All I can say is, thank God I didn’t have any girls. If you’re a parent like me, you know a lot about worrying. And if, unlike me, you have a daughter, you worry even more. It seems like the so-called roll models for young girls just get worse and worse. Britney’s bald, Lohan’s loopy and Hilton is still searching for her gag reflex. 🙄 What the hell kind of example are these tarts setting for young girls?

Well, as it turns out, there might not be so much to worry about as some of us might have thought. I think it was Orwell who observed that every generation ever born considers itself smarter than the one that came before and wiser than the one that comes after. That truism may well apply to us because it seems that, for all our worrying, these torpid trollops don’t seem to be having anywhere near the influence that some think they do…

Kate Bowers, 15, of Calgary, says she can’t believe how young Hollywood celebrities are wasting their lives.

“It’s just so stupid that they’re spending all their money on partying all the time and that they want to get photographed doing it,” Bowers said. “And it doesn’t seem very fun to be out and falling all over the place really drunk and out of it. Now it’s just like: ‘Why would I ever want to do that?’ “

Seems that kids aren’t quite as dumb as we were afraid they were. Isn’t it nice to be wrong . . . every now and then?

As most of you that have been here a few times before already know, My blogging habits tend to be rather cyclical. And when I find myself in one of those slow patches, I have a bit of a habit of falling back on the ol’ suggested reading post. Slapping up links to things that have caught my eye one way or the other in the past few days.

As you’ve likely guessed by now, this is one of those slow patches. So, without further ado, here’s a listing of things I’ve tripped over on the net lately that I think are worth a look (for one reason or another)…

Sliding into an abyss
Michael Coren, TO Sun

Sometimes we in the media merely play a game, making little ripples at the side of the water rather than diving right in to make an almighty splash.

In other words, we run around the edge of various problems and debates but are afraid to shine light on the authentic dilemmas of our age.

Whether it’s politics, economics, culture or morality, the culture, society and various pundits always assume that things are getting better — that we’re making progress and that what we have and what is to come is superior to what was.

Problem is, it’s mostly nonsense.

Cheating has become a way of life
Ted Byfield, Cowtown Sun

When a columnist in one of our leading financial newspapers last year casually asserted telling lies is indispensable to the efficient functioning of business, I was doubly shocked.

First, because the paper published it. Second, because no reader so far as I know questioned this remarkable contention.

Disturbing reality buried
Licia Corbella, Calgary Sun

In the news business, it’s called burying the lead.

It means you missed the most important or interesting part of a story and led with something less significant.

Dion’s politics shift with wind
Ezra “the Lip” Levant, Calgary Sun

Stephane Dion, the new Liberal leader, says he’s against renewing the provisions of Canada’s Anti-Terrorism Act.

Because the Conservatives don’t have a majority, and the Bloc and NDP are notoriously soft on the war on terror, Dion holds the balance.

And he’s voting not to renew our security laws.

He’s pretending it’s still Sept. 10.

Pardon me for being astonished
Ian Robinson, Cowtown Sun

OK, I’ll bite.

What in the name of all that’s holy does somebody have to do to be well and truly punished by the judicial system?

[…]

I guess to be truly punished, you’ve got to videotape yourself raping high school girls that you kill later and then get caught and have your wife testify against you.

That would make you Paul Bernardo.

Of course, if you’re Paul’s partner-in-crime, Karla Homolka, you get a taxpayer-funded university degree in a prison so lax that you get to enter into loving, lesbian relationships — and model lingerie.

Deadline on Kyoto not doable
Rory Leishman, Da Freeps

In forcing a bill through Parliament that gives the Harper government 60 days to come up with a detailed plan for fulfilling Canada’s commitments under the Kyoto Protocol on climate change, the three opposition parties are simply playing Canadians for fools. The leaders of these parties know full well that no government — not even one led by them — could possibly meet this absurd deadline.

Under terms of the Kyoto Protocol, Canada is supposed to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions to six per cent below the levels set in 1990 by 2012. The previous Liberal government signed this Kyoto Protocol on behalf of Canada, but failed to devise a plan for fulfilling the commitment.

Go west, young man, to find Canada
Jordan Michael Smith, Ottawa Sun

I moved to Calgary recently, to work at the Western Standard for a couple of months. I’ve only been out here a few days, but I feel well-versed enough in the city’s ways to say this: Calgary is unlike any large city I have ever seen.

Calgary has about a million people, so you’d think it would feel like a big city. You’d be wrong.

The Kyoto horror show
Lorrie Goldstein, TO Sun

  Here’s my list of the “top 10” problems with the Kyoto accord on global warming. Feel free to add your own.

