Brexit: Not A Bad Thing

Brexit is a good thing for the UK.

I'll go more into details and impart my wisdom soon. I'm quite backed up at the moment.

But first:




Oh, how I wish this continent could have such speakers!

***

I find it interesting how the left is so angry by the result they have taken to blaming the poor, uneducated and Donald Trump for the vote. This permits them to angle for another referendum. In other words, they don't like the result so, as committed democrats, they want a re-vote. Sorta like how when they don't like certain kinds of speeches they still claim to be *for free speech*. They remind me of Quebec nationalists who will keep having referendums until the *right* result transpires. And once that happens, suddenly 'democracy will have spoken and all is in stone' and if you challenge it you're a sore loser and extremist.

I'd like to add, and it's worth noting. the EU is a place where they've made it a criminal act to criticize the EU.

Yup, you heard right.

Why in the world, then, would you consent to be a part of such a technocratic construct that runs contrary to liberty?

Quick Note

A little busy but have much to discuss in the upcoming days. Including Ali, Howe, Orlando and of course, gun control. Speaking of which...

What a sad, emotional farce that Democrat sit-in is. Singing 'we shall overcome'?

Embarrassing.

In the meantime enjoy this Tweet:

Eva Colen ‏@evacolen

At Union Station in DC. Just fled the building w 100s of others bc we thought we heard gunshots—it was a bicycle tire. PLEASE PASS GUN LAWS."

 Party of science and rational thinking right there, people.

 

Consumers Sweat The Small Stuff Where Banking Fees Are Concerned

It's an age old axiom if you can't complain, find something to complain about.

And so it is with banking fees. Dating back to my days in financial services nothing riled the base up more than a hike in banking fees.

The usual, 'they're greedy' and 'they have too many profits' gurble-gibble-gabble would ensue.

But these same clients love to brag about the performance of Canadian banks in downturns though, right?

Here's my take on banking fees. Who gives a shit? Yeah, I *suppose* they can lower them but these are operating costs the bank doesn't need to eat. Energy is wasted railing against this. Not to mention telephone costs with people calling in talk shows to spew their 'anti-bank' rhetoric.

This is where the larger picture comes into play.

Don't get me wrong. I'm not suggesting banks deserve criticism - they do - but this is not one of them.

Let me tackle the 'too many profits' line. Would people prefer the government cap profits? Laugh, but I've heard (progressives naturally) call for CEO salary caps and even caps on profits. The left loves 'Caps' because it makes them feel secure and possibly warm and fuzzy.

Caps are for losers and they reward losers. It takes from the successful to give to the perpetually incompetent. Then we wonder why things seem so mediocre these days.

So I won't waste anymore time on that Marxist mumbo-jumbo.

Believe yo me, once those people open their own businesses they'll change their tune quickly. 'But Mable, you supported a cap on profits but a few years ago!" 'But that was before my pickled pearled turnips took off and made me some money!'

Ignore my rant and consider:

"Canadian banks typically pay a higher dividend than their U.S. counterparts and have done so for a considerable period. For example, the Bank of Montreal (NYSE:BMO) has an uninterrupted record of dividend payments extending back to 1829. The Bank of Nova Scotia is not far behind, with continual dividend payments since 1832, followed by TD Bank, which has paid dividends continually since 1857, and the Royal Bank, which has paid an uninterrupted dividend to investors for 144 years, extending back to 1870. Canadian banks give almost half their earnings back to investors in payouts, resulting in an average dividend yield of 4.32%, about double that of U.S. lenders. There is no sure thing in investing, but in my experience, companies like Royal Bank - with its strong franchise, resulting in its strong market position, and paying a safe and growing dividend - best reward investors over the long haul.

Canadian banks have been ranked the world's soundest for eight straight years by the World Economic Forum. The country's banking system, which is dominated by the Big Five banks, ranked No. 1 in the Global Competitiveness Report released by the organization. Finland's banking system ranked second of 140 countries surveyed and Australia's third. The U.S. banking system was in 39th place, compared with 49th a year earlier."

See? I put it in bold and in electric blue so that you can't miss it. Half their earnings go back to investors through a 4.32% dividend yield. That's something you don't hear on the radio mostly because of the pounding of the fists on the table blocks it. Look again. This time in purple.

