Congrats Ray

Last night was just a good night for the Sens. Not only did Sens backup goalie, Ray Emery, get his first shut out in the NHL against the Montreal Canadiens (coincidentally the Habs first shut out loss this season), but in doing so he set the all time record for the longest winning streak for a goalie just beginning his career. His lifetime NHL stats now moves to 9-0-0, one upping the record set by Bob Froese in the 1982-83 season.

In addition to that, Dany Heatley managed yet another assist, extending his start of season scoring streak to 22 games, just one shy of Gretzky's record.

To top it all off, Jason Spezza, with a goal and an assist, broke the 4 way tie on top of the NHL scoring leaders board to take the lead all for himself. That maintains the Senators stranglehold of the standings as they hold 3 of the top 5 spots.

All this while the Sens manage to keep their position on top of the NHL standings, while at the same time having played the fewest games in the league (a distinction they share with 3 other teams). In fact, the season is going so good this year that they have 4 games in hand on both the second place team in their conference, the Rangers, and their co-leaders in the overall standings, Detroit.

Now as long as I can keep Donna away from the Corel Centre, everything should be alright.

It is Finished.

Ok, so I thought of the title because they were talking about 'holiday trees' and what will happen during Easter this next year, but it still fits.

The Liberals have now been officially ousted.

Now I know it may be a bit much to believe that they won't get back into power, but here's hoping that Jane and Joe Canadian finally come to their senses and realize that even the imagined evils projected on the Conservative don't quite match up to the actual crimes of the current Liberal party.

I guess we won't know for sure until late January when we head to the polls.

As always, Captain Ed has more.

Foster + Freezing Rain = hilarity

There is one thing you don't usually have to worry about back home. Generally once the temperature drops below freezing, it stays there for the next 6 months or so. Not so in Ottawa. Here the temperature regularly drops into the negatives and then a day later is in the low teens. While this makes your daily choice of coat a little more of a hassle, it also make freezing rain a pretty regular occurrence.

Normally this isn't much of a big deal, as I do most of my walking indoors (well when I used to live just a few minutes from work it did make the walk, mostly downhill, a little more interesting) . Now, however, I have to take Foster out every day, rain or shine, ice or not and as he has not yet figured out that the trees in the front of my Condo are just as good for peeing on as the trees in the park, it always means doing a lap or two around the neighboring softball and soccer fields. But I guess it's all worth it just to see him when he tries to run, only to do a perfect impersonation of a drunken sailor. And then the look on his face when he turns around to see what just happened, priceless!

Bruce Willis - Alone in the crowd

Bruce Willis is a rare breed of Hollywood celebrity, a true A-list star who actively supports the War in Iraq. What also makes him unique is that unlike so many other celebs who speak up both for or against the war, he has actually spent time talking to, and reading reports from people who have been there as well as taking the time to visit the troops, both in theatre and back in the US.

So in a very Hollywood fashion, after seeing the onslaught of negative reporting from the MSM while at the same time hearing some of the amazing stories from the men and women who are actually there he decided to take action in the best way he knew how; by making a movie.

So, while the details are thin, it looks like the proposed film will follow the exploits of the Deuce Four, members of the 1st battalion, 24th infantry, that in addition to being heavily decorated, have great taste in their choice of unofficial logos.

So keep an eye out for this film, probably some time next summer.

(H/T Michelle Malkin)

Nominate Patterico for a Nobel Prize

He's actually aiming for a nomination for the Peace Prize just to show how easy it is, but hey, if you're not a social science, history, law, theology or philosophy professor and would still like to the help out, just look up which Nobel Prize you can nominate him for.

With a little work we could get Patterico marked down as the only person to have ever been nominated in all categories. Take that, Tookie.

And I'm sure he'll split the winnings with whoever nominates him, if it ever comes down to that (and seeing the list of some of the past winners, stranger things have happened).

The deadline for nominations is February 1st, so time to get cracking.

As NOT seen on TV

The Logic Times has a very detailed breakdown of the number of civilian casualties in the Iraq War to date.

Now most people already know about the problems with the 100,000 number* so often thrown out by the anti-war, anti-bush crowd, but Aslan's breakdown of even IraqBodyCount.org's much more accurate 27,000 number, is simply fantastic.

Essentially he uses the IraqBodyCount report and then goes one step further to try to filter out the terrorists and the Iraq governmental forces, which due to their lack of uniforms, are generally included in everyone's numbers, to arrive at the actual number of civilian deaths. What he finds may surprise you. Mostly, that since the US invasion of Iraq there has actually been a 93% decline in civilian deaths as compared to the average over the same period of time during Saddam's rule. Now that's a statistic I doubt you'll ever see on the evening news.

Read the whole thing.

