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George Jonas: Freakishly talented, or talented freak?

NP Editor — Sun, 05 Jul 2009 14:07:00 GMT

The voluminous coverage of Michael Jackson’s untimely death left my culture-vulture-camp-follower acquaintance with mixed feelings. It pleased the fan in her; it didn’t please the moralist.

Show business truly proved to be like no business, she explained. It was heartening to see the passing of a performing artist warrant such tremendous coverage. On the other hand, the sheer volume of media attention made the public’s appetite seem unhealthy. Some Jackson cultists reminded my acquaintance of ghouls at a seance — prurient ghouls, conjuring up their idol’s clay feet, his presumed chemical and sexual idiosyncrasies. They were different from wholesome mourners gathered to remember their star’s gifts and accomplishments.

My acquaintance was looking straight at me while saying this. I wondered why. Finally she came out with it.

“Are you a Jackson fan?” she demanded.

“Me?” I replied, bewildered. I’ve been mistaken for many things before, but a Jackson fan, never. “What makes you think so?

“You’re wearing his jacket,” she said.

By golly, so I was. No wonder I seemed sickeningly up-to-date to onlookers last week. Without realizing it, I wore a Michael Jackson location jacket given to me ages ago by the late Dusty Cohl, co-founder of the Toronto Film Festival. Dusty not only lived in location jackets but distributed them among his acquaintances. I was undeserving of the gift — I barely knew who Jackson was, let alone appreciated wearing his road apparel. (“That’s okay,” Dusty said to me at the time, “Michael doesn’t know who you are, either.”)

I assured my acquaintance that, appearances notwithstanding, I wasn’t a member of the Jackson cult. “Okay, then what do you think about Jackson?” she asked. “You can’t make a fashion statement like this, and then have no opinion.”

Pop culture isn’t my beat. “If you insist,” I said, “and for what it’s worth, here goes.

“To me, Jackson’s music sounded like the screech of a scalded cat. But I realize that many people like their music to sound like the screech of a scalded cat nowadays. It’s their eardrums and their business...”

“Go on.”

“Now you want to know about Jackson’s dancing,” I said, “It was great. Better than great, it was unique. Expressive. Energetic. He looked like the energizer bunny. You couldn’t take your eyes off him when he danced.”

“What else?” My star-gazing acquaintance tapped my chest with her finger. “Say what’s on your mind.”

“Say what? Jackson was a song-and-dance man. Once you’ve talked about his singing and his dancing, what else is there to talk about?”

“Wasn’t he also a child-molester?” she asked suddenly, looking as if she were ready to add “gotcha!”

“You want me to say what’s on your mind, not mine,” I said. “No, he wasn’t. Child-molesters are people convicted of child molesting. Jackson wasn’t, so the referee has just deducted a point from you for a low blow. Do it again, and he’ll disqualify you.”

I sent my camp-follower acquaintance on her way before she could get in another one below the belt. Since she got me started, though, I will go a round myself.

George Orwell’s observation about the Spanish surrealist painter Salvador Dali — “one ought to be able to hold in one’s head simultaneously the two facts that Dali is a good draughtsman and a disgusting human being. The one does not invalidate or, in a sense, affect the other” — applies to many accomplished people, contemporary or historic. Take a 15th-century drifter named François Villon. An exceptionally gifted lyricist and balladeer, Villon was by his own credible admission also a thief and a killer.
Orwell’s characterization “a good draughtsman (performer, poet, whatever) and a disgusting human being” could apply to Jackson as easily as it could to other gifted artists from Villon to Dali. I’m not saying it does, only that Jackson’s ability to dance like the dickens wouldn’t prevent it. Moves do little for morals, and morals do little for moves.

Talent, an enviable commodity, is often poured into unworthy vessels. Konstantin Stanislavsky, the father of “method” acting, admonished performers that they should admire art in themselves, not themselves in art. Great — but it’s not so easy to tell where one ends and the other begins. Would Villon the poet have still existed with Villon the bandit surgically removed from his soul? Or were the two inextricably intertwined?

Orwell wanted to stress that an artist’s gifts and skills shouldn’t blind us to his moral flaws, just as his moral flaws shouldn’t make us deny his artistic gifts. Desirable as this undoubtedly is, it leaves the door open for admiring the right person for the wrong reason. An amoral celebration of talent can become a talent for the celebration of immorality.

Are we passing from idol worship to clay-feet worship? Is this the cultural phenomenon we’re witnessing in the media? After the death of a freakishly talented pop star, whom are we really celebrating, the talent or the freak? Or are the two as intertwined in our minds as in Jackson’s? I’ve no answer, but maybe somebody will offer one.
National Post

Photo: REUTERS/Phil McCarten

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Jonathan Kay: Right-wing culture warriors are putting Palin's martyred political career up on a cross

Jonathan Kay — Sun, 05 Jul 2009 02:04:00 GMT

Since posting this blog entry critical of Sarah Palin on Friday, I have been getting a lot of angry email from right-wing culture warriors. That's not particularly surprising. But what is surprising is the general tone. Many of my correspondents seem to be turning Palin into a sort of political Christ figure, who has been martyred for America's political sins.

This email from one George Lyster was typical in this regard: "It's because of incessant criticism from people like you why she is quitting. Attack her, attack her children, attack her grandchildren. No individual should have been treated by the press as this woman has. Shameful, even after the election was over, there was no let up. You and your ilk were out to destroy this woman — congratulations … Your ilk despises her because she refused to abort her Downs Syndrome child. Had she done so, she would have been glorified as a true modern woman."

For more examples, I would invite readers to wade through the comments section following my blog entry. It includes such gems as:

— "Humilitating her children for blood sport — MSM should be on trial for gender abuse."

— "Strong, confident Evangelical Christians who stand for something. A group that is a continual media target for contempt, hate speech, ad hominem attacks and family intrusions. Anti-Christian bigotry drives these Palin and [Stockwell] Day attacks, but I've never read a report addressing this cancer in the media...Will we ever read something positive about a social conservative Christian politician?"

— "Reading the haters on this site is usual. they hate Christians. They hate the average person, who is not an elitist snob, or is not an copy of their leftist agenda. They hate the fact she is a well spoken, average person that is going to make their lives less easy. Palin challenges the hand outs, the freebooters, and the corruption of the left. She is a target of hate by the left, the hate is obvious and there for all to see. Just read the comments of the haters. They make up lies, just to avoid the truth. The lies and misinformation they spread is pure HATE, the Hollywood elite is going after her because they fear her, she is capable to put these liars in their place. I hope the plan she has is one I've thought about for a while......"

One thing that strikes me about many of the comments is the lurid manner by which they evoke stray attacks on Palin's family during the 2008 election campaign — as if her family foibles were somehow the main objection from voters and pundits to a vacuous, insubstantial politician who flubbed the many opportunities to impress that she was given (including Friday's exit speech). The various mentions of the down-syndrome child are especially notable in this regard, as they are clearly meant to fashion Palin as a gentle, caregiving, life-affirming soul who was simply too good and Godly for this cynical political world we inhabit.

