Because I can

Nina Simone: Sinner Man.



Also check out the remix, if you feel like it.

And in other under-reported news...

Via Dvorak Uncensored:

It looks like the draft is back if the Democrats get their way. Funny that this is not getting any attention.

Bill: To require all persons in the United States between the ages of 18 and 42 to perform national service, either as a member of the uniformed services or in civilian service in furtherance of the national defense and homeland security, to authorize the induction of persons in the uniformed services during wartime to meet end-strength requirements of the uniformed services, and for other purposes. Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled,

Read it here.

Now that's disturbing. A commenter on the original post adds a caveat:

Rangel has introduced this before to make the point that if we are involved in a war, it should be on the backs of everyone, not just the volunteer army. It’s a far cry from the draft is back.

Yep, that Rangel.

Symbolic or not, killed or not, this is something to be watched.

Today's reading

Here's the latest at Defend Geert Wilders: Anti-Islam lawmaker not part of Dutch government.

Update: and here's the latest at the Victoria Politics Examiner: BC's online casino stays offline; and Two ways the BC government could be saving money.

Holocaust denial?

Meh. No biggie, right?

Excuse me?

Did Rob Anders really mean this?

China's influence over Western politicians runs deeper than controversial claims made by the head of Canada's spy agency, Tory MP Rob Anders is alleging.

In an interview with Epoch Times, an international newspaper founded by Falun Gong supporters, Anders suggested politicians and government officials from Canada and other countries are being wooed with extravagant gifts, beautiful young women and too-good-to-be-true business deals.

"I would argue that I've seen things happen on a federal level as well in our own government. And so I think there's a lot more than he has even mentioned," the Calgary MP said, referring to Canadian Security Intelligence Service director Richard Fadden.

Read the rest.

So either elected officials are recieving, basically, women and cocaine from the Chinese government, or Rob Anders is pandering to the Epoch Times' readership for some unknown reason.

Either way, not encouraging.

Who's watching?

BCF:

Because I can

H/t:

Wait...what?

Via the Sun:

A moratorium has been placed on tests done on B.C. youth sex offenders measuring their penis arousal in response to sexual stimuli after the province's top child advocate launched an immediate investigation Wednesday.

The device in question is called a "penile plethysmograph" — or PPG. In a lab setting, it is attached to male genitals so technicians can measure changes in "penile tumescence" - essentially erections that reflect the state of arousal in subjects shown photographs of adults, children and even babies in varying states of undress while at the same time being read a story that describes coercive or forced sexual activity.

I'm sorry, but my only response is, and always will be: what the flying f*ckitty f*ck?

F*ck me, words fail.

H/t to Adrian MacNair.

Heh

Via:

Stay strong

So the Tories actually managed to get a plan together to eliminate their deficit a year earlier than expected. Congrats all around. But as Tasha Kheiriddin points out, it's going to be hard to stay the course:

Provincial premiers will bleat about the need to increase federal transfers, even if their own largesse is at the root of their woes. (“But we had to build all those hockey arenas in small towns – heck, the feds were doing it!”) Then they will reach out and squeeze taxpayers with all their might, like Ontario has done by bringing in the HST, all the while screeching at Mr. Harper for not sharing the wealth.

Hopefully, the feds will not fall for this, use “extra” dollars to buy provincial favour for their pet projects (such as the National Securities Regulator), or splash out to show Quebec how much they really, really care in the lead-up to the next election. As the Conference Board notes, the Tories will only hit their deficit targets early if they stick to their pledge of spending restraint. Let’s hope that message drowns out any clamours for cash that could imperil paying down the debt - or it’s the Liberals who will be feasting on a plate of fresh schadenfreude.

Read the rest.

Stay strong, Tories. What's left of a whole lot of peoples' grudging respect for you might just hinge on it.

The good ol' CIA

Via Boing Boing:



Meanwhile:

The Obama administration wants to make it easier for the FBI to force ISPs to turn over records of individual Internet activity without a court order if agents believe the information is relevant to a terrorism or intelligence investigation. "The administration wants to add just four words -- 'electronic communication transactional records' -- to a list of items that the law says the FBI may demand without a judge's approval. "

You knew I had to post a song, right?

Today's reading

Here's the latest at Defend Geert Wilders: Interesting parallels in Germany – part eighteen.

Update: The latest at the Victoria Politics Examiner: The HST: Democracy, neutrality, and mail campaigns.

Thinking of converting to Islam?

Well, here's another incentive. Via Pajamas Media:

Holy Shiite! Pious pilgrimage just got more exciting at Imam Reza’s shrine in Iran, where for a reasonable fee (see price list below) a mullah can join any eager pilgrim in holy matrimony of “temporary marriage” with his choice of a lovely, fully hijabed, and properly veiled prostitute for a period between 5 hours to 10 days. Pedophiles welcome: girls as young as 12 years of age are standing by.

Read the rest. H/t to Vlad Tepes.

Heh

Via:

Today's reading

Here's the latest at Defend Geert Wilders: Berlin Politician in Trouble for Inviting Dutch Populist Wilders.

Update: Also at Defend Geert Wilders: The Wilders Round-Up, July 29th 2010.

Update II: And meanwhile, here's the latest at the Victoria Politics Examiner: BC Liberals still have long way to go to prove themselves efficient fiscal managers.

Sigh...

So, lots of support for a ban on the burkha, eh?

Alright.

So cops can't just push people to the ground? Since when?

Via CTV News:

The Vancouver Police Department has asked its New Westminster counterpart to investigate the actions of an officer who shoved a disabled woman in the Downtown Eastside last month.

Surveillance cameras in front of the Lux Hotel on East Hastings Street captured footage of Const. Taylor Robinson pushing a woman to the ground as she tries to pass between three officers walking side-by-side on June 9.

None of the officers stop to help her up.

The woman shown in the footage is 26-year-old Sandy Davidsen, who suffers from cerebral palsy and walks with a noticeable limp.

The VPD says it has asked New Westminster police to conduct criminal and Police Act investigations into Robinson's actions, as well as those of the two officers with him at the time.

Read the rest here. A previous post on this here.

Why am I reminded of this song?

