Organic Food Has No Health Benefits?

Well there's another big shot at the greenies who have been pushing the eat local, eat organic mantra as both a healthier and more eco friendly lifestyle. A large study conducted by the UK's Food Standards Agency has found that organic food showed no difference in nutritional value or evidence of additional health benefits over regular produce. The findings back up a similar study published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition. The Soil Association, a UK based environmental group which promotes sustainable eating is cautioning against the results, regardless of them being proven with proper scientific method by two separate and independent studies. The data also supports an investigation by ABC's 20/20 several years ago (when organic labelled food first started appearing) that examined organic and regular produce for toxins. The small study found that there was little difference and that organics could actually harbour more harmful bacteria. The conclusion, always wash your produce no matter how it was grown.

So why discuss this on a politics blog. Well, organic food has been a bit of a political football lately. Remember the whole fuss over raw milk earlier this year despite countless scientific studies, backed by the UN, which labelled it as a hazardous product? They used the same "less chemicals better for you" line even though pasteurization only heats the milk to kill bacteria and nothing else is added. One of the biggest problems concerning organic food is a lack of regulation. Currently, there are no set laws in Canada and the US which dictate exactly what can and what cannot be labelled organic. Therefore, something could be called organic and may not be. With consumers being asked to pay more for organic food, which has now been proven to have dubious health benefits, it's time to get some labelling regulation in place whether farmers like it or not. The current system is akin to gouging or selling snake oil.

Source: BBC News

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Cartoon Warren Buffett to Teach Kids About Finance

Ah, somethings you know are just awful ideas when you hear them. Remember how his constant idiotic sky is falling rhetoric kept crashing the stock market earlier this year? He may be one of the world's richest men but he's hardly the sharpest knife in the drawer. Just another suit who got lucky. So you're going to put him in an internet cartoon to teach kids about finance. "Ok kids, each time the market goes down, panic and pull all your money out!" Smart. (rolls eyes)

Here's a link to the Calgary Herold article about it.

(I just realized I've been spelling his name Buffet all this time. I must have been hungry when I wrote those articles. lol)

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The Disgrace that is Obama

Barack Obama put his foot in it, some are saying intentionally, after he commented on the Gates arrest during yesterday's press conference on health care. For those who don't know, here's a little background. Henry Louis Gates, a professor of African American Studies at Harvard in Cambridge Mass. locked himself out of his own house and and attempted to break in. A passerby who did not live in the neighbourhood and did not know the professor, phoned police to report suspicious activity. Gates' house had been broken into earlier this month. Two officers responded, a Sgt. James Crowley and his African American partner (who was not named in the news reports I read). They asked for Gates' ID, which he produced, which was confirmed by university police. Just as Crowley and the other officer were leaving, Gates went on a tirade, calling Crowley a racist and saying that the Cambridge police were racial profiling. Screaming and making a scene in front of the whole neighbourhood, the two officers arrested him for disturbing the peace. Yet he had been burgled before. I'd be happy knowing the police were protecting my property. Of course Mr. Gates just happens to be a friend of Obama's. During the conference, Obama admitted he did not know the details of the case, but when on to say that the Cambridge police force had acted "stupidly" and said that racial profiling was still a major issue in America.

The one of the most critical rules of politics is that you should never get involved in active cases when you're in such a position of power, especially if you just admitted you didn't know all the facts. Everyone in America is innocent until proven guilty. Obama's comments on TV Wednesday effectively reversed that; assuming that Crowley was guilty of racial profiling. Another ironic twist was that Crowley had taught a course in how to prevent racial profiling at the police academy. The Cambridge police force has so far stood by their Sargent and Crowley himself has refused to apologize to Gates despite calls from Boston area African American leaders to do so. Obama has now backtracked and has offered his own apology to Crowley after the media got wind of the gaffe. After listening to some talk shows on satellite radio, it seems that many Americans feel Obama made the comments intentionally to detract attention away from his controversial health care bill. Instead of the media picking that apart, they instead jumped on the racial profiling story. I wouldn't put it past him as this is a vary common political tactic that is studied in political science circles.

Barack Obama is shaping up to be a failure of a president. His current approval rating stands at 55%, much lower than the 70%+ he had just after he entered office. In fact, this is actually lower than George W. Bush's approval rating over the same first six months time period. If his health care plan is passed, from what I'm hearing it is estimated that Obama would be responsible for adding $1 trillion to America's national debt. It already stands at $11.6 trillion as of July 24th. To put this in perspective, Canada's annual gross domestic product, the total value of all goods and services produced per year in this country, is $1.5 trillion. It would take Canadians almost eight years worth of production to pay of America's debt assuming we didn't spend our money on anything else. The number is mind boggling. So far Obama has risked trade wars with his NAFTA neighbours over Buy America, has enacted a disastrous cap & trade system to combat climate change, and has generally done little to help alleviate the recession in that country, or address Iraq and Afghanistan. The costs of his two tier health system that he hopes to enact are already spiralling out of control even before the bill has been passed. It has Republicans and moderate Democrats worried. To cover the costs, Obama has suggested that America's top 1% earners may have to pay extra fees, read taxes, to pay for the program. Estimates peg that tax rate to rise to well over 50% of their incomes, higher than even Canada and France. Average Americans worry about this because many still hold onto the belief in the American Dream. More likely, they fear it will filter down as costs go even higher until middle Americans are paying tax rates equal to or higher than Canada and many European nations. Studies have shown that of the 15% of Americans who lack health care, only a small number of those are people who do not qualify for insurance. Many question the value of such a program, paying so much to take care of a few really needy and the rest who are lazy or have too much bravado to think that they don't need to be insured; while on top of that paying for their own private insurance. Interestingly, this is starting to sound like that whole "premium" thing we have to pay on top of regular income taxes to boost health funding. Obama is the black version of Dalton McGuinty after all. Many thought Obama would provide change to America but all he has proven to many is that he's just another silver tongued tax & spend liberal. Still, the media coddles him. In fact, the Gates affair has been one of the rare events where the media has actually come out critical of something Obama has done. Even notable liberal current affairs comedian John Stewart railed against the president on the Daily Show. Obama is still gambling on his race to prop him up but that is starting to erode away as people realize how disastrous his policies have been. Others still choose to blame Bush, who did create a lot of the problems. However, Obama has only aggravated them through his policies rather than bring the "change" he promised. I haven't even touched on the weakness of his near non-existent foreign policy. Will America's first half-black president be it's first one termer as well? Hopefully yes if Americans want to walk away with something left in their wallets.

