“Where Being Conservative Means You'll Need To Keep It Secret.”
When you have YouTube. This guy set up a great channel that covers the best and worst of YouTube…
Bad language beeped… and like I told my wife – it’s a guy thing.
Then my Favorite:
Last…
Our beloved loonie is on a tear:
The loonie ended the day up US 1.90¢ at US 91.60¢ after touching a high of US 91.75¢. It is at its highest level in seven months, having jumped more than 7¢ in May — its biggest monthly gain since 1950, according to Bloomberg News.
The US greenback fell more than 6% in May against a basket of six major currencies, its largest monthly drop since 1985.
You’d think there might be some good news for Canadian consumers…
Oil is priced in US dollars: So goes the explanation for our gas prices being stuck at $1/litre after oil fell from $140 to $40. Now that oil is at $65, the strong loonie should mean less of a increase. And I’ll like to sell you the Lions Gate Bridge.
Foreign import prices will fall – just like last time.
Travel to the US just got more affordable. I’d suggest Texas. California is about to get a lot more expensive.
Imported Car prices will fall. A BMW 528i is $36,855 in the US – Vancouver it’s only $59,900. Factor in exchange at 85 cents and it’s $50,915 – only a $14,000 rip-off (38%). I know such a capitalist pig vehicle is frowned upon here in Canada, so let’s look at the standard 2009 Honda Civic Sport sedan. Base price: $21,580 CA compared to $12,974 US. Factor in excahnge at 85 cents and it’s only a $5,369 gouge (41%).
Will the rising loonie and commodity prices mean good times again for the Canadian economy? Will our wounded retailers decide to pass along a little of the wealth to Canadian consumers?
Or is the more likely scenario that Obama’s looting will collapse the American dollar and drag ours along with it?
Meet Gina Incandela. She’s 7, and her singing of the American national anthem is absolutely amazing.. in more ways than one.
Gina Marie Incandela is 7 years old. She attends first grade at a private school in Kissimmee, Florida. She loves to learn new things. She also plays the piano…
Gina Marie was diagnosed with autism just before the age of 2. She couldn’t even speak until she was 3 years old and now at age 7 she is singing National Anthems at professional sports games and concerts across the country.
Her parents sent her to a school for kids with special needs as she had trouble forming words when attempting to speak. Her teachers at the school used music to help her with her language skills.
She’s a star and has her own website and a YouTube Channel
Vancouver, BC’s largest city, has gained notoriety for gun crime, especially among drug gangs. Since 1997 nearly 450 gangsters have been killed there. The surge in shootings is “directly related” to a crackdown on gangs in Mexico and the United States, says Pat Fogarty, a senior officer in the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. Recent arrests by the three countries’ police forces have disrupted a Mexican-run cocaine distribution chain, leaving Vancouver’s street dealers fighting to secure their supplies. “The price goes up and the guns come out,” says Mr Fogarty.
The funny thing is that Colombians are taking exception to being compared to Vancouver…
There’s something odd about both the timing and the message of the latest media campaign for Iran by their sympathizers:
Iran defuses homemade bomb on plane-media
Security personnel defused a homemade bomb found on an aircraft during a domestic flight in Iran late on Saturday, Iranian media said, two days after a mosque bombing killed 25 people in the country’s southeast.
The incident occurred less than two weeks before the Islamic Republic holds a presidential election in which the conservative incumbent, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, faces a challenge from reformers. “The enemies want to create a security-threat environment before the country’s presidential election and to create hopelessness among people,” the official IRNA news agency quoted Mohammad Hassan Kazemi, a commander in the elite Revolutionary Guards in charge of aviation security, as saying.
Sure.
Then Newsweek puts out a piece by Fareed Zakaria entitled “They May Not Want the Bomb.”
By Fareed Zakaria | NEWSWEEK
Published May 23, 2009
Religion Versus Reality
Everything you know about Iran is wrong, or at least more complicated than you think. Take the bomb. The regime wants to be a nuclear power but could well be happy with a peaceful civilian program (which could make the challenge it poses more complex). What’s the evidence? Well, over the last five years, senior Iranian officials at every level have repeatedly asserted that they do not intend to build nuclear weapons.
Is this any coincidence?