Tasha Kheiriddin FTW

Via the Post:

So the next time a minister of this government complains that the census is intrusive, I have just one thing to tell him: stop intruding on my pocketbook to buy votes and reward supporters. Until you do, all this high and mighty talk of “small government” rings hollow. Cut spending, cut taxes, and then Canadians might actually believe that you’re serious about creating a smaller state.

Simply awesome

Via:

Also see: Sniper Jesus.

Baby steps

One step forward:

The Electronic Frontier Foundation drove three deep wedges into the US prohibition on breaking DRM today.

Another step backward:

Just days after the U.S. Copyright Office explicitly authorized DRM-cracking by consumers, a British court has effectively abolished the import and sale of blank Nintendo DS cartridges. The mere possibility of piracy is sufficient to ban them, even if the media has legitimate uses such as storing freely-available third-party software.

Wait, you mean I'm in the National Post?

Through a happy accident, my article for The Propagandist yesterday got picked up by the Post's Full Comment blog.

How awesome is that? The Post article neglected to include it, but a big h/t for the story to Jesse Ferreras.

Point counterpoint

Point:

Mitchell says banning the burqa is the only thing that would make him want to wear one. It is a catastrophically stupid thing to say, showing contempt for the rights of British women (for now, his brown sisters especially). Worse yet, thanks to Mitchell's brand of too clever by half, wilful simplisme, more and more of his countrymen are thinking along the same lines about Klan robes.

Counterpoint:

Amused and slightly inspired by this expression
of frustration, I'm amused to point out that being a libertarian means:

• I detest the fact that some men force some women to wear a burkha
  
• I support the right of women who want to wear a burkha to wear a burkha
  
• I support the right of people to say that wearing a burkha is an offensive thing, even though I don't think it is
  
• I support the right of people to say that wearing a burkha is a good thing, even though I don't think it is.

Just in case you're wondering where I stand on this.

An evening lecture

Check it out:

Because I Can

Diablo Swing Orchestra: Lucy Fears the Morning Star:

Darn tootin'

Via Boing Boing:

The Electronic Frontier Foundation drove three deep wedges into the US prohibition on breaking DRM today. EFF had applied to the Copyright Office to grant exemptions permitting the cracking of DRM in three cases: first, to "jailbreak" a mobile device, such as an iPhone, where DRM is used to prevent phone owners from running software of their own choosing; second, to allow video remix artists to break the DRM on DVDs in order to take short excerpts for mashups posted to YouTube and other sharing sites; finally EFF got the Copyright Office to renew its ruling that made it legal to unlock cellphones so that they can be used with any carrier.

Damn straight. Also see: Federal judge says you can break DRM if you're not doing so to infringe copyright.

Erm

Spencer Herbert is - understandably - upset:

In a five-point call to action aimed at the B.C. Liberal government, Chandra Herbert demanded clear anti-homophobia policies in all school districts, the creation of a province wide tip-line to report cases of gay-bashings and investment in community services to aid victims of discrimination.

He added Crown attorneys should ask for hate crime designation in warranted cases and for Vancouver police to increase their police presence in Davie Village during the summer.

"My constituents are outraged when they hear about these kinds of attacks," Chandra Herbert explained in the first days of Pride Week. "In some sense there has been belief since we've won gay marriage everything is fine now, but that's not the lived experience that I know. "

Here's a novel idea: How about enforcing the laws already on the books more efficiently? Assault is still assault whether it's a gay person or a dogwalker. Adding discriminatory elements to the government's purview won't help matters any.

My very first article for The Propagandist

Here's my very first article for the just-started Propagandist: Human Rights Tribunal On The Way Out?

According to the Georgia Straight, the British Columbia Human Rights Tribunal (BCHRT) chair Heather MacNaughton - the chief roo in this kangaroo court, you might say - and tribunal member Judy Parrack will not be getting reappointed to the BCHRT after their terms end on July 31. Meanwhile, a job posting for a part-time tribunal chair has been made on the website of the Board Resourcing and Development Office.

It also sounds like a narrower focus might be in the works from on high. Perhaps it will place a greater emphasis on labor disputes at the expense of other, arguably more important issues like the plight of lesbian women in comedy bars across the province.

Today's reading

Here's my latest for the Libertas Post:

Now, far be it from to stir the pot here at the Libertas Post, but a recent article by Rondi Adamson (’Naked Face – Unmasking 620 Protesters’) got me to thinking, which is never good.

By now we're all pretty familiar with what happened at the G20, right? Big meeting, lots of protesters, more arrests than at any other point in Canadian history—more than during the October Crisis back in 1970. And at least during the October Crisis we had the benefit of the War Measures Act being put into effect, whereas there seemed to be little discernible logic, reason, or order behind the police behaviour that occurred in Toronto just a few weekends ago.

Hot conservative-on-conservative action!

Update: And meanwhile, at Defend Geert Wilders: The Wilders Round-Up, July 27th 2010.

Oink Oink

Via CTV News:

The Vancouver Police Department has launched an internal investigation after a human rights watchdog released surveillance footage showing a beat cop shoving a disabled woman to the ground in the city's impoverished Downtown Eastside.

The video, taken June 9 in front of the Lux Hotel on East Hastings Street, shows the woman, who suffers from cerebral palsy and has a pronounced limp, approaching three Vancouver Police Department officers walking side-by-side through a crowded area in front of a bottle recycling centre.

"One of the three officers can be seen pushing over a small and visibly disabled woman after she appears to brush into him accidentally. He then stands over her," Robert Holmes of the B.C. Civil Liberties Association told ctvbc.ca.

Footage from a video camera posted outside the hotel shows the officers walking away while the woman is still on the ground. After a few moments someone helps her up and she continues walking. There is no audio on the tape.

Read the rest here. H/t to Ghost of a Flea.

Meanwhile, via The Hook:

Victoria’s Police Chief did not breach public trust, according to a June 16 Police Complaint Commission probe of Jamie Graham’s revelation that an undercover cop drove protesters to the first Olympic torch relay protest.

RCMP South East District Chief Supt. Don Harrison investigated comments made by Graham.

Graham revealed at the Vancouver International Security Conference last November that an undercover cop was at the wheel of a bus transporting Vancouver-based Olympic opponents on Oct. 30, 2009.