(h/t LGF)

* 100,000 is based on the now infamous Lancet study which not only included poor data collection techniques (understandable to a degree) but actually concluded a death rate of somewhere between 8k to 198k so the middle value of 100k was chosen. A range this large makes the results meaningless.

More 'tolerance' in the classroom

This post by Michelle just so perfect follows in the footsteps of my earlier Ward Churchill and Bret Chenkin posts that I just had to add it.

It's a story which involves yet another mix of a conservative student and 'tolerant' left leaning Prof; this time at Warren County Community College in New Jersey.

The background of this story is becoming an increasingly familiar theme. A young conservatives group was advertising a campus visit by Lt. Col. Scott Rutter, a Iraq war veteran, to discuss the accomplishments that have been made over in the Middle East. Part of this advertising included an email sent to the school faculty. Now instead of just ignoring this email, as most people would surely do, Professor Daly, a adjunct English prof at the College, took it upon himself to write a rather nasty reply*, which included statements about how the right thing to do in Iraq is for the soldiers to "turn their guns on their superiors" and how he would actively use his classroom to call for an all out boycott of the event. Can't you just feel the love?

Well it appears that Professor Daly has resigned his position at the college just prior to an emergency meeting that was being called to discuss what was to be done about the situation. Although it would have been interesting to see what the punishment would have been, if any, it is nice to see him at least admit partial fault, or at least that's how I see a resignation without a fight, you might see it differently.

And for any of the more left leaning readers who may wander by, I'd be willing to include a post where a conservative teacher threatens or demeans a liberal student using the power of his position, or otherwise creates a hostile classroom environment, if you can find one. Just leave a link in the comments to this post or drop me an email.

And if you find any cases, written proof (as in all these cases) as opposed to simple 'he said, she said' type stories would be appreciated, unless of course both parties stipulate to the facts of the incident in question.


* Daly's original response can be found here

You know it's time to fire your ad agency when ...

Like pants, if you wait long enough everything will come back into style. In this (Captain's Quarters) case that's probably not a good thing.

Does everyone remember how well the last time the Germans began an aggressive strategy to strengthen their national identity worked out? Apparently not the PR company hired to run the governments latest campaign.

Just keep an eye out for that real 'canary in the coal mine' moment when Chancellor Angela Merkel takes to growing a peculiar style of facial hair.

This type of thing just turns my stomach

Michelle links to this Boston Globe article about a teacher who used questions on his tests to get across his hatred of President Bush.

A sample question from one of his English tests:

"I wish Bush would be (coherent, eschewed) for once during a speech, but there are theories that his everyday diction charms the below-average mind, hence insuring him Republican votes,"

or this one:

"It is frightening the way the extreme right has (balled, arrogated) aspects of the Constitution and warped them for their own agenda."

Personally, I think this shows such a sign of bad judgment that as a principle, I don't think I would want this type of teacher working in my school. I have no problem with an open debate or discussion on pretty much any subject during class time, but as a teacher, while you may espouse particular views, you have to make sure pupils are given the room to disagree. Obviously, in this case, this particular teacher made sure that every student knew that he thought that Republicans, and apparently conservatives in general, were essentially simple minded folk out to force their opinions on everyone. The irony of the situation totally lost on him.

Tell me how would you feel if you were a student with conservative views in Mr. Chenkin's class.

And just in case you think I'm just standing up for Bush, in the case of the first question, you could have easily made it more comical, and therefore much less offensive, by just leaving off the second half. "I wish Bush would be (coherent, eschewed) for once during a speech." could be defended as merely making fun of the Presidents speaking style, something that many comics do on a regular basis. But once you add the "below-average mind" part in reference to Republicans, an odd addition to the sentence in any case, you have stepped across the line from humor to intentional insult.

Ward Churchill - Leading the way for liberal hypocrisy

It appears one of the grand leaders of the 'Blame America First' brand of lefties has, in a not so subtle way, shown how little he actually understands of both the law and what it means to truly stand behind what you state you believe in.

This is just a fine example of the liberal definition of freedom of speech; I talk, you listen. The only problem for Churchill came when he tried to silence someone who actually knew his legal rights.


(h/t lgf)

Jacob's Service Dog

Got an email from a friend a couple of days ago pointing to this site and thought I'd post it here.

It's a page dedicated to raising money to get a service dog for Jacob, a 7 year old boy with autism. So if you have a little extra money burning a hole in your pocket this holiday season and just don't know what to do with it, please consider making a donation to Jacob's account (#200519), or even to the National Service Dogs organization in general.

And for those of you who may be a bit wary, I've already checked to make sure that National Service Dogs is indeed a registered Canadian Charity.

Let the campaigns begin!

