Morals Down the Drain

Is there really a surprise that kids these days are having sex while in elementary school, when they are raised by parents like this.

Mistake after mistake

It seems as though Paul Martin's crew are truly the gang who coudn't shoot straight. These guys keep making mistake after mistake. During the election I had a high placed Liberal, after a TV interview, tell me that "Canadians think it is Chretien who is a crook, not Martin." That was a fundemental misunderstanding of what Canadians thought.

This is a fundemental misunderstanding of the problem. The problem isn't that some Minister gave special treatment to some stripper. The probelm is that Canadians are outraged that such a program ever existed.

If the NDP does not pick this up as an issue to take a way family mom votes away from the Grits, they are stupid. If I were advising the NDP, I would tell Jack Layton to send out a 10% to every single household in the Hamilton and Halifax area with a picture of a stripper and a Libearl logo.

Real Class Act

This requires no comment - I'm embarrassed.

Senate Pick up

During the last New Jersey senatorial race the Democrats pulled out their candidate, illegally, to replace him with Jon Corzine. Before they did so, the RNC was beating the living out of the Dems in the race. So now that Corzine wants to go back to New Jersey and run for Governor, I'd think there would be some fairly serious Republicans thinking that this is the cycle to finally pick up NJ.

Even if you have no interests in the NJ race, I'd recommend the article. It's fairly good reading on how corrupt politics in some places can be.

James Baker on Israel

I've always thought James Baker III was a fairly reasonable person - not a conservative ideologue but reasonable and smart nonetheless. So The New York Times > Opinion > his op-ed in the New York Times today is a bit of a disappointment.

Although I agree with his contention that the United States must open multiple fronts on its goal to spread democracy across the Middle East (i.e. Iraq, PA, Iran, etc.), I strongly disagree with his perscription for negotiations.

First, to suggest that the the Clinton agreement would be a good starting place is simply irresponsible. That agreement was possibly the worst thing for both states as it would displace thousands of Jews who would not likely leave their homes. It would also divide the holy city of Jerusalem.

Second, I dislike his quick dismissal of the one state solution. I have talked about this quite a bit in the past little while. I do not see why the Swiss model of federalism cannot work for the area. A weak federal government that does almost nothing other than guarantee individual rights and provide armed forced, and strong provincial government that can take whatever religious bend they would like.

Sushi Freedom Day

The Liberals have flip flopped once again. Thankfully, this time they've made the right decision.

As a sushi lover, and a statism hater I declare this, December 2nd Sushi Freedom Day.

Khomeini Calls for Invasion of Iran

This not be new to many people, but there is a lot more of it in a new book called "Love, Poverty, and War". I will write about this extensively soon. I will also write about how it relates to Salmon Rushdie.

This is possibly the most important thing that the US and Canadian governments need to understand. I heard it put most brilliantly tonight by Chirstopher Hitchens - who is more of a contrarian than anything else really. (UPDATE: He has written a book titled "Letters to a Young Contrarian".) I am not sure if he meant to say it the way I understood it, but it confirmed a feeling I have had for a few months now.

This war on terror, is not really an international war like World War I or II. It's an extension of civil war on which the US and the Western World has been silent on for many years. This is the civil war that is taking place right now in Iran and Sudan. One side wants to push the Isalmic world back into the 7th century, the other wants to bring it to the 21st and free it. The side that wants to push it back into the 7th century realized it was going to lose the battle of thought in the short-run and the actual battle in the long-run (thanks to the Internet and Western Satelites), so it decided to bring the battle the West. It did so hoping that it would destroy the 21st century and drag the entire world back. That is how the war on terrorism started.

And just like any other war, we have allies and enemies. Except the allies and enemies are no longer limited by geographic borders. Our enemies live in Iraq, Iran, Sudan, Congo, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Lebonon, and elsewhere. Our allies also live in all these places. This is where the President Bush's major mistake lies. The President should not be reaching out to traditional allies like France and Germany. They do not matter in this war. The President should be reaching out to our allies in Iran and Sudan.

I am going to gather my thoughts on this issue and write a lot more about it in the coming weeks. But suffice to say that this is not, and excuse me if this doesn't sound right since this is the first place I'm trying to explain this - suffice to say this is not really a war of civilizations. There is no Isalmic civilization fighitng a Western civlization. This is a war FOR civilization. (Same thing could be said re: war with Islam vs. the war within Islam.)

Unions

I rarely follow Queen's Park anymore these days. Frankly, with a lot of stuff to do I have a hard time keeping up with the daily affairs of one of the most boring governments in the history for the world. Not to say the Federal grits are any less boring, but at least they only have a minority which makes things slightly more interesting.

Having said this, I find the recent outcry against the Liberals by the unions to be particularly interesting. Let's review:

Unions did not like Bob Rae's NDP
Unions did not like Mike Harris's Tories
Unions did not like Ernie Eves (and whatever it was that Eves was trying to do)
Unions do not like Dalton McGuinty's Liberal.

Therein lies the lesson. When the pendulum has swung so far in one direction that side cannot help to dislike what is going to happen next. After all, there is no way a government could be possibly more pro-union since we cannot become any more pro-union and still retain our way of life. There is no point in playing favours with the unions or trying to appease them as Ernie Eves tried to do when he went around destroying the Common Sense Revolution. No matter what you do, they will complain and they will protest.

This union pendulum is going to swing fairly dramatically back towards the centre, and the unions know this. That is why they are putting up such a fight. If you have any senses as a government or as a political party you'd realize this and you'd ignore the radical union bosses.

More from Ottawa

When you read this, you'll be able to guess how angry I was pacing back and forth doing work for my Corporate Financial Management course. Good on these folks. Special congrats go out to Kingston's own Connie Wilkins.

More on protests

A few pictures of pro-Bush proganizers in Ottawa can be found here. I am told they had as many as 100 people out.

conservatives win the day!

So I take back the last post. Apparently the anti-Bush coalition has shown little competence in organizing much of anything. It's 12:00 noon and nothing from them yet. Maybe it's the fair trade coffee.

On the other hand the conservative folks have organized a great protest. Good job!

No protestors

If this report about the lack of protestors hold true for today, then it is very likely that the pro-Bush protestors would out number the anti-Bush protestors. I wouldn't hold my breath though.

National Post Op-ed

National Post has picked up my op-ed on the Kazemi/Iran issue. It is behind a subscription wall.

This is tradtionally where I'd say how much I agree with the writer, but you already knew that.

Iran and Kazemi

Iran has officially threatened Canada again over the Zahra Kazemi case. I'm going to write an op-ed about this. If the paper that I am sending it to doesn't pick it up, I will post what I have written here.