Potential Light Blogging Ahead...

...As I will be moving into a pimpin' new crib.

In the meantime, enjoy this:



And in the meantime, maybe psychopathic cyberstalker Canadian Cynic can go obsess over someone else.

Barack Obama: Trojan Horse or the Anti-Bush?

A recent report by the Real News network reveals some interesting intellectual conflicts underlying Barack Obama's recent visit to Berlin.

The UK's The Guardian reported that Obama recieved a "rock star welcome" in what one German government employee described as "an anti-Bush rally."

The Guardian reported that Obama recieved the greatest applause when he followed a brief listing of some of the world's pressing problems by asserting that "no one nation, no matter how large or how powerful, can defeat such challenges alone."

Some people have read into that statement a promise of an American return the world of true multilaterialism -- a necessary ingredient if potent internationalism is to blossom.

Yet the Financial Times Deutslachland wrote that the speech was an "ad for the war on terror", and decried that despite being poised to ask the German government to deploy troops in the "dangerous South" of Afghanistan, Obama was being treated "like a teddy bear".

Like most of Obama's message, how one interprets it seems to depend on whether one is predisposed toward hope or pessimism. For hopeful Europeans, Obama represents a new era of cooperation and collaboration between the United States and Europe, and a blissful end to the confrontationalism so often practiced by George W Bush.

But for the pessimistic, such as those at the Berliner Zeitung, Obama represents little more than a trojan horse, smuggling a Bush-esque foreign policy centred around the war on terror under a much more pleasing and inspiring guise.

Like George W Bush, Obama is very aware of his base, and he knows how to speak to them.

But like Bush, many of those who may otherwise be predisposed toward being part of that base have seen their hopes dashed before. Obama's language has an inspirational quality to it, but it's of limited effect on those who have had such dashed hopes turn to cynicism.

Speaking to 200,000 supporters in Berlin is an accomplishment that should not be discounted. But the inherent pessimism slowly bred into the global political system may explain why Obama's European trip has yet to have a significant impact on his polling numbers.

Nine Inch Nails = Outstanding

...So if any creepy cyberstalker types are wondering just what kept me away from my computer?

Now you know.

Obsession

The mind of a delusional psychopath holds many... "wonders"

Any wise individual knows at least two things for certain:

First off, you can't deal logically with anyone who is incapable of logic -- or, at best, capable only of twisted logic. Likewise, you can't deal honestly with someone who is incapable of honesty.

And so we are brought back, once again, to the sad, sad tale of Can-Hate-ian Cynic and his search for that ever-elusive magic bullet.

So for Canadian Cynic, who has evidently never considered himself above trampling all over tragedy in order to garner attention, the recent atrocity wherein Jim David Adkisson killed two and wounded six other parishoners of a Unitarian Church in Knoxville, Tennessee is being taken as an opportunity to settle all kinds of scores.

Adkisson blamed the liberal values of the Unitarian Church, asserting that liberals deserve to die.

He blamed liberals for "the liberal ruination of the United States", his own inability to find a job, and, ironically, for the reduction of his food stamps (an act more properly attributed to extremely conservative fiscal policies).

In other words, we can tell that David Adkisson is not a mentally healthy man. Therein partially lies the rub, but this we'll have to come back to. There are simply too many layers of delusion, obsession and outright dishonesty to be unravelled first.

Judging from what's transpired over the past several days, Cynic's attempting to avenge the recent revelation that his obsession with Calgary-area blogger Richard Evans has led him not only to commit criminal acts, but also to encourage other people to commit a criminal act along with him. This was an invitation that some of his chattle-esque worshipers were disturbingly eager to accept.

He continues to lie about the entire affair, suggesting that Evans invited him to stalk his kids by virtue of not caving in to a prior threat.

Which really just goes to show you how this individual's mind works. In the mind of a psychopath desperate to find an excuse for his conduct, these thuggish notions pass for logic.

In order to settle this score, he wants to dig up another decisive defeat suffered by himself and his faux-progressive cohorts -- the infamous Ed Snell affair, in which he and his cronies approved of and outright applauded an assault on a 69-year-old man in which the man sustained some serious injuries.

Today, Cynic wants to take exception with the lack of commentary on the horrific Adkisson affair here at the Nexus, despite the fact that there has been no commentary on anything of any kind since Sunday July 27 at 10:38 AM -- a mere 20 minutes after the Adkisson story originally broke, and long before all the disturbing details became known.

The twisted logic of an individual who actually believes the lack of commentary on behalf of someone who's been away from their computer for more than two days represents some sort of triumph for himself should need little comment here.

Now, those who pay any fleeting attention to Canadian Cynic knows that he loves to rant and scream about his opponents relying on "false equivalences" in order to denounce him. He insists that his wrongdoings are not comparable to the wrongdoings of others because of context -- which makes some of his recent ravings more than a little amusing.

So in the vein of Cynic and his touted "false equivalences", let's consider the following -- once, of course, we address a rather blatant lie in the course of Cynic's poutings.

In this particular little post, Cynic accuses your not-so-humble scribe of "the murderous incivility of the Left."

(Again, rather amusing from someone who manages to spew something like this.)

Yet Cynic's accusation is categorically untrue. The issue taken was not with the "muderous incivility of the Left", but rather with the approval and applause of Nathan Richardson's assault on Ed Snell.

At this point, we've long established that Adkisson is not well. Between his delusions of persecution and his homicidal outburst, it's evident he's clearly suffering from a rather malignant mental illness.

Yet, if one accepts the presumptions that Cynic and his cronies would have them believe, we're supposed to believe that Cynic and his groupies -- many of whom applauded the assault on Snell -- are of their right minds.

Hell, one of them even named his blog Rational Reasons. So when considering how to judge their approval of an assault on a septaegenarian, it's tempting to throw any kind of an excuse involving mental illness out the window.

The point, in the end, being this: Cynic would compare the actions of a mentally ill 58-year-old man to the actions of his allgedly right-minded cohorts and insist that -- as it has been insisted before -- "well, no one in the Ed Snell affair died. So I guess that makes it alright compared to this".

And just to add the icing to the cake? No one will find a defense of Adkisson's actions here. He should spend the rest of his life in prison for what he's done.

Yet Cynic, Lulu, Lindsay Stewart and their cohorts practically climb over one another to be the first to applaud an assault on a 69-year-old man.

Even with Adkisson's actions being what they are -- deplorable -- this is just a fucked-up house of glass to choose to throw stones from. Beyond that, it's one built on a foundation of twisted logic, delusion, dishonesty, and a display of nothing less than sheer contempt for morality.

Then again, what more does one expect from an intellectual coward, psychopath and hypocrite?

After all, to criticize notions of "eliminationist rhetoric" is all and good. In fact, these things should be criticized. But to do so while peddling eliminationist rhetoric?

The hypocrisy is nothing short of priceless. And of course, in the twisted logic of Cynic's mind -- the only kind of logic his mind is capable of -- this is all somehow "context-dependent".

Not too different from, say, the twisted logic of an individual who indulge himself in cheery fanatasies of personal destruction based on the notion that employers Google job applicants' names.

Which again, goes to show you how this particular individual's mind works: if anyone dares stand up to him, he fantasizes that he'll simply destroy their lives (by the way, Cynic, in the ever popular parlance of the Guitar Hero generation: Song failed). It isn't a pretty picture.

Then again, the mind of a psychopath is never a pretty place.

And when a psychopath begins to demonstrate a level of obsession like this it might be time to pick up the phone and ask the RCMP to look into the matter.

After all, having someone who encouraged the stalking of a political opponent's children taking such an interest in you is hardly a comfortable place to be.

This isn't to say that we'll be declining to continue to illuminate Can-Hate-ian Cynic's hypocrisy, dishonesty and intellectual cowardice for the world to see. Maybe it's just time to start taking some proective measures.

Zig Heil, herr Stein

Ben Stein's unusual osbsession with Nazis spills the boundaries of Expelled

Ben Stein provoked a great deal of outrage when, in the course of his film Expelled, he attributed the horrors of eugenics to Darwinism.

Even though he took great lengths to add the caveat that Darwinism alone isn't sufficient to lead to full-out Nazism, Stein's envokation of this led some viewers of the film to promptly walk out.

Many people invoked Godwin's Law -- the tenet suggesting that invoking Nazism in the course of debate should be treated as a consession of defeat -- to suggest that Stein had immediately conceded the argument.

In the case of Expelled and the Darwinist principles (even if they are misread and misinterpreted Darwinist principles) at the very heart of eugenics programs -- including the protracted ethnic cleansing undertaken by the Nazis -- these people are wrong. Whether they like it or not, Stein is stating simple historical fact.

Not so much in the course of a recent controversy the now-perpetually-controversial figure has provoked with his comments regarding Barack Obama's planned speech to the Democrat National Convention at Invesco Field in Denver.

"I don't like the idea of Senator Obama giving his acceptance speech in front of 75,000 wildly screaming people. That is not the way we do things in political parties in the United States of America. We have a contained number of people in an arena.

75,000 people in an outdoor sports palace -- well, that's something the Fuhrer would have done.

And I think whoever is advising Senator Obama to do this is bringing up all kinds of very unfortunate images from the past."

Never one to quite be undone, Glenn Beck pitched in with some equally ill-concieved remarks:

"I've been saying that we're headed towards a Mussolini-style presidency forever. ...I mean, it's crazy!"

Of course, for anyone who's bothered paying the slightest bit of attention to the 2008 Presidential Elections -- even for those who haven't -- the differences between Barack Obama and Hitler and Mussolini are so far beyond obvious that they render Stein and Beck's comments nothing short of befuddling.

Some minor similarities are undeniable. Hitler and Mussolini both marketed themselves as visionaries with the courage and intention to drastically transform their countries. Many of Barack Obama's supporters insist the same thing about him.

But the inherent malevolence of Hitler and Mussolini's messages were apparent from the very get-go. Hitler and Mussolini both succeeded because they appealed to the darkest psychological elements of their respective societies. In Hitler's case this was the bitterness provoked by the First World War-ending Versailles treaty coupled with the desperation resulting from severe economic depression.

In Mussolini's case, he appealed to a disturbing lack of confidence in the national character of the Italian state, and a belief that Italians were being left behind in the rush for international prestige.

Obama, meanwhile, has campaigned on a message of hope from the very beginning -- an idea that has slipped by even some of the most astute American conservative commentators. Consider the remarks of National Review editor Jonah Goldberg, again invoking fascism:

"I think one of the things that is decidedly fascistic, or at least just a bad idea, is looking for silver bullets. You know, when Barack Obama campaigns, he's basically saying, 'I'm a silver bullet. I'm going to solve all your problems just by electing me.' FDR, Hitler, all these guys, they basically said, 'All your problems can be solved.'"

Of course, this is an implicitly inaccurate comment. There's little question Goldberg legitimately believes it, but it's still untrue.

Obama's campaign slogan -- "Yes we can" -- emphasizes the Barberian Strong Democratic principle of communal democratic action -- the idea that democracy is built from the citizenry up, not from the government down.

Certainly, Obama argues that electing him would be the first step. But Obama has never really argued that he could single-handedly solve the United States' problems. Rather, he's campaigned on the notion that, with himself as president, Americans could solve many of their problems by working together.

That's a far cry from the authoritarianism that Ben Stein decries in his Glenn Beck comments. He does, however, make on valid point:

"I think he has to recognize some bounds on his own ego. I understand politicians are politicians because they have ego deficit problems and they try to cure them by having lots of worship and adulation and adoration."

Which is certainly fair comment. Certainly, many politicians are drawn to politics in order to resolve their own sense of inadequacy. Indeed, Barack Obama may be one of those individuals.

But in the end, Stein just can't clear that hump of authoritarianism:

"But 75,000 people screaming in an outdoor arena, that's just too much. It's just -- it's scarily authoritarian."

Authoritarian like Hitler and Mussolini. And never mind the fact that Hitler and Mussolini both literally campaigned on a platform of authoritarianism, while Barack Obama has done the exact opposite.

Stein and Beck's Hitler/Mussolini comparisons may be the most resolute invokations of Godwin's law seen in quite a while.

And Now For Something Completely Different...

Sure, the Third Time is the Charm

Let's talk about "credibility" for a moment, as well

Can-Hate-ian Cynic's been making a great deal recently of his talents as a human spellcheck.

Which is almost ironic in a way that will be explained shortly.

See kids, Canadian Cynic, having failed dismally to uncover any skeletons in the closet of your not-so-humble scribe, has resorted to instead trying to pick at spelling and syntax.

Which very much is ironic, considering the skeletons in his closet.

Readers of the Nexus will certainly remember a post of few days ago dealing with Cynic's cowardly threats against nemesis Richard Evans' children -- advising people to go after Evans through his children, and air Cynic's ill-concieved accusations of closet pedophilia in the halls of Calgary's public schools.

A move clearly calculated in order to deny Evans a safe home life -- clearly meeting the definition of criminal harrassment.

Of course, Cynic doesn't want to do this himself. Instead, he invites any Calgary-area worshippers at the Temple of Sycophantic Groupthink to do it for him -- or any other readers, for that matter.

Which is interesting. It's been obvious since the dawn of his blogging career that Cynic is nothing more than a complete coward. His invitation for people to get at Evans by stalking his children has determined that he is, beyond any shadow of doubt, also a certifiable sociopath. But let's take a look at Cynic's psychotic outburst through the lens of conspiracy legislation to see what else we can safely Cynic as.

Under Canadian conspiracy law:

"(c) Every one who conspires with any one to commit an indictable offence not provided for in paragraph (a) or (b) is guilty of an indictable offence and liable to the same punishment as that to which an accused who is guilty of that offence would, on conviction, be liable; and

(d) Every one who conspires with any one to commit an offence punishable on summary conviction is guilty of an offence punishable on summary conviction."

An acceptance of Cynic's invitation by any of his readers -- in Calgary or elsewhere within Canada -- would have actually qualified as a conspiracy to commit criminal harrassment.

It's interesting that Cynic is using his blog to counsel his readers to commit criminal offences, which in and of itself is also a criminal offence.

So let's take another look at the particular psychotic outburst in which Cynic counsels people to stalk Evans' children. In particular, let's take a look at a few of the comments.

How many of his readers seemed eager to act on Cynic's advice?

We can find at least one. Ironically, it's Ti-Guy, the contemptible little liar who reacted to news that his hero's secret identity was in the crosshairs of various bloggers with insistence that his sister, a police officer, had advised him that would be a crime.

So, with that in mind, what did the sycophantic Ti-Guy do in response to some comments by Sir Isaac Brock?

Let's take a look-see.

"

'The problem is that this putrid cretin's neighbours may already be perfectly aware of how worthless he is.'

Maybe someone needs to ask the residents of 105 and 109 Beddington Cres. NE, Calgary?"

There you have it: the very individual who lied about having a sister who is a police officer revealling the address of a political opponent in order to encourage the criminal harrassment of that individual.

But that isn't even the most interesting thing found in the comments section of Cynic's deranged criminal meltdown. Considering the comments registered by denizen of Canadian Cynic's criminal armpit Robert Lahnakowski:

"I am not saying you are wrong, my only issue is with the emphasising the use of Mr. Evans’s children to attack Mr. Evans. Mr. Evans may very well have problems that put his children at risk, and the proper authorities should be contacted in those cases. I do not read his blog, nor do I know anything about him, so I can not say one way or another.

Contacting school officials is not the most direct method of voicing your concern. If Alberta is like Ontario, then the Alberta Children’s Services should be contacted directly."

In other words, Mr Lahnakowski isn't willing to come out and say whether or not he thinks Evans is a risk to his children worthy of contacting protective services. But he is willing to tell other people how to do it.

Willing to tell people how to have Evans investigated for a criminal offence. Which is interesting. Returning to conspiracy law again:

"(b) Every one who conspires with any one to prosecute a person for an alleged offence, knowing that he did not commit that offence, is guilty of an indictable offence and liable"

While interestingly, there's little explicit accusation of Evans committing a criminal act against his children in Cynic's bizarre "he accuses me of pedophilia so he himself must be a pedophile" thesis. But even in exibit A of Cynic's razor-thin case against Evans, there is no evidence of any such act.

So Cynic and Lahnakowski are encouraging people to accuse Evans of an act they have no evidentiary reason to suspect.

In other words, they're conspiring to attempt to have Evans falsely convicted of sexually abusing his children -- again, meeting the definition of a criminal conspiracy.

Which really just goes to show the absolute depth of Can-Hate-ian Cynic's sociopathy. Not only is he willing to knowingly, shamelessly and gleefully libel those who stand up to him, he's also willing to conspire to commit criminal offences against them.

This is an individual with little ability to control his own derangement, and almost certainly it's he who should be locked up.

So here you have it, folks -- Canadian Cynic: intellectual coward, sociopath, cyberstalker, criminal and all-around douchebag.

So the ultimate question is this: who has more credibility?

An individual with a background in legitimate journalism -- more importantly, a law-abiding individual, or a sociopathic criminal with a proclivity for nitpicking spelling mistakes?

The answer to this one isn't difficult. Even Canadian Cynic should be able to figure it out.

So Cozy...

Alberta and Saskatchewawn natural bedfellows

When Alberta premier Ed Stelmach and Saskatchewan premier Brad Wall teamed up to oppose a proposed inter-provincial cap-and-trade scheme on greenhouse gas emissions it became apparent that a potent new political coalition had been formed.

The article, written by Murray Mandryk and published in the Saskatoon Star Phoenix and Regina-Leader Post, asks an interesting question: how did Alberta and Saskatchewan become so cozy in the first place?

"Here's one of the more intriguing "chicken or the egg" type of argument you'll hear on coffee row:

"Did this province elect a Saskatchewan Party government because we were already becoming more like Alberta, or has the election of a Saskatchewan Party government made this province more like Alberta?"

Regardless of which side of he debate you support, what's indisputable is the premise is that Saskatchewan has become more like Alberta."

Some residents of Saskatchewan may find the very premise to be alarming. In the same vein as Canadians who cry foul every time Canada inches too close to our southern neighbours for their liking, many of those who feel Saskatchewan's unique character -- as it were -- is threatened by too closely associating with the cowboys west of Lloydminster, they'll insist that too closely associating with Alberta somehow diminishes Saskatchewan.

Of course, there are some traits that Saskatchewan shouldn't be so eager to share with Alberta.

"More like it, mind you. Not exactly alike.

The outcome of elections in Saskatchewan, after all, are still not a foregone conclusion and will remain so for some time. This province also still has significantly deeper agricultural and small-town roots and significantly less urban pull than does Alberta (or any other province, for that matter)."

Indeed, democracy in Saskatchewan is much healthier than in Alberta.

During the 2007 provincial election, 76% of eligible voters reported to the polls, compared to the absolutely dismal figure of 41% in Alberta's 2008 election.

Saskatchewan does maintain a largely rural character, but a newfound determination to develop the province's considerable energy resources -- including oil sand reserves that may rival those in Alberta will inevitably change that. The kind of building projects necessary to support such development will require increased manufacturing capacity throughout Saskatchewan, particularly in the urban centers.

"Most significantly, Saskatchewan is the birthplace of the CCF-NDP and its social democratic influence isn't about to disappear anytime soon. Even at one of its historically low ebbs, the NDP still has 20 seats in the legislature and something close to 40 per cent of public support.

But it's also telling that on the very week that the NDP is celebrating the 75th anniversary of the Regina Manifesto, which urged the eradication of capitalism, the most exciting speculation within New Democratic ranks is the possibility of the return of a conservative-minded capitalist such as Dwain Lingenfelter to lead the party."

Certainly, being defeated after 16 years in power must certainly be deflating for the provincial NDP. Likewise, the party's federal prospects in the province are less than encouraging.

"That Saskatchewan's affinity for Alberta actually might have started under an NDP administration is more than a little ironic.

It was under former NDP premier Roy Romanow that deficit control, a curtailing of public investments and even income tax cuts really began. Romanow's successor as NDP leader and premier, Lorne Calvert, extended this agenda with cuts to the province's sales, business and corporate taxes."

Certainly, this would seem ironic if it weren't entirely in line with the political trends of the time.

Consider that Jean Chretien, one considered a stalwart of the liberal wing of the Liberal party, led a government that reduced the country's deficit drastically, and posted some of the only surpluses of the day in the Western World.

Chretien was responding to pressures being exerted upon his government by Preston Manning's Reform party, just as Roy Romanow -- and Lorne Calvert after him -- were responding to pressure being exerted by the upstart Saskatchewan party.

"This change under NDP governance happened at the same time that Saskatchewan's economic interests became more closely tied to the oil economy. The prospect of oil at nearly $100 a barrel was something that even an NDP government from this province could share eagerly with the Progressive Conservative government in Alberta.

It can be argued that Saskatchewan grew that much closer to Alberta with each dollar that a barrel of oil increased in price over the past four years. What's been bad for everyone else's economy has been great for ours, especially since the Saskatchewan Party's election win last November that has coincided with the price hike in a barrel of oil by $50."

It should be considered only natural that Saskatchewan and Alberta would grow closer considering the number of interests they hold in common. Both economies have constantly strengthened with the increasing value of oil and gas. Thus, as goes oil and gas will go the economies of Alberta and Saskatchewan -- although with some creative government and appropriate investment, this need not always be so -- and as goes the economy of Alberta or Saskatchewan will almost inevitably go the other.

"That said, Saskatchewan and Alberta today appear to be as closely bonded by political ties as economic ones. At least that's what some recent developments suggest.

