Desi In Toronto

Jim Flaherty Then :

Finance Minister Jim Flaherty was facing a deficit of $5.9-billion in the fiscal year ending March 31, 2010, according to the fiscal update he released last fall. To achieve a surplus, Mr. Flaherty pledged to reduce government spending by $4.3-billion and predicted the government would earn $1.6-billion from changes to public sector compensation and the gains on purchases of insured mortgages from banks.

Jim Flaherty Now :

Mr. Flaherty revised his projection again this week, citing a deeper-than-expected recession, higher-than-anticipated employment insurance payments and the rescues of Chrysler and General Motors.

Lisa Riatt Then (UPDATE : here she is trying to sound the alarm bells about how the isotopes shortfall is a “really, really” bad thing)

“Ensuring that the Canadian medical community receives a consistent and reliable supply of medical isotopes has been of critical importance to me,” (Lisa) Raitt said

Lisa Raitt Now (UPDATE : Here she is saying, a few months later, “not to worry. There is no shortage of isotopes in the world”)

During this extended outage at Chalk River, other isotope-producing countries have the capacity to assist in minimizing production shortfall.

These countries all have different sets of constraints and capacity, and we will need to work through those. There is good will amongst all and a willingness to be helpful. They also fully recognize that Canada stepped up to the plate and provided a significant amount of additional isotope capacity when the Petten reactor in the Netherlands was down.

I know it’s very easy to beat up conservatives because they waffle sooooooooooooo much but I think Flaherty got a raw deal. The poor guy probably made inane statements about how everything was a-ok after being asked to by the big guy PM Harper and now he is paying for it. It’s not Flaherty’s fault that we have a deficit of $50 billion, but he is at fault for saying Canada is at a better state than it really was.

It’s not Lisa Raitt’s fault that she inherited a leaky and crumbling nuclear reactor but then to go claim that the safety would be reviewed and a plan would be put into action which is TO SELL THE NUCLEAR PLANT TO A PRIVATE PARTY!!!! That’s the dumbest thing I have ever heard. So much for ensuring a ensuring safety and a steady supply of isotopes. Let’s shut down the reactor and find some buyer who would restart the reactor as it is now.

Just go through the interview (Liveblogging Lisa Raitt on the sale of AECL’s reactor building division) and get ready to swear over Lisa’s incompetent handling of the crisis.

And when the National Post is making fun of the conservatives, then you KNOW there is trouble brewing.

Understandably, the seal hunt is horrible.  I mean images on this page speaks a thousand words (warning: not for the faint of heart). And of course, the blood spilling on white snow enhances the “goriness” of the kill which further inflames us humans who cannot stand the site of senseless killing.

But then you have to look at it logically. I am talking to you, enjoying your burger at McDonald’s and you, enjoying your chicken teriyaki and you, enjoying your BBQed pork chops. All those animals you are enjoying at the moment were reared and then slaughtered, all for the pleasure of your palate.

So please all those of you who preach, cut the fucking crap. Seals are not endangered and they are not needlessly culled. If the image of the culling is something that displeases you, please do not look. And if you are going to be a holier-than-thou hypocrite, then I request you to FO.

And for those who are genuinely PETA supporters, please focus your energies on the slaughter houses for pigs, cows, chicken, goats, sheep, horses etc. Seal hunting is a bonafied industry (for now) and will go on to be bonafied, until we have a environmental or financial situation which demands that seal hunt be eliminated.

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NEW DELHI: For those suffering from aviophobia, the fear of flying, divine help will be at hand soon with a grand temple with south Indian architecture coming up just outside the airport here.

“We started constructing this temple in August last year. It will be open for public in two-three months,” said Arun Arora, spokesperson for Delhi’s airport development firm, which has been promoted by GMR, a Hyderabad-based infrastructure company.

“But the temple is not being built inside the airport. It is a part of the commercial area in the airport’s vicinity. It will be accessible to anyone,” Arora said.

Well, it’s true. Whenever I fly, I look for the nearest deity and bow my head and hope I get to where I want safely and not trust the experts like : the pilot, the engineer, the stewards, the air traffic controller, the ground staff etc.

This mindless superstition is so pathetic that it boggles my mind.

I remember the time when outright stupidity broke out in 1995/1996 when statues of the lord Ganesha started “drinking milk” around India and the world. I remember how excited all my batch mates were, in the MBA college I was attending (you heard right, MBA graduates became sniveling pathetic morons). Of course, the hysteria died down a bit once it was discovered that this “miracle” was the result of surface tension and capillary action but more so because the statues were clogged with the 1000s of liters of milk. But that did not dissuade the believers who still think stone statues drink milk.

