Ask Not What Your Country Can Do For You

But what you can do for your democracy

One of the under-covered stories of the past week was Justin Trudeau's first bill in Parliament -- a private member's bill calling for a national policy on volunteerism.

"Young people get a bad rap, often, for being apathetic, disconnected and cynical about the world," Trudeau said after tabling his bill. "It's not because they don't care about the world. On the contrary; it's because they care so much that they're deeply frustrated that they don't have ways to make the world a better place. They don't have a voice that gets heard to shape the world that will be theirs someday, they keep getting told."

The bill would call for public hearings on the topic of volunteerism as well as a study of how governments support volunteerism in other countries.

Although his lineage makes Justin Trudeau a natural target for conservatives, Trudeau's private member's bill is actually a dream for almost any small-c conservative who is truly faithful to the philosophy.

One of the key tenets of former Progressive Conservative premier of Ontario Mike Harris' Common Sense Revolution was the idea that volunteer efforts were going to replace state activism in many key areas. This never took place because Harris' government never made any real effort to help foster a stronger infrastructure of Civil Society Organizations.

Such an effort, by its very nature, relies on citizens to stand up, determine their own interests, then contribute their efforts toward the service of those interests. Trudeau's bill exemplifies Benjamin Barber's vision of strong democracy -- one wherein citizenship is treated more like a public office than as a passive relationship with the state.

Trudeau's bill fits snugly into Barber's blueprint of a do-it-yourself democracy, one wherein individual autonomy and citizenship is enhanced by diminishing reliance on the state.

Successfully building a volunteer infrastructure in Canada could allow conservative governments to reduce and refocus spending like never before.

While the idyllic days of church-operated hospitals funded by private donations and private fundraising efforts are likely to never return -- the cost of modern healthcare is prohibitive to a pure volunteer approach and government involvement will always remain necessary -- Trudeau's bill, if properly implemented, could lead to a much healthier and stronger democracy in Canada, predicated on a model of strong citizenship.

Unfortunately there are some who don't share Trudeau's wisdom. Bloc Quebecois MP Nicolas Dufor accused Trudeau's bill of fostering "federalist propaganda".

It's unsurprising that the Bloc would oppose Trudeau's bill. Any government policy that helped the development of volunteer organizations could very easily be used by citizens who oppose separatism to organize their own, federalist organizations.

One can only wonder if separatists would enjoy similar good fortune.

If the Liberal party were wise it would adopt Trudeau's private member's bill as an opposition bill. Likewise, if the governing Conservatives were wise they would adopt Trudeau's bill as governmental policy.

Private member's bills don't often make the full transition fron introduction to being implemented, but the base wisdom of Justin Trudeau's bill is impossible to overlook.

Justin Trudeau may yet turn out to be a stronger democrat than his father ever pretended to be.

Lizzie May's Free Ride Is Ovah

Ignatieff will run Liberal candiate against Elizabeth May

Green party leader Elizabeth May's delusions of grandeur have taken another crushing blow today, as Liberal leader Michael Ignatieff has announced that he plans to run a Liberal candidate against her wherever she chooses to run.

In the 2008 federal election, then-Liberal leader Stephane Dion declined to run a candidate against May. In return, May declined to run a Green candidate against Dion. The agreement, tenuously justified according to "leader's courtesy" (a measure unprecedented in a general election), was the first chapter in the story of considerable cooperation between May and Dion.

The victory May would have scored if her's and Dion's machinations were successful would have been highly symbolic -- May was running in Central Nova against Deputy Prime Minister Peter MacKay.

Speaking in Halifax, Ignatieff explained that this is merely part of his plan to run candidates in every running in the country.

"I have respect for Elizabeth May but I'm running a national party and in a national party we have candidates in 308 ridings across the country," Ignatieff insisted.

This comes as May has attempted to retake the national spotlight in order to insist that the Green party hasn't lost relevance.

With the exception of a brief episode during the Liberal party's flirtations with a coalition government in which it was suggested May would recieve a Senate seat, both May and the Green party have been largely invisible since the 2008 campaign.

"When you're in a federal election campaign, the leaders get a certain amount of attention that doesn't continue past the election if you're not either leader of the official Opposition or prime minister," May said. "That's the reality of politics."

Unfortunately for May, however, this is hardly the case.

There are plenty of ways for a developing political party to maintain visibility outside of an election. After failing to elect any candidates in the 1988 federal election, Preston Manning's Reform party successfully built its reputation by opposing the Meech Lake and Charlottetown Accords.

As Tom Flanagan notes in Waiting for the Wave, his far-from-disinterested analysis of the Reform party's rise, even the negative press garnered by the Reform party's campaigns against the two consitutional reform accords were successful in increasing party recognition.

For a largely-unknown party, there really may be no such thing as bad publicity.

But then again, therein lies the rub. One could very much ask the question of whether or not the Green party is a developing party at all. After all, it's been around since 1983 and has never elected an MP. Ever.

Whatever the Green party is developing into, it's clear that it isn't developing into a political contender. Now the most promising political alliance the party has ever built -- one that got the party its first MP (albeit an unelected MP), got its leader into the televised debates and got its leader a fighting chance in winning a massive upset victory -- seems to have gone the way of the Green Shift.

There is, of course, another difference between the circumstances confronting the Green party and those faced by the Reform party in 1988. Elizabeth May is spending a considerable part of her time promoting her new book, Global Warming for Dummies. In 1988 Manning was promoting a book of his own. Except that his book, The New Canada was largely about his party, and fully outlined his party's political agenda.

By contrast, May's book is yet another addition to the rapidly-growing genre of climate change apocalypticism. If Global Warming for Dummies outlined the Green party's full political agenda it would only confirm the popular perception that the party is a one-issue party.

Despite Elizabeth May's insistence that the very real struggles her party is currently facing is just "the reality of politics", the truth is much different -- her party is in desperate need of new leadership.

The free ride she's been enjoying by virtue of the Liberal party's generosity is over. The free ride she's been enjoying from the Green party should follow.


Other bloggers writing about this topic:

Far and Wide - "A New Dynamic?"

Zoe Caron - "Canadians Want Environment either a) OVER Economy, or b) AND Economy"

No Statue For You

US Supreme Court rules that Fred Phelps has no right to hateful monument

In a decision handed down by the US Supreme Court, Westboro Baptist Church leader Fred Phelps has failed in an attempt to abuse the first amendment of the United States constitution in order to spread his vile and hateful gospel.

Phelps dearly wanted to contribute a statue of murder victim Matthew Shepard to a park in Casper, Wyoming featuring statues of historical significance. The inscription on the statue reads "Matthew Shepard Entered Hell October 12, 1998, in Defiance of God's Warning 'thou shalt not lie with mankind as with womankind; it is abomination.' Leviticus 18:22."

Phelps' Shepard statue was rejected twice -- once in 2003 and again in 2007.

When it was rejected the second time Phelps apparently ran to the Supreme Court where he's discovered, to his dismay, that while the First Amendment guarantees freedom of religion, speech, expression and the press, it does not entitle one to display hate propaganda on public property.

Phelps and his Westboro Baptist Church had previously picketed Shepard's funeral where thet waved signs reading "Matt in hell" and oh-so-classily harassed his grieving parents.

One can imagine that Phelps and the WBC will likely stage some kind of protest in order to voice their objections to the Supreme Court ruling, but one thing is for certain: very few people should care.

The state is not obligated to help Phelps disseminate his intolerance under the guise of free speech.

Michael Ignatieff's Brave New Take on Unity

Ignatieff insists supporting the oil sands supports national unity

For years, federal politicians in Canada had a one-track mind in regards to national unity: please Quebec at all costs.

This view was particularly and logically typical of Liberal leaders, who have needed to maintain their strength in Quebec (along with Ontario) in order to remain formidable. For years being strong in Quebec has promised to make the difference between the Liberals governing and sinking to third party status.

Michael Ignatieff seems to have a new strategy toward national unity: appeal to Western Canada, particularly Alberta.

Speaking to the Edmonton Chamber of Commerce, Ignatieff insisted that the oil sands don't merely benefit Alberta, but rather benefit the entirety of Canada.

"The oilsands are an integral part of the future of Canada," Ignatieff insisted. "No other country in the word would toss away this advantage."

Ignatieff also believes that Canadians are looking at the oilsands in a shortsighted manner. "We're operating this thing like it was the Klondike, and it's not the Klondike. We're going to be there for a century or more," he added.

Not that Ignatieff doesn't understand the environmental issues confronting the oilsands, as underscored in a recent issue of National Geographic.

"We need to be able to stand up for the oilsands and ask the oil industry to do better. These communities need to become environmentally sustainable, but they also need to become socially sustainable."

Ignatieff has suggested that the federal government should match the $2 billion recently pledged by the Alberta government to help reduce greenhouse gas emissions from the tarsand projects. He's also pledged his Liberal party to guard Alberta's interests in any national greenhouse gas reduction scheme.

"We will be watching in Opposition to make sure [a cap-and-trade system] won't hurt Alberta," he pledged. "We need to work with the industry, and not against the industry."

Ignatieff's support of the oil sands isn't a sudden change of policy on his part. Ignatieff has defended the oilsands on several occasions, including in Quebec.

"The stupidest thing you can do [is] to run against an industry that is providing employment for hundreds of thousands of Canadians, and not just in Alberta, but right across the country," Ignatieff told a Montreal audience in January.

According to Ignatieff, another good reason to support the oil sands is the influence that gives Canada over its number one trading partner.

"We provide more oil to the United States than Saudi Arabia. That changes everything," he continued. "It means that when the prime minister of Canada goes into the White House, he gets listened to, in ways that Canadian prime ministers have not been listened to before. We're not the nice little friendly northern cousin. They can't run their economy without us."

Back in Alberta, Ignatieff also took some time out to address how Stephane Dion's Green Shift was recieved in Western Canada. "I think you can't win elections if you are adding to the input costs of a farmer ...or a trucker," Ignatieff said. "You got to work with the grain of Canadians and not against them."

Of course, Ignatieff didn't mention that the central plank of Dion's Green Shift was actually Ignatieff's own carbon tax.

If Ignatieff is true to his words, Western Canadians may finally be able to trust the Liberal party on the topic of the national economy. "Alberta is a valued treasured part of our federation," he said in January. "Never pit one region of the country against the other when you develop economic policy."

But as Kelly McParland notes on the Naational Post's Full Comment blog, Ignatieff is accepting his fair share of risks in pledging his support for the oilsands.

For one thing, he risks alienating the environmental demographic that Stephane Dion worked so hard to connect with.

But as it regards national unity, reconnecting with the West is a positive step in the right direction.

This is not only good for Canada, but it will almost certainly turn out to be good for the Liberal party. If Ignatieff can convince Western Canadians he's sincere, the Liberal party may finally get a second look from many out West.


Other bloggers writing about this topic:

Montreal Simon - "Michael Ignatieff and the Clean Dirty Oil"

Michael Stickings - "The Rise of Michael Ignatieff"

Far and Wide - "It Is What It Is"

A Call for International Reform

No time like the present to fix Interpol

For as long as there have been criminals willing to cross international borders there have been criminals relying on those borders to protect them from conviction.

The International Criminal Police Organization is meant to help countries capture border-hopping criminals by fostering cooperation between police forces in various countries.

In The International, Clive Owen plays Louis Salinger, an Interpol investigator attempting to shut down a bank with a history of engaging in extremely dirty deals across international boundaries. He's backed up by Elanor Whitman (Naomi Watts), a New York District Attorney trying desperately to build their case before a jealous scramble over jurisdiction brings their efforts screeching to a halt.

The executive of the bank in the film are swinging a very dirty arms deal that would sell missiles to Iran that Israel already has the counter-measures for, and leave a path of murder in their wake -- including the assassination of a top candidate for the Prime Ministership of Italy.

Salinger and Whitman find their efforts stymied at numerous turns if not by corruption on the part of individual law enforcement bureaucrats, then by the very structure of Interpol itself.

Contrary to public belief, Interpol actually has very few official powers of its own. It functions mainly as an intelligence organization, giving information to local authorities in various jurisdictions and hoping they'll make arrests on the behalf of the state issuing an arrest warrant.

Operating through a National Central Bureau in each member country -- there are 187 in all -- local authorities can gain access to Interpol's database and can receive advisories whenever a person of interest is within their jurisdiction.

However, the structural difficulties of dealing with various levels of jurisdiction can make purusing an accused criminal through Interpol's channels a very daunting task. Interpol still requires extradiction across international borders. Unfortunately, not all of the countries in Interpol have extradition treaties with one another.

When it comes to high-priority suspects these structural constraints can make it extremely difficult to capture suspects.

Interpol could overcome some of these issues by increasing the level of cooperation in the pursuit and capture of criminals. Establishing a cooperative force to pursue and arrest high-interest suspects across any number of jurisdictions could make it considerably easier for Interpol to conduct its work across jurisdictions.

Naturally, such a force would have to be formed on a voluntary basis, and could not operate in any non-participant state.

But at a time when the window to capture a suspect can close within a matter of hours or days, such cooperation will be necessary to ensure that such criminals can be brought to justice.

The alternative, as explored in The International, may well be vigilante justice -- something that few people would like to see.

The Real Threat to Faith

Religious extremists, not questions, is a threat to religious faith

In a recent column on the Examiner website, Trina Hoaks wrote about the threat to faith that some religious believers think atheists pose.

As mentioned previously, to pretend that the questions and challenges posed by atheists to religion is a threat to religious faith is purely unfounded alarmism. If anything, faith needs these questions and challenges in order to remain relevant in a world that so often seems to contradict it.

This isn't, however, to say that religious faith doesn't face any threats at all.

Quite the contrary.

Ironically, however, the threats to religious faith most often aren't posed by those who don't believe. Rather, the most dangerous threats to religious faith are often posed by those who profess to believe.

Consider the ever-controversial Westboro Baptist Church.

In their most recent outrage, the WBC will picket Moore High School in Moore, Oklahoma. In a press release on their Church webpage/homophobic hate site, the WBC declares "We will picket your really large high school because you Southern hypocrites keep lying to the children." It continues, "God has cursed you, with your parents' lies. Now God is rejecting your filthy raging lies violent brats."

The press release also claims that "God hates Moore High School", and labels all the students as "sluts".

Naturally, the parents of children attending the school are opposed to Church's presence.

"I don't have anything against them protesting. We live in America they're allowed to protest," Andrea Smith admitted. "I have a problem when it takes away my child's right to go to school without being harassed. Predators aren't allowed within so many yards of the school. Speeding is illegal around the school. Everything you can think of is illegal around the school. So, why should they be allowed to spread their filth around the school?"

Whatever the Westboro Baptist Church hopes to accomplish with this protest is largely known to themselves alone. But it's almost certain that they won't convince any of the students at Moore High School won't be converted to their perverse version of Christianity.

It isn't hard to imagine that, should someone be told that God hates them, they won't want much to do with that God.

Even more disturbing is the notion that God not only hates the people who've committed whatever grave sin has been committed at Moore High School -- knowing the WBC, it could be anything from teaching anything even remotely resembling tolerance of homosexuality to eating meat on Friday -- but also hates innocent bystanders.

The vast majority of Christians are taught that God loves them. The Westboro Baptist Church, however, preaches a much different message: not necessarily that God loves them, but rather that God hates everyone else.

As truthful as it is, to describe the Westboro Baptist Church as a hate cult has become something of a cliche.

Nothing contradicts the notion of a benevolent God then the insistence that God hates nearly anyone and everyone a particular Church disagrees with -- which just so happens to include you if you aren't a member of that Church.

If anything, the WBC is a reminder that holy scriptures are often the word of man, not necessarily the word of God. Even the word of God as translated by man can't help but reflect the personal biases of its translator.

In the case of Fred Phelps and the Westboro Baptist Church, that particular bias is purely evident: hatred. Not God's hatred, but Phelps'.

A thinking believer can understand this very quickly. A non-thinking or anti-thinking believer, like any member of Phelps' congregation, is much less likely to be able to tell the difference.

Fortunately, the WBC isn't attracting many converts. Of all the members of the church, most of the members are related to Phelps.

What is of greater concern is what Phelps is doing to the idea of religious faith. By insisting that the one, true faith is rightfully the domain of hateful and vindictive people, it isn't at all surprising that people like Phelps send many people running as far away from religious faith as they can get.

They, not atheists, are the real threat to religious faith.

Sizing Up the Competition

Peter MacKay faces formidable competition for the office of NATO Secretary General

If one considers history alone, Peter MacKay's chances of being elected as NATO's next Secretary General are very slim.

As some have previously noted, an unwritten agreement between the United States and European states guarantees European countries control over the Secretary General's office as long as the supreme military commander remains an American.

But even with such an unwritten policy in place it should be expected that whomever winds up winning the job should be capable of performing it.

As it stands, there are currently four other candidates for the job.

Poland has nominated its Foreign Minister, Radoslaw Sikorski, for the job. Sikorski studied Politics, Economics and Philosophy at Oxford and covered the 1980s Afghanistan and Angola for the British Press.

Sikorski also served as Poland's Defence Minister between 2005 and 2007 before he resigned in order to become Foreign Minister. Sikorski also held a number of deputy minister portfolios throughout the 1990s.

Between 2002 and 2005 Sikorski was a resident fellow at the American Enterprise Institute. He was also executive director of the New Atlantic Initiative, an organization committed to revitalizing relations between the Atlantic democracies.

Sikorski strongly supports both close relations between Poland the United States, as well as Poland's role within the European Union. Foremost among his goals is the modernization of the Polish military.

Radoslaw Sikorski is clearly a strong candidate for Secretary General. But he does face one serious hurdle.

Sikorski is the man who signed the Missile Defense treaty with the United States. As a result, Sikorski's election as Secretary General could jeopardize efforts to rebuild NATO's currently-fractious relationship with Russia.

