no parlaiment, please

Canadian Government Falls on No-Confidence
A corruption scandal forced a vote of no-confidence Monday that toppled Prime Minister Paul Martin's minority government, triggering an unusual election campaign during the Christmas holidays. Canada's three opposition party parties, which control a majority of seats in Parliament, voted against Martin's government, claiming his Liberal Party no longer had the moral authority to lead the nation. The loss means an election for all 308 seats in the lower House of Commons was likely to be held Jan. 23. Martin and his Cabinet would continue to govern until then.

I am so glad we don't have a parlaimentary system of government here. What utter chaos. These people and their coalition/minority governments are constantly in a state of near-anarchy. I understand the increased advantage of checks on your government, but simple partisan bickering shouldn't have the power to dissolve the entire government. I am much more in favor of short term elections and term limits than spontaneous dissolution at whim. Very strange, these parlaiment things. Federalism forever!
On the other hand, my general philosophy is still "the less government, the better." So I suppose a government than can abolish itself at any given time, and actually uses that power, is a handy government to have around. I am first in line to cheer any potential government shutdown over budgetary battles in this country. With all the Congressional busy-bodying and nannyism going on lately, I would have no problem if the entire legislative branch of the federal government went home and we got to pick new ones. Though with the present primary and two party system still in place, most new ones would be just as bad as the old ones.
So what's the solution? Any Canadians, Britons, Australians, or now Iraqis have any more positive takes on the parlaimentary system?

gasoline market analysis

I filled up my car today at $2.05 per gallon. The average price in the country is now $2.29 per gallon. The market is an amazing thing. Just six weeks ago, we were paying a record average $3.07 per gallon.
Even more amazing is the rampant hypocrisy of blame on this issue (and many others, obviously). A quick search for "record gas prices, bush" yields 1,550 results, while a search for "gas prices fall, bush" yields only 685 results (and even less for "gas prices drop, bush", at 653). Obviously this is an unscientific study. But why in the world would more than twice as many articles mention President Bush when discussing high gas prices than low ones? It couldn't be that inherent liberal perspectives in news organizations would lead them to associate negative information with a Republican president, now would it? No, of course not. There's no such thing as media bias, remember?
The spectacular thing about this simple search experiment is that Google only archives news items in its searches for a couple weeks, meaning that although gas prices have not been at their record levels for a month and a half, Google still has more articles about the record than it does about the decline. Stunning.

...and then what about gay jews?

Question: What do Jews and alternasexuals (my term for anyone not heterosexual) have in common?
Answer: Both are going to hell according to most Christian dogma.

Question: What is the difference between Jews and alternasexuals?
Answer: Only one is routinely protested, boycotted, mocked, and banished by Christians.

This hypocrisy occured to me today. Christians (not all, of course) routinely excoriate homosexuals, bisexuals, etc for their behavior or wanting equal rights or protections under the law, but are they more sinful than people who don't even believe that Jeezus is the Lowerd (hint: say it phonetically)?
Michael Savage was ranting today about how France is burning to the ground because they have been "homosexualized" and can no longer defend themselves. What about all the Jews in France? Do they invite Gawd's wrath too?

Some people...

Congress derides the profit motive

Ayn Rand must be spinning in her grave, the poor woman...

Today the always reliable (for a laugh or a fright) United States Senate was interrogating executives of ExxonMobil, Chevron, ConocoPhillips, BP and Shell as to the source and purpose of their "obscene" profits from the third quarter of this year. These professional nannies have the gigantic balls to suggest that private enterprises do certain things with the money they make on the very same day that they removed portions of the Deficit Reduction Act that would have allowed those companies to invest their profits in new drilling off the Atlantic and Pacific coasts, and in ANWR. Sheer madness, I tell you. I mean, I know they have that least common denominator to pander to, but this is just incomprehensible.
"["Republican"] Olympia Snowe of Maine, called on the major oil companies to voluntarily contribute to a federal program that helps low-income families pay part of their winter heating bills." The number of things wrong with that statement are incalculable. Oil companies owe nothing to the citizens of this country but a continuous supply of their product at whatever cost they deem necessary. The only thing to which they should be contributing is the increased efficiency of their business model. Maybe the low-income families that so desperately need lower heating bills should get off their asses and create a business that makes enough profit for Congress to haul them in for waterboarding.

Congress shall make no law...

Congress shall make no law...abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press...

Yet it's funny how they just keep finding ways to do so.

House Declines to Exempt Political Web Sites From Spending Rules
...
The House voted 225-182 for a bill that would have excluded blogs, e-mails and other Internet communications from regulation by the Federal Election Commission. That was 47 votes short of the two-thirds majority needed under a procedure that limited debate time and allowed no amendments.
The vote in effect clears the way for the FEC to move ahead with court-mandated rule-making to govern political speech and campaign spending on the Internet.

The rollcall was as follows:

Yes: R|179, D|46
No: R|38, D|143

In other words, Democrats no longer believe that prohibiting certain political speech a certain number of days before an election is "abriding the freedom of speech." Funny, I'm pretty sure anyone who can actually read knows that the First Amendment says precisely that.
Oh, and the president is just as illiterate for signing the original campaign finance reform bill in 2001. Just so we don't leave anyone out here...

liberal plantation carries on

In case anyone doubts the existence of the Liberal Plantation, witness:

Editorial: A nomination that will divide
...
In losing a woman, the court with Alito would feature seven white men, one white woman and a black man, who deserves an asterisk because he arguably does not represent the views of mainstream black America.

The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel is of the opinion that US Supreme Court Associate Justice Clarence Thomas does not count as black because he does not goose-step along with the rest of his race to pull the lever that says 'D' in the voting booth. In other words, Justice Thomas has left his "brothers" on the Liberal Plantation and now has no credibility (and indeed, no justified minority status) with the guys in the big house.