Thursday digest

- Well, at least Teemu Selanne and Chris Pronger will get Stanley Cup rings. There's no way the Sens can win four out of the next five against the Ducks. I also have to say that last night's anthem was a vast improvement over Monday's "Star Mangled Banner" by cocaine wastecase Stephen Stills.

- Regardless of your political stripe or taste in films, you have to admire Arnold Schwarzenegger, currently in Canada for meetings. Here's a guy who took every bit of God-given talent he had, relentlessly cultivated it and developed it while constantly striving to improve himself, and as a result, has made a success of himself at pretty much everything he's tried.

That's the kind of person I admire.

- Yesterday, all of Canada's Opposition leaders along with union leadership held a joint rally on Parliament Hill to call for action from the Harper government to save Canada's beleaguered manufacturing sector. What exactly they want the government to do isn't totally clear. Are they calling for corporate welfare? Are they asking the government to push the Bank of Canada to print more money, driving down the value of the Canadian dollar so that militant unions within the auto sector can put off the necessary and eventual coming to grips with reality? Are they asking that NAFTA, an agreement which even former opponents have admitted was a great thing for Canada, be ripped up?

There will always be turmoil in every country's economy, every sector of the workforce has to face it from time to time, and there's really not a whole hell of a lot the government can do about it except for put off the inevitable.

- Here's an interesting take on the Jordan Manners shooting from Lorrie Goldstein. What he says is that a strategy for youth unemployment needs to be undertaken, and he's not talking about having the province pay kids to dig a hole and fill it up for $20 an hour while everyone pretends that they're actually contributing something valuable to either the economy or their own resumé. He suggests that kids need to be encouraged to find real jobs that will teach them the skills and attitudes necessary to succeed, such as punctuality, goal setting, and critical thinking so that the guns, drugs and gang culture is more an amusing novelty rather than a potential career path.

It's something worth thinking about, and this article makes a similar point, asking "(W)hat have we come to? We once taught our young people the virtues of hard work, saving, personal responsibility and accountability for one's actions, chastity before and fidelity and commitment in marriage, honesty, integrity and virtue - not to mention the Ten Commandments (especially the one about not coveting that which belongs to your neighbor). We now teach them entitlement, victimhood, class envy and rights to other people's money."

I couldn't agree more.

- Tolerance for me, but not for thee: a Montreal gay bar is being charged with discrimination for not allowing women customers. I said the other day that in principle, I think owners of private businesses should be able to do whatever they want with it, and I also have to question the choices of someone who wants to patronize such an establishment when they obviously aren't welcome (unless it's to make a political point).

As far as this goes, though, I would like to think that gay activists who truly believe in pluralism and acceptance of difference, not to mention logical consistency, should speak out against this bar's policy of barring women from entry. However, they didn't stand up for these values when Ryerson awarded internationally-renowned ethicist Margaret Somerville an honorary degree last summer, arguing that she shouldn't be recognized because she thinks that kids need a mom and a dad. They also pressured the state to force the Knights of Columbus, a Catholic men's organization, to rent a hall out to a lesbian couple for their wedding reception back in 2005.

Understanding, respect and affirmation of diversity? Not quite.

- This article makes a few worthwhile observations in light of Al Gore's new book. An excerpt:

Al Gore's new book, "The Assault on Reason," has definitively established one fact: Al Gore is still the sorest loser in American politics. Even liberal book reviewers are wincing at the tone of his jeremiad against the Bush administration. The book should have been titled, "They Should Have Elected Me, Instead: How Much Better America Would Fare With President Gore."

One reason for general public ignorance, he believes, is the celebrity-obsessed world of television news. Political junkies of every stripe -- left, right and center -- can nod their heads that the news isn't substantive enough, that it focuses too much on trivial stories like Britney Spears shaving her head. More voters can name Homer Simpson's cartoon kids than Supreme Court justices. Gore can get an Amen on that.

But Gore takes this argument one arrogant step further: When voters lose an argument (read: election), it is proof that the voters are ignorant and-or distracted. We went to war in Iraq because we were too distracted by Paris Hilton news. We're cooking the planet with global warming because ignorant people gave Bush the presidency and left poor Al Gore with an Oscar as a consolation prize. Gore thinks the right choices on Iraq and the environment were "glaringly obvious," but the voters weren't instructed well enough in the facts that prove him right.

It's a common liberal conceit: Liberalism is the very definition of sweet reason, so an attack on liberalism is an "assault on reason." Democracy is only truly democratic when the Democrats are in charge. Debates aren't truly informative unless the liberals win the argument. The same holds true for elections.

- Now this is some good stuff that every little guy should receive as part of their birthday gift this year.

- Doesn't Russia have things to worry about other than the US missile shield project?

- Former Ontario Premier Mike Harris is back in the news today as the Ipperwash inquiry wraps up. One lawyer who I saw interviewed, presumably part of the team advocating on behalf of the late Dudley George, insisted that because Harris uttered "I want the fucking Indians out the park" in September 1995, he is an obvious racist and all of his testimony before the inquiry should therefore be thrown out.

Following this charge, I'm trying to find out if there are moves afoot to establish the Department of First Nations Affairs and Northern Development in Ottawa.

So far I've been unsuccessful.

- Some common sense about the "high price" of gas, here.