Harrison did not find evidence that the undercover cop was a Victoria officer. The report said Graham claimed the comments were “made spur of the moment and meant to be entertaining and humorous, nothing more.”

Read the rest.

If you smell bacon, that's just the scent wafting from British Columbia.

How awesome is this guy?

Srsly:

The 27-year-old high school drop-out and champion amateur race-car driver said he was frustrated that self-censorship by mainland publishers was often more stringent than the authorities themselves.

"I wish there was a law saying clearly what can be done and what can't be. I wish we could lay all the issues on the table and discuss frankly about them."

Han, famous for his witty, scathing critiques of China's corrupt officials and social issues, has achieved phenomenal fame in the country's tightly monitored cyberspace.

He has accumulated more than 300 million hits on his blog, making it the most popular in China -- and probably the world.

A top-earning author with a dozen titles under his belt, Han was named by TIME magazine as among the world's 100 most influential people, grouping him alongside US President Barack Obama and pop star Lady Gaga.

He said he had also recently rejected an invitation to promote a commercial product on his blog with the reward of 10,000 yuan (1,500 US dollars) for each word he writes -- with no word limit.

"Some people are beneficiaries of a flawed judicial system. Some are beneficiaries of a chaotic society. I just happen to have benefited from telling the truth," he recently told reporters at the Hong Kong Book Fair.

Read the rest here.

Lotsa Binks links

Binks is back to his old tricks: Steynian 417nd. Check it out.

Ah, good old lawfare

Via Vlad Tepes:

New comment on your post “UK: Muslims Try to Counter English Defence League”
Author : MDL (IP: 188.220.74.6 , 188-220-74-6.zone11.bethere.co.uk)
E-mail : MDL@MDL.com
URL :
Whois : http://ws.arin.net/cgi-bin/whois.pl?queryinput=188.220.74.6
Comment:
I am on proceeding on suing you. Using my images without permission and also the fact that your using comments from 5 separate posts just to make MDL look bad.. see you in court.

If Britain decides to ban the burqa I might just start wearing one

By David Mitchell, via The Guardian:

Governments and legislatures shouldn't tell people what they can and can't wear. By doing so, they would, in every sense, be taking a massive liberty. As long as people aren't wearing crotchless jeans outside primary schools or deely boppers with attached sparklers on petrol station forecourts, we've all got the right to wear exactly what the hell we like and I can barely believe that we're having this debate.

But we are. Stupid people are thinking about an issue that doesn't need to be thought about and a YouGov survey says 67% of us want full-face veils outlawed. Just when I thought my estimation of humanity couldn't fall any further, I discover that two-thirds of my fellow countrymen are, or at least were for the duration of taking a survey, morons. I'm so glad the Conservatives are committed to local referenda.

These idiots may not be proportionally represented but they do have a voice in parliament: Philip Hollobone MP. He's tabled a private member's bill that would make it illegal for anyone to cover their face in public. "Covering your face in public is strange, and to many people both intimidating and offensive," he says. Take that, Batman.

Read the rest here. H/t to Boing Boing.

Because I can

H/t to the Flea.

Federal court embarrassment

By Ezra Levant, in the Toronto Sun:

In 1999, an immigrant from Iran named Ali Tahmourpour enrolled in the RCMP’s police academy, but washed out after just 12 weeks.

When Tahmourpour got the bad news, he had a breakdown. His classmates escorted him to the infirmary twice because he was “vomiting, shaking, hyperventilating and was incoherent.”

An RCMP psychologist declared him to be a suicide risk. Three of his fellow cadets testified, “they would be afraid to work with him in the field.” A note was put on his file: Unlike other wash-outs, Tahmourpour would not be allowed to reapply as a student.

Others might have moved on, but not Tahmourpour. He cried racism. And he ran to the Canadian Human Rights Commission, claiming the RCMP violated his “human right” to become a cop.

Ever since, he has done nothing but sue and appeal, sue and appeal. He went on welfare. He took a real estate course and sold one house as of 2008. For 10 years he didn’t put much effort at all into finding a job, according to the Human Rights Commission. Not exactly the way to convince the RCMP they had misjudged him.

But Tahmourpour didn’t need to impress the RCMP. He just needed to impress the Federal Court of Appeal. Last week, they upheld a human-rights ruling calling the RCMP racist and ordering them to readmit Tahmourpour to the academy.

Read the rest. H/t to Blazing Cat Fur. More at Ezra Levant's blog.

Thoughts on drugs

Dan Gardner, in the Ottawa Citizen:

This is the essential problem: If governments talk about drugs, journalists talk about drugs; if they don't, we don't. And since governments are full of people whose budgets, salaries, and careers depend on the status quo, they talk about drugs when doing so is good for the status quo, but they are silent as mimes when it's not. Thus the media become the unwitting propaganda arm of the status quo.

I'm not sure what it will take to change this. It would certainly help if the media would stop letting governments decide what is news and what is not. Even better would be leaders with the courage to put evidence ahead of cheap politics, entrenched thinking, and vested interests.

But that's not happening. And so, on Monday, the government of Canada felt free to categorically reject the Vienna Declaration because it is "inconsistent" with its policies -- policies which have never been subjected to evidence-based evaluation and would surely be condemned if they were.

This is how failure lives on.

Read the rest.

Today's reading

Here's a quick post for the Libertas Post blog: Australian government doesn't want people to know the depths of its censorship plans.

Update: At the Victoria Politics Examiner: Major waste of taxpayer money thanks to BC Hydro .

Update II: And at Defend Geert Wilders: Wilders: a right-wing cabinet, with or without me.

Update III: Yet more at Defend Geert Wilders: The Wilders Round-Up, July 25th 2010; and Geert Wilders comes to Berlin on October 2nd.

White Christian Britons ‘unfairly targeted by draconian religious hate laws’

By Gerri Peev, via the Daily Mail:

A new report from the think tank Civitas ‘A New Inquisition: religious persecution in Britain today’, warns that people are being charged with serious offences for discussing religion.