Well it's done. The opposition parties, led by Stephen Harper, have officially introduced their non-confidence motion. The vote is expected to occur on Monday.

I'm sure the Liberals will be hoping for another mini-blizzard to try and keep the opposition members at home, but while it may be white out today, the forecast for Monday is a very comfortable 13 degrees (that's Celsius BTW).

This is apparently the first time in over a hundred years that a non-confidence motion of this kind, stating directly that the House has lost confidence in the current government, has been put forward and with all three opposition parties firmly behind the call, I don't think Martin has enough money left in his gift basket to buy enough MPs off this time to keep the axe from falling.

Keep an eye on Small Dead Animals and of course, Captain's Quarters for all the juicy details.

The Iraq War - A Soldier's Perspective

Sgt Hook has an amazing letter that explains what the War in Iraq is all about, from the perspective of someone who is there. If only the politicians could speak so eloquently.

While originally posted anonymously, as he is still on active duty and was unsure about the necessary clearances for making public statements, Sgt. Walter J. Rausch has since gotten authorization from OPSEC to allow his name to be attached to this letter.

Letters like these, as well as the many other testimonials from soldiers either still active or recently returned from the Middle East, in a saner world would be the news of the day. Instead, we are constantly bombarded with images of terrorist attacks and interviews with anti-war protestors which constantly try to make what should be considered an amazing accomplishment (25+ million people being freed from an evil dictatorship, who have managed to hold, or will hold, two elections and create a new constitution in less than 3 years in an area of the world where democracy is as foreign a concept as 'ice hockey') into a loss.

By any standard, what has been done in Iraq is simply amazing, and through the voices of the men and women who have actually served there, like Sgt. Rausch, more people will come to see the truth of that.

(h/t Michelle Malkin)

Today's Ottawa Sun - November 22nd

While I'd like to claim this post was motivated by the latest Liberal show of contempt for Parliament, it wasn't. In truth it was all because of Lindsay. While I'm not really too much of a CFL fan (although I will watch the occasional game on TV I just find it hard to take a league with only 9 teams too seriously) I can say that I'm definitely rooting for the Eskimos to win.* Of course this would be the day that MacDaddy is at home "waiting for appliances". I guess I can try and protect the paper from all those freeloading Sun thieves who wander the office looking to save a quarter.

As for the Liberal's, once again they lose a vote on the floor which spells out, in no uncertain terms, just how little actual control they have in passing bills. While non-binding, if, as the ruling party, you had the entire opposition pass a motion to request an election be called in early January, for a February vote, I wouldn't be acting too superior about it. They know full well that their only hope of not having an election in the immediate future is for the opposition MPs to sit on their heels in order to avoid the dreaded 'Christmas election'. It's a pretty sad way to stay in power. While perfectly legal under our form of government, it manages to showcase just what is wrong with today's (and I would hazard to say yesterday's) Liberal party; this ingrained belief that they belong in power and all other are only pretenders to the crown, and as such they should do all they can to retain that grasp on the reins.

I know the Libs want the opposition to take down the government just so they can blame everything on them but really, just how gullible does the voting public have to be to accept that after 12 years in total control, the next couple of months will make all the difference and the Libs will be able to cure all the countries woes if only the evil opposition parties leave the wise Liberals to rule as they please. Please don't answer that, as, if the past is any indication of the future, I'm afraid the answer would be "aboutthe same as last time".

Personally, as long as the election is not on Christmas, Boxing Day or New Years I'm pretty ok with it whenever they hold it. And while I'm already preparing myself for barrage of "Stephen Harper eats puppies" type ads from the Liberals, and a few from the NDP I'm sure, I still can't wait for thewrit to drop.

*On a side note, I've always had a fondness for the name 'Lindsay' and Today's Sun just helps to show why. And if anyone from the Sun pictorial staff is reading, Kari (that's with an 'ari' not 'erry') is also on my topten list.

Weekend round up

I haven't been blogging a whole lot this week due to a mix of 'Guild Wars' and trips to the Corel Centre for Sens games, I've still managed to find a few interesting sites which I guess I'll just put in another one of my 'Weekend roundup' posts.

First is the great Librano Generator thanks to Kate over at Small Dead Animals. Finally a chance to see a little truth in Liberal advertising.

Then this great little post (ok, well no so little) over at The Right Place. (You just know that Dems would do this if they could)

Debbie Schlussel and Jay over at Stop the ACLU have some nice little write ups on the bizarro world episodes of E-Ring and Law and Order from earlier this week. I have to say that Law and Order, formally required watching at my place, has dropped to a more 'watch it if I'm bored' type thing and it's almost entirely due to Sam Watersons's, 'Jack McCoy' character. I don't know what's happened but it seems this year, more than most, Jack has been whining more about feelings than all the previous years combined. If it wasn't for Fred Thompson and Annie Parisse I think I might even remove L&O from my PVR. E-Ring on the other hand, even with the odd storyline choice, is still one of the best new shows IMHO, and will have to do a lot worse than that to make me drop it.

