Pirate Bay Ruling Shows Flaws With Modern Copyright Law

I never thought I'd be talking about Sweden on here but here we are. A court in the Scandinavian country has convicted Pirate Bay's co-founders and have found them guilty of accessory to breeching copyright laws. For those who don't know, Pirate Bay is like Google for torrents. A torrent is a peer-to-peer downloading service. Pirated music and movies are often provided through such services though torrents do have a large legitimate following within the open source software community as it is cheaper than conventional direct download distribution for large files. The Pirate Bay's founders have been sentenced to a year in prison each as well as hefty fines of $3.58 million US. This case exposes a lot of the problems with current global copyright law. Under Canadian and US law, copyright infringement is punishable with a five year prison sentence and stiff fines, up to $50,000 per instance I believe. This puts it as an indictable crime in line with serious offenses such as armed robbery. Many argue that copyright infringement is theft and should be treated as such. However, those convicted of petty theft rarely receive sentences of more than two years less a day, a summery conviction in line with minor drug possession. Most never receive prison terms, just probation and maybe house arrest. So what's the difference between shoplifting a DVD from a store and downloading it from the Internet? Why is the latter treated far more harshly by the justice system than the former? Also, how can Pirate Bay be held responsible? It is important to keep in mind that they were not the ones actually providing the copyrighted material. Pirate Bay is simply a search engine for torrents. They did not create the files and they were not offered for download from their servers. Are they encouraging people to download it? Most certainly yes, but I feel there is a huge legal grey zone here. They're only providing a means to an end. It would be as if I were to casually suggest to someone in a bar you can kill someone by putting a plastic bag over their head. If they actually go do it, am I guilty of murder as well? No reasonable jury would say so provided there was no proof that I was egging that person on. Google can easily be accused of doing the exact same thing, same with Microsoft or in fact any computer manufacturer or Internet service provider. Egging someone on is considered to be a crime, but does the punishment fit the crime?

I believe that Pirate Bay has simply become an entertainment industry pariah. It's not the first time they've done so. Copyright trials in the United States tend to resemble three ring circuses more than a court of law. Groups such as the Recording Industry Association of America have been known to uses spy tactics to obtain data. There have been several high profile cases in which these tactics have been used to falsely accuse people of copyright infringement. Most notoriously was the case of a deceased grandmother who never owned a computer. This sort of evidence gathering is technically illegal to begin with. The problem is that the Fourth Amendment doesn't apply to private citizens. However, that sort of data is also technically not admissible in court either, something judges in the US are beginning to enforce. The Recording Industry alone has filed literally thousands of suits in the past five or so years, which have clogged the courts, something judges are growing increasingly intolerant of. Those who are convicted often face unreasonable sentences. Take a mother who was forced to pay up several hundred thousand dollars for allegedly downloading a handful of songs. Far more than what they would be worth at retail, even if you include people who downloaded the songs off her. (that's how P2P works) Groups such as the Electronics Frontier Foundation (a group that defends fair use rights in the US) have argued that this violates her Eighth Amendment rights to be free from excessive bail & fines and cruel & unusual punishment. The original conviction was overturned and a new trial has since been ordered.

The problem is that despite the fact that groups such as the RIAA engage in unscrupulous activities to gather evidence, they more often than not get their way. The entertainment industry has a huge lobby pushing governments to strengthen sentences for copyright infringement and reduce fair use rights. Originally appearing to want to soften copyright law and to add more fair use exceptions, Barack Obama has since decided that more needs to be done to strengthen copyright. Unsurprisingly his campaign for president received large donations from Hollywood. The way the law is set up now, anybody could be considered guilty of copyright infringement. Last month, Canadian Heritage Minister James Moore caused a stir when he admitted he likes to use his digital video recorder (DVR/PVR) to record his favourite shows and watch them at a later time. He also admits he likes to port these shows to watch on his iPod. Under Canadian law, recording TV shows using a DVR is illegal. This unintentional gaffe exposed the issues with last year's Bill C-61, which has since been dropped by the Harper government. C-61 would have brought Canada in lock step with the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) of the United States, passed by the Clinton administration in 1998. While the DMCA did clarify copyright law, it severely reduced consumer rights. Notably, it made it illegal to rip commercial DVDs and put something so common as ripping CDs to your iPod into a legal grey zone. I personally admit that I have ripped my favourite DVDs to store them on a personal media server. Doing this has a huge benefit in terms of convenience since I can have all my favourite films and TV shows accessible from my Playstation instantly on demand. No digging through discs, no risk of getting them scratched or dirty. I have purchased all these movies legally but in some jurisdictions, I have committed a crime just by transferring them to my server. If I travel to the US and save one of these movies on my laptop's hard drive to watch during the flight, US customs officials are allowed and encouraged to search and confiscate my computer. Imagine being told that the movie you copied is worth more than your $1400 laptop and all your work on it. I am not selling or giving away the film copies, I am using them only for my own personal use. However, I am still guilty of a crime punishable by five years in prison. If you copy a photo off the Internet to show a friend, that's illegal. If you copy text from a news article to put on your blog, even if you cite it, that's illegal. Not all of these are enforced but the law permits that they can be, and that they are all subject to harsh punishment. The entertainment industry has been pushing global governments to enforce every detail of copyright to the maximum letter of the law, and they have spent billions in lobbying for it. On the Moore issue, keep in mind that the entertainment industry once tried to have VCRs banned way back in the 1980s and audio cassette tapes a decade before that. They cited that these technologies would cause rampant copyright infringement, even though they never did. Both cases against these devices were thrown out of court. More recently though, the US government has allowed for the use of broadcast flags for over the air DTV signals which prevent certain programs from being recorded; the choice being left up to the content provider. The flags are not widely adopted and most current DVR systems ignore them. However, there was a controversy last year when Windows Vista users tried to record Medium and American Gladiators using the operating system's built in video recorder. The software is one of the few instances where the flags are supported and these people were prevented from recording their programs. This was the first time a large portion of the general public were introduced to the restrictions.

The problem with copyright law is not so much it trying to prevent actual piracy but rather that it has ultimately ended up treating ordinary people like common criminals. What we consider to be day to day activities when we use our media are crimes and can actually be punished with severe jail time. I argue that this violates basic legal and consumer rights of individuals in favour of the rights of large, powerful lobby groups. This is wrong. Dowloading a song off the internet does not justify jail time. A small fine and probabtion at most but these people do not deserve to have their lives ruined by powerful media cartels. It doesn't say much about our society when we value intellectual property or cartels more than say the physical property of the average Joe; or that we put drunk drivers and violent offenders away for less time than those who copy a few movies. Copyright law needs to be reformed to enhance consumer protection, not to limit it. The system we have now is broken, plain and simple.

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Noise Pollution

With all the talk about global warming and such, one form of pollution which can be just as harmful to one's health seems to get ignored. That is noise pollution. My current living situation went from a quiet neighbourhood to the equivalent of living next to the 401 in three year's time. I have found myself living in my guest bedroom just to be able to sleep at night, as it is on the opposite end of the house facing away from the road. Studies have shown that too much exposure to high levels of loud, unwanted noise over a long period can have serious long and short term health consequences. These range from elevated stress and irritability to high blood pressure and hearing loss. There has been a lot of debate on the subject and what frequently comes under attack are things such as leaf blowers, lawn mowers, and fuel powered radio controlled model cars and planes. However, what people forget is these objects are not run continuously. Your neighbour might run a leaf blower for a couple of days a year, for maybe one hour tops. The sort of 24/7 noise is rarely if ever dealt with in Canada. I've had a lot of time to consider the issue and have tracked down some common sources of this form of irritation.

The Backup Alarm
You know this one well if you've worked or live near a construction site. Beep, beep, beep. It goes for hours on end. These alarms are installed into commercial vehicles supposedly as a safety feature to let people know when you're backing up. Implemented by law, they were originally supposed to alert people from being run over. I have never heard of a single case of this happening though. The high pitched, constant beep serves more to irritate people than prevent them from being run over. People should try paying attention instead. I personally think these should be banned all together as they are a major source of noise pollution, especially if you live near new developments like I do. These do nothing to enhance safety.

The Engine Break
A feature on diesel engines, it uses engine compression to slow down the vehicle rather than using a traditional fiction break. They work especially well for large vehicles such as tractor trailers and dump trucks. However, they are considerably noises, especially on trucks that have poor exhaust mufflers. This is especially a problem in older vehicles. They make that burrr, bum bum bum, which is said to sound similar to a jackhammer but is 10-20 times louder. Laws against these are varied. Many municipalities forbid the use of them near residential areas though these laws are rarely if ever enforced. Truck drivers are a slimy bunch and often disregard these so called "insignificant" laws restricting where they can go. Tougher fines and better enforcement would nip this problem in the bud. The cops could make a mint.