My own Inconvenient Truth
Rachel Marsden, TO Sun

A U.S. Congressional hearing on climate change was cancelled this week because of a massive snowstorm in DC. I’m just wondering, how many academic degrees are required for a person to find that funny?

An article in the Los Angeles Times perfectly sums up global warming quackery: “As glaciers from Greenland to Kilimanjaro recede at record rates, the central icecap of Antarctica has been steadily growing for 11 years, partially offsetting the rise in seas from the melt waters of global warming, researchers said.”

The “experts” claim to be able to measure the temperature of the Earth. (I don’t want to know where they stick the thermometer.) They travel to remote regions and declare that because ice is melting somewhere and growing somewhere else, that means the Earth is (drumroll) warmer! Duh. Of course it does.

Knock yourselves out, kids.  More of my own rantings as soon as I can grab some spare time again… 🙄

Where, oh where, oh where do I begin with this one? Let’s face it, boys and girls, we all knew damned well that it wasn’t going to be too long before the Librano$ got to the point where the itch to get their hands back on the national till and back to the business of buggering up the country got to be just too much not to scratch. Lo and behold, in the Commons yesterday, the Fiberals got that collective hind leg up behind their ears and went at it like a 70-year-old viagra addict in a $2 cathouse with a fistful of fifties.

On the off chance that you’ve been either spelunking or in a coma for the last few days, here’s what happened: Greener-than-thou Steffy took his stiffy a little too seriously yesterday and led the Kyoto Kook parade even further off to the Loopy Left when they passed Bill C-ThroughRoseyGlasses (AKA Bill C-288), demanding that the Conservative government under HMPM Harper come up with a plan to meet Kyoto’s “why yes, the moon really is made of green cheese” targets by 2012 . . . within 60 days. Yup, two months. Bibbitty-bobbitty-boo; just like that. Come to think of it, I do know exactly where to begin with this! Now why in the world didn’t I think of it in the first place?? It’s so obvious…

Dear Santa,

Thank you very much for heeding my letter that I sent you back in November. I know that I asked for a Rae Bomb and I should have trusted in your judgement (after all, you’ve been at this a lot longer than I’ve been around). The gift of Steffy “no relation” Dion as national UberGrit is clearly MUCH better and more fun than a Rae Bomb would ever have been. I’ll never doubt you again.

Your friend,
Dennis

This really is an early Christmas present for a guy like me. And it fits in so nicely, too, with the theme that I was going to work on before I got so rudely interrupted there…

Just who the hell does little M. “Do You Think It’s Easy To Make Priorities” think he is, anyway? This little arsehole — along with the Blocheads and Taliban Jack!’s YGBKMP — actually has the gall to demand that Harper do in two months what his party, and he himself as environment minister, utterly failed to do in more than a decade in power: come up with a plan to implement Kyoto by 2012.

And if that didn’t get your bullshitometer up to the redline, try this one on for size: li’l Steffy himself said, on the record to columnist John Ivison, that there was NO POSSIBLE WAY TO IMPLEMENT THE KYOTO TARGETS WITHIN THAT TIMEFRAME and that “energy will be the next crisis for the economy of the world.” See for yourself (emphasis mine, of course):

Dion admits Liberals’ Kyoto goal impossible

National Post 2006-07-01 John Ivison

OTTAWA – Former environment minister Stephane Dion has conceded that a future Liberal government would be unable to meet its Kyoto commitment of reducing greenhouse gas emissions below 1990 levels.

Mr. Dion, a candidate for the Liberal leadership, said that if he became prime minister after an election next year, he would try to reduce emissions, which are thought to contribute to global warming.

“In 2008, I will be part of Kyoto, but I will say to the world I don’t think I will make it. Everyone is saying target, target. But … it is to be more than to reach a target. It’s to change the economy. It’s to have resource productivity, energy efficiency when we know that energy will be the next crisis for the economy of the world.”

Canada signed up to reduce emissions to 6% below 1990 levels by 2012, but government statistics suggest they are currently around 35% above that level. The Conservative government has said it will not be able to meet Canada’s targets for the first-phase of the Kyoto accord — an admission that has led Liberal critics to charge that the Tories have abandoned Kyoto.

The Liberal party maintains its climate-change plans would meet the 2012 deadline. Mr. Dion is the first senior party figure to cast doubt on that claim.

A spokesman for Environment Minister Rona Ambrose said Mr. Dion’s comments were cause for concern. “It is concerning that the Liberals were prepared to mislead Canadians on the Kyoto targets even though the former Liberal environment minister now admits the targets were unachievable.”

Mr. Dion defended the Liberal record on Kyoto by saying Canada signed on for far-tougher targets than many other countries. “If France does nothing between 1990 and 2010, their emissions are likely to grow by 4%. If Canada does nothing, emissions grow by 44%.”