I suppose we all make up fables to explain political outcomes we don't like. But this one seems particularly ridiculous and far-fetched. Social conservatives are beginning to descend into what Richard Hofstadter famously called the paranoid style.

jkay@nationalpost.com

Paul Russell: stoking xenophobia, loathing Nixon, worshipping Rae

Paul Russell — Sat, 04 Jul 2009 17:00:00 GMT

When the news broke that Omar Shaban, a (now former) Canadian Arab Federation (CAF) vice-president had posted some anti-Canadian remarks on Facebook on Canada Day, readers were incensed. We published one note in this vein on Friday, subtly headlined: "If you don't like it here -- leave."

That brought in this note.

"I appreciate your efforts to fairly reflect the statements of all parties, warts and all," wrote Henry Lowi. "[But I am] concerned about ... the virulent 'Canada -- love it or leave it!' tone of your readers. I am worried that the net result of this affair will be an increase in xenophobia, which will victimize [CAF critic] Tarek Fatah, Mohamed Boudjenane [director general of the CAF], Omar Shaban, you and me. A Canada that is hostile and inhospitable to Arabs, Muslims, Jews, immigrants, First Nations and people of colour would be a diminished Canada. Let us not go there."

-- The Israeli-Palestinian conflict is addressed regularly in our news section--and almost as frequently on our Letters page -- but it appears that at least one reader is tiring of the topic. "I cannot help but notice the unending stream of articles and editorials over whether Palestinians are being anti-Semitic or whether what Israel is doing is considered genocide," wrote Joshua Wasylciw.

"I have a revolutionary idea -- Canada should no longer accept refugees, temporary workers, students and would-be citizens who are Israeli or Palestinian. As is evidenced by the repeated publication of letters to the editor, these new Canadians are not leaving their baggage at the door when they come here. Why do we want to keep accepting people who clearly have trouble getting along?"

-- Columnist Christopher Hitchens has the unique gift of being able to amuse some Post readers while deeply irritating others. His column this week on a former president was true to form.

"Whatever Richard Nixon's hatreds were, he had the good sense not to put them in writing," wrote Paul Williams. "A third-of-a-century later, Hitchens does exactly that with, 'I can still remember the profound sense of loathing and disgust that I experienced ... at the mere sight of him. Nixon still fills me with a pure and undiluted hatred.' "

"Is this judicious commentary?" Mr. Williams asked. "Or is this simply self-indulgence? Or self-therapy? Where are Robert Fulford or Father Raymond de Souza when you need them?"

"There is no doubt that Christopher Hitchens has a natural bent for stirring the pot," added Alex Taylor. "Every time he contributes to this newspaper, you can be sure that impassioned letters to the editor will follow. It seems that those professing the Christian faith are particularly incensed and always rise to the bait. Such heated reactions have got to be confirmation of a successful columnist."

-- Readers occasionally ask how the Letter of the Day is selected. At the risk of giving away trade secrets, it's not rocket science. We look for a well-written letter on a timely subject. If it's a first-hand account, that's a plus. And if it will get under the skin of readers, all the better -- the purpose of the Letters page, after all, is to spark debate among readers.

That latter factor explains why Tuesday's Letter of the Day -- entitled "Bad boys and rebels, that's what we need" -- was selected. Penned by a university student, it recounted how he went to Liberal MP Bob Rae for advice on "what is would take for my generation to have a revolution."

His description of that meeting -- where he saw a university photo of Mr. Rae ( "a social activist") and Michael Ignatieff ( "quite a rebel ... with a bad-boy look") was heartfelt and genuine, but it appears to have irked many readers.

"I am not sure why this gibberish warranted publication in the National Post, much less being Letter of the Day," wrote Bonnie Andrais. "I wonder what kind of idealist seeking real social change hangs out with political hacks like Bob Rae and Michael Ignatieff.

"Based on his visit to Bob Rae's office, your letter-writer thinks that these are the bad boys and rebels that Canada needs," Ms. Andrais continued. "While truly idealistic Iranians are putting their lives on the line for change, there is no way they should be confused with young Liberals, or even these old ones."

-- Paul Russell is letters editor at the National Post

Robert Fulford: Driving to distraction

NP Editor — Sat, 04 Jul 2009 16:01:00 GMT

As an eccentric who never learned to drive and never for a moment wanted to, I consider myself an objective connoisseur of driving. As a lifelong taxi passenger, I’ve learned that some people should never sit in the driver’s seat. Many cab drivers do their work as if they were born to it but others are versions of the driver I would be if I drove. They lack natural co-ordination. They’re nervous. They tend to be absent-minded. They don’t know how to stop or start the car without rattling themselves and their customers. Dealing with a stop sign becomes a troubling project. Worst, after years behind the wheel, they have no idea there’s anything wrong with what they do.

Lack of self-awareness afflicts most drivers around the world. Do a survey and you discover that the majority consider themselves above average. This makes them bored, therefore dangerous. Author Tom Vanderbilt, now much-quoted on this subject, suggests that nearly eight of 10 accidents happen because drivers stop paying attention for two or three seconds. Drunks are big trouble, but false confidence causes even more accidents, the narcotic of self-delusion being more menacing than alcohol. Drivers, thin-skinned about their competence, “tend to self-enhance,” as Vanderbilt nicely puts it.

At the core of Vanderbilt’s thinking is the danger presented by straight, simple highways, encountered in good weather by drivers who are sure they know what to do. That’s a formula for catastrophe. It induces a sleepy, robotic belief that events encountered on the road are inevitably predictable. “Most crashes,” according to Vanderbilt, “happen on dry roads, on clear, sunny days, to sober drivers.” Give him a hair-pin turn anytime. At least it keeps the driver awake.

Last summer, after three years spent ransacking the planet for driving advice, Vanderbilt offered his collection of wisdom in a 400-page book, Traffic: Why We Drive the Way We Do (and What It Says About Us), published by Knopf. He’s a reporter with a taste for fresh data and an intellectual who quickens to a good theory — he even found a “traffic archaeologist” (who knew there was such a creature?) who studied patterns of chariot wheels on ruined Pompeii’s roads and learned that Romans drove on the right-hand side and had one-way streets.

Vanderbilt’s book miraculously combines friendly prose and 90 pages of references to psychologists, sociologists, traffic engineers and other authorities. It became a best seller and the Post ran three excerpts in October; the paperback appears next month.

It made Vanderbilt’s reputation. His excellent blog, howwedrive.com, steadily expands the material in the book and charts his personal status by announcing speaking gigs everywhere from the Association of Transportation Safety Professionals in Phoenix to the world congress of La Prévention Routière Internationale in Rotterdam. Vanderbilt is to driving what Malcolm Gladwell is to success and Richard Florida to gentrification.

