Portrait of the Consort as a Young Man

From TLS:

When asked by a journalist which language he spoke at home, Prince Philip, who is of German-Danish-Russian descent and the nephew of King Constantine I of Greece, replied “What do you mean, ‘at home’?” Born ninety years ago on a kitchen table in Corfu, he went with his family into exile when he was a baby, after which his mother, Alice of Battenburg, who was deaf, was sent to an asylum, displaying what was assumed to be religious mania. His father, Andrea, then disappeared into a new life in Monte Carlo, his four elder sisters married German noblemen, and young Philip spent the rest of his childhood bundled between various European castles, in whose visitors’ books he would describe himself as “of no fixed abode”. His upbringing proved good training for Prince Consort, a job which has required him to have no fixed role, other than to keep two steps behind his wife and shake hands with strangers.

For a vagabond he sure has done well for himself.

Social Media in NL Politics

Mike Connors of NTV fame contacted me a couple weeks ago to have a sit down for a piece he was working on. He was interested in hearing my thoughts on the affect of social media in the coming provincial election and of course I jumped at the opportunity to have a gab. I just wanted to take a second to thank Mike for that opportunity. It was a great piece he put together and I suggest everyone check it out, which you can do by going here.

What's best is that not only did I get to sit down and have a great chit-chat with Mike, but we also received a nod to the NL BlogRoll in the process. You gotta love that. Thanks again Mike and NTV!

July 22nd edit : 
There's a 2nd part to this story which aired two nights later. You can watch that part by going here.

Unexpected Hiatus

In my world (like most others I would assume), when offline life becomes busy, the online world tends to suffer. This is exactly the case for my absence as of late. I shocked myself into posting this update this evening when I realized that I haven't posted anything in nearly a month now, not even the Blog of the Week. And here I was doing so well this year too, having missed only one Sunday since 2011 began. That has to be a record since I started the initiative so I should be happy about that I s'pose...

Anyway, while summer is normally a more active time for me regardless, it turns out that this summer happens to be a very busy period at work as well. It's good times when work is busy don't get me wrong but, I am kind of bummed that I haven't been able to keep up things around these parts. There's just not enough time in the day, and the time we have certainly does fly by in a hurry. To be honest, I'm not sure where the last few weeks have gone.

So, when I noticed the date of the last post, I felt I should let any frequent visitors know that everything I've been discussing over the past few months is still being worked on whenever I possibly can: The awards will come, the Blog of Week's will continue and many new blogs will be added (and I do have many not added yet). Just bare with me, I'll get there.

In the meantime, you all be sure to unplug now and then as well. Go take some time to enjoy any sun you're lucky enough to get!

The Other Incrementalism

Inching back to monarchy:

Go to the Governor General's website, look at the main page introducing the Governor General, and you see a photograph of Queen Elizabeth II shaking hands with someone whose back is turned to the camera. That someone is David Johnston, the Governor General.

I know what you're thinking. "So what?" I understand that reaction. But it's a mistake. Because that little photo is indicative of a big change: The Crown is back.

Just a few years ago, the Governor General's website was festooned with glorious colour photographs of Her Excellency the Right Honourable Michaëlle Jean. But the Queen? There wasn't a single photograph of the Queen on the website of the Queen's representative. In fact, there were almost no references to the Queen at all, and one could easily get the impression that the esteemed Michaëlle Jean was, in all but name, Canada's head of state.

As Dan Gardner goes onto explain this was not an oversight. It was part of a long-term attempt to "quietly shuffle the Queen offstage." One of the bright spots in the Harper years has been the reassertion of traditional Canadian values, especially the military and the monarchy. As noted earlier this week, this is part of the government's tonal conservatism.

