God Save the Queen

On the other hand, maybe she doesn't need the help. Here's a picture of Her Majesty firing a rifle during a 1993 visit to the National Shooting Centre in Surrey. Rule Britannia!

UPDATE: I wonder if Her Majesty has the crosshairs sighted on a picture of Pat Martin?

Crusty old Physics teacher goes down fighting

Meet my new hero: Edmonton high school teacher Lynden Dorval. Mr. Dorval, a Physics teacher with 35 years' experience, has been suspended by the Board of Education for giving his students marks of zero for missed or incomplete assignments:

“I knew it was going to be a lot of stress,” he says. “But I just couldn’t talk myself out of it. It was the right thing to do.”What he did, over the past 18 months, was what he had done for over three decades when a student didn’t submit an assignment, skipped a test or missed an exam: he pulled out his red marking pen and gave them a zero. It was a lesson in consequences, one contrary to the school’s no-zero policy, an official dictum Mr. Dorval willfully ignored. After repeated warnings from the principal to toe the line, the renegade was hauled before a school board hearing. Three days later, on May 18, he received a letter informing him he had been suspended indefinitely. He suffered the consequences.

Mr. Dorval refused to accept the school's policy that a student's self-esteem is more important than actual performance. In that case, why give grades at all? Surely a mark of D would be bruising to the tender egos of someone taking a class with a fellow student who got an A? Why hand in ANY assignments if there are no consequences for not doing so? When I was in University back in the early 1980s, I was in a program that declined to give us actual grades - we were all assigned one of two marks for each assignment: Complete or Incomplete. This was after I had already spent four years in a rigorous honours degree program in science. It didn't take any of us long to figure out that there was no reward for excelling in anything that had to be handed in to the professors, so we carefully figured out the minimum amount of work required to achieve a Complete and dutifully handed in assignment after assignment of mediocre but acceptable quality. Why do otherwise? It was embarrassing to be part of this system, but it was necessary for the career path I had chosen, so I put up, shut up and got the hell through it as quickly as possible. This is the system in the schools of Edmonton that Mr. Dorval has decided he can't be part of any longer:

It is Newton’s Law: for every action there is an opposite and equal reaction. Unless, of course, you are a student at Ross Sheppard high or some other institution where every missed assignment is met with an excuse. And not from the kids, but from an apologist administration that encourages serial irresponsibility by offering second, third, fourth — and 10th chances — but not zeroes, never a zero. Lynden Dorval knew it was wrong. He had had enough. So he picked up his red marking pen and stayed true to his conscience. It is a choice, he says, he would make again.

Bravo, Mr. Dorval. I salute you.

Blues for a Saturday Night

Tonight's selection: Misery and the Blues performed by Maria Muldaur:

Queers Against NATO? Seriously?

The problem I have with identity politics is that once you've been put into a simplistic identity pigeonhole, some people expect you to hold a set of political beliefs which just don't fit. It's just as true for gays as it is for women and visible minorities. That is perfectly illustrated by the Toronto group Queers Against Israeli Apartheid and now Queers Against NATO, who recently marched in Chicago to protest the NATO summit:

The anti-war movement and the queer movement are allied, according to the queer protestors, because queer people are affected by militarization.

"Last year alone NATO spent $1 trillion on arms expenditures and that's completely ridiculous considering the austerity measures being taken in this country," said Judy Heithmar, one of the people marching with the queer contingent. "Queer people are here demanding equality, education, healthcare and safe and affirming housing. The $1 trillion on war NATO spends could go toward advancing queer causes."

Queer people are affected by militarization? I suppose that's true in the sense that ALL people are affected by militarization. I'm sure the millions who were liberated from Communist tyranny by the collapse of the Soviet Union would agree that they were affected by NATO's militarization, but I'd wager that not many of them would march in protest against it. And yes, the $1 trillion that NATO spends could be used to advance "queer causes", but what special claim do they have on that money? It could also be spent on buying me a private island in the Caribbean staffed with handsome waiters who keep me supplied with mojitos for the rest of my life; am I entitled to it?

I resent organizations like Queers Against NATO presuming to speak on behalf of gays everywhere. I'm gay and I support NATO. I also support Israel and the Conservative Party of Canada, and I never use the word "queer" to describe myself.

Speak for yourself.

The Secret Gay Agenda revealed

Send in the clowns

The whole country is shocked and repulsed by the details emerging from the case of Luka Rocco Magnotta, the erstwhile porn star and former friend of Karla Homolka who is wanted for a violent murder in Montreal. Everyone except New Brunswick NDP MP Yvon Godin, who apparently thinks Stephen Harper and the Conservatives are to blame.

The details of the case are sickening - read them here if you have the stomach for it - but suffice it to say that Magnotta apparently brutally tortured and killed a man, sexually assaulted the body and dismembered the corpse all while videotaping the entire episode. He then mailed the victim's foot to Conservative headquarters in Ottawa and one of the hands to the Liberal Party.