Considering Russia's quite natural opposition to the Missile Defense Shield -- not only should such a countermeasure be unnecessary against a country that is technically still an American ally, but it also does risk upsetting the delicate balance of power established between the two countries over long and arduous non-proliferation negotiations.

Bulgarian Foreign Minister Solomon Passi is also considred a strong candidate to become NATO Secretary General.

Passi's bid to become Secretary General was seemingly overshadowed by Irina Bakova's campaign to head UNESCO.

Passi achieved prominence in 1990 when he drafted a bill calling for Bulgaria to quit the Warsaw Pact and join NATO. He also drafted the bill that culminated with Bulgaria joining the EU.

Former British Defense Minister Des Browne has also been suggested as a candidate.

Browne has solid diplomatic credentials within Britain, having served on the Northern Ireland Select Committee in 1997.

However, Browne also faced a great deal of criticism when he allowed British soldiers taken prisoner by Iran in 2007 to publish their stories.

Norwegian Foreign Affairs Minister Jonas Gaer Stoere has also been proposed as a candidate. Stoere studied law at Harvard before serving as the Norwegian ambassador to the United Nations office in Geneva.

He has also served as the Executive Director of the World Health Organization and the Secretary General of the Norwegian Red Cross.

Along with MacKay, these individuals -- Stoere, Browne, Passi and Sikorski -- seem to be the front-runners for the role of Secretary General.

For their own part, the Americans aren't endorsing any of the candidates, instead merely naming the criterea by which they think a Secretary General would be successful.

"What's important from my standpoint is simply that we have somebody who has the broadest possible support across the alliance and frankly somebody who has the executive experience to run a very large and complex organisation," said US Secretary of Defense Robert Gates.

Sikorski is almost certainly MacKay's most formidable rival for this job. Unfortuantely, he also has one key shortcoming: he already has a tenuous history with at least one country in which NATO would like to forge strong diplomatic ties. Sikorski as General Secretary would be a definite liability toward that end.

MacKay is as strong a candidate as Sikorski, and he doesn't have the same history with Russia.

Peter MacKay's bid to become the Secretary General of NATO may be more favourable than he's otherwise been credited.

Bad History Revisited, Redux

The militant godless don't understand why they can't have it both ways

It's amazing how far a little stupidity can go.

When Robert McClelland offered up a very selectively edited clip of Kathy Shaidle's appearance on TVO's The Agenda, it quickly took on a life of its own.

Various left-wing bloggers in Canada have breathlessly circulated it around the internet, treating it as further evidence of the alleged intellectual superiority of the atheist crowd.

However, this is being done amidst an environment of protracted intellectual dishonesty, intellectual dishonesty which -- unshockingly enough -- continued at the Canadian Cynic Temple of Sycophantic Groupthink.

In a post entitled "What Robert Buckman Should Have Said", Cynic continues to treat the entire affair as if Shaidle's question regarding "what God Stalin was killing 30 million people in the name of" as an unprovoked attack on atheism.

Yet this couldn't be further from the truth.

Interestingly, it was Robert McClelland's intellectual dishonesty that kicked off the entire affair when he made the decision regarding where to start the tape, so to speak. This is intellectual dishonesty that many other so-called "progressive" bloggers have decided to run with.

A good example is that of Enormous Thriving Plants' Audrey II, who insists that "the fun starts at 24:50".

But when one takes a look at the program, one finds a very interesting thing about that particular time interval: 24:50 is when McClelland's video begins.

What's just as interesting is what happens at 24:06, when Dr Buckman utters the following words:

"I would never even debate this subject if it weren't for the fact that people in the human race are so ready to kill each other because of their concrete belief in God. We know why that is, as I talk about in my book -- mentioned by Dawkins -- that unfortunately the brain system for aggression and translating emotion into action is unfortunately easily fed into by the bit of the brain that processes by belief. So tragically human beings are programmed to take swords up and take cudgels up in the name of what they believe in."

It's only at that point Kathy Shaidle challenges Buckman regarding what Stalin believed in when he killed 30 million people through his various purges.

Whether Dr Buckman and Shaidle's various detractors want to admit it or not, this is a very fair question. And sadly anyone aware of the facts regarding the Soviet Union and its treatment of religion knows this.

As related here on two previous occasions, Stalin had a very cozy relationship with a group known as the League of the Militant Godless, who believed that religion and communism could not coexist.

Interestingly enough, Vladimir Lenin -- the man who founded the Soviet Union -- disagreed with them. In a 1905 essay entitled "Socialism and Religion", Lenin wrote "unity in the really revolutionary struggle of the oppressed class for creation of a paradise on earth is more important to us than unity of proletarian opinion on paradise in heaven."

Lenin rejected the idea of making atheism a central part of the Bolshevik party, and opposed entrenching atheism as the acclesia of the Soviet Union.

Stalin, however, was known to disagree with Lenin on this point and used the pressure exerted by the League of the Militant Godless to impliment his program of dispossessing Church properties and the killing of any clergy who opposed it. By all credible accounts, the Russian Orthodox Church had been nearly wiped out by 1939.

There's a very good reason why Canadian Cynic, Robert McClelland and Audrey II are so desperate to ignore these facts. When one couples them with Buckman's own assertion that human beings are programmed to resort to violence over their beliefs it becomes very difficult to separate Stalin's oppression of religion from his atheism.

Joseph Stalin, an atheist, oppressed religion brutally. He agreed with the League of the Militant Godless that communism and religion couldn't coexist, and that atheism was a central tenet of communism. When he oppressed religion in the name of communism, he was also doing this in the name of atheism.

These actions enjoyed the support of a very large organized group of atheists.

When Joseph Stalin killed those 30 million people, he allegedly did so in the name of what he believed in most -- communism. But considering that he resolutely believed atheism and communism to be inseparable from one another, it isn't nearly as unreasonable to suggest that he also did so in the name of atheism as people such as Dr Robert Buckman would insist.

Naturally, the modern day's most militant godless feign offense at the very idea that the slander they most love to use against religion can be turned against them. But given that many of them so proudly resort to tactics that are designed not only primarily but solely to offend people of faith, it's far too difficult to feel sorry for them.

It's ultimately their own argument, and the militant godless can't expect people to ignore history so they can have it both ways.

Challenging Dogma is Bad For Your Academic Health

Questioning efficacy of reserve system has political scientist in hot water

If there's any one rule that has come to predominate politics in Canada, it is this:

Don't ask questions about the state of Canada's aboriginal people. If you must ask questions, don't ask the wrong ones.

This at least seems to be the lesson to be learned from the recent experience of Frances Widdowson, whom many Canadian academics have been slowly stewing ever since a presentation she gave last year.

At the June 2008 meeting of the Canadian Political Science Association Widdowson cited Canada's Aboriginal Reserve system for encouraging unemployment and the social problems that come with it. She insisted that the best way to help Aboriginals is to assimilate them.

This naturally provoked a great deal of outrage from those present, including a man who allegedly asked her if she wanted to "take it outside".

After the presentation -- which according to reports seemingly may not have even been finished -- accusations of hate speech were levelled against Widdowson. There were also calls for McGill university press to be censured for printing Disrobing the Aboriginal Industry: the Deception Behind Indigenous Cultural Preservation, Widowson's book on the subject.

Some have gone so far as to accuse Widdowson of peddling "master race fantasies".

It's even been suggested that views such as Widdowson's may discourage aboriginals from seeking careers in academia.

Widdowson isn't the only individual -- academic or otherwise -- facing difficulties for challenging an entrenched dogma in Canadian thought on aboriginal affairs.

Also in June of last year Conservative MP Pierre Poilievre questioned how well money spent on aboriginal reserves has actually served Canada's aboriginals.

"We spend 10 billion dollars -- 10 billion dollars -- in annual spending this year alone now, that is an exceptional amount of money, and that is on top of all the resource revenue that goes to reserves that sit on petroleum products or sit on uranium mines, other things where companies have to pay them royalties," Poilevre said. "And that's on top of all that money that they earn on their own reserves. That is an incredible amount of money."

"Some of us are starting to ask: 'Are we really getting value for all of this money, and is more money really going to solve the problem?'," Poilievre asked. "My view is that we need to engender the values of hard work and independence and self reliance. That's the solution in the long run -- more money will not solve it."

Poilievre's insistence that aboriginals need to learn "independence and self reliance" was treated as offensive by a great many people. But for those who focused on that unfortunate choice of words, the real issue was entirely lost: namely, the endemic poverty that persists on Canadian aboriginal reserves.

Tom Flanagan has also stirred up a great deal of controversy with his own recommendations on aboriginal policy. In his book First Nations? Second Thoughts, Flanagan suggests that, among other things, aboriginals should be given property rights over reservation lands so that they may sell those lands or use them as collateral for bank loans.

The ultimate result of that would be transforming reservation lands from a trust handed down from generation to generation into properties no different from any other property.

In other words, assimilation by property.

Assimilation has formally been on the national agenda before. Assimilation was very much at the heart of the Residential School system, just as it was the very soul of Pierre Trudeau's "citizens plus" model for aboriginals.

Assimilation has been rejected by Canada's aboriginals at every turn, and naturally so. Anyone who believes in the right of aboriginal Canadians to self-determination cannot accept forced assimilation. Those who favour assimilation should understand why this is so.

But what is emerging in this particular debate isn't a battle between racism and tolerance, as many of those who favour the status quo in regards to aboriginal policy would insist. Rather, this is a battle between a call for pragmatism -- however ill-conceived -- and a dogma of liberal guilt.

Canadians can no longer ignore the fact that our aboriginal policies -- policies which reinforces the notion that aboriginal Canadians and non-aboriginal Canadians live separate lives -- have failed.

For $10 billion annually poverty on aboriginal reserves should be a thing of the past. Yet it isn't, and it may come down to questionable priorities.

Funding the fight against assimilation may be a losing battle. In one way or another it could be said that assimilation is inevitable, and that the only question remaining is whether this assimilation will be aboriginals assimilating within Canadian society or traditional aboriginal lifestyles assimilating within the modern world.

Yet should aboriginal cultures fade into history as many aboriginal leaders fear, there is no question that this would be an incredible loss.

Balancing the fight against poverty and the fight to preserve aboriginal culture is a difficult task. There's no reason why both can't be done, but it's clearly time for a paradigm shift in the approach to each. The status quo isn't working.

Many Canadians, sadly, are perfectly content with the aboriginal affairs status quo. The poverty on aboriginal reserves is something that many Canadians never see. Aboriginal reserves are, for many Canadians, something they never see. At most, perhaps they pass one on the highway on occasion and see it from a distance at best.

The outrage directed at Frances Widdowson is simply further evidence of how this insular relationship has fed the dogma that has come to dominate Canadian thinking on aboriginal affairs.

It may be an exaggeration to suggest that Widdowson's academic career is threatened by her thinking on the topic. Then again, it might not be. If her career truly is threatened by her antithetical thinking on aboriginal affairs, then she isn't alone.


Other bloggers writing on this topic:

Lee Harding - "Left Wing vs Aboriginal Status Quo"

Metis Bare Facts - "Hypocrisy in the World

Mario Dumont Is Coming to Your TV

ADQ leader making jump to television journalism

Mario Dumont is coming to your TV.

Well, okay, maybe not your TV. Unless you live in Quebec.

A day after Dumont finally finalized his departure from the leadership of the Action Democratique du Quebec, it's been announced that Dumont will host a public affairs program on TQS.

With Dumont getting set to take this new job, the ADQ can finally get down to the business of choosing his successor.

The task won't be easy.

For one thing, the party has very few rules regarding how a leadership campaign is to be conducted.

"The party has never really had to choose a leader so they're making up the rules as they go along," explains McGill University's Antonia Maioni, who's uncertain that the party will even survive Dumont's departure. "They'll probably have some sort of choice in the fall, but I don't even know if the party is going to get to the fall."

"The ADQ has more or less run its course in trying to become the third party that takes the place of one of the major parties," Maioni insists.

On top of all this, no contenders have yet to bid on the ADQ leadership.

For his own part, Dumont disagrees with Maioni's prognosis regarding the ADQ's survival. "I think I've installed a new political voice in the landscape, despite what they are saying today," Dumont insists.

But there's little question that the ADQ cannot survive without any leader at all. It may even come down to Janvier Grondin, who so recently insisted that Dumont had to depart the leadership so a replacement process could begin, to step in the take the party reins.

Survival of the Fittest (Faith)

Weak faith is not worth preserving

In a column appearing on the Examiner website, atheist examiner Trina Hoaks addresses the notion that atheism somehow poses a threat to religious faith.

"There does seem to be an awareness that atheism is here to stay and that its numbers seem to be growing," Hoaks writes. "This is in stark contrast to the mood not too long ago. Some religious leaders and writers supposed that atheism would fizzle out, or at least that is what they expressed. Whether they really believe it or not is debatable."

Hoaks goes on to write about an episode of Focus on the Family in which Dr James Dobson and Dr Albert Mohler discussed how to combat the "new atheism".

In the program, Mohler insisted that "the 'New Atheists' are 'dangerous' and a 'threat'."

This, of course, begs an important question: a threat to whom, precisely?

The argument often raised about the "new atheists" is that they're dangerous to religious faith: essentially, that the challenges of these atheists may cause religious believers to question, or even abandon, their faith.

The self-appointed representatives of atheism are a formidable lot. Richard Dawkins is a skillful speaker and writer, as are Christopher Hitchens and Sam Harris.

But to anyone who does themselves the intellectual service of periodically pondering their faith, they are no threat.

Day to day life should challenge the faith of any believer. One doesn't need to look far to find suffering or injustice. Particularly, the belief in a benevolent, intervening and even retributive God can be difficult to maintain in the face of a clearly imperfect world.

In the face of such a revelation, it's only natural for a rational person to question how deeply they believe in such a being, and why. A thinking person's faith should be flexible enough to be situated within the world as it is. It shouldn't rely on the world being as one wishes it to be.

If one's faith is strong and their reasons for belief well-founded, their faith should survive nearly any challenge. If it isn't, then their faith likely wasn't worth preserving in the first place.

In the world of religious faith, as in the world of nature, survival is largely preserved for the fittest.

The answer to the imaginary "threat" posed by the "new atheism" isn't to censor or silence their messages, as some extreme individuals such as Charles McVety and Britain's Stephen Green seem to have called for.

Rather, the answer is for thinking believers, just as Dawkins has called upon atheists, to speak up and challenge atheism's most aggressive proselytizers on their own intellectual ground.

Sometimes it can certainly be difficult to decide how to best do this.

Religious thinkers haven't always been up to the task. For example some, Kirk Cameron and Ray Comfort chiefly among them, have attempted to challenge atheisms' canonization of the Theory of Evolution by attempting to refute it. A wiser strategy would be to challenge the purported right of atheists to canonize it as their version of holy scripture.

They must contend with any intellectual environment that proves hostile to religion. Hoaks writes that Mohler insists 'intellectual intimidation' "is taking place in colleges across the nation and that parents need to arm their children against this kind of 'religious persecution'. He also said that atheists persecute the young and high school students through intellectual intimidation."

There are some who seek to foment an intellectual environment hostile to religious belief. These individuals should be revealed for what they are. Many of them, such as PZ Myers, will do so on their own if ever placed within an academic environment in which they face any faint trace of disagreement.

They, like Dawkins et al, are no threat to religious belief; although they should be challenged nonetheless.

The path religious believers choose to follow isn't an easy one. They must find a way to adapt the concept of God to the real world. They must learn to tell the word of God from the word of man. Most importantly, they must have the courage to live according to their convictions, regardless of whatever the detractors of religion would tell them.

If religious believers cannot do this, then perhaps it really is time for religion to go bravely into the dark night.

But atheism's most vigorous proselytizers may be in for a surprise. There are many religious believers who are prepared to take on this challenge.

All they need to do now is stand up and challenge their detractors.

Ahenakew Walks Free

A difference in venue can make all the difference in the world

In what will certainly wind up being an extremely controversial decision, David Ahenakew has been acquitted of inciting hatred against Jews.

In the trial, stemming from a 2002 speech and media interview given by Ahenakew, Justice Wilfred Tucker found that Ahenakew hadn't intended to incite hatred in his comments.

Reading the news coverage of the decision seems to indicate a will on Tucker's part to find Ahenakew not guilty.

In his ruling Tucker echoed Doug Christie's extremely curious reasoning, agreeing that Ahenakew couldn't have intended to promote hatred of Jews if he hadn't planned to speak about that topic.

"There was no consent to an interview about Jews or the question of whether they started the Second World War. That is not the subject that anyone would have foreseen," Christie reasoned. "He consented to an interview about the consent form that Natives were required to sign in order to get medical treatment. And that was the thing that got him and a lot of other Native people very upset and he expected to talk about that, and that's what the judge found."

Reportedly, Ahenakew tried to end the interview before he made the comments, but Star Phoenix reporter Betty Ann Adam insisting on asking him about his previous speech, in which he accused Jews of starting the second world war.

That's when Ahenakew uttered the infamous words.

"How do you get rid of a disease like that, that's going to take over, that's going to dominate?" Ahenakew asked. "The Jews damn near owned all of Germany prior to the war. That's how Hitler came in. He was going to make damn sure that the Jews didn't take over Germany or Europe."

"That's why he fried six million of those guys, you know," Ahenakew insisted. "Jews would have owned the God-damned world."

Christie's argument -- clearly accepted by Tucker -- regarding whether or not Ahenakew's comments were premeditated is complete and utter nonsense.

For one thing, Canadian criminal law doesn't require premeditation in order to prove intent. Second degree murder, for example, requires an intent to kill but not necessarily premeditation.

In other words, premeditation doesn't define intent.

It's hard to imagine that anyone who would describe another group of people as a "disease" doesn't intend for other people to view them with similar revulsion. The words really do speak for themselves.

