The Real Reason That Ann Coulter Should Speak At Every Single University In Canada...

TheKidsAre
AlrightVille

_____________

Update: For those arriving from Bill Tieleman's excellent piece in The Tyee, please see follow-up posts on Ms. Coulter's subsequent Canadian Tour Stops in Ottawa and Calgary here and here.
_____________

The following exchange between conservative comedian Ann Coulter and a young university student named Fatima Al-Dhaher that took place in London Ontario the day before Ms. Coulter's speech at the U of Ottawa was cancelled for apparent 'security' reasons fully demonstrates precisely how free speech and open discourse actually work.

Not to mention self-ridicule.


....Fatima Al-Dhaher, a political science student from London (Ontario), rose and spoke about comments Coulter made after the 9/11 terrorist attacks.

The firebrand Republican had suggested Muslim countries be invaded, their leaders killed and all Muslims converted to Christianity. She later suggested Muslims denied air travel take “flying carpets” instead.

“As a 17-year-old student of this university, Muslim, should I be converted to Christianity? Second of all, since I don’t have a magic carpet, what other modes do you suggest,” Al-Dhaher said to loud and sustained applause.

“I thought it was just American public schools that produced ignorant people,” Coulter replied, prompting her own round of applause.

Coulter then noted many Japanese were converted to Christianity after the Second World War and “we haven’t heard a peep out of them.”

To shouts of “Answer the question,” Coulter finally replied “What mode of transportation? Take a camel.”....


OK?

_____
Original link source: The Cynical One.



.

Translink's New Math: Addition By Subtraction

HeadsTheyWin
TailsWeLoseVille


The Party's over, the Circus has left town, and Translink is hiking monthly transit passes.

A lot.

Case in point, One Zone passes are going from $73 up to $81 dollars a month on April Fools Day.

Which means that if you don't have a bridge to cross and you are trying to do the right thing every single day, you will be paying almost a hundred bucks extra to be a good citizen next year.

And if you are a family of four you'll be paying four times as much.

Which, especially if you are a family of modest income, is a pretty significant increase.

Except, according to Translink spokesthingy Drew Snider, and occasional blogger, it is not.

An increase I mean.

Because, according to the good Mr. Snider at least, it is actually a 'decrease' on the 'discount' that you receive every time you buy a monthly pass.

Sheesh.

****

I'm telling you.....

There oughta be a special place in the sloughs of Sliverville for shillophants that screw people over with their own money.

After all, it is the good people of British Columbia, the people who are paying that 'decrease' on the 'discount', who also pay the good Mr. Snider's salary is it not?

.

The Long Division Project: Crap In Our Parks

There'sNoMath
LikeOldMathVille

Well.

Whadd'ya know.

The latest cut to the British Columbia Parks Budget is, apparently, something in the order of $5 million dollars.

Which comes on top of cuts from last year that, according to the good folks at the 'Outdoor Recreation Council' at least, led to crap being spread all over at least one Park.

Literally (careful, pdf; see pg 4):

"How can we be proud of the glories of Garabaldi Park......when half the toilets were closed last summer (due to cutbacks), as a result of which campers were defecating around their campsites instead."



So, given all that, what's the Minister-In-Charge-Of-Motel-Sixes, Mr. Barry Penner to do?

Why, raise camping fees of course.

Rob Shaw, of the Victoria Times Colonist had that story on the weekend:

....The price to stay overnight in one of B.C.'s provincial park campgrounds will rise as much as $6 a night, depending on the location, leading to a nightly bill of as much as $30.

B.C.'s Environment Minister Barry Penner said that without the increase, he would have had to reduce or possibly close services at parks to pay for higher operating costs and compensate for slumping government revenues.

"I came to the conclusion we'd have to ask the people who benefit by using the parks to contribute more to the cost of operating them," said Penner.

But here's the thing.

If you take the latest estimated cost of the new roof on BC Place (approximately $450 million), which is designed to make a kinda/sorta professional football team and an almost, but not-quite, professional soccer team happy for 30 days a year, tops, and then divide that amount by the cost of the latest cutback that will affect literally hundreds of thousands of British Columbia citizens that have ALREADY paid for their parks.....

Well.....

It means that you could get rid of the cutback, right now for ninety years.

Yes, ninety years.

Which is a very long time indeed.

****

Of course, if you first multiplied the Parks cutback by 10 and then divided the total by the cost of the stupid roof atop the marshmallow we could have massive improvements to the Parks every single year for nine straight years instead.

And can you just imagine what would happen when all that new infrastructure started to entice gazillions of out-of province tourists, not to mention thousands and thousand of new British Columbians, into our beautiful wilderness year after year after year.

Heckfire!

