Category: Waste

Dang; willya lookit all this? I take a few days off and, lo & behold, a total buttload of interesting stuff all pops up all over the place.

The Poor Little Rich Girl of Canadian politics has decided that, since nobody will let her be in charge, she’s running back home to Daddy’s company to… well, be in charge. Because of her overwhelming qualifications, of course. Don’t let the door hit ya where the Good Lord split ya on the way out.

The Torys put yet another nail in the now almost all-nail coffin of the billion-buck bugger-up of the long gun registry and the Liebrals, naturally, were miffed that it was done outside of Parliament where they could have huffed and puffed — but actually done sweet bugger all — about it:

“It says the Conservatives are trying to do by stealth what they can’t do out in the open — which is kill the long gun registry,” said Liberal Justice Critic Marlene Jennings.

“But by doing it by stealth, they are attempting to ensure that the vast majority of Canadians won’t know what they’re doing, and so they get away with it.”

No, dipshit; it means that the Tories — along with most other people in this country that have two non-partisan brain cells to rub together — are sick and God damned tired of worthless, self-serving, Grit grandstanding on this issue and have decided to take away one of your favourite horns. Go toot something else. Have some beans.

Our boys in Afghanistan had a bad day over the Easter weekend. Perhaps in something of a telling portent of changing values, the deaths of six of our men came almost right on top of the 90th anniversary of the assault on Vimy Ridge where losing six men would have happened about every seven minutes. 3,598 dead in three days; do the math. And none of them came home. But look to get innundated with a fresh volly of “body of fallen soldier begins/continues/ends long journey home” stories in the MSM for the next while (unless there’s something more Lefty-friendly to blab about for a few minutes).

All charges were finally dropped agains the lacrosse players from Duke University, which must have totally baffled the lib-left because hey, the accuser was black and the accused were white. Which means they’re clearly guilty, right?

Hockey season ended. Early.

And much, much more. Dang. Well, I’m back now and seeing as how I’m laid off for a while, that should mean that I’m going to have a lot more time to dish out all the little nuggets of wisdom that you have all come to know, love and depend on to get through your days.

Here’s a little something that’s sure to piss the Kult of Kyoto right off. As most of you have likely heard already, Britain’s Channel 4 has recently produced a short (75 minutes without commercials) documentary titled “The Great Global Warming Swindle” which knocks the wheels of the Kyotology bandwagon with all the ruthlessness of a Kyoto Kultist screaming for the head of a global-warming-denying heretic. No doubt the money-grubbing Marxist granola grinders from the errorless echelons of the Exalted EnviroEnlightenment Eggheadocracy® will bromidically bitch and bawl endlessly about what harsh language their critics have begun using. To them I say, “if you can’t take it, quit dishing it out and shut the hell up!”

In the opening seconds, the accusations “The ice is melting, the sea is rising, hurricanes are blowing AND IT’S ALL YOUR FAULT!” flash across the screen, only to be immediately followed by “Scared? Don’t be; it’s not true.” One by one, the errors, delusions and outright lies of the Enviroloony elite are laid bare calmly and in plain English that is conspicuously devoid of the kind of bafflegab that saturates the rhetoric from the other side of the issue.

I’ll have plenty of time to shoot my mouth off on the topic later so, in the meantime, just sit back and enjoy the show.

[If, for some reason, you are unable to play the video in this window, just click this direct link to go directly to the video page and try there.]

A hearty thanks to Channel 4 for this excellent, non-powerpoint-presentation production. Keep up the good work, lads.

And here I thought that this kind of idiocy was, gratefully, a thing of the past. I guess not. Oh, well; at least it dates back to the days of Grit government.  Plenty of media outlets are hooting away lately about an organization called the Institute for Media, Policy and Civil Society (IMPACS) and a project that they were running in Afghanistan. Now, I don’t recall ever hearing about IMPACS before, but their webpage describes them as “a registered not-for-profit charitable organization committed to strengthening the voice and profile of civil society organizations in Canada and internationally,” and a little poking around seems to indicate a bit of a Leftist slant to their philosophy.

Another indication might be the pie-in-the-sky, impractical, idealistic approach that they took to their project in Afghanistan. According to the IMPACS website for the project:

IMPACS Afghanistan works to encourage the development of free and fair media in Afghanistan. It focuses its work on women’s participation in media, and the use of media as a tool to educate women.

Doesn’t sound too bad, does it? I mean, after all, isn’t it about time that Afghan women — who were treated little better than slaves or livestock under the Taliban regime — had more of a voice? Hell, this actually sounds like something I’d give a few bucks to myself, so look for all the usual suspects latched onto the public teat to wail away about how this is another example of the cold-hearted Conservative Hidden Agenda® now that Ottawa has pulled the plug (after damn near $3 million was already blown) on its funding. The problem is that the agency made a complete balls-up of it.

So what did they do to accomplish their stated goals? Well, see for yourself:

• “… the 2004 launch of a now defunct monthly newspaper in the capital of Kabul, the report says. Its purpose was in part to train female reporters and educate women about politics and other issues. “
• “The rest of the $2.7 million in total CIDA funds was previously used to start two radio stations. They offered women, especially in rural areas, a rare chance to be trained and heard in a repressively male-dominated culture.”

A radio station. In rural Afghanistan. Where most buildings have no electricity at all and the majority of the ones that do, haven’t got radios.

And a newspaper. Isn’t that nice? The problem with putting out a newspaper for Afghan women is that, thanks to the prohibition against schooling girls that was in force for all the years of Taliban rule, fewer than 10% of the female population can actually read the damn thing!