But Ahenakew's acquittal also speaks for itself. It also speaks for the extremely tenuous nature of Canada's hate crime laws, and speaks to very different results attained in very different venues.

In a Human Rights Commission Ahenakew would have had no right to legal counsel and his complainants would have been subject to extremely lax rules of evidence. In a Human Rights Commission, Ahenakew would have very likely been convicted.

Of course, Tucker's decision shouldn't be confused for condonation of Ahanakew's remarks.

"The opinions distorted historical facts and general views expressed by the accused can only be viewed with revulsion and disgust by ordinary Canadians," Tucker announced. "That anyone would characterize the murder of millions of innocent human beings as 'getting rid of a disease,' or 'trying to clean up the world' is incomprehensible to decent people."

In contrast to rulings by Canada's various Human Rights Commissions, Ahenakew has walked away from this one without even having to apologize.

"I'm still the same guy that was born, that served the world, that served the army, that served the people. I'm still that same guy," Ahenakew said. "And I'm too damn old now to change anyways."

That's a far cry from the mandated apology and ban on commenting on Jews that could have been ordered by a Human Rights Commission.

Whether or not Ahenakew's acquittal is a setback for Canada's hate speech legislation is something that will remain to be seen, as those facing similar charges in future will almost certainly look to it as a precedent under which they, too, can be acquitted.

In the meantime what will almost certainly fall into greater question is whether or not these laws should be kept at all.


Other bloggers writing on this topic:

Zach Bell - "Jewish Thoughts On David Ahenakew"

Rob Harvie - "Saskatoon Provincial Court Finds Ahenakew 'Not Guilty' of Hate Crime And Probably Unintentionally Does the Right Thing"

Shmohawk - "revolting, disgusting and untrue"

Bad History Revisited

The controversy over Kathy Shaidle's appearance on TVO's The Agenda has bubbled forth in various forms.

First, there was Warren Kinsella's campaign to have her appearance on the show cancelled. Then there's the aftermath -- allegations that Kinsella attempted to intimidate the show's host, Steve Paikin, into cancelling his appearance.

Left-wing blogger and known anti-Semite Robert McClelland edited an excerpt out of the video in which he insists that "Dr Robert Buckman slaps down the 'Stalin killed in the name of atheism' talking point favoured by right wing pundits like Kathy Shaidle".

Shaidle's adversaries have jumped all over the video, frantically pointing to it as evidence of Shaidle's alleged stupidity.

In the video, Shaidle confronts Buckman over the relationship between atheism and Joseph Stalin's murderous acts.



Clearly, Buckman hasn't read all the books about Joseph Stalin or the Soviet Union.

If he really had he would be aware of a Soviet organization known as the League of the Militant Godless, and what Joseph Stalin did in 1936 when he entrenched not merely atheism, but anti-religiosity in the Soviet constitution.

Historians credit the pressure applied by the League of the Militant Godless with allowing Stalin to make this move which allowed him to dispossess the Russian Orthodox Church of various Church properties, although Stalin softened his policy toward the Church when he needed them during WWII.

So if Buckman wants to admit that Stalin killed people "because they were religion" even as he entrenched anti-religion in the Russian Constitution, he can't honestly pretend that these two things weren't related.

On the other hand Buckman insists that suggesting that Stalin killed in the name of atheism is like suggesting that Adolph Hitler, a vegetarian, killed in the name of vegetarianism. Again, Buckman is overlooking the nuances of history in order to make this argument.

After all, vegetarianism was not entrenched in the Constitution of the Third Reich. (Nor, for that matter, was atheism.) The anti-religious cause, however, was entrenched in the Soviet constitution.

Anyone who has done their research on the relationship between the Soviet Union and religion knows about these things. If Buckman has really read the books, as he insists he has, then his performance on The Agenda isn't merely ignorance, it's willful ignorance.

Individuals such as Robert McClelland take this a step forward when they edit the video to make it seem as if it were Shaidle who brought the issue up in the first place. Quite the contrary, it was Buckman himself who brought up the question of how many people religion has allegedly killed.

As far as Joseph Stalin, his victims and atheism are concerned, Dr Buckman's assertion is not only bad history, but indeed atrocious history.

Unsurprisngly, people like McClelland, JJ and Lulu don't know the difference.

Oh. My. Dear. Lord.

The irony of this will almost certainly be lost on some people.

But not on the rest of us.

Gaudet Hacked, Buzz Sawed

In January 2009, the CBC hosted a special edition of the Dragons' Den in which they entertained presentations on how to fix the Canadian Economy. Among the presenters were Kevin Gaudet and Buzz Hargrove.

On the program, the Dragons were given a hypothetical $20 billion that they could spend however they thought could best stimulate the economy.

Gaudet, the national director of the Canadian Taxpayers' Federation, presented first, calling for tax reflief:



Gaudet began by suggesting there's a high level of consensus in favour of tax relief, citing support for the idea from Barack Obama's chief economic adviser, Christina Romer, citing her insistence that every $1 of tax relief stimulates an economy threefold.

More importantly, Gaudet came with specific recommendations on how that tax relief -- a full $20 billion worth -- could be implemented on a permanent, structural basis.

However, Gaudet wanted to direct that tax relief almost exclusively toward Middle Class taxpayers, with a very small portion going to business. Irene Darra's question about whether or not Canadians would spend that money or save it -- or use it to pay down debt -- seems more than a little ridiculous.

Considering that the global economy is currently grappling with an economic crisis built on defaulting debts it seems that tax relief being used to pay down debt would actually be a very positive step.

There's little question that the Canadian economy wouldn't be stimulated by the full hypothetical $20 billion. But a consumer carrying a smaller debt load is a consumer with cause for greater confidence.

Gaudet was followed by former Canadian Autoworkers Union President Buzz Hargrove, who called on the Dragons to "forget about" the CTF and forget about tax relief:



Compared to Gaudet, who arrived with a well-prepared presentation, Hargrove's presentation was poorly concieved. His delivery was worse.

Hargrove pushed hard for an exclusive push toward not only a stimulus package, but for a stimulus program that would focus largely on the auto and forestry industry.

Hargrove peddled a victim mentality, arguing that the allegedly-otherwise mighty North American automakers have been victimized by bad government policy (although he failed to elaborate on which policies were allegedly harming the auto industry), a discouraging credit market and by what he deemed unfair trade practices.

He called for stimulus of the credit market and protectionist measures -- particularly against Asian carmakers. Hargrove somehow overlooks the fact that Toyota in particular is one of the few automakers actually opening new plants in Canada as opposed to closing them.

Hargrove's suggestion that leasing may be a better model for carmakers is an intriguing idea. But Hargrove's suggestion that credit should be loosened up so consumers can take on more debt at a time of economic uncertainty is ill-conceived.

For one thing, the low consumer condfidence argument has to be considered to apply. One would be foolish to think that consumers who are leery about spending money would be interested in taking on additional debt load in order to do so.

Neither Gaudet nor Hargrove got a particularly gentle ride from the Dragons. There's good reason for this.

Gaudet and Hargrove both represent the extreme ends of the ideological spectrum that together navigated the global economy into the crisis that it's currently in.

Gaudet's focus on tax relief and allowing market forces to run their course unimpeded has already shown its toxic effects. After all, the kind of unscrupulous greed that helped precipitate this crisis should properly be considered to be a market force, likewise with the notions of anyone who thinks they should be able to earn money without producing anything of value.

Hargrove's argument that the hypothetical $20 billion should be spent heavily on the auto industry is not only clearly self-interested -- even if he isn't the president of CAW anymore, he clearly has an intrest in seeing the organization succeed -- but it also overlooks the highly questionable record of Keynesian economics over the past forty years.

In hindsight, one certainly couldn't envy Gaudet or Hargrove. The Dragons' Den seems like an extremely intense environment. Any environment that can seemingly stagger a consumate tax fighter like Kevin Gaudet cannot be taken lightly.

The propositions of both men merely reflect the alternating extremes of economic policy followed over the past thirty years. The Dragons were right to adopt the propositions of neither man, and were probably right to decline to give a red cent to the big three automakers.


Other bloggers writing about this topic:

Rick Spence - "Dragons Second-Guess Stephen Harper"

No Time to Waste

ADQ needs new leader as soon as possible

When a political party suffers a change in fortunes as drastic as the one the Action Democratique du Quebec suffered over the past year, the most important thing is to start working on repairing the damage and cleaning up the mess.

In order to do this, it's important to have strong leadership.

It's on this note that the ADQ has been in something of a quandry since losing 32 seats in the National Assembly. ADQ leader Mario Dumont immediately announced his resignation following his party's ignomious defeat.

However, Dumont didn't note precisely when he'd vacate the leadership of the ADQ.

Thus the dilemma the ADQ faces. It needs strong leadership in order to mount any kind of comeback in a future election, and needs to begin their rebuilding efforts immediately. But with Dumont prolonging his departure that work cannot effectively begin.

Janvier Grondin, the MNA for Beauce-Nord, gave a radio interview in which he stressed the need for Dumont to depart the ADQ leadership as quickly as possible.

"Everything that drags along gets dirty," Grondin announced. "This shouldn't drag on. A political party without a leader isn't good for anybody."

Unfortunately, the ADQ's rules forbid even setting the rules for a leadership contest until Dumont leaves office, let alone selecting his successor.

Mario Dumont has served the ADQ well. But if he truly doesn't intend to stay on as leader he needs to leave the leadership as quickly as he can. Making his party wait for the opportunity to replace him serves no one well.

Unless Dumont has changed his mind and decided to stay, he needs to go and do so as soon as possible.

You Have to Stand For Something

This is the 1000th post written to the Nexus of Assholery. On occasions such as this, your not-so-humble scribe likes to take a few minutes out and write from a more personal perspective.

1000 posts seems like as good a time as any to reflect on what The Nexus is supposed to be. The following is a reflection on precisely that.

Enjoy.

In the increasingly complex and increasingly post-modern world, it can often be hard to decide precisely what one stands for.

Some people are up to the challenge of making this decision. History's greatest figures are known as such because, win or lose, they staked out what they believed in and refused to falter.

Many people aren't as resolute in their beliefs as individuals such as Martin Luther King, Tommy Douglas or Scotty Bowman. The pages of history are equally filled with figures such as Oliver Cromwell, Brian Mulroney and Neville Chamberlain -- individuals who proved flexible in their beliefs to the detriment of many.

Much worse than these people, however, are an even more dangerous group of people. These are the people who believe in nothing, or who in the very least refuse to stand up for their beliefs.

Having nothing to stand for isn't merely an absence of conviction. In it's own way, believing in nothing is a particularly pervasive moral hazard.

For one thing, believing in nothing silences a potentially powerful voice. Many worthy and important causes were achieved because people who may otherwise regard themselves as too powerless or insignificant to be part of something important.

To choose to stand for nothing out of fear of futility is merely one moral hazard of not actually believing in anything.

Another moral hazard reflects the price of a lack of conviction: those who believe in nothing are all the more likely to be ruled by people who do believe in something -- even if what these particular individuals believe in should be judged as abhorrent by any rational or moral person.

A lack of beliefs, by necessity, must flow out of an individual's disinterest in the world around them. Just as those who believe in nothing are likely to be ruled over by individuals who hold beliefs of their own, those who are disinterested are destined to be ruled over by those who are. Sometimes their interests may not reflect what such an individual would want from their life.

A particular moral hazard is that of ad hominem reasoning. Often, ad hominem reasoning is the intellectual refuge of those who have confined themselves within a political ideology so deeply that they cannot separate politics from morality. More importantly, they can't separate the ideas of anyone who might disagree with them from from narrowly-defined notions of immorality.

An ad hominem argument is often explained as attempting to argue that because a particular individual is evil, anything they say is evil. Ad hominem reasoning takes this notion an illogical step further -- it is found deeply entrenched in the thinking of anyone who believes that because their political opponents are evil that anyone who makes them angry must be good.

People suffering from this impediment range from conservatives who recognize Ann Coulter's vitriol for what it is yet defend her because she attacks liberals to liberals who recognized Heather Mallick's invective and defended her merely because she made conservatives angry.

If you were to ask them, these people would insist that they stand for something. Yet when the conservative excuses the abuses perpetrated by Augusto Pinochet or when the liberal excuses the human rights record of countries like Iran it becomes clear that when it matters most these people stand for nothing.

No one who would excuse obvious moral violations by their particular "side" for simple virtue of parochialism should ever be taken seriously.

Sadly, many of those people will be taken seriously -- but largely only by those who already share their empty convictions. At the very least it helps the rest of us to identify those who believe in nothing.

These moral hazards are particularly dangerous because no matter what those who have fallen victim to them may insist, they are chosen. They may not be rationally chosen, but they are chosen nonetheless.

If one decides to undertake the (somehow) overglamourized yet (often) underappreciated vocation -- clearly better described as hobby of being a political blogger, why one is blogging and what one believes in should be closely intertwined.

Few people should blog under the delusion that their blogging will change the world. Even if some the enterprising and courageous bloggers in otherwise-oppressive countries like China, Cuba and Iran bring us valuable dispatches from parts of the world in which change is evidently badly needed, change in those countries appears as far off as ever.

If the prospects of affecting change in such places is so remote, just imagine the prospects of bloggers forcing changes in countries where a (mostly) just status quo has emerged.

Bloggers cannot honestly expect to change the world through blogging. Their blogging may support broader movements of social or political change, and may thus be a factor in such change, but they cannot accomplish it on their own.

The best reason to blog may well be as an expression of what one stands for.

And with the world in the state it's in, one thing is evident: a person has to stand for something. A person has to believe in something. Otherwise they can be expected to fall for anything.

The Change (video)

The Marvelous Michaelle

Michaelle Jean may be Canada's best diplomat

When Michaelle Jean ascended to the role of Governor General, she would have been forgiven for thinking that she didn't have her work cut out for her.

Considering the central importance of the Governor General's office to Canadian democracy it's odd that the Governor General has largely been irrelevant in Canadian politics.

However, it's becoming increasingly clear that Michaelle Jean is setting the bar for future Governors General higher than it has ever been before.

There should be little doubt that Jean is one of the best diplomatic assets Canada currently has at its disposal -- if not the absolute best.

It seems that no matter which world leader Michaelle Jean meets she cannot help but impress. Following Barack Obama's visit to Ottawa this week Jean has been invited to continue correspondance with Obama regarding the situation in Haiti.

With Canadian soldiers still serving in the country, Haiti has become Canada's forgotton mission. And while Canada recently increased its aid commitment to Haiti the day-to-day prospects of Hatians has reportedly improved very little.

While the arduous task of arranging a formal visit to Washington may be prohibitive to Jean actually paying a visit to Obama in person, Jean will hopefully keep the lines of communication between herself and Obama open.

The new US President isn't the only foreign dignitary -- and key ally -- that Jean has mightily impressed. French President Nicolas Sarkozy was known to be awestruck by the Governor General.

Considering Jean's obviously incredible talent for the task it seems that the amount of time it takes to plan an official visit -- reportedly upwards of a year -- may actually make the Governor General's office a waste of her talents. Perhaps it's time for Canada to establish a new office -- perhaps something along the lines of a Diplomat General -- to accomodate individuals of Jean's mammoth talents, and allow other, less overwhelmingly impressive, individuals to serve as Governor General.

To date, Jean's efforts have produced dividends on two important areas of Canadian policy -- the fight against Quebec separatism and Canada's peacekeeping mission in Haiti.

By contrast Jean's successor, Adrienne Clarkson, ran up an impressive bill traveling Europe peddling the questionable idea of "Nordicness" to not-so-impressed northern European dignitaries.

If Michaelle Jean continues to impress on the global stage one can only imagine where her career path could take her. Perhaps elected office could lead her to becoming Canada's second female -- and first black -- Prime Minister.

But considering the normally apolitical nature of her office, such speculation may be more than slightly imprudent.

One way or another, Michaelle Jean is an incredible asset to Canada. Hopefully, Prime Minister Stephen Harper is wise enough to make the most of it.


Other bloggers writing on this topic:

Rod 2.0 Beta - "Obama and Michaelle Jean, Canada's First Black Governor General"

Pop Culture and Philosophy vol. 3: Sexual Confusion In a Time of Cyber-Identity

When Ghost in the Shell was first released as an anime nearly fifteen years ago, it provoked a great deal of criticism for the sexualized nature of some of the violence.

In the film the main character, Kotoko Kusanagi, undresses before engaging in combat.

Interestingly enough, however, Ghost in the Shell is essentially about a futuristic world wherein cybernetics has advanced to the point where entire android bodies can be implanted with human brains.

Kusanagi is a member of Section 9, a police unit that consists almost entirely of full cyborgs. As a result, Kusanagi's body isn't really female. It's merely a machine built to resemble a female body. It cannot reproduce -- although the first film deals with the issue of reproduction in an intruiging manner -- and could be populated by absolutely anyone.

Sociologists have long recognized that sex and gender are often treated as the same concept, yet are markedly different. Sex is a description of the sexual characteristics of the body. Males have male sexual characteristics and females have female sexual characteristics. In terms of biology, this essentially comes down to the sex organs.

In Ghost in the Shell, fully cybernetic bodies have no sex organs. Accordingly, they can only accurately be described as asexual.

Gender, meanwhile, is a much more complex topic. Gender is largely considered to be a function of identity: a collection of the ideas, concepts and emotions one holds regarding their sexuality combined with their phsyical characteristics and impulses.

Clearly, gender confusion would be much easier to deal with in an age of cyber identity -- wherein one's physical form could be entirely customized at will so long as one were willing to compromise on conventional concepts of their own humanity.

Transplanting into a fully cybernetic body would pose to one the philosophical dilemma of embracing asexuality in order to rectify their gender confusion -- something they believe will be solved by transplanting themselves into a body of another sex.

