Will Wonders Ever Cease?

I've held the belief that the struggle going on in Toronto is not so much about what to do with a boorish mayor as one of ordinary citizens fighting back against smug elites who look down their noses at the great unwashed while robbing them blind at tax time. And here's an article in the Toronto Star (of all places!!) saying more or less the same thing. Those who comprise the Great Unwashed, the voters, are yearning to return their city to the days when it was known as Toronto the Good from what it is now, vis., Toronto the Hood, thanks to the dominance of lefty elites, champagne socialists as they are called.

I feel the same way about the Harper administration. Despite the lefty media's best attempts to smear him and pronounce him dead due to the Senate scandal, I have a gut feeling he, or at least the Conservatives, will be returned to power come election day in 2015. I firmly believe Canadian elections over the last little while have been more about sticking it to the lefty elitist media who deign to tell us not to vote Conservative, and the Parties for which they shill. Mind you, it helps when the Liberals make Baby Trudeau their leader. And that's precisely the point. We want the adults to be in charge.

BWHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!

That's what I call a two-fer!

Yawn

When are our elites going to wake up? France needs another revolution:

French soldier in uniform stabbed near Paris

"French President Francois Hollande had said all possibilities were being explored but there was no evidence yet of any link to the killing of Drummer Lee Rigby in the Woolwich area of London on Wednesday."

Meanwhile, back in London:

3 more suspects arrested in slaying of U.K. soldier

And in Russia:

Female suicide bomber attacks police in Russia’s Dagestan

Leftards In Toronto...

...are having such a hard time. Such a hard time:

Reports of drinking problem ‘nonsense’, says Toronto Mayor Rob Ford

I wonder what it's like to have to continually be scraping the dregs off the bottom of a barrel, in order to get your kicks.

Sore losers. All of them.

"One of the most amateurish pieces ...

...of taxpayer-funded trash I’ve seen in a long time."

The Toronto elites are delivered a well deserved beating.

But will they notice?

Listen To It

That is all.

Yet another book I have to buy and try find the time to read.

Dear Lamestream Media...

....I don't care if Justin Bieber puked while on stage.  I'm not interested in baby starlets, or for that matter, even adult starlets. But Bieber is a human being, and as such, I think he deserves some dignity. Give it a rest, will you?

Heavy sigh!

This is one of the main reason I cancelled my cable subscription several years ago and put my TV in storage. I'm certain I will never go back. You seem intent of keeping us uninformed and feeding us syrupy pap. Sorry. Not interested.

Turns Out...

...the Centre of the Universe is smaller than I thought:

Toronto has a downtown fixation

"The 2010 Toronto municipal election revealed a house divided against itself. An unbroken line separates the 31 suburban wards in which Mayor Rob Ford received the most votes and the 13 central-city wards that supported his main opponent, George Smitherman.

Inside that line — as the conventional narrative goes — live the educated, the cosmopolitan, the progressive, the hip. Outside that line live, well, we're not sure. People like Ford, perhaps. The less educated, the less sophisticated, the conservative, the tragically unhip.

The preceding characterization is, of course, an insulting and inaccurate simplification. There are well educated, free-thinking people living in all parts of the city. Of the 13 wards where 40 per cent or more of adults have a completed university education, seven are inside the Ford-Smitherman line and six are outside. An impressive 51.2 per cent of the adult residents of Ward 23 (Willowdale) have a university certificate, diploma or degree.

The comparable figure for central-city Ward 18 (Davenport) is 24.4 per cent. Yet in Ward 23 Ford outpolled Smitherman and third-place finisher Joe Pantalone combined, while in Ward 18 Smitherman handily defeated Ford, with Pantalone a close third.

The notion that Toronto is an unnatural amalgamation of discrete communities breaks down for another compelling reason. The insularity and ignorance of the other side, that would exemplify both groups if they lived in two different worlds, are found only among Toronto's downtown residents, not its suburban ones.

Suburbanites work and play downtown; shop and eat downtown; attend concerts, musicals, and art exhibitions downtown; go to Jays, Leafs, and Raptors games downtown.

It doesn't work the other way around, and this strikes at the heart of the issue. Downtown residents don't go to the suburbs in near the same numbers, often don't know the suburbs, and by and large don't care to discover them. "

Three guesses where the CBC is located.

Sore Loserdom on Display...

...here, in the comments, not the article. Saskatchewan's NDP are like the Federal Liberals - completely unable to fathom what has hit them; completely incapable of introspection.

Yup

Like I said...

