Author: Mulder

Liberals Know All About Special Advisors (Because They Wrote The Book)

Mulder

When the Liberals claim Prime Ministerial adviser positions, like that of Walid Khan, are not getting any value out of the positions, they ought to know.

Liberals may be basing their skepticism about the value of MP Wajid Khan’s report to Stephen Harper on their own experience with special prime ministerial advisers.

Onetime Liberal MP Sarkis Assadourian says he never did a day’s work after being appointed a special adviser to former prime minister Paul Martin.

Shortly before the 2004 election, Assadourian agreed to step aside in his Brampton riding so that a star recruit, Ruby Dhalla, could run for the Liberals in his stead. In return, Martin gave him a job as a special foreign policy adviser.

“They put out a press release and he said to the media and the nation with a straight face I was working with him as (his) adviser on the south Caucasus and Middle East,” Assadourian said in an interview.

“The whole thing was a lie . . . I never a single day worked in his office. I was never paid a single penny.”

Repeat after me. “The whole thing was a lie ….. The whole thing was a lie ….. The whole thing was a lie.”

Wait it get’s better:

“For 15 months I was lied to,” he said.

Asked if he regrets accepting Martin’s job offer and giving up his seat, Assadourian said: “I regret knowing him as a person.”

Paul Martin should hang his head in shame.

H/T to DBT and Jack’s Newswatch.

Vegetarian It Is

Mulder

After reading Greg Weston today, I am wondering if the next proposal from granola crunchers is that we all go vegetarian and stop our efforts to aid in the reproduction of cattle.

Among the many reasons to cut the bull on global warming, it turns out a staggering 24 million tonnes of annual greenhouse gas emissions are coming from the exhaust pipes of Canadian cattle and other farting farm animals.

In the overall ecological scheme of things, that means farmyard flatulence is contributing as much to heating the planet as half of all the regular passenger cars on Canadian roads today.

All I have to say is that if Cows are making up half the GHG’s that regular passenger cars on our roads make, then we really are lucky our current government opted out of Kyoto or we all may be sitting in a cart being pulled by some farm animal.

The worst offenders?

-Power Generation – 130 MegaTonnes
-Oil and Gas Industry – 133
-Oil and Gas Exports – 46
-Ordinary Passenger Cars – 50
-SUVs and Family Vans – 44
-Transport Trucks – 45
-Domestic Aircraft – 8
-Mining and Manufacturing – 139
   -Chemical Industries – 22
   -Mining – 18
   -Steel Mills – 15
   -Aluminum and Other Smelting – 13
   -Cement – 11
   -Pulp and Paper – 9
Home Heating – 43
Office and Institutional Heating – 38
Waste Disposal – 29
Agriculture – 55
   -Animal Flatulence – 24
   -Manure Management – 9
   -Other – 23

So there you have it. So let’s put a few facts down. As previous Environment Minister Rona Ambrose stated, it is true that we could take every vehicle off the roads and every airplane out of the air and we would only eliminate 147 MegaTonnes, less than 75% of our target.

It is also true that with scrubber technology on incinerators that we should probably get rid of all landfills. The Netherlands has banned them all together and is now strictly using incineration. This alone could cut close to 30 megatonnes. Why are the environmentalistas not jumping on this idea? It would certainly help remove what may become the biggest pile of trash in the free world should the city approve a proposal to triple or quadruple the size of the Carp Rd. landfill in Ottawa. What a way to add another monument to our nation’s capital.

Another way to cut our emissions is to tell Kyoto to eliminate the penalty we receive for being a net exporter of oil. After all, we may be producing it, but we aren’t burning it. Saudi Arabia exports more than four times the oil we do and they are exempt from Kyoto because they are considered a developing nation. Go figure that one out.

The Saudi GDP is about 20th in the world (+/-2) and they have a population about 3/4’s that of Canada. The per capita number may be lower than us, but when the worlds 20th most prosperous nation is considered developing, think about how many nations our payment into Kyoto would be compensating? Sorry, but no thanks. A lot of oil get’s used in plastics and is not simply burned, so I don’t think we should be responsible with what other nations do with that oil.

And regarding going vegetarian, if we move from beef to broccoli, we wouldn’t eliminate the flatulence, we would just displace it.