Recalling the pre-Trudeau Canada, including a nice invocation of "our fair Dominion" by the PM during the royal progress, reassures the rank and file that the boys in blue haven't gone completely native in Ottawa. It's probably also sincere. Jason Kenney and Stephen Harper seem to believe that monarchy is a good Canadian tradition that needs to be defended. Some might object to the PM's lack of enthusiasm for the Crown, but please keep in mind who we are talking about. Smiling seems to cause him physical pain.

Sounds aren't substance. It's nice to hear words like Dominion. It's very good that our foreign policy is now more oriented around Canadian values, rather than an international relations seminar on multilateralism, but this has little impact on the daily life of the people. We can bemoan this yet still celebrate a small and important gain for Canadianism. Symbolism is cheap but it can carry a great weight.

The monarchy provides an important constitutional role, mostly as a non-partisan referee and ceremonial imprimatur, yet its greater role is as a cultural icon. The affairs of a free people are organized, whenever and wherever possible, upon the basis of persuasion. Unthinking force is the hallmark of tyrannical governments. However noble the goal, a free people will seek always to find ways of accomplish that goal through argument, debate and reasonable compromise. The tyrant orders. The free man talks.

A constitutional monarchy, who is the head of a free people, reigns rather than rules. Lacking much real power the monarch acts as a model of appropriate conduct. There is no finer exemplar than the current sovereign, who has conducted herself in the spirit of her beloved father and grandfather. Note the careful and precise way Her Majesty speaks, her poise and bearing which is kept even with her many years, and the careful discharge of duty. In her actions she sends a clear message: This is an ideal to aspire toward.

This is not to say that this or any monarch is perfect. They are human and should display that most human of traits, a desire to improve and remedy the defects of nature or personal behaviour. Their example and actions transmit to their people the broad values, character traits and common customs that allow for peaceful and civilized existence. Watch HM's 1957 Christmas Address, the first to be broadcast on television. In that broadcast she made the following observation:

Today we need a special kind of courage, not the kind needed in battle but a kind which makes us stand up for everything that we know is right, everything that is true and honest. We need the kind of courage that can withstand the subtle corruption of the cynics so that we can show the world that we are not afraid of the future.

These are not very specific invocation, yet they are also very true. If you have a few moments listen to the whole broadcast. It is filled with noble generalities that can be easily shrugged at. Yet that is much the role of monarchy. Not to issue dissertations on philosophy, or remedy the failings of current public policy, but instead to make a frank appeal to our better natures. To remind, suggest, advise and ultimately to persuade her people toward a more humane existence. Something which is of greater weight, all in all, than much of what passes for politics in these times.

The Best Decision Ever

Took long enough.

The NOTW phone hacking scandal I think is a classic example of organizations encountering failure and not knowing what the hell to do. Instead of adapting and trying to learn from the failure there almost seems to be a stubborn inertia that sets in - a type of unwillingness to accept there is a problem as the company (or government) acts like a deer caught in headlights... And if you aint ready to accept the failure signal, then you aint ready to change.

It's only a shame that NI seems to be learning only now. It came too late for 200 employees of NOTW and it will cost the company dearly in lawsuits - not to mention the loss in reputation.

That being said, the shark like feeding frenzy that's being unleashed is just silly.

If you don't like FOX news, it seems that wild accusations are your best friend right now. Never mind that NI is a huge corporation. Never mind that FOX news is just a small chunk of that company. Conspiracy theories don't depend on facts.

What happened here is that a company, a small chunk of a larger corporation, failed in a spectacular fashion - and maybe even criminally so.

The larger corporation is liable - as it should be. The smaller company had to be shutdown because the problem was so widespread. The larger company now has to find a way to survive and learn.

Unfortunately, as with centrally planned economies, as a conservative I know full well that the nature of decision making from the top down by people 2000 miles removed from the situation is that hardly anyone ever learn from their mistakes. Bottom-up is a lot more successful when it comes to learning and adapting.

Best of luck to NI in learning lessons from the top-down.

The gun registry a waste of money?... No Really?

