Randy Hillier Wrong On Bullying Bill

Randy Hillier, MPP in the Parliament of Ontario, has opined against the current Liberal government’s anti-bullying legislation: “Bill 13, Accepting Schools Act, 2011”

Sticks and Stones

Writes Mr. Hillier:

Unlike many of those who have announced support for Bill 13, I have read the complete bill and the relevant sections of the Education Act that it amends.

A dubious claim, at best. For example, he accuses the bill of “not providing schools with any additional tools to reward or punish behaviour.”

Well, let’s look at the bill that Mr. Hillier claims to have read.

In the last section of the bill, paragraphs are added to Section 310 of the Education Act, adding that bullying is grounds for suspension and, therefore, subsequently expulsion.

That sounds like a new tool for punishing bad behaviour, or at least permission to use an old tool for a new reason. I don’t know what bill Mr. Hillier read.

He further writes:

Bill 13 mandates creating a host of new school clubs which could identify people in the club as being: “lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgendered, transsexual, two-spirited, intersexed, queer (or) questioning.”

Go read it. There’s nothing in that bill requiring the forming of clubs. School boards are required to support students who want to create their own clubs for promoting awareness of sexism, racism and other forms of discrimination.

Personally, I think that forming such clubs would be a good idea. A lot of people think so, including – it turns out – Mr. Hillier.

I know. Weird, huh? Let me explain.

He starts by saying that these clubs will single out students who join them and that this will make bullying worse. This ignores the fact that gay students are already being bullied into suicide and that the purpose of the clubs is to create alliances between the bullied gay kids and the straight kids who want to stand up for them.

But later in the article, he tells us:

The depth of a child’s understanding is amplified not only through reward or punishment, but by learning compassion and empathy. The difference between adults and children is that adults are expected to have already learned the lessons of life and developed conscience and compassion on their road to maturity.

Strange, isn’t it?

Here he is railing against the clubs and awareness groups that the law will permit – not require, but permit – and at the end of his article he writes about how important it is that children develop empathy. Gee, I wonder how they could do that, Mr Hillier. Maybe – could they – just possibly – learn it from groups of other students who promote awareness of these issues?

If you really want to understand Randy Hillier’s problem though, it’s located right in the middle of his article:

Bill 13 does the exact opposite of what is needed. Rather than minimizing differences, it helps segregate and highlight the differences between people.

What is needed, according to Mr. Hillier, is to minimize our differences. We need to get those gay kids to just stop acting so … god … damned … gay! Just act like straight kids! Play sports! Break things! Get out more! Except the girls … you lesbians need to stop dressing like boys, stay inside and take up sewing. Buy a dress and put on some make-up. We’re trying to minimize differences here, people! Get with the Randy Hillier program!

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Oh, Dear Hudak.

It should have been easy to run McGuinty out of town. Why, he raised taxes! Horrors! There's unemployment and everyone blames unemployment on the current government. Gas prices are high. That green energy thing seems like such a rip off.

And still, Timmy-boy, you screwed it up. You screwed it up horribly.

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/ontario-election/party-preference-for-ontario-voters-since-2001/article2163455/?from=2163820

Look at that. See that last peak for the PCs at around 42%? That was the day before Tim started opening his mouth and making word-noises.

His first ridiculous speechification was his demand to an end to the Hydro debt repayment charge on account of the fact that Ontarians had already made enough payments to cover the principal. Do we understand how stupid that makes him? Not only is he neglecting the fact that we haven't paid off the interest, he's also ignoring the part where Ernie Eves added to that debt in order "freeze Hydro rates".

Tim's latest Homer Simpson moment was his declaration that he would cut red tape in the government by 30%. In spite of everyone asking him to clarify - or at least give examples - of red tape, he really thought he'd picked a winner with this one. He doubled down today by stating that "We need to drain the red-tape swamp".

A swamp of red tape? The only quote that I can think of that comes anywhere near that is this one:

"Immigrants are the glue that holds together the gears of our country" - Homer Simpson.

Try picturing that: the draining of a swamp of red tape. The tape just gets stuck in the drain, doesn't it? Everything else goes down the drain ... but not the tape. It just clogs up the drain a bit a time, making things worse. Draining, it turns out, just isn't the thing to do with tape.