Not only is a steady dividend gold, the key characteristic where Canadian banks are concerned is its security and stability.

Granted, ours is basically a banking monopoly with little competition (this is for another debate) but at least they give us something in return - to a certain extent.

My advice? Shut up and quit sweating the small stuff using anti-capitalist empty platitudes.

Invest in banks if you hate fees. You'll more than make it up. It reminds me of when we'd sell and buy a stock for clients. They'd complain about the commissions (at the time $85 both ways for a $170 total) completely overlooking they made money on the stock that more than covered the cost.
 

Liberals Screw Small Business

The Liberals, surprise, have made mandatory CPP increases. 

What a tired, unimaginative and counter-productive thing to do.

But hey. They're Liberals, right? The natural governing party of bull shit. 

Canadians need to quit living vicariously through the state - who feed off small business - to fund their retirement. Stand up, save your money and invest it wisely. Why the heck would you give more to bureaucrats to put it away for you? It's literally irrational.

Worse, the government will claw back, for example your OAS if they deem you earned too much money. Think of it. You pay into these crummy and dated schemes all your life only to be told, 'hey, yeah about that OAS we forced you to pay into. Yeh, um, you have to give it back because rich.'

It's despicable and my advice to anyone reading this blog: SAVE YOUR MONEY AND MAKE YOUR OWN WAY. Stop asking for free shit. It only drives the price of those services up (which you don't see) while reducing the quality.

The Liberals are NOT FOR SMALL BUSINESS so I wish they'd cut it out with that bull shit.

***

Update:

Just pulled this quote off a CBC article:

As the C.D. Howe pension panel adviser Tammy Schirle commented in the Report on Business, among many advantages of the plan, when employers and employees contribute to the CPP they effectively save the future taxpayer the cost of paying the way of people who failed to save."
That's all you need to know. You have to work for those idiots.
The bottom line is the middle to upper middle classes plus small business are going to fund this incredibly expensive expansion and will not see a dime of it.

Morneau and the Liberals know this. But what do they care, right? They'll be long gone and comfortable by the time people realize they were gamed. The Liberals can give people the most generous pensions ever and it still wouldn't guard against one thing: Choice. As in people make their own choices that sometimes put them in a bad position.

Sotomayor Deserves Credit For Her Consistent Defense Of Liberty For Citizens

When the police state abuses its powers and incarcerates more and more people, Americans will have the Supreme Court (increasingly a body that doesn't protect citizens from tyranny), at least Sonia Sotomayor will be able to look at herself in the mirror and see back a principled judge who was on the proper side of liberty.

She gets it. The others? Not so much.

The 1A, 2A and 4A are under attack in the United States.

Progressives Are Not The Minority; They Are The Establishment

Progressives like to paint themselves as under dogs facing a gigantic monolithic block of blockheads; specifically conservatives. That they somehow hold little power and are merely trying to make right the obscene offenses wrought by capitalism and the horrifying notion of individual liberty.

I often, also, here to be called a liberal is a pejorative. This I can but concur. Except, it's not liberalism. Liberalism was murdered by progressivism. Progressivism believes in a society of experts diligently making decisions for the rest of us under the mistaken belief it's for the 'greater good'.

A more foul intellectual scourge courtesy of German intellectualism there has not been.

Progresssives are the ones who have rewritten history - and continue to do so. They so loathe the British form of The Enlightenment to the point of madness.

All what you see on a daily basis on self-described liberal websites - Huffington, Daily Kos, Vox, Salon, The "new" New Republic, The Nation and so on - is not liberalism; it's progressive talk with its constant attacks on anything with an individualist ideal.

This is why they so dearly want to rewrite or scrap The Constitution. It being a product of The Enlightenment, it doesn't possess a single idea or concept that coincides with the natural authoritarianism of progressive thought.

Don't be fooled into their 'woe is us' nonsense. Progressives have been forming minds for over 120 years now. Any type of interventionism proposed and backed by 'experts' is the result of the progressive's idea of 'doing things for our own good' with an added arrogant extra layer of 'the price for civilization'.

My overall concern with all this is the progressive is not interested in the sovereign individual. It's only interested in the collective. In other words, you live for your neighbor.

