoo has a Ganesh statue that I quite like.  When do you suppose these religious police will save the impressionable youth from the Hindu indoctrination?  Its ridiculous on its face.  Thousands of children pass that statue every year and I'll wager not a single child was compelled to Hinduism by it.  Not a single atheist was offended by it either.

An atheist whizzing past a statue of Jesus on a ski hill is unacceptable to FFRF.  Never did they think they required sensitivity training or something.  Everyone must go out of their way not to offend poor atheists.


This organization the FFRF is afflicted with what I've come to perceive as Standard Leftist Archetype.

You see atheism doesn't necessarily dictate how an atheist group will conduct themselves.  The underlying methodology and ideology is the same as any leftist group you will encounter.  You can replace atheist with environmentalist, feminist, separatist, Islamist, anarchist,... you name it. 

Key traits are intolerance, revisionism, self-loathing, and top down Stateist solutions to every problem.  They are leftists.  They are probably funded by leftists.  This is the Standard Leftist Archetype to advance a cause.  Each cause furthers the goal of systematically dismantling everything that made Western Civilization great. 

Ayn Rand was atheist.  Bill Maher is an atheist.  The fundamental difference between them, inspiring or insulting respectively, is not their beliefs but their politics.

Its not atheism itself that is the problem.  The left is the problem. 

Can drones replace fighters? Should they?

The trouble with drones is also their main strength.  They are remote control robots.  -Expendable and obedient.

If Gaddafi had drones they would have bombed civilians as ordered.  Libyan pilots famously defected to Malta when they were ordered to fire on their own citizens.

The Soviet Union may still exist today if it had a drone air force.  At the climax of the 1991 coup, when the Red Army and the KGB usurped the Communist Party's Premier, they ordered the Air Force to bomb Moscow.*  They refused.  The USSR dissolved shortly after. 

Drones would have bombed Moscow.   They make no moral distinction between targets.  A Human pilot can rebel against insane orders, even if the orders are perfectly legitimate.  Drones can't even distinguish between legitimate or illegitimate orders let alone make moral judgements on them.

Last week it was reported that a stubborn virus had infected the ground control station at Creech Air Force Base in Nevada.  No matter what they do they havn't been able to wipe it off.  The report suggests that it's a simple keylogger virus that records keystrokes.  It could have conceivably been much worse however.

The Stuxnet virus that attacked the Iranian nuclear weapons program actually took control of centrifuges that were being used to refine weapons grade Uranium.  The ingenious virus subverted the display screens of the centrifuges so that the operators had no idea what was happening.  The virus then set the centrifuges to destroy themselves by spinning out of control.

Iran coincidentally has its own drone program.  Like the rogue centrifuges, a drone will simply do whatever it's commanded, be it virus or human, friend or foe. 

There are other limitations too.  Drones are primarily suited to asymmetrical warfare.  Insurgents and Jihadis will not have surface to air missiles or viruses of their own as of yet.  They can't jam the signal to the drone with noise or knock out the signal source either.    An advanced hostile state may have these capabilities.


Some suggest that drones could be a viable alternative to the F-35.  This is not a serious suggestion.  It would be like suggesting that a torpedo, a sophisticated remote controlled drone-like submarine, could replace a ship. No.

This is why a drone fleet will always have a support role that augments real fighter jets with real on-board pilots.  Drones are merely tools and cannot replace fighter jets or bombers as the mainstay of a serious Air Force.  Anyone who thinks this simply hasn't thought it through or is making this suggestion for political reasons.

*I'm not able to locate an online reference for this but I saw it on a Frontline documentary about the fall of the USSR years ago.

Alberta PC Cabinet Upsized

We'll take this order 'to go' please.  Premier Redford has picked her cabinet and it is a whopper.  21 stale buns will occupy the cabinet chairs around Redford's newly purchased throne.  The Burger Queen has change on the menu but this is no diet plan.  Canada's fattest provincial government is sitting down to an all-you-can-eat taxpayer buffet.

Wildrose has already committed to a small and efficient 16 member cabinet.  40 Reasons to Vote Wildrose #12 aims to trim the fat from cabinet.  Shrinking the size of government starts at the top.

Even ousted Ed had a 19 person cabinet at first.  You don't shrink government by growing it.  I don't think that was ever priority before or after Redford's coronation.  The priority we see here is patronage and payoffs.  Is your Alberta government and its ministries run in your interests or in the interest of the PC party?