Go make it (sorta) big in the USA, then come back to Saskatchewan where they make Grade-B movies.

The Death Penalty..

Seems we're gonna talk about it whether or not the elites approve.

YES! YES!...

...YES!

The artsy-fartsy types are no longer in charge!!!  Well done Sun Media. No wonder the Margaret Atwoods of the country were so gnarled up.

Eyes Rolling

And this is only the silly part of it.

Remember way back in the stone age, when I was in my late teens and early twenties, the argument that won the day and led to the elimination of the death penalty was that someone who had been wrongfully convicted might be killed by the state. Fair enough. But not only has DNA evidence poked at least some holes in that argument, but the leftards advocating on behalf of convicted criminals have carried their tear-jerker arguments, and modified them to modernize them, into the 21st century. Thus we get absurdities like the one dealt with in the clip above.

I have to wonder why these types would argue against the death penalty with the "what if we make a mistake" line of reasoning, but the "what if we make a mistake" line of reasoning is nowhere in sight today when it comes to issues like the one dealt with in the above clip or when it comes to early release of dangerous offenders from prison.

It's time for an honest discussion of the whole modern leftist/liberal approach to corrections and what it has and hasn't accomplished, including the unforeseen consequences, which the leftards do not want to acknowledge or even be exposed to. Instead, they keep repeating, like some worn out, sluggish mantra, that conservatives simply want to "punish" criminals.  Just goes to show how out of touch they are.

Sometime This Weekend...

...I hope to tell you about the strange tale of an Angus Reid survey about the CBC that I completed earlier today.

But first, read this piece by one of Canada's literary/broadcasting elitists, Michael Harris:

Saving the CBC: The path forward is finding the way back

"This much is for certain. It is foolish and perverse for CBC executives to think that they can take a billion dollars in public money and then refuse to tell Canadians how it’s spent – especially since the Corporation is now covered under the access to information law. Every day they fight this feckless battle in court is another day they resemble the information-suppressors they so often pursue and pillory on the public’s behalf. When you’re in the information business, going to court to keep your corporate secrets looks a lot like hypocrisy."

With that much, I do agree with him.

I don't agree with much else this jerk says though. His pretensions and arrogance are the very stuff of mainstream media and would fit quite well into the CBC, but, like him, I'm not exactly a big fan of Sun TV either. I think they have to make some changes if they are going to rival the CBC or replace it. Their attacks on the CBC are a bit over the top and highly unprofessional. What they should be doing is digging up dirt and facts and letting their viewers know and we can do the job of lobbying the government.

What do you think? Can the CBC get back what it has lost, as Harris recommends? Just exactly what did it once have to be lost? Or is just the fact that the CBC is funded by taxpayers that is the most important issue? To be sure, many decades ago the quality of their programming and their political slant was nowhere near as blatantly biased as it is today.

But Harris continues:

"The CBC needs to resolve an identity crisis that has been growing for years. The path forward is finding the way back. If its executives decide it is a public broadcaster, it’s got to re-commit to Canadian content and eschew the siren song of private network principles. A good place to start would be to undo the centralization of the Corporation’s business in Toronto and reinvest in the regions which have been turned into mere bureaus of head office. Supper hour news shows used to be the glue that connected the CBC to Canadians in the hinterland. These shows are now yodeling down the well of irrelevance in many regional markets – including the one where I used to work. And it’s also time for the CBC to get out of private television’s pocket and get ads off the air."

It's not just advertizing revenue that they are stealing from the competitors, sweetheart. Their competitors and their employees also pay taxes, some of which goes to support the CBC.

"At its best, the public broadcaster is revered by Canadians for showing us who we are and protecting that identity from a tsunami of crappy cop shows, two-bit reality programs, and half-baked newscasts from the United States. Giving us more of them is a self-administered death penalty."

You see, even their detractors have an anti-American bias. Not that I think American television is any better. It isn't. But Darlin', it is the viewers who will decide that, not you or the CBC.

The only way I can conceive of the CBC surviving is if:

a) They get out of the news business entirely. Let the private sector do that, with the dollars that now go to the CBC. (Some day I might write about how I envisage that happening, but basically it's letting those corporations and their employees keep their money instead of forking it over to the CBC, then they can support whatever Canadian network they choose, or none, if that's their preference.) I don't want to see tax dollars going to any broadcaster, but I do think there may be an alternative method of reflecting Canada to Canadians, if that is even important any more.

b) Its programming is all locally produced by production companies who may or may not have received grants from the government, private corporations and voluntary donations from Canadian citizens who wish to support whatever network they may wish to support. We've had enough of nanny the broadcaster sitting in downtown Toronto, telling us who we are and what we are supposed to believe and if television as a technology is to survive (I have my doubts) and if the mandate of reflecting Canada's regions to one another is still important to Canadians, then regionally based corporations and citizens at large are in the best position to determine what should be funded and what should be produced, and can give their money directly to companies that produce the shows that we may want to watch.

