Rita

Quote of the Day: “It is hard to imagine a more stupid or more dangerous way of making decisions than by putting those decisions in the hands of people who pay no price for being wrong.” Thomas Sowell

The headline on the front page tells us that “All International Students Now Allowed to Return to Region”. Oh, but wait. Our own kids can’t go to school full time. Yea, that makes sense. Big box stores like TheBay, WalMart and BestBuy can open but small mom and pop retail stores are closed. Yea, that makes sense. Truck drivers, clearly the most sanitary and hygienic workers on the planet can cross the U.S./Canada border with no restrictions, but my neighbours can’t drive to Florida. Yea, that makes sense.

Quote of the Day: “The government solution to a problem is usually as bad as the problem.” Milton Friedman

Wow – what a busy Monday. Lots of articles to comment on – it seems that our friends at TheRecord had a very productive (cough) weekend. First up is another “DEFANGING BIG TECH” column – but this time, it’s actually filed under the “Opinion” label on page A7. Even more interesting is the little blurb they have under their “DEFANGING…” logo: “Multinational tech giants keep getting bigger at the expense of domestic media and competitiveness. This ongoing series looks at the challenge for governments, and how they should respond.” Nice… So, it’s not the fault of the old, dead tree media companies who had virtual monopoly on information distribution for the last 200 year, nope – it’s now a “government” issue. What arrogance. The author of today’s column is Navneet Alang, a freelancer from Toronto. He tells us that: “Minister of Innovation, Science and Industry Navdeep Bains has tabled a bill called the Digital Charter Implementation Act, which looks to modernize Canada’s approach to how companies handle the personal information they collect about Canadians. If passed, the bill would ensure Canadians had the right to destroy their own data…”. O.K. – I’m not exactly sure how this would work since data points about an individual are intermingled with data points on other individuals so this seems to be a rather complex issue. It’s not like Google or TheBay or Canadian Tire have a single record about me that they can easily drop. Of course I haven’t read the bill and I don’t know what “destroy their own data” actually means and it appears that Alang hasn’t read it either since he doesn’t tell us. But he let’s us know that: “It follows another announcement by the Trudeau government that promised to expand broadband access to almost all the country by 2030. So far, so good, right?” Well, no it’s not good, but then I guess what TorStar writer ever saw a Liberal spending plan they didn’t like? I wrote a piece for another site that went through both the physical problems with broadband rollout “to almost all the country” and the actual cost per line of last 2 percent. Horrendous with today’s technology – but who knows what will happen in 10 years. Maybe this might be cost effective – but it clearly isn’t now. Of course, almost 95% of Canadians have broadband in their primary residences now – so, oh wait – what’s my quote of the day??? Alang’s column jumps overboard without a PFD when he suggests governments should take over basic services: “…it might help us rethink what the role of the state is in relation to the internet. Right now, governments act as overseers of the internet: a body that mostly keeps out of how private companies behave, occasionally stepping in with regulation such as this new bill. Yet, in many other aspects of life — transportation, utilities, health care — the government considers it a responsibility to actually provide basic services to its citizens.” Yup – the greatest invention in the history of the world, and this idiot wants governments to take over. Of course, transportation, utilities, health care are such wonderful examples of how efficient and effective governments are. Not sure why he didn’t include education in there as well? I guess this moron doesn’t realize that only when governments got out of the way and deregulated the various services he talks about, this is when they started to grow into their potential. I can still remember how trucks had to unload their goods at the U.S. / Canada border because they couldn’t cross into each others countries. Taking an airplane trip somewhere was only something rich people did 50 year ago. Now we fly to New York or Florida for a long weekend. I remember when you could only get 1200 baud modems from Bell since they refused to allow other devices on their lines and when a call to Preston from Kitchener was actually a long distance call. Now you can call India on Zoom for nothing. I could go on but my age is showing… The author brings up a couple of other really stupid ideas that I can’t be bothered to bring up but tries to salvage his article by saying: “Some of these ideas could work, and some may, upon further inspection, fall flat.” Really??? Completely clueless, but par for the TorStar course, and these DEFANGING articles, I guess…

By the way, Alang’s article took up the top half of page A7. But guess what was on the bottom half of the page? It was an advert for the St. Mary’s Hospital Foundation begging for money to purchase equipment. What a brilliant advertisement placement and completely fitting for the loser column on top. This is exactly what your internet would look like if government took over…

Good editorial today regarding the brutal judicial patronage appointments that the Trudeau government has made. Worth the three minute read. But what’s not worth the three minute read is Geoffrey Stevens’ column on why Trudeau should invoke the old War Measures Act, now updated to the better sounding, but just as authoritarian, Emergencies Act to fight COVID-19. Seriously, does Stevens have naked pictures of Jim Poling? Just wondering how this guy gets to write the drivel he comes up with every Monday.

