Not long ago Ezra Levant went toe to toe with Ian Fine,  Director General of the Dispute Resolution Branch of the Canadian Human Rights Commission.  The original video, found here , is 1.5 hours long.  We've mashed the highlights down to about 9 minutes...

...Canada's auto worker's union learns that it doesn't own the company, that jobs for life aren't guaranteed and that maybe they shouldn't have jumped on the Kyoto bandwagon. 

Enter the law of unintended consequences:

from the CAW site :

By Jim Stanford (CAW Economist)

Canadian business leaders are sounding more like anti-globalization protesters every day. They're overflowing with angst about an international treaty that they say will erode Canadian sovereignty and destroy our economy. Stolid old free-trader Perrin Beatty, now head of the Canadian Manufacturers and Exporters, is railing on about the power of global bureaucrats and threats to Canadian jobs. Next he'll be throwing stink bombs over the security fence at meetings of environment ministers. Meanwhile the environmental community is trying to adopt the air of assured and capable technocrats. The Kyoto Protocol is a modest, logical, careful first step, they keep repeating. It's quite the role-reversal.

 

[...]

 

Most of the models don't include the positive spin-off impacts of new environmental spending on purchasing power in the broader economy. If Kyoto commitments lead Canadian companies, consumers, and governments to spend billions of dollars on cleaner technologies, public transit systems, methane collectors at landfill sites, and more efficient vehicles, this will create swads of new jobs. There's no reason why big-ticket investments in environmental infrastructure and technology couldn't power a lasting economic expansion--just like waves of investment in railways (1850s), automotive infrastructure (1950s), and computers (1990s) did. Forecasts that consider these demand-side effects (like a study by Dale Marshall of the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives, ""Making Kyoto Work,"") come to very different, and more optimistic, conclusions regarding Kyoto's economic impacts.

 

[...] 

 

Responding to the unwelcome effects of climate change could be clearly beneficial for the economy--despite the plaintive wails of those who are required to do the spending. In this sense, the chances of ratifying Kyoto (as a first step toward a greener economy) will be better if we can describe it as requiring more work to be done in our economy, not less.

The success of some previous attempts to link environmental and labour goals--like the Toronto Atmospheric Fund, which subsidizes energy-saving insulation retrofits, and supports thousands of construction jobs--shows that workers will jump on the green bandwagon if they believe it will create jobs.

This same approach should apply to implementing Kyoto. For example, not all environmentalists are thrilled with them, but hybrid vehicles seem to hold considerable potential for reducing greenhouse emissions, while respecting North Americans' apparently god-given right to drive. A hybrid vehicle contains two engines: a conventional gasoline engine for high-efficiency cruising, and an electric engine (charged by the movement of the vehicle itself) to help with starts, stops, and hills.

From this morning's news reports :

Automaking is the country's largest export industry. And it is arguably under siege like never before. When GM lays off 2,600 workers in Oshawa next year, it will also wipe out an estimated three times that many jobs at companies that supply the plant, such as Lear Corp. in Ajax.

"This is a big deal. But get used to it. We're only in the first inning," said Jeff Rubin, chief economist for the Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce. "The kind of vehicles that are going to be on the road are not the kind of vehicles that right now GM and Ford are producing. We're going to be talking about hybrid vehicles, small vehicles … In the oil shocks of 1973 and 1979, the Japanese [automakers] came to the fore. And once again they are. I think Toyota and Honda will become the mainstays of our industry. And what's left of Ford and GM will be re-engineered to produce very different vehicles than they're producing now."

That re-engineering has already begun. GM is boosting production of any car that is scoring with buyers, like its Malibu and G6. It said yesterday its board of directors has given the go-ahead to spend money to build the Volt extended-range electric car. The centrepiece of GM's strategy to make vehicles that run on gas alternatives is to be in showrooms by the end of 2010.

What's that old saying about reaping what you sow? 

With the Dem primarys complete today, I thought it would be timely to explain why Obama won;  Victimhood Poker!

WHAT IS VICTIMHOOD POKER?

