Now that's just irrational...

Over here we get a little more insight into Ward 4 Candidate for Alderman Evans.

Apparently it's his idea of "fair play" to purchase 'soundalike' domains and claim that other bloggers support pedophilia, racists or whatever.

But, when the bloggers in question turn things about and turn similar accusations on Mr. Evans, that's suddenly grounds for libel suits and attempts to publicly "unmask" writers who use pseudonyms on the web. (and no, I don't buy the sophistry Evans puts forth in his comments section about "trying to inform" - it looks too much like Evans is trying self-justify acting like a complete ass)

It's far from the first time that Evans has resorted to bullying other bloggers (when he isn't just trying to taunt them).

Actions speak louder than words - Evans' actions are those of a man who even while he is trying to put forward a "reasonable" front during an election, we find him running off at the mouth on his own blog, or making childish videos in an attempt to slag his fellow candidates. It speaks volumes about a man who aspires to sit on city council for one of Canada's larger cities - and I don't think it's exactly promising.

What's going to happen the when he starts getting criticized in the media? He's going to sue them too? Or is he going to have a Stephen Harper style tantrum about it and try to shut the media out entirely?

Paul Jackson: Mulroney Had Principles

The attempts by conservatives in this country to canonize Brian Mulroney continue, with Paul Jackson's column trying to simultaneously take a dig a Bronconnier while putting Mulroney up on a pedestal.

Jackson's argument? Well, look at all the nasty things the Liberals did.

I'm sorry to say, but that's a pretty pathetic argument. You wish to talk about how the Liberals left the country in a sorry state financially when Mulroney came to power. Well, let's consider the fact that during Mulroney's tenure, Canada's debt - and deficit - increased steadily. His defenders will claim that he was 'setting the stage' for a future recovery - but in politics, what happens on your watch is what counts. Mulroney's attempts to tamper with the Constitution were disastrous - plagued by weak wording, and an utter lack of clarity on key topics.

On the matter of principles, or more correctly ethics, all I can say there is that Mulroney's own actions in attempting to "cover over" the Airbus Affair (which have gone as far as suing anybody who dares to reveal evidence in the matter makes one wonder just what he - and other players - are trying to hide. (Still - some 20 years later...)

His recent partisan sniping at a now deceased Prime Minister is disgraceful and cheap, suggesting that a man who has long ago retired from public life has never really left behind the partisan bitterness that often pervades parliamentary life.

Would I claim that he has "principles"? Yes, perhaps he does - whether those are admirable principles is something altogether different.

Brain Eating Amoeba?

Since it isn't April Fools, this story is just plain disturbing.

Granted, I doubt that the glacier-fed lakes around Calgary will be affected any time soon, but still. Inhale one tiny little micro-organism, and a couple of weeks later, you die - and the lovely little critter has had a feast on your brain. It really does sound like a bad horror flick.

Ummm...BullSh!t!

According to the all-wise Werner Patels, there is no such thing as a labour crunch in Calgary.

Bull!

In my own workplace, finding capable people to fill positions has been extremely difficult to say the least; and close friends of mine that own businesses have been experiencing great difficulties hiring staff.

Unlike what Werner seems to think - namely that in a tight market that anybody can be hired in ten seconds or less, businesses are still looking for people who are qualified, capable and willing to do the job. Resumes that are so poorly written that they might as well have been in crayon are not going to get you hired. Neither is an attitude of entitlement. Handing over a poorly written resume and a cover letter that barely reads "Your hiring, I iz looking fer job" isn't going to get very far - even for entry level positions.

Businesses are still looking for the right people to fill the positions. Those with experience hiring poor staff in the past are unwilling to hire someone simply to have a warm body present, nor will they beggar themselves by overpaying for unskilled jobs.

Werner is right about one thing - we do have a housing shortage. That shortage is bad enough that the rental vacancy rate has been hovering below 1% for a couple of years now - and rents have skyrocketed. But that's a different problem than the shortage of good labor.

When You Say "Disestablished" ...

Prior to this morning I really had not heard of Father John Neuhaus, and after reading this drivel, I'm not sure I want to hear any more from the man.

Basically, Neuhaus claims that Canada's Charter of Rights and Freedoms has shoved Christianity out of the public square. A statement which is absolute nonsense, and he knows it. Canada's Charter has not pushed Christianity out of the public square, instead it has forced it to stand among a lot of other equal voices instead of giving it the arbitrary prominence that many of its practitioners blithely assume it should hold simply because Canada was colonized originally by people who were predominantly Christian.

The claim that Christianity has been "pushed out of the public square" in Canada is blindingly false. One only has to look at who was screaming the loudest over the legal recognition of same gender marriages. The lobby groups that were making the biggest noise were all claimants to the label of "Christian". So, please tell me how that's "being pushed out of the public square"? Quite simply, it's not.

The reality is that Canada's legal framework has done two things - it has made it very difficult indeed to encode as law the kinds of brutal discrimination and inequality that is present in Biblical Scripture. It has given an voice to groups that in the past had been suppressed by the preeminent position granted to "Christianity", and caused people to start to think that just maybe there's more to things than what's transcribed in scripture.

People like Ted Byfield and Michael Coren bemoan the fact that they can no longer stone adulterers or criminalize GLBT people. They claim it is in the name of "faith" and all that is "good in the world", yet it is ultimately the same kind of preening superiority that I saw so often in school - where those who "don't fit in" are subjected to the most awful treatment, largely because somebody else decides to inflict it upon them.