And speaking of wasted space, TorStar’s Bob Hepburn has suffered from stage 4 TDS even before there was such a thing as TDS. Like most of his fellow sufferers, Trump = Hitler. His column in the Opinion page tells us about the Eight Ways O’Toole is copying Trump’s playbook. Of course, all of his “playbook” suggestions are just basic politics, but if you can blame anything of Trump, I guess Hepburn will. So, Trump = Hitler and O’Toole = Trump so therefore O’Toole = Hitler. And so it begins…

I was reading an online article at TheRecord.com from a TorStar columnist and this little blurb was in the middle of my page: “If you refuse to settle for second hand news and think that your loved ones shouldn’t either, give them the gift of The Record.” Way too funny…

Quote of the Day: “Tyranny is the exercise of some power over a man, which is not warranted by law, or necessary for the public safety.” Noah Webster (as Waterloo Region heads into the “red” zone…)

Craig Wallace from Hamilton is a science fiction writer and I guess that gives him all the necessary credentials to write op-eds for TheRecord. He looks at the recent U.S. election and decided that “…it is very clear the United States is a deeply divided nation” and that he is very happy that he lives in Canada and not in the U.S. He suggests that: “…we cannot afford to simply assume that our nation doesn’t have some potentially dangerous divisions that could threaten our unity. Just because we have not yet seen mass protests such as the ones in cities such as Seattle, Portland and Minneapolis, does not mean we don’t have some major divisions in our own nation that need to be attended to.” He calls them “protests”. Yup – at least 19 deaths – including David Dorn who was assassinated by Antifa, Billions in losses – much of it by minority owned businesses, whole blocks in Portland devastated and now abandoned, and Wallace calls them “protests”. He then goes on to speak (or is that praise) the illegal sabotage of railway tracks and roads by First Nations criminals. His solution – have a constitution convention and give them more rights than they already have. Yup – that’s bound to work – just like giving them tons of money and tax free privileges has worked so well in the past. Pathetic.

Quote of the Day: “Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction. We didn’t pass it to our children in the bloodstream. It must be fought for, protected, and handed on for them to do the same.” Ronald Reagan

Joshua McKenzie is a psychology student at Okanagan College out in BC and on the Editorial Page today, he is going to tell us “What Canadians can learn from polarization in the United States”. He suggests that “Polarization has escalated in America to a fever pitch in recent years, with each side demonizing the other. One could make a case that the Trump effect is to blame, and many have done just that. However, perhaps the MAGA movement is a symptom, not just the cause.” I stopped reading after that nonsense. Wow. Example #14,587 of just how far TheRecord has fallen.

Quote of the Day: “Socialism is a philosophy of failure, the creed of ignorance, and the gospel of envy, its inherent virtue is the equal sharing of misery.” Winston S. Churchill

Joel Rubinoff has made a career at TheRecord out of interviewing aging rock stars and Hollywood “B” actors who wander through The Centre in the Square – and try to make them sound interesting. Since the Centre is closed, Rubinoff now has to interview race hustlers and other #Woke folk – and try to make them sound normal. Hey – it’s a job, I guess. Of course, to get a constant stream of people to interview, you have to treat these little snowflakes with kid gloves. Unless you lob softball questions, no one would allow themselves to be interviewed just in case you expose their perpetual victim hood mental deficiencies. Just look at the last couple of “interviews” from Rubinoff and my point becomes clear. Today, Rubinoff spend three quarters(!) of page A4 “interviewing” some hip-hop producer (Hey – it’s a job, I guess) who has “gathered seven T.O. rap legends for an anti-gun violence recording that is creating buzz and raising money”. Yup – gun violence. Guns are bad. Guns Very Bad. Guns kill people. Yet Rubinoff somehow forgets to invoke race into this article like he has in practically every other column written in the past few months. Gee, I wonder why? No mention why 11 rappers have been killed in the last year in Toronto. No mention of why brutal tribalism that exists between the various neighbourhood gangs in Toronto. But – guns…