Look. Salt bans, soda taxes, anti-tobacco campaign, carbon taxes, calls to imprison climate change skeptics, trigger warnings, micro-aggressions, political correctness, multiculturalism, diversity as a means to an through affirmative action, censoring speakers, gun control, and a whole litany of outrageous assaults on civil liberties all stem from the progressive left.

Each of these come with its own hideous unintended consequences and one-size fits all stupidity. 

It is true political conservatism has also jumped on board to use the state to push their own agenda, but conservatives have held less power in 20th and 21st century Western politics than liberals and later progressive-liberals. The entire structure is progressive.

Again. Once you understand this, it's not surprising to see their positions on, say, the 1A and 2A. They know damn well those amendments don't back up their claims. This is why they bend its meanings and where they falter, simply demand 'it's time to amend or scrap' them.

I mean, these are different times, right?

Progressives are not the minority.

The base root of Western enlightenment is liberalism in its classical form. Those who adhere to it are the true minority.

They're called classical conservatives - and libertarians.

And when progressives eat their own or come after YOU for your opinions, who you gonna call?

Don't Let Panic And Hysteria Drive Your Rational Thoughts

Since the 1960s death by guns has been on the decline. This in a population of 320 million where it's estimated there are 300 million guns.

Yet, the progressive left, those sane and upstanding greater-gooders, want to amend if not outright remove the Second Amendment for what amounts to a statistical anomaly where gun rampages are concerned. In other words, they advocate for the remove civil liberties from the vast majority of law-abiding citizens for a tiny, if not insignificant, portion of the population that goes Travis Bickle.

About that mental illness thing and 'no guns list'. How much do you want to bet the database would swell to hysterical numbers in a heartbeat.

Remember, if you support gun control you're on this side of the equation:

"Emmett Rensin Verified account ‏@emmettrensin

The trick is, if you abolish private property rights, it's much easier to solve the gun issue.

Unlike most left-wingers who hide like little dinks behind 'for the greater good' line, at least this guy admits what we all suspect is the end game.

Now that's rational and logical thinking right there ladies and gentlemen.

Bottom line: There is little rational or statistical reason to beat this drum to the point of eroding civil rights.  

My concern is if they get their way with the 2A, the First Amendment is next because we're already seeing an increased call for censorship.

Look at it this way.

Would you advocate wiping out alligators after what happened at Disney? Of course not because death by alligators are rare. I believe this was the first in the 45 years Disney has operated the park and the first death in Florida since 2010.

How bizarre are things where guns are concerned? The AMA has declared guns a public health hazard even though death by medical malpractice dwarfs those by guns.

More troubling, as noted in past posts, is the idea of taking the irrational war on guns to gun sellers. More people die in bicycles, car and household accidents than they do guns. Are we to start looking at those sellers?

My point is - snaps fingers - keep focus and stop reacting hysterically.

To Serve And Protect Regina Style

"A man who received a $175 traffic ticket for unbuckling his seatbelt to give change to what turned out to be a police officer posing as a panhandler is likely to think twice before giving to the less fortunate again.
Dane Rusk was driving away from a mall in Regina on Wednesday when he spotted what he thought was a panhandler on the side of the road."

 “...Intersections are probably one of the most critical areas when it comes to accidents obviously, and our high-volume intersections are ones that we tend to target,” said Insp. Evan Bray. “So we will run random intersection projects throughout the city."

So this "project" - and let's call this for what it is; a cash grab and has nothing to do with public safety - is to lure people who were not breaking the law into committing an infraction by preying on their good intentions and humanity?

Outstanding.
 

American Classical Values Under Assault

I think we just need to let all this madness slide by and simply wait for a 'rediscovering' of American classical values. Much like how the Renaissance ushered in one of the most explosive periods in human history where intellectualism and philosophy, music, engineering, art and architecture were concerned via the uncovering of Ancient Greek and Roman texts, there may be a time where Americans will come to appreciate it once more as it ought to be and as it was intended.

Wise, rational and genius minds will simply conclude it's not worth or too dangerous to speak up or out and with it will be a further devolving of achievement and ideas. Once it's safe to come out, we will see another Englightenment.

Until then, just look at what's going on campuses to see where we sit and stand.

It's one way to rationalize the blinding levels of stupidity I'm reading these days.