The Motorcycle
My model aircraft are limited to 90dB at three meters. That's why I find it ironic that they hammer us so hard on noise limits but motorcycle engines are often significantly louder. Now, I can understand why motorcycle drivers have tuned their bikes to be loud, because not all of them are. Bikers want cars to be able to hear them coming since bikes are frequently overlooked by drivers. However, some are so loud that they go beyond reason. Stricter noise limits should be placed on bikes for them to be street legal.

The Thrush Muffler
The teenagers seem to love these. You put them on your exhaust and it's supposed to turn a 1990 Honda Civic hatchback into a 1969 Dodge Charger. Unlike what many stupid kids think, these don't improve the car's performance one bit. They also make it sound more like a bus or a tractor that a supercharged muscle car. The solution here is the same for motorcycles, stricter exhaust noise limits for cars.

The Sound Barrier, or Lack There Of
Many roads within municipalities have suddenly become main thoroughfares when they were not before. New houses also seem to be cropping up that are adjacent to main roads. The problem is that municipalities are refusing to build sound barriers to reduce the noise level for these people. In new developments, the developers usually put them up but for the older residents who suddenly find themselves living next to a main road are often crap out of luck. This has been my fight with the Town of Milton. Spend $74,000 for a sound barrier for me and my neighbours? Pass. Build a $1 million glass wall imported from UK for new City Hall? Heck yeah!

Poor Urban Planning
One of the biggest sources for noise pollution isn't the objects generating the sound but the fact that these objects are placed too close to residential areas. Take my mall issue for example that seeks to place a huge shopping plaza behind my house and widen the road to a main truck route.
More interest is being put into potential tax dollars rather than properly designed neighbourhoods that separate main industrial centres and busy commercial facilities from residential areas. Everything now is just a hodgepodge where anything can go anywhere without regards to noise or other forms of pollution generated.

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Galloway Funding Terror? Apparently So

Looks like the Government of Canada was justified of keeping British RSPECT MP George Galloway out of the country on grounds of funding terrorist activities. The UK Charity Commission has sent him a letter advising Galloway that they've lost patience with him and his organization. They're demanding he show up to provide answers regarding his charitable activities in Palestine or else be hauled before a high court judge. The accounts of Viva Palestina, Galloway's group that supposedly provided aid to Hamas civilians in the Gaza Strip during the 2008/2009 war, has been frozen. Naturally, Galloway blamed the Jews... again. He believes the accusations are part of a Zionist conspiracy against him and Britian's Muslim population. Is there anybody left on this planet that still doubts this man is a raving antisemitic lunatic? Galloway had previously admitted to giving $2 million to Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh as a political donation. In the United Kingdom, it is illegal to give funds of any sort to proscribed terrorist organizations. Canada has an identical law which is what prevented him from entering this country. It was never an issue of freedom of speech but about keeping someone out who had comitted, and admitted to, a criminal offense.

Source: The National Post, Terry Galvin

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Wasting Green on Green: The Tale of the $120 Rain Barrel

Now for something completely different. Canadian Tire is selling a 180L rain barrel for $120, on sale this week for a pittance of $100! It's being marketed as a "green" alternative that could save up to 40% on your summer water bill. (we all know that "up to 40%" usually means somewhere in the ball park of 0%-1%) This is the perfect example on wasting green on green. Rather than just picking on this company for charging an outrageous amount of money for something so simple, I've decided to take up the challenge and make something myself that's identical for half the cost.

The nuts and bolts of this expensive barrel seems to be what amounts to a plastic garbage can & spigot and something to connect it to a downspout. I don't need one as big as 180L so I decided to go with either a 121L (32 gal) or 77L (21gal) plastic garbage can, which can be obtained at Home Depot for $11 and $17 respectively. A metal spigot (essentially just an outdoor tap) costs about $10, probably less, and is more durable than the plastic one on the CT barrel. A screen to keep bugs out will cost maybe $2 at most, though I might already have that. I also already have silicone caulk to assemble it. My goal is to spend no more than $50 ($30 ideally) on the entire project to build a usable rain barrel. I might have to set up eves and a downspout for where I want to put it but I'm not factoring that into the cost of the project since the CT barrel assumes you already have that in place. Why am I doing this? No, I haven't gone to the green dark side. It's more of a proof of theory that the green industry is a huge scam. Of course I'll update my progress as I go along.

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An Unpublished Letter to the Champion on Urban Sprawl

It's been a while since I've written anything local but sometimes something just boils your backside so much that it just has to go to print. So let me give you a bit a background information. A developer is trying to build a huge mall behind my house that nobody wants or needs. Local residents, the hospital, housing developers, and local councillor Gary Carr have been strongly opposed to the mall. However, the town council has shown little to no interest in helping these people and the developer just ran off to the OMB when they failed to get the zoning changed. So myself and my neighbours have been trying to get a sound barrier put up since we back on to a major road. I have particular interest in this since the entrance to the mall (one of three!) is facing the back of our house, meaning we're going to get headlights shining in our back windows at night and 24/7 traffic noise. I was woken up at 6am this morning by the developers construction crew. I know some readers will think "aww, poor baby". I worked in construction for several years and by law, when working in residential areas, you cannot start earlier than 7am. We've tried to get the town and developer to put up the barrier for Bronte St residents. It would cost some $120,000 for the whole street from Derry Rd. to Vanier Dr. The developer has only put up $20,000, which is quite frankly an insult. The fence would cost us $6,000 to put up on our own property, which is a lot for us but a pittance for the developer. However, it looks like we're loosing this war.

Below is a letter on the subject that I submitted to the Milton Canadian Champion. They refused to publish the letter stating that it was "inaccurate". All the information it contains comes from meetings and official letters and our own discussions on the subject. It was 100% accurate, as everyone I showed it to agreed. To add salt to the wound, they actually published a notice in the paper saying that all letter submitters should ensure the information contained is accurate! That was a major slap in the face to myself and our cause. This leads me to believe that the Champion is in bed with the developers or is just incompetent. The last part is a guarantee, the first one likely but impossible to prove. I think this letter needs to be published so it's going to go up here, where I'm in control. On the plus side, this whole issue has given me a lot of new inductees for the Idiots Hall of Shame.

When plans to grow Milton were announced nearly a decade ago now, the Town Council stressed that they would try to keep the small town feel. Now that we can look at this plan with twenty-twenty hindsight, I can say this promise has been completely and utterly broken. Milton is walking down the same path Brampton did several decades earlier. It is a poorly planned jumble of development, snarling traffic, and increasing rates of crime. The common excuse is that this naturally comes with growth. In reality, this is the byproduct of the Town and the province turning over our humble little community to large developers who have no interest in preserving it as a small town. When it was on the other side of town, the development was easier to ignore. I guess the statement “not in my backyard” always holds true.
I have lived in Milton my entire life. My current house had a lovely view of the escarpment. Now there is a housing development there and half the view is gone, taking away much of the appeal of living in south Milton. So much for Dalton McGuinty's Green Belt; though his Places to Grow Act is what has been trumping it. The last straw for me is the proposed First Capital shopping centre development at the corner of Derry and Bronte. The plan seeks to cram a Milton Mall sized plaza on a plot of land half that size. Myself and my neighbours have been fighting this proposal tooth and nail. The land in question was originally zoned for light industry, which we were fine with as that only meant nine-to-five traffic. The plan for the proposed plaza calls for five large buildings, three entrances off Bronte, more traffic snarling lights, and more noise pollution. It has already gotten to the point where I am no longer able to use my backyard in the summer due to noise and the town refuses to erect a sound barrier. Originally the plaza was planned to be open 24-hours, which would lead to constant noise and light pollution, and possibly attract crime. After a meeting with the council, it was determined that nobody wanted this plaza, including the housing developers, and the town supported us. So naturally, First Capital took their fight to the OMB and the Town was forced to rezone the property. One cannot really blame the Town for this as the province has constitutional right to override the decisions of local councils. We have people unfamiliar with the community making decisions that affect us directly, without members of the community having any real input. The developer came back with “changes” to their proposal, which was now an “office development” that would include shopping. In reality, the plan has not changed at all since we originally voiced our concerns back in 2007. Indeed it was worse than the original as it included adding islands to Bronte and pushing the property buffers closer to the road. The Town's and First Capital's answer to our complaints? We'll plant some trees so you don't have to look at it. Lovely. We loose our escarpment view, our quality of life declines dramatically, but at least we will have some trees that do nothing to stop noise pollution, which is the primary issue. At the vary least they should be putting up an eight foot sound barrier along Bronte; at the developer's and the Town's expense, not ours. It's the only practical method for solving the pollution issue. Nothing is being done to adequately address our concerns.

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Idiots Hall of Shame: First Quarter 2009

Alright, I may or may not have stolen, err, borrowed the idea from Toronto radio host Bill Caroll. This is a list of people and organizations in politics who I think have done outright stupid things. The list is on the sidebar but after four months of it, it's starting to outgrow that format. However, I want to keep it stickied. So instead, I'm just going to keep them up for one three month quarter then archive them. The older ones will still be linked in the side bar but this should neaten things up a bit. January to March 2009 is below.