And my friends call me stupid for not believing.

There is bone headed dumb.

I can’t stand atheists — but it’s not because they don’t believe in God. It’s because they’re crashing bores.

Read Dawkins, or Hitchens, or the works of fellow atheists Sam Harris (“The End of Faith”) and Daniel Dennett (“Breaking the Spell”), or visit an atheist website or blog (there are zillions of them, bearing such titles as “God Is for Suckers,” “God Is Imaginary” and “God Is Pretend”), and your eyes will glaze over as you peruse — again and again — the obsessively tiny range of topics around which atheists circle like water in a drain.

Then there is the smack down of the afore mentioned bone headed dumbness.

Charlotte Allen is very, very angry with us atheists — that’s the only conclusion that can be drawn from her furious broadside in The Times on May 17. She can’t stand us; we’re unpopular; we’re a problem. What, exactly, is the greatest crime of modern atheists?

We’re boring.

I can’t actually argue with that. It’s true. We’re all just ordinary people — your neighbors, your friends, your relatives. I know atheists who are accountants, real estate agents, schoolteachers, lawyers, soldiers, journalists, even ministers (but don’t tell their congregations!). Our leading lights are college professors, scientists, philosophers, theologians and other such pedantic, scholarly riffraff. For entertainment, they read books, and if they want to do something ambitious and dramatic, they write books. I’m one of them, so trust me, I know — we don’t exactly live the James Bond lifestyle. Calling us boring is a fair cop.

Apologies for not posting……been a crazy week. Here are a few miscellaneous links.

1) Total bias by the judges in the trial against The Pirate Bay. I have no idea what the procesution expects from shutting down TPB. I mean, shutting down Napster a few years ago did not really block music proliferation on the internet.

2) Total smackdown of “Marijuana is gateway to hard drugs” argument by a sitting congressman!!!

3) Ghostbusters fans, cross your fingers!!!!

4) Rush Limbaugh is still an asshole.

5) Sanity prevails in India after Congress is re-elected to a second term.

6) Hard truths of life.

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Thousands of Tamil protesters have left Toronto’s Gardiner Expressway, after surging onto the highway to call attention to the escalating civilian death toll in Sri Lanka.

Around midnight, protesters began making their way down an on-ramp as police monitored the situation. Some told ctvtoronto.ca they planned to take their demonstration to Queen’s Park.

Reporters and witnesses at the scene said the demonstration was largely peaceful. However, police arrested at least one person and video taken from a nearby highrise showed a bicycle being thrown at officers.

And what does Canada’s all time favourite blog have to say?

Kate McMilan

Hey Sri Lanka, would you just hurry up and finish them off so traffic can get back to normal?

Because it is necessary for Kate to get to work/home therefore, killing a few brown babies is no big issue for her. And the comments left on her post :

As a law abiding citizen, I explicity convey to the government a monopoly on the use of force to use accordingly in the pursuit of peace and justice.

So I’m getting a little tired of groups using force to get their message across: Indians at Caledonia, Tamils in Ottawa and Toronto. Who’s next? A precedent has been set.

Uh huh. I especially like “Indians in Caledonia” comment. Cause it’s not their land to begin with……

I’m having a hard time believing no one could find a big snowplow to clear the road.

Yes, killing a few brown people is no big deal. After all, the roads need to remain open on Sundays evenings.

I don’t really hate anyone but having read Kate’s blog over the last few months and having seen her on TV, I can truly say that I hate Kate and each of her racist followers. And as a Canadian it shames me to call these fuckers my fellow citizens.

As to the genocide going on in Sri Lanka. I don’t care either way. (UPDATE : I meant to say I don’t care which side is right or wrong not that I don’t care about the genocide!!). Both sides have royally fucked and mucked the issue. Tamils in SL have valid concerns and so does the SL government. And the SL problem has, to a large degree, had an adverse affect on India so, in my mind it would be prudent that the problem is solved soon. Since, the government has an upper hand (after many, many years) there is no way they are going to sit for negotiations.

And to the Tamils here in Canada. I think they are looking for some moral support from the government (like Harper gave to the Israelis in the last intifada) which they are definitely not going to get if the Tamil supporters in Canada are going to wave the flag of LTTE, a violent terrorist organisation.

And to Bill Carroll and his cahoots, fuck you and your moralising – “OH MY GOD!!!!!! THERE ARE CHILDREN ON THE GARDINER EXPRESS!!!!!”. Because there have never been crowds with kids on the roads and highways after a rare win by the Maple Leafs.

