Friday digest

- It has been revealed that the Quebec City bureau chief of Radio-Canada, CBC's French language network, is running for the separatist Parti Quebecois in their upcoming provincial election. As if that wasn't bad enough, he taped a feature interview with his future party leader last Saturday under the pretense of impartiality.

This is a total outrage and an affront to anyone who values ethics and professionalism.

- Interesting debate going on here about Canada's Department of National Defence apparently loosening requirements for French fluency among high-ranking officers in our Armed Forces.

- Those who deny global warming (like this environmental scientist, for example) are now akin to those who deny the mass murder of six million Jews during World War II, according to this columnist.

Oh, puh-leeze.

- What you won't hear on Canada's state broadcaster - some Muslims see "Little Mosque on the Prairie" as farcical. See here for an example. Money quote:

While the Muslim characters are fake, fellow non-Muslim Canadians, who have shown tremendous generosity in embracing peoples of different cultures are continually and unfairly portrayed as bigots. What has raised eyebrows about the show among Muslims is that such distortion may be deliberate in order to exaggerate the incidence of racism and bigotry against Muslims in Canada to foster the culture of victimhood and accentuate the chasm between Muslims and non-Muslims in Canada.

If CBC was sincerely trying to be inclusive in bringing Canada's Muslims into the picture, we suggest they include Muslim characters in their regular sitcoms or shows, not make a farce of our community and present it as an act of generosity.

Hear, hear.

- Today's looney left play of the day comes to us from Maryland where legislators, including a Republican, want to implement a bill which would add the homeless to those groups protected under hate crime laws.

Tulian Ozdeger, a civil rights staff attorney with the National Law Center, says, "Unfortunately hate crimes against homeless people are on the rise and it has become an epidemic in this country". (Add another rampant, uncontrollable social virus to the long list, I suppose.)

Let me get this straight. If I beat you up because I don't like, say, the way you looked at my wife, it would be even worse if I beat you up you're homeless and I thought it would be fun, according to these lawmakers. What would happen if I beat you up because I didn't like the way you looked at my wife, and you happen to be homeless? Could you claim that I was engaging in a hate crime?

This is getting out of hand.

- Exxon Mobil recently announced the biggest profit in American corporate history. Now before you give in to the instincts of envy, resentment, and misguided fair play, and want to go penalizing them, remember this:

The bottom line here is that our economic system is all about free-market capitalism, and at the core of that system is profit. Profit isn’t a dirty word. From profits spring the abundance of this great country. Profits are the mother’s milk of stocks and the economy. Expanding profits provide businesses the resources to enlarge production operations and hire additional workers. This, in turn, is how incomes are created, wages that are then spent by American families.

Why can’t liberals grasp this?

When the government meddles in the market and taxes companies more -- when it sticks its nose where it doesn’t belong -- it ends up hurting not just businesses, but all individuals. Taxing profits more means taxing families more. Taxing profits more leads to smaller wage gains for middle-income workers. When you tax American companies more, the American workforce is paid less. And when you tax American energy companies more, they produce less energy. That means higher prices for gas at the pump and heating fuel at home. This may enrich Uncle Sam, but it comes at the expense of ordinary folks.

Washington economist Kevin Hassett has shown that the U.S. workforce bears a full 70 percent of the cost of corporate taxes. So, if folks are indeed worried about wage inequality, they should be lobbying their congressional representatives to cut corporate taxes in order to increase worker wages.

The truth is, when you tax profits more you undermine the American work ethic and the incentive structure that goes along with it. In fact, you demoralize the very system that has made this country great. It’s the people who ultimately pay the corporate profits tax -- and that includes shareholders, pensioners, and other retirees. Business taxes should be headed down, not up.

Punish ExxonMobil for turning a healthy profit? Take those profits? Do that and you punish the American worker and the entire economy, too.