What I'm seeing and hearing is not good and very much in line with the blanket that covered Europe during the Dark Ages.

The assault on the Constitution is the single most disturbing trend in U.S. politics at the moment.

American intellectual discourse is also under going a massive transformation. Article after article after article (and hilarious response to Kuntzman here) after article dictates the Constitution needs to give way to a strong man to make decisions for the greater good. It's foolish as it is cunning as it is troubling.

The core position of progressives is to remove individual liberty in order to submit to the collective. A murder takes place? Remove guns. Speech offends? Embrace censorship. Dare to challenge a narrative like climate change and its nutty positions? Face calls to imprison you.

Guess which side is on the path to destruction?

In my view, the Constitution is a brilliant document that will stand the test of time and overcome the assault against it.

We can but hope Americans will be vigilant and defend it and let this middling mob of tyrants - who gnaw at its content like dying jackals - pass.

And let a reinvigorated age of liberty be ushered in.

Quote Of The Day

Morning Joe ✔ @Morning_Joe

.@Sen_JoeManchin: Due process is what's killing us right now

7:40 AM - 16 Jun 2016

Absolutely chilling.

These people are testing the waters of tyranny everyday. 

Mark my words.

They will settle the Second Amendment and go after the First Amendment next.

 

Liberal Party Tyranny: Censorship By Other Means

"The federal government has ordered Canada Post to stop delivering Your Ward News, a crude Toronto newspaper that repeatedly denied the Holocaust, praised Adolf Hitler and derided Jews, Muslims, women and the LGBT community.

Public Services and Procurement Minister Judy Foote, who oversees Canada Post, made the decision less than two months after a human rights complaint accused the government and the postal service of “regularly and knowingly delivering misogynist, racist, anti-Jewish, anti-Muslim, and homophobic hate propaganda.”

Ah, but that 'great Canadian compromise' Bill 101, you know, that piece of crap rag we call a law actually violates freedom of choice, speech and expression, is just dandy in Canada.

Canada is not free.

Lord how I loathe the Liberal party of Canada in all their defunct misery.

A Second Rate Medical System

Heard on the news the MUHC has state of the art equipment it can't use because they don't have the money to operate and maintain them as a result of budget cuts.

Think about that for a second.

Stew on it.

I''m going to let you reflect.

In your quiet space.

Wherever that may be.

Just ponder.

***

This is classic technocratic and bureaucratic inefficiency at its inglorious height.

The cold hard truth is our bureaucracy is cost-centric; not patient-centric.

And until this shifts, we will always have a mediocre, if not, inferior health care system.

.

Gun Control Advocates Predictably Let Emotions Dictate

Sure they don't want their guns. Suuurre.

By 'common sense' they mean 'give us your guns'.

And so finally they're honest about it.

***

AMA declares guns a 'health crisis.'

Everything is a 'health crisis' these days.

I fear we're entering the really stupid and dangerous part of our irrationality.

How many things - including malpractice resulting in death - cause more deaths than guns (which, I hope people realize is just an inanimate object) again?

Ban it ALL.

For common sense.  

Progressive Impulses In One Sentence

‘I am too angry for that.’  

There you go. Let all your emotions dictate your reactions. Let it be the basis of policy. Let it control your rational mind.

'God dammit! I have no idea what the difference is between a semi-automatic and a multi-automatic but all I know God dammit is you're an asshole if you own one because murders! And while we're at it, if we can't pass sensible, common sense gun control then go after the sellers. I mean, come on! I know this is very police state but COMMON SENSE! And when we're done with the smokers wait until you see what's in store for gun sellers!'

This is what I decode whenever I hear their absurd inanities.

I've grown tired of middling comedian political commentators. The whole shtick has jumped the shark into smug ignorance. 'Oh look at that conservative, soooo stupid' is basically all it amounts to.

Not a shred of interesting thought behind the formulaic and forced humor.

Samantha Bee, your run of the mill Canadian sufficiently ignorant of American history, is pretty much the Queen B of insufferable comedic-pundits who more than anything display a depth of shallowness that can only be described of disappointing if not shocking. I have enough of Neil MacDonald sprouting off progderp on my dime.