Now you might think that a guy who doesn't understand interest and can't work a metaphor for the life of him must be some kind of high school dropout, right? Nope. Tim Hudak is a child of two teachers and has two degrees in Economics. Unfortunately, none of that prevents him from being an idiot and Ontarians are starting to realize that.

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Catholic Child Abusers

No, I'm not not talking about the priests who are forcibly sodomizing little boys. That deserves attention, undoubtedly, but I'm talking about mental abuse. This kind of bullshit.

It wasn’t until her seven-year-old son asked her if he’d burn in hell that Marjorie Kirsop became concerned.
But this fall, when five-year-old Sarah Kirsop declared she had converted to Catholicism ...

Let's pretend for a moment that I, as a public school Grade 2 teacher, actually did what us "militant" atheists are accused of doing every day - and tried to force everyone to our non-religion.

Imagine, Mrs. Baptist's children came home and said:
"Mommy, Mr. DTK told us in school today that Jesus is a fairy tale. Did you know that? He even showed us parts of the bible that are wrong!"

I'd be fired in a day, union or no union.

So how come the only school board in the town of Morinville, Alberta - a school board which is officially a public school board - is allowed to teach hellfire and brimstone to the children of non-believers?

Riddle me that.

Bunch of jerks.

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DeCloet: Stop hating Americans! Wah-wah!

Go ahead, read it. At least the first two pargagraphs.

Apparently, Canada's relative success in weathering this recession is nothing to be particularly happy about. It's some kind of accident that we did better than the Americans. And anybody who is proud of how our previous government reined in corporate greed, refused to participate in banking shenanigans and what not ... well, those people are just exercising their "latent anti-Americanism".

Or not.

A cure for that smugness lies in the Bank of Canada’s latest review of the financial system, and its warnings that Canadians are still spending money they don’t have. Some facts leap out.

Yes. That's what we need: a "cure" for our "smugness". Right on. 'Cause we all hate Americans, see, and we need to be taught that we're stupid, too!

So here's how it worked. The American government struck down decades-old (even century old) laws regulating banks. They let very wise, very wealthy people run roughshod over the economy and the poor people. Those people left the economy dry as a bone and left the taxpayer holding the bag.

The Canadian government didn't do that.

So then the United States got sick. Really, really sick. And it started to affect us.

So our government and the Bank of Canada, working in tandem, cranked our interest rates down to historic lows in order to stimulate the economy by making it cheap to borrow money.

And we borrowed. And we're in debt.

See?! We're just as dumb as the Americans! Take that you pinko, leftist whackjobs!

Yeah. Yeah.

The difference, in case you missed it, was that we were smart enough not to leave Conservatives in power for too long. We can see their greed. We can see what they're going to do us. Either they'll go directly for the money, or they'll try to take out the education and health care systems first. We notice, and we kick them out.

As long as we had the Liberals in, they marched us toward surplus and conservative (!) fiscal policies with a proper long term outlook. You put Conservatives in, as the Americans did year after year after year, and you get a financial mess.

That, in the end, is the difference. We're willing to take a long term view, tax our wealthy people, and make things work. The Americans took Reagan and two Bushes, let their economy spin downward out of control and instead believed what the liars were saying instead of what they were doing.

No, that's not "anti-Americanism". It's just what happened.

And it's journalists like Derek DeCloet, Americaphiles all, who refuse to see that there are characteristic differences between the populations. It's people like that who are hurting our country by spreading this myth that we're only being different for the sake of difference.

It's time people like that, people who truly hate what this country is about, get called out for what they are: anti-Canadians.

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Our Anti-Canadian Government

With Vic Toews at the front.

They've been secretly crafting a North American security agreement. Why is it done in secret? Why, because Canadians are too stupid, naive and anti-American for this sort of agreement to take place in the light of day.

[a leaked document] provides a rare insight into how the government regards Canadians: as a nation ignorant of the true scale of the security threat it faces and more concerned with privacy rights.

See that? You're too dumb to comprehend the horrid terrorist threats coming our way! You stupid left-wing whackos keep quoting these statistics that say 100 times as many people have died in car accidents as terrorists incidents. Stop doing that and learn to be afraid, dammit!

Is there some reason that Canadians should be worried about their privacy?

“Greater information sharing is part of the initiative. The safeguarding of privacy and sovereignty will be of concern for Canadians,” the document says.

See what your government thinks of you? You're worried about your privacy. Don't you realize that in order for shipping containers to be properly inspected at Canadian ports, the American government needs to have your biometric data, medical history and a bunch of other things they'll use against you. I mean, seriously, people: the guys who are going to interrogate you in Syria need that information to torture you effectively!

“The Canadian public may underestimate the security threat to Canada,” the communication plan says.

No, we don't underestimate it. The problem is that the government overestimates that threat. Here, you do the arithmetic if you want. It looks to me like about 350,000 people have died in traffic accidents since 9-11. That's a hundred times the number who have died from terrorism.

I think Canadians have a pretty shrewd idea how dangerous terrorism is. I think our government is exaggerating so it can get deeper in bed with the Americans.

So let's just get to the meat of this issue:

“Notwithstanding our significant investment to date, a perception exists in the U.S. that Canada has not focused enough on security,” the Public Safety document says.

That's right, puppy. You're a good dog, but not good enough. Now roll over and play dead for Uncle Sam. Uncle Sam wants to handle your immigration for you, so he can extradite refugees he doesn't like to someplace where torture is legal. He wants to see your records, examine your people, know what they're up to ...

And once he has all your records. Once he know exactly what you're doing every moment of every day, then maybe - just maybe - he'll let some of your trucks cross the border without a tonne of harassment.

Or not. Whatever. Terrorism, you know.

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McGuinty Just Wanted to Help the Police

In response to the Ombudsman's report that the use of a wartime act to police the G20 protests in Toronto was probably illegal and unconstitutional, our Premier had the following to say:

“We moved pretty quickly on this thing in order to help our police at the earliest possible opportunity,” he said. “We did not take the appropriate steps to communicate this to the public.”

No, Mr. McGuinty. You've got it all wrong.

The problem isn't that you "didn't take the appropriate steps to communicate ...". The problem is that you didn't take the appropriate steps at all.

Your job, in case you've forgotten, isn't to facilitate the police. Your job isn't to protect the people with riot gear, batons, guns and tasers.

Your job is to protect the freedom of the people. You were supposed to protect our rights. It wasn't that you communicated your unconstitutional law in a poor manner. It's that you invoked an unconstitutional law and interrupted the freedom of the people to speak their minds.

That's the unforgivable crime here.

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The Anti-Canadians don't want to live in Wonderland

That's what the rest of us want, apparently. We have an "Alice In Wonderland" view of politics and terrorism, according to the former head of CSIS.

Someone named "J.L. Granatstein", writing for the Ottawa Citizen, agrees.

It goes along with that "inferiority complex" myth that the Americans, along with Canadian journalists and right wing politicians, like to spread. Because, naturally, if you disagree with American policies, there must be something wrong with you. Maybe you have a small penis? Just sayin'.

Well, it's time to call bullshit. It's also time to call this attitude for what it is:

Anti-Canadianism.

The vast majority of Canadian people believe in a few core values: social medicine; the illegality of torture; international law; peace keeping.

Our elected leaders, a good chunk of our military brass and many of our journalist-pundits, have separate values. Stuff like private medicine, torture-but-keep-it-quiet, dumping on the United Nations, starving peace keeping forces until they fail to function.

They hate Canada. There's no other way to put it. They find themselves at the top of a power structure, elected by people they actually hate.

So they tell us that our values are unrealistic. They tell us our rules are just getting in the way. They deride our hope for the future as naive.

They really, truly, hate us.

If you read that Citizen article, you can see the hatred. Granatstein has to tell us how we aren't "pulling our own weight" and how that threatens our "sovereignty". What he means is that the U.S. will conquer us if we don't do what they want. And then he wonders what part of American policy we could legitimately oppose?

Granatstein is upset that Canadians will easily fall in to "paroxysms of moral outrage" while failing to finish the quote from which that phrase came - namely the interrogation after torture of a child soldier. Yeah, J.L, believe it or not we get pissed off when children are tortured - even if you hold on to them for eight years and torture them as adults.