In case you missed it

Watch the entire Bloomberg GOP Debate commercial free. Its about 95 minutes and they talk about the OWS (owes?) protests right at the beginning.   They seem pretty cheerful!
(Thanks to TheRightScoop)

Would the real Tea Party please stand up?

With all the hoopla about Occupy Wall Street and its lesser incarnations, I'd like to hear form the Tea Party.

Are you with Occupy Wall Street or not?  I suspect you are with some of what they are saying now that people are listening (and laughing).  I can't imagine the Tea Party would support Bailouts for Bonuses to the banks who caused the 2008 mess. 

I would imagine, I must imagine since I'm not the Tea Party and can only presume what they would think, that Tea Party would have let the bad banks fail.

The Occupy Wall Street types don't seem to take issue with the monster bailout itself but with the failure of Justice to prosecute those responsible.  Occupy Wall Street would happily nationalize all the corporations and jail all the CEO's because deep down they think capitalism is exploitation.  The usual Marxist bunk.

The Occupy Wall Street kids, or "Anarchists for Big Government," rightly deserve a skeptical analysis and even derision where appropriate.  Many of their supporters have begun to answer serious questions with statements like: "aren't these Tea baggers? They are protesting their tax money going to the financial sector without consequence...isn't that the point to the Tea party?"

Or try this one: "I'm enjoying the double standards Conservatives display with their attitude towards Occupy Wallstreet protests vs. Tea Bagger protests." 

Those are quotes off my Facebook page.

Have you ever heard of Tea Party activists urinating on police cars, getting arrested by the hundreds and attempting to storm museums?  Has the Tea Party ever called for the end of capitalism?    

I've heard the Tea Party accused of many things by people who call them "Tea Baggers."  What comes to mind most readily?  Racists.  

 
Notice all the children, tucked in shirts and grey hair?  Take a look at Occupy Wall Street again.
Anyone against Obama is a racist.  I'm sure you've come across this if you follow the Tea Party.  The Tea Party get's slapped with racist slurs from day one while Occupy Wall Street is openly anti-semetic.  

We know all about double standards.  The left is one big double standard enabled by partizan calculation on one hand and plain ignorance on the other.

What say you Tea Party?  Are you really the same as the Occupy Wall Street thing?  Speak up please, because if you don't others will on your behalf.   

 

Redford belongs in Ontario

If the election in Ontario didn't frighten you, it should have.  Even the surest election can be lost.  Even the most despicable bums like the McGuinty Liberals can lie and bribe and manipulate their way to staying in power.

What is more despicable than a politician who sells out to a union for a tarnished crown?  Alison Redford did that for the Leadership of the PC Party and the Premiership of Alberta.  For the sum of $107 million the Premier's office was sold.  Union members bought into the PC Party in order to vote in Alison Redford and get their money.

One insult to democracy begets another.  Redford's first move was to cancel the fall session of the Legislature.  There will be no questions about Redford's deal with the teachers union.  There will be no discussion with the representatives of the people of the merits and methods education funding.

$107 million  may well be a necessary contribution to education.  Redford's decision was made behind closed doors and for unethical reasons completely separate from the real needs of students and schools.  It's a scandal and a shame.

We cannot allow this latest betrayal to stand.  We cannot allow our democracy to be horse-traded away to special interests no matter how worthy the cause.  Concerned Albertans must support Daniel Smith and the Wildrose.

Ontario was once the flower of Confederation.  They were masters of Canada's economy.  The unspoken soul of national policy.  Now look at them.  The same will happen to us.

The path of  social progressive ideology has only one terminus.   The Progressives are leading Alberta in the same direction.  Failure.  Greek failure. Spain's failure.  Soviet failure.  Ontario's failure. Obama's failure.

Alberta is failing. 

This is why I'm asking you to help Save Alberta.  The Wildrose can keep Alberta out in front.  We can be a shining example of a government that works by people who know the value of their hard work.  

To this end, I've decided to run through the 40 Great Reasons to Vote Wildrose.  In keeping with today's themes I'll skip right to Reason # 6: FREE VOTES.

This is the opposite to oppressive PC domination of your government.  Redford doesn't even allow her whipped PC MLA minions to vote in the assembly and on the record.

