The Road Hammer

Out

2008-04-06T09:30:00.002-04:00

Not sure if anyone still stops by here, but it's now well into April and I can now confirm that I have lost all interest in blogging. This medium, while promising, requires a lot of work to "feed the beast" and I have other competing priorities.

So thanks for listening/reading/whatever.

See ya.

Innocent Question

2007-12-04T18:57:00.000-05:00

I know it's been a while, but I have to ask ... what, pray tell, might have happened in 2003 that would have caused Iran to rethink its nuke program?

Update

2007-09-23T10:53:00.000-04:00

Hi everyone.

About a month ago, I suggested that people check back here in about thirty days, at which time I expected I'd be back blogging on a more regular basis. I'm here to tell you that I won't be posting any time soon. Much like a musician would appreciate, I found that I need to put down my "instrument" for a while in order to re-charge my juices and find my muse once again. I'm the type of person who, when they do something that they consider important, likes to do that something well, and I consider voicing my thoughts and impressions of what's going on in the world around us to be something that deserves my best effort. Unfortunately, I've realized just how much time this takes, and have decided to focus my energies on a few other pursuits and hobbies instead of blogging. I'm confident that as the fall turns to winter, I will probably find myself posting regularly once again, but as for now, I'm still on hiatus.

Stay tuned.

End of Summer Slowdown

2007-08-23T07:08:00.001-04:00

Greetings, Hammerheads.

Regular readers will have noticed that my output as of late has been spotty, and the reason for this is a combination of a poor Internet connection, blogging fatigue, and other priorities that require attention around the house. I'm also going to be taking a vacation pretty soon so I won't have regular access to a computer even if I wanted it, so don't expect things to improve over the next month or so. I would urge everyone to bookmark the site and check back periodically as I may do the odd review or daily digest over the next few weeks, but not at a rate at which you might have become accustomed. With my batteries recharged, I am hoping that my mojo will return and I'll be back in full swing by the time the fall rolls around, which is sadly less than thirty days away.

In the meantime, check out some of the archives on the sidebar for some retro Road Hammer and be sure to take advantage of the links I've provided.

Cheers.

Book Review: "Time To Say Goodbye: Building a Better Canada Without Quebec" by Reed Scowen (2007)

2007-08-20T18:38:00.000-04:00

Montrealer, former member of the Quebec legislature and long-time anglophone rights activist Reed Scowen makes the case here for a split between English Canada and Quebec. Normally, a book like this would have me recoiling as books concerning our navelgazing political culture are anthema to me - I have standards - but I grabbed this one at the airport Friday as it was a short read and nothing else really jumped out at me that I hadn't already read.

I had to put this book down at some points when I was reading it over the weekend because the basic unfairness of the Canadian federal arrangement, biased as it is towards Quebec, makes me so angry. On top of that, forty years of appeasement hasn't worked, André Boisclair's recent third-place showing aside. Scowen also makes a convincing case that Canada was not born as an agreement between two founding nations but rather one between four provinces that united for utilitarian reasons above all else, a point built on by Scowen as he delves further and argues that over time, Quebec as a political entity has not defined itself by the liberal constitutional framework that the rest of Canada does. In other words, there is a group of nine provinces which are bound by a common belief in pluralism and the freedom of individuals to pursue their own goals against the backdrop of a government that exists to facilitate those pursuits in a uniquely English Canadian way. On the other hand, for Scowen, Quebec, via its state apparatus, defines itself by the primacy of the French language and culture and is openly willing to cast pluralism aside in order to further entrench that belief. In so doing, he makes the case that the political worlds of the two sides are incompatible and so English Canada should offer Quebec terms upon which it can decide to stay within Canada or not.

Scowen's case is well written and well argued, and there are certain undeniable truths implicit within it - such as how much better off the rest of Canada would be economically if they didn't have to subsidize Quebec as they do - but I think he overstates the case by half. By virtue of my marriage, I am intimately connected to Quebec in such a way that many English Canadians are not, even though I don't, never have and probably never will live there as Scowen has. I also think that while the politicians in Quebec are a breed unto themselves, Quebecois are too busy working, raising kids and dealing with every day concerns to bother tuning out the voices in the entertainment world, in the press and coming from Quebec City to investigate just how dependent they are on the rest of Canada to subsidize their child care centres, universities and health care system (failing as it is). Moreover, when one casts a ballot for the PQ, they likely aren't thinking about the cost of establishing borders, a military or determining which currency to use in a sovereign Quebec of the future. Much more likely is that they are simply asserting themselves in a North America that is becoming increasingly integrated and a world that is becoming more complicated. So, for Scowen to assert that the political cultures are incompatible is a considerable exaggeration. Plainly speaking, one shouldn't confuse the chattering classes with the folks.

Also, Scowen is writing from the position of an aggrieved English Montrealer. He admits that he decided not to learn French until he was 41 years of age. To me, this is unacceptable because I am an assimilationist. Further, I am not one who has a lot of time for linguistic minorities who demand the same treatment and status as the majority, which partly explains why I have a lot of affection for franco-Ontarians since in my experience they, by and large, realize that Trudeaupian bilingualism was a nice idea rather than a practical possibility (notwithstanding coattail riding on the federal government's hiring practices, designed to make Quebec feel more part of the federal family by what is, in effect, the equivalent of racial preferences). By way of comparison, anglophones in Quebec angrily complain about the decision of their provincial government to ignore the Charter of Rights and Freedoms rather than dealing with the reality of the choice they have made, to stay in a province where a greater level of intolerance of "les autres" is just a fact of life that requires adjustment if you want to live there as a non-"pur laine". More broadly, as unjust as this is, does it present a fundamental contradiction on which Canada cannot sustain itself? I don't think so, as it should be seen as a farcical irritation more than anything else.

In sum, as aggravating as the entire national unity debate can be, and Scowen makes a good if unrealistic contribution to it, I am only somewhat on side with his thesis, even if, in my darker moments, I would be the first one to serve Quebec's political class with divorce papers.

Now if only leaders would lead, we might be able to get somewhere.

Overall rating: 7.25/10

Live Review: Kenny Chesney's Flip Flop Summer Tour - Ford Field, Detroit, MI, August 18, 2007

2007-08-20T16:12:00.000-04:00

This summer's edition of the annual Redneck Roadtrip saw the fellas and I head down to Motown for a day-long event at the mind-blowing Ford Field. After flying to Toronto and checking out the Jays against the Orioles on Friday night with my brothers (and purchasing a very sweet old-school Lloyd Moseby uni in the process), I met my co-travellers David (owner of the barely-breathing Parking Lot) and Chris Farley's Ghost bright and early. After driving through the Sarnia/Port Huron border crossing and downing a hearty lunch at the Cracker Barrel, it was southward to Detroit Rock City, where we arrived to begin the tailgating festivities shortly after 2 PM. We put a healthy dent in a case of Bud Light, making friends from Toledo to Tennessee and enjoying the many sights, sounds and smells amidst an embarassing incident involving watersports in between parked cars before going in to the venue for the concert's 4:30 start.

First, Grammy nominee Pat Green kicked things off with an unremarkable half-hour set I'll mostly remember for complaints from the stage about the disinterested and sparse crowd, although he did interestingly segue into U2's "With Or Without You" at one point.

Next up was sweetheart Sara Evans who was given close to an hour to deliver her many hits. For being the second one up and playing on a massive stage, she was extremely confident and her vocals were pitch perfect, sounding better live than they do on record via tracks like "Suds In the Bucket", "Perfect", "Born to Fly" and "Always Be My Baby". I've always liked her a lot because she strikes me as extremely real, and the fact that she had her sisters doing background vocals and her brother on bass underlined that for me. (Oh, and she's stunningly beautiful.) By this time, the place was pretty much packed for Ms. Evans, numbering over 47,000 honkytonkers according to yesterday's news coverage. I also appreciated how she ended her set with Fleetwood Mac's "Go Your Own Way", an inside nod to those in the crowd familiar with why she left last fall's "Dancing with the Stars" competition.

The third act of the afternoon was the duo Sugarland, made famous by hits like "Baby Girl", "Settlin'" and "Something More", not to mention lead singer Jennifer Nettles' duet with New Jersey's favourite sons, the boys from Bon Jovi, on mega-smash "Who Says You Can't Go Home". Curiously, they entered to a cover of Pearl Jam's "Better Man" and also delivered a bluegrass version of Beyoncé's "Irreplaceable" during their set, which also included new single "Everyday America". I have never been a huge fan of Sugarland but I think that they will be a force to be to be reckoned with over the next few years in country music as they know how to give the fans what they want, which included a final number with Nettles donning a Detroit Lions jersey embossed with starting QB Jon Kitna's #8.

The second to last slot belonged to Brooks and Dunn who entered to a chorus of boos because their opening video was an advertisement for sponsor Toyota and their Tundra line of pick-up trucks. They should have known better than to pull that kind of stunt in the beleagured Motor City. However, the ill will was not to last, and how could it, really? These fellas are country music royalty, but I have to say that they didn't blow me away, especially compared when I saw them in 2001 as part of their Wild West and Neon Circus Sideshow, a tour which also featured Keith Urban, Montgomery Gentry and Toby Keith. Kix Brooks in particular was much less energetic tonight than he was on that occasion, and the newer material released since then by the boys like "Believe", "Building Bridges", "Play Something Country" and "Hillbilly Deluxe" doesn't compare to their older hits, of which there were understandably less. That said, latest single "Proud Of The House We Built" sounded quite good. Set closer, the flag-waving anthem "Only In America", was the highlight even though the crowd was not as enthusiastic as I had expected them to be. Half of us were already on our feet and the other half only got up when a corps of troops came out on to the stage about halfway through the song which concluded with a pair of boots, a helmet and a bayonet left on the stage in tribute to the fallen. It was extremely moving.

Finally, headliner Kenny Chesney delivered a high-octane hour and forty-five minute show that did not disappoint. Opening with "Beer In Mexico", the laid-back, Caribbean theme that Chesney has appropriated for himself and parlayed into a massively successful career was on big-time display tonight, and on a tour sponsored by Cruzan Rum, I would hope so. Other party tunes like "Keg In the Closet", "No Shoes, No Shirt, No Problem", "When the Sun Goes Down" (featuring a guest appearance by homeboy Uncle Kracker), and "Summertime" were delivered alongside ballads like "Anything But Mine" and "The Good Stuff", odes to home and family like "Back Where I Come From" and "I Go Back", and the obligatory classic rock cover, which on this evening was "Honky Tonk Women", featuring Brooks and (I think) a sunglasses-wearing Pat Green. The only disappointment was that he didn't play "There Goes My Life", one of my favourite country songs ever. (Oh, and I would have preferred an appearance by Kid Rock rather than Kracker, but that's OK.) This guy loves what he does and is very fan-friendly (how many other shows have you been to at an NFL-sized stadium where the headliner doesn't run off while the band plays things out, but instead, stands at the lip of the stage signing autographs?) and knows how to deliver the goods. Now, if only he'd come to Ottawa, a trip for which he is long overdue.

Unfortunately, we had to return to Toronto early on Sunday afternoon as the rain in Detroit was too heavy to run the scheduled NASCAR race for which we had tickets, but this just gives us another experience to look forward to some other time.

Overall ratings:

Kenny Chesney: 9.5/10
Brooks and Dunn: 6.75/10
Sugarland: 7/10
Sara Evans: 8.75/10
Pat Green: 5/10

Overall rating: 9.25/10

Book Review: "The Assassin's Gate" by George Packer (paperback version released 2006)

2007-08-17T10:50:00.000-04:00

Well, it looks like Michael Ignatieff now has some company as he's not the only public intellectual now reconsidering his support for the Iraq war. Yes, yours truly, quite possibly the most fervent believer in the Administration's efforts to remove Saddam Hussein living north of the 49th parallel, is having a little trouble supporting the whole thing the way I once did ,and it's largely due to material like "The Assassin's Gate" by New Yorker reporter George Packer.

Not a piece of advocacy but refreshingly, journalism in its truest and most authentic sense, Packer begins by weaving the work of Iraqi dissident Kanan Makiya who authored the expose "Republic of Fear" in 1989. His sermonizing about the horrors of the butcher of Baghdad soon found a captive audience in certain Washington circles, mostly among the Wolfowitz-Feith-Kristol crowd, who found their champion in Donald Rumsfeld. To his credit (as we all know what happens next), familar arguments about exaggerated intel, selective hearing by the White House, and facile sloganeering like "Bush Lied - Thousands Died" and "No Blood for Oil" are eschewed. Instead, Packer offers an illustration of the extremely troubling extent to which there was absolutely no foresight when it came to post-Saddam planning. As Packer illustrates, the crowd mentioned above seemed uninterested, and at times, proudly so, in alternative views concerning how Iraqis (a mythical term if there ever was one) would respond to a power vacuum. The looting, gangsterism and religious extremism that filled the void after Hussein's downfall, and the honourable yet nearly vain efforts of American men and women in their mid-twenties to try and install some order after their political leadership let them down as masterfully portrayed by Packer left me with a sense of broken faith in the righteousness of the whole endeavour.

After reading this and other accounts, I remain staunchly in favour of the removal of Saddam from power, but although I am an optimist by nature, I view grand schemes with skepticism largely because they fail to incorporate the foibles and shortcomings of human beings laid over top of the intricacies and delicacies that culture and history inflict upon every individual on the face of the Earth.

By ignoring these fundamental realities via their management of the war after Hussein's fall and deludedly holding on to their expectation that modern Western civilization would replicate itself over a period of one thousand days in a place that has never known anything resembling it, Wolfowitz et al. should be ashamed of themselves.

The question the reader is left with after completing Packer's work is thus this: how can one define success in Iraq?

I don't think anyone knows the answer to that question at this point.

Overall rating: 9.5/10

Wednesday digest

2007-08-15T20:50:00.000-04:00

- After a lifetime of paying taxes, one blue-collar family of modest means tells of their experience with the Canadian health care system, here. Those of us who have been fortunate enough not to have to make the choice that the couple in the above clip had to ought to be sensitive to stories from real people who would have been sentenced to essentially death had they relied only on government-provided care, or for that matter, penthouse-dwelling, limousine liberal "documentarians" to draw attention to their plight.

- Pulpit socialism out of the Netherlands, where a Roman Catholic bishop wants to reach out to Muslims by having members of his faith pray to "Allah" instead of God during Mass. Predictably, the Council on American-Islamic Relations is in favour of the idea, but no word on whether or not - in a move which would clearly demonstrate goodwill - American Muslims are considering incorporating the names "Yahweh" or "Jehovah" during Friday prayers.

In other news from the cultural affirmation and dialogue front, doctors working in Scotland's hospitals have been asked not to eat at their desks during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan this year so as not to tempt their colleagues who might be fasting.

- This happens so regularly, it's starting to become a bit of a yawner: a federal Quebec Liberal is facing criminal charges because he misused taxpayers' dollars for his own personal gain.

- The debate over reasonable accomodation in Quebec is heating up again. I'm an assimilationist, but in Quebec the slope from that position towards outright ethnocentrism is much slippier (see Parizeau, Jacques and Landry, Bernard) than it is in the rest of Canada. In other words, this could get ugly.

- Democrats under fire: last week, House Majority Whip Jim Clyburn (D-SC) said that progress towards victory in Iraq could pose a problem for Democrats who want an immediate troop withdrawal. This week, Senator Barack Obama suggested that the only thing American troops are doing in Afghanistan is conducting air raids and killing civilians.

Keep in mind that these are not just average members of that party.

- Proof that university professors are overwhelmingly and almost uniformly left-wing, here.

- A look at the income tax burden faced by middle-class American families, here.

- Quiz time:

On what date did the following headline run in the Washington Post: "Arctic Ocean Getting Warm: Seals Vanish and Icebergs Melt"?

1. May 9, 2006
2. June 2, 1989
3. September 29, 1974
4. November 2, 1922

Answer here. By the way, I'm still waiting on the 24-hour news channels to report on NASA's massive screw-up that took 1998 out of the top spot for hottest year on record.

Monday digest

2007-08-13T20:29:00.000-04:00

- Separated at birth: Democratic political operative Markos Moulitsas of Daily Kos fame (top) and socialist/gay rights activist/failed Ottawa mayoral candidate Alex Munter (bottom).

- You may not have heard about it, but there is some contention concerning 1998's claim to the mantle of "hottest year on record", giving it up for 1934 from the decade where, as Mark Steyn reminds us, we were all driving around in SUVs with the A/C on full blast.

On that note, an interview with Bjorn Lormborg, here.

- Quiz time: On May 29 of this year, who said "(t)here is no greater force for economic growth than free markets"?

A. Steve Forbes
B. Canada's Minister of Industry, Maxime Bernier
C. Nikolas Sarkozy
D. Hillary Rodham Clinton

Answer here.

- A Toronto tourist has died after being beat up by four panhandlers in their early 20's.

It must somehow be society's fault.

- I have to give him props for recognizing that incentives matter, but does anyone other than Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty seriously think that dropping the provincial sales tax on smoking cessation aids is really going to prompt those who pay $10 a day for a pack of cancer sticks to consider quitting?

- African-Americans comprise 13% of the US population, yet make up half of the murder victims, and BIC factories worth of ink are spilled on some 70-year-old loudmouth flapping his gums about "nappy headed hos" on AM radio rather than far more serious issues like this and this.

- Speaking of disproportion, I really think J.C. Watts has a point here.

- What happened to this guy between 1994 and 2003?

- This past weekend, I engaged in some woodworking around my place with my father-in-law. A considerable amount of my time was spent with a power sander in hand, and I stopped and marveled at how much more difficult our project would have been without that handy little tool, both in terms of workmanship and time spent.

And what do I have to thank for that and countless other labour-saving inventions which we so easily take for granted?

Capitalism.

God bless it.

- Today on the Michael Coren Show (a rerun from Friday night), Canadian Union of Public Employees boss Sid Ryan said that this unfortunate (yet isolated) incident in a British Columbia McDonald's restaurant demonstrated why unions are needed in the fast food industry. Ryan also said that working full-time at a minimum wage job like those at the Golden Arches, and which this woman did, happily I might add, for 23 years, is inconceivable in today's day and age.

I usually don't like to draw on anecdotes to make an argument, but in this case, I'll make an exception.

Well over 15 years ago, my sister and I started working at McDonald's in our teens after we got too old to deliver newspapers, handing that responsibility down to our brothers. (My starting wage was $3.90 per hour.) From there, we both went on to bigger and better things after putting in a couple of years, and not long after that when we moved to a neighbouring town and my brothers were forced to give up the paper route, they too worked for Ron's Diner albeit at a different restaurant, but doing the same kind of work - flipping burgers, pouring drinks and gaining valuable skills.

For a moment, then, let's imagine that the franchisee for whom I worked was forced to pay a wage of $5 or $6 to every pimply-faced 14-year old Def Leppard fan he had working for him because of a collectively-bargained contract. I don't think he would have been able to afford to hire my sister because it would have been prohibitive to pay that much for the epitome of unskilled labour, given the mistakes, errors and wrong judgments that someone in their first real gig would make - the costs incurred which come directly out of the entrepreneur's pocket, I might add?

Moreover, as Ryan's sparring partner Clare Hoy said on the show, what customer would have wanted to pay not just $3.99 for a combo but $3.99 for a medium fry in order for him to pay the wages to those under contract? Certainly not the bulk of the burger-eating citizenry of the middle-class environs in which we lived.

Now as it were, a few years went by and the franchisee was able to re-invest his profits made from his first venture and open another McDonald's in a neighbouring town, creating more opportunities and where lo and behold, two of my younger cousins were able to get jobs as teens, working for minimum wage but also gaining valuable skills and life experience along the way before moving on to bigger and better things as literally hundreds of thousands of Canadian kids before them have done as well and tens of thousands are doing today.

Let me then ask you this: if the industry was unionized, would it create jobs for adolescents looking for ways to develop themselves by taking that crucial first step into the labour market as plentifully and with as little difficulty as it does now?

I think you know the answer.

Sid Ryan should, too.

- Has anyone out there thought about how they're going to vote in this fall's referendum concerning electoral reform in Ontario? The Libra in me - fair and balanced, to borrow a phrase - likes the mixed-member proportional (MMP) system, but the ideas guy in me likes first-past-the-post because under MMP, I fear that lowest-common-denominator, brokerage politics rather than clear legislative mandates will be the order of the day. I also have some misgivings about how candidates would be chosen under MMP, and I would hope that political parties would install a grassroots process, giving power to their memberships in an amount at least equal to what they would grant to the hacks in the back rooms.

Saturday digest

2007-08-11T23:26:00.001-04:00

- A couple of things that we shouldn't read too much in to, but are interesting nonetheless: Mike Huckabee's second place showing in the Iowa straw poll, and this Dick Morris piece on Hillary Clinton.

- Two independent studies have confirmed that the vast majority of insurgents in Iraq are nationals from other countries.

- An op/ed columnist from Philly says that we need another 9/11 to focus the American mind, which is a very shameful way to call for unity considering it would imply that he's willing to trade in the lives of another 3,000 innocent people to get it.

- Both sides of my family (and that of my wife) have lived in Canada since before Confederation, which might partially explain why I don't get this. Having left Lebanon physically, I'd think one would want to leave its hatreds behind, too, rather than going to the trouble to erect a billboard with adorned by the visage of Hezbollah's leadership in Windsor, Ontario.

- I'd say the toothpaste is officially out of the tube. Personally, I really don't care if someone wants to have more than one wife or whatever, and I've long thought that if we as a society are going to decide to expand the definition of marriage to include same-sex partners, then it would be discriminatory not to expand it based on the number of individuals involved.

We are nothing if not consistent here at the Hammer.

