Searching for Liberty.. is moving on.

It is with some sadness that I am announcing the end of the journey for "Searching for Liberty".

Why?

Well, I have decided to devote my efforts to my blog, "Collaborative Divorce", and, as the saying goes, "there are only so many hours in a day."

In my brief time in the political blog world, I have made some good online friends, both conservative and other than conservative, and while the commentary was at times terse or even combative, I think it's fair to say that those who populate political blogs are all, in their own way, seeking to improve their community - simply from some very different perspectives from time to time.

I have been flattered to have my blogs printed by the National Post website, in Canada.com, and quoted in the Calgary Herald.

I would also be lying if I didn't say that the more I think about politics and the more I learned about how it works, including some time from the inside of the PC Party of Alberta, the more I became disappointed in what appears to be the failure of democracy to live up to it's promise.

By it's nature, politics responds to those who least deserve attention - and ignores those who do. The average Canadian. The Canadian who doesn't identify with a cause - who may be gay, but doesn't march, who may be aboriginal, but doesn't protest, who may be a woman but doesn't complain. Who goes to work each day, and comes home to do the best they can in a sometimes difficult world.

And while I am, to say the least, disheartened with the remaining crop of contenders in the PC Party leadership race, the fact that I've chosen this weekend to close down my blog is mere coincidence. The fact is that after attending a seminar in Edmonton regarding the improved promotion of collaborative law or collaborative practice, I realized that my time and effort would probably be better spent working harder at helping people learn to avoid the traditional combat of divorce.

So - I'll be blogging, but from a different perspective (which might still, from time to time, dabble into the politics of divorce and our judicial system).

However - this being my last political blog, I will offer the following thoughts.

Alberta has been blessed with an abundance of resources which have allowed us to profit greatly - in spite of what has become a moribund and lack-luster government.

The members of the PC Party appear to be opening their arms to a leadership which is premised upon appeasement, as opposed to any vision in using it's political capital to make difficult, but prudent decisions.

There was a time where this Province prided itself on it's conservative roots and our citizen's independence from government - however, it is now manifestly clear that those days have passed us by.

We have a government which has lost its way - and a content and complacent citizenry which has become accepting of what could fairly be described as a below-average governance.

Will oil revenue continue to allow us continued good fortune in spite of at best mediocre government?

Will royalties be sufficient to continue to allow our Premier-in-waiting, Gary Mar, to feather the nests of his supporters as he did before the big move to Washington?

I suppose time will tell.

And a last comment on Allison Redford.

Collaborative law is a great opportunity to allow Albertans to take control of their own difficulties, without government intervention or expense - a truly "conservative" way to work out problems.

And it was supported by the party.

At a policy conference, the membership of the PC Party fully supported a resolution to have the government provide support to promote the collaborative process.

I met with Allison Redford twice, and both times, she shook my hand, and smiled, and expressed how supportive she was and what a great process collaborative law was.

Yet - she did nothing. As Attorney General, we could barely get collaborative law mentioned on government family law websites.

Which says something, I think.

A process which is expanding all over the world - and in which Medicine Hat was known world-wide as the leader in promoting "out of court" resolution - has been ignored by the Alberta government. Notwithstanding the request of the "grassroots" to have the government recognize and endorse collaborative law - they, and in particular, Allison Redford, has ignored the process completely.

Which is sad. But not surprising.

So. I've given up on this government. I'll promote Collaborative Law on my own with the other many lawyers in Alberta committed to reducing conflict in divorce.

I'll leave political blogging to those who have greater patience and, perhaps, optimism than I have.

So.

Ciao for now.

What are YOU doing?

Ok.

So.

You may have noticed a short quote from John F. Kennedy on my blog.

Which might seem odd, seeing that he was a Democrat and this is a conservative blog.

But, here's the thing.  When is the last time that a current political leader made a demand of the electorate?

When is the last time that you heard Stephen Harper, Barack Obama, or any other politician for that matter, say, "Don't ask what the Country can do for you.  Ask yourself what YOU are doing for the Country?"