The first ministers meeting in Quebec last week, where Premier Brad Wall and Alberta Premier Ed Stelmach found themselves at odds with their counterparts who were promoting cap-and-trade system on carbon emissions, was only the latest evidence of this emerging alliance.

We saw pretty much the same reaction from the two provinces to federal Liberal Leader Stephane Dion' Green Shift strategy, which takes square aim at Alberta and Saskatchewan's energy resources.

Stuck in the same foxhole and dodging bullets from eastern critics eager to portray Alberta and Saskatchewan as greedy, selfish and environmentally irresponsible, it's only natural that the two provinces would become that much closer.

That said, it's highly unlikely that an NDP government in Saskatchewan would have jumped into that same foxhole on the Green Shift or perhaps even on a cap-and-trade scheme."

Of course not.

It's easy to get along with your neighbours when you see eye-to-eye. And it would simply be less than reasonable to expect a Progressive Conservative government -- particularly one led by an individual like Ralph Klein -- to see eye-to-eye with an NDP government.

Likewise, there's nothing like an external threat -- say, that posed by a federal party with a history of confiscatory tax policies and a habit of breaking its promises -- to bring two provinces even closer together.

"The latest evidence of the bi-provincial political link came Monday with the Saskatchewan Party government signing on to Pacific North West Economic Region (PNWER) -- something the New Democrats of this province not only wouldn't do but would vigorously oppose, because they see it as precursor to joining the Trade and Investment Mobility Agreement reached by Alberta and British Columbia."

Then again, considering the vehemence of the NDP's opposition to NAFTA, it should be considered unsurprising that the NDP would decline to join an organization such as PNWER.

It's also less than surprising that a Saskatchewan party government -- considering that the Saskatchewan party was founded out of a coalition Progressive Conservatives and conservative-minded Liberals -- would be so eager to join.

It's also less than surprising that Alberta -- looking for any dance partner it can find in an effort to resist a potential replay of the infamous National Energy Policy -- would be so eager to get Saskatchewan on board.

"Lest there be any doubt about this newfound closeness, consider what deputy Alberta premier Ron Stevens said about sponsoring Saskatchewan's application to join the private-sector organization his province helped to create:

"I can tell you, as a neighbouring sister province, (Alberta has) seen under Premier Wall a change in attitude," Stevens said during Monday's PNWER press conference.

"The province now has a outward looking, engaging, active attitude and I think that Saskatchewan is going to be a robust, full member of this organization. We are all going to be beneficiaries of that."

Maybe the close bond with Alberta wasn't forged quite overnight. But make no mistake that Alberta and Saskatchewan have become closer than they've been in decades."

Certainly, Alberta and Saskatchewan have grown closer -- more than simply economically or politically.

Numerous residents of either province have migrated to the other over the past numerous years. In particular, there has been a strong trend of Albertans moving to Saskatchewan. And anywhere Albertans are moving in such numbers is almost inevitably due for a conservative resurgence.

In other words, it's no surprise that Alberta and Saskatchewan have become so cozy. Furthermore, it's about time.

No Cure For Creepy

Shorter Canadian Cynic: "Patrick Ross' critiques of Richard Dawkins and PZ Meyers drive me into such a sputtering, impotent rage that I'm reduced to playing the role of a human Spellcheck."

"Also, that whole 'refuting an idea'... thing is for amateurs -- and people with actual ideas."

Canadian Cynic's obsession with myself and the Nexus seems to have only increased ever since he's been written off as a specacularly imbalanced stalker.

Fortunately, I don't have any kids. I'd hate to think what I'd have to do if he started trying to track my kids down at school.

Richard Dawkins Far From a Paragon of Reason

The Enemies of Reason bumps against numerous shortages of reason

Richard Dawkins has unquestionably become the growing atheist movement's resident heavyweight.

Whenever asked, he'll be the first to insist that atheism is the natural handmaiden of scientific rationalism, and insist that the only way for such rationalism to ultimately endure is for its alternatives -- notably, religion and spirituality -- to be discredited and, ultimately, destroyed.

One would be tempted to dismiss this as hysteria unless one of Dawkins' closest collaborators, "EZ" PZ Meyers, hadn't said so much himself.

However, if Dawkins and his cohorts are really so concerned with preserving rationalism and reason, one would expect that they would strictly impose themselves within the limits of these concepts.

In the hysterically titled The Enemies of Reason, a Dawkins-produced documentary aired by the BBC, Dawkins proves himself to fall far short of that.

In the first part of the two-part documentary, "Slaves to Superstition", Dawkins emerges as a curmudgeony, cynical individual prone to hyperbole.



"Science has sent orbiters to Neptune, erradicated smallpox and created a supercomputer that can do 69 trillion calculations per second," says Richard Dawkins during the opening of his television documentary, The Enemies of Reason.

"Science frees us from superstition and dogma," he adds. "And allows us to base our knowledge on evidence."

Dawkins' thesis on religion in his film becomes immediately apparent -- religion makes people small-minded and irrational, and poses a threat to the world's ability to govern itself according to reason.

Yet Dawkins indulges his own irrationality and small-mindedness at length throughout his film -- rarely as cogently as within the opening 60 seconds.

"There are two ways of looking at the world," he insists. "Through faith and superstition or through the rigours of logic, observation and evidence -- through reason."

Reason is threatened by an "epidemic of irrational thinking," he insists. Religion "impoverishes our culture," he announces. "New age gurus exhort us to run away from reality," he laments.

To Dawkins, religion is more than simply a means for individuals to seek answers to questions that science can't answer, it's some sort of insidious threat to civilization itself.

"As a scientist, I don't think our indulgence of irrational superstition is harmless," he says. "I believe it profoundly undermines civilization."

"We live in dangerous times when superstition is gaining ground and science is under attack," Dawkins muses. "In this program I want to take on the enemies of reason."

Apparently, in Dawkins' mind, science is at risk of being subjected to another holy inquisition such as that inflicted upon Gallileo. But instead of resisting the spectre of dogmatic intolerance wholesale, Dawkins' solution seems to be to unleash an inquisition on religion instead.

"Increased life expectancy, health and leisure provided by modern medicine and industrial technology have given more people more time than ever before to educate themselves, express their creativity and ponder existence."

People expressing themselves and pondering existence are both pursuits that Dawkins seems fine with -- he just wishes people would restrain themselves within the means of which he personally approves.

"Yet into this better world that reason has built, primitive darkness is coming back," Dawkins laments. "A disturbing pagan mix of superstitions."

Dawkins first takes aim at astrology, trying to draw as close a comparison between it and racism as he can manage. "Amusingly, it falls afoul of our modern taboo against lazy stereotyping," he insists. "How would we react if a newspaper published a daily oolumn that read something like this: 'Germans - It is in your nature to be hardworking and methodical, which should serve you well at work today. In your personal relationships, especially this evening, you'll need to curb your natural tendency obey orders. Chinese - Inscrutibility has many advantages but it may be your undoing today. British - Your stiff upper lip may serve you well in business dealings, but try to relax and let yourself go in your social life'. And so on through 12 national stereotypes. Of course, the astrology columns aren't as offensive as that, but we should ask ourselves exactly where the difference lies."

The fact that racism divides people based on immediately apparent physical and cultural characteristics - skin colour, language, etc -- and astrology practices divides people more arbitrarily is obviously among the chief differences between astrology and racism, as is the fact that astrology divides people fairly evenly across (not amongst) such racial and cultural divides.

In other words, there's a world of difference between astrology and racism. Neither fall within the narrow conflines of what Dawkins would consider to be "rational" or "reasonable".



From astrology (Dawkins notes that, surprise surprise, he prefers astronomy), Dawkins moves on to belief in the paranormal -- in particular, psychics.

Once again, Dawkins is picking an easy target. The revelation of JoJo Psychic Alliance's Miss Cleo as a complete fraud served to largely discredit the psychic community.

But Dawkins makes no mention of Parapsychology, a scientific (probably better described as pseudo-scientific) field in which researchers attempt to apply the scientific method to the paranormal in an attempt to explain it, most often with mixed results. They often study psychic phenomenae.

It should be of little surprise to anyone that a scientific field would emerge to stupiy phenomenae that conventional science has all but abandoned, and perhaps for good reason -- science seems to lack the tools necessary to explain them.

In the case of psychics, Dawkins jumps on a theory offered up by skeptic illusionist Darren Brown: cold reading. Cold reading, Brown insists, is basically a glorified method of word association in which various words are offered up and subjects supply the meaning on their own.



Yet cold reading doesn't explain how an individual such as Craig Hamilton Parker could "cold read" such specific details about such specific people.

For skeptics, however, there is a far superior method of debunking many psychics -- such as the case of Peter Popoff, who ran a similar outfit, yet was revealled to be "reading" people through FM radio transmissions to a headset. Various audience members were revealled to be "cased" before hand.

As it turns out, most of Craig Hamilton Parker's congregation are regulars. This alone explains his ability to percieve details about individual members as if they have been delivered from beyond the grave. In other words, the far more rational explanation of familiarity and (perhaps even) research rather than obscure psychological trickery.

Dawkins' questions about the pyschological impact of percieved contact with the dead are also entirely legitimate -- questions that should be asked, and questions that Parker himself should certainly feel obligated to answer.

Parker insists that he's trying to help others -- and he may even believe he is -- but that doesn't change the legitimacy of Dawkins' concerns.



Dawkins then turns his attention to, of all things, dowsing -- the practice of trying to find water using sticks.

Dawkins blames time-old notions of animism -- the belief that everything existing in the world possesses some spiritual nature -- for what he dismisses as -- admittedly, because they so often are -- irrational thought.

In particular, Dawkins notes the tale of the Persian king Xerxes, who once ordered the ocean punished for destroying a bridge he had built. The belief that the ocean was a "malevolent force", Dawkins views as irrational.

Of course, Dawkins is overlooking some realities of the times in which these beliefs were widely held -- times in which many people who travelled by sea never returned alive, if they ever returned at all. The belief that the sea is malevolent could have been treated as a parable for the fact that the sea has, historically, been very very dangerous for those who dared embark upon it.

Dawkins next turns his attention toward gamblers.

He insists slot machines -- "one-armed bandits" as he describes them in the popular manner -- dispense prizes randomly.

He notes that many gamblers have their own particular routines they like to engage in, and then asks if such superstitious behaviour is the result of human evolution. He suggests that quaint notions of luck are actually the result of biological processes that help living creatures judge situations statistically in order to make decisions that help optimize survival.

Dawkins argues that supersition is little more than the fallacious side of a pattern-seeking tendency of animal minds: finding a pattern where none exists.

But for Dawkins to choose electronic gambling machines -- Video Lottery Terminals as they're known in Canada -- as his example of this is, in itself, a folly. First off, these machines don't dispense prizes randomly. They're programmed in order to dispense prizes in a manner that optimizes profit. Furthermore, there is no such thing as a random number within a computer -- only a calculated number deliberately computed to resemble randomness as much as possible.

Nor is there really any such thing as randomness in nature. The governing laws of nature -- physics, thermodynamics, biology, etcetera -- may often collude in such a incomprehensible manner as to appear random, but there is no such thing as true randomness. Thus the suggested animal instict to search for discernable patterns.

When famed psychologist BF Skinner introduced such randomness into an experiment involving pigeons, he witnessed them exhibiting superstitious behaviour -- attempting to influence patterns with "false positives" that they had percieved to influence the "random" distribution of their food.

Dawkins attributes it to a human desire to read meaning into everything -- "faces in toasted cheese" and "fortunes in tea leaves".

Of course, meaning will always remain subjective. Dawkins attributes it to a desire for an organizing force -- yet the human brain itself is an organizing force. The human brain absorbs stimulus from its environment, then natural processes within the brain manage these stimuli to a tolerable level, effectively ignoring any stimulus these processes have been conditioned to treat as immaterial or unimportant.

In other words, there are things going on around the human brain that the conscious mind never recognizes.

An obvious difference between Dawkins and the numerous "believers" he examines throughout Enemies of Reason seems to emerge: simply, that these processes of his brain have been conditioned in order to ignore stimuli that others do not, while others' brains have been conditioned in order to ignore stimuli that he does not.

One could hypothesize at length about differences between individuals like Dawkins and the believers at a fundamental neuropsycholigical level.

Once these differences are recognized, one conclusion becomes unignorable: that Dawkins' mind has reached different subjective conclusions about the nature of the world around us using different information.

It's well-known that Dawkins prefers his own method of attaching meaning to the world around him: science. But it's in this vein that a strong case can be made for at least one alternative: spirituality.



Spiritualists actually come in great variety. Dawkins turns his attention to Satish Kumar, who argues that everything in the world has both physical and spiritual properties.

Without giving Kumar's views any more than a cursory examination, Dawkins dismisses it as "fabricated meaning".

"Science and rationality are often accused of having a cold, bleak outlook,"Dawkins muses. "But why is it bleak to face up to the evidence of what we know?"

In the perception of those such as Kumar, Hamilton Parker and others such as Ben Stein, the answer to this question is very simple: because it discounts difficult questions about what we don't know. Questions of meaning and purpose, which often science will not even begin to explore.

Science is under attack, Dawkins insists. Yet Dawkins and his compatriots are the ones who have professed that they will eliminate religion. It would seem that religion is what is really under attack.

Of course, it hasn't always been this way. When Copernicus questioned the Heliocentric view of the Catholic Church, he was punished severely even after he recanted his view -- which turned out to be demonstrably correct.

There is little question that scientists were targeted by the agents of the Church -- both within the formal structure of the Inquisition, and under other, more informal guises.

But as the formal onslaught of the church against science has effectively subsided -- scientists are no longer imprisoned for their work -- Dawkins seems to believe that the time has come for the exact same evils to be turned upon religion: an inquisition of science against religion.

Individuals such as Michael Onfray have gone so far as to promise a "final battle" between religion and atheism.

For Dawkins, however, the battle is not against religion alone. He also blames postmodernism for allowing alternative worldviews to be treated with respect -- respect that he himself has proven unwilling to afford.

Yet the critiques postmodernism offers to science are entirely benign questions -- questions that, if answered, would strengthen science's claims to objective truth, rather than weaken them.

"Reason has built the modern world" Dawkins insists.

Certainly so. But reason has not built the modern world alone. Religious and spiritual movements have been alongside science all along, often acting as philosophical, moral and spiritual guides to the world. Religious and spiritual movements have provided key cultural memes around which modern societies have been built.

In his effort to enforce his strict views of scientific rationality upon others, Richard Dawkins has fallen far short of the paragon of reason he often purports himself to be.

Calgary Mayor to Aryan Guard: Fuck Off

There's a difference between being "proud to be white" and being racist

Calgary Mayor Dave Bronconnier has a message for Calgary's Aryan Guard: Fuck off. And don't let the door hit you on the way out.

"This is certainly something that we don't support. This is, I think, the wrong move, of trying to take a supremacist organization and trying to encourage people, with money, to join their organization," Bronconnier announced. "I find it distasteful."

This is in response to a "come one, come all -- we'll even pay you" offer submitted by the Calgary white supremacist group to pay the damage deposit on properties rented by any white supremacists willing to relocate to Calgary.

"The Aryan Guard is always seeking new brothers and sisters, if you are interested in relocating to our Calgary area, we will pay the damage deposit for your residence," wrote "Pitbull-AG" on Stormfront, a white supremacist website.

This is only the most recent bold move by this group. In March, 30 members of the Aryan Guard staged a march in downtown Calgary and were promptly out-protested by 150 anti-racist demonstrators.

"We're just proud to be white, that's all. Why can't we be proud to be white?" asked one unidentified member of the Aryan Guard.

Of course, there's a difference between being "proud to be white" and nonsense like this, as quoted from the Aryan Guard's "88 precepts":

"21. People who allow others not of their race to live among them will perish, because the inevitable result of a racial integration is racial inter-breeding which destroys the characteristics and existence of a race. Forced integration is deliberate and malicious genocide, particularly for a People like the White race, who are now a small minority in the world."

There's a difference between being "proud to be white" and teaching people they cannot live beside a family of another racial group without becoming a threat to their own "race".

(On top of that, those who choose to marry and raise children with people of other racial/ethnic groups are perfectly entitled to make that choice.)

"24. No race of People can indefinitely continue their existence without territorial imperatives in which to propagate, protect, and promote their own kind."

There's a difference between being "proud to be white" and insisting on having the right to racially dominate any geographic space.

"27. It is not constructive to hate those of other races, or even those of mixed races. But a separation must be maintained for the survival of one's own race. One must, however, hate with a pure and perfect hatred those of one's own race who commit treason against one's own kind and against the nations of one's own kind. One must hate with a perfect hatred all those People or practices which destroy one's People, one's culture, or the racial exclusiveness of one's territorial imperative."

There's a difference between being "proud to be white" and accusing anyone who doesn't share the Aryan Guard's narrow worldview of being "race traitors".

Many commentators have noted that the fact that the Aryan Guard seems to have to pay existing racists to move to Calgary is encouraging -- it means their local recruitment must be less than brisk.

Of course, this is nothing new. The Calgary-based Final Solution Skinheads disbanded years and years ago. And no cultural movement that loses touch with its youth can sustain itself.

Unfortunately, some white supremacists seem to be interested in accepting the offer -- a prospect that has some Calgarians worried.

"[It] makes me sick," says Calgary Alderman Ric McIver. "We can't stop people from moving here, but we can make sure that when they do, they know this isn't a city that tolerates hate crimes."

Hopefully, Calgarians from all walks of life, of all racial or ethnic backgrounds and of all political stripes, will come together to insure they recieve a rather chilly welcome.

Stephen Harper at the Fulcrum of Canadian History

The 1995 "Sovereignty Association" referendum marked a significant turning point in Canadian history.

There had always been anxiety concerning whether or not Canada would survive.

Upon Confederation in 1867, two overwhelming anxieties predominated: the fear of civil war -- such as that which had just embroiled the United States -- and the fear of the United States itself, and its expressed ideology of manifest destiny. These two anxieties pushed Canadian politics in two directions: the accomodation, management, and containment of regional conflagurations, and a race westward to incorporate British Columbia, Rupert's Land and the Northwest Territories into Confederation.

Once Canada as we know it was territorially secure, economics became the primary source of this anxiety. Reciprocity and its not-so-distant cousin, Free Trade, effectively became political footballs kicked back and forth by the Conservative and Liberal parties, as each agonized over the emerging behemoth to the south.

Canadians across Canada clung to Britain in order to stave off the pressures to become too closely aligned with the United States. Even those (notably Quebecois) politicians who, like Wilfred Laurier and Henri Bourassa, sought to eke out and preserve as much independence as possible for Canada embraced Britain wholeheartedly, and considered themselves British subjects.

While occasional internal conflagurations -- such as the Riel rebellion, naval controversy, and conscription crisis (one and two) often threatened to grow into broader threats to national unity, an overwhelming focus on external threats to Canadian unity is hard to overlook.

These conflicts were not only partisan in nature, but also pan-partisan. Factions led by Walter Gordon (nationalist) and Mitchell Sharp (realist) would face off over economic nationalism within the Liberal party (with future Prime Minister Jean Chretien coming to favour the Sharp camp). David Orchard would lead a small but determined rebellion within the Mulroney-era Progressive Conservative party over both the Canada-US Free Trade agreement and the broader North American Free Trade Agreement.

Meanwhile, in Quebec, something was bubbling. It had exploded twice before, with terroristic fury -- during the 1970 October crisis -- and impotence -- during the 1980 Quebec sovereignty referendum when the federalist "non" side defeated the sovereigntist "oui" side with nearly 60% of the vote.

Pierre Trudeau went so far as to declare Quebec separatism officially "dead". And while Brian Mulroney -- likely as a virtue of his relationship with future Bloc Quebecois and Parti Quebecois leader Lucien Bouchard -- surely percieved enough of a threat from Quebec separatism to attempt his Meech Lake and Charlottetown constitutional efforts, one could almost forgive Trudeau for believing separatism in Quebec decisively defeated.

One must say "almost" because in order to hold this belief, Trudeau would have had to overlook the 1981 reelection of the Rene Levesque PQ with an additional nine seats in the National Assembly and an additional 8% of the popular vote.

In 1985, the PQ would be defeated by the Robert Bourassa-led Liberal party. Daniel Johnson Jr would take over from the retiring Bourassa in 1994 and would lead his party to defeat less than a year later, when Jacques Parizeau led the PQ back into power, and eventually within half a percentile of "sovereignty association".

Doubtlessly, there were numerous historical grievances that led to this stunning reversal of the sovereingtist movement's fortunes -- the PQ had elected only 29 members in the 1989 election, but returned with 77 in 1994. The largest of which was almost certainly the collapse of the Meech Lake Accord.

Quebec's disillusionment over the rejection of Meech Lake even resulted in a wholesale rejection of the Charlottetown Accord in Quebec, where 56.7% voted against it in the 1992 referendum on the matter -- a rejection second only to the 60% who voted "no" in Alberta.

Beyond a shadow of doubt, the October 30, 1995 Referendum is the fulcrum of Canadian history -- the definitive sign that the greatest threat to Canada's survival will emerge not from outside the country, but from within.

When a country so narrowly avoids being torn apart from within, it leads people to question what could be so fundamentally wrong at the very foundations of that country that its own citizens would so nearly destroy it.

In the case of Canada, the conventional explanation is basically that of a French Canadian -- more specifically, Quebecois -- nationalism that feels so thwarted that it must collapse the country in order to avenge a centuries-passed conquest.