A real plan like that, instead of that silly roof, would mean that by the time littler e., who is currently in grade 5 and doing a lot of long division these days, reaches voting age in 2019 we would have a parks system so fine that it would give her a reason to proudly vote for politicians whose policies put people first.

Wouldn't that be amazing?



_____
Hey! I have an idea....Why don't we charge David Braley and friends a user fee of say, $5 million dollars everytime he uses the useless marsmallow....After all, isn't that a perfectly reasonably extension of the Minister's 'logic'?
Original Link Source: Former Lotuslandian and current Desert Eater, Ian Reid.


.

Healthcare Reform In The Excited States....The Crux Of The Matter

PropIsProp
NoMatterWhatVille

There was a point, just before the 2004 election down south, where I got into a couple of pretty big online fights about Michael Moore's soon-to-be-released Farenheit 9/11.

And one of those tussles was on an old Whiskey Bar thread, where, overall, the level of discourse on all things political was just about the best that I've ever come across, before or since.

Anyway, the fights started when I had the temerity to suggest that I didn't think that it was necessarity such a good thing that so many folks were pinning their hopes on Mr. Moore's mostly fact-based send-up of all things Rovian.

Why?

Well it was that modifier 'mostly', which means that no matter how you slice it, Mr. Moore's movie was propaganda.

And I truly believe that all prop, either 'bad' or 'good', is just that.

Which is not a good thing, because all prop muddies the waters.

And muddied waters make always make it harder for folks to call demonstrable falsehoods precisely what they are.

****

I've had that 'all-prop-is-bad-prop' feeling about the American Healthcare Reform fight for quite awhile now.

Please don't misunderstand me.

Because I fully understand that pushback against toxic astroturf and hidden, big money-backed corporate agendas is always required.

It's just that I think that we all lose when that pushback has even a sliver of prop in it.

Why?

Because then it can be easily discredited.

Which leads to a rise in false equivalencies that generates a jaded public that thinks everybody lies.

So.......

With that in mind, I thought I'd proffer the best nugget of no-prop reasoning that I've come across so far that gives insight into why last night's Congressional vote on the Healthcare Reform Bill was so important.

It's from Paul Krugman, writing in last Friday's NY Times, and it describes, as near as I can figure it, exactly what this bill has been designed to do, and why:

"Americans overwhelmingly favor guaranteeing coverage to those with pre-existing conditions — but you can’t do that without pursuing broad-based reform. To make insurance affordable, you have to keep currently healthy people in the risk pool, which means requiring that everyone or almost everyone buy coverage. You can’t do that without financial aid to lower-income Americans so that they can pay the premiums. So you end up with a tripartite policy: elimination of medical discrimination, mandated coverage, and premium subsidies...."


Of course, a lot of folks are going to be screaming bloody murder about the last two aspects of that policy in the coming days, weeks, and months during the run-up to the midterm elections.

And they will be screaming from both sides of the issue, using, unfortunately, prop to support their points of view (ie. prop to support a public option and prop to denounce creeping socialism).

Which is too bad, because that will just muddy the waters even further.

OK?



.

If There Really Is A Goddess....

AllTheInflammation
ThatFitsVille


....What the heckfire was she thinking when she invented wisdom teeth?

(especially unerupted ones that sit sideways with roots longer than infinity for 30 years or so before they decide to get uppity)


_____
FYI: Paul Willcocks has a great piece up on how, in the end, it is the policies, not the policy makers, that matter....And while I very much agree with most of what he has to say, I, unlike Paul, still believe that intent matters, especially when that intent is backed by hidden agendas and/or driven purely by political expediency...

.

Evil Is No Longer Banal

DemonstrableFalsehoods
AreHimVille


Instead, it would appear to be Rovian.

Pure and simple.

Because, according to Mr. Karl Rove at least, endless war is really all about Winnin' and Losin' and nothing else as he tells NPR's Terry Gross in a wide-ranging and extremely illuminating* interview on Fresh Air @ 24':30''.


______
*in a very, very dark and distressing way, of course.

.

The Real Circus Outside My Window

AllTheFun
ThatFitsVille

Regular readers may recall how I derided the empty, highly securitized parking lots outside my window that were reserved for a couple of white SUVs and a lonely tour-bus from Scranton PA for the duration of the Corp-Fuelled Hype-Fest just past.

Well.....

Now that the real amateur athletic event has begun (ie. the one where the competitors are not paid big money for winning medals) the lot outside my window is filled to bursting.

With yellow buses.

And school kids running everywhere.

It's a fine sight to see, indeed.

.

Our Busking Year, Weeks 8/9...Doobie Doobie Doobie (not wah)

CoverThis
OriginalsAren'tUs(Today)Ville

I have no idea how, or even why, it happened but these were the weeks when people suddenly started filming us, taking our pictures (and even drawing a picture of E.), and started giving us money.