We pay a lot of money for the privilege of democracy.  I'm sure a dictatorship is much cheaper without all that messy voting and representation.  The expensive privileges that Redford casually cancels will be strengthened and empowered under Wildrose.  Your elected member will be free to represent you and be responsible to you.

Your constituency will come before the will of the PC leader of the week and her union masters.  

Canada's Own Ozone Hole

We've got everything here.  Now we even have an Arctic Ozone hole.  This article I found on the National Post website claims that Canadian scientists have witnessed a gaping hole in the ozone open up.

The Arctic O-hole

Good grief!  Let me guess: the barren Arctic waste will become a barren Arctic waste, northern peoples will have to stock up on sunscreen for the 5 minutes a year that their skin is exposed to sunshine, and its all because of the Oil Sands.

Well not quite.... yet.

I thought we solved the Ozone problem ages ago.  It was all because of CFCs.  We had a handy replacement chemical for refrigeration and that was that.  Never heard about the Ozone again.

Now I read that a new Ozone hole has quite suddenly opened up in this hemisphere.  The cause this time, and this priceless: "The blame has been pinned on cold temperatures."

I had to find that in a Wired magazine article because the National Post removed any mention cold temperatures in their article.  When I first read the article late Sunday night it did mention abnormally cold temperatures in the Arctic but now it says this:  "[the ozone hole] may be linked to climate change and increasing greenhouse gas emissions."

How?  Why did the article change overnight from citing extra cold as the cause to citing Climate Change (formerly know as Global Warming) as the cause?  I believe I've spotted a warmist editor at the National Post in action.    Commentators at WUWT claim that the CBC did the exact same thing by changing "extreme cold" to "unusual winter weather."  I would also like to know how several news agencies just happen pick up a story that broke back in March of 2011 simultaneously.  Reduce-Reuse-Recycle, and I would add a fourth R: Regurgitate.

I had to know what the warmists were thinking though.  It turns out, their theory of trapped infrared (IR) light in the troposphere (where we live) by CO2 is supposed directly cool the stratosphere (where the ozone lives).  The CO2 essentially starves the stratosphere of IR and saturates that exact same IR into the troposphere in theory.  One photon absorbed by CO2 at the surface is one less photon knocking sparse molecules around 30 km in the air.  They are directly proportional and inversely related.   (the different densities of the 2 zones makes me wonder if they are really directly proportional, some light should go right out to space without hitting anything, but lets assume for now that this mechanism is 1:1 and perfectly efficient)

I don't pretend to be an atmospheric expert but even the warmist surface climate figures I found on the environment Canada website (which I do not trust, they typically work the data until they get the expected results) shows 2011 being cooler than 2010.  The stratosphere temperature is supposed to be directly related to the absence of IR light being trapped in the troposphere.  The observed extreme cold in the troposphere should have been accompanied by corresponding extreme heat if it was cause by CO2 induced Global Warming.  This clearly did not happen in 2011, nor were any catastrophic ozone holes ever noticed in warmer years. 

Coincidentally this also comes at a time when budget cuts are coming to this department at Environment Canada.  Isn't that strange?  This can't possibly be cry for rent could it?  Every warmist article mentions how the cuts couldn't come at a worse time.  hmmm  Alarmists raise the alarm just as budget cuts are about to take hold.  Its obvious this story is a sham.

Its only a matter time before we hear calls to stop the revenue generating Oil Sands to save the ozone and ramp up the money sucking make work programs.  Cut them off and cut them out.  Let Suzuki employ them and add to the economy for once.  

Know Your Foe/Ally

PBS Frontline Documentary The House of Saud recounts the creation of Saudi Arabia and the subsequent history of that country into recent times.  The story of the Saudi Royal Family is entwined with the story of Israel, OPEC and the Geo-politics of the middle east that continues today.

This film is 2 hours long but well worth the time.  Relax, make some popcorn and imagine if we had a true public broadcaster like PBS.  The CBC has endless hours dedicated to truther theories and alarmist eco-blather but would never show us relevant information if it counters their agenda.  Knowledge is Power.  Seize that power Citizen and wield it for good.


Canada has displaced Saudi Arabia as the largest single supplier of oil to the US.  Its important to note the seriousness with which the United States views its oil supply, however, there is no chance of an oil embargo imposed by Canada on our closest ally. 

