Archive for: March 2007

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.

Growing up in a little, slightly more than a wide spot in the road sort of town in Western Ontario meant, amongst other things, lots of community picnics in the summertime. There were always plenty of things for the kids to do at these little shindigs, from sack races, to scavenger hunts, to junior marksmanship, and just about everything in between. But there’s one thing in particular that’s been popping up in my brain lately: the money scramble.

For those of you that haven’t heard of this, it’s just what it sounds like. One unlucky grownup would get to stand in the middle of a pack of wild-eyed kids, jacked up on glucose preteen rocket fuel, with a small sack of change. He would then grab a handful of coins, toss them into the air, and then get the hell out of the way as about 20 kids dove on the nickles and dimes like a pack of starving wolves on a herd of lame deer. So where the heck did this memory pop up from, you ask? It’s simple: there’s a budget coming up.

Actually, if you live in Ontario, there are two budgets coming up and they’re both of the pre-election variety. We all know what that means, don’t we? Yup: we’re about to get bribed with our own money on a massive scale. 🙄 As the Freeps put it this morning:

1 week. 2 budgets. $300B+ in spending.

Oh, joy. First comes the feds today, with what is expected to be a $3-billion grab bag of goodies, which will no doubt have pundits reading the election-speculation entrails for weeks to come. Then, on Thursday, McSquinty and his Fiberals will grab fistfuls of our money and furiously try to scrub our brains with it in the hope that we will somehow forget what a colossal frak-up he’s been over the past few years (health tax, Caledonia, flirting with sharia, yadda yadda yadda).

Well, I don’t know about the rest of you, but I’m a little too hungover from Saint Paddy’s day to bother with any of that bullshit right now. So here, for your non-budget-related enjoyment, is a bunch of stuff:

• Ever wonder what it takes to get a first class seat on some airlines? Now you know…
• Sun Media’s Michael Coren shows that he does, in fact, have a sense of humour (and so, apparently, does the Anglican bishop of New Westminster in Greater Vancouver): “Thank God for liberal clergyman. Because if they didn’t exist we would have to make them up.”
• Earl McRae tells us why he wears red on Fridays (as if we couldn’t figure it out).
• Watch UWO’s Salim Mansur take an astronomical pin to the zealotry balloon of the Prophets Of Eco-Doom.

There. That should keep you busy for a bit. Now I’m gonna go and try to get rid of this carpet on my tongue… Guinness, anyone?

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…

Here’s a little something that’s sure to piss the Kult of Kyoto right off. As most of you have likely heard already, Britain’s Channel 4 has recently produced a short (75 minutes without commercials) documentary titled “The Great Global Warming Swindle” which knocks the wheels of the Kyotology bandwagon with all the ruthlessness of a Kyoto Kultist screaming for the head of a global-warming-denying heretic. No doubt the money-grubbing Marxist granola grinders from the errorless echelons of the Exalted EnviroEnlightenment Eggheadocracy® will bromidically bitch and bawl endlessly about what harsh language their critics have begun using. To them I say, “if you can’t take it, quit dishing it out and shut the hell up!”

In the opening seconds, the accusations “The ice is melting, the sea is rising, hurricanes are blowing AND IT’S ALL YOUR FAULT!” flash across the screen, only to be immediately followed by “Scared? Don’t be; it’s not true.” One by one, the errors, delusions and outright lies of the Enviroloony elite are laid bare calmly and in plain English that is conspicuously devoid of the kind of bafflegab that saturates the rhetoric from the other side of the issue.

I’ll have plenty of time to shoot my mouth off on the topic later so, in the meantime, just sit back and enjoy the show.

[If, for some reason, you are unable to play the video in this window, just click this direct link to go directly to the video page and try there.]

A hearty thanks to Channel 4 for this excellent, non-powerpoint-presentation production. Keep up the good work, lads.

[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…

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