A Question

Um, why are we selling our natural assets to China?

Why not refuse the sale, cripple China and let restive ethnic groups finish off the toxic-laden slave labour population? I mean- we could have ended China's nightmarish existence under the dictator Mao but we kept it alive, traded with them and gave them the Olympics. Now, we're giving them OUR oil sands.

It's okay to ruin a totalitarian state. It's even more okay to fend for ourselves.

Just saying.

What's Wrong With This Picture?

Efforts to canonise the former Soviet Union's greatest butcher appear strangely reminiscent of the popular press' glowing praise of Mary-Jo Kopechne's killer.

In a country where deflection and denial are the norm when speaking about communism's grand failures, this form of Holocaust denial truly takes the cake.

Alas, we live in an era where this kind of talk is accepted at face-value. Soon, there will be no such things as human rights abuses or genocides. It will all be a matter of perspective. The devil will have succeeded in hiding his existence from the world.

Saint Monica

It was that whenever she could she acted as a peacemaker between any differing and discordant spirits, and when she heard very bitter things on either side of a controversy--the kind of bloated and undigested discord which often belches forth bitter words, when crude malice is breathed out by sharp tongues to a present friend against an absent enemy--she would disclose nothing about the one to the other except what might serve toward their reconciliation.

(The Confessions of Saint Augustine, Ch. 9, 21)

In Case We Forgot....

Ted Kennedy, of the massively wealthy, privileged and corrupt Kennedys, killed Mary-Jo Kopechne, told jokes about it, supported the IRA, pushed for extremely anti-life policies and ruined Robert Bork.

Let's remember that when the hearse carrying his bloated corpse makes the rounds to adoring and idiotic masses who believed he was a good man and any moron who would use his demise to push forward a crummy health-care plan.

Things You Should Never Do

Release a convicted terrorist, for example. A Scottish court's decision to release convicted terrorist Abdel Basset al-Megrahi on "compassionate grounds" fuels the Islamofascist desire to rejoice not only in flaunting the law but over the victims' families who have had to suffer through this tragedy since 1988. Even letting Libya weasel their way out of moral culpability by paying "compensation" was beyond the pale. Now, al-Megrahi has gotten his hero's welcome and terrorists everywhere are emboldened by the moral weakness of the West.

In case we need to be reminded of the enormity of the tragedy and why al-Megrahi should have remained in prison, remember this:

Forensic pathologist Dr. William G. Eckert, who examined the autopsy
evidence, told Scottish police he believed the pilot and 147 other passengers
survived the bomb blast and may have been alive on impact. None of these
passengers showed signs of injury from the explosion itself, he said. Although
the victims would have lost consciousness because of the lack of oxygen at
31,000 feet (9.4 km), forensic examiners believe they may have regained
consciousness as they fell toward the oxygen-rich lower altitudes.

Similarly, South Korea should continue to raise the pressure against North Korea, despite Bill Clinton's slick deal to release two American journalists weeks ago. Kim Jong-Il hasn't apologised for Korean Air Flight 858, has he? One can set a watch to the next round of treachery and appeasement in the Korean Peninsula.

Monday Evening Nod

Yep.

Here's a little film about making an icon.

New and Bizarre Ways

An update on the US health-care debate.

One article writer decries accusing Sarah Palin of intellectual dwarfism as lies borne of snobbery and the other has no ruddy idea what he's talking about.

I don't know if this blog about North Korea is a joke or not. Just see it for yourself and make the call.

Outrage 2.0

The community of Iqaluit is "outraged" that two boys were (photographed) sleeping on a sidewalk.

I, too, am outraged. Where were the parents?

From the article:

The territorial social services department hasn't released details of why
the boys were out in the streets, but the area suffers from some of Canada's
highest rates of family violence and alcohol abuse.

Oh. That's where they were.

I am not making light of neglect or abuse as these are not trifles to be laughed at but serious problems that need addressing. I would like to see the parents held accountable, not more tax dollars thrown in any direction. The boys need a proper home, not "white man's guilt" or "taxpayers' remorse".

Lies, Lies and Damned Lies

Been away from my desk for far too long.

A woman who identified herself as a pediatric physician at U.S. Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee's townhouse meeting on health-care reform was revealed not to be a physician at all but a rabid Obama supporter. I suppose that qualifies for credibility these days.

Former Alaska governor Sarah Palin has received much haranguing from the popular press over her "death panels" remark.