We're so fucking naive that way.

Regarding Afghanistan, what he says with irony, I say with conviction*:

How much better if the money wasted on defence spending had gone for day care or better medicare.

This is typical of anti-Canadians. Never does he explain or justify what the United States government does. It's enough to assume that America is right and everyone else is naive, stupid or evil.

I'm not naive. I do aim for everyone on this planet to live in a kind of Wonderland. By that I mean: everyone has food to eat; everyone is free from violence; every child is safe and secure; no one in enslaved; everyone can vote for their leaders.

Will it happen in my lifetime, the whole world over? Will people all over this world dump the religions and other vile philosophies that lead them violently all over the globe?

Not likely. But it's still the goal, and it's quite opposite to where Granatstein's heroes would take us - and have been taking us for decades.

I'm reminded of Philip Pullman, from the very end of the his Northern Lights trilogy.

There is no kingdom of heaven. Never was. Never will be. The idea is dead. The only thing we can do is build the republic of heaven. And we have to do that right here, on Earth.

And we will not arrive at the republic of heaven on Earth via extrajudicial killings, secret torture, enslaving people across the globe and out of sight, stealing resources from other countries and forcing other kinds of misery in far off places.

Anyone who believes so is naive, stupid and evil, and it's time we started calling them out on it. It's also time that Canadians stood up, pointed fingers, and called out the people who don't represent our values.

* - sorry Cap'n, had to steal that line.

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Diplomacy and Secrecy

I watched a CBC interview, linked from Greenwald's salon blog.

About half way through that video, a former Canadian diplomat comes on for a interview in which he derides the latest Wikileak as bad for diplomacy. His argument, boiled down, is this:

1. The Indonesian gov't was carrying out horrible human rights abuses against the East Timorese
2. The East Timorese told the Canadian diplomat
3. The Canadian diplomat told the Canadian gov't
4. The Canadian gov't could use this information in negotiations with the torturing, human rights abusing Indonesian gov't.

His argument is basically that, should this path of the information (tortured -> diplomat -> gov't) be broken by a lack of secrecy, it would fall apart. Victims would no longer feel safe to complain. Diplomats like himself would be too scared to report.

Seems reasonable, doesn't it?

Except it's bullshit.

His argument boils down to the idea that I should trust Stephen Harper, Jean Chretien or Paul Martin - under cloak of secrecy - to solve human rights problems the world over.

Really? That's your best argument? That political leaders will do the right thing if we just cover our eyes and ignore them?

I have very little patience for that level of willful stupidity, especially as it comes from someone who ought to know better.

The best thing, Mr. Diplomat, is transparency. You know what stops wars? Seeing little girls burnt by napalm. Seeing helicopters pilots shooting up vans full of Iraqi children. Seeing East Timorese slaughtered and executed by the tens of thousands (which, you'll note was not prevented by our diplomatic cables).

Would I prefer to trust the Internet or the government?

I think you know the answer.

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Arguing About Hate Crime

Once it had been explained to me, I found it pretty simple.

When you single out a group of people as a target for hatred and violence, you assault a whole community (where "assault", legally speaking, includes "threatening"). So we made a law to make it clear that inciting hatred against a visible group of people is a crime.

So if you beat up a black guy or a brown guy or a gay guy, you're only guilty of "aggravated assault". That means, basically, "causing bodily harm".

But if you repeatedly assault members of the same group over and over again in a way that intimidates others of that group, well, you're not just guilty of aggravated assault in each case, but of "assault" against the whole community. Y'know, seeing as they all have to worry about crazy ass bigots beating them up.

Not complicated.

Unless of course, you've got your blinders full on like these guys over at Christian Governance.

Then it's all about how those pansy-ass liberals are bent on keeping the poor, beleagured white male down. Oh, poor white males! How ever will they cope?!

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Erin Larson: Apologies in Advance

I wanted to make this apology in advance, on behalf of the biggest jackasses on my side of the gender divide. But I'm just a tad late.

I wanted to apologize for the sexual slurs that are about to come your way.