Finally, on a more serious note, there are two great Mudville Gazette posts exposing just how the anti-war left try to use broad statistics and generalizations to make it appear that the war is going worse than it is without ever looking at the details.

The first one breaks down the number of wounded soldiers to show just what type of injuries the 15,000+ actually had. While every serviceperson injured in the line of duty deserves mention, if you listen to the left wing broadcasts or read the left wing sites you'd think that the 15K number represented the number of people who had been seriously disabled due to combat injuries when in fact the majority were on medical leave for less than 3 days.

That's not to make light of the 280 members of the military that have required amputations of one form or another or the close to 3 thousand (which may include the 280) which were sent stateside for recovery, but as their second article points out, despite what many on the left want us to believe, it has actually been quite hard to find many of these injured soldiers who are willing to speak against the war or blame the President for their situations. Instead, despite their life changing injuries, those who were on the ground and have seen first hand what they are doing in Iraq mostly seem to share the view that it was all worth it.

That second article, in particular, points out the logical fallacy so many of the extreme left arguments rely on. Since in many, if not most cases, they can't actually find any facts to support their opinions they instead try to use the 'average person' argument to make their case instead.

"Wouldn't an average person be upset if they lost a limb?" - Of course they would, but these are not you average person; these are heroes who have seen first hand what the WOT is all about and have returned with the knowledge that their sacrifice have helped free 50 million people from oppressive regimes and the ever existent threat of death for merely disagreeing with your government.

"We could have still negotiated with Saddam" - While an average person faced with the most powerful fighting force ever assembled on their front lawn demanding they change their style of government would most likely be open to negotiations, maniacal dictators like Saddam know that without their ability to rain terror on their fellow countrymen they have no power. An average person wouldn't have gassed defenseless women and children simply because they were of a different ethnicity than them. An average person wouldn't have official rape rooms within government detention centers. An average person wouldn't starve to death millions of his own countrymen so that he could save up a couple of billion in illegal funds for his own use or build a new palace, but these are all activities Saddam was known to have done or continued to do. So how is it that while he displays none of the traits of a average person, the left wants everyone to believe that he would have responded to demands or pleas that an average person would, especially given the fact that he hadn't done so in the last 20 years of demands from the international community.

Oh well, time to blow off a little steam in Guild Wars, like and 'average person' would.

Can We Call Them Biased Now?

Jeff, over at Protein Wisdom discusses the White House's complete and utter fisking of the recent NYT editorial attempting to continue the "Bush lied" meme.

It's almost as if the NYT's editorial writers decided to write a 'bizarro world' column on the facts behind the pre-war intelligence. There can be no other excuse for just how far from reality they are, unless of course they are actually NOT an unbiased news source and in fact just the unofficial mouth piece of the American left. But that can't be true can it? They're the "Paper of Record" after all. They would never allow their bias to affect their reporting of legitimate news stories.

My biggest problem with the Liberal mini-budget giveaways

Besides the obvious attempt to buy votes that is (which sadly seems to work for way too many Canadians); I'm being forced to go to a meeting on Thursday morning to discuss how we will implement the changes to the tax system and you just know none of this will ever actually come to pass. At least not under this Liberal government.


Why do they have to make things retroactive in their little make believe budgets?

Well that will be 2 hours of my life I will never get back. Thank you Mr. Goodale.

A New government for the New Year?

As always, Captain's Quarters is right on top of the goings on in Canadian Politics. Whenever Canadian politics start to show up at Captain Ed's site I feel the need to check out Angry in the Great White North to see what else is brewing.*

Well, it looks like Jack Layton has finally woken up and realized that he's not really going to see much of the 4+ Billion dollars promised the NDP in order to prop up and already proven corrupt Liberal government**.***

I always thought it was extremely hypocritical of Layton to support the Liberals when he thought he could get something out of them while at the same time acknowledging the fact that they have been playing games with taxpayers money for a decade. Of course this is also the party that chooses to show how tolerant they are of other peoples beliefs by ostracizing members who dare have their own beliefs on subjects like gay marriage.

So get ready for a January Election. You got to give it to Canadian elections though. Just a month or so of actual campaigning instead of the American style which has campaigning starting years in advance. Then again, if our campaigns were any longer the ruling party, with their pretty much unfettered access to Federal funds, would have the country spent into a depression with promises of all kinds of social programs aimed at every special interest group known to man. I guess with every plus there are minuses.


*It probably wouldn't hurt to drop over to Blogs Canada either.

