If one is a woman, it can be much worse, as I’ve learned from many woman friends who have stood in the path of “the sisterhood,” and been treated as traitors to their own sex.

In neither case will there be arguments, or at least, legitimate ones. The accusation of misogyny has long been considered the curtain-dropper behind the ideological barricades; like the accusation of “racism,” or “homophobia,” or “islamophobia,” or any of the other psychologizing terms that are employed in the assembly of an ad hominem.

Nor need we expect evidence for our crime. Consider if you will this smooth, parenthetical insinuation, taken from a column in the Ottawa Citizen:

“Trouble is, there are roadblocks—including noisy obstructionists who (perhaps out of fear, perhaps out of insecurity, perhaps out of some curious zeal for revenge we’ll never know about) think the journey should go in the opposite direction. We ignore such people at our peril.”

I noticed it because I’d been named in the column, along with Rush Limbaugh, Pat Buchanan, Glenn Beck—and St. Paul, flatteringly enough—as exemplars of a “rabid misogyny” and “extremist thinking.” Or perhaps I rated only with Scott Brown, the new U.S. senator from Massachusetts, as a “pale, albeit appallingly classless, echo of it.”

The column, by Janice Kennedy, was published last Sunday. It began by offering a game of “Spot the Jerk”—in which all win, and all must have prizes. And rather than try to refute it, I would invite gentle reader to read or reread it, playing the alternative game of “Spot the Argument.”

For beyond the ad hominems, I couldn’t find one.

I could quibble that remarks attributed to me by paraphrase misrepresented what I’d said, but then, what I’d originally said was every bit as politically incorrect, so why bother.

What I found most telling, was another parenthetical assertion, about persons of my ilk. “(Personally, I don’t even know any men like that—not among family, friends or neighbours.)”

That she doesn’t, strikes me as a measure of the bubble in which the “liberal intelligentsia” are living, and with which I am over-familiar from my own dealings within the “mainstream media.” Indeed, it is how Fox came to trounce CNN, MSNBC, and other purveyors of television news; how a specialized business newspaper, the Wall Street Journal, came to have such a large circulation; how “talk radio” got started, along with the whole “vast rightwing conspiracy” in the blogosphere.

Put it this way. Working in the media myself, I know plenty of people with views like Janice Kennedy’s. But she knows no one else with views like mine. This comes of living in the intellectual equivalent of a “gated community.”

One is reminded of a comment attributed to the late Pauline Kael, very liberal movie critic of the New Yorker, after Richard Nixon’s landslide victory over George McGovern in 1972—that she didn’t know how Nixon had won, since she didn’t know anyone who’d voted for him.

The quote may be apocryphal, or perhaps it was real but cutely self-deprecating. (There’s a special place in my heart for ideologues who are capable of self-deprecation; it’s like cracks in the Berlin Wall.)

What Kael did say, for attribution, in a speech to the Modern Language Association in December 1972, was rather more malignant: “I live in a rather special world. I only know one person who voted for Nixon. Where they are I don’t know. They’re outside my ken. But sometimes when I’m in a theatre I can feel them.”

I am not a populist, and I do not think that if the vast majority of people agree with me, I must therefore be right. Nor vice versa, if they stand against me. The truth is something no one owns. It is something that exists unanswerably in itself, and this includes the truth about men and women, whatever it may be.

That women are “underrepresented” in some domains (political and corporate boardrooms were mentioned), and “overrepresented” in others (one thinks of maternity wards), may be the consequence of a male conspiracy crossing all cultural frontiers, and going back to the beginning of historical time.

Or, it may reflect genuine differences between the sexes, that contribute to a certain division of labour in all known sexually reproductive species—and in the case of humans, even to complementary variations in spiritual outlook.

It could also be that both are necessary to the survival of the species.

The great majority, of men and women alike, passively accept the latter view. We may be wrong, but I do not think it makes us all misogynists.

“Many men go fishing all of their lives without knowing that it is not fish they are after.” —Henry David Thoreau

God, I love fishing. I dig fishing almost as much as hunting (almost). I love it so much that I moved to a place that is one of the top angling spots in the world: Miami, Florida. And you know what? I milk these waters as much as a working man can.

My fishing roots extend back to Texas and my rowdy childhood when my dad used to take me and my brother fishing on the many lakes, ponds and rivers the Lone Star state has to offer.

Our stringer was typical of a freshwater 60s and 70s Texas catch: perch, crappie, black bass, white bass, channel cats, carp and gar. It was way cool for this little redneck. Yes indeed, Bob-Dawg, I dug it all.

For example, as a young punk I took insane pleasure in:

• Buying fishing gear. Very cool. • Practicing my casting accuracy in my backyard (which still serves me well to this day) • Reading Outdoor Life and getting pumped on its fishing lies … I mean … stories • Experiencing the inability to sleep the night before getting up and declaring war on the fish • Buying bait at freaky bait shops run by guys I swear worked as extras on the movie Deliverance • Arriving at our strategic and wild location and having the privilege of watching and listening to that which is untamed waking up and beginning its tooth, fang and claw survival of the fittest exchange with Mother Nature. Life and death in its purest form, Nancy boys. • Taking a crash course from my dad and other gents regarding different lures and the various ways to present them • And then, of course, the entre, actually catching a fish and grappling with my gigantic aquatic monster which was, in all reality, a pound-and-a-half bass. (I didn’t care, though, because as far as I was concerned, I was Ernest-Frickin’-Hemingway’s character Santiago, and that little bass was my Marlin.) • And lastly, basking in the great satisfaction later that evening of watching adults eat what this rugrat provided. I am iron man. Dun, dun. Dun na dun dunna dunna dunna dun dunna dun. As a young squab, the whole fishing enchilada, from soup to nuts, represented what Bryan Adams called, “The best days of my life.”

