(A Title Goes Here)

What a Thursday it's been...



If one was an engineer with a promising new gadget, would one remain in Canada where math scores are lower than in other countries, where Chinese practise industrial espionage with little impunity and corporate taxes are high?


Smart money says no:

Nicholson believes that the biggest hurdle for this or any government to overcome is inertia. It has been too easy and very profitable for corporate Canada to let American firms take all the risk when it comes to innovation. Canadian managers have been quick to adapt and co-opt successful American innovations.

Invent our own inventions? Build our own better mousetraps? Why bother?

After all, this low-innovation approach  has worked out pretty well for Canada.  By objective measures such as per capita income, infant mortality, home ownership levels, number of cars owned by its citizens, number of Canadian Facebook users and so on — Canada has always been relatively affluent.    

We are routinely at or near the top of the United Nations human development index, among the broadest measures of what we might call quality-of-life for a society.

And yet, despite that, a federal government is hanging its economic and fiscal policy — and potentially its political future — on the difficult-to-measure concept of innovation even though our “low-innovation” approach, for a century or more, has been a crowd favourite and resulted in one of the world’s highest standards of living for its citizens.

All of which will change.

It's not enough to milk the Americans anymore and it certainly won't do to let poorly-skilled migrants flood in in hopes that they will pick up the industrial slack because Canadian snowflakes and their uninspiring teachers don't have the study and work ethic to move forward.

Good luck with all of that.




Speaking of letting the Americans do all the work, Pierre's jack@$$ son lauds a pre-clearance bill that would see the Americans do a bulk of the vetting:

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau defended his government's proposed legislation to expand border preclearance at Canadian airports and other crossings Wednesday as the opposition New Democrats pushed to stop the bill in its tracks.

The NDP argued the bill doesn't take into account what it called "the climate of uncertainty at the border" created by the Trump administration's recently adopted immigration policies.

But Trudeau suggested it's better to be cleared for entry into the United States while in Canada, because travellers are protected under the Canadian charter of rights, as opposed to American laws.

Bill C-23, the Preclearance Act, came up for second reading in the House of Commons on Tuesday.

And:

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and U.S. President Donald Trump discussed border cooperation in a phone call on Thursday as pressure mounted in Canada over rising numbers of asylum seekers arriving from the United States.

The phone call, which followed a positive meeting between the two leaders in Washington last week, also covered the softwood lumber trade dispute, among other issues, Trudeau's office said in a statement.

The number of asylum seekers crossing into Canada at isolated and unguarded border crossings has increased in recent weeks amid fears that Trump will crack down on illegal immigrants, and photos of smiling Canadian police greeting the migrants have gone viral.

The White House said Trump emphasized the importance of working closely with Canada on cross-border issues, "including implementation of his administration's actions to protect America from terrorist attacks by foreign nationals and others."

I don't even think Trump cares that Trudeau opens his mouth. 




It is predicted that another Liberal's censorship motion may pass:

A Liberal backbencher who introduced an anti-Islamophobia motion that is expected to pass the Ontario legislature Thursday says, despite all-party support, she has received racist backlash.

The motion from Nathalie Des Rosiers calls on the legislature to “stand against all forms of hatred, hostility, prejudice, racism and intolerance,” rebuke a “growing tide of anti-Muslim rhetoric and sentiments” and condemn all forms of Islamophobia.

This all sounds like a challenge to me, like Miss Des Rosiers wants a Mohammed-drawing contest.




For some reason, I cannot muster any concern for this. When I consider how important education is and how Christendom has influenced the West for the better, I just can't force myself to care about a bunch of pansified First Worlders who think that the world owes them a favour. I just can't:

For more than two months, Education Minister David Eggen has had a copy of a report and recommendations from inquirer Dan Scott, whom Eggen hired to investigate two Edmonton-area private schools.

“Yes, we are working with it, but it’s more complicated than we had originally foreseen,” Eggen said Wednesday. “We want to make sure that we are following the law, but also protecting families and individual students in a safe and caring model.”

In August 2016, Pastor Brian Coldwell, chairperson of the Independent Baptist Christian Education Society, said private schools Meadows Baptist Academy and Harvest Baptist Academy would not allow gay-straight alliances. Although his stance clashes with the Alberta Human Rights Act and the School Act, Coldwell said the schools have a charter right to freedom of religion.

In response, Eggen demanded a written promise from Coldwell to comply with laws unanimously approved by the legislature in 2015 that protect gender identity and expression as grounds for protection from discrimination, and compelling schools to help students organize a support group for LGBTQ students when they ask for one.

Or maybe the bigger problem is that Chris Cuomo is a pig:

(Gracias)




Walking pustule Barack Obama is not at all pleased with a building he doesn't deserve:

The Chicago Tribune reported Wednesday that the architects of the Obama Presidential Center said the former president found an early concept “too quiet” and speculated that the library could end up costing $1.5 billion. 

Antisemitic shrew A pre-school teacher has been fired for very questionable tweets:

An Arlington preschool teacher has been fired over a series of anti-Semitic posts on social media, including a tweet that said “kill some Jews.”  

Nancy Salem, who was fired from The Children's Courtyard, also retweeted: “How many Jews died in the Holocaust? Not enough!”

How many anti-semites does it take to find a new job? HA!

(Merci)




There are no marches for this for some reason:

The United Nations estimates that about 200 million girls are missing from the world due to this rampant genocide – now commonly called “gendercide.” The effects of these heinous practices, as time goes on, could be devastating in parts of Asia, as men look around and realize that all their potential wives do not exist.  

It’s A Girl takes a close look at gendercide, its roots, and its effects ...

Because brown and yellow lives matter, too.




Indonesia seeks to conduct patrols with Australia in the South China Sea, signifying a new branch of uneasiness with China's belligerence:

Indonesia President Joko Widodo will discuss the prospect of joint patrols with Australia in the South China Sea when he meets his counterpart Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull at the weekend.

Widodo told The Australian newspaper he would like to see joint patrols with Australia, but only if did not further inflame tensions with China.

"If there is no tension I think it's very important to have the patrols together. We will discuss this with PM Turnbull," said Widodo.

Indonesia has traditionally taken a neutral position on the South China Sea, acting as a buffer between China and fellow members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) that have the most at stake, the Philippines and Vietnam.

But after China angered Indonesia by saying the two countries had "overlapping claims" to waters close to Indonesia's Natuna Islands, Jakarta staged large-scale exercise on the edge of South China Sea in October.

 


And now, some music for a quiet evening: