Tim Tebow's nod to Iceland

(Reposted from Al-truism.com)

The Tim Tebow T-Mobile Superbowl Commercial may not just be a great commercial, but subtly subversive as well.

At approximately 48 seconds into the 1 minute version of the commercial, Mr. Tebow's last words are, "Bottom line...contracts hold you back! Am I right Iceland? You know what I'm talkin' about."

I ask myself, "What are you talking about Tim? And what does Iceland have to do with American football?" But if you ask what Iceland has to do with contracts holding them back, that is an entirely different matter.

After the Global financial crisis in 2007-2008, Iceland experienced its own financial crisis due to an overexposure of three of their banks to debt. Though similar to the U.S. sub-prime mortgage crisis, where many private U.S. banks were bailed out by legislation imposed on taxpayers, Iceland's solution was quite different.

Though privatized in 2003, Landsbanki served as Iceland's de facto central bank. Attracted by higher interest rates, a wave of foreign investors (primarily English and Dutch) transferred millions into Landsbanki's Icesave online savings accounts. However, on October 7, 2008, being unable to refinance debt, Landsbanki collapsed.

On two separate occasions, backing vetos by their President, Iceland's citizens voted to reject their government's bailout proposals for Landsbanki and its foreign creditors. Commenting on this in an address on Iceland's National Day, Prime Minister Mr Sigmundur Davíð Gunnlaugsson remarked, "Icelanders, as descendants of the Vikings, are highly individualistic and have difficulty putting up with authorities, let alone oppression. This was clearly demonstrated in the Icesave dispute, in which the people rejected an agreement it considered unfair. This position was later upheld by an international court, which showed that the people's sense of justice was a reliable indicator to follow."

In light of this, Tim Tebow's nod to Iceland is brilliant, if not a little subversive. And thanks to T-Mobile USA, he was provided with a huge Superbowl soapbox.

In defense of Kirk Cameron

Piers Morgan interviewed Kirk Cameron the other day. Cameron is a child actor turned Christian. (What he was in his youth is unknown to this contributor, and is irrelevant to the purposes of this column.) Morgan is a newspaper man turned talk show host of unknown religious conviction.

In the course of the interview, Cameron defined marriage as between "one man (and) one woman, for life, 'til death do you part." Those who have found themselves married to a Charles Manson wannabe might find the latter clause to be little idealistic, but Morgan's visceral and negative response was clearly not to the permanence of marriage but Cameron's preferred limitation of the institution to a singular member of the opposite sex.



"Homosexuality is unnatural" and "ultimately destructive" said Cameron. Boo said Morgan. Actually Cameron is both wrong and right. In a fallen world, sin (assuming homosexuality can be defined as such) is very natural. How that sin manifests will vary from person to person, but it is the go-to condition of humankind. And yes, it is very destructive.

The shorter life expectancy of homosexuals is evidence enough of that, but consider also the future generations that will not be because of said activity. And then consider our proximity to the demographic cliff, and how we draw closer to it every time a young person voluntarily removes themselves from the gene pool. So homosexuality is clearly very destructive from both a personal and societal perspective.

What would Morgan's response be if one of his boys were gay? According to him, he'd say "That's great son, as long as you're happy." That the lad would likely die prematurely and leave him no grandchildren is apparently irrelevant... as long as he's happy. Methinks Morgan places too much emphasis on his child's emotional state. What if heroin makes him happy? Or pedophilia? Or drinking a two-six of Jack Daniels every night? Obviously a parent is responsible for a child's well-being, not merely their temporal 'happiness'.

But how can you judge people who are born gay?, a critic will ask. First of all, I'm not judging them. That's not my job. Secondly they weren't born gay, or at least there's no empirical evidence to support the theory that they were. Yes, subtle differences have been detected between the brains of heterosexuals and homosexuals, but did those differences lead to homosexuality or did homosexuality lead to those subtle differences? In fact we don't know, but what we do know is that behaviour, particularly repetitive behaviour, affects neural development indicating the latter.

Morgan went on to point out that seven states have legalized gay marriage and that telling kids that homosexuality is wrong, and that it's wrong for them to marry, can be destructive. Actually, Piers, homosexuality itself is demonstrably destructive, and just because something is legal in fifty states doesn't make it right. Recall that at one point it was perfectly legal to kill Jews is Germany. It's widely acknowledged that the zeitgeist that led to that state of affairs was completely screwy. The possibility that people will one day say the same about the one that has brought us to this point must likewise be acknowledged.

And how, pray tell, did we get here? What example are legislators pointing to when they claim that the sky won't fall in if homosexuals marry? Canada's. And how did Canada become a shining, progressive, gay marriage promoting beacon to the world? For that one needs to read my previous post, The Charter: a recipe for decline.

In conclusion, Kirk Cameron is right. Though homosexuality may be natural in a fallen world, we weren't designed for it and it is highly destructive. And he's also right when he says we're all sinful. It's what ties us together: we all need grace.

Alison Redford's scary hidden agenda

To be blunt, Joe Clark lost the PM's job in 1980 because he can't count. He called a vote on a budget when he didn't have the bodies in the House to ensure its passage, and the Liberals gleefully shot it down before marching back into the halls of power. And thus we endured the National Energy Program, gratis Joe Clark.

His campaign that year included a promise to get tough on the deficit by raising gas taxes ten cents a gallon. Solving problems by raising taxes is, of course, the liberal solution to every problem that group has ever faced. That the Liberals then gave us the metric system and raised them even more just means they're all cut from the same cloth.

In 1986, in his incarnation as foreign affairs minister in the Mulroney government, Clark gave the Mengistu Haile Mariam regime of Ethiopia $60,000,000.00, the same year that government spent $100,000,000.00 on arms to suppress its own citizens. One cannot help but wonder how many deaths in that politically motivated famine resulted from our minister's misguided benevolence. Not long thereafter, Captain Canada spearheaded another disaster: the Charlottetown Accord.

Question: How can a conservative be so misguided, so often?
Answer: When he's not a conservative.

In 2010, Joe Clark, Jean Chretien and Ed Broadbent got together to discuss the merits of creating a united, left-wing party to take on the Tories. So Joe's conservatism is a facade and, judging by his record, always has been. This paper is not about Joe Clark.

It should terrify Albertans that Premier Allison Redford is a long-time, avid supporter of the man and has been involved in many of his campaigns. This can mean only one of two things: Either she's a dim-witted conservative who can't see past the end of her nose OR, like Joe, she's masquerading as a conservative in order to implement another agenda. Judging by her list of accomplishments, which are legion, it's apparent she's no fool. Which leaves the option of a hidden agenda.

Did Ms. Redford, for instance, say word one during the P.C. leadership campaign about lowering the allowable blood alcohol level to 0.05%? Does implementing it almost immediately following that race not constitute a "scary hidden agenda." It does if you're inclined to stop for a beer with your mates after work.

She and her minions claim that law is not about going after social drinkers, but two beer and a sandwich (yes, yeast increases bac) will push some people over that limit. So I'm not sure what their definition of social drinker is, but I'm sure I don't share it.

Your humble scribe was up in the North West Territories on business recently where he saw enough people hunting from the side of the road that he had to assume it was legal. In Alberta the government doesn't trust us to be able to smoke and drink coffee or even eat a doughnut behind the wheel. Or, if Ms. Redford has her way, stop for a beer on the way home from work. To paraphrase a line from a popular commercial being aired these days, the way to get tough on drunk on drunk drivers is to get tough on drunk drivers, not make defacto criminals out of responsible, law-abiding citizens.

The Charter: A recipe for decline

Chief Justice Robert Bauman of the B.C. Supreme Court has determined that Section 293 of the Criminal Code, the law banning polygamy, does in fact run counter to the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, but should remain because of the demonstrable harm polygamy causes children. This is of course precisely the reason social conservatives continue to oppose gay marriage. Or at least one of them.

Assuming that gay marriage is a large step toward the complete normalization of the homosexual life style, and assuming that such normalization leads to greater numbers of youth experimenting with and becoming addicted to it, and assuming that the gay life style leads to the premature demise of its adherents, then it can be argued that gay marriage is every bit as harmful to society, including its children, as the polygamous variety.

But people are born gay, you might argue. Well, maybe. Granted, there are subtle differences between the brains of homosexuals and heterosexuals, but do these differences lead to homosexuality, or does homosexuality lead to these subtle differences. One can't know. What is known, however, is that behaviour, particularly repetitive behaviour, influences neural development indicating the latter. (That last tidbit comes from no less an authority than the left's own David Suzuki.) The pathology of homosexuality aside, does it lead to death?

In 2008, the World Health Organization essentially conceded this point when it admitted that the long predicted AIDS pandemic will not be for the simple reason that the disease is largely contained within high risk groups, most notably, particularly in developed countries, intravenous drug users and the male homosexual community. So the connection between homosexuality, AIDS and premature death is an established fact. But we're talking about more than just individuals here.

As a society we are already repopulating at below replacement levels, reproducing at a rate of 1.6 children per woman of child bearing age as opposed to the requisite 2.1. That fact that situation is exacerbated when a sizeable number choose to remove themselves from the gene pool is obvious on the face of it. It is also worth mentioning that no society has long survived the liberalization of its sexual mores, and there's no reason to believe we'll be the first.

Returning to the subject at hand, it is known that young men are regularly booted out of polygamous communities as the oldies don't appreciate the competition for the young hotties. (I would argue this is the nicest thing the decrepid old men could do for the younger generation, but I digress.) This would make those young men homeless. Homosexuality, on the other hand, makes them dead, or at least has the propensity to do so.

We once, prior to the coming of Pierre Trudeau, had laws against both homosexuality and polygamy, presumably designed for the protection of society. Those laws, as Justice Bauman pointed out in the case of polygamy, are/were contraindicated by the Charter. Thus the premise of this column: that the Charter was not designed for our benefit but for our downfall.