With the busyness of college, getting married, raising little girls, making money, and kicking ass, I got out of the fishing groove until I moved mi familia to Miami where I became a fishing kid again and quickly returned to my angling roots.

After a couple of years of getting settled in, weeding through the rip-off charters and bad captains, I landed on two Capitans who are worth their weight in gold. After the Lord blessed me with those two leads I quickly called my dad to get his butt on a plane to bend some rods South Florida style. And oh my God have we crushed the fish.

Not only has pops been a part of many insane hauls, but my wife and my two infamous daughters have, as well. Matter of fact, my girls grew up catching big game fish on light tackle twice their body length without daddy’s help. That’s how they roll, boys. Grow a pair or go home.

In addition to my familial fishing trips, we have had the pleasure of fishing with folks from all over the world and from every conceivable walk of life: from diplomats, bestselling authors, pundits, big name rock stars, Fox News contributors, missionaries, attorney generals, terminal cancer patients, and good buddies at church, to at risk teens without hope and without a clue. We have always had an amazing time, sharing in our mutual addiction that we seek no cure from (i.e. the screaming reel).

The fish we have caught, of which I have the pictures and videos to prove, include: giant bull sharks, lemon sharks, great hammerheads, black tip sharks, spinner sharks (the most enjoyable shark to hook), dusky sharks, sailfish, dolphin, goliath grouper (and their many cousins), permit, bonefish, giant barracuda, tarpon, snook, speckled trout, jack cravelles, amberjack, ladyfish, blue fish, snapper, tripletails, yellow jacks, kingfish, Spanish mackerel, bonita, tuna, red fish and a couple of things I didn’t know what the hell they were.

We have caught them all: small, medium and large. In the gorgeous ultra marine blue seas of the Atlantic, to the gin-clear flats of Biscayne Bay, down to Key West, to the murky fish-rich waters of Chokoloskee, the Ten Thousand Islands area, and the gorgeous, uninhabited sanctuary of Flamingo.

Yep, I blame fish for a lot of the great times in my life. Check it out: All around the personal pursuit of my finny little friend, my life and my relationships have been greatly enriched via stretched monofilament and high-pitched Diawa drag screams.

Which brings me to the point of my column. As much as I have been there and have done that from a fishing standpoint, as you can guess from my eight-hundred-word gush above, I can’t imagine not fishing for the rest of my life nor my kid’s kids not being able to be anglers should they so desire. Fishing is one of the cherished liberties and activities that keeps me giddy about the great American experiment.

That’s why when I hear crap that Obama and his “progressive” ilk want to ban fishing, it gets me … uh … how shall I put this … um… angry. Yeah, that’s a good word. Not only are they upending this nation on many different economical fronts but now they’re talking about the recreationally and economically disastrous move of banning fishing? What’s next? Are they going to ban apple pie? Blonde-haired girls? Chevrolet? No, they own Chevy now. What about baseball?

For those who say, “Ah, it’ll never happen in America,” that’s probably what some folks in Ontario thought before the World Wildlife Fund and the International Fund for Animal Welfare completed their successful campaign to convince the Ontario government to shut down one of the best managed big-game hunts in North America, which crippled many small businesses and the tourism economy of communities across northern and central Ontario.

My advice to fishermen everywhere is to refuse to be silent and scream now via phone calls, emails and faxes to your reps as loud as your Penn reel would wail with a 50lb kingfish strippin’ off its line.

For more info on what BHO and his tree humping boys plan to do, go here … and here. Lastly, click here to fish with my Captain, Gavet Tuttle, at BackForMore.com.

In January 2005, Iraqis had voted with an insurgency raging and with Sunni Arabs, constituting nearly 20% of the population — Iraqi Kurds are Sunni and amount to another 20%, the rest make up the Shiite majority — staging a boycott of the election.

It was nevertheless a remarkable feat of defiance and courage by a people groping forward to take hold of freedom with dignity.

Five years later, for the second time more than 60% of the electorate, defying bombs and missiles, turned out to elect a government of their own.

Only hard-hearted cynics, and those lacking any historical perspective of Iraq and the region, will deride the significance of Iraqis voting together despite sectarian and ethnic differences.

This time around, the Sunni Arabs voted in large number as if to compensate for their folly in staging the 2005 boycott. They watched democracy slowly and painfully take root in the soil of their blood-soaked country for real, and learned they needed to be engaged in the process if they were to demand their share in government.

There will be all sorts of horse-trading in the newly elected parliament to form a government since no one party will likely hold a majority of seats. This means politicians and people will have to learn together the art of compromise to ensure a functioning democracy.

Iraq’s democracy may appear messy to others in the Middle East, and the rulers of the Arab world with their sycophants may ridicule Iraqis as they stumble in making progress.

It is, however, this labour of Iraqis as a free people building a democratic society of their own that starkly exposes the rottenness of politics in the region.

Freedom and democracy tend to be contagious and therefore monarchs, theocrats and dictators in the Middle East are fearful of the Iraqi people setting an example that might not be contained.

They tried to extinguish this example overtly by questioning the legitimacy of Iraqi freedom and covertly by funding the insurgents.

Freedom has opened for Iraqis a new history without any connection to their past. This is the cause for envy and unrest in Iran and across the Arab world.

The theocrats in Iran robbed the people of their choice in the June 2009 election and, fearing their earnest wish for freedom, rule over them repressively. In most Arab countries, elections are made to order by dictators as it was in Iraq under Saddam Hussein.

In politics as in life, it is rare seeing gratitude offered by those who have received favour or gift, especially a gift such as freedom paid with blood and treasure by another people.

Yet if Iraqis continue advancing democracy without demeaning their freedom, they will then show in the most practical sense gratitude to George W. Bush, Tony Blair and American and British soldiers who won for them their freedom and stood beside them until democracy took hold in their land.

