Enjoy The Show

From the AP:

When Bill Clinton took office in 1993, global warming was a slow-moving environmental problem that was easy to ignore. Now it is a ticking time bomb that President-elect Barack Obama can't avoid.

Since Clinton's inauguration, summer Arctic sea ice has lost the equivalent of Alaska, California and Texas. The 10 hottest years on record have occurred since Clinton's second inauguration. Global warming is accelerating. Time is close to running out, and Obama knows it.

This fairy tale has two things which interest me: screenwriting, and history.

First, screenwriting. It is a basic tenet of movies that you must announce a time limit somewhere in the story. The next time you watch a movie, listen for the time limit. Sometimes it is explicit: "If we don't deactivate the nuclear device before 5 o'clock, we're all going to die." Other times, the time limit is implicit, but no less important: "When the sun goes down, the vampires will come out to kill us." The sun could go down at six, seven, or eight o'clock, but it doesn't matter: the sun has to go down sometime, and the clock is ticking. Pressure.

If you watch 100 films, 99 will tell you the time limit flat out, and others will hide it, yet just barely. You'll always be able to figure it out if you listen for it. Take Schindler's List: though no time limit is specifically stated, it is implied in the film that the characters must survive until the end of the war...whenever that is. That, too, can be the pressure point: not knowing when the end will come.

You can exert pressure on your characters in a few different ways, like other characters (the bad guy, the deranged husband, the mean boss), external forces (the stock market, the weather, the law), and personal strife (conscience, emotional disturbance, disability). The other big (and easy) way to exert pressure is to put your hero on the clock. It's an old trick, but it's an old trick because it works. Writers are always taught that they need to compress their stories and add the pressure of time.

The time limit doesn't have to appear in the first ten minutes of the story. Sometimes the story meanders along, and the writer gets nervous: the story's second act is boring and he doesn't know how to get to the big finish. How do we speed it up? Easy. "If we don't get to the church by 5 o'clock, the priest will die." Instant drama, cue car chase.

One of my favorite time limit devices can be found in Apocalypto. Since the characters had no watches or clocks, what to do? Mel Gibson came up with a good one. He trapped the hero's wife and child at the bottom of a dry well. When the hero is kidnapped and taken away, he looks to the sky and says, "Don't rain."

Why would he say that?

Good question. Later in the film, it begins to rain. Cut to the woman and child at the bottom of the well, ankle-deep in water. Cut to the hero, racing through the jungle to save them. As the film goes on, it rains harder. The well fills with water, and the woman and child are now waist-deep. Cut to the hero, sprinting, fighting off his attackers, and sprinting some more. Cut to the woman and child, neck-deep in water. Just as it looks like they're going to drown, there's the hero. He arrives just in time to rescue them.

The water in the well could easily have been the clock on a nuclear bomb, the rising water replacing the countdown of digital numbers. Same-same.

Time limits put pressure on the hero and they turn the screws on the audience. It's a necessary device, and if you look closely enough, you'll find one in every story.

Now, go back and read those two paragraphs from the AP and see if you recognize the time limit, the hero, and you.

Why you? Simple. You're the audience for this little movie they've cooked up.

Oh, and as for the history thing, I get quite a chuckle reading this global warming stuff. I was forced to study the ice ages and continental drift in school. I should have saved my time. Had I known we could elect politicians to put Pangea back together again, I would have voted for the Green Party a long time ago.

The Day The Earth Got Panned

Hollywood's latest installment of global warming gloom and doom is going up in smoke at the cinema. The Day The Earth Stood Still is getting the response I thought it would.

Best line I've seen so far: "It doesn't seem right that a film with a story line about ecological disaster would be a piece of cinematic garbage." -- Michael Smith.

I don't like to look at reviews before seeing a movie, but I knew there would be no chance I'd waste my money and see this flick.

Click for more on the massacre.

Would They Bail Me Out?

The latest bid for an automaker bailout failed:

A bailout-weary Congress killed a $14 billion package to aid struggling U.S. automakers Thursday night after a partisan dispute over union wage cuts derailed a last-ditch effort to revive the emergency aid before year's end.

Republicans, breaking sharply with President George W. Bush as his term draws to a close, refused to back federal aid for Detroit's beleaguered Big Three without a guarantee that the United Auto Workers would agree by the end of next year to wage cuts to bring their pay into line with Japanese carmakers. The UAW refused to do so before its current contract with the automakers expires in 2011.

I've been hearing from supposedly conservative friends and family, many of whom believe that the bailout should have passed, or that some of the $700 billion from the TARP bailout should now be used for the auto industry.

See how easy it is? Once you start throwing around money, it gets easier and easier to throw around money. Canadians have been watching all of this with great interest, as they too decide if they should throw a few billion bones to their own auto sector. I'm glad some Republican senators in the US said no thanks.