While its true that our Ethical Oil will not limit Saudi Arabia's oil production in any way, our larger role in the oil requirements of the US will further diminish OPEC influence.  The United States will be free to support Israel, even in times of war, with a smaller degree of economic fallout. 

Ethical Oil doesn't carry the hypocrisy that is inherent in doing business with a regime that has no human rights whatsoever and funds terrorism and Islamism.  In the dangerous game of Middle Eastern brinksmanship Ethical Oil may just turn out to be an enabling factor in Israel's survival. 

My 9/11

This post has been banging around inside my head for years.  I don't mean it to be compared to the stories of luck and selfless heroism on that dark day.  I mean it as a simple point of reflection a decade on. 

I was in school at that time.  My classmates were a multicultural mix from every corner of the world.  I walked through the school doors and a friend of mine, a Baptist, told me that planes had crashed into the World Trade Center.

Perhaps I didn't hear him or perhaps I did and mentally corrected his words because I said:  "The pilot is an idiot!  How stupid do you have to be to crash into the biggest building on Manhattan?"  

"It wasn't an accident," he said.

"What do you mean?  How is it not an accident?"  I asked in a flurry of similar questions.  I was still not allowing myself to comprehend.

"Two planes crashed into the World Trade Center.  One in each Tower," he clarified.

-Two planes.  -Not an accident.


I was still digesting this as I entered the crowded lunch room.  On an old style CRT hanging in one corner CNN was showing the burning buildings. The two ill fated jets disintegrated on screen again and again.  I watched in silence.  I was stunned.

Some Muslims in the room were cursing America and Israel.


Before long we heard about the Pentagon crash.   

Its an all out attack, I thought.  Nobody knew how many more planes were being hijacked.  Sky scrapers were being evacuated and commercial jets were being grounded.

When the buildings fell, all of our hearts sank, Muslim christian and atheist.  The anti-American mumblings and curses that were so common pre 9/11 stopped then too.
"This means war," I declared to myself aloud. There was fear in the eyes of the anti-American Muslim men who were also just school mates.  They knew it was true.  

Another crash was reported and several flights were still missing.  My friends and I got tired of the TV.  CNN was in broken record mode and there was nothing new to learn.  We searched the Internet for more news.  For the first and only time in my memory it was mostly down.  Error 404.  Only FOX News was up.  This was my first impression of them.  They grossly overestimated the number of hijacked planes saying there were something like 36 possible airplanes that are in the air and aren't responding.  36 more flying bombs!  The events of that day were so unbelievable that 36 more hijacked planes no longer seemed impossible.

We finally went to class and nobody could talk about anything else.  I remember the professor saying "if the father went into Iraq, do you think the son won't?"  He was talking about G. W. Bush and he nailed it.  I didn't believe it but in hindsight I wasn't nearly cynical enough.  Lesson learned.

Classes were cancelled early and I and the rest of the world went home to watch TV.  It was the first day of the rest of my life as a news junkie and fierce conservative.

Its not so poignant and meaningful as some of the stories out there.  I remember as if I lived it yesterday.  I remember little things like the nasty aggressive drivers I faced getting to school that day as I drove obliviously listening to music on CD. 

I remember being unable to sleep in our spare room that night.  The conjunction of the Crescent Moon and Jupiter beat down on me like a hammer.  It was the symbol of Islam, only false.  Look up the night sky on September 11th 2001 in Vaughn.  You will see what I saw.  10 years later and with Bin Ladin dead I think its ok to share it.

I only screened the movie Flight 93 a few days ago in fact.  I couldn't bring myself to watch it before.  Thinking about 9/11 used to make me seriously angry.  The kind of angry that would probably be a crime to talk about.  Enough time has passed now.  I let myself watch it and it wasn't so bad.  Only a few tears.

It was important to kill Bin Laden.  It was true justice.  The kind of justice that can never be found in a courtroom.  Justice for Bin Laden, and the two wars fought as a result of the evil events of 9/11 allow me to sleep peacefully these days.  I mourn the victims of 9/11 even though I never met them.  I mourn the troops of many countries that have fought and died for our security, peace and justice.  The mourning is less painful when we are victorious at the end. 

Republican Nominees take a stand on Global Warming

The GOP debate touched on Global Warming.  Three presidential nominees spoke about Global Warming but only two of them were brave enough to be skeptical of it.  They happen to be the two front runner candidates Michele Bachmann and Rick Perry.  There is a very good chance that the 2012 US presidential election will include the question of Global Warming.