It's a bizzare bunch of events not only as King Charest's government said it was considering a provincial gun registry to replace the one about to get sacked by the Feds, then they said they wanted money from the Feds to do it.

Hoeppner seems to be the only Tory to care to respond:

OTTAWA -- Provinces would be foolish to set up their own gun registry when the national database is scrapped this fall, said the Manitoba Conservative MP who led the charge against the federal long-gun registry last year.

“(The registry) has been proven to be a complete waste of money and a complete waste of effort,” Candice Hoeppner said.

“It doesn't combat crime, it certainly doesn't combat violent crime. The registry does nothing to stop individuals from acquiring or being able to possess a firearm.”

And those are the facts. If Quebec or Ontario, or Santa Claus wants a registry they can waste their own money.

Prince's last speech of Royal tour

It was an incredible royal homecoming. The media reported on it extensively, but here, here and here are three of the very best articles I could find.

Gun Registry Seperatism

The Quebec government, stubbornly, is considering passing a long-gun registry of it's very own if Ottawa turfs the federal one.

How quaint. How wonderfully "autonomous". The Feds don't want to continue the war against Canadian Red Necks then Hell! - we'll show those Anglophone Bastards and make up one of our own!

Quebec has every right to do whatever it pleases, but Quebequers would do well to pay attention the facts before they give King Charest their blessing to create a Provincial Registry:

• Since the registry's mandatory implementation in 2003, a grand total of a whooping 47 registered firearms have been used in homicides out of 2441 (less than two percent). It's obvious that criminals aren't stupid enough to register their firearms.(link)
• The registry was originally budgeted to cost a net 2 million dollars. In reality (although the total costs are unknown) actual costs are known to be well over 2 billion dollars according to most estimates. That's at minimum an average of 43 million dollars per registered firearm homicide. Putting it in other terms, that at least 36 RCMP officers a year per registered firearm used in a homicide that we could have hired (or 1700 RCMP officers total). The waste in money is staggering.
• The non-compliance rates have been absolutely horrendous. Regardless if you accept gun advocate numbers of a 70% non-compliance rate or the Liberals 10%, the fact remains that several extentions of registration deadlines were made for good reasons. 70,000 firearms at minimum remain unregistered in this country. This failure can't be ignored.(link)
• The registry has had no effect on homicide rates, total suicide rates, or any other indicator. Registry advocates will no-doubt point to declining homicide rates since the 1990s as proof the registry works. Yet these same statistics were already declining by similar amounts before registry implementation. Nothing has gotten any better since the registry was passed. The registry has been ineffective in the truest sense of the word.(link)

In short the registry has done nothing except to waste taxpayer dollars that could have been spent doing things that could have actually reduced crime. It's treated Canadian hunters living in rural areas like criminals by placing them on a national registry - a distintion reserved for among others child molesters.

I can understand the need to do something to respond to the horrible attack that happened at the Ecole Polytechnique in 1989. However the registry has done nothing to prevent further such attacks from happening.

A far better approach to avoid future similar school shootings, would be to invest in better mental health iniatives, and other crime prevention measures that actually work.

McGuinty: The Government Slasher

OPSEU announced on its central website Friday it was launching a “mini site” to fight the Dalton McGuinty government’s plan to shrink the public service.

“Starting this summer, Premier Dalton McGuinty will eliminate 1,900 vital public service jobs,” the OPSEU website says. (link)

Back in January, I postulated that McGuinty's government would be at the forefront of most of the labor unrest that this year of Austerity is unleashing.

I've been surprised at just how much attention the unions have been placing in Ottawa - a government that is by all indications depending on expiring infrastructure projects, attrition, and retirements to both reduce expenses, the public service and so balance the budget.

McGuinty is depending heavily on laying off members of the OPS to get where his government should have been a long time ago. What's worse is that McGuinty is probably having to do more cutbacks to fund the disastrous policies elsewhere in government currently eating away at funds.

Yet where is DePape holding up a "Stop McGuinty" sign? Where is "Working Families" coming out swinging against the horrible slash-and-cut McGuinty?