I find it very, very telling that workers' wages is what derailed the auto bailout. Republicans wanted workers to take a pay and/or benefits cut. Their union said forget it. The UAW made no concessions while begging for $14 billion. None. Their president said that they had a contract through 2011, and that was that. Gimme.

That's called greed, arrogance, and stupidity (here's a good piece from Dan Calabrese about these UAW bigshots). I hope the whole works collapses around their ears. It would not bother me one bit if the Big 3 went bye-bye and Honda and Toyota picked up the slack.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not against the "little guy." I just don't know how many "little guys" are producing cars these days. The UAW says their workers only make an average of $29/hour. GM says, sure, but when you total up all of the benefits workers receive, that figure is actually $69/hour. That doesn't sound so little to me.

I have one employee: me. When times are tough, I have to scale back my own wage to satisfy skittish customers. If my rate is too high, people won't pay it. If my rate is too low, they'll think I'm an amateur and won't hire me. In this economy, you have to be flexible and ready to adjust. Constantly.

I cannot have pity for a worker or an industry that says, "My product isn't selling enough, but I deserve every penny I make."

No, you don't. Your costs are too high, you aren't selling enough product to cover them, and now you're broke. Tough luck.

The sad irony is that the people who do adjust, and produce a good product, are being asked to fork over their money to bail out people that shouldn't even be in business. That grates. Grates hard.

Let's say me or a few of my sole proprietor brethren take a hit. If we go down to the Ford plant, stand at the door, and ask some workers for a handout, what do you think they'll do? I'm willing to bet they'll tell me to take a hike, then call security and have me thrown off the lot.

Want a bailout? Buy a bucket.

Heeere's Iggy!

You gotta love these Liberal party guys.

Failed election? Failed coalition? Failed leader? New temporary leader? Polls say Canada isn't in the mood for a coalition? Economy's the most important thing? We need a stable government, where everyone works together?

To hell with that. Charge!

Michael Ignatieff began his tenure as Liberal leader with a blunt challenge to Stephen Harper: change your divisive, ruthlessly partisan ways or we'll bring you down.

Just an hour after being named interim party leader Wednesday, Ignatieff declared he's prepared to topple the minority Conservatives and try to form a coalition government if he's not satisfied with the coming federal budget.

Incidentally, what is it with this guy's name? I'm not making fun of his handle, but I've noticed a subtle shift in the last couple of months. When I first heard of him a few years back, people were pronouncing his named like it's spelled: IG-NAH-TEEF. Lately it's being pronounced IG-NATCH-EFF.

I guess they polled it and found it more hip. Or something.

Here They Come...

By "they," I mean the usual Canadian bureaucrats that lie awake at night worrying about a citizenry that might think and speak for itself.

From the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission website:

The Commission hereby initiates a public proceeding to consider the issues addressed in this notice pertaining to Canadian broadcasting in new media.

As part of the public proceeding, the Commission will hold an oral public hearing commencing on 17 February 2009 at 9:00 a.m. at the Conference Centre, Phase IV, 140 Promenade du Portage, Gatineau, Quebec.

The first time I sent an email was a pretty seminal moment in my life. I remember thinking, "There goes the post office." I thought it was incredible that someone on the other side of the globe (my first email was sent to a person in Israel) was going to read what I had written only a few seconds before.

Then "websites" came around. Cool. Now I could get my news without laying down a dollar or leaving my house. Then "blogs" showed up. The word "blog" sounded lame and stupid until I started reading them and, eventually, writing one of my own.

YouTube showed up, and suddenly we could see friends that we hadn't laid eyes on in years. This was especially handy for me because most of my friends were scattered all over the Earth. It was great hearing their voices again, seeing their laugh, taking a look at the living room over their shoulder, seeing them chug a beer at an all-nighter. They were people again, not just words on a screen.

I always knew the day would come when the government would get involved in all of this. I think the internet caught them by surprise. Like me, they saw the advent of email as something convenient and harmless. 9/11 hadn't happened yet, so email was more or less a pen pal deal amongst friends.

Then came blogs, and people did something weird: they started to talk to strangers. They gave themselves funny names, put up funny pictures, and began to talk about anything and everything. No longer was the internet about inviting friends to a party or bugging your employee while he was on vacation. Now people were booting up and saying "this government sucks," or "let's write a petition," or "they should change that law, it's crazy."

Newspapers reporters hated it. Who were these amateurs butting in on their business?

Trouble was, blogs started to become real news sources. It was The Drudge Report that broke the Lewinsky story, and Drudge has never looked back. According to one media guy, the Drudge Report is on the homepage of most newspaper editors in the country. If Drudge runs a story, you are almost certain to see it on CNN that evening.

Bloggers can thank Drudge for making them something worth reading. Sure, some blogs are lame, and others downright nutty, but there are several that have become the primary source for people to get their news.