March Inductees
Mainstream Liberals -- For not being outraged by antisemitic comments by fellow liberals such as Syd Ryan and York University's student body

Warren Buffett -- For being a scared idiot and enduing needless panic in the markets.

CAW -- For thinking a wage freeze is a major concession.

David Dodge -- Ex-Bank of Canada Gov. More Buffett style phony fear mongering about the economy.

George Galloway -- British MP denied entry to Canada. An arrogant, corrupt, criminal, communist, antisemite. Need I say more.

Greg Gutfeld -- For insulting Canadian troops and being a general douche bag.

Dalton McGuinty -- Ontario Premier. Too many reasons to list here.

February Inductees
Barack Obama -- For nearly starting a trade war less than two weeks into his term.

York U TAs -- for being greedy, violent, and robbing students of an education

Ontario Municipalities -- for spending other people's money like water with no accountability

CRTC -- For thinking it can regulate the Internet

North American Druggies -- For destroying Mexico

NASA -- could have fed 4 billion people with money it wasted on CO2 hunting satellite

January Inductees
Howard Hampton -- For abandoning University Students, one of his biggest constituencies.

Erik Millet -- NB School Principal for banning Oh Canada

Google -- For not fixing Blogger's italics/bold problem

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Wasting Green on Green: Green Charity Scams

World Wildlife Fund is gearing up to do it's annual CN Tower Stair Climb later this month. This event used to be in support of the United Way but that changed somewhere in the last couple of years. The WWF stair climb is to fight global warming while the United Way fights poverty and homelessness in the city. Neither are big concerns to me but I find the latter to be a far more noble cause than the former. This has got me thinking about the recent surge in the number of "green" charities. The WWF has led this bandwagon. Greenpeace is now said to rake in over a billion dollars in donations. What is this money being spent on? Well, they certainly aren't doing what you'd think a legitimate charity would do. It's not going to help people who need it. It goes to a lot of pipe dream pet projects that the group's members think will stop climate change. People in Africa need AIDS vaccines and access to clean water, not solar panels. I think it's shameful for someone to give to a green charity rather than spending it on legitimate humanitarian aid projects. If you want to donate money, I suggest giving it to people such as the Red Cross or medical charities. I'm personally a supporter of Heart & Stroke Canada and The Diabetes Association of Canada, and I gave to the Red Cross during the Katrina disaster. Rather than donating your money to the stair climb for global warming, please instead donate it to the disaster victims in the recent Italian Earthquake Disaster and Manitoba Floods. You'll be putting a smile on someone's face right when they need it the most.

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CAW Signing It's Own Pension Death Warrant

Is Ontario legally, or for that matter morally obligated to ensure GM retirees are guaranteed a pension? CAW president Ken Lewenza thinks so, once again proving my theory that big unions are currently living on another planet. I got to thinking about my own parents who have recently retired. They're small business owners. Aside from the money invested in their business and in the stock market, they have no other money coming in. Since they are both under 65, they cannot even collect the pittance that is the CPP. They, like most other retirees, saw their savings plummet when the market crashed back in October. So through no fault of their own, they have less and less to retire on. There is no government safety net for them. To rub salt in the wounds, the CAW is now asking, no, demanding that Ontario tax payers pay for their pension fund should GM and Chrysler go under. The fund was never intended to support the massive number people should a large company like these two auto giants go under. There is only $100 million in the fund while GM is in the hole for $6 billion.

The threads are starting to unravel on this saga with each new story that comes out. There is a clear and present culture of entitlement within the North American automotive industry; stretching from the boardroom right down to those on the assembly line. Every single person employed by GM and Chrysler is equally at fault for the financial mess that the two companies are in. I know Lewenza is trying to protect his union members but to make such a crass statement that Ontario is morally obligated to shovel over tax payer dollars to their pensioners is just outrageous. It was the CAW that demanded, nay, forced the cradle to grave care that pushed pension costs through the roof in the first place. Of course GM executives are equally at fault for not reining in the union and not putting enough aside to pay for the expenses. However, the fact that Lewenza thinks that these pensioners are loosing through "no fault of their own" just shows how arrogant he is. So many other pensioners are being forced to go without yet the government only has a moral obligation to help the members of this one union; and they honestly expect the rest of us to pay for them? Socialism only when socialism is convenient for our group; that's the mantra of big unions. It is getting really difficult to feel sorry for autoworkers who are loosing their jobs when stuff like this comes out. They seem to think that they can keep operating at the status quo regardless of outside market forces and the stupid things they do. It's never their fault in their minds. It's GM's fault, it's Ontario's fault, it's the fault of consumers for not buying GM vehicles. No, never the CAW's. This is precisely why the government should not bail out the auto industry. Like I said in past articles, when you keep handing these idiots money whenever they screw up, it only serves to continue the culture of entitlement and arrogance that got them into trouble in the first place. Of course Dalton McGuinty will fold like a deck chair though. So far, no politician in this country has had the balls to take on big unionism, save Mike Harris. The auto industry needs to be allowed to fail if only to purge the idiocy that currently rules it.

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How Tough Times Breed Radicalism

Many people are perplexed as to how someone like Adolf Hitler could rise to power and commit so many atrocities virtually unchecked during his rule over Germany from 1933 to 1945. Hitler was an evil man most certainly but he was not the cause of Germany's problems, he was a symptom. The social and governmental problems that eventually culminated in the Second World War and the Holocaust had been festering for years; from the time when young Adolf was still doing paintings for spare change on the streets of Vienna. Sudden and catastrophic economic collapse opened the door for the relatively obscure political to take the German nation by the horns and drag it into its pit of destruction. The risk for democracies becomes apparent when all other mainstream sources have been exhausted, as happened when the country experienced its own devastating recessions through Hyper Inflation in the 1920s and later the Great Depression of the 30s. Hitler did what he had promised. He pulled Germany out of the depression before any other nation, but the consequences were dire. It's important to note though that Germany was still a relatively young and inexperienced democracy in 1933 and that Hitler's NSDAP never received a majority in the Reichstag. He was handed power by the country's incompetent president.
There are more recent examples though that should serve as a warning. Take Venezuela into consideration. It is a relatively old and stable democracy. It was one of only two nations within Latin America that never underwent a period of dictatorship, military or otherwise, during the turbulent second half of the 20th century. (The other being Costa Rica) Then in 1992, a radical young military officer named Hugo Chavez Frias attempted to launch a coup against the democratic government. The coup failed but Chavez was legitimately elected president of Venezuela in 1998. The switch to his radical Fifth Republic movement had been brought on by failures of the Liberal and Conservative parties in regards to stopping corruption and alleviating the countries long festering poverty and other social issues. Since his term in office, Chavez has steadily removed democratic freedoms including stifling opposition press such as RCTV and reforming the constitution to allow him to run indefinitely. As the continuing recession plummeted oil prices, he began to curb private property rights after loosing funding from the country's only viable export. Chavez is not a dictator, not yet anyway, but one cannot help make parallels between him and other radicals such as Hitler.

Most first world countries have managed to escape the scourges of home grown fascism and radical socialism during tough economic times. However, to think that Canada and the United States are immune to it is foolish. When Franklin Delano Roosevelt came to power, he had a set plan for fixing the economy. He was charismatic and gave people hope. Barack Obama ran his campaign on similar themes but lacked that set plan that was FDR's New Deal. It has become painfully obvious that Obama does not know what to do and has spent more time on other issues. In Canada, Steven Harper's Conservatives are following pretty much the same path, waiting for the US to react before making any decisions. The United States had said a resounding no to the Republicans' plans and the Liberals within Canada also lack anything concrete. With voter turnouts reaching historical lows in Canada, there is a serious risk of a crisis of legitimacy among the major parties. When people believe the mainstream parties are not acting to help them, they will seek out alternative means to vent their frustrations. This is evident with the strong support British RESPECT MP George Galloway has received. He is a raving antisemite and communist but people line up to hear him speak. For these kinds of people, the chances have never been better to gobble up seats within the House of Commons. Britons are hugely dissatisfied with Brown's Labour government and don't seem too keen on the Conservatives either. Britain has been on the decline for some time now. London is currently holding the G20 summit and the usual communist/anarchist groups have appeared to protest. However, police and officials have admitted they're surprised by the how violent the crowd is this time and sheer number of people who have showed up.
You will also see the increasing popularity of nationalist and fundamentalist movements. Radical Islam has been growing at a steady rate and a weakening America, in their eyes, confirms their belief that the "empire" has been destined by Allah to collapse. B'nai Brith is claiming that they have also seen a rise in antisemitism since the start of the recession. The hey day of the second Ku Klux Klan was during the depression of the 1930s. Although Islamic-supremacy movements have largely replaced white supremacists as the dominant racist organizations, skin head movements, particularly in Alberta, also seem to be making a comeback. These groups obtained notoriety in the 1980s during another particularly bad recession. Last month, they were involved in violent clashes with anti-racist groups and were sespected in the senseless random beating of a Japanese woman in Calgary. For many if not most, it's easier to point fingers than attempt to tackle the issues, or admit fault for your own problems.

