James Cameron, Avatar and the Craziness of Globalization Studies

It must be wonderfully liberating to study in a field such as Globalization Studies, where ideologically-soothing rhetoric so often tends to supplant facts.

Globalization studies tends to boil nearly any problem down to two basic themes: capitalism and racism, typically with very few facts -- if any at all -- offered to support them.

A typical case is an essay being distributed by University of Lethbridge Globalization Studies professor -- and 9/11 truther-in-residence -- Dr Anthony J Hall.

In one such essay, entitled "Avatar Meets the Bowl With One Spoon", Hall suggests that the brutal treatment of the Na'vi in the film is comparable to the treatment of aboriginal communities in Alberta's Athabaska region.

Fortunately for Hall, his discipline seems like it doesn't require a discussion of the facts. If it did, Hall would have to admit that the pertinent facts don't support his argument.

Hall writes:

"Huge amounts of energy and fresh water are required to extract fossil fuels from the bogs of the arctic watershed. While the profits from this activity enliven the urban cultures of, for instance, Calgary, Houston, Dallas, and Beijing, the liabilities in terms of high rates of cancer and the loss of indigenous political economies are borne disproportionately by the Cree and Dene peoples of the region."

A statement like this is so rife with error and counter-factuality that it's hard to know where to begin.

First off, the economic activity derived from oil sands development development also benefits aboriginal communities in the Athabasca regions. They benefit not only from direct revenue from royalties collected from oilsands operations on their land, not only from related businesses operated by local First Nations, but also in terms of aboriginal employment.

Moreover, Hall ignores key portions of Alberta Health Service's report on Fort Chipewyan that notes that the communities' rates of cancer are actually within natural variation, and could simply appear elevated due to increased rates of detection.

Moreover, a key indicator of an environmental cause to elevated rates of cancer is not present in Fort Chipewyan -- notably, the lack of elevated cancer rates in children.

This merely deals with the factual/conceptual errors in Hall's essay. It isn't the only area in which it suffers.

It also suffers from the presence of a key logical fallacy: the false equivalency.

As Avatar unfolds, it becomes clear that the kinds of abuses perpetrated by the RDA mining company are possible because there seems to be no legally-recognized sovereignty over Pandora. No government holds any jurisdiction over it. It is, for the purposes of human legality, a lawless planet.

The situation in Alberta is not even remotely equivalent. Companies operating in the Athabasca region are subject to multiple levels of jurisdiction. They are subject to the jursidction of Canadian law, Albertan law, as well as the restrictions and requirements imposed by First Nations on whose land they operate.

This isn't to say that there aren't any issues related to legal jurisdiction anywhere in Alberta. The ongoing state of affairs regarding the Lubicon Cree, where oil development proceeded without a settlement of the treaty status of the group -- who have never signed a treaty with the government of Canada -- remains legally intolerable.

But this is not the situation in Fort McMurray, where local Cree and Dene populations have frequently asserted their jurisdictional rights, and have received the cooperation of the companies working on their land.

In short, the scenario in Avatar, with Na'vi being swept aside by overwhelming military power, and the scenario in Fort McMurray, wherein aboriginal communities have benefited from the cooperation of oilsands developers, are not nearly the same.

Dr Anthony J Hall is fortunate that he works in an academic field where rhetoric consistently out-muscles fact. His theories may be accepted by the remarkably-insular academic circles in which he travels, but it won't find traction in a more rigourous intellectual environment.

Somewhere, in the Darkest Corner of the Toronto Star...

...Heather Mallick could be heard screaming "pramface!!!"

Canada Chided For "Lack of Interest" in Jeffrey Sachs' Agenda

Jeffrey Sachs disappointed in lack of ideological commitment

If anything is absolutely certain about Jeffrey Sachs, it's that he has everything about poverty in the developing world figured out.

Or at least he thinks he does.

Sachs' policies regarding alleviating poverty in the developing world have been nothing if not a spectacular failure. Yet instead of examining his own policies to figure out what's gone wrong, he prefers to simply blame countries that don't share his agenda in all its ideological glory.

Especially Canada.

But not Canada alone. Apparently, the United States is to blame as well.

“Where we are in 2010 is mostly a testimony about ourselves,” Sachs said. “Neither the Harper government nor the Obama administration is doing close to what I would expect of our countries living in the wealth and comfort of North America.”

So not just Canada. But mostly Canada.

“It’s just been very disappointing for me,” Sachs complained. “I’ve grown up believing in Canada’s leadership.”

Of course Sachs may simply be forgetting that Canada has taken the lead on a maternal health initiative for the developing world.

Sachs seems upset that countries in the developing world have hard choices to make.

“All of them were discussing whether to have children in school or whether to have mothers saved in childbirth or whether to have vaccine problems, because [they] can’t do all of these things,” Sachs fumed. “It’s an impossible choice.”

Former Prime Minister Paul Martin, who committed Canada to following Sachs' agenda, is similarly disappointed.

"When the Canadian numbers were revised down, that was a reneging on our commitment," Martin complained. "The 'reclarifying' of numbers, which Canada, Italy and France engaged in, is exactly the kind of thing that must not happen in the future."

Of course what Martin fails to mention is that the commitment Martin speaks of was the commitment of the government that he led. A future government was well within its rights to reevaluate the decision, and in the case of the Millenium Development Goals, was particularly right to have done so.

But Martin also admits that many of the countries due to be recipients of this generous aid commitment have their own part to play -- one they haven't played.

"Recipient countries have got to come to the table," Martin insisted. "When the MDGs were set up, it was with governments that said they would do certain things, for instance in education, and a number of those countries have not done it."

But even the commitments made by the countries in question were the wrong commitments.

New York University Economist William Easterly has been clear about the shortcomings of the economy of the developing world.

One of these shortcomings is the lack of key economic infrastructure -- banks, stock exchanges, securities regulators, courts of law -- that make a healthy economy possible in the first place. While the developing-world versions of institutions don't currently need to be nearly as sophisticated as they are in the developed world, they do need to impose a basic degree of law and order over these economies -- the kind that can contain and eliminate corruption and cronyism.

Beyond even that, Sachs' prized MDGs represent everything that has been wrong with the developed world's approach to fighting poverty in the developing world: they are centrally-planned, largely by the donors, and do not necessarily reflect the real needs of these economies.

They reflect the opinion of what Jeffrey Sachs and his cohorts think these countries need, and following the same broken model of sending billions and billions of dollars into the coffers of governments that have tended to either waste the funds, or steal them outright.

Jeffrey Sachs can be as disappointed as he likes that Canada has backed away from his agenda. His policies have overwhelmingly failed -- something that Sachs has declined to even acknowledge, let alone take responsibility for -- and it's time for a more constructive approach.

The Utter Cluelessness of Jack Layton & the NDP

Conservatives can't work with NDP on long-gun registry

When it appeared that Candice Hoeppner's private members bill would find enough support from the NDP to pass, NDP leader Jack Layton went to work to find enough votes to keep the registry alive.

He didn't whip the vote, as many advocates of the long-gun regsitry insisted he should, but he seems to have found the votes.

Yet, as it turns out, Layton's fantasies don't end with the alleged necessity of maintaining the registry. Layton continues to fantasize that the Conservative Party would be able to work with him to "fix" the registry.

"I said to the Prime Minister today as well as in a conversation last week, ‘Why don't we work together here? You haven't got the numbers now to simply eliminate it,'" Layton said. "'So let's work to try to fix it and address some of those legitimate issues that are being raised by people who are law-abiding gun owners and hunters and farmers.'"

What Layton clearly doesn't understand is that, as pertains to gun control and the long-gun registry, there's nothing to talk about. There is simply no way that the Conservative Party -- who acknowledge reality as it relates to the long-gun registry -- could work wirh the NDP on the matter, who do not.

It's as simple as that.

Particularly, the Conservatives cannot be expected to work with people who won't debate the matter in good faith.

Layton and the other supporters of the long-gun registry have long realized that there are no facts that support maintaining the registry: not a single, solitary, one.

They can't afford to publicly admit that the long-gun registry has never prevented a single crime, and has never saved a single life. Not one.