Their silence speaks volumes.

Just as Mike Harris's education policies in Ontario were actually borrowed from an Education commission started by the Bob Rae NDP, McGuinty is borrowing ideas from his right wing counterparts like Harper and Brad Wall to do what clearly needs to be done. Except that due to the blind partisanship of this country's Public Secotr Unions, he clearly is not facing the same level of "mob warfare" we've come to expect from the Canadian left.

Canada at 150! Feel the Shame!

From the Mandarins:

Canada's 150th-birthday bash in 2017 could highlight the fun and symbolic - such as a nationwide hockey tournament and a cross-country canoe pageant - but could also involve serious policy changes, such as lowering the voting age to 16 or instituting mandatory voting, newly obtained public documents show.

Ideas being floated to cele-brate the sesquicentennial by the federal government, provinces and territories also include a heavy emphasis on aboriginal culture, a trainload of artists criss-crossing the country, and even a "special edition" census, the documents from the Department of Canadian Heritage indicate.

From the Montreal Expo to canoe "pageants" in just fifty years. Somewhere the Fathers of Confederation are appalled. What small men we must appear to them, those tamers of a continent. From linking the country with railroads, telegraphs and microwave transmitters we have sunk to playing at portage. When the Mandarins are not being trivial, however, they revert to outright condescension.

Mandatory voting? Let us celebrate one of the freest nations in the world by curbing the freedom of the citizen! Extending the vote to 16 year-olds? Who are these guys cribbing their ideas from? The local high school speech night? The special edition census is a nice touch. Keeping with the mandatory theme of Canada at 150, perhaps we can have extra-long prison sentences for non-filers. Freedom is someone else's nationality.

The lack of any real ideas on how to celebrate this country can be traced to cultural relativism. Note the "heavy" emphasis on celebrating aboriginal culture. Whatever the intrinsic merits of aboriginal culture, or the injustices committed against the aboriginal tribes, it is at best a laughably fiction to think Canada's success as a modern country has anything to do with aboriginal culture.

No one, at least outside of a university lecture hall, believes that Canada is Canada because of the cultures of semi-nomadic tribes, many of whose descendants still live upon the public fisc. To pretend otherwise requires a systematic evasion of Canada's actual history. Not the long guilt inducing propaganda currently taught. Canada is Canada because of a certain set of values. Those values came overwhelming from one part of one continent.

One of the reasons for the spectacular success of Expo 67, a broken clock moment for government if there ever was one, was its focus on technological and scientific progress. The future seemed limitless to the people of 1967, especially to the people of this country who emerged from depression and war to take their place as a leading power. Not a great power, but a nation of substance and opportunity. Their world was open to men with the knowledge, the skill and the vision to exploit it. The Canada of 1967 was filled with such men.

None of these values are fashionable now. Science is either deprecated or twisted into a tool to undermine industrial civilization. The value of human life is downgraded; we are just one species among many. Progress is an illusion devised by Madison Avenue. What sense of life emerges from the Canada of today? From men who doubt the power of their minds to conquer the world? From a nation whose people have been taught from childhood to feel ashamed of being human.

The bold confidence of Expo 67 came from a uniquely western view of the world. Until we recover the heroism of that world we will continue with such insipid attempts at "celebrating" Canada. There is something too eloquent about the idea of canoe "pageants." For centuries the pre-European inhabitants of this continent crossed this continent with these primitive craft. Then in the historical equivalent of a blink of an eye railroads, highways and airliners spread across the continent. The wonder is perhaps not that these amazing things were done. It is that there are minds still so primitive as to fail grasp what made them possible. Or perhaps spirits so meek, or wicked, as to see them as an evil to be apologized for.

Hellyerifcation Comes to Britain?

The long, slow withdrawal...

The present Government would, of course, recoil from any suggestion that the aim of its proposed reforms is to follow the recent Canadian example of unifying the rival Forces under a single command, and doing away with centuries of military tradition in the process.