Israel carries out biggest civil defence exercise
The exercise is being watched closely in the region because of speculation about a possible Israeli attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities, which could provoke retaliatory missile strikes.
Faced with the naivety of the new US leadership, Israel may be forced to solve the Iran nuclear issue on it’s own. And it’s starting to look like this will happen soon.
From my friends over at the KFA Forum:
The international press agencies, headed by Pyongyang’s Central News Agency “KCNA” were informing yesterday that the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea had successfully conducted a nuclear test, at 09.54 am local time (3.54 am Romania’s time).
In a KCNA press release, the Koreans clearly state that the DPR of Korea conducted a test which was merely meant to strengthen its military forces and to be able to prevent an external attack, so the action is only for defensive and purely scientific purposes.
The nuclear test conducted at the end of the weekend proved a new level in technological development, which allows Pyongyang to improve its defensive nuclear potential, in accordance with the main political line, Songun.
The nuclear test may not only help to defend the national sovereignty of the country and the cause socialism in favor of peace and security on the Korean Peninsula and in the region, but also to strengthen the country as a whole and to underline that all social strata, both soldiers and civilians are acting as a monolith to defend the true and honest cause of the Motherland.
The seismological stations in the United States, Russia, South Korea and Japan confirm the test, by detecting small movements in an area located North East of Pyongyang in the same place where the Korean People’s Army had made a similar test in the autumn of 2006.
According to data made public during the day through international media reports, the Russian specialists from the Yuzhno- Sahalinsk seismic station (in the Russian Far East) have also confirmed the test.
The Korean gesture is thus a clear signal sent to the US authorities in Washington DC and especially to the recently elected President Barack Obama. The message, in my opinion is meant to catalyze the political will of the leadership from the White House in order to persuade this country to engage in bilateral discussions with the mighty Songun Korea and leave a part the bellicose language so often promoted in international forums and the harsh policy promoted by the Imperialists, with their Japanese and South Korean puppets against the DPR of Korea.
Let me congratulate the Korean people once again for this amazing step and tell them that we, Korea’s friends from Romania will stand by your side no matter what the future may bring.
Long live the DPR of Korea and its heroic and patriotic people!
Down with the US selfish Imperialism!
Ciprian Pop,
Official Delegate of Korea Friendship Association, Romanian Branch
Secretary of the Union of Romanian Communists
Recommended Reading:
Speak Softly and Carry a Big Teleprompter
We are on the brink of ‘man-caused disaster.’
By Mark Steyn
… What does a nuclear madman have to do to get America’s attention? On Memorial Day, the North Koreans detonated “an underground atomic device many times more powerful than the bombs that destroyed Hiroshima and Nagasaki,” as my old colleagues at the Irish Times put it. You’d think that’d rate something higher than “World News In Brief,” see foot of page 37. But instead Washington was consumed by the Supreme Court nomination of Sonia Sotomayor, who apparently has a “compelling personal story.”
Doesn’t Kim Jong Il have a compelling personal story? Like Sonia, he grew up in a poor neighborhood (North Korea), yet he’s managed to become a nuclear power, shattering the glass ceiling to take his seat at the old nuclear boys’ club. Isn’t that an inspiring narrative? Once upon a time you had to be a great power, one of the Big Five permanent members of the U.N. Security Council, to sit at the nuclear table: America, Britain, France, Russia, China, the old sons of power and privilege. But now the mentally unstable scion of an impoverished no-account backwater with a GDP lower than that of Zimbabwe has joined their ranks: Celebrate diversity!
GM Announces Plans to Build Small Car in U.S.
DETROIT, Mich. — General Motors Corporation (NYSE:GM) announced today it plans to build a future small car in the United States utilizing an idled UAW-GM facility. This vehicle adds to GM’s growing portfolio of U.S.-built, highly fuel efficient cars including the Chevrolet Cruze and Volt.
“Small cars represent one of the fastest growing segments in both the U.S. and around the world,” said Fritz Henderson, General Motors President and CEO. “We believe this car will be a winner with our current and future customers in the U.S.”
The re-tooled plant will be capable of building 160,000 cars annually, which can be a combination of both small and compact vehicles. Selection of the site will be determined in the future.