Instead, proponents of the long-gun registry have relied on fear mongering, emotional blackmail, and smear tactics in order to make their case.


Consider the following exchanges from the very same meeting of the Public Safety Committee in which Dr Gary Mauser utterly demolished defenses of the long-gun registry.

The first is between Dr Mauser and Marlene Jennings:

"Jennings - ...Have you received funding from the NRA for any of your studies or research work?

Dr Mauser - Yes, I have. When I first began researching--

Jennings - Thank you.

Dr Mauser - I got $400.

Jennings - Have you contributed to the Conservative Party of Canada, or its predecessor the Canadian Alliance, or its predecessor the Reform Party of Canada?

Dr Mauser - I have contributed to the Conservative Party, the Reform Party, the NDP, and the Liberals."

Jennings attempts a rather blatant guilt-by-association argument. She knows her base well, and must imagine that a donation to the Reform Party, and the receipt of a donation from the NRA would be rather damning for Dr Mauser.

Unfortunately for Jennings, what she uncovered was a donation scarcely sufficient to keep the lights on for a major research project, and a former Reform Party donor who had also given to her own party.

In the midst of a debate that is supposed to be contested based on facts, this is far from a significant bombshell.

But Jennings' buffoonery nothing compared to that of Bloc Quebecois MP Maria Mourani:

"Mourani - Mr Mauser, I would like short answers please. Is this in fact you in this photograph, with a handgun?

Dr Mauser - That's me and that's my handgun.

Mourani - What kind of gun is it?

Dr Mauser - It is a Smith & Wesson revolver.

Mourani - Is it registered?

Dr Mauser - Well, of course.

Mourani - How many weapons do you own?

Dr Mauser - I'm not sure. It varies.

Mourani - You do not remember how many guns you own? How many long guns do you own?

Dr Mauser - I don't remember. It varies.

Mourani - All right, you own firearms, but you do not remember how many you have?

Dr Mauser - I'm getting old.

Mourani - You are not, however, too old to carry such a gun.

Dr Mauser - That would be a few more years from now.

Mourani - Where was this photograph taken?

Dr Mauser - About 20 years ago.

Mourani - But where?

Dr Mauser - You can see that I'm a lot younger there.

Mourani - Yes, but where? Was it at home? It looks like it was at home, not at a firing range or at a shooting school. Am I right? It is at your house.

Dr Mauser - That's my house.

Mourani - Excellent. And what were you shooting at? What were you having fun shooting at? Who were you putting on this show for?

The Chair - Mrs Mourani, you have to relate this to the long-gun registry.

Mourani - I apologize, Mr Chairman. Mr Chairman, I will explain why.

Dr Mauser - You will notice, first of all, that I'm not firing. Secondly, the finger is not in the trigger guard. Thirdly, the photographer asked me to pose like this and I resisted, but obviously I should have resisted harder.

Mourani - You did put up a struggle, my dear sir. But, you are the expert advisor as far as firearms are concerned. I must admit to you that I am scared."

In all fairness, Maria Mourani does seem like the sensitive type: sensitive enough to be frightened by a 20-year-old photograph. That, seeing as how she introduced it into committee, one could presume she herself dug up for that purpose.

And evidently sensitive enough to stoop to ad hominem attacks on an expert at whose assessment of the facts she seems to despair.

Which reminds one what this is allegedly supposed to be about: it's supposed to be about the facts. Mark Holland insists that the Conservatives simply don't care about them.

Yet when a doctor of criminology shows up to the Public Safety Committee and lays out facts that are extremely inconvenient for proponents of the long-gun registry, the facts seem to be the last thing Holland, Jennings, Mourani et al are concerned with:

Their language becomes not that of a factual debate, but that of vindictive personal attack, vicious character assasination, and shameless melodrama.

There is a reason for this: the facts simply do not favour their cause. It doesn't prevent gun crime. It doesn't save lives. It's a cosmetic gun control measure that demonstrably doesn't protect Canadians.

Truthfully speaking, the long gun registry has become the cause celibre of far-left demagogues who can't bring themselves to get tough on crime, so instead opt to get tough on the law-abiding.

Jack Layton has, unsurprisingly, decided to throw in with that lot. The Conservatives couldn't work with him on this issue, even if they wanted to.

Barack Obama's Strategy for November: The Black Vote

Obama begs black caucus for support

When President Barack Obama stormed into the White House in 2008, it was at the head of a movement of hope, and at the front of some of the largest crowds to support a candidate in decades.

Now that Obama has disappointed his followers and done a better job of mobilizing his opposition than the Republican Party ever could have, Obama is looking back to the most crass element that contributed to his 2008 successes:

The politics of race.

Speaking at the Congressional Black Congress dinner, Obama called on members of the caucus to mobilize their constituents in his support.

"I need everybody here to go back to your neighborhoods and your workplaces, to your churches and barbershops, and beauty shops," Obama announced. "Tell them we have more work to do. Tell them we can't wait to organize. Tell them that the time for action is now."

"When I took office, our economy was on the brink of collapse. So, we acted immediately and took some steps to stop our economic free-fall," he continued. "And now, our economy is growing. We're adding private sector jobs, instead of losing them. We're in a different place than we were one year ago."

Obama would like caucus members to believe that his economic problem has been a success. But even as three million job openings were reported on the last day of July, unemployment increased 0.3% in July, and 0.3% again in August.

In other words: economy growing? Not so much. Adding private sector jobs? Not compared to the rate of loss.

Which may be a good time to remember what Obama's election to the office of President was supposed to be about.

"It was about giving every hardworking American a chance to join a growing middle class," he explained. "It was about putting the American dream within reach for all Americans, no matter who you are, what you look like, or where you come from."

Instead, Obama's policies continue to precipitate economic havoc in the United States, as the famed American dream continues to slip beyond the reach of increasing numbers of Americans, including some who once had it firmly within their grasp.

With these sobering realities hovering over his Presidency, Obama has instead opted to flatly appeal for black votes.

There is deep peril in this for the alleged post-racial President. Even as he reaches out for overwhelming level of support from black voters, his support among white voters continues to erode.

In July, only 37% of white men assess Obama's performance positively. Even fewer white women -- 35% -- agreed.

So in so starkly appealing to black voters while his support amongst white voters continues to erode, the post-racial President risks doing something that a post-racial President should never do: divide voters along racial lines.

It isn't as if it's all Obama's fault. After all, ideologically-motivated commentators have taken the rise of the Tea Party as an opportunity to weaponize racism in support of an increasingly radical and civically-destructive agenda.

It's becoming increasingly clear that Barack Obama is reaching the breaking point. November 2 seems like it's going to be the beginning of the end for Obama. The end cannot come soon enough.

Tony Blair's Deferred War on the Working Class

Labour knew they were spending, borrowing too much

As Labour leadership candidates Andy Burnham and Ed Balls battle over whether or not the Labour party would have embarked on a program of cuts similar to that of the current Tory/Liberal Democrat government, Lord Andrew Turnbull, former head of the British Civil Service, has dropped a bombshell on the debate:

The Labour party was spending too much, and knew it was spending too much. And it knew in 2005.

Lord Turnbull suggests that it was political pressure that convinced Tony Blair and his government to continue spending at a manifestly undisciplined rate, even after it became evident that there was a problem.

"It kind of crept up on us in 2005, 2006, 2007, and we were still expanding public spending at 4.5 per cent a year," he explained. "You might have thought that we should have been giving priority to getting borrowing under better control, putting money aside in the good years - and it didn't happen."

Lord Turnbull's comments reveal Keynesian economics for precisely what they became under Tony Blair: an excuse to spend, even at the expense of the government's ability to battle a recession by expending savings accumulated during strong economic periods.

Lord Turnbull explained it very simply: "Public spending got too big relative to the productive resources of the economy."

"The politics was that we had put an end to boom and bust," he said. But it didn't work that way. The government overspent even during the time of boom, and now succeeding governments have to fix the problem.

All of this complicates matters intensely for the current crop of Labour leadership candidates, looking to replace Blair's successor, Gordon Brown.