But upon watching the CBC's referendum-night panel one may wonder if perhaps Stephen Harper's explanation may be the most cogent:

"What has to happen, what people have to do tomorrow is -- and I think a lot of people will want to do it in Quebec and elsewhere -- is pressure their governments to govern and get on with addressing their practical, economic, fiscal and social concerns.

Tonight there's been all this attention to the federal government -- what's the federal government going to do? But one of the big questions is: what is the Quebec government going to do? It has used the last two years to prepare for this vote.

Now, is it going to get on with governing itself and improving the lives of the province of Quebec?

There is a tremendous healing that has to be done. But frankly there's a lot of people who have to climb down off their grand visions and start addressing some real concerns because I think people are more sick of that than anything."

As one examines Canadian history, it becomes apparent that Canada is a country that was built upon "grand visions".

The founder of the country, sir John A MacDonald, had a grand vision of a country stretching from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific. John Diefenbaker had a grand vision of a more equal federation. Lester Pearson imagined Canada leading on the international stage. Pierre Trudeau had a grand (if vague) vision of a "just society".

Perhaps more than anything else, however, the 1995 referendum result was born out of three visions: Trudeau's vision of a repatriated Constitution (with, conveniently, his own signature adorning it), Mulroney's failed vision of himself as the saviour of Canada via Constitutional reform and the combined visions of Rene Levesque, Jacques Parizeau and Lucien Bouchard of a sovereign Quebec -- one that so nearly came to pass.

Of course, one cannot discount the roll of history in the matter either: the resurgence of Quebecois nationalism and the construction of a sovereigntist movement intersected dramatically with the de-colonization of Africa and the various parts of Asia that had had been incorporated within the British, French and other European empires. The ideas of national self-determination that underscored de-colonization resonated dramatically within Quebecois culture.

The post-1990 strengthening of the Quebecois sovereigntist movement also intersected dramatically with the end of the cold war. As Adam Curtis notes in The Power of Nightmares, the end of the Cold War outdated traditional ideologies, leaving many people in search of alternatives.

In 1981, the drastic post-referendum strengthening of the Parti Quebecois was aided in part by the utter collapse of the Union Nationale, a party that under long-time leader Maurice Duplessis had justified its often-authoritarian streak under the guise of fighting communism.

And while the Berlin wall would not fall for another eight years, many around the world were already smelling the stench of death on the Soviet regime providing the backbone for Eastern European communism.

The strong nationalist elements of the Union Nationale would also be set free by the impending end of the Cold War, and as the nationalists within the Union Nationale felt less threatened by communism, they turned their attentions to Daniel Johnson Sr's call for "Equalite ou Independance", to the direct benefit of the Parti Quebecois.

In time, Separatism became an ideology that appealed to many of those witnessing the end of the threat Maurice Duplessis had once used to maintain control over the province. What many Quebeckers viewed as a rebuked attempt to attain equality turned them instead to seek independance.

It became a new "grand vision" to replace the old vision that had been pushed into obselescence. For those in search of such a vision -- those dissatisfied with the emerging model of the politician as a manager of public affairs -- it clearly became rather attractive, at least in the short term.

The memory of how close Canada came to being torn apart on October 30, 1995 will remain with Canadians for a long time. So long as their remains a Bloc Quebecois or Parti Quebecois to pursue the separatist cause -- whether under the guise of "sovereignty association" or more honest terms -- the fear that we could lose our country will always remain.

It may not be enough for federal politicians to simply tend to the affairs of the country and allow the matter of national unity to tend to itself. But Stephen Harper was right to emphasize the risk of focusing too much on grand visions, and too little on the business of running the country.

A vision of a united Canada will always remain necessary to stave off the threat of Quebecois separatism. But we must always remember there are risks that come with trying to implement such a grand vision.

In 1995, we learned that the hard way.

What Will They Do If He Stays the Course?

"Peace" movement counting on Barack Obama to curb War on Terror

During his visit to Afghanistan, Democrat presidential nominee Barack Obama has promised Afghan presiden Hammad Karzai that he will fight terrorism "with vigour".

In fact, Obama promised to undertake a complete approach to Afghanistan.

"Obama promised us that if he becomes a president in the future, he will support and help Afghanistan not only in its security sector but also in reconstruction, development and economic sector," said Agha Sherzai, the former governor of Khandahar.

Obama has enjoyed great praise from numerous portions of the anti-war movement as well as Iraqi politicians over his plans to withdraw from Iraq.

But in terms of the Afghanistan conflict, one can rest assured that the so-called peace movement must consider Obama way off the reservation.

Obama has committed himself to the Afghanistan conflict in a very encouraging manner, suggesting commit up to 10,000 more troops to Afghanistan, as well as allowing US forces to pursue insurgent fighters into Pakistan if necessary.

In particular, the Canadian "peace" movement must feel a certain twinge of betrayal. They had to have been counting on Obama to undermine the War in Afghanistan by withdrawing American troops from a conflict that, all too often, they can't tell apart from Iraq.

Some have already begun to target Obama, denouncing his "right-ward" "imperialist" turn.

But for those still clinging to Obama as their great hope for an anti-war, pacifist foreign policy, one has to wonder: precisely what will they do if he stays the course in Afghanistan?

Of course, the abject irony of the so-called "peace" movement advocating foreign policy stances that would -- and have proben to be -- detrimental to global peace and security, has already been covered at length.

There's no question that the peace movement will need another messiah. Considering the ultimate political fate of their previous anti-war messiah, Jimmy Carter, it becomes apparent they'll be waiting a long time yet.

To make matters worse, the alternative presidential candidate -- Republican John McCain -- is supportive not only of the war in Afghanistan, but also the war in Iraq. Evidently, the alternative to Obama is no better for the "peace" movement, and a great deal worse. There is, of course, always Ralph Nader, but that's a slim hope at best.

The "peace" movement may not like it, but it seems that realism will continue to prevail in foreign policy.

Smarter Than You, But Slower On the Uptake

Coming to us via Ezra Levant is the tale of Richard Dawkins and "Beware the Believers", a hilarous YouTube send-up of the top atheist heavyweight.

"If anyone can understand a single word of this, don't bother to translate, just tell me whose side it's on. I get the feeling (same with South Park) that there are people out there who assume that something that is obviously MEANT to be funny therefore must BE funny, and they immediately shower it with accolades such as "Wow", "Hilarious", "Awesome" and, most side-splitting of all, "LOL"."

Which is almost ironic: in a video that mercilessly lampoons Dawkins' arrogance, anti-religious zealotry and polished abrasiveness all that Dawkins is concerned about is "whose side it's on".

For someone as allegedly brilliant as Richard Dawkins, it should embarrassing to be that parochially slow on the uptake.

Thank God He's a Fictional Character

Ideology handcuffs psychology, criminal justice

What is almost certainly the most anticipated movie of the past three years opened in theatres world wide yesterday, and has left audiences absolutely stunned.

Audiences turned out in record numbers yesterday to see the superhero opus.

What has people talking most is the beyond spectacular performance turned in by Heath Ledger as the Clown Prince of Crime, the Joker. Ledger's take on the villain is unsettling on a deep psychological level, as he takes the character deeper than he's ever been taken before, on the silver screen or off.

Ledger's Joker is a cold, calculating, sadistic, self-styled anarchist determined to show all the "planners" of Gotham -- from District Attorney Harvey Dent (Aaron Eckhart) to the city's "silent protector" himself, Batman (Christian Bale) -- how futile their efforts really are.

Which is, in a sense, ironic. The film opens with a bank heist so meticulously planned that the Joker is ultimately able to blend in with rush hour traffic in a manner that renders him absolutely untracable (specific details withheld for obvious reasons).

The Joker that emerges is the most realistic version of the character offered: an individual carrying psychological trauma embedded so deeply in his personality that he is willing to do absolutely anything, and feels absolutely no remorse.

Human language has a word for such individuals: we call them psychopaths. It should then be interesting to note that our criminal justice system has no such word.

In 1980, University of British Columbia psychologist Bob Hare developed a diagnostic tool known as the Psychopathy Checklist. Five years later it would be revised into the PCL-R.

Upon being presented with the PCL-R, one of the first things Corrections Canada did was shelve it. It was deemed politically incorrect to suggest that any criminal should be considered beyond rehabilitation. It offended the sensibilities of the authorities of the day to suggest that an individual could be considered irredeemable, and it still does.

In other words, if an individual like Heath Ledger's Joker -- a psychopathic criminal with an extreme gift for planning and a predisposition toward terrorist tactics -- ever emerged in Canadian society, our law enforcement and correctional systems would be utterly handcuffed.

On this note, two caveats must be affixed: first off, the character portrayed by Ledger must be treated as hyperbolic beyond all credulity. Secondly, Hare notes that the vast majority of psychopaths are what he terms "subclinical" psychopaths -- an individual who leaves behind them a trail of abuse and personal destruction, but who acts almost entirely within the law -- even if only barely.

As such, the PCL-R would not only provide a useful tool for law enforcement and corrections, but also for family therapists and child protective services -- if only the political will existed to actually make use of it.

There is, of course, a dark flip side to the PCL-R. In many cases -- particularly in the United States -- the PCL-R has been combined with a myriad of political values in order to render an assessment of psychopathy where one would otherwise be unsuitable.

This is a reality that Hare has long realized, and has spurred him to spend his retirement years travelling to various conferences -- on topics ranging from psychology to law enforcement -- to clarif the purposes of the PCL-R. "I'm protecting it from erosion, from distortion. It could easily be compromised," Hare says.

Which is important to remember. Any diagnostic tool can be abused, and often will be. While that necessitates a certain level of vigilance in the use of it, however, it's insufficient reason to discard it altogether.

Ledger's Joker will prove to be as iconic a performance as Brandon Lee's in The Crow -- not least of which because of his untimely demise.

The performance will haunt filmgoers and challenge other actors for years to come.

Hopefully, the film will also challenge some of our law enforcement and correctional authorities to give the PCL-R a second thought as well.

This Is Where It All Breaks Down

In the wake of the release of Expelled : No Intelligence Allowed, it's become apparent that there just cannot seem to be any rational discussion of the virtues of Intelligent Design theory as compared to Evolutionary Biology.

As numerous sources will demonstrate, neither side of this debate is immune to the divisiveness and base irrationality that has swirled around this topic.

First, consider the following video of EZ Meyers and Richard Dawkins -- the latter of whom recieves what could very well be considered to be his comeuppance in Expelled -- discussing the film:



One would expect better from two such "leading intellectuals" as Meyers and Dawkins.

They start off by discussing Meyers' ejection from a screening of the film at the Mall of America -- Dawkins, for his own part, was admitted to the same screening.

While the facts surrounding the matter seem to continue to be a matter of some dispute, Meyers and Dawkins aren't far off the mark at all in describing it as "inept public relations".

But from there, Dawkins continues to let the obnoxious -- polishedly obnoxious, but obnoxious nonetheless -- side of his personality show, as he tries to pick the film apart not based on the facts or ideas contained in the film, but rather on editing technique and such.

"It was a bad film in every possible way," Dawkins insists. "It was also extremely boring."

The irony of Richard Dawkins, of all people, dismissing a film as "extremely boring" should require little explanation. Then again, of course, this is Ben Stein we're talking about -- a man who has become an iconic (if self-effacing) figure in comedy for his ability to induce boredom.

Dawkins further insists that computer generated video of cell generation is "too good" to be the work of the Expelled producers, and Meyers jumps in, attempting to credit it to the XVIVO multimedia group at Harvard University.

Premise films insists that they produced the clip themselves, and careful examination of the two pieces of work (the absolutely gorgeous XVIVO work can be viewed here) bears this to be true -- although it's hard to imagine that the XVIVO work didn't provide significant inspiration for the Expelled clip.

To take Meyers' suggestion of outright copyright violation in this particular video seriously is very difficult to do, as he actually has to stop and ask Dawkins if Expelled features any commentary during the allegedly offending clip (clearly, he has not yet seen the movie himself and could not be expected to be able to objectively judge the two clips).

Dawkins insists that the Harvard multimedia department would have had to be "duped" into allowing the use of the video -- again, conclusively not the same video -- and continues to insist that he and Meyers were Duped into taking part in Expelled.

Eventually, after returning to the complaint about Meyers being refused admission, they finish their video by discussing whether the film is second-rate or third- or fourth-rate.

The entire video comes across less as a substantive rebuttal of the film, and more as a pair of demagogues whose pride has been severely wounded.

Which would be entirely understandable, considering how significantly Dawkins managed to humiliate himself in the course of his great "showdown" with Stein in the film, as shown in this particular video (consider it exhibit B), this time of Ben Stein making himself more than just a little transparent on Glenn Beck's show on CNN:



Beck starts off by insisting that if the "New York Times hates a movie" then he himself would love it (again, an extremely mature, rational attitude).

Stein insisted that people across the United States were "standing and cheering" at the end of Expelled. However, considering the scores of self-styled Darwinists are flat-out refusing to see the film at all (again, an extremely mature, rational attitude), it isn't hard to imagine that most of these people are arriving at the theatre with pre-concieved notions in favour of Intelligent Design or Creationism.

The video features Dawkins' admission -- likely the source of his aforementioned wounded pride -- in the film in which he suggests that if an "ntelligent designer" exists as ID theory suggests, it would have to be a space alien.

Stein then criticizes Darwinism for being unable to explain gravity or thermodynamics -- neither of which are a phenomenon that Darwinism ever even attempts to explain. He then criticizes Darwinism for being unable to explain the origins of life. Again, Darwinism -- in the purest sense of the term -- doesn't attempt to explain this.

Ambiogenesis -- the field in which Dawkins studies -- does, indeed attempt to do so. But while this particular field of Evolutionary Biology -- a broader field based on Darwinian principles -- it itself isn't confined strictly within the confines of Darwinist thought.

In sort, Stein is criticizing Darwinism for being unable to explain things that it lays to claim to explain. It's a key logical misconception that only obscures the margins of this debate.

Stein also notes that he feels sad for Dawkins and his fellow atheists by noting he "feel[s] bad for them and their circles because they don't have god in their lives". Again, this obscures the margin of this debate -- is it about science, religion, or lack thereof?

Stein also suggests that Dawkins and his "circle" reject the existence of God because if God exists, they'll be judged.

But judged for precisely what? Being atheists? Being evolutionary biologists? Precisely what?

Stein doesn't provide the answer to this question, but he does conclude with an extremely valid point: the cold moral asceticism that atheism at least seems to promote -- via the lack of any real arbiter of human morality -- seems to lend itself to immoral acts, at least the hands of those predisposed to such acts in the first place.

But for as dogmatic and ideological as Meyers and Dawkins seem to be in their "rebuttal" video to Expelled, Stein seems to equal during his Glenn Beck appearance.

If asked, any one of these individuals would insist that they are the ones trying to take part in a rational scientific debate. Yet it seems every time they actually open their mouths to speak, rationality flies out the door and dogmatism appears in its stead.

In the end, this will likely be the ultimate legacy of Expelled -- a film that posed a challenge to the scientific community to take part in an open debate, but only served to further entrench both sides of the so-called "debate" so that no rational debate can ever occur.

If the breaking point hadn't occurred long, long ago, Expelled would have been that very breaking point.

Happy Birthday Nelson Mandela

One of history's greatest difference makers turns 90 today

Yeah, What's Ten Years of Widespread Poverty Between Eco-Warriors?

Guess who's back and saying ridiculous things?

Well, OK.

To say that Kevin Potvin is "back" is like suggesting that Canadian Cynic's dementia-inducing case of neurosyphilis is "back" when it relapses. (Just a quick note here: Canadian Cynic probably doesn't have neurosyphilis. He just acts like he does. -Ed.) He's been there the whole while, maybe not quite saying things as stupid as he's accustomed to, he's been there all along. Not much unlike a case of neurosyphilis.

And so it would seem that Kevin Potvin is having a recurrence of general stupidity -- or could it be general stupidity having a recurrence of Kevin Potvin? Fuck, I get these things mixed up sometimes -- in the course of a recent opinion article in his vaunted Republic of East Vancouver in which he advocates the onset of a new Great Depression.

It starts out with Potvin taking issue with a recent article by Jacqueline Thorpe in the Financial Post:

"“But the best hope,” wrote Jacqueline Thorpe on the front page of The Financial Post section of The National Post, in a regular column entitled “The Big Picture,” “rests on at least a stabilization of oil prices.” The headline of this entry, appearing the past weekend, was “Teetering on the brink of global recession.”

It’s an astonishing statement, and so we see that in the space of just 18 months or less, the Canadian corporate sector’s communications organ, CanWest, or “corporavda” if you will, which owns The National Post, has gone from paternalistic “sh-sh”s and “don’t worry”s all the way to thoroughly freaked out alarmism. Thorpe’s mental breakdown last weekend has become by no means an oddity. Her’s is but the theme at the corporate press lately.

“Hope for stabilized oil prices” is odd advice to the colonial-minded middle managers of Canada’s wholly foreign owned corporate sector who read The National Post before the foreign head office calls for its daily chit-chat. To advise the nation’s decision makers that hope is their only choice now is to advise them to close their eyes, block their ears and stop whatever thinking they might have considered doing. The ride is going to get too frightening to behold."

Potvin almost has a point here. When staring down the business end of a recession very much induced by high energy prices, the best thing to do would be to prepare for it and make changes to try and avoid it, rather than simply "hope for a price break".

And while there are likely few things that can be done to deal with the exorbitantly high price of oil, it could be treated as an incentive to start investing more heavily in alternative energy sources.

Otherwise, there simply may be no escaping the economic apocalypse that Potvin is predicting (and, as we will see later, actually hoping for):

"The rapidly rising price of oil has certainly emerged as the key feature of the 21st Century. The Globe and Mail reported the same day on a poll showing the price of oil has now replaced all other concerns at the top of mind of Canadians in general. Rising oil prices promise to be the driver of history in our time. Any eyes not clouded by agendas, fear or subservience can quickly ascertain that oil prices will keep leaping up between short periods of steadying or occasionally dropping prices.

A debate about whether peak oil production has arrived or if it’s all just a ploy by Big Oil, is increasingly irrelevant. Whether by design or happenstance, oil prices will not stabilize or be stabilized at any level. If it’s by design of Big Oil or by the reality of production capacity leaves us equally unable to intervene in the trajectory.

So when the nation’s leading financial media is reduced to advising the sycophants of The Canadian Council of Chief Executive Officers to hope for stabilization of oil prices to avoid a serious global recession, it may as well throw in advice to buy lottery tickets for a retirement plan."

Now, with all this talk about the lunacy of simply hoping for a recession to somehow be averted instead of actually taking action to avoid it, one would think that Potvin would have some constructive ideas.

Instead, Potvin offers up a much more encouraging alternative: outright economic defeatism.

"It’s a fair question to ask why the advice columnists in the financial pages are not instead explaining why global recession is unavoidable (oil prices will keep rising is the simplest way of driving the message home), and how they might best operate their ships in the coming headwinds of the storm.

A big part of managing large national and internationally interconnected firms is pressuring and advising government ministries and influencing public opinion in line with that advice. Government policy-making especially in key economic ministries like industry and finance are now very much the purview of corporate boardrooms. The last three Canadian finance ministers both Liberal and Conservative made their first official appearances upon presuming office in the New York financial district, rather than before Canadian citizens."

Which would seem evidentiary of that old "Canada bowing to American imperialism" that Potvin favours.

Or, it could be interpreted as quite logical, considering that Wall Street very much remains the heart of the increasingly-globalizing economy.

"If the advice government ministers are receiving is to hope for stabilized oil prices instead of planning to manage global recessionary conditions, the aims of their policies will inevitably be thwarted, or worse, completely irrelevant.

The reason neither policy makers in government both on the bureaucratic and elected side, nor executives in corporate boardrooms, nor pundits in the financial press, can bring themselves to accept that certainly rising oil prices will certainly bring global recession is because they have spent decades telling each other within the closed confines of their social circles that recession is irredeemably bad and that it opens the door to an evil worse than war: depression."

And it's generally agreed, recession and depression are very bad things. People lose their livelihoods, their homes, even their families.

Very bad things indeed.

"These are assumptions at the core of all corporate and economic thought that have remained undisturbed by any queries at least since the famous depression of the 1930s. It would be heresy in the halls of ministries, boardrooms and editorial offices to even think about the received wisdom concerning the undeniability of the badness that is recession or depression."

And for good reason. Most people generally regard families losing their homes, individuals struggling to feed their families and bankrupt business people throwing themselves out of windows to be bad things.

Then again, this is Kevin Potvin we're talking about here. Most people generally considered 9/11 to be a bad thing, as well, but he did manage to find it in himself to disagree.

"But now is surely the time, before over-the-top fear produces rash counter-productive policies, to wonder whether recession or even depression are really so bad. After all, it wasn’t so long ago government forestry managers, harvesting companies and the public at large had no reason to doubt forest fires were unquestionably bad things, and look at how far that opinion has swung once the question was first posed.

While there has always been an argument available in favour of recession and depression, however dubious, an entirely different set of circumstances has arisen that makes the argument, whatever it is, far more powerful: the environment cannot absorb any more increases in human production of Co2, and in fact seems to require a drastic decline in human-produced Co2 to stabilize climate change. So dependent is all modern economic activity on energy, and so necessary is Co2 production in the expending of energy, that it is by now certain that the only chance we have of seeing the climate stabilized is through a significant decline in economic activity. That is, a long-term, perhaps even a constant economic depression, may be the only way a stabilized climate is restored."

