BOO!

Two by Christie Blatchford

Small Dead Animals links to video of Ms Blatchford on The Michael Coren Show. She discusses her new book, Helpless, which details events of the Caledonia land dispute. Sounds like a great read.

And here she is writing about Rob Ford's victory.

Labels

For those of us whose procrastination resulted in missing out on tonight's Steyn appearance in Ottawa - I'm going to rename the event "Ezrapalooza" - there is lots to enjoy over at SteynOnline in the way of various interviews. (For a blast from the recent past, check out Mark's TVO appearance from  May 6, 2008 - Mr. Beazly still occasionally uses the line, "Come on, it's not a chair issue!" It comes at about 4:30.)



Yesterday Mr. B. remarked upon how surprised I would be if he had secretly bought a couple of tickets to tonight's event, thus taking care of my Christmas, anniversary, and birthday gifts in one fell swoop.
"Yes," I agreed hopefully. "That would make a great story for the blog!"
"Unfortunately," he continued. "This story won't have that happy ending." He did, however, suggest that I wait outside the Crowne Plaza for a glimpse of Mr. Steyn, and then scream like a teenager who had just spotted the Beatles. Sounds like the story of that pie I was going to make for Mr. B. won't have a happy ending either.

Mr. Steyn made an appearance on the CBC yesterday, the video of which is also linked from his site. I laughed a little when the interviewer labeled him a "conservative" and thought of how I've never heard them label their liberal guests as such. It makes me wonder how far left one would have to be in order to earn the label of liberal from the CBC. They continually claim no bias, but they always give themselves away.

I look forward to Mark's appearance on The Michael Coren Show next week!

Well, I guess that takes care of my budgeting decision.

"This event is now sold out!"

I knew I shouldn't have left it until the last minute! Oh, well, it was a bit out of my price range - hence the up-to-the-last-minute dithering. Maybe I should have followed the example of the little girl described in Mark's recent post and written to Steven Harper to see if he would pay for my ticket:

"I am just a dumb old housewife trying to inject some humor and cultural renewal into Halloween weekend, so I can make a change to not just the province of Ontario but also the world. I am not a quitter...oh, and I could use some paint for my school room, too."


 

Der Kanadier Mark Steyn!

Der Dumb Old Hausfrau is glad Der Kanadier Mark Steyn's website has returned to "full service". That was a long, long wait.

The Double Down Saga Continues

Did I say the government wasn't going to ban the new KFC Double Down? Not so fast!

Ontario's health promotion minister says the government may review KFC's new Double Down sandwich with an eye to banning it.

"At this point in time, I am not looking at restricting anything, but certainly I don't think you can ever close the door on any-thing," Margarett Best said.

Except, of course, on this deadly chicken sandwich. This doesn't seem to jive with the "consumers have the right to choose what they eat" line they were giving us before.

"I am not looking at any restrictions on that particular sandwich at this time, but I certainly am looking at various options to see what are the possibilities in addressing that," Best said.

Here are the possibilities in addressing that: don't. It's not the government's job to tell people what to eat. As Mrs. P. remarked in the post to which I linked above, where does it end? Do we ban cheesecake next? Will you have to obtain a ration card to prevent you from buying ten cheeseburgers at once? Collectively, they contain a lot of calories, too. Don't close the door on outlawing Thanksgiving.

After they've removed all the harmful foods from the nursery, they can start looking at ways to force us to exercise, read the right books, buy carbon credits, and regulate the number of children we have. (I hear China has some experience with that.)

Thank God not everyone thinks the government should be busy banning sandwiches.

Jane Austen: Completely illiterate, if she existed at all.

That's the next headline I'm expecting. For now we just have an "expert" saying Jane Austen couldn't spell, used poor grammar, and had a great deal of "help" from her editor.

Sure. And Einstein failed grade school math, Shakespeare didn't write any of those plays, and see that box over there? It contains the bones of Jesus! Forgive me if I take this with a grain of salt - it is coming to us through journalists, after all.

You can go here to see the Austen manuscripts mentioned in the articles. I wonder how she did at math?

John Robson on the Russell Williams Case

I didn't seek out coverage of this story, but if you have been reading or watching any news in the past few days, it was impossible not to learn something about it. I actively avoided several stories about this man's crimes - the headlines alone told me that the story was going to reveal more than anyone needed to know. John Robson has  some thoughts on this.

h/t Sobering Thoughts

London Derrieres

A city of London facility steps up to help with the "drowning out".