Andy Burnham has been tremendously candid about the necessity of cuts under a Labour government.

"Let's get some honesty in this debate," Burnham said. "There would have been significant spending cuts under Labour and there would have been job losses under Labour."

For his own part, Ed Balls seems to think that things would have been magically different under a Labour government.

"I think Labour would have been creating jobs this year," Balls insisted. "At a time when the economy is slowing down, we should be building houses, not cutting them, building schools, not cutting them."

This of course begs the question of where the money would have come from. But Balls seems to think that he has the answer... or at least something he can easily pass off as the answer.

"The banks should be paying the price of the crisis, not people up and down this country," Balls insisted.

Of course, it shouldn't be the banks that pay the price for the excessively poor fiscal policy of the Blair and Brown governments. One way or the other, under one government or another, the British government will have to pay the price for that.

Unfortunately, it's inevitable that when the government pays, the citizens will pay as well.

Many among Britain's left have gleefully seized upon the looming cuts by the David Cameron government of waging class warfare against the middle and working classes.

But even as Tony Blair spent the government of Great Britain deeper and deeper into debt, he had to have known that a fiscal day of recknoning was coming. Tony Blair had to have known that the middle and working classes would be hit hardest by that reckoning than anyone else -- including himself.

If class warfare is being waged against the working and middle classes at all, it's Tony Blair's defferred class warfare.

Well Done, Judy Rebick

Rebick hosts black bloc leader at discussion panel

Canadians disgusted by the actions of violent protesters at the G20 Summit in Toronto are still waiting for justice for those actions.

As police continue to use sophisticated investigation techniques to identify rioters and arrest them, that justice grows ever-nearer. But for at least one alleged organizer, that comeuppance may be closer yet.

Alex Hundert, one of those accused of organizing the violence at the G20 summit, was re-arrested afer violating the terms of his $100,000 bail.

Even more interesting than the arrest, however, was the circumstances of the arrest: he was arrested following an appearance at a forum panel, at Ryerson University, organized by Judy Rebick.

Characteristically, Rebick denounced the arrest.

"It was a meeting, a calm, peaceful discussion of issues on people’s minds,” Rebick complained. “It’s an outrage that he was arrested for discussing issues, an outrage.”

As a condition of his bail, Hundert was prohibited from taking part in political protests, such as the ones he soiled in Toronto.

Of course, if the broad collection of groups protesting at the G20 summit really had no connection to the black bloc protesters -- and factually, the vast majority of them didn't -- Rebick has made that a very hard case to defend by hosting Hundert at her event.

It isn't even the first time Rebick gave Hundert a forum.

In March of this year Rabble.ca published an article, written by Hundert, in which he admitted to using black bloc tactics as part of anti-Olympic protests.

In the article, Hundert crows brazenly about his anarchist theories, and seems to suggest that anarchism is the only alternative to what he deems "neo-colonialism":

"21st-century analysis is moving beyond the empty rhetoric of 'revolutionary acts.' We no longer wish to seize the machinery of the State to use it for our own ends; we wish to see it dismantled, to be replaced by something other than a new Euro-American colonialism. A better world than that is possible, but it cannot come about until we move beyond the dominant paradigms of our culture. Statism and white supremacy must be resigned to the dustbins of history."

In the article, he continues to espouse the benefits of "diversity of tactics":

"Part of the strength of the anti-Olympic campaign, as a watershed for the new anti-colonial movement, has been the solidarity and unity around a "diversity of tactics." Part of that solidarity is rooted in the idea that you cannot attack one part of the movement without attacking the whole. When we remember to defend each other, we also remember to work together to build the movement and our communities. This cannot be done by succumbing to the classic colonial tactic of divide and conquer. Diversity of tactics means that one day we smash the system and the next we build alternatives. The Black Block is a wrecking ball tactic that makes space for more mainstream or creative tactics. The anarchists who participate in the Bloc are for the most part solid community organizers and people who are at the forefront of making space for creative alternatives to capitalism and colonialism. A diversity of tactics is meant to be complimentary -- different tactics demonstrate different values and objectives, and all must be viewed in sum."

Of course, all of this comes across as pure fallacy. Canadians who witnessed the acts the black bloc committed at the G20 summit know full well that the black bloc aren't defending their fellow protesters. Rather, they're simply staging attacks on private property and persons that are poorly-justified even by their own meagre standards.

Moreover, the black bloc puts peaceful protesters at risk for violent retaliation by police officers venting their frustration at the poor decisions of their commanding officers (who famously ordered riot police at the Toronto summit to stand down because they were "too intimidating").

For her own part, Rebick had, at that point, been wise enough to criticize the black bloc's activities. Hundert, however, was having none of it:

"What Judy Rebick, and many other critics who have had little to do with the anti-Olympic movement, have entirely failed to notice is the fact that the Black Bloc was supported by almost every constituency of the ORN. This show of solidarity was not divisive -- it brought us together and has built deep trust between activists who, in the past, have often had very little to say to each other.

Organizations that were publicly represented include (or had individual members present and unmasked): No One Is Illegal, the Council of Canadians, PETA, the Indigenous Environmental Network (IEN), StopWar.ca, Gatewaysucks, the Vancouver Anti-Poverty Committee, Food Not Bombs, and many more. None of those organizations have denounced the actions of the Black Bloc that day. And they can't, because their members know that on that day, they were there to support the Black Bloc. Anyone who says that they didn't know what was going to happen is lying. There were 200 people in black with masks on, and 'Riot 2010; has been a rallying call for the movement for more than two years now. Everyone knew what was going to happen, and they all marched anyway."

In one fell swoop, Hundert manages to locate all of these groups -- most notably the Council of Canadians -- within the extreme underbelly of Canada's radical far-left. Hundert appropriates to himself support from even the moderate organizations among them to his anarchist cause.

Remarkably, Hundert has imagined for himself a world wherein the black bloc can deliberately provoke extreme reactions from police and then divest himself of any responsibility:

"After the police clashed with the Bloc that day, and affinity groups were forced to scatter (the Black Bloc doesn't do peaceful arrests -- the tactic dictates mutual protection from the police instead), the majority of the 'non-violent' marchers continued in support. Some of them allowed themselves to be arrested by the frustrated police. Blaming anyone other than the police for the conduct of the police is merely a legitimization of the police presence on our streets -- it would be like blaming the poor for the criminalization of homelessness. I expect people to know better. Cops are no more than armed thugs-for-hire."

That was, of course, in March of 2010. It is now September, after the G20 riot, and Judy Rebick is still providing a platform from which Hundert can proclaim his extreme radical views.

Regardless of the "solidarity" that Alex Hundert claims, most of the peaceful protesters at the G20 Summit have attempted to distance themselves from he and the black bloc, even chanting "shame on you" at them during the event itself.

Yet Rebick has drawn Hunder ever-closer, much to the discredit of herself and the movement she represents.

For that, one simply has to say: well done, Judy Rebick. Well done.

Or at least one would if she hadn't also contributed to the discredit of peaceful organizations that don't deserve to share in her discredit.

Coming Soon to the Nexus of Assholery...

Within the next few weeks, a bold new initiative is coming to the Nexus of Assholery.

Over the past several months, your not-so-humble scribe has been working on a super-secret pet project.

In 2009, Globe and Mail columnist John Ibbitson published a book entitled Open and Shut: Why America Has Barack Obama and Canada Has Stephen Harper. The book is a comparison of the political trends that brought each Harper and Obama to power, and an exploration of how American political innovations could benefit Canada.

In October, your not-so-humble scribe will offer a response to Ibbitson's book.

Entitled Open or Shut? Why Canada is Better Off With Stephen Harper, and How We Can Do Even Better, the book will offer a comparative critique of the Harper government and the Obama administration, as well as a further exploration of how Canadians can better open their political system.

The book will seek to address several questions, including:

-How did Barack Obama manage to shit the bed so badly?
-What do the founderings of Obama and Harper have in common?
-How does Canadian tax policy smother the marketplace of ideas?
-Do Canadian campaign finance laws invite foreign interference in Canadian elections?
-What are the stakes for aboriginal governance?

