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Health Care and Ontario's Deficit: The Shocking, Secret Truth About Who and What's to Blame

December 22, 2011 by · Leave a Comment 

Sunmedia’s Queen’s Park columnist, Christina Blizzard, today wrote about Ontario’s health care system and the deficit. It concludes:

Liberals have socked us with the two biggest tax hikes in the history of the province — the health care levy and the HST. And now they’re crying poor? They created this mess. We’re just paying their bills.

Given her message, the column’s headline (which Blizzard probably did not write) is a knee-slapper of hypocrisy: “Stop blaming and start restraining“. I agree with the sentiment of the headline, but it sure as heck is not the case that the PCs are somehow any better than the Liberals with respect to Ontario’s health care system. In fact, pinning the blame on the Liberals smacks of revisionist history. So I got to work writing a comment to the column on the newspaper’s web site. Of course, my comment has to pass Sun “moderation”, so there is a chance it will not get posted. So, for the record, here is the comment I submitted: Read more

McKeever's Minimal Maxims and Bon Arrows, Volume 2, Issue 3

December 17, 2011 by · Leave a Comment 

20081029paulAll horror is real and anti-real.

I know that nobody knows nothing and somebody might not know anything.

The smile earned is effortless and innocent.

Kill without murdering. Command without enslaving. Seize without stealing.

Auditor General's report: LCBO colludes with suppliers to overcharge purchasers

December 5, 2011 by · 2 Comments 

Through a perverse “fixed markup system”, the Liquor Control Board of Ontario increases its revenues by asking liquor producers to charge the LCBO more. So writes Ontario’s Auditor General in his annual report, released today (see section 3.08, beginning at page 186).

According to the AG, when the LCBO decides to stock a new product, it puts out a “needs letter” to suppliers. For each type of product, the needs letter tells suppliers the range of prices at which the LCBO would like to sell the product. That price is not based upon supply and demand. It is based on pure whim (which might explain, at least in part, why the Lagavulin I used to be able to buy for forty some odd dollars now costs well over $100 per bottle, only a few years later). Don’t stop reading: it gets worse. Much worse. Read more

Full Transcript: Adam Carolla's Occupy Wall Street Rant

December 2, 2011 by · 2 Comments 

In 1971, author/philosopher Ayn Rand wrote of “the age of envy” and of the zero-worship mentality that, today, is prevalent among those in the Occupy Wall Street (formerly known as “Days of Rage”) movement:

“They do not want to own your fortune, they want you to lose it; they do not want to succeed, they want you to fail; they do not want to live, they want you to die; they desire nothing, they hate existence, and they keep running, each trying not to learn that the object of his hatred is himself . . . . They are the essence of evil, they, those anti-living objects who seek, by devouring the world, to fill the selfless zero of their soul. It is not your wealth that they’re after. Theirs is a conspiracy against the mind, which means: against life and man.” – Ayn Rand, “The Age of Envy”, in her book Return of the Primitive: The Anti-Industrial Revolution

To those who really want to understand that mentality, I recommend a full reading of Rand’s essay.

In the meantime: within the last 24 hours or so, funny man Adam Carolla has gotten a lot of ink over a rant in which he – in a relatively unpolished, expletive-filled, but passionate and moving way – expressed a similar summation about the Occupiers. I was unable to find a complete transcript of it on the web, so I have prepared one for you, below. The original audio appears in a youtube video that appears immediately below Read more

Do not Remember their Sacrifice on Remembrance Day / Veterans Day

November 11, 2011 by · 1 Comment 

…instead honour their virtue in fighting for their lives, liberty, and property. Read more

Choosing a Camera for Affordable Quality Videography (Updated 2011-Nov-05)

November 4, 2011 by · 4 Comments 

I do not usually blog about photography. However, I have just completed a 1.5 year long election campaign, and I now have time again to return to video production. That effort will begin by replacing my 5 year old Panasonic standard-definition video camera with a new High Definition (HD) camera. I have done a considerable amount of research, and it has not been easy – there are numerous things to consider, and I have not found a single place in which they have all been addressed. So, to save you time – and so I don’t forget what I have learned – I am writing this blog entry. May you find it as useful as I hope to find it while choosing a camera. Read more

Ayn Rand's Finest Condemnation of Libertarianism

November 2, 2011 by · Leave a Comment 

Over the years, I have read several compilations of Ayn Rand quotations concerning libertarianism. For the first time today, I was able to listen to Ayn Rand’s the Questions and Answers following her April 11, 1976 speech at the Ford Hall Forum, titled “The Moral Factor”. Her answer there was arguably the most succinct and essential statement of her views on why libertarianism deserves to be condemned. Read more

Atlas Shrugged Part 1: Review

October 27, 2011 by · 4 Comments 

Tomorrow, “Atlas Shrugged Part 1” will make its first appearance on Canada’s silver screens. Thanks to the generosity of one of the film’s producers, Harmon Kaswell, I was able to watch an advance copy of the film so as to provide my readership with a Canadian Objectivist’s review. Read more

The Electoral Fate of the Hudak PCs: As Predicted 11 Months Ago?

October 5, 2011 by · Leave a Comment 

On November 20, 2010, the party I lead – Freedom Party of Ontario – held a pre-election dinner for the October 6, 2011 election. As party leader, I gave a speech to the attendees in which I explained Freedom Party’s strategy for this election. Our strategy was (and is) based upon my predictions about the fate of the Progressive Conservatives in this election.

Did my predictions pan out? Judge for yourself: watch this video of my speech. Read more

Freedom Party's Job Creation Plan

September 10, 2011 by · 4 Comments 

I was recently asked: “What is the Freedom Party’s plan for creating jobs?” It’s a question commonly asked of all parties. What follows is one of my answers.

The truth of the matter is that government is an organization that does not create wealth. I’m not saying that’s a bad thing: the same is true of all law enforcement, including the military, the judiciary, etc.. My point is that none of those organizations performs the role of creating wealth. A government primarily stops people from doing things…preferably, only from doing bad things. Specifically, a government, when it is doing its job well, prevents anyone from taking your life, your liberty, or your property without your consent.

In truth, government is capable only of decreasing the number of jobs that people create: it is capable of job destruction. Government can destroy jobs in either of two ways: using its influence when it shouldn’t, or failing to use its influence when it should. In other words: governmental errors and omissions destroy jobs. Read more

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