**I say corrupt Liberal government here not because I don't like them, which I don't, but because it has been proven beyond the shadow of a doubt that they have in fact been using taxpayer monies for their own personal gains. Whether or not the current PM had any direct knowledge of those transactions (apparently we are to believe as Finance Minister and second most powerful Liberal in the country he was the only Quebec Liberal NOT to have any knowledge of high level payouts to Liberal friendly contractors) does not brush aside the fact that the majority of the Liberal party who was in power during the height of ADSCAM is still there. This is in direct contrast to the corrupt Republican government in the US which is corrupt simply because the Democrats and their extreme left supporters claim it to be true (despite all findings to the contrary). There are also the myriad of mini-scandals that they've managed to be cleared of over the last decade by the PM appointed "ethics" commissioner.

*** I've noticed I've been using *'s a lot lately. Just an observation.

Rogers planning to drop Newgroups

Just found out about this from a friend of mine today. According to this Rogers FAQ they are intending to drop Usenet as of December 15th.

Nice. The only real advantage Rogers had over Bell and they're giving it up. Of course this probably won't have any major negative impacts as the only people who really use the newsgroups are usually downloading things they may not want to advertise they are downloading, but when you compare the two services, Bell vs. Rogers, they are so similar that every little advantage can help.

Bandwidth:
Rogers: 100GB/mth with Extreme or 60GB/mth with other plans
Bell: unlimited

Speeds
Download: Roughly equal at each price level

Upload*:
Rogers: 100KB/s (Extreme) or 48KB/s (regular)
Bell: 100-110 KB/s (regular). Ultra may or may not be higher.

Services:
Both offer additional online services such as antivirus/email/etc..

Price:
Both are roughly $50/mth for the Extreme or Ultra but both offer bundle discounts if mixed with other Bell or Rogers services.

I used to have Rogers (was signed up the day it became available in Ottawa) until they disabled my account repeatedly for 'bandwidth violations' even after I complied with, and even exceeded, they're requested reductions. After my second time dealing with a Rogers customer rep I switched to Bell. Then again, when the reps you are talking to have no idea how they are monitoring your bandwidth (total vs. constant usage) and can't tell you any of the usage numbers on your account, it's hard to trust them when they ask for a 25% reduction. By the end I could barely sustain 10KB/s downloads and was still be threatened with having my account disabled. And all this was before they put in their 60GB hard cap.

But, as Vic (the friend who sent out the original email) found out, if you call them up to complain they will make deals.

*Rogers Extreme upload rates, while similar to Bells standard rates (for Ultra and regular) come with a very big price. As your upload rate increases you available download rate decreases until you get to a point where if you are actually uploading at 90-100KB/s you will only be able to download at around 5 KB/s, if that. Bell on the other hand seems to be closer to full duplex in that their upload and download rates do not seem to affect each other.

Sen. Rockefeller: Admittedly Irresponsible

Ok, well technically he was just caught up in the moment when he actually denied responsibility for his vote (it's right at the bottom) authorizing the President to use force to remove Saddam, but it's the closest any Dem has come to getting to the heart of the whole "Bush lied!" meme. Check out the whole text over at Powerline (h/t Captain's Quarters).

Essentially their entire argument is we were duped by the mighty intelligence of President Bush and his vast neo-con cabal. How else can they claim that Bush somehow managed to get every intelligence gathering agency in the known world to go along with his plan to overhype Saddam's pre-war abilities. Their only defense, as is perfectly laid out in Rockefeller's statements, is to plead ignorance and then when that excuse is exposed for the strawman that it is, as Chris Wallace did so well in the linked exchange, go on the offensive, even to the point of insulting the interviewer.

Priceless!

Rainbow Cinemas - The Best Deal in Town!

Finally got someone to go watch "March of the Penguins" with me today, and since he had not already seen "Doom"*, we hung around to go see that too. Each movie, $3.00.

Not that Rainbow Cinemas are paying me or anything but $6.00 for two movies; you just can't beat that**.

*This was my second time seeing "Doom" and despite the general panning it's received from the critics, it's actually not that bad of a movie. Sure, The Rock lays the marine commander thing on a bit thick, but even taking that into consideration it's still a pretty good action flick.

**I could have done without the 5 year old French kid who wouldn't shut up during Penguins though. Honestly, there is only so many times a father should shhh! his child before realizing it's not going to work and either leave or move where there is no one else around.

It's hard to say 'No' ...

... when you have this looking at you.

Even if he has just been caught chewing on some cables.

(At least this time my phone still works.)

Give it a rest Mary

When will Mary Mapes just bite the bullet and admit to the world that she screwed up instead of still attempting to convince us all it was just some form of VRWC.