He’s rightly enraged that society takes for granted many thousands of traffic deaths. He’s fascinated by the peculiar differences that we reveal in dealing with cars. Why, he wonders, do New Yorkers jaywalk and people in Copenhagen don’t? In Copenhagen jaywalking is considered in bad taste while New Yorkers believe that those who obey traffic signs are visitors from the sticks. Does this show, as we might assume, different levels of civilization? Maybe not. Vanderbilt, always glad to undercut anyone’s assumptions, including his own, found a Danish traffic engineer who explained that Copenhagen streets are designed to make it easy to walk legally and New York streets aren’t.

In the Canadian context, this raises the issue of Montrealers (pro-jaywalk) versus Torontonians (anti-jaywalk). If Montrealers move to Toronto they continue to jaywalk, apparently to flaunt their hometown pride, as one friend of mine has done for 56 years. On the other hand, Torontonians who move to Montreal cling to the curb. This proves Torontonians are law-abiding citizens. Also, fraidy cats.

Vanderbilt sees traffic as an environment that has become so familiar we no longer see it. In the course of explaining why we should learn to see it, he disclosed to me the real reason why, long ago, I wisely decided not to drive. The task of driving is incredibly demanding. While bearing in mind the necessary details of the local traffic laws, “we are becoming social actors in a spontaneous setting, we are processing a bewildering amount of information, we are constantly making predictions and calculations and on-the-fly judgments of risk and reward.”

Long ago, it seems, I came to my non-driving decision: Doing it well is just too damn hard.
National Post
robert.fulford@utoronto.ca

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Neil Hrab: John Quincy Adams still lives

NP Editor — Sat, 04 Jul 2009 15:00:00 GMT

Today is Independence Day, the day on which, in 1776, the American colonists formally adopted their Declaration of Independence from Great Britain.

For many, today will be a day of parades, fireworks and live music. For others, it will be a day of pure excess – since 1916, for example, the brave, the curious and the iron-stomached have gathered in New York to mark Independence Day by participating in a hot-dog eating contest.

In the American Republic’s early days, no Independence Day would be complete without political speeches recalling the misdeeds of King George, the evils of monarchy, the sacrifices of the Founding Fathers – and, of course, the world-historical significance of the Declaration of Independence.

You might call these Independence Day speeches the verbal equivalents of those Fourth of July fireworks displays, given their frequent, colourful bursts of patriotic sentiment.

Many of these speeches have been archived and forgotten in the rare book rooms of America’s largest libraries – until now. The website www.archive.org has made available a treasure-trove of these old-fashioned Independence Day speeches.

One of the most stirring address was delivered 188 years ago, by then-Secretary of State (and later President) John Quincy Adams, son of the second president. You don’t have to be an American to be impressed by Adams’ 1821 assessment of the adoption of the Declaration as an act that would resonate for all time, for example:

“It will be acted o'er, fellow-citizens, but it can never be repeated. It stands, and must for ever stand, alone, a beacon on the summit of the mountain, to which all the inhabitants of the earth may turn their eyes for a genial and saving light till time shall be lost in eternity, and this globe itself dissolve, nor leave a wreck behind.

“It stands for ever, a light of admonition to the rulers of men, a light of salvation and redemption to the oppressed. So long as this planet shall be inhabited by human beings, so long as man shall be of social nature, so long as government shall be necessary to the great moral purposes of society, and so long as it shall be abused to the purposes of oppression, so long shall this Declaration hold out to the sovereign and to the subject the extent and the boundaries of their respective rights and duties, founded in the laws of nature, and of nature's God.”

An Independence Day historical quirk worth noting: Founding Fathers Thomas Jefferson and John Adams both died on July 4th, 1826 – 50 years to the day following the adopting of the Declaration. (Adams, on his deathbed, famously said: "Thomas Jefferson still lives," not knowing his friend and frequent opponent had died hours before). The American orator Daniel Webster delivered a touching speech in their honour that you can also access via www.archive.org .

National Post

Neil Hrab is a former National Post editorial writer and federal communications advisor.

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Photo: John Quincy Adams, U.S. president 1825-1829

National Post editorial board: Get tougher with North Korea

NP Editor — Sat, 04 Jul 2009 14:31:00 GMT

Contrary to fears voiced in recent weeks, it is unlikely that North Korea has the ability to fire a nuclear-tipped missile at Hawaii. But so long as the communist masters of Pyongyang proclaim themselves to be on the cusp of war with the West -- an apocalyptic scenario that has been the subject of increasingly lurid North Korean propaganda for years -- the United States must defend itself. And the surest way to do that is to revive the Cold War-era policy of mutually assured destruction.

All of North Korea's recent chest-thumping -- the reopening of its nuclear processing plant over United Nations objections, the denunciation of its 1953 truce with South Korea, the testing of a small warhead in May, its recent firing of shore-to-ship missiles into the ocean and the threat to fire missiles at Hawaii--are likely aimed at distracting ordinary North Koreans from the poverty, repression and suffering they endure daily. (Indeed, this week, the UN World Food Programme declared that millions of North Koreans are at risk of actual starvation.) Like all totalitarian dictators, the country's leaders need citizens to believe the lie that their sacrifices are part of a life-or-death campaign to protect their country from outside aggressors.

Moreover, as many North Korea watchers have stressed, this is a particularly sensitive period: Kim Jong-il, the country's leader, is seeking to install his youngest son as his replacement over the objections of at least some members of the ruling caste. Creating war fever is seen as a gambit meant to secure the support of the regime's most hawkish generals for a third-generation Kim President.

But whatever Mr. Kim's motives, words matter in the theatre of international relations. As long as North Korea insists on threatening its neighbours -- South Korea, Japan and the United States -- Washington must make it clear, through appropriate channels, that it will retaliate to any nuclear strike against it or one of its allies with an attack of its own. If Maui is hit, or Kyoto or Seoul, a major North Korean city will be wiped off the map, too. And where North Korea's nuclear capabilities are in doubt, the Americans' are not.

North Korea has not yet mastered the science of miniaturizing its warheads. The one it exploded in late May, for instance, was reportedly almost as large as a mobile home. Even its most sophisticated rocket -- the Taepodong-2 -- is not big enough to carry such a huge nuke the 7,200 kilometres between the Dongchang-ni launch site and the Hawaiian Islands. What's more, the Americans have positioned their latest antimissile defences in and around Hawaii and have a good chance at shooting down any slow-moving rocket.

Still, that doesn't mean the North Korean threat should be taken lightly. As the example of North Korea itself shows, military intelligence is sometimes wrong: American spies failed to predict North Korea's initial launch of a three-stage rocket, just as the CIA had previously failed to predict Indian and Pakistani nuclear tests. And given how obsessed Pyongyang is with securing WMDs, it likely has some surprises to throw at the world. On Thursday, in fact, two independent U. S. scientists claimed to have found evidence of old Soviet missile parts being used in North Korea's new version of the Taepodong. If they are correct, the range of the rogue state's missile fleet may reach the U. S. (and Canadian) West Coast; if not now, shortly.