Announcing his reforms this week, Dr Fox said that the main aim was to undertake a wide-ranging reform of the “bloated and dysfunctional” Ministry of Defence, which, a full year after he assumed responsibility for the department, is still struggling to provide him with an accurate assessment of just how large its overspending really is.

If I was a British Admiral right now, I'd be sorely tempted to imitate Rear-Admiral von Reuter. Better do it yourself than let the Chancellor.

A Right To Pornography?

A 21-year-old Michigan inmate has filed a lawsuit that contends he's been stripped of civil rights because he isn't allowed to look at porn, claiming his lack of access to the material gives him a "poor standard of living" and "sexual and sensory deprivation."(link)

This is what happens when "positive rights" are given the same status as "negative rights."

Better Under the British

No comment is necessary:

Next year will mark the 50th anniversary of Jamaican independence from the United Kingdom, but a new island-wide poll suggests most residents of the tiny Caribbean nation believe they would be better off had the country remained a British colony.

The survey, conducted for the Jamaica Gleaner newspaper by Johnson Survey Research, found that 60 per cent of Jamaicans think the country would be better off today if it was still under British rule. A mere 17 per cent said they believed the country would be worse off. The remaining 23 per cent of respondents said they didn’t know.

You can hear the Guardianistas...

Interestingly, the Jamaican Prime Minister, Bruce Golding, has argued for the cutting of all ties to the Crown. The public are not enthused about that idea either.

Mather Byles and Charles Coulombe

Mather Byles was an American loyalist. Mather Byles is known to have said:

Which is better – to be ruled by one tyrant three thousand miles away or by three thousand tyrants one mile away?

He passed from this world on July 5 223 years ago.

John Singleton Copley: Mather Byles

Charles Coulombe is a contemporary American monarchist. He debated successfully in support of monarchy at the Oxford Union last February.

We bring to you an excerpt of an interview with Mr. Charles Coulombe. He talks a lot about the American departing with the monarchical order:

Liberty Wears a Crown!

In the 1880s, a grand statue was brought from the revolutionary republic of Europe to the American Republic.

Sam Starrett: Liberty Wears a Crown!

A plague of Socialists

All hail the Great And Infallible Gerald Caplan (PhD), the Great Academic, Socialist (er I mean "Social Democrat"), public policy analyst, former CCF member, and general all around "smarter than you" political activist.

Shhhhh!!! He's speaking. Let's hear what our unparalleled unequal has to say:

"We know what the Egyptians, or at least their head honcho Pharaoh, did to attract the wrath of G-d. He wouldn’t let His people go. But everyone paid the awful price – those ten vile plagues culminating in the genocidal murder of all Egyptian first-born.

"But what have Canadians done to evoke the wrath of the heavens? What have Ontarians done? Or poor Hogtowners? Though it’s our pharaohs who sin, only regular folks pay the price. It’s a trifecta, folks. Harper the asbestos killer in Ottawa, Ford the city-wrecker in Toronto, and, come October 6, very likely Hudak the math-challenged in Ontario. Won’t we be in a pretty pickle then? What have ordinary people done to deserve this plague of right-wing Conservatives? Equally mysterious, why have so many ordinary folks supported them?(link)

Why indeed.

This has to be the billionth time that Tories have been compared to Middle-Eastern dictators. It's apparently gotten so bad, that Progressives are resorting to quoting biblical Jewish Dictators to keep it alive. (Isn't that against the Progressive Atheist religion to believe that anything in the Bible is real?)

In one foul swoop this great genius of Canadian politics has called Harper a mass-murderer, Rob Ford a destroyer of entire cities, and Hudak (incomprehensibly) a moronic imbecile that can't count.

What's amazing about that last claim is that Tim Hudak, hate him or like him, has a Masters degree in Economics. Our good Doctor has his PhD in History. In the grand scheme of things my bet is that Hudak scored higher in grade 12 algebra that Dr Caplan.