And supporters of regime change might rightly feel vindicated seeing the making of a democratic Iraq.

Truth to tell, I started drafting this column more than a week ago and, in that short time, owing to my tardiness in completing it, the sovereign states of Iceland and Greece have been catching up with my ludicrous fantasies, so I must hustle to get back out in front.

The Icelanders take the prize, for what I shall call the “default option.” Their problem—or more precisely, the part of their problem currently in the news—is more than $5 billion owed to British and Dutch governments (themselves teetering on the edge of bankruptcy), which compensated their own nationals for cash lost to an Icelandic online deposit scheme.

Now note two things. These were the “victims” in only two European countries. And, the “Icesave” farce is only one component in little Iceland’s financial meltdown, which resembles the runoff when one of her glorious volcanoes discharges from under one of her magnificent glaciers.

Perhaps we should remember a third thing, that there were only 320,000 people in Iceland at last estimate, and so the per capita charge on “doing the right thing” would be very, very high.

Iceland is a democracy, of course, so while the government was negotiating in dubious faith with frustrated creditors, “the people” had a referendum on whether they should pay. The results were, 93 per cent “no,” two per cent “yes,” and five per cent spoiled (mostly blank) ballots. And we get to that two per cent only by rounding.

Iceland is also a very “liberal” country, or “social democratic” in the European political patois. (What that has to do with running up unpayable debts, only my more jaded conservative readers will guess.)

This was a point brought home to me as I watched a short BBC segment consisting of interview excerpts with cool, sophisticated, expensively-dressed, fluently English-speaking Reykjavik voters, in what looked like art galleries. I was impressed not only with the unhesitant smoothness of each “No,” but with the elegantly sneering and superior attitude towards creditors generally.

They had such “class,” as the progressive types like to call it—those members of what Thomas Sowell has called the “anointed” or “self-congratulatory class.” Such aristocratic bearing! And now that they have found themselves in a bit of a corner, the attitude is, “These are mere tradesmen and why should we pay their bills?”

These are people who, thanks chiefly to the temporary success of a few grand financial scams, have risen a great height above their forebears, who were fishermen, and fishermen’s daughters. They’re all drinking “fair trade” coffee now.

Indeed, why should anyone pay off debts? It’s an old-fashioned concept, and from what I can see, the only reason Icelanders are discussing the question at all, is that the other Europeans are withholding aid and the succour of further loans until the “Icesave” issue is dealt with.

But consider: there’s another one born every minute. The Greeks have extricated themselves from their short-term fiscal emergency, even before their government has delivered on promised austerity measures, simply by floating new bonds to private investors at an exceptionally agreeable interest rate—and even while their civil servants demonstrate violently against the whole idea of fiddling with their extravagant bonuses and early retirement plans. I gather the new issue was over-subscribed.

And that would be an argument against letting Iceland default. The very idiots who lent them money in the first place might well turn around and lend them more. Still, that is the lenders’ problem. Stupidity on that scale has to be punished.

Surely the answer to all our problems of public debt is to default. I think it might even be the just answer, for generations whose parents were fiscally incontinent. In Canada here, where we are endlessly trying to fasten our fiscal belts, we are, after all, still effectively paying the compound interest on Pierre Trudeau’s adventures in “social democracy”—for which my generation voted, and from which we collected. Why should our children pay?

The best argument I can think of is that if they don’t, our various national paper currencies might quickly become worthless.

And think of all the inconvenience that might follow from that.

But then, can my reader suggest a quicker way to get back to the gold standard?

But the Stu Blog (“The most poorly named blog on the internet”) did a little background on the numbers.  He catches lie number 8,635 from the genius President Honesty Transparency W. Post-Race Bi-Partisan Hussein Obama:

Obama gaffe gets retroactively dumber

So, we all remember this super-super classic…don’t we?  It’s worth watching again [Joel provides actual clip, above]…

  “Everybody knows that it makes no sense that you send a kid to the emergency room for a treatable illness like asthma, they end up taking up a hospital bed, it costs, when, if you, they just gave, you gave them treatment early and they got some treatment, and a, a breathalyzer, or inhalator, not a breathalyzer. I haven’t had much sleep in the last 48 hours.” 

Up until now, this has been funny just because of the supposedly brilliant President butchering the language. It’s also been used as a prime piece of evidence in the “imagine if George W. Bush did this” file.

Today, it gets retroactively worse.

Forget about the speaking problems here for a second, and think about what he’s actually saying. It’s one of many times he’s made the case that unneeded trips to the emergency room are a major factor in the high cost of health care. Fortunately for us, and unfortunately for him—somebody took the time to look into it:

  E.R. care represents less than 3 percent of healthcare spending, only 12 percent of E.R. visits are non-urgent, and the majority of E.R. patients are insured U.S. citizens, not uninsured, illegal immigrants.

So, if we were to completely eliminate non-urgent E.R. visits (which of course would be completely impossible), you’re looking at a savings of around 0.4% of health care spending. It’s actually less than that, because I’m not accounting for the higher relative cost of urgent visits, useful non-urgent care in off-hours, or the fact that most of the care is for the insured  —  but I’m feeling really generous.

Also, Massachusetts has shown us that Obama style health care doesn’t work to lighten the load on our emergency rooms. Even though easing the burden and costs of the E.R. was used as a main selling point for universal health care in Massachusetts —  there has been a significant increase in both the number of E.R. visits and overall E.R. costs since its implementation.

It’s enough to make you reach for your breathalyzer…or….inhalator. Sorry, I haven’t had too much sleep in the last 15 months or so.