Here is Rick Perry on Global Warming



Not bad.  I would suggest that politicians speak about policy on Global Warming.  It's enough to say that you are skeptical of Global Warming and then drop a few names and/or experiments that are contrary to the warmist assertions.  Warmists have made a convenient blacklist for us to draw from.  Just direct the public to people like Richard Lindzen, and let scientists argue the science.  Not more than one sentence should be wasted on settling the science of climate change in a political debate.

Rick Perry did well to mention his environmental record in Texas.  Conservatives routinely outdo socialists in fighting real pollution and promoting conservation.

The question unasked and unanswered is what would Rick Perry do when the eco-lobby pushes for cap and trade, carbon taxes or the ideological shutdown of specific projects.  Will he roll back carbon centered policy and regulations that are already in place?  If he doesn't believe in Global Warming then its important to stop government practices that are based on environmental superstitions.

Now watch Michele Bachmann.  The MSNBC hosts changed the subject from Global Warming to drilling in the Everglades, but she changes it back.



 She does a lot better than Rick Perry.  She goes after specific bad environmental policy occurring under the current administration.  She points out that Obama is the ideological enemy of the coal industry (among others).  This administration actively spends time destroying and blocking jobs when the US needs them more than ever.


There are many reasons to strip power from Obama in the next election.  His record on the environment ties in with his terrible spending practices in general.  Chasing green job dreams with borrowed money, punishing businesses for consuming energy, and blocking the expansion and exploration of existing cheap sources of domestic energy is central to the analysis of Obama's failure as a president.

The Governor of Utah came out with the usual progressive warmist line about the myth of the 98% consensus.  We may live in democracies but reality is not a democracy.  You cannot vote the earth into being flat any more than you can prove global warming with a simple show of hands.  That consensus myth has been debunked repeatedly yet it's the one line any warmist can always remember.  I've heard enough that from our own Stephen Harper in minority mode and I see no need to replay it here.  Utah's warmist has no hope of being president so you aren't really missing anything.

If the next election is going to be fought on Global Warming in part, candidates had better get their arguments together with facts and names.  To argue convincingly will require the speaker to own the subject.  Gaffes in this area will receive wide and public ridicule.  The one complaint I have with Rick Perry's performance is that he came off unprepared; almost G.W. Bush like. 

On the upside, winning this debate will dismantle a large chunk of useless and boundless big government bureaucracy.  Removing planetary climate control from the US Government agenda will go a long way to raising prosperity of individual Americans and returning the world to sustainable growth.   That is why this is so important, not just to Americans but to people all around the world and especially to Canada.


Note:
You can watch the entire debate here thanks to Ron Paul's team.  Ron Paul is doing an excellent job and his social media campaign should be recognized for its excellence.  I appreciate Ron Paul's ideological roots and I understand what he is saying.  I only understand him because I have read widely of conservative principles.  Watching the debate I couldn't help but think that Ron Paul sounded a little kooky.  I know what Libertarians stand for and I agree with them in many ways.  I don't know what limits Ron Paul sets on his ideology.  How exactly will he transition the worlds largest economy into a Libertarian ideal?  Hasn't everyone had enough of the hope and change stuff?  Will he make ideological excuses if things turn out for the worse?  Can the US even handle more severe and unproven changes?  Its like getting a nose job after having a close call with flesh eating disease by a doctor who's never done a nose job.  Risky.  My intuition puts up a red flag when it comes to Ron Paul.  I'll need to see a lot more from him and hear a lot more about what kind of president he would be before I could recommend him. 

Layton's Tomb

How sad that the generations after us will not live to behold Jack Layton.  How tragic and unjust that the world entire cannot bask in the greatest smile ever known to man.  Jack Layton was every man, and every man should revere his scintillating domed crown.

But how?  How does a society achieve Mortal Justice?  The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics had an answer.

Lenin's Tomb was the USSR's greatest achievement in fairness.  Like the Pharaoh's of old, and some lucky animals, Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov Lenin was embalmed and preserved for all to see.

 Dare I suggest that the greatest Son of all our Fathers, Jack, remain with us.  Interring his remains would only release deadly greenhouse gases.  It is our duty to preserve him and to even provide animatronic prosthesis so that his smile may grace Parliament forever more.  We should declare it Layton's Tomb.