Magazines and newspapers finally capitulated by offering their own blog sections on their websites. Some of them suck, but others are pretty good: when Maclean's and Steyn were put through the ringer by the British Columbia Human Rights Tribunal, Andrew Coyne "live blogged" from the BCHRT's room on his Blackberry. Thanks to him and his Maclean's blog, I read the hearing in real time. In fact, the reason the Canadian Human Rights Commission might lose its grip on power is because of bloggers. Big Media didn't pick up the story until way late in the game. It was bloggers that applied the pressure.

When video hit the web world, bureaucrats must have become very nervous. Now people weren't just writing, they were talking. All the time. About anything. To anybody. The public.

Contrary to their election-year propaganda, almost no politician or bureaucrat feels that they work for you. No bureaucrat or government employee sees themselves as a "public servant." They see their job as one of control. When a bureaucrat tells you that you filled in the wrong form, go to the back of the line, pay an extra surcharge, sign here, now get out of my office, NEXT!, they don't feel they're your servant. They believe they're your master. And they're correct, more or less.

The internet changed this. Ten years ago, you had to belong to a special club or blow 4 years in college to get your face on TV. Now anyone can do it, and you don't need a bureaucrat's permission (that's what a broadcasting license means, by the way: permission to speak to people). Even better, you don't have to pay for it. YouTube, Facebook, MySpace, none of them charge any fees and - the important factor - you don't get taxed for doing it.

So here comes the CRTC. Letting the people broadcast their own views and opinions, without being regulated by a government watchdog? It just won't do. It took the CRTC longer than I thought it would, but they've decided to have a look at this crazy thing called "new media." After having a look at it, do you honestly think they'll walk away and do nothing? Not a chance. This is their opportunity to make money, increase their power, and grow their bureaucracy.

The questions they wish to consider during their meeting in February:

I. Defining broadcasting in new media
II. The significance of broadcasting in new media and its impact on the Canadian broadcasting system
III. Are incentives or regulatory measures necessary or desirable for the creation and promotion of Canadian broadcasting content in new media?
IV. Are there issues concerning access to broadcasting content in new media?
V. Other broadcasting or public policy objectives
VI. The appropriateness of the new media exemption orders

Number 5 is the biggee. It's a bureaucrat's catch-all. "Other." Meaning: "Anything."

Freedom of speech is winning a battle against the Canadian Human Rights Commission in Canada. Next up: the CRTC.

These people work for us. They are not our bosses, we are theirs. But only if we can say so.

Sweet Home, Chicago

When corrupt Illinois politicians go, they go big.

From CBS:

A 76-page FBI affidavit alleges that [Illinois Governor] Blagojevich was intercepted on court-authorized wiretaps during the last month conspiring to sell or trade Illinois' U.S. Senate seat vacated by President-elect Barack Obama for financial and other personal benefits for himself and his wife. At various times, in exchange for the Senate appointment, Blagojevich discussed obtaining:

A substantial salary for himself at a either a non-profit foundation or an organization affiliated with labor unions;

Placing his wife on paid corporate boards where he speculated she might garner as much as $150,000 a year;

Promises of campaign funds – including cash up front; and

A cabinet post or ambassadorship for himself.

Among other things.

Blagojevich has been under investigation for years on various charges. The Obama Senate seat merely came along as a bonus. Still, what an idiot. Chicago politicians might think they're untouchable (pardon the pun), but Blagojevich already knew he was under investigation before putting the Senate seat up for sale. And he did it anyway.

Figuring out all of the twists and turns in Illinois' political corruption is a headache, but it essentially boils down to what a Chicago reporter on CNN called, "Pay to play." That is, using your office for personal and financial gain. The reporter phrased it as, "In Illinois, we call it pay to play," which shows that it isn't exactly rare.

One fun fact to remember: Blagojevich's predecessor, former Governor George Ryan, is already in prison on a corruption rap. If convicted, Blagojevich will make it two in a row.

The Chicago way, baby.

The Wrestler - Preview

The Wrestler, starring Mickey Rourke, is getting a lot of early buzz.

In the trailer, you'll notice that the critics are saying this is a comeback for Rouke. It isn't very often that a trailer has "this guy sucked, but now he's good" written all over it. Interesting ploy, trying to tie the main character into the lead actor and attract a fan base that may have written Rourke off long ago.

I'm probably the only person on Earth that thought Mickey Rourke was always a good actor. He was in some dud films, but I never saw him as a talentless hack. It was his off-screen stuff that got him into trouble, and he knows it.

If people want to talk about a comeback for Rourke, I would say Sin City in 2005 more than covered that.

Doodling on the Cave Wall

It took a while, but I found the funniest column of the year. Scary thing is, it might come true. A taste:

I have never believed that there is a secret United Nations plot to take over the US. I have never seen black helicopters hovering in the sky above Montana. But, for the first time in my life, I think the formation of some sort of world government is plausible....

First, it is increasingly clear that the most difficult issues facing national governments are international in nature: there is global warming, a global financial crisis and a “global war on terror”....