Film Review: "The Bourne Ultimatum" (2007)

2007-08-11T23:07:00.001-04:00

The third chapter in the "Bourne" series of films finds the protagonist coming full circle delivered via a script which is a taut, briskly-paced affair based on internal power struggles and underhandedness within an arrogant CIA. Perhaps it's because I was seated in the third row at the cinema tonight, but I found "The Bourne Ultimatum" to be much, much better than either of its predecessors, both of which I saw on DVD. However, if, like me, you don't like "24" because of the hand-held camera shots, you ought to be forewarned, especially if you end up sitting as close as I did. Heralded by critics as the best action movie to come along in quite some time, I would agree, but there's a small plot hole and a couple of unbelievable moments, all of which occur in the last third of the movie, leaving both a bad taste in my mouth and shaving a little bit off the overall rating. Still, it's a good ride.

Overall rating: 8/10

Thursday digest

2007-08-09T19:57:00.000-04:00

- This week, Barack Obama demonstrated his lack of foreign policy acumen by referring to "the president of Canada". Problem is, we have a Prime Minister. He might take "ignorant and naive" positions, but at least Obama's not from Texas, right?

- Does Hillary have a hidden agenda?

- It's enough to turn me into a 100% stark raving libertarian: just why is it the government's business what this woman wants to call herself?!?

- The more things change, the more they stay the same on the Canadian national unity file.

- Stephen Harper ought to take note of the Republican decline in the US, which can be directly traced to selling out one's base.

- The latest indication that the Chinese economic threat is overblown, here.

- Every little guy should be taught how to fail, and more importantly, how to bounce back, from a very young age.

Wednesday digest

2007-08-08T20:24:00.000-04:00

- In Canada, we have two credible choices for Prime Minister of our country at the moment. The first is Stephane Dion, leader of the Liberal party, pictured above tiptoeing through the tulips. The other is this fella who is currently in the office and unable to get the support of more than one in three voters.

A sad state of affairs, I'd say.

- The surest sign of a loser in politics is someone who blames the public for being too stupid to vote the way they ought to have.

- If some folks worked as hard at gaining employment as they do at pulling stunts like holding beg-a-thons on the front lawn of Ottawa City Hall, they'd be a lot better off.

- What an utterly pointless bylaw. Who's going to enforce it?

- I think this is utterly irresponsible journalism. Shame on the New York Times. One ought to also eye Newsweek with skepticism as this op/ed demonstrates.

- About a week and a half ago, Newt Gingrich called out the special interests in Motown. More here.

- My 75-year old, diabetic neighbour is suffering from kidney failure and it's going to be six months before he gets in to see a specialist. Be careful what you wish for, Wisconsin.

- Hillary Clinton, running first in her party's primary, has the support of less than 10% of the Netroots because she supported the Iraq invasion, is a fan of NAFTA, refuses to reverse welfare reform and is a backer of traditional marriage, among other things. How far left is she going to have to move to placate the base, and will it all unravel when she faces the public?

Tuesday digest

2007-08-07T20:07:00.001-04:00

- John Edwards' wife, Elizabeth, recently stated that one of the things her husband doesn't have going for him in his candidacy for the Democratic nomination is that he's neither black nor a woman. This comment could lead one to believe that in Mrs. Edwards' opinion, Obama and Clinton bring little more to the table other than their race and gender, respectively.

I find that to be more than a tad distasteful. I also would suggest that had a Republican made a similar comment, his candidacy would be sunk faster than you can say "macaca".

- Speaking of double standards, it seems we have our latest breach of journalistic integrity, courtesy of the New Republic.

- Almost 200,000 weapons given by the US military to Iraq security forces in 2004/2005 are now unaccounted for.

Nice job, Wolfowitz.

- Can any of the Conservative yes-men and women out there explain to me a) what the word "nation" means and why it was necessary, b) why the federal government is larger than ever these days, and c) why I shouldn't spoil my ballot come the next election?

- Last word on the Minnesota bridge disaster, here.

Album Review: "Hospital Music" by Matthew Good (2007)

2007-08-05T09:38:00.001-04:00

A tortured and ill Matthew Good has released the followup to the sub-par "White Light Rock n' Roll Review", which was a huge disappointment after the back-to-back-to-back trifecta of "Beautiful Midnight", "The Audio of Being" and "Avalanche". Is he back on track? Not 100%, however, it's getting there. (I fully recognize that Good couldn't give two craps about what I or anyone else thinks, but I'll cut him some slack because from all reports this album is intended to be more a diary than a comeback.)

Lots of light and shade here, with few venomous scorchers along the lines of previous tracks like "The Future Is X-Rated" or "Anti-Pop". Instead, with tracks about a golddigging ex-wife and addiction to prescription meds, among other things, this is probably Good's most Radiohead-esque record, a band that he has sometimes been accused of ripping off, unfairly in my view. This is the first disc on which I can hear the similarities for myself, and is somewhat fitting given what inspired it.

If you're looking to get into Matt Good, I wouldn't start here, but if you're already a fan, you'll probably find it to be a solid pick-up. I remain firmly in the fold.

Overall rating: 7.75/10

Book Review: "The End of Iraq: How American Incompetence Created a War Without End" by Peter W. Galbraith (2006; first paperback edition, June 2007)

2007-08-05T09:16:00.000-04:00

Peter W. Galbraith, son of John Kenneth, former staffer on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, ex-ambassador to Croatia and at one time a professor at the National War College, tells of the execution of the Iraq War from his perspective as a longtime liberal champion of the Kurdish cause. This is both a critical look at the policies of the Bush administration as well as a sort of memoir of his own involvement with the dispossessed Kurds of northern Iraq, and so it comes off as a bit vain, being more about Galbraith and how smart/integral he is rather than a detached analysis of the successes and failures of the war effort so far. If you can set the author's ego aside, it's a very eye-opening look at how many missteps and follies were made by the neocons in their assumptions prior to the invasion, which in many ways is the mirror reflection of the laughable kind of grand schemes that far-left social engineers embrace with regularity - certainly anthema to this reviewer - not to mention the complete betrayal of the Shi'ites and Kurds by the American government after Gulf War One.

Not the definitive account of Iraq - subtly partisan as US policy towards Iraq during the Bill Clinton era warrants less than five pages out of 238 in total - but certainly an extremely valuable contextual piece, and kudos to Galbraith for not just throwing stones but for concluding with the offer of an uneasy solution - a federal system whereby Kurds, Sunnis and Shi'ites would all have autonomy within a larger state.

More here.

Overall rating: 7.25/10

Sunday digest

2007-08-05T08:39:00.000-04:00

- A couple of weeks back, I linked to the pompous, sophomoric and condescending Avi Lewis' interview of Ayaan Hirsi Ali on Canada's state broadcaster. In case you missed that, it's here. Now, watch Michael Coren completely dissect both Lewis and his apolologist Marilyn Churley, late of Bob Rae's cabinet, here and here.

- Noted foreign policy mind Sean Penn recently went to Venezuela to pat Hugo Chavez on the back, allowing himself to be used as a propaganda tool in the process. Now that Jeff Spicoli is seen as a credible commentator on international economic and security issues, should we expect to see Tony Blair appear on "Inside the Actor's Studio"?

- Bang on: "If the fifties were the decade of infrastructure, the sixties were the decade of entitlements and social services—and the sixties haven’t ended."

Saturday digest

2007-08-04T09:06:00.001-04:00

- Now before everyone piles on the federal government for the accident in Minnesota because it's headed by a Republican, it's instructive to read what my buddy Neal Boortz has to say below in Friday's edition of Nealz Nuze. (Keep in mind the fact that this bridge was seen to be structurally unsound as far back as 1990 and it's a proven fact that cutting income taxes leads to more economic activity and therefore more overall revenue for the public purse):

THE BLAME GAME BEGINS

The media waited less than 17 hours after the tragic bridge collapse before pointing fingers. At least one U.S. Senator, Patty Murray, seemed to blame Bush when she said yesterday that the Bush Administration has not supported Democrat efforts to increase spending on critical infrastructure. One of the problems here is that in so many instances a Democrat demand for infrastructure spending is merely a thinly disguised attempt to funnel money to construction unions as thanks for electoral and financial support.

Nick Coleman at the Minneapolis-St. Paul Star Tribune says that this collapse never would have happened if it wasn't for Governor Tim Pawlenty (a Republican) and his refusal to raise taxes.

He writes:

"For half a dozen years, the motto of state government and particularly that of Gov. Tim Pawlenty has been No New Taxes. It's been popular with a lot of voters and it has mostly prevailed. So much so that Pawlenty vetoed a 5-cent gas tax increase - the first in 20 years - last spring and millions were lost that might have gone to road repair. And yes, it would have fallen even if the gas tax had gone through, because we are years behind a dangerous curve when it comes to the replacement of infrastructure that everyone but wingnuts in coonskin caps agree is one of the basic duties of government."

What Mr. Coleman fails to point out is that there was no need for a tax increase. None. Because at the time when Governor Pawlenty vetoed this 5-cent gas tax increase, the state of Minnesota already had a $2.1 billion budget surplus. This surplus came from over-taxation.

Over-taxation in America? Imagine that! And around the same time that the Governor vetoed the tax, the state legislature passed an amendment to spend all, rather than half, of the motor vehicle sales tax revenue on transportation. This added $60 million a year to road, bridge and transit spending. And that is expected to more than double in five years.

Coleman wants us to believe that more taxes would have saved these people, and it is all the Governor's fault for refusing to increase those taxes. The fact is that the problem wasn't low taxes, the problem was fiscal irresponsibility.

Let's take a look at Citizens for Government Waste's" The Pig Booklet" for the state of Minnesota for the year 2006. Take a look at all of the "pork" projects. I'll give you a taste of a few:

The state bailout of the Minneapolis Teacher's Retirement Fund, which puts state taxpayers on the hook for $972 million in unfunded liabilities

A new $776 million Twins Stadium to be paid for with a Hennepin County sales tax increase -- (approved by state legislators with no voter referendum)

$97.5 million for the Northstar Commuter Rail line

$34 million in subsidies to ethanol producers that have seen a 300 percent increase in profits in the last year
$30 million for bear exhibits at the Minnesota and Como Zoos
$12 million to renovate the Shubert Theater in downtown Minneapolis
$1 million for a replica Vikings ship in Moorhead
$500,000 for a skating rink in Roseville
$310,000 for a Shakespeare festival in Winona
$129,000 for state art grants for North Dakota museums and theaters

And the list goes on and on, folks. This was all tax money spent in Minnesota while that bridge remained un-repaired. Now we're told that the problem is that taxes weren't high enough.

As I've pointed out before, even in jurisdictions where the tax burden is astronomical, politicians won't deal with their core responsibilities, which should include the proper management of basic infrastructure, because they're too busy doing things like building baseball stadiums (see above) or focusing on how to turn nannies into civil servants for $7 a day (like in the province of Quebec) while completely avoidable tragedies take place around them, resulting in loss of life.

More here and here.

- Just in case you weren't sure what the Daily Kos website is all about, here's another article on the group who every Dem candidate except for Joe Biden is meeting with this weekend in Chicago.

- If you're a member of the Royal Family and you marry a Catholic, you forfeit any right you may have to the throne. You know how many human rights complaints alleging discrimination and riots in the streets there will be over this? None, thank you very much.

- The Bulgarian sex trade is undergoing a shift, allegedly because of global warming, as skiiers have nothing to do but rent hookers now that there's no snow on the mountains.

I'm still waiting for the severe thunderstorm that was supposed to hit us yesterday.

The most meaningless job in Ottawa? Tory backbencher, bar none.

- Kanye West, race-relations expert.

- Ah, to be a member of Leafs Nation, and all the class and romance that goes along with inclusion in that most exclusive of clubs.

- Newt Gingrich just doesn't care what anyone thinks of him. I admire that.

- You also gotta love Ozzie Guillen, manager of the Chicago White Sox. Here's a top ten list of his quotes. My personal favourite is number five:

''Those ceremonies -- 'Oh, let's bring back those guys from 2005,' we're all crippled and fucked up, pushing wheelchairs, kids crying because his dad was on the ballclub -- fuck that. I don't need that bull. A bunch of fat guys, another one is broke. 'Hey, where's your ring?' 'Oh, I don't know, I sold that son of a bitch two years ago.'''

Thursday digest

2007-08-02T20:39:00.001-04:00

- I'm going to a wedding on Sunday that is being held outdoors. When I woke up yesterday, the chance of precipitation for that day was 60%. By mid-afternoon, it had been downgraded to 40%, and as of last night, it was at 0%, where it has held ever since. Now explain to me why meteorologists can be way off about rain four days out and no one bats an eyelash, but if you dare question Al Gore's ability to see into the crystal ball hundreds of years down the road you're shouted down.

- Here's some good stuff from our friends at the Daily Kos. You know, life is just so damn unfair. Some excerpts, with my comments added:

***

The most important people in Democratic politics don't even know it.

It's the overweight mom I see in my neighborhood. The one with two young children who has pre-diabetes and doesn't know it yet. She lives in a society that won't give her preventative care or nutritional education, but which underwrites big corporations that sell her super-sized food that is silently eating away at her body.

(Because it's the taxpayer's job to teach her how to eat properly and pay for it when she doesn't.)

It's the small town single mom sitting at the kitchen table late at night smoking a cigarette...taxed to the last dollar like all the working poor...trying to figure out how to pay the electric bill and still have rent money on a cleaning woman's wages.

(Because asking her to reconsider spending scarce dollars on her pack-a-day habit would be cruel.)

It's that hopeful nurse in a rural hospital who spends her day cradling low birth-weight babies in a society that stopped caring about some of its children with the rise of the political party that's "abstinence-only."

(Because a government which encourages the termination of inconvenient pregnancies instead would foster a society that is "caring about some of its children".)

It's that girl I saw on the subway who looked at me with that curious stare. She doesn't even know about global warming.

(Lucky her.)

None of these people care about Democratic politics. None of these people care about YearlyKos or Bill O'Reilly.

But if you can fully understand what they are going through, the policy implications, the political task-at-hand, what steps we need to take in our system of government, the laws we need to pass...if you can put yourself in their shoes...then you can also understand what I mean when I say tonight: the most important person in Democratic politics is you.

(Because if we only try hard enough, we can ~~protect people from the consequences of repeatedly making bad choices in life~~ promote social justice!)

***

- Here's a business idea for the budding entrepreneurs out there.

- I am so not into Facebook.

- Any guesses as to the over/under on how long the blame for Minneapolis is laid at the White House doorstep by the liberal media? Hell, it's been over 24 hours since the tragedy so there must be some way someone has found a way to pin this on Bush and Cheney. I am going out on a limb here and saying that at least one Dem nominee will publicly insinuate just that at Yearly Kos in Chicago this weekend. In fact, a quick check of the Huffington Post's comments section is entirely predictable, with some going so far as to suggest that Rove engineered the collapse to deflect attention away from Alberto Gonzalez and other Republican problems.

You know, the term "Bush Derangement Syndrome" is just a little too mild sometimes. How about just good ol' "frothing at the mouth" instead?

- Larry O'Brien is a desperate man.

Wednesday digest

2007-08-01T20:38:00.001-04:00

- According to this study, the average worker screws around for over 2 hours a day. That seems low to me for some reason, but then again, I live in Ottawa, a town dominated by government employees and techophiles, two subgroups of the labour market which are probably more apt to spend their time goofing around on Facebook, Blogger, MSN Messenger or Myspace than is the rest of the world.

- Johnny Stossel talks about the economically illiterate voter, here. Is it any wonder you haven't heard any pol (with the exception of the current President a few summers ago) ever discuss the need to reform entitlement spending, or articulate a clear argument against raising the minimum wage?

- Right on cue, we've got some loony lefties wishing death on Chief Justice of the US Supreme Court John Roberts after he suffered a seizure this week.

- An Ohio mother is upset because her condo association won't let her bring her 1-year old boy into the community pool because they are afraid he might take a leak, or worse, pinch a loaf in the water. Hey lady - if you don't like it, why not just move?

Tuesday digest

2007-07-31T20:47:00.001-04:00

- Nothing like a reality check on good ol' Che Guevara, hero of the malleable undergraduate. More here.

- Newt Gingrich is coming under a lot of fire for candidly discussing the decline of Motown. If there was ever a place that was begging for reform, that would have to be it, but do you expect the unions and race-baiters which make up the establishment of that community (and I use that term loosely) to do anything other than cry "I'm offended"?

Transcript here.

- A very interesting look at the oil supply, here.

- The CRTC (our government agency here in Canada that controls the airwaves) is imposing a requirement on a burgeoning Christian radio station to give over an hour a day of time to other religious faiths to satisfy a "balance" requirement.

I have three questions:

a) What is precluding members of these other faiths from starting up their own radio stations?
b) In the absence of these other efforts, why is the government forcing some other guy who has laid out the cash, time and effort to launch his own radio station, and isn't even a member of those other faiths, to do what people of those faiths won't do on their own?
c) Would the Canadian state impose a similar requirement for Christian points of view on, say, an Islamic radio station?

- Another reason why Metallica is best ignored these days: guitarist Kirk Hammett says that the most important moment of their career is probably not their first #1 album, debuting as a headliner, or even putting together the the comeback from the widely-held-as-absolutely-craptacular St. Anger album and the embarassing pity party, "Some Kind of Monster", which one hopes they are focused on right now.

No, in fact, likely the most important moment in their over 25-year existence according to Hammett is quite possibly their performance at Live Earth. Sayeth he: "You know, if we can make that much of a difference, and make that much change, by all means. Because I love the Earth, I love the environment, I love nature. And it's so important."

Hey, at least he believes, and that's the most important thing, right?

- Things that annoy:

Use of the word "frick".

Those new cellular ringtones that sound like the type of rotary outfit that your doctor's office used to have with the series of clear buttons on the bottom with one red one. Hey, asshole - the set of the Johnny Carson Show called, they want their phone back, and by virtue of having your volume set to 8, you will never be understated or subtle enough to be considered a renaissance man, so just give it up already.

Being accosted by Amnesty International activists on the streets of downtown Ottawa asking me if I have a "few minutes for human rights". Actually, no, I don't, because I'm trying to quickly grab a sub so I can get back to my desk and do some work, thank you very much, you holier-than-thou, left-wing John Bircher.

Monday digest

2007-07-30T11:13:00.000-04:00

- Here's a story about a Canadian who would have been left on the cutting room floor had he been interviewed for "Sicko". Context here.

- Speaking of deviating from the dominant narrative, could it be that the surge might be working?

- I couldn't have said it better myself ... the #1 reason the Left adores the theory underpinning communism is because they think everyone is stupid and in need of their intelligent guidance.

- According to this poster at the Daily Kos, it's a good thing that the members of the Armed Forces are feeling a little fatigued these days - all the better to resist the inevitable order to impose military rule, which should be coming from the White House any day now, apparently.

By the way, this web site's convention is hosting every single Dem nominee save Joe Biden this weekend in Chicago. You may say that there's a lot of nonsense spouted off by bloggers all over the political spectrum - fine - but do you see Presidential candidates lining up to legitimize angry and cruel discourse like that which is found at the Daily Kos?

- On that note, this is a complete outrage. I want someone to ask Hillary, the only hope for a centrist voice in the Democratic party (and a bleak one at that), what she thinks of her party's antics on this issue.

- A dissenting voice from a community that has been irreparably damaged by government paternalism over the years who urges fresh thinking and a new approach is dismissed as inauthentic by his rivals. Where have we seen that before?

- The NAACP is reaching out to Michael Vick and seeing how they can be of assistance to him. Is this what the civil rights movement has come to in the year 2007?

- Pierre Trudeau has been nominated as the worst Canadian ever. What I'd like to know is, who the heck is Chris Hannah?

Book Review: "Suicide of the West" by Richard Koch and Chris Smith (2006)

2007-07-29T20:38:00.000-04:00

... (T)he denial of authority can engender subjective sterility, where any point of view appears as good as another. Postmodern philosophers assert that everything is relative. Truth becomes 'privatized', a matter of importance arrived at by scientific investigation and public debate. Not only is nothing better than anything else, but also we can never know the nature of truth. This dubious philosophy has been used to justify ignorance and elevate emotion and opinion above reason and science.

Relativism corrodes the sense of responsibility without which liberal society cannot work. Reasoned debate can only impose obligations on members of society if the acknowledge that there is such a thing as 'the public good' and that some policies and some forms of behaviour are better than others.

The sense of personal responsibility is also being undermined by another development. Increasingly, personal disadvantages, or the defects of society, are regarded as an excuse for antisocial behaviour. Whole swathes of Western society have come to see themselves as 'victims' who are therefore not liable for the consequences of their actions. The mass manufacture of 'victims' has done untold damage both to them and to the sense of citizens' mutual responsibility that liberal communities require. History furnishes countless examples where the human spirit has overcome war, disability, plague, oppression, famine, flood, poverty, social discrimination, and even concentration camps. It is insulting to assume that disadvantaged people cannot rise above their tribulations, that the suffering and difficulties of all human life somehow justify antisocial or criminal activity. Liberal civilization - in both its Anglo-Saxon and social-democratic guises - rests on overcoming problems and bad behaviour, not multiplying them; on taking responsibility, not denying it.

Indiscriminate respect for all cultures, all peoples and all views shades into acceptance of anti-intellectualism and anti-liberalism. If everything is relative, then anything - cannibalism, genocide - can be justified. Liberals can be soft touches. An attempt to see all points of view, filtered through the liberal mind, can lead to a belief that if fanatics such as suicide bombers hate us, then we must have done something terrible to generate this hatred. That way lies our own suicide - if fascist enemies cannot be recognized, and if liberals will not fight for liberal values, then the barbarians will won. Many Western liberals are perversely unwilling to recognize the unprecedented virtues of Western liberal society - something that other societies could not have produced, something that is worth defending and, by mutual consent, extending. Perversely, the most dangerous enemy of liberalism is liberalism.