It cites examples of over the top prosecutions including:

■Christian hoteliers Ben and Sharon Vogelenzang were charged with religiously aggravated hate crimes after describing the prophet Mohammed as a ‘warlord’ to guest Ericka Tazi. The couple pleaded their innocence and the charges were thrown out.
■Atheist Harry Taylor put leaflets mocking Christianity and Islam in a prayer room at Liverpool’s John Lennon Airport. He was charged with causing religiously aggravated intentional harassment, alarm or distress under the Public Order Act.
■Tauriq Khalid was taken to court for a racially motivated ‘hate’ offence after he gave a two fingered gesture to BNP leader Nick Griffin. Mr Khalid was cleared. Although the blasphemy law – which only applied to Christians – was repealed in 2008, it has been overtaken with a much more virulent ‘anti hatred’ legislation.

People are being charged through the back door for causing ‘religiously aggravated intentional harassment, alarm or distress’ under the Public Order Act.

Read the rest. H/t to Vlad Tepes.

Systemic bias is systemic bias, no matter the target.

Update: The Flea.

Curious cases of human rights

By Christina Blizzard, via the Toronto Sun:

It’s the dilemma that faces any multicultural, multifaith society that prides itself on respecting human rights.

When do one person’s rights infringe on another person’s religious freedom?

That question leaped to mind as I leafed through the annual report of the Ontario Human Rights Commission.

The report discusses two cases.

In one, a woman was ordered to remove her niqab in court when testifying at a preliminary hearing in a sexual assault case.

In another case, a woman alleged that while being questioned by Toronto police about the actions of youth in the neighbourhood, she was handcuffed and her hijab forcibly removed.

Read the rest. H/t to Blazing Cat Fur.

Dude. Tony Clement is awesome

Say what you will about the guy's stance on the census, but this is pretty cool:

Industry Minister Tony Clement says he’s tired and sore, but otherwise unhurt after helping rescue a woman from drowning in Ontario’s Muskoka River Saturday night.

Clement told Postmedia News shortly after the daring rescue that he was finishing dinner at about 7:30 p.m. with his family when someone began frantically banging on the door of his Port Sydney, Ont., home, located about 200 kilometres north of Toronto.

“This young woman was just hysterical,” said Clement. “She was screaming and she said her friend is drowning.”

Clement said he rushed to the edge of the river, along with his wife and father-in-law, where some of the woman’s friends were on the rocks by the shore screaming.

“I could see the woman, Jennifer, in the water and she was quite a far ways down, so I jumped in right away with my clothes on — just dove into the water and started swimming,” he said.

Read the rest.

Would it be in poor taste for me to ask what the stats are for people drowning in the Muskoka river?

Update: Colby Cosh has a different take.

Update II: More in the comments.

Today's reading

At Defend Geert Wilders, another heaping helping of links: The Wilders Round-Up July 24th 2010.

Update: A nice long post at the Victoria Politics Examiner on the BC Lottery Corp. scandal: Government, BC Lottery Corporation, fumble spectacularly.

The Political Economy of Art*

An unsigned editorial from the Times Colonist:

Government funding for the arts will likely always be controversial, because some taxpayers are not happy to think that their money is being spent on a painting or a sculpture or a musical act. But the arts help make our communities more vibrant and liveable and that should not be discounted.

Tourism, Culture and Arts Minister Kevin Krueger has said that arts funding will be restored when the economy recovers.

Let's hope, however, that the money will be handed over with no strings attached. Let each community decide what it wants -- and definitely don't include a political agenda, such as a desperate attempt to get more mileage from the Olympics.

Read the rest.

I wanted to respond to this piece, but I'm too lazy to lay out all my reasons for why arts funding shouldn't be supplied by the state. Instead, I'll refer you to an article of mine in The Agora National in which I write:

The reasons for my opposing government funding for the arts are myriad:
* The role of the artist in society is often that of a social commentator, a critic - often
at odds with the government at the time. It rather perverts that role to be receiving funding from the government at the same time as one is railing against it. The situation has an almost inherently embedded conflict of interest.
* Furthermore, whenever you’re providing funding, you’re providing a say. As soon as some government or ministry or other starts giving you money, it opens a door to them having involvement - perhaps even indirectly - in what you produce, or how you produce it, or when and where it is produced. And while I know that applying for an arts grant is an arms-length process with little
opportunity for political influence now, this is not to say that such will not happen in the future. And merely the idea, the possibility, no matter how slight, that the artist’s role as social commentator could be so influenced is repugnant.
* While some deserving artists don’t receive the funding that they need in a free
market-type system, at the same time, artists that do not deserve funding receive it in a government funding system. This is just as unfair, as it makes truly good artists as mediocre as truly bad artists - at least as far as the amount of dollars that they receive are concerned. There is much less reward for brilliance in such a system.
* I said it before, but it bears repeating: artists have always been starving. This is part of what makes their art good - art through adversity, and all that. A true artist produces his or her work even if it doesn’t provide a cent of income. They find a way to do what they do, whether or not it pays.
* Finally, to suggest that a free market- type system for arts funding would not
provide the necessary support for artists is, quite frankly, rather insulting to every Canadian who lives in this country. Are we such
philistines that we cannot be depended upon to form a culture, to provide for art?

Need I go on?

Needless to say, I have a lot of respect for art, and for artists, but as Cory Doctorow has written, in a piece cited by me just below in reference to Amanda Palmer's artistic success and copyright legislation:

Now, if your plan is to do what Amanda is doing in order to keep yourself in room and board, you will probably fail. But that's nothing new: practically everyone who set out to earn a living the old record-label way also failed (failed to get a deal, or, with a deal, failed to earn a living from it). The important thing here is that this can work, and work at least as well as the old system -- without demanding that the entire internet be surveilled, without making war on fans, without buying corrupt laws, or turning artists into sharecroppers

Innovation is stifled by government action almost by definition: legislation is made in reference to an existing status quo; the opposite of innovation. Private funding, while more sporadic, will in many cases - not all - be tied to a great amount of innovation and ingenuity. It has to be, otherwise it will fail. Having a steady income stream regardless of success or failure makes a mockery of both of these ideas governing human behavior.

*This was the subject of a couple of lectures by John Russkin. They're worth the read, if only because they capture the trials of an artist so well - his recommendations could be rather shocking to those with libertarian sensibilities.

Thoughts on drugs

Via The Hook:

Fischer calls for “crack kit” distribution programs and safer inhalation facilities for crack users. He and his team support more training for health workers so they can better address the myriad health challenges faced by crack users, and argue that more research into treatment options is needed.