I am so tired of the idea that motherhood is unworthy of intelligent women.

Via ProWomanProlife

Read the whole thing here. I agree with most of what Barbara Kay writes in this column, but I'm a little puzzled by the following paragraph:

What advice can I give her? Stop studying, find Mr. Right and start procreating? After all, Canada needs lots more loved children, and her children will be blessed. On the other hand this young woman is a winner and I want to see her succeed.

"On the other hand" is the part that puzzles me, appearing, as it does, in a column that talks about future demographic problems. Does being a wife and mother mean you cannot be a successful winner? If that's what is meant, then this is just a more polite way of saying, "You're smart - what are you doing at home with your children?"  If a woman chooses to discontinue formal study and/or a full time profession to become a happy, beloved wife and mother to children she always dreamed of having, how is that by any definition unsuccessful? Perhaps the way we define success has more than a little to do with our looming population shortfalls.

If Ms Kay means "succeed in her chosen field of study", then yes, if you choose motherhood, you may well be hurting or even abandoning your prospects of being successful in some other profession.  Many important choices require sacrifice; if you want to be a doctor, it likely means you can't pursue your dream of being a ballerina. (If a woman chose medicine over dance, I don't think many of us would describe her as  unsuccessful.) We all narrow our lives somewhat by what we choose to do, but for some reason many people seem to feel that motherhood alone closes the door on every other aspiration and interest. Certainly there are times in a mother's life that are intensely demanding, and at those times she can find it difficult to expand her horizons beyond her day to day duties, but this is true for everyone. Every kind of work has its boring, unpleasant or aggravating aspects. That is simply the nature of our existence in an imperfect world.

It is a sad thing when a woman is thought to have wasted her talents on raising her own children. When my acquaintance asked me why I was at home with my kids, maybe I should have responded, "You seem pretty smart, too - what are you doing working for the government?" I wonder what she would have said?

Happy World Statistics Day!

I was going to make a cake, but apparently that would be inappropriate - it's actually a day of mourning in this country.

Do watch the video at the end, if you have 8 minutes to spare. From the funereal rendition of "O Canada" to the quote by Pierre E. Trudeau, it's a real hoot.

Mrs. P's two cents:

Money quote from the CBC article:

"It seems a bit ironic that within days of sponsoring this bill and the pronouncement of this, the government would turn around and cancel the one of the most fundamental sources of information we have," he said.

Translation: 'It really burns my bureaucratic britches that Big Brother has decided it's unnecessary (if not unethical) to pry into every detail of the daily lives of its citizens. It's downright UNSOCIALIST!'

Actually, it's good governance. Hooray for Harper.

As for the video, WHO PAID FOR IT? Probably your tax dollars and mine. After watching it, I realized I have no choice but to burn my Satirist's Association membership card. That film was utterly, completely beyond parody.

As for the concluding PET quotation, I thougth they were going to use this one: "The state has no business in the er... business of the nation." Oh wait, never mind.

I'm not wrong; you're just stupid

It will be interesting to see the results of the November elections down south. But the big O's reaction is likely to be as predicatable as the outcome:
If Dems lose, Obama will blame everyone but himself

Byron York, Washington Examiner

I'm so glad that D & P has its priorities in order...

Avoiding the use of plastic bottles, AMEN!! Guarding the deposit of faith, not so much.

Now, I will probably buy more bottled water than ever before. (I'm glad the Cdn bishops' Winnipeg Statement allows me to follow my conscience no matter what!) It's so convenient. Just like bottled water.

Tom Bosley has passed away.

Rest in peace, Mr. C.

And while we're on the topic of banning foods...

...I think you actually have to stop flying Air Canada all together if you want to get away from the nuts.

Breaking News: Ontario Declines Regulation of Chicken Sandwich!...for now

"I wish to reiterate that there are no plans to review the availability of any food products in Ontario," it said. "Consumers have the right to choose the food they wish to purchase."

Glad someone has a shred of common sense about this. Not at the Gazette, though, given that they used the term "chickens out" in their title. I don't think KFC could have developed a better ad campaign if they had tried.

Mrs. P weighs in (no, not literally, with all those calories at stake). We at DOH simply must start a category titled "So Beyond Satire" but then, perhaps 95% of what we post would be thus tagged. If the government is going to ban Things That Are Potentially Harmful to Us, there can be absolutely, positively no end to the list. And who gets to decide? Depending upon whom you ask, even buble gum would be on the list, not to mention non-organic foods, any form of plastic, driving a car, bottled water, bungee jumping, crossing the street at the wrong time of day, breathing...

