You Can't Make This Shit Up...

...or "What did you expect?"

Maine Governor LePage Slashes State Aid For Cities That Give Welfare to Illegal Aliens

Maine Governor Makes Welfare Recipients Actually WORK… Then “Disaster” Strikes

"Republican Gov. Paul LePage decided to put an end to that, by declining federal waivers that allow states to bypass the “work for welfare” laws put into effect that require single, non-disabled citizens to either work part-time twenty hours per week, volunteer twenty-four hours per month or be enrolled in a verified work-training program in order to receive benefits.""

Seven Websites On Indian Control Of Indian Education...

...every one of which says absolutely nothing. Just a bunch of empty politically correct platitudes:

Inspiring Success:Building Towards Student Achievement

I especially like this, from the table of contents: "First Nations And Metis Ways Of Knowing" Huh?

Nourishing the Learning Spirit: Coming To Know and Validating Knowledge: Foundational Insights on Indian Control of Indian Education in Canada

Ensuring No American Indian and Alaska Native Child Is Left Behind

Indigenous Education in the 21st Century - Participatory Approaches

Indian control over Indian education remains the focus

First Nations Control of First Nations Educations

Indian Control Of Indian Education: A Brief History

Rolling Back the Nanny State...

...one case at a time:

I grew up drinking raw milk. The only processing done to it was when my mother put it in the separator to separate the cream from the rest of it. She used the cream to make her own butter. The cream, and the milk, were put into sterilized bottles, capped with a small cardboard cap and stored in a wire basket lowered down into a well, where it kept company with lizards and bugs of all descriptions, until there was enough to use to make butter. And I'm still alive, in case you haven't noticed.

I also like to make my own yogurt. Can't do that with pasturized, homogenized milk.

When I was in highschool, our French teacher, who was a real live French woman, took over the Home Ec. class one day and taught us how to make homemade yogurt. Yum!

She also taught us how to make French bread, you know those long skinny loaves. Mine turned out as hard as a baseball bat, but that's another story.

Government Cuts Civil Servants From Payroll

Union whines.

"“This exercise is all about money and a government obsessed with the bottom line,” said Corbett."

And oh my God. Some of them are climate scientists!!

Environment Canada to get rid of 60 scientists

Expect the whining to reach feverish pitches.

"Not all surplus employees may end up losing their jobs. They could be needed elsewhere and be promised a “reasonable job offer.” Those without such an offer, however, have three options — they can collect a cash payments based on years of service; get an education allowance for retraining, or go on the priority list for a year in hopes of landing a job elsewhere in the public service."

Sounds like a reasonable severance arrangement to me, but what's with the "environment" spin?

Oh Brother!!

Ban trans fats, tax junk food to stop obesity

I have a better idea. Why not make them pay for their own health care? Seriously, unless logical consequences are allowed to play, we'll never grow up.

We could apply that to smokers and problem drinkers, too, and probably a few other things as well.

That Was My First Question, Too!

Yet another PC tale, starting with an article from The Sheaf:

Macleans Magazine Gets Taxpayer Help?

Be careful, now. The Sheaf is the U of S's student newspaper. When I was attending school there, back in the stone age, it was a nasty little left-wing rag. They'll have their hands out soon looking for free money, too.

More on the story that we're supposed to be focused on, though:

Macleans no longer worthy of public funding, senator says

How 'bout you persuade our Heritage Minister to cut it then, as well as funding to most, if not all, of our arts and culture bleeding heart leeches.

'Too Asian' article repeats mistakes

Yah, we've been there before, haven't we, yet after all those years of political correctness and targeted funding, it's still here, ready and waiting to be exploited. Let's try something newer like actually interpreting things in more than one way. I'll give you an example below.

Council asks Maclean's for 'Too Asian' apology

"Toronto’s city council voted at the end of Thursday’s lengthy meeting to request an apology from Maclean’s magazine for publishing an article that raised the question of whether the University of Toronto and other Canadian universities are “too Asian.”

The motion to request an apology, tabled by Councillor Mike Layton, (brother to Jack Layton, by the way) passed easily, 27 votes to 11, without any debate. Though Mayor Rob Ford voted against it, three of his conservative allies — council speaker Frances Nunziata, economic development committee chair Michael Thompson and David Shiner — took the side of the left-wing Layton.

