Weimar Canada?

If you've been following the spectacle of various Canada's Human Rights Commission's (functional equivalent of the Thought Police) inquisitions "prosecutions" of Ezra Levant and Mark Steyn, you'll love Steyns latest salvo.

(via Overlawyered)

The Price of Rice....

.....is definitely on the rise. We went to Lee Lee Market, our local Asian grocery store where we do a lot of our shopping today. There is no shortage of rice here but since I last bought a bag of the Double Horse brand Thai jasmine rice that we use, the price has risen from $14.99 for a 25lb bag to $19.99. It was only a month or so ago that I last bought it. The reason there is no shortage here is that the marketplace has curtailed demand by increasing the price. That's OK for me because I can afford the increase but for someone for whom rice is a staple part of his diet, or corn, this is a serious problem.

The solution to this is to reverse the market-distorting government mandates and subsidies that are making it more attractive to turn food into a fuel that very few vehicles can use than it is to make sure people can afford to eat.

Mark Steyn on unintended (but entirely predictable) consequences

(via Tim Blair) I've blogged before on some of the unintended consequences of attempting to "save" the environment. Mark Steyn has an article in the National Review Online that, as usual, puts it into perspective far better than I ever could:

Unlike “global warming,” food rioting is a planet-wide phenomenon, from Indonesia to Pakistan to Ivory Coast to the tortilla rampages in Mexico and even pasta protests in Italy.So what happened?

Well, Western governments listened to the eco-warriors, and introduced some of the “wartime measures” they’ve been urging. The EU decreed that 5.75 percent of petrol and diesel must come from “biofuels” by 2010, rising to 10 percent by 2020. The U.S.
added to its 51 cents-per-gallon ethanol subsidy by mandating a five-fold increase in “biofuels” production by 2022.

The result is that big government accomplished at a stroke what the free market could never have done: They turned the food supply into a subsidiary of the energy industry. When you divert 28 percent of U.S. grain into fuel production, and when you artificially make its value as fuel higher than its value as food, why be surprised that you’ve suddenly got less to eat? Or, to be more precise, it’s not “you” who’s got less to eat but those starving peasants in distant lands you claim to care so much about.

And it isn't just the cost of our food that is going up as a result of this idiotic policy. It's the cost of our fuel as well. Read the whole thing of course.

Recommendation: Excellent Bluetooth Headset

I don't spend a lot of time chatting on my cellphone and I especially don't like to use it when I'm driving, even if I am hands-free. It's not what you are doing with your hands that's the problem, it's what you are doing with your brain. However, there are times when it is necessary to have a brief conversation and anything that makes it easier to expedite it is welcome.

A month or so ago I bought an Aliph Jawbone bluetooth headset on the recommendation of a friend. It's distinguishing feature is a noise cancellation circuit. In a noisy enviroment such as a car, or even the waiting area at an airport gate, the noise cancellation feature takes out most of the background noise, both for you and the person at the other end of the call. The friend who recommended it to me would call from an airport and I could hear nothing but him, loud and clear. In addition to the noise cancellation technology, the headset features several interchangeable earpieces, so you can get a custom fit to your ear, and four additional ear loops, two for each ear, so the headset will hang over your ear and stay snugly in place, whichever side you prefer to wear it on. I bought mine at Amazon at a discount of roughly 50% from list and at least 30% from what I saw it selling for at a local store. I highly recommend it to anyone who has to spend any time talking on a cellphone. Here's the link to Amazon. Go check it out for yourself.

The Climate Change Debate Is Not Over......

....It's just being stifled.

"Tabletop, it turns out, has another name: Kim Dabelstein Petersen. She (or he?) is an editor at Wikipedia. What does she edit? Reams and reams of global warming pages. I started checking them. In every instance I checked, she defended those warning of catastrophe and deprecated those who believe the science is not settled. I investigated further. Others had tried to correct her interpretations and had the same experience as I -- no sooner did they make their corrections than she pounced, preventing Wikipedia readers from reading anyone's views but her own. When they protested plaintively, she wore them down and snuffed them out."

Rachel Lucas Feels the Pain

Rachel is doing her taxes. It hurts. I can suggest a cure for her pain.

(Via Instapundit)

Htichens on Hillary and Her Lying Habit

Writing at Slate.com, Christopher Hitchens makes the case for why Hillary Clinton's penchant for lying should disqualify her from the presidency. In this particular instance he cites her claim about landing under fire in Tuzla, Bosnia in 1996:

"...........it would be quite impossible to imagine that one had undergone that experience at the airport if one actually had not. Yet Sen. Clinton, given repeated chances to modify her absurd claim to have operated under fire while in the company of her then-16-year-old daughter and a USO entertainment troupe, kept up a stone-faced and self-loving insistence that, yes, she had exposed herself to sniper fire in the cause of gaining moral credit and, perhaps to be banked for the future, national-security "experience." This must mean either a) that she lies without conscience or reflection; or b) that she is subject to fantasies of an illusory past; or c) both of the above. Any of the foregoing would constitute a disqualification for the presidency of the United States."

The sheer brazenness never ceases to amaze me. Read the whole thing.

It's Good to Have a Backup Plan

In these uncertain economic times it's good to have a backup plan.


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It's nice to know one has options.

(via Instapundit)