This, among other topics. It will be a very short -- but very important -- read for Canadians concerned with the direction of their country.

So how much will this book cost? It's a good thing you asked.

How about... $0? Nothing? Nada?

That's right -- this book will be offered for free in e-book format. But there's a catch.

Open it Up is meant to spur the kind of debate that Open and Shut deserved, but never really received. So it won't be enough that merely you download this book. Not nearly.

Instead, every reader will be encouraged to copy this book to their heart's content and pass it along to anyone and everyone whom they think might benefit from it.

It's time to liven up the debate on political reform in Canada -- Open or Shut is just the book to do it, and you can be part of that debate.

The Forgotten Islam

For the most dedicated critics of Islam -- those better described as "Islamophobes" -- Sufism is not only the Islam they forgot. Rather, Sufism is the Islam they refuse to even acknowledge.

Sufism could perhaps best be described as the Salvation Army of Islam.

Sufism combines the joyous music and adulation of God with the generous philanthropic outlook of the Salvation Army.

Sufism refutes the iconoclastic nature of Islam, and finds its route to God through music and art -- much to the objection of Muslim fundamentalists.

Contrary to the stereotype of Islam as backward and culturally stagnant, Sufism is progressive and culturally dynamic. Sufi musicians experiment openly with their stylings, including flirting with electronic music.

It's a shame that Sufism has become the forgotten Islam. It should be the Islam that everyone remembers.

David Cameron vs The Vested Interests

Cameron prepares to fight rhetorical war with labour unions

As British Prime Minister David Cameron prepares to roll out his government's austerity program, Cameron has declared his intent to take on Britain's "vested interests".

Roughly translated: unions.

"They got us into this mess and they haven't got any idea how to clear it up," Cameron insisted.

Across Britain, labour unions are lining up against the coming austerity program. Brendan Barber of the Trades Union Congress has warned of "social unrest" over government cuts.

"We have a duty to reflect the real worries and fears, and real anger that will grow as people see the impact of government policy," Barber insisted. "The Government has invested a lot of effort in trying to persuade people there is no option. That's not the case. The risks of going down this track are enormous and will make the situation worse."

"There is an alternative," he continued. "Don't be fooled by the barrage of propaganda by the Government, that all of this is simply unavoidable and there are no choices. There are real choices. These are not decisions made out of necessity. They are made out of political principle and choice."

Of course, the history of the actions of labour unions during times of fiscal crisis in Britain shouldn't fill anyone with a wealth of confidence in them.

As in almost all western countries, labour unions have proven to be especially ham-fisted when negotiating with governments. In Britain, labour unions have deliberately attempted to destroy governments that don't cave into their demands, no matter how arduous they may be.

For Barber, the "other option" is for government to stay the course, and continue spending itself into a Greek fiscal quagmire.

If anything reminds ordinary Britons that labour unions simply don't have Britain's best interests at heart, it should be this. Rather, British labour unions have their own interests at heart, and no one else's.

David Cameron needs to do more than simply battle these vested interests. He needs to reach into the Margaret Thatcher playbook, and find a way to defeat them.

Who You Calling Bitch?

Not Ieshuh Griffin

As featured on last night's episode of the Daily Show, US congressional candidate Ieshuh Griffin attempted to make unique use the "five words of principle" independent candidates can place on the ballot next to their name in the state of Wisconsin.

When voters cast their ballot, "NOT the white man's bitch" will not appear next to Griffin's name.

No, this is not a joke.

Griffin had to get the statement past Wisconsin's Government Accountability Board, who initially ruled that it would appear on the ballot. That decision was later reversed.

Griffin even managed to attract the attention of Rush Limbaugh.

In politics, as in anything else, controversy sells. Ieshuh Griffin managed to parlay her clearly-militant racial views ever-so-briefly to the top. The Daily Show has now granted her a few more minutes of fame.

This author, as a white man, is quite comfortable with Ieshuh Griffin not being his bitch. That job's already been taken.

The Truth Unravels Anti-Sun TV Petition

As Ricken Patel and Avaaz write to RCMP and the Ottawa Police Department begging them to investigate whomever embarrassed them by revealing the lack of controls on their "Stop Fox North" petition, it's becoming increasingly clear that they aren't merely motivated by vindictiveness -- they're also motivated by a need to distract interested parties from the facts.

First up are the claims that Prime Minister Stephen Harper is exerting pressure on CRTC chairman Konrad von Finckenstein to approve a mandatory-distribution license for Sun TV.

On CBC's Power and Politics, Ricken Patel was asked if he had proof that such pressure was being exerted.

He sputtered and stuttered his response.

"No, of course we don't have legal proof," Patel admitted.

And there's good reason for this: because no pressure seems to be present.

In a recent letter to the Globe and Mail, von Finckenstein refuted the best evidence that Patel could offer -- a column by Lawrence Martin:

"I read with consternation Lawrence Martin's column "Is Stephen Harper Set To Move Against The CRTC?" (Aug 19) calling into question the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission's independence as a regulatory body. The column stems from Quebecor Media's application to launch a TV news service called Sun TV News.

I would like to categorically state that no one at any level of government has approached me about the Sun TV application, the appointment of the CRTC's vice-chair of broadcasting, or my own mandate.

Quebecor's application is being treated according to the CRTC's well-established processes. The application was published on Sept. 1 for comment, and a public hearing will be held in Gatineau, PQ, starting on Nov 19. The CRTC will then make a decision on the basis of the evidence on the public record."

Patel and Avaaz have no "legal proof" that any such pressure is being exerted because it doesn't seem to be present at all.

So the lack of pressure has already been established. But that's only for starters.

The CRTC website puts the lie to Avaaz's claim that Sun TV is seeking mandatory access to cable and satellite fees:

The information regarding the application states quite unequivocally:

"The applicant stated that it was not seeking mandatory basic distribution, but only to be made available on cable and satellite distribution undertakings, allowing the public to have access to Sun TV News without any obligation to choose it."

This particular detail demonstrates the Avaaz petition to be counter-factual. As such, Quebecor is perfectly entitled to seek legal remedy on this matter.

For Patel, however, it seems that these facts simply don't matter. Instead, he wants to simply repeat his vacuous rhetoric and try to make the issue about the cost of Quebecor's lawyers.

"This is how big corporate power tries to silence people's voices, with smear campaigns and expensive lawyers," Patel complained. "Canadians are deeply worried about the poisonous politics of the Sun media empire and will keep fighting their plan to force cable companies to give them access to our cable fees."

Patel either hasn't read the information regarding the application, available on the CRTC website since September 1, or he's underestimating the intelligence of Canadians and outright lying to them.

Fortunately, however, public consultations on Sun TV will be starting fairly soon. Ricken Patel, as a Canadian citizen, will have the option to participate.

However, he'll need to turn up with better material than "I disagree with Sun TV politically" or "Fox News is bad". Whether or not he's actually capable of better has yet to be seen.

Dalton McGuinty: Yesterday's Man Renewed

Desperate, pathetic McGuinty cries 'hidden agenda'

The Toronto Star calls it "feisty". Anyone with a memory of what transpired in Canadian politics over the past 20 years will recognize it for precisely what it is: pathetic.

Of course, Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty must expect that Ontarians have a short memory. How else to explain his desperate "hidden agenda" gambit?

Canadians are very familar with the "hidden agenda" gambit. It was a fear tactic, invoked by former Prime Minister Paul Martin, suggesting current Prime Minister Stephen Harper had a "hidden agenda".

How did the story end? The train wreck of corruption that was the Liberal Party became unigorable in the eyes of Canadians, Martin's government was rightly found wanting, his desperation recognized, and Martin was rightly sent packing, never to return.

Four years later, another embattled Liberal -- McGuinty -- has resorted to this pathetic and transparent gambit, just as his opposition seems poised to relegate him to the opposition benches.

This time it's Ontario Progressive Conservative leader Tim Hudak, and it comes as Hudak points to the increasing burden McGuinty's government has become to the citizens of Ontario.

“After seven years it has become very clear Premier McGuinty believes in his heart that Ontario families have an infinite capacity to pay for every idea that your team dreams up,” Hudak announced. “They can’t keep up with your hydro bills, they can’t keep up with your HST increase, they can’t keep up with your eco taxes. Families need a break.”

