Don Cherry defended

[video via blazingcatfur]

See also Chris Selley's column:

... I think he’s actually a rather good reflection of a Canada that exists despite the fondest wishes of people like Ms. Lord. But he’s certainly no more insufferable than your loud, least-favourite uncle — and he comes with a mute button.

Good column - Selley is honest - even though, as is typical of many snotty liberal elitists, he doesn't like Cherry or, by extension, the Canada he reflects. While I appreciate Selley's honesty, I don't share his antipathy.  Don Cherry would be one of my most-favourite uncles.

Zero gravity

Experience Zero Gravity from Betty Wants In on Vimeo.

Then there's Jeb Corliss in a wingsuit.

[via]

Cherry declines RMC honorary degree

The Kingston Whig Standard:

Concerned controversy may take away from "a special day," Don Cherry has declined an honorary degree from the Royal Military College.

"I can't accept the degree and I won't attend the convocation," Cherry said in an interview Friday about the Nov. 17 ceremony in Kingston. "I am sad because I was really looking forward to spending time with the 800 cadets."

Perhaps instead they can line up to get their picture taken with French Professor Catherine Lord.

It is because of her bizarre and vitriolic complaints that the legendary hockey coach and commentator wont be there. ...

Too bad Cherry bowed to the loony objections of one pc nitwit. I hope RMC faculty and cadets don't let Lord forget what a fruitcake they think she is.

P.S. "Catherine Lord" is listed among RMC faculty not as a "Professor" but as "Teacher, Second-Language".



Update: Hunter at 'Climbing Out Of The Dark' notes that RMC Language Centre Director, one JEJ Lord (LCol retired), is related to his underling language teacher.   (Thanks to Sean in the comments.)

Greeks despair

Reuters:

Greeks watched the latest political drama unfolding in their capital with a mixture of despair and disbelief.

... "What happened this week was a disgrace. We looked bad and Europeans are already sick of paying for us."

"Looks bad"? "This week"? What's happening in Greece is bad. It's a disgrace, and has been for a lot longer than a week.

But we shouldn't be too smug. Peter Foster says we're all headed that way:

... Greece is the result of mixing fundamentally Marxist principles with democratic governance (which the philosopher Karl Popper pointed out had happened by the middle of the last century in all Western countries), and then giving it a credit card with no limit. The anti-principle of “From each according to his abilities, to each according to his needs” inevitably deteriorated into “From each productive sucker to each unionized public servant and policy wonk.”

This is a crisis not just of Greece, not just of the eurozone, but of nothing less than the dominant version of modern democracy itself. As Joseph Schumpeter pointed out 60 years ago, this is not the rule of “the people” but of politicians who compete to buy votes in order to wield power. Milton Friedman noted after the fall of the Berlin Wall that the collapse of Communism did not represent some kind of victory for Western forms of democratic economic management. It was just that, since they had capitalism to feed on, they were collapsing more slowly. Prof. Friedman also noted the shift in power from politicians to bureaucrats. “The government has become a self-generating monstrosity,” he said. “We don’t have government of the people, by the people, for the people. We have government of the people, by the bureaucracy, for the bureaucracy.” ...

Disgusting: David Suzuki and NFB indoctrinating school kids

Yesterday and today the National Film Board and David Suzuki were given exclusive access to thousands of school kids across Canada to spread Suzuki's radical environmental and political propaganda:

As many as 12,000 Canadian high school students and their teachers will have real-time access to renowned scientist Dr. David Suzuki on November 1 and 2 through a new virtual classroom experience. The virtual program is being delivered through a partnership between the National Film Board of Canada and the David Suzuki Foundation....

Ezra Levant featured video clips of the Suzuki 'education' session on The Source today.  Suzuki openly stated that he is deliberately targeting impressionable young students because (paraphrasing) 'their dimwitted, dinosaur parents aren't getting the message'.



This is a disgusting travesty!  The schools that permitted this one-sided, dishonest, hypocritical indoctrination should be ashamed of themselves.  They should be raked over the coals and forced to apologize to parents and students alike, not to mention to taxpayers who fund the NFB.

Privatize the CBC!

Today's Vancouver Sun ran an editorial (lefty rant), The CBC at 75, by Janice Kennedy:

Poor Rob Ford. ...

... it’s an article of faith among red-blooded Canadian neo-cons everywhere that the CBC is an instrument of the liberal devil, one you must never, ever watch, listen to or in any way support.

... The CBC, long — and unfairly — viewed as a mouthpiece for the left, has become one of the Canadian right’s favourite bugbears.

... For the life of me, I don’t understand it.

... we should be celebrating. Canadians across the spectrum — yes, even Rob Ford — have countless reasons to be thankful for the CBC. Let’s honour 75 rich years by demanding many more to come.

I couldn't resist sending in my comments (to the digital edition):

Privatize the CBC! It has become a fat, lazy, sloppy, unaccountable behemoth with an overblown sense of entitlement. That’s what its $1.16 billion dollar annual subsidy from taxpayers, more than 2/3 of its revenue, has done for it. If that isn’t bad enough it is also insular and arrogant in refusing to comply with legal orders to obey access to information laws. Instead, it wastes taxpayer subsidies paying its lawyers to fight these orders in court.

As for Janice Kennedy’s dopey claim that the CBC is politically unbiased and "bends over backward to provide balance", maybe she can explain why it is that the vast majority of complaints about its bias come from right-wingers while its apologists, defenders and enthusiasts are all left-wingers. If the left loves the CBC so much they should put their money where their politics are and pay for it themselves - like I pay for my SunTV and Fox News subscriptions.

The CBC is by far the largest media corporation in the country, and it competes directly against smaller companies who receive no taxpayer subsidies. Clearly this is just wrong. There is nothing in the CBC mandate that can’t be accomplished more effectively and efficiently by the private sector. So, again, privatize the CBC. And if there’s a need to subsidize any part of its current mandate then outsource it on a competitive basis to all private media companies. The product would be better and less costly to taxpayers.

Happy Halloween!

[H/t: Hunter]