The truth about Big Oil

Kelly McParland:

... Environmental zealots like to pretend B.O. is some massive corporate conspiracy run by a few fat cat plutocrats with cigars and evil laughs, but if that was the case they’d hardly have engineered a massive collapse in their wealth just before Christmas. B.O. is more like the weather: just because it’s sunny and warm today doesn’t mean it’s going to stay that way. And what autocrat would bet their economy on the weather?

New AFN Chief of chiefs elected

Saskatchewan Chief Perry Bellegarde has won the leadership of the Assembly of First Nations after just one ballot.  Of the 464 ballots cast among chiefs, he easily exceeded the more than 60 per cent needed to win ...

 And nothing will change:

... the AFN, despite its name and high profile, doesn’t represent the natives of Canada. It represents the chiefs. There are more than 630 of them, and they are no more capable of reaching a workable consensus on contentious issues than are the premiers of Canada’s provinces, which number only 10.

The end of "progressive" soft power

A modified version of this column by Kelly McParland appeared in today's Post as an editorial entiled "The end of 'soft power'":

U.S. President Barack Obama’s sudden about-face on the Middle East has exacerbated the difficulty that self-styled progressives face in sorting out how to deal with the world’s many emerging threats. Mr. Obama came to office preaching a highly progressive approach to confronting rogue, terror-supporting states: dialogue, diplomacy, co-operation and brotherhood, along with a pronounced reluctance to commit U.S. military forces on any fresh foreign entanglement. But it didn’t work. Now he’s trying bombs. He has come to realize that the most problematic actors on the world stage don’t share his enthusiasm for reason, negotiation and peace....

Having contributed military advisors to the effort against ISIS, Canada has a direct stake in this battle. The campaign should be of interest to Canadians for another reason, too. With Mr. Obama’s renunciation of his touchy-feely approach to international relations, it makes it difficult to argue that “soft power” and “honest brokerage,” two of our own foreign-policy establishment’s favourite catchphrases during the Liberal years, ever had much value on the world stage.  

Since Stephen Harper came to power, his opponents have crafted the notion that Canada once was a widely respect middle power that now has squandered its reputation thanks to the Conservatives’ renunciation of soft-power shibboleths. ...

... People who cut off aid workers’ heads don’t call out for “honest brokers.” They call out for bombs and bullets.

In the comments behind the Post pay-wall, Stephen Boyling wrote:

 This Editorial, although significantly watered down from what most of us have been saying for years, will do, especially after the immoral mea culpa Obama splashed us with during his UN pirouette.  The prime minister of Israel gave the speech the president of the United States of America should have given.  That, tied to the speech of prime minister Harper and his focus on what it takes, what is needed to suffocate the madness that is born in backwater dictatorships and 5-star sand lots made for a more than compelling argument when it comes to standing up to Islamic madness.

Next year in Canada, God save us from Obama-lite.  A man trying to run a race without first learning how to walk.

Amen.

Vancouver School Board's idiotic gender policy

Kelly McParland:

... B.C., it is clear, does not view schools as a place in which children are taught the basic tools necessary to navigate life – math, science, geography – but as petri dishes for social experimentation in which teachers are lab technicians with unwitting children as their mice.

... On Monday, the Vancouver School Board approved a policy change aimed at accommodating gender identity and sexual orientation.

... Parents who questioned the change argued, quite reasonably, that six-year-olds aren’t qualified to understand all the intricacies of identity issues. ... Nonetheless, the school board forged ahead, even deciding to adopt new pronouns

... A last-minute amendment mandated that “xe, xem and xyr” may be used in place of “he/she” or “him/her”.

... B.C. teachers will presumably be the ones to add this social minefield to the other developmental issues they are already expected to shoulder ... In this case it appears they may be expected to actively keep parents in the dark about a critical element of their child’s growth.  ...

Sun News' Anthony Furey and Ada Slivinsky:


Such idiocy follows naturally from the decades of indoctrination in radical social theory that many of these VSB members received in their UBC Women's Studies and Gender Studies courses.

Thin skinned "albino rights" activist files complaint with BC "Human Rights" Tribunal

Kelly McParland:

The B.C. Human Rights Tribunal has agreed to hear a complaint against a restaurant chain that sells a beer called Albino Rhino, because a woman who suffers albinism considers it offensive.

... Ikponwosa Ero, a 31-year-old immigrant from Nigeria, says Earls restaurants Albino rhino and wings combo is no different than offering an “Alzheimer’s appetizer,” or “Down syndrome daiquiri.”

... Earls [has] been selling Albino rhino beer for 25 years without complaint

This is beyond ridiculous. Though it's no surprise that the BCHRT is hearing the complaint.  They're just doing what grievance mongers and enablers are inclined to do.

Both Ero, a professional albino rights activist, and the BCHRT deserve maximum ridicule.  And judging from the comments on McParland's column they're getting it.

Not a bad column by McParland but he's way too accomodating:

... both parties in the dispute have valid enough arguments [No they don't.]

... Earls also has a reasonable case. [... ie. Ero has a "reasonable" case.  No she doesn't.]

... could Earls have maybe avoided some bad publicity and needless legal expense by agreeing to quietly relabel the suds “white rhino” over an extended period? Would it have been so difficult? [B.S. Why should Earl's modify a perfectly respectable brand of 25 years to satisfy one professional complainer's unreasonable complaint.]

Kudos to Earls for not knuckling under.