“I would like to personally thank the UAW for agreeing to work with us to ensure our overall manufacturing competitiveness in the United States,” said Henderson. “This vehicle segment, while important today and expected to be more so in the future, is extremely challenging. It takes a special effort by everyone to bring a domestically produced small car to market in a cost-competitive and profitable way – but that is what we are going to do together.”
GM already has a strong manufacturing presence in the United States. Currently, about 67 percent of GM cars and trucks sold in the U.S. are built in the U.S. With this announcement, GM anticipates that U.S. production levels will increase beyond 70 percent by 2013, augmenting its already automotive industry-leading U.S. manufacturing footprint.
This will end badly. And we have history to prove it.
The last time the government got involved in steering the US car companies they created a decade of the worst made cars ever. From 1975 to 1985 there were no cars that stand out as anything but scrap metal. More »
From If Hollywood Was Your Only Source of History:
JFK had way more in common with Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush than most of today’s Democrats:
By modern standards, Kennedy was a fairly conservative Republican; forward-leaning on national defense and a tax cutter who may not have called it trickle-down but to improve the economy and grow the treasury he cut taxes across the board (yes, including the evil rich). Kennedy’s “tax cuts for the wealthy” not only worked but would become the starter blueprint for both the Reagan and Bush II tax cuts.
He is probably rolling over in his grave today…
California is no longer a state – it’s a hedge fund.
A great interview with the Craig T. Nelson and the new anti-christ of the Obama brownshirt brigade, Glenn Beck… and it sums up what more and more people are thinking.
I am sure some are already doing it. (This is why the government needs to withhold taxes at source – unfortunately their real source of income is from those that pay voluntarily on a quarterly basis.)
Whoops! Another big surprise – US Federal tax revenue plunged $138 billion, or 34%, in April vs. a year ago — the biggest April drop since 1981, a study released Tuesday by the American Institute for Economic Research says. Do the math – that’s 1.656 Trillion a year if it holds month-to-month.
And the left is getting restless – even with Canada. From The World Socialist website:
Furor over soaring federal budget deficit – … the sharp rise in the projected deficit is caused by plummeting tax revenues, increased Employment Insurance (EI) claims, and the cost of the auto industry bailout. (Even they are against it)
The sharp contraction of the Canadian economy—the economy shrank at an annualized rate of 7.1 percent in the first quarter of 2009—and resulting declines in corporate profits and employment have caused a large drop in government revenue. Since October almost 350,000 fulltime jobs have been eliminated.
Solution (socialists version of ‘Going Galt’):
These developments underscore the urgency of workers adopting a radically new strategy. The working class must be mobilized in independent industrial and political action against all the attempts of big business and its political representatives to make the working class pay for the failure of the profit system through the cutting of jobs, wages, and public and social services, and in the fight for a workers’ government.
Hasn’t Obama fast-tracked that idea already?
If the anger I am reading on this socialist site is true, it doesn’t bode well for the poster child of socialists - who are saying the same thing as Glenn Beck.
or is it because even they know it’s really fascism we’re really witnessing?
There’s an email that’s made the rounds this week and I thought
I’d share it with those that missed it…
When in England , at a fairly large conference, Colin Powell was
asked by the Archbishop of Canterbury if our plans for Iraq were just an
example of empire building by George Bush.
He answered by saying, ‘Over the years, the United States has sent many
of its fine young men and women into great peril to fight for freedom beyond
our borders. The only amount of land we have ever asked for in return is
enough to bury those that did not return.’
You could have heard a pin drop.
* * * * *
There was a conference in France where a number of international
engineers were taking part, including French and American. During a break,
one of the French engineers came back into the room saying ‘Have you heard
the latest dumb stunt Bush has done? He has sent an aircraft carrier to
Indonesia to help the tsunami victims. What does he intended to do, bomb
them?’
A Boeing engineer stood up and replied quietly: ‘Our carriers have
three hospitals on board that can treat several hundred people; they are
nuclear powered and can supply emergency electrical power to shore
facilities; they have three cafeterias with the capacity to feed 3,000 people
three meals a day, they can produce several thousand gallons of fresh water
from sea water each day, and they carry half a dozen helicopters for use in
transporting victims and injured to and from their flight deck. We have
eleven such ships; how many does France have?’
You could have heard a pin drop.