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Should the Public Service Be Deunionized?

Unions have a contentions history in Canada. Originally designed as a layer of protection for workers when no labour laws or welfare state existed, many, notably on the more individualistic right, have come to consider them as dinosaurs in the modern world. Whether big private sector manufacturing unions such as the CAW still need to exist is a moot point though. During this latest recession, even these big power houses have been forced to take deep cuts to generous benefit packages in order to survive rounds of layoffs. In the public sector, not such threat exists. Job security is as near to iron clad as you can get. Recent non-partisan studies by Statistics Canada, drawn from the 2006 Census data have shown that salaries of civil servants are roughly 8% to 12% higher than those doing comparable jobs in the private sector. This number jumps to 30% when benefits are included for both sides. The Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE), and Ontario Teachers Federation, and the Ontario Public Service Employees Union (OPSEU) are some of the most powerful organized labour institutions in North America. The Teacher's pension fund has lucrative business stakes and actually owns majority shares in Toronto Maple Leafs Sports & Entertainment; the entire package, not just the hockey team. Despite the wealth the public sector unions and their members hold they, quite oddly, are the only ones striking. Toronto's inside and outside workers, members of CUPE, have been on strike for over a month now. Crown corporation VIA Rail's engineers' union went on strike today at noon, cutting train service nation wide. Windsor city workers were on strike for nearly 100 days before that labour dispute was resolved. However, I can't think of a single high profile private sector union that has struck since the recession began even though their workers have been taking a major beating.

Civil servants truly do believe they are hard done by compared to other workers. The unions themselves are just huge money generating machines for their wealthy leadership. I've already touched on that before though. What the public sector badly needs is a process of deunionization. That is eliminating civil service unions all together either by immediate ban or by attrition; not allowing new hires to join the union. There are a couple of reasons why I think this should be done. Am I anti-union? Most definitely, I admit that. I don't think they have a place anymore. However, one of my biggest problems with public sector unions is the fact that you have this large, monolithic, unelected organization that has virtually no accountability to the public, essentially controlling all the strings of government. The civil service largely dictates what government policies eventually get enacted and how they are carried out. They are known to be highly resistant to new governments. While supposedly non-political, public service unions spread and openly encourage strong partisan attitudes among their members. This is why certain governments, notably labour friendly left wing parties, get favoured while those who fall out with the union, such as David Miller, are given the hardest time possible. While we rant and scream about wealthy private lobby ground influencing governments, here's one that is in total control of it. They arguably have power far exceeding even politicians to create policy that controls our lives yet there are virtually no checks or balances against the bureaucracy. The minister in charge of that portfolio may be forced to step down due to gaffes by their civil servants. However, that does not address the issues inherent with the bureaucratic system that caused the problem in the first place.
Directly and indirectly, the unions have encouraged the poor attitude civil servants have towards the public. CUPE workers have been caught physically assaulting citizens of Toronto if they try to cross the picket line to dump their garbage. They are also alleged to have slashed the tires of private garbage trucks. The police, also unionized, have chosen to do nothing about the criminal allegations. Everyone I know has a story of abuse at the hands of the public service. Since they cannot be fired due to the union's power, they have no incentives to treat citizens in a fair and polite manner. Most will do so out of common decency but there is nothing to punish those who do not, and there are a large number of bureaucrats that do that. When things do go wrong, the public has no say beyond the media to vent complaints and nothing will ever be done to prevent future issues.

(To my and my dad's credit, we did fight and win against the civil service. I had been one minute late for a driving exam due to an unforeseen major traffic jam on the highway. They tried to make me pay the fee twice, plus lost pay for the half day I took off work, even after I explained the problem, so I stormed out of there. We managed to get an apology and I got to take the test I originally paid for. Good thing I had help considering I'm not too good with people due to my shy nature. Incidentally, that's the only time I've ever blown up at somebody and I don't intend to ever do it again. However, I consider my victory to be more like the get out of jail free card in Monopoly. There's only one. My dad, who is a civil engineer and worked as a contractor on mostly government projects has a great deal of experience with the inner workings of the bureaucracy. This sort of behaviour is typical. He still remembers the days when bribes were common, before they cracked down on that. They never got money from us. Beyond the corruption and bad attitude, they're also known to have quite a vengeful streak if you point out problems with their logic. Sorry for the long soliloquy.)

Of course all of this is just musings for academic purposes. No politician has the guts to actually ban public sector unions, with maybe the exception of Ronald Reagan or Mike Harris. To do so would require either the Supreme Court to enact the Section 1 reasonable limits clause on Section 2 of the Charter which allows freedom of association. This is extremely unlikely. A charter challenge by the Harris government that sought to change the definition of freedom of association to also mean freedom of disassociation failed. The challenge was originally intended to open up the closed shop nature of public sector unions, allowing those who did not wish to join CUPE or OPSEU to still be employed by the provincial government. The other route is to levy a ban on public sector unions and impose the infamous Section 33, the Notwithstanding Clause of the Charter of Rights, to essentially trump Section 2 rights. That would be political suicide at best. The answer is also not making them essential services. One thing I will grant to Toronto mayor David Miller, he is correct about that leading to arbitration rather than negotiation. Binding arbitration in labour disputes has historically resulted in the union receiving all of their demands regardless of the employer's situation. Despite this, the public's tolerance of civil service unions has been waining significantly in recent months as they fight for rather trivial benefits while harassing and inconveniencing the rabble who are loosing their jobs. Public sector unions are teetering on the brink and the public and politicians may not be so nice when the next major strike rolls around. The end of union friendly administrations may be on the horizon. Miller's current low popularity rating is a testament to that.