In order for the transplanting of one's brain to fully solve their gender confusion one would have to find someone willing to have another brain implanted in their body, and their own brain implanted in someone else's.

Organized gender swapping could very much be a reality in such a world.

But it also poses larger questions about how one keeps track of identity in such a world. Many of the documents used today to keep track of one's identities deal with physical characteristics -- height, weight, hair and eye colour, skin colour and even date of birth. These are all characteristics securely grounded in time and space.

Take the case of the Japanese Foreign Affairs Minister suggested in episode one of Stand Alone Complex -- an anime series treated as separate from the feature-length films or the original manga. When the Minister gets drunk he occasionally likes to swap bodies with Geishas at a club he often frequents. The national security of Japan is eventually compromised when an individual with criminal intents steals the body of the Minister.

The individual in question has perpetrated the ultimate act of identity theft. With notions of identity naturally focused around one's body it doesn't even necessarily take a talented actor to steal one's body and, forthwith, their identity.

The individuals swapping bodies through an organized gender swapping scheme could be considered to be swapping not only their sex, but also their effective identities. While one has to imagine that a society in which the swapping of bodies is possible would have to employ more fluid methods of tracking identity, one also has to consider the likelihood that such methods would first have to breach a psychological and philosophical barrier.

Certainly, the idea that one's true identity lies somewhere other than with their body wouldn't be a new concept. Religious people believe in the soul. However, one has to remember that they treat the soul largely as an otherworldly entity. The more fluid sense of identity required for a society like that portrayed in Ghost in the Shell would need to apply such ideas in the corporeal world.

TV programs like Ghost in the Shell mount an interesting challenge to traditional notions of identity. One only has to wonder how long it will be before global civilization actually has to deal with that challenge in real life.

Finally, Richard Dawkins Can Be Good For Something

Dawkins should trounce Ray Comfort and get paid for it

Most of thsoe truly rational-minded people who've paid any passing amount of attention to Richard Dawkins have long realized that he isn't good for much of anything.

Once upon a time Dawkins was an educator. However, since retiring from Oxford Dawkins has dedicated himself to single-mindedly promoting atheism. Which would make him about as useful as Canadian Cynic on Valentine's Day.

However, some use for Dawkins may have just come up.

Eager to test the arguments from his most recent book, You Can Lead An Atheist to Evidence But You Can't Make Him Think, Ray Comfort has offered Dawkins $10,000 to participate in a debate.

Comfort's intentions are very simple -- he wants to convert Dawkins.

"Richard Dawkins is arguably the most famous living atheist, now that Anthony Flew doubted his doubts and backslid as an atheist," Comfort said. "Flew said that he simply followed the evidence. I would like to see Richard Dawkins follow his example."

"One of Dawkins' major gripes is against religion," Comfort explained. "I am in total agreement on that one. I abhor religion. It is the opiate of the masses. It has left a bloody trail of destruction and human misery throughout history. Hitler even used it for his own ends. His other big beef is that he believes that the God of the Old Testament is a tyrant. If I had the image of God Dawkins has created in his mind, I, too, would be an atheist. The problem is that the god Mr Dawkins doesn't believe in, doesn't exist."

"I will donate $10,000 to him, or give it to any children's charity he names," Comfort announced. "All I ask is that he goes into a studio and gives me 20 minutes on why there is no God and why evolution is scientific. Then I will give 20 minutes on how we can know God exists and why evolution is nothing more than an unsubstantiated and unscientific fairy tale for grownups. Then we both will have 10 minutes to respond."

Comfort doesn't expect Dawkins to accept, however. He believes that Dawkins may be too afraid to debate him.

"Sadly, I have found that even evolution's most staunch believers are afraid to debate, because they know that their case for atheism and evolution is less than extremely weak," Comfort insisted. "I would be delighted (and honored) if Mr. Dawkins has the courage to debate me, but I'm not holding my breath."

Of course, Comfort couldn't be more wrong about this. If anything, scientists are avoiding debating Comfort on the topic because they don't believe there legitimately is a debate.

But while Dawkins really couldn't debate his way out of a paper bag in regards to religion -- he's well known for making numerous dead-end arguments and his book The God Delusion is really just a rehashed collection of other people's arguments -- Dawkins can win a debate with Comfort over evolution hands down. That is the best reason to take Comfort on.

Comfort has seemingly grown cocky since his 2007 encounter with the Rational Response Squad when he and Kirk Cameron managed to wipe the floor with them using some extremely unconvincing arguments.

Comfort's famously debunked banana argument, in which he suggests the shape of a banana is evidence of it being intelligently designed, is an example of the kind of argument Comfort is prone to. And while the Rational Response Squad may be so intellectually helpless as to be unable to counter such an argument, Dawkins is much smarter than them.

Comfort's classicly weak arguments against evolution have left him extremely vulnerable and just begging to be mowed down.

That is the best reason of all for Dawkins to crush Comfort on the topic of evolution, and actually have Comfort pay him to do it.

Previewing the Harper/Obama Meeting

Economy, environment on meeting agenda

With Barack Obama making his first official visit to Canada today, the excitement in the nation's capital -- as in the country as a whole -- is absolutely palpable.

According to Stephen Harper, he's relishing the opportunity to discuss matters with Obama that were difficult to deal with under George W Bush's Republican administration -- like the environment.

Harper says he's particularly looking forward to working with Obama on fighting climate change.

"We've been trying to do so in an integrated economy when the United States has not been willing to do so. I think quite frankly that we have the present administration that wants to see some kind of regulation in this is an encouragement," Harper told Wolf Blitzer on The Situation Room.



Harper also stressed the importance of resisting protectionist measures, noting how destructive protectionism would be to the global economy, particularly during this time of crisis.

As it turns out, Harper and Obama seem largely on the same page as it regards the economy. Harper wasn't the only leader granting an exclusive interview in another country yesterday. The CBC's Peter Mansbridge interviewed Obama from the White House. During the interview, Obama echoed many of Harper's sentiments.



Many Canadians will also be relieved to hear that Obama won't pressure -- at least officially -- Ottawa to remain militarily committed to Afghanistan. Although Prime Minister Harper and Defense Minister Peter MacKay still have to answer important questions regarding who will be expected to protect Canadian aid workers after the withdrawal of Canadian Armed Forces from the country.

Ever since Obama's election many Canadians have been eagerly looking forward to his first meeting with Stephen Harper. Many have wondered what kind of relationship the Conservative Prime Minister will have with a Democrat President.

Finally, the wait is over.

Of Professional Hatemongers and Professional Whores

Kenney and Arab Groups face off over funding

In a country where people can be haouled in front of a Human Rights Commission for saying this that others believe express hatred or contempt, it only seems logical that the government would deny funding to groups that express hatred or contempt.

Interestingly enough, some individuals have a problem with such a move.

Among them is Khaled Mouammar, who accused Kenney of being a "professional whore" for Israel.

Kenney recently identified the Canadian Arab Federation, a group in which Mouammar serves as President and the Canadian Islamic Congress as groups which promote hatred for Jews.

"There are organizations in Canada, as in Britain, that receive their share of media attention and public notoriety, but who at the same time as expressing hateful sentiments, expect to be treated as respectable interlocutors in the public discourse," Kenney explained. "These and other organizations are free within the confines of our law and consistent with our traditions of freedom of expression, to speak their mind, but they should not expect to receive resources from the state, support from taxpayers or any other form of official respect from the government or the organs of our state."

"I would encourage all other governments to take a similar approach to organizations that either excuse violence against Jews or express essentially anti-Semitic sentiments," Kenney continued.

"We do see the growth of a new anti-Semitism, the anti-Semitism predicated on the notion that the Jews alone have no right to a homeland," Kenney explained. "The argument is with those whose premise is that Israel itself is an abomination, and that the Jews alone have no right to a homeland. And in that sense anti-Zionism is anti-Semitism."

Of course, what Kenney really should have said is that this particular brand of anti-Zionism is< anti-Semitism. It would be foolish to heap those who object to the conduct of the Israeli state in with those who believe that it has no right to exist in the first place.

For his own part, NDP Finance Critic Thomas Mulcair seems to agree with the principle behind the decision. "I agree that people shouldn't get money from the federal government if they say hurtful things about any group," Mulcair said.

However, one also has to keep in mind that organizations such as the Canadian Arab Federation often provide services to immigrants that aren't only valuable to themselves, but to society as a whole. In particular, Kenney's move would deny the CAF $447,297 for language training and assistance with job searches.

If the CAF is to be denied this funding, the federal government will have to take responsibility for providing those services.

But even then, the government providing such services direclty is infitely preferable to providing funding to groups that can be said to violate -- ironically groups that often seek to exploit -- Canada's hate speech laws.


Other bloggers writing on this topic:

Peace, Order and Good Government Eh? - "Be Nice to Jason Kenney. Or Else."

Yaya Canada - "Political Whore Kenney Won't Put Out"

Calgary Rants - "Excellent Work by MP Jason Kenney"

Trouble Bubbling in Russia?

Gary Kasparov predicts Russian uprising

With Russians increasingly feeling the pinch of the economic crisis, Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin may be set to face some unexpected opposition.

But that opposition may not necessarily come from the Russian people -- the United Russia party has enjoyed spectacularly strong support from Russians ever since Putin helped engineer its genesis by uniting hundreds of smaller right-of-centre parties. Instead, that opposition may come from the most unlikely source imaginable -- from Putin's own hand-picked President, Dmitri Medvedev.

A worsening economic situation in Russia -- one that has Russia's oil oligarchs hemoraging money -- may be making Putin particularly vulnerable.

"It's a very fragile system, and Putin could well become a scapegoat for a lot of people inside the elites," muses Solidarinost leader Gary Kasparov. "Whether or not he genuinely wants to, we could see Medvedev emerge as a sort of perestroika leader."

Signs of a rift between Putin and Medvedev have been creeping into public view recently.

Medvedev recently questioned many of Putin's accomplishments during his time as President.

"It's easy to work when there are high revenues, above all from oil and gas exports," Medvedev recently said. "It's like you're not doing anything yourself, yet the profit just keeps coming in. That's great. But now it's important, first, to show that we can learn to spend money – budget money – rationally, and second, to be competent managers."

Of course Putin didn't always benefit from sky-high oil and gas revenues. He first came to office in 1999 when the Russian ruble had collapsed and the Russian economy was at an all-time low.

But Medvedev has been criticizing Putin an awful lot lately. He may be eyeing his Prime Minister as particularly vulnerable.

Medvedev has even ordered revision of a bill that would define treason in a manner that could cast political opposition as treasonous. This was one of Putin's bills.

"This was a key piece of Putinist legislation," says Kasparov. "It would've meant that people like me could easily be rounded up and arrested for treason. It's very significant that Medvedev and his allies have blocked it."

This is a significant change from less than two months ago when Medvedev helped push changes to Russia's Presidential term that would clearly pave the way for Putin to re-take the Presidency and hold it for another twelve years.

Putin's own role within the United Russia party -- he's always kept the party at arms length as much as possible -- could even turn out to be a serious liability for him if a power struggle with Medvedev really does materialize.

For his own part, Kasparov doesn't rule out the possibility of a mass revolt against Putin and Medvedev.

"People have had a stable life and still think that things will get better again," says Kasparov. "I expect the first waves of protests to start in earnest in March or April."

If Medvedev catches signs of such a revolt ahead of time, one can imagine that it would only hasten any machinations against Putin. But by the same token, Putin is known to be an extremely savvy political operator. There's no way he'll allow himself to be scapegoated without a fight.

Whether the Russian people turn on Medvedev and Putin or the two of them turn on each other, it's certain that the real winner will be Gary Kasparov and Solidarinost.

One can count on the Chess Grandmaster being prepared to take advantage.

Guess What Mark Steyn and PZ Myers Have In Common?

At first glimpse, it may seem that Mark Steyn and PZ Myers have very little in common.

Mark Steyn is a cultural critic who routinely provokes Human Rights complaints and general outrage from the left side of the political spectrum.

PZ Myers is a tenured biology professor and devout atheist who routinely provokes outrage from the right side of the political spectrum with his tirades against religion.

Myers and Steyn couldn't seem more different. But as it turns out, these two individuals have more in common than the fact that they've attracted a similarly single-minded collection of zealous followers.

As it turns out, each man has a very similar attitude toward Islam.

Mark Steyn's stance on Islam has long been well known. He's an advocate of Samuel Huntington's Clash of Civilizations theory. He's even gone so far as to argue that western civilization needs to significantly bump up its fertility rate in order to prevent being supplanted by Islam.

In other words, Steyn portrays Islam as a menacing, dangerous threat to the so-called "civilized" world. He's been hauled before the Canadian Human Rights Commission for saying this.

Meanwhile, in a post at PZ Myers' blog, Pharyngula, Myers relates the story of Muzzammil Hassan, an individual who established a television station with the goal of refuting stereotypes about Islam. Instead, Muzzamill wound up murdering and decapitating his wife when she demanded a divorce.

Myers, who's never encountered a slander against religion he didn't immediately fall in love with, reaches an interesting conclusion: "it's not a stereotype, but simply a fact that Islam is a patriarchal religion of misogyny."

It's amazing that Myers, a darling of those on the left wing who want to firmly entrench atheism as a fundamental part of the progressive political movement, could walk away from such comments unscathed. Yet the progressive left that would so gleefully denounce Mark Steyn for expressing the same sentiment has remained predictably quiet in regards to the matter.

One has to imagine that it doesn't matter much that both men are approaching their argument from assumptions that are fundamentally flawed.

Separate portions of Benazir Bhutto's Reconciliation could be used to refute either man.

Bhutto's explanations of how the Koran actually mandates fair treatment of women and grants them political and civil rights would prove to be a significant challenge to Myers' sentiments. (Also, the fact that Mohammad's first wife was the first Muslim is a detail that seems to escape Islamophobes.)

Bhutto's dismantling of the clash of civilizations thesis in the closing chapter of teh book would confront Steyn with the reality that freedom and democracy, not the end of Islam, is most likely to erase any threat posed to the Western world by the Muslim world. If she were still alive today, Bhutto would remind Steyn that Western countries haven't often been good allies to Muslim democrats.

Sadly, Bhutto isn't alive to counter the fear mongering language of either man, having been martyred in the name of bringing democracy to Pakistan.

But it's amazing how much these two have in common when it regards Islam -- and equally amazing that Myers is being allowed a free pass for his Islamophobia.

History Imitates Fiction, More Or Less

Patlabor II packs terrorism-related political punch

Patlabor I was a film about the perils posed by technology, and the risks global civilization accepts by embracing new and untested technologies in the name of convenience.

Patlabor II is a film about an altogether different subject.

The film opens with a scene set on an unnamed 1999 battleground. Lieutenant Colonel Yukihito Tsuge, a Japanese commander leading a UN peacekeeping unit through an unnamed battleground.

Upon encountering hostile forces on the ground Tsuge calls his superiors for permission to open fire. They deny him permission to do so, telling him he may not fire until fired upon.

With complete operational freedom, the hostiles neutralize the UN labors' censors before opening fire on them with cluster munitions. Tsuge's unit is wiped out nearly to the last man. Tsuge is the sole survivor of the attack.

The film then jumps three years into the future, to the year 2002. It's also three years after the events of the first film. The Babel project is officially dead, being unable to survive the destruction of the Ark, essentially a massive labor garage that, upon being struck by hurricane force winds, would produce a sound resonance that would have set every labor in the city of Japan upon a rampage.

Many members of the Mobile Police division that averted the disaster by destroying the Ark have moved on to different things.

But they're abruptly brought back together when a mysterious fighter jet destroys a bridge in downtown Tokyo. Shigeki Arakawa, an intelligence officer with the Japanese Self Defense Force, alleges a conspiracy by an organization calling themselves the National Security Family to use the spectre of terrorism to subvert civilian rule of Japan is alleged. Tsuge is fingered as the central figure in that conspiracy.

Among other things, Arakawa relates a post-Cold War story about a Soviet fighter plane slipping into Japanese airspace unchallenged. The incident set off panic in the Japanese Self Defense Force, and led to demands for improvements of Japan's security infrastructure.

Arakawa insists that the National Security Family staged a repeat of the incident in order to set off another panic in government. Clearly, the motive of the plot is scaring the government into spending additional funds on the JSDF -- conditions under which the National Defense Family would profit handsomely.

Police commanders take advantage of the faint spectre of a military plot in order to increase its own power.

The military responds by destroying the headquarters of the mobile police and taking control of Tokyo under de facto martial law conditions. A civil war ensues, and the only hope to avert it without bloodshed is for Captain Kiichi Goto and Captain Shinobu Nagumo to track down Tsuge and put him under arrest.

In real life, Japan is among the world's top military spenders. It ranks sixth among individual countries.

Any such attack could only be described as a form of institutional terrorism -- a terrorist act aimed to either terrify the government into meeting one's demands without them ever being publicly made, or perpetrated by a government itself to justify a course of action it's already decided to take.

Interestingly, this is the notion that the 9/11 "truth" movement uses to push its bizarre conspiracy theory plaing the United States at the centre of a false flag terrorist act. It's incredibly prophetic that a film that made predictions about the future that were simultaneously far off (with giant mecha robots used both to enforce the law and to fight wars) and so short (with VHS tapes used in place of DVDs) could so effectively replicate the intrigue of the modern war on terror in a fictional film with terrorism at its root.

The film broadly relfects many of the security anxieties that plague modern security planners. An attack in which Japanese fighter jets are disguised as foreign jets is accomplished via sophisticated hacking techniques. Blimps are used to jam communications in Tokyo. Both are hallmarks of cyberwarfare, which is becoming more and more important to the national security of any country.

Tsuge's central role in the conspiracy also serves as a reminder of two things.

First, it's important to remember that the nature of modern peacekeeping has changed. Modern conditions have condemned the Pearsonian model of peacekeeping to obselescence. Modern peacekeeping missions are very much combat missions that demand an appropriate approach.