“With no debate, and us passing it with such good numbers, it says that council is not going to stand for this type of article from a major Canadian (magazine),” Layton said at a City Hall news conference on Friday morning. “We’re going to speak out for our community and say, ‘That wasn’t appropriate, we deserve an apology.’ I think there’s a willingness to tackle the issues that come up on occasion that might not be about roads or streetcars or subways.”

I'll bet you not one of them read the article. And further, I'll bet you that's one of the reasons Rob Ford was against it. (Yay, Rob Ford!) Well, I have read the article and I think you could make a case that it actually puts Asian students in a much more favorable light than "white" students, who can't measure up against their "Asian" counterparts. But that's just me. I tend to read the whole thing so as not to get derailed by what isn't there. You know, by focusing on what actually is there. Just goes to show how deep and pervasive PC has become. So, on that note, wanna read the "offending" article yourself and make up your own mind? Go here.

Some examples (emphasis mine.):

"Still, an “Asian” school has come to mean one that is so academically focused that some students feel they can no longer compete or have fun. Indeed, Rachel, Alexandra and her brother belong to a growing cohort of student that’s eschewing some big-name schools over perceptions that they’re “too Asian.”"

Good grief! Affirmative Action was all fine and dandy with the elites, I suppose, until it actually worked. But back to the article:

"Although university administrators here are loath to discuss the issue, students talk about it all the time. “Too Asian” is not about racism, say students like Alexandra: many white students simply believe that competing with Asians—both Asian Canadians and international students—requires a sacrifice of time and freedom they’re not willing to make. They complain that they can’t compete for spots in the best schools and can’t party as much as they’d like (too bad for them, most will say)."

Let's face it, white kids are waaay too pampered. Let's learn something from our Asian brothers and sisters and adapt some of their values, for a change, instead of continually relying on these old worn out charges of political incorrectness and racism.

But to continue with what's actually in the article:

"To quell the influx of Jewish students, Ivy League schools abandoned their meritocratic admissions processes in favour of one that focused on the details of an applicant’s private life—questions about race, religion, even about the maiden name of an applicant’s mother. Schools also began looking at such intangibles as character, personality and leadership potential. Canadian universities, apart from highly competitive professional programs and faculties, don’t quiz applicants the same way, and rely entirely on transcripts. Likely that is a good thing. And yet, that meritocratic process results, especially in Canada’s elite university programs, in a concentration of Asian students.

The upshot is that race is defining Canadian university campuses in a way it did not 25 years ago. Diversity has enriched these schools, but it has also put them at risk of being increasingly fractured along ethnic lines. It’s a superficial form of multiculturalism that is expressed in the main through segregated, self-selecting, discrete communities. It would behoove the leadership of our universities to recognize these issues and take them seriously. And yet, that’s exactly what’s not happening. Indeed, discussions with Canada’s top university presidents reveal for the most part that they are in a state of denial."

[---]

"Among Canadian universities, UBC is one of the few institutions that publishes the ethnic makeup of its student body. Toope says that the university’s Asian student population is not “widely out of whack with the community,” although the stats tell a slightly different story. According to a 2009 UBC report on direct undergraduate entrants, 43 per cent of its students self-identify as ethnically Chinese, Korean or Japanese, as compared to 38 per cent who self-identify as white. Although Vancouver is a richly diverse city, according to data from the 2006 census, just 21.5 per cent of its residents identify as a Chinese, Korean or Japanese visible minority."

[---]

"Alexandra, who chose to go to Western for the party scene, found she “hated being away from home” and moved back to Toronto. In retrospect, she didn’t like the vibe. “Some people just want to drink 23 hours a day.” Alexandra says she still has friends at Western who live in an “all-blond house” and are “stick thin.”"

Yup. Must be culture. Seems we whine when East Asian culture results in a population with superior levels of education, and a commitment to excellence rather than partying, and hence the enhancement of our society and economy, yet Jack Layton's brother calls this racism. Perhaps it is. Just not in the way Layton wants us to believe.

As an aside, I have attended universities and worked in a profession in which I was side by side with many young persons of Asian decent, and yes, folks, they are superior. I have nothing but the greatest admiration for them. We would do well to follow their example. But first, we have to get rid of the Laytoons of this world and I would suggest we quit funding the "cultural" and "arts" "communities", and ask instead why our Asian citizens are so darned successful. We have nothing to learn from Layton and so much to emulate in the South East Asian culture. How 'bout we start on Monday, or at least make this a national New Year's resolution?