For his own part, McGuinty predictably wanted to change the subject -- to health care.

“Ontario families better ask themselves what’s their secret agenda when it comes to health care," McGuinty announced. "What’s going to happen to their hospitals, their nurses and doctors?”

Of course, the switch to health care wasn't by any means a random change of topic. It was deliberate. Nothing so frightens Canadians as the prospect of deep cuts to health care -- even as health care becomes more and more unsustainable, as governments such as McGuinty's continue to allow it to slide.

“We have a broader, and I think more intelligent understanding of what Ontario families’ concerns are," McGuinty preened. "Yes they’re concerned about their expenses ... levels of taxation.”

“But we will not take our eye off the ball of those other concerns families have,” he continued.

Yet it seems that as support for the Progressive Conservative Party strengthens, and support for the Liberal Party erodes, more and more Ontarians are questioning the broadness or the intelligence of McGuinty's purported understanding of their concerns.

So the Ontario Liberal Party's option of choice is to rewind to yesterday -- regurgitate the "hidden agenda". Run against Mike Harris rather than against Tim Hudak.

It won't work any better for Dalton McGuinty than it did for Paul Martin.

While the Toronto Star may applaud it as "feisty", Ontarians will surely recognize it for what it really is: desperate and pathetic.

David McGuinty Comes Through... For the Tories

McGuinty plays wedge politics while accusing Tories of wedge politics... brilliant!

One thing about the Liberal party, in its currently-weakened state, is that it has forgotten one of the most basic precepts of day-to-day life:

Look both ways before crossing.

This is something Liberal House Leader David McGuinty almost certainly failed to do when he accused Prime Minister Stephen Harper of using the long-gun registry for wedge politics.

Hilariously enough, while doing this McGuinty invoked the Liberal Party's own favourite wedge: the American Republican Party.

“Mr Harper is having a wedge politics debate," McGuinty insisted. "It’s the worst of right-wing Republican wedge politics.”

"You pick an issue, you sensationalize the issue, you try to remain above the fray ... and you keep everyone else distracted with debates that are divisive,” he continued.

McGuinty clearly didn't bother to check what's actually going on in the United States before he made these comments. President Barack Obama, who came to power with massive majorities in both houses of Congress, is on his way to experiencing the swiftest political turnaround in US history.

The Democrat response to this has been to attempt to utilize wedge issues to divide Americans against the Republican Party, and Republicans against one another; blatant wedge issues like racism, weaponized for petty political gain.

McGuinty also frantically pointed to an equally-frantic CBC report that the National Rifle Association has been active in the debate over the long-gun registry.

Mc Guinty's description of the report is actually misleading. The CBC reports that the NRA has given "logistical and tactical support" to the Canadian Institute for Legislative Action, a group dedicated to abolishing the long-gun registry.

Moreover, members of the CILA have reciprocated that support by appearing in televised messages for the NRA.

The story also features former Ontario Governor General Michael Bryant -- whose "No Gun, No Funeral" campaign arguably violated election law -- raising the alarm about NRA involvement in Canada.

"I got elected in 1999 and I became aware soon after of the NRA's involvement in the debate — not in a huge way, but in a significant way," Bryant explained.

"For a lot of people in Canada, if they knew that the NRA was part of the effort to get rid of the gun registry, they would think more about their views," he said. "And they would think, 'well, wait a minute, I thought this was about, you know, wasting taxpayer dollars. The NRA's involved? Really? That makes me very uncomfortable … '"

The problem for Bryant and other proponents of the long-gun registry is that the NRA's involvement hardly changes the facts about the registry.

Not only is the NRA merely a political wedge the Liberal Party wishes to use to divide Canadians, it's also a distraction tactic they use to give themselves an excuse to ignore the facts.

Facts such as the fact that the long-gun registry has never prevented a single gun crime, or saved a single life. Facts such as the fact that front-line officers denounce the registry as useless to them. Facts such as the fact that the registry itself is an absolute mess.

“We are a sovereign country,” McGuinty concluded. “If the NRA wants to fight its good fight over its views on guns it should do so in the United States. We do not need an expansionist NRA on Canadian soil.”

If the NRA were directly involved in the debate, McGuinty may have a point. But he's mischaracterizing the NRA's involvement.

After all, the NRA is not directly involved in this debate. The CILA is. The CILA asked the NRA for strategic support, and the NRA provided it.

If David McGuinty really objects to wedge politics, one would suggest that he should avoid relying on them himself -- particularly when his would-be wedge is on the right side of the issues, and he himself is so very, very wrong.

Rand Paul, Deficit Spending & The Threat to Fiscal Democracy

Rand Paul warns of "day of reckoning"

As US President Barack Obama continues to rack up the largest deficit in US history, the situation in the November 2 mid-term elections is crystal clear:

Even one more Senate seat for the Democrats will further empower Obama's fiscally destructive politics. One more for the Republicans -- coupled with gains in the House of Representatives -- will be able to stem the tide.

Few seem to understand this better than Republican Rand Paul, whose running to become the new junior Senator from Kentucky.

"We have a different vision than the president," Paul announced. "There's nothing inherently wrong with him, it's that his vision is wrong."

"His vision is that we're going to get out of this recession with more spending, more deficits," he continued. "But that money just doesn't magically appear."

"People come to me and they say, 'Oh, you're going to vote against this program,'" Paul said. "I say, 'How are you going to pay for it? Are you going to simply stick your head in the sand and keep borrowing, or are you going to print it up from the Federal Reserve and dilute the value of the dollars that exist?'"

"We can't live that way," Paul concluded. "There is a day of reckoning coming."

That looming day of reckoning should be quite familar to Canadians. As recently as 15 years ago, economists and financiers were musing about the possibility of Canada defaulting on its foreign debts.

In his book Hands-On Democracy, Patrick Boyer (then a candidate to succeed Brian Mulroney as leader of the Progressive Conservative Party) laid out the case for getting a handle on Canada's public finances.

In the book, Boyer noted the extent to which public debt is a threat to democracy. As default looms, and international crediters begin to demand concessions from a threat-belleaguered state, the number of options available to elected officials narrows.

In the United States, potentially facing a similar crisis, Rand Paul is the one sounding this alarm.

His Democratic opponent, Jack Conway, seems to have little to offer aside from complaining about what events Paul doesn't show up to, and vague suggestions that Paul doesn't share "Kentucky's values".

Simply put, there's a reason Conway continues to trail Paul in the polls.

It's because Rand Paul and his party have clearly recognized the fiscal danger of allowing President Obama to continue uninhibited. And while the Republican Party clearly played a roll in making the sorry fiscal state of the United States what it is, they are at least the party that is acknowledging the extent of the crisis.

That's why Rand Paul is poised to defeat Jack Conway on November 2.

Who Is The Party of No?

As the United States draws closer and closer to the 2010 midterm elections on November 2, it seems that the mission of Republican campaign advertising is to turn the buzzwords of the Democrat campaign against them.

The most recent effort is an ad entitled "Party of No". In it, a clip of President Barack Obama attempting to defend his failure to implement his policies by accusing the Republican Party of being relentlessly contrarian.

"If I said the sky was blue," Obama crows, "they'd say no."

The ad then responds with clips of campaign ads by Obama's fellow Democrats, all of them staking claim to opposition to Obama's agenda.

This is, of course, a simple matter of reality: with the Democrats enjoying a majority in each house of Congress, there really is no one other than themselves to blame for the failure of their President's agenda.

Judging from the campaign advertising sampled, it's clear that many of them are quite comfortable with that.

Rarely has a political party given their opponents the opportunity to counter-brand them with the very reputation they've attempted to foist upon them.

The Democrats can say whatever they want: Obama's agenda has failed because Democrats failed to support it. The Republicans have quite wisely chosen to remind American voters of that very inconvenient detail.

Two Years Later, Heather Mallick Still Playing the Victim

Mallick seeks to re-write the history of her career

Apparently, Heather Mallick's relocation in employment from the CBC to the Toronto Star has had the precise effect so many Canadians expected it would.