I used to think feminism had gone overboard, that some women had taken it too far, that the resultant vector was one of discrimination against men. I was wrong about that. I figured that our over a decade ago.

But I can tell you, young woman, that the jackasses will be out for you. I can't provide much beyond my encouragement and the villification of said jackasses, so I offer that and a piece of advice: spit in the eye of anyone who looks at you sideways.

Shields up. Armour on.

It begins:
"Wonder what she'd say if someone talked about her SEX LIFE.
Matter of fact, who would ever be the male friend of this abomination?"

Yeah. Great.

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Officer Bubbles vs. YouTube

Constable Adam Josephs: Officer "Bubbles".

Among all the evil that happened during the G20 protests and the ridiculous police crackdown - among all the illegal arrests, harassment, beatings and everything else - the thing we will most remember will be Constable Adam Josephs threatening to arrest a girl for blowing bubbles.

"If one of those bubbles lands on me, that's assault."

Indeeed.

And so the Internet community at large decided that Bubbles deserved mockery. They created animations featuring Adam Josephs arresting Santa Claus, a doctor, President Obama and others.

And the poor Constable, representative of a police force that let the Black Bloc wander around Toronto trashing the city so it could have an excuse to violently crack down on peaceful demonstrators, is charging defamation.

Up yours, buddy.

You've got the batons. You've got the guns. You've got the Tasers.

Apparently, the bunch of you even have the authority to intimidate, harass, beat and arrest people with complete impunity. You've got judges that set bail conditions like "no political expression" on people like Alex Hundert.

But us?

We've got Youtube.

And if you want to beat and harass people expressing their opinions?

We're going to ruin your lives and every memory anyone ever has of you.

Suck it up, Bubbles. It's a new world.

h/t to Rev. PaperBoy at Galloping Beaver

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Raiders of the Lost Ark = Pointless

Seriously. Think about it.

All Indy had to do was let that Belloq dude take the medallion. He would have found the ark, opened it, and killed himself and all the Nazis.

Then the good guys swoop in with the greatest of ease and make off with the conveniently self-sealed ark and toss it in that warehouse.

Instead, we have to kill a bunch of Nepalese, burn down a bar, kill a whole lot of Egyptians, drag Indy under a car, annoy a bunch of African boat guys, etc. etc.

And then what? Bad guy opens ark and everyone who looks at it dies.

Waste. Of. Time.

Maybe the guys who do the "How it should have ended" videos can do that next.

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Cannon fodder

Quite an uproar over the "cannon fodder" video.

It involves a fictional mother of a Canadian soldier lamenting that she might not have had children if she had known that they would be used as cannon fodder.

Lots of anger over that, including one nonfictional mother of a slain soldier who said, “Because they died in combat, [these women] have the nerve to describe them as cannon fodder.”

Nerve?

Yes, I suppose it takes nerve to break the veneer of patriotism that tells people that their children died a great and wonderful cause when in reality they're dying for no particularly good reason.

But if it's true that the war is pointless and wrong, and no one says anything, more children are going to die.

Seriously. If you want to convince the rest of us that you're right. If you want to convince us that the war in Afghanistan is worthwhile and winnable, then show us how you're going to win. Show us how you're already winning. Show us what you could possible hope to accomplish.

I see a lot of nothing. I see the schools we built being used for storing and shipping marijuana. I see our money ending up in villas in Dubai. I see the government we set up mistreating its women as badly as their enemies did.

That's not worth dying for.

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Canada will be a "pimp"

Canada will be taking the role of a pimp, according to one MP. That's because the courts have struck down anti-prostitution laws that, while not preventing prostitution, made it very dangerous.

Conservative MP Joy Smith:

“My goodness we would have the nation as the pimp and that’s wrong and we can’t afford that,”

Definition: pimp

a person, esp. a man, who solicits customers for a prostitute or a brothel, usually in return for a share of the earnings; pander; procurer.

I don't think the government would be responsible for soliciting customers for prostitutes, although they might do a good job with putting up signs. That seems to be their thing, lately.

The government would be responsible, however, for doing the same things that they are currently (supposed to be) doing for other workers: protecting their rights; keeping them safe from criminals; taxing them.