So.

Working conservative Canadians may say, "Hey, I'm a tax-payer, I'm doing my share already.  I'm doing MORE than my share."  And in some respects, you may be right.  I've commented before that more and more, the Government seems to pay too much attention to those who do too little, and too little attention to those who do too much.

But - the idea remains - that as Canadians, as members of a free democracy, every once in a while, we should resist the temptation to ask the government to do more for us, and should ask ourselves if there is something more WE can do to improve our communities and the world around us.

Before asking the government to cut taxes and reduce payments to trivial or pointless endeavors, ask yourself, "What am I doing to reach out and support an endeavor that I think is worthwhile, that I don't particularly feel tax dollars should be used to support?

Consider, perhaps, the value of sports in your community - making our youth healthier, providing them a source of self-worth, lessons in cooperation and team work, and, if nothing else, a distraction from using their youthful energy in other, perhaps more destructive, ways.

And then ask yourself, "Do I have time that I could volunteer to help out?  Do I have some extra room in my budget that I could part with to support a local youth organization?"

If you are worried about crime in your community, rather than waiting for the Government to put more people in jail (on your dime, by the way), what have YOU done to help reduce crime?  Have you spent any time with your children this week.. asking them about their day, their thoughts and ideas - engaging them, to assure them that their family is there for them, reducing the possible influence of negative peer influences.

If you are worried about "Islamic extremists" - have you done anything to reach out and get to know your neighbor or co-worker who is a typical, law-abiding, responsible member of the Muslim community - thereby, perhaps, reducing the sense of isolation that they or their families might feel?

Or whatever.

The point is, that we live in the midst of what conservative humorist P.J. O'Rourke calls, "A gigantic global "Not My Fault" project:

"A gigantic global "Not My Fault" project has been undertaken with heroic amounts of time, effort, and money devoted to psychology, psychotherapy, sociology, sociopaths, social work, social sciences, Scientology, science, chemistry, the brain, brain chemistry, serotonin reuptake inhibitors, inhibitions, sex, sex therapy, talk therapy, talk radio, talk radio personalities, personality disorders, drugs, drug-free school zones, Internet addition, economics, the Fed, PMS, SATs, IQ, DNA, evolution abortion, divorce, no-fault car insurance, the Democratic Party, diagnosis of attention deficit disorder in small boys... The list goes on."                                                             
From "Don't Vote, It Just Encourages the Bastards"

Some time ago, I sat down with a group of people at a meeting with Premier Stelmach.

Now - you can say what you want about the Premier and about the PC Party of Alberta - but, to be fair, when given the opportunity to have a round table and talk with the Premier, to a person (with one exception) they put their hand out, and, like the poor orphan, Oliver Twist, said, "Please, sir, we want some more.."

Really?

Here we are in perhaps the most affluent country in the world, living in the most affluent province in this country, where our wants are so few - and yet, we still can't seem to resist acting like starving orphans.

So.

Today, I'll think I'll just say "thank-you" to the government we do have, and the blessings we, as Canadians have received, and think about what I can do to help make my community a little bit better.

It's Autumn in Alberta.. which means "It's baby killin' season"!

You got a tag for that, mister?

Alright.

Now, apparently, killing your newborn is acceptable behavior in Alberta.

Alberta Court of Queen's Bench Justice Veit last week gave a women a suspended sentence for strangling her newborn child, and then throwing it over a fence into her neighbor's yard.

But, God forbid, you spank your child.  THEN you get to go to jail.

Seriously.

You would suffer a greater penalty if you threw a beer can in your neighbor's yard.

If I understand the Judge's reasoning, basically, if we allow women to abort their children, what's the difference if they strangle the child after it's born and just throw it away like the morning garbage.

The fact that Canada has no abortion laws reflects that "while many Canadians undoubtedly view abortion as a less than ideal solution to unprotected sex and unwanted pregnancy, they generally understand, accept and sympathize with the onerous demands pregnancy and childbirth exact from mothers, especially mothers without support," she writes.