It emboldened Mallick, to the extent that she actually thinks she can re-write the history of her career.

For the most part, Mallick regurgitates half-considered complaints about Fox News. Her basic argument is that Sun TV will be bad because Fox News is bad. (No, really -- that's the extent of the argument to date.)

Some of her complaints are so hashed-over that they're actually rather comical:

"Fox celebrates ignorance and fosters hate, it’s your weasel heart, that chunk of you that spurts endorphins when a hated rival crashes his car on Ambien or is caught with a gerbil where a gerbil shouldn’t be. It’s a poison tree. Weirdly transfixing as Glenn Beck is, when you eat the Fox apple, it eats away at you.

And it’s a news cartoon. When real journalists make a mistake, we feel a sickness in our soul. It’s humiliating, it should, and will be, publicly corrected and so-workers avert their eyes. Fox isn’t like that. They seemingly make up numbers, flying unburdened through their fenced-in no-fact zone."

Mallick also complains about a previous run-in with Bill O'Reilly during his famed attempt at a boycott of Canada.

Other than that, the substance of Mallick's argument is that Fox is bad because she says it is. More or less.

Of course, that isn't all Mallick has to say about Fox News. She apparently thinks that this is an opportunity to re-write the history of her career, when she broke a Mighty Wind, and wound up sharting all over her journalistic reputation:

"When Sarah Palin appeared at the Republican convention in 2008, I wrote about her honestly, an online CBC.ca column that would have disappeared into the ether as usual, except Fox News found out about it. I said Palin was a dangerous idiot. It made me the target of the worst Americans and Canadians, men with a violent hatred of (see list above). The attack was organized, as all Internet attacks are. And online anonymous hate is like a poison gas.

It was the same as my previous experience with Fox, but hotter and filthier. I’m happy to be called a pig by Greta Van Susteren, whatever. But this time people, really were hunting not just me, but friends, which made me frantic with guilt and fear. They were trying to find out where I lived. I’m only writing this now because I’m in a building with security guards."

Of course, Mallick didn't merely say that Palin is a "dangerous idiot". She also wrote:

"...Republican men, sexual inadequates that they are..."

"...She isn't even female really."

"John Doyle, the cleverest critic in Canada, comes right out and calls Palin an Alaska hillbilly. Damn his eyes, I wish I'd had the wit to come up with it first. It's safer than 'white trash' but I'll pluck safety out of the nettle danger. Or something."

"Palin has a toned-down version of the porn actress look ..."

"Bristol has what is known in Britain as the look of the teen mum, the 'pramface.' Husband Todd looks like a roughneck; Track, heading off to Iraq, appears terrified. They claim to be family obsessed while being studiously terrible at parenting."

"The conventioneers are nothing like the rich men who run the party, and that's the mystery of the hick vote."

"Republicans dream of a personal future that involves only household staff, not equals who need to be persuaded to vote."

The sad thing is that this is quite literally the most substantive comment in Mallick's hate-filled rant. The rest of it is basically filler. Terse, brutal, hateful, unreadable filler.

Perhaps Mallick actually feels vindicated to have been swept out of the CBC's dunce corner -- where the CBC promptly parked her after doing the responsible thing and removing her column from the website (although Mallick still maintains the source of her shame on her own site) -- and into the loving arms of the Toronto Star.

But like so many columnists at the Toronto Star, she isn't there because she produces quality work. Quite the contrary. Mallick is at the Star because she produces rhetoric that is ideologically soothing to the far left. Those like Mallick who are filled with an irrational, seething, and soul-consuming hatred of anyone who doesn't share their views, find her vitriolic invective especially soothing.

And no matter how many cues life sends her, Mallick never seems to figure out what her problem is:

"Being the target of Internet swarming is paranoia-producing and lonely-making. I got no sympathy from girlfriends—they eat for comfort like normal people—for my subsequent weight loss. I spent the winter not eating and thinking gloomy thoughts."

Apparently it's never occured to Mallick that she never received any sympathy from her friends because they examined what she wrote and found it to be genuinely repulsive. God knows that every single sane individual who wrote it -- including Dr Jeffrey Kargel of the Obama campaign -- recognized precisely this.

As for Mallick's gloomy thoughts, one can only imagine precisely hateful those thoughts must have been.

The rest of Mallick's column basically consists of the vapid, razor-thin rhetoric she specializes in. For the most part, the entire column consists of her substance-free ravings.

The only thing worth noting in her column is her complete inability to ever admit having done anything wrong. Heather Mallick is the classical lunatic far-leftist who would never dream of taking responsibility for her actions.

That she would seek to portray herself as a victim two years after her hateful Mighty Wind hit piece is purely indicative of that.

Why Do We Fight? Redux

Why We Fight presents numerous threads of director Eugene Jarecki's take on post-9/11 American foreign policy. Dominant in those threads seems to be a left-wing interpretation of the actions of the United States since 9/11 -- peppered with references to "American Empire".

But more compelling, and perhaps more illuminating are some of the personal stories of post-9/11 America. One of those is the story of retired NYPD officer Wilton Sekzer, whose son was in the World Trade Centre on 9/11, and died therein.

In the film, Sekzer tells his story of seeking comfort in the days following 9/11. In his case, he did this by asking the US military to dedicate a bomb to his son's memory during the opening days of the Iraq War.

Eventually disillusioned by the war -- he had been led to believe that the war was a retaliatory campaign for 9/11 -- Sekzer comes to regret having asked for this.

He seems to have reached a sobering revelation about the waging of war as a measure of revenge.

Not everyone in the United States has reached this realization. The plan of Pastor Terry Jones of Florida's Dove World Outreach Centre, a non-demoninational evangelical church, to burn a Koran on 9/11 -- which, at most recent reports, had been cancelled -- demonstrates this.

Revenge per se wasn't the stated motivation for Jones' announced intention to host a Koran burning. Rather, he had reportedly planned it in response to the building of the controversial Ground Zero mosque (located not at Ground Zero, but within a few city blocks of it).

But the pettiness that pervades notions of revenge positively saturates Jones' pledged act.

There should be little doubt that Jones regarded his planned Koran burning as an act of revenge for 9/11.

But revenge isn't a valid justification for any act, especially not for acts such as these. It's an emotional response.

To fight a war in Iraq or Afghanistan with revenge as the motive would be wrong. The only valid justification for waging such conflicts is to ensure the security of the states waging them, or international security as a whole.

There is no credible question that removing the regimes in place in each state at the time of the invasion would benefit international security as a whole. Whether the Iraq war, more specifically, actually achieved that goal is credibly a matter of some debate.

The question of why the Iraq war was fought, and the relationship of that decision to the events of 9/11 will remain a crucial question for not only the United States, but for the world as a whole.

When going to war, it's crucial to know why we fight. It cannot be for revenge.

A Picture Worth a Thousand Words

First, the set-up:

And now, the punchline:

If Avaaz really wants to use the freeping of online polls to try to advance their cause, perhaps they should pick some that are a little more methodologically sound.

Just sayin'.

Avaaz, Sun TV and the Self-Humiliation Machine

As one evaluates New York-based Avaaz.org's campaign against Sun TV -- which it dubs "FOX North" -- one has to truly marvel at the depth of the incompetence George Soros' money has been funding.

What began on the side of the vapidly self-righteous has degenerated into the utterly comical.

An email from Avaaz to its alleged 75,000 supporters -- alleged because it's entirely unknown how many signatories are legitimately Canadian citizens, as opposed to self-styled globalist leftists -- veers dangerously into the realm of the comical, as Avaaz repeats its breathless hate speech accusations, complains about alleged criminal interference in their petition, and alleged smears printed in SUN newspapers.

Those closely following the story know that the matter is actually rather different -- whomever signed up numerous Canadian journalists actually did so to reveal the extremely poor controls Avaaz has in place to prevent such occurances.

That doesn't stop Avaaz from waxing indignantly however, to utterly comical effect:

One supposes that the first response that comes to mind to Avaaz's appeal for donations is whether or not George Soros has enough money to back them. The second response is to note that the involvement of actual Canadian money in Avaaz's campaign is a welcome change.