Inspired by the fine work of our friend Paul's family and friends, we doubled down and sent all of the latter to Habitat for Humanity.


______
O.Y.O.B.D, Weeks Eight and Nine:
Venues: Sunset Beach in the sun and Trout Lake in the almost sun
Set List: A lot of stuff in the Key of A these days including The Weight, This Year (Darnielle/Mountain Goats) and a big fan favourite, Roger Miller's 'King of The Road'.
Number of Not-So Bad, Non-Evil Green Empire Coffees: Excellent Americano from Prego on lower Hornby and a couple of mediocre drips from the Blenz near the Commercial Skytrain (but the kids with the two dollar bill from their own busking adventures were cool.
Number of strings broken: Aaaaarrrgggghhh...I'm down to my last high e...Nobody told me the most expensive thing about this thing would be guitar strings....Gotta learn to use my thumb more.
Working on: A medley/combo where JuNu's 'Into The Sunshine' slides into The Frames' 'Star Star'
New Discoveries: When Greg Kot mentioned that one of the guy's who did the tribute to Kerouac's 'Big Sur' sings with a 'downward slope', I wasn't sure what the heckfire he was talking about at first....But then I listened to California Zephyr a few times and I get it now (and I'm even trying it, especially as a counterpoint to the soaring of Bigger E.).....Speaking of Mr. Kot, who is one of my favorite pop music critics (still goin')...why doesn't he and his cover kids like Julia Nunes mentioned above....After all, this is a kid whose originals, with absolutely no/zero high-priced A&R-type promotion behind them, are able to garner a couple of million hits all on their own.

Let's Go Busking!

AllTheTunesThatFit
DIYVille

It's Week #10.....(Sun Mar 7th, 2010) our 'Year of Busking (not-so) Dangerously'....

And if the weather holds it's going to be a doubleheader!

Front end.........As far North as you can go and still be in Lotusland proper - New Brighton Park not far from the PNE/Racetrack.....hopefully be there by around 1 o'clock.

Back end....Returning for homefield advantage (ie. where people give us money!) to Trout Lake in the East End....hopefully be there by around 3 o'clock.

(and it goes without saying that we will be in the dog friendly portions of those venues - ha!)

_____
In case anybody was wondering: Latest video, from last week, is now up.
Faces we'd like to see in the crowd.....Well, all the usual suspects on the sidebar (you know who you are!) and how about our good friend Great Aunty Bertha!


.

Saturday Selections...Who's Blogging Who In Lotusland

AllThePixelsThatFit
New(ish)MediaWithoutBordersVille

Listen.

If you're not reading Northern Insights, you're really missing a lot.

It's a blog written by North Vancouver's Norman Farrell.

I first became aware of Norman's writing because of his fine and thoughtful comments at other people's sites.

But it turns out that his own place is a castle of erudition filled to bursting with interesting and important topics, both local and far reaching.

A couple of recent examples of Lotusland-O-Centric posts include Norman's coverage of a post-Budget Blogger call with the NDP's finance critic Bruce Ralston and his summing up of a Sports Illustrated article that deals with the healing of a rift between Brian Burke and Kevin Lowe.

But my favorite of Norman's recent offerings is a post much more far afield about movie critic and blogger extraordinare Roger Ebert. It's a kinghell bit of writing.

Northern Insights - go have a look.

You won't be sorry.

.

Is This The First Day Of The Rest Of Canada's Newspapers' Lives?

TheProvinceWasOnceABroadsheet?
WhoKnewVille


Why?

Because it's deadline day for bids on the CanWest Publishing Empire:

TODAY is the deadline for offers to purchase the assets of Canwest Limited Partnership, the Canwest unit that owns digital media and newspapers across the country, in a separate court-supervised process.

The Big Five Canadian banks, which are Canwest's senior secured lenders, have put in an initial bid of about $925 million to get the auction going. But they hope to get a higher offer of more than $1 billion so they can get their loans repaid.

Several bidders have emerged, including three Canadian media veterans, headlined by former Canadian senator Jerry Grafstein, who launched a bid in January for three papers -- the National Post, the Montreal Gazette and the Ottawa Citizen.

Under that offer, Canwest would have to find someone else to buy the rest of its newspaper operations, which include the Edmonton Journal, Victoria Times-Colonist and two Vancouver dailies, the Sun and Province.

Victoria, B.C.-based Black Press, the small-market newspaper chain headed by businessman David Black, is also reported to be in the running.

Another B.C. publishing outfit, community newspaper publisher Glacier Media Inc., is reported to be in the hunt for Canwest's smaller papers, as is a group led by National Post chief executive Paul Godfrey.

Personally, I hope that moguls like Mr David (notLord)Black don't win.

Why?

Because I think that the best thing that could happen to this country would be a piecemeal sell-off of the papers.