Still though, nothing beats the inane extreme-left-wing rantings and pure intellectual dishonesty of the then-health minister in Canada, Liberal Ujjal Dosanjh (who sounds very much like a communist to me), who kept saying (maybe still does) that in the U.S., people are “dying in the streets” because of the private sector-run (or “American-style” as he always called it with a sneer) health care system, in which everybody needs an American Express card or they’re left to die.  “That means somebody might check your wallet before they check your pulse,” he once said, surely knowing he was full of it and that the more weak-minded of his socialism supporters were lapping it up. 

I don’t need to tell you this —I provide this for the benefit of liberals:  Men of honor who are confident of themselves and their positions — and those who hold positions of leadership as both these men did or do — foster an honest debate.  But neither of these men were, or are.  No wonder they’re both losers. 

It’s reasonably fairly written.  For example, it concedes, or admits, quite rightly, in a stunning break from the established liberal media talking points and pop-news culture meme, that in the end, after all the outrageous liberal-left caterwauling and bashing and personal attacks and outright character assassination attempts, they have ultimately FAILED to stop her.  One can’t help but sense the palpable high dudgeon contained therein. 

As if to make that point plain and simple, their cover features a huge smiling picture of the woman we know as the good Miss Palin, (not from their “goofiest pics of Palin” file, for once, either!) and reads “UNSTOPPABLE” — unwittingly betraying that which only they think is self-evident and obvious: that all along, we’ve all been trying to stop her.  Only committed liberals, who always think everybody in the room agrees with them, think that way, and have actually been trying to “stop” her.  The rest of us cheer her along.  The media’s multiple pronouncements of the political death of her and her “15 minutes of fame”, and that she’s “finally done like dinner”, and “she’s well past her best before date”, and countless other such novelties always using one or more of the words “stupid” or “idiot” or “useless” over and over and over again, failed to stop her, and she is indeed a force to be reckoned with — or as their cover also laments, she is actually “reshaping America”.  So much for “useless” and “irrelevant”. 

As I mentioned yesterday, for its own part, the National Post, which never misses a chance to gratuitously bash any real conservative living or dead, particularly an American one who might also be guiding a huge swath of American political sentiment — like our Ann Coulter, whom they recently and gratuitously bashed once again as now fully “irrelevant” and, cattily bid her “good night” — they just yesterday bashed Sarah Palin as “a complete idiot”. 

You have to laugh at the like-mindedness being exhibited by the Sarah Palin-hating liberal-left media on this.  While Maclean’s finally admits that alas, despite their efforts, she’s “UNSTOPPABLE”, the National Post agrees but wails, “She Won’t Go Away, But Ignore Her”.

So let’s review the past two days:  Maclean’s thinks she’s an unstoppable force (despite the efforts) in the whole of American politics who is actually “reshaping America”;  and the simpatico National Post also thinks she won’t “go away”, and yet she’s a “complete idiot”.  Then doesn’t that mean the National Post thinks Americans are “complete idiots”?  I vote yes — that they think they are. 

Note however that this whole paradigm magically shifts when they’re talking about their man, the ever so smart Barack Obama, and his election by the same Americans.  Then they’re all geniuses. 

UPDATE:
I always try to point out when the New York Times or USA Today or some other mainstream media features links to PTBC blog entries or columns, because Canadian media and blogs rarely or really, never do.  Just now I noticed the Yahoo-owned Buzz Tracker, described as the “news site that leverages the power of the “head of the long tail” of the blogosphere”, which features “high quality blogs that feature original content”, features this blog entry as a “buzz-worthy” blog entry.  That will generate lots of attention, like it does when the NYT features links.  The National Post and the other Canadian media never feature any ProudToBeCanadian articles for any reason whatsoever, ever.  I think it’s because I feature THEM so often in my blog entries, and they love me so.  In a coincidental Canadian connection, I LOVE how the BuzzTracker link to my PTBC blog entry is above one to a lousy Globe and Mail article.  The Globe and Mail also never links to any PTBC articles, ever.  So we STING the NatPo and the GlobMail in one jab thanks to Buzz Tracker.

Send money.  Bees love honey and PTBC needs money.

Think you’re alone as a conservative who think left-wing progressive Democratic Party Congressional leaders Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid are irksome and raise your ire because they’re such left-wing totalitarian government know-it-alls who are trying to ram through their far-left progressive agenda despite what the citizens want?

Well you’re not.

Congressional Favorability Ratings

Friday, March 12, 2010

Congress’ top leaders are feeling the heat from voters this month, as a new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey shows three of the four reaching or matching their highest unfavorable ratings of the past year.

Undoubtedly driven in part by her continuing efforts to pass the national health care plan, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi remains the most unpopular congressional leader, as she has for months. Pelosi is now viewed unfavorably by 64% of voters, which ties a high reached in August. That number includes 47% with a very unfavorable opinion of the California Democrat. Twenty-nine percent (29%) have a favorable view of her. Just seven percent (7%) of voters have no opinion of Pelosi.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid is now viewed at least somewhat unfavorably by 56% of voters. That’s up 14 points from a year ago and the highest level measured since regular tracking began last February. That includes 35% with a very unfavorable view. Twenty-four percent (24%) view Reid favorably, the lowest level found since December. Twenty percent (20%) have no opinion of the majority leader.

Reid, who is leading the charge for the health care plan in the Senate, is facing trouble at home. The longtime Nevada senator trails three top Republicans in his bid for reelection this November.

Forty-two percent (42%) of voters nationally favor the health care plan working its way through Congress, while 53% oppose it. These views have remained largely unchanged since Thanksgiving.  ...

Something is obviously wrong and until parents of little patients know exactly what the problem is, they will likely be sitting beside their children, day and night, questioning doctors and nurses about every medication and every procedure. At least, they should.

It isn’t good enough for the Health Quality Council of Alberta, who investigated the situation, to release a two-page executive summary of its 58-page report. Fortunately, the public outcry over this lack of transparency “encouraged” Health Minister Gene Zwozdesky to do the right thing and direct the agency to release the full report.