Yet, as she goes off on a screed against free, law-abiding citizens (with the usual rants against the NRA), government is increasingly passing such laws while it exempts itself (much like Obamacare).

Think of what they're saying. Basically, because of the action of one idiot (and this guy was no different than Lanza or Roof or any other nut), the law-abiding citizen has to turn their guns in?

And don't be a fucking fool. The end game IS complete confiscation. The day Americans turn their guns in is the day the tides of liberty will recede for good. Americans must stand up to it.

There is only ONE moral solution. Leave people alone. You have NO RIGHT to disarm them if they feel they should be. Moreover, blaming only guns is wrongheaded.

Are people this insipid and disconnected?

Of course.

They don't read books. They have no use or interest in history and if they do, they manage to miss the entire point or apply contemporary sensibilities to it. 'Why should I read something so outdated? Life is soooo much more complex now and I can make sense of it through my whimsical comedy. Yay!'

We truly are an ignorant wretched bunch for our arrogance towards our collective heritage and past.

Then people wonder why we have scholars who want to sanitize literature.

Folks. It's a Dark Age.

Orlando: There Is No Panacea

It's not surprising gun-control activists went into overdrive within hours of the tragedy in Orlando.

We're always told civil decorum dictates we keep our mouths shut by not politicizing a tragic event after a tragedy.

Unless you're a progressive with an agenda of course.

Then all bets are off. Progressives hold the answers and policies to what ails nature and humanity you see.

But I'm here to tell you don't buy the bull shit.

Don't.

If you notice, all they propose is the removal of freedom from one group through force.

An equally disturbing trend is going after gun sellers. This is a lynch mob (cultural warriors if you will) going after people. They're no different than ancient people who looked to the skies and idols to explain away mysteries. Somewhere, somehow the lynch mob egged on by progressives need to find their scapegoat to explain the irrational.

Why stop at sellers of guns? Bartenders are all already put in an impossibly position of gauging if patrons had enough to drink. What's next? Going after auto makers whenever someone plows into cyclists? Or how about alcohol companies for DUI's?

We're losing our rational bearings.

Carbon Credit Chart Of Stupidity.

Now here's a depressing chart. Pictured are the dumbest regions on the planet. I call it The Chart of Bull Shit for Useful Idiots.




"...Against this backdrop, the World Bank Group’s Networked Carbon Markets initiative is working with civil society, governments and the private sector to explore alternative visions for how a future international carbon market could accommodate a "patchwork" of different domestic climate actions. The Networked Carbon Markets initiative’s focus is not to "harmonize" climate actions so that units can be traded on a 1:1 basis, but rather to facilitate cross-border trade based on a shared understanding of the relative value of different actions. "

That's a creative way of saying 'ka-ching!'.

None of these initiatives-schemes-scams will work. But it will make a whole bunch of cronies rich.

Liberty Is On The Run; The EU Is Declaring War On Freedom Of Speech And Expression

The day is coming where Google - which owns Blogger - will shut down my blog.

What I'm reading in the news regarding online  and the move to censor our right to free speech is disturbing and an abomination. I also find it disgusting that they will not challenge the violent rhetoric of Muslims online (because they're politically correct cowards) but they *bravely* go after its own citizens. This coming from a continent that consistently turns a blind eye to crimes committed as examples like Rotherdam revealed

How is this not a war against the people?

And I lay it all at the feet of the European Union as well as the cowards at Google, youtube, Facebook (in my opinion the most over rated and useless entity on human progress)  and Microsoft who are cynically looking to enhance their own power under the guise of 'protecting civil discourse'.

How's this for civil talk:

Each and every one of you - in addition to respectfully fucking off - you will have played your part in the coming tyranny. 

Google in particular is a major disappointment.

People seriously need to think about this coming tyranny and fight it.

That means supporting one another as free peoples and minds. That means not looking to close down speech you disagree with but defending it because the option proposed by the EU - that is, criminalizing it, is immoral and pure abject stupidity.

Based on this development alone, I hope for the dissolution of that union. A union that is not free is not worth keeping or respecting. 

What's next? A trigger warning for pansy Europeans who take offense to what people say? Is Scotland Yard gonna push their weight around investigating insignificant blogs? 

Pretty soon we'll all be one gigantic micro aggression armed with little words against the Europeans. 