- From "The Suicide of the West", pp. 132-133

This extremely readable 200-page essay by British entrepreneur Richard Koch and former UK Secretary of State Chris Smith takes a look at what they believe to be the six pillars of Western civilization: Christianity, optimism, science, growth, liberalism and individualism. Each one is explained historically, compared and contrasted against each other, and evaluated in terms of the dominant discourse today in the media, universities, and governments across Europe and North America. In so doing, Koch and Smith find that there is lukewarm enthusiasm on the part of elites for the values that have built and made the West into the most prosperous, free and comfortable society in which humanity has ever lived, intellectually underscoring other recent and more practical works by writers like Bruce Bawer, Melanie Phillips and Mark Steyn. The one complaint I have is that the title of "Suicide of the West" is overly alarmist as the authors themselves don't even come to that conclusion, instead issuing a warning wrapped in an examination rather than some Chicken Little-type polemic.

Worth looking for.

Overall rating: 9.25/10

Saturday digest

2007-07-27T19:47:00.001-04:00

- Overtaxing Canadians by $3.5 billion two months into this fiscal year (or, put another way, well over $100 for every man, woman and child in the country), and laying the groundwork for retreat from Afghanistan.

Just another day at the office for this so-called Conservative government.

- Quote of the day: "We have to understand there are differences between capitalist lobotomies and socialist lobotomies."

- The latest brand of save the earth/overpopulation hysteria includes calls for an agreement to stop procreating. Here's a short explanation of why that kind of zero-sum thinking is wrong-headed.

Book Review: "Billion Dollar Baby" by Bob Greene (1974)

2007-07-27T19:12:00.000-04:00

This hidden classic, first published in November 1974 (when I would have been anywhere from four to eight weeks of age), is a first-person account of life in a top rock n' roll band by a newspaper reporter who was brought along to be part of the on-stage show during Alice Cooper's December 1973 jaunt across selected markets in eastern North America.

The deal was that he wouldn't be paid but would have full access and creative control to document what he saw, and Greene takes full advantage of it, in effect recreating the scene where the drape is pulled back in "The Wizard of Oz" but with America's most controversial artist as the subject.

Things begin in Manhattan where Greene is brought in to the studio to sing backup on tracks for the follow-up to "Billion Dollar Babies", which is followed by the launch of the tour in Nashville. All of the monotony, excess and logistical nightmares are brought into full view. In fact, it's so detailed and personal an account that to refer to it as a "tell-all" would almost cheapen it.

I'm totally surprised that this addictive read isn't better known by fans of the rock memoir genre, as the first I'd heard of it was on a metal discussion board this week. Even more disappointing is that it's now out of print and not even to be found within the entire Ottawa Public Library network. So how did I get a hold of it? Right here, baby. A word of warning, however: if you download this while at the office, you won't be getting a lot of work done.

Fascinating.

Overall rating: 9/10

Thursday digest

2007-07-26T21:11:00.001-04:00

- A Liberal politican from Toronto throwing tax dollars around to buy ethnic votes?

I'm shocked.

- There's nothing wrong with teaching kids how to bounce back from failure.

- Oh, that nasty US government, sentencing native-born Americans who chose to attend terror camps in Pakistan to a whopping 15 years in jail. The reasoning? He might have been "naive", the poor thing.

What an outrage.

Wednesday digest

2007-07-25T20:45:00.000-04:00

- Even the trendiest, faddiest, most pretentious poser/hipster mag out there can't deny the greatness of one of the last of the real, authentic American rock bands. "Appetite for Destruction", hands down the best debut album of all time and the record that changed my life, was released twenty years ago this summer. Danger. Soul. Sleaze. Riffs. Screams. Solos. Hunger. Piss. Vinegar. Larger than life. That was what the original lineup of Guns n' Roses brought to the table and is exactly why we'll still be talking about them twenty years from now and twenty years after that.

"Rocket Queen".

"Out Ta Get Me".

"Jungle".

"Nighttrain".

"It's So Easy".

Unmatched.

- Remember a few years back how the surest way to know an argument was over was when you heard the losing side accuse the other of being "anti-democratic"? I have a feeling that the accusation of "treason" is about to take hold in similar fashion. A few weeks back, after the Live Earth extravaganza, we had Bobby Kennedy Jr. tell us that anyone who didn't believe in man-made global warming was a "traitor". Now the far left/mainstream Democratic website the Daily Kos is upping the ante by running drivel like this as a recommended diary over at their site:

"Now is the time for us, as a nation, to stand together and face the criminals inhabiting and infesting our government. It's time for Congress to impeach, convict and remove all elements of this dangerous infection, preventing them from ever holding office again.

And anyone -- Liebercrat or Republican -- who stands to oppose impeachment, conviction and removal should be tried for their role as accomplice in the sedition and treason against the United States. No more should they be permitted to hide behind snivelling protocols and talk out both sides of their mouths -- either they are with the nation, or they are part of the criminal conspiracy currently thwarting the will of both Congress and the People."

You'll be hearing a lot more about Kos in the next few weeks as the Democratic front runners line up to kiss the ring.

- A look at the recent gun violence in Toronto, here.

Does anyone still think that kids who grow up without a father in the home aren't at higher risk of certain outcomes than those who do?

No government program is going to change the answer to that question.

- A look at the social spinoffs of economic growth, here.

- The man who left Canada divided, broke and decimated its founding political party beyond repair in the process loves Stephen Harper.

It's not like I needed yet another reason to spoil my ballot next time around, but I'll just add this one to the list.

Tuesday digest

2007-07-24T10:58:00.000-04:00

- Lindsay Lohan was busted again for drinking and driving. Why, exactly, is this newsworthy?

- A carpenters' union in DC is paying homeless people minimum-wage money with no benefits to pose as members and picket for higher salaries.

- The rich are getting richer and the poor are getting poorer? Nope. Everyone's getting richer, just some more quickly than others.

- It's been a while since I've posted a loony left play of the day, so here goes. I really hope this protest tactic doesn't come to Canada because seeing the fairer members of the federal NDP caucus unclothed is something no one wants to be subjected to.

- I posted this earlier in the month, but in case you missed it, I'm posting it again. It's a clip of the smug, Upper Canada College-educated CBC talking head Avi Lewis - son of David (all genuflect) and Michelle Landsberg, women's-libber from the Toronto Star, and husband of caviar socalist Naomi Klein - dismissively mocking Ayaan Hirsi Ali, the Dutch politician of Somali origin who has faced Sharia law, genital mutilation and numerous death threats for speaking out against violent Islam. Deconstruction here.

Monday digest

2007-07-23T16:22:00.001-04:00

- Drew Carey replacing Bob Barker? I like it!

- Unfortunately, the observation that some Democrats have more in common with Karl Marx than they do Adam Smith would still put far too many folks four square in their camp. Luckily, there's this handy-dandy link to show them the error of their ways and save them from further embarassment.

- More here on a guy who is a disgrace to the journalism profession - and that's saying quite a bit. Contrast his work with sophisticated yet accessible social science like this and you'll see why I can't resist bring him up over and over again.

- This might just be the quote of the year, from Newt Gingrich: "I have no interest in trying to figure out how I can go out and raise money under John McCain's insane censorship rules so I can show up to do seven minutes and twenty seconds at some debate".

Speaking of McCain, it's pretty sad to see his partner in crime, Russ Feingold, running around talking about censuring the President when the biggest issue by far these days should be what to do about Pakistan and al-Qaeda's base there.

Then again, Feingold's a far-left Democratic Senator, a group which continues to insist on playing amateur hour, which, especially taking the guy at 1600's disastrous second term into account, is no small feat these days in DC.

- Gold: Hitch tells Galloway that he's waiting to write a review of his prison memoirs.

- Yet another reason to give props to Oz, here.

- After seeing these pics, it's pretty safe to say that Madonna is officially past her prime.

DVD Review: "Synchronicity Concert - The Police" (2005)

2007-07-22T18:51:00.000-04:00

Just in time for the reunion tour of The Police, which is hitting central Canada this week, HMV has this DVD priced at a can't-go-wrong $8.99. As a casual fan at best who saw Sting in June 1993 at the late, great Kingswood Music Theatre just north of Toronto as part of the Canada's Wonderland $12 concert series, I passed on getting tickets for this summer's jaunt, finding this purchase a much more reasonable proposition.

Directed by Godley and Creme and released as a home video in 1984, this effort has not aged well. Sting looks like he's wearing something from the set of his film debut "Dune" and the cheesy background singers are laughable. Even worse is the Atlanta crowd. I lost count of how many Puma T-shirts I saw. Lame effects are inserted into the presentation, too, like strobe lights and that kind of thing. Don't get me wrong - if I was a twenty-year old new waver living in my parents' basement in the mid-80s and got a hold of this, I'd think it was pretty cool, but it's 2007. Musically, things are decent, but this video reinforces that the band's hits were head and shoulders above their album cuts. It is also a good look at the drumming of Stewart Copeland, often overlooked outside of certain circles. Moreover, the show itself is your basic lighting kit with dry ice here and there - nothing spectacular.

Take a look at Message in a Bottle and you'll see for yourself. A decent addition to your shelf of live DVDs, but only if you're a collector - otherwise, you aren't missing much.

Overall rating: 5/10

Album Review: "AIn't Life Amazing" by Kim Mitchell (2007)

2007-07-22T14:06:00.000-04:00

What would summer in Canada be without the Toronto Blue Jays fighting for a playoff berth, the smell of a campfire, bug spray, a four-beer buzz, and the sweet sounds of Kim Mitchell wafting through the air?

Priced at an agreeable $9.99 at HMV, I'm happy to say that this independently-released album from the Can-Con legend does not follow the Eric Clapton/Phil Collins/Rod Stewart route whereby 50-something artists cash in by writing or performing embarassing tunes that would find their way onto either a children's soundtrack or an album of "standards" that would both fit perfectly on your local easy listening station's playlist. Instead, like every Kim album before it, it sounds different from anything that he's done before, while retaining that undeniable Mitchell sound, usually through a clean, uptempo guitar sound and layered vocals that aren't going to blow you away but are perfectly serviceable given the can't-quite-put-my-finger-on-it material underneath them.

Some people might be dismissive, but I think it's great that this fella is still creative, and strongly so at that, despite earning a paycheque these days that comes from playing the odd county fair and doing the drive-home shift on Toronto's Q107. While "Ain't Life Amazing" isn't on par with my personal favourite album from Mitchell, the overlooked 1992 release "Aural Fixations", it gets one-and-a-half enthusiastic thumbs up from this long-time fan. Now does anyone know where I can get an OPP hat?

Overall rating: 7.5/10

Book Review: "Inside Out: A Personal History of Pink Floyd" by Nick Mason (2005)

2007-07-22T13:42:00.001-04:00

I flipped through this rock autobiography after seeing last Saturday's amazing Roger Waters show in Toronto, and I'd place it somewhere between a couple of other books by drummers which I've read over the last year - not quite as entertaining as this, nor nearly as insufferable as this.

The first half of "Inside Out" is dominated by stories of the band's formation in England in the mid-1960s, which is a little dry but is made up for from the period of about 1970 onward, whereby founding member and clinically insane original guitarist Syd Barrett was sidelined in favour of the elegant David Gilmour. The Dark Side/Wish You Were Here years are covered in detail, as is the infamous Olympic Stadium show in 1977 on the "Animals" tour, which led to the birth of The Wall, Floyd's magnum opus. Mason comes across like detached observer here, more interested in racing cars than the trappings of fame. As for keyboardist Rick Wright decides to pretty much float along, content to let the others do the work, and Waters (as is well-documented) takes over the Floyd apparatus as Gilmour focused on his solo work. Of course, the whole Wall phenomenon, along with accompanying mini-tour and film, was the breaking point for the original lineup with the dismal epilogue "The Final Cut" putting the nail in the band's coffin, revealing Waters' complete arrogance in promoting himself as "The Creative Genius of Pink Floyd" on his latest tour as he really held the pen only on these latter two projects.

Throughout the 80s, the reunion of Mason and Gilmour as Floyd along with the accompanying "Momentary Lapse of Reason" album and tour is chronicled, situated as it was amongst a myriad of lawsuits from Waters and feeble attempts by Gilmour to co-write with the likes of Carole Pope, among others. Wright is once again brought back into the fold for the "Delicate Sound of Thunder" tour, which opened in Ottawa in 1987, with Waters' comments in the press underlining the observation that most musicians are twenty degrees to the left when it involves other people's money and twenty degrees to the right when it involves their own. The part of the book I found most fascinating was the lead-up to the massive 1994 "Division Bell" album, an album which easily places within Floyd's top five albums, and on same days, I'd even say top three.

Things conclude with the Live 8 performance of 2005, footage of which I haven't seen, but all said, this is a decent look at the history of one of rock's superstar outfits from one who had the perfect vantage point. However, it's not written for a general audience, and I'd suggest listening to a few albums before picking this one up as serious fans will enjoy it much more than casual ones.

Overall rating: 8/10

Friday digest

2007-07-20T08:58:00.000-04:00

- Last night, the lead story on O'Reilly was Kansas City Star columnist Jason Whitlock who was discussing the Michael Vick dogfighting scandal. Whitlock suggested that Vick's participation in dogfighting is linked to a "hip-hop/prison culture" that is glorified by many black athletes.

I have to mention that while everyone seems to have their knickers in a knot over cruelty towards Dobermans and pit bulls, discussing cruelty towards, say, a fetus, remains completely off the table and considered the epitome of extremism.

Is a little proportionality too much to ask for?

- I love it: David Miller, socalist mayor of Toronto, and councillor/Toronto Transit Commission chairman Adam Giambrone (who also happens to be a former national president of the New Democratic Party) are mad because their tax hike got rejected by council, so instead of reining in the public sector unions or reforming in other areas, they're threatening to wreak havoc on bus and subway service across the GTA, protecting their buddies in CUPE and OPSEU from tough medicine at the expense of seniors, students and those who can't afford private transportation.

So much for looking out for the poor and vulnerable.

- If you really, really are concerned about global warming, the best thing to do is to go vegetarian.

Oh? What's that, you say? Something about "a sacrifice you're not willing to make"?

I suppose you'll be hanging on to that propane-powered barbecue as well, then.

- Want an example of how to be against the war in Iraq but still in support of the troops? Look no further than the one and only Mr. Toby Keith.

- And a new global survey shows that whoever said money doesn't buy happiness, was, well, pretty much wrong.

Thursday digest

2007-07-19T13:43:00.001-04:00

- Note to Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper: like Ernie Eves, Joe Clark and Kim Campbell before you, your ~~Liberal-lite~~ Conformatory routine is failing to put you in to majority territory. Maybe it's time to start acting like a right winger to differentiate yourself from the alternative.

- Eco-vandalism has taken root in DC.

- Here's a study which suggests that if you eliminate non-citizens, those who choose not to purchase health insurance and those who qualify for government health insurance but haven't applied, the number of uninsured Americans is far lower than the 45 to 47 million figure which is often claimed.

- Speaking of which, the City of Ottawa has decided to stop subsidizing crack addicts. Usually, I would totally applaud this decision, but under Canada's no-fault public health care system, it will probably end up costing taxpayers money in the long run because in the Great White North, individuals aren't held accountable for behaviour-driven costs but are instead expected to contribute to its financing based on only one variable: personal income. Take a look at this lengthy yet vital contextual piece for more.

- Ed Koch says he's done with Iraq.

- Valerie Plame, your fifteen minutes of fame are officially up.

- The Washington Post agrees: it's time to target northwestern Pakistan.

- Everyone interested or concerned with Third World poverty will enjoy this piece from The Economist.

- Other items a little less serious here and here.

Wednesday digest

2007-07-18T12:31:00.001-04:00

- Former Labour MP George Galloway, friend of the Toronto Coalition to Stop the War, CUPE and the Canadian Islamic Congress, has been booted out of the British House of Commons for taking oil-for-food money from Saddam Hussein and using it to fund campaigns against both sanctions and an invasion of Iraq. Short story here, long story here.

- Al-Qaeda has established a beachhead in northwestern Pakistan.

I think it's time for a fly-over.

- I'm 32 years of age. The good thing about that is that I'm perfectly positioned to make a fair bit of cake during my prime earning years. The bad thing is that the welfare state is going to take an increasing chunk of that income - who knows how much? - because we haven't reformed entitlement spending.

Meanwhile, it looks like Norwegians are about to launch a tax revolt of their own.

- Yesterday, I blogged about the declining consumption of newspapers, and commented that I think it's a generally negative trend. More on that subject here.

- If some Americans don't want to buy health insurance, why should they have to?

- Last summer, I warned my female readers about wearing those massive Nicole Richie-type sunglasses because in fifteen years, you'll look back on pictures of yourself and cringe. This summer, I have to say the same thing about crocs. And while I'm on the subject of things I don't "get", how about Harry Potter? (Then again, I once said about ten years ago that there would never be a country CD in my player, ever, and look at how that turned out.)

- Here's a sensible article for Ottawa readers concerning what to do with the soon-to-number two empty stadiums in town.

Tuesday digest

2007-07-17T19:51:00.000-04:00

- Take a look at some of the donors to Al Franken's far left campaign to take one of Minnesota's Senate seats:

Robin Williams, Tom Hanks, Paul Newman, Larry David, Jason Alexander, Dan Aykroyd - $4,600 each
Rosie O'Donnell - $2,300
Bill Maher - $1,000

A credible champion of the middle American who's just working to make ends meet, he ain't.

- Speaking of 9/11 conspiracy theorists, how about the latest from Fidel, who says that the United States government deliberately allows terror attacks to take place to justify its foreign policy? Um, last I checked, there hadn't been any incidents on US soil since the World Trade Center disaster.

- The guy from whom Castro cribs his talking points is a low-down, dirty sleazeball.

- Kids' TV in the Palestinian territories: aren't you glad the Canadian Prime Minister is sending your tax dollars to help fund this?

- A recent survey reveals that only 1 out of 3 Americans surveyed and over the age of 30 read the newspaper every day, while less than 1 in 5 under the age of 30 do so. As imperfect as the media is, generally speaking (see here and here), I find that troubling because television news is more sensational and derived of proper context than hard news, and an ignorant public is a precursor to a society in decline.

- A thoughtful piece on Western elites who have positioned themselves as self-styled experts on Africa, here.

- More on the book review below here, with other interesting pieces on the faith/politics intersection here, here and here.

Book Review: "The Political Teachings of Jesus" by Tod Lindberg (2007)

2007-07-16T20:43:00.001-04:00

~~Christianity~~ Organized religion is taking more of a beating than usual these days, with the non-fiction best seller list dominated by atheistic screeds (see here and here) and the Catholic church in particular having a rough past couple of weeks with the molestation settlement in LA on top of the Pope's most recent controversy. In addition, you have the usual secularists who blame Christians for everything from the war on terror to the 2000 election ("stolen", of course) to madmen firing guns outside of abortion clinics and all things in between, especially as we enter another election season in the United States. However, it's easy to focus on dogma and/or the foibles and errors of humanity while sidelining the spiritual teachings of Jesus himself as articulated in the Gospels.

In Canada, these teachings have been used to implicitly justify political programs from the far left to the new right, not to mention the brokerage Liberal party and their poorer cousins in the former Progressive Conservative party, leading to Prime Ministers who were uniformly if nominally Catholic from the period of 1968-2006 uninterrupted (except for Kim Campbell and her summer job back in 1993). Never easy to grasp at the best of times, I picked up this book wanting to make sense of it all as a former altar boy, libertarian-leaning yet practicing, and unfortunately, I found it of of little practical value, as it combines theology, political thought and philosophy - three of the dullest disciplines known to man - with not a lot outside of the abstract on offer.

That said, what I did take from this book was of some use. Boiled down, way down, the author suggests that there are three things which basically underline Christ's teachings. First is the Golden Rule - treat others as you would have them treat you. Second is the primacy of faith in God above all other things - this is how it is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man, not just any rich man but one who puts the pursuit of those riches above devotion to God, to enter Heaven. Finally, the concept of free will, whereby any charity or good works that are compulsed, either by institutions, guilt or some other misguided sense of duty, isn't authentic. In fact, we were created with the full power to choose our own destinies and through those choices one will find the way to the afterlife. Jesus himself reflected humanity's God-given free will by choosing to die on the Cross when He could very well have prevented the whole thing from happening by virtue of the fact that He was God made man - if you choose to believe it, of course.

Still, that doesn't take away from the fact that I kept thinking that this book could have been so much better if it was just a tad more down to earth, but it did clarify and develop my thinking on the subject a little bit.

Overall rating: 4/10

Monday digest

2007-07-16T14:14:00.000-04:00

- Having breakfast yesterday in Scarlem over the Toronto Sun, I couldn't help but notice that the city's NDP mayor, David Miller, is leading the charge towards an increase in the land transfer tax, effectively doubling it, and introducing a new motor vehicle registration fee. He says that without imposing such a penalty for homebuyers and car owners, the city wouldn't be able to compete with Chicago and London because the T-Dot's public sector (and its unionized friends) would have to shrink itself - clearly, a choice far too horrific to contemplate.

We can only conclude that the socialist Miller thinks that his city is great because of its government, not in spite of it, which is why he wants to reach even further into the pockets of Torontonians, as obviously thinks he needs their money more than they do.

TUESDAY MORNING UPDATE: The council will vote on the tax raise once the October provincial election takes place, which, according to the Mayor, will be a victory for those who want to see the poor have less food in their stomachs. In other words, pack your bags, because the left is sending you on a guilt trip:

Miller's political strategy was to impose the new taxes, then tell the provincial and federal governments it's time for them to do what they can to solve the city's financial problems. It didn't happen.

And Miller warned councillors that programs are likely to suffer as a result – such as swimming lessons for a boy he knows who lives in public housing.

"If you believe in services like helping feed people, if you believe in services like recreation programs for people that have nothing – if you support this deferral, what you're saying in effect is: I want those services to be cut, because that will be the consequences," Miller said.

- The continuing saga of the goose and the gander, here.

- Although I didn't follow the trial closely, I can't help but notice how everyone is piling on Conrad Black, who was found by a non-sequestered jury to be guilty of obstruction of justice because he moved a few boxes out of his office after a court told him not to. Could it be that he's been sentenced for being a wealthy and intelligent right-winger with an air of pomposity more than anything else?