The MGI report argues for the creation of a UN high commissioner for counter-terrorist activity, a legally binding climate-change agreement negotiated under the auspices of the UN and the creation of a 50,000-strong UN peacekeeping force. Once countries had pledged troops to this reserve army, the UN would have first call upon them...

So, it seems, everything is in place. For the first time since homo sapiens began to doodle on cave walls, there is an argument, an opportunity and a means to make serious steps towards a world government.

Why do people continue to roll their eyes when I quote Orwell?

My favorite part of the article is when the guy quotes The One. From Mr. Obama:

“When the world’s sole superpower willingly restrains its power and abides by internationally agreed-upon standards of conduct, it sends a message that these are rules worth following.”

This joker never ceases to tickle my funny bone. That's the President the world's whackos have been waiting for, all right. A man who believes the superpower under his charge should restrain its power so thug states and killers can step up the pace on bombing civilians, starving women and children, hanging gays, shooting up hotels, cutting off heads on the internet, selling weapons to terrorists, hijacking ships, and developing nuclear missiles. Turns out, these guys aren't thugs and killers, they're just lonely and in need of a role model. I guess Sweden doesn't cut it.

Still, Obama's right. A nice guy attitude would certainly send a message. It reads something like this: Have fun.

Global government, meet your Leader.

What A Difference a Week Makes

Fantasizes of being PM one week, steps down the week after.

Smooth move on that coalition deal, buddy:

"There is a sense in the party, and certainly in the caucus, that given these new circumstances the new leader needs to be in place before the House resumes," Dion said in press release Monday.

"I agree ... So I have decided to step aside as leader of the Liberal party effective as soon as my successor is duly chosen."

Photo: AFP

Teaching Newspeak

I've always marvelled at George Orwell's prescient warnings. His idea that when you remove words from the language you remove the very means of thought was a theory that I found especially frightening. Orwell:

The purpose of Newspeak was not only to provide a medium of expression for the world-view and mental habits proper to the devotees of Ingsoc, but to make all other modes of thought impossible. It was intended that when Newspeak had been adopted once and for all and Oldspeak forgotten, a heretical thought -- that is, a thought diverging from the principles of Ingsoc -- should be literally unthinkable, at least so far as thought is dependent on words.

From the Telegraph:

Oxford University Press has removed words like "aisle", "bishop", "chapel", "empire" and "monarch" from its Junior Dictionary and replaced them with words like "blog", "broadband" and "celebrity". Dozens of words related to the countryside have also been culled.

The publisher claims the changes have been made to reflect the fact that Britain is a modern, multicultural, multifaith society.

Let this be absolute proof that the politically correct, socialist, anti-Christian intellectuals that run Western education have a clear agenda: like Orwell's leaders of Oceania and writers of the Newspeak dictionary, these intellectual thugs wish to destroy our history and shape thought to match theirs. This has nothing to do with a "multifaith society." If that were the case, "mullah," "rabbi," and "bishop" would find a home in their books. Instead, "bishop" must go.

The thug that runs the children's dictionaries is named Vineeta Gupta. Her bogus reason for removing words like aisle, minister, and saint is that kids have little hands and not every word in the language can be included in the dictionaries. True enough. But look at some of the words finding a home in her children's dictionaries: celebrity, tolerant, vandalism, negotiate, interdependent, creep, citizenship, childhood, conflict, common sense, debate, EU, drought, brainy, boisterous, cautionary tale, bilingual, bungee jumping, committee, compulsory, cope, democratic, allergic, biodegradable, emotion, dyslexic, donate, endangered, Euro.

Nice selection. Get 'em while they're young and teach the kiddies to start thinking interdependently about cautionary tales involving a bilingual dyslexic hoping to gain citizenship in the EU while bungee jumping over an endangered owl farm donated by a creep from Oxford University Press who avoided conflict by consulting a compulsory committee.

Yes, that is better than teaching words like ferret, gerbil, goldfish, guinea pig, hamster, heron, herring, kingfisher, lark, leopard, and lobster, all of which are creatures that have disappeared from the pages of the children's dictionary. And who needs them, anyway, when the big city is the place to be? Those weird creatures from a bygone era and distant planet are joined by insensitive words like sin, nun, devil, monarch, and decade.

"Decade" sticks out like a sore thumb, dovetailing nicely with the newly added word "chronological." Removing the specific "decade" but replacing it with the abstract "chronological" is interesting. I wonder what that's about? If I were to get heavy-duty-Orwell on you, I might theorize that the PC crowd is going to start playing with time as well as words. Orwell: "He who controls the present, controls the past. He who controls the past, controls the future."

I have a phrase for Ms. Gupta. It might not belong in a children's dictionary, but she can find it between her recently deleted words "fern" and "fungus."

The Big Flop

I don't know what it's going to take for these clowns to realize that talk of "force" isn't doing the trick.