Particularly amusing is the evident glee with which Avaaz seems to regard the prospect of siccing law enforcement on whomever revealed the deep methodological deficiencies in their petition. It's an especially petty response to their embarrassment in the eyes of the media.

Of course Avaaz's other problem -- the excessively-poor controls on their petition, as demonstrated by numerous fake signings -- actually lends credence to Sun Media's suggestion that their petition has been signed by a significant number of Americans.

To date -- as evidenced by a recent CBC segment featuring Teneycke facing off against Avaaz's Ricken Patel -- the basic tenor of the debate has each side accusing the other of similar falsehoods.

(Then again, that Ricken Patel appears via satellite from New York City doesn't help Avaaz's attempts to quell concerns about American interference in a Canadian media application.)

Errors such as a suggestion that Suncor, not Sun Media, are behind the application doesn't help Avaaz's cause either.

In other words, Avaaz's campaign against the SUN TV media campaign has, to date, been the work of a self-humiliation machine. The merits of Sun TV's applications are, quite naturally, up for debate.

The blatant ineptitude of the international astroturfers at Avaaz is another matter entirely.

At this point, one would daresay that George Soros should be reevaluating who he's giving his money to.

Oh, the Sounds of Ending Debate

Former RCMP Superintendent denounces long-gun registry

Poor Mark Holland.

The Ajax-Pickering MP insists that the debate on the long-gun registry is over when the debate over the long-gun registry is, in fact, hotter than it's ever been.

The most recent individual to enter the debate is former RCMP Supertintendent Keith Thompson, who has declared the long-gun registry to be useless.

Thompson is well-poised to know full well the comparative merits of the long-gun registry. He formerly commanded the RCMP's emergency response team in southern Alberta.

"I think it is a waste, and most importantly, if we think about the safety of our citizens, it gives them a false sense of its importance," Thompson wrote in a letter to Members of Parliament.

"In my various roles, I attended too many scenes of hostage-taking, murder/suicides, barricaded persons, etc, and know of no lives that could have been saved with such a fully functioning registry," he continued.

Thompson not only pointed out that the long-gun registry hasn't saved any lives -- contrary to a recent report by the RCMP that was, oddly enough, glowing about the RCMP's own administration of the long-gun registry -- but also that it doesn't help police officers, either.

To rely on the long-gun registry -- or the gun registry period -- to provide information about weapons present would be a rookie mistake, and potentially a deadly one.

"Assume that there would be guns regardless of what the registry implied," Thompson asserted. "The bottom line is 'is the long-gun registry a benefit to the street officer? I think it's unequivocally no.'"

"Who is it a benefit to?," he asks. "Does it make the citizens of Canada safer? I don't think so."

"So why maintain it?"

There's a reason why people like Holland want to maintain the long-gun registry: as ideological boilerplate. Nothing more, and nothing else.

However desperately Mark Holland may want the debate to end, it's far from over. Holland and his cohorts can produce the same talking points and pass them off as conclusive studies to their heart's content.

It won't change what nearly every front-line police officer in the country already knows: the long-gun registry doesn't save lives, it cannot save lives, and so should be abolished.

Turn Off Sun TV: The Astroturf of the Left

George Soros funding "grassroots" media activism

It was only natural that, once Canadian conservatives started the work of forming a conservative news network, that Canadian leftists would blow a gasket.

They actually weren't alone.

An intriguing new detail in the Canadian left's efforts to derail a conservative news network in the participation of Avaaz.org, a George Soros-funded organization dedicated to global leftism.

The organization has been organizing an anti-Sun TV petition which has already earned a few black eyes. Journalists who did not sign the petition were signed up for it. After Avaaz accused proponents of Sun TV of sabotaging the petitioon, it became apparent that numerous fake signatories were signed to the petition in order to demonstrate the petition's lack of basic controls.

While the mismanagement of the petition is extremely amusing, the involvement of George Soros' money is particularly illuminating.

In the United States, George Soros' money is currently funding another bid to derail a conservative news outlet. This time, the target is Fox News itself.

The campaign is Turn Off Fox. The basic idea is for participants to go to public places that play Fox News, feed them talking points about why they think it's bad, and complain until the manager agrees to turn it off.

A Whois.com domain lookup identifies the Turn Off Fox website as registered to Oakland, California's Citizen Engagement Laboratory. The Citizen Engagement Lab's website offers very little public attention about its activities.

As it turns out, the Soros Foundation funded the CEL to the tune of $300,000.

The level of Soros' involvement is clearly debatable. After all, it isn't as if Soros is directly involved in the decisions made by all of the groups his organization funds.

It could simply be a case of the left hand not knowing what the other hand is doing.

Then again, Soros was involved in an attempt to bail out Air America.

Regardless, the presence of George Soros' money should remind any observers precisely what both of these campaigns -- the Avaaz petition against Sun TV and the Turn Off Fox campaign -- really are:

Astroturf.

Michael Ignatieff's Latest Gift to the Tories

Goodale, McGuinty should remind Canadians what is wrong with Liberal Party

Liberal leader Michael Ignatieff must imagine his planned townhall meetings -- dubbed 'Open Mike" townhalls -- is the quickest way for his party to position itself to form government in a forthcoming election.

Unfortunately, what Ignatieff is leaving behind him in Ottawa -- a new house leader and a new deputy leader -- should only remind Canadians why they voted the Liberal party out of office in the first place.

Ralph Goodale will be assuming the role of deputy leader, serving as Liberal leader in Ignatieff's place. Even better for the governing Conservatives is the prospect of David McGuinty as Liberal house leader.

“I’m going to continue getting out there and meeting Canadians all through the fall in our ‘Open mike’ town hall meetings," Ignatieff explained. "That’s why I need Ralph’s steady hand in Ottawa."

For his own part, Goodale looks forward to the challenge.

"It's a key responsibility that I am anxious to deliver well for Mr Ignatieff," Goodale announced. "He needs to have confidence that everything is being managed in the House and on the Parliamentary front so he can do that critical job of gaining face action with Canadian voters. I am very pleased and anxious to tackle the challenge."

Of course, what Canadians shouldn't have forgotten is that it was Goodale's "steady hand" in the Department of Finance that declined to investigate the leak of a decision regarding Income Trust taxation that ultimately led to the ouster of the Paul Martin government when the RCMP intervened to investigate.

To this very day, Goodale decries the timing of the investigation -- announced in the midst of the 2005/06 election. If Goodale had investigated when he had the opportunity, instead of simply refusing, the timing wouldn't have been an issue.

For the Conservatives, the appointment of David McGuinty as House Leader is even better: in the public mind it will push the federal Liberals even closer to the provincial Liberals (led by McGuinty's brother), whose government continues to sink deeper and deeper into scandal.

If that weren't enough, McGuinty will also remind Canadians of the disingenuity of Liberal overtures on climate change: while he was the Liberal environment critic, McGuinty earned a reputation for renting gas-gazzling, carbon-spewing Cadillacs.

Not only will David McGuinty associate the federal Grits even closer with their troubled provincial counterparts, but he will remind Canadians of the Liberal failure on their own climate change policies -- perhaps better described as a complete disregard of their own climate change policies.

Unfortunately, Canadians often have a short memory about such things. It will be up to the Conservatives to remind Canadians about these two individuals and their ugly records, both in and out of government.

Stalin's Country Embraces Hitler

In a country where the populace often expresses a terrifying admiration for Joseph Stalin, it should perhaps be unsurprising that there are also those who would express admiration for Adolph Hitler.

In Russia, the National Socialist Organization has managed to eke itself out a growing niche within Russian society. Like many neo-Stalinists, those supporting neo-Nazism in Russia have opposed immigration of any kind. Some have even suggested that Russian women who marry non-Russians should have their citizenships revoked.

Though outlawed earlier in 2010 (with Mein Kampf banned more recently), it's rumoured that the National Socialist Organization has merely gone underground, and is still growing.

While Vladimir Putin has acted to attempt to contain the threat, the greater problem remains his regime's tendency to often glorify Joseph Stalin. A government that glorifies one tyrant essentially writes its citizens license to emulate another.