On the other hand, I can't expect much better than hyperbole from Conservatives. Their chief arguments in court seem to revolve around witnesses who pulled stuff out of their asses and the belief that prostitution was inherently "degrading and unhealthy".

It's a lot like being gay, I guess. I mean look at all those gay kids who get beat up and/or commit suicide. Must be an unhealthy lifestyle.

Well, Conservative super-right-wing christian freaks. You've had 2000 years to try to stamp out prostitution and all you've done is make women miserable. Maybe we'll try something different for a little while and see how it works out.

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Transport Canada = Medieval Theologians

Canada has an addiction to rule making. Thus spake Joseph Brean, National Post libertarian dude.

That's right. Our penchant for making rules to prevent future disasters based on statistics about past disasters? That's basically the nanny state.

Aren't we crazy.

I can't imagine what Brean would have to say about Transport Canada. Bunch of stuck up, pretentious nerds pouring over every airline crash to determine the cause and try to prevent future crashes.

Assholes, those guys.

"We cannot just accept that this was a death. We've got to give that death meaning, and the way to give it meaning is to pass a law."

So the right idea is what? Shrug our shoulder and say, "shit happens"? Brilliant.

He called it a throwback to medieval times, a belief that nothing happens without somebody causing it, that every natural phenomenon has a moral aspect. Modern safety regulations, like witchcraft or divine retribution, are based on a faulty premise about who is responsible for stuff happening, and what can be done about it. Like religion, they are an effort to bring meaning to a cruel and random universe.

Right. We're the religious ones for trying to find rational causes for everything.

And you, Mr. Brean, are the rational one for just saying, "shit happens" and hoping it doesn't happen again.

To be perfectly honest, his opinion sounds the most medieval: hey man, sometimes god just does you in. It's not your place to ask why.

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Catholics Oppose Gay Marriage

Big news there, I suppose.

They have a website though, now.

Their points, in order.

Natural marriage is the foundation of a civilised society.

My tendency here is to simply add the suffix [citation needed] to the text. The foundation of our society, last I checked, was freedom. Freedom of the speech, freedom of the press, freedom of assembly ... that sort of thing. The Taliban have marriage. The Vikings had marriage. Soviet Russia had marriage. Marriage - whether forced, voluntary or some combination thereof - has been around for a long time and I don't know of any correlation between its prevalence and level of civilization a society has.

Same-sex unions, as pseudo-marriages, involve gravely sinful acts that are never defensible, and the very assimilation to marriage damages marriage itself.

We're just going to ignore that "pseudo-marriage" phrase, as you're assuming your conclusion here. (i.e. see above, [citation needed]). Gravely sinful acts? I direct you to read your bible for all of the other "gravely sinful" acts. Like eating lobster, crab, oysters or clams. Or weaving two kinds of fabric together. Or sewing two different crops in the same field. Or accidentally seeing your father naked or your wife while she's menstruating.

Also, I think you're using the word "assimilation" incorrectly. Good try, though. Big words can sometimes be impressive.

The law is a great teacher, and it encourages or discourages behaviour.

True that. You're 1 for 3, quite respectable in major league baseball. The law should serve as a guideline for ethics by, for example, demonstrating that everyone has equal rights and that one group of people can't force their morality on another unwilling group.

Government-backed same sex civil unions would encourage and normalise homosexual behaviour, and it would harm natural marriage, children, adults, and homosexuals themselves.

That's a lot of claiming you're doing there.

Yes, it would normalize homosexual behaviour. Why is that bad? What we've seen, with celibate priests for instance, is that making sex forbidden can cause some pretty harsh overreactions and perversions. I'd rather have gay people feel normal, not just for those reasons, but because there's really no reason for people who engage in consensual sex to feel bad about it.

Also, I'm living in Canada. We've had Evil, Gay Sex Marriages for years now and there's no evidence that it's destroyed or harmed Holy, Opposite Sex Marriages. Perhaps you could provide evidence.

And yes, the adopted kids of gay people turn out just fine.

The law should promote behaviours that are beneficial and prohibit (or at least not endorse) those that are destructive.

Did you read the link above? The study is pretty clear: "...the vast majority of studies show that children living with two mothers and children living with a mother and father have the same levels and qualities of social competence."