The NDP/Liberal/Bloc coalition utterly failed in its attempt to gain power. They learned a painful lesson of politics: real power means something. Wanna-be power doesn't. (By the way, please don't bother me with Canadian political propaganda; only in Canada-speak can a Bloc party "support" a coalition, sign papers saying so, and then not be considered part of the coalition).

Harper proved himself to be the real power in Ottawa by taking the big PM stick, walking into the Governor-General's office and saying, "Suspend it."

She did. No letter required, no need for handshakes and backroom deals. He already had what he needed: the biggest bully pulpit in the country.

Immediately after the announcement that Parliament was closed for the season, the phony coalition of losers went before the cameras and said that Harper still had to go. When asked if anything could change their minds, Stephane Dion said it would take "monumental changes" in Harper's budget plans for Harper to keep his job. When a French reporter said, "What do you mean by monumental changes, no one knows what that means?" Dion could only repeat, "Monumental changes." In other words, even if Harper does whatever Dion wants, it won't be good enough.

Sigh. Dude, you're the one who should be monumentally worried about his job. Your party lost an election 7 weeks ago, and your most recent power play just flopped. When are you going to understand that to voters, transparent power grabs are ugly? Duceppe, the Bloc leader, said this was now about Stephen Harper, and that he should be booted out of office no matter what concessions he made to the "coalition." Harper, you see, called the Bloc "separatists," which is highly insulting even though it's exactly what the Bloc are. Well. So much for doing this coalition deal for the good of all Canadians. Now it's a personal vendetta by three party bosses against the PM. They actually said so. As if we didn't know it before.

The day after the announcement, polls show that the Conservative party would win an outright majority if an election were held today. I don't place too much faith in polls, but I know that politicos love them. This line should freak out the phony coalition:

A Strategic Counsel poll in Friday's Globe and Mail newspaper put the Conservatives ahead of the Liberals 45 to 24 percent, with the New Democrats trailing at 14 percent.

This compares with the October 14 electoral result of 37.6 percent for the Conservatives, 26.2 percent for the Liberals and 18.2 percent for the New Democrats.

Yet numbers like these still can't convince some people that threats and extortion aren't the way to go. From the CP: The [Canadian Auto Workers] union leader says there's a "battle to wage" and that he's "damned pissed off."

"The only way that we can force this government to change direction is to build a coalition."

What does the man mean by "change direction?" Why, money, of course. He wants a "stimulus package," which is a fancy way for saying "Gimme." How's he going to get it? By force.

Nobody learned anything out of this mess except the Canadian people. They now know that the Liberal and NDP parties do not have a platform outside of their desire for power and their hatred for Stephen Harper. Oh, and their contempt for the ballot box.

Because Hollywood Is Full of Fresh Ideas

When's the last time you saw a great, new, fresh horror flick?

All right, stop thinking so hard or you'll pass out.

Anyway, this trailer sums up the absolute vacuum that is the horror genre in Hollywood. The trailer below shows just how shameless producers are these days: four kids...in a car...go to a cabin in the woods...they're laughing and happy...the place is deserted...and they're going to die.

You'll never guess who the bad guy is. Never.

I told someone they were releasing this movie, and their first question was a matter-of-fact, "Why?"

The Calm, Cool Tellers of Truth

You know those Christmas shows that the news programs do, where all of the reporters and anchors sit around being nice to each other and yucking it up? Then they cut to the control room, where the people are wearing Santa hats and smiling with holiday cheer?

This isn't one of them.

Warning: more foul language from excited media-types. This time it's a director in the control room, who needs to switch to decaf. I love the "I believed you last time!" line. I'm not sure the location reporter will dig the epithet aimed her way, but I'm sure she's glad to know what the guy really thinks.

The Sky Is Falling. So Let's Hold It Up

You have every right in the world to be scared: the media and the government are telling you every day that the Depression is right around the corner.

Lately it's the auto sector that's screaming for cash. I don't get it. Cash for what? If people aren't buying a lot of cars right now, then the industry is going to have to cut back. It's just the way the world works. Or used to.

I know, I know, a lot of people might be put out of work, but I don't understand what good it does to give billions of dollars to a failing industry. It seems odd to me that the way keep auto jobs going is to lend companies money so they can build a lot of unwanted cars, drop them in Lake Ontario, and build more unwanted cars.

I don't know any women that have a whale bone corset. Then again, I haven't met any Canadian whalers, either. Why? Because the Canadian whaling business is dead. Has been for a long time. But no one is going around saying we need to bail out whalers. The lesson: whaling died and whalers went on to do other things.

I've been listening to the news stories saying that there aren't any jobs out there, and the ones that are around are disappearing fast. So today I went on craiglist.org and workopolis.com and I saw all kinds of jobs in the Toronto area alone. Hundred and hundreds of them. A taste:

Looking for professional security officers for a high profile client in the Mississauga Area. Compensation to start at $15.43/hour.