Amanda Palmer FTW

OK, I swear this is my last Boing Boing-related post today. They're on fire over there, is all:

But the fact is that every commercially successful artist is basically a fluke. Most artists -- even those who've attained "success" in the form of a deal with a major publisher/label/etc -- do not find commercial independence there, and it has always been thus. As someone who helps support his family with his arts-related income, I'm here to tell you, if your kids want to pursue the arts, they should have some other marketable skill to fall back on (or chances are they'll fall back on you!).

And yet, what Palmer is doing is fascinating, because it involves spending less capital to reach smaller, more specialized audiences who willingly part with larger sums, from which Palmer gets to keep the lion's share. That looks a lot less like the old winner-takes-all model in which you get 100 or so acts who can fill a stadium and get rich, and a bunch of also-rans living on bread and water. In Amanda's model, individual artists gross much smaller amounts, but net much larger amounts, because they're not supporting a whole supply chain of execs, marketing people, giant buildings, trucks full of vinyl, radio DJs, etc.

Read the rest.

The Legal Project

As Blazing Cat Fur notes, how sad is it that a U.S. organization has to protect Canadians from its own government institutions?

Check it out.

Seriously

Via:

Why We Need a 3rd Party in 2010

By Jim Quinn, via TheBurningPlatform.ca:

I’m sorry to be the bearer of bad news. There are no easy solutions. There are only painful, more painful, and really really painful solutions. Both mainstream corrupted political parties have had the chance to put the country back on a prudent fiscal path. They have both failed miserably. One party will spend the country into oblivion and the other country will try to democratize the world with their military machine. There are no fresh ideas from either party. There are the same old stale ideas and rhetoric.

Read the rest here.

Fun with copyright

The folks at Boing Boing are, as usual, up on the latest: DMCA used to shut up sarcastic blogger.

Meanwhile: Where the global rifts are in the secret copyright treaty; and UK regulator turns over Internet policing standards to movie and record industries.

Thank you!

Aptly put:

A competent right-wing government would have asked Statistics Canada to do an in-depth comparison of the advantages and disadvantages of mandatory and optional census forms. It would have then submitted the proposed solution to consultation, as is done with all modifications to the census. Instead, the government decided to change its approach in spite of the reservations of Statistics Canada on the sole basis of phone calls to MPs’ constituency offices. School boards are run more seriously than that.

To be honest, I don't really care about the census. But it seems to me that if the mandatory long-form census is going to be abolished, it should be a) established what effects it will truly have on statistics in this country before we anything ( i.e. do some consulting ), and b) established when, exactly, this government became libertarian. Did something change when I wasn't looking?

Update: George Jonas.

Clowns, part two

Speaking of clowns, how about circuses?




This bit on Lewis' Anticipation album is much funnier than this one, but it will suffice for now.

Because I can

Awesome American Apparel parody from Hesperado, with Americanarama. Heard it on the radio this morning and it got stuck in my head.

Today's reading

Here's the latest at the Victoria Politics Examiner: BC Liberal hunt for new leader continues; and The Harmonized Sales Tax: A brief round-up.

Saul Rothbart: Virtual Capitalism 101

The Blog of Walker is proud to once again host Saul Rothbart, also seen at Five Feet of Fury, for another instalment in his Virtual Capitalism 101 series. The last instalment can be read here. Here's the latest item in the series:

VIRTUAL CAPITALISM 101: the series
By Saul Rothbart

Social media is all the rage these days. So is anti-social media.

In the blogosphere, both are methods used to "sell" ideas.

Two fables about scorpions.

Scorpion Fable (1)

One day, a turtle passed by a scorpion on a river bank.

The scorpion asked the turtle; "Can I hop a ride with you to get to the other side?"
The turtle looked quizzically at the scorpion and replied: "Why would I want to do that? It's in your nature to sting."

The scorpion looked back earnestly at the turtle and stated the obvious; "Since I can't swim, if I sting you, we'll both drown"

The turtle thought for a moment and seeing the logic agreed to take the scorpion across the river.

Halfway across the river, the scorpion suddenly lunged from the back of the turtle's shell, grabbed the turtle's head with its claws and snapped its tail stinging the hapless turtle with its venom. The turtle, floundering and sinking cried out; "Why did you do that? You can't swim and now we're both going to drown!".

To which the scorpion replied with her last breath; "It's my nature!"

Scorpion Fable (2)

A turtle walking along a river bank came across a scorpion lying flat on it's back, legs thrashing in the air. Stopping for a moment, the turtle watched a man come to its aid , taking hold of the scorpion and turning it over right-side.

Gaining its footing, the scorpion instinctively struck the man's hand with it's tail. Stumbling a few steps, the scorpion then tripped and landed on his back again, legs flaying in the air.

The turtle then watched the man take hold of the scorpion, once again turning it over right-side. And as before, just as the scorpion gained its footing, stung the man's hand.

Walking over to the man, the turtle cautioned; "Don't you know a scorpion's nature is to sting?"

The man looked at the turtle and replied; "My nature is to help!"

----------

Off-line, the author is a provider of contact marketing solutions to Financial Services Professionals and business development services to Entrepreneurs.
To contact the author, please visit: excelsales.biz.

Thoughts on drugs

Two articles via The Hook.

The first: 'War on drugs' fuels HIV epidemic, experts say:

Two Vancouver-based groups that do research on HIV-AIDS and drug policy say the war on drugs waged by many governments, including the government of Canada, has failed to curb illegal drug use and is actually fuelling the spread of the disease.

"There's just a huge discordance between scientific evidence and policy," said Dr. Evan Wood, founder of the International Centre for Science in Drug Policy and a researcher at the B.C. Centre for Excellence in HIV-AIDS.

The two groups support the Vienna Declaration, the official document of the International AIDS Conference taking place in the Austrian capital this week.

The second: BC AIDS group endorses decriminalizing drug users:

The BC-CFE has already won praise at the conference for its “Treatment 2.0” for HIV/AIDS.