Most reasonable people would conclude that Magnotta is a depraved lunatic whose violent crimes are inexcusable by any conceivable standards. Most people except Mr. Godin, who had this to say to an American reporter:

"It's very upsetting," Opposition New Democrat member Yvon Godin said. "It could be just one crazy person that did it, but at the same time we have lots of people unhappy in our country, the way the country is going."

What the hell? Is he seriously blaming the Conservative government for this? Magnotta might have been "unhappy with the way the country is going" so he killed a man and sent his foot to the party's head office? You know, I was pretty unhappy with the way the country was going when Paul Martin was Prime Minister, and I managed to resist the temptation to videotape myself killing and dismembering someone and then sending body parts to Ottawa.

Yvon Godin is an idiot and an embarrassment to the country. If he doesn't stand up in the House of Commons and personally apologize for this outrageous remark, he should be turfed from the NDP caucus and publicly ridiculed for the remainder of his hopefully short political career.

Blues for a Saturday Night

Tonight's selection - Slide Over Backwards, a 2008 release by the late Donna Summer. Better known for her 1970s disco hits, Summer actually had a great voice for the blues.

Gay Republicans & the US election

Richard Grennell, the openly gay Republican who recently quit as Mitt Romney's foreign policy advisor amid a storm of criticism from the religious right, has re-affirmed his support for the GOP in an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal (subscription required). He makes an important point about the role of gay conservatives in politics:

Anti-gay extremists not only dismiss a plethora of serious issues confronting America and the world, but they fail to recognize the consistency of living by the conservative ideal of limiting government involvement in our lives.

The claim that gays should be barred from conservative activism is not only bigoted but is a bipartisan view. The intolerant assault comes from the far right, who object to Republicans who are gay, and the far left, who object to gays being Republicans. When the extremists on both sides are the only ones speaking up, the majority suffers.

…Thousands of Republicans privately voiced support for my appointment and were disappointed by the events that led to my resignation earlier this month. Some did so while admitting they disagreed with my support for gay marriage. But they too are passionate about a strong America, personal responsibility and independent religious institutions—issues that should be at the forefront of this year’s presidential election.

…While there are many reasons not to vote to re-elect President Obama, gay marriage is not one of those issues. …

Well said. The Canadian conservative movement has largely moved on from the gay marriage issue, and religious opposition to homosexuality from the social conservative wing of the Conservative Party of Canada has mostly been sidelined. This is as it should be; morality issues like this are private matters to be worked out in families and churches, not in Parliament. There are many things that unite us as conservatives and can be the basis of a platform that has broad political appeal: fiscal discipline, individual responsibility, the rule of law, and support for human rights and democracy abroad to name a few. As I've said before many times, making morality issues the subject of public policy debate is a political dead end, and only alienates so called "moderates" who are our natural allies.

Idiots in Chicago

On CTV News last night I watched a story about the protests surrounding the NATO summit taking place this weekend in Chicago. The main grievance seems to be NATO's involvement in the war in Afghanistan - the same war that was authorized by the UN that leftists fetishize so much, and the same war that in 2008 Candidate Obama vowed to concentrate US policy on once he had pulled out of Iraq.

A reporter at the scene interviewed one of the protesters who, with a straight face, stated "I don't think US intervention can ever liberate another people."  Seriously? This would come as a surprise to the millions of Europeans liberated from Nazi tyranny at the end of the Second World War, or to the millions freed from the yoke of the Soviet Union at the end of the Cold War, or ... oh, why bother. These people are idiots.

Blues for a Saturday Night

Tonight's selection:  Congo Square by Sonny Landreth:

Here we go again

This was predictable: Pride funding in peril as Queers Against Israeli Apartheid plans to march:

Toronto’s Pride Week is at risk of losing its city funding now that Queers Against Israeli Apartheid has confirmed its intention to return to the parade this year. Council is slated to vote next month on providing a $123,807 grant to Pride Toronto, a decision that would have been routine if not for QuAIA’s plan to apply for a spot in the parade before the June 1 deadline.

Every summer, Queers Against Israeli Apartheid raises a big stink by trying to march in Toronto's Pride Parade and make their ridiculous political statement, and every year nervous gays and liberal politicians twist themselves into pretzels trying to figure out which is worse: being perceived as homophobic or antisemitic.

Does anyone still wonder why Rob Ford won't march in front of this mess? Cut all public funding to this clown show and let it sink or swim on its own.

"Gay for Pay"

Obama reversal on same-sex marriage comes just days after donors threatened to withhold funds

As the Church Lady used to say on SNL: "How conveeeeeeenient!"

President Obama announced his support for same-sex marriage less than 48 hours after the Washington Post reported that prominent political donors were threatening to withhold donations over the president’s position on gay rights. “[A]t a certain point I’ve just concluded that for me personally it is important for me to go ahead and affirm that I think same sex couples should be able to get married,” Obama told ABC News in an interview. Left-wing blogger Greg Sargent reported on Monday that “leading gay and progressive donors” were angry with Obama over his increasingly convoluted position on gay rights and same-sex marriage, and were refusing to donate any more money to Priorities USA, the pro-Obama Super PAC.