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Foamy on the Environment (Video NSFW)

Foamy the Squirrel, star of web cartoon Neurotically Yours by Jonathan Ian Mathers, has been spouting common sense and harsh ridicule at the brainwashed mainstream masses for the last five years now. I had to post this cartoon because Foamy pretty much sums up my entire feelings on the modern environmental movement. Warning as the video does contain a lot of bad language so it's not safe for work or school.



Source: Illwillpress

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The Final Frontier

Today is the 40th anniversary of the Neil Armstrong talking that first step on the surface of the Moon. In 1961, John F. Kennedy had made a pledge to land an American on the moon and bring him back safely by the decade was out. NASA then kicked into overdrive to build a rocket and assemble teams that could accomplish the task. The moon landing still remains controversial to this day. There are still a great deal who believe it was a hoax preformed on a sound stage, just don't tell Buzz Aldrin that or him sock you one. Others look at the countless billions we've supposedly wasted on the space program, with the moon landing being a classic example. Social justice crusaders saw it as $6.5 billion (at the time) thrown away for the sole purpose of gaining oneupmanship over the Soviet Union. The reality of the Moon landing was far more than that to the eyes of the public back in '69. The Vietnam War was in high gear, social upheaval & violent revolution was gripping the world, and nuclear apocalypse seemed as likely as it ever did. After witnessing so much destruction, the world needed something to look up on. When the Saturn V rocket blasted off the launch pad, America cheered. When the Eagle landed on the Moon, the world cheered. Two men walked on an alien world, the greatest accomplishment in the history of man. They were not Americans, they were humans. It was not an accomplishment of America but an accomplishment of the entire world. For eight days in 1969, the world's heart beat as one. Something it had never done before and something it has not done since. Armstrong, Aldrin, and Collins were not just astronauts, they were great uniters, whether they realized it or not. It was the first time mankind could see pictures of Earth live on TV, looking so small and distant, and realize that we were all in this together on the blue marble.

Since the cancellation of the Apollo program, interest in space travel has waned significantly, and has only become more controversial. NASA's shuttle program is hardly awe inspiring. A few days in low-earth orbit to study the effects of micro gravity on tiny screws, or something to that tune. The loss of Columbia and Challenger only raised more questions as to whether the program is worth it. The International Space Station has also been a dismal failure. After 11 years, with the estimated construction completion date being in 2003, it is nowhere near being finished. NASA plans to de-orbit the station in 2016, a mere five years after it's new completion date. Many question the need for manned space missions, and the financial argument still comes up frequently. Socialists feel that the money be better spent on social justice missions and wealth redistribution, to make life for people on Earth better. It's a vary narrow view of what the space program has provided us though. A debate on CTV Newsnet last night on the issue highlighted the fact that trillions of dollars have been spent on various bailouts of banks and the auto industry. The $100 billion spent on the space program seems like a bargain next to that. Indeed it has been considering what has come out of it. Next time you turn on any communications device, remember that your signal is probably being bounced off a satellite somewhere. No space program would make global communication not impossible but extremely difficult and significantly more costly. There would be no GPS; making transportation more difficult not only for you but also airlines, ships, trucking companies, and search & rescue. Advanced medical imaging, cordless tools, improved baby foods, composite materials (carbon fibre, advanced polymers) , scratch resistant glass, smoke detectors, Velcro, better sun glasses, better solar energy collection, recycling systems, and pace makers can all be directly attributed to the space program. Stuff that benefits people around the world every day. All this innovation could pay for the space program several times over. Through programs like Hubble and Apollo, we have also been able to learn significantly more about our universe than we ever would without them. Who would have guessed that the Moon is possibly a fragment of Earth?

Then there's simply the sheer wonder of what we can achieve. Like the moon landing, it can bring the world together. Mankind is hardwired to explore and learn more about their universe. It's human nature, it drives us. Whether you agree with colonialism or not, the age of exploration benefited Western European nations enormously. China has enjoyed the same success, with Zheng He becoming their Columbus. That was until the empire lapsed back into isolationism with a bar on maritime trade around the late Ming era. China soon quickly fell behind Europe. Simply put, we need to push out into the world to maintain our civilization. Space travel is the next logical step. We need to go back to the Moon and push towards Mars is we want to survive. Buzz Aldrin is also advocating the push to Mars. Humanity needs to step forward, and not make that one small step the last.

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Banning Bottled Water Not Only Dumb, Dangerous Too

I've guess you've probably heard by now that the Australian town of Bundanoon has banned the sale and consumption of bottled water entirely from the small rural community. The community's residents voted overwhelmingly to ban the product on environmental concerns, citing the amount of bottles that end up in the landfill. Other communities have adopted partial bans, notably London Ontario, which does not sell the product at city owned facilities. I chided that on the basis that other, far less healthy products which are sold in the same bottles continued to be sold. Steven Malloy in his book Green Hell however says that pretty much all containered soft drinks will be next. Cans as well I presume, though maybe glass can slide by. I bet the beverage industry will be thrilled to bits that the eco-warriors are trying to put them out of business.

Another thing struck my mind though when reading the article about the total ban in this Australian town. It's not to far away from happening in other jurisdictions. Not only is it dumb and highly reactionary to a non-existent problem, it's dangerous too. Ever been to Mexico? If you drink the tap water in some places, foreign locals, you can get violently ill from it. Moctezuma's Revenge anyone? Tourists are advised to always drink bottled water no matter where they are as different regions have different microbes and drinking water standards. Also, the Government of Canada recommends that factory sealed bottled water containers be kept in emergency preparedness kits, with enough to supply your family for three days. Factory sealed bottles keep better than ones you fill on your own. In the event of another Walkerton or Hurricane Katrina, bottled water is a vital life saver when tap water becomes unreliable or non-existent. Human lives are worth more than worrying over a few bottles in the landfill. I'm not bashing tap water. I rarely drink bottled water myself. However, outright banning it is simply foolishness.