A great man, Benjamin Franklin, once said that those who trade essential liberty for a little security deserve neither liberty nor security. I'm not going to make some prophetic predictions regarding all this. In all likelihood, this recession will not collapse our world order and will not send us into World War Three, or put us under the thumb of dictatorship. However, it is possible and it is a risk that needs to be addressed sooner rather than later. There already is a growing threat from radical fringe groups who have been waiting for an event like this to present their cases as being viable alternatives. Democratic governments and mainstream politicians need to act now to regain the confidence of their people, or else this nightmare scenario could indeed become reality.

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Earth Hour Fraud Round 2

It's time for Earth Hour once again, the publicity stunt created by the World Wildlife Fund to jump on the anthropogenic global warming bandwagon. You can refer to my post on it from last march. Once again I encourage readers to leave their lights on. Keep in mind that Ontarians already get their power from carbon-free sources such as nuclear and hydro-electric. Don't encourage organization that put forth fraudulent claims for money and publicity.

Earth Hour a Publicity Stunt - MMN March 2008

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Top Ten Failures In McGuinty's Tainted Legacy

How do you write yourself into the history books as one of the worst leaders a province has ever had in its history. Simple, just follow Dalton McGuinty's legacy and you'll do fine. Here's a list I've compiled of some of the more notable events of the last five years.

1. Implemented the Largest Tax in Ontario History
McGuinty ran on a campaign promise that he would not raise taxes, even solidifying it in writing by signing an agreement with the Canadian Taxpayers' Federation. In his first budget, he implemented the "Health Care Premium" so that all Ontarians would pay their "fair share" to hire more doctors and nurses due to a shortfall caused apparently by Mike Harris's cuts. The premium is roughly $900 per person per year and appears within your income tax. It goes into general revenue rather than a specific fund for health care. Health care services have arguably have seen little to no improvement despite the massive funding increase.

2. Put the Province in an Energy Shortage
Get rid of your old fridge, caulk your windows, replace light bulbs with the crappy twisty ones as stated by David Suzuki in the Powerwise commercials for the Ontario Government. When McGuinty was elected in 2003, he promised to close all of Ontario's coal fired generating stations by 2007 to reduce carbon emissions. However, there were no plans to build new power plants to replace them. It turns out that closing down just one major coal station, the Lakeview Generating Station, sparked a massive power shortage in the province. Ontarians were forced to put in "Smart Meters" as an excuse to charge you more for electricity and force you to conserve. (As a side note, the debt retirement charge on your hydro bill is actually a tax that goes into the province's general revenue. It is not used to pay down the debt of the former Ontario Hydro as claimed. This tidbit was obtained from publically available budget documents which provide a breakdown of tax revenue streams going into general revenue.) Large sums of money were wasted on conservation programs and buying power from out of province. Money which could have been put to retrofit existing power plants with clean coal technology. The rest of the coal generators are still open as of 2009. It would take more than a decade to replace the plants with nuclear power, a plan that was hacked out just last year, long after the coal closure deadline had passed.

3. Destroyed the Environment
McGuinty had a lot of egg on his face after the Oakridges fiasco. For a refresher, McGuinty had promised during the election to shut down a major housing development along the environmentally sensitive wetlands known as the Oakridges Moraine, near Holland Marsh. Unfortunately doing so was technically illegal since the contracts allowing them to build had been in place since well before he was elected. Being a lawyer, he should have known this. However, I suspect he knew all along and it was said simply for token populist purposes. However, it backfired and went down as his first broken promise; first of many. In 2005, the McGuinty Government passed the Places to Grow Act and the Greenbelt Act, apparently in order to prevent urban sprawl. In reality, the Places to Grow Act has accelerated it to the point of being out of control. Outlying GTA communities have been swallowed up by massive unchecked growth, putting huge tolls on their original residents and the surrounding environment. The Greenbelt Act is impotent at best and has led to housing developments almost up to the base of the Niagara Escarpment, a UNESCO biosphere reserve. Plans even called for putting a highway on top of the environmentally sensitive cliffs at one point. Even Toronto is not immune. The city now has a street literally named "OMB Folly" as a monument to these laws. Environmentalism is only chique when it deals with fake issues like global warming and federally regulated safe pesticides. If McGuinty and the OMB had their way, they'd turn Ontario into ecumenopolis of cookie cutter houses.

4. Caught Buying Votes
An Indian-Canadian cricket club that had asked the province for $100,000 in taxpayer funding to establish their team. They surprisingly found themselves with a $1 million cheque mailed to them, authorized by the premier's staff. That's more than a little suspicious and not the first or only incident. $250,000 was given to build a massive Sikh temple in Mississauga. The owners of the Khalsa Darbar had lost their charitable organization status shortly before that, and had been linked to a radical Sikh separatist group in India. This was all part of an odd $32 million fund set aside for ethnic minority groups. A fund which had little to no fiscal transparency or accountability. Targeting specific ethnic groups, namely new Canadians citizens with free money, well, let's just say it's a little less than ethical. I wonder what the going rate for my vote is. I'm a little short on cash right now. See below for the reason why. The slush fund fiasco would have destroyed his hope of reelection if it wasn't for the incompetence of John Tory. Tory may be a nice guy, as people keep saying, but he wasn't the sharpest knife in the drawer. More like a spoon.

5. Let People Go Blind but Put Breast Implants in a Guy
One of the first things the McGuinty government did was take away eye exams from OHIP coverage. These didn't cost the government much (a pittance of $80 a pop) but it has taken a toll on low income earners with eye troubles. I guess poor people don't need to see. Chiropractics were also delisted so I guess it's ok for poor people to be blind and have a bad back too. However, the government thought it was ok to allow sex change operations to be covered. So it's ok for poor people to be blind and have a bad back but at least they can go from male to female on the taxpayer's dime, and vice versa. Joy!

6. Nanny Statism
The McGuinty government has spent much of its time in office on developing petty bans. You can't put pesticide on your lawns, you can't smoke in the car, you can't own a pitbull, etc. Nanny statism is a tactic used to distract the public from real issues by creating issues out of non-issues. Did you get that? Good. Oh on the pesticides; what happens to all those people who do that for a living now that they're banned? I personally think we should have Liberals banned while we're at it.

7. From Have to Have Not
Ontario went into the McGuinty leadership term as the economic engine of Canada. Now the largest province by populaton is considered to fall under "have not" status and requires equalization payments for the first time in the history of the federal program. McGuinty actually positioned this as a good thing, because the government would now get the money from the feds "it deserves." I guess people loosing their jobs and recent university/high school grads not being able to find work is a small price to pay for "fairness". We're now below Newfoundland in terms of economic performance for God's sake. Ey's the by who built the ship, McGuinty's the by that sank 'er.

8. Created an Unfriendly Environment for Business
The federal government warned McGuinty to cut business taxes to encourage companies to stay. Everybody knew a recession at the time, except McGuinty. It was just like how he didn't know about the deficit in 2003 that everybody else knew about. There must be so sort of massive conspiracy afoot, that's the only explanation! Now many big corporations, such as Daimler Chrysler, and threatening to pull out of the province all together due to the high cost of doing business here. The government is now scrambling to throw money at them with no guarantees they'll remain in Ontario. This economic plan would be akin to me emptying my wallent into the toilet, fushing it, and expecting to retrive its contents from the sludge at the sewage plant a week later.

9. Raising Taxes During a Recession
According to Keynesian economics, which plays a big role in liberal theory, governments have two duties in regards to the economy. Raise taxes and save during good times, cut taxes and spend during bad times. The Ontario Liberals raised taxes and spent during good times, and raised taxes and spent during the bad times. Ontarians got a nasty surprise in the 2009 budget when they found out many staple goods would now be subject to an 8% sales tax due to harmonization. "Gee, nobody's buying anything because they have no money so you know what we'll do to fix that? We'll increase the sales tax and make them pay more!" This is just incredibly asinine.

10. Making Rae Look Fiscally Responsible
During McGuinty's years in office, annual government spending has tipped the scales at $18 billion. Rae's biggest budgets only managed to top $9 billion in the early 90s. When adjusted for inflation, McGuinty's budget is still $6 billion more than Bob Rae's! Once again this goes against Keynesian economics. McGuinty is trying to spend his way out of a recession but spent to much when times were good, so there's no money left. The province will be in deficit for six years, compared to the one year it was under Eves due to the Dot Com Burst and 9/11 crashes. It will take decades to repay that level of debt, and more government belt tightening if we manage to get someone with half a brain running the province again. Civil servants better start making their strike signs now before they're taxes so much, they can't afford coroplast and 2x4s.

Now for the top ten successes of the McGuinty Government.