Second, it's important to take proper care of soldiers who become casualties of war. Not all casualties of war die or return home with physically debilitating wounds. Many of them -- like Canadian General Romeo Dallaire -- return home with psychological afflictions. Many remain embittered about their experiences.

While the threat of embittered soldiers hatching terrorist plots to effectively teach their country a lesson as Yukihito Tsuge does is both hyperbolic and remote, it doesn't make it any less important to take care of those who are harmed in the service of their country.

Patlabor II certainly has even deeper messages for those more familiar with Japanese politics. But as it pertains to the modern state of the world vis a vis terrorism, the film should be considered must-watch material for anyone interested in the wider implications of terrorism and the military industrial complex's role in the war on terror.

The Coalition That Wouldn't Go West

Western Canada a key factor in Ignatieff's decision to kill coalition

As Michael Ignatieff continues to kiss up to western Canadians during a foray away from Ottawa, he offered a wry wink to western Canadians who opposed the proposed Liberal/NDP coalition government.

Ignatieff, it seemed, decided to turf the coalition as part of his strategy to rebuild the Liberal party in Western Canada.

"You are, after all, looking at someone who turned down the chance to become prime minister of Canada, and I did so, in part, because I felt that it would divide the country," Ignatieff told reporters. "I want to be someone who unites the country, and that includes the West."

The wholesale rejection of the coalition by western Canadians underscores the historical turn of fortune for both the Liberals and the NDP in the west.

The NDP, with its roots as the Cooperative Commonwealth Federation, was actually born in the west. In 1968, under the exemplary leadership of Tommy Douglas, the NDP won nearly half of the Parliament seats allotted to Saskatchewan. In 1972, under David Lewis, they won five seats there, and would continue to win seats in Saskatchewan until being wiped out in 2004. They haven't held seats in Saskatchewan since.

Linda Duncan's 2008 win in Edmonton-Strathcona was the first seat won by the NDP in Alberta since 1988, when they also won a single seat there.

Likewise, the Liberal party dominated Saskatchewan as recently as 1949, before they were significantly undercut by the CCF and then finally wiped out entirely by John Diefenbaker.

If Michael Ignatieff dreams of reachieving the Liberal glory days in western Canada he clearly has his work cut out for him. Having a western strategist as "talented" as James Gardiner -- who once ran the province of Saskatchewan with an iron fist -- would clearly help.

Unfortunately for Ignatieff, the best his party can currently muster in Saskatchewan are Ralph Goodale and David Orchard, the latter of whom will likely carry the label of political loose cannon for the remainder of his days.

Ignatieff certainly seems to understand that, given the current political situation in Canada, the road to a Liberal majority leads through Western Canada. Failing that, as he looks ahead in Parliament, Ignatieff may be set to propose a coalition of a different variety: not a governing coalition, but rather a legislative coalition.

"I'm in this business to win a majority Liberal government," Ignatieff explained. "But I have to also responsibly say, if we fall short of that, then it might be conceivable to be in discussions with, say, the NDP. Not on a coalition basis, but, ‘Let's get some legislation through. How do you feel about that?' That's the normal business of Parliament, and so I wouldn't exclude that. But I think we've had an interesting debate about coalition in Canada, and we've decided that we're not comfortable with it."

Canadians all over Canada have voiced their agreement on numerous occasions. Now all that remains to be seen is whether or not Ignatieff's overtures toward the west are truly sincere.

Forget Thee Not

Michael Ignatieff underestimates the memory of Western Canadians

During a current swing through Western Canada, Liberal leader has some sincere words for western Canadians.

We fucked up! Sorry!

"God knows this party has made mistakes out in Western Canada and I know them," Ignatieff admitted during a speech in Regina. "We have to be honest enough with our neighbours and citizens to say 'We didn't always get it right. We didn't always listen with respect. We didn't always understand what had to be done.'"

There are numerous examples of the Liberal party's careless approach to western Canada. Pierre Trudeau's National Energy Program is merely the foremost among them.

It's likely in this vein that the Liberal party was utterly foolish to come west and try to peddle what essentially amounted to NEP II -- Stephane Dion's proposed Green Shift program.

Except that Stephane Dion's Green Shift was actually Michael Ignatieff's Green Shift -- and he seems to expect that western Canadians are somehow going to forget.

Canadians -- and, especially, western Canadians -- will remember that a carbon tax was central to Dion's Green Shift. The problem for Ignatieff was that he proposed the carbon tax first and probably even pushed Dion behind the scenes to implement it as part of the Liberal party's platform.

Ignatieff at least seems to understand the utter folly of trying to run on something like a Carbon tax in Western Canada.

"The dumbest thing you can do is run against Western Canada," Ignatieff noted. "The dumbest thing you can do is run against the energy sectors in Western Canada."

The Green Shift policy, regardless of any corporate or personal tax reductions, would have reaked havoc on the energy industry, resulting in higher energy prices for every Canadian.

Western Canadians, being not nearly as naive or foolish as the average Liberal party strategist has always imagined them to be, knew this. Even the calls for a softening of the policy by western Liberal candidates like David Orchard went largely unheeded, and the Green Shift led to a decisive Liberal defeat in the west.

"The retail politics of this were pretty tough for us," he mused. Yet Ignatieff wants to continue his dabbling in energy policy.

"We want to bring energy policy and environmental policy together around a simple goal, which is to make Canada the most efficient user of energy and the most efficient developer of sustainable energy on the planet," he said. "When we elaborate those policies in detail, I think it'll be a vote winner out west."

This is a fine idea. But Ignatieff has proven adept at bungling energy policy so badly as to have his ideas absolutely clobbered in the realm of retail politics.

Ignatieff thought he had a winner before. He and his party insisted that the tax would be revenue neutral (despite the fact that there really is no such thing as a revenue neutral tax).

Regardless of whatever Michael Ignatieff may think, western Canadians don't have a short memory. When he comes back to Western Canada to address the issue of energy policy, he'd better have something a far sight better than NEP III.

Otherwise, Ignatieff will join Trudeau and Dion amongst the Liberal leaders who fucked up in regards to Western Canada.


Other bloggers writing on this topic:

Far and Wide - "Busy Guy"

Kristian Klima - "Conquering West or conquering rural Canada?"

Death By Technology?

Patlabor reflects potential benefit, perils of technology

Sometimes the predictions about the future featured in TV and movies can be comically inaccurate.

But even when inaccurate, they sometimes contain traces of prophetic warning.

Patlabor is the tale of the chaos wrought by a monomaniacal computer programmer with a God complex. Disgusted with the hubris of the Babel project -- a large-scale land reclaimation project in 1999 Tokyo -- master programmer Eeichi Hoba programs an inentional flaw into an operating system for labors, futuristic mecha used for defence and industry in a fictional late 90s Japan.

When wind blowing against buildings produces the proper sound frequency, labors equipped with the faulty Hyper Operating Systems go berserk, unstoppably destroying everything in their path.

Patlabor seems to be yet another comically remiss prediction about the future. The robotics technology necessary to produce labors is now far more developed than in the late 1980s when the film was produced, but remains far out of reach.

Yet Patlabor seems to have predicted another technical blunder that it was believed would devestate global civilization: the infamous Y2K bug that had computer programmers working overtime for the latter portion of the 1990s in order to avert the impending disaster.

The belief was that computer programs with only two digits to record the year would crash at midnight on New Year's Eve as their programs forced them to record the year as 00.

Efforts to update the computers of government, business and the vast majority of home computers with software providing four digits to record the year were successful and it remains unknown whether or not the disaster would have actually taken place.

Patlabor provokes an intriguing question: what kind of devestation could someone with malicious intent inflict if they were able to design key defects into an important piece of technological work.

The potential ticking time bomb of such an act could even provide yet another venue for terrorism. Scientists aligned with or sympathetic to terrorists could accomplish more for a terrorist cause in one calculated act than a hundred 9/11s.

It's a frightening prospect, but it begs the question of what is actually the bigger problem: the potential to design catastrophic flaws within technologies, or developed civilization's clear over reliance on technology?

On a yearly basis, decision making power is taken out of human hands more and more often and bureaucratic decrees are enforced through computer. On a yearly basis, more and more basic tasks are taken out of human hands and performed through a machine.

The argument is that these things are making developed civilization more efficient. But as part of a wider trend, this is making developed civilization more and more vulnerable to such malicious acts.

There are, of course, solutions to these problems. Background checks on those involved in high-profile research and development programs have been part of the standard operating procedure of cutting edge R & D projects for years. This isn't likely to change any time soon.

But vigilance as a watchward is nearly always a wise idea.

Considering the stakes global civilization has invested in high technology, such vigilance remains as important as ever.

Like It Or Not, There's More to Canada Than Just Quebec

Nicolas Sarkozy stands by his pro-unity stance

Even in the wake of criticism from Bloc Quebecois leader Gilles Duceppe and Parti Quebecois leader Pauline Marois, Nicolas Sarkozy is standing his ground.

Sarkozy has offered no apologies to Duceppe and Marois in the face of feined outrage at recent comments in which he denounced "sectarianism" and "self-confinement". Sarkozy reportedly did not mention Quebec separatists, but it's fairly clear what he meant.

In typical fashion, Marois and Duceppe responded with an angry letter to Sarkozy.

"Never has a head of state shown such a lack of respect towards the more than two million Quebecers who consider themselves sovereigntists," the two complained. "Would France agree to stay in a European Union that imposed a treaty that unilaterally reduces their sovereignty on questions of identity without even putting it to a referendum?"

Of course Duceppe and Marois may want to double check their definition of the word "unilateral". Their insistence that the Constitution was imposed unilaterally on Quebec treats the rest of Canada as a monolithic entity, as opposed to what it actually is -- 11 separate provinces.

"We don't know where you got the idea that we detest Canada," they continued. "Despite our important differences, we respect this country, their values and their population. We think an independent Quebec will put to rest the bitterness and the exhaustive debate that has marked our history here in Canada."

Except that it won't. There remains marked division within Quebec around the separatist issue. As during the 1995 sovereignty referendum, a future referendum would inevitably bring the question regarding whether or not Quebec itself is divisible. Certainly, many federalist, aboriginal, anglophone and ethnic regions would hastily separate from Quebec given the option.

"We are not sectarian, we are not closed in on ourselves, we do not detest Canada," Marois would later elaborate. "We want to live in better harmony, and sovereignty would allow us to establish links and a better relationship with the rest of Canada."

Of course, however Marois believes Quebec could live in better harmony with Canada by leaving Canada is likely a matter for further quetioning.

Furthermore, one simply has to consider that there would be differing roles for separatists and federalists within a sovereign Quebec. No one expects the separatists to try to make another play for Quebec sovereignty until they firmly hold the reins of power and have reason to believe that they can expect to keep hold.

This is before one even considers the highly questionable relationship between the Quebec separatist movement and ethnic, anglophone, and aboriginal communities.

If Duceppe and Marois are truly so troubled by Sarkozy's remarks it's likely because they come too close to the truth for comfort.

Nicolas Sarkozy owes Quebec separatists no apologies.

Planning For the Battlegrounds of the Future

Canadian army using sci-fi to prepare for future missions

As the Canadian Armed Forces look toward the future there's a clear premium on preparing professional soldiers for the operations of the future.

In an intriguing initiative, the Canadian Forces contracted science fiction author Karl Schroeder to produce Crisis in Zefra, a book about a peacekeeping mission set in an African city state 20 years in the future.

That was in 2005. Now, the army is set to have Schroeder pen a sequel.

The first Zefra book attempted to predict battlefield conditions in the year 2030. Zefra II will be set another ten years after that.

Of course, there are issues with trying to plan future military engagements around what one expects today.

For one thing, predictions about the future have been notoriously unreliable.

Even the most gifted individuals have had difficulty predicting future developments based on current realities. Countless children's books predicting the world of the future can attest to this.

20 years ago few people had predicted how central the internet would become to global civilization. 20 years before that many individuals doubted the commercial value of the personal computer.

Schroeder himself seems to recognize this as he admits that 2040 "is just far enough in the future that nearly everything we say is likely to be wrong."

"On the other hand, there are things that we know are coming down the pipe in the next 20 years or so and we can extrapolate from those what might be possible afterward," Schroeder explains. "So although what we end up doing will have a hugely speculative element to it, the foundations of the speculation are likely to be pretty solid."

Even if the predictions he's making are almost certainly bound to be incorrect, Schroeder asserts that there's still value in the attempt.

"That’s like painting your windshield black and driving out on the highway, as far as I’m concerned. You need to be able to look as far ahead as you can, even if it’s foggy and you can’t quite make things out," he insists.

Even if such predictions often seem to be cloudy, they often still have great merit. For example, in the December 1999 issue of Playboy magazine, Scott Ritter predicted the United States would suffer a minimum of 100,000 casualties during the act of defeating Saddam Hussein alone.

In reality, the United States suffered a comparatively negligible number of casualties during the fight against Saddam and has suffered the overwhelming majority of its casualties during the counter-insurgency effort since.

Yet Ritter's article could have persuaded many more Americans against the Iraq war, even if his specific projections proved to be inaccurate.

In particular, there seem to be some significan issues with some of the hardware-related predictions that Schroeder has made, including a "smart dust" that provides wi-fi connectivity to soldier's communication kits and weapons featuring IFF (Identify Friend/Foe) modules that won't allow them to fire in situations in which civilians may be endangered.

"A lot of guys in the military will raise their eyebrows over that and go, ‘Uh-oh, I see all kinds of pitfalls with that one.’ But it’s an interesting idea," mused Lieutenant Colonel Mike Rostek.

IFF technology is far from a new concept in military development. As Freeman Dyson notes in Weapons and Hope the need for such technology became evident as far off in history as the 1940s when British bomber commands started deploying anti-aircraft weaponry that could fire beyond visual range.

Interestingly, as a Mennonite, Karl Schroeder doesn't consider himself predisposed toward military-themed writing. "I was raised as a pacifist," he explains. "But the way I reconcile that is I’m a strong believer in a foreign policy philosophy called human security, which is championed by Lloyd Axworthy, which basically states that the state doesn’t deal just with other states. When there’s a crisis, it doesn’t really matter whether it’s a military crisis or a natural disaster or whatever, you intervene to save people. And, actually, Canada has acted on that philosophy for a number of years, and as a way of employing the army, I’m entirely in favour if it."

Attempting to predict the battlefields of the future may not be entirely reliable, but it very much is a worthwhile enterprise.

Whether or not Schroeder's work pays dividends in terms of preparedness for future conflicts is something that Canadians will have to wait 20 years to see, but it will be well worth the wait.

Tell Us All About Democracy, Joyce

Opposition to abortion anti-democratic according to Joyce Aurthur

Joyce Aurthur, the national coordinator of the Abortion Rights Coalition of Canada has come out with an interesting response to the University of Calgary Students' Union's decision to strip the campus pro-life (better described as anti-abortion) group of its student group status:

Serves the anti-democratic bastards right.

"The pro-choice view is more legitimate because it’s democratic," Arthur announced. "[The anti-abortion] view is fundamentally anti-democratic and anti-human rights."

Apparently, in Aurthur's mind, opposition to abortion isn't merely undemocratic. It's anti-democratic.

Unfortunately for Aurthur, nothing could be further from the truth.

To suggest that opposition to abortion is anti-human rights to overlook the nature of one of the key elements of the abortion debate: namely, whether or not the unborn child is human.

Some, such as Suzanne Fortin, believe that the unborn child is human and should be afforded human rights. Others, such as Rational Reasons' Mike, insist that it isn't.

So long as any debate over the extent to which an unborn child should be considered human and thus should enjoy the protection of some of human rights is ongoing there's nothing undemocratic about debating the concept of reproductive rights. Especially when the question regarding the extent to which that concept potentially preempts someone else's human rights is still very much in question.

It would, in fact, be undemocratic to suggest that no debate should take place on an issue that very much does deal with the termination of human life. What is very anti-democratic is the pro-abortion lobby's expressed desire to shut the abortion debate down altogether.

Consider this particular polemic, published in the University of Alberta Gateway, in which Bobbie Briggs suggests that the U of A Pro-Life (better described as anti-abortion) club should be shut down merely for existing:

"Open debate over this issue is shocking to me not due to the subject matter of abortion itself, but because it’s a total disregard of women’s rights.

For a liberal atmosphere such as a university to be so saturated with images and arguments that retract the woman’s right to reproductive freedom is unbelievable, especially when one considers that it’s now 2009. It’s hard to believe that the Students’ Union would allow any organization that embody and promote the refusal of homosexual or aboriginal rights, and it’s equally unacceptable for the SU to authorize a group which exists only to overtly deny women’s reproductive freedom."

It's been said that dissent and debate are the languages of democracy.

To demand that any groups that would debate the topic should be summarily shut down is truly and distinctly anti-democratic.

Briggs' ill-conceived notion of how to foment a liberal atmosphere on a University campus isn't the only distinctly anti-democratic idea in play, either. Joyce Aurthur's own ARCC insists that it should be entitled to public funding while their opponents should not.

Their rational is, essentially, that anti-abortion groups seek to rally public support on a political issue, distort the issue, use propaganda and appeal to emotion.

Yet when debating Bill C-484, the ARCC and its supporters did all of these things. They insisted that the unborn victims of crime bill wasn't about crime, but about abortion -- even though the bill expressly prohibited it being applied to cases dealing with abortion. They ignored the fact that similar bills in the United States have failed to produce the criminalization of abortion that they insisted would occur. (Ironically, they distort the issue within their very own position paper when they insist that the pro-abortion cause is "not political".)

Joyce Aurthur insists that it's "ironic" that anti-abortion activists would complain about their freedoms of expression being curtailed.

What's really ironic that Aurthur would be so quick to denounce the anti-abortion lobby as anti-democratic when she and her ARCC are themselves knee-deep in undemocratic and anti-democratic practices.

