Well, the Ontario Fiberals put out their budget and I have to say that I sort of feel like I’m through the looking glass. Where Flaherty did one hell of a Santa act, Sorbara seems almost… how the hell am I going to put this?

Sensible… 😯

Sorbara says it’s not an election budget. He ain’t kidding there. There’s no new taxes in it (not even booze or smokes, always favourite targets), but there’s no tax cuts, either. All in all, I haven’t been able to find a hell of a lot wrong with it (and you just know that I’m the kind of guy that would look) so far, except for one rather nasty little thing: this talk about cranking up the minimum wage by over 28%. Now, I’m all for people being able to make a living wage. I work for a living myself and yes, if the minimum wage hops to $10.25 an hour, I’ll be making more money. And I still think it’s a bad idea. Now, why in God’s name would I think that?? Well, it’s simple, really: nobody seems to have thought about Bob.

NO, I don’t mean Bob Rae… Screw Bob Rae. I wouldn’t piss in his mouth if his tongue was on fire. So who the hell am I babbling about, anyway? Well, let me tell ya…

Bob’s a regular kind of guy. Has himself a house, mortgage, wife, couple o’ kids… all that middle class stuff. After a bunch of years working for other people, Bob went out and set up a business of his own. Sure, it doesn’t make a buttload of money, but it pays the bills with a little left over to sock away and to buy some nice stuff for the kids when Christmas and birthdays come around. All in all, Bob thinks he’s doing pretty okay for himself.

It doesn’t matter what Bob’s business does. Screw it; let’s say he makes Widgetsâ„¢ and sells ’em. Bob’s got 10 guys that work for him, 8 hours a day, 5 days a week (Bob shuts the Widget mill down on weekends so people can have time with their families; he’s a nice guy that way) for the minimum wage, $8.00 per hour. So a little math tells us that right now, Bob’s forking out $640 a day in wages to his ten guys. This is all Bob can afford to pay, and I DO mean ALL. Like I said, Bob’s doing okay for himself but he’s not exactly swimming in it.

Now, imagine Bob’s payroll expense jumps up to $820. Bob ain’t got that kind of money, boys and girls. No way, no how. So what the hell’s Bob gonna do? Unlike some people, Bob doesn’t make his Widgetsâ„¢ for the government, he has to compete in the real world market, where people can take their money someplace else. If Bob jacks up the price of his Widgets by 25%, he’s going to lose business. A lot of folks are just going to say, “screw that, I’ll start buying Mexican Widgets; or maybe I’ll just drive out to the local Indian reserve and buy my Widgets there.”

So how the hell is Bob going to stay in business when he can’t realistically raise his prices and he can’t afford more than $640 a day in wages? It’s simple: two guys are getting laid off and another one is having his hours cut. Plain and simple.

All the warm, fuzzy socialist thinking in the world won’t stop the relentless grind of the simple laws of economics. Crank up wages by over 25%, like the Fiberals and Dippers are howling for, and some people are going to lose their jobs. End of discussion.

And that helps the working poor… how??

Sometimes I just plain don’t get my fellow right-wing nutjobs; I really don’t. There has been a great weeping, wailing and gnashing of teeth over the last 24 hours or so, ever since Jim Flaherty coughed up the federal budget on the House rug. And quite the hairball it was, too. But let me ask you, my VRWC fellow travelers: Are any of you, any at all, really surprised by any of this??

Come on, now; you didn’t just fall off the turnip truck this morning did you? I’m not in the habit of moaning and groaning about my BT fellows, but some of what I’ve read leaves me scratching my melon hard enough to leave a gouge:

Christopher Edey, Got Blog If You Want It:
“Someone should really remind Prime Minister Harper, Finance Minister Flaherty and co. that they really are in government, and don’t have to keep letting Paul Martin write the budget just because that’s what everybody has gotten used to.”

M. K. Braaten:
“This afternoon when I read about the latest federal budget I swear I thought the NDP was in power. What happened to being fiscally conservative? What happened to income tax cuts? What happened to increased spending only at the same rate of increase in GDP? What happened to fairness?”

Others, like Dark Blue Tory, Sandy at Crux of the Matter and Joanne are taking a somewhat more pragmatic approach. I tend to agree with them. No matter how you slice it, there is no getting away from the fact that this was a political budget. It’s purpose was not to chart a course to fiscal responsibility, boost the economy or anything else like that. Its purpose was to pave the way to the next election. Period.

If there’s one thing that we should have learned in the last year, it’s that nothing meaningful will get done while the Tories have only a minority government. Anything that they try to do, that will actually make any kind of a difference, will be shot down by the opposition if for no other reason than to be able to bleat to the voters that the Conservatives can’t get anything done.

We need a majority and this is one step towards getting it. It’s bitter medicine, I know, so let’s just hold our noses and get it over with.