Another “DEFANGING BIG TECH” article by Alex Boutilier of the Toronto Star in the paper today. In this column he tells us of an upcoming bill that will strengthen privacy laws and increase penalties for companies that abuse Canadians’ personal data. Not exactly sure how or why this is “DEFANGING BIG TECH” since it applies to every business and person in the country. Oh well…

Today’s Editorial Cartoon has a dreadful but clear insight into the results of the potential Presidency of Joe Biden. Oh, who could have foreseen the fact that Biden will be controlled and crushed by the “Radical Left”? Oh wait, he picked a Vice President that scores to the left of Bernie Sanders!!! But why the cartoon now? Shouldn’t astute journalists from TorStar papers figured out this wold happen about a month ago? (cough)

Quote of the Day: “Racism is not dead, but it is on life support – kept alive by politicians, race hustlers and people who get a sense of superiority by denouncing others as ‘racists’.” Thomas Sowell

Ya, another quote of the day by the great American economist. And I highlight this quote because over on page A5 today, we have an article by Fitsum Areguy (who???) telling us that the Region’s 11 member Anti-Racism Advisory Working Group (ARAWG) has been created. In a press release from the Region (and not quoted in the article for some reason…) Karen Redman, Regional Chair said: “The ARAWG members will play a significant role in helping eliminate systemic racism in our workplace and our services by providing recommendations, advice and information to Regional Council through an Anti-Racism Plan”. Yup. Right. Got it. Thank-you. So, no need to actually determine if there is “systemic racism” because the Regional Chair has already stated that racism exists. I loved this from the article: “Ciann Wilson, associate professor at Wilfrid Laurier University and one of the working group members, said her litmus test will be to see whether the group’s recommendations lead to action from council.” So, no matter what radical, racist plan this group comes up with, her “litmus test” will be so see if Council automatically approves it. Wow. No arrogance there… (cough) Of course, my litmus test will be to see if any of their recommendations are racist – which groups like this always come up with.

Alternate Quote of the Day: “Socialism is not dead, but it is on life support – kept alive by newspapers, academics and people who get a sense of superiority by announcing themselves as perpetual ‘victims’.” Rita

And to back up my Alternate Quote of the Day, I simply point to page A3 today where Catherine Thompson seems to be the unofficial spokesperson for the NDP. (I have often said that the NDP would evaporate if critical thinking and economics were taught in high school. But it would be very hard to get union run schools to teach economic, now wouldn’t it…) The title of her article is: “Skyrocketing rents creating hardship across region, NDP say”. She then tells us of one single example where a couple where asked to find another place to live since the evil land baron wanted to renovate their apartment. The NDP of course has a plan to eliminate such horrific actions by outlawing landlords for fixing up their rental units. Hey wait a minute. Didn’t I just read this morning in the Toronto Star that rents in Toronto have DROPPED 17% this year? Strange, I didn’t see the NDP put out a press release complaining about the hardships landlords are facing. So rents in the GTA are dropping and rents in WR are going up. Isn’t interesting how our free market works…

Quote of the Day: “The first lesson of economics is scarcity: There is never enough of anything to satisfy all those who want it. The first lesson of politics is to disregard the first lesson of economics.” Thomas Sowell

Well, it seems that every reporter and columnist at TheRecord is jumping on the “DEFANGING BIG TECH” bandwagon. Today Luisa D’Amato is the person assigned to this nonsense. I wasn’t even going to comment on this, but instead, I’m going to copy almost her entire column and point out just what a ridiculous position that TorStar and their servants are taking. So, here goes…