The UN has been surprisingly tough on North Korea since its nuclear test on May 25 -- mostly because China, North Korea's one remaining quasi-ally, has run out of patience with Pyongyang. Under the new UN measures, U. S. Navy ships have a mandate to tail North Korea vessels suspected of transporting weapons to other regimes. Last week, a U. S. frigate operating under UN authority succeeded in turning around a North Korea ship suspected of carrying weapons headed for Burma.

In the long run, however, multilateral diplomacy and high-seas games of cat and mouse won't be enough. President Kim and his successor, whoever that is, must know that any nuclear attack -- whether by North Korea itself, or a terrorist group supplied by it -- will be met with retaliation on a scale the world has not seen since 1945.

National Post

Conrad Black: Tired lefties on parade

NP Editor — Sat, 04 Jul 2009 14:10:00 GMT

There fell solemnly from a recent Saturday edition of a Canadian newspaper a well-printed, stapled booklet of 50 pages, on magazine stock, called Corporate Knights. Wishing to know more about contemporary Canadian business leaders, I started leafing through it, and shortly came across a peppy message from the publisher — with an accompanying photo that showed her to be a pleasant and purposeful-seeming youngish woman. Beside her was a declaration that any contributor whose writing was found to be influenced by an advertiser would be dismissed.

The magazine is a quarterly and has a staff of 25 named people, including interns, and didn’t have much advertising. I am quite familiar with the commercial economics of publishing periodicals, and this one would require heavy subsidization. I surmised this was partly accounted for by the advice that some research and reporting received “the financial support of Industry Canada.”

Persevering determinedly through my edition, I quickly discovered an article entitled “A Roundtable, a Feast, and a Chivalrous Scientist.” The gracious man of science being profiled was none other than James Lovelock, “world-renowned scientist and originator of the Gaia hypothesis.”

It was at this point that I began to suffer glottal stops. Gaia is billed by its author as “a complex entity involving the Earth’s biosphere, atmosphere, oceans and soil; the totality constituting a feedback or cybernetic system, which seeks an optimal physical and chemical environment for life on this planet.” This isn’t a scientific formulation at all; it’s just a cargo cult-level platitude counseling against excessive spoliation of resources.

Lovelock’s new book, which he was promoting in Canada, is billed as his last, to the relief of the many eco-sceptics who have tired of the man’s decades of flogging eco-terror. In it, he effectively abandons the theory that the world is on suicide watch, but says that people may perish from their own wastefulness, extinguishing themselves but leaving our planet in habitable condition.

Thankfully, eco-terrorists such as Lovelock are now being severely challenged. The public in most advanced countries were never sold on the more exotic notions of climate change and imperative remedial action to begin with. And now the politicians are having second thoughts, as well.

But don’t tell that to Lovelock. According to Corporate Knights, he told a Canadian audience that teeming masses of fugitives from hot countries will shortly be pressing against the Canada-U.S. border, and that the best antidote to global warming is to turn huge quantities of cow and pig ordure into charcoal and drop it in immense volume onto the world’s ocean beds.
I looked for more indications that the article was a send-up, unsuccessfully. Has the ecology industry really come to this; to this unlikely tocsin to uplift and frighten the susceptible?

That over-indulged industry will have to do better than that to deal with the rising tide of doubts about human-caused global warming. Australia and New Zealand have rescinded their carbon-emission legislation. The Polish Academy of Sciences has renounced its previous faith in the Al Gore/UN conventional wisdom about climate change. Hundreds of scientists have apostacized, including Nobel Prize winner (Physics) Ivar Giaever; the world’s first female PhD. in meteorology, Dr. Joanne Simpson; and the Japanese environmental chemist Dr. Kimimori Itoh, who participated in the UN climate reports of recent years, but now regards the theory of man-made climate warming as “the worst scientific scandal in history.”

The earth’s temperatures generally have not changed in the last eight years; and the polar ice cap, rising oceans, and the health and weather horror stories that have been used to frighten the world into hare-brained self-inflicted economic wounds and nostrums have been scientifically debunked. (This includes the aptly named Obama/Pelosi Cap and Trade Bill; if passed into U.S. law in its present form, it will earn its authors dunce caps, and trade economic growth for the national poor house.)

The fact is that the world has almost been railroaded by scammers like Al Gore, he who inflicted famine on millions with his nonsense about the potential of corn as a fuel, which priced it as food beyond the reach of much of the developing world.
After the hallelujah chorus for James Lovelock, Corporate Knights presented a photograph from the World Economic Forum at Davos, of the director of Corporate Knights with some of the more inevitable habitués of that world’s fair of trendiness. I was on that circuit for many years, including as a session chairman and plenary panelist (most memorably when Rupert Murdoch and I tried to explain to Yehudi Menuhin what the dot-com era would do for the Third World — the answer, which we both tried to put diplomatically, was that those countries weren’t prosperous enough to lose too much when the bubble burst, as many in the auditorium would.)

Others in the Davos photograph included Lord Stern, George Soros, and Joseph Stiglitz, all such pillars of the chic left that they are almost part of the furniture in the awful hotels of Davos. Nicholas Stern is the British Labour Party’s official dissembler of justifications for mad environmental radicalism, which, as noted above, would be colossally “unsustainable” and bring down economic misery on a large share of the population of any country that took it seriously.

George Soros is as sharp and avaricious a speculator as there is in the world, but he has been a champion of every left-wing cause within reach, including the Nicaraguan Sandinistas, and opposition to Ronald Reagan’s Strategic Defence Initiative, which won the last round of the Cold War and is now all that gives any comfort of missile defense to the neighbours of Iran and North Korea. Soros hears the same drummer as Cyrus Eaton and Armand Hammer, a bridge between ideologies, while also stuffing his pockets with profits from the former communist world.

Joseph Stiglitz is a Nobel Prize economist who is another desperate partisan, leading the Greek Chorus that the current economic problems debunk the achievements of Reagan and Thatcher; he is one of the Democratic Party’s noisiest economic junkyard dogs.

As I was wondering what possessed Industry Canada, and I presume, some of the “sustainable” corporations which are not allowed to influence content in the magazine I was reading, to bankroll this hobnobbing with the most clichéd roues of the chronic-conferencing left, there came a revelation: a Corporate Knights dinner with Gwynne Dyer.

Gwynne Dyer! From what dank catacomb did the Knights exhume that bedraggled old ringtail?

The most unrelievedly gloomy, implacably alarmist, Americophobic, Israel-baiting heirloom of Cold War defeatism, so dyspeptic he made Admiral Gene La Rocque seem like Douglas MacArthur, Gwynne Dyer devised a new scenario every fortnight for 20 years for how the United States would destroy the world.