1. ...........
I'd better get back to you guys on this one. I'm head first in the barrel as we speak, spatula in hand.

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The Foolishness of Tax Harmonization

Ontario plans to unveil in it's budget today a proposed plan to harmonize the PST and GST. I've talked about this issue before when Ontario premier Dalton McGuinty originally proposed the ideal. At first I just focused on those shopping out of province but the fact that many staple items would now be subject to sales tax did not occur to me at first. I make the food, I don't buy it. I guess I'd better start doing the grocery shopping to. The harmonized tax is now threatening to raise the price of staple items over $4. This would include things such as feminine products, housing, diapers, and many food products that were not subject to the provincial sales tax before. The prices of these basic items would essentially jump 8% overnight. To counter this, the government is proposing a $1000 grant to all families making under $160,000 combined income. Then why raise the tax if you're just going to givethe money back? I seriously doubt that most people are going to see this money.

It is incredably foolish for any government to be raising taxes during a recession, especially sales taxes. Large businesses argue that harmonizing the tax will save them money but ultimately it harms consumers in the long run. Lower income earners will now suddenly be forking out more and will likely get hurt the most. I can't help but feel that's a little bit ironic when Liberal governments repeatedly say they are out to help these people. A tax increase at this time makes little economic sense as it will discourage people from purchasing certain things, particularly housing which will now be taxed. For example, the price of an average house would increase $28,000, putting it beyond the reach of people who may have been able to afford it before. You cannot seriously expect people who are tightening their belts during a recession will keep buying things that suddenly cost a significant amount more.

Is anybody really surprised by how dumb this is? This is the same government that levied the largest tax increase in Ontario history when it slapped a $900 "Health Care Premium" on residents in 2004; after promising in writing not to raise taxes during the election. Spending has gone up to $18 billion per year and yet Ontarians have seen vary little improvement in services. Most of it goes to lucrative pay hikes for teachers and civil servants. Back in 2005, it was agreed that Ontarians are rapidly reaching their taxation limits. Cities are asking for more, the province is asking for more, and we have no more money to give them. Ontarians need an election sooner than later. Hopefully the Conservatives will elect someone with half a brain as their leader this time. Going up against the worst premier in history and his long record of destruction sould be a cake walk.

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The Winds of Truth Start to "Blow"

For years, we've heard people on the left proclaiming that drug abuse is a victimless crime. US Secretary of State Hilary Clinton echoed my own statements by saying that Americans' "insatiable demand for illegal drugs fuels the drug trade." Illegal weapons coming across the US border are also an issue for Mexico, who like Canada has strict gun laws. Often, drug lords out-gun police and army troops, resorting to high powered assault weapons such as the infamous AK-47, which cannot be legally obtained in Mexico. Clinton noted that she feels the US attempt to ban narcotics has been unsuccessful. The Obama administration is pledging $80 million to help the Mexican government buy Blackhawk helicopters to assist them in their war against the drug cartels. Many believe Mexico is at risk of becoming a failed state due to this narco-war. 8000 people have died in the part two years, more than all the coalition troops killed in Iraq and Afghanistan combined.

This begs the question as to what America's next move is. If the Democrats are even considering legalizing it, they would be fools. Cocaine is not like marijuana. It is highly addictive and toxic. It would be too dangerous and irresponsible to allow people to freely and legally use it. Many former coke addicts would probably agree with this. The war on drugs should not be abandoned but it has to take a domestic approach and has to focus on new tactics. The way drug education is handled needs to change to dispel the commonly held belief that narcotics abuse only harms the user. I remember the anti-drug programs in the schools and most of the information given only delt with consequences to the user. Teenagers of course think of themselves as invincible so this means little to them. Abuse of hard drugs can be directly linked to a huge number of societal problems we are facing today. I would conservatively estimate that 90% of crimes committed within the US and Canada are drug related. Most of the income made from organized crime groups, such as the Crips and Bloods, comes from dealing drugs. When someone does a hard drug like cocaine, they are not only hurting themselves but their family, those involved in dealing it, those who produce it, and those who get in the way of the cartels who ship it from them to your powdered nose. On the legal side, governments need to take a no-nonsenes approach to drug trafficking by making it an offense punishable by 25 years in prison. Furthermore, perhaps increased jail time is needed for those caught in possession of hard narcotics such as cocaine and haroine. It would get them away from the junk and would open up access to rehabilitation programs. It seems harsh to jail junkies but most drug addicts admit they're the last to know they're addicts. Serious jail time may just be the tough love they need to encourage them to seek help. Lastly, drug rehab programs need more funding and need to be expanded to make them more accessable. Combined with education, users must be encouraged to try and seek a way out of their addiction.

Source: BBC News

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Captain Planet's Secret Identity Revealed! It's David Miller

With the power of fire, earth, water, wind, and heart, the Toronto Councilteers put their rings together and summon the ultimate protector of Mother Gaia: Captain Planet, er... David Miller. The Toronto Environmentalist Alliance (as a side note, what is the left wing obsession with using the word "alliance" in the names of their organizations) released it's report dubbing Toronto to be the greenest city in the country. They took the time to rank each councillors actions on the environment. Not surprisingly, David "Captain Planet" Miller got an A+ for his eco work. So did the rest of his inner circle of cronies such as Joe Pantalone, Carol Shelly, and Adam Vaughn. The lowest ranked councillors, all with an F grade include Rob Ford, Case Ootes, Doug Holyday, Denzel Minnan-Wong. Ironically, these men are the conservative members of the council so there's obviously no partisan politics behind this report. Well, it's good to know that Miller has some supporters. The TEA is applauding the mayor's non-working hybrid buses and it's project to have 25% of city facilities powered by renewable resources. The group though complains there is too much red tape for green programs to get through. I find that odd considering the council had no problem handing the mayor $125,000 for his London, UK climate office. I guess the environmentalists have no problem spending tax dollars of a cash strapped city on ineffective $10,000 a peice solar panels. These people have their heads so far up their backsides, they can see the organic tofu they just ate.

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FOX Makes Jackass of Self.... Again

FOX News is controversial to put it lightly. It is currently the only major conservative TV news station within the United States. The network has come under fire once again, this time for insensitive remarks about Canadians in Afghanistan made on program Red Eye. According to Wikipedia, Red Eye, hosted by Greg Gutfeld, is a late night comedy show that airs on the 24-hour news channel. Gutfeld blasted Canada for saying it wanted to take a break from Afghanistan after its mission was over in 2011. Well, it's hard to put into text exactly what he said so I'll let Mr. Gutfeld speak for himself.


Now it's easy to get outraged by this, especially since it was aired just after four brave Canadians lost their lives when a roadside bomb exploded in Kandahar. The statement is insensitive at best and ignorant at worst. However, I really can't get too upset by this. Red Eye is a comedy show primarily, not a news program. Plus it airs at 3 AM. In all likelyhood, vary few Americans watched this broadcast. It only came to the attention of us here north of 40 when the clip, aired last week, appeared on Youtube. The question is whether Gutfeld is alone among Americans. Do they even realize how much Canada is contributing to the war effort over there? A hell of a lot more than they are. Canada was essentially left holding the bag while the US went off to fight Iraq. Afghanistan went from hunting Osama Bin Landen and bringing him to justice to some hack kneed nation building exercise. Most of our boys have been killed by these IEDs rather than in actual battle. Little progress is being made to fix this backwards country and war supporters, including Steven Harper, admit that it is unwinnable in the conventional sense. I think we need to take a long, hard look not at why we went there to begin with (which in my opinion was a just cause) but why we are still there now. It's starting to look like we're wasting our time. Our military is still badly underfunded and under-equipped so we do indeed need a break from the fight to reorganize ourselves. If the United States wants Canada to keep involved in Afghanistan, they're going to have to start pulling their weight there.

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No RESPECT For Galloway

Under the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, you're guaranteed freedom of expression and freedom of association. However, someone needs to tell British MP George Galloway's supporters that this only applies to Canadian citizens and landed immigrants. The controversial UK politician has been denied access to Canada on grounds of him being a risk to national security. Galloway had planned to speak at several events in Toronto, Mississauga, and Montreal; having been invited by the Toronto Coalition to Stop the War. The theme of the conference was "Resisting War: From Gaza to Kandahar." First, I think we need a little back story to explain why this man was denied access by the Ministry of Immigration in the first place. Mr. Galloway, from Scotland, was originally a member of parliament under the Labour Party. Back in 2003, he was strongly opposed Tony Blair's proposed invasion of Iraq. Galloway was expelled from the party for insubordination after calling Blair's government "a lie machine". Remember that he was a member of Blair's caucus at the time. Galloway went on to be the first sitting MP of the newly created RESPECT party in 2004. RESPECT is an acronym for Respect, Equality, Socialism, Peace, Environmentalism, Community, and Trade Unionism. It is a party situated on the far left and from what I've read on Wikipedia, it takes a vary radical stance. It is not a social democratic party like the NDP. It is allied with Britain's communist parties and take a strong anti-capitalist/anti-imperialist stance. In short, Galloway himself is a communist and proudly so.