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Setting the World on Fire

I've been reading Steven Milloy's "Green Hell", a book about the politics of modern environmentalism. In it, he claims the green movement is staging almost a coup over world governments by making them believe the apocalypse is imminent and only they can stop it. Over the last couple of years, I've been trying to develop my own theories regarding the politics of global warming. Arguably, we are seeing a new kind of McCarthyism as Lorrie Goldstein of the Toronto Sun pointed out the other day. He was specifically referring to New York Times columnist Paul Krugman, who called US congressmen that voted against the Waxman-Markey climate-change bill "traitors". That's a word that carries with it a lot of power and is not one that should be used lightly. Both Krugman and Milloy represent the polar extremes on the global warming debate. Milloy's theories are interesting but it is easy to label the likes of such "deniers" as crackpot conspiracy theorists. However, when you have on your side the likes of former NASA boss Dr. John Theon, sci-fi great Michael Chrichton, and some 20,000 scientists who signed a petition arguing that current AGW theories were faulty, it adds a lot of weight to the argument. It's easy to get a little suspicious when pro-AGW scientists try to present a debate, based largely on circumstantial evidence and computer models where important data points was deliberately left out, as being finalized. I haven't finished Milloy's book at the time of writing this but I've begun to put together my own theory on environmental politics. In short, it seeks to create a new world order through an entirely new form of government.

Based on proposals from environmental groups, words spoken by pro-climate politicians, scientists, and activists, I've discovered that the overall goal is a total reshaping of the way governments and economies operate in order to protect the planet. If they are successful, it would give rise to an form of government known as periballocracy. I like making up my own words; this particular one comes from the modern Greek word periballon, meaning environment, and the root -kratia, meaning to rule. So periballocracy is rule by environment or more specifically rule by environmentalism. It is aristocratic collectivism with a green twist. In this form of government, you have a group of elites micromanaging society and the economy to reduce the impact of humans on the planet. It is inherently anti-individualistic, instead focusing on group social engineering and laws to force the reduction of energy usage and the adoption of other "sustainable" living practises. It may also adopt concepts of wealth redistribution, economic reduction, population reduction, socialism, and communism. It is inherently statist, requiring much larger governments than those that exist today. It is also anti-democratic, frowning on those who reject the conventional wisdom of the rulers. Furthermore, the overall goal is to create a global government based on these principles.

Pariballcratic organizations already do exist. The UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change is probably the best known example. Numerous NGO's have also called for similar styles of government. Regardless of the form it takes, pariballocracy's goal is to drastically alter your way of living in order to stop global warming and other kinds of environmental damage. This form of government functions similarly to how nations such as the People's Republic of China and Iran do. You still have some degree of freedom, and free enterprise most likely will still exist, but the government reserves the right to make changes to your lifestyle if it begins to conflict with the party line. It's not quite Big Brother but it is still a disturbing prospect. For example, government programs that remotely manage your thermostat to reduce energy use during peak demand already exist, but are currently voluntary. The next step would be to make them mandatory. Pariballocratic governments would expand beyond this, from telling you what kind of car you can drive and how far you can drive it to extremes such as limiting the number of children you can have. It does sound similar to a communist or fascist state but instead it transcends "petty" notions of social justice and nationalism. Like a theocracy, it puts intangible concepts before that of humanity. If you obey the government now, through which you will rescind your sinful ways, you will be saved in the future. Unlike a theocracy, pariballocracy has anti-human tones to it. The idea is not to protect you or your immortal soul, it's to protect the planet. At the most extreme end of things, you are expendable, much like a flea on a dog's back. There are one of two final goals this movement seeks to achieve. First, to create a perfectly sustainable modern society in which we keep current technology levels but with limited impact on the planet. Failing that, the second goal is to force society to turn the clocks back completely to before the industrial revolution. My goal of this article is not to frighten you but just to illustrate just how far things can go if left unchecked.

I suppose I should explain the song. I Don't Want to Set the World on Fire by The Ink Spots. It has been featured in several works dealing with apocalypse, notably the Fallout video game series, which deals with the world after a nuclear war. The fear of an imminent apocalypse usually results in driving people to surrender more freedoms to their leaders. Countless religious cults and churches going back millennia have known this. The likes of Joe McCarthy knew this as well. They weren't crazy; it's all about dominance and submission through fear. The powers that be are delighted to have a "real" apocalypse on their hands this time. I'm not saying that our current form of government is going to collapse in favour of a pariballocratic system. That's pretty unlikely at this point even though some elements of it are appearing in the halls of power right now. Still, it's important to beware of the true motives of those positioning themselves as the sole saviours of our society from impending "doom". Many believe that whether their ideals are flawed or not, at least the environmentalists are genuine in their goals and mean well. As trite as it sounds, the road to hell is paved with good intentions. Don't trust those claiming to be the solution to all your problems, when you never knew there was a problem to begin with. They are the ones who will set your world on fire.

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The Case for High Speed Trains

Imagine zipping from Toronto to Montreal in less than an hour and a half in smooth, quite comfort for a ticked price at half of what it would cost to fly there. This is a reality in many countries around the world, such as in France, Japan, the UK, and even the United States. It's an alluring prospect that has met with mixed opinions on the subject. Of course I'm talking about high speed trains such as Japan's legendary bullet trains, France's record setting TGV, and the Amtrak's Baltimore-New York Accela Express. The trains run on electricity from overhead wires or a third rail just like a subway does and are propelled at speeds up to 300km/h. They can also be adapted to most current rail lines. By contrast, modern diesel trains used for VIA rail are no faster than your typical car trip.