But the problem won’t end there. Studies indicate chances are relatively high that hospital patients will experience an adverse event—even one that leads to death.

The Canadian Adverse Event Study, published in 2004, appears to be the most comprehensive evaluation of medical errors and the news isn’t good. Canadian hospitals have a 7.5 per cent rate for adverse effects, meaning that something goes wrong in one of 13 hospital visits. It was determined that about 70,000 of 185,000 errors were preventable and almost 24,000 Canadian patients die every year as a result of preventable adverse effects.

In a 2005 Stats Canada survey, one in five nurses (19 per cent) acknowledged that, during the previous year, medication errors for patients in their care occurred either “occasionally” or “frequently.”

A 2005 international study showed Canada had the second-highest rate of medical mistakes. Approximately 30 per cent of Canadians surveyed experienced some error with their health care. It’s enough to make one wonder if anything goes right in our medical system.

Just ask Licia Corbella, the editor of the Calgary Herald. She was confined to hospital bed rest at 30 weeks gestation of her twin pregnancy. The goal was to keep the twins inside as long as possible. Yet, one day, the same nurse who had cared for her for two weeks and who was supposedly well acquainted with the reason for her hospitalization, attempted to give her an injection to induce labour. Oops.

Years ago, I had an operation to remove cartilage chips in my right knee. I recall waking up with both knees bandaged and double the pain. The doctor was apparently so involved in teaching arthroscopy to his students that he operated on the wrong knee.

In the past, mistakes like those were often dismissed or shoved under a rug. Today, health boards seem willing to institute changes when procedures are faulty or to discipline doctors and nurses. Surgical checklists have reduced the risk of errors by as much as 30 per cent through simple checks—like confirming which body part is to undergo surgery. Transparency may still be lacking, but it’s improving.

Apology protection laws have been a big part of bringing medical errors into the open. This legislation (already in effect in provinces from B.C. to Ontario) allows doctors and nurses to apologize to patients when errors are made without fear of being held liable or voiding their insurance coverage.

Apologies have reportedly been offered to those who experienced errors at ACH. That’s a good first step, since it counteracts the tendencies for health officials to deny responsibility and victims to run to lawyers. Now it’s time to deal with the problem openly and ensure this doesn’t happen again.

And how’s that government “stimulus” working out for you now that the big meddling government has spent BILLIONS of your tax dollars on those industry-boosting “shovel-ready projects” (—wink!) and in the process, sunk Canada even deeper into deficit and increased our already massive half-trillion-dollar debt (not including provincial government and government “corporations”)? 

The Canadian Press

Date: Friday Mar. 12, 2010 7:45 AM ET

OTTAWA —  Canada’s recovering economy continued to churn out new jobs last month, adding 60,000 full-time positions — mostly in the public sector...

The agency said 46,000 of the jobs created in February came in the government, public service sector ...

Progressives and their big governments only “stimulate” government growth, in place of free-market business and industry growth.  This doesn’t help the economy, it makes it dreadfully worse. It’s now worse.

But yes, this is what happens when progressives are in power instead of conservatives, and the benevolent government mandarins in their central planning divisions make “investment” decisions in social engineering and economic engineering, using your cash instead of their own, thereby building an even even bigger and even more expensive and more controlling government which more Canadians will become reliant upon, and which will require even more taxation.  It’s progressive!

  And it’s what like-minded progressive reporters who are already working for the government at its 100% state-owned, socialism-reliant media behemoth — the CBC — report as being a positive:

Mike Hornbrook of the CBC reported on this, this morning, saying “it’s indicative of the fact that the economy is on the mend.” 

No, Mr. Hornbrook.  It’s indicative of the fact that Canada is becoming a more and more totally government-dominated and controlled, or socialist country, and more and more of us are becoming totally reliant upon and controlled by the state — the government — for our very living.  Which is practically the definition of PROGRESSIVE.  That’s what it’s indicative of. 

Only far-left progressives striking a pose as a normal business-y reporters dressed in business suits while working for the government in a 100% state-owned, socialism-reliant news media — the CBC state media division of the government — could report on this news with news-y gems like that.

The happy-faced progressive blathering went on, on the 100% state-owned media, from the reporter hideously reporting on it like a proper business man on business-like “bottom lines”:

“Bottom line today’s numbers suggest Canada’s job market is on the mend, things are improving ...  the pace of the recovery is continuing…” he went on, without using the word “comrade” even once.

Just vote socialist or communist to quicken “the pace of the recovery” and get things more “mended” and “improved”.

Speaking in bold colors, and with a firm grasp on reality in the fantastic Commentary magazine (online), writer and thinker Michael J. Trotten long ago summed-up one of the many reasons Vice President Biden and the Obama administration generally are a total failure in international affairs thus far: they are clueless, moral relativists.  And moreover, the media doesn’t even realize it, making them at least as clueless; or they do know it and purposely fail to tell you (in contradistinction to their vast reportage on every “gaffe” or ramped-up malapropism coming from Sarah Palin or George Bush or any number of others on the right).  And that makes them untrustworthy.  It’s a great choice: clueless, or untrustworthy. Or maybe both. 

Joe Biden’s Alternate Universe
Michael J. Totten - 10.03.2008 - 8:10 AM

In Thursday night’s vice presidential debate between Senator Joe Biden and Governor Sarah Palin, Biden said the strangest and most ill-informed thing I have ever heard about Lebanon in my life. “When we kicked — along with France, we kicked Hezbollah out of Lebanon, I said and Barack said, “Move NATO forces in there. Fill the vacuum, because if you don’t know — if you don’t, Hezbollah will control it.” Now what’s happened? Hezbollah is a legitimate part of the government in the country immediately to the north of Israel.” [Emphasis added.]