Note also that Patrick Fitzgerald, the same guy who decided to assassinate Scooter Libby's character and destroy his career by putting him on the stand even though he (Fitzgerald) already knew the identity of the leaker in the whole Plame affair, was the prosecuting lawyer in Black's case.

In particular, a lot of Canadians are relishing Black's fall from grace, particularly within the establishment. In fact, some presumptous observers have even predicted that he will eventually kill himself. Please.

Now while it's true that Black may come off as though he thinks he's above the law, but since when is that a crime, as opposed to, say, unabashedly dissenting from Trudeaupian orthodoxy for years and years and years?

- VDH on the New York Times' capitulation to fascism, here, or, if you prefer, Wahabbism.

- As a society, I don't think that three-parent families is a can of worms we want to open - or maybe I'm just a redneck for even raising it.

More here.

- A fitting epitaph for John McCain, here.

- The top 100 rock tours of 2007 so far, from Pollstar.

Live Review: Roger Waters, Rogers Centre, Toronto, ON, July 14, 2007

2007-07-15T19:46:00.000-04:00

Much more a David Gilmour than a Roger Waters fan as far as individual members of Pink Floyd go, I wasn't interested in checking out Waters' lastest tour in the least until a block of $40 tickets were released for last night's show at what used to be called the Skydome. Things came together quite nicely so a buddy and I decided to head down to Toronto yesterday to check it out, and to say it was a pleasant surprise would be a massive understatement.

We settled into our upper deck seats and found that we had a perfect view of the stage. I had never sat up there before for a rock show, so I was happy to find out that things were looking good. However, I was wondering how the sound was going to be since the upside-down toilet bowl that is the Rogers Centre is notoriously poor for acoustics, but as the 30,000 other attendees and I found out, it was absolutely impeccable. Fans of Floyd know that they are the original headphone band, and it was recreated in full last night. From the opening notes of "In the Flesh?" through "Mother", it was clear that Waters had spared no expense sonically. Also, for a guy who has created most of his public persona as a musician on an intense dislike of the whole rock star experience, particularly in a live stadium setting, there were flashpots, pyro, dry ice, bubbles, floating astronauts and pigs, and lasers in addition to two large screens on either side of the stage and a massive one in behind the band which displayed tons of graphics and movies to go with each song.

Musically, this was truly a mind-blowing performance. The first half was comprised of mostly Floyd tunes stretching back to "Set the Controls for the Heart of the Sun", the third track after which I knew that my money was going to be well spent on this evening. The highlights of the first half were "Have A Cigar" and "Sheep". The second half was made up of the entire "Dark Side of the Moon" album, and "Any Colour You Like" was tops here. You can find an entire set list here, and the footage I've linked to above is taken from the level where we were sitting, so it will give you a good idea of how I experienced it (although we were sitting a few sections over to the left, and not as high up, so the lighting truss didn't obstruct our view at all). Waters and various band members sang the Gilmour parts, depending on which song it was, and I have to say that to this Gilmour fan, they were done justice, especially considering Waters himself is in his early 60s - and I saw no evidence of vocal enhancements despite rumours to the contrary (see Wikipedia article above).

Quibbles? A couple. The keyboards during "Time" were way too low in the mix. Second, while I knew that Rog would have a bit to say about the state of the world today, there was absolutely no subtlety to his Chomskyist brand of secular cultural relativism. From the "Impeach Bush Now" written on the floating pig's ass to lyrics blaming the "Christian right" for the lack of peace in the Middle East to American and Israeli flags projected behind the band during "Bring the Boys Back Home", it was both a little over the top and frankly a tad clichéd by now. But that's the guy, right? I'm just glad I didn't buy $150 or even the $70 tickets to be told what to think by some hardcore socialist rock star who pisses all over the very society that has enabled him to have a platform from which to spout his beliefs in addition to making tons of money, even if his opinions do seem to be a little more well-considered than most that come out of the entertainment industry. No doubt dissenters in, say, Iran, Syria or the Palestinian territories are puzzled by such things that go on with regularity here in the West, where speaking ill of one's government is often glorified rather than punishable by death.

But I digress.

All told, it was an incredible, incredible performance, and while not quite on par with Gilmour, Wright and Mason's 1994 outing, it was still a hell of an evening from a true professional, even if he does have the audacity to refer to himself as "The Creative Genius of Pink Floyd". Fans of the band who are hoping for them to get back together shouldn't hold their breath, as it's clear that Waters needs to be in charge of whatever he does. Moreover, last night may very well be the final time that he ever plays some of those songs, as it was the last date of the entire tour (which began in June 2006).

Amazing.

Overall rating: 9.5/10

(PS: We headed over to the Horseshoe Tavern afterwards and caught the one and only White Cowbell Oklahoma. Chainsaws, megaphones and beer-soaked strippers on top of Big and Rich-esque antics multiplied by AC/DC riffage - everything I've come to expect from these guys, with a rollicking cover of Deep Purple's "Space Truckin'" to close the affair. Great stuff, and what a way to end the night.)

Live Review: Just for Laughs Festival, Montreal, QC, July 12, 2007

2007-07-13T11:01:00.001-04:00

Today is Mrs. H's birthday, so in addition to a weed eater and a Coffee Crisp, I surprised her with tickets to two shows last night at the Just for Laughs festival in Montreal, from where I'm writing this morning.

First, we saw a French comic by the name of Stephane Rousseau . Those of you who have seen "The Barbarian Invasions", one of the best movies of the 2000's in my opinion, would know him as the son of the main character. I understood at least half of what was going on, which for me is pretty good, and was also a pleasant surprise as French Canadian comedians are not known for their articulation. He was like a more clever, less frenetic Quebecois version of Jim Carrey.

Then, we stopped in at La Belle Province restaurant for a hot dog and a pogo before downing a beer at a sidewalk bistro and heading to the Nasty Show at midnight. I had heard that this English-language show was not for the faint of heart, and the five guys who comprised this bill delivered on that promise. From jokes about fisting Helen Keller to observations about how having sex outdoors usually involves having bugs crawl up your back door and bite your sphincter with the end result being something that looks like a UFC fighter's ear to getting married because you think to yourself that sitting at home with empty testicles and a full wallet is a situation that must be reversed to how Montreal women are so hot even the homeless ones have nice racks - it was all here. And even I was slightly offended at some of it, which is actually quite impressive.

Good times.

Overall ratings:

Stephane Rousseau: 8/10
The Nasty Show: 9/10

Thursday digest

2007-07-12T10:29:00.000-04:00

- Lee Harvey Oswald, lone-acting socialist looney tune.

- After wishing she could kill George Bush, an Irish peace activist blames him for the suffering in the Muslim world - because apparently all was sweet and light before he came along.

- As a new study estimates that 3/4 of the US public will be overweight within 8 years, with almost one in two Americans approaching obesity is released, Mike Huckabee is met with mean spirited personal attacks from you-know-who's attack dogs for suggesting that perhaps a look in the mirror might be appropriate before mouthing off on rising health care costs. And while I'm on the subject of choosing whether or not to spend your time and money on taking care of yourself or blaming the government instead for all your problems, here's a great rant concerning the subject (even if its author doesn't know how to use paragraphs).

- Canadian PM Stephen Harper of the Conformatory party is reinstating funding to Palestine and prepping for a withdrawal from Afghanistan. How Liberal is this guy going to get in search of that elusive majority?

- A revealing interview with uber-producer Bob Rock, here.

- Speaking of music, I'm hoping that people will finally start recognizing this guy for what he really was ... a babbling, drooling, self-indulgent jackass.

- Brent Sutter and the New Jersey Devils: I love it.

Wednesday digest

2007-07-11T10:42:00.000-04:00

- Why stop at government-run health care? Hell, let's try "food care" for everybody (evidence from the former Soviet Union aside, of course).

- The parents of an American girl who died after deliberately standing in front of an Israeli bulldozer in Gaza a few years ago are now blaming the manufacturer, suing them because they sold Caterpillars to the Israeli government knowing that their product would be used to carry out "human rights violations".

And their lawyer teaches at Duke.

You can't make this stuff up.

- Watch out for those redheads. I hear they have a pretty nasty temper.

Tuesday digest

2007-07-10T06:52:00.000-04:00

- A website that I've come to enjoy is called "I Don't Like You In That Way". What I like about it is that it takes celebrities down a few notches (although it's not like the one pictured above has much farther to fall).

It's the perfect antidote to a culture where the news is often confused with Entertainment Tonight.

- The epitome of an unhinged liberal, here. Stay tuned to the end when he calms down, but not enough to resist poking fun at Dr. Sanjay Gupta's Indo-American heritage by lampooning his family name.

- Looks like Jessica Simpson has rubbed off on John Mayer - and not in a good way, either:

For John Mayer, the raised awareness that Live Earth U.S.A. brought to the issue of climate change made the event a success. "I think a lot of people at Giants Stadium today want to listen," he said. "Awareness works likes a vitamin. You go to the bathroom and 99 percent of it is gone but you hope that you retained 1 percent."

What?

And from the same article, if you're a man-made global warming skeptic, RFK Jr. thinks you're a "traitor".

- This just in: women prefer men with muscles, and the Pope considers Catholicism to be just a cut above.

Why are these two stunning observations making headlines? This may partially explain it.

- Wednesday morning update: Moore's temper tantrum continued last night on Larry King Live. See here. I've seen first-year university essays with more intellectual rigour than this guy's efforts at social science. Also gotta love it when he insists that Canadian health care is "free" and also how he dodges the question about which country's system he'd rather use if he was ever in need of a heart catheter - and it's not like Gupta is some free-market ideologue.

Jeffrey Simpson:

Canadians just love feeling more virtuous than Americans, and Sicko lets them wallow in their virtue. No serious Canadian, however, believes Mr. Moore's idyllic, quickie portrait of Canadian medicare, just as no one believed his assertion in Bowling for Columbine that residents of Windsor don't lock their doors.

Monday digest

2007-07-09T12:48:00.000-04:00

- In the above photo, Al Gore takes the mike at Live Earth to tell all of us 9 to 5'ers to take public transit after whispering to Cameron Diaz that next time she wants to go to Peru with her Mao Zedong purse in tow, he'll be happy to dispatch her aboard his private jet so she can avoid a PR disaster the size of her carbon footprint by flying commercial.

Post-mortems here, here and here.

- She's ba-ack: less than two months after saying she was quitting the anti-war movement, Cindy Sheehan has put Democratic pol Nancy Pelosi in her sights, threatening to run against Pelosi in her San Francisco district unless Pelosi launches impeachment proceedings against President Bush.

Comment? Well, like former Canadian Prime Minister Brian Mulroney once said, "there's no (publicity) whore like an old (publicity) whore." (Addition mine.)

Yes, it's crass, but also very appropriate.

- Toronto amusement park Canada's Wonderland has settled with a Sikh man who alleged that a requirement to wear a helmet in place of his turban on a go-kart ride constituted a human rights violation. To me, there should be a rule: if you don't want to wear a helmet for religious or any other reason, that's your choice, but in so doing, you would forego your right to a lawsuit claiming negligence on the part of the track and you would also have to pay the full cost of your own health care should you suffer an injury to your head which could have been prevented by wearing a helmet.

- A look back at the Democratic debate at DC's Howard University, here.

- It could be argued that often the cure seems sometimes worse than the disease when it comes to overseas interventions by the US government, but pulling out of Iraq would represent a massive sea change in traditional American foreign policy. We ought to be careful what we wish for, because we just might get it.

Album Review: "Lost Highway" by Bon Jovi (2007)

2007-07-08T22:00:00.001-04:00

After hitting paydirt with Sugarland's Jennifer Nettles on "Who Says You Can't Go Home" about a year and a half ago, Jon Bon Hair Salon and the boys have offered up a country-tinged disc that has become the first #1 album for the band since 1988's "New Jersey".

I've often maintained that country music is the natural successor to the pop-metal that I grew up with and still love dearly, and so I'm happy to say that especially as compared with the dismal "Have a Nice Day", the fellas have their hearts right into this one all the way through. The title track (which opens the album) features a fiddle on top of a big "hey hey" singalong. Second track "Summertime" is irresistible, especially at this time of year. Lead off single "You Wanna Make a Memory" is perhaps the worst track on the whole record, which is saying something. And Nashville personalities like LeAnn Rimes, who appears on the emotional "Till We Ain't Strangers Anymore", and Big and Rich, part of the dumb yet catchy "We Got It Going On", make appearances as does Katrina Elam, a collaborator of Keith Urban's with an absolutely gorgeous voice, on "Everybody's Broken". And I'll call it right now: if I was in charge of the Grammy Awards, I'd name "Any Other Day" as next year's Song of the Year winner right now.

Check it out.

Overall rating: 8.25/10

Sunday digest

2007-07-08T18:27:00.001-04:00

- ~~"Private jets for climate change"~~ Live Earth is now behind us, and whether the artists involved had any grasp of the facts of the issue, or, for that matter, perspective, is seemingly less important than, well, having your heart in the right place - on stage.

- A fascinating look at human rights before and after the invasion of Iraq, here. Meanwhile, the NYT says it's time to cut and run, despite, by their own admission, the inevitable chaos that would result in the region.

- A damning indictment of the ideology of "developmentalism" comes to us from the vital NYU economist William Easterly.

Album Review: "Libertad" by Velvet Revolver (2007)

2007-07-07T12:24:00.001-04:00

"Libertad" is the second release from supergroup Velvet Revolver, following up their 2004 smash "Contraband". Unfortunately, it's not as strong as its predecessor. While there aren't any tracks that are downright awful or could be classified as filler, nothing really hits the listener right between the eyes the way "Slither" or other tracks off of their debut did. Lead singer Scott Weiland delivers a mediocre performance, and if you compare his voice to how it was 15 years ago on "Core", one can hear the damage that a decade and a half of substance abuse has done to the man. Instrumentally, combine any two tracks off of "Appetite for Destruction" and give them a listen because you'll hear more killer solos from Slash that way than you would by listening to the entire 50-plus minutes of this album.

Now, don't get me wrong - this is not a horrible album by any stretch of the imagination. It just doesn't do it for me the way I hoped it would. Perhaps if I shelve it for a couple of months and then bust it out again, I'll hear things that I haven't this week. I'm sure hoping so.

Overall rating: 6.25/10

Saturday digest

2007-07-07T11:23:00.000-04:00

- Despite what you may hear, the US economy is booming - and good thing, too, because entitlement spending, which no one seems to want to speak about with honesty, depends on it.

- Understatement of the year: "Bush fatigue has set in".

- More here on the Glasgow cabbie who kicked a burning terrorist in the nutsack last weekend.

- Speaking of al-Qaeda, how about this article (excerpt below)?

Most Iraqis I talk with acknowledge that if it was ever about the oil, it’s not now. Not mostly anyway. It clearly would have been cheaper just to buy the oil or invade somewhere easier that has more. Similarly, most Iraqis seem now to realize that we really don’t want to stay here, and that many of us can’t wait to get back home. They realize that we are not resolved to stay, but are impatient to drive down to Kuwait and sail away. And when they consider the Americans who actually deal with Iraqis every day, the Iraqis can no longer deny that we really do want them to succeed. But we want them to succeed without us. We want to see their streets are clean and safe, their grass is green, and their birds are singing. We want to see that on television. Not in person. We don’t want to be here. We tell them that every day. It finally has settled in that we are telling the truth.

Now that all those realizations and more have settled in, the dynamics here are changing in palpable ways.

Since my reporting of the massacre at the al Hamari village, many readers at home have asked how anyone can know that al Qaeda actually performed the massacre. The question is a very good one, and one that I posed from the first hour to Iraqis and Americans while trying to ascertain facts about the killings.

No one can claim with certainty that it was al Qaeda, but the Iraqis here seem convinced of it. At a meeting today in Baqubah one Iraqi official I spoke with framed the al Qaeda infiltration and influence in the province. Although he spoke freely before a group of Iraqi and American commanders, including Staff Major General Abdul Kareem al Robai who commands Iraqi forces in Diyala, and LTC Fred Johnson, the deputy commander of 3-2 Stryker Brigade Combat Team, the Iraqi official asked that I withhold his identity from publication. His opinion, shared by others present, is that al Qaeda came to Baqubah and united many of the otherwise independent criminal gangs.

Speaking through an American interpreter, Lieutenant David Wallach who is a native Arabic speaker, the Iraqi official related how al Qaeda united these gangs who then became absorbed into “al Qaeda.” They recruited boys born during the years 1991, 92 and 93 who were each given weapons, including pistols, a bicycle and a phone (with phone cards paid) and a salary of $100 per month, all courtesy of al Qaeda. These boys were used for kidnapping, torturing and murdering people.

At first, he said, they would only target Shia, but over time the new al Qaeda directed attacks against Sunni, and then anyone who thought differently. The official reported that on a couple of occasions in Baqubah, al Qaeda invited to lunch families they wanted to convert to their way of thinking. In each instance, the family had a boy, he said, who was about 11 years old. As LT David Wallach interpreted the man’s words, I saw Wallach go blank and silent. He stopped interpreting for a moment. I asked Wallach, “What did he say?” Wallach said that at these luncheons, the families were sat down to eat. And then their boy was brought in with his mouth stuffed. The boy had been baked. Al Qaeda served the boy to his family.

Anyone out there still interested in debating whether these "combatants" still deserve the full protections afforded by the American legal system?

- The French intelligentsia is upset because Sarko is a jogger. Not only that, but he wears an NYPD T-shirt while doing so. I suppose they'd prefer it if he spent his free time sitting around hacking butts, eating butter croissants and reading Foucault.

- Scooter Libby was Marc Rich's lawyer. Who knew? While I'm on the office of the Vice-President, here's a week-long Washington Post series on his role within the Administration. I haven't read it all, but have put it up for those who may be interested.

- I am very impressed with Mitt Romney, and while it's too early to tell where he'll finish, it's looking like he'll end up doing better than McCain when all is said and done on the GOP side. Here's a look at the race in both parties from across the pond.

- The latest from another great Yankee pol, here.

- I tuned in to Live Earth last night and saw a bunch of young twenty-somethings on stage playing trumpets and decked out in T-shirts that said "Say No to Nuclear Energy". I wonder if they could explain the position they seem to have taken? I doubt it. Here's an article which reminds us to be skeptical when fame and public policy collide.

- This thoughtful article suggests that there would be much less cynicism and suspicion of the press if its members were more forthcoming about who they are and what biases they may bring to their reporting.

- Finally, brand-new Philadelphia Flyer and Quebec native Daniel Briere is being accused of selling out because he spurned an offer from the Montreal Canadiens. Perhaps the reason why Briere did that is because he appreciates a fan base that wants the best players on their team rather than just the best tribesmen.

Friday digest

2007-07-06T16:27:00.000-04:00

- You know what word I am really starting to hate? "Dialogue". It's code for appeasement, appeasement of the likes of Omar Ahmad, Chairman Emeritus and co-founder of the Council for American-Islamic Relations, who, according to my buddy Neal Boortz, allegedly stated the following back in 1997:

"Islam isn't in America to be equal to any other faith, but to become dominant. The Koran, the Muslim book of scripture, should be the highest authority in America, and Islam the only accepted religion on Earth."

No word if he'll be attending this conference in Oz this weekend.

Then, we have everyone pretending that Buddhists, Hindus, Catholics, Protestants, Jews, atheists and agnostics are just as likely to commit violence in the name of their faith as are adherents to the religion I conveniently didn't mention, just like new UK PM Gordon Brown would prefer.

Think about what columnist David Ignatius of the Washington Post said this week:

A chilling measure of Muslim anger is that several of the suspected bomb plotters arrested by the British are doctors. What kind of rage would lead a physician trained in the healing arts to pack together nails, explosives and propane gas in a mix that would shatter bones and rip apart flesh? This is a revolt of the privileged, the uprooted, the disconnected. It speaks of self-mutilation as much as mayhem against others.

How about the words of Irshad Manji, someone who, while we're handing out Orders of Canada these days, would be at the top of the list if I was in charge:

After rounding up the Toronto suspects, police held a press conference and didn't once mention Islam or Muslims. At their second press conference, police boasted about avoiding those words. If the guardians of public safety intended their silence to be a form of sensitivity, they instead accomplished a form of artistry, airbrushing the role that religion plays in the violence carried out under its banner.

They're in fine company: moderate Muslims do the same. Although the vast majority of Muslims aren't extremists, it is important to start making a more important distinction: between moderate Muslims and reform-minded ones.

Moderate Muslims denounce violence in the name of Islam but deny that Islam has anything to do with it. By their denial, moderates abandon the ground of theological interpretation to those with malignant intentions, effectively telling would-be terrorists that they can get away with abuses of power because mainstream Muslims won't challenge the fanatics with bold, competing interpretations. To do so would be admit that religion is a factor. Moderate Muslims can't go there.

Reform-minded Muslims say it's time to admit that Islam's scripture and history are being exploited. They argue for reinterpretation precisely to put the would-be terrorists on notice that their monopoly is over.

Does any real leader seriously think that twisting oneself into a pretzel for the sake of "dialogue" is going to stop people like those involved in last weekend's attacks, bent on destroying themselves and others, from carrying out such atrocities? Sadly, Muslims like Manji are in the microscopic minority, despite the ongoing effort of most Western politicians to pretend that no truth needs to be told about the tensions inherent with the dominant interpretation of Islam and the concept of pluralism.

While others would argue for the closing of Gitmo and the shutdown of the wiretap program, I'd argue that it's time for some tough love. Anything less is basically rewarding the efforts of the terrorists.

- Speaking of Boortz, he had a golden rant yesterday on his site (same link as the one above) concerning the mother of Chris Benoit, who said that if only federal agents had protected her 40-year old, steroid-injecting son from himself, he'd still be alive today.

Leaving aside whether or not you think this was caused by mental illness, as I do, or by decline brought on by years of substance abuse, is irrelevant. What's disturbing is that she expected the state to step in and tell her boy that what he was doing - injecting steroids - was probably not the best idea.

