Free Republic

It's an odd world. Glamour magazine recently named the former Bruce Jenner as its Woman of the Year. {SNIP} If a person self-identifies as X, Y or Z, then he, she, ze or hir has to be what he, she, ze or hir professes to be. {SNIP} Which brings me to Hillary Clinton. {Snip} She’d be one with the idea that people have a “right” to be who they think they are and — this is not quite the same thing — have a right to be who they feel they are. This is a Euclidean axiom in the new...

The most recent reports say there is a crisis in child services in the United States. The cost of daycare spaces has reached absolutely astronomic levels. Placement at the University of Missouri, for example, easily breaks the $40,000 threshold. {SNIP} If Jonathan Swift -- and I do not think there is a single protestor at Yale or Mizzou who knows anything about him, except that he is dead and was white) — were around today, he would curl up in a fetal ball at the impossibility of mocking a reality so pathetically stupid that it is mock-proof. Yale campus was...

The most important thing to understand about an environmental concern is that it is infinitely malleable. It has Play-Doh’s or putty’s wonderful power of accommodation, to take whatever shape, for the moment, might be called for. Because the environment is, by definition or tautology, everything that is around us — there will always be something “in” the environment on which to hang an objection, mount a protest or, as Samuel Johnson, ever elegant, put it, “to point a moral, or adorn a tale.”

It is difficult to think of Hillary Clinton as an avatar of George Bush, but there is no escaping the thought. Just this week, when Republicans in the U.S. Congress were voting on limiting the U.S.'s involvement in the current Libyan conflict, Ms. Clinton threw out the angry question: "Whose side are you on?" The question is a remarkably faithful echo of Mr. Bush's own famous challenge of "You are either with us or against us in the war against terrorism." For his disdainful critics, that "either with us or against us" formulation was the quintessential Bushism -a reductive, simplistic,...

Those clod poles, ne’er-do-wells, vandals, punks, thugs and assorted clueless dolts who smacked people around, piled on others, fought with and sought to injure police, set fire to cars, broke into stores, trashed and looted at will in Vancouver Wednesday night — all are a pathetic pack of cowardly destructive losers. {snip} There aren’t any excuses for what they did. None. None. At. All. If these whiny, pampered, useless sacks of skin even try to claim it was because their team lost, then they haven’t got the intelligence of a ball of mud. {SNIP} The damage was one thing. The...

When the Wall Street Journal and the Heritage Foundation began compiling their Index of Economic Freedom a decade ago, Canada consistently ranked behind the United States and other developed nations on such measurements as regulatory freedom, commitment to free trade, property rights and freedom from corruption. In this year’s rankings, however, we are ahead of the Americans: We’re sixth, they’re ninth. Why the change? Much of the switch in fortunes is the result of America’s decline since the global financial crisis began in 2008. But our own score jumped modestly from last year, as well. In part, the report tells...

Let us not forget that even in the darkest hours of the Holocaust, men were free to choose good. And some did. That is the eternal witness of the Righteous Among the Nations. And let us not forget that even now, there are those who would choose evil, and would launch another Holocaust, if left unchecked. That is the challenge before us today. Jews today in many parts of the world and many different settings are increasingly subjected to vandalism, threats, slurs, and just plain, old-fashioned lies. Anti-Semitism has gained a place at our universities, where at times it is...

Democrats cobbling together the U.S. plan want to include a "public option" -- a taxpayer-funded health-care alternative that would enable Americans to choose between private medical insurance plans or a government-backed system similar to Canada's. Opponents of the public option maintain that Canadian-style health care would entail rationing, caps on care, bureaucratic interference in medical decision-making and even "death panels" deciding when the ill become too expensive to save. Most Canadians believe this is a gross exaggeration of reality. But then how to characterize Ontario's decision to cut off funding for colorectal cancer patients taking a life-prolonging drug, in order...

A gay man who repeatedly gave blood after lying about having sex with other men is suing Canadian Blood Services, alleging the questionnaire used by the agency to screen out unsuitable donors is a violation of his charter rights. Kyle Freeman alleges the blood collection agency violates his charter rights and those of other gay men by asking male donors on the questionnaire whether they had ever had sex with a man, even once, since 1977.