 Note: I'm sorry Jack is dead.  He made politics fun.  I think he would get what I'm saying here and laugh.

The Royal Canadian Navy

We didn't have a Navy before this week.  We had ships.  We had sailors.  But all we had was a Sea Component or a "Maritime Command" of the Canadian Armed Forces.

I first learned of the progressive tinkering of the military that lead to the symbolic defacing of the RCN when I was a teenager.  I was a member of the Royal Canadian Sea Cadets; an institution older than the Navy itself.  When I started, Sea Cadets and Air Cadets had to wear green uniforms.  We had to explain to every new recruit that Canada doesn't have a Navy and so we all had to wear green because yadda yadda... all history now.  It was an awesome day when we were issued black.  Generations before mine had to wear greens and I was lucky enough to be among the first to don traditional Navy black.  Air Cadets got their light blue and the Army Cadets kept the green.  It felt great. 

It always seemed like a crime to me that we Canadians had a Navy and good one, but we had to submit to some progressive naming scheme to call it the Maritime Command or the Sea Element of the CF.  Bull!

I am very proud of my Conservative Government for healing this old wound.

Restoring the Royal Canadian Navy, Royal Canadian Air Force, and Canadian Army was a very excellent move and I thank them.  I'm sure all veterans and active members are equally thankful.

Some might think it's all about "buttons and bows," as the offending Liberal famously said.  It isn't.  The military is an institution that is built on honour and tradition.  I think of our Service men and women as knights.  -Not as they were historically, but how knights always should have been.   They do not steal, rape or kill without cause.  They are the honourable warriors we as a people decide they should be.  They devote themselves to our national will and security under oath to the Queen. 


And then we take away who they are.  Imagine some liberal decided that police are no longer police but Human Rights Engineers?  Imagine if Firefighters were somehow held in contempt by these self-loathing liberals?  How many recruits do you think the lowly Department of Uncontrolled Combustion would score?  Seriously.  What politically correct term would they rename you?

The one valid concern has to do with cost.  Part of the reason to homogenize the armed forces was to cut the bureaucracy and turf wars that came with having separate armed forces.  One only needs to look at the USA for examples of this.

There's Obama climbing out of Marine One.  Marine One is just one of a whole air force of helicopters and Harriers that belong to the United States Maine Corps.  The Marine Corps is the elite army of the United States Navy.  The US Navy also has its own air force that runs off of Aircraft Carriers.  The US Air Force also has its own small army and the US Army also has its own army aviators.   That seems like a lot of duplication if you ask me.


That's not how we do it.  We can use Land Command and Canadian Army interchangeably.  Same with the Navy and Maritime Command etc...  Everyone knows they mean the same thing.  There is no need to pull out signs, change letterheads and most importantly, segregate the operations of each service.   Even so, there is a report that DND has become bloated and top heavy as it is.


Use the new names where convenient, but don't spend an extra dime on these changes.  


Since we are actually acknowledging that we have a Navy again, we may as well return their traditional name.  King George gave them the royal title so why not not fully return the original name while we are at it?  People have become fixated on the word Royal lately and they are missing the point entirely.  Its about having a Navy an Army and an Air Force again.  The Royal is less important but isn't a Royal Navy better than your garden variety Peoples Democratic Banana Republic Navy? Sure it is.  


I hope that I have brought some insight into why this decision needed to be made.   You can tell who is distant from the military by where they fall on this issue.  Even left of center friends of mine who respect the military have grudgingly given this one to the Conservatives.  We've all been waiting for this for most of our lives.

An Amusing History of Subsidized Business

This hour long lecture by Dr. Burt Folsom is very entertaining.  Its called The Myth of the Robber Barons.  Its an incomplete history of subsidized enterprise in the United States that includes the steamship business in the 1800's and the Railroad wars between UP and CP.

The lessons are relevant to our subsidized industries of today.  One solution proposed to solve the biased CBC problem would be to create another CBC.  We would have a CBC red and a CBC blue.  The literal battles between UP and CP show that doubling up on subsidized entities only introduces competition in stupidity. Two wrongs are not right. 

It also reminds us that our times do not have the monopoly on stupid adventures with taxpayer money.  There have always been subsidy salesmen.  There will always be moron socialists who buy in on our behalf.  What is different is that now we have the observed history of failure by government intervention.  Speak out against government subsidies. 



(h/t Capitalism)