Memo: He knew. He didn't care. And the fact that he didn't act in a responsible manner is no one's fault but his own - not the government's.

- Is there anything more tragically pathetic than celebrity activism?

- Alan Dershowitz, certainly no GOP apologist, comments on the Libby commutation, here. Other perspectives here and here.

- Today my buddy Greenchief ranted at length about how much he hates American pro hockey player Jeremy Roenick, so for those of you who don't know who he is or would just like to reacquaint yourselves with some of his best moments, I thought I'd provide some, such as:

- JR cuttin' rug in Las Vegas;

- JR pimping on a late-night talk show (with some Mick or Scot, I don't really know), and featuring a cameo appearance by Chris Rock (note JR's classic mispronounciation of the word "drowned");

- JR revealing that he's a massive fan of hip-hop pioneer Tone Loc;

- and finally, a moment of greatness the Greenchief and I can agree on, JR knocking the Leafs out of the playoffs, in overtime, on Toronto ice.

Live Review: Nickelback/Daughtry/Puddle of Mudd/State of Shock, Lynx Stadium, Ottawa, ON, July 5, 2007

2007-07-05T23:11:00.000-04:00

About 14,000 rockers blew the cobwebs right out of Lynx Stadium for a quadruple bill this evening. Despite the threat of rain, the ~~washed up and incoherent~~ legendary Bob Dylan playing across town, and the fact that Nickelback plays here about once every 18 months and hasn't had any new material for two years, that's very good.

We didn't see the first band, State of Shock, but I hope for their sake that they have as little in common as possible with the circa 1984 Michael Jackson/Mick Jagger duet of the same name.

Next up was Puddle of Mudd, a band left over from the post-grunge era which isn't fading away gracefully. Every second word was an F-bomb, their between song banter didn't make a lot of sense, and they referred to the crowd as "Canada". Someone should remind them that it's a country, not a town. The audience could have pretty much either took 'em or left 'em, but I have to admit that I did enjoy their bastardized version of "Summer Nights" from Grease, one of the gayest tracks ever committed to vinyl, which came in the middle of set closer "She Hates Me".

Daughtry then played for about 40 minutes and thankfully blew the previous act off the stage. They sounded pretty much the same as they do on record, and lead vocalist Chris Daughtry was spot on pitch wise while demonstrating a very poised stage presence for a rookie.

Once Daughtry left, we heard Def Leppard, Quiet Riot, Dio, Rob Zombie and the Scorpions, among others, over the sound system while the crew was getting ready for Nickelback. Great stuff. Then, at 8:45, the boys from Hanna, Alberta, arrived to the sound of massive explosions, launching into "Animals". For the first four or five tracks, pretty much every tune was accompanied by pyro or flashpots. Frontman Chad Kroeger started off with some pro-Sens banter, which the crowd ate up, and then he said that since he was in Ottawa, he had some legislation he'd like to propose - that every time Nickelback comes to town, it ought to become "Legal Marijuana Day". (I wholeheartedly concur.) Reminiscing about gigs at smaller Ottawa venues like Zaphod's, and hoping that "the six people that were in attendance that night were here", the band pretty much played every single hit that they're known for, sounding exactly like they do on CD. They also threw in a short little version of Metallica's "Seek and Destroy" and Kroeger even ad-libbed Joe Nichols' "Tequila Makes Her Clothes Fall Off" at one point. Also of note was a video tribute to the late "Dimebag" Darrell of Pantera and posthumously, Rebel Meets Rebel. All around, it was good times from a band who doesn't take themselves too seriously, which was demonstrated later on when Kroeger screwed up the words to "Rock Star", laughing at himself, and they concluded after an hour and 45 minutes with dry ice and tons of effects.

The only negative besides the omission of "Never Again" and the $8.50 price for a tallboy of Bud was the configuration of the stadium. The stage was at the infield line and the soundboard was on the pitcher's mound. They could have moved it forward at least 100 feet because it seemed like there was the general admission crowd, and then the rest of us who were sitting about a kilometre away despite no one being on the field from the backstop to the rubber. However, it was still one hell of a great big fun rock show, and I say that fully realizing that I'll never be considered hip enough to be a Rolling Stone writer - which is just fine with me.

Overall ratings:

Puddle of Mudd: 4.75/10
Daughtry: 7/10
Nickelback: 9.25/10

Overall rating: 8.5/10

Thursday digest

2007-07-05T12:24:00.000-04:00

- One of my favourite athletes of all time is about to retire. Jeremy Roenick is arguably one of the best ever to play the game of pro hockey and never win a Stanley Cup. He was certainly a character both on the ice and off.

I remember an exhibition skills contest he was part of during the 94-95 lockout at the Kitchener Aud where he really hammed it up, not to mention his disco routine he did as part of the LA Kings and the wig that he once wore during warmups with the Flyers . Interviews with him were classic, as is my buddy the Loadstone's story about he went to an Ottawa rip bar with Roenick and the rest of the Flyers' roster after meeting them outside the Chateau Laurier hotel in Ottawa while having a dart during a boring wedding for which he was some poor girl's date.

On top of all that, I spent considerable time in the mid-90s whipping my brother Brian's ass numerous times at Sega Genesis NHLPA hockey in our parents' basement with Roenick centering Christian Ruutu and Steve Larmer in front of Chris Chelios, Steve Smith and Eddie Belfour while giving him much big brotherly advice.

NHL hockey is far too vanilla and is losing a hell of a good one in JR. I hope he remains involved with the game in some capacity.

- Speaking of athletes, I hope that Barry Bonds gets to 754 home runs and some pitcher beans him right in the head, causing a career-ending injury and preventing that cheater from tying or beating Hank Aaron's record.

- Good for the Arctic Monkeys. Why should I care more about climate change, or any other cause, for that matter, just because the Red Hot Chili Peppers do?

- A couple of stories have emerged today which distinguish the elites in the United Kingdom from that of the rank and file. Alan Johnston, a BBC journalist held captive in Gaza for four months, was freed yesterday. Upon his release, he thanked terrorist organization Hamas and suggested that their presence in the Palestinian territories is positive because they help to impose "law and order". This is no doubt going to help Hamas' ongoing attempt to achieve credibility around the world so they can get more money from countries in the West with which to spread their sickening propaganda.

On the other hand, you have this guy. You know that saying, "I hate so-and-so so much that if they were on fire, I wouldn't even piss on them?" Well, he went one further.

- Continuing to distance himself from the foundations of smaller government, the concept of ten equal provinces and a genuine ear towards the membership of his party, the PM is too busy this summer to attend an annual summer barbecue in British Columbia, a tradition which goes back almost 25 years and involves nearly 2,000 activists and volunteers.

This is not the way to endear yourself to those who work their butts off for you come election time.

Book Review: "Planet India" by Mira Kamdar (2007)

2007-07-05T10:18:00.000-04:00

I picked up this book a little while ago for a couple of reasons: first, a buddy of mine had been in India since January and was returning at the end of June, and I wanted to be able to have an informed discussion with him about his experience; and secondly, I wanted to know a little more about the emerging Indian economy that we are hearing a lot about these days. Plus, there were a whole lot of stats on the back cover that I found fascinating. For instance:

- India is the world's fourth largest economy.

- It is also expected to be the most populous country on Earth by the year 2034.

- India's middle class is already larger than the entire population of the United States.

- One out of three of the world's malnourished children live in India.

- India is home to the biggest youth population on earth: 600 million people are under the age of 25.

- 72,000,000 cell phones will be sold in India in 2007.

- India just edged past the United States to become the second-most-preferred destination for foreign direct investment after China.

- In 1991, Indians purchased 150,000 automobiles; in 2007, they are expected to purchase 10 million.

- By 2008, India's total pool of qualified graduates will be more than twice as large as China's.

- By 2015, an estimated 3.5 million white-collar U.S. jobs will be offshored.

- India is the largest arms importer in the developing world.

- American corporations expect to earn $20 to $40 billion from the civilian nuclear agreement with India.

- In 2007, there are 2.2 million Indian Americans, a number expected to double every decade.

- Twenty-nine percent of India's population speaks English -- that's 350 million people.

Having read a very interesting book recently about that other bogeyman of the West, China (which, despite recent issues of defectivity with tires and toothpaste, is often compared with India as the next potentially great competitor to American-style capitalism), I was hopeful that the author of "Planet India", an Indian-American woman by the name of Mira Kushnar, would deliver a rigourous analysis of the state of play in that country these days. Instead, she by and large eschews the statistics outlined on the book's jacket, and instead provides a rosy, romanticized view of India's socioeconomic and cultural milieu interspersed with her own personal history.

It wouldn't be a stretch to say that the author writes from a hopeful perspective, one which wishes that India's rise will eventually put the United States in its place, and that's fine, but it just wasn't what I was looking for from this read. Perhaps she's just too attached to the subject at hand to be clinical. Kushnar also doesn't discuss the colonial legacy or the remaining vestiges of the alliance between India and the former Soviet Union during the Cold War and how that still influences the worldview of the average Indian (if there is such a thing).

While she embraces globalization on a cultural level, she is very suspicious of profit, which I personally found troubling. I would argue that a clear-headed look at the burgeoning Indian economy needs to be written by someone who considers globalization to be generally positive for that market.

Overall, this wasn't a bad introduction for me, but I would just wait for the next time The Economist does a special report on India instead of spending your dollars and/or hours with "Planet India".

Overall rating: 6.25/10

Wednesday digest

2007-07-04T11:58:00.000-04:00

- As an American-Canadian, I'd like to wish a happy Independence Day to everyone south of the border. Despite some tough times lately, you are still much admired and respected.

- You know what makes John Stossel great? It's that he reminds us what should be painfully obvious. Here, he states that government is coercive by definition, and concludes that truly freedom-loving peoples should always be skeptical of its actions. A practical example would be current drive to re-institute the Fairness Doctrine. It seems that when it comes to US talk radio, the Left can't compete, so they're going to try and use the power of the state to fight their battles for them by silencing programs they don't like.

- Wouldn't it be refreshing if for once representatives of the Islamic community stopped putting words in people's mouths and started attacking radicalism - really attacked it by looking in the mirror instead of obfuscating, closing ranks and assigning blame - instead? After all, when looking at the bigger picture, they've got the most to lose.

- Stranger than fiction: Ozzy Osbourne, pro-Taiwan activist.

- I don't like the idea of politicians superseding the legal process. That said, it's their prerogative, and as far as the commutation of Scooter Libby's sentence goes, the following needs to be kept in mind. The special prosecutor, Patrick Fitzgerald, knew before Libby even appeared on the stand that the leaker of Valerie Plame's identity was Colin Powell's errand boy Richard Armitage, but that didn't stop him from going on his wild goose chase. Then, you have Libby, presumably being examined because of some kind of (non-existent) interference, stating that he couldn't remember who told him what about Plame, and for that, he gets 30 months, a quarter of a million dollar fine and a ruined career and reputation all because some sleazeball lawyer wanted to make a name for himself.

As for precedents, the spouse of the Democratic front-runner either commuted the sentence or pardoned almost 200 people, many for worse offences than this "crime". Hell, I can't even recall what I had for breakfast half the time, and I'm a guy in my early 30s who works forty hours a week rather than a guy in his 50s who works ninety, in the White House, no less.

Seriously, if we're going to give politicians the right to override the judiciary, rightly or wrongly, this is what should be expected. I think it is a power that should be used sparingly because when exercised, it just reeks of the kind of cronyism and corruption that tinpot dictatorships are known for.

Tuesday digest

2007-07-03T19:09:00.001-04:00

- Well, the Army of One is back online after a week of spotty Internet service. A lot happened while I was unable to blog, like the third terrorist incident in as many summers in Londonistan with the transition from Blair to Brown as backdrop, the lobster summit between Bush and Putin, the killing of the "shamnesty" bill, the commuting of Scooter Libby's sentence, the continuing saga of the Benoit murders and NHL free agency on top of that. So, without further ado, let's get right to it!

- Here's some great YouTube footage that is worth checking out. An MSNBC anchor REFUSED to proceed with the Paris Hilton release last week and treat it at newsworthy. Good. The dumbing down of society has got to stop and it's only through civic awareness and responsibility like that demonstrated in the clip above.

- You may ask why I'm giving it any attention at all, but the latest O'Donnell attention grab is even more pathetic than you might have expected. Here, she dressed her four-year old up like a soldier and photographed her for her blog. Is there anything worse than an ideologue exploiting their own kid? Perhaps she's just afraid that without her perch on The View, we'll all forget about her and she'll descend into a state of irrelevance so she's overreaching. She will, make no mistake about it, but not before I take a few more potshots at her for being a far-left nutter.

- Speaking of people who have worn out their welcome, "Sicko" pulled in a pathetic $4.5 million this past weekend, good for 9th place. Perhaps it's because Michael Moore is trailing behind public opinion rather than in being out front of it on this issue.

I also hear that the socialist paradise of Cuba is featured prominently in Moore's latest effort. I wonder if he touches on the issue of food rations. What a mess that is. I suppose it's all America's fault because they won't trade beef and pork for Cohibas.

- Does anyone other than Gordon Brown seriously think that pretending there wasn't a radical Islamic element to the terrorist attacks in the UK this past weekend is going to prevent similar ones from taking place in the future?

Please.

That type of naive, head-in-the-sand thinking just gives comfort to the jihadists, and makes his predecessor's new job more difficult.

Meanwhile, credible observers are drawing parallels between the amount of "chatter" currently in the system, and the summer prior to 9/11. Canada is at particular risk. Is our country's political leadership going to do anything about it, or are they too concerned about the next election to bother paying attention?

DVD Review: "Breach" (2007)

2007-07-03T16:14:00.000-04:00

Based on a true story, "Breach" follows the efforts of the FBI to capture a double agent, played by the excellent Chris Cooper, by placing a young up-and-comer (Ryan Phillippe) in his office. Their relationship goes beyond employer and underling, and things soon get complicated as Cooper involves himself in Phillippe's personal life. This helps ratchet up the suspense, especially as case officer Laura Linney breathes down Phillippe's neck to compile the evidence needed to nab the traitor quickly and cleanly, but I have to say that I thought they could have done a better job at building the tension here - in addition to making the payoff truly satisfying - by lengthening it by just fifteen or twenty minutes, something I wouldn't advocate with most movies these days.

On the plus side is how this film covers turf wars, bureaucratic inertia and the primacy of the rule of law even as it relates to national security, something which I don't think the media properly recognizes these days. Minuses? Well, despite the gratuitous Catholic-bashing, needless partisan cheap shots and the short-cut ending, this is an above-average thriller that I enjoyed quite a bit.

Overall rating: 8/10

Book Review: "To the Limit: The Untold Story of the Eagles" by Marc Eliot (2005)

2007-07-03T14:15:00.000-04:00

This is a half-decent rock bio that chronicles the rise and fall of the Eagles through the 70s and concludes with their "Hell Freezes Over" tour in the mid-90s. As to be expected, the book mostly focuses on the history of Glenn Frey and Don Henley, with other members of the band naturally making appearances throughout the story along with contemporaries such as Jackson Browne and Linda Ronstadt and industry heavyweights like David Geffen and Irving Azoff.

In terms of dirt, Glenn Frey did so much coke in the 70s that he had to have surgery twice to repair his nasal lining, and the second time, the doctors had to insert Teflon in its place. Henley also snorted and drank everything in sight, and had quite the appetite for women as well. In fact, it's suggested that the Fleetwood Mac song "Sara", as penned by Stevie Nicks, is about the pregnancy (later terminated), which resulted from her affair with him. All of the fame, ego and drugs got to such a point that Frey was threatening to beat up guitarist Don Felder in the middle of gigs and their "live" album was created while Henley and Frey weren’t even on the same coast, much less in the same room. In the Afterword, while the author is settling scores with Henley, there is also some allusion made to an incident involving an overdosing, underage prostitute which wasn't covered at length in the main text (see here for more details).

Unfortunately, there's not enough gossip or insight into the crafting of the Eagles' songs here - and frankly, the former is much more memorable than the latter, which is why I don't have a lot to say about it - to make up for the tedious legal wrangling that the author retells at far too much length concerning record companies and the like. And as far as it goes, while it's no "Hammer of the Gods" or "Life on Planet Rock", "To the Limit" is still worth picking up if you're into this kind of thing.

Overall rating: 6.75/10

Live Review: Travis Tritt, Fairgrounds Arena, Watertown, NY, June 30, 2007

2007-07-03T10:30:00.001-04:00

The summer's first Redneck Roadtrip took place this past weekend as good buddy the Loadstone and I drove a couple of hours south from Ottawa to the North Country, i.e., Watertown, New York and surrounding environs, for a charity benefit concert put on by Nashville outlaw Travis Tritt at that city's Fairgrounds Arena for the Disabled Person's Action Organization.

Tritt's 2 1/2 hour long set, delivered in front of about 2,000 honky-tonkers lubed up by the $3 drafts on sale, was chock full of his own CMT staples like "Modern Day Bonnie and Clyde", "Love of a Woman" and "Great Day to Be Alive" alongside older tracks like "Help Me Hold On", "I'm Gonna Be Somebody" and "Here's A Quarter (Call Someone Who Cares)" with a few covers tossed in for good measure, including "Wanted Dead or Alive", "Sweet Home Alabama", "Burnin' Love" and "Fulsom Prison Blues" (presumably for all the wannabes in the audience, of which thankfully there weren't many, given that this was a Travis Tritt concert).

Of particular note were "I See Me", an ode to fatherhood which Tritt presaged with the classic Heathcliff Huxtable observation - "I brought you into this world, and I can take you out of it" - and a track he did with John Mellencamp a few years back titled "What Say You".

As expected, this was a top-drawer, workmanlike effort from a veteran who has built a solid career by delivering unpretentious music to the folks.

Overall rating: 9/10

Saturday digest

2007-06-30T10:47:00.001-04:00

- While I'm able to connect today, I have just a few things to throw out there.

First, I'm still waiting for our so-called conservative Prime Minister to comment on the illegal blockade of the free movement of goods and people across the province of Ontario yesterday. I haven't heard a peep. I'd also like to hear him comment on how more socialism for First Nations would only worsen their plight, but perhaps that's too much to ask from our "leader".

It would also be interesting to hear his thoughts on this study which claims that official Ottawa revolves around the outdated and antiquated notion of "two founding nations", but again, I'm not holding my breath.

- What has happened to the lost art of whispering? Every time I go to the theatre, church, or even when I'm sitting in a meeting, people who insist on having sidebar conversations with each other increasingly speak as though they are the only two people in the room - and at length, nonetheless! Nothing drives me more batty.

I can't think of anything ruder, and I suggest that it's time that we all re-introduce these boors to another option, one of seemingly bygone days.

- Finally, this weekend is Canada Day weekend. I'm not much of a patriot, and in fact, the biggest thing I'm doing over the next couple of days is travelling Stateside (how deliciously inappropriate), but I'd like to offer the following as an affectionate little tribute to my home on Native land.

If our country were like a human body, I'd say Ontario is the muscle, the Maritimes the heart, British Columbia the spirit, the Western provinces the brain, and Quebec the loins.

God keep our land glorious and free, baby!

DVD Review: "Ghost Rider" (2007)

2007-06-30T10:24:00.001-04:00

Can flaming skulls, leather, spikes, motorcycles, a busty Latina and a deadpan Nicolas Cage along with a supporting role from the one of a kind Sam Eliot make up for a hard-to-follow plot with too many ooga-booga overtones?

Almost.

The ghoulish “Ghost Rider” is the latest forgettable comic book adaptation out of Hollywood, and is (predictably) the first film in an inevitable series that is going to probably make a fair chunk of change. If you take it for what it is while checking your brain at the door, you might like it, as there are certainly worse ways to spend two hours.

Overall rating: 6.5/10

Live Review: Tim McGraw and Faith Hill, Scotiabank Place, Ottawa, ON, June 28, 2007

2007-06-30T10:02:00.000-04:00

My summer concert season began on Wednesday night when my wife and I went to see Mr. and Mrs. Tim McGraw at Scotiabank Place in Ottawa.

The show started at 7:30 with a brief set by the pleasant singer/songwriter Lori McKenna, who wouldn't have been a bit out of place on a Lilith Fair tour. Not 10 minutes later, Emerson, Lake and Palmer's "Karn Evil 9", better known as the tune which starts off with the lyric "welcome back my friends, to the show that never ends" came blasting out of the sound system. Tim and Faith then emerged from beneath the stage, starting off with a duet on Snow Patrol's "Counting Cars" before doing a couple of other tracks together which quite frankly demonstrated just how much more superior Faith is than her husband when it comes to carrying a tune.

He then disappeared and she delivered an hour-long set that was full of hits ranging back to her first album along with a cover of Abba’s “The Winner Takes It All”. Much to her chagrin, this wasn’t enough to get the adult contemporary/soft rock fans in the audience out of their seats although she tried her best with lots of waves and high-fives to the front row. I’m sure if she was less strictly a vocalist and more of an entertainer, things would have been more to her liking, and although her undeniably powerful voice was crystal clear on this night, Shania Faith ain’t when it comes to putting on a show.

Things changed when McGraw showed up once again and they did a couple more duets prior to him launching into the Steve Miller Band’s “The Joker”. Then, more hits from McGraw were delivered with a handful of tunes from his new disc, “Let It Go”, which sounded a hell of a lot better live than they do on record, that’s for sure. Judging from the audience reaction, this was a Tim crowd, and he was really hamming it up. I had to wonder why the guy is so cocky (leaving his knockout wife aside, of course), as he had as much bravado on stage as both Bono and Jon Bon Jovi, two frontmen I've previously seen in concert who at least know how to pen a tune (something McGraw can’t claim). The fiddle and pedal steel were also much more up front with Tim than with Faith, which I appreciated.

After he delivered a set of comparable length to his wife's, she appeared once again and they did an encore which included a kick-ass version of Bryan Adams and Tina Turner’s “It’s Only Love” with both of their backing bands, during which the above picture was taken, returning for a final tune titled “I Need You” which was an achingly beautiful way to end the show.