Believe me, we will lose the arrogance, the secretiveness, and, here in Western Canada at least, the kneejerk, strident anti-American bigotry that is so pervasive, not just in Mother Corp, but in the Toronto elites.

Anyway, in a day or two, I'll tell you about the Angus Reid poll, so do come back.

Oh, and to hammer home one final point.  If we want to watch American TV we bloody well will. Each and every individual Canadian can and does watch whatever they damn well please, and there is nothing - diddly squat  - you, Michael Harris, or anyone else, can do about that.

Very Interesting!

As I speculated at the end of this post, the Liberal Party and the liberal philosophy may be done for in Canada (and that's not the only place where I've speculated that). Here's a bit of evidence to show the reality out there in Canadian political-party-land.

The flip side of the orange crush

More on the Angus Reid poll that Steve Janke deals with.

And here's something I'd forgotten about (from a commenter at Angry in the Great White North):

"Have the Liberal candidates paid off their debts yet? It will be more difficult as support drops. :)"

Sure hope not.

This Has Got To Hurt...

...our arts and broadcasting elites in Toronto:

Calgary named Culture Capital of Canada for 2012

"Calgary-Centre MP Lee Richardson made the announcement Friday on behalf of Heritage Minister James Moore at the Grand Theatre in Calgary.

"Calgary is one of Canada's fastest growing and most vibrant cities, and we look forward to working with the city on its upcoming centennial anniversaries to continue to promote the arts, boost tourism, and grow our economy," said Richardson."

Them's fighting words back in Trawna.

This Whole "Christian" Thing....

...is as screwed up as they get.

Okay, I so can't let this Norway/Breivik thing go, but it wasn't me that started the "right wing Christian" thing.  I'm a right winger and I'm proud of it, but as far as being Christian is concerned, I'm not a believer, especially not a Bible-thumper, but I do recognize that Christianity was central to the history of the region of the world where my ancestors came from and that its tenets, its trials and tribulations, are responsible for what we call Western Civilization today, and I think that's what motivated Breivik, however sick his method of dealing with his frustration may have been.

The left's and the political class's total abandonment of loyalty to their ancestral roots and to the great achievements that sprang from those roots is, IMHO, very close to treasonous.  It has become very fashionable to pretend that Europe isn't the source of anything worth preserving or celebrating; that extolling things like Western achievements in science, art, music and architecture, great advances in technology and profoundly influential ideas, such as those of the enlightenment and their influence on ideas concerning governance, are nothing but ethnocentric, and therefore dismissible.

But, damn it, ethnocentric as they might be, they are, essentially, unassailable.  There is a reason why Europe was first past the post in the race to explore the entire planet. It could have been the Arabs or the Chinese who set out and conquered the world, as both of those civilizations came close to developing sciences, arts and technology, modes of transportation, and so on, that could have led them to be masters of the planet, but the Europeans did it better and came out on top.

Europe, especially Britain, and her offshoots in the former colonies have inherited a legacy that is something of which we should be proud. After all, and I'm not the first one to note this, people from all those other places still come in droves to our shores, trying to get in, so they can take advantages of the opportunities and gifts, both intellectual and physical, we have to offer. And we do offer them and we do let them in. But we're not going in droves to their shores, longing to get in.  There's a reason for that.

But we won't be able to offer anything, if we keep shooting ourselves in the foot. Breivik saw this. He just chose the most stupid and counter productive method for dealing with it, and now the champions of Western Civilization are left scrambling to distance themselves and justify their positions.

And by the way, did you know the word "Christendom" was commonly used in the Middle Ages to refer to Europe. Long before the concept of the nation state was developed it referred to a political realm, which was characterized by adherence to the Christian faith. The "Church of Rome" was more or less the capital of Christendom, with, perhaps, Constantinople being a significant centre as well, being the centre of Orthodox Christianity. (Constantinople is, of course, modern day Istanbul, which at one time not too long ago, was the capital of the Ottoman Empire, another worthy challenger to European world domination, which likewise failed and disappeared into history to join the Arab Empire and the China of Cheng Ho.)  But neither Islam nor Tao (Chinese philosophy) had what it took to come out on top today, although the land of Tao is certainly waking up, and given a choice, I'd far rather be under China's hegemony than Islam's, thank you very much.