You'll have to explain how the Evil, Gay Scourge is destructive.

Therefore, the law should promote natural marriage, and it should provide no option for government-backed same-sex marriage or civil unions.

Therefore, nothing. None of your points above were accurate depictions of reality. Therefore, your conclusion is unsupported.

Meanwhile, take off that shirt. I believe you're wearing a shirt made of two types of fabric woven together and - while your god is explicitly in favour of bigotry and brutal punishments in that vein - he really doesn't like clothing made of two fabrics woven together.

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Liberals Flunk Economics

Or so Zogby would have you believe.

They did a poll where they made statements about "basic economic" issues and saw that the left-leaning people got the answers wrong.

Now, you're probably expecting these basic statements to be something very clear and non-controversial. Something like "Inflation is the gradual increase in the price of goods" and such.

No such luck. Let's go over the statements and correct answers.

"Restrictions on housing development make housing less affordable"
According to the WSJ, smart people would agree. Dumb people, on the left, disagree.
I guess that depends on the restrictions. Restrictions requiring developers to make a certain portion of their buildings as accessible to low-income earners would make housing more affordable, wouldn't it?

Mandatory licensing of professional services increases the prices of those services (unenlightened answer: disagree)
Unenlightened? Whatever. Yes, services are more expensive because we license engineers and plumbers and what not. You could also have unlicensed people work in your house and end up having to pay for most of your jobs to be done twice. Then add in the cost of the damages to your house done by the first guy. Depends on what you count.

Overall, the standard of living is higher today than it was 30 years ago (unenlightened answer: disagree).
This depends very much on exactly where your numbers come from and which segment of society you mean. Are we talking wage disparity? Access to health care? Longevity? The inflation accounted income for the lowest quintile of Americans has dropped since a peak in the early 1970s. Rich people are doing fine, though.

3) Rent control leads to housing shortages (unenlightened answer: disagree).
Again, it depends on the "rent control" in question. Done properly, it's merely a way of keeping your landlord from holding you hostage in your own home, gouging against the expense of moving. Done improperly, it can cause shortages because no one wants to rent out houses anymore.

4) A company with the largest market share is a monopoly (unenlightened answer: agree).
If this was the statement, not paraphrased, then I agree that the answer is no. A company has to have all, or nearly all, of the market share to be a monopoly.

Third World workers working for American companies overseas are being exploited (unenlightened answer: agree).
The "unenlightened" would agree? Who are the fucking idiots who don't think third world workers are being exploited? Are the union leaders being assassinated in Colombia not enough of a hint? Or the sports shoe sweatshops? What world is Zogby living in that doesn't have exploited third world workers?

Free trade leads to unemployment (unenlightened answer: agree).
Actually, yes it does. When NAFTA came to my home town, it shut down two steel plants, a Union Carbide and a bunch of other plants. Those people became unemployed. Even in the Libertarian Faery Dust version of things, free trade causes unemployment, but the Faery Dust comes and retrains the 50-year-old steel worker as an IT consultant.
Yes. Free Trade also causes employment - in Mexico and other such places. But don't pretend it doesn't cause unemployment, at the very least in the immediate sense.
That kind of pretense is simply unenlightened.

Minimum wage laws raise unemployment (unenlightened answer: disagree).
Minimum wage causes unemployment, does it? I'd like to see them prove it. What it does, in my considered opinion, is distribute income away from multi-billion dollar corporations toward their employees. This creates local expenditures (local goods) rather than remote ones (yacht, villas and the like).

After going through this list, I'm going to have to argue that the guys at Zogby are a bunch of right-wing, wealthy, ideologically-locked jackasses too full of their own pomposity and arrogance to evaluate anyone else. Their conclusion is that, basically, anyone who disagrees with their biases (the same biases that have led the United States in to its current financial disaster) must be stupid.

Best of luck, assholes.

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Mike Harris's Honorary Hypocrisy

Nippissing University, presumably out of some masochism or ignorance, has decided that Mike Harris is deserving of an honorary degree.

Mike Harris.

Remember him? I do. He's the guy who wanted to "create a crisis in the education system." Why? To improve it? No, that was the lie his government told on the outside. The real reason, as has been recorded, was to "get government out of the education business."