She starts by stating the obvious: “Facebook and Google. They’ve become our closest friends. We’re constantly checking in: Who’s got a birthday today? What have my friends been doing? How many likes did I get on my new profile picture? And Google: It’s our window to the world. Anything you want to know is magically there with a tap on the keyboard.” Yup – got it. Thank you. After some more self-evident statements she continues: “Both Google and Facebook share news stories and photos online in order to increase traffic and sell digital advertising to readers. They didn’t create this content and they don’t pay for it, even though they make a fortune from digital advertising while people read.“ O.K. so what? She says: “That’s not fair. These stories and photos cost money to produce. Journalists need to be paid like everyone else.” What’s not fair about it? She suggests: “Could the publishers of the newspapers who produced the stories refuse to share the content? Technically, yes. Realistically, no.” Oh – so now we come to the heart of the issue. Newspapers pump out digital equivalents of their articles so that users will view their pages. These online articles also contain advertising and these views generate revenue for the paper. This isn’t new. But: “News media are caught in a trap. Google is so big that if news media refuse to share stories and photos through Google, they may not have a presence. Given Google’s near-monopoly as a search engine, that’s impractical.” Congratulations Luisa – this is the first time I think that anyone has actually recognized the symbiotic relationship between content providers and so called “Big Tech”. Most content providers like retail merchants etc. really, really, want Google and others to index their sites – a whole cottage industry has evolved trying to manipulate Google search engine standings since more page views directly equals more revenue. She tells us that: “But, instead of driving readers to the news organizations’ websites, Google keeps its readers close to home. It uses “snippets” from their articles that offer just enough information that most readers won’t click to see the full article on the newspaper’s website. In June 2019, for the first time, a majority of all browser-based searches on Google resulted in zero clicks, according to a research paper published in June by the U.S.-based News Media Alliance.” Wow. So Millennials with their 10 second attention span do not click on links. Gee, who would have guessed that??? (cough) And: “Now, news media are launching a campaign to get hundreds of millions of dollars in compensation for the lost advertising revenue. They want the government to help impose more even-handed agreements, and meaningful penalties for the internet giants when they do break the rules.” O.K. so, here is where she drives the train off the tracks. First of all, to talk about “lost advertising” is completely disingenuous of her. Think about it. If Google and Facebook stopped linking to articles, would newspapers’ revenue increase? Of course not. Revenue is completely driven by page views. If the tech companies did not link to newspaper articles, then page views would drop and newspapers’ revenue most definitely go down!!! What doesn’t Ms D’Amato understand about this rather simple cause and effect scenario. And now comes the whining: “I care about this, because journalism matters deeply to me. But you might be wondering why you should care. After all, isn’t the private sector a Darwinian world, in which the weak are quickly eaten by the strong?” Oh please. She works for TorStar. And maybe she should get a good understanding of Darwin’s theory – and maybe she should just realize how TorStar got so big – they devoured papers like TheRecord and a whole bunch of other smaller papers. It’s called the free market. She continues: “I have two answers: One is that the private sector is highly regulated to ensure the public good. Your food and drink is inspected to make sure it won’t poison you. Manufactured goods are regulated by trade agreements. Cultural industries are protected too. Broadcasters (and soon, streaming companies like Netflix, too) must offer and pay for Canadian content.” What nonsense. To try to pretend that food is like news is garbage. TorStar is a completely left wing, liberal media company. And they do try to poison us, don’t they? The fact that culture is protected is clearly not something to celebrate. I point to the literally dozens of people that watch the CBC and wonder about the $1.5 Billion that goes to subsidize this disaster. This is not a strong argument to make to support more government intervention and regulation. She states: “The other is that news media are not only private businesses, but also a public service. We know the public is looking for news they can trust, gathered by professionals.” Yes they are and that’s why newspapers are going down the drain. They aren’t being murdered by Facebook, they are committing suicide by their own destructive actions. Go woke, go broke – as they say… And finally: “Who would ask the tough questions of community leaders and who would search for information about the issues that are important to you? Who would challenge your viewpoint by presenting a point of view you don’t agree with? Without this kind of information, people can’t make good decisions about their society. An informed public is the foundation of a strong democracy.” I simply point to her 11 September 2020 column and would ask her if this column had “information about the issues that are important” or if I could “make good decisions about… society” after reading it. This column is a new low for her. Too bad.

So if Ms D’Amato is so concerned about asking “the tough questions of community leaders”, then I have a question she for her: Most Record reporters (with the minor exception of Jeff Outhit) praised the supposed benefits of the ION train. There were many op-eds and editorials glorifying this horrendous expenditure. With this in mind, how much money has the ION system lost since the beginning of the project and where can ordinary taxpayers go to find this information? And since you are so concerned about who “…would challenge your viewpoint by presenting a point of view you don’t agree with”, can you please point to just one editorial or op-ed, in the last few years, where Donald Trump’s accomplishments and achievements as President were listed or at least acknowledged? Or can you point to one editorial or op-ed that didn’t unjustifiable criticize the President or when he was a Presidential nominee? Or, since Peter Shawn Taylor no longer writes columns for TheRecord, can you point to a single, clearly conservative columnist that writes for your paper on a regular (like once a month…) basis? Or can you point to a columnist (with the exception of maybe the neutral, fact filled columns by Sylvain Charlebois) that isn’t a left wing liberal? I could go on, but I think I made my point.