No, I’m not being rhetorical; not entirely, anyway. Just who the hell does Stephane Dion think he’s kidding with his new little “look at me, I’m tough on crime” song and dance that he’s added to his traveling dog and pony show?

Forget — just for a minute or two, okay? — that this is the same bonehead who has fought every bit of real anti-crime legislation he has ever seen tooth and nail. Forget that this is the fool who flip-flopped on his own party’s anti-terror legislation, denying law enforcement vital tools needed to safeguard the people of this country from terrorist attacks that everyone with a brain in their heads says are coming, sooner or later. Forget that he has always decried any kind of tough-on-crime measures as draconian, but thought that the farmer Bob rifle registry was a great idea. Forget all that, just for a minute.

What Dion has done now is to fling open his piehole and hack up the tired, old and discredited hairball of “restorative justice.” 🙄

Dion yodeled on about more money for more cops, “tougher laws” (whatever the hell he thinks that means; I doubt it’s anywhere close to my definition) to protect kids and places of worship, and reverse onus for aresholes that use a gun and want out on bail. The problem is that he just doesn’t get that none of this means jack shit. Yes, you read that right.

Dion just can’t get his brain around the idea that scumbags that commit crimes with guns shouldn’t get out of jail at all, we already have more than enough laws, and we don’t need any more cops.

What the hell did I just say? We don’t need more cops?? Am I nuts all of a sudden??? No, I’m not. This is actually one of the things that I disagreed with Harper on during the last campaign, when he was also talking about putting more cops on the streets. The problem isn’t that we need more cops; we already have all the cops we need. The problem is that the cops we do have are having to chase down the same assholes again and again and again and again… because they keep getting sprung.

In other words, the problem isn’t with how we hunt down bad guys; it’s with what we do (or should I say, don’t do) with them once they’re caught. Our penal system is a God damned joke, and nobody’s laughing except criminals. How many times have you heard of someone getting raped or murdered by some sack of crap that was out on parole? Did you know that damn near every prisoner in the country has an automatic get-out-of-jail free card after serving a maximum of two-thirds of their sentence? But even then, what’s the difference? They get coddled on the inside anyway.

Liberals and the Left in general have spent decades obsessed with the notions of rehabilitation, hug-a-thug approaches and revolving-door justice. Everything they have tried has proven to be an abject failure.

Getting tough on crime doesn’t mean more social programs in crappy neighbourhoods; it doesn’t mean helping criminals “improve their self-image;” it doesn’t even mean more cops. What it means is punishing — and I mean really punishing — criminals in a way that would make Dion bleed from the ears if he heard about it:

No more TVs, no more radios, no more access to gyms that turn scrawny criminals into big criminals, no more conjugal visits (who the hell ever came up with that idea in the first place?), and NO AUTOMATIC EARLY RELEASE! You want parole? Prove that you deserve it, otherwise serve your whole damned stretch. And if you’re sentenced to life, forget that wussy little 25-years thing; you come out in a pine box. They don’t need to be given college degrees at public expense, they don’t need time in an exercise yard, and (contrary to what the thug-hugging handwringers will tell you) yes, you can live off bologna sandwiches for lunch. Every God damned day. For years.

Don’t tell any of this to Steffie, though. His poor sensibilities couldn’t handle it. Liberals, big or small “L,” just don’t have the stomach to deal with criminals. They never have and they never will.

So please, Stephane, quit trying to piss on my head and tell me it’s raining.

Well, it looks like we can finally look forward to something other than a one-horse race for who is going to get the nod to run for the Tories in London North Centre whenever the writ that everybody keeps talking about gets dropped.  Good thing, too.  For a while there it was looking like “acclaim” would be the word of the day and call me odd, but I don’t think that such an outcome is ever a good idea; there should always be some alternative, even if you don’t particularly like it.

While Tom Weihmayr isn’t going to take a run at it this time (kind of a drag, that; since I was hoping he’d try again), Paul Van Meerbergen (left; who jumped into the race a while ago) is getting joined in the race for the Tory nod by Allison Graham (right).  Some of you might know Graham from her writing the Freeps’ People You Know column but she also operates a business-networking advice firm called Elevate Services and Strategic Development.  More can be found in the Freeps, right here.

Now all we need to do is decide who is best equipped to bump off Glen Pearson and represent us in Ottawa…

[I know that I’m a bit behind the herd on this one but hey, I’ve had a busy couple of days. That being said…]

Good Lord, but it must totally suck to be Allen Varlaki today. I guess you’re wondering who the hell that is, eh? Well, boys and girls, Allen Varlaki is quite possibly one of the dumbest things you’re going to find on two legs. You see, little Al is a blogger — or at least, he was — of the decidedly Leftist persuasion. And like a lot of other little Lefties, he just loved to shoot his mouth off and act all big and bad… when he was sure he was safe. Kind of like that kid back in grade school that would taunt you from a distance, calling you and your mother every name in the book, but then run like hell the second you took a step in his direction and, if you ever managed to grab ahold of him, would start screaming like a girl before you even had the chance to cuff him one.