What the Bill says:

1) IN GENERAL.—The Administration headed by a Health Choices
Commissioner division referred to as the ‘‘Commissioner’’) shall be appointed
by the President, advice and consent of the Senate. (pg. 40)

With regards to commissions set up to discuss and/or allocate care, funds and research:

‘‘(A) be designed, as appropriate, to take into account the potential
for differences in the effectiveness of health care items and services
used with various subpopulations such as racial and ethnic minorities,
women, different age groups (including children, adolescents, adults,
and seniors), and individuals with different comorbidities; (pg. 520)

To the end of life:

‘‘(3) PHYSICIAN’S QUALITY REPORTING INITIATIVE.—
7 ‘‘(A) IN GENERAL.—For
purposes of reporting data on quality measures for covered
professional services furnished during 2011 and any subsequent year, to
the extent that measures are available, the Secretary shall include
quality measures on end of life care and advanced care planning that
have been adopted or endorsed by a consensus-based organization, if
appropriate. Such measures shall measure both the creation of and
adherence to orders for life sustaining treatment. (pg. 432)

What Sarah Palin said (after reading the bill the president apparently did not):

Section 1233 authorizes advanced care planning consultations for senior
citizens on Medicare every five years, and more often “if there is a significant
change in the health condition of the individual ... or upon admission to a
skilled nursing facility, a long-term care facility... or a hospice program."
[3] During those consultations, practitioners must explain “the continuum of
end-of-life services and supports available, including palliative care and
hospice,” and the government benefits available to pay for such services. [4]Now
put this in context. These consultations are authorized whenever a Medicare
recipient’s health changes significantly or when they enter a nursing home, and
they are part of a bill whose stated purpose is “to reduce the growth in health
care spending.” [5] Is it any wonder that senior citizens might view such
consultations as attempts to convince them to help reduce health care costs by
accepting minimal end-of-life care? As Charles Lane notes in the Washington
Post, Section 1233 “addresses compassionate goals in disconcerting proximity to
fiscal ones.... If it’s all about obviating suffering, emotional or physical,
what’s it doing in a measure to “bend the curve” on health-care costs?”
[6]

What (the brother of White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel) Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel wrote regarding the criteria of saving lives:

Maximizing benefits is a utilitarian value....

What the president said:

“Let me just be specific about some things that I’ve been hearing
lately that we just need to dispose of here. The rumor that’s been circulating a
lot lately is this idea that somehow the House of Representatives voted for
death panels that will basically pull the plug on grandma because we’ve decided
that we don’t, it’s too expensive to let her live anymore....It turns out that I
guess this arose out of a provision in one of the House bills that allowed
Medicare to reimburse people for consultations about end-of-life care, setting
up living wills, the availability of hospice, etc. So the intention of the
members of Congress was to give people more information so that they could
handle issues of end-of-life care when they’re ready on their own terms. It
wasn’t forcing anybody to do anything.” [1]

So- who is lying? Who is mistaken? Why the need for rationing what is purported to be a compassionate service to all?

Basically because public health-care isn't. The public pays for a system controlled by one body, a body not accountable to anyone. As populations get older and sicker and fewer taxpayers are born to prop up this system, rationing health-care is a very cost-effective measure for those who weigh human lives in terms of what they give us. One could make the argument for any number of gender-studies graduates who foment hatred and discord but that would just be evil.

Oh- and the health-care bill will cover elective abortions. I guess as long as it is cost-effective and not going to children under the age of ten or anything.

It gets better. The White House has a deal with a pharmaceutical company.

Bill Clinton's monumental task of freeing two journalists who worked for Al Gore from a North Korean prison isn't just fishy; it's wrong. One cannot simply walk up to Kim Jong-Il and ask for the safe return of one's compatriots. What did Bill Clinton promise North Korea? More to come.

When John Bolton talks about North Korea or objects to Mary Robinson being given the Presidential Medal of Freedom, I listen. After all, the medal shouldn't sink to the depth of the Order of Canada.

Some good news.

Anger Management

Calm down!

Don't turn into this little fellow!

Race-Gate? What Race-Gate?

I've been late posting about this but now is as good a time as any.

Obama's attempt to smooth over HIS mistake with cheap American beer has to be one of the most transparent acts of ingratiation I've seen in the longest time.

Let's get things clear: Professor Henry Gates, whose tenure is due to his race and whose topic of interest is race, has the gall but the prerogative (given his lesson plans) to accuse a distinguished police officer of racism when he would not co-operate during a routine investigation. I don't know what people expect a police officer to do when he receives a call of a possible break-in but whatever.

Obama, desperate to get the American public's mind off his extremely expensive and unrealistic health-care plan, accuses the aforementioned police officer of racism and it has since blown up in his presidential face. So what does he do? He invites the parties concerned for a beer because that's what the little people do (ask a man who has never even smelled a ghetto but sure knows how to organise communities).

Man of the people.

Not really.