Here’s the release from Angus Reid about Marc Emery: About three-in-five men and respondents aged 34-to-54 support issuing a citizen transfer for the Canadian jailed in the United States. Most Canadians believe that the federal government should take action so that Marc Emery—who was jailed in the United States in September—can serve his sentence in [...]
Monthly Archives: November 2010
Majority of Canadians want Marc Emery to come back to Canada
Posted by Peter Jaworski on November 30, 2010 3 comments
Randy Hillier: Home schooled kids need to be accommodated
Posted by Peter Jaworski on November 30, 2010 Comments Off
MPP Randy Hillier on the failure of Ontario government to figure out how to accommodate home schooled kids: ShareFacebookStumbleUponDiggRedditEmail
Wikileak and Irony
Posted by Hugh MacIntyre on November 30, 2010 3 comments
This is so far my favorite story in connection to the Wikileaks recent activities (from Third Party and Independent Daily): Germany’s Free Democratic Party, or FDP, is the junior partner in Chancellor Angela Merkel’s ruling coalition between the CDU/CSU and FDP. The party’s chairman is Guido Westerwelle, who is currently serving as Foreign Minister and [...]
Volkswagen calls it “the fun theory”, economists call it “incentives”
Posted by Peter Jaworski on November 29, 2010 4 comments
Volkswagen calls this the “fun theory.” Economists would just say “incentives matter.” Either way, these videos are the highlight of my day so far. They are incredible, and show such a remarkable amount of creativity and ingenuity. You know what else I like about these videos? Instead of clobbering us over the head with threats [...]
Bill Blair: Video of officers kicking the crap out of guy and fracturing skull below eye socket, lacks context
Posted by Mike Brock on November 29, 2010 8 comments
Toronto police Chief Blair has lashed out the Special Investigations Unit, which decided not to pursue charges last week, against officers who they say “probably” used excessive force in arresting two individuals. Bill Blair has stated that the video does not show what the persons were doing prior to the arrest, so it should be [...]
Ayn Rand and freaking out
Posted by Hugh MacIntyre on November 29, 2010 3 comments
Reason Magazine in its usual insightful way sums up my feelings towards Ayn Rand exactly: ShareFacebookStumbleUponDiggRedditEmail
Keith Martin and the rise of partisanship in federal politics
Posted by Hugh MacIntyre on November 29, 2010 4 comments
Keith Martin has long been my favorite Liberal Member of Parliament. He is a true liberal when it comes to civil liberties and the drug war. He is also one of the most open minded MPs when it comes to health care reform. My dream federal election is Maxime Bernier versus Keith Martin. My dream [...]
Mimi & Eunice: Killing music and Principles
Posted by Peter Jaworski on November 26, 2010 Comments Off
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Midnight musings: getting scanned by the man
Posted by Terrence Watson on November 26, 2010 3 comments
Tuesday, I flew from Ottawa to London, ON, via Toronto, in order to see a talk by Professor Jeffrey Goldsworthy at the University of Western Ontario’s law school. Great talk, which I’ll say more about later. For now, let me explain how I frustrated airport security without even trying. Airports are hideous places. Technologically, convenient [...]
SIU: Cops probably shouldn’t have broken bones. But, ces’t la vie!
Posted by Mike Brock on November 25, 2010 5 comments
The independent body responsible for investigating cases of excessive force by the Toronto Police, agrees that police probably went too far in smashing people’s heads in for no reason. But since they can’t identify the officers responsible, they’re closing the file on the matter. Move along. Nothing to see here. From the Globe & Mail: Police officers will [...]
Video of Stacy Bonds’ encounter with Ottawa police
Posted by Peter Jaworski on November 25, 2010 48 comments
(UPDATED with a new video) The video of Stacy Bonds’ treatment at the hands of the Ottawa police has been released to the Ottawa Citizen. Stacy Bonds was wrongfully arrested, as a judge recently ruled. Stacy Bonds, a theatrical makeup artist, should not have been arrested. Bonds, 27, who has no criminal record, was walking [...]
The Fatal Conceit of Canada’s Health Care System
Posted by Hugh MacIntyre on November 25, 2010 7 comments
Policy Matters has published a collection of short essays discussing possible health care reforms. Included in this collection are essays by Maxime Bernier and Mark Rovere (of the Fraser Institute). Both of them address the primary problem of Canada’s health care system: sustainability. They approach the issue from different directions but they come to the [...]
Glenn Greenwald and originalism
Posted by Peter Jaworski on November 25, 2010 5 comments
Admittedly, the following is pretty “meta,” but something struck me about Glenn Greenwald’s response to Nation writers’ Mark Ames and Yasha Levine’s response to Greenwald’s criticism of their piece on John Tyner (… got that?…). The Nation published a piece by Ames and Levine that sought to question Tyner’s motives when he videotaped himself telling [...]
The Nation smears libertarians, Glenn Greenwald fixes it
Posted by Peter Jaworski on November 24, 2010 2 comments
I’m sort of stunned by a pretty silly piece in The Nation — an otherwise fine left-wing publication which I read on occassion. The piece, entitled “TSAstroturf: The Washington lobbyists and Koch-funded libertarians behind the TSA scandal,” rips into the “Don’t touch my junk” guy, and accuses this libertarian of playing some role in a [...]
Is the bottom falling out of the EU?
Posted by Mike Brock on November 23, 2010 1 comment
When the prospect of bailing out Greece arose, the argument among free market advocates, was that allowing a default was far more preferable to attempting to prop the country up. Because doing so, would simply delay the inevitable. Indeed, Greek sovereign issues are once again beginning to demand absurdly higher yields, slowly repositioning Greece back into the square [...]
The true danger of a second Korean War
Posted by Hugh MacIntyre on November 23, 2010 1 comment
Professor Stephen Taylor of Troy University underlined the biggest danger of North and South Korea going to war in an article at Outside the Beltway. It is not so much that we should fear a North Korean victory, because this is a very unlikely outcome. Even with their much vaunted million man army, North Korea [...]
Lowering cost of post-secondary education is a mistake
Posted by Hugh MacIntyre on November 23, 2010 4 comments
Liberal leader Michael Ignatieff has announced that easing access to post-secondary education will be in his party’s platform in the next election. The importance of post-secondary education is something that we hear a lot about. It is suppose to be the vehicle in which Canada’s youth will learn the skills they need to succeed in [...]
How to deal with the media: Tell them you’re busy eating a cookie
Posted by Peter Jaworski on November 22, 2010 Comments Off
Is this a clip from Yes Minister? No, it’s a real-world example of how a politician ought to deal with the media. Here’s Dr. Steven Duckett, President and CEO Alberta Health Services responding to questions from media by chomping on a cookie: ShareFacebookStumbleUponDiggRedditEmail
Why we are angry at the TSA
Posted by Peter Jaworski on November 22, 2010 1 comment
On the importance of consistency: “But conservatives bear a lot of blame for their current predicament. This comprehensive assault on individual freedom didn’t occur in a vacuum; it occurred because conservatives were successful in frightening Americans into choosing security over liberty every time the choice was before them, and because America’s elected officials take being [...]
The Commenters: Fantino and the Charter Edition
Conservatives don’t much like the idea of being groped by the TSA these days. It’s been a sensation among conservatives, to say the least, to wax outraged over people’s fundamental rights being violated in airports. Well, it turns out Canadians, like Julian Fantino, and his supporters would prefer that Canadians didn’t have any fundamental rights, [...]