June 24, 2008

1)The real question to ask politicians is how are gas prices a crisis or a problem? The second one is if the price of gas is a problem, what do you propose to do to reduce it? If the answer to the first question is yes, they should be coming up with ways to reduce the price of gas and oil. If the answers are inconsistent in the sense that things are being proposed that on the other hand will increase oil and gas prices, like carbon emission reductions and things like this, then you have to wonder about their real good offices and good faith and consistency and lack of hypocrisy.
You cannot be for both things at the same time. You can be for low gas prices and be for carbon emission control. Anyone who says they can is lying or stupid.
I have no problem with being honest in saying that someone may want higher gas prices and carbon emission controls. But I do have a problem with someone who pretends that they can be for both things at the same time.
May left wing politicians, especially Mr. Layton, act like they are for both. Mrs. Clinton is another.
Want to use wheat to make paper instead of cutting down trees? Oh no! The price of wheat is up too.
The idea of using wheat paper or ethanol is more soothing to the conscience of some people than the thought of feeding people. Cutting trees is bad. Too bad there’s not enough food. If it’s the chaff of the wheat being used, it’s too bad reporters aren’t pointing that out. Especially on the CBC.
2)Randy Cross pointed out that in his opinion most of the guys on the American Idol stage couldn’t sing. Not a bad voice, but no strength. They didn’t have the voice necessary to carry a career. They have everything and they look good, but they can’t get out there and prove themselves without the support of the show.
I thought I was alone in thinking the same thing.
3)Herouxville occurred spontaneously. A town counsel of its own volition issued a statement requiring people to obey certain rules when they came to Quebec and giving instructions to immigrants about how to behave. That wasn’t a concoction of the media.
Blaming the media, as the Reasonable Accommodations Commission did in Quebec seems to be the result of legitimate concerns and in some cases irrational ones that were simply reported by the press. The treatment of the press by the Bouchard-Taylor Commission suggests to me that another chapter in the sorry story of the blaming of the media by political and academic elites, especially if the media reports things that are inconvenient, ugly and troubling and don’t fit in with the political elite’s perception of how society should be. If there is any better example of this trend, it is the complaints against Ezra Levant and McLean’s by the Human Rights Commissions of Alberta, BC and Canada. This is a chilling thing that can only have the effect of freezing investigations of things that are bad that the government is doing or things that are bad that people are doing.
This is an unwelcome part of the well-meaning Commission’s work.