Smackdown – KerPlonka Lands One On Chin Of Rob Edger (And Paints Another Face On Stephane Dion)

Mulder

In an assessment of Stephane Dion’s call for aid to help minority’s deal with hate crimes, Jarrett Plonka does a find job dismantling the argument and pointing out numerous flaws with various Liberal’s positions on this matter. But what gave me a smile was his reply to a comment from Stephane Dion’s Blog Campaign Co-Chair, Rob Edger.

Rob Edger: What’s your alternative?

Jarrett: Basically, either treat all these so-called “hate crimes” as leniently as we do with “normal crimes,” or treat all “normal crimes” with the fire and brimstone with which we appear to want to treat “hate crimes”.

Jarrett is wise beyond his years and disarms the question quite handily. He goes on:

I know which one I’d choose in an instant. The decision is harder for the Cotlerites to whom I referred, who have to balance their desire to have that progressive society while reconciling some of the internal contradictions (including a few that I outlined) that notion presents.

I know which one I would choose too Jarrett.

Hounddog Won't Get My Money

Mulder

When I heard that the movie Hounddog was going to have a scene which 12 year old actress Dakota Fanning acts like she is being raped by her father, I got sick to my stomach.

I know that incest and child abuse are topics on TV and in the movies all the time, but to portray the video of it is crossing a line I don’t think has been crossed before and I for one will not support the movie by watching it, renting it, or giving it the liberty of being played on my TV when it comes out on Pay TV.

The issue of incest/child abuse can be portrayed just fine without filming a rendition of it. I can only think of one reason this scene would be shot and needless to say Roman Polanski comes to mind.

Michael Coren says it best:

Then they’ll sit back and look smug and caring and enlightened when moral and religious types argue that it’s emotionally and sexually unhealthy to use child rape as a form of titillation for witless audiences.

Some have argued that it’s fine because Fanning’s mother was present during the ordeal and approved of her daughter’s work.

Oh, well, that’s OK then. After all, there has never been a neurotic mother of an actor child in Hollywood, living her life vicariously and enjoying the money and glamour of being mum to a star.

It really is extraordinary that the same sort of people who routinely attack traditional parenting and vehemently oppose even mild spanking are so supportive of a mother’s right to allow her 12-year-old child to behave in such a manner.

Frankly, any criticism will only encourage the chattering classes and inflate still further their sense of self-righteous paranoia.

A child here, a moral code there, a broken generation somewhere else. Doesn’t matter, as long as you’re the centre of attention at a fashionable party.

Virgin Movie PhotoWhat makes the last statement by Coren so valid to me is that Deborah Kampmeier, the director of Hounddog has credits in two movies to date and both are themed around some sexual act.

Her first film, Virgin, is about girl who finds herself pregnant without remembering having had sex so she concludes that she is carrying the child of god.

I guess Kampmeier has discovered that sex sells in our society. Either that or she had a really screwed up childhood that we are will hear about when she writes her memoirs in a decade or two.

Supreme Court Gets This One Right

Mulder

This post will probably be misinterpreted, but I am glad that the Little Sister’s bookstore lost it’s fight to have the legal battle paid for by tax payers. This case has absolutely nothing to do with gay and lesbian literature. But to me, the SCC got it right because they are not creating a separate path for charter challenges.

Little Sister’s wanted to take Canada Customs to court for detaining many of its imported gay and lesbian material at the border, including books, videos, and magazines. They said the agency has been engaged in censorship, with no one overseeing their decisions on what constitutes obscenity.

But the cost of such a battle would have been around $2 million. The store said they had already spent more than $500,000 on the case and wanted Ottawa to pick up the tab for them to move ahead with their Charter challenge.

“But the court ruled the case didn’t meet the threshold of exceptional case,” CTV’s Rosemary Thompson reported from the halls of the Supreme Court.

“The courts are saying they don’t want to create a parallel system of legal aid. They’re saying that only in the most exceptional circumstance where a case has broad implications can you argue that you need the government to front your costs.”

Well thank goodness for small miracles. And my reason for saying that is that I am getting tired of every moonbat and his/her brother trying to beat us over the head with our own constitution.

Examples you say?

Well we have the Canadian Federation of Students trying to get students who take student loans declared a protected social category so they could declare bankruptcy shortly after getting out of school and not have to pay back student loans. Yes, I am for good low cost education, but I am not for creation of a system that lets students get out of debt free. It took me 10 years to pay back my student loans but I did it. I didn’t pay back a whole lot the first few years because I didn’t make a lot of money, but as I got decent raises from working hard, I managed to increase my payments. Knowing I had that debt drove me to work harder too. (Thankfully the CFS is sitting with a loss in the Provincial court on this matter. I do not know if they plan to appeal to the SCC yet.)