But there's absolutely no question that the irony is entirely lost on them.

An Example for All Politicians Everywhere

Abraham Lincoln the ultimate political role model

Yesterday, just as Charles Darwin's 200th birthday was celebrated, so was Abraham Lincoln's.

There are very few Americans who would dare tread into politics without a ready supply of praise for the legendary President and martyr on hand.

But politicians in nearly any country in the world can learn a plethora of lessons from the example that Lincoln set -- especially those with a passion for social justice.

If there is one political leader in all of history who stood by his beliefs and stood by what he knew to be right, it was certainly Lincoln.

Lincoln believed in a unified United States, and believed in justice for all people, regardless of race (even if never quite believing in full equality). In the end, he wound up giving the ultimate sacrifice for his beliefs.

Lincoln's fingerprints can be found on Presidents ranging from Theodore Roosevelt to Richard Nixon to, most recently, Barack Obama. Obama took the oath of office on the very same bible used by Lincoln. Roosevelt wore a ring forged with a lock of Lincoln's hair -- the very literal definition of a relic.

Although less than overwhelmingly popular in his own time in Canada, Lincoln is known to have had an impact on Canadian Prime Ministers such as Wilfred Laurier and John Diefenbaker. Laurier actually lived during Lincoln's lifetime. He was 23 when Lincoln was shot. Diefenbaker certainly must have had Lincoln in the back of his mind when he struck down racially-based immigration policies, and would openly cite Lincoln's penchant for making tough political decisions -- no political decision could possibly be more difficult than committing his country to civil war -- when cancelling the Avro Arrow project.

Current President Barack Obama, the most Lincoln-esque President in recent history, lavished characteristic praise on Lincoln. "He recognized that while each of us must do our part, work as hard as we can, and be as responsible as we can -- in the end, there are certain things we cannot do on our own," Obama announced. "There are certain things we can only do together. There are certain things only a union can do."

Lincoln's message -- that a house divided against itself cannot stand, and that all people are entitled to live free -- is one that should be remembered by politicians ranging from Pakistani Prime Minister Syed Yousuf Raza Gilani to Israeli President Ehmud Olmert to Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to Bloc Quebecois leader Gilles Duceppe.

Lincoln had a gift for putting the common good ahead of his own personal ambitions. A great many politicians could stand to learn that lesson today (including Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper).

Hopefully, in the wake of Lincoln's 200th birthday, more of these individuals will be receptive to that message.

Guess Who Else Is Coming North?

Bush to make post-Presidential debut in Calgary

With excitement over Barack Obama's first visit to Canada building, it would be understandable if the announcement of a former President's speaking engagement in Canada went largely unnoticed.

At least for the time being. When one is the President that preceded Obama, very few of your plans go unnoticed.

George W Bush will be speaking in Calgary on March 17th. It will be his first speech -- and believed to be the first of many -- since leaving the office of President.

Reportedly former New Brunswick Premier Frank McKenna will also be present. He'll host a question period after Bush's speech.

Many will rightly note that Bush is extremely unpopular north of the 49th parallel. Ergo Canada is an odd place for Bush to give his first post-Presidential speech. But if there's one city where Bush can be expected to be able to speak without an overabundance of fuss, Calgary is certainly the place.

“Alberta’s a very conservative province and he’s certainly seen as friendly to the oil industry,” said University of Calgary political scientist David Taras. “He’s choosing a safe place to go test his image.”

It's very much in character for this President to play it safe in regards to public appearances, and avoid dissent as much as possible. But if Bush is expecting a warm reception in Calgary, he might have another thing coming.

“He’s very unpopular in his own country and he’s very unpopular in Canada, at least according to what the polls are saying,” Taras added. “You never know, but I’m guessing there will be a cold respect rather than any real affection or admiration.”

It will be interesting to see how Calgary recieves the former President. But one thing is for certain: it certainly will not set the standard of how Bush will be received elsewhere in the world.

There Are Plenty of Good Reasons to Celebrate Darwin Day

Atheism isn't really one of them

Today is Charles Darwin's birthday. Were he alive today, the originator of the theory of evolution would be 200 years old.

Today people all over the world are celebrating Darwin's achievements as a scientist. And rightfully so. But amongst all of these revellers are thousands of individuals who have missed the mark and simply aren't wise enough to recognize it.

These, naturally, are the individuals celebrating Darwin day as an atheist holiday.

There's little question that Charles Darwin was an agnostic -- once a committed Christian who came to believe that there was no evidence for God's existence. But to make Darwin's life about his agnostic religious views rather than what really sets him apart in history -- his science -- is absolute farce.

The value of the theory of evolution isn't as atheist scripture. The value of theory of evolution is as a scientific theory.

To distort Darwin's birthday into something of a Christmas for atheists can be considered to subordinate science to atheism. Science's value isn't in promoting atheism, it's in providing an empirical basis for knowledge that anyone enterprising enough to study the world can understand.

The folly of these atheists using Darwin day to promote atheism is akin to the folly of actor/Christian fundamentalist Kirk Cameron, who blames the theory of evolution on atheism then chooses to debate the issue with individuals so intellectually inept that they can't fashion a decent response to his ridiculous arguments.

The theory of evolution isn't for atheists alone. The legacy that Charles Darwin established is the right of all those who believe in science, believer and non-believer alike.

Freedom of Speech For Me, The Freedom to Sit in the Corner For Thee

Pro-abortion lobby wants -- quelle suprise! -- a free speech double standard

A pair of news stories regarding the abortion debate in Canada have, unsurprisingly, shown the depth of the hypocrisy of Canada's pro-abortion lobby.

Last week a speech being given by anti-abortion activist Jojo Ruba was interrupted by pro-abortion activists who relentlessly shouted him down until his speech eventually had to move to another venue. On Tuesday the University of Calgary students' union revoked the student group status of the campus Pro-Life group (better described as an anti-abortion group).

Unsurprisingly, some of Canada's most extreme pro-abortion activists have no problem at all with either of these incidents, and equally unsprisingly they aren't ashamed to contradict themselves.

Unrepentant Old Hippie (and consumate intellectual coward) JJ justifies the revokation of the U of C Pro-Life group's student status on the grounds that their "assholish" behaviour justifies it:

"These braindead little shits have been asking for it for a long time. Unfortunately, as long as they are a university-sanctioned club, it’s their right to have whatever kind of display they want. But it’s also up to them to be reasonable about it (ie. accept the university’s request and compromise by turning the images inward) or conversely, to be assholes. They chose to be assholes and the freedom to be an asshole ain’t free — in this case the cost is club status and all the perks that entails."

Naturally, there's a serious issue with attempting to objectively describe anyone as an "asshole". Assholery is largely in the eyes of the beholder, and often bandied about as a label for people whose views one cannot tolerate.

But JJ conveniently chooses to overlook the nature of the U of C's "request".

Requiring the anti-abortion group in question to turn their display inward may satisfy many students who don't want to see it. It effectively sits the club in the corner and prevents it from expressing its ideas except to those who likely already share them. It isn't all that unreasonable as far as compromises go, to ask the U of C Pro-Life Club to save this particular message for those who are interested in hearing it.

But then again, there's JJ's attitude toward the Ruba incident, in which the speech in question was planned for a more private venue, but was interrupted by pro-abortion protesters who wouldn't even allow him to speak:

"Mob Rule versus Fetus Fetish Drool. I won’t dwell on the free speech aspect, since anti-choicers are already stroking themselves into a spectacular ragegasm over that side of things. But it’s utterly amazing that this jerk would be in any way surprised by what happened. Speaking of civility and mob rule: Jojo’s presentation isn’t just a run-of-the-mill anti-abortion song and dance routine — Mr. Jojo is one of an especially vile and extremist anti-choice subspecies, those who like to compare abortion to the Holocaust."

Which is, unsurprisingly, a misrepresentation of Ruba's presentation. Ruba's presentation reportedly compares the de-humanization of the unborn child in the course of the abortion debate to the de-humanization of victims of various genocides, including the holocaust.

The ironic thing about JJ's expressed outrage is that JJ herself has no business being offended by the content of Ruba's presentation. Extremists like herself and her irrational gun-toting cohort Mike fuel such criticisms of the pro-abortion lobby whenever they insist that an unborn child isn't human.

And that's aside from the incredibly hypocritical double standard she's indulging herself in: one wherein the freedom of expression of anti-abortion activists should be confined to cordoned-off areas but one in which the freedom of expression of pro-abortion activists knows no such boundaries. One in which anti-abortion activists are confined within "free speech zones" that pro-abortion activists may invade at will so the opinions of the anti-abortion lobby may not even be heard.

Unshockingly, JJ's hypocrisy is utterly matched by her pro-abortion cohort Canadian Cynic.

Cynic actually argues that "maybe the U of C pro-lifers just never asked permission!":

"Now, regardless of what you might think of free speech, when a campus club wants to put on a public presentation of some kind, there are typically two steps involved:

* Asking for permission, and

* Bring granted that permission.

Normally, if there's nothing particularly controversial about the application, all of the above is simply a formality but it still has to be done. Which makes one wonder if the revocation of that club's status is based on their simply refusing to abide by the rules.

I can imagine two possible violations:

* The club did not even put in an application for the presentation, or

* They put in an application, which was rejected, but went ahead with the presentation anyway, without the necessary permission.

Either of those violations would, quite simply, be grounds for immediate revocation, and would have absolutely nothing to do with free speech whatsoever. If either of the above were true, there is no debate here."

Considering that the U of C group isn't having its student group status revoked over the display itself, but rather for its refusal to turn the posters inward, it's evident that permission very much was granted, then made conditional.

But even noting that the conditions for that permission were violated, there is still the perverse notion of telling someone that they have freedom of expression so long as anyone who may be offended doesn't hear.

But given the facts of this case, only Canadian Cynic could argue that they just didn't ask permission. Only Canadian Cynic could ever feel that entitled to deny the facts of the matter.

It's only natural that the response to these controversies on behalf of Canada's most extreme pro-abortion activists would be so determined to simply dismiss the increasingly iron-fisted treatment of anti-abortion groups on Canadian university campuses.

But it's impossible to overlook -- especially when some argue that the mere existence of these groups should justify jack-booted pro-abortion footsteps.

When it comes down to abortion, it's no secret that JJ and CC are two peas in a pod. Both of them insist that the abortion debate shouldn't even be allowed to take place.

It's no surprise that intellectual cowards of a feather tend to cower together.

If JJ and Canadian Cynic want the abortion debate to take place without them, that's their prerogative. They likely won't like the way it turns out, but they have the right to refuse to participate.

But if they're going to applaud the efforts to curtail that debate, the very least they could do is not be so incredibly hypocritical about it.

Liberties Taken, Freedom Forfeit

Human traffickers should be no given no quarter in the eyes of the law

In some of the darkest corners of the world a secret underground economy trades in human misery on a nearly unimaginable scope.

Human trafficking is a grisly practice in which women -- normally very young women -- are kidnapped, intentionally addicted to drugs then forced into prostitution.

If Taken accomplishes anything as a film, it will make the viewer positively hate human traffickers. The viewer may even excuse themselves for wishing the villains were killed a little more slowly and much more painfully.

Liam Neeson stars as Bryan Mills, a former CIA operative quietly retiring so he can spend time with his 17-year-old daughter Kim (Maggie Grace). When Kim wants to go to Paris with her older friend Amanda (Katie Cassidy) Bryan has his reservations. Eventually at the urging of his ex-wife Lenore (Famke Janssen) Bryan relents and allows her to go.

Kim isn't in Paris for more than a few hours when she's kidnapped. Upon conferring with some friends from his days as a spy Bryan quickly concludes that Kim has been taken by human trafficking. He has 94 hours to get her back before she'll never be seen again.

Slowly but methodically Bryan violently dismantles the human trafficking ring that has kidnapped his daughter. No lives are spared, save that of Bryan's French intelligence acquaintance-turned-criminal-conspirator -- and even then only as a small courtesy.

Taken is an unflinching -- even if faintly gleaming with typical Hollywood polish -- look at the world of human trafficking.

The film reminds the viewers of the threat posed by human predators with no sense of morality. Countless lives are corrupted, destroyed and ultimately ended by these individuals in the name of petty monetary profit.

In Canada, Conservative MP Joy Smith is pushing to institute mandatory minimum sentencing for human trafficking.

However, in proposing a five-year mandatory minimum sentence of a mere five years in prison falls far short of the penalty this heinous crime should entail.

Considering the scope of the human misery caused by human trafficking, even if the current maximum sentence in Canada -- 14 years -- were the mandatory minimum proposed by Smith it would fall far short an appropriate punishment.

The mandatory minimum sentence for human trafficking should be life in prison. The maximum should be the death penalty -- a punishment that Canada hasn't practiced since the 1960s.

In lieu of the legislative tools to suitably end the lives of anyone caught engaging in human trafficking in Canada, Canadian courts should be provided the tools to do with such individuals as is fit: locking them away for the remainder of the lives they have forfeit by so horrifically taking liberties with the lives of others.

Mirror, Mirror, On The Wall

Who's the stupidest one of all?

Over at the Canadian Cynic Temple of Sycophantic Groupthink, Canada's premier online hatemonger has indulged himself in an ill-concieved (and ironic) attempt to skewer Damien Penny over hate speech.

According to Cynic, anti-abortion activist Jojo Ruba's arguments comparing abortion to the Holocaust can only be derived from hatred of abortion and its supporters, and thus should be condemned as hate speech.

Yet Ruba's arguments are very different from this small-minded characterization of them. Ruba actually explores the rhetorical link between the intentional dehumanization of the unborn child and abortion and compares it to the intentional dehumanization of Jews prior to the Holocaust.

It's ironic that Canadian Cynic would object to such arguments being treated as intellectual arguments considering that some of the most extreme members of the pro-abortion lobby fuel them with their own dogma.

Consider this argument posed by ever-delightful (and rarely rational) Mike:

"[The fetus] ...lives only as part of the mother, like an appendix. It is not morphologically human in shape until well after 12 weeks and has no brainwaves until after 20. It cannot survive independently of the mother until around 26 weeks and even then not without extreme medical and technical intervention and a lot of luck.

So until it is born - the traditional Judeo-Christian stance for centuries, I might add - it is not a person, not a full human being. Only when it is a separate entity that does not share a circulatory system or feeding system is it a human being."

Naturally, one hardly expects the pro-abortion lobby to own up to the deeper implications of this argument.

Unfortunately, it's arguments like this that play directly into the hands of those who so desperately want to compare abortion to genocides and, particularly, the Holocaust.

In many cases of genocide those perpetrating the atrocities help justify their actions by declaring their victims to be less than human.

In Nazi Germany Jews were derrided as "vermin" -- at least by those who didn't believe that Jews had demonic powers. In Rwanda, Tutsis were labelled "cockroaches".

Labelling one's victims as evil is one thing. But labelling them as less than human, however, is and has always been a rhetorical tactic meant to deprive them of any judicious considerations applied to any human, even an evil one.

There is no question that both of these things have been part and parcel of genocidal programs the world over. The academic work on genocide strongly supports this. To their credit, no members of the pro-abortion lobby have come out and labelled unborn children as evil, although Mike in particular does liken unborn children to parasites in this very same comment.

They have indulged themselves in denying the humanity of the unborn child.

When one compares arguments such as the one showcased here to the academic work and finds similarity in purpose, that very much is an intellectual argument. It isn't one that anyone has to agree with, but it very much falls within the range of the academic study of human rights.

Sadly, many individuals like Jojo Ruba aren't duly noting the stark difference between individuals like Mike, whose views are not only extreme but also a discredit to his cause, and those who are quietly supportive of abortion out of a principled support of choice.

One doesn't need to deny the humanity of an unborn child in order to recognize that the complex and often unfortunate nature of modern life can make things such as abortion sadly necessary under many circumstances.

Unsurprisingly, this basic truth is lost on people like Canadian Cynic, who's never met a smear against those he disagrees with thtat he didn't instantly fall in love with:

"At the risk of generalizing, we in the Not-Stupid-o-Sphere are well aware of the opinions of the anti-choicers. Really, folks, we know what you believe because, quite simply, you never shut the hell up about it. In a nutshell, you hate abortion and you think people who defend it are no better than the Nazis who murdered millions of Jews.

We get it. Honest to fucking Christ, we get it. But that's not an argument, it's not a presentation and it's not intellectual discourse. It's just you shrieking about what you hate. So how is that news? We've heard it all before more times than we care to count, and having you continue to keep howling the same thing really doesn't contribute anything to the debate."

So, according to Canadian Cynic, those who oppose abortion couldn't possibly be doing it because they object to the destruction of human life. No. They can only do it because they hate abortion.

Moreover, the comparison between the Holocaust and abortion isn't being done because some of the most extreme pro-abortion activists use dehumanizing rhetoric just as was used against Jews in Nazi Germany. No. This comparison is only made because the anti-abortion lobby hates people who support abortion.

But in the same vein, Cynic's argument isn't intellectual discourse. It's reductionism, which is almost always an attempt to dodge intellectual discourse.

But of course this is what you get when you deal with someone whose blogging specialty is screaming "shitcock!" at anyone who disagrees with him.

It shouldn't be shocking that someone who spends next to no time at all engaging in intellectual discourse should find it so difficult to recognize.

A more reasonable response would be one similar to the one that Damien Penny himself actually offers when he suggests that such arguments are "a gross trivialization of the Holocaust".

Whether or not it actually is is a matter of further debate -- this author for one, is actually predisposed to agree with him, even if the academic validity of the question Ruba is asking is plainly evident.

Unless, of course, you're a shrieky pro-abortion demagogue desperate to intimidate anyone who would dare attempt to debate the topic.