* * * * *
A U.S. Navy Admiral was attending a naval conference that included
Admirals from the U.S., English, Canadian, Australian and French Navies. At
a cocktail reception, he found himself standing with a large group of
Officers that included personnel from most of those countries.
Everyone was chatting away in English as they sipped their drinks but
a French admiral suddenly complained that, whereas Europeans learn many
languages, Americans learn only English.’ He then asked, ‘Why is it that we
always have to speak English in these conferences rather than speaking
French?’
Without hesitating, the American Admiral replied ‘Maybe it’s because
the Brits, Canadians, Aussies and Americans arranged it so you wouldn’t have
to speak German.’
You could have heard a pin drop.
* * * * *
AND THIS STORY FITS RIGHT IN WITH THE ABOVE…
Robert Whiting, an elderly gentleman of 83, arrived in
Paris by plane. At French Customs, he took a few minutes to locate his
passport in his carry on. ‘You have been to France before, monsieur?’ the
customs officer asked sarcastically. Mr. Whiting admitted that he had been
to France previously.
Then you should know enough to have your passport ready.’
The American said, ”The last time I was here, I didn’t have to show it.
‘Impossible. Americans always have to show your passports on arrival in
France !’
The American senior gave the Frenchman a long hard look. Then he
quietly explained, ”Well, when I came ashore at Omaha Beach on D-Day in 1944
to help liberate this country, I couldn’t find a single Frenchman to show a
passport to.’
You could have heard a pin drop.
The looting of America continues…
Funny thing about those Chrysler dealership closings.. seems that almost all (if not all) have been Republican donors.
The blogs have put together an impressive documentation of the theft – that even Dan Rather would blush at.
This is a brewing scandal unlike any other – and the Democrats have shown their true colors. What’s truly surprising is that the abuse of power is unquestioned (so far). I don’t think anyone imagined a government closing down businesses because of who they support – or donated to. Hugo Chavez would be proud.
Waterboarding is starting to sound painless compared to the Obama administration’s love of destroying lives.
Is impeachment far behind or have the Democrats banned that in an unread chapter of a bill somewhere?
Read it and weep.. GM dealers (AKA Republicans) are next.
Now that the TV stations are in a full court handout press, isn’t it time to allow the media to reorganize to the new reality?
As I flip channels between Global, CTV and CBC when watching local news, it’s a repeat on all three. Different anchor, same stories. And this is in big-city Vancouver. I can only imagine what it’s like in places like Windsor or Moose Jaw.
Take away two and no one would notice.
The only unfairness is that the private stations are forced to compete with a welfare channel. Kill CBC local now. We’d see the other two survive and we’d save money.
The alternative means we pay more for this duplication.
The fact is that if local advertisers won’t support local news, there really isn’t a reason to continue it. The ones that draw the most viewers will attract advertisers.
Other bailout proposals include the creation of a local programming fund for broadcasters, and ordering cable and satellite TV companies to compensate local TV stations if they transmit their signal into another Canadian time zone via time shifting.
Great, I get to catch Cranbrook’s news.
Then we have this:
Under pressure from its own backbenchers, the federal government is reportedly considering a massive $150 million television advertising campaign to bail out the private TV networks.
The networks – Global, CTV and TVA in Quebec – are struggling with the combined impact of a cyclical downturn and a structural change in the television business that has seen more advertising flow to specialty channels. Notwithstanding the fact that most of those specialty channels are owned by the networks, they have been lobbying the government for a bailout. Backbenchers have been targeted with suggestions that if help is not forthcoming, stations in their ridings will have to be closed.
“I’m hopeful that we’re starting to establish a consensus that something has to happen, whether it’s funding, whether it’s government ad buys, whether it’s fee-for-carriage,” said backbench Conservative MP Patrick Brown in an interview with the Star.
What the networks really want is a fee-for-carriage – a fee for the cable transmission of their broadcasts, which would ultimately be borne by viewers. But this proposal has already been shot down by the CRTC. And the Conservatives are leery of overruling the CRTC lest they be blamed for hiking everyone’s cable bill. Hence, the proposal to help the networks through the back door by airing more government ads.
This is a bad idea. Stripped to its essentials, public money would flow to private networks on the heels of a government rebuff of an appeal from the public network, the CBC, for more funding.
The government should bury this idea before it gains momentum.