I should be outraged.

I should be shocked.

But I'm not. 

And while I continue to be pro-choice on the abortion issue, clearly, it's time for government to pass laws creating some admittedly arbitrary distinction as to when you can abort a fetus and when you can't.

I'm good with drawing a line at the second trimester.

And pro-choice advocates will say "oh, it's the start of banning abortions", and hard line social conservatives will say, "it's condoning murder".

And in response, I say, obviously leaving to the discretion of the judiciary is a massive mistake, and NOT creating some line, clearly, at least in one Judge's mind, is itself condoning murder.

Take note Stephen Harper.

Use your majority for something worth while.

Stop worrying about mandatory minimum sentences for someone selling drugs - and have the cajones to take a difficult tack and do what all the gutless Prime Ministers in the last few decades have refused to do - draw the line to protect a child (not a fetus) from being murdered.

Or - at a minimum, create a mandatory minimum for women murdering their babies. 

Having ovaries should not be a license to kill.

Slavery - Alive and well in the U.S. of A.

  Think about this for just a moment.

A group of old, mostly white, men get together and conduct an auction every year. 

The subject of that auction?  Groups of young men - who have been watched as they grew into young adulthood, and who were, over the preceding few years, graded on their strength and stamina.

Then, these old men gather together and agree on who acquires ownership of these young men.

The work performed by these younger men is strenuous and difficult - often involving life-changing injury or even death.  Four to five of these young men die every year from being pushed to work through the scalding summer heat.

As a result of the sacrifice of these young men, the old white men get very wealthy.  They earn millions and millions of dollars off of the work that these young men do.

The young men get nothing.  Well, that's not exactly true.  They get a place to stay, they get some food, and they get some teaching.  But that's it.  While they toil, day in and day out, to make their "owners" millions of dollars, the young men are paid nothing.  Not One. Thin. Dime.

18th Century American South?

Nope.

21st Century America.  Today.  Now. 

The owners are the NCAA and their shareholders, the Universities, their Coaching Staff and the BCS hosts.

Billions of dollars are earned every year, primarily from Football and Basketball.

And the players get none of it.

And if the players are found to have "cheated" and received a bag of groceries for their efforts - their representative is their "owner" - the University.  Whose only interest is protecting their "property".  It's akin to a 18th century slave being charge with a crime, but being told, "You don't need a lawyer, your owner will protect his investment."

Maybe this sounds sort of melodramatic.

But, consider this.

Eric Legrand was a starting full-back for the Rutgers University football team. 

On October 16, 2010, shortly after turning 20 years of age, Eric was injured during a football game, and suffered a life-changing injury.  He severely injured his spinal chord and was left a quadriplegic.  Not only would he never play football again, but, clearly, his prospects for supporting himself and raising a family were severely impacted by this injury.  The medical expenses, alone, would be in the hundreds of thousands of dollars.

And there is no clear obligation on the part of Universities to fully insure their athletes even for their costs of medical care - and there is absolutely no compensation for athletes whose earning capacity is impacted by their efforts on the field.

So.

Then. 

What of Eric Legrand?  Well, he's been forced to rely upon charity to pay for his medical bills and to help he and his family pay for living expenses - through the Eric Legrand "Believe" Fund.

Nice gesture by Rutgers, no?

Meanwhile, the guy on the sidelines, Rutger's coach - who doesn't have to put his health on the line every day, well, the NCAA and Rutgers takes care of him very well, thank-you.

With bonuses, Rutgers coach Greg Schiano could earn $2.25 million per year.  And unlimited use of helicopters and jets for "work purposes".  And don't you worry about HIS extended medical plan.  Of course, that's chump change compared to the real money - which is made by the Universities and BCS hosts.

Texas earned almost $69 million last year. That's net.  After expenses.
And Georgia did almost as well, earning a net of $52.5 million.

And as for the BCS bowl games.

Well.  The director of the Sugar Bowl earned $645,386.00 for that one game.  The director of the Fiesta Bowl pocketed a cool $592,418.00 for his one game.