The suspense was thick and pungent as I read on: What new grotesqueries had this paleolithic Cassandra in mind for his Knight-errant hosts?

He did not disappoint: We are on the knife-edge of global war over climate and famine, and a possible American invasion of Canada to steal Canada’s fresh water.

I put down the magazine after this, at page 15; I could not go on. It was strangely nostalgic to read Dyer’s fatuities again, but we are being railroaded by a mob of charlatans and poseurs. When George Soros, James Lovelock, Nicholas Stern, Joseph Stiglitz, and Gwynne Dyer are singing off the same songsheet, it’s time to change the music.

The backers of the Corporate Knights should invite them to generate a serious debate and to give equal time to the larger and more rigorous group that dissents from the climate change industry’s fear-mongering. Nigel (Lord) Lawson, a brilliant former chancellor and authority on environmental policy, has written a much better book on the subject than Lovelock and is coming to Canada soon. Let the Knights have him to dinner; they will get a lot more for their supporters’ money than Gwynne Dyer’s call to the battlements to defend Canadian water from the U.S. Marines, much less James Lovelock’s war trumpet to cover the ocean floors with transmogrified barnyard animal excrement.
National Post
cbletters@gmail.com

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No July 4 parade this year in strapped U.S. small towns

NP Editor — Sat, 04 Jul 2009 13:00:00 GMT

Toronto cancelled its Canada Day fireworks this week due to a strike of city workers.

In the U.S. things are just as bad -- worse, maybe: Numerous communities have been forced to cancel Fourth of July celebrations due to the recession.

The Business Insider lists 10 of them. They're not very big, mostly obscure communities like Euclid, Ohio and Fergus Falls, Minnesota (no relation to Frostbite Falls). They have populations of a few thousand up to 200,000, and have put off celebrating the country's Independence Day for lack of funding to afford the fireworks and floats. Blue Springs, Missouri, for example, can't come up with the $14,000 it would cost to light a few skyrockets; Charlottesville, Va. not only cancelled this year's celebration, but next year's as well (not much optimism in Charlottesville, apparently).

Punta Gorda, Fla., an attractive-looking Gulf Coast community, could do it for $20,000, but is still recovering from a 2004 hurricane and can't spare the cash.

It's bad enough suspending the country's birthday celebration due to some disgruntled workers. It's much sadder putting it off because you're broke.

National Post

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Terence Corcoran: Europeanization

NP Editor — Sat, 04 Jul 2009 01:09:00 GMT

Obama’s policies will bring the U.S. ‘European levels’ of unemployment

By Terence Corcoran

ith U.S. unemployment set to climb to 10%, and Canada not far behind, the North American market economies will soon be looking at what used to be derisively termed “European levels” of unemployment. The question is whether these high unemployment rates are merely short-term blips that will be followed by quick recoveries, or whether high jobless numbers will persist, turning Canada and the United States into grim replicas of sclerotic Europe.

Recent economic history suggests both Canada and the United States can quickly rebound from economic slumps. Unemployment in the United States, for example, hit a peak of 10.8% in the midst of the 1982 recession, but it was all over six months later.

Almost all recessions are followed by economic chatter about a looming “jobless recovery.” And all such chatter has, in the past, been proven wrong. Markets quickly adjusted to changing economic circumstances. Investors began investing, capital spending rose, workers and employees moved on to new jobs, consumers began spending again. Markets, left alone, function quickly.

The keys to these quick employment recoveries were the functioning markets for investment, employment and consumption. The current economic crisis, however, looks a little different. In the United States, and to a lesser degree so far in Canada, the open markets that cleared the way to rapid economic recovery have been severely undermined. The ways of capitalism in North America are giving way to the social-planning models and interventionism that have long restrained and paralyzed European economic development.

The Europeanization of American economic policy is well underway. President Barack Obama, backed by an army of anti-capitalist spear-carriers on the left, has moved to install the U.S. government as the overseer of this Europeanization.

One of Mr. Obama’s spear-carriers is Joseph Stiglitz, 2001 Nobel Prize-winning economist at Columbia University, who told the Financial Times earlier this year that “the view of American capitalism has changed. I hear a lot more of a sense of confidence in the European social model — the view that Europeans are very thankful that they have better social protections.”

Edmund Phelps, 2006 Nobel Prize-winning economist at Columbia, disagreed. “The unpleasant truth is that the European social model has been complete failure. They don’t have high employment, they have massive problems of social groups within societies. It’s a social catastrophe in Europe, so there’s no chance that Americans are going to go for a paralyzed, uninnovative economy with stagnant productivity.”

To say that there’s “no chance” Americans will tolerate massive government takeover and regulation of vast chunks of the U.S. economy seems overly optimistic today. The train has already left the station, ready to unload its burden of productivity-killing taxation and programs across the country.

Rapid economic recovery and job creation requires business and consumer confidence about the structure of the economy, free of uncertainty about the future course of governments and politics. Investors and corporations would be hard-pressed today to feel that the U.S. economic environment will soon be a place where market forces will prevail.

The Obama administration has politicized the financial system, taken over auto manufacturing, is seizing control of energy industries, health care, housing and others. Combined, these sectors make up more than 60% of the U.S. economy. New laws expanding minimum wages, union power and deficit spending will impose severe limitations of the functioning of markets for decades to come. The country’s central bank and its currency are covered by a huge overhang of dubious assets. Taxation is about to skyrocket and protectionist measures are already hampering global trade.

By comparison, the U.S. economy circa 1982 looks like an economic utopia. Ronald Reagan was still in his first term, having fired striking air traffic controllers in 1981, sending a message to unions. American capitalism was on the rise and Europe was busy expanding its social model.

Under Reagan capitalism, U.S. unemployment, at 10.8% in December, 1982, was down to 7.7% within a year and a half. And soon, the jobless numbers began a long decline — briefly interrupted in 1992 — to rates as low as 4% in 2000. The chance of a repeat performance under Barack Obama’s Europeanization are...?

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David Frum: The disastrous Sarah Palin could have become a modern-day Goldwater

Jonathan Kay — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 23:24:00 GMT

Sarah Palin said on Friday that her decision to resign as governor had been in the works "for a while" and "after much consideration." In that case, you might wonder why she had not bothered to write out a speech in advance.

Instead, the Alaska governor delivered a rambling, angry, and self-pitying statement praising people who do not give up - and then gave up.

Gov. Palin does not seem to intend to end her political career. She quoted Douglas MacArthur, she talked about working for change outside government. She may yet try a run for the presidency in 2012.

But if her political career is not quite ended, it now seems headed nowhere positive. Sarah Palin's approval ratings as governor of Alaska have plunged from over 80% to 55% over a little more than 18 months. Her departure at this time will raise un-erasable suspicions that she anticipated still deeper declines. Perhaps some scandal was hovering over the horizon. Perhaps she wished to clear her work schedule to cash in on the lecture and television circuit. Or perhaps she simply wished to be elsewhere when the bills arrived for her reckless management of her state's finances.