Or we can take a look at a challenge made by the homeless over a decade ago which states:

“A person’s constitutional right to shelter takes precedence over any property rights of the owner of an unused apartment building.”

Yeah, that sounds fair. I have a building I am trying to rent but until I do, the homeless are allowed to squat in it. I can just imagine what showing the building would be like to prospective buyers/renters.

Then we have a BC union challenging the right of a city to use contract labour which they consider breaking of a contract with the employees union. Hey, if contract labour can do the job cheaper, then tough noogies on the union.

But how often do you hear about cases that are not about students, homeless, unions, etc.? How often does a charter challenge actually affect us all? It is this question that we should ask ourselves. And when we feel like we want to find good charter challenges to get behind, we will start looking more and more at agencies like the right leaning Canadian Constitution Foundation which is funding an Alberta charter challenge that is similar to the Chaoulli case in Quebec.

From the Frasier Institute:

Bill Murray, a chartered accountant in Calgary, has launched a charter lawsuit against Alberta’s health-care laws, which are almost identical to the Quebec law struck down by the Supreme Court of Canada in Chaoulli. Mr. Murray was prevented by his government from both accessing specialist recommended surgery on his hip and from spending his own money on comprehensive health insurance. The Chaoulli case could set an important precedent in the debate over access to health care in Canada – should Canadians be able to buy medical insurance for their children or themselves as they can for their pets? What is the fallout from private citizens challenging their right to private medical insurance in the courts?

If you want to support challenges that are good for everyone and not just the special interest groups, the Canadian Constitution Foundation can use your help. Go check them out. I truly believe that if a charter challenge is strong enough and if enough people back it, they will find the money somehow. That’s why I am glad we are not going to pay for the Little Sister’s in their challenge. And it also explains why I am going to be supporting the CCF moving forward.

p.s. Ezra Levant sits on their board.

H/T to my friend Sandy for info on the CCF.

Crack Pipe Kits NOT Municipal Jurisdiction

Mulder

As Ottawa city council works through ways through the budget for 2007, the issue of spending money on free “crack pipe kits” has come up again. And, as expected, the Ottawa medical officer of health, David Salisbury, is defending the program.

However, the police chief is standing by his statements too.

Police Chief Vince Bevan has said that he opposes the program because it promotes illegal drug use.

“The chief’s position is clear on this,” said spokeswoman Isabelle Lemieux.

Am I wrong in assuming that a program designed to minimize the spread of HIV and Hep C should be left to the provincial government? I always thought health care was provincial jurisdiction.

In fact, last fall during the election run, I called in to a radio show hosting the candidates for Cumberland ward (not my ward) and asked how the candidates would vote if the idea of safe injection clinics was brought up. Rob Jellett, the incumbent, was the only one who stated clearly that this fell under provincial jurisdiction. Since safe injection clinics give free needles and are there to help prevent the spread of diseases, one would conclude the free crack pipe kit program is in the same boat.

I think we need more of city council to read Charles Darwin’s Origin of Species.

ADDENDUM

From CFRA:

Ottawa Police are responding to the scolding they received from the city’s Medical Officer of Health.

A frustrated Dr. David Salisbury says the police service has done everything in its power to interfere with the needle exchange and crack pipe programs by confiscating the kits. However, Ottawa Police Superintendent Gilles Larochelle isn’t offering any apologies.

He says in a criminal investigation, police will seize drug paraphenalia(sic) no matter where it came from. He adds they sometimes take away the pipes for “safety reasons”.

I Almost Forgot To Post This Photo

Mulder

This was taken in my car, January 17th, 2007 from the front seat while I sat in the “Canadian Position”, my body hunched over, hands between my legs while I waited for the car to warm up. I managed to get one glove off and snap this before my fingers froze off. This was one of those mornings where inhaling through your nose caused your nostrils to stick shut and inhaling through your mouth gives you an ice cream headache.

Temperature-Morning-January 17, 2007-Ottawa

Yes, that says minus 21 Celsius. And the whole time I sat there shivering, my teeth clattering, I kept repeating. There’s no warming like global warming. There’s no warming like global warming.

I clicked my boots together three times and voila … my seat warmers kicked in.