I mean - can you imagine if the Province and the VSun actually started competing with each other for stories in this town?

And if the Victoria Times-Colonist could really become truly independent.

Heckfire - I say get rid of the hyphen altogether and have both a Times and a Colonist to go after all those advertisers that Mr. NotConrad has stuffed into the middle pages of his suburban wasteland rags.

______
Please note: The wire copy-assisted piece pasted in above ran in the decidedly not CanWestian Winnipeg Free Press.....We promise to pay them back for taking the entire thing this one time, by buying real dead tree editions whenever possible.

.

Oh-Me-Oh-Mi-Oh....

...Where Did The Heck Did The Time Go?

Because, today, littler e. turns eleven.

Oh boy.


.

Who Really Decided To Withold the HST Bribe?

PayUs
PayUsOurMoneyDown(RightNow)Ville


Yesterday, I suggested, based on comments made by British Columbia Finance Minister Colin Hansen at the time, that Prime Minister Stephen Harper was withholding $500 million dollars of the HST Bribe that he owes us.

Well.

In his follow-up, in-depth piece in The Tyee Will McMcMartin reminded us that just last September Mr. Hansen stated, in no uncertain terms, that the decisions on how the bribe would be paid were completely up to him and his.

So.

Which is it Mr. Hansen?

****

Why is this important?

Well, because, as Mr. McMartin makes clear using Mr. Hansen's own numbers, the deferral will cost us at least $75 million in interest charges alone.

Thus, if Mr. Hansen, or anyone else in the government of Mr. Gordon Campbell, had a hand in this deferral for later politial gain (ie. so that the future arrival of the $500 million suddenly, magically decreases the deficit just before the next election) it means that they just screwed over the citizenry of British Columbia.

It also means that they did it on purpose, with malice-aforethought, for no good reason at all.

Therefore, an action such as this would not be a mere 'mistake' due to ineptitude.

Instead, in my opinion at least, it would be nothing short of treason committed against all the people of this province.*

No matter who they voted for.

OK?


_____
*Or, put another way, the money lost for no good reason at all could have been used to fully fund 15 programs like the single, solitary small-scale early intervention program for autistic children that was axed by the government of Gordon Campbell last fall due to, apparenly, a lack of funds that kept it from being applied univerally and 'equitably'.
And thanks to our good friend KootCoot for bringing Mr. McMartin's Tyee piece to our attention; our initial post was based on an earlier Tyee piece by Andrew MacLeod.

.

Hey Mr. Harper....Pay Gordo His Bribe!

PayHim
PayHimMyMoneyDownVille

______

Please see the Update to this story here, wherein we discuss the not inconcievable possibility, based on past statements by the Finance Minister Gordon Hansen, that the witholding of the bribe may have been instigated by the government of British Columbia itself.
______

Remember back when Gordon Campbell sprang the HST on us out of nowhere after telling us repeatedly, over and over and over again, that his government was not considering any such thing?

And remember how, to much fanfare he then told us that Stephen Harper was going to help pay for it by shipping us 320,000,000 red mittens at five bucks-a-pop (either right or left).

Which means that the real pricetag of the bribe was $1,600,000,000.00.

Of our own money.

****

Now.

The 2009/10 installment of Stephen Harper's bribe that was to be paid to Gordon Campbell so that the latter could then screw British Columbians over royally with their own money was, allegedly, $750,000,000.00.

Except, it turns out that we have received is actually received so far is nowhere near that amount.

Andrew MacLeod had that story yesterday in The Tyee in his initial report on Mr. Campbell's latest budget that, based on past performance, is very likely not even worth the pixels it was printed on.

Here is Mr. MacLeod's take on how and why this year's installment of the bribe is going to fall way, way short:

".....Even since the September budget update (of Gordon Campbell), corporate income tax is off by a further $252 million, natural gas royalties by $190 million and HST rebates have added another $227 million expense. On the plus side the province is picking up $311 million more in transfers from the federal government and this fiscal year will include $395 million of the $1.6 billion in federal compensation for adopting the HST.

The documents also show that the province received $250 million of that compensation in 2009-2010, instead of the planned $750 million. The shift was because of the federal government's cash flow, said Hansen. “It's not something we have unilateral say over.”.....

How do you like them mittens.....errrrrr...apples?



____
And for those wondering.....There is absolutely no evidence, or even a shred of truth to the most scurrilous non-existent rumour, whatsoever, that the good premier has been taking rHRTGH*






(*aka recombinant Human Red Thumb Growth Hormone)
.

If You Want Real News On The BC Budget....

AllTheBrownEnvelopes
ThatFitVille


...Ignore the PAB-lumized codswallop and go straight to the source - PublicEye.

Sean Holman, who is in the lock-up as we type, says he'll start the cavalcade of coverage at about 3pm Lotusland time.

.