Firefighters wanted across GTA, starting salary of $45,500 rising to $49,950 after 6 months. You must be 18 years of age or older and physically fit.

The Toronto People Bank Office is currently recruiting for our client in the banking industry who is seeking Machine Operators. $10.43.

Production Line Worker. Compensation: $12.35.

Now Hiring, Bakery Mixers Wanted! Wage: $10.80-$11.88/hr.

Wrapping homes in plastic on new construction sites. Must be comfortable working out side in cold weather. $15.00.

Manpower Banking is currently looking for Settlements Officers to work with Fixed Income accounts in one of Canada's largest banks. $19 - $21 per hour.

How about Vancouver:

Entry Level Market Research Analyst Position. $35,000 - $45,000.

Cooks. For Health care kitchen.Good pay & benefits.F/t and P/T day shifts. $16-$20p.h.

We are in search of hosts, servers and baristas. Willing to train those with the right attitude. Compensation: Extended Health and Dental Benefits.

Busy Itallian restaurant needs to hire one part time dishwasher. $10 / hr + tips daily + free meals.

We're looking for a carpenter helper immediately, for residential construction. Will pay $15pr/hr cash.

What's wrong with any of those jobs? Nothing, as far as I can tell. Besides, if they suck, you can quit and do something else because there's lots more where they came from.

Maybe now you'll begin to see why I hate the idea of taxing people more and handing that money out in the form of cheques and bailouts. Here's the thing: if you tax the construction company more, the first thing they are going to do is cut back on those "need carpenter helper" ads. Poof. There goes a job, and here comes another welfare request.

Raising taxes also takes money out of people's pockets, money that could have been spent on new houses, which lead to even more "need carpenter helper" ads. The carpenter helper gets paid, eats at an Italian restaurant, where the server picks up the plates and hands them to the dishwasher. Round and round we go, and not a bureaucrat in sight. The more the government becomes involved in fixing an economy they didn't know was broken in the first place, the faster the economy will tank.

If it's even tanking. Berry's Common Sense Economics Guide tells me to always believe what is in front of my face before buying anything the TV says. The news guys can quote numbers and the government creeps can try to scare me, but the want ads tell a different story: if you're willing to try something new and step out of your comfort zone, there is a job out there for you. It just depends if you think the job's "beneath you," or "not up your alley."

If it's pride holding you back, then there's nothing anyone will ever be able to do for you. If it's geography holding you back, then you have to remember what you are: a Canadian. Two hundred years ago, your house was a forest and your street was a creek. People had to come here, tear the forest down, and drain the swamp where your Ford plant now stands. The people who did these things came here because they needed work. They went where the money was. If they'd sat in a London alley waiting for a handout, they'd have starved to death.

Welfare and bailouts can wear you down and turn you into less than you were. Getting off your butt, taking a risk, learning something new, and going where you need to go can give you your life back.

There is now no excuse whatsoever for not being able to find work. The internet has made job searches a literal joke. You can send out 100 resumes to 100 different companies in under an hour. If you write a decent cover letter and send your resume to 50 places, I'll bet you will land something. You just have to do it.

If you want to.

Anonyma - Preview

"Better a Russkie on the belly than a bullet in the brain."

That was a cynical line that made the rounds in Germany during the closing days of WWII. German women learned quickly: rape or death.

Antony Beevor is one of the only historians I have read who looks closely into the mass-rape of Eastern European and German women by vengeful Russian soldiers. Most historians mention the rapes in passing, if at all, and then skip to the part where Hitler shoots himself.

The fall of Germany is mainly pitched as a race to the finish line, the Russians coming from the east, the US and British forces from the west. In most books, there is a great big gaping hole: the torture, abuse, and war crimes committed against the German citizenry by Russian forces.

In these days of great emotion for over 4000 troops lost in Iraq, it is simply staggering to recall the Total War that was WWII. The Russians appreciated the Total War concept with gusto. The battle for Germany resulted in hundreds of thousands of deaths in the space of months. The Battle of Berlin saw the deaths of tens of thousands in only days.

Seiburg, 1945
Stalin demanded that Russia be the first to conquer Berlin. He saw the end-game of WWII as an opportunity to secure as much geography as the Russians could get their hands on before the British and Americans showed up. Berlin was the prize of the war. It did not matter how many Russian soldiers died in this effort, nor did it matter how many German civilians were slaughtered. The Russian soldier had a free pass to commit the most heinous of war crimes, and they did, especially against women.

Why doesn't this receive much press in the history books? For one thing, the Russians won. That absolves a lot of guilt. Winners write history. Another reason is that shortly after WWII, Eastern Europe was cut off from the rest of the world. Many of these women did not and could not tell their stories. Certainly the Russians weren't going to tell them for them. And finally, a touch of payback: feeling sorry for German women seems somehow anathema since the Germans themselves were the perpetrators of so much misery and murder.