So emerges some of the deepest, darkest, nuttiest thoughts bouncing around inside of Potvin's twisted little skull.

We're facing an environmental catastrophe, so don't bother trying to reduce emissions or impliment alternative energy sources. Shut everything down. And all those people who will suffer? Well, they won't be so bad off.

Potvin even has the revisionist history texts to prove it:

"Recession and its bad cousin Depression have very bad names. There has been 70 years or more of propaganda terrorizing the public about the prospect of a repeat of what is said to be the worst calamity to have ever befallen them—The Great Depression of the 1930s. But on examination, we find that most of the horrors of that time were due to corporate and state reaction to economic depression, not the conditions of depression in and of itself, and that the economic conditions by themselves, if one asks those who lived through it, coincided with a period of enriched community and individual experience producing what they report as general happiness.

People recall farming their back yards with neighbours, sharing food and lodging with passing strangers, and enjoying community dances, making simple music, and relaxing at home with games and books. That is not to say there wasn’t a lot of unemployment and poor conditions for those trapped in it. But using the same measuring techniques today that were used in the 1930s reveals unemployment then was not much higher that it has been at times in the last ten years. Certainly homelessness and desperation today is easily comparable to anything seen in 1932. Had there been ordinary unemployment insurance, welfare, subsidized housing and social programs in the 1930s to mitigate the worst conditions for those most badly affected, there is little doubt there would be today any of the horror the public associates with economic depression. Even in the absence of all these efforts, it still wasn’t nearly as bad as seven decades of corporavda has made it out to be."

Don't blame the economic conditions, Potvin seems to insist. Blame those evil corporations!

And even then, it wasn't so bad. Those 30 million people who were unemployed? Were just taking what we might refer to as a "vacation". (Potvin insists that roughly the same percentage of people are unemployed today as during the Depression, but fails to mention that these modern figures include Africa, whereas the Depression-era statistics did not.)

And amidst all of the joblessness, poverty and scarcity imposed by Depression, Potvin seems to actually think it was all quite quaint -- not much unlike the post-corporate peacenik utopian societies that Potvin and those who think like him tend to favour.

People farmed together in communes! People read books! Folk music was de rigeur!

People also stole watermelons from farmers (among other things) as property crime rates jumped.

So what if a few hundred thousand people lose their jobs, homes and life savings? To make an omlette, Potvin seems to imply, you have to break a few eggs -- or at least hope for a few to be broken.

Of course, it gets even more amusing than this. It would seem that Potvin can even find the upside in being occupied by a regime like Nazi Germany:

"We know, for example, that during the German occupation of France in the 1940s, when French industry was largely shut down, trees on the Champs Élysées that hadn’t blossomed before took full bloom in the cleaner air. It would be interesting to learn whether similar signs of rebirth were also evident when industry in North America was greatly reduced during The Great Depression."

Interesting, indeed.

It would also be interesting to know if a collaborationist government founded under alleged principles of pacifism would have exported any Jews to concentration camps, as Vichy France did under Marshall Phillipe Petain.

"Economic recession and depression in and of itself really only hurts the high rollers. But those high rollers own the corporate media and they have a huge interest in convincing Canadians depression is the worst thing imaginable, because that’s what it is for them."

Apparently, to Potvin, all the farmers who lost their farms to foreclosure during the Great Depression were "high rollers".

All those unemployed men who rode the rails across the United States and Canada in search of work? High rollers, one and all.

And only was the Great Depression "not so bad", according to an individual who never actually lived through it (yet contesting the historical record established by those who actually did), another one should not only be embraced, but actually encouraged:

"Especially given environmental reality, it may in fact be, for the rest of us anyway, the best thing imaginable. Our policy makers ought to be planning for it and finding ways to manage it and sustain it, rather than being advised to cross their fingers and hope it isn’t going to come, or believe, even, there is anything they can do to derail it. The public isn’t necessarily convinced it’s the worst thing that needs to be avoided at all costs."

First off, Potvin may want to prove that the public is A-OK with the idea of another Great Depression (good luck with that one, Kevin).

But it's just another example of the fact that Kevin Potvin just doesn't seem to live in the same world the rest of us do -- his insistence that everyone cheered a little when the World Trade Center was hit being another obvious example.

And it goes to show exactly how far people like Kevin Potvin are willing to go in order to prevent an environmental catastrophe, according to the whole of the science collected, may or may not actually be coming.

And finally, just another example of why this guy couldn't even make it amongst the ranks of the Green party.

Good fucking grief.

These Are the Days That We Drive

Who says there's nothing to watch on PBS?



Spotted last night on PBS, As the Wrench Turns stars Car Talk's Tom and Ray Tappet (also known as Click and Clack).

"Pasta War" is an pithy and amusing -- if some what narrow -- episode in which the brothers build a pasta-powered car, cause a pasta shortage (angering Italian grandmothers everywhere), and bring the United States to the brink of war with Italy.

The episode is an obvious attempt at making an (aforementionedly problematic) comment on biofuels.

The episode can be watched on the PBS website.

Questions of Academic Freedom Right on Ben Stein's Money

Expelled controversial, mostly benign and -- unsurprisingly -- a target

To a certain extent, there's a degree of silliness enrapt in the Evolution/Intelligent Design debate that lies at the heart of Expelled.

Proponents of the theory of Evolution insist they can't be bothered to share academic space and time with proponents of Intelligent Design because it reeks too much of creationism. Meanwhile, those studying Intelligent Design -- who are applying engineering principles to molecular biology -- implicitly suggest that they deserve as much academic time and space as the theory generally accepted as the basis of modern biology, and one of the historical heavyweights of scientific thought.

Although trying at length throughout the film to make himself seem like an impartial observer abruptly converted to the virtues of at least discussing intelligent design, Ben Stein has clearly chosen sides. One need only consider the broader implications of his film's title, Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed.

In other words, all the intelligent people believe in Intelligent Design, and anyone who doesn't is... well, not so much.

Whether or not Stein intended this when changing the name of the film project from Crossroads: The Intersection of Science and Religion is truly known only to himself and possibly the film's producer, Mark Mathis. But it isn't as if anyone interpreting it as such isn't reading anything into it that isn't already there.

The film circles around what it outlines as a movement within the scientific establishment to stamp out Intelligent Design by blackballing its proponents.

The film explores cases such as that of Richard Sternberg, who was allegedly run out of the Smithsonian Institute for so much as publishing a pro-Intelligent Design article.

Serious questions have been raised about the circumstances of Sternberg's employment at and departure from the Smithsonian. However, a an investigation by Special Counsel James McVay revealled a certain degree of malice in Sternberg's colleagues reaction to the publication, and their intent to discredit him.

In other words, the truth seems to be neither what Sternberg insists, nor what his detractors insist.

A similar case emerges when considering the case of Caroline Crocker, who claims to have been disciplined after merely mentioning Intelligent Design while teaching one of her courses.

The autors of Expelled Exposed insist that Crocker was teaching various inaccurate facts in her class, as outlined in a Washington Post article.

Yet they also credit "student complaints" for the discipline levelled against her. But a quick view of Crocker's rating on Ratemyprofessors.com makes one think twice about this. In fact, your not-so-humble scribe was able to rate Crocker without any modicum of proof whatsoever that he had even studied under Crocker.

Many of the other ratings on Rate My Professor seem to be nothing more than malicious attacks aimed at Crocker, and are notably fraudulent.

Throughout the film, Stein falls back on a Berlin wall metaphor that, when considered afterward, is actually fairly tortured. He insists that the wall was built to keep western ideas out of Communist East Germany. But anyone even passingly familiar with Cold War History knows quite differently -- that the Berlin Wall wasn't built to keep capitalist ideas from getting in to East Berlin, but rather was built to stop East Germans from fleeing from communism into West Germany, discrediting the ideology.

An argument could potentially be made that proponents of Evolutionary theory have, indeed built such a wall. But Stein's metaphor is inept, and even noting that such a metaphorical wall has been built to prevent students from straying into Intelligent Design theory would have worked for Stein's purposes.

A great deal of protest has also been raised regarding Stein's equation of Darwinism and Nazism.

In particular, the authors of Expelled Exposed attempt to write Nazism off as part of a reactionary response to Darwinism, when nothing could be further from the truth. The specific combination of (perverted) Darwinist thought with some of the subtle Nietzchean underpinnings of Nazi ideology lent themselves quite conveniently to the brutal eugenics program undertaken by Nazi Germany.

Expelled Exposed also accuses Stein of deliberately omitting a portion of The Descent of Man that follows the portion Stein quotes. Stein quotes:

"With savages, the weak in body or mind are soon eliminated. We civilized men, on the other hand, do our utmost to check the process of elimination. We build asylums for the imbecile, the maimed and the sick, thus the weak members of civilized societies propagate their kind. No one who has attended to the breeding of domestic animals will doubt that this must be highly injurious to the race of man. Hardly anyone is so ignorant as to allow his worst animals to breed."

The omitted portion reads as follows:

"The aid which we feel impelled to give to the helpless is mainly an incidental result of the instinct of sympathy, which was originally acquired as part of the social instincts, but subsequently rendered, in the manner previously indicated, more tender and more widely diffused. Nor could we check our sympathy, if so urged by hard reason, without deterioration in the noblest part of our nature."

Yet this does nothing to expel the very real tendency of people such as Adolf Hitler to take portions of such tracts that confirm their beliefs -- and Hitler is noted to have had a pathological obsession with killing in the name of eugenics, musing in one writing that Germany would anually euthanize up to 100,000 "unfit" newborns -- and ignore what does not.

Not to mention the fact that Stein doesn't simply denounce Darwinism as akin to Nazism, but rather Nazism as a destination for Darwinism left untouched by any sense of morality, such as that offered by religion.

Even then, as we've seen in Canada with Alberta's historical eugenics program, Darwinism can still lead to unethical and unjust eugenics when religious morality, although present, breaks down.

The most amusing portion of Expelled arrives as Stein moves toward his final confrontation with Atheist fundamentalist and Evolutionist Richard Dawkins.

In the course of a conversation as to why Dawkins believes Intelligent Design should be definitively rejected by the scientific community -- and Dawkins is only one of many scientists interviewed who insist such -- Stein mercilessly grills Dawkins, and eventually Dawkins suggests it's plausible that life was seeded on earth by a vastly advanced alien civilization.

Which is far from a scientific hypothesis.

It reveals, however, the dogmatism of Dawkins and those like him. He is perfectly willing to accept the idea of an intelligent designer, but refuses to consider that perhaps a "loving god" -- as Stein alludes to in the trailer for the film -- could be that designer. Instead, he relies on a "magical sky daddy" of a different -- and equally unproven -- colour.

Which reveals the amount of faith Dawkins has really based his argument on. Considering the number of proteins that would have to align in perfect sequence in order to become living cells, Richard Dawkins could sit and watch a pool of proteins for every second of every day in his life and never witness it.

For an Atheist, to thusly believe in the Darwinian model of the origins of life, that requires an awful lot of faith. It certainly isn't empirically or scientifically proven (the process of evolution certainly is -- the origins of life not so much).

So for Dawkins, it certainly can't be about science. Perhaps for individuals like Dawkins, the struggle against Intelligent Design is really about stamping out any scientific theory that carries even the vaguest traces of Creationism. It would certainly explain why such individuals have sought to associate Intelligent Design and Creationism as closely as possible.

But a lot of this is actually immaterial: where Expelled excels is in underscoring the slow erosion of academic freedom on University campuses and within Science Acadamies across North America and Europe. He's entirely justified in noting that if Darwin himself wanted to propose such an alternative to Evolutionary theory in today's academic culture, he would face incredible opposition spanning scientific, religious and political divides.

One thing is for certain: Ben Stein certainly hasn't done himself any favours when he made this film, nor has he done himself many favours in the course of commenting on it afterward (this will be commented on here in coming days).

Ben Stein has effectively been villainized by the scientific establishment that he questions throughout the duration of Expelled. Which brings one to an important point:

From a group of people who insist that there is no shortage of freedom in modern academia, it's interesting to see how personal a cost they clearly intend to exact upon someone who isn't even an academic.

Then again, no one forced Ben Stein to wade into this debate. He certainly knew he was taking certain risks, and far be it for those whose orthodoxies he's clearly offended to prove him wrong.

Yeah, Let's Talk "Harassment", For a Minute

In what he almost certainly thinks is a brilliant rebuttal to the idea that anti-Cyberbullying legislation being proposed by the Canadian Teacher's Federation would render his favourite pastime -- bullying people for holding opposing political beliefs -- Canadian Cynic has tried to draw some rather bizarre connotations:

"There's the setup. And there's the punchline.

There you go, Twatsy. Now do you understand the definition of "harassment?""

Whatever point Cynic's trying to make here is clearly intelligible only to himself.

So let's talk about harassment for a minute:

"Harassment is behaviour that is unwelcome or behaviour that ought to be known to be unwelcome that excludes, intimidates, or denies the right of every individual to a safe and comfortable living environment."

Hmmmm... could anything like this be construed as harassment?

"Based on that information, it shouldn't be hard to figure out where his children go to school (again, most likely public information based on residence). And from that, it should be relatively easy to get a list of relevant local teachers and school board members (again, openly public information). And once that's in hand, it should be a piece of cake to make sure all of those responsible individuals are educated as to Dick's disturbing predilection for online child rape and promotion of child sex.

I'm thinking maybe a mass e-mailing to school board members. Perhaps notes to the teachers. Or, heck, why stop there? How about a mass delivery of eye-opening flyers in local mailboxes? Yup, I bet that would get someone's attention. ("Dear concerned parent: Let's talk about Richard Evans, shall we?")"

Going after Richard Evans through his kids again? This time at school?

Why, yes. That could very much be construed as criminal harassment.

And of course, the response from Canadian Cynic will be predictable. Just like he always has, he'll lie, he'll dissemble, then he'll try to shift the goalposts away from harrassment toward some other attempt to hide his disgusting and contemptible behaviour.

Khadr Case Reaches Definitive Turning Point

Guantanamo interrogation tapes having a profound effect

On The Root of All Evil, Lewis Black ruled that YouTube is, in fact, the root of all evil.

In a show comparing YouTube to pornography, Black determined that YouTube has had such a decisively negative impact on western civilization -- transforming us into the words of advocate Patton Oswalt into a "country of Caligulas".

But if YouTube has really had such a negative impact on civilization, it's hard to overlook some of the good it's done as well. When Robert Dzienkaski succumbed to his injuries after being excessively and mercilessly tasered by airport security, it was YouTube that ultimately brought the outrage to the world's attention. When University of Florida student Andrew Meyer was tasered for asking Senator John Kerry a question that somebody didn't like, it was YouTube that prevented the story from being swept under a carpet.

Now, it's YouTube that has brought the severe psychological stress being experiened by Omar Khadr unignorably to the world's attention. And, just as with these and countless other previous cases, YouTube has had an abrupt effect on the case.

Such is the case with a recent National Post editorial in which Jonathon Kay has finally come around to the thinking of those who agree Omar Khadr should be repatriated to Canada:

"As I write this, at 1 p. m. on Tuesday, piteous video images from Omar Khadr's interrogation at Guantanamo Bay are not only the #1 news item on the National Post Web site, but also the lead item on BBC News and USA Today. Millions of people are now wondering why Canada's government has acquiesced-- and as the video shows, even participated -- in the unconscionable treatment of a blubbering boy-soldier.

As someone who otherwise considers himself one of the War on Terror's noisiest Canadian cheerleaders, I submit that the bleeding hearts are right on this one: Omar Khadr needs to come home.

Here's why:

Omar Khadr was a child soldier

During the carnage that gripped Sierra Leone in the 1990s, the most terrifying crimes often were committed by gangs of children who'd been abducted by the Revolutionary United Front (RUF). Isolated from their families, and stripped of any sort of moral compass, these child brigades were renowned for such monstrous acts as hacking off the legs and arms of defenceless villagers. When the RUF's war with the government ended, many of these children were assimilated back into civilized society. No one -- in the West, at least -- blamed them for what they had done. As in Sri Lanka, Congo and other parts of the world where children are abducted and forced into combat, it is universally recognized that child soldiers are not morally culpable for their actions in the same way as adults. That's why the Sierra Leone war crimes tribunal didn't prosecute child soldiers -- it prosecuted the monsters who exploited them. Can someone please tell me why this principle has not been applied to Omar Khadr, who was all of 15 when he allegedly threw the grenade that killed Sergeant Christopher Speer of Delta Force in 2002?

What makes the case for Khadr especially strong is that he was essentially recruited into combat from birth--by his own flesh-and-blood, no less. The true monster in the Khadr narrative is not Omar, but his father, Ahmed Said Khadr, an al-Qaeda lieutenant who moved his whole family from Canada to central Asia so they could share in the glory of jihad.

As a nine-year-old, Omar drank in his father's Islamist propaganda -- spending months by his father's bed as the jihadi patriarch lay hunger-striking against Pakistani authorities, who'd arrested him on terrorism charges in 1995. Following 9/11, Ahmed (who, thankfully, was dispatched to his celestial virgins in 2003) enlisted his son as a sort of sidekick and maidservant to a jihadi cell hiding out in the Afghan outback. It was in this capacity that Omar tagged along with the pack of terrorists who would eventually meet their maker in the June 27, 2002, firefight that claimed the life of Sergeant Speer.

I have been reading a lot of tough talk on the blogs about how Khadr should be "waterboarded until he stops crying" and such. I wonder if those same hard hearts could tell me how they would have turned out if they'd been told --literally, since birth--about the necessity of jihad and the beauty of martyrdom; if, since their early days, they'd been propagandized into believing that the West was waging a genocidal war against Muslims; and that military resistance was the only path of survival. Are we to expect some sort of inborn moral sense to activate -- to tell us that everything being told to us by our own parents is wrong -- even before one is old enough to shave?

I know about 20,000 former child soldiers in Sierra Leone who could tell you the answer to that question. And unlike Khadr, not one of them stands accused of "Violation of the Law of War."

We don't know that Omar Khadr killed anyone

The U.S. government's line on the events of June 27, 2002 -- reported uncritically, for the most part, by the Canadian media -- is that a cowardly Khadr popped up from the rubble in the aftermath of a firefight in the Afghan hinterland, killing a U. S. medic who was looking to treat wounded survivors. In fact, the grenade that killed Speer (who was fighting, by necessity, as a solider, whatever his training as a medic) was thrown when the four-hour long battle was still hot. And it is far from clear who threw it: Contrary to initial accounts, there was a second jihadi still alive when the fatal grenade was thrown -- and since Khadr was badly wounded at the time, the second militant (who later died) is the more promising suspect.

(We might also dispense with the idea that Speer was on a mission of mercy: Post-battle testimony from his battlefield companions suggests they were -- quite understandably --more interested in shooting the wounded than healing them.)

My own view is that Speer may well have been killed by a grenade thrown by one of his comrades. (Reports from the battle suggest that grenades were flying thick and fast from both sides.) As the Pat Tillman scandal shows, the U. S. military sometimes goes to extraordinary lengths to cover up friendly-fire deaths. And in the Khadr case, his U. S. Department of Defense attorney claims, there is at least one instance in which a lieutenant-colonel retroactively amended and backdated a battlefield report to buttress the case against Khadr.

Even if Khadr did kill Sergeant Speer, he did so as a soldier, not a terrorist

There's little doubt that Ahmed Khadr was training his sons to be terrorists -- the sort of people who blow up buses and restaurants, or who wear civilian clothing as they lie in wait to detonate explosives under vehicle convoys. But what Omar Khadr did on June 27, 2002, wasn't terrorism. It was participation in a military engagement -- a fact that can't be changed merely by slapping a label like "unlawful combatant" on him.

Moreover, it was a military engagement fought on American terms: After U. S. soldiers sealed off the village encampment housing Khadr's cell, they prosecuted the siege with about 100 troops, some of them Special Forces, as well as Apache helicopters, F-18 Hornets and A-10 Warthogs. You can say that Khadr was fighting in an evil cause when he was captured, but you can't say that he was preying on the defenceless.

Even if you don't buy anything I've written above, Khadr's treatment still ranks as abominable

Let us assume that Omar Khadr actually threw the grenade that killed Sergeant Speer, that he did so as a cold-blooded killer, not as a soldier, and that his status as a child combatant is irrelevant -- in short, that Omar Khadr is a murderer. Well then, how do we treat murderers in Western countries? Answer: We put them in jail. We don't beat them, or move them from cell to cell every three hours, or terrify them with threats of pedophilic rape, or deny them appropriate medical care -- all punishments that Khadr has endured -- a litany of abuse so traumatic that, according to one piteous detail among many, he took to falling asleep at Guantanamo desperately hugging a Mickey Mouse book brought to him as a gift.

In the space of six years of incarceration, Khadr has endured more brutality than any ordinary jailbird would endure in 60. And if he had any intelligence value to his American captors, it surely has been exhausted. Please bring Omar Khadr home. If he is to face justice, let it be in Canada."

Naturally, those who disgustingly insist Khadr should be "waterboarded until he stops crying" will consider Jonathon Kay way off the reservation on this one.

But he's right. Whether it's to be put on trial for his alleged crimes or reassimilated back into society (but absolutely not before his demobilization can be assured, Omar Khadr must be repatriated back to Canada.

Which makes the government's insistence that they can do no such thing all the more unacceptable. In time, as the Khadr tapes continue to make their rounds via the mainstream media and YouTube, this position will become utternly untenable.

