http://www.redtory.wordpress.com
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Cheers
Sunday, July 6, 2008
We’ve Moved: RT v.3.0
http://www.redtory.wordpress.com
Don’t forget to update your bookmarks.
Cheers
Saturday, July 5, 2008
Red Tory v.3.0 On the Way…
I haven’t been altogether happy with Blogger for quite some time and the recent problems with Haloscan (that I can’t figure out how to uninstall) have finally given me the impetus needed to make the switch. It may be for the better, or not… I guess we’ll see.
Friday, July 4, 2008
Fireworks at Mt. Rushmore
Fireworks lit up the sky over the South Dakota landmark last night, kicking off a weekend of activities.
Fun With Torts: Misappropriation of Personality
So, one has to ask the obvious question: When you take the picture of a rival political leader and utilize it in a prominent fashion as part of an advertising campaign attempting to scare voters away from that leader’s party and implicitly encouraging them through your negative, deceitful, and utterly fraudulent fear mongering to join or contribute to yours (thereby constituting a de facto financial gain for your party, one way or the other), how is that not a “Misappropriation of Personality”?
Cleveland's Next Top Model
Never before seen audition tapes!
I’m sure some people might find this offensive. Women, quite possibly. People who live in Cleveland, most definitely. So, in advance, sorry ladies and Clevelanders (is that the right term?)… but I couldn’t help laughing at this.
Links With Your Java
• More legal troubles for the Libs as paper cup wholesaler Jennifer Wright “is moving closer to a full-blown lawsuit” over use of the generic name “Green Shift”… So should we deduce from this that her lawsuit is still just half-baked at the moment? I wonder if she’s found a pro-bono trademark lawyer yet.
• The Tories come up with a new angle on the “in-and-out” campaign fund laundering scheme, claiming that Elections Canada changed the rules on them, citing as “proof” the fact that the handbook for candidates was updated a year after the election. Elections Canada says this was simply to account for provisions in the new Accountability Act. Apparently, this cockamamie argument makes sense to the Conservatives — sounds desperate to me.
• The Telegraph publishes a world map showing which areas are most likely to be vulnerable to climate change — it could be a metaphor for cruel irony. Canada is shown to be “best to escape climate change.” Expect the usual suspects to say incredibly dumb things.
• Editorials from papers across Canada weigh in on Morgentaler’s appointment to the Order of Canada with the tiresome complaint that it was unfortunately “divisive” — you know, as opposed to being innocuous and largely irrelevant is usually the case. Some silly people seem to think these fatuous opinions actually mean something. David Graham calls Rev. Lucien Larre’s returning of the Order “the height of arrogance.” Indeed.
• What a great way to spend $3 million! Absent any way of conceivably blaming past Liberal governments for this egregious waste of money, expect to hear stunning silence from “fiscally conservative” Tory bloggers.
• Well whattaya know, Ezra Levant was right (yes, it does happen; broken clocks and all that). His nemesis Mohamed Elmasry is, in fact, a stunningly clueless, blithering idiot.
TDTUC: The Way We Are (Part 1)
The Day the Universe Changed (TDTUC) is a British documentary television series produced by and starring science historian James Burke, originally broadcast in 1985. A companion book of the same title, also written by Burke, was published the same year, presenting the same general premise of the television series in expanded detail (highly recommended, btw).
The series’ primary focus is on the effect of advances in science and technology on western philosophy. The title comes from the philosophical idea that the universe essentially only exists as you perceive it; therefore, if you change your perception of the universe, you have changed the universe itself.
To illustrate this idea, much as he did in his previous series Connections, Burke tells the various stories tracing the development of important scientific discoveries and technological advances and how they fundamentally altered how western civilization perceives the world. The series runs in roughly chronological order, from around the beginning of the Middle Ages to the present.
Who Wrote the Bible? (Part 1)
This 2004 Channel 4 documentary about the Bible opens with images of George Bush – and Osama Bin Laden. The Bible, holy books and the religious faith they inspire are on the news agenda as they’ve rarely been before, and the presenter of the program, British theologian and Oxford lecturer Dr. Robert Beckford, is looking for good answers to what sounds like a simple question: Who wrote the Bible?
Happy Independence Day!
The following is from an editorial in today’s Bangor Daily News and after that, an interview from a while back between Bill Moyers and Harvey J. Kaye, author of the book Thomas Paine and the Promise of America. By the way, I had wanted to run the last episodes of that excellent PBS series “Liberty” but unfortunately, they no longer seem to be available online. Anyway, cheers.
(Have a Sam Adams for me, eh?)
Two-hundred thirty-two years ago, representatives in the Continental Congress met in Philadelphia and adopted their Declaration of Independence. It expressed frustration and anger with the policies of Great Britain and its king. It argued eloquently for the fundamental, universal rights of those who are governed. It emphatically conveyed the determination of the colonies to be free and independent states. Below is an excerpt from the document the Fourth of July holiday is about:
When in the Course of human Events, it becomes necessary for one People to dissolve the Political Bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the Powers of the Earth, the separate and equal Station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent Respect to the Opinions of Mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the Separation.