At 3.5 hours long, this show was totally worth the $120 ticket price, even if some of my favourite McGraw tracks like "Drugs or Jesus", "Take Me Away From Here" and "Angel Boy" and were omitted from the set list, which you can find here.

Overall rating: 9/10

Album Review: "5th Gear" by Brad Paisley (2007)

2007-06-29T19:07:00.000-04:00

You know that saying, "this is the feel good movie of the year"? Imagine for a minute if there was such a thing for fellas like me, and this album would be it.

Brad Paisley is one of the best kept secrets in all of pop culture today. Take a look at this video and tell me that I'm wrong about that. (You can't.) Nashville took notice long ago, he's now regularly playing to arenas around North America, and I think that those who could set aside their preconceived notions about steel guitars and fiddles could also find a lot to like from this guy. His latest album proves exactly why. There are tons of great tunes to be found here from the hilarious "Online" to the gorgeous "Oh Love", a duet with Carrie Underwood that is in keeping with Paisley's tradition of recording with stellar female vocalists like Chely Wright, Dolly Parton and Alison Krauss. Some boys may also find a tickle in their throat when they listen to the track titled "Letter to Me" for the first time, a little ditty Paisley writes to his 17-year old self from his own early to mid-30s perspective. You have to hear it for yourself, but it really is poetry set to music in the best traditions of real, honest, authenticity.

There are a couple of clunkers here, but with sixteen songs to choose from, that's not bad. Not bad at all. I'd say overall it's right up there with any of his previous albums even if pound for pound there are tracks on "Time Well Wasted" and "Celebrity" that are stronger, but for my money, this is the must-have country album of the summer.

Overall rating: 8.75/10

DVD Review: "Pan's Labyrinth" (2007)

2007-06-29T18:59:00.000-04:00

I'm not much of a fantasy genre kind of guy. I've never read a single word from a Harry Potter book, and Lord of the Rings isn't my cup of tea. I'm also not a big fan of horror movies because I don't like to be uncomfortable when I'm kicking back and watching a flick. It's no wonder, then, that I didn't really care for "Pan's Labyrinth", despite its three Oscar wins. Lots of disgusting creatures, gross-outs, and general weirdness going on here, set against an interesting post WW-II backdrop. If you're into that kind of thing, you would probably like it, but I would also recommend against it if you have kids running around, because believe me, this is the stuff that 10-year old nightmares are made of.

Overall rating: 3.5/10

Reflections

2007-06-29T11:44:00.000-04:00

I haven't been blogging all week because our modem at home is spotty these days and also because I haven't had a lot of down time at work. However, I'd like to take a few minutes and address the Chris Benoit story in some detail.

As some of you know, I am a pretty big wrestling fan, even if I haven't tuned in much over the last couple of years. The reasons for that are pretty much two-fold; a change in schedule concerning the WWE's major programming and also the heavy promotion of a character who I just can't stomach by the name of John Cena. However, I am still very familar with Benoit, having watched him live at least three times that I can remember off the top of my head, including his world championship loss to Randy Orton at Summerslam 2004. I was never a fan of his character like I have been for others because he was terrible on the stick and also because he always reminded me of the low-budget, confused and frankly embarassing WCW to me, no matter how successful he was in the WWF (it will never be the WWE in my world).

Something that some readers may also know is that I've had my own issues with mental health in the past. Specifically, I am a long-time sufferer of panic and anxiety attacks with a little bit of depression to go with it, which, thankfully, I pretty much have under control these days (after much hell, I might add). There was a time not long ago when I realized that if I was to properly deal with things, I needed help. Thankfully, I was able to ask for and receive it. I wasn't on steroids, and nor was I dealing with issues relating to fame and/or family, so I can't begin to speculate what might have been tearing Benoit apart. Perhaps it's because I'm acutely sensitive to these things, but to me, the bottom line is that what he did was not the actions of a rational human being in full grasp of their own faculties. That won't change what happened, but in many ways, this was a preventable tragedy. In effect, it's a reminder to everyone that if you're dealing with any kind of prolonged mental or emotional difficulty that seems to be manifesting itself in ways that don't seem right to you, be sure to stop for a minute and really consider asking for help.

Reaching out could be as simple as dropping in to your local mental health association during their office hours and chatting with someone who has gone through the same thing you have. It could be registering for a workshop of some kind, or maybe seeing a counselor on a regular or semi-regular basis. There is no shame in that. Nor is there any shame in taking medication. The way I see it is this: if you had diabetes or a thyroid condition, you'd do what was necessary to take care of it, so the same should apply when things don't seem right upstairs. We are only human and none of us can completely understand how we're programmed. Now granted, there are some folks out there who would dismiss what I'm saying, and I can't imagine how one could get to a point where they don't know the difference between right and wrong, but there's no point in trying to explain the inexplicable except to say that if you ever, for one minute, are concerned about your mental health, put your ego aside, stop trying to rationalize things, recognize that maybe you don't have all the answers, and just get yourself to a professional who can help you get back on the right track.

It's worth making that call.

I know, because I did it.

Technical Difficulties

2007-06-27T10:05:00.000-04:00

Due to technical difficulties, posting over the next week is going to be intermittent at best. Once I get things back on track, you can expect a whole new batch of news, views and reviews from yours truly.

Thanks for checking in.

Monday digest

2007-06-25T22:07:00.001-04:00

- Canadian wrestler Chris Benoit is dead, the victim of an apparent triple homicide.

At least now he can join his buddy Eddie Guerrero, pictured above at Wrestlemania XX at Madison Square Garden, in that big squared circle in the sky.

TUESDAY MORNING UPDATE: This case is now being treated as an apparent double murder/suicide.

TUESDAY AFTERNOON UPDATE: Details are slowly starting to emerge. Benoit was obviously very mentally ill if this is to be believed.

- It being summer and all, it's that time of year when everybody lines up to pile on top of the only democratic, capitalist country in the entire Middle East. Israeli intelligence sources have suggested that an attack can come from any one of five potential opponents this year: Iran, Syria, Hamas, Hezbollah and/or al-Qaeda. That's why it's instructive to read this Letter to the Editor in today's Ottawa Citizen. The text is as follows:

Re: Our Middle East obsession, June 20.

... I write to indicate why I marvel at Israel's ability to triumph over adversity upon adversity. The story of Israel, from its beginning in 1948 when Holocaust survivors were granted refuge with a state of their own because no country would offer them sanctuary, until today, is a gripping saga of a nation never knowing peace.

For 60 years it has defended itself in wars on three fronts, to the shock of the whole Muslim world. Daily it sustains bombardment by katyusha rockets interspersed with suicide-bomb attacks. All the while the country's struggle is rejected by many western media reports, political leaders, Christian church groups and universities denouncing Israeli's actions of self-defence.

When the Jews were granted this land, 60 per cent was desert, and today its greenhouses and agricultural produce are the envy of the world. The Jews welcomed a million Arabs to remain and become citizens with elected Arab members of government, and today these Arabs have more rights and privileges than those in any other Middle East country. The Jewish people have flourished and have built their future with Nobel laureates, renowned in science and medicine despite their tenuous circumstances.

It is beyond my wildest imagination how a persecuted and oppressed people, exiled from their biblical homeland for 2,000 years, has now become such a thriving democracy amidst 23 oppressive regimes, and with a meagre population of six million. Thus my obsession with the Middle East, or rather, on a positive note, my utmost admiration for the people of Israel.

Carolyn Emond, Ottawa

I can't think of a better way to say it.

- Meanwhile, you've got Penn, Fonda and everyone else still pissed off about Al Gore's loss in 2000 that they're issuing ads like this one in the New York Times. What world does one live in where W is a bigger threat to humankind than the likes of those I mentioned above?

DVD Review: "Norbit" (2007)

2007-06-24T19:39:00.001-04:00

"Norbit" explains why the reluctant father of Scary Spice's lovechild was so upset at not winning the Best Supporting Actor award this year at the Oscars. It's because after this turkey, he'll never be nominated for anything ever again - and rightfully so.

Eddie Murphy plays three different roles in this dumb comedy about a black Napoleon Dynamite-like character who lives in fear of his morbidly obese, ball-busting wife. However, when an old flame re-appears, our hero has to find his pair of stones if he's to reach happily ever after.

Now, you'd have a point if you asked, "what did you expect, Hammer?", and I can only say that I thought the family dinner scenes in the "Nutty Professor" flicks were hilarious, as was the barbershop scene in "Coming to America". Murphy played a bunch of different characters in both. Plus, I'm a big fan of toilet humour, so I was hopeful. However, nothing makes up for the ridiculousness of "Norbit". There's a talking dog, for the love of God, and as I've said before, I'm just not a Will Farrell guy. For her part, Mrs. Hammer said it was arguably the worst movie she's ever watched, which, ahem, is saying a fair bit, especially given how much she loves the Superstation.

And speaking of Best Supporting Actor Oscar winners, could Cuba Gooding Jr. have a worse record when it comes to choosing scripts? (As if "Boat Trip" wasn't bad enough.)

Overall rating: 1.5/10

Sunday digest

2007-06-24T10:31:00.001-04:00

- There is a Letter to the Editor in this week's issue of Maclean's that everyone should take two seconds to think about. Here it is:

Many people don't want to believe that individuals earning high incomes actually help the public interest. Let's remember that in voluntary exchanges, each party participates only if it values what it gets more than what it gives. A fat bank account shows that an individual has given a commensurate amount of wealth in labour, management, advice or other non-monetary forms of value. Put another way, anybody with a net worth above zero is a net producer or goods and services, rather than a net consumer. Though it sounds paradoxical, the more money you have, the more value you have given away. Bill Gates may have billions, but he has likely created many more billions in wealth for his customers. Canada's wealthy are its entrepreneurs, innovators and managers - people who create jobs and improve our quality of life. Indeed, we must carefully consider any new "soak the rich" policy.

Zack Martin
Ancaster, ON

- Here is some good news from Iraq that you won't hear via the mainscream media. More positive developments follow here, but there's still a long way to go, both in the West and elsewhere.

- Free speech for me, but not for thee: more here on the Oakland case where mentioning the terms "marriage", "natural family" and "family values" are alleged to constitute hatred. So much for mutual respect and tolerance of different points of view.

- Speaking of Big Brother, how about the eco-imperialists?

- On St. Jean Baptiste Day, Stephane Dion has asked the Prime Minister to clarify if "nation within a nation" status applies to all Quebecers or just francophones.

I'd like to know myself.

Album Review: "Daughtry" (2006)

2007-06-23T15:25:00.000-04:00

The American Idol machine has launched another unknown to the top of the charts. Chris Daughtry, a little more legit than your run-of-the-mill contestant as he has songwriting credits on 10 of 12 tracks, including one which features the legendary Slash on guitar, leads his band through a steady and confident debut album which recalls a bit of Creed on top of amped-up Matchbox Twenty-esque melodies, fitting in nicely with other post-alternative hard rock bands that dominate mainstream rock radio these days. And the guy can sing, too.

Don't get me wrong - there's nothing here that will blow you away, but it's a pretty agreeable effort all around.

On tour with Nickelback this summer.

Overall rating: 7.25/10

Saturday digest

2007-06-23T11:05:00.001-04:00

- Canadian politician Belinda Stronach was recently treated for breast cancer at a Toronto-area hospital. I don't wish to make light of the situation, but I can't help but wonder if she used the single pay/single provider public health system, or went to a private clinic. If so, it would set her aside from a long line of other Trudeaupians like Paul Martin, Joe Clark and Jack Layton - not that I would blame her in the least.

- This weekend's must-read comes from the venerable VDH, who stands in stark contrast to the likes of Bono's buddy Jeffrey Sachs, who blames the US and Israel for the current turmoil in the Middle East because they wouldn't legitimize Hamas. Iran doesn't even garner a mention in Sachs' piece. Now correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't think that giving terrorists credibility has worked in the past. (Check under Arafat, Yasser for a brief explanation as to why.)

- The cartoon above refers to an anti-poverty plan floated this week by New York mayor and erstwhile Presidential candidate Mike Bloomberg, whereby the government would pay people bonuses for getting a library card, going to the dentist, attending parent-teacher night and holding down a job. While I'm all for incentives, this strikes me as rewarding people for doing things that they should be doing anyways. What's next - giving people money for not smoking or overeating?

Film Review: "Knocked Up" (2007)

2007-06-22T21:56:00.001-04:00

"Knocked Up" is a so-so comedy about a big-time slacker who hits the jackpot one night with a drunken entertainment show talk host. She gets pregnant, decides to keep the baby, and a few chuckles (rather than outright hilarity) follow close behind.

In other words, it's not that funny, which is a little misleading given the advance press. It's also disjointed, implausible and chock full of detestable characters who grate, leaving you feeling that this movie is about 1/3 too long.

The "Wedding Crashers" of 2007 - an overrated rental which deserves a C minus at best.

Overall rating: 6/10

Friday digest

2007-06-22T12:16:00.000-04:00

- The outfit which almost single-handedly (and quite thankfully) wiped grunge off the pop music map in the mid-to-late 1990s is reuniting for a 25-date world tour.

I am intrigued by the possibilities.

- Before everyone gets all high and mighty about Gitmo's impending closure, I'd urge them to put it alongside some of the real atrocities that are taking place all over the world for a little context, especially those which occur at the hands of those for whom the Left repeatedly excuses.

- By the way, didn't Western feminists fight like hell against subjugation like this? I don't hear them speaking up now. Why not? Maybe, like Sunera Thobani, Women's Studies prof at the University of British Columbia and former president of the National Action Committee on the Status of Women, they're more concerned with the fascists on Pennsylvania Avenue and Downing Street than the small matter of Muslim women in London who want the right to, oh, I dunno, show their faces?

- Addictions to both video games and the Internet are about to be classified as the latest social diseases by the mental health profession.

As someone who absolutely loves the Internet and, according to my wife, spends far too much time online, I lay the blame for this at the feet of Al Gore. After all, he invented the damn thing, so how can it be my fault?!?

- See you two broken-down old ham n' eggers later. I'm looking forward to not having to tune into the American broadcast of the Stanley Cup playoffs next year if I want to hear announcers who actually know who plays on which team.

Thursday digest

2007-06-21T09:42:00.000-04:00

- Deviating from far-left orthodoxy at the "Take Back America" conference yesterday, Hillary Clinton was booed for suggesting that while the US military has succeeded in Iraq, it's the Iraqi government which has failed.

Classy.

Perhaps she's just too much Bill and not enough Ralph for her party's primary voters. Either that, or you have to look elsewhere for respect and tolerance of differing points of view.

- MSNBC has conducted a survey of 144 journalists who have donated money to one or both of America's two main political parties since 2004. Of those surveyed, 17 gave to Republicans, 2 to both parties, and a whopping 125 to Democrats - for a total of 86.8%.

I guess this explains why the Democratic candidates believe they don't need to debate each other on FOX, as they've got plenty of friends elsewhere in the mainstream press.

Take a look at a couple of other important articles on the media, here and here.

- Here's a little victory: the Canadian government is pushing the date for regulations on trans fats back by a couple of years. I don't think we need the nanny state protecting us from what we put into our cakeholes, especially when it comes to something as basic as this. Leaving aside Canada's no-fault health care system, I'd like to know why, if you don't want to take care of yourself, it ought to be the government's concern?

- Many Canadians often complain that Americans don't pay any attention to what does on in the Great White North. This might be part of the reason why.

- What do you think is going to get more talk around the water cooler this summer in Ontario? This, or the follies of Paris Hilton and the like? I'm betting on the latter.

- From time to time in this forum, I riff on Quebec's political culture, but one area where they have things right is when it comes to beer and wine sales because they promote competition and markets, both of which lead to lower prices and better service.

- We're always hearing about how the modern economy isn't benefitting the middle class. I wonder how much the fact that in America, there are a total of 7 debit/credit cards for every individual over the age of 15, might have to do with it. You can't better yourself if you're drowning in debt.

- I'm a big fan of John Stossel for two reasons. First, he likes to make hamburger out of sacred cows, and second, he makes you think. This article is no exception.

Wednesday digest

2007-06-20T10:20:00.000-04:00

- 9/11 "truther" Michael Moore is now peddling the idea of socialized health care - where the government is not only the exclusive purchaser but also the exclusive supplier of the the same product - as "Christianized" health care, because according to Moore, that's how Jesus would want it.

Leaving the guy's obvious arrogance aside, I would normally expect all of the left-wing atheists and ACLU types out there to start sqwaking about the separation of church and state and grumbling about shoving agendas down people's throats, but since it's one of their their heroes sermonizing here, they probably won't.

More advance press on "Sicko", here.

- How about the members of Toronto city council, including Mayor David Miller, who are on record as supporting the removal of "Support Our Troops" decals from city vehicles? Apparently it's because keeping them would be akin to an endorsement of war. Well, if we don't like war, we ought to just hold hands, sing "Imagine" and wind down the entire Canadian Armed Forces, because, well, they fight wars, and we're against that, right?

- The underground economy is growing quite nicely in Hugo Chavez' socialist paradise of Venezuela. Is anyone surprised?

- Cementing his reputation as the worst ex-president ever, Jimmy Carter is now pointing fingers at the US, Israel and the EU as the cause of the Palestinian civil war now raging there. I would have blamed terrorist exploitation, but hey, I don't have a Nobel Prize on my C.V. Instead, all I have to offer is the following joke:

What happens when a fly falls into a coffee cup?

The Englishman - throws the cup and walks away.

The American - takes out the fly, and drinks the coffee.

The Chinese - eats the fly and throws away the coffee.

The Japanese - drinks the coffee with the fly, since it was extra with no charge.

The Israeli - sells the coffee to the American, the fly to the Chinese, and buys himself a new cup of coffee.

The Palestinian - blames the Israeli for the violent act of putting the fly in his coffee, asks the UN for aid, takes a loan from the European Union to buy a new cup of coffee, uses the money to purchase explosives and then blows up the coffee house where the Englishman, the American, the Chinese, the Japanese all try to explain to the Israeli that he was too aggressive.

Tuesday digest

2007-06-19T09:38:00.000-04:00

- Now this is just irresistable.

Syria's Minister of Expatriate Affairs recently found a minute between meetings with Hamas and Hezbollah to issue a wordy lament concerning the self-imposed exile of far-left anti-war darling Cindy Sheehan.

Have a look at it for yourself, here.

- Civil libertarians are referring to air transportation as a human right. I'd like to know this - since when?

- Secret ballots for union members? Not in Harry Reid's America. I'd really like to see Hillary Clinton speak out against this.

- A couple of days ago, I mentioned that Ontario gets screwed when it comes to fiscal federalism. This article explains how, and also why, at certain points in my life, I have dreamt of a Canada that extends all the way from Victoria to Ottawa.

- MP Myron Thompson is quitting politics. I fully expect other backbench MPs who were first elected in 1993 to follow suit prior to the next election, as it seems the only way you can get into Cabinet if you were an original Reformer is if you got into bed with the nauseating Joe Clark back in the days of the Canadian Alliance.

Monday digest

2007-06-18T15:20:00.000-04:00

- Never ones to disappoint, it's business as usual at Turtle Bay. Brand new UN chief Ban Ki-moon has suggested that the genocide in Darfur can be chalked up to global warming (of the man-made kind, naturally). Meanwhile, Libya is in the running to head up the next anti-racism conference.

- Speaking of Africa, the president of Gambia knows how to cure AIDS, but only on Thursdays. I don't know what's sadder, that or the fact that Bono sees the G8 as the primary obstacle rather than corrupt and/or deranged dictators who act like the Pied Piper and lead their people to misery.

- In the Middle East, after decades of what the Wall St. Journal calls "terrorism as statecraft" has led to its logical conclusion in Gaza - the law of the jungle, the US netroots are making apologies for Hamas and naturally finding fault with Israel and America despite the obvious atrocities committed by Palestinians against each other. Some might gloat and say that this is proof that democracy isn't the panacea it is often made out to be in the corridors of Western power, but to that, I would say that it's not just about casting a ballot. It's about the rule of law, a free press, and minority rights, among other things, all of which are integral to the wentire democratic process. In turn, you might say that countries who comprise the coalition of the willing have no leg to stand on since they help legitimize Guantanamo Bay, but here's a piece which destroys the "unlawful enemy combatant" argument (setting aside the obvious fact that the very existence of the judgment helps cement the moral high ground).

- A North Carolina academic has recently asked if the one-quarter of US Muslims under the age of thirty who can justify suicide bombing can really be blamed for feeling that way. I suppose that according to him, this is rational behaviour? Meanwhile, Pakistan, hardly a bastion of modernity, is threatening violence if Salman Rushdie is knighted.

- Joe Lieberman has just returned from Iraq. Here's what he saw.

- On the home front, it's been revealed that the ~~downtown champagne and caviar socialist~~ champion of the working man, Jack Layton, has exercised his right to purchase private health care by getting treated for a hernia outside of the public system.

I wonder what his hero Tommy Douglas would say about that - if you could turn his attention away from finding ways to sterilize the weak and the downtrodden, that is.

Sunday digest

2007-06-17T18:58:00.000-04:00

- Those around my age who are familiar with the history of rasslin' will be interested to learn that the latest mid-to-late 80's/early 90's personality to go to that great squared circle in the sky is "Sensational" Sherri Martel, pictured above, who passed away this past week at the age of 49.

It still doesn't change the fact that she was probably the most irritating manager EVER.

- The big picture concerning the ongoing disagreement over fiscal federalism as it relates to the Atlantic provinces boils down to this: Ontario and Alberta pay the bills for everyone else in Canada. Whether it be the universal $7 a day government babysitting program in Quebec, overly generous EI programs that perpetuate chronic unemployment in the East, or ~~subsidies~~ income security programs for farmers on the Prairies, it comes out of this Ontarian's pocket, and I think it's high time to say "enough".