But the head of BC-CFE, Dr. Julio Montaner, criticized Prime Minister Stephen Harper's refusal to address the conference, and Health Minister Leona Aglukkaq for being "barely visible" at the conference. Montaner also said:

“As UNAIDS leads countries around the world to deepen their commitment to the made-in-B.C. concept of treatment as prevention, the government of Canada is standing on the sidelines. We need Canada to reflect the global commitment to treatment as prevention, and take a leadership role in this important initiative.”

On the Declaration’s blog, Dr. Montaner wrote: “...this wealth of evidence we have gathered over the last couple of decades [is] being systematically neglected and ignored in favor of a highly prevalent ideologically driven war on drugs.”

You say it, preacher man.

Snort

Via:

Update: Thanks to Suspicious Berean for the link!

The bureaucratization of liberty - part four

Via Boing Boing:

Climate Progress reports that scientists from Louisiana State University, Mississippi State University and Texas A&M "have 'signed contracts with BP to work on their behalf in the Natural Resources Damage Assessment (NRDA) process' that determines how much ecological damage the Gulf of Mexico region is suffering from BP's toxic black tide. The contract, the Mobile Press-Register has learned, 'prohibits the scientists from publishing their research, sharing it with other scientists or speaking about the data that they collect for at least the next three years."

Read the rest.

I feel so proud

Well, I must say that whatever Scary Fundamentalist is doing over at the Lynch Mob, it's working;

Heh.

Today's reading

Here's the latest at Defend Geert Wilders: The Wilders Round-Up, July 22nd 2010; and Geert Wilders on the International Freedom Alliance.

Update: and in the Victoria Politics Examiner, talking about Carole Taylor and cabinet uprisings: Campbell should be replaced, but by whom?

The Politics of Reputation

So Helena Guergis and Rahim Jaffer have both been cleared by the RCMP of all criminal allegations. Who could have seen that coming? Certainly not the PMO!

The RCMP has cleared both independent MP Helena Guergis and her husband, Rahim Jaffer, of allegations of criminal wrongdoing leveled against them this year, according to the couple’s lawyers.

Ms. Guergis, a former Conservative MP and junior minister in the Harper government, issued a statement by her lawyer on Wednesday to reveal that the Mounties had finished their investigation into allegations forwarded in April by the Prime Minister’s Office. In a statement later Wednesday, Mr. Jaffer's lawyer also revealed that the investigation into his client is finished.

“The RCMP advised me today that it has concluded its investigation concerning Mr. Jaffer," Frank Addario said. "It has determined that there is no evidence to support a criminal charge and it will be closing the portion of its file that relates to Mr. Jaffer."

Read the rest.

There's not really much to say, is there? I love how the story references Mrs. Guergis as an 'independent' MP. That's certainly one way to put it...

Needless to say, there's no coming back from this, for either of them. It's a shame that this is the case, but it is the case. So far it looks like the former power duo have had their lives effectively destroyed for no reason other than politics.

So, business as usual.

Update: As CanadianSense points out in the comments, this isn't all on the PMO. There's plenty of blame to rest on the opposition for this debacle as well. And yes, perhaps with us bloggers and speculation-types as well.

Update II: Wherry.

Update III: The Full Comment Forum, and Tasha Kheiriddin.

Because I can

Fatso Jetson, back in the days when Mario Lalli ( lead guitar ) was still, um, fat.



And because I'm in a Fatso Jetson kind of mood, here they are again with Light Yourself on Fire:

Today's reading

Here's the latest at Defend Geert Wilders: The Wilders Round-Up, July 21st 2010. Check it out, huh?

Update: And at the Victoria Politics Examiner: Secrecy, Bribes, and the Harmonized Sales Tax.

Because I can

Nine Inch Nails: The Mark Has Been Made:

Thoughts on the Libertarian

Walter Block, for the Mises Institute:

But enough with the criticisms. They are directed at less than one basis point of this entire publication. In the nature of things, I regard them as mere oversights, not to say typos. Words fail me in my attempt to say how much I welcome this book. I feel I am witnessing the first major publication of a serious thinker in our ranks. I tell you, for Huebert's sake, I am even willing to give up my long-held stance of anarchocapitalism. If the state would limit itself to forcing Huebert to write one book every year or so for the rest of his career, my qualms with it would be at an end (well, almost).

Speaking of the G20

H/t to Aaron Wherry for this one:



Meanwhile: Bob Dechert is the only thing standing between us and the total destruction of Canada.

What they say, what they do

What they say:

On Sunday, the Conservatives demanded hearings into their own decision to change the census, in part so that, in the words of Maxime Bernier, the opposition parties can “explain to Canadians why they want the state and the government of Canada to know lots of details from their private lives.”

What they do:

On Monday, the Conservatives filibustered an attempt to by opposition parties to start hearings into the biggest mass arrest in Canadian history.

Erm...

Oh, those damned raw goats' cheese farmers

They're the blight of the Earth too:

"If you take my computer again, I can't do my homework."—Words spoken to agents raiding a small California dairy farm by the owner's 12-year-old daughter. The farm is known for producing raw goats' milk cheese that is sold by members-only raw food markets. Grist reports that local, state, and federal raids on alternative "raw foodie" membership marketplaces are on the rise.

Some background on battles with the authorities over raw milk - of all the stupid things - here. I can't even believe that things have gotten to the point where wild-eyed folks like me are covering this. I mean, seriously: it's f*cking dairy products. Hell, the sale of olive oil is probably more dangerous in the states, because there's actually dubious truth in olive oil advertising. These folks make no bones about the fact that they're producing raw food. That's what people buy raw food for, after all.

Update: This. H/t Simeon.

Front and Centre

Check it out:

Death to cartoons!

So the cartoonist who was originally behind 'Everybody Draw Mohammed Day' has received a death threat.

Who could have seen that coming?

Today's reading

Here's my latest for the Libertas Post: Good Enough for BC Government Work. Subtle I isn't.

Update: And at Defend Geert Wilders: Anti-Islamic crusader launches recruitment drive in UK; and PVV Records Historic High in Polls.

Heh.

H/t. Background here and here.

Because I can

Queens of the Stone Age: I'm Designer:

Today's reading

I linked earlier to a brief history of The Georgia Straight, and I recommend that you give it a read. But while we're on the topic of alternative publications, why not check out a new monthly paper, The Agora National? In talks with the minds behind it, it sounds like the early Straight is their model, and I wish them well with that as I truly believe there need to be more such publications in the world. And I'm not just saying that because they just ran a piece of mine in their latest issue ( which they did, so you should probably check it out ).