 

Victimhood Poker (VP) can trace its roots all the way back to the admissions department at Harvard University, where its constituent parts were invented back in 1978 following the U.S. Supreme Court's Bakke decision. In the interest of fairness and in order circumvent arbitrary admissions criteria such as scholastic performance and standardized test scores, sociologists at Harvard devised a brilliant system of using cards to assign a numerical value/ranking to applicants' physical features, sexual preference, religion, and/or gender. By enabling the University to avoid making admissions judgments tinged with ingrained and systemic Western racism/sexism/homophobia, the card-based admissions system was a huge success and it soon spread to other Ivy League schools such as Yale, Columbia, Brown, and Princeton.

By 1990, admissions in nearly all American universities were being decided by mixing and matching the above-mentioned victimization cards, which, not surprisingly, developed to represent the hierarchy of victimhood in the mindset of progressives around the world.

One fateful day in 1996, a group of intoxicated freshman at the State University of New York- Oneonta broke into that college's admissions office looking for rolling papers and Doritos. Instead, they found the deck of victimization cards. Unsure what they were or what to do with them, the drunk freshmen stole the cards and took them back to their dorm. As legend has it, later that night over a carton of Marlboro light cigarettes and a case of warm Miller Genuine Draft, the freshman engaged in the first ever game of Victimhood Poker.

The rest, as they say, is history......

 

[...] 

 

CARD CLASSES AND RULES

There are 2 skin color cards (Black, White)

There are 4 ethnicity cards (Native American, Hispanic, Oriental, Hindu)

There are 2 gender cards (Female, Transformer)

There are 4 religion cards (Muslim, Non-Christian, Hindu, and Christian)

There are 2 economic class cards (Poor, Well Off)

There are 3 cards without a class (Gay, Handicapped, and Animal)

There are 4 Jokers (Christian, Well Off, White, and Straight)

The winning hand combines the highest point total of each class of cards. The winning hand may comprise of only ONE of each class; 5 cards are initially dealt and the player chooses the most valuable cards to make up the best possible victim. After the first 5 are dealt, bets are taken and player can fold/raise as they choose.

After bets are taken, 3 community cards are dealt to the center of the table, not unlike Texas Hold 'em.

Obviously, the winner has the highest possible point total from the cards dealt between their hand and the community cards.

GAMEPLAY

For example, lets say player 1 is dealt a hand of: Black (A), Transgender (10), Non-Christian (4), Christian (Jo), Muslim (Q). Black, as an Ace, has a value of 14 points, Muslim is worth 12, Transgender is worth 10, Non-Christian is worth 4, and Christian, as a Joker, is valueless. To make the winning hand, player 1 must choose between the three religion cards but will obviously choose Muslim since Non-Christain is only worth 4 points and Christian is a Joker.

Thus, the most victimized hand player 1 can assemble from the cards he's been dealt is a Transgendered Gay Black Muslim, which is worth 45 points total.

Now, lets say player 2 receives a hand of American Indian (K), Hispanic (Q), Oriental (7), Handicapped (6), Female (8). Since American Indian, Hispanic, and Oriental are all ethnicities, only ONE can be chosen of the bunch. Player 2 is compelled to choose American Indian, since it is a King and thus bears the value of 13 points versus Hispanic (11 points) or Oriental (7 points). Female and Handicapped, however, can now be added to the mix because Female is of the gender class and Handicapped has no card class. Thus, the best possible victim player 2 can assemble from the first round of cards is a Handicapped American Indian Woman, which bears a point total of 27 points.

Since a Gay Black Transgendered Muslim is worth 45, it easily trumps player 2's victim of a Handicapped Female Native American.

Now let's say player 3 receives a hand of Poor (2), Poor (2), Hispanic (Q), Hindu (3), and Straight (Jo). Even though player 3 has received 2 poor cards, he can only play only ONE because no card can be played twice. The best possible victim player 3 can achieve is a Poor Hispanic, since Hispanic and Hindu, as ethnicities, are exclusive of one another. A Poor Hispanic is worth only 13 points, which is far surpassed by a Black Transgendered Muslim and a Handicapped Native American Woman.

Finally, player 4 receives a hand of Black, American Indian, Muslim, Transgendered and Gay. This is the most valuable 5 card hand in the game of Victimhood Poker, and is commonly referred to as a Brown University Bash. A Brown U. Bash is worth a whopping 58 points, since a Gay Transgendered Black Native American Muslim is the best initial victim possible in the game...

read the rest

So there you have it.  A black male trumps a white female every time...

Query:  Is that where the phrase "bros before hoes" comes from?