- I haven't read the Ontario Conservative party platform yet, but given that John Tory was Kim Campbell's campaign manager, I think I pretty much know what to expect. Andrew Coyne's column here brings to mind an observation from the indefatigable Clare Hoy, who, when discussing Tory, has recognized that the Toronto intelligentsia judge him as "the right kind of conservative - which is to say, he isn't".

- Things continue to look good for Sarko. Here's hoping he shows Stephen Harper how it's done when it comes to taking government a couple of steps back.

- Just like Osama bin Laden referred to scenes from "Fahrenheit 9/11" for his own propaganda purposes, Cuba's Health Minister has thanked Michael Moore for "Sicko". I understand that a significant part of Moore's latest screed is dedicated to the greatness of Canada's medicare system. Too bad he didn't get to interview my 59-year old mother-in-law, who has to wait almost a year in order to get an appointment with her general practicioner.

- If you think that the Canadian Arab Federation and the Canadian Islamic Congress are committed to pluralist values, you're sadly mistaken. See here.

- Finally, a tip o' the hat today to everyone out there who is a dad. A couple of noteworthy articles on the vitality of fatherhood, here and here.

Album Reviews: "Some Hearts" by Carrie Underwood (2005); "One of the Boys" by Gretchen Wilson (2007); "Crazy Ex-Girlfriend" by Miranda Lambert (2007)

2007-06-16T20:06:00.000-04:00

On the country music scene today, there are many artists who are jockeying for position to inherit the title of the biggest female star in the genre. Whoever steps up to claim that mantle will find herself in company which includes the likes of legends such as Patsy Cline, Tammy Wynette, Loretta Lynn, Tanya Tucker, Dolly Parton, Reba McEntire, Shania Twain and Faith Hill. I've had occasion as of late to evaluate some of the contenders, and I'd like to focus on the latest efforts from three ladies who could be headlining arenas for years to come: Carrie Underwood, Gretchen Wilson and Miranda Lambert.

America's darling Carrie Underwood won one of the recent "American Idol" competitions which led to the release of her 2005 album, "Some Hearts". Naturally, she doesn't write a lick of her own material other than the odd lyric, but I can overlook that if someone whose musical integrity such as the incomparable Brad Paisley sees fit to invite her out on tour with him. Creativity may not be Miss Underwood's strong suit at the moment, but there is no denying the power of her voice as demonstrated by tracks like the irresistible "Wasted". I'll be looking for big things from her in the future based on her debut - which honestly starts sounding the same at about track seven or eight - but if she's going to develop further and stake an honest claim to the crown of female country royalty, I think she'll need to get out from Mr. Clive Davis and his friends like Diane Warren and Andreas Carlsson.

Next comes Gretchen Wilson, who burst on to the scene about three years ago with "Redneck Woman". Sadly, this was followed up by the half-hearted "All Jacked Up". Now, we have Wilson taking a left turn with "One of the Boys", a twanged-up affair that betrays her work with the likes of Heart and Kid Rock as of late. I was expecting a faux-rock effort this time around, but instead she's regressed even further into the barroom, which is fine, but I just think that she's limiting herself. In other words, this chick could be one of the biggest crossover artists EVER, and I mean that sincerely. As it stands now, she resembles Nashville's version of Alanis Morrissette more than anything else: huge debut, disappointing sophomore album, unremarkable third effort ... and a fanbase that is left loyal, yet confused, and in danger of dwindling.

Last is Miranda Lambert, the pouty Texan who has had a career path thus far which splits the difference between Underwood and Wilson. She hit the bigtime after finishing in the top three on the Idol rip-off "Nashville Star", but she writes her own stuff and has toured with no less an icon than George Strait after turning heads with her debut album "Kerosene". Now, she's released her second disc titled "Crazy Ex-Girlfriend". Now, the title may leave you with the impression that she's marketing herself to the same crowd as Underwood - pre-adolescent girls - but that's not the case at all. Lyrically, this disc deals with themes like blowing away your abusive husband, teetotalling counties, and the parochial mentality of small towns. These have all been done before, most famously by the Chicks, but set to music, Lambert gives them an edge that is all her own that didn't come through as loud and proud on "Kerosene" as it does, consistently, on this one. There is not a track on "Crazy Ex-Girlfriend" that sounds like one of the others, and it comfortable alternates between Mellencamp-esque classic rock and down-home pickin' without for a second sounding like it doesn't hang together. To my ears, this is one of the biggest surprises I've heard in a long time, and it could blow up, big.

Therefore, as for who's got the best chance of inheriting the tradition set down by those who have gone before her, among these three talented ladies, I'd have to place my bet on the under-the-radar Miranda Lambert.

Overall ratings:

"Some Hearts" - 7.5/10
"One of the Boys" - 5.5/10
"Crazy Ex-Girlfriend" - 9.5/10

Saturday digest

2007-06-16T06:40:00.000-04:00

- Not like this is really news or anything, but Michael Moore has proven once again that he's nothing more than a bald-faced liar. This week on ABC with interviewer Terry Moran, he said the following:

Michael Moore: "They have an excellent health care system, probably the best in the Third World. There is not religious persecution. There's artistic freedom. I went–"

Terry Moran: "There's artistic freedom in Cuba?"

Moore: "Oh, yeah. I hung out with artists who are critical of Castro and, and, and very freely speak their minds."

How can anyone consider this man to be a serious person after he makes laughable assertions like that one?

- Here's a great article from the excellent Michael Coren which takes the piss out of righteous celebs and their pet causes.

- The loony left play of the day today goes to the organizers of UCLA's spring concovations, where they're promoting separate ceremonies for members of various ethnic groups.

This is just the latest example of how political correctness rooted in identity politics and Marxism continues to run amok at institutes of ~~left-wing indoctrination~~ higher learning across the West.

- Vaclav Klaus, president of the Czech Republic, has written an insightful piece on how the climate change crowd is the latest to promote the idea of the "one permitted truth", which is to say that dissent and disagreement with certain assumptions and positions on a given issue is just not tolerated by those on the other side.

An excerpt:

The author Michael Crichton stated it clearly: “the greatest challenge facing mankind is the challenge of distinguishing reality from fantasy, truth from propaganda”. I feel the same way, because global warming hysteria has become a prime example of the truth versus propaganda problem. It requires courage to oppose the “established” truth, although a lot of people – including top-class scientists – see the issue of climate change entirely differently. They protest against the arrogance of those who advocate the global warming hypothesis and relate it to human activities.

As someone who lived under communism for most of his life, I feel obliged to say that I see the biggest threat to freedom, democracy, the market economy and prosperity now in ambitious environmentalism, not in communism. This ideology wants to replace the free and spontaneous evolution of mankind by a sort of central (now global) planning.

The environmentalists ask for immediate political action because they do not believe in the long-term positive impact of economic growth and ignore both the technological progress that future generations will undoubtedly enjoy, and the proven fact that the higher the wealth of society, the higher is the quality of the environment. They are Malthusian pessimists.

Read the whole thing for yourself.

Thursday digest

2007-06-14T09:54:00.001-04:00

- Graffitti sprayed across downtown Ottawa this morning tells me that there's an upcoming anarchist conference, scheduled for July 15, dedicated to getting Canada out of Afghanistan.

Couldn't they have at least used Facebook instead of defacing public property, or would that just water down their anti-establishment street cred?

- Sociologists are commenting on the Driftwood Crips takedown in the Jane and Finch area of Toronto yesterday and suggesting that gangsterism is the result of poverty. While it may be a minor factor, I don't see how struggling to make ends meet explain 4-year olds getting shot in drive-bys, something which occurred there in August 2005. What's much more likely is that what's gone on in this neighbourhood is the result of passivity towards lawlessness, a culture where strong male role models are nowhere to be found and the definition of masculinity among youth is closely related to the glorification of violence and sexual promiscuity rather than achieving academic success or building a respectable career path for yourself.

As far as the bleeding hearts go, I'd say it's far more likely that attitudes create poverty rather than other way around.

It's long past time to get real about this.

- The NHL doesn't even want to meet with Jim Balsillie to discuss the future of the Nashville Predators, which may or may not include a potential move to Hamilton, Ontario.

This has TML fingerprints all over it. What is their front office so afraid of?

Album Review: "United Abominations" by Megadeth (2007)

2007-06-13T22:36:00.001-04:00

This has been a busy spring for Dave Mustaine. First came a live DVD, then a tour with ~~Black Sabbath~~ Heaven and Hell followed by the release of "United Abominations", an album which builds on the momentum established by the solid 2004 comeback effort for Megadave, "The World Needs a Hero", but takes things to a brand-new level.

Now in his mid-forties, Mustaine is full of piss and vinegar both musically and lyrically. He finds much to comment on concerning the state of the world today (not that you should care what an entertainer has to say) and works out his anger and confusion with mad fret work underscored by full-blown yet melodic aggression. With song titles like "Amerikhastan", "Gears of War" and "Washington Is Next", in addition to the damning title track, there's much to chew on here. I haven't heard lyrics like this since the long-since-passed literary glory days of Neil Peart. More importantly, the additions of the Drover brothers and former White Lion bassist James Lomenzo have resulted in a level of musicianship that is rivalled only by the latest Maiden album when it comes to releases from the last couple of years. For a taste, check out "Sleepwalker", "Gears of War" and the remake of 1994's "A Tout Le Monde", originally featured on 1994's Youthanasia but now redone as a duet with Lacuna Coil's Christina Scabbia.

As I am north of thirty, I am one of those who strongly believes that the new stuff that's out there now just doesn't compare to the old school bands. This is a shining example of why. "United Abominations" is Mustaine's finest work yet and blows away most of what you'll hear on rock radio today. The Killers, White Stripes and all of those other flash in the pan outfits should go back to school, learn how to play some scales and arpeggios, and throw this on to learn about real art crafted by a true professional who has done it, survived, and emerged with his artistic integrity and creative juices not only intact but never better.

Overall rating: 9.25/10

Wednesday digest

2007-06-13T10:50:00.000-04:00

- Five months ago, Rudy Giuliani and Newt Gingrich co-authored an op-ed in the Wall St. Journal. Now, Giuliani is touting his own Contract With America in an obvious nod to the Republican Revolution of 1994. The prospect of these two teaming up on a GOP ticket will come as a comforting breath of fresh air to right-of-centre folks who have become disillusioned with the Bush White House, even if you need two hands to count the number of failed marriages between them.

- The Ontario government is going to impose an "eco-fee" of up to $45 on home electronics items like big screen TVs and desktop computers to offset the cost of recycling them. Instead of dinging consumers with what amounts to a tax, I'm sure that a way to provide incentives to an aspiring entrepreneur who could export outdated electronics to places like China and India, much like is done with discarded cell phones, could have been facilitated. However, innovation is not our strong suit.

- Is this not the sign of a terribly sick culture?

- Quiz time: Who recently said the following?

We should never be more vigilant than at the moment a new dogma is being installed. The claque endorsing what is now dignified as "the mainstream theory" of global warming stretches all the way from radical greens through Al Gore to George W. Bush, who signed on at the end of May. The left has been swept along, entranced by the allure of weather as revolutionary agent, naïvely conceiving of global warming as a crisis that will force radical social changes on capitalism by the weight of the global emergency. Amid the collapse of genuinely radical politics, they have seen it as the alarm clock prompting a new Great New Spiritual Awakening.

The marquee slogan in the new cold war on global warming is that the scientific consensus is virtually unanimous. This is utterly false. The overwhelming majority of climate computer modelers, the beneficiaries of the $2 billion-a-year global warming grant industry, certainly believe in it but not necessarily most real climate scientists-people qualified in atmospheric physics, climatology and meteorology.

A) Christopher Hitchens;

B) Liz Cheney;

c) Rex Tillerson, CEO of Exxon Mobil; or

d) Alexander Cockburn, columnist with The Nation, a magazine which bills itself as "America's oldest and most widely read weekly journal of progressive political and cultural news, opinion and analysis".

Answer here.

Tuesday digest

2007-06-12T11:59:00.000-04:00

- As the United States Supreme Court is about to hear a case which will determine whether or not the phrases "natural family", "marriage" and "union of a man and a woman" constitute hate speech - demonstrating once again that you should keep your politics to yourself in the workplace - the cartoon above from the syndicated comic strip "Opus", which ran this past weekend, demonstrates how the vocation of fatherhood is being increasingly viewed as disposable. (Give it a click to see a larger version.)

That said, this fella isn't exactly the dad of the year.

- An author asks why the Western Left still romanticizes and makes excuses for Communism, here, despite both the cold, hard facts as well as the plain truth being in clear view.

- I don't think that China is going to be the massive economic juggernaut a lot of commentators do for a number of reasons. For example, how can you devise an effective social insurance system in a place where well over a billion people share only one hundred surnames? On top of that, there are 100,000 people who go by "Wang Tao", China's most popular name.

- Next time you hear someone talk about saving Africa with all of the usual accompanying platitudes, ask yourself what the UN and international aid programs have done to slow or halt this reign of terror.

- While Joe Lieberman has said that the bombing of Iran ought to be on the table, it's important to not overlook Pakistan.

- I wouldn't be surprised in the least if some of Bob Rae's cabinet are now gainfully employed in the llama farm business.

- A lot of folks don't like the guy, but Steve Simmons sifts through the numbers here and concludes that the Leafs really do suck.

Can't argue with that.

Monday digest

2007-06-11T14:24:00.001-04:00

- Remember all the weeping and gnashing of teeth some time ago when Conrad Black was going to buy up a bunch of newspapers? If you believed all of the hue and cry back then, it was going to be the end of Canada as we then knew it, because he'd have just far too much influence over the masses with his right-wing views about the free market and the welfare state.

Fast foward ten years. Now, we have CTV, led by CEO Ivan Fecan, buying up CHUM Media. This guy now owns everything from Sympatico to dozens of radio stations to Canada's "national newspaper" to probably the largest private TV network in Canada, and he just got bigger. However, you probably haven't heard a peep from the likes of Maude Barlow about the dangers of media ownership. Why? Well, Fecan happens to be a long-time Liberal fundraiser. In other words, conservative media bosses = bad, but Trudeaupian media ownership (on a much wider scale than Black's ever was, I might add), is A-OK.

You may point to the fact that the Competition Commissioner forced the sale of five Citytv stations as part of the deal, but so what? I'm still hearing boo from the Left.

Did I also mention that Torstar has a 20% ownership stake in CTVglobemedia?

- Speaking of the mainscream press, here's a must read from former Mayor of New York City Ed Koch, a Democrat who thinks the New York Times has really gone downhill.

- Maybe I'm an intolerant jerk, a shill for Bush or both, but Rosie O'Donnell is the last person I'd want to see fill Bob Barker's shoes.

Film Reviews: "Iraq In Fragments" (2006) and "The Lives of Others" (2007)

2007-06-11T10:07:00.000-04:00

Last night, I did something I hadn't done in quite a while, and that's head over to Old Ottawa South to take in a double bill at the venerable Mayfair Theatre.

First up was the Academy Award-nominated documentary, "Iraq In Fragments", which takes a look at post invasion Iraq through Sunni, Shi'ite and Kurdish eyes. The Sunni segment is rather pointless, as a young boy of 11 who is struggling in school while working part-time takes verbal abuse from his boss. As far as I could tell, the point of this was to demonstrate the flavour of Sunni culture against the backdrop of how the invasion paralyzed Baghdad's economy, with the boss hurling insults like "pimp" against the boy while bemoaning the American presence in the city.

Then, things move southward to Naseriyah where Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr is leading a mass assertion of his people's strength after decades of second-class citizenship under Saddam. The major focus in this segment is how the principles of Islam are married up with democracy, and the inherent tensions between the two.

Finally, we move to the Kurdish north, where the toppling of Saddam has finally brought a modicum of security to the families there, who are nevertheless still struggling to eke out a living. The promotional poster for the material comes from these scenes, and although you could be forgiven for thinking that it depicts a boy left homeless after a bomb dropped on his home, it's actually a picture of the fully operational brick forgery where he works. (If this was an honest oversight, I'm dubious.)

Dull, this is hardly essential viewing, and even if you're interested in these types of depictions, it's worthwhile only in that it will help round out your perceptions of Iraq rather than underline or shift them in any meaningful sense.

The next film is quite a different story, both literally and figuratively, and is quite a propos given that this week marks the 20th anniversary of the infamous "Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!" speech delivered by the man who defeated Communism, according to, among others, The Economist magazine.

"The Lives of Others" takes place in 1984 East Berlin where a playwright comes under heavy surveillance by the Ministry of Culture for being deemed a potential "enemy of Socialism". Soon, his mentors, lovers and friends are all implicated, as is the secret agent spearheading the operation - but not in the way you might expect. Twists and turns abound as coercion and intrusion by those who will not tolerate dissent provide the backdrop for the main character's efforts to live, think and speak freely and honestly. Things come to a stupefying conclusion for the protagonist after the Wall comes down and he is able to piece together what his reality really was under the desposed regime, thankfully consigned to the ash heap of history.

This film is an excellent reminder of how Marxist-Leninist ideology, authoritarian out of necessity, relies on instituting a system of command and control over individual actions, and that behind the Iron Curtain, anyone who dared fight back risked their relationships, careers and indeed, their very existences if they didn't properly serve the state - even if one was part of its apparatus.

"The Lives of Others" is fully deserving of its Oscar win for Best Foreign Language film, and although it was quite different and more enjoyable than "Iraq In Fragments", when taken together, both provide many reasons to be thankful for the good fortune of having been born in the democratic, capitalist West.

Overall ratings:

Iraq in Fragments: 5/10
The Lives of Others: 9.25/10

Sunday digest

2007-06-10T08:44:00.000-04:00

- Sixty-five months of uninterrupted growth, and some folks will still find something to complain about.

- The other day, I was asked by someone if I'd ever like to work for Canada's Department of Foreign Affairs. My response? "I'm not much of a do-gooder." The fact that I agree 100% with what this Kenyan has to say explains why.

- Although Vladimir Putin played the skunk at the garden party at the G-8 last week, check out this piece from Niall Ferguson on how there are others who should have been invited, but weren't.

- A very well-considered piece here from ~~an endangered species~~ a Republican academic who argues that while democracy is part of the solution to fighting Islamic radicalism, you first have to promote a culture of real liberty.

Bonus points for the following quote: "... I often remind my students and colleagues that only the impotent and the naive have the luxury of self-righteousness."

- I am a big, big fan of Bill Cosby's mission over the last couple of years, which has been this: if you want to see positive change, set aside blame and start looking in the mirror.

- Not that I would usually care about an article from a former Paul Martin fartcatcher, but I have to point out something from Scott Feschuk's article in Maclean's this week, here. In evaluating his leader, Stephane Dion, Feschuk says:

"His tone is consistently that of a university lecturer, which is fine for a minister but death for a leader. No one ever emerged inspired from Introduction to Economics. (Suicidal? Yes. Also sleepy. But not inspired.)"

I would disagree with Feschuk. Many individuals, in fact, have emerged inspired from Introduction to Economics, but those who do don't choose a career path which leads to employment as a Trudeaupian PR flack. Therein lies the difference.

Maclean's makes up for their columnist's antipathy towards basic mathematics, here.

- Early indications are that those over the age of 19 are going to be prevented from drinking a glass of wine or a Blue next time they go to the multiplex to check out their film of choice, as the Ontario government won't put the children at risk.

Ahh, the omnipotent state, always there to protect us from ourselves.

This is the same kind of lowest common denominator thinking that prevents us from being able to buy beer and wine at corner stores in Ontario.

Book Review: "The One Percent Doctrine: Deep Inside America's Pursuit of Its Enemies Since 9/11" by Ron Suskind (2006)

2007-06-09T14:29:00.001-04:00

"The One Percent Doctrine", a look at the war on terror from 9/11 to the 2004 US Presidential election from Wall St. Journal reporter Ron Suskind, was originally released in hardcover about a year ago. It was at the top of "best of" lists for 2006, so I picked up the paperback version when it was released in mid-May.

The title of "The One Percent Doctrine" is taken from Dick Cheney's assertion that even if there is a one percent chance that a terrorist attack against the United States might take place, it is imperative that the American government proceed as though it was an absolute certainty. However, this is not the unifying premise of the book. What Suskind does is take four major themes - terrorist financing, the power wielded by Cheney within the Administration, the negotiations with Moammar Ghadafi which led to the abandonment of Libya's nuclear program, and the ongoing battle for the hearts and minds of the American public as the Iraq war didn't go as planned in the months following the 2003 invasion - and weaves them around each other in a weak narrative, peppered with other anecdotes about Washington bureaucratic infighting, the capture of Khalid Sheik Mohammed, and US-Saudi relations, to name a few.

(One notable excerpt details how the mastermind of the 7/7 bombings, Mohamed Sidique Khan, was known to US authorities for months in advance due to information gleaned via the "illegal" wiretap program, but they were afraid to do anything with it due to potential controversy. He went on to kill 56 and injure over 700 that day.)

Important as well is the fact that Suskind offers a retelling of events that would have personality clashes and relationships be one of, if not the, primary driver of international affairs. I'm vastly underqualified to comment on this, but given the ambitious, gossipy, power-driven world of the Beltway, suffice it to say that I believe that while certainly valuable, taking the likes of Suskind, Woodward and Bernstein as authoritative would be a mistake, in my view, since nothing is verifiable and embellishment is part and parcel of what they do.

Suskind also veers closely, but not quite, towards the tone of the "gotcha" school of journalism, whereby high-and-mighty investigative reporters elevate themselves on the pedestal of the moral high ground, second-guessing the decisions made by elected and unelected officials alike while wrapping themselves in the cloak of journalistic freedom and invoking the principle of the free press whenever their ethics or accuracy are put to question - as though that makes up for the fact that by the very nature of the work, they are forced to take considerable license and leeway as they piece their recounting of events together.