We hold these Truths to be self-evident, that all Men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness — That to secure these Rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just Powers from the consent of the Governed, that whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these Ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute a new Government, laying its Foundation on such Principles, and organizing its Powers in such Form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.
Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient Causes, and accordingly all Experience hath shown, that Mankind are more disposed to suffer, while Evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the Forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long Train of Abuses and Usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object, evinces a Design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their Right, it is their Duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future Security.
Thursday, July 3, 2008
Liberty: The American Revolution (Episode 4)
“Oh Fatal Ambition” 1777-1778
The “united” states remain in dire need of funds and military support. Congress dispatches Benjamin Franklin to France in hopes of creating an alliance which will provide both. Meanwhile, a British army marches down the Hudson River trying to cut off New England from the other colonies. After failing to link up with another army under Gen. Howe marching north up the Hudson, the British under Sir John Burgoyne are crushed by Americans at Saratoga, thereby prompting the French to enter the conflict on the American side.
The Most “Beautiful” City in Canada? (Poll)
Not sure what’s up with the spacing on this Buzzflash poll, but it doesn’t seem very co-operative when it comes to modifying it. Oh well.
Update: That awful spacing was driving me bonkers (anal, what can I say?) so I’ve hived it off to the sidebar.
Thoughts on the Existence of God
We are unable to find such a god,
because a creator of the universe
must exist outside of it.
We would have to leave the universe
to find its creator.
So, if we do find a god in our universe,
that is surely not its creator.
Kind of a weighty subject for a Thursday afternoon.
I neither the time nor the patience to get into it with this sadly deluded fellow, although Lore Weaver (“The Atheist Conservative”) is making a valiant effort to knock some sense into the unfortunate Mr. Ball. It’s quite an entertaining discussion actually.
Update: It seems Mr. Ball is eager to propound a lot of misconceptions about atheists as well. For example, “Atheism at its core has a void and a blackness to it that is matched only by their worship of the Void as the ‘first cause’ of both the material universe and of life…” Yikes!
Bouncing Baby — Idiot Teenager
What teenagers do for “fun” in Lee County, Georgia.
According to the report “the video has been removed from YouTube…” Yeah, but we can watch it courtesy of MSNBC who happily play it over and over and over. Anyway, that just struck me as a little funny in an ironic kind of way. More on the story here.
As for the teenager, well what can you say? Load him up in a trebuchet and fling him into another county… see if he “bounces” on impact.
Steampunk: Computer Workshop
An online profile from The Wall Street Journal last year: Technophiles are tapping into a movement known as “steampunk,” where computers, keyboards and other gadgets are re-imagined as if built during the Victorian era.
Featured is a hobbyist called “Datamancer” and his “pixelo dynamatronic computational engine.” More at The Steampunk Workshop. I realize this isn’t exactly “new” — many have probably seen this elsewhere before — but it’s soooooo cool.
Riz Khan: Turkey & Islam
Interesting discussion with British author and newscaster Rizwan Khan and a panel of Turkish experts about the debate over the role of Islam in this secular Muslim country.
More about the “dangerously polarized” situation in Turkey from Eurasianet.org.
McCain: “Double-Talk” on the Economy
Q: “You have admitted that you're not exactly an expert when it comes to the economy and many have said –
McCain: I have not. I have not. Actually I have not.
ABC News, Good Morning America, 7/2/08
As can be clearly seen in the video, Timm-eh! nailed McCain dead to rights on Meet the Press about his self-confessed lack of knowledge and expertise regarding the economy.
The expression “double-talk” seems far too generous in my opinion. How about just calling it what it is: bald-faced lying.
Funny, I didn’t know he had one.
Update: Ah yes, the old double-standard. Ain’t it the truth?
Update2: Zing! And Pow! (Jeff is really on fire today.)
Update 3: I’m sure it must have occurred to some bright sparks amongst “senior Liberals” that in “upping the ante” with this escalation of his ridiculous lawsuit, Harper may have inadvertently provided the Liberals’ with the best fundraising opportunity they’ve had in ages. You just know that if the shoe were on the other foot, the Conservatives would be running to their base, wringing their hands in agony, frantically bleating and whining about how the big, bad Liberals were attempting to drive the helpless widdle Conservatives into the poorhouse with their malicious, vindictive lawsuit. They’d be imploring supporters to urgently give $5, $10, $50 or more in order to help them defend democracy, motherhood, or whatever against the outrageous perfidy of Liberal meanies and their despicable attempt at subverting the justice system to serve their own nefarious purposes, &etc.
Update 4: Mark Francis at Section15 has a brilliant take on this lawsuit. “I would put little stock in the theory that Harper tried to bribe Chuck Cadman if it wasn’t for the mounting evidence that Harper plays so dirty.”
Iraq & Afghanistan Wars – What’s the Reality?
Rachel Maddow and former Asst. Sec. of Defense Lawrence Korb of the Brookings Institution, discuss the reality on the ground in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Here’s the story they’re referring to about the American Army spying on their “allies” in Iraq.
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