Mid-Week Post

Quickly now....


As I've been saying:

China indisputably is a conscienceless regime that treats domestic dissenters and opponents with breathtaking callousness and cruelty. From its arrogant, unaccountable and corrupt system of government to its cheerful resort to firing squads (5,000 executions in 2009 — more than the rest of the world combined), harvesting of organs from opponents and its violent suppression of Tiananmen Square protesters, Tibetan autonomists and Falun Gong supporters, the odious Chinese regime is certainly an egregious offender against international norms of human rights.

But that in itself is not sufficient to make us avoid trading with China. We have traded with as bad and worse regimes: the Soviet Union, Cuba, Venezuela, Iran, Libya before the revolution and others have all been places where Canadians have bought and sold despite appalling human rights records. Canada rightly criticizes all such regimes, but does not interfere with its own citizens’ rights to engage in trade as long as they do so in accordance with Canadian law.

The real reason to be exceptionally wary and prudent in our relationship with China actually has nothing to do with how they treat their own people and everything to do with how they treat us. Make no mistake: China is projecting its amoral pursuit of its regime’s interests into the wider world, including right here in Canada. Wherever China has acquired economic and political power, it has used it to intimidate opponents and hold itself above the law.

In Asia, for example, China unabashedly uses its growing economic and military clout to intimidate smaller countries. It is unwilling to see its expansive and weakly justified claims to resource-rich parts of the South China Sea subjected to normal rules-based settlement in international forums. It prefers to become economically dominant in smaller countries such as Vietnam and the Philippines and then use that power to bully their partner into submission. The recent welcome political liberalization in Burma can be traced to its military junta’s increasing unwillingness to be pushed around by China and the consequent need to repair relations with the west. Small Asian countries warmly welcomed America’s stated intention of becoming more present in East Asia because they want a powerful counterweight to the overbearing Chinese.

Then there is China’s aggressive campaign of spying and espionage against foreigners in general and Canadians firms, individuals and interests in particular. Despite considerable media coverage, Canadians seem blithely unaware of the extent of China’s spying efforts. To pick just one recent example, a defector from China’s intelligence services has indicated China has 1,000 economic spies at work in Canada, more than any other country. Canadian researchers have been instrumental in uncovering a worldwide software-based Chinese spy network that targeted sensitive government information, while industrial espionage has pillaged Canadian industrial and business secrets.

In sum, China’s is a nasty regime that wishes us ill, unashamedly exploits weakness in its trade partners and holds itself above both the law and international norms of decency wherever it is to their advantage.

Why teachers' unions should be abolished:



Case #1:






And case #2:






How long would OECTA last if the public funds dried up? What if parents, tired of "teachers" lying to them and doing anything other than educate their kids, demanded teachers' unions be abolished? How many dedicated Catholic professionals would there be?


(Muchas gracias)



Oh, this is embarrassing:

With the pro-life/pro-choice argument being in the news cycle for the past few weeks, Newt Gingrich was right on point tonight when he brought up President Obama's pro-abortion, pro-infanticide voting record that the media ignored during his presidential campaign in 2008. As a state senator, Obama voted against legislation, four times in total, that protects babies who survive abortion procedures. His no vote meant he was in support of legally allowing people to leave baby abortion survivors to die on the operating table instead of giving them care. 

And this.



What he said:

Rowan Atkinson has told the BBC that producers should have total creative freedom when it comes to on screen hires – and should not have to adhere to discrimination legislation.

His comments came a week after the BBC director general Mark Thompson admitted that the BBC had “got it wrong” by firing older female presenters and vowed to bring back more.

In a letter to the BBC Radio 4 Media Show, Atkinson said that “the creative industries are completely inappropriate environments for anti-discrimination legislation.”

The actor, comedian and screenwriter is one of Britain’s biggest talent exports, starring in such shows as Blackadder, Mr Bean and movies including Johnny English.

Citing the of case of Miriam O’Reilly, the BBC presenter who won a landmark case against the BBC after being dropped from the rural affairs show Countryfile, Atkinson said while he did not blame O’Reilly for using the existing law, his argument was more that “the legal tools she used should never have been available to  her.”

Atkinson likened using age discrimination to situation to Pierce Brosnan complaining that he was sacked from Bond movies for being too old.

“If either at the outset of a TV program, or at any time during its screen life, you want to replace an old person with a young person or a white person with a black person, or a disabled straight with an able-bodied gay, you should have as much creative freedom to do so.”

Affirmative action is corporate eye-candy. It does not elevate dedicated, hard-working professionals of a certain ethnicity or gender but rather reinforces chauvinist views that some people are too stupid to get a job so it must be handed to them. Those people have been proven right, I'm afraid.



And now, what the building of the pyramids would cost today:

Even with cranes, helicopters, tractors and trucks at our disposal, it would be tough to construct the Great Pyramid of Giza today. Its construction 4,500 years ago is so astounding in some people's eyes that they invoke mystical or even alien involvement. But the current theory of the building of the Great Pyramid — the notion that it was assembled from the inside out, via a spiraling internal ramp — is probably still the best construction plan.

Following that plan, we could replicate the Wonder of the Ancient World for a cool $5 billion.