1 Party State

More gems from the Steyn archive – here’s a beauty on the one party state called Canada.  That puts us in the same league as the African tinpot dictatorships.  No wonder Chretien is so worried about Bush removing …

Which is the world we live in. Intra-Liberal democracy means a choice between those who think the state’s entitled to 50% of your money and those who think it should be 60%, those who think there’s nothing wrong with the health system another two billion won’t cure and those who think it needs at least another four,

Hope yet

There is hope yet that the government’s own internal bickering and power grabbing will kill the Kyoto wealth redistribution plan.  So there is a benefit to having overgrown, disfunctional bureaucracies.

Sorry, Mr. Anderson—thanks to your six months of fumbling around, the debate over whether we should embrace this job-killing accord has found new life.

Right On, Man

A blog with our name just couldn’t resist this Wayneism….a follow up to the naming of a street after Mike Myers.

The Mike Myers Drive sign city workers installed on Thursday had been reported stolen by the time the sun came up on Friday.

“It’s probably in a basement rec room somewhere,” Mr. Berardinetti suggested.

Probably. Wayne Campbell would be darned proud.

Child Poverty

It’s that time of year again, so here are the latest poverty numbers in an effort to get you to be more sympathetic when you are asked to pay even more than half your income to the government.  They’ll be more than happy to redistribute it to those families that just cannot live together.  Note that “single parent families” (otherwise known as divorced or never married) make up the bulk of poor families.

One in four poor children live in two-parent families, a rate much higher than the 17 per cent in Ontario and Canada. But the risk of poverty is greater in single-parent families where the child poverty rate is 57 per cent. The median income for poor lone-parent families dropped from $14,670 in 1995 to $13,300 in 2000.

We need to spend more money making people stay together or making them stay more responsible for their own offspring.

Racey Star

Yesterday, the Red Star had a headline “White Jays” or some such nonsense, pointing out the Blue Jays had more white players than ever on their roster.  Today, this article points out that most Jays and most readers were predictably outraged by the Star, who seem to be doing whatever it takes to try and start a race war.

The story added that the Jays are once again winning and vying for a playoff spot and that this bucking of baseball’s diversity trend could lead other teams to copy the Jays’ model and change the game’s demographics.

Many Jays players were upset by the story.

They took particular exception to a “White Jays” headline promoting the story on the front page of the paper and the accompanying colour photos of each player on the opening-day roster.

The Star did the same thing accusing the police of racial profiling, specifically picking on blacks.  The police lawsuit was thrown out, but once again it shows the Star is desperate for a story and will pull the race card whenever it needs to sell a paper.  Yellow journalism, isn’t that what it’s called?

Happy Playmate Day

Mark wishes everyone a Happy Canada Day – from 1999 however.

Happy Canada Day. In the United States, they have Independence Day; in Ireland, St. Patrick’s Day; in France, Bastille Day; in Serbia, Genocidal Whacko Appreciation Day. But here in Canada we need a Day to remind us that we’re in Canada.

His website also notes that he is officially not at the Post now.

Hidden Bridge

It’s amazing what you drive over…I drive on this street many times a week and had no idea of the story below.

Bernd Baldus, a University of Toronto sociologist, strolls along Crawford Street, searching for a gap in the pavement that tells a strange tale about the city’s past. He surveys a short stretch of that unremarkable residential street, which passes through the northwest corner of Trinity Bellwoods Park. On either side of the road is a typical Toronto park: trimmed grass, trees, young families out for an evening walk. Baldus soon spots a pothole that, on close inspection, is surprisingly deep, with evidence of rusty iron rods within it.

“I wish I’d brought a flashlight,” he mutters. What’s in that hole, amazingly, is the elegant Crawford Street Bridge. For the past 40 years, it has been completely buried in

Libertarians

I am not actually a libertarian exclusively, but I am partially.  Loudmouth says the party needs your membership to remain a party.  Email if you want to join.

The Libertarian Party of Canada is collecting signatures in order to be recognized as an official political party.

Blogspot Exodus

There has been an exodus from some of the free blog services to Movable Type, as documented here .

A number of blogs have moved lately, sparked by Blogger’s ongoing woes, Dean’s Blogspot Jihad, and random acts of change. Here’s a brief list:

I’d like to see more of you people switch to [url=http://www.pmachine.com]http://www.pmachine.com[/url] – this is a fantastic, fast, and more versatile system with the best support anywhere.

Definitely worth a look if you are a serious blogger.  They even have their own hosting.

Short circuit

An old Canadian pasttime- when a government is in doubt, commission a study.

A day after Ontario came perilously close to power brownouts, the Conservative government today announced a $4.5-million ad campaign urging people to use compact fluorescent lightbulbs and a task force to study the province’s long-term electricity needs.

Compact light bulbs will save the province?  I doubt it.  Shear numbers of net immigrants coming to Ontario tell an idiot that real capacity must be added if we are going to keep the lights on.

We need a real plan fast to get the private sector in the game and the government out.  Then we might have some long term hope.

Witches etc.

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This comic from Cox & Forkum is for my wife: she gets very defensive when I joke about my worry for the anti-God sorcery in her favourite books, the Harry Potter series (the latest being Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (Cdn$)).  The hysteria around this book is amazing – no, I have not read it, and no, I am not one to read books (attention span problem, not to mention no time either).

This cartoon was inspired by an advertisement at NewsMax for a DVD titled, Harry Potter: Witchcraft Repackaged (Making Evil Look Innocent).

Then CNN reported that author Rowling hints she may kill Harry. I don’t know if it’s premeditated, but this is an excellent way to keep the suspense alive; it makes the life-and-death situations in the series more threatening. An interesting quote from Rowling: “I really don’t believe in magic. I believe in some kinds—the magic of imagination and the magic of love. But the magic of waving a wand and making things happen, no.”