Eric Legrand gave a good part of his life to college football and was entitled to nothing.  But room and board and some education.

Should we pay NCAA players to play college sports.  Not directly.  But what would the harm be of taking away the "slave-owner" profit of the NCAA, the Universities, the coaches and the BCS hosts - and putting a reasonable portion of that profit in a first-rate medical insurance fund.  And maybe at least some decent disability coverage.  And - if there's some left - maybe an annuity for former athletes..  to get a little something after they are turned out to pasture.

Of course - it's illegal under NCAA rules for student athletes to obtain independent representation for their interests.. though some courts have recently suggested otherwise.

Yes - they do have a "Student Athlete Advisory Committee" - controlled and funded by, you guessed it, the NCAA.

However - in the past few years, a relatively small but growing organization is seeking to change this - who is independent and, often, in opposition to the NCAA - the National College Players' Association.

Their funding is limited - currently nothing approaching the power of University sports programs and the NCAA.. but it's a start.

Oh..

By the way.

The grade given to the Rutgers University medical policy governing student athletes - including Eric Legrand?

An  "F".

They refused to provide details of their policy when requested.

Gary Mar - What Else Would You Expect

Well.

Hat's off to Alberta Aardvark today for helping expose more "typical" old guard PC Party shenanigans.

Gary Mar's leadership campaign is buying memberships and giving them away.

I guess that's more efficient than convincing people to cough up their own five bucks to vote for you.

But, then again, what else would we expect from someone who gave hundreds of thousands in your tax dollars to his good friend with nothing to show in return.

Gary Mar.

Same old, same old.

Conservative Lessons.. from Keith Richards?

Just a Good Ol' Boy

So.

I've been reading "Life", an autobiography by Keith Richards.

And being a bit of a music fanatic, I very much enjoy reading of the genesis of the Rolling Stones, and, in fact, Keith Richards' keen insight into the development of rock and roll generally.

But.

What I didn't expect is that this living and breathing rock and roll stereotype would have some lessons to give us as conservatives.

Firstly - on the issue of tax.  As Keith Richards explains:

"The tax rate in the early 70's on the highest earners was 83 percent, and that went up to 98 percent for investments and so-called unearned income.  So that's the same as being told to leave the country.

And I take my hat off to Rupert for figuring a way out of massive debt for us. It was Rupert's advice that we become nonresident-the only way we could ever get back on our feet financially.

The last thing I think the powers that be expected when they hit us with the super-super tax is that we'd say, fine, we'll leave.  We'll be another one not paying tax to you.  They just didn't factor that in.  It made us bigger than ever, and it produced Exile on Main St., which was maybe the best thing we did  They didn't believe we'd be able to continue as we were if we didn't live in England.  And in all honestly, we were very doubtful too.  We didn't know if we would make it, but if we didn't try, what would we do?  Sit in England and they'd give us a penny out of every pound we earned?  We had no desire to be closed down.  And so we upped and went to France."
  

Think about that, for a moment.  That a government can actually increase taxes to a point where those earning income will take their income elsewhere.  So.  Instead of collecting 30 or 40%, you collect zero.

The second, more subtle lesson, however, has to do with "the man" if you will.  The state and it's control over our lives.

As Richards describes the effort of the Rolling Stones to push against the confines of "ordered society", he describes his experience in dealing with, ostensibly, a charge of allowing people to smoke marijuana in his home:

"I'm a guitar player in a pop band and I'm being targeted by the British government and its vicious police force, all of which shows me how frightened they are.  We won two world wars, and these people are shivering in their goddamn boots.  "All of your children will be like this if you don't stop this right now."  There was such ignorance on both sides.  We didn't know we were doing anything that was going to bring the empire crashing to the floor, and they were searching in the sugar bowls not knowing what they were looking for."

Certainly, many hard-line social conservatives will say, "Bloody right, should have put them in jail and thrown away the key!"

And, yet.

How do we feel about Human Rights commissions telling us what jokes can and can't be told for fear of being prosecuted by the might of the state?