So Galloway may be a radical member of a radical party who is against a war that Canada is not involved in. That is hardly a qulification to bar him from the country. However, Galloway is known to be familiar with some seedy characters in the "anti-war" movement. In 2005, he was accused by the United States of personally profiting from the UN oil-for-food scandal in Iraq, among other allegations of corruption. In 2007, he was censured from the House of Commons for failing to cooperate with investigations into his political integrity. It was recommended he be suspended for eighteen months though I could not find any information as to whether this threat was carried out. Furthermore, Galloway has openly admitted to giving aid to infamous Palestinian terrorist organization Hamas during their 2008-2009 war with Israel. This last bit is why he cannot enter the country. He is known to fund of a group on Canada's terror watch list.

I find it ironic that he does not support one group's war but supports the war of another. Both are arguably guilty of war crimes and nine times out of ten, it has been Hamas that has violated UN backed cease fire agreements. They are the aggressors. Little of what the radical left does makes sense though, or ever made sense. One needs to delve deep into the minds of people like Galloway to get a true understanding of why the war on terror is rapidly becoming unwinnable. People on the left are always inclined to support the underdog. However, the vast majority of anti-war protesters who defend these groups are ignorant of what actually goes on. They soak up Hamas propaganda as if it were going out of style. That's how you get people to support you these days, pretend to be the victim even while you continue to lob rockets at civilians. Groups like Fatah, who have brokered successful peace deals, are largely ignored. However, Galloway is different from your typical university student protester who falls for these traps. He harbours a great deal of hatred for Israel and Western democracies, despite being part of the latter. Such a deep seeded hatred of another country and it's people cannot stem from actions alone. I don't approve of what China or Venezuela does but I certainly would not give a cent to any group who's mission statement is to wipe out the Chinese or Latino people. (Didn't we fight a war agaisnt that some 65 years ago?) There is a vary clear racial element present for somebody to hate a country so much when said nation has posed no personal threat to them or their home land. Antisemitism on the radical left is a disturbing and growing problem. When it comes to Israel, I'm neutral on the subject. It's another country in a far corner of the world. It's not a trade partner with Canada or part of any strategic alliances with us. Their war with Hamas does not effect us and up until recently has been contained. Israel is a democratic country and does not engage in violating the rights of its own citizens, unlike Sudan. Nor are they trying to commit genocide as some have claimed. I don't take issue with how they chose to solve their problems as long as they follow the rules of war. I do have a problem when people like Galloway hold violent marches against the actions of these countries, similar to the riots that happened in Montreal a decade ago. I do have a problem when Canadian universities openly allow their students to target a specific ethnic group for harassment, or refuse to hire professors from said group. These sort of actions are highly un-Canadian. What these protesters supporting Galloway need to get into their thick skulls is that it is a privilege, not a right, to come to Canada. He is a terror threat, a racist, and would be an affront to Canadian values. This is why I believe he should not be allowed into this country. Canada is under absolutely no obligation to let him in.

Update: Bill Ayres is now blasting Canada for not letting Galloway into the country. For those who don't know, Ayres headed the Weather Underground (aka the Weathermen, not related to actual weather site wunderground.com), a home grown pro-communist terror organization within the United States during the 1970s. The WU comitted several arsons in NYC, and detonated bombs in Greenwich Village NYC and at the Pentagon in 1972. Ayres quite proudly admits he was involved in the attacks. He is currently a university professor and friends with Barack Obama. The latter ignited controversey during the 2008 POTUS election. Well, I guess if you're a radical who supports terrorists, it's good to have a radical that is a terrorist in your corner.

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No Sir, I don't Like It

Classic Ren & Stimpy moment that pretty much sums up politics today.

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Is Oz Becoming an Online Police State?

I don't really talk about the politics of other nations that often beyond the Americas. However, I can't help but find myself asking what the heck is going on with Australia. In 2007, the centre right Liberal Party of Australia was replaced with the left wing social democratic Labour Party. Since Kevin Rudd was elected Prime Minister, the country has started taking a disturbingly authoritarian turn. I've been closely following the continuing saga on Internet censorship within the country. For years, conservatives have been warning people about the dangers of left wing nanny statism. Banning smoking in cars with kids, or banning pesticides and coffee cups to keep people politically correct might seem pretty harmless but it is, to use an oft complained about term, a slippery slope. Australia has been doing what many other left leaning democracies in the west have been regarding the Internet. The basic idea was to enact a law and bureaucratic body which would blacklist websites dealing in child pornography. Internet service providers would be required to block these sites or face a fine. Those linking to those sites would also face an $11,000 fine. The concept is noble enough and I don't dispute that child pornography on the web is a vary serious issue. However, problems occur when there are no checks placed on the bureaucracy in control of what should and should not be censored. The biggest danger is when governments keep information on what is censored censored. This is the case within countries such as Australia and Denmark.

Whistle blower website Wikileaks had obtained a copy of a censored web sites list being used by the Danish government. The site soon found itself blocked by Australia. The same site managed to obtain a copy of Australia's secret list of blocked sites. On it included an American anti-abortion website as well as the innocent websites of a dentist and a tuckshop owner. Online gambling sites, Youtube links, Wikipedia entries, sites on euthanasia, legal pornography, fringe religions, fetishes, Christianity, and that of a tour operator were also blacklisted. The Australian government claims that the list is not genuine. However, media investigations seem to indicate otherwise. Reports have also come out regarding the censorship of adult content on the Internet (R and X rated) to protect children. I took a quick look through the list and discovered several legitimate porn and gambling sites including Milkmanbook (legal erotic art) and Pokerstars. This is the vary slippery slope I talked about. A tool originally just intended to filter out child porn websites is being cast wider to get rid of things the government does not approve of. Right now it may seem alright to get rid of what are widely considered social vices such as gambling and legal porn but the blocking of the anti-abortion website and particularly of Wikileaks is cause for great concern. Wikileaks has been highly critical of the Great Firewall of Australia.

Currently, most of what is on the list legitimately deserves to be there, but how far is it until the government starts manipulating bureaucrats into blocking website belonging to their critics and political opposition. This would make Australia no better than the People's Republic of China or Chavez's Venezuela. Simply put, these blacklists don't work because they are too easy to abuse. The great danger to us Canadians is that a similar firewall could easily be implemented here. Once we start restricting people from certain types of information, and more importantly restricting people from knowing what is restricted, we loose our democracy; even if the original intention was to protect the greater good.

You can visit Wikileaks for more information on this issue, including the list. I warn you not to view any of the links it contains. UK based technology site The Register has also been following the story closely.

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David Dodge Living in a Technicolor Dream World

This says it all. Just going to do a direct copy & paste this story. The statistics don't support what people like Buffet and Dodge are saying.

OTTAWA — Retail sales in Canada rose unexpectedly in January by 1.9 per cent to $33.7 billion after three months of declines thanks largely to a rise in the auto sector, Statistics Canada reported Friday.

Automobiles sales jumped 6.4 per cent in January following a 15.1 per cent decline the month before, the federal agency reported.

Analysts polled by Bloomberg had been calling for a one per cent rise in retail sales.

The gain in January reverses a 5.2 per cent slide in December, the largest monthly drop in more than 15 years and the third consecutive month of declines.

Source: Canada.com

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Seeking Peace: Musings on the Environment, Places to Grow and Urban Sprawl

I've spent a lot of time here taking pot shots at the environmental movement and I still stand firmly by everything I've said in the past. Global warming is a constructed phony disaster in my mind and I think it distracts people from more important issues, both in general and regarding our environment. Governments are more interested in how they can make money of "climate change" and mostly make token gestures, such as banning pesticides and bottled water, which does nothing more than to irk ordinary people. One of the most painful things about growing up and growing older is seeing a lot of the things you treasured as a child melt away. Long walks on peaceful summer days, nothing but the sound of a light breeze, robins singing, and distant wind chimes. Sitting by the pond or lying in the grass watching the world lazily go by in a small town. Trips to the lake, playing in the park, long bike rides; all things that make young lives worth living. I sometimes wonder whether this stuff will be around for future generations to enjoy. As it stands now, much of this is already gone. Startlingly, this has only happened in perhaps the last 10 years. Urban sprawl is probably one of the biggest threats to the environment, or at least the biggest threat that effects us directly.