Even the alleged arch-conservatives at the National Post are beginning to see that.

They Really Are Simply Afraid

Pro-abortion lobbyist can't live up to her own challenge

Less than half a day after challenging those who disagree with her to "bring it!", the Unrepentant Old Hippie herself, JJ, has chickened out of her own challenge.

Which is rather ironic. After publishing a blogpost dismissing her opponents as "sanctimonious, stupid and self-righteous propagators", JJ simply won't answer some very simple questions.

It's hard to find any more conclusive confirmation: the pro-abortion lobby really is just afraid of these questions.

The apparent fact that they're too afraid to answer these questions suggests that they really can't.

Which, for those familiar with the most extreme (and really, who's more extreme than someone who defends an assault on a 69-year-old?) denizens of the pro-abortion lobby, this is something referred to as "business as usual".

Inventing a Scandal: "Dirty Money" or Dirty Pool?

Journal op/ed article pedding scandal, concealing facts

In an op/ed article appearing in the Edmonton Journal today, D Braid insists something rotten is afoot regarding former premier Don Getty's application to have a carbon sequestration project subsidized by the provincial government.

Which, at first glimpse, would seem to be amiss. Braid certainly isn't far off the mark when he suggests that "there isn't another province where an ex-premier would even consider applying".

But when one looks a little closer at the article in question, it turns out that a few things are actually amiss within the article itself.

In fact, a significant portion of Braid's op/ed article relies on the insistence of "local dentist and community activist" Amil Shapka.

"That just makes me want to throw up," Shapka says. "Having a private company with political ties and no experience come in first, some red flags have to go up."

"We've been alarmed about this for months. There was money allocated for carbon sequestration in the federal green plan. Now the province is throwing more money in the pot."

"I hope the public interest will come into play, and the money will be awarded to the best applicants. I don't think Getty's company could do it."

Of course, as a dentist, Shapka is certainly qualified to make judgements on the qualifactions of Capital Reserve Canada to launch a carbon sequestering project.

But the question very much could be asked: that's an awfully resolute statement for a dentist to make regarding a matter well outside his personal field of expertise. Who, precisely, is Amil Shapka?

A little rudimentary research shows us that Amil Shapka is more than simply a local dentist and "community activist". He also happens to be both President and Chief Financial Officer of the Lac La Biche-St Paul Liberal party riding association.

Certainly not the kind of individual who could be expected to give a fair and honest evaluation of a former Progressive Conservative premier's ability to properly manage a carbon sequestering project.

Which is precisely why Albertans will expect that the government will evaluate Capital Reserve Canada's application based on the virtues of its proposal, and either grant or deny a subsidy based on that.

Braid also mentions the 1986 disaster at Lake Nyos in Cameroon, arguing it could happen near Two Hills, Alberta (where the project is planned) in the event of a leak in a CO2-carrying pipeline.

Yet he fails to mention that Lake Nyos is generally considered by scientists to have been the result of a combination of a volcanic eruption unlikely to occur in the North Saskatchewan river and unique conditions that resulted in the entire lake being effectively carbonated.

These conditions are unlikely to be duplicated in the North Saskatchewan River -- although it is a possibility that certainly warrants investigation, if only because of the lethal effects of the Nyos eruption.

All the same, it seems that Braid's article is little more than a combination of some less-than-seemly circumstances mixed with either ignorance of, or a discarding of, some of the relevant facts.

Not too much unlike what is typical of certain individuals who ironically also chose to comment on this story.

And while there certainly is potential for a patronage scandal in this matter, an application on its own does not a scandal make. Hopefully, the media coverage the story has already recieved will provide Albertan officials who may otherwise feel tempted to give Don Getty any undue benefit to think twice about it.

In the meantime, however, all the scandal mongering is simply dirty pool.

Well, Let's Give the Crazy Lady What She Wants

JJ says "bring it". Time to do precisely that

Sometimes, the only thing more amusing than dimwits who lie to try to cover up their mistakes are ideologues who can't even comprehend the very idea of possibly being wrong in the first place.

Such would be the case with JJ, the crazed proprietor of Unrepentant Old Hippie, who recently offered up this amusing little gem:

"In marathoning it's called "hitting the wall". I don't know if there's a blogging equivalent, but after 10 days of frenzied blogging in the wake of Dr. M's OC appointment and the barrage of batshit bullshit that followed, I was suddenly exhausted. I couldn't stand to read or even think about one more word of the steaming loads of bullshit being dumped by the "busload" on blogs and in the media over this topic and the tangential abortion issue. I was tired, man.

Normally bullshit is great incentive to blog -- it shouldn't be ignored because there's a chance that some unsuspecting person out there might believe it. Bullshit should be shot down whenever and wherever it's found and its sanctimonious, stupid and self-righteous propagators ridiculed with gusto. But these people are first and foremost propaganda-bots who never budge from their script, even in the face of evidence that contradicts them. In advertising we used to call it "Wearing down their resistance with repetition". The same kind of psychology is at work with anti-abortion propagandists -- knowing full well that the numbers aren't on their side, their only hope is to wear down resistance with an endless loop of lies. To literally exhaust people into seeing things their way."

After taking a short time-out to trot out the latest "anti-choice outrage" she disagrees with, JJ ends her post with an invitation to any and all who would dare disagree with her. "Bring it!" she insists.

Well, OK. Only if we really have to.

Because ironically, this could very much be treated as one of those instances in which a person, searching for that perfect epithet to hurl at their opponents, describes themselves most acurately.

In this case, it revolves around JJ's insistence that those who disagree with her are "first and foremost propaganda-bots who never budge from their script, even in the face of evidence that contradicts them."

Considering that refusing to acknowledge evidence that contradicts her is a privilege JJ has indulged herself in at length, it's impossible to take her seriously on this particular point.

But despite all the extremist craziness that has transpired before -- such as defending an assault on a 69-year-old man for expressing anti-abortion views -- JJ deserves an opportunity to prove herself. The following is an email sent to JJ in response to her little diatribe today:

"JJ,

I read with some interest your recent blog post "On Bullshit and Breaks", and really couldn't help but agree that, yes, the whole Morgentaler controversy SHOULD be given a rest. After all, it isn't as if this is the nobel prize we're talking about here.

But I couldn't help but read, with some amusement, your comments regarding your anti-abortion opponents. Most notably:

"Bullshit should be shot down whenever and wherever it's found and its sanctimonious, stupid and self-righteous propagators ridiculed with gusto. But these people are first and foremost propaganda-bots who never budge from their script, even in the face of evidence that contradicts them. In advertising we used to call it "Wearing down their resistance with repetition". The same kind of psychology is at work with anti-abortion propagandists -- knowing full well that the numbers aren't on their side, their only hope is to wear down resistance with an endless loop of lies. To literally exhaust people into seeing things their way."

I found this statement to be rather ironic and amusing considering that, if anything, it describes yourself and your allies in the pro-abortion lobby as well as anyone else.

In particular, your characterization of them as "propaganda-bots who never budge from their script, even in the face of evidence that contradicts them".

In this vein, I'd like to "bring it" by positing the following facts, to see if we can get you, yourself, to budge from that precious script of yours:

1. You, like virtually all pro-abortion activists opposed to bill C-484, insist that it's nothing more than a back-door attempt to criminalize abortion. Yet fetal homicide acts are in effect in numerous states in the United States. Yet in none of those states has abortion been declared illegal.

2. You, like virtually all pro-abortion activists, oppose any attempt to legislate when an abortion can or cannot be sought on demand (without relevant health-related concerns), often insisting that such legislation would be nothing more than a back-door attempt to criminalize abortion. Yet France, Germany, Norway and Sweden (amongst other countries) have legislated a 20-week limit after which a woman must have medical concerns in order to obtain an abortion. Abortion has yet to be criminalized in any of these countries.

3. You, like virtually all pro-abortion activists, insist that legislation such as that described in point number two is unnecessary because no doctor would perform a late-term abortion without sufficient medical reason due to the procedure being judged to be unethical. Yet you oppose legislation that would legally protect the right of such doctors to refuse to perform that procedure for ethical, moral or religious reasons.

4. You, like virtually all pro-abortion activists continue to insist that you are not, in fact, pro-abortion, but rather pro-choice. Yet you, like virtually all pro-abortion activists, oppose the aforementioned legislation that would protect freedom of choice for doctors who hold opinions regarding abortion that differ from your own.

These are dilemmas that have never been addressed adequately by any member of the pro-abortion lobby, least of all yourself.

In fact you, like virtually all members of the pro-abortion lobby, have stuck very adamantly to the positions outlined here despite the fact they have never been adequately defended. Not much unlike "propaganda-bots who never budge from their script, even in the face of evidence that contradicts them".

Considering the position you've taken today, I'm hoping you'll finally find it in yourself to address these various dilemmas.

You may feel free to do so in a response email (but should understand before doing so that I intend to post such a response to a subsequent post on my own blog in order to outline your response), in a post on your own blog, or even in the comments section of The Nexus.

You've asked those who disagree with you to "bring it". I've done precisely that. Hopefully, you'll put your money where your mouth is.

Regards,
-Patrick Ross"

Well, she did say to "bring it".

Now we'll have to wait and see if she's actually up to her own challenge on this one. Stay tuned.

Apparently, They Aren't Hungry

Being Canada's most intellectualy dishonest blogger means never having to admit you're wrong

In the course of a year dealing with Canadian Cynic, one learns a number of things:

1. The pathetic douchebag rarely ever takes a position of his own on much of anything, so he doesn't take the risk of he, himself, being wrong.

2. When he is, however, wrong, he'll never admit it. In fact, the more apparent it is that he's absolutely, indisputably and factually wrong, the more obnoxious he'll get in the course of his denial.

3. Even when he is wrong, his equally-intellectually-dishonest pack of sycophants will harp his case until the end of days -- after all, a good, hateful hero is hard to find.

Of course, one sees this every time Cynic is wrong about something, as we see in the recent episode where, by golly, he just won't admit that his toady Martin Rayner was wrong to insist that Preston Manning has "absolutely no scientific background whatsoever".

In fact, in a recent post trying to cover up how catastrophically wrong he and his toady have been over this entire affair, Cynic really only provided a crash course in how to be an intellectually dishonest self-indulgent douchebag.

Now, despite the fact that all of the relevant facts have now lined up against his denial of Manning's scientific background, Cynic has contented himself with a rather quaint little blog post wherein he pokes fun at typos and tries to dissemble his way around Preston Manning's research experience.

But the even greater hilarity lies ahead:

"There's just so much dishonesty in Twatrick's prose, and here's another delightful example. Remember Twatsy's initial claim (emphasis added):

'Manning also has a background in research, having worked for a San Francisco-based research firm.'

Really? A San Francisco-based "research firm"? Is that what Bechtel is? From Bechtel's own web page:

'Bechtel is one of the world's premier engineering, construction, and project management companies.'

Hmmmm ... how odd ... no mention of "research." Of course, we all know how Twatrick will respond to this -- that they have a research and development department (as do most companies), which logically implies that Bechtel is a "research firm.""

Yet if Cynic had dug just a little bit deeper, he would have uncovered this particular portion of the Bechtel website, detailing just a few of the areas in which they research.

Then again, all of that research -- in this case, which can be accomplished with a rudimentary Google search -- is too much work for Cynic, as is ever picking up a book.

But nothing compares to the sheer stupidity emanating from the nitwit who insisted Manning has "absolutely no scientific background whatsoever" in the first place, as he complains once again about the "context" of his comments, and tries to dismiss some earlier episodes in which he -- to his own delight -- dismissed context.

It's also ironic to note how Martin Rayner indulged himslef in shifting the goalposts of debate -- away from whether Preston Manning has "absolutely no scientific background whatsoever" (a claim proven at this point to be counter-factual) to whether or not Manning is an "accredited scientist".

Even Rayner himself grudgingly admitted that Manning could adequately serve on the Science Advisory Board without being an accredited scientist. Yet it's revealed that yes, indeed, Manning does have a background in science, and remarkable how quickly that changes.

But, frankly, this is nothing that should surprise anyone. Not only does being Canada's most intellectually dishonest bloggers mean never having to admit you're wrong, but it also means that you probably have a swarm of equally-intellectually-dishonest partisans to hide behind so you never have to consider the possibility.

No one ever expected Cynic or Rayner to admit the truth: that he and his toady were both wrong -- demonstrably and factually wrong, no matter what protracted rhetorical gymnastics they want to engage in.

And They Wonder Why We Don't Trust Them

Liberal MP envokes spectre of NEP, Garth turner feins shock

With Liberal leader Stephane Dion just having finished a tour of the west trying to sell his carbon tax plan, yet another Liberal MP has made that task significantly harder.

First it was Halton MP Garth Turner, who made offensive comments about Quebec separatists and alleged Albertan separatists.

Now, it's Thunder Bay-Rainy River MP Ken Boschoff, who published a statement on his website insisting that the green shift would provide a Liberal opportunity with a tool for further wealth redistribution:

"The Liberal Party’s Green Shift announced on June 19th marked the most aggressive anti-poverty program in 40 years. The ‘shift’ will transfer wealth from rich to poor, from the oil patch to the rest of the country, and from the coffers of big business to the pockets of low-income Canadians."

Not only does Boshcoff insist that the "green shift" plan will do all this, he even has a pretty good idea as to how:

"Roughly $9 billion of the $15.3 billion expected to be collected annually in carbon tax revenues would be returned to Canadians earning less than $40,000 annually. This would be done through a combination of income tax cuts and benefits targeted at children, low wage earners, rural residents, and individuals with disabilities."

All of this with the revenue being transferred from "the oil patch to the rest of the country".

Considering that Alberta, Saskatchewan, British Columbia, Manitoba, Newfoundland and Nova Scotia are Canada's leading oil producers, it's hard to interpret their comments as anything other than Liberal party intent to transfer wealth out of these provinces to Ontario and Quebec.

Of course, Garth Turner insists that the "mild-mannered" Boshcoff only wrote what he wrote for political gain:

"Ken Boschoff is a mild and caring guy, as far as I can tell. He’s my colleague from the Thunder Bay area, and an extremely effective communicator in his riding. That may be why, since his chief political opposition there is the NDP, he chose to write a piece the other day stressing the social aspects of the Dion Green Shift.

...

So, yeah, I know what Ken wrote. I also know why, and what he meant. I can also tell everyone reading this that not a single time, not once, has the notion of (a) screwing the West, (b) finding a new NEP, (c) transferring wealth from Big Oil to Toronto, (d) funding lavish new social programs or (e) dreaming up a plan to secure the Eastern vote, been discussed in national Liberal caucus. But I have heard Dion tell a room full of MPs, none of whom were from Alberta, that his plan will help diversify that oil-dependent economy and lead to a better life for every person living there."

But it's hard to decide what Dion would be saying to an Albertan MP, considering that he doesn't have any in his caucus.

Beyond that, while he again mischaracterizes reactions to Boshcoff's comments -- be they candid or otherwise -- as evidence of Alberta's allegedly bubbling separatism, Garth overlooks a very important fact:

There's a reason why Albertans don't trust the Liberal party. And yes, it does have a lot to do with the National Energy Program. And rightfully so.

The unconstitutionality of the NEP -- intervening in a policy sphere constitutionally ceded to provincial jurisdiction -- has long been established. The irreversable and irrecoverable damage done to the Albertan economy has long been established.

But the biggest slight -- the one that provokes the greatest amount of anger and resentment -- is the Liberal insistence that the damaging results of the National Energy Program should simply be dismissed to the pages of history.

All too often, this is insisted by individuals who lost nothing in the course of the NEP. And Albertans -- who, yes, do have a long memory -- remember these things quite vividly. And, no, Albertans do not believe those losses have beome irrelevant. And they certainly don't believe those losses are "yesterday's news".

Meanwhile, the Liberal party promises the carbon tax won't hurt our economy, and promise it won't result in any additional taxes. Yet the Liberal party has made such promises before, and broken them before.

Mr Boshcoff, Mr Turner: there is a reason westerners -- and Albertans in particular -- don't trust the Liberal party. And to figure out precisely what that reason is, all you need do is take a good, hard look at your own comments... and in a mirror.

We don't trust you.

Memo to Canadian Cynic:

Crow. Eat It.

There's something very, very special about the opportunity to take an ideologue who is so utterly entrenched his his preconceived beliefs that he dismisses anyone who suggests anything that doesn't strictly adhere to those beliefs as a liar and revealling how completely and utterly full of shit they really are.

But before such a task can be accomplished here, one has to set the table. As such, we turn back to Canadian Cynic and make good on a promise already made.

First, the set-up:

"...Some undergrad courses in physics most emphatically do not make one an authority on issues of science whereupon you could give sound and considered scientific advice on a federal level."

Yet if Cynic had ever dirtied his hands to so much as pick up a book (you know, Cynic, those things made of paper with words on it) he might have known a little different.

In fact, Manning did not merely take "some undergrad courses in physics". In fact, he studied for three years in an honors physics program at the University of Alberta.

Anyone wishing to confirm this can do so on page 18 of his autobiography, Think Big.

But the greater hilarity lies ahead:

"Twatsy provides no link to let us verify this [Manning's research background] ourselves, but a brief online search turns up this, which would seem to be what Twatsy is creaming himself over. And yet, if you peruse the pages of PRI, there is absolutely no mention of one Preston Manning. And if Preston is proud of his tenure at PRI, he certainly isn't showing it:

'Preston Manning served as a Member of the Canadian Parliament from 1993 to 2001. He founded two new political parties—the Reform Party of Canada and the Canadian Reform Conservative Alliance—both of which became the official Opposition in the Canadian Parliament. Mr. Manning served as Leader of the Opposition from 1997 to 2000 and was also his party’s critic for Science and Technology. Since retirement from Parliament in 2002, Mr. Manning has released a book entitled Think Big (published by McClelland & Stewart) describing his use of the tools and institutions of democracy to change Canada’s national agenda. He has also served as a Senior Fellow of the Canada West Foundation and as a Distinguished Visitor at the University of Calgary and University of Toronto. Mr. Manning is currently a Senior Fellow of the Fraser Institute for which he has co-authored the Canada Strong and Free series of books. He is also President and CEO of the Manning Centre for Building Democracy (http://www.manningcentre.ca/), a national not-for-profit organization supporting research, educational, and communications initiatives designed to achieve a more democratic society in Canada guided by conservative principles.'

How odd ... no mention whatsoever of the Pacific Research Institute, or San Francisco, or any research in general. Apparently, this is not an accomplishment that Preston is particularly proud of. Or Twatsy just made it up."

And, of course, everyone knows that online biographies on websites cover everything about an individual.

...Or maybe not, Once again, we turn to Think Big. This time, however, we turn to page 19, where we discover that, while studying in his honours physics program, Manning worked during the summer for Bechtel Research and Development, where he performed shielding calculations for facilities which were to store spent nuclear fuel rods. He also spent some time working on a project studying the economic viability of lasers and masers.

So, once again, we discover Canadian Cynic engaging in one of his favourite pastimes: dissembling in order to cover the liberties he so enjoys taking with the truth.

Which is ironic because he also happens to be the same individual who wrote this:

"In short, not a one of Twatrick's claims holds up to examination. But you should not be surprised. This is Twatsy we're talking about, and the one thing you can take for granted is that, if Twatsy writes it, it's dishonest. It's just the way he operates. All the time."

Yet, at the end of the day, nothing turned out to be further from that very concept Cynic is having trouble with: the truth.

The truth is that Manning does, indeed, have a legitimate background in science. Maybe he isn't about to win a nobel prize, but his scientific background -- both in terms of doing the actual work of a scientist, and participating in the administration of a major scientific project -- is established.

Thus Rayner's insistence that Manning has "absolutely no scientific background whatsoever" actually has absolutely no truth to it whatsoever.

But no one should hold their breath waiting for Cynic and Rayner to admit it. That would be a little too honest, and everyone knows they are simply too dishonest to ever do so.

"Preston Manning: Science Advisor" - Mendacious Meanderings or Willful Ignorance?

Martin Rayner fallaciously insists Preston Manning has "absolutely no scientific background whatsoever"

When left-wingers across the blogosphere start taking a particular position out of sheer ignorance, one should never underestimate Martin Rayner's willingness to join in.

"News late Friday afternoon that Reform Party founder Preston Manning had been appointed by the government to the Council of Canadian Academies must surely be evidence of Stephen Harper’s devilishly subversive sense of humour. I mean, what could be funnier than appointing someone with absolutely no scientific background whatsoever to a federal science advisory panel charged with providing an “independent, expert assessment of the science underlying pressing issues and matters of public interest”?"

Rayner, and those whose views he's banally parroting, would have a point -- if they weren't entirely and completely wrong.

To claim that Preston Manning has "absolutely no scientific background whatsoever" would require a person to overlook numerous facts about Manning. Among them:

-The fact that when Preston Manning first enrolled at the University of Alberta, he studied physics, although he would eventually change his major to economics instead.

-Manning is the chairman of the National Institute for Nanotechnology board of trustees.

-Manning also has a background in research, having worked for a San Francisco-based research firm.

-Manning was the Canadian Alliance's Research and Technology critic.

Far from "absolutely no scientific background whatsoever".

At first thought, it would seem that Rayner hasn't done his homework at all. Then again, considering that Rayner was able to dig up this little gem, demonstrating that Manning has the kind of attitude anyone favouring a relationship between science and politics should favour:

"Science and technology is one of the dominant influences shaping modern thinking and societies, yet our Parliament has no efficient mechanism for bringing science to bear on its decisions.