The debate is currently raging in Alberta over whether to build a high speed rail link between Calgary and Edmonton. The Calgary Herald editorial board argues against building such a link as it would likely run far over budget and end up costing tax payers hundreds of millions of dollars more than expected. In my opinion, building such a train between those two cities probably isn't practical. However, a link between Toronto and Montreal would be highly feasible and indeed beneficial. The highway between the two cities is frequently jammed and flights are expensive. A low cost alternative would likely attract millions of business travellers and create thousands of new jobs. It only makes sense to expand the transportation corridor between Canada's two largest cities in terms of population and economics. The current rail system is based on archaic technology and we are lagging far behind other countries. Bombardier Transportation is a major manufacturer of high speed trains, including the Accela and TVG. It's almost an embarrassment that we refuse to invest in our own Canadian technology. The big concern though is still tax costs. The government really needs to encourage private industry to take a role in it in order to reduce the taxpayer burden. Government owned rail lines simply don't work as there is no incentive to innovate or attract passengers away from other modes such as the airlines. This is why they become huge money pits. If done properly, it could be made a reality. We just need to get over the hurdle that is our fear to invest in badly needed infrastructure.

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Weeds!

An interesting bit of enviro-hypocrisy last week. Due to Toronto's garbage strike, the city had to spray the temporary garbage dumps to keep insects and rodents from feeding on the piles and spreading disease. The problem, these same pesticides were declared to be unsafe by the city and the province and fall under the sweeping pesticide ban levied last year. Now, the city has turned around and is assuring residents that these pesticides are perfectly safe. So which one is it? Are they safe or not?

I think this speaks loads about the environmental movement. Do as we say, not as we do. Just look at Al Gore's pollution belching trips around the world and his huge mansion while he tells us to cut back. Anyway, this whole issue with spraying garbage dumps in Toronto just shows how ludicrous the pesticide law actually was. Both the Federal Government and the United Nations have certified common household pesticides as safe and warned that bans could actually make things much worse. Case in point, I don't know about you but I've noticed a heck of a lot more weeds around than last year. My grandma's garden is infested with them. Since she's 86, she is incapable of pulling them and always found using "Weed-n-Feed" to be much easier. I had removed them all by hand a month ago but when I visited again just last week, it was as if I had done nothing at all. In fact there are now twice as many! I've also noticed my allergies to be particularly bad this year. Maybe it's a coincidence but I never used to get them until the pesticide bans started going up a couple of years ago. Furthermore, the Town of Milton is currently undergoing a major infestation of Giant Hogweed. This particular plant secretes a highly toxic chemical in its sap which causes extreme photo-sensitivity. If you should get it on your skin or in your eyes, it violently reacts with UV radiation in sunlight causing painful chemical burns to the skin that require hospitalization if not treated soon enough. It can't simply be mowed down because of this. Hazmat suits are literally a requirement for the job of removing the plant. The only way of effectively controlling this dangerous weed is, yep you guessed it, herbicides that the government has now banned. Giant Hogweed is said to have caused 16,000 injuries in Germany during 2003, and allowing its cultivation on your land is banned in the UK. As I said before, the United Nations did warn that this would happen should there be sweeping umbrella bans of pesticides. We took away our most important tool for controlling invasive species that do far more harm to our environment and safety than a bottle of Roundup ever will. With no natural predators and no human intervention, populations of dangerous pests such as Giant Hogweed, rats, and bed bugs will explode. I hope Mr. McGuinty and Mr. Miller are happy for putting people's safety and well being at risk in order to appease misinformed environmentalists.

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You're Canadian First

Wow, I actually agree with something a Liberal said, though I strongly disagree on why she came to Canada in the first place. Yasmin Ratansi, MP for Don Valley East Toronto told immigrants that they should not marginalize themselves. “You should not ever say (for example) I’m Indo-Canadian. No, you are not. You are a Canadian first. India is the country with which you have your heritage, yes, but you are Canadian first.” Ratansi is originally from Tanzania and immigrated to Canada in 1974.

Ratansi's words echo what I have said in the past. The so called Canadians of convenience who marginalize themselves by shutting themselves up in immigrant enclaves and never interacting with or contributing to society at large. I think this is why so many older immigrants feel resentful of newer ones. I remember a story my Grandma told my about my Granddad when they first came here in the 1950s. He was working a carpentry job (he was a carpenter by trade) when he commented that the method one of his buddies was using was not how they did it back in Britain. His friend turned to him and said something to the tune that this was Canada and this is how they do it here; and that he should adopt the Canadian way of doing things. Somehow this became lost in the foolish idea of "salad bowl" multiculturalism, which I feel has utterly failed. Few new immigrants rally behind Canadian identity beyond the occasional cup of Tim's. In the United State's, you're always an American first, and damn proud of it. We may mock them for that but maybe our Yankee cousins are onto something.

Source: CNEWS

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Report Card Time

As other pundits like to give out report cards to our political leaders at the end of the parliamentary session, I thought I'd do my own too. Unoriginal yes but some of my grades might surprise you.

Michelle Jean: A
Michelle had shown a leadership role in the class and is not afraid to take on continental bullies. Definite signs of improvement

Federal House of Commons

Steven Harper: B-
Steven did a good job weathering Canada through the most bitter recession in recent memory. However, he did hand billions of tax dollars to the undeserving auto industry and created a massive deficit. Has shown willingness to work with others, a definite improvement.

Michael Ignatiff: B+
Michael brought decorum back to the Liberal party and has shown a willingness to work with others. Needs to familiarize himself though with content discussed in previous grade levels.

Jack Layton: F
Jack has failed this year's class. He has shown more interest in furthering his own greedy desire to land a cabinet position that he threated Canadian unity and tossed democracy out the window in the process. He knows his plans are far to radical. Other classmates view him as nothing more than a s--t disturber with no real agenda.

Giles Duceppe: N/A
Wants to transfer to a French immersion school.

Stephane Dion: F
Absent for much of the year, threatened to tear Canada apart over his bitterness in loosing the election. Pushed his radical, economy punishing environmental agenda even when his own party warned him to drop it.