If anything has been "pushed out of the public square", it is not Christianity - or any other faith - but rather the use of the claim of "faith" to justify treating some of our country's citizens as second class members of our society.

Who is channelling whom?

I can't decide if Michael Coren is channelling Craig Chandler or vice versa.

This week, Coren's whine du maison is immigration - or rather immigrants:

But all that was being said here was that the immigration equation requires balance. On the one hand Canada opens its doors and provides help and safety to newcomers. On the other, immigrants should thank their new homeland and imply that gratitude by moderate, yet necessary, adaptation to our ways.

Like Chandler's asinine tirade against newcomers to Alberta, Coren is using an incredibly broad brush - one that is tainted with what I will politely call a form of "cultural racism".

He doesn't quite come out and say it, but what most of Coren's tirade boils down to is "don't ask me to adapt to your customs". What he is hinting at, of course, are those highly visible, but relatively rare cases such as Sikhs wearing Turbans in the RCMP - where someone from a minority steps forward and demands that Canada apply its own laws.

As such newcomers have a duty to learn one of them. We shouldn't expect miracles but we should expect effort.

It's very difficult to live in Canada and not develop at least a pidgin knowledge of English. That doesn't mean that there aren't those who try to hide in a cultural enclave of sorts, but they are a relative minority of new immigrants to Canada. Most are hard working, diligent people that do their best to become net contributors to our society.

Do remember, however, that most of Canada's cultural demise and decay has to do with old Canadians. White, privileged, liberal people who decided long ago that they despised everything for which this great country stood.

Ah - herein Michael returns to his favorite tactic - blaming the evil "liberals" for every ill he experiences. Of course, one of the key cornerstones of a liberal democracy (and Canada is a liberal democracy - no matter how much that makes conservatives like Coren cringe) is that our laws periodically force us to re-examine our own assumptions about what they mean. Sometimes, those laws provoke some deeply unsettling conclusions when tested. Such was the case with the "Sikhs, Turbans and the RCMP" discussion, and numerous other topics where the assumption of a dominance of Judeo-Christian belief turns out to be problematic when held up in the light of a Charter of Rights and Freedoms that guarantees equal treatment for all Canadians, regardless.

Conservatives tend not to like trying to answer tough questions like that.

Problems With Ribbon Campains

"Ribbon Campaigns" have become the required fashion symbol for a variety of causes.

While I generally respect, possibly even actively support, the original cause that these ribbons are designed for, they are also more than somewhat problematic.

There's two key problems with ribbon campaigns - commercialization and distortion.

As the CBC points out, you can't always know how much of that "ribboned purchase" actually goes to the charity involved. Even phrases like "100% of proceeds" are ambiguous because "proceeds" itself is not clear. Do they mean 100% of the purchase price? or perhaps the "profit"? (and just how is "profit" defined - what "costs" are being tacked onto the cost of purchasing the raw merchandise? Lists including staff, floorspace and coffee in the back room come to mind as ways that cynical accounting can whittle away at what most people would assume is "the donation" part of their purchase. ("Entertainment Coupon" books make me similarly uneasy for the same reasons)

Thanks, but in such a situation, I'll quietly just write the charity involved a cheque - it's easier, and at least I know how much went to the foundation in question. What they do with it is another issue - but at least _I_ know that the amount I intended actually arrived there.

The other kind of subversion that happens is when the campaign takes on a life and meaning of its own. This is what has happened with the now irritating "support the troops" campaign running around Canada. I've commented on the politics surrounding this campaign before, but I think it's important to recognize that there are those who choose to twist the meaning of those little yellow and black decals to their own ends.

Why does this happen? Because the decal itself is fundamentally devoid of any real meaning. What does the phrase "Support the Troops" mean? It doesn't mean anything in itself - consequently it takes on an arbitrary meaning. The notion of "supporting the troops" means different things to different people. In my opinion, "supporting the troops" means getting them out of involvement in an unnecessary and ethically dubious war in Afghanistan (until that happens, it also means that we do what we can to ensure they are equipped to defend themselves effectively while they are there, and have access to the psychiatric treatments that many will need after spending a few tours of duty in a war zone). For others, it means that we should endorse the mission they are on.

Similarly, other "ribbon campaigns" suffer from a degree of ambiguity - the pink ribbon breast cancer campaign is admirable in its own right, but ambiguous as well. Because the pink ribbon campaign has a discrete group behind it, the message is a little more consistent - and I think most people would love to see us be able to cure cancers. But the ribbon itself doesn't actually tell us what action we should take. Yes, the Breast Cancer foundation would like us to donate money, but really without a clear message behind it, that same pink ribbon could quickly turn into a dozen other meanings in popular culture - and some of them not very nice.

The "Support the Troops" meme (it's not a campaign per se - it's never really been in anybody's control) is all the more troubling for that very reason. There is no message to it - instead a few people have seized the notion for their own reasons - whether that is to make political points, or to make a few bucks selling paper graffiti for your car.

Although ribbons make a wonderful visual to build a campaign around (they are simple, easily identified, etc.), I think they have also run their course as an effective marketing tool. There's too many of them out there, and some of them are utterly arbitrary - devoid of meaning or coherence - diluting the significance of the real campaigns.