Admitting you rushed to air a attack piece during a federal election without doing the proper vetting of your source material is one thing. If errors were made you could at least say it was do to your over eagerness in breaking a big story and not due to some political reasons but trying to defend your mistake, even now, certainly gives credence to those who claim it was an intentional attempt to affect the Presidential outcome.

When the only people to 'verify' your documents are a hand writing expert (who could only somewhat validate one signature on one page as probably being Lt. Col. Killian's) and a few former colleagues who, in at least one case had not even seen the documents in question, but just verified that sometimes people got preferential treatment (not that any had and evidence of this happening in Bush's case) you wouldn't get too many self respecting journalists out there still trumpeting the authenticity of said documents. It probably doesn't help much either that most of the former colleagues, now having seen the documents more closely, believe them to be forgeries.

And the fact that your own document examiners reported that they could not verify the documents and in fact many had outright called them forgeries due to technical details that make them nearly impossible to produce on 1970's technology (no one has yet been able to create duplicates of the Killian memo's using Vietnam era machinery yet Charles, over at LGF was able to create and almost identical match using the default settings of MS Word) really doesn't help your cause.

But yet, Mapes still insists that the documents are authentic and have not yet been proven wrong (if only she required that level of certainty to prove them authentic she wouldn't be in this mess).

Even Dan Rather keeps attacking those who exposed this story in a sad attempt to recover his integrity. Too late Dan, that ship has sailed, hit an iceberg and sunk.

Check out this great Wiki entry for more details and links.

Alien Apocalypse - Why did they even bother?

I've just watched one of the worst acted/written/produced/directed movies ever. It made "Return of the Killer Tomatoes" look like Oscar material. Luckily it was only a made for TV picture on the Sci-Fi channel so exposure should be limited but it was still bad enough that I felt motivated to post on it, and warn those people who may yet still be thinking of buying the DVD.

'Alien Apocalypse' is definitely NOT one of Bruce Campbell's better films, and that's saying a lot. Now let me first say that I will watch anything with Bruce Campbell in it, he's always managed to make campy movies that are hard not to love, but Apocalypse is just sad. It's like they rounded up all the terrible extras from the Xena and Hercules shows, you know the ones who are totally incapable of putting any inflection in their voices, gave them really terrible wigs and gave them their own movie

With the exception of maybe 3 people in the entire film, including Bruce, I'd be surprised if anyone had even been in front of a camera before. It just had the feeling of a really bad grade 6 play.

About the only thing that could have saved this movie is a total recasting or a lot more screen time for Rositza Chernogorova, who, in my humble opinion, is one of the all time greatest actresses (you may know her from her previous role as Sherry, in that other great feature film "Shark Attack 3: Megalodon" which I may still have the DVD for around here somewhere).

A Quarter for your thoughts

I went to a going away lunch for a friend today at Moxy's (the new one in Gloucester not the one in the west end. The food rated a B but the waitresses an easy A+), when I received one of the new veterans quarters with my change. Not to take anything away from our country's vets, but do we rally need another quarter? We have different quarters for every event you can think of. Each province has their own quarter a couple times over, Tim Horton's had it's own quarter, Canada Post had it's own quarter (although I've only seen one, which I still have, and while the exact shape and size of a quarter it does not actually say it is currency anywhere on it). We even have quarters for personality traits for crying out loud.

I propose the Canadian Mint just start selling diamond tipped pens and issue quarters with the Queen on one side (and please get rid of the new portrait) and a blank 'canvass' on the other and let us just design our own.

And if the Government truly want to honour the veterans how about paying tribute through better funding of the current military, including their health and pension programs, instead of treating them like the ugly stepchildren no one wants to acknowledge except that one time a year. Just a thought.

Just pointing out the obvious

In keeping with today's theme of pointing out how so many on the left somehow manage to block out their own histories from their minds when discussing the 'faults' of the right, Jason has a list of liberal inconsistencies over at Generation Why?.

Just a handy little thing to have around the next time you hear anyone with a last name of Kennedy, Schumer, Feinstein or Durbin making public statements (not that pointing out their hypocrisy has stopped them before).

Of course, we have our own home grown Canadian examples of this type of liberal amnesia. One of the most comical was Chrietien's "I am not a lawyer" quip when trying to evade legal questions. But if anyone takes the time to actually click on his biography you will find this little entry under "Occupation"(which I believe at least one reporter was kind enough to point out at the time):

• Lawyer (called to the Quebec Bar in 1958)
• 1958 -1963 Lawyer with Chrietien, Landry, Deschenes, Trudel and Normand
• 1962 -1963 Director of the Bar of Trois-Rivieres
• 1986 -1990 Counsil with Lang, Mitchener, Lawrence and Shaw, and Senior Advisor with Gordon Capital Corporation, Montreal

Or his repeated statement, televised multiple times no less, about getting rid of the GST:

"But the commitment we've made to the public is we want to get rid of the GST. I've always said that the GST will go." (January 22, 1993 "CTV News")

which in typical Chrietien style he later denied ever promising.