Ontario Legislature

Dalton McGuinty: F
Dalton failed to complete any of his assignments. The work he did hand in not even a dog would eat.

John Tory: D
John shows effort but a lack of leadership skills hampers his ability to learn.

Andrea Horwath: A
Andrea has shown intolerance toward bullies and holds her other students accountable for their actions.

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PEPSI: Twice As Much Zionism for A Nickle

On today's theme of weird political stuff, we have a Muslim religious leader in Egypt saying that soft drinks contain hidden Zionist messages. Pepsi, he claims, is an acronym for "Pay Every Penny to Save Israel". I think he may be onto something. I discovered a secret message hidden in a Pepsi bottle once. It said "please play again". What could this ominous message mean?!

Source: National Post

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Disney Not Gay Enough? Have They Been to Drama Class?!

Politics has it's own unique way of making us laugh. Some of my favourites are the bizarre, politically motivated "scientific" studies that come out from time to time. The semi-satirical British tech website the Register published an article regarding a study that says that G-rated Disney movies aren't gay enough. The study was conducted by Emily Kazyak and Karin Martin, who examined the top grossing G-rated films for their hidden sexual content. According to the pair, the movies "send a memorable message to impressionable young viewers that heterosexual love is not only the norm" (which it is) "but that it is also exceptional, powerful, transformative and magical". Kazyak and Martin went on to say that heterosexuality is "construed through depictions of overtly feminized women and masculine males, with the male characters spending much of their time longingly gazing at the former". Hey, that last part is what made Hugh Hefner a millionaire. He must be doing something right. They concluded that "both ordinary and exceptional constructions of heterosexuality work to normalize its status because it becomes difficult to imagine anything other than this form of social relationship or anyone outside of these bonds."

I personally think they're not giving Disney enough credit. I mean Timon and Pumba from the Lion King were obviously gay. Let's not forget the movie's soundtrack was done by Britain's Other Queen himself Elton John. The silliness of these studies comes from people reading far too deeply into things than they were ever meant to. As Freud said, sometimes a cigar is just a cigar. Most Disney movies are based on classic fairy tales, many produced during the romantic era. The highly exaggerated romance of it all is simply a characteristic of that time. Interestingly, most recent Disney films during the period they looked at have not included any romantic content what so ever. Namely the Pixar movies, with Wall-E being the exception. The fact that this study exists though does highlight a major milestone for the gay rights movement. You know a movement has come far when they no longer have anything important to complain about and they start focusing on the stupid stuff. These are probably the same academics that would have you believe that every important figure in the history of man was gay.

It's also important to point out that the media is reflective of society, not a director of it. Disney wouldn't produce a G-rated movie involving homosexual romance simply because American society is not ready for it. It would likely bomb at the box office and attract all sorts of undesirable attention from the religious right. The gay community is at vary least partially at fault for this. When so called "mid-westerners" turn on their TV during pride week and see a bunch of flamboyant men parading around wearing assless chaps in what is essentially a sex orgy sans intercourse itself, they believe that's what being gay is. The gay community has done nothing to dispel their stereotypes and indeed has done the exact opposite. Maybe it's time for them to reconsider the way they reach out to the public.

Source: The Register

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Canadian Broadcasting: Radio Raise Further Questions

I wasn't sure whether I was going to post this story or not but it ties in with my article of TV versus radio in Canadian broadcasting. Sorry for this story being a couple of weeks old. In that article, I looked at the double standard between radio and TV. Namely that TV is given certain protections, notably against international broadcasting, that radio does not. Despite Canadian radio stations being fed to the international wolves, they are actually making money, in fact considerably more money even though we are in a recession. According to the Financial Post, radio profits before taxes for 2009 are up 12%. Revenues are up 5% across the board. Higher ad revenues are being credited for the success. Television by contrast is loosing money and saying that their ad revenues are declining. Therefore they are demanding we pay more for TV to compensate. Canadian radio faces stiff competition from satellite and Internet radio providers while TV is protected from this. This seems to point to the fact that perhaps it's because Canadian TV is being poorly managed. It could be argued that TV content costs more to produce, which is true. Most radio stations, music ones anyway, don't produce their own programming and they require less equipment to operate. However, CTV's claims that ad revenues are down don't hold up if they're actually increasing in another, similar medium. TV networks need to take a serious step back and reevaluate their business practises. Enough trying to squeeze more out of the recession battered consumer.

Source: Financial Post via Canada.com

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Union Irony: Protecting Workers At the Expense of Others

The National Post is reporting that 400 seasonal workers have been laid off indefinitely at Centreville Amusement Park . The park, located on Toronto Island, has been closed due to the cancellation of ferry service to the island as a result of the CUPE strike that has hit the city. Ironic isn't it. Just yesterday I talked about how I thought people would feel bitter and even hostile toward CUPE for striking over such a petty issue when others are being forced to do with less and less. I wonder how these 400 people feel. The vast majority of them are students who will be struggling to pay their tuitions come Fall thanks to lost hours. There's definitely not going to be any labour soliderity here.

Source: National Post

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Unions Are Loosing the PR Battle

During this recession, a great deal of people have lost their jobs. Those fortunate enough have had wages frozen and benefits clawed back, or are stuck working part time for relatively low pay. Retirees, most without private pension plans, have seen their savings dwindle as stocked crashed. Many of them are questioning whether they can afford to maintain their current quality of life. Retired workers are now flooding into the part time market, taking jobs away from younger people, in order to supplement their incomes. Yes, it's tough times for all, unless you happen to belong to a big union. Toronto's city workers have gone on strike over what amounts to whether or not they can bank their 18 annual sick days and cash them in when they retire. Government workers have long operated on a culture of entitlement and believe that regardless of what happens in the outside world, they should be left untouched. Toronto's concessions to maintain labour peace is a large part of what has led to the city's near bankruptcy. Simply put, the city cannot afford to be paying these huge cash bonuses as large numbers of employees start to retire, many of who are eligible to do so at 55 instead of 65. CUPE claims it did not want to go on strike but obviously, I'm not buying this. Oh, it just happens they set their strike deadline at the beginning of Pride Week, an event which brings millions to the city and generates a heck of a lot of garbage. That was a coincidence I'm sure, no extortion here. All it will do is parade the city's incompetence and the union's greed before the world.