Whatever the motive for the departure, the fact of the departure will exact a terrible cost. Should she run for president, she will face the same question again and again: "What happens if the presidency turns out harder than you expect? Will you quit that job too?" If Margaret Thacher was the Iron Lady, Palin is the Plaster Lady: Under pressure, she has cracked and broken.

Many Republicans will be relieved by Palin's decision. As a candidate for vice president in 2008, Sarah Palin suffered what may be the fastest and steepest plunge in voter approval in the history of polling.

In the single month of September 2008, her net approval rating (positives minus negatives) dropped by a stunning 20 points. Women especially disliked her: By mid-October, 60% of women under 50 expressed a negative view of her. Negative views about Palin contaminated the whole McCain candidacy: By mid-October, 41% of voters viewed Sen. McCain as a man of "poor judgment" as opposed to only 29% who said so about Barack Obama.

And yet - bitter irony - Palin's self-immolation today may yet do the Republican party more harm than good.

Had Palin sought and won the Republican nomination in 2012, she would almost certainly have proceeded to a Goldwater-style debacle - and dragged Republican senators, governors and representatives down with her. That would have been a miserable result.

And yet it also would have been a clarifying one. Republicans would have got Palin and Palinism out of their systems in a sharp and painful lesson that would have opened the way to the kind of reconstruction that has occurred in, say, the United Kingdom.

The steady and diligent Mitt Romney now emerges as the far and away Republican front-runner. Romney used to be exactly the kind of presidential candidate the GOP needed: accomplished, intelligent, knowledgeable. But a Republican party that has not learned why Palin was a problem has pressed Romney into turning himself into a Palin replica. If Romney loses in 2012, the same pressures will be applied to his successor. Spared the misery of massive defeat, Republicans will also be denied the lessons of defeat - and the hope of a rapid recovery.

Sarah Palin's supporters are a large and important constituency within the Republican party and the conservative movement, a constituency indispensable to conservative success. But they are not a constituency sufficient for conservative success. There are just not enough of them. The Republican party has to reach further and grow bigger.

The one positive effect of a serious Palin presidential candidacy would have been to teach that lesson to the whole Republican party. Friday's abrupt dereliction of duty has deprived the GOP of even that benefit. Her resignation enables her supporters to continue living under an illusion - to the terrible and enduring cost of their party and their country.

(c)David Frum

Jonathan Kay: Sarah Palin's resignation speech symbolized her vacuous approach to politics

Jonathan Kay — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 21:49:00 GMT

Sarah Palin's speech announcing her resignation as governor of Alaska reminded everyone what a bad choice this charming but insubstantial populist was as John McCain's running mate on the 2008 GOP ticket.

In her Friday speech, Gov. Palin declared that she was stepping down because completing her term (which ends in 2010) would somehow amount to "the same old politics as usual," as well as "hit[ting] our head against the wall." Drawing on her days as a high school basketball player, Gov. Palin said she knows "exactly when to pass the ball." At another point, she declared that "it would be apathetic to just hunker down and 'go with the flow.' Nah, only dead fish 'go with the flow.'"

None of this makes any sense. It's all gibberish. Despite the litany of ALL-CAPS emphasis points contained in the official transcript of Gov. Palin's speech, we still have no real idea why she is resigning. It is to build up a presidential run in 2012 — or because another skeleton is about to jump out of her closet? Or does she genuinely want to get out of politics? It's impossible to say. Her speech is just a jumble of conflicting, facile metaphors stitched together by people who evidently have a low estimation of the public intellect.

Conservatives, including editorial board members at the National Post, were initially drawn to Sarah Palin when she first emerged as an unapologetic defender of conservative values. (We also defended her from left-wing media smears.) The fact that her Wasilla shtick drove urban liberals crazy only added to her appeal as a right-wing culture warrior. But it soon became clear that her intellect was shallow: Her debates and interviews were painful exercises in which every subject was brought back to the handful of superficial talking points she'd memorized. Rather than strike blows in the culture wars, she reinforced the false stereotype of conservatives as embittered hillbillies.

Surely, the Republicans can do better than this in 2012.

jkay@nationalpost.com

Peter Goodspeed: U.S. readies weapons for threatened Korean launch at Hawaii

NP Editor — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 20:45:00 GMT

North Korea has vowed to give the United States a Fourth of July it will never forget, escalating anti-U.S. rhetoric with threats to fire an intercontinental ballistic missile at Hawaii and promising a “fire shower of nuclear retaliation” in response to any U.S. provocation.

The nuclear standoff with Pyongyang already has northeast Asia on edge, but now it threatens to intrude on Europe as Barack Obama, the U.S. President, prepares to meet Dmitry Medvedev, his Russian counterpart, in Moscow on Monday.

The Moscow summit revolves around arms control and a bid to replace the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty, which expires in December. The biggest impediment to a nuclear arms deal is Russia’s opposition to U.S. plans for an anti-missile defence shield in Europe.

If North Korea follows through with its threat to hurl a Taepodong-2 missile toward Hawaii, Washington’s experimental anti-missile system may receive its first real-life test. Decades of debate over the feasibility of anti-missile defence could climax in a single, devastating explosion high above the Pacific Ocean.

So far, the Taepodong-2 has never flown successfully, but experts predict, if launched flawlessly with a medium- to light-weight warhead, it could travel almost 7,000 kilometres, putting it within reach of the Hawaiian islands and Alaska.

The first time North Korea test-fired the Taepodong-2, it splashed into the sea between Korea and Japan, just 42 seconds after launch.

Surveillance data of the launch, including the angle at which the missile was fired and the altitude it achieved, suggested it was targeted at a spot in the Pacific near Hawaii.

Pyongyang also has a habit of belligerently demonstrating its new-found military prowess on U.S. national holidays.
In 2006, after test-firing a series of shorter-range Scud and Nodong-2 missiles, it launched its first long-range Taepodong-2 on July 4. This spring, its second underground nuclear test was staged on May 25, the U.S. Memorial Day holiday.

North Korean threats to mark July 4 with a ballistic missile launch were preceded by a warning for all ships to keep away from a maritime zone 110 kilometres off its east coast June 25-July 10.

On Thursday, North Korea followed a pattern similar to the 2006 Taepodong-2 launch by test-firing four short-range missiles that ended up in the Sea of Japan.

So far, U.S. experts say they haven’t seen any signs of North Korean preparations for a July 4 ballistic missile launch.
In April, commercial and intelligence satellites tracked preparations for a missile launch for at least a week as workers assembled and fueled a three-stage Taepodong-2 missile for a failed attempt to put a satellite in orbit.

Still, U.S. defence officials are not taking any chances. They have reinforced missile defence systems around Hawaii.
If North Korea launches a missile, ground-based interceptors in Alaska and California will work in co-ordination with a tracking network of sea- and land-based radars stretching from the Sea of Japan across the Pacific to Hawaii and Alaska.