Here's my suggestion for a slogan to define 2011: "Down with political correctness. Up with meritocracy."

After a Rather Slow News Day,

...there's some interesting news coming out of Ottawa. Not only have the Cons responded appropriately to the Yemeni airlines bomb scare, but they are now announcing changes to our immigration policy.

But jeeze, it ain't in the right direction:

"While the overall target for permanent residents will remain between 240,000 and 265,000, the government will seek to admit more children and spouses through the family class and fewer economic migrants. The annual number of economic class immigrants selected for their job skills will drop by 5,000 to 6,000 while the number of family class immigrants will go up by between 1,500 and 2,500."

“Within five years, there will be no growth in the Canadian labour market,” Kenney said while defending the level of immigration. “You cannot pay for our pensions, our health care and all the services Canadians want with a shrinking tax base.”

(Jason) Kenney said that leaves Canadians with two options, accept higher immigration levels or have more children."

Perhaps if we scaled back on all those nanny state perks, young couples could afford to have more children. And as far as opening the door to family members, it better be for people who already have good, secure jobs. Please, let's not bring grandma in so she can soak up old age security, the build up of funds for which, neither she nor her family never contributed.

I think Daniel Hannon would have something to say about this.

The Future of TV and the CRTC

UPDATE: Once again, someone from CBC read this entry. I'm a marked woman, I tells ya. Seriously, though, it's good to see someone at Grandmother's Corpse is monitoring Canadian public opinion of their operation. So, next time you drop by, why don't you leave a comment? Hum? I'm sure there's work in the private sector for you, if you so damned good.
====================

Andrew Coyne on Ron Breakenridge @ 9/3/2010 10:29:00 PM.

Full article by Coyne: The CRTC isn't just a nuisance, now it's a real threat

"In such a world of “spectrum scarcity,” it was argued, government regulation was essential to ensure a diversity of content—and, in Canada, to ensure that some of that content was Canadian. Or as the cultural nationalists had it, to make it possible for Canadians to “tell ourselves our own stories.” This was the world in which the CRTC was born.

Flash forward 40 or 50 years, to a very different world. Not only are there now hundreds of conventional television channels catering to every conceivable taste, but with the advent of Internet broadcasting the constraints of cost and spectrum have disappeared. There are literally hundreds of thousands of Canadian websites, each of them, post-YouTube, potentially a broadcaster in its own right. It is now possible for any Canadian with a video camera and a laptop to transmit to every other Canadian. And the cultural nationalists’ response? This just makes the case for more regulation."

[---]

"...if Mochrie and his friends at ACTRA, the film and television actors’ union, have their way, that anyone who streams live video online would have to be “licensed and subject to regulations.” It means that anyone who provides the means for others to do so would have to be likewise licensed and regulated. And of course, there would have to be new taxes to fund this content, on the off chance that Canadians should not prove as eager as all that to be told more Canadian stories online. Ostensibly, the tax would be paid by Internet service providers. But we all know who would pay in the end."

[---]

"...that is the essentially political mission in which Canadian artists willingly enlisted: to instill the proper feelings of loyalty to the Canadian nation-state in its citizens. They did so for the most sincere of motives: because that was where the money was.

Even as politics, it was nonsense. If we were so profoundly different from other nations as to warrant protection from their cultural exports, we were also different enough not to need it—always supposing that cultural difference was a worthy end in itself, or that anyone could define what was Canadian culture and what was foreign, or that the consumption of enormous quantities of foreign culture was not itself integral to being Canadian. That is even more true today. If “telling ourselves our own stories” is the goal, regulation is both unnecessary—absolutely nothing prevents Canadians from watching, or indeed finding, Canadian content, if they want to—and, for the most part, impossible."

[---]

"Perhaps the media will now realize that the CRTC is no longer a mere nuisance, to be suffered in silence. It is a mortal threat: the most serious to press freedom in generations."

Be afraid, CBC. Be very afraid.

PS: Breakenridge's interview @ 9/3/2010 10:25:00 PM is also pretty good. All about God, creation, science and Stephen Hawkings. It pretty much sums up my beliefs. Unlike physics, God is the great mystery we can never understand. I can't understand physics, either, but that's another story.