There is some backlash against big unionism starting to appear. It has marked a drastic change since the strikes during past economic downturns. Back in the 1930s and 1970s, workers were fighting for fair wages and better job security during bad times. Today, they are seen to be fighting for petty issues, such as the right to cash in sick days, or to grab tax dollars as was the case with the CAW's negotiations with GM and Chrysler. Toronto's CUPE workers are basically fighting over something stupid while at the same time putting people at a huge inconvenience and putting public health at risk by not picking up trash. Even many socialists will have trouble defending this while their non-union brothers are getting thrown through the shredder for no fault of their own as private companies struggle to survive and remain profitable. Most people recognize cut backs during hard times as inevitable. As other pundits have pointed out, unions however, particularly in the public sector, soon see minor perks as becoming inalienable rights. To add insult to injury, Toronto's non-unionized staff have seen major layoffs in order to pay for the perks of the union. In some perverse way, the big unions see this as incentive for more to join their ranks. In reality, it has drastically soured the relationship between unions and the general public. People see them as snivelling, entitled, cry babies. Civil servants are quickly loosing their golden boy status. They need to get their butts back to the bargaining table as soon as possible because they're not going to get the public sympathy that they did in the past. In the end, they look and largely are just as bad as the fat cat managers they're fighting against.

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What's Wrong With Canada?

I often ask myself this question and I keep coming to the same answer. The biggest problem with Canada is Canadians themselves, or more specifically their attitude. Pulling a file out of the large virtual filing cabinet of issues I follow, I select one that's close to home. It regards the unwanted mall and sound barrier issue I discussed last month. At one meeting, neighbours cautioned my family not to upset the bureaucrats because they were "trying to help us." My father being a retired civil engineer and myself a political scientist & quasi-journalist, we knew better. Civil servants filibuster and have little interest in improving the lives of people they serve. They're mostly brain dead robots serving a higher power who can't be bothered with a bunch of nobodies trying to get money out of them. The remark from one of my neighbours came after my father pushed one of the bureaucrats into answering a vital question they had been dodging. Don't upset them. That was a moment of epiphany for myself. It confirmed something that I had suspected for some time. The problem with Canada is that Canadians refuse to rock the proverbial boat. You can decrease their quality of life, you can take away their rights, you can undermine democracy, but still they will stand there unwilling or uninterested. It's a dictator's dream come true.

The million dollar question is why do Canadians behave this way. It's certainly in stark contrast to our neighbour to the south. Americans get riled up over things at the drop of a hat. It's guaranteed somebody, somewhere in the US is protesting something. A lot of that comes from Americans having a vary different heritage from us. When the Thirteen Colonies suffered gross democratic abuses at the hands of the British Empire, they rebelled. America fought for their independence, we asked nicely and even then we weren't truly free of Britain until the 1980s. Canada was built by the loyalists who did not want to rebel for one reason or another. We're quite satisfied with the status quo regardless of whether we're being subject to abuse or not. This way of thinking has opened us up to gross abuses. I already discussed the increasing number of immigrants who only come here to collect our social services. We don't speak out against them for fear of offending people. Meanwhile they offend ever other immigrant who can here and struggled to make a life for themselves. It's not just them. Powerful NGOs, various special interest groups, land developers, large corporations, drug dealers and petty criminals, con artists, labour unions. They all want a slice of the pie and they take it regardless of who's toes they step on. We do nothing to stop them because we simply do not like confrontation.

The government itself is probably the biggest abuser of them all. The politicians themselves are unwitting pawns in the game that is entirely controlled by fat cat bureaucrats who sit around and freely and openly abuse and neglect the public interest for one reason or another. Over the years, they've been handed a considerable amount of power and obtained golden idol status. Every criticism slides off them as if they were all coated with Teflon. Take the Walkerton incident for example. When water engineer Stan Cabel neglected his duties of making sure the town's water had enough chlorine in it, an e. coli outbreak resulted causing several deaths. In a logical world, Cabel would have been fired at the vary least, though I would have gone as far as to charge him with criminal negligence. Through union trickery and politicking, the blame somehow went directly to Mike Harris for not properly funding the civil service. Despite willfully falling asleep at the switch and killing several people in the process, Cabel walked away a hero and the public ate up the rhetoric like Oprah on a baked ham. Pretty much every other scandal involving the bureaucracy has received a similar outcome and it effects all levels of government. The Toronto Catholic School Board, eHealth, the human rights commissions, the Sponsorship Scandal, or just being mouthed off to at the MTO licensing office. I know someone who works at a receptionist at one of the municipalities. She has actually be verbally assaulted by bureaucrats for putting their phone calls through to them. It happens on an almost daily basis. (incidentally, I believe voice mail and Microsoft Solitaire to be the most important inventions in bureaucrat history) Despite abusing a fellow employee and refusing to do their jobs, they receive vary little recourse if any. Usually the latter. These are the same bureaucrats who I've been fighting with over the mall. The public knows this behaviour is wrong but they don't do anything about it for fear of upsetting the goldenboy image. After all they are just trying to help us, right? So says my neighbour. This is allowed to go on because people don't fight it. Our apathy is destroying this country.