So here we've come full circle to where we began nearly four years ago when I first started this blog. It was the same year that the Places to Grow Act went into force. The law passed by the McGuinty Government combined with the Green Belt act originally sought to increase urban density while protecting outlying areas and the countryside. The reality of the act has become painfully apparent as it has only encouraged massive urban sprawl, destroying the countryside and ruining small, outlying communities in the GTA. Quiet summer days have been replaced by the constant beeping of backup alarms from construction vehicles, flying dirt, and endless traffic. Wildlife has fled these communities en mass and those that remain often become pancakes on the road. For me personally, this change has taken a huge toll on my well being as Escarpment Country is turned into another Oakridges Moraine. Even now all I can hear is construction machinery and traffic and I have lost my escarpment view, decreasing my property value and ending the charm the Milton community once had. Houses are now at the base of the Escarpment, which is supposedly part of the Green Belt. The town can barely sustain the population growth, which has more than doubled within the last five years. The problem has largely been caused by large developers who have taken over communities due to naive municipal councilors and workers but it all can be routed back to 2005 and Dalton McGuinty. Here is a man who jumped on the eco-bandwagon early but each plan he and his government have come up with has failed. Oakridges was just the beginning, where in 2003 he promised he would stop development on environmentally sensitive land. It was the first promise he broke.

The laws are impotent when it comes to stopping any kind of development. Even if a munipality manages to vote down a proposal, developers head to the Ontario Municipal Board where their plans get rubber stamped. People who do not know the community are making decisions that effect citizens, without said citizens having any say. Even Toronto is not immune after an unwanted condo development in an old neighbourhood was forced through by the board. The City named the street the condos were on as OMB Folly to take a swipe at the faceless board. Everybody knows OMB members are getting paid off by developers. Everybody knows corruption is ripe in that industry. However, they're vary good at covering their tracks and it's impossible to prove. It's hard to fight this kind of environmental destruction when absolutely nobody is on your side.

There needs to be a complete freeze on development projects until the situation can be properly assessed. The Places to Grow Act also has to be immediately repealed. If McGuinty et al supposedly care about the environment, they'll act to actually do something to protect what we have, rather than just implementing token anti-climate change schemes.

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More Economic Fear Mongering

Ex-Bank of Canada governor David Dodge thinks that anyone who thinks the economy isn't in a deep depression is "living in a technocolour dream world". Where do they find these retards? I've already commented on this topic but I thought the Dodge comments are worth mentioning. Something else struck to me while I was thinking about this today that's so obvious I'm not sure why I didn't think about it before. There's a lot of money to be made from these statements. Spread fear, uncertainty, and doubt about the economy, stocks go down, buy premium shares cheap, make a fortune when they go back up. No conflict of interest here. I'm sure everybody else has probably figured this out already; I'm a bit slow at times. Then again, I already knew the high rollers were playing these games, this is just a new tactic. The media is a bit slow too for not realizing this or any of the other games being played with our lives. How do you stop this? Government regulation? No, it's time to start exposing these idiots for the idiots that they are.

Anyway, here's the story on CNEWS.

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Is the Economy Really That Bad?

I'm not an economist but I do have to know some things about the economy. I cannot help but wonder if things are really as bad as we're being told. The mortgage industry in the US collapsed and the auto industry has been hit hard, but that's it. Granted, they are vary big but they still don't make up the bulk of GDP in North America by themselves. A lot of the problem businesses out there; notable failures like US electronics chain Circuit City and Canadian telecom firm Nortel have been circling the drain for years. However, every day we keep hearing about companies who were doing just fine just a few months ago now "tightening their belts". Is this really warranted? Are people loosing their jobs needlessly? I say yes. Two things rule the markets: greed and fear. I think a lot of the current crisis is being driven by fear alone rather than actual numbers. There is a reason people used to call economic downturns "panics" before the Great Depression.

The markets are down because people panicked and pulled all their money out, allowing the high rollers to play games with your money, as they still are. Billionaire Warren Buffet has proven that you can be one of the world's richest men but still be a complete and total idiot. Each time he panics and shoots his mouth off, it makes things worse. Of course the bigger dummies are the ones that listen to him. A lot of it is poor management by people with the same mentality as Buffet who are simply too lazy to search for the root causes of their problems and instead just lay people off. The real victims are those who have just left school who cannot find work because these idiots keep playing games over who can get needlessly scared the most. These youths just starting to enter the workforce are not eligible to collect EI and if they can't find jobs, they're essentially screwed. Just stop, this is not another Great Depression, far from it. The economy is not as bad as they keep saying. People are still buying, trade is still going. The truth is, that if you have a job, you have nothing to worry about. This whole recession has been artificially created by fear and it needs to stop.

Now, I'm not a fan of government intervention in the economy but something needs to be done to stop these needless layoffs and to ensure those entering the workforce can obtain work. A solution would be to offer tax incentives to companies who hire, especially those who hire recent highschool and university graduates. If things are tight, there should also be tax incentives offered that encourages employees and employers to adopt programs such as job sharing to ensure people can at the vary least keep working and keep earning an income. While Liberals have balked at how much such incentives would cost, it would save a significant amount of money in the long run by keeping people paying taxes and not collecting EI and welfare. If that fails, governments should consider imposing tax penalties on companies laying off large numbers of non-seasonal workers unless they can prove it is absolutely necessary to ensure the business's survival. It's not a step I would want to take but it may be necessary to stem the panic. Sometimes we all need a little tough love.

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Is the CBC Still Relevant?

The National Post had an article today about troubles at the CBC. I mentioned it in my article on the CRTC. As I noted, it was originally created as a counter to "low brow" American radio content, which during the 1930s was all that was available to Canadians. In fact, up until about the 70s, it was the only truly nation wide network available to the majority of Canadians. However, technology marches on and when it evolves, many get left in the dust, obsolete and destined for obscurity. The change that marked the slow demise for the CBC was the advent of cable and satellite television. Hundreds of stations from all over Canada, the US, and the world were now available to Canadians. Around the same time, Pierre Trudeau gave the CRTC the mandate to control the minimum amount of Canadian content the new mediums had to broadcast. When that happened, the CBC was officially put on life support. The next blow was the growth of Web 2.0, which allowed a previously unimaginable amount Canadian content to be broadcast world wide at very little cost. Thanks to YouTube and better, cheaper camcorders, anybody can make their own TV show or movie and upload it to the Internet. Despite a massive number of Canadians logging on and producing content for the web, the CRTC is mulling over whether it needs to be regulated as part of Trudeau's Canadian content mandate. What is the CRTC protecting though? As they did with cable, satellite TV, and satellite radio, the sole reason for trying to regulate the Internet is, once again, to keep the CBC on life support.

How much trouble is the CBC in anyway. Without even reading into it too much, you can gauge it by just asking ordinary Canadians what they watch on the network. The vast majority will say Hockey Night in Canada, but nothing else. That's not to say the CBC hasn't produced some good shows. Obviously This Hour Has 22 Minutes must have something to it regardless of it's recent gaffes. After all, John Stewart thought it was good enough to rip off. The now cancelled Red Green Show is a cult classic in the US, though it's important to note it started life on Global. Other shows were allowed to go from Canadian classics to downright embarrassments, such as Air Farce. After John Morgan died, the show should have ended. However, the CBC let it keep going to preserve Canadian content, even after it devolved to a half hour of Bush bashing ever Friday, and it's cast ballooned to a whole host of unfunny actors. Shows like jPod were quickly cancelled and nobody stands around the water cooler discussing what happened on Being Erika, Heartland, or Little Mosque on the Prairie. By contrast, both CTV and Global recently scored huge US deals with CBS and NBC to air all-Canadian shows Flashpoint and Howie Do It respectively. If CBC shows do end up shown in the US, it's usually on backwater PBS affiliates. In an ironic twist, the CBC seems to air an awful lot of American content, such as Martha Steward, Jeopardy!, Wheel of Fortune, and The Simpsons. Irritating British soap Coronation Street also airs on the network.

The debate regarding the relevance of the CBC has been going on for as long as I can remember. The problem is that the network receives tax dollars from the government to fund it. People are upset due to this because it does air American content, while others see the supposedly neutral network as having a pro-Liberal bias. The CBC has now come to describe itself as a government subsidized commercial network. Indeed, that is what it has always been. The CBC was never a public broadcaster. It continued to receive most of it's revenue from advertising, just as all other commercial networks do. It is also the quintessential example of what goes wrong when governments subsidize "critical" private enterprises. Take the Hockey Night in Canada fiasco for example. It's the most popular show by far on the network. Last year, the CBC dumped it's world famous theme song, often jokingly called Canada's second national anthem, because it didn't want to pay $500 in royalties to its composer each time it was played. The cost spent on that probably works out to around $100,000 per year, which is peanuts relatively speaking for such a big organization. Loud mouthed hockey twit Don Cherry makes several times that in salary. Then they ran a contest to find a new theme song, where the winner would get something like $10,000. I'm curious how much they spent on running the contest, because I can guarantee it was a lot more than they were paying to use the Hockey Night theme. What about the money wasted on unpopular shows, such as Air Farce, that ran well past their best before date. This is the same network that gave David Suzuki a job, and a soap box for his eco-fascism, so should we really be surprised by this idiocy? The CBC knows if it screws up, the government will just rescue it. Insert tongue-in-cheek reference to General Motors and Chrysler here.