Interesting that the bailout is framed around local news.
I don’t believe it for a minute and see it as an extortion – the belief is that local news is sacred to Canadian culture.
If this bailout happens, I am going to drop cable, and switch to HULU… and free HDTV (all you need is an antenna). All it takes is a few hours, and I should be able to replace it all for free.
I’ll get to save $100/month. All I need to do is figure out how to get Fox News. (Maybe I could become a criminal and get a US satellite service?)
Are you listening Stephen Harper… and Shaw?
Where have we heard this before?
Stephen Harper, the prime minister, and Jim Flaherty, the federal finance minister, have been steeling Canadians in recent days for the possibility that the aid for GM will be large.
“Look, it will be a very expensive proposition” helping the Detroit automakers, Mr. Harper said in Calgary last Friday. “That said, the reality is that not doing anything would be a lot more expensive, a lot more damaging.”
Tell that to the Chrysler dealers, investors, and suppliers.
And now that Obama and the unions have taken control of the car industry, GM somehow decided they should pay staff three weeks early.
Canadian taxpayers are poised to own a stake in General Motors Corp. under a reorganization plan being hammered out for the automaker as it edges towards a bankruptcy protection filing by Monday.
Political and economic observers expect the federal and Ontario governments to take a portion of GM shares in exchange for offering the automaker an estimated $10-billion in financing to help it reinvent itself and pay its bills while it is under court protection. The aid would represent roughly 20% of the US$50-billion that will be pledged to the automaker by the U.S. government of Barack Obama, according to separate media reports in Washington. The U.S. aid includes US$19.4-billion in loans GM has already drawn down.
I say it would be more than wise to let em go.. would you invest in a company headed to bankruptcy? Wait till they are through with proceedings, then decide whether it’s worth throwing OUR money at them.
We could also be on the line for the class action suit shaping up…
Obama has made sure this investment (along with Chrysler) is one of the worst possible… ever:
G.M. BONDHOLDERS: PEOPLE LIKE YOU AND ME. “The government is punishing one group of workers to reward another.” That’s the Chicago Way.
Hmmm: Chrysler dealers shut down in Obama bankruptcy are mostly Republican?
No bailout needed here.. US bike sales trumped car sales (2.6 million bicycles vs. 2.5 million cars) in the first quarter of 2009.
It’s either a statement of just how bad car sales are, or that people have been forced into cycling now.
It’s almost illegal to make fun of Obama, but this video takes it a step further.
This from our publicly funded media. Now it’s starting to leak out after almost 6 months.
The odd thing is that it took this long to be exposed… making you wonder what else goes on in French that none of us can understand.
And does our famous Human Rights Commission stand on this one?
Can you imagine what would happen if this ran in the US? It would be the equivalent of flushing a Koran in Iran.
Anyone remember “Triumph the insult comic dog”. I think Conan was run out of the country over making fun about the French.
The Canadian Broadcasting Standards Council said it found “nothing redeeming in the allegedly comedic notion that an American president should be shot, still less that this would be easier to achieve because of the color of the president’s skin. It was a disturbing, wounding, abusive racial comment.”
The council said the comments and sketches breached regulations, adding they went “too far in terms of Canadian broadcast standards.”
The producers of the show denied the skits had been racist, saying they had meant to mock the characters making the offensive remarks.
Complaints about Radio Canada are usually handled by the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC). In this case the CRTC asked the council — which deals with commercial channels and has more experience in handling such complaints — for advice.
The CRTC, which is due to conduct its own probe into the show, does not have the power to fine Radio-Canada but can issue a public reprimand.
This cartoon made a prediction of what America would be like today, and the false promise of “ism”. Amazingly accurate when you look around today.
“As a Colombian, I find the implication of your title offensive. All forms of crime and violence have plummeted since president Álvaro Uribe took office some seven years ago. Several other Latin American nations now boast much higher crime rates than ours. Why not rather compare the situation in Canada to Socialist Venezuela for instance, where violence is out of control, or any of the crime-ridden American cities such as the one from which its current president emerged?
By the way, I’m glad Canadian and American degenerates are shifting their preferences for locally-made poison. Perhaps now they’ll leave us the hell alone.”
As the Olympics get closer, we’ll see a lot more exposure of our underbelly. Not that it’ll change anything.