How do we feel about being told that the government should have the right to raise our children, and not their parents?

It all comes from the same place.

There is a line somewhere between the obligation of the government to provide order, preventing people from killing eachother and stealing eachother's goods - and the inclination of the government to meddle in our lives to assure THEIR version of proper order where our actions are benign except in some removed amorphous sense of "harming society".

And the sad thing, as I finish reading "Life" is that there was a moment, a brief period where the "man" was weakened and where something approaching real freedom existed.  Maybe it was some point in the late 60's or early 70's - and then, like a tide, it washed back.

Now, oddly, we live in a time where we smile and hand our freedoms over to the state willingly and with great vigor.  "Of course we can't have people openly discussing their prejudices and fears - those are too subversive to allow in public discourse, better that we all pretend to be "enlightened", even as we allow our own ignorance to flourish, like fungus in the cellar, away from public view.

Hunter Thompson saw the same thing, and in a passage from Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, which I have quoted in this blog before, he expressed that same crushing defeat of "freedom":

Strange memories on this nervous night in Las Vegas. Five years later? Six? It seems like a lifetime, or at least a Main Era—the kind of peak that never comes again. San Francisco in the middle sixties was a very special time and place to be a part of. Maybe it meant something. Maybe not, in the long run ...but no explanation, no mix of words or music or memories can touch that sense of knowing that you were there and alive in that corner of time and the world. Whatever it meant ...
History is hard to know, because of all the hired bullshit, but even without being sure of "history" it seems entirely reasonable to think that every now and then the energy of a whole generation comes to a head in a long fine flash, for reasons that nobody really understands at the time—and which never explain, in retrospect, what actually happened.

My central memory of that time seems to hang on one or five or maybe forty nights—or very early mornings—when I left the Fillmore half-crazy and, instead of going home, aimed the big 650 Lightning across the Bay Bridge at a hundred miles an hour wearing L. L. Bean shorts and a Butte sheepherder's jacket ...booming through the Treasure Island tunnel at the lights of Oakland and Berkeley and Richmond, not quite sure which turn-off to take when I got to the other end (always stalling at the toll-gate, too twisted to find neutral while I fumbled for change) ... but being absolutely certain that no matter which way I went I would come to a place where people were just as high and wild as I was: No doubt at all about that ...

There was madness in any direction, at any hour. If not across the Bay, then up the Golden Gate or down 101 to Los Altos or La Honda .... You could strike sparks anywhere. There was a fantastic universal sense that whatever we were doing was right, that we were winning ....

And that, I think, was the handle—that sense of inevitable victory over the forces of Old and Evil. Not in any mean or military sense; we didn’t need that. Our energy would simply prevail. There was no point in fighting—on our side or theirs. We had all the momentum; we were riding the crest of a high and beautiful wave ....
So now, less than five years later, you can go up on a steep hill in Las Vegas and look West, and with the right kind of eyes you can almost see the high-water mark —that place where the wave finally broke and rolled back.

Many conservatives will disagree with me.

They will attack the gun registry, but welcome with great vigor the building of new jails and imposition of manditory minimum sentences from our current government - none of which programs have any substantive evidence behind them to suggest they will make us safer.

They will wail and moan over the injustice of our arbitrary and largely unaccountable Human Rights police, yet fail to come to the aid of homosexuals and others who merely ask to be left alone to live their lives on their terms as long as they aren't harming anyone else.

We live in a time where "the man" has taken back the reigns.  Except, in our time, they haven't done it at the point of a gun or with threats of jail.  They have talked us into handing them over, willingly, and happily.

And, yet, there are some..  perhaps like Keith Richards, who can still provide us some glimpses of insight into our own folly.

Something to think about.

Barack Obama: "Just a few more passengers.."

Well.

So, as I guessed, Barack Obama is throwing more tax dollars into the black hole of "stimulus spending" in order to assist the unemployed.

Lovely idea, very Keynesian.

