Ronald McDonald's Secret Agenda

As Johnny Carson used to say, "Folks, I merely report these things".

Love 'Em, But Don't Accept Their 'Lifestyle'

Thus speaketh that irascible and crazy old televangelist, Pat Robertson.

Pat Robertson: ‘Love’ your lesbian family member by refusing to accept her (via Raw Story )

On Thursday, televangelist Pat Robertson counseled a 700 Club viewer that the most Christian way for her to behave toward a lesbian in her family is to refuse to be her niece’s “enabler,” and to refuse to give her blessing to her niece’s relationships…

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The Ontario NDP: The Party of No Damn Principles?

That is the conclusion Rick Salutin recently came to in a column entitled Andrea Horwath's right-wing populism.

Describing her as a right-wing populist, full out, Salutin explored the framework within which this unpleasant and inconvenient truth emerges:

She’s Rob Ford, thinking always about saving taxpayers money simplistically by cutting waste and public salaries, in order to hand out $100 Hydro rebates: that’s gravy train talk, province-wide.

She’s Mitt Romney appealing to his base when she invokes concern for “the job creators and small business,” i.e. the makers not the takers.

She’s Margaret Thatcher when she opposes any meaningful revenue increase for public projects like Kathleen Wynne’s pension plan and transit expansion.

And she’s Mike Harris when she advocates “a government that makes sense” and emblazons “Makes Sense” on her campaign bus. That’s no coincidence, it’s an evocation of Mike Harris’s “Common Sense” motto. These things don’t just happen, they’re focus grouped to within a breath of survival.

With each passing day, Salutin's acerbic analysis rings increasingly true.

On Wednesday, continuing her slow tease out of 'policy,' Ms. Horwath promised to encumber the cabinet with a new ministry for 'cutting waste' at Queen's Park:

The Minister of Savings and Accountability would be charged with finding a half a per cent of savings – about $600-million – in the annual budget each year.

With little more than her usual rapid blinking that accompanies each departure from traditional NDP principles, the leader averred “There are a lot of people around the cabinet table whose business it is, whose job it is to spend the money,” but “What I want is someone there who’s going to be able to save the pennies.”

While those pennies saved be put toward progressive programs? Apparently not. Aware of the difficulty in finding $600 million in savings each year, Horwath said it could mean “hard decisions” about social programs.

So there you have it. Trimming the 'fat.' Saving the taxpayer money. Funding business to hire people. Apparently those are the new 'principles' of the Ontario NDP under Ms Horwath's 'leadership.'

Or perhaps Liberal party spokeswoman Rebecca MacKenzie put it even more tartly and accurately when she said, “It's impossible to know what Andrea Horwath stands for any more. She has gone from calling herself a socialist to mimicking Rob Ford and Tim Hudak.”

Why I'm Glad I Wasn't A Math Teacher

While those heard-headed pragmatists who rule the world today often disdain 'soft' subjects like English literature, sociology, and a host of other disciplines that require nuanced, as opposed to blunt thinking, I am glad that I was an English teacher instead of one dispensing the wonders of mathematics.

Even though he might have been what we used to euphemistically call 'a difficult-to-serve client,' young Tim Hudak these days must be causing his old math teachers (and probably their entire brethren of colleagues) some embarrassment and grief, for one simple reason: they just did not meet his needs, clearly reflected in the fact that his figures just don't add up.

During this Ontario election campaign, the would-be but failed wunderkind is traipsing throughout the province promising a remarkable 'million jobs' if only less enlightened souls entrust him with the task on June 12. But whatever arcane formula he is using to rescue us from our weaker moments of compassion for our fellow citizens and the necessary accompanying progressive legislation seems, to put it politely, flawed.

First, to his figures as reported in The Toronto Star:

Based on the previous decade’s average, 523,200 jobs would develop over eight years if he did nothing.

Lowering corporate taxes from 11.5 per cent to 8 per cent would generate an additional 119,808 jobs.

Ending wind and solar energy subsidies would spark another 40,364 jobs and cutting the regulatory burden of red tape would mean an extra 84,800 new private-sector positions.

Revamping Ontario’s restrictive apprenticeship programs would mean 170,240 jobs.

Hudak believes another 96,000 jobs would come from public transit expansion in the Greater Toronto and Hamilton Area.

In his second mandate — after the 2018 election — he would reduce personal income taxes to generate 47,080 jobs.

Have these numbers been vetted and approved by economists? Well, kinda, sorta, not really.

Apparently, as reported in The Ottawa Citizen, the Tories sought the imprimatur of one Benjamin Zycher, a Californian who’s associated with the Pacific Research Institute and the American Enterprise Institute, intellectual cousins of Canada’s Fraser Institute.

The only problem is that Zycher never looked at the Hudak plan:

His work was done months before the current election campaign and it’s not based on the specifics of what Hudak says he would do as premier. It’s a more philosophical take on eliminating regulations, giving up on green energy, cutting corporate taxes, and reducing trade barriers with other provinces.

Is this kind of faith-based, aspirational plan something that the voters of Ontario want to embrace?

As reported in today's Star, it would seem that young Tim has underestimated the discernment of the Ontario electorate:

Nearly two-thirds of Ontarians disapprove of Tim Hudak’s plan to cut 100,000 public servants to streamline government, a new poll suggests.

The Forum Research survey also found‎ 63 per cent do not think the Progressive Conservative leader will be able to create his promised 1 million new jobs, while 26 per cent feel he can deliver and 11 per cent don’t know.

Similarly, 26 per cent approve of cutting 100,000 public-sector workers — such as teachers and bureaucrats — while 62 per cent do not and‎ 11 per cent aren’t sure.

Parenthetically, one can't help but wonder if disapproval would be even higher if people knew that Tim's plan doesn't involve just the dismissal of faceless bureaucrats but also includes nursing home caregivers, educational assistants, front-line educators, homecare workers, etc., while upping corporate welfare through a 30% reduction in the corporate tax rate.

Rarely are voters offered such a dramatic and opposing vision. The embrace and elevation of the self to the exclusion of concern for the collective. I guess at least for that, we should thank Tim Hudak.

For more about young Tim, check out this comment by one of my blog readers.

Meanwhile, Back In The Land of Ontario Election Campaigns....

The mask of boyish innocence was slowly slipping away from young Tim Hudak.



H/t Toronto Star



H/t Ray Mirshahi

Don't Worry; Be Happy

Apparently those of us who fret about the ever-growing magnitude of climate change effects are just not grasping the truth. As The National Post's Peter Foster recently explained at a gathering of the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers, the oil industry just isn't adequately communicating why climate change skeptics are right:

What Stephen Harper, Tim Hudak And The Rest of The Neocons Really Think