Update: and at Defend Geert Wilders: Muslims Debate asked Mr. Geert Wilders why he became anti-Islam and what is his message to the Muslims?

Update: and yet more at Defend Geert Wilders: The Wilders Round-Up, July 19th 2010.

Ah, Pat Condell

Fun for the whole family:



H/t to Vlad Tepes.

Binks has done it again

Check it out. Free Canuckistan: Steynian 16rd.

So you punched your daughter in the face...

...where do we go from there?

Welfare and Warfare

By Jim Quinn, via TheBurningPlatform.com:

Most people in America associate the Democratic Party with spending on welfare programs and the Republican Party with spending on warfare. Until reading Niall Ferguson’s brilliant The Ascent of Money, I never realized that welfare and warfare have gone hand in hand for over a century. The immortal German warmonger Otto von Bismarck was the first politician to introduce social insurance legislation in the 1880s. His reasoning was not strictly humanitarian. According to Bismarck, “A man who has a pension for his old age is much easier to deal with than a man without that prospect.” Bismarck was a shrewd politician who realized that when you provide people something for nothing, they will vote for you. When you go to war with France, a population sedated with entitlements is more easily malleable and controllable. David Lloyd George rolled out pensions and national insurance in Great Britain prior to World War I in order to win votes. Politicians began a century of addiction to welfare programs, as the poor voted for those that promised them the most. The world has now reached its limit of unfunded promises. The financial crisis in the last two years was caused by politicians throughout the world promising benefits to their citizens and paying for these benefits with borrowed money.

Read the rest here.

Because I can

H/t to TDH.

A brief history of the Georgia Straight

Fun times. Via The Dependent: “IT’S A FILTHY, PERVERTED PAPER”: A History of The Georgia Straight.

Today's reading

Here's a somewhat-older piece that I wrote for the Libertas Post a while back, but which hasn't been published until now. Enjoy: The Trouble With Mavericks.

Today's reading

I'm proud to introduce my very first guest-post at the Lynch Mob since I handed it over to the blogger Scary Fundamentalist to run: Walker Morrow – Let’s Pat Ourselves on the Back for a Moment. Check it out!

Ahoy

Watch out for kitties.

Randy Hillier FTW

Say what you will about Randy Hillier, he ( or an enterprising intern ) has a way with words:

The G20 has resulted in the largest mass arrest in our history of more than 1,000 Canadian citizens. But according to McGuinty, this startling fact does not justify or merit an inquiry. Over 700 of these people were detained, their freedom removed, and eventually released without charge, but this does not warrant public scrutiny either. The largest ever mobilization of Canadian police in our history does not even deserve an open public review. More than $1 billion spent and we are supposed to be accepting and grateful.

Because I feel like it

Kasabian: Shoot The Runner.

Posting will be light

Over the next few days posting is going to be light to non-existent, I'm afraid. I'm housesitting at a place with no wireless or Internet hook-up. I'll try to get online when I can, but no promises. Why not browse through the archives if you're bored, or the archives at the Victoria Politics Examiner? Or Defend Geert Wilders, for that matter. And if you're still bored, why not check out what's new at the Libertas Post?

Trippy

H/t to Vlad Tepes for this one:

The son of Osama Bin Laden and his British wife have split up after he began to hear his father’s voice in his head, it has emerged.

The fourth eldest child of the Al Qaeda mastermind was admitted to a psychiatric hospital last week with drug-induced schizophrenia.

Read the rest.

Why am I reminded of the first Spiderman movie? You know, that scene when Harry Osborn, Norman Osborn's - the original Green Goblin - son, starts hearing his father's voice and stumbles upon his father's Goblin lab - eventually to become the second Green Goblin?



No? Maybe I'm the only nerd here. Watch the first Spiderman movie.

Today's reading

Via Defend Geert Wilders: Reader mail.

Update: and for the Victoria Politics Examiner, a nice long article about why the BC Liberals have, once again, failed to impress: BC Liberals save $1 billion. Now it's time for the rest.

Because I feel like it

Kasabian: Fire.

Sheer Destruction

Donald Douglas might have vindictively targeted our former editor after the NeoConstant days came to an end, but he's got one thing right: The Destructive Power of Hate Speech Censorship .

H/t Cat Fuzz.

I want this guy's job

Via Boing Boing:

Mark Reckless, a new Tory MP from Kent got so drunk at the House of Commons that he decided he wasn't able to vote on the budget. He's "really sorry" about it. The debate over the budget had gone on to 230AM, and he refreshed himself mightily over the course of the day.

Hey, I get it. I hate budgets too. Obnoxio has an appropriate take-down:

They fucking sit in the office, getting pissed on booze that we subsidise for them. I'd be happy to take on a job that allowed me to get paid on subsidised booze.

I'd love a job like that, myself.

Today's reading

Here's the latest at Defend Geert Wilders: Dutch Establishment Rejects Election Results; Wilders nominated for free speech prize; and Geert Wilders in Florida?

Update: And yet more at Defend Geert Wilders: The Wilders Round-Up, July 10th 2010.

Binks has done it again

Steynian 415. Check it out, eh?

What, so there's a sensible approach to copyright legislation?

Unheard of!

Brazil has just created the best-ever implementation of WCT. In Brazil's version of the law, you can break DRM without breaking the law, provided you're not also committing a copyright violation. And what's more, any rightsholder who adds a DRM that restricts things that are allowed by Brazilian copyright laws ("fair dealing" or "fair use") faces a fine.

Meanwhile, also via Boing Boing: Judge slashes RIAA file-sharing award.

The bureaucratization of liberty - part three

Via Boing Boing:

A freelance photographer who was taking pictures of a BP refinery in Texas was detained by a BP security official, local police and a man claiming to be with the Department of Homeland Security, according to nonprofit news org ProPublica. The photographer was working on a story about multiple large toxic releases at the BP refinery which happened just before the big Gulf oil blowout.

Read the rest here. The first two instalments in this series can be read here and here respectively.