It just goes to show you that Canadians and Americans are more alike than most people care to admit.

(And is it just me or does the fact that the Blogger spell check wants to replace "Schumer" with "schemer" make you laugh a little. )

The Ultimate Debunking

For those of you still holding on to the "Bush Lied People Died" meme that seems to be so prevalent on the left, this article by Norman Podhoretz over at Commentary Magazine does such a devastating job of dismantling all of the arguments that it should be required reading by every Senator, Congressperson, reporter and TV talking head.

Not that these same details haven't be brought to light before, just I've never seen them so perfectly stated and backed up, especially all in one place.

For those who still want to argue against the war in Iraq, it's time you started coming up with some new ideas as to how it's all Bush's fault.

(h/t LGF)

If this is what academia has come to... you can keep it!

I have rarely seen a more perfect example of the Left's belief in free speech than Paul Deignan's tale over at Info Theory (h/t Protein Wisdom).

Follow the comment thread yourself (which Mr. Deignan has thankfully saved off the pre-ban portion here while the rest is available here) to see just what kind of 'trollish' behaviors he was displaying. Apparently just disagreeing with the fact Judge Alito is an extremist is enough to be considered a troll, especially when you dismantle the authors arguments with stated fact and case law. The bastard had the gall to bring fact and precedent into a 'liberal' discussion about an obviously evil judge ('Bitch' said so, so it must be true); the nerve of some people.

Well the fact a conservative viewpoint was discouraged, and even banned, from a liberal website is nothing new to the blogosphere, but what makes this story somewhat unique is the fact that a professor who was involved in the 'discussion' actually contacted Mr. Deignan's PhD advisors in an attempt to discredit him. Yes, that's correct, a History professor from the University of Northern Iowa (yes it does exist) contacted the PhD advisors of a Engineering student at Purdue over a post on a blog, in which if you read the comments, the student is one of the few people generally acting civilly.

It even gets more interesting in that after repeatedly giving the professor a chance to step back and calm down (which Professor Wally has refused to do) Mr. Deignan has begun the process of suing him. Now normally I think internet squabbles should stay on the internet but in the case of a tenured professor (oh, did I mention Professor Wally is also tenured at UNI) going so far as to attempt to block a student from getting his PhD over what is essentially an unrelated exercise of free speech (unless someone can create a tie-in between an appointment to the Supreme Court and Mechanical Engineering I am unaware of) I say it has escalated to the point that real world harm has been attempted and must be dealt with, and it just so happens in this case Paul has the financial abilities to follow through with legal means. I say go for it.

BitchPhD tries to downplay the whole affair on both the original thread and by creating a new one. Oddly enough on the original thread she discusses the how she is such a staunch supporter of free speech and academic freedom that she has to ban Paul for the common good and later extends the banning threat to anyone else who even brings up Paul's banning (now you see how free speech works under the liberal academic rules). But the icing on the cake is the new thread. She somehow manages to totally gloss over Professor Wally's real world attempt to destroy Paul's career in her explanation of the lawsuit, as well as cherry pick selective parts of some of Paul's comments in a very bad attempt to make him sound trollish. The only problem is that if you read even her selected quotes, they are nowhere near the level of a troll and if you read his full comment history you will see his comments backed up with precedent and fact whereas most of hers, and professor Wally's for that matter, consist of personal attacks on Paul.

Of course, being a privately run blog, even though publicly available on the internet, freedom of speech does not truly exist and Bitch has every right to ban whoever she wants. I just find it funny how she in one breath claims to support open dialogue while in the next one using her administrative powers to quell any possible opposition.

As an added bonus to us on the right watching this all unfold is the fact that both of those bastions of Liberal ideology, the LA Times and New York Times have come out with relatively positive reviews of Alito's judicial history, as well as the long list of Democratic lawyers who have also publicly praised him. But then again, why should we poor unwashed masses take their word for it when BitchPhD has already told us he is in fact unfit for the SCOTUS.

For a much more detailed, and honest, look at Judge Alito from another left leaning blog source check out this Moon Over Pittsburgh post. Moon's breakdown of Alito's record puts so many others I have seen, especially BitchPhD's sad attempt, to shame. It seems that Moon, unlike so many others from the left understands that if you have a Conservative President you will more than likely get a Conservative appointee and that while it may not be someone a Liberal person wants, you still need to evaluate them on their judicial merits, not just your ideological ones.