With the dangers and opportunities that lie beyond this vast frontier, whether it is with climate change or the genetic revolution, it is clear that Canada must take steps to establish more consistent and meaningful dialogue between the scientific and political communities.

Throughout history, the most useful scouts have been those who have been excellent interpreters, the kind who came to know the ways of the settlers and the Plains Indians, and spoke the languages of both.

The new scouts of the science and technology frontier must also be good interpreters. In the next few years, I hope to ride along this frontier in the company of others, with the goal of helping to interpret the political perspective to members of Canada;s scientific community, and assisting them to better communicate science to politicians."

Given that Rayner did enough research to track this down, one wouldn't be surprised if he had also discovered a few things about Manning's scientific background.

Of course, considering Rayner's insistence that he's entitled to lie about other people if he finds it "amusing", one would hardly be shocked if Rayner knew these things, and willfully omitted them.

And Let's talk about "misbegotten personal attacks":

Apparently, Mr Rayner, being caught with his proverbial pants down once again, doesn't seem to want admit that he was wrong. Which would be amusing if it wasn't so par for the intellectually-dishonest course.

He may want to wait to fling that "tragically retarded" epithet until he isn't -- you know -- flinging at people who are right when he's so amusingly wrong. Then again, no one honestly expects that from the psycholigically-stunted Martin Rayner.

And it's because they're irredeemably dishonest. All the time. The Canadian Cynic chronicles:

Never one to pass up an opportunity to try to distort unwelcome facts into some form of dishonesty, the Canadian blogosphere's intellectual coward extraordinaire apparently wants a piece of this too.

Which is fair enough. There's plenty to go around.

Most comically, Cynic decides to try and take aim at this:

"

'Manning is the chairman of the National Institute for Nanotechnology board of trustees.'

I'm guessing the Twatster is referring to this, where we see that not only is there absolutely no mention of a position of chairman for Manning [*] but, amusingly, his scientific qualifications are hysterically feeble compared to others on that list."

Uh, no. If Cynic weren't so terminally intellectually lazy as to be unable to so much as open a link, he would know "the Twatster" was actually referring to this:

"...While the research carried out at NINT will have ongoing potential for functions in fields from oil sands extraction to health care to communication, Preston Manning, chair of NINT's board of trustees, told the gathered scientists that their value goes beyond potential for practical application.

'I think many of you have the idea that governments and politicians are only interested in the applications and commercialization of your work,' he said. 'But we want you to know, and we want you to know today, that we value you, most of all, for the work you do in increasing our basic understanding of how the world works at a fundamental level.'"

Wow. Sure would seem that the esteemed Mr Manning has a unique appreciation for science (and clearly, we're talking well beyond "theology" here, Mr Rayner), and is thus an exceptionally strong candidate to participate in a body that helps scientists advise the government.

But wait. There's more. Even more comically, Cynic apparently wants to take aim at this, too:

"

'Manning also has a background in research, having worked for a San Francisco-based research firm'

Curiously, Twatsy provides no link to let us verify this for ourselves, but a brief online search turns up this, which would seem to be what Twatsy is creaming himself over. And yet, if you peruse the pages of PRI, there is absolutely no mention of one Preston Manning. And if Preston is proud of his tenure at PRI, he certainly isn't showing it:

'Preston Manning served as a Member of the Canadian Parliament from 1993 to 2001. He founded two new political parties—the Reform Party of Canada and the Canadian Reform Conservative Alliance—both of which became the official Opposition in the Canadian Parliament. Mr. Manning served as Leader of the Opposition from 1997 to 2000 and was also his party’s critic for Science and Technology. Since retirement from Parliament in 2002, Mr. Manning has released a book entitled Think Big (published by McClelland & Stewart) describing his use of the tools and institutions of democracy to change Canada’s national agenda. He has also served as a Senior Fellow of the Canada West Foundation and as a Distinguished Visitor at the University of Calgary and University of Toronto. Mr. Manning is currently a Senior Fellow of the Fraser Institute for which he has co-authored the Canada Strong and Free series of books. He is also President and CEO of the Manning Centre for Building Democracy (http://www.manningcentre.ca/), a national not-for-profit organization supporting research, educational, and communications initiatives designed to achieve a more democratic society in Canada guided by conservative principles.'

How odd ... no mention whatsoever of the Pacific Research Institute, or San Francisco, or any research in general. Apparently, this is not an accomplishment that Preston is particularly proud of. Or Twatsy just made it up."

In other words, Cynic seems to think that if he can't turn up a link, it must have been "made up". But nothing could be further from the truth.

While the typical on-line biography of Preston Manning doesn't bother to mention his time working in research -- otherwise known as "applied sciences" -- it is chronicled in the course of The New Canada, Manning's autobiography, Think Big and even in Murray Dobbin's Preston Manning and the Roots of Reform, among other places.

Unfortunately, I don't have a copy of either on hand. However, being a short train ride from some rather excellent facilities, I will turn up with some better details later today. Or perhaps this evening. Stay tuned.

Now. If one somehow thought that this particular silliness is as good as it gets, one would have been mistaken. One recalls the small matter of an asterisk in a prior Canadian Cynic quote. So let's go see what all that was about:

"[*] Further research does indeed show that Manning was the chair of the board of trustees at some point but, as most sentient beings realize, the board of trustees requires precious little scientific background. Quite simply, this looks like a naked political appointment and, therefore, has little value. Sort of like the rest of Patsy's uninformed screed."

So, after dismissing the assertion that Manning is chairman of the NINT board of trustees as a "lie", Cynic has discovered quite the opposite.

Of course, he isn't honest enough to admit just that, so instead he tries to write it off as of "little scientific value".

Now, if only he knew what a board of trustees actually does.

In any trust -- in this case, a publicly-funded research trust -- trustees are charged with overseeing the operations of that entity and managing the trust's finances.

When advising the government on matters regarding science -- which, as often or not, represents offering finanial advice (an area where something like, say, a background in economics may come handy, right, Mr Rayner?), it would seem that some experience making such decisions on the science end of the government-science relationship would come in rather handy. This, while also having extensive experience with the government end of the aforementioned government-science relationship.

To a mind as limited as that possessed by Canadian Cynic and Martin Rayner, all of this may seem like terribly technical stuff. But nothing could be further from the truth.

Despite their claims, Preston Manning has a science background. Despite their claims, that science background is credible and applicable. And despite their claims, Preston Manning is a strong candidate for the job.

I'd say my work here is done.

Bad News for Canadian Cynic

Canadian teachers want to outlaw cyberbullying

In a development with some rather intriguing (to say the least) implications for the Canadian blogosphere, the Canadian Teachers Federation wants cyberbullying to be covered by the Canadian Criminal Code.

And, as Canwest reports, Ottawa is listening.

Of course, for anyone who's bothered to pay even the slightest passing bit of attention to Cynic and his hatesite, new federal legislation could pose some serious difficulty for the Canadian blogosphere's leading hatemonger.

After all, while Cynic is comically willing to throw around accusations that his critics are bullies, Cynic has indulged himself in pervasive campaigns of bullying against his critics and political opponents.

One need only remember the case of Chris Erl, whom Cynic mocked profusely -- all while ironically demanding a "grovelling public apology".

Never one to not follow Cynic's lead, Martin Rayner -- aka the misnomered Red Tory -- also took to bullying Erl, often for little more than being a "high school student" (apparently Rayner would have preferred that Erl simply drop out of high school).

And this is before one gets into episodes such as Cynic posting Richard Evans' address on his blog and encouraging someone to file an erroneous complaint of child abuse against him.

In fact, legislation against cyberbullying could prove to be the end of Cynic's blogging career. After all, if he ever had to stop harassing his opponents and critics and maybe -- you know -- start writing about real ideas instead of just spewing hatred, this guy would have nothing to write about.

Another good reason to support this piece of legislation.

I Got Your "Choice" Right Here!

And this is how they lick their wounds

Of all the troubling hysteria surrounding the abortion debate, few things are more hobbling than the obfuscatory rhetoric that surrounds it.

Those in favour of legalized abortion all too often seem uncomfortable admitting that they're in favour of it. So instead, they dress up their argument in populist rhetoric. They aren't pro-abortion, they insist, they're pro-choice. Pro-freedom.

It isn't abortion they're in favour of, they insist -- it's a woman's right to choose. Ergo, pro-choice.

Yet any credibility such a label possesses quickly melts away when confronted with the notion of protecting the right to choose of those who dare deviate from their ideological world view. In this case, the right of doctors who feel morally, religiously or ethically opposed to abortion to refuse to perform one:

"I'm going to level with you, doc, if you're going to promote yourself as pro-choice, then you really have to promote that choice for everyone.

So if that's supposed to be the case, why do so many "pro-choice"rs oppose legislation that would allow doctors to refuse to perform procedures they feel ethically opposed to?

Naturally, knowing that such legislation has no effect whatsoever on abortion, I know the arguments to expect: that it would limit women's access to birth control and such.

Yet nothing in such legislation could prevent women seeking birth control from seeing other doctors -- which they should.

(Frankly, any anti-abortion activists who oppose birth control are, in my view, retarded -- how the hell else do you think you'll bring abortion numbers down?)

Anyway, back to the point: if "choice" is really what you support, then I suppose you'll be supporting that particular piece of legislation from here on out?"

Which, naturally, provoked a predictable response from Canadian Cynic's resident female lunatic:

"Nice slippery slope argument, Patsy. Now tell me where exactly you draw the line.

Since you support allowing doctors the right "to refuse to perform procedures they feel ethically opposed to", do you also support the right of female Muslim doctors to refuse to scrub up before surgery? After all, they're ethically and morally opposed to revealing their skin in public.

Or how about the right of Catholic doctors to refuse to dispense birth control? That goes against everything the Catholic Church teaches and stands for. Or how about the right of Hassidic doctors to refuse to treat women because their religion states that they can't be alone with a woman who isn't family?

Didn't quite think that one through, now did you? Surprise, surprise ..."

Of course, there's a big difference between declining to perform certain medical procedures due to ethical concerns and refusing to partake in basic sanitation.

(Furthermore, aren't right-wingers always considered "racist" whenever they criticize people from other cultures for not adhering to western hygenic standards? Apparently there's a different standard for Lulu -- not that this is terribly surprising.)

(Not to mention the fact that Muslim women who adhere to such religious tenets tend to not be educated -- or at least be undereducated -- in the first place, let alone educated as doctors.)

In fact, Lulu's entire argument is dispensed with in fairly elementary fashion:

"If a woman wants birth control and a doctor won't prescribe it to her on religious grounds, she can go see another doctor. She has that choice.

If a Hassidic doctor won't treat a woman who isn't family, then she can seek [treatment] from a different doctor. She has that choice.

And let's not forget about the hippocratic oath. In an emergency situation in which such a doctor would do harm by refusing to treat that woman, his oath would prevent him from refusing. Not that this matters much, because odds are he would have nurses, bystanders, or other doctors on hand and thus would not be alone with her.

So, then, Lulu (and I'll be honest with you -- not only do I not expect an honest answer from you, but rather I expect the most dishonest answer you can manage), the question is this:

Is this really about choice? Or is this about an extreme agenda in which the pro-abortion lobby believes it's entitled to dictate the public agenda?

See, I can tell you all about being in favour of choice. I expect a woman's right to choose (within reasonable societally-mandated constraints), and I also support a doctor's right to choose.

I'm not picking and choosing whose right to choose I support and whose I don't. If this were really about "choice" to you then you wouldn't either."

Of course, Lulu wouldn't be Lulu if she didn't indulge herself in the Canadian Cynic Temple of Sycophantic Groupthink tradition of trying to move the goalposts, insisting that, somehow, morals play no role in ethics:

"And science has indisputably stated that life begins ... when? Conception? 12 weeks gestation? 20? Birth? Strange - I must've missed that memo, Patsy.

As to all of your arguments in favour of doctors refusing to do their jobs on moral grounds, perhaps they shouldn't be doctors. Morality should never play a part in a doctor's decision on how to treat a patient - ethics yes but not morality. Contrary to the entire foundation of your argument, allowing doctors to refuse treatment based on their sense of morality is hardly acceptable, don't you agree?"

And yet, as Lulu apparently needed to be reminded, moral values are actually deeply rooted in virtually all professional ethical codes:

"I could agree with that -- to a point.

First off, there are strong moral elements to ethics. To pretend otherwise is incredibly naive.

To pretend that doctors could swear off their moral beliefs upon becoming doctors is triply so.

I would also draw a distinction between allowing doctors to allow their personal morals -- relgious or otherwise -- to determine how to treat a patient and decide whether to treat a patient.

If a doctor treats a patient, we expect that he will do so properly. That isn't up for debate. To suggest that a doctor could be excused from something like malpractice, for example, on moral grounds is ludicrous.

But the simple fact of the matter is this: we have the opportunity to choose our doctors. We can choose our doctors based on any number of criteria, religious, moral, ethical or otherwise.

It seems fair that doctors should have their right to do the same protected. After all, if a doctor refuses to prescribe birth control on religious grounds, a woman has the option of seeing another doctor.

Choice. Now, why would you argue that you should have the right to choose and others not have that right?

Is this about choice? Or is this about your notion of entitlement to ideological dominance?"

A response which, unsurprisingly, responded in yet another movement of the goalposts:

" I'm curious, Patrick - in the midst of your unending moralizing about choice, could you direct me to a factual link of any doctor being forced to perform an abortion against his or her morals and/or ethics? Thanks bunches."

The original question, as the reader should at this point recall, is why so-called "pro-choicers" don't support legislation protecting the right of a doctor to choose to decline to perform a medical procedure they feel ethically, morally or religiously opposed to.

Ironically, it's an argument that had already been addressed.

"I'm not terribly shocked that you would bring that up. So much so that I mentioned earlier that "this doesn't affect abortion".

How does this not affect abortion, you ask?

Very simple: the doctors who would refuse to perform abortions under this legislation aren't performing them anyway.

So that, in particular, is precisely what I expected from you, Lulu: an attempt to evade the real meat and potatoes of this conversation.

Notably that: 1) Given that this legislation would have no affect on abortion availability, 2) given that this legislation could not prevent a woman from seeking a birth control prescription from a doctor predisposed towards granting one, 3) given that this legislation is little more than simply a confirmation of the very oncept you claim to be in favour of here -- notably, choice -- how can it be that you oppose it so fervently?

It this about choice, Lulu, or not?"

It's at this point that a trend begins to emerge in the course of the debate: Lulu really wants no part of this "choice" question, instead she chooses to indulge herself in making herself quite transparent:

"Once again, nice try. Since you're all about the hypotheticals, what happens when the only available doctor in a rural or remote area is one who is morally opposed to abortion or birth control? How does that not affect the availability of abortion?

Oh wait, don't tell me ... let me guess. In your world, she can just head down the road to another doctor, right?"

So, let's overlook the fact that the doctor in question doesn't necessarily have the requisite training to perform an abortion. Let's overlook the fact that in such a remote location there obviously is no hospital, and thus a lack of proper facilities to perform any kind of elective surgery, let alone an abortion.

In Lulu's mind, if that doctor has the option of declining to perform that procedure, then abortion -- which wouldn't be available in this situation regardless -- then any law that provides the doctor with such an option would be a bad thing.

One wonders what the alternative would be. Evidently, there could really be only one: doctors, at least in remote regions, forced to perform abortions against their religious, moral or ethical objections. Despite lack of proper facilities, or lack of training.

Which actually defies the most logical reason for supporting legal abortion: the security of knowing that women recieving abortions are recieving them from trained professionals in proper facilities, as opposed to so-called back alley abortions.

But it's impossible to overlook the undertones of pro-abortion authoritariansim: if a doctor would make a choice that Lulu, and those who think like her, would disagree with that, then they shouldn't have that choice.

At this point it becomes impossible to believe that the issue is really about choice. In fact, the so-called "pro-choice" lobby seems to hold two different positions on the matter: freedom of choice for some people, and no freedom of choice for others. The tipping point is whether or not that particular individual agrees or disagrees with abortion.

As such, the matter isn't really about choice. It's clearly about abortion.

The so-called "pro-choice" lobby would insist that they aren't in favour of abortion. They don't celebrate individual abortions, they insist, so they can't be considered pro-abortion.

But when confronted with an opportunity to defend someone's freedom of choice, they demur. It would seem the only thing the so-called "pro-choice" lobby is in favour of is abortion.

While they may be uncomfortable with the "pro-abortion" label (it's actually comforting to know they're cognitive enough of the fact that abortion terminates human life to feel uncomfortable about it), the fact remains that it's much more accurate.

At the very least they could amend their preferred label to "selectively pro-choice".

Too Little, Too Late

Sudan crime against humanity charges long overdue, but who will enfore it?

In a development that has been a longer time coming than the second coming of Christ, United Nations officials have announed that the chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court will lay charges of crimes against humanity and genocide against Omar al-Bashir, the president of Sudan.

On Monday, the prosecutor will finally present evidence of the crimes in question -- a mere six years after the genocide began -- and name some suspects.

Yet the question naturally remains regarding who will actually enforce these charges and take the suspects into custody.

However, the Sudanese government has already announed they will not cooperate with the ICC. They've also insisted that they will not retaliate for the action against any peacekeepers stationed in the region, an act the United States has warned them against.

But with the African Union unable to effect any kind of peaceful deescalation in the conflict, NATO already engaged in Afghanistan, the United States engaged in Iraq and China -- remaining one of the principle investors in the Darfur oilfield -- seems to be more than content to twiddle their thumbs while the atrocities continue unabated.

In lieu of a voluntary handover of Al-Bashir, the only way to proceed would be with a regime change in the Sudan -- particularly if Al-Bashir is tried and convicted en absentia, as may inevitably be the case.

Yet in the current state of the world today, there is simply no one available to effect such a regime change, and Sudan would unfortunately find itself too far down the list of global priorities.

The current debacle in the Sudan could have been stopped a long time ago if only the ICC had moved at some point within the last six years.

The charges laid against Omar al-Bashir are too little, too late.

Stephane Dion and the High Road

Doesn't usually include jokes about the assassination of a political opponent

Yesterday, as the story of a joke distributed by the president of the St Catharine's Liberal riding association about the assassination of Prime Minister Stephen Harper made its rounds, Liberal leader Stephane Dion, speaking in St Catharine's, had a unique opportunity to seize the political high road.

Instead, he did the precise opposite while insisting that he had done precisely that.

"It was in bad taste," Dion admitted, but instead of taking some time to reflect on the matter itself, instead tried to spin it into an attack on the Conservative party. "I’m very disappointed by the attitude of the Conservatives with their attack ads, low-blow politics, and we should not be one of them at all. We should keep the high road. It’s what Canadians deserve. It’s what they want and it’s what they will have with us."

Yet one wonders how precisely Dion defines the high road, when a joke alleging that Canadian troops -- or those of our allies -- has been offered up under the guise of legitimate political discourse and all the party leader has to say about it is "it was in bad taste."

Meanwhile, it's also impossible to overlook the fact that there's a difference between the attack ads directed at Dion by the Conservatives, which question his abilities as a leader, and highlight some of the lowlights of Dion's record (both of which are politically legitimate and fair, however much his various partisan hacks and lackeys would like to insist otherwise) and a joke about the assassination of the Prime Minister.

Dion also questioned why St Catharines Conservative MP Rick Dykstra didn't complain in April, when the joke was published. "Why is he waiting for weeks if it’s not crass politics?"

"Mr. Dykstra did that only to smear because I have a great function today and a big town hall meeting, which he doesn’t have," insisted Liberal candidate (and former MP) Walt Lastewka.

Jane Cornelius, who distributed the joke in the first place, even suggested that Dykstra had some sort of responsibility to oontact her directly before criticizing her publicly.

“Did I get a call from him? The answer is absolutely not,” Cornelius complained. “I would have expected more from the MP."

But Dykstra, who as a Conservative MP isn't exactly a subscriber of Peaking Liberally, hadn't even been made aware of the comments until this week.

Oddly enough, Dykstra's own comments were very much in the spirit of Dion's.

"This is obviously not at all in good humour," Dykstra announced. "If you refer to what people are saying about it now, there’s pretty overwhelming agreement that they are comments that should be withdrawn, apologized for and at least acknowledged that they were certainly incorrect and should not have happened."

"I certainly think good humour and good-spirited debate is something that has a place in our federal politics," he added. "This certainly doesn’t, and I don’t find it humorous."

Dion insisted that "Jane apologized and she did the right thing."

"In no way did I mean to offend anyone, and I apologize if I did," Cornelius had written in an earlier statement. "It was meant as a joke and to have a smile and a chuckle."

But apologizing for the offense is not the same as apologizing for the act. And when one makes such an eggregiously unacceptable remark in the course of a letter suggesting that politicians find the very "high road" that she and Dion allude to, it reeks of sheer, unadulterated hypocrisy.

It's well known that Stephane Dion "chewed out" Garth Turner over his remarks about Quebecois and Albertan separatists. Why would he not choose to chew out Cornelius for musing about the assassination of a political opponent?

For someone presuming to lecture Rick Dykstra about "crass politics", it's odd that Dion would excuse Jane Cornelius for engaging in politics that are beyond Crass and, quite frankly, make a lot of Canadians wonder what Jane Cornelius and Stephane Dion "smile" and "chuckle" about.