When one considers that many tyrannies emerge as imitations of previous tyrannies, the danger posed by organizations such as the NSO -- who are also said to be active in Canada -- are quite real.

Mark Holland, the RCMP, and "Penultimate Reports"

Long-gun registry advocates have yet to produce one

Ajax-Pickering MP -- and Ottawa's resident village idiot -- Mark Holland recently pretended to be rather vindicated with the RCMP produced a report claiming that the long-gun registry was efficient and cost-effective.

Portage-Lisgar MP Candice Hoeppner is far less than convinced.

"My position remains steadfast as does our party's position," she said. "We believe the long-gun registry needs to end. As legislators, that's our job, to look at policy, to decide what's in the best interests of Canadians and make those decisions. So, nothing has changed."

Hoeppner went on to explain that stronger pre-licensing screening protocols are needed in order to actually keep guns out of the hands of people likely to use them to do harm.

In the bizarre world of Mark Holland, a preference for actual, real gun control rather than cosmetic legislation is "ideological".

"The Conservatives have wanted to scrap this for ideology," Holand declared. "Facts will not move them."

"They don't care about facts," he continued. "You could present the penultimate report, and they would ignore it."

The problem for Holland is that neither he nor any of the other proponents of the long-gun registry have produced anything even remotely resembling a "penultimate report". The recent report released by the RCMP doesn't even come close.

The RCMP has different motivations for wanting to declare the long-gun registry to be successful. After all, the gun registry is currently administered by the RCMP itself.

Currently, the RCMP is a troubled institution. Questions regarding the conduct of its officers abound. The institution continues to face questions about irregularities in its pension fund.

The RCMP is an institution desperately in need of some good news. An internal audit of a program they themselves administer is the perfect opportunity to produce precisely that.

Holland must certainly understand the folly of citing this report as if it were the final word on the long-gun registry. (The detail that it was the Conservative party who placed the registry under RCMP administration after the bureaucrats the Liberal Party hired to administer the program ran it deep into the depths of wastefulness is really just the icing on the cake.)

Even Holland's favourite talking point -- the support for the program by the Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police -- has absorbed a black eye recently, as it was revealed that the organization accepted a donation of $115,000 from the CGI group of companies.

The CGI group produces the software for the gun registry.

That makes for a massive conflict of interest, and raises questions of whether or not any conditions were placed on the donation.

Moreover, if there ever were a penultimate report on the long-gun registry, it absolutely would not support maintaining it.

“It is difficult to understand why the chiefs of police support the long-gun registry,” Simon Fraser University Criminologist Dr Gary Mauser once remarked. “[It] has so many errors that relying upon it puts the lives of rank-and-file police members at risk. This is a classic database problem: garbage in, gospel out. The police should know better."

"Millions of entries are incorrect or missing," he continued. “Most striking, less than half of all long guns in Canada are in the registry."

"The long-gun registry does worse – it misdirects the police," he said. "People who have registered their firearms are less likely to be violent than Canadians who don’t even own firearms. They should be. Gun owners have been screened by the police since 1979."

"We are told that 15 percent of the guns used in homicides are long guns," he briefly conceded. "What is not said is that virtually none were registered. How does the gun registry help? When I spoke at the Ontario Police College, one of the instructors told me privately that trusting the registry was a way to get good police officers killed."

Those are some very sobering facts -- they should be doubly so for proponents of the long-gun registry.

Where did Dr Mauser make these remarks?

Before the Public Safety Committee, of which Mark Holland is not only a member, but Vice-Chair.

Was he simply absent the day that Dr Mauser gave these remarks? Or did he disregard them because they weren't ideologically soothing enough for his tastes?

It seems that the answer is almost certainly the latter. Holland doesn't care about the facts, and he doesn't seem afraid to lie about them.

This is not a terribly new act for Holland, or for any other proponents of the long-gun registry. When they aren't attempting to justify the long-gun registry by waging a campaign of ideological emotional blackmail (centred around the L'Ecole Polytechnique shootings), they're deceiving Canadians by using pictures of assault rifles in media stories promoting their agenda.

(Under Canadian law, assault rifles aren't long guns, they're restricted or prohibited weapons -- different category, one that will remain unaffected by Hoeppner's bill.)

Reality is not kind to Mark Holland, nor to the long-gun registry. When real life finally releases its "penultimate report" on the long-gun registry, it will almost certainly favour its abolition.

Frances Russel, Lawrence Martin, Linda McQuaig & Conspiracy Theories as Journalism

"FOX North" conspiracy theory jumps the shark

With SUN Media's new television network applying for a category one broadcasting license from the CRTC -- which would require cable and satellite services to offer it -- the far left's compunction for conspiracy theorizing has officially jumped the shark.

Writing for Rabble.ca, Frances Russell is alluding to an article by Lawrence Martin, wherein he himself alludes to anonymous "insiders" who infer that Prime Minister set to, at his earliest opportunity, appoint a CRTC chair and vice-chair who would be in favour of the network.

Martin goes on to suggest that Kory Teneckye, Harper's former communications director, has been molding what individuals like Martin already argued was a conservative-biased newspaper chain into a conservative-biased newspaper chain.

His evidence is the firing of Greg Weston, whom Martin suggest was fired as retaliation for breaking the G20 "fake lake" non-story. (The "fake lake" which was, for the record, a hit with international media. The Canadian government showcasing Canadian media technology to the global media -- what an outrage!)

Martin deliberately overlooks the detail that various news outlets have been tightening their belts in the current economic climate. (Perhaps if Weston spent less time chasing non-stories and more time chasing real stories, he may have escaped the axe.)

The irony is so deep it could be grilled medium rare and then eaten with a knife and fork: Lawrence Martin, the long-time Liberal party shill, declaring Sun Media to be a Conservative party shill.

Perhaps the most suitable response is to admit that he may be right: after all, it's long been said that it takes one to know one.

Moving beyond Martin, it's clear that vitriol, rather than any rational objection to a conservative news network, drove Russell's pen as she wrote this column. If not, one would wonder what to make of this:

"The tone of political discourse, already shifted sharply right with the advent of Conrad Black's National Post in 1998, is about to take a quantum leap further down that road. The signs are numerous and ominous: The internet is already doused daily with the vitriol of thousands of anonymous far-right bloggers who slander and libel politicians, the media and all opponents with vile, often illiterate postings. Parliament and the country's entire political culture is being dug ever deeper into a mire of character assassination, personal insult and attack, smear campaigns, relentless and ruthless partisanship and denigration and demonization of any and all opponents."

Naturally, Russell the far-left demagogue has nothing to say about the legions of far-left bloggers who not only do precisely the same, but are often even more vicious and ruthless about it.

Russell's next exhibit is a column by none other than the Toronto Star's perpetually-reality-challenged Linda McQuaig:

"'There's been a tendency in the Canadian media to dismiss the threat of a Fox News transplant on the grounds Canadians wouldn't fall for that sort of nasty, right-wing extremism,' she writes. 'But that comforting notion may be naïve.' Most people don't have time to follow politics in detail, she continues. 'If they hear constant sound bites suggesting global warming is a hoax or public health care just doesn't work, after a while the message starts to seem believable.'

She points out the media already blasts Canadians with a steady chorus of right-wing ideas. 'A Fox-style network here -- if Harper gets his way -- would turn that into a deafening cacophony.'"

Of course, McQuaig doesn't elaborate on this particular claim. Would it be the CBC "blasting" Canadians with "right-wing ideas"? The same CBC whose executives overwhelmingly donate to the Liberal Party?

Of course not. This is simply another case of McQuaig refusing -- simply refusing -- to familiarize herself with reality.

It's hardly surprising that for all the objection to SUN Media starting a TV news network, there isn't one rational, factual or even coherent argument among them. The worst-kept secret regarding media bias is that everyone is in favour of media bias: they simply prefer that the media would share their bias.

Underlying this controversy is the fact that Canada's left seems to want the CRTC to, for no rational or logical reason, enforce the maintenance of the the dominant bias they prefer -- and they're peddling some rather bizarre conspiracy theories in order to justify it.