What on Earth is he talking about? The United States and France may have kicked Hezbollah out of Lebanon in an alternate universe, but nothing even remotely like that ever happened in this one.

Nobody – nobody – has ever kicked Hezbollah out of Lebanon. Not the United States. Not France. Not Israel. And not the Lebanese. Nobody.

Joe Biden has literally no idea what he’s talking about.

It’s too bad debate moderator Gwen Ifill didn’t catch him and ask a follow up question: When did the United States and France kick Hezbollah out of Lebanon?

The answer? Never. And did Biden and Senator Barack Obama really say NATO troops should be sent into Lebanon? When did they say that? Why would they say that? They certainly didn’t say it because NATO needed to prevent Hezbollah from returning — since Hezbollah never went anywhere. 

[...]

Like many who watched the debate, I was bracing myself for Palin to say something off-putting about foreign policy. She’s the one who needed the crash course, allegedly; Biden is supposedly Mr. Foreign Policy. He’s supposed to be the experienced elder statesman Senator Barack Obama chose to help him govern and fill in some of his knowledge and experience gaps. He’s supposed to know far more about foreign policy than she does.

[...]

Biden, though, against all expectations and odds, managed to say something far more bizarre and off-planet than anything Palin has said on the topic to date.

  And the misleading, biased news reports or lack of news reports on the actual stupidity of political candidates who actually weild great power, using actual, factual examples instead of bogus drive-by smears by the media, just continue. 

For example, today the National Post uses its bash-all-conservatives pulpit to once again bash that evil and oh, ever so stupid Sara Palin, for yet another media-trumped-up bit of media-driven BS, using the goofiest possible picture they could find in their archives, to make sure we all know they think she’s an “idiot”.  No I’m sorry, “a complete idiot.”  But Joe Biden?  Well he’s just fantastic.

Right after crafting my wily (even if cynical) blog headline about conservative ideas, I came to realize that I don’t actually remember the last time a good conservative idea came from anyone but me and a few other conservatives in Canada, rather than the Conservative Party.  But I’ll go ahead and behave just like government, Conservative or otherwise:  It’s there now, so it must be vital!  A core function of my blog entry!  A blog entry “value”!  Multicultural!  Inclusive!  Feminist!  And progressive!  Well whatever.  It’s there now.

Today’s great idea, which involves dumping just one of the hundreds or thousands of government “corporations” which are actually divisions of the government which compete against citizens and exert power and authority and grow government, is fraught with embarrassment.  That’s because while it is an idea I’ve been espousing for, well, ever (reminder: I’m conservative and believe in freedom), today it is news only because it is put forth by an elite global government-funded agency based in F-F-F-F-France!  C’est dommage!  It was and is a perfectly good idea every time I have and continue to mention it —but I’m not elite.  Or French.  Or globally government-funded.  I’m just a normal Canadian conservative.  So therefore the National Post didn’t see fit to mention it when I mentioned it a thousand times before.  Only now.  Citizens don’t have credibility.  Only elite government-funded Pairs-based organizations do.  This says so much.  (Hey “elite” is a French word, no?)

You’d think it would be front-page news, rather than news shoved back into the hard-core financial pages. 

It’s the best idea to come out of the OECD in, well, ever.  Alas, they apparently didn’t get the memo on the abhorrent waste of money and the anti-democratic and anti-freedom and free-market disgrace, the state-owned, socialism-reliant CBC, which epitomizes lack of productivity (cited as a reason to sell-off Canada Post), waste (ditto), stupidity, totalitarian progressive government, and so much more.  Maybe the OECD needs more government funding. 

The letter calls Cheney’s demand “shameful,” before unleashing this steaming pile of idiocy:

“The American tradition of zealous representation of unpopular clients is at least as old as John Adams’ representation of the British soldiers charged in the Boston Massacre.”

Yes, but even John Adams didn’t take a job with the government for another 19 years after defending the British guards—who, in 1770, were “the police.” He also didn’t take a position with the U.S. government that involved processing British murder suspects.

I’d be more interested in hearing about the sacred duty of lawyers to defend “unpopular clients” if we were talking about clients who are unpopular with anyone lawyers know.

Every white shoe law firm in the country has been clamoring to take the cases of Guantanamo detainees, while young associates line up to be put on the case. This is even more fun than defending Ted Bundy!

As The Wall Street Journal put it in a 2007 article, a list of the law firms representing Guantanamo detainees “reads like a who’s who of America’s most prestigious law firms”—which conveniently doubles as Santa’s “naughty” list.

The terrorists’ lawyers have included Shearman and Sterling, Arnold & Porter; Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale & Dorr; Covington & Burling; Hunton & Williams; Sullivan & Cromwell; Debevoise & Plimpton; King & Spalding; Cleary Gottlieb, Morrison & Foerster; Jenner & Block; O’Melveny & Myers and Sidley Austin.

At least 34 of the 50 largest firms in the United States have performed pro bono work on behalf of Guantanamo detainees.

Years ago, when I nearly died of boredom working for a law firm, I heard whispered rumors about a partner, Michael Tierney, whom none of the female associates wanted to work with because his pro bono work included defending—gasp!—pro-life groups. (There was at least one female associate who wanted to work with him!)

I didn’t hear a peep about the august “American tradition of zealous representation of unpopular clients” back then.

Like Hollywood actresses, lawyers need to believe they’re noble and courageous to help them forget that they are corporate drones doing soul-destroying work, which mostly consists of making photocopies.

Defending terrorists gives status-conscious attorneys a chance to get standing ovations at the annual ABA convention—much like promoting “global warming” makes climatologists feel like they’re saving the world, rather than studying water vapor.

