Tuesday, July 29, 2008

Neat.

Thanks to the MadOgre for posting a link to Matt Harding's video. He said watching it made him feel better, (grin). Near as I can tell, it's a guy who likes to travel, who just started filming himself dancing in different places. Ogre was right, I felt better afterwards.

...And then I found this on Harding's site:


Magnetic Movie from Semiconductor on Vimeo.


ok. That was neat.

Monday, July 14, 2008

Minnesotans for Global Warming


I've never gotten around to acting on my impulse to create a line of bumper stickers supporting Global Warming. So Kudos to these guys for actually acting on a good idea and creating something like this.
Even though Elmer and Daryl initially come across as we say in Canada, like a couple of hosers, a review of their protest site, http://www.MR4GW.com shows they're articulate and willing to research their views. I understand and endorse what they're trying to say here whole heartedly. I've also copied the soundtrack and added it to my mp3 collection ;)






Thanks to the Terpsboy, Rodger Schlong at http://curmudgeonlyskeptical.blogspot.com/2008/07/laughing-and-scratching-at-global.html

Tuesday, July 08, 2008

Stephane Dion & the Liberal's Green Shaft


As far as Western Canada is concerned, Stephan Dion has failed the Litmus test as only a true eastern liberal could: he's proposed a massive Carbon Tax grab that will screw Albertans, but only lightly touch his core voters in Ontario and Quebec. He says his tax will be 'revenue neutral.' Sound familiar? It sure does to some of the few Alberta Liberals (yes, there are some) I know. They're still defending Dion, but oh man, they're not happy about it.

Dion is in Edmonton shilling for his “Green Shift” carbon tax plan, and met yesterday with our Mayor before moving on to a love-in with the midstream media and party faithful. I'll admit, Mayor Stephen Mandel, about as tax-and-spend as any mayor we've had in the last 20 years, went up a few notches in my estimation when he commented to the media, “A tax is a tax is a tax.”

Today's Edmonton Sun described Dion's 'Green Shift' as a tax “ that would Punish Polluters and Reward green businesses and consumers. Don't we already have laws to punish polluters? If an evil company is polluting, they're supposed to be shut down or forced to mend their ways- not pay an extra tax and continue polluting. Surely that is not what Stephan Dion intends.

It appears instead, that Dion and his liberals mean to punish legitimate businesses that are operating in a lawful manner with a new tax that will only be passed on to their customers and their employees. Higher Corporate Taxes are ALWAYS passed on to the customer through higher prices, and as we learned during Pierre Trudeau's NEP-induced recession in Alberta, through shut downs and canceled projects that can only hurt the employees of our resource sector...


The liberals, with their lefty “tax-the-corporations” obsession seem eternally unable to understand that no legitimate business pays taxes. Hopefully you already know this. All corporations pass the cost of their taxes on in the price they charge their customers- ultimately you and me. As consumers we pay all the levied corporate taxes in Canada, and our personal income taxes, and sales taxes too.

For a moment I could not help but wonder if Dion is truly so simple-minded as to believe a new 15 BILLION dollar carbon tax can be revenue neutral. Remember, that estimate is by the same folks who initially told us their gun registry would only cost a few tens of millions of dollars. Surely Dion and his fellow elitists know this, I think they just don't give a shit about the actual impact on the people, and are more concerned about making it sound good in the best Ontario-soccer-mom-pleasing way possible: Punish the evil corporations that burn coal and oil and cause global warming.

That's right, boil away the fluff in his 'green shift' plan and you see he means the evil corporations that burn coal and oil and gas to provide Albertas with electricity and heat, and the base chemical feed stocks for our manufacturing sector.

How would that be revenue neutral?

He intends to provide for tax credits and deductions for companies and individuals who mend their ways and reduce their so-called carbon footprint.

Hmmm. That sounds fine for consumers in Ontario and Quebec, with their massive hydro-electric dams and nuclear power plants,b ut Alberta has only coal-fired electrical power plants. Coal-fired electrical power plants that are running at near full capacity. Obviously unlike the good voters in the East, the evil customers of the evil Albertan corporations won't benefit from Dion's tax credits.

What is the likelihood for hydro dams and nuclear power in Alberta, anyway? Not good. The soccer-moms and other cute-&-fuzzy-bunny types are currently doing their best to kill a planned nuclear power plant destined for the sparsely populated Peace country. Also, back in the late 1980s when future premier Ralph Klein mused about a possible hydro dam for the foothills west of Edmonton, the fuzzy-bunny-lefties shit themselves sideways in their rush to denounce the negative environmental impact a hydro damn would have on the bugs and ferns and stuff upstream of the dam.

Regardless, Edmonton mayor Mandel said it nicely. A tax is a attacks is a tax. Dion's green shaft is, as we feared years ago, a way to use the manufactured specter of GLOBAL WARMING as an excuse for N.E.P. 2.


What happened to Equality?

I've said before, and I'll say it again. The entire notion of special rights and privileges for a select few is wrong-headed and goes against the principles on which our western democracies are based. Years of empirical evidence prove when a society condones discrimination, that resentments, unrest, evil, and injustices abound.

Every school child should be taught what's on the following video, but of course, they are not. I certainly wasn't. I'm not aware of any curriculum that does today. As a Parent who home-schooled teens for five of the last seven years I looked, too.





Thanks to the MadOgre at www.madorgre.com for pointing this gem out for me. George pointed out:

"This is one of the reasons I want to do away with Racial Classes. No more Hyphenated Americans. No Blacks, Asians, Latinos, Native Americans... and of course no more categories based on sexual preferences. No more racial check boxes on any official forms. We are all Americans. There is only one question. Are you a Citizen, yes or no? If you are a citizen, you can vote, you have rights. If you are not a Citizen or are either a Guest or you are illegal... " (7.7.2008)


I have to say that I really like the way the MadOgre thinks.

BTW, I am not Caucasian.

Thursday, July 03, 2008

reelect carter?

Heh, found this one today. A while ago now, the worst American President (yes, even worse than Slick Willie) endorsed Barrack Hussein Obama. Here, the Newsobserver.com has pointed out some similarities between the two, and the similar challenges in foreign and domestic politics of Carter's era and today...

http://videos.newsobserver.com/index.php?a=player&id=1950747

He'll be facing an economic and political landscape that would tax the wisdom of Solomon, yet the man is still largely a cipher. Unlike Obama, Jimmy Carter had been willing to put his life on the line by serving in his country's military. If elected, Obama only has a couple hundred days of congressional service, where his record is now best known for fence sitting by voting "Present" instead of Yea or Nay on many issues. The "Yes We Can" man seems awfully weak to me.