Red Beyond Green and Beyond the Pale

"Conspiracy!" cries Marty Rayner

As one continues to evaluate the emerging picture around the Green Shift Inc lawsuit, one wonders how seriously one should take an individual like Martin Rayner, who recently suggested that if he wants to lie by mischaracterizing the services offered by Green Shift Inc, he should be allowed to without being challenged on it.

But one wonders what to make of his most recent post on the entire affair, wherein he insists that, because the Green Shift Inc trademark was approved on June 27 of this year (though, oddly enough, "formalized" in 2005), and because there are rumours that the Conservative party that there is some sort of conspiracy afoot.

Although Wright notes that she's recieved some politically-motivated offers to assist with funding her case, Green Shift Inc has rejected them, thus living up to their "no unwanted politics" pledge as expressed on their website.

Rayner also points to the presence of Michael Krauss, a communications consultant who once worked for Brian Mulroney, as some kind of smoking gun. But considering that Krauss has no affiliation with the current government or even with the Conservative party, this claim is more than just a little dubious.

Rayner can impotently fire his weapons of character assassination into the air at his leisure. But he may want to keep in mind that, if no money has been accepted and no one with an affiliation with the government or the CPC has gotten involved, claims of a conspiracy stretch credulity beyond recognition.

Then again, it isn't as if that's anything new for Martin Rayner.

Duckman - The Mallardian Candidate
Uploaded by pr0n

Red Beyond Green

Martin Rayner buys into David McGuinty's theory of "Shifty Business"

Stephane Dion insists that his "Green Shift" carbon-tax plan could provide the genesis for an emerging "green industry".

Yet, as it was revealed earlier today, Dion's use of "Green Shift" as the moniker of his plan has violated the trademark of a Toronto-based consulting firm -- one of the very companies that would be part of the "green economy" that Dion imagines.

One may wonder, however, what Dion would think of the treatment Green Shift Inc has been recieving from some of his adherents.

In a post on his new blog today, Martin Rayner (aka the misnomer "Red Tory") has taken aim at Green Shift Inc and its proprietor, Jennifer Wright, with some rather typical weapons of character assassination.

What emerges is an amusing mish-mash of disinformation.

Rayner falls back on the live blogging of Macleans blogger Kady O'Malley and a Liberal party reponse to the suit.

Of the most amusing allegations Rayner makes, through these individuals are thus:

1. Wright doesn't own the Green Shift trademark, and

2. All she does is sell toilet paper and coffee cups anyway.

Both statements could have been dispelled with a little rudimentary research.

First off, according to the Globe and Mail, Wright registered Green Shift in 2001. Moreover, according to the Canadian Intellectual Property Office, Green Shift's trademark has been "approved" since 2005.

In fact, CIPO offers a fairly detailed account of the progress of Green Shift's application from creation, to approval, to formalization, and various different formal changes.

CIPO offers some more intriguing information: namely, a list of some of the services offered by Green Shift.

More than simply "toilet paper and coffee cups", it also lists organic coffee, various paper products (including copy paper), soil reclamation products, degreasers, and various forms of consultation, among other things.

Which actually isn't all that big a revelation for anyone who's so much as read the Green Shift Inc website's "services" section.

To put it lightly, Kady O'Malley's portrayal of Wright in the course of her press conference does some damage to her credibility. She seems less like a seasoned professional business person and more like a rube who barely knows how to manage her own intellectual property.

In other words: more environmental idealist than seasoned business person. Which is pretty much par the present-day "green industry".

But her obvious inexperience does not entitle the Liberal party to trample her and her business, particularly when it wants Canadians to believe that it's working so hard to build that industry into a powerhouse global contender.

Then there's the simple fact of trademark law: jurisdictions such as Canada, which operate according to common law principles, often afford trademark protection even in cases where such trademarks aren't officially registered.

One can't help but wonder why Martin Rayner wants to villainize Jennifer Wright and Green Shift Inc so badly. If anything, one would expect anyone legitimately concerned about environmental issues to criticize the Liberal party for cutting the throats of its alleged compatriots.

Old Joke, New Outrage

Jane Cornelius steps in it, tracks it into the house

Make no mistake about it: Jane Cornelius, the president of the St Catharine's Liberal riding association, is watching her political career go down in flames today, struck by the heatseaking missile that is her own hubris.

In a controversy quickly tearing its way through the blogosphere, Cornelius printed what has turned out to be an extremely ill-advised "joke" in Peaking Liberally, the St Catharines Liberal newsletter:

"Prime Minister Stephen Harper was visiting a primary school and he visited one of the classes.

They were in the middle of a discussion related to words and their meanings. The teacher asked the PM if he would like to lead the discussion on the word “tragedy”. So the illustrious leader asked the class for an example of a “tragedy”.

One little boy stood up and offered: “If my best friend, who lives on a farm, is playing in the field and a tractor runs over him and kills him, that would be a tragedy.

“No,” said Harper, “that would be an accident.”

A little girl raised her hand: “If a school bus carrying 50 children drove over a cliff, killing everyone inside, that would be a tragedy.”

“I’m afraid not,” explained Harper. “That’s what we would call great loss."

The room went silent. No other children volunteered. Harper searched the room. “Isn’t there someone here who can give me an example of a tragedy?”

Finally at the back of the room, Little Johnny raised his hand... In a quiet voice he said: “If the plane carrying you and Mrs. Harper was struck by a “friendly fire” missile and blown to smithereens that would be a tragedy.”

“Fantastic!” exclaimed Harper. “That’s right. And can you tell me why that would be tragedy?” “Well,” says the boy,

“It has to be a tragedy, because it certainly wouldn’t be a great loss ...and it probably wouldn’t be an accident either”."

Ironically, this was printed in an article accusing the Conservative government of poisoning Canada's political discourse, and suggesting that Liberals need to "wash their hands" of that.

If Cornelius is at all surprised by the outrage the printing of this joke has generated, she needs to have her head examined. (She may need it examined regardless.)

For a political party to print a joke about the assassination of a competing political leader is one thing. To suggest that Canadian troops, or the troops of one of our allies could be responsible for it, is entirely another. It's purely outrageous.

But some of the outrage may be overblown.

For example, Warren Kinsella has suggested the RCMP should be alerted.

While the spirit of the joke is outrageously disgusting, to take it quite this seriously is another matter. This is actually a very old joke, and has been told time and time again about any number of politicians.

All the "Little Johnny" jokes are. And let's not forget that Little Johnny is a bit of a little jerk.

Of course, never before has it been offered up under the guise of legitimate political discourse. And while numerous individuals have taken certain delight in poisoning Canada's political discourse, for the representative of one of our two major parties to do so quite like this is simply beyond the pale.

At least politics -- at least on any formal level -- isn't something that Jane Cornelius will have to worry about for much longer. If Stephane Dion doesn't act quickly to remove her from the presidency of the St Catherine's riding association (and maybe even expel her from the party) he needs to have his head examined, too.

The Gift that Keeps on Giving

Garth Turner has Alberta separatism -- and little else -- on the brain

In a recent post on his blog, Garth Turner continues to milk the controversy surrounding his boneheaded separatism remarks for all he can get.

In the post, he quotes several blogs -- including The Nexus -- and their responses to his recent -- and protracted -- remarks regarding Alberta separatism.

However, Garth truly stretches credulity when he takes aim at this Calgary Herald editorial:

"Once a Tory, now a Liberal MP, Garth Turner used his blog last week to call Albertans "a bunch of self-aggrandizing, hostile, me-first, greedy, macho, selfish and balkanizing separatist losers . . . just like the separatists in Quebec."

We admire his directness. No point crafting innuendoes when a simple insult will do. Now, Albertans know where they stand with Garth. (So do Quebecers.)

That's more than we can say for his boss, Stephane Dion, who said the party was seeking a more respectful debate than Turner was offering. But, of course, the debate is over a so-called green plan that appears to be a way of siphoning money out of the West for social programs in the East. That's hostile, too.

The obvious explanation is that it's the same old thing: The Liberals have so little to lose in the West, they might as well be hostile if it helps them gather votes in the East.

What else is new? It keeps happening, from the NEP, to Jean Chretien's "tough love" speech, in which he asserted his preference for doing business with easterners, to his lectures about values, as though ours were inferior to those conceived in central Canada, and the consistent Liberal strategy toward the West of acting first, and consulting later. The whole Kyoto Protocol fiasco is a case in point.

And so on. No wonder the Reform Party got to first base yelling, "The West wants in."

The truth is, there's a part of central Canada that just doesn't seem to like what the West stands for. It could be envy, it might also be anxiety that

Alberta's star is rising as theirs is falling. It could be tribalism that in Ontario requires a pickup-driving out-group to despise in order to elevate one's own self-esteem. Never mind that Ontario builds the trucks, or that the people buying them produce oil everybody uses.

Whatever it is, loathing Alberta seems to be fun and easy.

Would it make a difference if we apologized for that bumper sticker about letting them freeze in the dark? Probably not.

After all, how does one engage with a blogger who's a bit "self-aggrandizing, hostile, me-first," himself -- or the leader who doesn't shut him up?"

Which is very heady stuff.

It's hard for many Westerners to overlook the dismissiveness of Liberal politics toward the region. For many Westerners, it's absolutely impossible.

Of course, coming from the comparatively politically priviledged province of Ontario, it's likely hard for Garth Turner to ever understand this. Even when the long-derided shadow of Western alienation manifested itself in the aforementioned "the West wants in" mentality of the Reform party, many central Canadians have stubbornly refused to ever acknowledge it, and even went so far as to erect some steeply ideological firewalls to ensure that something other than a basic and obvious lack of equity could be blamed for the West's aggitation.

In Turner's case that firewall seems to be the notion of separatism, as he demonstrates in his response to the Herald:

"Because I know the Herald likes to be accurate, please note the quote you attributed to me in your editorial is incorrect. You quoted me as called Albertans “a bunch of self-aggrandizing, hostile, me-first, greedy, macho, selfish and balkanizing separatist losers…just like the separatists in Quebec.”

In fact, I wrote this on my blog (the words are still there) in reference to Stephane Dion: “He stood up once to the self-aggrandizing, hostile, me-first, greedy, macho, selfish and balkanizing separatist losers in Quebec. I guess he can do it again in Alberta.”

The difference? My sentence referred to Quebec separatists following the 1995 referendum. The clear inference was that Dion could do the same to Westerners who like to talk secession. The reference was not to all Albertans. Worse, the Calgary Herald actually made up part of this quote – “just like the separatists in Quebec.”

Yeah, I know it helped make your case that “Albertans know where they stand with Garth.” But it wasn’t true.

Almost all Albertans are proud Canadians who share my faith in a great future together. Some are losers who threaten Easterners. The best way forward is to be honest and open with each other, and a great newspaper can lead the way."

So there you have it.

Not only does Turner imagine that media commentators are expected to read his mind and understand that "OK, he isn't talking about all Albertans here, only those darned separatists" (cue sound of crickets chirping), by golly, all the Albertans who are still mad about the National Energy Program, or who want a Triple-E senate just want to "threaten Easterners".

Or, maybe Westerners are fed up with self-aggrandizing, hostile, me-first, greedy, macho, selfish and balkanizing individuals like Senator Keith Davey, who once described his party's election strategy as "screw the West, we'll take the rest", or former Prime Minister Jean Chretien, who once told Westerners they should vote Liberal if they wanted their voices heard.

Or Garth Turner, who invents a separatist menace in Alberta in order to justify his wholly unjustifiable comments.

Which is really where the entire Turner argument begins and ends. Either there is a potent separatist threat in Alberta, worthy of all the attention Turner wants to direct at them, or it isn't.

If Turner could point to just one, single, solitary separatist of any political prominence whatsoever in Alberta, that would be one thing. At least it would lend his flailing a slight bit of credibility.

But he has yet to identify one. And for good reason: there aren't any.

Which may be one of the reasons why Turner's initial comment is the gift that keeps on giving: it keeps revealing Turner's utter ignorance about virtually everything West of the Ontario/Manitoba border.

Copyright? We Don't Need No Stinkin' Copyright!

Cool Hand Dion violates "Green Shift" trademark. What would Jason Cherniak think?

"What we have here is failure to communicate."

That quote from Cool Hand Luke would seem to embody the experience of Liberal leader Stephane Dion this week, as he faces litigation over his party's "Green Shift" carbon-tax plan.

Whether to chalk it up to Dion's excessively poor english or general obtuseness is hard to decide upon, but it's certainly yet another strike against Dion's ability to manage himself in the midst of prime time politics.

"Some men you just can't reach. So you get what we had here [this] week."

It isn't as if Dion wasn't warned, either. Jennifer Wright, the owner of Green Shift Incorporated, a consulting firm that helps companies adopt more Earth-friendly practices, had already warned Dion not to violate her company's trademark.

Despite the warning, the Liberals did it anyway.

"I suddenly just felt steamrolled," Wright says.

Which brings us to an important point: if Dion really believes his party's plan will spawn a plethora of Green Shift Inc-esque environmental firms in the creation of a "green industry", he isn't off to a terribly good start in terms of relations with that industry.

"Which is the way he wants it. Well, he gets it!"

For some Liberals, however, the $8.5 million lawsuit is simply another opportunity to allege some sort of insidious conspiracy against the party.

Flying McGuinty brother and federal MP David McGuinty claimed he had been using the phrase "green shift" throughout the 1990s, and insisted its in common usage throughout the environmental movement. "It's a bit mysterious -- in fact, puzzling -- why (the suit) is being launched now," McGuinty said.

Yet a Google search not unlike the very one he suggests reveals the website for Green Shift Inc, another website that notes it is not affiliated with Green Shift Inc, and a number of news stories about Stephane Dion's "green shift".

Dion's appropriation of the phrase certainly does pose a number of problems for the company, including questions about its ownership status. "We've been contending with phone calls asking if we have been taken over by the Liberal party," Wright reports

The search also reveals a website for an American company of the same name, whom Wright says she has given up legal actions against on account of "costs and geography".

The implications of this trademark violation aren't limited to the party, either.

Two years ago blogger and Liberal party activist Jason Cherniak took it upon himself to have several Conservative-partisan videos removed from YouTube for "copyright violations".

(One of the videos in question proved particularly embarrassing for the Liberal party, as it caught them preventing documents, touted as "misplaced" by the Conservative party, from being delivered to their proper destination.)

In this light, one wonders what Jason Cheriak would have to say about the party's misappropration of the Green Shift trademark.

To date, however, Cherniak has yet to comment on this. So it would seem that the answer to that question, as of the time of this posting, is "not much".

And That'll Totally Happen, Too

Lorne Gunter tells Garth Turner to stop digging his hole deeper -- fat chance of that

In today's National Post, columnist Lorne Gunter offers Halton Conservative-turned-Liberal MP Garth Turner some very simple advice:

"When you find yourself in a hole, stop digging."

Following his 3 July blog post in which he mused about Quebecois and Albertan separatists and subsequent chewing out by Liberal leader Stephane Dion, the specious hits just keep on coming.

Today, it has (seemingly) culminated in a rather odd excuse for an apology:

"I apologize.

More specifically, I would like to express my regret, and say that I am sorry,

• that I made Dion’s trip to Alberta more difficult. He didn’t need it. He’s a good man
• that we now live in a country where you cannot call separatists, losers
• that I learned the French words for, well, never mind
• that a bunch of people in the West can’t get over a 28-year-old policy and a dead prime minister. What a burden to carry around
• that I had impure thoughts about Ezra Levant. And Lorne Gunter. Dave Rutherford. John Gormley. The Flames.
• that we burned electrons and felled trees to discuss this, rather than the economy or the environment
• that my words were as intemperate as they were heartfelt. I must watch that
• that we can’t discuss climate change any more without talking about money
• that so many people say they hate where I live
• that the country’s divided
• that I made it moreso. And,
• that a member of Parliament, speaking out, is news."

So, after all the turmoil that has overtaken Turner and his politial career over the last several days, the best he can seem to offer, like a petulant 10-year-old, "I'm sorry... that you're such a jerk".

It really casts new light on the title of Gunter's column.

But once again, it provides us with a unique window into the inner workings of Turner's mind:

-Stephane Dion is an absolutely dandy guy.
-Separatists are such whiners!
-People are swearing at me in French!
-Albertans are such whiners!
-Ezra Levant, Lorne Gunter, Dave Rutherford, John Gormley and the Flames' mamas.
-I wish people would stop talking about it.
-I meant what said. So what if I can't defend it?
-Climate change, climate change, climate change. Screw the economy.
-I'm making Halton rather unpopular...
-I think the country is divided,
-...And I'm not embarrassed to make it moreso, if I can benefit politically from it.
-Wait... MPs get paid to be jerks... don't we?

Most of these little thought bubbles are certainly less than malign, and largely more than a little meaningless.

But only Garth Turner could look at the current state of Canada and see a country divided. As previously noted, separatism in Alberta -- never a terribly potent force -- is as much an afterthought as it has ever been. Separatism has been so effectively managed in Quebec that the Parti Quebecois and Bloc Quebecois are both putting off any thoughts of another "sovereigty association" referendum in to the far, far distant future.

While there remains the same minor partisan divisions among Canadians, this is no different than it's ever been. The future of the country is hardly at stake.

Except in the mind of Garth Turner. So much so that Stephane Dion, the alleged hero of the struggle against the disciples of Rene Levesque, Lucien Bouchard and Jacques Parizeau needs to go stand up to Albertans before the grudge they harbour over the National Energy Program bubbles over into outright separatism.

We could eliminate our need for energy produced by fossil fuels if only Canadians could harness the energy of eyes rolling from coast to coast.

So, as Turner continues to stew ingloriously in his own juices, one thing becomes immediately apparent: it really does seem that Garth and his blog just can't seem to keep themselves out of trouble.

When Turner got kicked out of the Conservative party caucus, it was ultimately his blogging that was to blame.

Now, his blogging has gotten him into trouble again.

It's impossible to overlook the recurrent theme.

Lorne Gunter likely doesn't expect Turner to stop digging his hole deeper. He's already dug himself out of the government caucus, into opposition, into the Opposition Leader's bad books, and god only knows where next.

At least it makes for good entertainment.

Smooth One, Garth

One of Canada's biggest political big mouths spouts a real gem

One almost has to appreciate Halton Conservative-turned-Liberal MP Garth Turner. He really is the gift that keeps on giving.

More specifically: to Albertans, reasons to not vote Liberal ever again and to his leader Stephane Dion, headaches.

Yesterday, in a post in which he questioned whether or not Stephen Harper would debate Stephane Dion regarding Dion's carbon tax:

"the Conservatives say the Liberal plan would cost consumers, hobble the economy and be unfair to the West. The Libs say the Con plan is a sham since it will have almost no environmental impact, end up making all energy more expensive, do nothing to help consumers cope or assist businesses to go green.

Meanwhile Canadians are freaked out about gas prices, worried about economic slowdown and think governments are doing nothing about the future of the planet. In other words, what would be better to crystallize positions and help us all understand the problem and the solutions, than a debate?

But, sadly, ain’t gonna happen. The prime minister will not play. This is either because (a) he knows he will lose because his plan sucks, or (b) he does not want to give the leader of the opposition equal footing with Himself, or (c) too many pancakes will die, or (d) he feels sorry for the skinny guy, or (f) it’s just a lot easier to say “this will screw everybody.”"

Turner let loose this particular pearl of wisdom:

"As for Dion, he will move from Calgary to Edmonton, where he’s to have an open, Town Hall meeting on his climate change plan. You might not agree with everything the man says, but you have to admire this about him. He stood up once to the self-aggrandizing, hostile, me-first, greedy, macho, selfish and balkanizing separatist losers in Quebec. I guess he can do it again in Alberta."

It's hard to decide where to start with Turner.

One could point out that if one were to accept his argument that Alberta and Quebec are the "me-first" provinces, it's hard to overlook Ontario's perennial reputation as the "me-only" province.

And while Turner isn't the first Liberal to write off Alberta (or Western Canada in general) as "hostile" to the rest of Canada -- Hard Right Turn author and failed Liberal candidate Brooke Jeffrey went so far as to breathlessly insist that Western Canadians supported the Reform party as an attempt to dominate the central Canadians they "despise" -- one has to wonder how precisely Turner is defining this hostility.

If he were to suggest that Albertans -- like Quebecers -- are hostile to politicians who want to treat their province as a cash cow while breaking their promises at will, he'd probably be right about that.

And if Albertans really can be considered as "selfish" as Turner insists, there's always one other little nuance that he's naturally overlooked: at least Albertans are being selfish with their own money, as opposed to someone else's.

Then on top of all that, there's the real meat and potatoes of Turner's argument, which turns out to be rather thin gruel indeed.

Certainly, Turner could insist that the Conservatives' plan "sucks", but he'd have to ignore the fact that the Conservative plan, with its mandated 50% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions by 2050, is actually much closer in line with what environmental groups are demanding than Dion's plan, which comes with no mandated reduction.

Certainly, Turner could insist that Harper is stooping to the lowest common denominator by pointing out that "the plan will screw everybody", but then he'd have to overlook the fact that the Liberal party has a history of making grand promises, then screwing everybody who believes them.

Certainly, Turner could insist that Dion is merely standing up for Canadians against separatism in Quebec and the West, but then he'd have to overlook that Alberta is as Canadian as anywhere else in the country, and has yet to give rise to a credible separatist movement.

Then again, we know that Turner is quite adept at selectively overlooking things when he feels so inspired.

He only further demonstrated this with what passes for a mea culpa on his blog, wherein he continued to insist he was only commenting about separatists.

(Once again, find a politically credible separatist in Alberta, Mr Turner, and we'll talk.)