Further Rob Ford has done nothing. He's been around for so little a little a time. Give him time, dear Doctor, to atleast prove you right before you level charges of "conspiracy to destroy cities".

Stephen Harper (contrary to Progressive Popular thinking) is not an African genocidal maniac. His government chose not to devaste an entire industry and put it's trust in companies and individuals in using Asbestos in a responsible manner. The good Doctor's use of the word "killer" is nonsense. If he really believed what he said he would have contacted the RCMP by now.

Calling Conservatives a "plague" is hard to joke about. I know I have cooties. Sorry to the world. But I insist on spreading them. If Dr Caplan wants, I can come over to his house for dinner tonight and spread a little of my plague (I'd be happy to). Really this is getting juvenile.

Seriously though the Doctor is spewing what would normally considered "hate speech."Just replace the words "right-wing Conservatives" with "Jewish." Or "Muslim."

Doesn't sound so innocent now does it? Infact it sounds a lot like a book written by a Nazi named Hermann Esser.

"Hardly anyone of right mind disagrees that it was the insatiable greed and reckless irresponsibility of Wall Street, which had been deeply unregulated over the past 30 years, that plunged much of the world into its economic tailspin.

The good Doctor would be best not to discount people who disagree with his opinions, lest he creates an ideological box wherein he can reside and the the rest of those "of non-right mind" can leave him alone to never grow or learn.

Further, I would suggest that Dr Caplan is falling into the same trap that many a Conservative has fallen into as a result of the financial crisis.

Conservatives have blamed government interference in the loan market (in some cases) as the sole reason for the economic disaster. The truth is not so simple. Cheap loans, perpetuated by low interest rates, bad government policy favoring those cheap loans in the US, and yes bad decisions by those in the Derivative industry lead to the financial disaster we saw.

The markets responded by attempting the correct the situation. Governments responded by bailing out the offenders and preventing what should have happened - failure for those that made those bad choices.

The real problem is a cult in this society that claims that certain organizations are "too big to fail." But I digress.

"...Bear in mind this is a man who thinks Jeffrey Simpson is 'centre-left.' Conservatives, Mr. Kay wrote, 'do not even pretend to have a solution to the inequality problem. Based on my experience at the Post, I’d say that most do not think of it as a problem at all...' "

I would agree with that point. Inequality, at least the way Progressives like Dr Caplan measure it, isn't inequality at all.

What matters to Conservatives, is not that there are some people that are very successful and a vast majority who aren't - that's a fact of life. Dr Caplan, or any "Social Democrat" can try to change that reality as much as they would like, but in my experience we fail far more often than we succeed.

The real measure we should look at in our modern civilization, is not how unequal success is, but rather, do we all start at the same line? Social mobility is the key point here. Artificial barriers to people's success is the real problem.

What Dr Caplan fails to recognize, is that we all should have a right to fail or succeed based on our own merits, efforts, and creations without it being interfered with unreasonably by others.

It makes good economics, and further anything less than having this right to fail or succeed is (in my opinion) destructive to the human soul. Humans thrive on challenges, adversity, and the need to have areas to channel their productive creative talents. I would argue that the very same policies Dr Caplan would support, destroys people's right to take chances and to fail or succeed.

Speaking from personal experience I can tell you how frustrating it is to being hampered from taking risks, thinking outside the box, challenging the rules, by those who would rather choose the illusion of stability and control.

Dr Caplan's commentary lives in a zero-sum world where "shamelessness is the signal characteristic of those who survive and prosper in this life..."

I had hoped I would be able to poke fun at Dr Caplan in good jest. But reading lines like these it's clear that to him, if I work my butt off, save every penny I earn, strive to upgrade my skills, and therefore "survive and prosper" I am very low on his hierarchy of human beings.

I honestly hope his views on humanity evolve one day - for his own sake.