Not evil just wrong

CAIR's Canadian cousin is apparently pleased with the proceedings surrounding the 'prosecution' of Salman Hossain:

The Canadian Council on American-Islamic Relations today voiced its support for the unprecedented hate-crimes charges laid against a Canadian extremist, applauding law enforcement for sending a “clear message” that advocating racist crimes “will not go unchecked.”

Salman Hossain, who recently left Mississauga for South Asia and who has not yet been arrested, was charged with willfully promoting hatred and advocating genocide after a five-month investigation into Internet posts that call for the mass killing of Jews in Canada and other Western countries.

Read the rest.

Where to begin? Well, first of all Salman's prosecution was not only unenforceable, it was gutless too, as Blazing Cat Fur was at pains to point out:

This farce proves that hate crime laws are nothing more than political tools in the hands of our political fools. Ontario was able to arrest, charge, try and convict an 83 year old Nazi in a period of 6 months for - get this - scribbling on washroom walls. They had 3 years and 2 attempts and more than enough hard evidence to lay charges against Slammin Salman Hossain. They thew the Jewish Community an 83 year old bone and spat in their face by giving Hossain plenty of time and warning to flee.

The Salman Hossain charges are a deceitful pantomine performed to cause the least offense to the Muslim community, an ascendant ethnic voting bloc and carrier of the coveted "State Designated Victim" banner. That's the way the game is rigged under Multicult, recall the alleged Canadian Human Rights Commission' refusal to bring a case against a hate spewing Montreal Iman or the asinine "Human Rights" cases brought against Ezra Levant, Macleans & Mark Steyn and even B'nai Brith, a case allowed to drag on for 5 years. All Hate Crime laws, whether criminal or civil have been proven suspect by this craven "politically correct" decision. Cowards.

Read the rest.

But above and beyond the farce of the prosecution, as I've been at pains to point out, Salman Hossain should never have been charged to begin with.

Hear hear

Via The Hook:

A provincial civil liberties group is calling on the federal government to relax its grip on medical marijuana distribution.

"It’s so critical that we take away this double bind that seriously ill patients are in, where they have to choose between breaking the law and getting their medicines," B.C. Civil Liberties Association’s policy director Micheal Vonn said. "This situation is not one that is constitutional or in keeping with human rights."

The rights advocacy group submitted a request to Health Canada on July 9 asking that medical marijuana pharmacies and compassion clubs be authorized under the Medical Marijuana Access Regulations.

I need to get me some glaucoma.

Tee Hee

H/t.

Tonight's reading

Just doing a little evening blogging - here's what I'm up to so far.

For the Libertas Post blog: Press on strike.

Update: And for the Victoria Politics Examiner: Anti-HST juggernaut rolls on; and Adding personality to the BC Liberal Party.

Update II: And at Defend Geert Wilders: The Wilders Round-Up, July 9th 2010.

Snort two

Heh:

The G20 aftermath

Remember that whole Mike Brock thing? You know, where he got stopped by the cops for little to no reason and verbally abused? Well, the coverage continues.

First off, I'd like to thank James Bow for the link in this post, which is really quite worth the read:

The fact that individuals like Mike Brock or John Pruyn could be targeted for such shameful treatment should be ringing alarm bells in everyone’s ears. Mike is not your typical protester (not to suggest that peaceful protesters themselves deserve similar treatment). This means that what happened to Mike Brock, what happened to John Pruyn, could happen to us all, given any number of factors which are beyond our control. We ourselves could have received this treatment for no good reason, and there is no case in the world which justifies such an atrocity.

What’s just as bad is the number of people who have come forward to criticize people like Mike Brock, questioning the validity of his accusations, or why he was out and about downtown on the day in question — suggesting, in effect, that people like Mike and John Pruyn got what was coming to them. To those individuals, I can only pray that someday you yourselves won’t feel the lash of a police baton just because you happened to be at the wrong place at the wrong time, and that you further don’t have arrogant twits ask what you did to bring about your own beating.

Damn straight. Read the rest here. Also, Mike Brock talks about conservative ideological consistency over at the Shotgun.

Meanwhile, Xanthippa, over at Xanthippa's Chamberpot (duh), has put up the first two parts of a three-part series on the g20 aftermath and its effect on the Right side of the political sphere. Here's part one, and here's part two, where it gets really interesting:

Even if we completely set aside the issue of the agent provocateurs, there are serious problems with the police failing to enforce the law! There are numerous videos (including some I linked above) where the police witness violent or destructive behaviour by specific individuals – yet do nothing to stop it by arresting, or even interrupting, the law-breakers!

That is not right. It is abdication of their duty at best - actively aiding the law-breakers at worst.

Even if there had not been an ‘over-reaction’ by the police on the Sunday and Monday (the arbitrary-seeming arrests of close to a thousand innocent people as well as all the other reported abuses of their powers), the police behaviour on Saturday, their failure to act and to apply the laws (which, according to some sources, came as ‘an order from above’) would be sufficient to shake the public trust in the police.

Read the rest here.

I'll be sure to link to part three when it comes out.

Let's face it: Ontario sucks

I never wanted Salman Hossain to be prosecuted, but nonetheless I have to admit this is pretty gutless:

This farce proves that hate crime laws are nothing more than political tools in the hands of our political fools. Ontario was able to arrest, charge, try and convict an 83 year old Nazi in a period of 6 months for - get this - scribbling on washroom walls. They had 3 years and 2 attempts and more than enough hard evidence to lay charges against Slammin Salman Hossain. They thew the Jewish Community an 83 year old bone and spat in their face by giving Hossain plenty of time and warning to flee.

The Salman Hossain charges are a deceitful pantomine performed to cause the least offense to the Muslim community, an ascendant ethnic voting bloc and carrier of the coveted "State Designated Victim" banner. That's the way the game is rigged under Multicult, recall the alleged Canadian Human Rights Commission' refusal to bring a case against a hate spewing Montreal Iman or the asinine "Human Rights" cases brought against Ezra Levant, Macleans & Mark Steyn and even B'nai Brith, a case allowed to drag on for 5 years. All Hate Crime laws, whether criminal or civil have been proven suspect by this craven "politically correct" decision. Cowards.

Read the rest here. Much more from Blazing Cat Fur, and yet more at Five Feet of Fury.