I'm sure I've said this before, but the big bogeyman in the sky with the white beard that speaks with a booming voice and who sends lightning bolts down to earth to punish sinners, is for children. I suspect most people who triumphantly declare themselves to be atheists are rejecting this version and haven't bothered to dig any deeper into the mystery. In other words, their spiritual development is stunted in adolescence. I sincerely hope they will some day break free and travel the rest of the way into a mature understanding of what we can barely describe and that which we and cannot comprehend, but which we know to be true.

Back to the Long Form Census

Perhaps this is the real reason the Cons want to can it. After all, there seems to be a government grant for every silly cause in the country:



And for all those organizations dependent on government grant, well buck up:

Contradictions and Hypocrisy in the CRTC Mandate

I've never been clear on the role of the CRTC, soooo, I went looking. It's right here in the CRTC website: 

"Mandate

The CRTC’s mandate is to ensure that both the broadcasting and telecommunications systems serve the Canadian public. The CRTC uses the objectives in the Broadcasting Act and the Telecommunications Act to guide its policy decisions.

Broadcasting

In broadcasting, the CRTC ensures that all Canadians have access to a wide variety of high-quality Canadian programming as well as access to employment opportunities in the broadcasting system. Programming in the Canadian broadcasting system should reflect Canadian creativity and talent, our bilingual nature, our multicultural diversity and the special place of aboriginal peoples in our society."

Telecommunications

In telecommunications, the CRTC ensures that Canadians receive reliable telephone and other telecommunications services, at affordable prices.

But the CRTC’s role in telecommunications is evolving. In many telecom markets, several consumer choices are available. This natural competition results in better prices and packages for consumers. In these cases, CRTC allows competition, not regulations, to drive the market. The CRTC regulates only where the market doesn’t meet the objectives of the Telecommunications Act.

Activities

The CRTC supervises and regulates over 2000 broadcasters, including TV, AM and FM radio and the companies that bring these services to you. We also regulate telecommunications carriers including major telephone companies. This role involves:

* issuing, renewing and amending broadcasting licences
* making decisions on mergers, acquisitions and changes of ownership in broadcasting
* approving tariffs and certain agreements for the telecommunications industry
* issuing licences for international telecommunications services, whose networks allow telephone users to make and receive calls outside Canadian borders
* encouraging competition in telecommunications markets
* responding to requests for information and concerns about broadcasting and telecommunications issues

Boy, is that ever a minefield loaded with contradictions.

First of all, we see that:

...the CRTC ensures that all Canadians have access to a wide variety of high-quality Canadian programming...

which is defined as programming that reflects such PC nonsense as:

Canadian creativity and talent, our bilingual nature, our multicultural diversity and the special place of aboriginal peoples in our society.

But nowhere does it say how it expects to force Canadians to watch such stuff, in other words, there seems to be no expectation that such programming should actually have, you know, an viable market.

It also admits:

"In many telecom markets, several consumer choices are available. This natural competition results in better prices and packages for consumers. In these cases, CRTC allows competition, not regulations, to drive the market. The CRTC regulates only where the market doesn’t meet the objectives of the Telecommunications Act."

But, not so with respect to programming, which:

"...should reflect Canadian creativity and talent, our bilingual nature, our multicultural diversity and the special place of aboriginal peoples in our society."

 In its Telecommunications role it admits

"natural competition results in better prices and packages for consumers."

So why not allow for competition in programming?  We could begin with allowing actual market share of Canadian viewers to be the driving force behind funding and regulation. If Canada's broadcasters, such as the CBC, are losing viewers by leaps and bounds, why should we be forced to pay for that which we do not watch?

I presume the telecommunications arm refers to carriers, such as cable companies. But what's the point of regulating them, if the programming they offer has little appeal to Canadians, or if we are forced to purchase piles of crap, just to get the handful of good stuff spread out throughout so many tiers at the upper end?  Something has to change here and I suspect it's the Telecommunications Act and the Broadcasting Act.  And I'm also sure that the Harper government won't touch that with a ten foot pole, since he is accused on a daily basis by the CBC and Canada's creative and artistic community of having a hidden agenda.  Ironic, ain't it. Their agenda is as plain as the nose on their faces and it sure isn't to "serve the Canadian public".

Wait For It.

Canada's nanny statists will be calling for playground slides to be better regulated.