The Information Free Press

Mr. Steyn links to a curious article about his upcoming Canadian tour. Or perhaps I should call that an incurious article, since, as Mark points out,

 ...this newspaper does not see fit to inform its readers that its principal interviewee, Faisal Joseph, was, in fact, the Canadian Islamic Congress' lawyer in the Maclean's/Steyn trial.

Indeed, that does seem like a fact the reader might want to know. I think it's great if Muslims devote themselves to acts of kindness and charity, but that doesn't really "show people how wrong" Mark Steyn is. As I recall, he contends that Islam is incompatible with liberal democracy, not that Muslims don't give enough to the food bank.

In all the time Steyn's work was being examined by various HRCs, I never heard any of the plaintiffs (or their spokesocks) explicitly refute his arguments, so I didn't expect to find that in this short article, either. But could we at least have one example of the "misinformation and misrepresentations of the history of Islam" which the BCHRC located in the Maclean's excerpt? And what are these controversial "views" of Coulter and Steyn? I guess it's like "Dune": you have to have read the book to know what's going on.

This part also struck me:

"Views such as those of Coulter — who was soundly booed during her Western appearance when she mocked a 17-year-old Muslim student — and Steyn, Joseph said, will have to be drowned out by the compassion of Islam." 

"Will have to be drowned out"? Why not "answered" or "engaged" or "refuted"?

You would almost swear this had come from "The Onion".

But unfortunately the squawking is all too real.

Consumer specialist Trevor Norris, a U of T professor who's written a forthcoming book on corporate social responsibility, said he believes it's time the government stopped leaving it up to the consumer entirely.

"We should be asking our government to protect us from corporations who are creating a major burden," Norris said. 

Mastering the Art of Instant Pudding

In case anyone has been wondering where we've been, a significant portion of DOH's loyal readers/contributors were, for ten wonderful days, encamped at my house for some sisterly good times. Blogging was virtually forgotten as chocolate and Victorian dramas flowed freely. Martin Chuzzlewit and Our Mutual Friend were both excellent, and we also viewed Julie & Julia and District 9,  films which will make you hungry for Boeuf Bourguignon or cat food, depending on your preference. We usually try to take in an opera for SisCon, too, but there happened to be no  free tinfoil night at the National Arts Center  performance which suited our refined tastes during this year's visit.

I enjoyed Julie and Julia. I don't know much about Julia Child, but I thought Meryl Streep's portrayal was spot on John Candy's impersonation of her. The character was thoroughly likable, and I will soon be looking for a good biography of the real person. I was more interested in the plot line that followed Julia Child's life than in the parts about Julie Powell, but Julie's excitement at receiving a comment on her blog from someone she didn't know certainly did resonate with me and Mrs. P. I don't have any delusions about DOH leading to a book/movie deal, but I firmly believe that Julia Child could hate our blog, too, if she were still alive.

Of course all of this leads to the question, "How does one turn one's obscure blog into a book/movie deal?" The answer is to come up with something totally original which will instantly grab the interest of everyone who hears about it. For this reason I give you:

The Mrs. P./Mrs. B. Project

Mrs. P., who is an admirer of Jean Pare, has toyed with the idea of cooking her way through the entire "Company's Coming" 150 Delicious Squares cookbook and then writing a blog about it. (This in turn gave another of our sisters the idea of starting a blog called "Supersquares Me" - because, after all, someone has to eat all that baking.)  I'm thinking of blogging about cooking (let's call it "bloogking") my way through one of the several high school/parish/workplace/service organization compilation cookbooks which I own. Not only are these chock full of great recipes for which you might actually have the ingredients, but it's also fun to guess at how much of those ingredients you should use when Mary Smith from Orono, Ontario submits recipes in which standard measurements are replaced with the phrase "enough for your family".

Sure, this project won't have the star power of Julia Child, but contemplate the element of human interest. What kind of character is Catholic Women's League President Mary Smith? What (besides bachelorhood) drove junior accountant Larry Sehn to develop and submit the recipe for instant pudding? What could have possibly motivated 11th grader Lisa K. and 12th grader Cory W. to jointly submit "Sex in a Pan" to their high school cookbook? And which faculty member didn't make them change their recipe's name to "Heavenly Chocolate Torte"? All these intriguing questions will be answered when I have completed my odyssey.