There's a new film being released about the mass rape of German women. It's called Anonyma - Eine Frau In Berlin [A Woman in Berlin]. It's a story that needs to be told, and frankly I'm pleasantly surprised to find it being put on film so it can reach a wide audience. One cautionary note, though: I saw a preview for it, and it looks like a Hollywood love story has been added to the film. This always makes me nervous. Love stories can add something, or they can completely tank a film. We'll see how it goes.

The 3 Big Pigs Find a Groupie

The 3 Big Pigs apparently think it isn't enough to steal power for themselves. It looks like they believe a woman who didn't even win her own seat in the October election should get some power, too.

Oh. You thought this was about what's good for the public? Silly you.

From CTV:

Green Party Leader Elizabeth May confirmed Tuesday that she has had discussions with Liberal Leader Stephane Dion about playing a role in a potential coalition government, which her party supports.

At a press conference in Ottawa, she suggested she would be open to the possibility of becoming a senator or cabinet minister, but the discussions with Dion were not specific.

That's nice, isn't it? A leftist sees all of the other leftists preparing to divide Canada amongst themselves, so she drops in for a slice. A cabinet minister, a senator, whatever: just make it a decent job paid for by the Canadian taxpayers. The CTV post goes on to note that May says a senate seat will help her party shape the direction of Canada. Maybe it will, Lizzie, but that's why you're supposed to win your election first.

May gets this coup better than most Canadians and any of the media: it's power-grab time. If she can get a government job by skipping pesky things like voters, all the better for her.

Stephane Dion (the guy who was stepping down as Liberal leader until he and the other 3 Big Pigs decided he should become Prime Minister) has confirmed that he held talks with Elizabeth May. When these political con artists stick together, they really stick together.

For the record, the Green Party did not win a single seat in the last election. May, as their leader, is a complete failure. I'd feel sorry for her, except she's now turned into a shameless groupie, begging for a job from these people only because they didn't fail quite as spectacularly as she did.

But hey, it's all about non-partisanship (unless you're trying to tear down the Conservative Party). So why not give the guys from the Radical Marijuana Party a shot? They won a few votes in the past election, and they really put the word 'party' into politics. While we're at it, give a job to a couple of guys from the Marxist-Leninist Party. They won 8753 votes. That has to be worth something to the 3 Non-Partisan Pigs. And why not a person from the Christian Heritage Par...oops. That would be taking it just a tad too far, wouldn't it?

Canada. Wake up.

Canada (and Quebec)

I took a spin around some websites to see how the Liberal/NDP/Bloc coup is going down. Quite well, depending where you look.

Here's a howler from a lefty guy (he calls himself BCer in Toronto), but it exposes what a scam this all is.

What an amazing press conference yesterday with Stéphane Dion, Jack Layton and Gilles Duceppe. Three political leaders that disagree on a lot setting it all aside to work for Canada (and Quebecers), agreeing to form a coalition government that could well change the face of Canadian politics forever.

Dude: Quebec is in Canada.

Man On Wire - Review

Director: James Marsh
Starring: Philippe Petit
Runtime: 1 hr 42 minutes

In 1974, the World Trade Center's Twin Towers had just been erected. Across the Atlantic, a young Frenchman named Philippe Petit watched with eager anticipation. He picked August 7th of that year to string a wire from the top of both towers and stroll across it.

When you see him in action, it really does look that easy.

This documentary takes a look at what went into the stunt. Petit had already been arrested (and quickly released) for walking above the bridge in Sydney Harbour, and strolling across a wire atop Notre Dame Cathedral. But when he saw the twin towers in the news, he knew he had to walk between them. It became a dream and an obsession.

It's a great story. A few young friends, a tightrope artist, and some cash for plane tickets and steel cable. That's it. No engineers, no publicity, no celebrity. That would come later. Before August 7th, 1974, Petit was a virtual nobody and besides, he couldn't ask to walk from tower to tower. There wasn't a chance anyone would let him. He just did it.

The film uses old stock footage, some recreations, and a lot of interviews. Petit's interviews are very compelling and you can easily see how he could talk his friends into helping him with what must have looked like suicide. He's an older man in the interviews, but his passion and energy are still alive in his eyes and his voice. He loves the tightrope, and he loves talking about it.

I don't want to spoil the story by giving away the plan. It's not the stuff that secret agent books are made of, but it's a better story for it. There's some cloak-and-dagger involved in getting to the top of the towers in order to string Petit's tightrope, but mostly it's a story of boldness and balls.

The stock footage is good, but it's rare. He performed his feat before 24 hour news, camcorders, and YouTube. Mostly the film uses old photographs that a friend of Petit's took while he was on the wire. Petit ended up walking back and forth about eight times, while the cops waited for him to cool it. He spent 45 minutes up there, walking, kneeling, lying down, and walking some more, all on a wire as thick as your thumb. Incredible. There's one great photograph with Petit standing on the wire, 442 meters above the ground, while over his shoulder the cops are leaning against a post, safe and sound, waiting.