In terms of analysis, he makes mention of the "tipping point" theory, which has been done better elsewhere and by others, but outside of self-absorbed ramblings about the vitality and role of the fourth estate towards the conclusion, there's not much more. All told, though "The One Percent Doctrine" is nothing remarkable, it provides a decent contextual piece for other, superior works like "The Looming Tower" and George Tenet's memoirs, which is perhaps a reflection of my own bias towards the accounts from those who have actually done it rather than observers from the press, "Tower" aside.

"Fiasco" comes out in paperback in six weeks, so I'll be all over that one as well to see how it matches up.

Overall rating: 6/10

Saturday digest

2007-06-09T12:17:00.001-04:00

- So the skanky Paris Hilton is on her way back to jail. Under normal circumstances, I'd have no comment on this whole ridiculous affair, but after Al Sharpton weighed in on her preliminary release by saying that the scales of justice were tipped in Hilton's favour because she is white, blond and rich, the memory of the deceased Nicole Brown Simpson came to mind.

This may be a little presumptuous on my part, but I'm thinking she'd probably disagree - vehemently - with the Reverend.

- Thumbs up to Cineplex Odeon. They've applied for a liquor license so that when you are kicking back at select theatres in Toronto, you'll be able to enjoy a frosty brew. I don't see why this would be a problem. Alcohol is served at sporting events, so why not at the cinema? If anyone can see any potential public harm here, please share, because I certainly don't.

- Here are two books that I will definitely NOT be reviewing this fall.

- Ottawa Mayor Larry O'Brien's transportation task force, led by statist David Collenette, issued a report this week calling for a tunnel underneath Ottawa's downtown core, among other things, to help ease congestion for those living in not only Orleans and Kanata, but Maxville and Smith's Falls. One thing I didn't hear from Collenette and friends on this grandiose scheme was an official price tag. I hope that before this conversation goes any further, the eventual cost to Ottawa taxpayers will be part of the discussion.

- "Family Guy" is often both silly and drawn-out, but this ten-minute sendup of "Star Wars" is pretty good.

Friday digest

2007-06-08T09:44:00.000-04:00

- The United States Senate Judiciary Committee yesterday voted to apply the protections afforded by the United States Constitution to Gitmo detainees.

No doubt al-Qaeda is going to put down their bomb-loaded backpacks, reconsider their violent brand of political Islam and apologize for 9/11 after this generous bit of outreach.

- Why isn't the microscope being applied to the Democratic front-runner? Could you imagine if the sitting President had refused to release his college transcripts in 2000? The mainscream media would be all over him.

- A couple of lengthy but worthwhile pieces on two topics that are getting a fair bit of ink these days, often at the same time: Cuba and health care.

Album Review: "Live at Texas Stadium" by Alan Jackson, George Strait and Jimmy Buffett (2007)

2007-06-07T20:44:00.000-04:00

Three of the biggest ham n' eggers going today teamed up for a show in Dallas back on Saturday, May 29, 2004, and finally got around to releasing it earlier this year.

Each feller does a couple of his own tunes and helps the other two out, like when Buffett shows up in time to do Strait's "All My Ex's Live In Texas" or when Jackson and Strait return the favour on Buffet's "Hey Good Lookin'". Even a Guy Clark tune, "Boats To Build", makes the cut, as does the Eagles' a cappella classic "Seven Bridges Road". Others like Buffet's "Margaritaville" and Jackson's "Five O'Clock Somewhere" are included as well, and it sounds like both performers and fans are having a great time. (How can you not when the day's soundtrack includes songs about Texas women, cowboys, honky tonkin', and claiming the title of "designated drinker"? ) Even the cheerleaders come out for closing track "Where I Come From", which another reader of this blog and I once completely butchered at karaoke, much to the chagrin of our very embarassed wives.

The less said about that, the better.

Returning to the subject at hand, "Live At Texas Stadium" is definitely nothing serious, and while it's the equivalent of what is often referred to as a "rental" in movie terms, it's a fun little record for when you're washing the car, poppin' a top and kickin' back, or heading out on a redneck roadtrip, which I look forward to doing later on this summer - twice, in fact.

Overall rating: 7.25/10

Thursday digest

2007-06-07T12:12:00.000-04:00

- First up, congratulations to the Anaheim Ducks, led by captain Scotty Niedermayer (owner of the best playoff beard since my buddy Kenny Daneyko's back in 2003) on winning the Stanley Cup last night.

- I admit that I can get pretty snarly when I'm sitting at my keyboard, but I've got nothing on these guys.

- Any chance of me voting for Dalton McGuinty in this fall's Ontario election, remote as it was, has been absolutely quashed by this news.

- Loony left play of the day goes to Kathy Warnick, president of Pets Across America, who recently explained the upswing in stray cats as resulting from global warming.

- I'm really glad I didn't shell out $150 to go to this show, because without David Gilmour, it's, well, crap.

Album Review: "Minutes to Midnight" - Linkin Park (2007)

2007-06-06T19:32:00.001-04:00

Tonight, we go from one Rick Rubin-produced album to another.

Linkin Park's third offering was touted in reviews as something unlike their first two mega-successful albums, "Hybrid Theory" and "Meteora", both which I picked up more out of curiosity than anything else. To my ears, both of those efforts had a few interesting moments, for certain, but were mostly unremarkable. I decided to try this one out because I thought that with Rubin at the helm and the "this isn't the same old Linkin Park" advance press, it could really put this band over the top for me, but it didn't. The half-decent tunes sound either like Avril Lavigne could have done them (Leave Out All The Rest) or the record company told them to write a hit (Shadow Of The Day), and the angry tracks don't even come close to the memorable "Crawling" or the addictive "Numb". Making matters worse, everything except the last track clocks in a radio-friendly four minutes or less and excluding interludes, there's at best 38 minutes of music on this disc.

Now it's not all bad, and a couple of tracks like the closing "The Little Things Give You Away" will deservedly find themselves on the Best Of release that will inevitably follow Linkin Park's next album, but with "Minutes to Midnight", you're looking at about one mildly interesting moment for every three minutes of, well, meh. That still won't stop it from selling truckloads, but I'm just happy I only paid $11 for this coaster. And next time I hear something described as "screamo" by the guy working cash at Best Buy, I'll know to stay away from it.

Overall rating: 3.75/10

Wednesday digest

2007-06-06T13:09:00.000-04:00

- Today, Bob Barker is taping his last show for the Price is Right.

Was there anything better than playing with Legos and watching the Price at 11 o'clock during the summer when you were about 8 or 9 years old, looking up from the spaceship you had under construction and silently asking yourself if two spins of $0.60 and $0.35 together would beat one of $0.90, and knowing with certainty, despite your young age, that you much preferred Barker's Beauties to the ongoing romances of Luis and Maria, Gordon and Susan, Bert and Ernie and Big Bird and Snufflupagus over on Channel 5? Or coming home from high school on a snow day, inviting all your friends over for smokes, junk food and euchre, and tuning in to see a high-intensity Range Game, Mountain Climber or Plinko? How about during university, when you'd finally leave the house at noon, determined to spend the day at the library only after you caught the Showcase Showdown?

Hammerheads, you know of what I speak.

I know it's a cliché, but truly, today marks the end of an era.

- Last night, I watched the latest Republican debate. There was a lot to like. McCain should be the Secretary of Defense, Rudy hit a home run on health care, and I loved hearing Hunter on family, Huckabee on faith, and Paul on the individual. Although I liked Tancredo's comments about assimilation, it's clear that he's a nativist. Very ugly. As for Brownback, Gilmore and Thompson, they should all just cut their losses and quit. Romney continues to impress me as well, but I'm not sure how he'd do if he were put up against an ideas man like Gingrich.

Also encouraging is how every candidate recognized the need to get back to basic principles of lower taxes and lower spending.

Click here for the transcript.

- A Nova Scotia Tory MP has been tossed out of the government caucus for voting against the 2007 Budget due to the fact that it would scale down his province's share of the federal dole given that they are about to make mad money on natural resource extraction.

Why is it that politicians from localities everywhere north and east of the Ottawa River thinks that perpetual subsidization of their economy by hardworking taxpayers in the rest of Canada is part of their birthright?

Have they no pride?

- You can always count on John Stossel to tell it like it is. Here, he explains why profit shouldn't be a dirty word, especially when it comes to the oil companies.

- Take a look at this account of Putin's Russia from a recent defectee.

Very worrying.

- The New York Islanders have bought out Alexei Yashin.

Mike Milbury could not be reached for comment.

- Larry David and his wife have split. I don't know how someone could tolerate that jerk for an hour, much less an entire marriage (and I'm talking about him, not her).

Tuesday digest

2007-06-05T17:47:00.001-04:00

- Serving in the office of the Vice-President of the United States and have difficulty recalling who told you what concerning the subject of a "national security leak" you had nothing to do with a few years ago?

Two and a half years in jail, 250K and two years probation.

Now, if you're Bill Clinton's former National Security Advisor and you sneak classified documents out of the National Archives and destroy them before the 9/11 Commission can get ahold of them, all you get is a fine of 50K.

Scooter Libby's sentence is a complete and total miscarriage of justice.

- Speaking of American courts, I find it very ironic that Canadian citizen Omar Khadr of the infamous and self-described "al-Qaeda family" had his case tossed out at Gitmo because a US military tribunal found him outside of their jurisdiction. Apparently, he does not constitute an "unlawful" enemy combatant.

Those imperialist Americans, huh?

Amnesty has to be happy with this outcome.

- This week's fortieth anniversary of the Six-Day War is properly commemorated by editorials here and here. To place it into context, be sure to read this piece as well about how well some of Israel's neighbours are doing as they refuse to accept not only that defeat, but the very existence of the Jewish state.

Monday digest

2007-06-04T13:21:00.000-04:00

- Congratulations to Canadian Auto Workers President Buzz Hargrove for winning the Loony Left Play of the Day award twice in one week. Yesterday, Hargrove threatened to throw his entire membership out of work if General Motors doesn't do what he wants them to with its investment.

I'll put this one in the "with friends like that" file.

- A close second for this coveted prize comes to us in the form of our own so-called conservative Prime Minister Stephen Harper, who, in a speech yesterday prior to the G8 meetings in Munich, said that "climate change is perhaps the biggest threat to confront the future of humanity today".

Just when I thought it couldn't get any worse.

- Then, we have the incoming chair of the Arkansas Republican party, who recently stated that the American public would be more appreciative of President Bush and the US Armed Forces if only a few more 9/11-type attacks would take place. See here and scroll down to the third-last paragraph.

What a disgrace.

- According to this article, Iraqis employed by American private interests in Iraq are begging their supervisors to take them to the US should the troops pull out.

- Take a look at what this Cuban-American has to say about health care on that island paradise.

- A very well-considered editorial here on the plot to blow up JFK Airport in New York City.

- Finally, here's an interesting piece from Gallup on US public opinion as it relates to moral issues.

Live Review: Cirque du Soleil - "Kooza" - Montreal, QC, June 2, 2007

2007-06-03T17:16:00.001-04:00

Yesterday afternoon, Mrs H. and I drove two hours east to the Old Port of Montreal to see the latest Cirque du Soleil offering, "Kooza". This was my second Cirque experience, and thankfully, it was much better than my first - the nonsensical "Delerium".

Upon reflection, I'm guessing that "Kooza" is about a little boy who receives a present one day which turns out to be a real, live jack-in-the-box. Soon, he's introduced to a fantasy world and is eventually crowned its king. Now, as long-time readers will know, I deal strictly in reality, so I can't be sure, but I think that with most Cirque products, what passes for a narrative is secondary to the music and stunts, and this production was no exception.

The soundtrack was a pulsating, driving affair which sounded like a melange of Peter Gabriel, David Bowie, Enigma and world music, and the stunts - well, they blew me away. Body contortionists, trapeze artists, balanceoirs, magicians and acrobats all pulled off things that I could describe to you that you'd just have to see to believe.

Cringing, I was left speechless as these adrenaline junkies bended the limits of human physicality, risking permanent injury (if not death) and demonstrating mind-blowing concentration in the process. After each exhibition, you're going "how are they going to top THIS?!?", more than making up for the lame "plot" as well as what the show tried to pass of as humour, which included some unfortunate performer wearing a dog costume and licking the main character along with some eccentric professor-type character going around whacking audience members on the head with a plastic piece of steak.

Leaving that aside, this was an incredibly amazing spectacle that I'd recommend to anyone simply for the sheer shock value. Definitely worth the price of admission.

Ratings:

Plot: 2/10
Humour: 1/10
Music: 8/10
Stunts: 17/10

Overall rating: 9.25/10

Sunday digest

2007-06-03T10:26:00.001-04:00

- Recently, I decided that I really don't like people from Boston, even when I agree with them. Take "The Guy From Boston", an Internet sensation who issues loud, profane, tasteless rants on whatever subject comes to mind. Here he is on global warming. All of the valid points the guy makes are lost because he comes across as just an obnoxious asshole. That said, his discussion on the morning coffee is not to be missed.

- As Canadian authorities are dismissing the possibility of a similar plot to the one hatched to blow up JFK's jet fuel lines from happening in Canada, the best quote in some time comes to us from former Minister of Transport Jean Lapierre, who, concerning the sky-high expense account of the chairman of the Canadian Air Transport Security Authority (Canada's equivalent of the TSA): "Just because he is charge of finding nailclippers, he thinks he is head of Interpol."

- Robert Kagan makes a good case here for laying the blame for Iraq's current status at the feet not of the Republicans or the Iraqi people, but at al-Qaeda's.

- As Mahmoud Ahmedinejad marks the anniversary of the Ayatollah Khomeini by mouthing off about Israel again, saying "with the help of all the Lebanese and Palestinian fighters, we will witness the destruction of this regime in the near future… Anyone who works for God and believes in the power of the people will prevail" - and George W. Bush, who wants to negotiate with these lunatics, is the religious nut? - Vladimir Putin says that if the US takes defensive measures against Iran, he's going to start targetting Europe.

Suspend this guy from the G8 immediately.

- Speaking of religion, fascinating debate going on here between the Hitchens brothers, Christopher and Peter, after Christian Peter reviewed atheist Christopher's recent "God Is Not Great" book. Do you think this would ever happen outside of the West? No way, and that's what makes it great.

However, all is not well in this regard as Carolyn Glick looks at the bigger picture.

- In a continuing trend, some gay activists are taking the online dating service eHarmony to court because it is for men and women only. It's plain to see that this has more to do with the fact that eHarmony is run by evangelical Christians than it does any commitment to pluralism. Frivolity like this doesn't help gay PR, that's for sure.

- Speaking of bad PR, "60 Minutes" bigshot Mike Wallace was there to hug euthanasiast Jack Kevorkian after Dr. Death was released from prison this past week. Far be it from me to question Wallace's professionalism and objectivity, but with such displays in plain view it's not wonder that more and more Americans are seeking out more fair and balanced coverage.

- If you read just one article from this website today, pick this one.

Album Review: "Taking The Long Way" - Dixie Chicks (2006)

2007-06-02T09:25:00.001-04:00

Well, I did it. On a recent trip to my favourite used CD store, I finally got around to picking up the Dixie Chicks' year-old "Taking The Long Way" album, which I decided I would buy after seeing the "Shut Up and Sing" documentary, because, geopolitical expertise aside, the tunes sounded great.

And they are.

Industry giant Rick Rubin, he of Slayer, LL Cool J and Neil Diamond fame, among others, brings a textured depth to the girls' sound that had been lacking on their previous efforts. Things sound like a twanged-up version of 70s California AM pop - think Sheryl Crow or Tom Petty with layered harmonies, fiddles and steel guitar. However, don't think that just because you might like their politics you'll like their music, because it's still unmistakably rooted in the Nashville tradition without apologies to all the trendy, urbane, liberal yuppies out there who "really don't like country, but there's just something about these girls" so they had to buy it.

I'm sure if you got a few Cab Sauvs into the average member of that demographic, they'd admit that they've only listened to their copy about 4-5 times, which is about how many times I listed to Vanilla Ice when I was 16 because I thought it would make me look cooler to the chick who sat behind me in Accounting who I had a massive crush on. I shoulda stuck with Warrant 'cause "Play That Funky Music" got me nowhere.

Point, Hammer? If you're a country fan, you'll like this record. If you're not, you probably won't, no matter how hard your Sunday New York Times -readin', fair-trade coffee drinkin', Perrier buyin', Greenpeace-donatin', Burberry-totin' ass tries.

Overall rating: 8.5/10

Friday digest

2007-06-01T09:27:00.000-04:00

- For Game 4 of the Stanley Cup Finals on Monday night, Canadian classic rockers Trooper will be playing outside of Scotiabank Place in Ottawa. I'm going to go ahead and set the over/under on the combined total of how many times they'll play "Raise A Little Hell", "Boys In The Bright White Sports Car" and "Here For a Good Time" at a stingy 8.

- The fellas on the Team 1200 today said that more Americans watched the US telecast of the National Spelling Bee (14 million) than did the Stanley Cup Finals game (500,000). If that's true, it's a pretty sad state of affairs, Mr. Bettman.

- Here's a must-read article which rightfully tears many holes in the modern Trudeaupian brand of multiculturalism as pushed by the cultural elites in Canada in the Toronto Star and elsewhere.

- The best of Rosie O'Donnell, here. My two favourites are either "don't fear the terrorists - they're mothers and fathers" or when she stated that the Patriot Act has turned the United States into a South African-style apartheid state.

- Today's loony left play of the day comes to us from good ol' PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals), who argue that because raising animals for food consumption contributes more greenhouse gases than do all of the cars and trucks in the world combined, the US government ought to give tax breaks to vegetarians.

In the words of PETA President Ingrid Newkirk, “(a)nyone who buys a hybrid in order to cut down on their contribution to global warming and uses it to drive to the supermarket to buy chicken, steaks, and milk should face up to the fact that there’s no such thing as a meat-eating environmentalist.”

All I have to say about that is that I love animals.

Pass the burgers.

- Ever notice that Hillary Clinton seems to be campaigning against the very kind of America that her husband championed during the 1990s?

- When Peggy Noonan writes your political obituary, I'd say the gig is pretty much up.

- Twenty years ago this weekend, something very near and dear to my heart, the ugly duckling of Canadian politics, the Reform party, was born, based on the principles of a government that lives within its means, regional fairness, and increased opportunities for participation by regular people in the public policy process.

That's an anniversary that definitely deserves a toast.

Book Review: "Radicals for Capitalism: A Freewheeling History of the Modern American Libertarian Movement" by Brian Doherty (2007)

2007-05-31T21:49:00.000-04:00

This is an exhaustive look (620 pages of text, not including notes) at the history of the libertarian movement in America, revolving around five key figures: Ludwig von Mises, Friedrich Hayek, Milton Friedman, Ayn Rand, and Murray Rothbard. For most people who have some sense of the major philosophical forces shaping Western society, the general definition of libertarianism is one where the governments espouse public policy choices that are fiscally conservative and socially liberal. In other words, pro-choice, pro-gay rights, pro-euthanasia, in favour of the legalization of drugs, porn and prostitution, and anti-gun control, combined with a tough, unapologetic brand of fiscal policy that favours low taxes and limited spending. However, those who are active in the movement have much loftier goals, which made me reconsider whether I should put even one foot in this camp. On the third page of "Radicals for Capitalism", the gauntlet is thrown down:

"Its eventual goals include the abolition of all drug laws (not just those against currently illegal narcotics and hallucinogens, but an end to prescription laws and the Food and Drug Administration as well), the abolition of the income tax, the abolition of all private sexual relations (from marriage to prostitution and everything in between), and end to public ownership and regulation of the airwaves, an end to overseas military bases and all warmaking not in direct defense of the homeland, an end to the welfare state, and an end to any legal restrictions whatsoever on speech and expression."

Now I'm no authoritarian, and I'll put my fiscal conservative bona fides up against anybody, but obviously we're not just talking about live and let live here. Libertarianism, taken to its furthest extension, veers from your run-of-the-mill tax cutting crowd all the way towards those who want to abolish the US Departments of Energy and Education to others who are pretty much outright anarchists.

This is obviously ridiculous. Not only is it totally impractical, there is no stewardship or morality within pure libertarianism. On issues from pre-emptive war to self-governance, you pretty much only have to take care of yourself and your own backyard while hedonistically sticking your dick wherever you want. Meanwhile, anyone who raises an eyebrow is considered some sort of authoritarian busybody who wants to run your life. This allows for a vacant, easily justified form of animalistic urge to pretty much act as the guiding principle for life, one which isn't part of my own value system.

But I digress.

Doherty shows that Rand is pretty much Animal Farm personified, and other interesting characters like Barry Goldwater, Leonard Read, Frederic Bastiat, Rose Wilder Lane, Charles Murray, and Timothy Leary (who knew?) make appearances along the way. (In the case of Rand, one has to wonder if her legions of fans knew how much of an outright megalomaniac she was if they'd adore her as much as they do.) Nevertheless, for one who often has a hard time defining himself on the right, this book was a huge eye-opener. It left me with the impression that once you scratch the surface, libertarians either are, or are in bed with, privacy freaks, isolationists/conspiracy theorists (see Paul, Ron, and his mirror reflection, Nader, Ralph) or atheistic, to-hell-with-authority types who gleefully lurch from orgasm to orgasm with no consideration for the potential consequences of their behaviour over the long term. And it doesn't just stop there ... did you know that mental illness is a myth, according to some?!? This is the type of misguided thinking that leads to deinstitutionalization, a truly disastrous piece of social policy.

Since this is supposed to be a book review and not some kind of rant, I'll now try to put away the soapbox and conclude by saying that the bottom line is this tedious read, painful at times but definitely challenging at others, left me questioning my own positions and proved once again that on the right, while we agree on the fundamentals, can offer up one hell of a vigorous debate that isn't going to end any time soon.

And after reading this, I sure as hell know where my limits are - right around the point when somebody muses about privatizing sidewalks.

Check out David Boaz' "Libertarianism" and "The Libertarian Reader", edited by Boaz, for a more accessible and mainstream treatment of this subject.

Overall rating: 3.5/10

Thursday digest

2007-05-31T09:34:00.000-04:00

- 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.