R. Clarke Cooper, executive director of the Log Cabin Republicans, is furious:

“This calculated announcement comes too late to be of any use to the people of North Carolina, or any of the other states that have addressed this issue on his watch,” Mr. Cooper said. “This administration has manipulated LGBT families for political gain as much as anybody, and after his campaign’s ridiculous contortions to deny support for marriage equality this week he does not deserve praise for an announcement that comes a day late and a dollar short.”

Elliot Abrams at the Weekly Standard points out that Obama has supported gay marriage in the past only when it's been politically expedient:

In fact, Obama has not “evolved”—he has changed his position whenever his political fortunes required him to do so. Running for the Illinois state senate from a trendy area of Chicago in 1996, he was for gay marriage. “I favor legalizing same-sex marriages,” he wrote in answer to a questionnaire back then. In 2004, he was running for the U.S. Senate and needed to appeal to voters statewide. So he evolved, and favored civil unions but opposed homosexual “marriage.” In 2008, running for president, he said, “I believe marriage is between a man and a woman. I am not in favor of gay marriage.” Now in 2012, facing a tough reelection campaign where he needs energized supporters of gay “marriage” and has disappointed them with his refusal to give them his support, he is for it. To paraphrase John Kerry, he was for it before he was against it before he was for it again.

Gay activists are rejoicing over Obama's Road to Damascus conversion. It took him long enough - he's only had three and a half years in the White House to make up his mind, and I'm sure it's just a coincidence that polls show him neck and neck with Romney with the election six months away. Obama gives panderers a bad name.

The Skyhawks have landed

The RCAF's parachute team the Skyhawks, based at CFB Trenton, Ontario, kicked off their demonstration season today with a show in their home town. They jumped from a CC 130 Hercules which was circling over the town, and landed in front of an appreciative crowd on the football field of the local high school. Trenton is very supportive of the military and they love their local men and women in uniform - it is, after all, the place where Canada's fallen soldiers returned from Afghanistan and were taken down the Highway of Heroes to Toronto.

I was able to watch the show and took a few pictures.

\

Leadership lessons from Canada

Thomas Mulcair should read Obama should go to Canada for leadership lessons before he starts spouting off about "Dutch Disease" and killing the west's resource sector while raising corporate taxes to finance bloated bureaucratic social engineering schemes:

Canada may be as bland as butter tart, but the country’s economy has been anything but. From 2001 through 2010, it grew faster than any other G-7 country and, alone in that group, it quickly recouped the employment and production losses suffered during the recession. Unemployment today is just over 7 percent – lower than in most developed countries. Though the government’s popularity has sagged with budget cuts of late, Prime Minister Harper continues to enjoy high approval ratings.

Canada’s growth was not built on financial wizardry -- the country boasts some of the soundest banks on earth. (A recent report has accused the government of providing local banks with a “secret” bailout; there was apparently some temporary extension of liquidity at the height of the panic to keep credit flowing, but since then the loans from the government have been repaid.) Nor did it stem from reckless government spending. Chastened by a fiscal crisis in the 1990s, the country cut spending and posted 11 consecutive budget surpluses pre-recession. Consequently, Canada was able to enact a sizeable stimulus program without upending its fiscal stability. That’s how it’s supposed to work.
...
Some may dismiss the Canadian experience as pertinent only to a small country. But Canada is the tenth largest economy in the world – bigger than India or South Korea. No, the Canadian lesson is applicable to the U.S. and it is also simple. Some years ago, Canada set out to attract businesses large and small and it has succeeded. 

It starts with taxes. In the past several years, Canada’s federal corporate tax rate was cut five times; the most recent reduction was in January of this year, when it dropped to 15.0 percent. Together with a provincial tax of 10 percent, the combined corporate tax for Canadian companies is the lowest among the G-7 nations. In the past decade, most developed countries have engaged in a race to the (tax) bottom, with the average OECD rate tumbling six percentage points. Over that period, the U.S. rate barely moved – from 39.3 percent to 39.2 percent. It is true that not all American companies pay taxes at levels that high; but the high rate and complexity of our code is widely viewed as uncompetitive. Also damaging our position, the U.S. is the only OECD country to tax profits earned abroad. 

In addition, Canada boasts the lowest tax rate on new business investments in the G-7; the lowest overall business costs, according to accounting giant KPMG; a tariff-free zone for machinery imports; R&D tax credits; low import tariffs; excellent infrastructure and superb educational opportunities. The upshot of all these efforts? A doubling of foreign direct investment in Canada over the past decade, an inflow more than twice that moving to the U.S. 

It is notable that corporate tax revenues increased during this period, despite the rate reductions. Though there was a recession-induced hit in 2008, revenues quickly rebounded to levels above those taken in under the more onerous tax regime.

Credit where credit is due: much of this happened under the Jean Chretien Liberals, but an NDP government would bring everything to a screeching halt.  Just like what is about to happen in France.