Interesting fact from McLeans: In 1990 the total of all government spending by GDP was 48.5% in Canada. In 2001, it was something like 41-42%. Now it is 38.5%. A very good trend. It’s not far above the US ratio.
Odd question about The Economist: I don’t know why it is so sure that the oil finds in Brazil will hinder real government reform by insulating the governments with winfall revenues there. After all, some of the most important economic and structural reforms in Britain under Thatcher came shortly after the North Sea oil discoveries which had coincided with two of the biggest oil shocks in world history.
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Mr. Obama’s reverend Mr. Wright has called his latest spectacle the Redemption Tour. That would suggest that somehow he has something to apologize for or that he feels he needs to be forgiven. Listen to him talk: he absolutely has no belief that he has done anything wrong and I am sure that if he said he felt that he needed to be forgiven or redeemed, we would know that it was a lie. At least he is being honest in that he does not feel he has done anything wrong at all. One is left with puzzlement as to why he would call this the Redemption Tour.
I wonder if Rev. Wright’s brilliant comebacks with regards to 9-11 incidents being chickens coming home to roost would be something for which to ask forgiveness. He quoted the Iraqi foreign minister. The one for Sadam Hussein’s government? The one for which we haven’t heard the whole sermon? We know the whole sermon is worse than the excerpt. What about the one in which he says America is a terrorist state and got what it deserved? If I am Mr. Obama, I’m thinking thank you so much holy reverend.
Another example of answering a question about a controversial matter in a way that is more controversial is when Rev. Wright would declare Louis Farrakhan persona non grata. He said no, how can I, he is not my enemy and has done nothing to me. All of Black America listens to Mr. Farrakhan. It doesn’t mean they agree with him. Mr. Farrakhan could not be called an enemy any more than Nelson Mandela could say that Fidel Castro is his enemy. Rev. Wright says that after all, Louis Farrakhan did not enslave him, after all, and therefore is not his enemy. In other words, White America is his enemy. Way to put that fire out, Reverend.
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How dare climate change people their cause of a big gas cloud to the cause of stopping millions of people being gased to death. The Iwo Jima raising of the tree cover on Time magazine alluding to the war on global warming is worrisome. Always worry about a cause where humans are the problem.
How ironic that the illustration used to illustrate the food crisis in the Globe and Mail is a group of Marines raising an enormous fork instead of an American flag Iwo Jima style. One cause is for bio fuels which is turn is causing the food crisis. Seems like these Marines are fighting other Marines. We should call them graphic Marines.