The network will be backed by Patriot anti-missile defences deployed in South Korea and a U.S. Navy Aegis system of missile-defence ships near Japan.

Late last month, Robert Gates, the U.S. Defence Secretary, also ordered the U.S. Army’s ground-based, mobile THAAD (theatre high-altitude air defence) system to be deployed in Hawaii.

He also sent a new sophisticated sea-based X-band tracking radar, mounted on a self-propelled double-hulled oil drilling platform, to waters near Hawaii.

The two new weapon systems were already in the region, having completed tests on March 17, in which a THAAD anti-missile battery successfully intercepted a ballistic missile target off Kauai in Hawaii.

The THAAD anti-missile system can intercept targets 200 km away at a height of 150 km.

“We’re obviously watching the situation in the North, with respect to missile launches, very closely,” Mr. Gates said as he announced the deployments. “And we do have some concerns, if they were to launch a missile to the west, in the direction of Hawaii.”

“Without telegraphing what we will do, I would just say, we are in a good position, should it become necessary to protect Americans and American territory,” he added.

For now, U.S. officials say they won’t activate their missile defences if a North Korean launch looks as if it will fall harmlessly into the ocean, as in the past.

But a North Korean missile that threatens to come within 1,200 km of Hawaii could result in the first unscripted test of the U.S. anti-missile system.

Pyongyang’s threat to target the United States carries additional significance since its close partner in rocket development is Iran.

Iran’s Safir-Omid space launch vehicle is closely patterned on the Taepodong-2, while Pyongyang’s medium-range Rodong is almost identical to Iran’s Shahab-3.

A direct North Korean challenge of U.S. anti-missile technology could have massive implications for renewed U.S.-Russian relations and possible deployment of a U.S.-built anti-missile system in Europe.

Russia views the U.S. plans as a threat to its security, while Washington insists they are aimed solely at averting a potential attack from Iran.

A successful test of Washington’s anti-missile system against a North Korean ballistic missile would immediately move all debate over anti-missile technology from the purely hypothetical to the starkly real.
National Post
pgoodspeed@nationalpost.com

National Post

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Reader response: Crappy Canada; Michael Ignatieff's bandwagon; Omar Shaban

NP Editor — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 20:15:00 GMT

A selection of reader responses to Full Comment

Re: Latest studies show Canada is one awful country

I appreciated Kelly McParland's column on how Canada under-performed in various criteria. It was a good piece of satire and a thinly veiled commentary on how media tends to pick up on negative things. It was also, though, a reminder that perspective is everything.

There are some areas where the column was not ironic, in fact. We are a nation of possibilities but we are also strangely mean and cruel towards the unemployed. It is true, at least when you compare Canada to its Western European cousins and the OECD in general. We are stuck in a sort of a reactive, knee-jerk attitudinal zone whenever someone loses their job. There was not an outpouring of sympathy towards the laid-off auto workers by the rest of the public; instead they received a "the industry is obsolete, time to move on" comments from many media commentators and I'd heard many a harsh thing from among my social circle, too. It felt strange. Shouldn't we all be helping to retrain and reintegrate these guys, and not be making a bad situation worse?

I also know, based on experience from travelling and living in Europe, that most Canadians have access to a very mediocre health care system. It is not what it used to be and it differs widely according to what community one lives in. Try to get a family doctor in most places - tracking down a GP who'd take you has become fairly challenging. Luckily, I have been a healthy individual and my dealings with the healthcare system are minimal.

So, the situation here, as good as it may be in some aspects, is not ideal and Canada is not some rosy place where money grows on trees. Neither is it a very competitive economy. It is also not full of necessarily nice or well-meaning people. Yes, we are as a rule uber-polite, non-confrontational and generally politically correct but genuine warmth and empathy are a rare commodity. In short, we are a place like any other, with its own advantages, own problems, its own specific issues. Canadians are world championship talkers and self-promoters (look at our two-year lead up of chest-beating media coverage towards the Winter Olympics…own the podium, what?) but when comes time to get a job done, it's just like anywhere else. I say, lose the attitude, Canada, and you'll be a better place.

Jan Triska
Ottawa

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Re: John Ivison: “Michael Ignatieff's one-horse bandwagon”

I am certain that I am not alone in being insulted by John Ivison’s assertion that the Conservative ads pointing out Ignatieff’s shortcomings as a potential Prime Minister also reveal a shameful national trait characterized by a “distrust of learning and worldliness”. It’s not that Canadian distrust such characteristics but rather that they distrust them in someone whose commitment to the country seems so feeble. Remember that we are talking about a man who will wield nearly absolute power in a majority government.

Because we do not directly elect our leaders its important for us to be very choosy about which party we support in an election. Once chosen, the party leader is anointed Prime Minister if that party wins. For some reason the federal Liberals believe that they can put anyone they choose into the job and the electorate will support them regardless of their antecedents. Mr. Dion demonstrated the error of this thinking but it doesn’t seem to have sunk in with the party.

Imagine if you will that the Conservative Party had chosen a leader who had spent the last couple of decades working in the hated U.S. for George W. Bush and company. Jack Layton would pitch such a fit of socialist outrage that he might be tempted to say foolish things. The Liberals would stridently demand that this tainted creature not be allowed to sully the hallowed halls of Parliament etc. etc. The CBC would run a mini-series about Canada becoming a US State. Quebec might threaten separation. It would not be pretty.

However, when the Conservatives point out some very real misgivings about the Liberal leader we are given to understand it is our failings and not his that are being revealed. Michael Ignatieff spent most of his working life outside the country he wants to run. Truth to be told I would prefer someone with a stronger commitment to Canada and who became learned and worldly about its problems and challenges right here on the spot. We have precious little say in who rules us so at the very least we should be allowed to thoroughly vet anyone looking to take on the job.

How about a Liberal leader from the west or east, however educated or unworldly? How about a learned and worldly person who acquired those traits while living here among us? Liberal leaders have a nasty tendency to regard the electorate as an inconvenience to be managed rather than an employer to be appeased. Having a Liberal leader who has been immersed in a polity other than our own will only increase that mental distance.

Canada is facing an economic crisis that will require strong and resolute leadership by someone with an unquestionable commitment to the country as a whole. Whatever his virtues or failings, Mr. Ignatieff does not strike me as a man with Canada’s interests at heart. His own interests certainly, but not ours.

Thank you.