By the way, I love the Dining columns recently. I’ve actually ordered from a couple of places based on the write-ups in the Arts and Life section. Great work by Alex Bielak, Jasmine Mangalaseril and others.

Quote of the Day: “A society that puts equality before freedom will get neither. A society that puts freedom before equality will get a high degree of both.” Milton Friedman

TheRecord has a pretty poor “Quote of the Day” feature everyday on page A2. Their quotes are mediocre at best. I mean, check out today’s quote. I won’t even repeat it – way too silly. It seems that the quotes are almost an afterthought – throw together at the last minute. Well, now that I think about it, the “Quote of the Day” actually is an afterthought. When TheRecord went to their new look some years ago, they dropped the QOTD feature, but brought it back about a week later when a bunch of people complained. So, I think I’ll start a QOTD myself. But they won’t be boring like TheRecord’s. I promise. Too bad those same people who brought back the QOTD couldn’t do something about the just horrible Editorials.

Way back on 21 October 2020, I mentioned a puff piece that some Record reporter cobbled together regarding the Minister of Colleges and Universities allowing a Christian college to start granting degrees in subjects other than theology. But since then, I’ve noticed a rather interesting development in this non-story. A number of articles appeared in the Toronto Star including one from Martin Regg Cohn, the Star’s Senior Ontario political correspondent. Then a few clearly obnoxious posts started to appear in the Star’s comments section – and now, we have our first Letter to the Editor in TheRecord about this “issue”. The letter suggests that the college has the “…freedom to teach homophobic, Islamophobic, anti-choice, anti-climate science, anti-sex education etc. in a college setting that calls itself Christian!” And then suggests that: “Let’s not honour or legitimize this college by granting it university status.” Wow. Although I’ve read a bit about this made up controversy, I haven’t read one single verified item that suggests any of the above. “Without evidence” I think is the current phrase. The letter writers continue and suggest that: “Canada has come to a consensus on many contentious issues by discussion, not by brainwashing. We continue to debate and discuss in Canada, not spread hate.” Oh, yes. The “spreading hate” smear. Got it. All you have to do is claim some sort of anti-[fill-in-the-blank] prejudice and that immediately spreads hate. And divisiveness. And bigotry. And of course, that can’t be tolerated in Canada. Pathetic.

Diana Cucuz is really pleased with Kamala Harris and her “great accomplishments”. In her opinion column today, she talks about “this moment of unapologetic happiness and pure jubilation” regarding the fact that a woman was nominated for the position of Vice President. Hmmm… I kinda remember another woman who was also nominated for VP of the USA, only she was called a hillbilly, was unqualified, stupid etc. My, how things have changed in the past 12 years… (cough)

Interesting article from Terry Pender about an online job fair starting at noon today. There are an estimated 1,250 jobs from 22 companies posted in this fair to be filled. I think that this is just a small fraction of the tech jobs available in the Region. Things are definitely looking up.

I took a very extended long weekend semi-vacation – just because I could.

Interesting front page article today on Police Chief Bryan Larkin suggesting that Waterloo Region is “leading the pack in violent crime.” Really? The article states that in 2020, we’ve seen 13 shootings , 7 murders and the cops have already seized 600 guns. When he says the Region is leading the pack, I assume he is using per capita stats to back up this claim. Strange, but I didn’t read a single bit about the race of the victims or criminals of these crimes. When everything else is race based at the old cop shop, why not give us the stats on this rather important issue. Ya, well, we all know why…

Hey – Alex Boutilier of the Toronto Star has another “DEFANGING BIG TECH” op-ed today. He tells us that Bill C-10 will change part of the mandate of the CRTC so they can now charge streaming services like Netflix to fund Canadian Content. Yup – $1.5 Billion does down the drain for CBC programming that maybe dozens of people watch and another $660 Million to hire a bunch of kids to write articles in papers like TheRecord that no one reads and now they want to raise $830 Million from Netflix to fund crap CanCon that nobody will ever bother to stream. Nice. And this reminds me. Just saw an article on how to get (great) U.S. Netflix and other streaming services here in Canada. A bit technical since you have to buy a U.S. DNS subscription and have a U.S. credit card (which I have two…). So, bring it on…