Other bloggers writing about this topic:

Scott McClare - "Pro-abortion Fascist Chutzpah"

Blevkog - "Shenanigans, Sir"

ADQ Members Seek to Draft Maxime

Action Democratique du Quebec woo former Foreign Affairs Minister

In the wake of a crushing defeat in the 2008 Quebec Provincial Election, the Action Democratique du Quebec is searching for a replacement for the only leader it has ever known.

When Mario Dumont resigned as ADQ leader in order to seek a career in the private sector it seemed that very few ADQ members were interested in the job.

With the lack of interest in the ADQ leadership absolutely palpable, some members of the party -- something of a defacto Conservative party of Quebec -- are attempting to recruit former Foreign Affairs Minister Maxime Bernier for the job.

The problem is that Bernier himself isn't interested.

"I'm flattered that some people can see me as ADQ leader, but it doesn't interest me at all," Bernier announced. "I've made my decision and it's firm -- I will run as a candidate to be a federal MP in the next election."

Whether Bernier has what it takes to resurrect the ADQ after the near-career-killing Julie Couillard debacle is a matter for debate. But Mark Burzan, the president of the Hull, Quebec ADQ riding association, thinks he has it.

"He shares the same philosophies as the ADQ, he is from the same generation as Mario Dumont and he is very popular in his riding," Burzan explained. "There was a controversy, but I don't think we should exclude someone because they made one mistake, especially when it wasn't as bad as we initially thought."

If Bernier were to lead the ADQ back to its glory days of less than a year ago, he would have to undergo a significant rehabilitation process as a candidate.

The accomplishment of this rehabilitation is far from out of the question. Unfortuantely for Bernier, leadership of the ADQ is.

Farce As Art...

In political blogging, as in anything else, there are good weeks and there are bad weeks.

When one specializes, as Kinsella does, in not-so-thinly veiled drive-by smears, bad weeks tend to be very, very bad weeks.

Kinsella's bad week began a few days early when his infamous "BBQ cat" remarks transcended the typical blogosphere controversy into the mainstream media.

That forced Kinsella to pony up this sincere (if worried) looking apology to the Chinese Canadian community.

In the days since, however, Kinsella has grasped at any possible straw to deflect attention to the wholesale discrediting of his mantle as one of Canada's foremost racism fighters.

On Wednesday Kinsella published a post claiming that numerous high-profile Conservative bloggers haven't donated to the Conservative party. Moreover, Kinsella insists that some of them are secretly recieving money from the Tories.

Kinsella insisted that Pierre Bourque, Stephen Taylor, Kate McMillan, Ezra Levant, Steve Janke, Craig Smith, Jarrett Plonka, Damian Penny, Gerry Nicholls and Victor Wong haven't donated any money to the Conservative party.

There are serious problems with Kinsella's post, however.

For one thing, as Raphael Alexander notes, the post isn't even correct.

As it turns out, Stephen Taylor has donated money to the Tories. He just donated less money than is required to be divulged to Elections Canada:

"I did in fact donate to the Conservative Party in 2008. Warren, you don’t appreciate that cheques for less than $200 are not publicly disclosed by Elections Canada. I suppose that Warren thinks that folks that write cheques for less than $200 aren’t 'putting their money where their mouth is'. I suppose Warren might say that only those that cut big cheques are allowed to have a voice!"

Taylor isn't alone amongst the bloggers that Kinsella has apparently smeared.

Victor Wong seemed positively bemused by the allegations:

"“As for this 'covertly paid' business, this is the first time I’ve ever heard of it. I certainly don’t get paid for blogging; and I suspect that few Blogging Tories (if any) make any sort of cash from writing on their own site. (It is somewhat reassuring, however, to know that somebody thinks I’m getting paid for the stuff I write.)"

As Damien Penny notes, based on what Penny's had to say about the federal budget, if he were really a paid hack for the Conservative party he'd probably have to return the cheque:

"…I can’t speak for anyone else on this list, but I have never been paid a cent by the Conservative Party (you’ve probably noticed how enthusiastic I’ve been about the recent Conservative budget), nor do I receive any blogging material from the Party or the PMO (unless spam e-mails count)."

Kinsella recently warned Tim Powers while appearing on CTV's Power Play that he has a very good lawyer, and recently claimed that the two of them have never lost a case.

If Kinsella wishes to maintain that distinction, he may want to avoid making comments that can be proven libelous with little more than a voided cheque.

A day later, Kinsella indulged himself in some art criticism, as he took the opportunity to skewer Borque over one of his paintings.

(If Kinsella were really qualified to criticize art as any kind of an expert, he'd probably recognize Borque's work as fusing abstract impressionism with minimalism. Whether or not Kinsella himself actually likes it is up to himself to decide.)

Kinsella's behaviour has proven to be so bizarre recently that it was even used against Michael Ignatieff in the House of Commons this week.

As far as farce goes, Warren Kinsella has made an art of it this week. One would have to think that Kinsella's sincerest hopes are that Canadians will have forgotten about his racist comments about Chinese Canadians.

Whether he has been this fortunate is one thing. Whether or not he should be so fortunate is another entirely.




Other bloggers writing about this topic:

Russ Campbell - "Liberal Mouthpiece Smears Blogging Tories"

The Case for a Canadian

Time is past due for a Canadian to be NATO Secretary General

When the next Secretary General of NATO is elected, there remains an opportunity that this office will be filled by a Canadian.

Defense Minister Peter MacKay is considered by many to be a strong candidate for the job.

Of course, things aren't nearly so simple as MacKay's qualifications.

In all of NATO's history, there has never been a Canadian Secretary General. Nor, for that matter, has there ever been an American Secretary General.

Every Secretary General in NATO history has been a European. For most of NATO's history there was actually a very good reason for this. NATO was formed with the purpose of defending the western bloc against the Soviet Union.

Any war fought against the Soviet Union would inevitably have been fought on European soil. No one could be better trusted to direct such a war in Europe's best interests than someone who is themselves a European.

Even in the immediate post-Soviet era NATO's primary theatre of operations remained European due to the ethnic conflicts which periodically broke out in Eastern Europe.

But now NATO's primary theatre of operations is no longer Europe. Now, NATO is most active in Afghanistan, a war in which Canada has played the disproportionately largest role.

According to Allan Pellerin, a retired long-time NATO officer, NATO has an unwritten rule that the Secretary General would remain European.

"There’s no written rule per se, but when NATO was formed what was agreed was that in order to provide a balance between America’s power and Europe, the senior military commander would be an American and the secretary general was always a European. And that does not change," Pellerin explains.

There are also rumours -- which some attribute to an unnamed European candidate's attempts to discredit MacKay -- that his campaign has been ill-conceived and clumsy.

But even if MacKay himself is unlikely to ascend to Secretary General, there is another Canadian reported to be in the running: former Liberal Defense Minister and Deputy Prime Minister John Manley.

In the previous Secretary General contest Manley was endorsed by Lord Robertson, the previous Secretary General.

This wasn't enough to overtune tradition in 2003, nor was the leading role Canada's been taking in Afghanistan.

The thing about unwritten rules is that because they're unwritten they're subject to change.

The time for a Canadian to become Secretary General of NATO is long past due.

Some Shit, Suffice it to Say, Just Don't Wash Out

There are some metaphors you can't withdraw

For all the years that Conservative Senator Mike Duffy has spent covering Canadian politics, one would expect that he'd have a better idea of what does and does not fly in Canadian politics.

Judged on his performance since entering the Red Chamber, one would have to think again.

First, during his maiden speech, Duffy allowed himself to be interruped by his trademark Blackberry.

This provoked a short discussion regarding the rules of the Senate. It seems that telecommunications devices, even when set to vibrate, were previously banned from the Senate chamber because they interferred with the sound system. When the old sound system was replaced the ban was lifted.

But as it turned out this was the least of Duffy's problems. In his maiden speech Duffy made a rather unsavoury metaphor.

"Honourable Senators, I was disappointed to see that our dynamic young Premier in Prince Edward Island, Robert Ghiz, has climbed into bed with the Premier of Newfoundland and Labrador, and honourable Denators know what a grotesque scene that is," Duffy said with a wink. "Do honourable Senators know what happens when two politicians climb into bed together? One of them comes out on top and I am afraid that when one is in bed with Danny Williams he will come out on top and I would hate to see where that will leave PEI in the end."

The obvious homophobic undertones of Duffy's speech may sound similar to those familiar with the outrage directed at former Parti Quebecois leader Andre Boisclair over a Brokeback Mountain parody featuring Stephen Harper and George W Bush in a tent together.

For his own part, Danny Williams characteristically spun the comment into a diatribe against Stephen Harper.

"Duffy was very much over the top," Williams said. "Duffy is being manipulated and told what to do by the venomous, nasty Harper Conservatives."

Duffy eventually offered a poor excuse for an apology over the remarks. "Honourable senators, if the metaphor I used in my speech on February 3 was offensive to some members of this chamber, I withdraw the metaphor," Duffy announced.

But suffice it to say that some shit just doesn't wash out. Duffy's comments would be inexcusable in any context, whether meant to be humorous or not.

Some things, once said, simply cannot be unsaid. Duffy owes Danny Williams, Robert Ghiz and the people of Canada an apology.


Other bloggers writing about this topic:

Stephen Pate - "Mike Duffy, No One Can Control Him"

Russ Campbell - "New Senator Mike Acquits Himself Rather Well"

Edward G Hollett - "A Duff in the..."

Stephen Harper's New Worst Nightmare

Canadian Taxpayers' Federation appoints new, familiar, director

Ever since Michael Ignatieff's abrupt ascension to the leadership of the Liberal party, many have been predicting that he's Prime Minister Stephen Harper's worst nightmare.

But one can rest well assured that Harper's nightmares are a good deal worse than Ignatieff.

Considering the deficit that his government has just budged for the coming year -- one that may increase as the government reportedly considers richening the stimulus pot -- Stephen Harper's worst nightmare is trouble in the fiscal conservative base of his party.

With the appointment of Kevin Gaudet as the new federal director of the Canadian Taxpayers' Federation, Harper's nightmares may be set to become as dark as they've been at any point of his political career.

Kevin Gaudet is best known for the "Fibber" campaign that lambasted Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty for various broken tax-related promises.

One can only wonder what Gaudet has in store for Stephen Harper. Readers of the Western Standard have already gotten a taste.

"With Mr. Harper in power, many Canadians thought they had a federal government interested in keeping its promises to control spending, balance the budget and reverse decades of overspending," Gaudet wrote in an op/ed. "They were wrong."

"In a hysterical over-reaction to calls for ‘stimulus,’ after eleven straight years of surpluses and debt reduction, the latest federal budget takes a giant leap back into deficit," Gaudet continues. "‘Stimulus’ is merely a new code word for deficit. It is used by those organizations, businesses and special interest groups with vested interests in convincing government to ratchet up spending. They succeeded."

Gaudet should be a fairly familiar face to Harper. Gaudet was the director of Opposition Research -- which Liberal strategist Warren Kinsella long ago dubbed "oppo" -- for former Reform party leader Preston Manning.

Even the National Citizens' Coalition, a group Stephen Harper used to be the director of, has pulled no punches.

“The big spending of this Conservative government will take generations to pay off,” said NCC President Peter Coleman. "The federal government has a poor track record when it comes to creating meaningful and long-lasting jobs."

Stephen Harper is likely having very dark nightmares, but Michael Ignatieff very likely couldn't be any further away from them.

...And Let the Religious Censorship Cold War Begin!

Atheist bus ads banned in Halifax

As more and more cities in Canada continue to emulate the now-famed British atheist bus ad campaign, at least one Canadian city has put the brakes on it.

Humanist Canada has been blocked from putting ads on the side of Halifax buses.

In an admirable break from the tactic of simply copying the British campaign, the Halifax campaign was to carry a message that read, "You can be good without God".

"We're a public transit system first, and then we sell advertising," explained Halifax Metro Transit spokesperson Lori Patterson. "So, if anytime we feel there's a message that could be controversial and upsetting to people, we don't necessarily sell the ads."

Charles McVety, who described the ads as "attack ads" must be pleased.

But Halifax's intervention in this affair should have some consequences that McVety shouldn't be altogether pleased with.

As Paul Knoechel quips in the University of Alberta Gateway, these atheist groups have triggered responses from well-funded Church groups that have begun with Church ads, but may in time move up to bus ads of their own, and maybe even billboards.

Naturally, one would have to expect atheist groups to counter this with billboards of their own, and maybe even radio ads, to which the religious groups could counter radio and television ads.

As the attempts to trump one another in advertising escalate what eventually emerges is a sort of theist/atheist Cold War.

But with Halifax stepping in and refusing the atheist ads, this Cold War will likely inevitably move into the censorship realm as well. It will only be a matter of time until some Halifax-area atheist busybody will make use of the precedent this sets to insist that religious ads should likewise be banned.

After all, it doesn't take much of a stretch of the imagination to imagine that religious advertising is controversial to atheists.

A poll released over this past summer indicates that up to 25% of Canadians don't believe in any god, Judeo-Christian or otherwise.

If the rationale of the Halifax decision is really not to use public resources to offend people, it should be worth the while to avoid offending 25% of the population.

Not to mention the fact that the message of these ads -- that religion isn't necessary for morality -- shouldn't be considered all that offensive to anyone.

While the argument that religion's provision of an objective sense of morality is philosophically persuasive, the real world applications of this idea are highly dubious. After all, many atheists behave in a manner that is no more or less moral -- by nearly any standard -- than anyone else.

If anything, the idea that religion is necessary for morality could rightly be considered offensive.

One can only wonder if Halifax Metro Transit would have given that message the red light.

Lookin' For Love For All the Wrong Reasons

There are better reasons than Barack Obama to support an anti-genocide doctrine

When George W Bush was still President of the United States, one of the favoured criticisms the Canadian left-wing lobbed at Prime Minister Stephen Harper was what eventually will become known as the "Steve" argument -- that he was "mini-Bush", too close to the President, and simply doing his bidding.

How that Barack Obama is in power, many on Canada's left are taking an altogether different stance toward the US President:

Impress him. Do his bidding.

"Under the Harper government, we really seem to have retreated from any form of an active role or presence on the world stage," says Ramesh Thakur, a co-author of the Responsibility to Protect doctrine. "The problem was that this coincided with the Bush administration in Washington. Now that we have Obama who wishes to engage with multilateralism, I think it gives an opportunity for Canada."

"[The Harper government] wanted to be on friendly terms with our most important trading partner and our most important ally, which is understandable, but if that changes then the situation should change as well," Thakur explained.

Thakur's conclusion is that Canada should formally adopt the Responsibility to Protect doctrine as part of its foreign policy.

One hardly knows where to start with Thakur. For one thing, Canada has hardly retreated from any "active role or presence on the world stage". Before the Harper government came to power Canada was, and remains now, active in the international effort to stabilize and rebuild Afghanistan.

But for another thing, there are many, many good reasons to support the Responsibility to Protect doctrine. Impressing Barack Obama isn't one of them.

Averting human rights abuses is one of the most important responsibilities of any developed nation. While those who believe that the sovereignty of any country is inherently sacrosanct may object to the idea of a military intervention, the far-too-numerous examples of genocide and other systematic and deliberate abuses has created a strong case for the recognition of that sovereignty in the international community: namely, that respect for it is conditional based on any particular government's conduct as a global citizen.

That is the best reason to support R2P. Not so we can have an international love-in with Barack Obama.

Thakur also argues that the Conservatives could subvert R2P and make it part of their foreign policy legacy.

"If they identify these with the Liberal party, it does not preclude them from identifying other areas that (could) become the legacy of the Tories," he suggests.

Once again, of all the good reasons to support R2P, this isn't one of them.

Thakur's suggestions are seemingly based in good intentions, but they draw faulty conclusions based on faulty premises. One of them clearly rests on the manner in which he seems to define an active global role.

Thakur seems to overlook that, even as an entrenched part of Canada's foreign policy, R2P would enable and justify intervention in places where he may not otherwise approve. Afghanistan, where Canada is playing an active role, is one of them. Another one of them, as Thakur himself alludes to, is actually Iraq.

"[Michael Ignatieff's] credibility on R2P was badly damaged by the way he supported the Iraq war," Thakur suggests.

Yet the litany of human rights abuses under Saddam Hussein has been widely known for decades. According to R2P -- which Ignatieff, along with Thakur, helped author -- Iraq very much could be argued to be a valid case for international intervention.

Thakur's clear -- and common -- dislike for the Iraq conflict hardly amounts to an undermining of Michael Ignatieff's credibility vis a vis R2P.

Thakur isn't wrong that the Responsibility to Protect doctrine should be part of Canada's foreign policy. It absolutely should be.

But in his efforts to come up with as many reasons as possible, he's come up with a few bad reasons amidst all the good reasons, that may in time serve to undermine R2P's value as a standard of international governance.


Other bloggers writing about this topic:

Rudy Rummel - "What to do About Nukes?"

The Bizarre "Rationalism" of the Pro-Abortion Lobby

Those reading the Nexus over the past couple of days are already familiar with the silly argument recently raised by Stage Left's Balbulican insisting that opposition to abortion is essentially a sexual fetish -- a mental illness.

While the response to criticism of Balbulican's invalid argument has been amusing -- essentially boiling down to an argument that the alleged psychological sexual fetish described by Balbulican shouldn't have to actually adhere to the definition of a sexual fetish according to psychology -- some of the other arguments to be raised in the course of that thread have been amusing in an altogether different manner.

Such as the argument raised by Mike of Rational Reasons, who, in the course of taking exception to the arguments raised by Blue Wave Canada's Suzanne, suggests that a fetus -- or unborn child, as some may prefer to call it -- is a foreign entity to its mother:

"...My bodily integrity is paramount and I cannot be compelled to carry any foreign biological entity within me against my will. After all, it is the basis of your entire argument that a fetus is a distinct and thus foreign biological entity and you are trying to compel a woman to carry this entity within her against her will. I cannot be compelled to carry such an entity even if it means certain death for the entity or someone else."