It took me exactly one Nexis search for “ABA,” “award” and “Guantanamo” to find that the 2006 “Outstanding Scholar Award” at the ABA annual banquet was given to New York University law professor Anthony G. Amsterdam for his “extensive pro bono practice, litigating cases that range from civil rights claims, to death penalty defense, to claims of access to the courts for the detainees at Guantanamo Bay.”

A rule I have is: You’re not defending an unpopular client if you’re getting awards from the ABA, particularly if the award mentions “courage.”

You’ll never see a pompous letter like the one attacking Liz Cheney on behalf of any lawyer defending clients who are unpopular with lawyers, which terrorists are not.

Ken Starr, a signatory to the “Please God, Let This Get Me a Good Obituary in The New York Times” letter, once, totally by mistake, had a case unpopular with the establishment: Bill Clinton’s impeachment.

He’s shown his mettle by saying that if he met Clinton today, he’d say “I’m sorry.” Because isn’t that what Jesus said? Be very concerned with the opinion of the world!

Speaking of which, I also never heard any testimonials to the sacred duty of lawyers to defend unpopular causes when every lawyer working on the Clinton impeachment was being smeared as a “tobacco lawyer.”

Tobacco companies, being wildly unpopular, are in need of a lot of legal services. Scratch any litigator from a big law firm and you’ll find someone who, if necessary, could be slimed as a “tobacco lawyer.”

You will notice a pattern developing: We only hear paeans to the “American tradition of zealous representation of unpopular clients” when it’s being used to defend causes popular with liberals—serial killers, terrorists and a horny hick who promised to save partial-birth abortion.

Lawyers want to be congratulated for their courage in defending “unpopular” clients, while taking cases that are utterly noncontroversial in their social circles.

They’d be scared to death to take the case of an anti-abortion activist. Defending the guy who killed George Tiller the Baby Killer won’t make them a superstar at the next ABA convention.

Not only do Americans have a right to know the legal backgrounds of lawyers setting detainee policy at the Department of Justice, but I personally demand the right not to have to listen to Eddie Haskell lawyers constantly claiming to be Atticus Finch.

It was revealed by The Wall Street Journal in late January that at a private strategy session in August, Rahm Emanuel, Barack Obama’s chief of staff, blasted the internally divisive political ploy proposed by some aggressively left-wing Democrats as “f——-g retarded.”

An intense brouhaha, with disability advocacy groups, Special Olympics spokespeople and even Sarah Palin piling on, confirmed that the word “retarded”—though still a bona fide medical term—has almost achieved the same social radioactivity as “the N-word.”

Objectively there’s no viable comparison between the two.

The N-word is an odious racial slur targeting an identifiable group of humans endowed with immutable genetic characteristics. From its inception, the N-word has been identified with real immiseration of blacks by real racists.

By contrast, “retarded” is merely descriptive of an objective condition, and applicable to culturally disparate individuals. The term may even be said to be a euphemism: “delayed,” after all, suggests more hopefulness than is usually warranted for these unfortunates.

But, like its predecessors, “idiot,” “moron” and “feebleminded,” the once-benign “retard” has lost dignity through constant association with juvenile humour, as well as coarsely-couched impatience with normally intelligent people acting stupidly, Emanuel’s peccadillo. Medical and support groups now prefer “intellectually disabled.” (Strangely, the same fate has not befallen “gay,” despite its parallel downward trajectory in popular usage.)

To be fair, although never enslaved or maligned as a group, the disabled, until relatively recently, were overlooked at best, and often shamed, depersonalized and marginalized in all societies. But again to be fair, the West can be proud of its progress on the disability file. Over the centuries our perceptions of the deformed, the diseased and the disabled as ritually unclean or loathsome have evolved into attitudes of compassion, inclusion and frank admiration.

The Paralympics, beginning this Friday, are a testimony to the sensible modern understanding of disability as a modifier, but not a disqualifier, for participation in athletic competition—a far cry from the original Olympics where the slightest physical imperfection (even circumcision) disqualified candidates for inclusion.

None of this happened by magic. Activism amongst the disabled and their sympathizers followed the well-trodden path traversed by blacks, women and homosexuals in their legitimate, rights-claiming phases. Slowly but surely curbs became sloped, elevators were installed and wheelchair-friendly transportation was made available. Much remains to be done, but the principle of equal accessibility to public resources has been firmly established, a principle roundly supported by liberals and conservatives alike.

Until political activism morphed into a field of academic study. Then—as with women’s, queer and African-American studies—disability studies fell prey to the post-modern anti-intellectual credo amongst intellectuals that “studies” means the advancement of “theory” and political activism rather than disinterested free inquiry. Many liberals may like what they see on campus, most conservatives not so much.

On its face, the relatively nascent phenomenon of disability studies is an attractive concept. Disability in literature (fairy tales, mythology, Homer, the Bible, Shakespeare), in the plastic and visual arts, in family dynamics, in sports, in politics: All of these make lush intellectual pickings for real scholarship.

Instead the field has been colonized by leftist ideologues. You’ll find in its academic literature all the buzz words you see in race and gender studies: “progressive,” “oppression,” “bourgeois,” “empowerment.” Riffle through a few conference papers and it’s the same old, same old: “At the heart of disability studies is a recognition that disability is a cultural construction; that is, that ‘disability’ has no inherent meaning”; and “The exciting thing about disability studies is that it is both an academic field of inquiry and an area of political activity ...”; and “Social justice is at the heart of disability theory and changing morality in the Western world.”

In other words, disability studies’ academic stakeholders have co-opted the disabled—for the most part apolitical individuals seeking nothing more than a physical levelling of the playing field in order to pursue their unique personal goals—as eternal Marxist victims of “ableist” oppressors. (The University of Toronto disabilities studies department claims it “aims to examine and deconstruct ableism.”)