So, what do you say, Random House? I'll be waiting by the phone. And once the book is done, I hope we can get Justin Bieber to play Cory W.

A Good Time Was Had by All

With love and thanks to Mrs. P., Doris Rose Jones, Jacques, Soph and Sus.

Come again soon!!



It took me until this evening to realize that this is much more appropriate:

Thank you, Mr. Warren.

Somehow he is always there with exactly what one needs to charge up for another week of home schooling.

"[W]e should never abandon the position that the education of our children is none of the state's (expletive) business."

Our institutions of higher learning keep getting wackier.

 This just in....

STUDENT DEPLORES TWO-TIERED ACCESS TO MARK STEYN

OTTAWA - Self-described "leading hatemonger" Mark Steyn is slated to embark upon a rare Canadian speaking tour, and Ottawa student Baird Lutelisp is not impressed. The 37-year-old Cultural and Gender Conflict in Canadian Film Studies major is outraged by what he calls "two-tiered access" to the controversial author. 

"If you're a student in London or Calgary, you can infiltrate and disrupt the event without it costing you a dime," Mr. Lutelisp says from his parents' home in west Ottawa. "Yet in this city you'll have to fork over $250 in order to shout your slogans at those who most need to hear them. Do you know how many weeks my mom would have to advance my beer allowance to pay for that?"

Mr. Lutelisp, who also acts as a Campus Organizer, is especially upset by the timing and location of the event. "Even if our principled stand for the freedom to choose what other people hear could outdraw the Engineering Halloween kegger, the fact that Steyn is speaking on so-called 'private property' is problematic," Lutelisp explains. "I need 60% of my mob physically on campus, or I'm not getting credit for those volunteer hours."

When asked about Mark Steyn's right to express his opinions, Baird Lutelisp quotes an oft-used but watertight rejoinder - with a modern twist: "You can't text 'FIRE!' to all your friends in a crowded nightclub," he states solemnly. "Unless you add, 'JK - LOL!! ;-)'. This is Canada," Lutelisp continues passionately. "We have one set of hate speech laws for everyone, one health care system for everyone, one diverse and tolerant way of seeing the world. The only way we can preserve the diversity we so treasure is if students of every socioeconomic background have the same opportunity to shut down the speakers they deem too hateful for anyone to hear!"

Mr. Lutelisp plans to pursue his complaint with the Ontario Human Rights Commission and is confident that it will be resolved before the October 30 event date. 

Check your opinions at the door.

Via ProWomanProLife:

Freedom from speech at Carleton University.

I hope this means shutting down the local abortion clinic.

"Councillor Wants 'Child Friendly' Ottawa"

 

StatsCan should ask them how they got the squid to fill out the long form.

'Census of Marine Life' celebrates survey success

We are outliers, hear us roar.

As a statistical anomaly myself (married before 30, more than two kids, one parent at home, home schooler, never seen an episode of 'Lost'), I thought this article was kind of interesting.

Let's Pretend...

...that the following sentence appeared in this article:

"He is charged with five counts of giving religious offence to Christians...."

How long would that trial last?

My only question is, how is this the Pope's fault?

That piece of information is basic to every discussion like this one, yet here it seems to be missing.

"We are losing control over the situation. After 2000 the numbers were stable for five or six years but then they started going up again. I don't think the health care system by itself will be able to stop this alarming trend."

Gawrsh, you mean a public health agency can't control the choices made by individual persons? YOU MEAN THE GOVERNMENT CAN'T STOP THIS?!?  Do we file this under, "The government can't even bring my mail to the right address...." or under, "That doesn't work. Let's keep doing it!":

McConnery said health officials need to work with schools, parents and teenagers to encourage more people to practise safe sex. 

You know, just like they encourage kids to use low-tar cigarettes if they're going to smoke, or to mutilate themselves with a sterile device if they've chosen the self-harming lifestyle.

They don't call it 'Hogtown' for nothing.

I wonder if these are the same pigs who took over the autobahn a little while back?

I have a great idea.

Why not have Mark Steyn talk to the DND now that they've canceled this guy?
Mark's coming to Ottawa soon, and I have a feeling he could speak very eloquently "on the evolution of Islam in the Canadian Forces and the positive contribution of Canada's Muslim community to our society."

Don't worry, Alberta!

I'm 100% sure that our fearless MPs (Media Policepersons) will fly to your rescue just like they did for Quebec.

To the MotionMobile, Profound Sadness Boy!