Problem is this:

The U.S. taxpayer, who, at the end of the day, funds things like social security, and medicaid, and other federal entitlement programs must be feeling very weary with the weight on their shoulders.

With unemployment at 9.1% and with 47% of U.S. households paying no income tax at all, the burden on the working American tax payer is a heavy one.

So. 

When the call is for increased taxes on the wealthy, one might fairly ask, "At what cost?"  At what point does a person say, "enough is enough".

While we talk in abstractions about relative share of wealth and so forth, the reality is that when half of all American households pay not income tax at all, that burden is being carried by the rest.  And statistics, in fact, show that the burden is falling upon the top 25% of the income earners who pay over 86% of all income tax.

One might ask, "who cares"?

Well.

To illustrate my point.

Let's suppose that the group of "top 25%" of tax payers own a boat.

And let's suppose the President, we'll call him Obama, suggests that a law be passed to assure that the people without boats get to ride for free at the expense of the guy who owns the boat.

And.

So.

The boat owner, being a good citizen, says, "That's fine, I don't mind sharing my good fortune with others - so I'll help them get from their homes to their jobs on my dime."

However, while at first, there are two or three free riders, over time that number keeps growing and growing, until soon, 47% of the people in the city are entitled to ride the boat for free.

And the boat owner is feeling, regardless of his good fortune in owning a boat, the pain of this burden.

And his boat starts to look, well, something like this:

So.  Then.

The Boat owner says, "enough is enough". 

But then, the President says, "Oh, I'm sure adding a few more passengers won't hurt..  ", and he passes a law adding more free riders to the boat.

What could go wrong with that plan?



Jean Chretien: Destroying the Liberal Party

The Mechanic:  "Eh..  You need some help wit dat merger?"

So.

Today we read that Jean Chretien is predicting a merger of the Liberal and NDP parties, and suggesting that if it had happened earlier, the Harper government may not be in power today.

According to the Globe and Mail:

Pushing for a merger is nothing new for Mr. Chrétien. He caused a stir during the last Parliament with behind the scenes talks with NDP veterans exploring the possibility of a merger.

“If they had done it,” Mr. Chrétien said, “a lot of people think, and I think too, they would have been the government today.”

Well.

How about that?

The "elder statesman" of the Liberal Party of Canada is pressing the party to merge.  Must be a good idea (for Liberals) no?

Maybe not.

Think about these few facts, for just a moment:

a) Jean Chretien was instrumental in putting Bryan Mulroney into power.  When Pierre Trudeau stepped down as Liberal leader in 1984, the ensuing leadership convention pitted Trudeau confidante and loyalist Jean Chretien against John Turner.  After Turner overcame Chretien to obtain the leadership of the Liberal party, Chretien ally Pierre Trudeau, unloaded a boat-load of political patronage appointments on John Turner shortly before the  1984 election - which was  Turner's undoing.  Clearly, Trudeau and Chretien were close allies, and one cannot imagine that the appointments would have occurred without Chretien's assent.  One might, fairly, suggest that the fragile Chretien ego was at work in the undoing of the party.

Prior to the leadership convention, the Liberals were 20 points behind the Conservatives, yet, with Turner's election, the Liberals surged ahead.  And then, overnight, with the patronage appointments being announced, and with the infamous beat down by Bryan Mulroney in the 1984 election debate (You had an option, sir!), the Liberals were decimated - winning only 40 seats ( the worst ever until 2011).

b)  After the disastrous 1984 election, Chretien, who had "retired" suddenly "unretired", and challenged and prevailed over Paul Martin for the Liberal leadership - a battle that left long scars in their relationship.  This lead to Chretien's election as Prime Minister, largely on promises to scrap the GST and renegotiate the Free Trade Agreement - promises that were never met.  Eventually, massively embarrassing efforts on the part of Chretien, including the disastrous cancellation of the Sea King helicopter contracts and, ultimately, the AdScam debacle left the Liberal party in a shambles;

c) The election of Paul Martin as leader of the Liberal party promised to bring back some semblance of stability to the party, however, when the AdScam scandal came to light, and Martin took the responsible step of calling an inquiry into the affair, once again, Chretien's ego became more important than the success of the party - refusing to accept responsibility as leader of the party, Chretien battled the inquiry throughout and in fact brought court action to declare the inquiry biased.