However, the National Post claims the CBC's national per capita subsidy is actually quite low. Just $33 per person compared to $77 average in France for it's counterpart broadcaster. The BBC by contrast uses a TV licensing scheme. I have always thought this to be unfair though. While the BBC does provide high quality, commerical free programming, I don't like the idea of being forced to pay for services you don't use or approve of. The BBC is hardly the politically unbiased entity it claims to be. Just type "Global Warming" on the BBC News Online search box to find out why. The question still is whether the CBC should get any government funding at all. I say no. The network has outlived it's original purpose and has actually gotten to the point where it has betrayed it. If the CBC is to survive in the digital age without Canadian content intrusion from the CRTC, it needs to start producing higher quality programming that people actually want to watch, not what they think people should watch. CTV has done vary well for itself after recent changes and has proven it can viably go up against the big American networks. Canada should follow a US model when it comes to public TV. The vary same model that networks such as PBS and TVO follow. Privately owned and funded entirely by donations. This model maximizes consumer choice, rather than forcing things nobody wants down people's throats. The CBC is not needed to preserve Canadian content anymore. Right now, most TV networks are deep in the red due to the recession. The CBC is currently at an unfair advantage when it should not be. If the CBC can't survive, innovate, and thrive under this proposed system, then it should be allowed to fail.

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I'd Rather Take the Mercedes

Now here's a classic example of the McGuinty Liberals once again making it seem like they're doing something when they actually aren't. Yesterday, Minister George Smitherman blasted the Ontario Lottery and Gaming Corporation (OLG) for giving away a Mercedes Benz in one of its up coming lotteries. According to Smitherman, with the current downturn in the economy, the lottery should be showcasing Canadian built cars as prizes rather then ones built in Europe. At first this seems to make sense until you realize nobody wants a Chevy. OLG claims the deal was made ten months ago and they're in a contract with Daimler Crysler for the car. That's right, Mercedes is owned by Crysler, one of the two companies looking for a $10 billion bailout from the Feds. At first it seems to make sense and I can't see why OLG couldn't just make a deal to swap the Marcedes for say a fully loader Challenger, which is made in Brampton ON. However, this is really just nitpicking on the Liberals part. It's one $80,000 car that is being given as a prize in one lottery. It's not like OLG is giving out thousands of foreign made cars left, right, and centre on a daily basis. They do offer Canadian built cars in their lotteries as is, as do many other car lotteries in Ontario. This outcry by Smitherman is a political gesture mostly to appease the CAW. "Fake outrage and the idiots will keep voting for us because they think we're on their side."

Switching gears here, no pun intended, I think it's worth while to examine the whole bailout issue. Out of the Big Three US automakers, Ford is the only company that is not seeking a bailout from either the US or Canada. Ford Canada's CEO put an interesting offer on the table. What if instead of a direct bailout, the government increases the scrapping fee for cars over 10 years old to $3500. That would mean that when you trade in your old car, you get $3500 tax rebate towards a new vehicle. Both Honda and Toyota's Canadian divisions are backing Ford on this idea. Ford reasons that there is no sense in giving these companies money if people still are not buying cars. It is currently a vary good time to purchase a new vehicle but with the way the economy is, that little extra nudge may be what's needed to get people to take the plunge. I for one think this is an excellent idea and it's likely one the Conservatives will endorse. Liberals have already started bashing it though, considering it a waste of tax payer dollars. From my experience, Liberals tend to prefer more immediate, short-term results. The problem is that short-term thinking just doesn't work here. You could bail out GM now and maybe save some jobs for a year or two but what happens after? GM has shown little to no interest in meaningful restructuring and the CAW has been highly resistant to concessions. So if you bail them out now, you'll likely have to bail them out again five years down the road. Additionally, you'll still have thousands of vehicles rusting on car lots, not generating revenue. This doesn't create a sustainable economy or job security. With Ford's plan, you're taking the money that you would have spent on the bailout anyway and giving it back to consumers for the explicit purpose of buying a new, Canadian made car. This jump starts market and creates a more sustainable environment to sell new vehicles. Hey, it's the best plan we've heard so far and we've pretty much exhausted all other alternatives. The least we could do is try it rather than throwing more tax dollars down a hole.

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Global Warming: We Hardly Knew Ye

Well, that's it, Anthropogenic Global Warming is officially dead. Well, that's what anybody with half a brain wants to here. Well, it's not completely gone away but the theory has been dealt a major blow in recent months. Fellow Canadian conservative blogger Steven Janke, now writing for the National Post, refers to an article that states global warming has stopped dead in its tracks. According to Discovery News (US equivalent to Daily Planet. Jay Ingram is a huge advocate of the AGW theory incidentally), a new study in Geophysics Research Letters notes that global warming has stopped and that the Earth is actually cooling. Following a 30-year warming trend, global temperatures have remained stable since 2001 despite rising greenhouse gasses and "a heat surplus that should have cranked up the planetary thermostat."

Scientists are suggesting that the Earth may not warm again for another 30 years but are warning people that the temperature may "explode" in the decades following due to our polluting ways. They're calling the three decade pause just a hiccup. Aside from this prediction defying physics, it opens the window into the thought process of the pro-AGW camp. 30 years of warming represents a calamity and a solid, undisputable trend, where as 30 years of cooling is just an anomaly. Give it up people, you were wrong. Just admit it. This is what happens when politics rules over science. You get lots of money shoved in the face of a chic theory and of course people are going to start fudging the data and using inaccurate modeling in order to ensure that money keeps coming. I conservatively estimate that at least half a trillion dollars has been flushed down the drain on global warming in this decade alone. It's ironic that people bawk at spending that kind of money to save their jobs but they don't blink at spending it on a false theory.

Source: National Post

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Racism on the Left Part 2: Antisemitism

Jewish groups around the world are claiming instances of antisemitism are on the rise. Traditionally, this sort of behaviour was restricted to neo-Nazis, skin heads, Ku Klux Klansmen, and other white supremacists. Recently, pro-Jew, pro-Israel has moved to a right wing dominant ideology. Liberals style themselves as being tolerant of other religions and ethnicities yet we've seen an increasing number of attacks against Jews by left wing groups. No more has this been seen than in the halls of university and within labour unions. Currently, many universities in Canada are preparing to hold their Israeli Apartheid Weeks, in an effort to compare Israel's treatment of Palestine to blacks in South Africa. The description is incredibly inaccurate but still holds a powerful symbolism for those who participate in such events. However, such events mask strong underlying antisemitism.

Perhaps the most infamous example in recent years has been at York University. Jewish students often complain of harassment and assault on campus by Muslim and left wing students. It's one thing to oppose what a country does but to demonize its citizens to the point of forcing them to hole up in their student office is a blatant hate crime. However, where are the outcries? Where are the students union and Muslim campus club leaders being hauled in front of the human rights commission? There is an incredable double standard when it comes to hate speech in this country that the left openly endorses. Take Mark Styne for example, a Jew, who was forced in front of the kangaroo courts because some Muslims deemed his work to be offensive to their culture. Eventually he was deemed not guilty of anything yet he still spent years defending himself. We have the same Muslim groups crying from the mosque pulpits and university campuses proclaiming that Israel should not exist and that Hitler was the greatest thing since sliced bread. Nobody does anything. Another example was when Ontario CUPE leader Syd Ryan attempted to black list Jewish-Israeli professors from the province's universities over Israels Gaza action in late December. After what I would describe as mild public outcry, his proposal was eventually toned down to those who work with Israeli military institutions. Ryan is a long time provincial NDP and federal Liberal supporter and as left wing as they come. He received wide support for his backlist idea within the union itself until he was told to back off by the national heads of the Canadian Union of Public Employees. Ryan did not loose his job as CUPE Ontario president though, nor was he reprimanded in any serious way. If I was running a university and had said that I would not hire Chinese professors because of the PRC's rights record, I would most certainly be called a racist. They would throw me to the dogs and I most certainly would loose my job faster than you can blink an eye. Maybe you could turn a blind eye to Ryan if this was the first time he had done such a thing, but he has a long record of similar slurs.

Of course this is not to say that all left wingers are antisemitic. Within the United States, the Jewish community almost exclusively supports the Democratic Party and Barack Obama has publicly supported Israel. However, there is a rather large faction within predominantly left wing universities and labour unions that are antisemites. They say it takes three people to bully someone. The bully (labour unions, university groups), the victim (Jews), and those who stand idly by while the bully assaults the victim. That last group happens to be mainstream Liberals who let members of their parties and their supporters get away with these actions without saying anything. By creating a double standard, liberals have bred a culture of racism within their own halls. It's time for mainstream liberals to take a long hard look in the mirror if they want to proclaim they are the ones for tolerance of all races and ethnicities. People like Syd Ryan need to be publicly denounced by their mainstream liberal colleagues, followed by having people like him immediately sacked from power.

Update 03/05/09: Michael Ignatiff's guest column in the National Post today echoes what I've said here. So maybe some mainstream liberals are starting to stand up against their far left colleagues.

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