The Live Debate

I've just finished watching the West Wing's live Presidential debate and I have to say it was actually pretty good. Both the Democrat and Republican 'representatives' did a pretty good job showcasing their sides but I have to give it to Alan Alda; I especially liked his summary.

Of course if you've read this site at all you can guess my bias, but I have to say even though they brought in some present day controversy, such as the call for no war for oil, I think 'Vinick' did a great job shooting them down. I've always considered the "no blood for oil" call a pretty weak argument to begin with but Vinick's reply was short, sweet and perfect.

Now, if lean a little more to the left, you can be pretty happy with 'Santos'' arguments too, I just feel the edge goes to 'Vinick'. Either way, it was a pretty good show and did a pretty good job of representing both sides viewpoints.

In another surprise, not only was The West Wing a great episode but it was followed by one of the best Family Guy episodes E..V..E..R!! The Quagmire 'red carpet' scene was a perfect example of the comic timing that makes this episode priceless.

Just too funny

It couldn't happen to a nicer group of people. (h/t Captain's Quarters)

A Life Well Lived

I was a little late to work this morning (well later than my usual late anyway) because I just couldn't help but sit and watch a little of the Rosa Parks funeral procession. I'll admit it, I was a little veclemped.

Being only 30(ish), white, and Canadian, I've never really had to deal with any blatant organized segregation, but like most people of my generation, I have seen and heard a lot about what went on back then. It is with all that in mind that I am just awestruck at the differences between the fight for equality then as compared to now.

Back then, you had a simple working class individual who, finally fed up with extremely unfair bussing practices, amongst other things, decided to test her civil rights by forcing the city to take her to court. She was not the first, nor was she the last to do this but due to the timing of her actions, and with the help of such leaders as Martin Luther King, the civil rights movement was able to use her stand as a focal point to draw attention to the illegal race based policies of the day. Most of this was done through what could truly be called affirmative action, that is instead of trying to pull themselves up by pulling others down, the leaders of the day tried to show how everyone should be on the same level.

Sadly, the same can not be said for those seen as the 'leaders' of the civil rights movement today. Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton and the rest of the self declared leaders (coincidentally mostly on the far left) who claim to be trying to help minorities have turned to an 'attack first' philosophy in which anyone who does not fall into lockstep with their agenda is fair game. The problem is partly to do with the power of the original movement and how it managed to change the majorities heart and minds until there was little clear cut institutional racism left to fight. Now instead of a battle over black and white issues (a double meaning if ever there was one), all that is left to fight over are the shades of gray and those do not have clear cut answers.

The general gist of the two sides, from how I see it, is that one group, mostly made up of conservatives, believe it is enough to give everyone a level playing field, and that the best way to combat racism is to essentially leave race out of legislation. The other group, mostly made up of more liberal members, believe that even if the playing field is leveled, past actions require additional aid be given to formally discriminated against groups. It's perfectly ok for each group to hold those opinions, and on a case by case basis the solution to a given problem may entail a solution that leans more towards one side or the other.

Sadly, it does not appear that most of the current, and especially the more outspoken leaders of today can see that there are in fact two sides. Instead, they choose to demonize anyone who happens to put forward the first viewpoint, usually claiming that that groups lack of support for their particular solutions is an indication of their inherent racism. That's why you constantly see Sharpton, Jackson and for that matter almost every liberal group constantly trumpeting the "Republicans are racist" claims with little or no support for their charges. To them, the lack of support for their often extreme agenda is proof in and of itself of the right wings racist tendencies. Just how many times have you heard how anti-black the Bush administration is. Why? Can anyone site an example of legislation they have tabled or passed that directly targets African-Americans for anything that could be defined as discriminatory, and remember, denying special rights and privileges to a group is not in fact a discriminatory action. In fact, and no one can deny this, President Bush has appointed more minorities to powers of position, including Secretary of State (twice) than any other President, including Bill Clinton. Part of the problem liberals have with this is that these Republican appointees were usually picked because of their abilities and not out of some 'balancing the tables' mentality. These were generally self made people who did not need to use their status as a minority to gain their positions. In addition, Bush has also spent almost twice as much as Clinton on poverty related programs, which is often seen as a strong minority issue but once again, as he did not follow the Sharpton program in making these decisions, he of course must still be racist.

It'd odd, but in some strange way all this makes me long for the days when selective civil disobedience like not surrendering your seat on a bus, organized protests such as the resulting bus 'strike' and generally positive messages about how all (wo)men are created equal were the weapons of choice. It's been a long long time since anyone even came close to uttering a statement as memorable as "I have a dream...".

Lucky for us all Rosa Parks did have a dream and because of her strong will to make her dream a reality, as well of the countless others who shared in her vision for what could be, we live in a world infinitely better than the one of just a few decades ago.

R.I.P. Mrs. Parks and thank you.