While Martin's effort ultimately helped disclose the wide-spread dishonesty and abuse of tax-payer dollars which had been endemic to Quebec Liberals under Chretien's rule, ultimately, the Sponsorship Scandal proved to be Paul Martin's (and the Liberals) undoing - giving Stephen Harper his first term as Prime Minister of Canada.

d) Since the election of Prime Minister Harper, Chretien continued to meddle in party affairs - to the harm of his party - seeking to broker a deal withe NDP and the Bloc, that the vast majority of Canadians perceived as an "informal coup" over the government of the day.  While the poor selection of Stephane Dion and then Michael Ignatieff didn't help - there is little doubt that, yet again, Chretien's effort to insert himself into national politics, pitted his own ego against the interests of his own party.

e) Now - today, we see Chretien again opening his mouth to the chagrin of  the party mainstream.  Suggesting a merger of the Liberals and the NDP which is not likely to succeed will make it much easier for the Conservatives to continue to shave off the votes from middle-ground Canadians by pointing to the Liberals as "NDP in red clothing".

As a Conservative, I welcome Chretien's recent exercise of his always fragile ego.

However - I might suggest that, perhaps, once and for all the Liberal party would do well to sever it's ties with this false friend of the party who, given the chance, will most certainly harm the Liberal party while seeking to create some semblance of historical legacy for himself by trying to set himself up as a "merger mechanic".

Should Math Be Taught in Schools?

Do YOU believe MATH should be taught in schools?

A frightening response to that question was put to several Miss U.S.A. contestants, where most of the responses clearly betrayed the reality that beauty queen contestants are, more or less, idiots:

I discovered this video in a curious context.

Oddly enough, I came across this when I was reading a Twitter by former teacher and current Alberta PC leadership Candidate Doug Griffiths, who commented:

This is a great column and worth reading. As a teacher I valued its challenge to our current system.Seth's Blog: http://bit.ly/qiV4TG

Now.

Seeing as Doug was the only candidate to respond to my twitter question about why no one seems to be asking Gary Mar about his doling out of tax dollars to his friends, I don't want to poke too much into how this reflects on Doug Griffith as a leader (though he appears to support the suggestion that we shouldn't test our students, at least using standardized testing).

What I find curious is the tortured logic of Seth Godin in his blog - suggesting that because the suggested purpose of the British school system was taking children out of the labour force, and creating further "useful idiots" for the industrial labor force in England - nothing has really changed in our school system and the use of standardized testing is a tool to create further useful idiots, which is a job market that we are doomed to lose to export anyway.

Really Seth?

I thought the attraction to your books and blogs was new thinking and new ideas.

But, really, what Seth is supporting is the same sort of stunted ignorance that he makes fun of by attaching the link to beauty queens giving their two cents on "Should we teach math"?

Now.

Do you really think that ANY of these beauty queens' intellect is a product of a standardized testing mechanism?

Pretty funny stuff.

And it should be.  It's a parody - of the actual clip released to the question, "Should evolution be taught in schools."  Seth seems to have missed that.

But the point is made.

Removing standardized testing will not improve our ability to compete globally, it will do just the opposite.  It will create not just useful idiots, but, in fact, useless idiots, liket he famous Miss South Carolina.

Who can forget:



Yes.

Let's do away with asking teachers to be accountable for assuring that basic knowledge is acquired in school.

Let's create a whole society of Miss South Carolina's.

THEN we'll show those Chinese a thing or two.

U.S. Debt and Taxes: Obama Wants to Go to "Eleven"

Obama: "We'll just go to eleven.."

Well.