And, just like that grade school twerp, li’l Allen bit off WAY more then he could chew. You see, it’s all fine and dandy to criticize our PM; that’s part of what living in a free society is all about. While I wouldn’t approve of it, you can even call him a son of a bitch if you like; it’s all perfectly legal. No secret police are going to show up at your door in the dark of night and make you and your family disappear. Being able to do these things is part of the benefits of being Canadian. But Al didn’t confine himself to that, nosiree. This acrimonious asshole had to go and threaten to assassinate Her Majesty’s Prime Minister of Canada, the Right Honourable Stephen Harper:

Thomas Walkom’s piece on Stephane Dion and the bigger picture of federal politics got me thinking again about something I’ve had on the back-burner for a while. I’ve always maintained that there will come a point at which Stephen Harper will have to take a bullet. I mean, we’ll arrive at a time when the only way we can protect this country, its ideal and its history from a violent rape at the hands of the neo-con pigs is to take this man out.

Might I suggest that the fact that Harper is polling almost two-to-one over Dion as the preferred leader for Canada is a harbinger of this time’s arrival. It’s coming Steve, better invest in some Kevlar.

As you can likely guess, the ensuing Turd Typhoonâ„¢ eventually sent little Al running for cover. His little blog seems to have gone poof on him, along with his blogger.com profile. Not to worry, though; a screenshot of his offending post is here and a Google cache shot of his profile is here. Ain’t the internet great? 😀

So anyways, BIG surprise coming up here, a whole buttload of people popped their collective corks to announce that there was no way in hell that they were going to put up with this shit (including, but not limited to: Second Thoughts, Middle Earth, Daimnation!, Small Dead Animals, Halls of Macadamia, Angry in the Great White North, Relapsed Catholic and Crux of the Matter).

Yup, it looked for a while there like everybody and their dog wanted to take a bite out of little Al’s ass (not that I blame them). Now I know that all those links can make for a buttload of perusing so, before I go shooting my own mouth off too much on this subject, here’s something of a timeline (EDT based on timestamps) of posts that I’ve been able to grab here and there across the web; beginning with Valarki’s original post (along with my own running commentary, of course). Ya might wanna grab yerself a coffee first, though; because this is bloody cumbersome…

(more…)

Can somebody — hell, anybody; I don’t care who — please explain to me this Canuckleheaded obsession that we seem to have with embracing double standards? Seriously, folks; we’re starting to make ourselves look like we’ve got our heads so far up our butts, we chew our food twice. I know I’ve already given my snarky little 2¢ worth on this and I really, honestly did think that this would just fade into the woodwork like the social slight of hand that it is.

But, nooooooooooooo, that would make too much sense, wouldn’t it? This thing just won’t seem to stay dead. Like Marley’s ghost, it shambles around, gibbering like a TO homeless industry advocate in a private chinwag with mayor culpa David Miller. Granted, I would expect such shrill belly-button gawking from Quebec media, but the rest of the country can’t seem to quit picking at it, either. Even the union bobbleheads have hopped up on their hind legs to bark away about it.

In case you’re one of the three people that haven’t figured out what I’m bellyaching about yet, I’m talking about the case of Carol Rioux. That’s right: the French guy in Alberta that lost his job because of crappy English on his part. That guy. What I don’t get is, why is this news?? I mean, think about it now. Think about it. With headlines like “Second look at French flap,” “Francophones up in arms,” and “Quebecer fired for bad English,” you’d think there was actually something to this. I’ve got a better headline for you. How about…

Not Bilingual, Canadian Loses Job

We could have a really cool follow-up story, too:

Man Takes Dump, Wipes Ass

What do these have in common? It’s simple: both happen every day in this country, every where. That’s why neither one is news.

Gee, could it maybe have something to do with the fact that, this time, it’s happening to a French guy?? 😯 Well, we can’t have that now, can we? After all, official bilingualism is only supposed to screw the Anglos over; right?

Licia Corbella nailed it in today’s Edmonton Sun, hypocrisy and all. Could you imagine the reverse (an Anglo losing work because his French sucks) making news in Quebec? Mais non, bien sur!

As far as I’m concerned, until I can get a job in la belle province with only the French I’ve got; Rioux, the unions, the handwringers, and all the other moonbats in general can clamp their flappin’ yaps ’round my purple-headed yogurt flinger, make like a shop vac, and chug-a-lug a few pints of Shut The F*ck Up®.

I’m an Anglo Assholeâ„¢ and I approve this message.