And, as ever seems to be the case with Garth Turner, one has to wonder how much this really has to do with separatism, how much this really has to do with climate change and how much this really has to do even with partisanship as it has to do with his unending vendetta against "hats and horses Conservatives" and the people who elected them.

For someone who posts a picture of the Canadian flag atop a post about how he puts the country first and his political opponents don't, Turner has an odd habit of putting his own grudges first and making himself utterly transparent while doing it.

No one can credibly pretend that Turner doesn't remember the 1993 election in which he and his fellow Mulroney-era Progressive Conservatives were unceremoniously routed from office under the rising tide of Reform party support.

When Turner is ready to actually start putting the country ahead of his lingering grudges, Canadians -- or, at the very least, Stephane Dion -- will be all the better off for it.

Morgentaler Debate Continues Its Downward Spiral

Very little rational thought at the core of Order of Canada conflaguration

Ever since it was announced that Dr Henry Morgentaler would be named to the Order of Canada, the abortion debate in Canada has taken a rather distinct turn for the stupid.

Various newspaper editorials condemned the appointment as "divisive".

Various bloggers defend the appointment based on the previous appointment of Conrad Black (who, just for the record, should be stripped of the Order of Canada, just as it was stripped from Alan Eagleson).

Of course, some of the most insipid comments have been made by ideologues such as Mississauga Ontario's Ric East who insisted that men have no right to voice their opinions about abortion, worth noting here as an example:

"It was interesting to note that most of those letter-writers opposing the idea of Dr. Henry Morgentaler receiving an Order of Canada are males. Their comments have no relevance as they do not have the bodies to produce children and therefore they have no say in this issue."

In other words, if you have a penis, you have no right to hold an opinion on the issue, because it couldn't possibly affect you.

Mr East, however, may want to compare notes with Port Coquitlam BC's A.D. Wilson who can speak otherwise from personal experience:

"I'm a dad that signed a teenage abortion application during the heat of this debate. And quite frankly, that experience wasn't a milestone in my life. I'm far from a Christian, absorbed in the daily routine of keeping kith and kin whole and being a well-meaning and diligent provider. Notwithstanding, losing a grandchild was hurtful to me. I don't wish the decision on anyone. Life is precious and expedient choices hurt even the most prudent. Barbara Kay certainly has opened a wound and the debate to me is far from closed. I'm certainly not pro-choice but some decisions can really cripple."

But at the end of the day, the entire matter is all pure silliness.

The Order of Canada may mean a lot when awarded under the right circumstances, but in most cases, when awarded, it's just another shiny bauble. Charles Aznavour -- a name likely alien to the vast majority of Canadians -- will recieve the Order of Canada next week.

And while various Canadians will certainly try to hold up Morgentaler's Order of Canada as evidence of Canada-wide support for their particular agenda vis a vis abortion, and other Canadians will deride it as a travesty, in the grand scheme of things, it actually means very little.

Time for the silliness to end.

So, Douchebags...

Submitted for your approval, the case of Stan Dixon, aged 60, killed after being pushed off a bus.

Still want to claim that Nathan Richardson couldn't possibly have hurt 69-year-old Ed Snell?

Or maybe you'd like to insist that Dixon "had it coming".

July 2008 Book Club Selection: The Best Country, Satya Das

Satya Das reminds Canadians of its generous nature, welcoming arms

When Satya Das arrived in Canada from India at age 12, one has to wonder if understood how much immigrating would change his life.

Throughout The Best Country, Das promotes Canada as a model for the rest of the world to follow. While certainly not without its flaws and challenges, Das argues that Canada is the country best positioned to lead the future.

Das insists this is largely the result of Canada's generous nature, multi-cultural make-up (he notes that Canada was multi-cultural long before it was ever made official, as he traces the ethnic origins of the 2002 Olympic Gold Medal winning men's hockey team all over the world), and even the structures of its own politics.

In an argument that would certainly infuriate those most determined to portray Western Canada as racist and bigoted, Das makes the argument that it is in Western Canada -- a land settled largely devoid of pre-existing French or British cultural paradigms -- that Canada's model of diversity and tolerance remains most profound.

Das recognizes incidents long past, but notes that his own experience as an immigrant has demonstrated incredible change in Western Canada within the past 40 years.

Das notes that Canadian politics are mostly demotic -- in the sense that an overwhelming majority of Canadians seem to agree on the kind of society we want to create, but we have different visions on how best to achieve it.

In fact, Das notes how remarkable it is that, in a society beset by so many competing ideas regarding how we can achieve our common vision, Canadians have en masse rejected hatred and violence and are more prone to talk their disagreements out.

If Canadians are in want of a good reason to encourage our government to be more active on the foreign stage, a quick read through The Best Country will provide a myriad of them.

Canada, France, Have Work to do in International Community

As Harper touts philosophical links with France, La Francophonie doesn't quite live up to its billing

In advance of today's 400 year anniversary of Quebec City, Stephen Harper took some time out yesterday to hobnob with French Prime Minister Francois Fillion in order to talk about the important role that Canada and France play in the world today.

The anniversay is "an opportunity to underscore the historic links and common values between France and Canada," Harper announced. "These include our shared commitment to promoting human rights, good governance and democracy, and of course the French language."

Certainly, these are things that, arguably, Canada and France have both been committed to promoting. But both are guilty of allowing one of the better tools at their disposal -- La Francophonie, the organization of French-speaking peoples -- to fall into disuse, disrepair and disrepute.

Along with Belgium and Switzerland, Canada and France are the most prominent members of La Francophonie. As such, Canada and France have a responsibility to provide leadership within the organization.

It terms of human rights, it's difficult to applaud the leadership that has been shown. Numerous members of La Francophonie are either currently known as human rights abusers, or have been in the past -- all while the Francophonie stands silently by.

Currently, Freedom House -- an organization that rates the countries of the world in terms of freedom -- rates Cameroon, Cambodia, Chad, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, the Republic of the Congo, Cote D'Ivoire, Egypt, Equitorial Guinea, Guinea, Laos, Rwanada, Togo, Tunisia and Vietnam are listed as "Not Free".

With Canada and France effectively at the helm of La Francophonie it would seem that our commitment to promoting human rights, good governance and democracy hasn't quite lived up to its billing, if La Francophonie stands as any indication.

Meanwhile, Canada is also in a strong leadership position within the Commonwealth of States. Perhaps the greatest difference between the Commonwealth and La Francophonie in this respect is that the Commonwealth has a history of suspending member countries that violate the principles of human rights and democracy. Three notable examples are the recent suspension of Pakistan, the less recent suspension of Zimbabwe and the suspension of South Africa in 1994. The Commonwealth has used suspensions numerous times throughout its history to reinforce its commitment to democracy.

If one were to look at the Commonwealth as a possible model for what La Francophonie could one day become, there is little question it falls considerably short. It doesn't meet often enough -- once every two years -- and all too often remains satisfied to issue empty resolutions on the controversies of the day.

In its 38 years in existence, La Francophonie has yet to be handed an international mission by the United Nations. By contrast, even the diminuitive African Union was called upon for a peacekeeping mission in the Sudan.

Even more shameful is La Francophonie's history of unresponsiveness to atrocities occurring within member countries. In 1994 La Francophonie offered virtually no response to the genocide in Rwanda, and even when France intervened, it was only to evacuate its own nationals from the country. La Francophonie has taken virtually no leadership role in the civil war in the Democratic Republic of Congo -- conflict that consumed more than 3 million lives between between 1998 and 2002.

The number of poverty-ravaged countries in La Francophonie is also a significant cause for concern.

But it is to this end that Canada and France -- along with Belgium, Switzerland and Luxembourg -- can trace their significant potential for influence within La Francophonie.

If La Francophonie's five most wealthiest and most prominent members can conjure the political will, this bloc could use foreign aid and trade agreements as the carrot and stick by which we can encourage some of La Francophonie's more troublesome members to embrace the principles for which the organization is reputed to stand.

In a global environment in which internationalism is becoming a more and more crucial tenet of foreign policy, it's becoming more and more necessary to reform La Francophonie.

Canada and France should view the 400th anniversary of Quebec City -- the capital of France's most successful colony -- as an opportunity to make an agreement to pursue this goal more thoroughly.

Otherwise, all the talk of "good governance, human rights and democracy" will remain rather empty indeed.

Who'd Have Thought These People Hate Canada?

Martin Rayner accuses opponents of hating Canada

One would think that Canada Day would be a good opportunity for some of the demagogues who delight themselves by spewing hatred and invective to stick a sock in it.

Not so much for Canada's leading philosophical fraud, Martin Rayner (aka the misnomer "Red Tory"). In fact, he -- walking meticulously in the footsteps of his lord and master, Canada's leading hatemonger Canadian Cynic -- instead took some time out to once again complain at length about how atrocious the opinions of other Canadians really are.

In particular, the posts' title "Canada: Yours To Deplore" should be viewed as particularly disturbing.

Canada Day is typically an occasion for Canadians of all walks of life to come together to celebrate our wonderful country. And most certainly, they do. One taking in the Canada Day festivities on Parliament Hill or (as I chose to) at the Alberta Legislature would certainly never expect that they're walking exclusively amongst Liberals, Conservatives, or members of any other partisan or ideological faction.

But not Martin Rayner. No, apparently Canada's leading intellectual coward and political curmudgeon wants to take Canada Day as an opportunity to suggest that if Roy Eappen or Jonathon Strong post a video of Prime Minister Stephen Harper's Canada Day address on their blog, it's because they hate Canada.

But this is only a sample of what Rayner wanted to express this Canada Day. Among the others:

If Gerry Nichols decides to offer up a few political jokes on Canada Day, it's because he's bigoted and hates Canada.

If Liberty is Good's Janet wants to suggest that Ontario should follow the lead of most of Canada's other provinces and duck out of liquor sales, it's because she hates Canada.

If the Canadian Republic's Fortitudine suggests that responsible gun owners should be free to keep their weapons, it's because he hates Canada.

If Prairie Tory Luke wants to suggest that native-born Canadians should have more children or wants to rein in the Human Rights Commission, it's because he hates Canada.

If Joanne at Blue Like You wants to join the debate over why so many subjects relevant to Canada seem to defy debate, it's because she hates Canada.

In Martin Rayner's mind, this is what passes for logic. The concerns raised about the status and direction of our country are only being raised out of hatred for everything Canada currently is and could become.

Certainly, Roy Eappen and Jonathon Strong couldn't be posting Harper's video because they agree with his sentiments.

Gerry Nichols couldn't possibly be making jokes because he wants to celebrate Canada Day in a light-hearted fashion.

Janet couldn't possibly believe that liquor sales is simply a business in which the state does not belong.

Fortinitude couldn't possibly believe that the law-abiding should be allowed to possess a weapon for self-defense or recreation if they so choose.

Luke couldn't possibly want to see more Canadians having children because he prefers Canada as it is (for good or ill), or want the Human Rights Commission reined in because he believes it poses a threat to the very freedoms most Canadians celebrate every July 1st.

There's simply no way Joanne could -- like a few typically less-than-controversial media commentators -- believe there's more room for discussion and debate (the one thing Rayner himself fears the most) in Canada.

(On that particular note, it would seem that at least in Martin Rayner's mind, Jeffery Simpson and Rex Murphy both hate Canada too.)

It's all rather unfortunate. With Canadians across the counrty coming together to celebrate ourselves as a country, Rayner could have taken this as yet another opportunity to be a real red tory, embracing that unique unity that we as Canadians find on the same day of the year, every year.

Instead, he chooses to engage in divisive hatemongering, all while accusing his chosen adversaries of hating the very country they're celebrating.

It makes an enduring comment about Rayner and about the way his small mind works. When he describes his Blogging Tory adversaries as "disenfranchised", it makes one suspect that he's referring to what he considers to be an ideal state of affairs, if not an actual one. After all, it's hard to describe anyone who is active in politics -- even if only as a commentator -- as "disenfranchised".

It would almost be alarming if it wasn't so very, very typical of this particular individual. Of all the red tories (actual or self-proclaimed) who would see Canada day as an opportunity to do something, only Martin Rayner would see it as an opportunity to sew division amidst unity.

On The Fine Art of Jumping to Conclusions...

...And the notion of "Subversion"

The average day would seem all but incomplete without another typical offering of seething lunacy from the denizens of the Sycophantic Groupthink Temple and their preening stooges.

In this case, the matter comes back to a topic that should be considered predictable in the days following Dr Henry Morgentaler's controversial appointment to the Order of Canada -- Conservative MP Ken Epp's Bill C-484.

By their very nature, controversial moves draw controversial comments. So it's little surprise that the perennially crazed Lulu, the assiduously vicious Galloping Beaver's Dave and Unrepentant Old Hippie's JJ -- who, as Nexus readers will recall, is supportive of assaults on aging anti-abortion activists -- jumped all over comments in question, as reported in the Globe and Mail:

"'I think it's a sorry day when they give that man the Order of Canada … He's not deserving of it. What has the man contributed to this nation?' asked Conservative MP Art Hanger. 'Apart from providing a so-called service which I don't believe should be even offered in the nation, but is unfortunately, because we don't have a law governing the taking of life of the unborn.'"

While destined to be inflated into a greater controversy than they should otherwise entail, Hangar's comments aren't that uncommon. In fact, they're very typical of the short-sighted and small-minded opponents of abortion who seem to believe that all the problems associated with unplanned or unwanted pregnancies will magically go away if only abortion were simply outlawed.

But, as one should typically expect, Lulu, JJ and Dave want to take issue with the very idea of "a law governing the taking of life of the unborn". Lulu goes so far as to describe it as "subvert[ing] abortion rights in Canada".

Consider the following tirade from JJ -- the only one of the three of any actual substance:

"Let's parse this little pearl of wisdom.

Hanger, clearly a fetus fetishist, is against the award being given to Dr. Morgentaler because Dr. M has provided abortion services. Further, Hanger states that abortion shouldn't be "even offered" in Canada, but that it "unfortunately is" because "we don't have a law governing the taking of life of the unborn", a clear nod to Bill C-484.

Got that? Shorter Art Hanger: "Abortion is only available because we don't have a law like Bill C-484.""

Now, if only that were the case. But the simple fact of the matter is that 37 American states have enacted fetal homicide bills, bills similar to -- but possessing differences from -- Bill C-484. In none of those states has abortion become unavailable.

And furthermore, while Hanger's support of Bill C-484 certainly makes it perfectly reasonable to suspect that he may have had C-484 in his thoughts at the time of his comments, JJ and friends predictably make another grievous error in logic: that of assuming that Hanger is referring to C-484.

After all, it isn't as if theren't other ways of regulating the termination of unborn life.

To start off with, one only needs consider the continuing debate about how late into a pregnancy is too late to procure an abortion -- consider the case in Britain, where the most recent abortion-related controversy isn't whether there would be any limits at all, but rather whether Britain would maintain its current 24-week limit (no abortion on demand after 24 weeks), or reduce it to 16 weeks. British MPs opted to stay with 24 weeks.

As it turns out, Britain's legislation governing abortion is the most liberal in all of Europe. In France and Germany the limit is 12 weeks. In Norway and Sweden, the limit is 18 weeks.

Abortion certainly isn't at risk of disappearning in any of these countries -- three of them amongst the most liberal nations in all the world, let alone Europe.

In light of such facts, it must be considered that for Lulu, JJ and Dave to insist that such a feat would be accomplished here if any laws governing terminating unborn life were enacted is nothing more or less than shrill hyperbole beyond account.

JJ herself also seems to have her fair share of difficulties with the definition of what is and is not an admission:

"That's the first time I've seen an MP admit, openly and on the record, that Bill C-484 would affect abortion rights at all, let alone nullify them. I wonder if Artie realizes he's making a liar out of his fellow Conservative MP Ken Epp, who's long insisted Bill C-484 has nothing to do with abortion"

Considering that Hangar failed to mention C-484 by name, and instead commented on Canada's lack of legislation on an issue that has been legislated on in nearly every other country in the western world, one must also dismiss this particular claim as shrill hypberbole.

The legislation in the United States, Britain, France, Germany, Norway and Sweden have yet to result in an outright criminalization of abortion.

The sad fact about the matter, however, is that Canada's pro-abortion activists must know this -- they simply have to -- to be so woefully under-informed in regards to their own pet issue simply could not help but undermine the credibility of their entire movement.

So one may, in the end, be forced to recognize that perhaps the extreme positions being struck by these individuals may not simply be the result of naivete or misinformation. Their arguments are all too often being advanced under what one cannot help but regard as willful and deliberate dishonesty.

But that dishonesty is nothing new. To top it all off, it almost remains comforting to note that the most extreme leftists Canada has to offer have yet to lose their unique gift for hypocrisy:

"(Slightly off-topic, there's a poll on Dr. Morgentaler on the same page as that Globe & Mail article I linked to. You know what to do.)"

Of course, one almost wonders what to think of this when measured against the unique amount of whining and crying Canada's extremist left have engaged in regarding the so-called "freeping" of online polls by Canadian right-wingers. Then again, one is hardly shocked to find that -- as with so many other things -- they think it's perfectly acceptable when they themselves do it.

But, in the end, one actually knows what to think of it: it's simply the same dishonesty on a different day.

Five Reasons to Be Proud This Canada Day

Canada's top five cultural icons, according to myself

Today, Canadians across the country are celebrating 141 years of Canada.

To help determine what Canadians think of as our identity, the Dominion Institute and Citizenship and Immigration Canada have been conducting a survey of Canada's cultural icons.

As of the time of this writing, the top five consisted of the Maple Leaf, Vimy Ridge, Hockey, Queen Elizabeth and the Canadian Flag.

Like any other Canadian, we here at The Nexus, we all have our own ideas on Canadian identity. The following are my own personal top five Canadian icons, and explanations as to why:

1. Terry Fox - No one in Canada's history has ever embodied the spirit of our country quite the same way Terry Fox does.

When diagnosed with osteogenic sarcoma -- bone cancer -- at the age of 18, many people would resign themselves to a long, hard illness with little chance of recovery. But not Terry Fox.

Even after the cancer took his leg, Terry took to the Highways of Canada, running across the country to raise money for cancer research. As every Canadian knows, he didn't make it past Thunder Bay, when his cancer reappeared.

He would pass away on June 28, 1981, but would leave behind him a legacy that eventually blossomed into the Terry Fox run, taking his legendary Marathon of Hope worldwide.

Terry Fox represents everything good about Canada: dedication, generosity, self-sacrifice and, through his memory, global leadership.

2. Ottawa - Canadians have long accepted the reality of Canada as a country made up of at least two solitudes, in the phrase coined by author Hugh MacLennan.

Those Canadians with a firmer grasp on Canadian history would likely amend that to three solitudes -- the first two being English and French Canada, and the third being our aboriginal community -- but even then, Ottawa remains a symbol of the disjointed unity that may permanently elude and challenge us.

Built upon the foundations laid generations before the arrival of Europeans to North America, Ottawa straddles Ontario and Quebec where the Odawa First Nations had maintained a village named Kanata (a village that, like Ottawa has grown over time to become part of the Ottawa Metropolitan Area).

Besides remaining the seat of Canadian government, Ottawa is where the three most dominant strains of Canadian culture -- British, French and Aboriginal -- intercede most dramatically.

So long as there is a Canada, Ottawa will remain the strongest reminder of our three-pronged historical heritage.

3. Lester Pearson's Nobel Peace Prize - In 1957 Lester Bowles Pearson -- or "Mike" as he was dubbed by his Air Force instructors, a nickname that stuck with him throughout the remainder of his life -- won the Nobel Peace Prize.

In doing so, he put Canada on the map in terms of global leadership that his varying successors would try to emulate, but never quite equal.

Pearson was awarded the Prize for his work in establishing the United Nations Emergency Force that helped ensure a (at least temporarily) peaceful resolution to the Suez Crisis of 1956.

He would eventually parlay the award into the Leadership of the Liberal Party and the Prime Ministership of Canada.

Pearson's award remains a vital symbol of Canadian leadership on the global stage, and a reminder that Canada needs to remain committed to leadership as such.

4. The Royal Canadian Mounted Police - Many Canadians would likely name "freedom" as one of the most important reasons to be proud to be Canadian.

But the simple fact of the matter is that freedom only exists where order and justice are maintained.

Originally established in 1873 as the North West Mounted Police, the Mounties have safeguarded law and order in Canada for nearly as long as there has been a Canada.

The Mounties are known the world over as one of the top law enforcement agencies in the entire world, and they remain ambassadors for law and order the world over. Not only do they serve in Canada, ensuring our own safety and security, but they have also volunteered in wartime and peacekeeping operations overseas.

While many a controversy has been stirred over several progressive modernizations of the force, the very freedom that so many Canadians pride themselves on could never exist if not for the men and women who have pledged their lives to upholding it day in and day out.

5. Hockey - While it may seem like a cliche, there is simply no denying it: Canadians live and breathe by hockey.

Hockey Night in Canada remains one of Canada's top-rated television programs, and when it comes to international competitions like the World Junior Championships, Olympics and World Cup, Canadians practically demand victory from their teams.

Like the other items on this list, hockey represents virtually everything it means to be Canadian: energy, dedication, toughness, and a solid work ethic.

Certainly, not all Canadians will agree with everything on this list. But that's the magic of being Canadian: that we've drilled diversity so deeply into our national identity that what it means to be Canadian can mean different things to different people.

This is only partially what Canada means to me.

On that note, I bid you a temporary adieu and a happy Canada Day.