To no surprise, the U.S. jobless rate has remained constant, at 9.1%.   After  almost three years of his Presidency, it has become apparent that Barack Hussein Obama is little more than a pleasant media whore, a man who appears intent on getting as much face time on television to "talk, talk, talk", but who, at the end of the day, is alarmingly short on any action to come to the aid of millions of Americans currently out of work in a struggling economy.

Why do I care, and why should you?  Well, because every dumb thing the sleeping giant down south does, impacts us.  Significantly.  And right now, well, they are a mess.

And true to his liberal leanings, Obama's response has been to blame the previous administration, to blame the Republican party, and to blame essentially, everyone who IS paying taxes in the United States for not paying more.

And now, apparently, his desperate solution to regain popularity.. err.. reduce unemployment, is to increase government spending by spending more on infrastructure.

Of course, according to Barack Obama, the idea of worrying about increasing the U.S. Debt is a "manufactured crisis".  This sort of flies in the face of almost every economist the world over, however, including European Central Bank policymaker Juergen Stark who, in a report published in liberal media stalwart, CNBC, commented that "the United States had an "enormous" debt problem and lacked the structures to get the problem under control."

While you are processing this last comment think about this chart:

To use the vernacular, on a scale of one to ten, the U.S. deficit is already at a "10".

The U.S. federal debt at present is at over $14.6 Trillion - effectively at a "10".

The U.S. combined corporate tax rate is the second highest in the OECD, at 39.21% - effectively at a "10".

And Obama's answer?  He wants to go to "Eleven".

His rationale, apparently, was disclosed in this recent interview given between President Obama and Rachel Maddow:

Obama: We'll just push the budget deficit to eleven, and the national debt to eleven, and increase corporate taxes to eleven..


Maddow: Oh, I see. But most analysts say that they are already at a "10".

Obama: Exactly.


Maddow:  Well, doesn't that mean that it's already as high as it can go? How can it go higher if it's already at a "10"?


Obama: Well, it's one higher, isn't it? It's not ten. You see, most countries, you know, will go up to a "10". They're at 10 there, all the way up, all the way up.. they're at ten.  Where can you go from there?  Where? 

Maddow: I don't know.


Obama: Nowhere. Exactly. What we do is, if we need that extra push over the cliff, you know what we do?


Maddow: Put it up to eleven?


Obamal: Eleven. Exactly. One higher.


Maddow: But if you're already at a "10", and can't go any higher, why don't you reduce spending?


Obama: [pause] We go to eleven.

Today's Menu? Nothing. Nada.

Nothing to say today.

Oh, sure, I could comment on the recent arrest of illegal immigrant Walford Steer, seeking refugee status - even though he was deported once in 1999, snuck back in with false documents, and has 76 criminal convictions under his belt.

But.  Honestly, it would probably be taken as an over-all "anti-immigration" position, and, honestly, I think healthy levels of immigration is a good thing - and our current government is doing a pretty good job sharpening efforts to remove guys like this - but no system will ever be perfect.

I could comment on Bob Rae's effort to revitalize the Liberal Party of Canada - but, again, all he really says are platitudes without substance, so, why waste effort to attack.. well, nothing? 

I might comment on goings on south of the border.  Barack Obama seems to think spending more time on talk shows and giving interviews is somehow going to help their mess, instead of actually doing something.. but then again, it's looking like the Republicans are lining up neo-conservative buffoons like Michelle Bachman or Rick Parry to take over the reigns - so, why attack one idiot, when the likely alternatives are just more idiots.

So.

I've got a little ennui today. 

Maybe it's the realization that Alberta Conservatives appear likely to vote in another professional back-scratcher, Gary Mar as their leader - and in second place, uber-liberal, pro-big government Allison Redford. 

I used to live in Vancouver while in University, and I loved and still love that city - but I left because I found the politics intolerable.   I may have to reconsider that decision in light of current political realities in my home province of Alberta, where, little by little, the government has adopted a philosophy hostile to personal freedom, where government spending is beyond belief, and where "individuality" has become a dirty word.

So.

I'll finish off my oatmeal and coffee, and make my way to work, having no fire in the belly today to take anyone or anything to task.

You have a good day!