He said the election of George W. Bush, and the subsequent U.S. decision to pull out of Kyoto, left Canadian industry, and some Cabinet ministers, uneasy with the government’s climate-change plan. [of COURSE! It’s all Bush’s fault!! Gimme a fucking break 🙄 -D]

Mr. Dion advocates binding commitments for industry to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions through a domestic trading system. Companies able to cut their emissions below target levels could then sell credits to less energy efficient businesses. He said he is also working on environmental tax reform and would put the environment at the centre of government. “All my ministries will be green. Maybe I’ll make one department of industry and the environment — a department of sustainability. That’s not a commitment, but if you want to change the mind, you have to change structures.”

So, he does nothing, admits that nothing can be done, and then screeches like a shrill schoolmarm at the Tories for not waving the magic wand and making it all disappear. The Grits even try to accuse Harper of “act(ing) like an emperor” if he chooses to ignore their little parliamentary temper tantrum (which I think he should).

Hell, even Green Party Ubertreehugger Elizabeth May isn’t being fooled by this bullshit publicity stunt. I can’t help but wonder, though… Which do you think is going to get through the Fiberal-dominated Senate first, hmmm? The Federal Accountability Act (which would make the kind of corruption that is the Grits’ stick-in-trade one hell of a lot harder in the future), Bill S-24 (the Senate Tenure Bill), or this little Grit-spawned publicity stunt? Anybody feel like laying some money down on it?

All I can say is: Please, please, please let this trigger an election!! And let it happen BEFORE John Q. Canuck has the chance to doze back off again. Let it happen before the Canadian public can foget that Dion has flip-flopped on everything from Kyoto to Afghanistan to antiterror legislation. Real quick, in point form:

• Librano$ sign Kyoto (a pipe dream), do nothing, blame Tories
• Librano$ pass antiterror measures, now call them draconian
• Librano$ send troops to Afghanistan, now want to run away
• Librano$ to nominate candidates based on crotch plumbing, not merit
• Librano$ get to boot for Adscamâ„¢, Dion welcomes back scammer into the party fold

It’s one thing to be a populist; it’s another thing entirely to make a political career out of twisting in the wind of public opinion. I could go on, but why bother? The facts are that he’s out of touch with regular Canadians, he’s an elitist and he’s weak. The Grits picked everybody’s third choice to lead their party and, as the ads said, Stephane Dion is NOT a leader. Never has been and never will be. The little snot even mewled like a petulant child when someone pointed out that there really IS a problem with wanting to be the leader of one country while being a citizen of another!

Yup. Best Christmas present a little Rightwing nutjob like me ever got. Can we go to the polls now?

Holy crap, that was harder than I thought.  What should have taken only an hour or so ended up — thanks to some of the slowest throughput I’ve ever seen on a T1 connection — being an all-Goddamned-day undertaking.  On the bright side, though; it’s finally over.

The new software seems to be working fine and dandy so far and well… I’m keeping my fingers crossed.  So, now that all that happy horseshit’s out of the way, look for something a little more… normal from me tomorrow… 😀

Yeah, I know; I dread this crap too. But the current version of the software that I power this site with is getting a little clunky for my liking and so…

It’s upgrade time.

And before anybody even starts… yes, I know this has gone over craptastically before but I’m pretty sure I can avoid that this time. Pretty sure. This time.

The upgrade will occur sometime tomorrow afternoon after I’ve had the chance to back EVERYthing up first. If I can’t get it working right off the hop… well, then, screw it; I’ll just reload from backup and figure something out from there.

Wish me luck. 🙄

Um… I have NO idea WHAT the hell to make of this. I don’t even know how the hell this managed to happen, let alone what it means or what to say about it.

And I’m willing to bet my left nut that none of YOU out there saw this coming either. Nope. No way in hell.

Okay, alright; I suppose I should tell you just what the hell I’m going on about. It’s simple: SES reasearch had themselves a little poll in Ontario — yes, that Ontario. The one with all the liberals in it — that asked folks a simple little question:

Thinking about the federal party leaders – those being Stephen Harper for the Conservatives; Stephane Dion for the Liberals, Jack Layton for the NDP, Gilles Duceppe for the Bloc Quebecois and Elizabeth May for the Green Party – who do you trust the most to safeguard our environment?

I know; not exactly earth-shaking stuff, is it? What baffles me is the results. No, bonehead, Harper didn’t win by a mile. 🙄 What he did manage to do is tie. You’ll NEVER guess who.

According to Ontariens, Harper is equally trustworthy on matters of the environment as . . . Green Party leader ELIZABETH MAY! 😯

Don’t take my word for it. Click here and see for yourself.