What the heck is going on in Europe and why are major U.S. companies bending to the EU'S worst tyrannical impulses?

***

The EU is doubling down on their ball busting as this note from Blogger reveals:

"European Union laws require you to give European Union visitors information about cookies used on your blog. In many cases, these laws also require you to obtain consent.

As a courtesy, we have added a notice on your blog to explain Google's use of certain Blogger and Google cookies, including use of Google Analytics and AdSense cookies.

You are responsible for confirming this notice actually works for your blog, and that it displays. If you employ other cookies, for example by adding third party features, this notice may not work for you. Learn more about this notice and your responsibilities."

My responsibilities to the EU? Who are these assholes and why are they bothering us? Now I have to fricken figure out what this gibberish means.

I make no money off my blog and use it for my own personal vanity project. How it becomes a target by a tyrannical technocratic monstrosity like the EU is absurd.  

Europe is not impressing me. At all. 

Helene David's Corner

Welcome to another installment of Helen David's Corner where we talk language.

'What's the deal with The Keg? I mean, don't they know they operate in Quebec? It's only right and respectful to call it Le Keg, is it not? What if French speakers think they're going for a keg of beer and not a piece of steak? Make it clear for us! It's good for business!'

'What's the deal with Dairy Queen? If not La Cremerie Dairy Queen dammit then go for La Reine Laiterie! It's good for business!'

If companies did not have the protection of trademark laws, this is pretty much what would happen here.

The Folly Of Bill C-210

I will not sing or stand for O' Canada.

The Liberal party of Canada can go straight to you know where with their moronic SJW bull shit.

What an insignificant, Beta-country this has become.

It's not HIStory anymore. It's HERstory now!

Let's go rewrite every fucking piece of literature and music to bend to our full of shit, sensitive, smug sensibilities!

Hillary The Horrible: Awful By A Corrupted, Country Mile

I can't even understand how it's even a debate.

She's awful.

Awful as a politician, awful as a person from what I've read and an awful intellectual.

To wit:

If it is a constitutional right, then it, like every other constitutional right, is subject to reasonable regulation.

From where I sit, this is every bit as dangerous anything Grandpa Gulag says about the economy or Trump has asserted about walls and immigrants.

Moreover, this 'so and so doesn't believe such and such has rights to' line is dubious in its application I reckon. It's (or should be) irrelevant or inconsequential what a politician thinks about which rights they select to be legitimate.

What matters is what is enumerated in the Constitution. Politicians come and go; with it their whims and whimsical ideas of what society ought to be. But the Constitution stays exactly where it is, comfortable (for now) in its content and message.

 It cuts right to the heart of her and her party's thinking on rights.

How can a right be 'regulated'? It's also intriguing to note progressives only demand 'reasonable' restrictions on rights they object to. That's what ignorant-enlightened authoritarians do after all, no?

She's a tyrant. And she will lead Americans deeper onto the path of tyranny.

***

Her position on gun rights are an abomination.

"We cannot let a minority of people, and that's what it is, it is a minority of people, hold a viewpoint that terrorizes the majority of people" said the former Secretary of State." 


Of course, it's perfectly alright to impose legislation on the majority law abiding gun owners on the false premise of a minority of people who commit violent crime.

In fact, most government legislation is driven by a tyranny of the minority. Often, it's the majority that has to pay (figuratively and otherwise) for the actions of the few. It's the essence of how government grabs and maintains power.

Hitchens was correct. Why in the world would Americans even consider her? And this was before her brazen disregard for the law regarding her private email server.

***

To me, and it could be an erroneous bit of logic I confess, gun control is very much like the anti-tobacco crusade.

They assured us back when it hit its stride in the 1980s it was never going to apply to the private sphere. Yet, slowly, bit by bit, they hammered away and we find ourselves at war with smokers in their homes and cars.

They knew all along chisel away slowly is the best way to achieve their ultimate goal of complete ban (without ever moving to make it illegal because the government is too addicted (excuse the pun) to the tax revenues).

There are no winners here. Just nannies, tyrants and hypocrites.

It's the same with gun control. 'Stop being paranoid. No one is coming for your guns.'

In liar bureaucrat, progressive speak, it means this is EXACTLY what they want.