Am I being cynical when I describe Canadians as a bunch of lazy idiots living in fear of rocking the boat? It's hard not to be when that is all one sees. Even the media is just as guilty of this; choosing to focus on petty issues while virtually ignoring discussion on the major ones. If it wasn't for amateur bloggers, many of these issues would never see the light of day. The vast majority of protests one sees here are the big, corrupt stakeholders or new Canadians fighting for some issue back in their old country that no longer affects them. It's vary easy to become jaded. However, I would be more than thrilled to be surprised. I was quite surprised in fact when Canadians came out in force against the Liberal-NDP-Bloc coalition late last year. That is probably the only time I've seen Canadians react so strongly to an issue. The problem is it being an isolated case when it should be the norm. Canadians need to wake up and stop being so fearful of challenging authority. For God's sake it only takes 10 minutes out of your day to pick up a newspaper or watch the evening news to inform yourself. It only takes 10 minutes out of your day once every three or four years to vote. Write letters to representatives, start your own blog, get out and protest. Get with the program and stop letting the government and corrupt organizations walk all over you. Canada is our country. Let's start acting like we care.

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PETA Finally Goes Right Round the Bend

You thought PETA (People For the Ethical Treatment of Animals) couldn't get any more bizarre. Apparently you thought wrong. Earlier this week, US president Barack Obama swatted a fly that was disrupting him during an interview with NBC. The animal rights group came out today announcing that they were vary disappointed in the president for doing that. The group's spokesman Bruce Friedrich said that ""We support compassion even for the most curious, smallest and least sympathetic animals, we believe that people, where they can be compassionate, should be, for all animals." Friedrich went on to say that while they approved of Obama's voting record on animal rights "swatting a fly on TV indicates he's not perfect, and we're happy to say that we wish he hadn't." PETA suggested that he should have used a more humane method that allows flies to be trapped and released outside. I had often joked that PETA would soon equate swatting flies to murder. Now I can say that they finally have. This is just too funny. PETA members really need to find something better to do with their time.

Source: CNEWS

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What's A Canadian Citizenship Worth These Days?

The United States takes its sovereignty vary seriously, arguably far more than most other democratic nations. This is precisely the reason why US presidents must be born and live within the country. In Canada, the only requirement to vote or run for office is simply having Canadian citizenship. A proposed plan by Toronto mayor David Miller would see that soon change. Miller wants to allow non-citizens, in other words landed immigrants, to vote in municipal elections. His argument is that if they pay taxes, they should be allowed to vote, going as far as to compare it to "taxation without representation." On the outset this makes some sense but if we allow landed immigrants to vote, what is the purpose of Canadian citizenship? If this goes through, citizens will only have the "privilege" to be conscripted against their will for jury duty. I'm hardly a nationalist but this bothers me because it seems as if we are throwing away both our sovereignty and identity. When I think of my parents coming to Canada and working hard to gain citizenship, I cannot help but feel a little screwed if this goes through. Citizenship privileges have been slowly dwindling over the past few decades and even now it doesn't give you special treatment when you travel. So basically, Canadian citizenship is meaningless. I would gladly do as Conrad Black did and have my own citizenship revoked just so I don't have to ever sit on a jury. It's not as if it is doing anything else for me.

The whole issue brings up a questions of immigration. Miller's obvious motives I'll leave for another discussion. The big issue this country is facing today is so called "Canadians of convenience". The media coined this term during the 2006 Israel-Lebanon War when Canada mounted the nation's largest sea evacuation since World War II. Thousands of Lebanese-Canadians were evacuated from the war-zone. However, it turned out that most of them had few ties to Canada at all other than citizenship papers. Basically, they had only held onto citizenship for easy access to social services and relatives. However, these are not the only people who are Canadians of convenience. There is a small but growing problem within Canada's immigrant communities that involve people who are little more than long term tourists. They are those who remain in immigrant enclaves their entire lives without learning our language or even interacting with Canadians in general. A growing number of them are elderly relatives here simply to collect social services. Large numbers of whom do not work, do not contribute financially to the system, and most do not contribute to society in any other ways. In cities such as Brampton Ontario, they can be seen wondering the streets and malls in middle of the day during the week. It is well known that the majority of these people are only here to collect socialized medicine. This is painfully evident when going into places like Brampton Civic Hospital, which is sometimes referred to as the $750 million free walk-in clinic for Brampton's Punjabi community.

When questioning immigration, the left usually labels you as racist or against multiculturalism. However, Canadians of convenience throw a monkey wrench into their logic. An immigrant who never learns Canada's official languages and never interacts with the world outside ethnic enclaves does not fall under the umbrella of multiculturalism. Canadians are encouraged right from childhood to learn about and interact with other cultures. To me, this has always been the definition of multiculturalism. It is not enough to simply have multiple cultures in a society to call it multicultural if said cultures do not interact with one another. The problem is that we have to interact with Canadians of convenience eventually and due to the fact many of them cannot communicate in either official language, it has placed an enormous burden on businesses and governments. Is it right to accommodate people who make absolutely no effort to accommodate you? Of course it is difficult to learn a new language and embrace a new society but millions of immigrants have done so with great success. The problem is the people who simply don't care and are just here for the perks rather than trying to build a nation.

One way to solve the problem of Canadians of convenience is to change who is eligible for social services. In order to receive health care and welfare, I believe you must be either a full Canadian citizen or contribute to the system by paying income taxes. Non-citizens and landed immigrants who do not work should not be allowed to collect social services. Of course this would exclude children under 18. Is this harsh? I don't think so. The welfare system acts as a sort of state run insurance. Just like private insurance, if you don't pay into it and never did pay into it, you should not be able to collect. This would eliminate people coming to Canada for "free" health care. I would go even further to say that immigrants should have lived here for a minimum number of years before being able to collect social services, or even that only citizens can collect. Of course the left would never approve any of this but it would certainly raise the value of Canadian citizenship and encourage more immigrants to get their card. Another idea would be to require all new immigrants who cannot speak French or English to take a mandatory ESL or FSL course to be able to communicate with Canadians. As long as they at least make an effort to learn, they should be granted full immigrant status but those who do not should not be allowed in. Radical? Yes, but the current system is just throwing up more and more walls between peoples and is allowing a small but growing minority to take advantage of our generosity. This, quite frankly, is an insult to all those immigrants from every background who built this nation. Things need to change to keep the freeloading Canadians of convenience out.

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