That's why I assume the people at Nippissing are a bunch of masochists. Why would a public institution grant a degree to a man who wanted to destroy education.

The teachers are upset. In fact, they're so upset that they're considering the idea of refusing to give seats to student teachers from Nippissing.

The loyal Harris followers - specifically the people who hate public education and would prefer that the poor suffer in ignorance - will be quick to jump on this as if it were the teachers' fault. They'll tell us that the teachers are "using students" in their fight again. That's what they did when Mike Harris unilaterally took away teachers' retirement benefits, so I imagine it will happen again.

But frankly, I support the teachers. You know what? If you choose to go to Nippissing, after it honours a man who tried to destroy public education in Ontario, then you shouldn't come crawling to Ontario's public school teachers for apprenticeship. Go find a private school. Otherwise it's SOCIALISM! (ZOMG!)

Those teachers. They have a long memory. It's surprising how long people can be bitter at you when you use taxpayer money to attack them with lying, deceptive televisions ads.

The only real problem is that teachers are far too polite. They won't actually go through with it. The other problem is that they're really ineffective at public campaigns vilifying people. That was really Mike Harris's forte.

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What's With All Those Pregnant Christian Teens?

Ever wondered why we have so many pregnant Christian teens?

Wonder no more.

You see, "Sexual relationships, while enacted privately, are public property." That's why birth control is so very, very bad. If people use birth control, the rest of us have no way of monitoring their behaviour and measuring their sinfulness.

How do you know if two married people are keeping their marital vows? (by the way, for you non-religious folk, you should know that Christians are required to have lots of sex). Why, it's the babies! The babies prove they're doing it right!

And how do you know if unmarried teens are being sinful, dirty miscreants? Why, it's the babies!

See how clear everything is when you outlaw contraception? The babies tell you everything. That's why contraception is bad. It lets you keep your sexuality to yourself, almost as if it were your own private business and not a responsibility of all of society.

Hm.

I suppose I should have stopped at "However, I salute their stupidity."

That was probably a red flag right there.

But if you're wondering why we have pregnant teenagers, look no further than that mentality. It's the mentality that birth control is a worse sin - by way of being premeditated premarital sex - than having a baby you can't possibly raise properly. You see, sex without birth control could just mean you got carried away. But sex with birth control means you planned it, you evil bastard.

Makes me glad to be an atheist. It means I don't have to rationalize stupidity like this. It also means Christians have no business invading my privacy to judge how I live my life.

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Sex Education in Ontario

Saw this one in the paper today:

Schools Shouldn't Teach Sexual Orientation

Here's the exciting stuff:

In its Facts about Youth pamphlet, the U.S. pediatricians college states that most students (more than 85 per cent) with same-sex attractions will ultimately adopt a heterosexual orientation if not otherwise encouraged.

It further states that "declaring and validating a student's same-sex attraction during the adolescent years is premature and may be personally harmful."

Wow! I didn't know that "validating" same-sex attraction was harmful. What a weird thing to say. The only way you would say something like that is if, well, you thought homosexuality was harmful.

Say. Who are the "U.S. pediatricians college" anyway? That sounds very official. Let's check them out.

The writer is actually talking about the "American College of Pediatricians". That sounds like a real group, doesn't it? Let see what other things they write ... oh, good god ...

Abstinence only is a good idea
How to make gay kids straight
Gays shouldn't be allowed to adopt

You can read the rest of their "Position Papers" if you want. It's a basic list of the right wing's wishing-makes-it-so version of scientific studies.

Even the 85% number they quote - the one L.M. Small quoted - refers to a 1992 study that showed that 26% of 12 year old boys weren't sure about their sexual orientation. Yet only 2-3% of them turn out gay later! If only we could have bombarded those last 2-3% with how evil it is to be gay, think how much better everything would be! No more of teh gayness!

Yes, well.

I didn't find any fault with the actual sex education curriculum that the government was planning on implementing. The earlier that you can teach kids the words "penis" and "vagina", the better off we'll all be. But apparently, if you're a religious nutcase, all it takes is a word in their ears and they'll turn in to crack whores.

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