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Following President Obama’s May 5 visit to Ray’s Hell Burger in Arlington, Virginia, Sean Hannity, Laura Ingraham, and Rush Limbaugh Show guest host Mark Steyn criticized Obama as an elitist because he ordered a burger with “spicy mustard” or “Dijon mustard.” Hannity claimed that Obama ordered a “fancy burger” with a “very special condiment,” while Steyn asserted Obama is trying “to enlighten us” through his order. Ingraham asked of Obama: “What kind of man orders a cheeseburger without ketchup but Dijon mustard? … The guy orders a cheeseburger without ketchup? What is that?” In their discussions of Obama’s burger order, Hannity, Ingraham, and Steyn all referenced a Grey Poupon commercial featuring actors portraying wealthy British men expressing desire for the mustard.

Oh my dear god.

As has been discussed over and over again in the last 5 months or so, this is a prime example of the stupidity of the conservatives/right wingers. Picking over the fact that guy ordered a cheeseburger without ketchup and with DIJON mustard – which means he is an elitist. Holy fuck. That is by far the dumbest thing I have heard.

And if you ever say Canadians are not that stupid, our very own Mark Steyn displays his utter lack of intelligence in the accompanying video clip.

The relevant question is, why is the right acting this way? Is it because they know they have lost the fight (for the moment) and the way they can maintain their dignity is to fight back at everything and anything? It will be interesting to see what happens to the conservatives/republicans. Will fresh new blood bring in about sanity to the conservative movement? Or will the right wing implode and some new movement/philosophy arise out of the ashes?

BTW, I will donate $5 to a charity for every person who can sit through the video! You have to tell me what Mark Steyn said in the end that sounded so deranged that any doubts about Mark’s insanity can now be put to rest.

UPDATE : I was going ignore this (via CC) as a comment by some run of the mill blogger like me but :

About Me
Associate Clinical Professor of Law, Cornell Law School, Ithaca, NY

Mother of god, professor you are stupid!!

Ah, hypocrisy is so simple and beautiful.

The directors of the Miss California USA pageant are looking into whether title holder Carrie Prejean violated her contract by working with a national group opposed to gay marriage and by posing semi-nude when she was a teenage model.

Pageant spokesman Roger Neal said Tuesday it appears Prejean has run afoul of several sections of the 12-page contract that all prospective contestants were required to sign before competing in the November state contest.

So the new voice of the loopy Right is basically a hypocrite. It’s ok for her to express her sexuality in whatever way she wants to but not ok for others.

Prejean, a San Diego native who attends San Diego Christian College, was named the first runner-up to Miss North Carolina in the Miss USA pageant April 19. Her response to a question during the pageant that she opposed extending marriage to gays and lesbians made her a media sensation, darling of religious conservatives and the target of embarrassing disclosures.

Updated: Oops…..the post is not very clear. I was trying to say that this beauty queen with her “principled stand” of dissing other people’s sexual practices, flaunts her own sexuality the way she she’s fit to do so. Hence, the title.

The brain drain from Canada to the US just kicked into high gear!!

One of Canada’s top AIDS researchers is moving to the United States, taking as many as 25 scientists on his team with him.

The University of Montreal’s Rafick-Pierre Sékaly says he is leaving in part because of federal cuts in science funding and hopes his departure will be a wake-up call.

“I hope it will trigger some kind of movement that will foster a deep soul searching and investment,” he said in an interview.

He expects to more than double his $3.5-million research budget in his new position as scientific director of the Vaccine and Gene Therapy Institute in Florida, but will also keep a lab going at the University of Montreal.

Of course the brain drain has been going on for years. The simple fact is that there are more jobs in US and more money. But the truth is that Canada was still able to retain top talent especially in the Bush years. Now that the war on science in US is over and is continuing under Stephen Harper in Canada, we are watching the end of the leadership in science.

Congratulations to Harper on his win against science. I expect that Canada will turn to evangelical science soon.

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The more often Americans go to church, the more likely they are to support the torture of suspected terrorists, according to a new survey.

More than half of people who attend services at least once a week — 54 percent — said the use of torture against suspected terrorists is “often” or “sometimes” justified. Only 42 percent of people who “seldom or never” go to services agreed, according to the analysis released Wednesday by the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life.

White evangelical Protestants were the religious group most likely to say torture is often or sometimes justified — more than six in 10 supported it. People unaffiliated with any religious organization were least likely to back it. Only four in 10 of them did.

Or should I say, I am not one bit surprised about this.