The cops were no dummies. I liked one old interview, where the cop said he realized that he was watching history in the making and seeing something no one else would probably see in their lifetime. The movie owes its title to a New York cop, too. Being cops, they wrote Petit's infraction down as simply "Man on wire" in the police report. That's a great title, and it is a great movie.


One thing did bother me about the film. There is no mention of the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, which destroyed the towers in hardly more time than it took Petit to walk between them. Though I hesitate to look at other reviewers before I write my bit, I did this time. As I figured, all of them said it was best that the film left 9/11 out of it. To which I ask: then why are you bringing up its absence in your review? Answer: they thought it was conspicuous by its absence, too.

9/11 screams out as a question for Petit, who I'm sure would have a response. Not for political reasons, but for personal ones. Surely a man who obsessed about the WTC for years, and risked his life to realize a dream, must have had some interesting thoughts about how he felt when he watched the towers crumble. The film spends a lot of time on how he felt when watching them being built. Why nothing when they were destroyed? But then, maybe that's just me. I prefer answers instead of hearing things draped in artsy-talk like "the towers are still alive in our dreams," or some such.

I think most reviewers, Roger Ebert most of all, are very uncomfortable with films (if you can find any) that deal with 9/11. That date is a hole in history for most mediums, whether film, television, or art. Movie reviewers like it that way. Filmmakers seem to share their feelings.

Photos: Yahoo Movies & NY Times

Smackdown, Carleton Style

From the National Post, vis a vis that vote last week where Carleton wanted to stop raising money for cystic fibrosis because it isn't "inclusive" enough:

Public outcry against the decision, both on campus and around the country, pressured the student association to reconsider its previous decision and convene an emergency meeting.

Two of the councillors involved in drawing up and approving the motion resigned their seats at the boisterous meeting Monday.

Petitions calling for the impeachment of council president Brittany Smyth and other council members were tabled.

They ended up rescinding last week's vote. Now that's what I call standing up for your convictions.

Note: how did I know their council president would be named Brittany?

Kneel Before the Queen of Canada

The Three Big Pigs of Canadian politics have finally cast the dice.

From the Globe and Mail:

The three opposition leaders are drafting a letter to Governor-General Michaëlle Jean in which they formally call on her to allow the formation of a coalition government if the Conservatives are defeated in the House of Commons next week.

Opposition sources said Monday the drafting of the letter is at an advanced stage, and will be made public with the agreement of the leadership of the Liberal Party, the New Democratic Party and the Bloc Québécois.

So the pigs have proved what they are. Who needs democracy when you can simply rule by fiat?

You may be asking how they can do this. Perhaps you didn't read my post from a few days back. You see, to seize power in Canada, you do not have to hold an election. You can simply write a letter to the Governor General and let her decide who should be running the country. She can tell them to take a hike if she wants to, or she can wave her magic wand and proclaim their coalition the new boffo leadership party of Canada. Just like that.

Her Royal Highness
Michaëlle Jean is Canada's Governor General. She's never been elected to anything in her life. Like her predecessor, she's a former CBC TV reporter, making her more than able to decide the fate of Canada's leadership and call herself Canada's Commander-in-Chief (lemme guess: you didn't know that one either. But yes, the Governor General is called the Commander-in-Chief. Discuss amongst yourselves). She was appointed by Paul Martin, the former Liberal PM.

She has been accused of being a past Quebec separatist sympathizer, having attended a party with separatists at which she toasted, "Yes, one doesn't give independence, one takes it." She later said she was referring to Haiti, though the person who initiated the toast was referring to Martinique and Quebec. When asked which way she voted on the Quebec referendum of 1995, she punted the questions to the Paul Martin PM's office and kept her mouth shut. Strange, huh? Asking how someone voted can only be met with one of three answers: yes, no, or didn't. Jean refused to say.

She renounced her French citizenship (she was born in Haiti, but married a French guy) upon becoming Governor General in 2005. Her doc-filmmaker husband has been friends with Quebec separatists for years. In one book he wrote, "So, a sovereign Quebec? An independent Quebec. Yes, I applaud with both hands and I promise to attend all the St-Jean Baptiste Day parades." CTV says this appears to show his support for Quebec independence. Yes, and Niagara Falls appears wet.

So we have a group of people writing a letter to the Governor General, asking her to give them Canada's halls of power. One of the people writing the letter is a member of the party that gave her the cushy Governor General post, and another is a guy from a party with whom she may have political sympathies.

The response from Canada's press? More of the same: "Ho-hum. Nothing to see here."

People that lost an election are now trying to achieve power by seeking it from an unelected news reporter. Perhaps I'm the only one that sees this as a big deal. If that's the case, we're in big trouble.