A woman Trudeau (the Charter's supposed author) went to university with maintains he was then a card-carrying communist. It is known that he made many trips to Communist China and Russia as a private citizen, and an internal 1968 RCMP report (touted by a retired officer stumping for political office in the 80's) maintains that our then future prime minister also had the distinction of leading a delegation of communists to the 1952 Moscow Economic Forum. (That the RCMP didn't disclose this to the voting public in 1968 only adds to their long list of sins.)

Not convinced of his communism? In his own words, "(B)etween the years 1952 and 1960 I was several times forbidden to teach in the universities... because of my anti-clerical and communist leanings" (Pierre Elliot Trudeau, Federalism and the French Canadians, St. Martins Press, 1968, p.xxi). In the same book he claimed that the very purpose of a collective system is to better ensure personal freedom" (p. 209) and that "democratic socialism (the kind you vote for) may be less efficient and far reaching than the totalitarian brand" (p. 150). If he wasn't a communist this writer doesn't understand the meaning of words.

So if Trudeau in fact subscribed to a political paradigm hell-bent on the overthrow of the free world, then everything he purportedly did for us is in fact suspect of having been done to us. And thus even the most blinkered liberal must concede the possibility that the Charter was not the benevolent document that was sold to us, but rather a Trojan Horse from which continues to creep sundre enemies of the state. Like gay marriage. And, but for the wisdom of Justice Bauman, polygamous unions. It is yet to be determined whether the Supreme Court of Canada will similarly protect the best interests of society. It is foreboding that they have thus far shown such little propensity to do so.

An Unaffordable Proposition

In Alberta, with the toughest distracted driving laws in North America, you can smoke while you drive, and (with a nod to Timmie's) you can sip a coffee, but if you do both at the same time be prepared to part with $172.00. Now if while so engaged you pass an emergency vehicle without slowing down to 60 km/hr, make that $772.00. If you're not wearing a seat-belt at the time of these grievous infractions, all of which used to be perfectly legal, you could be on the hook for $1022.00.

Now there are valid arguments to be made for each of these laws, and valid arguments against them. My point here is simply to highlight how we are piecemeal losing our freedoms, penury being the new gulag. I would also argue that the longer governments that enact such laws remain in power, the more freedoms we will lose - and that's an unaffordable proposition.

Remembering War

Have we not all one father? hath not one God created us? why do we deal treacherously every man against his brother, by profaning the covenant of our fathers? Malachi 2:10 KJV

The good news is that in spite of the machinations of the powers that be, sometimes men remember their common brotherhood, and don't deal so treacherously with each other. One such time was during the Great War in 1914. In December, appeals had been made by several groups including the Vatican “that the guns may fall silent at least upon the night the angels sang.” Among the various governments, these appeals fell on deaf ears.

However, something almost unprecedented in the annals of military history was about to happen. Accounts of this event begin with stories of the German soldiers decorating their trenches with candles and Christmas trees on Christmas Eve. The guns fell silent. Then began the singing. The singing of Christmas carols. These spontaneous songs of desperate men ascended as it were to heaven and rang out across the battlefield, and lo and behold the British troops responded with carols of their own. No oath of fealty to king, ruler or country was to trump this spontaneous manifestation of brotherly kindness. Later, Christmas greetings were shouted out across the battle lines, and the soldiers arose from their trenches to exchange small gifts with the enemy. It is estimated that as many as 100,000 soldiers participated in this first unofficial cessation of hostilities. In some sectors of the battlefield the Christmas truce continued until New Years Day.

Today is Remembrance Day in Canada; Veteran's Day in the United States. When I think of war, I pray, “never again” and remember this spontaneous manifestation of peace.

Legalize pot...or not.

The very impressive sounding Independent Scientific Committee on Drugs in England recently rated alcohol as almost four times more harmful than marijuana. In other news, the IPCC claimed the sky is falling. In other words, just because it's written don't make it so.

In reality alcohol leads to slurring and unrestrained promiscuity, but pot makes everybody stupid. Studies indicating it's deleterious effects on both long and short term memories are legion and the shrunken amygdala and hypothalamus evident in regular users is a medical fact. It is carcinogenic and purportedly associated with the onset of schizophrenia.

I say, 'purportedly'. Proponents will argue the possibility that schizophrenia leads to smoking up, not the other way around. That 'possibility' being a given, when pot smokers are more likely to be diagnosed with the disease, (according to another British study) you do so at your own risk. Or do you?

When you're unemployable and on government funded medication to stabilize your condition, as a taxpayer, I'm very much on the hook. And therein lies just one of the problems with legalized pot.

Alan Shanoff in the Calgary Sun (Nov 7/2010) argues that all prohibition has "managed to do is push up the price of pot," making it less accessible. Reducing the number of schizophrenics in society. Long live prohibition, I say.