In the wake of a comment this incredibly stupid, one really can't help but wonder who, precisely, it was that taught Mike one of two things: sex education, and english.

Mike's counter-argument seems to rest on one key misconceived premise: if an unborn child is separate from its mother then it's a foreign entity.

But even if one were to accept the argument that an unborn child is separate from its mother -- and considering that, as Mike himself notes, the unborn child receives oxygen and nourishment from its mother through its umbilical cord, this is a very difficult argument to accept -- it doesn't logically follow that the unborn child is foreign to its mother.

After all, if Mike had received the same birds-and-the-bees talk that the vast overwhelming majority of educated people receive he would know that an unborn child is the product of natural processes occurring within the mother's body.

Yet the word foreign, in almost any sense of the term, deals with things that either originate externally, or do not belong there in the first place.

Considering that a child is conceived within the mother's body, through the reproductive processes that are natural to a woman's body, an unborn child could not possibly be a foreign entity.

It would also be foolish to believe that the unborn child doesn't belong there, considering that (again) it results from natural bodily processes within the mother.

Yet Mike, as it turns out, not only won't admit to the fallacy of his argument, he wants to disavow the argument altogether:

"And, in that exact same paragraph, I quite clearly explained how it connected with what Suzanne said:

After all, it is the basis of your entire argument that a fetus is a distinct and thus foreign biological entity…"

And yet, interestingly enough, it wasn't Suzanne who suggested that the unborn child is separate and foreign to the mother.

Suzanne indeed suggested that the mother and their unborn child are distinct biological entities. Interestingly enough, she doesn't actually use the word "separate", although it's clearly implied in her argument.

But there are numerous cases in which two entities can be biologically distinct from one another, yet not separate and certainly foreign to one another.

An interesting test case is that of conjoined twins. Conjoined twins are often born sharing the same organs, and even the same DNA. Yet, they are biologically distinct from one another to the extent that they can often be successfully separated via surgery -- although often one or both twins die in the process.

Thus "biologically distinct" -- even though it's clearly implicit in Suzanne's specific argument -- doesn't automatically mean separate. Nor does separate necessarily mean foreign.

Of course, this is nothing new to those who are familiar with Mike. The indefensible argument is one of this individual's specialties, and whenever he's caught in one, he simply insists that he isn't obligated to defend his ideas.

Which may be true enough. But no one is obligated to accept an undefended and unsupportable idea.

Any truly rational person knows this.

Ignatieff Makes the Right Move

Liberal leader eating Stephen Harper's populist lunch

In politics there are big triumphs and there are small triumphs.

Today's passage of the Conservative party's federal budget is hardly a triumph. As Tasha Kheiridddin notes, many conservative-minded Canadians feel betrayed about the deficit the government has run up.

But Liberal leader Michael Ignatieff emerged with a small triumph today, as he allowed six Liberal MPs from Newfoundland to vote against the budget -- and against the official party line -- without the threat of reprisal.

"I decided to permit them in the budget vote tonight a one-time vote of protest to signal their displeasure and my displeasure at these unilateral actions which in my view weaken our federation, cause strains in our federation at a time when Canadians should be pulling together," Ignatieff announced.

It's a far cry from the fate that befell then-Nova Scotia MP Bill Casey, who voted against the 2007 federal budget and was ejected from caucus for voting his conscience.

Reportedly, the part may not have been done with Casey even after that. In the 2008 federal election Casey was forced to fight an election campaign against a Conservative candidate who had access to funds raised in the riding by the Tories while Casey was still with the party. The Conservatives reportedly even accused Casey of embezzling funds from the party.

There's a stark, unflattering distinction between these two approaches. One party, the Liberals, not characteristically known for allowing its MPs to deviate from the party line -- Not even Dr Carolyn Bennet, who was forced to vote in favour of a Hepatitis C compensation package that fell far short of meeting the needs of tainted blood victims -- and another party that was expected to marry populist traditions with traditional party discipline.

Both are moving away from what Canadians have come to expect of them -- one for its betterment, the other to its detriment.

Ignatieff has, in one fell swoop, dispelled mounting rumours that he is a control freak. Harper could have done this long ago, but his party's continuing treatment of Bill Casey simply will not allow that particular spectre to disappear.

The political momentum in Canada is clearly turning, and for good reason: Michael Ignatieff is making good decisions, and his opponents are suffering from a combination of poor fortune and poor decisions.




Other bloggers writing about this topic:

Jerad Gallinger - "Iggy, Danny, And a Battle Delayed"

Far and Wide - "The Appropriate Response"

How Long Will This Continue?

Patrick Brazeau continues to court corruption suspicion

The sad and frustrating tale of Patrick Brazeau's appointment to the Senate continued today, as Brazeau topped off some extremely disquieting allegations regarding internal corruption at the Congress of Aboriginal Peoples by hiring two embattled CAP employees to his staff.

Today the Globe and Mail reported that Lorraine Foreman and Al Fleming have been hired as aides to the recently sworn-in senator.

Foreman and Fleming were both accused of drinking on the job in a complaint filed against the CAP by a former employee.

According to the Globe and Mail numerous CAP employees have confirmed the characterization of Foreman and Fleming.

Previous complaints against the Senator involved a sexual harassment case, the questionable suspension of the CAP's Manitoba director, and up to $260,000 in misspent funds.

With Brazeau continuing to pile up disturbing allegations and extremely questionable moves, one can't help but wonder how long it will be before the Conservative Senate caucus finally steps in and suspends Brazeau until these matters are dealt with decisively.

Hopefully, it will be sooner rather than later.

The Perils of Having Nothing to Say

Shorter Canadian Cynic: As someone who doesn't care about black people, I think it's perfectly natural to laugh at people who do.

Gone Fishin' at the Freak Show

The pro-abortion lobby has a bizarre and illogical fascination with Nadya Suleman

It should be utterly unshocking to many of those paying attention to the ongoing debate over abortion in Canada -- although some zealots deny its very existence -- to find that some members of the pro-abortion lobby have never met a slander against anyone who disagrees with them that they didn't immediately love.

Consider the case of an interesting theory peddled by Stageleft's Balbulican insisting that, by golly, this whole Nadya Suleman business is just plain crazy and it's all the anti-abortion lobby's fault.

In a modern media environment that is absolutely obsessed with freak shows, Suleman's story has become inescapable. A 33-year-old single woman still living with her parents, Suleman recently gave birth to an astounding eight children that she can't afford to support.

To make matters yet more disturbing, Suleman already had six children that she couldn't afford to support.

And according to Balbulican, it's those dastardly "anti-choicers" who are to blame.

(And as soon as someone spouts an epithet that comically hyperbolic one simply knows they take them seriously at their own peril.)

"By now you’re aware that the heartwarming story of the eight babies born in California last week has morphed into a surreal horror story with a screenplay by Jerry Springer, directed by David Lynch.

It turns out that Mommy Suleman is 33-year-old single woman, living with her parents, with no visible means of support, who already has six children and had herself artificially implanted with eight more. Her mom went bankrupt last year and is now seeking psychiatric support. The family is trying to peddle her story to Oprah, who’s getting queazy. She just seems to like having babies.

As CC noted, our Fave Foetishist is in a bit of a quandary. This behaviour is clearly insane; but’s it’s a form of insanity that represents the culmination of the vision espoused by the radical anti-choice movement."

That's a pretty bold statement. One would have to expect that Balbulican would have something very persuasive to say in support of it.

Think again.

Balbulican's argument that the anti-abortion lobby -- a label much more accurate than the anti-choice epithet that people like Balbulican are content to fling about -- starts with his argument that, by golly, anyone who disagrees with abortion just ain't right in the head:

"A fetish, in the sexual sense, is an object or behaviour that, in and of itself would normally not evoke a sexual response. Through association, however, the non-sexual becomes imbued with all the power and emotion of sex itself, triggering an emotional response. This obsession can range from harmless to morbid to psychotic.

The foetishists have performed the same trick, an unhealthy severance of object from context. They are utterly fixated on the foetus, which in their mind assumes all the attributes of personhood. They invest in a pre-human cluster of cells the same emotional passion nature intended for a child. The foetus IS their fetish. Some of them seem barely aware of the mother except as a kind of ambulatory, pre-birth incubator."

Aside from this argument going out of its way to make it seem like anyone who opposes abortion is an outright pedophile, it's an incredible logical leap of faith.

First off, it's incorrect in the most basic definition of the word "fetish".

"A fetish is an object," explains clinical psichiatrist Dr Robert J Filewhich. "Fetishism is really a disorder whereby a person is experiencing extreme difficulties in their lives because of the fact that they like these particular objects to provide for them a great deal of sexual arousal. The only way they can achieve this type of sexual satisfaction is with an inanimate object, a non-living object."

Which is the first logical strike against Balbulican's "fetus fetish" argument. Whether the pro-abortion lobby wishes to admit it or not, a fetus -- or unborn child, as someone may prefer to call it -- isn't an inanimate object. It isn't a non-living object. It's very much alive.

The second logical strike is that a fetish is sexual in nature. But the vast majority of anti-abortion activists don't oppose abortion because they get hot and bothered by unborn children, they oppose it because they take moral issue with the termination of human life.

The third logical strike is the argument that the anti-abortion lobby has broken the context between a fetus and a human being.

But in order to make this argument, the pro-abortion lobby has to overlook the fact that a fetus is a gestating human being. Left to develop fully, it will become a human being with a life, a mind, and even (providing that one believes in the existence of any such thing) a soul of its own.

If anything, it's the pro-abortion lobby that has discarded the context of the issue when they insist that a fetus is nothing more than "a clump of cells" worthy of no more consideration than "a jumbo prawn".

So basically the "fetus fetish" argument is one that has struck out.

But even more indefensible is the insistence that, somehow, the anti-abortion lobby is responsible for Nadya Suleman's decision to have far more children than she can support.

"No wonder our foetishists find this story disturbing. It’s a staging of their own mania, writ large and performed live."

Yet this couldn't be further away from the truth if these people were actually trying.

For example, if one accepts the pro-abortion lobby's arguments about "reproductive freedom" -- a freedom that they insist should be absolute at any stage of a woman's life or any stage of a pregnancy -- then one cannot get away from the logical conclusion that a woman enjoying unrestricted reproductive freedom would have the right to decide to have 14 children, even if she can't support them financially.

If the state has no place making laws that impact on reproductive freedom the state would also have no place restricting the use of any fertility drugs that are known to be safe.

The only impediment to a doctor prescribing fertility drugs to a woman incapable of financially supporting children would be the doctor's own ethical standards. If that particular doctor's sense of ethics aren't up to standard, ethics alone aren't enough to prevent people like Nadya Suleman from engaging behaviour that is not only destructive of herself, but destructive of her children as well.

Perhaps if there were some means-testing process by which single women would have to prove they could support children before recieving fertility drugs the Nadya Suleman debacle could have been averted. But as the most zealous members of the pro-abortion lobby will almost certainly attest, if "they" -- the anti-abortion lobby, or "fetus fetishists" -- get the fertility drugs today, they'll come for the birth control tomorrow.

In the end, however, the preceding argument is insipid, and anyone with a lick of sense should know it. The pro-abortion lobby isn't any more responsible for the Nadya Suleman freak show than is the anti-abortion lobby.

Nady Suleman, and whomever allowed her to get her hands on the fertility drugs she reportedly used to have her most recent eight children are the ones responsible.

But one should never underestimate the tendency of both the pro- and anti-abortion lobbies to transform freak shows like this into political footballs they can gleefully kick back and forth, even if they couldn't argue the issue out of a paper bag.

The Life and Death of a Dream

Notorious is a sobering look at the identity of rap music

For many black youths, rap and hip hop music represents the pinnacle of a dream.

For youths who are all too often accustomed to living in poverty, it's the ultimate glamour profession: promising wealth and prestige the likes of which they can otherwise only dream of.

Notorious is the real-life story of Chris "Notorious BIG" Wallace, one of the greatest performers to ever live and achieve that dream. The film is both exhilerating and heart wrenching.

Notorious sadly suffers from some serious casting issues. Few of the actors cast to portray their characters seem like the people they're supposed to be. Anthony Mackie, Derek Luke and Naturi Naughton -- respectively playing Tupac Skakur, Sean "Puff Daddy" Combs and Lil' Kim (the last of whom reportedly wasn't happy about the film's treatment of her character) -- seem less like their real-life counterparts and more like mere parodies.

Jamal Woolard and Antonique Smith (who played Faith Evans), however, delivered positively masterful performances. They almost literally become their characters.

While most of the viewers going to see Notorious will likely have an appreciation for the characters well in advance, the film will make almost anyone care intensely about the characters.

BIG is shown with all of his warts intact -- his turn toward crime and the ruthless ways in which he succeeds at it -- but in the end emerges as a redemptive figure.

No film about BIG, however, could ever be complete without addressing the famed rivalry between himself and Tupac Shakur, and addressing the tragic manner in which that feud ended.

Notorious points all the same tired old fingers over the deaths of Tupac and BIG. The film highlights the role of the media in sustaining the feud that eventually took each man's life. But while the media was clearly a factor in propagating the feud,there was sadly much more to the story than that.

Identity politics played as large a role in the ignomious fate that befell BIG and Skahur than anything.

Desperate to try to differentiate themselves from their counterparts on the other coast, hip hop listeners -- admittedly, mostly young black males, not all of them living in urban centres -- invested significant portions of their particular identity in the music.

Anger and jealousy slowly creeped into the relationship between the music on the two different coasts as east coast performers embraced the sound coming out of the west coast, and used it to supplant their western compatriots.

Not that one should think that the musical movements coming out of the east and west coasts were the only things happening in hip hop at this or any other time. Hip hop artists in southern states were developing their signature "dirty south" vibe, and music listeners and artists in places as far off as Japan were beginning to embrace the music.

(Intriguingly, one of Tupac Shakur's first paying gigs was performing in Japanese television commercials.)

The news media helped to create, inflate and perpetuate the feud between Tupac and BIG. But for the feud to erupt into what it became, listeners on the two coasts had to be ready to invest their very identity in the music coming out of either coast. Apparently, some of them even had to be ready to kill over it.

In 1999 Afina Shakur and Voletta Wallace would appear together at the MTV Music Video Awards. It was treated as a symbolic peacemaking between the two camps.

While feuds -- or "beefs", as they're called in hip hop circles -- still break out between rappers, the Shakur/Wallace appearance has solidified the deaths of their sons as a legacy of peace between the two camps.

Now it's more common to see beefs emerge from within individual camps -- such as the 50 Cent/Game beef that errupted from within G Unit records -- than between coastal camps. And while violence does still break out from time to time, the memories of Tupac and BIG remain cautionary tales about what can happen when rivalries move beyond the music.

It's impossible to ignore the extent to which violence has become embedded in the very culture of hip hop music.

When violence has become so integral to hip hop music, it should come as no surprise that living the dream of many aspiring rappers brings with it certain risks.

Unless the hip hop community finally learns from the legacy of Tupac Shakur and Biggie Smalls it may be a dream that more musicians will die over.

Paul Gross!!!

So What Changed?

Duceppe calls for renewed sovereignty push

In the wake of Liberal party leader Michael Ignatieff's rejection of the proposed Liberal-NDP coalition, Bloc Quebecois -- the thinly-veiled third partner in the proposed government -- leader Gilles Duceppe has decided that it's time to renew the Bloc Quebecois' efforts toward Quebec sovereignty.

Reportedly the BQ had offered to take sovereignty off the agenda for 18 months as part of their agreement to prop up the coalition in confidence votes.

Now that the coalition is firmly off the table, Duceppe is in favour of renewing efforts toward Quebec sovereignty.

"Our goal is as pertinent as ever," Duceppe told a party meeting in St Hycainthe.

"In 2008, Bloc and Parti Quebecois victories brought hope to sovereigntists," Duceppe explained. "It's up to us now to translate this hope into action."

This announcement comes after the BQ and their provincial counterpart, the Parti Quebecois, were victims of several "friendly fire" incidents in which prominent members denounced the sovereignty program as impractical.

But as Duceppe calls for renewed efforts towards Quebec sovereignty, some people may wonder: what, precisely, has changed?

That is, aside from the obvious. Clearly, Ignatieff's rejection of the coalition agreement has changed the political landscape amongst the opposition in Ottawa. But other than that, what, precisely could have changed to precipitate this change in Duceppe's plans?

Clearly, the electoral fortunes of the BQ and PQ in 2008 haven't changed.

Reportedly Duceppe also noted the Liberal party's support for multiculturalism as a factor in his decision to push the party back toward the sovereignty agenda. Presumably, this hasn't changed over the past few months either.

The question of what changed over the past week to change Duceppe's plans so has just become startingly relevant.

It's hard to think of anything other than two possibilities. One is that Duceppe never intended to honour his commitment to the no-sovereignty-for-18-months promise. The second is that multiculturalism somehow factored into the promises the Liberal party and the NDP had to offer up in order to secure the Bloc within their coalition fold.

One thing is for certain: as a partner in the coalition government, the BQ never would have been able to put the interests of Canada ahead of Quebec's own parochial demands.

"For those who may not have noticed, no matter what party is in power in Ottawa, Liberal or Conservative, no matter who's in charge, the interests of Canada take precedence over the values and interests of Quebec," Duceppe mused.

Which can only mean that devotion to anything the BQ defines as "Quebec's interests" would have come before the country as a whole's -- especially likely issues related to national unity -- in order for the coalition to survive.

This is only one more reason why Canadians should be thankful that the spectre of the proposed coalition government has been dispelled for the immediate future.

Maybe next time the Liberals and NDP will wait until they don't have to rely on an unreliable and untrustworthy political bloc in order to accomplish this particular goal.


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