Now, I have NO problem whatsoever with charities that do good work (and there are plenty of them) but this… this was nothing more than a money pit. All it did was to supply a few do-gooder moonbats with jobs for a few months.  And, in typical Lefty fashion, they responded to questions with the predictable “go away; we’re doing nice things” attitude:

Asked to explain the audit’s findings, a CIDA spokesperson said no one was available.

“A briefing is not a possibility at this time,” said Greg Scott. In an e-mail, he said that IMPACS was the first media development group trying to put women’s voices on community radio.

The problem, Greggy, is that putting “women’s voices on community radio” doesn’t do Jack Shit. Teach them to read first.  Go out into the Afghan countryside and actually get your hands dirty.  I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: The problem with “liberals” is that they see the world as they think it should be, act accordingly, and then wonder what the hell went wrong (or try to blame conservatives) when they end up accomplishing nothing.  Conservatives, on the other hand, see the world as it is, warts and all, and just deal with it in the most direct fashion possible.

“Like rats in a maze.” That’s how Ombudsman Andre Marin described the way that the Criminal Injuries Compensation Board treats the victims of crime. So much for “helping the victims.”

For those of you that don’t know already, the CICB is the body that administers the Ontario’s Victim Justice Fund. The CICB is mandated by law to provide compensation to victims of violent crime and their families. Sounds like a good thing, right? The problem is that only about 1 in 40 victims actually get anything, and those that do still manage to get screwed by the bureaucrats…

London, Ont., parent Aurelio Almeida, whose 5-year-old daughter Naiomi was raped and murdered in 2001, was challenged by the CICB to explain what his injuries were.

[…]

The mother of a woman who was decapitated had to provide a form in which a medical practitioner had drawn the location of the injuries on a diagram of a body.

Marin said the stalling and nitpicking was a deliberate attempt by the agency over the last decade to discourage claimants and stay within its budget as required by the ministry of the attorney general.

The OVJF gets its cash from victim surcharges — the extra money tacked on all provincial offences like speeding tickets and booze fines — that range from $10 to $125 until fine is $1,000 or more, when the victim surcharge becomes a flat 25%. That’s a buttload of money when you add it all up. So what DO they do with that money?

Among some of the bureaucratic asshattery that Marin found were:

• Staff at the board developed a “document fetish” and became so obsessed with having their lengthy application forms filled out perfectly that they rejected one man’s claim because he forgot to dot an i in his name.
• Attorney General Michael Bryant broke the law by directing the board not to issue payments to save money and stay under budget.
• Ontario’s Victim Justice Fund has an $80-million surplus that the government refuses to use to compensate victims of crime.
• A man whose five-year-old daughter was raped and murdered who was treated as though he was trying to scam the board of money to pay for her funeral.
• A mother of a murder victim “berated” for forgetting her file number.
• A blind retiree who had to chose between buying food and burying her murdered daughter.

As much as I appreciate his bringing this mess to the light of day, Marin loses me when he starts saying that “It had no money. It was starved and forced into this situation and so the first thing we need to do is fund it properly.”

Andre, buddy; the God damned thing’s got a surplus of EIGHTY MILLION BUCKS!! It ain’t cash-starved. 🙄 No; the problem here — like with so many other governmental bean-counting behemoths — is that the CICB and OVJF aren’t about helping victims at all. They’re about keeping a bunch of lazy, bloated, unionized bureaucrat parasites in jobs at public expense.

Don’t believe me? Well then, if I’m wrong, you’d expect the Fiberals to be hopping to get the damned mess fixed, wouldn’t you (after all, it is an election year)? Of course you would. But they’re not…

After the report’s release, Conservative leader John Tory called on [Ontario Attorney General Michael] Bryant to resign.

What Bryant should do is toss out the CICB chair and the rest of the board. But Bryant indicated he wants them to help implement the changes. 😯

Talk about the fox and the friggin’ henhouse. But do you know what REALLY pisses me off about all this God damned this bullshit? IT’S BEEN GOING ON FOR OVER A DECADE!! The McSquinty Fiberals knew about it and did nothing. “Chainsaw” Mike’s Tory government knew about and did jack shit. When the Dippers were running the show, Bob Rae was as useless on this issue as he was on any other.

Well, it’s hit the fan now and everybody’s gotten splattered with shit; so can we please knock it off with all the partisan prickdom? This one is EVERYBODY’S FAULT…

So quit the squabbling and FIX THE DAMNED THING!!

They’re here! They’re finally here! The waiting is over!

Um… no, I haven’t been drinking. Lent starts today, remember? No, what’s got me all excited is: the awards we’ve all been waiting to hear about have finally been, well, awarded.

Oscar who? No, not those awards, bonehead. I’m talking about the Teddies…

The Canadian Taxpayer’s Federation has come through once again with the Ninth Annual Teddies Waste Awards and let me tell ya, boys and girls, it couldn’t happen to a nicer bunch of trough-snouters. Here’s just a sampling of the list (WARNING: spoilers follow): 😆

“And the federal Teddy goes to Senator Colin Kenny, once again showing that the last institution to get the memo regarding Canadians’ demands for accountability from lawmakers is the Canadian Senate. Rest assured Senator Kenny, the days of unaccountable officials thinking they can fleece Canadian taxpayers with impunity because they’ll never have to face the electorate will soon be over,” said Ms. Batra as she unveiled the first Teddy of 2007, a beautiful golden sow.

So what are you still doing here? Get your butt over to the CTF’s site and see for yourself. 😛