John Chandler
Kanata

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Re: Poor Dany Heatley, unhappy at $7.5 million per

Regarding Heatley, I’m not sure about the spoiled athlete tag. Couldn’t one conclude that the trade request was made during the playoffs in an attempt to not make waves? Better hockey stories to cover at that time, doing it in July only guarantees cover page stories for days. His timing actually gave the Sens more time to make the trade. Seems responsible to me.
As for the no trade clause and bonus structure, I don’t blame Heatley. All power to him for exercising both, blame the GM that agreed to them. Actually, with respect to the bonus, you note he was getting it anyway. So vetoing the Oilers wasn’t a move to steal the bonus, since that was his regardless of who writes the cheque. He obviously dislikes the Oilers, which is the sentiment that the no trade clause is designed to protect. That the Sens ended up paying the $ is just simply their misfortune.
He may be pricey, disgruntled and have a me first attitude. Maybe I'm far to accepting of these common athlete traits. But as for not getting along with his boss, I’m not sure that’s a bad thing. I used to laugh at the Sens annual collapse, but now it’s just sad. That team’s problems are numerous, and they include the people at the top.
I’m not even a Heatley fan, but he’s done his part, and I’d take 40 goals a year and the “bad”attitude on the Leafs. Heck, we almost had all that in Sundin...except the 40 goals.
It shall be interesting to see how this ends up, I know the optics are bad for most fans. Thanks for the article.

Greg Lowe

Dany Heatley is a self-centred spoiled brat. How does it come to be that the employee is in charge of the business? There are very few businesses in this world that will find another job for a disgruntled employee but unfortunately, the NHL has shifted power to the player. Where is the gratitude and loyalty to the fans who showed tremendous support following Heatley's car accident? Where is the gratitude and loyalty to the Senator's organization? Heatley's greed really shines as a result of his no-trade contract, probably the best example of putting employees in charge of the business. Why is the future of any professional athlete not based on performance?

Give them a base salary of say $250,000. and additional money to be earned through performance bonuses: goals, assists, game winners, etc. Fortunately, Heatley's actions have provided an even more accurate picture of what a team is getting for $7.5 million per year: no commitment, no loyalty, and a whiner and complainer. How does this make him worthy of a contract? So he scores a lot. Big deal. What about the overall sense of team, the comaradarie, the relationship with fans? Surely, these are more important than bringing Heatley into any dressing room. Let him sit on the bench in Ottawa and count his money. He can expect a chorus of boos wherever he plays and he brought it on himself. He has a lot of growing up to do.

Barry Brazier

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Re: Obama sets Canada's emissions rules, like it or not

In order to appease our friends in the soon to be pristine USA I vow to never use petroleum products refined from Alberta oil sands oil.

I will only use free trade products refined from a-bubblin crude, that came up through the ground due to the efforts of poor mountaineers, who barely keep their families fed, shootin at some food.

Tom MacMillan

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Re: Barabara Kay: It's time for the (anti)Canadian Arab Federation to fold its tents

Every year, Canadians have an opportunity to reaffirm their citizenship at Canada Day festivals across the country. As new Canadians took the oath at the Prince's Island Park celebrations this year in Calgary, myself and hundreds of other citizens pledged their continuing allegiance to this great country.

I'm grateful to Mr Fatah, the dozens of bloggers and the National Post Editorial board for their vigilance in exposing those who undermine this great nation. Especially those like Mr Shaban, whose 'free speech' and many other rights we protect with our constitution.

This country will not fail, so long as those of us who understand and appreciate all that we have work to keep it strong and free. Let's hear from Mr. Shaban anytime he cares to speak, his words can't hurt us, and provide us with another opportunity to prove we are "The True North, Strong and Free."

Don Sharpe
Calgary

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Beer-proud North Korea promotes "Pride of Pyonyang"

NP Editor — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 19:30:00 GMT

North Korea, heretofore known mainly for its poverty, missiles and paranoid government, has a new claim to fame: Beer.

The intensely secretive communist country has issued a beer advertisement lauding a new brew, known as the "Pride of Pyongyang", according to the BBC.

Perhaps as novel as the idea of a North Korean advertising campaign is the fact that the beer isn't named after anyone in the Kim family dynasty, either Dear Leader Kim Jong-il, Great Leader Kim Il-Sung, or dictator-elect Kim Jong-un, son of Dear Leader.

The BBC reports:

In a rare nod to commercial motives in the resolutely communist nation, the TV advert features a thirsty worker holding a mug of frothy beer.

Young women in traditional Korean dress are shown serving trays of beer to men in Western suits.

Billed as the "Pride of Pyongyang", the advert promises drinkers that the beer will help ease stress.

"It represents the new look of Pyongyang," the two-and-a-half minute advert says. "It will be a familiar part of our lives."

Taedonggang Beer Factory has been making the brew since buying a British brewery and shipping it lock, stock and barrel from the UK in 2002.

The beer has been occasionally available in South Korea and is said to be of high quality.

North Korean leader Kim Jong-il, said to have a fondness for fine wines and brandy, has taken a personal interest in the brewery.

Watch it here

National Post

U.S. and Zimbabwe share a friendly banker in Beijing

NP Editor — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 18:30:00 GMT

What do Zimbabwe and the U.S. have in common?

Both depend on Chinese financing to keep them afloat:

The BBC:

"China has agreed to give Zimbabwe a loan of $950m (£573m) to help it revive its battered economy, Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai has said.

Mr. Tsvangirai had been criticised by supporters of President Robert Mugabe for failing to get more support during his recent trip to the West. The prime minister visited the U.S. and Europe earlier this month in an attempt to raise funding for the struggling nation.The U.S. promised $73m in aid while the UK pledged to boost its funding by about $8m, taking its total to $98m for the year.

Mr Tsvangirai and Mr Mugabe formed a power-sharing government in February.

The government says it needs some $8bn to rebuild the country following years of collapse.

"The government through the minister of finance, secured credit lines of almost $950m from China," Mr Tsvangirai said in a news conference.

China was one of the few countries to retain economic support for Zimbabwe in recent years.

"We will encourage and facilitate more Chinese companies to seek development in Zimbabwe," Chinese official Zhou Yongkang told state news agency Xinhua."

The Wall Street Journal:

"The Obama administration rejected China's concerns that its vast holdings of U.S. assets might be unsafe, in an unusual diplomatic exchange that underscored the global importance and the potential fragility of the Sino-U.S. economic relationship.

In a coordinated response to blunt comments from Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao, White House officials said Friday that Mr. Obama intends to return the country to fiscal prudence once the crisis passes.

"There's no safer investment in the world than in the United States," said presidential spokesman Robert Gibbs.

That view was reiterated by the president's chief economic adviser, Lawrence Summers, who defended record U.S. deficit spending as a salve to the nation's economic woes. "If you don't prime the pump and you allow the processes of decay and decline and de-leveraging to continue, it's much more costly to do it later," he said.

The U.S. offensive came after Mr. Wen said earlier Friday in Beijing that China is worried about its huge stock of U.S. Treasury securities, an ominous warning given U.S. reliance on Chinese borrowing.

"We have lent a huge amount of money to the U.S., so of course we are concerned about the safety of our assets," Mr. Wen said in response to a question at his annual news conference. "Frankly speaking, I do have some worries.""

Full Comment