That’s where the animus against “retarded” comes from. The word suggests there is a normative IQ against which the -er -“cognitively different” can, and should, be measured. Like feminists who won’t hear of discrepancies between male and female faculties in maths and sciences, disability activists rebel against the bourgeois tyranny of the fully abled. The same denial of reality prevails.

(The deaf “culture” or “linguistic community” who resist integration through lip-reading is the most egregious example of the syndrome. Extreme disability correctness led two deaf lesbians to seek a congenitally deaf sperm donor to ensure a deaf child.)

Disabled individuals are owed all the help society can reasonably provide to live as normal a life as possible. Colour me ableist: I said it -the other N-word-“normal.” For “normal” is what any reasonable disabled person wants to be. If disability studies academics resist this reality, they may be cognitively abled, but they are ethically ... delayed.

Work it, journalist!  Perpetuate those myths like the one that all liberals and leftists are…. why they’re brilliant!  Perhaps too intelligent, while at the same time describing all small and big-C conservatives and Republicans as dumb-ass buffoons!  Which explains why they get elected!

It’s no longer enough for the liberal-left sycophants in the media to coo and gush about their liberal pseudo-gods like Barack Obama with news-y pronouncements of “They’re intelligent!”  or “They’re so intelligent!”  or “They’re so intelligent compared to their opponent!”.  Now, in explaining why they’re losing, badly, and in some cases making a colossal mess of positions that were handed to them on a silver platter, it just might be because they’re too intelligent for politics.  Too intelligent, presumably (and as actually stated by various liberals and Democrats in politics and in the mainstream media in the U.S.) for the dumbass voters who would otherwise vote for them if only they weren’t so stupid and were instead as intelligent as the liberal candidate, but also the reporter himself who, of course, sees all this with such great clarity. 

Today’s illustration of liberal-left pseudo-science and suckup, sycophantic slobbering love affair journalism, when it comes to liberal icons today in the media, is hilarious and exemplary.  You know this is true because I wrote it.  See how this works?  Debate over!  Science is settled!  Shut up, stupids!  (Or as favorite far-leftists Sean Penn might say, “Off to jail for you!”)

Also see this recent example (among many) of Ignatieff’s, um, excessive “intelligence”: Preaching “respect” for “Canada’s institutions”, Lib leader Ignatieff once AGAIN calls PM “THIS GUY”.

RELATED:  Obama is obviously “TOO INTELLIGENT”!
Rasmussen daily tracking survey, March 10, 2010

  “The upshot is that the District’s objectives are compelling; its predictive judgments as to the law’s tendency to achieve those objectives are adequately supported [emphasis mine]; the law does impose a burden upon any self-defense interest that the Amendment seeks to secure; and there is no less clear less restrictive alternative.”

Justice Breyer was defending a District of Columbia law that banned handguns altogether as part of a stated objective to reduce violence in the District. The problem with Breyer’s assertion that “predictive judgments as to the law’s tendency to achieve those objectives are adequately supported” is that it’s patently false. Nonetheless, Breyer continues on the final page (p. 44) of his dissent:

  “In my view, there simply is no untouchable constitutional right guaranteed by the Second Amendment to keep loaded handguns in the house in crime-ridden urban areas.” 

The wording of this sentence implies that because crime is high in urban areas the government has an interest in restricting access to handguns. Nothing could be farther from the truth.

The Court is often in the position of making a decision by balancing one or more government interests against one or more individual liberty interests. Take, for example, the 1979 case of Delaware v. Prouse, which considered the constitutionality of stopping citizens in roadblocks for brief searches not predicated on probable cause or even individual suspicion.

In the case of the roadblock, the government interest is easily distinguished from the individual liberty interest. The government seeks to advance an interest (reducing highway fatalities associated with drunk driving) by setting these roadblocks. The Court approved the roadblocks by taking into account two individual liberty interests: 1) Demanding that the stops minimize intrusion (by being brief) and 2) Demanding that the stops minimize discretion (by stopping every car, or every other car, or every third, etc.).

In the case of gun bans, distinguishing between the two interests has been more difficult. At first, it was simply assumed that banning handguns would reduce crime. After fifteen years of research and sixteen refereed publications finding a contrary result, it’s time we recognize that high crime in urban areas promotes the individual interest in owning and possessing handguns and in the implementation of “shall issue” concealed carry laws.

Nonetheless, the city of Chicago is defending a law which bans handguns entirely – even for use within one’s home. But the case is being challenged by a plaintiff named Otis McDonald. McDonald is asking the Court to consider the individual right to bear arms affirmed in Heller as binding on all fifty states through the Fourteenth Amendment.

It will be interesting to see how this plays out. The Fourteenth Amendment, ratified in 1868, was a crucial part of the Republican effort to end slavery – even after involuntary servitude had been banned by the Thirteenth Amendment. Back then, Southern Democrats targeted former slaves using vagrancy laws, which made it a crime to “wander without any visible means of support.” After imprisoning the former slave, the Southern Democrat would allow him to work off his fine by picking cotton on a plantation.

These “convict lease systems” were little more than legalized slavery. Thankfully, the Equal Protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment hastened their extinction.

Today, many African Americans – like plaintiff Otis McDonald – are prisoners in their own homes. Urban violence disproportionately affects them. And any law that makes urban violence worse is a law that denies them Equal Protection.

The year after Justice Breyer lost in his bid to uphold the D.C. gun ban a funny thing happened. The murder rate in D.C. plummeted by 25%. To date, he has not retracted his statement that “predictive judgments as to the law’s tendency to achieve those objectives (reducing violence in D.C.) are adequately supported.”

It is rare to see such a convergence of individual liberty interests and government interests as we have in the McDonald case currently before the Supreme Court. It is rarer still to hear a sanctimonious Justice admitting that his ideas are wrong and that their consequences fall disproportionately on those who dwell in “crime ridden urban areas.”