No, Breivik is a sick SOB, but he really did understand what's happening to Western Civilization - to Christendom.  And he took it out on those who he felt were responsible - not Muslims, but "progressive" Europeans. And that, ladies and gentlemen, is why he may just become something of a cult hero. Way to go, progressives!

"Mad as a Hatter, Perhaps, But Not Stupid"

"Whilst skimming through Breivik’s manifesto the following stood out..."

[---]

"The potential list of “traitors” according to the criteria set down in Breivik’s manifesto must run into the hundreds of thousands, if not millions across Europe, so it’s a target-rich environment out there.

Oddly enough this tactic of “open-sourcing” the conflict mirrors the development of Al-Quaeda which rather than a hierarchical organizations is closer to a “brand” that can be adopted by anyone who shares its aims and acts towards similar goals.

Mad as a hatter perhaps, but not stupid or insane."

I can't help thinking this is the opening volley - well not really the opening volley, but the beginning of the latest battle - of a very old war.

There are legions of Europeans who are profoundly alienated from their ruling class and are sick of having their legitimate concerns dismissed with a wave of the hand while being subjected to a lecture of politically correct nonsense. The left has just created a new hero for the disaffected right, whom they (the left) have, heretofore, successfully shut out - almost.

Lines have been drawn.

I wonder how Europe's former colonies will respond?

Happy Hundredth, Marshall - I Guess

Apparently this guy was born a hundred years ago today:



I never understood what was so profound (or whatever it was supposed to be) about Marshall McLuhan. As with the above video, his babbling sounded like so much academic baffle-gab. Many words, but no actual meaning. I suspect that leaving his listeners scratching their heads wondering what the "F" he was talking about was evidence of his brilliance. To me, it was evidence of how phoney the elites of the day really where.

Good! Or Maybe Not

Take this pompous windbag off our backs.

"CBC host George Stroumboulopoulos is joining the battle against world hunger as the first Canadian to be named an ambassador against hunger as part of the United Nations World Food Program.

The announcement was made Tuesday night on George Stroumboulopoulos Tonight, where Stephen Lewis, a former UN special envoy for HIV/AIDS, was a guest."

The only problem is, he'll be using our television network and our tax dollars, as if the network is his own property, to spread UN propaganda about his favourite cause.

"A TV special documenting his trip will air April 1 on CBC.

“I'm excited to be a part of it,” said Stroumboulopoulos, whose charity work includes supporting the UN’s online donation site, WeFeedback.org.

“In any situation like this there’s all kinds of work being done on the ground by all kinds of people and so somebody in my position, all I really get to do is shine the light on work that’s already being done and hopefully use the position I have with the television show and a radio show to garner some interest.”"

Of course, when was the last time anyone at CBC understood that they work for an organization that is supposedly responsible to its shareholders, the Canadian taxpayers. It isn't supposed to be their own personal pulpit from which they get to preach their own personal version of world justice and political correctness. That'll be the day.

Nope. The CBC is nothing but a cult of self-worshipping lefties using their gilded cage to promote all manner of PC nonsense.  Stephen Lewis, of course, is the father of Avi Lewis and the son of David Lewis, the first leader of national New Democratic Party. Stephen Lewis himself was prominent in the Ontario ranks of the NDP. Avi Lewis, (husband of Naomi Klein, spoiled child of a wealthy Montreal family, who never met a far left cause she couldn't or wouldn't champion to the hilt), is famous for his anti-American screed while interviewing the ever graceful Ayaan Hirsi Ali, wherein she adeptly slices and dices him to pieces, shortly after which he mysteriously left the employ of Grandmother's Corpse to go work for Al Jazeera (watch the video of you have the stomach, but I won't blame you if you skip it):



When will it end, CBC?

I don't expect the CBC can reform itself. The leftwing ideology is so deeply entrenched, they cannot possibly think outside their self-contained self-congratulating incestuous little box. 

At least it appears the upcoming federal budget contains further cuts to its funding. I can hardly wait for the howling to begin. It will take quite a few "further cuts" to finally be rid of it, though.  If only their funding was tied to their audience share or some such measure of actual performance.  The very idea that their jobs should be reliant on providing the tax paying public something they actually want to watch is totally anathema. It never occurs to them that the CBC might not be their personal property to use as they wish.