BASHING “speculators” is a popular pastime for American politicians trying to explain high and volatile oil prices. But whether speculation has really been responsible for spiking prices is a controversial issue. In 2008 the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) issued a report dismissing the role of speculators in last year’s startling run-up in prices. But banks, hedge funds and others who bet on oil (without a use for the stuff itself) still face limits on the positions they can take, if Gary Gensler, the new CFTC head, can show that their influence in markets does harm. On September 4th the...

MRI scans that are used to detect tumours, fractures and other ailments will be cut by 20 per cent this year, the Vancouver Island Health Authority has confirmed. The health authority plans to do 4,400 fewer of the magnetic resonance imaging scans to help cover a $45-million budget shortfall, figures released yesterday show. The cuts likely mean patients will wait in pain even longer for treatment and surgery -- and already they are waiting twice as long as last year. VIHA spokeswoman Shannon Marshall said patients are being booked for March, six months away, for elective MRI scans. Last year,...

BRUSSELS — European Union leaders on Thursday insisted they were spending enough to dig out of the recession, with the EU presidency saying an additional stimulus package “is a deadly idea.” The comment from Czech Prime Minister Mirek Topolanek, who is hosting a two-day EU summit, came in the wake of the announcement Wednesday that the U.S. Federal Reserve will launch a bold $1.2-trillion (U.S.) effort to lower rates on mortgages and other consumer debt. {snip} German Chancellor Angela Merkel also remained at the forefront opposing any more deficit spending. “We have already made our contribution,” she said. Merkel and...

The DJIA closed below the psychologically important 7,500 mark today. It's now at the lowest close since October 31, 1997. A modern Halloween story in the making.

Investors had any number of reasons to be in a grumpy mood on Tuesday. Add this one: The Washington Post has published an article looking at the origins of Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner's financial rescue plan, unveiled to hoots and hollers – and selling – last week. (Hat tip: Infectious Greed). According to the article, Mr. Geithner and his team had been working on a different plan for weeks, but shredded it just days before his speech because he thought it was, in the Post's words, “too expensive, too complex and too risky for taxpayers.” The Post continues: “They needed...

As the planet heats up, so do disputes between environmentalists LAST December California approved a power line between San Diego and the Imperial Valley—a spot blessed with sun, wind and geothermal energy resources. {snip} Its builders would be banned from harming burrowing owls or rattlesnakes. It is just the sort of green infrastructure project that might be expected to delight environmentalists. Their response? An appeal and a petition to the state Supreme Court. “Environmentalists have never been a well-mannered lot”, says Terry Tamminen, who has advised Arnold Schwarzenegger on climate change. But they seem to be becoming more ornery. A...

The city's homeless can camp in Victoria parks, according to a B.C. Supreme Court decision handed down this morning. "Yesterday it was illegal to set up my tent, today it isn't," said David Johnston, one of the homeless activists who argued they have a right to sleep outdoors on public property. Lawyer Catherine Boies Parker, who with Irene Faulkner acted on behalf of the homeless campers in their court challenge of the city's anti-camping bylaw, confirmed the 108-page judgment upheld their argument that a City of Victoria bylaw that prohibits using "temporary abodes" like tents and large tarpaulins for shelter...

On the surface, a Winnipeg mother who risks losing her two children to the state because of her neo-Nazi beliefs might not seem to have much in common with Omar Khadr, the Canadian who has spent nearly six years at Guantanamo Bay after being captured on an Afghanistan battlefield. But both cases essentially are about the indoctrination of young people into despicable, fascistic ideologies, and the question of how our society treats them. Let us start with the Winnipeg family, whose identity remains undisclosed in the media. The mother drew a swastika on her seven-year-old daughter's arm be-fore sending her...

Politicians who try to make oil cheaper by restraining speculation will just make things worse ALTHOUGH the price of oil continues to hit new records, it has in one respect been a quiet week on the oil markets. America’s lawmakers are celebrating Independence Day by taking a few days off. That has led to a brief interruption in the torrent of proposals aimed at curbing speculation. Ten different bills on the subject are in the works in Congress. Before the House of Representatives shut up shop, it approved one by a vote of 402-19. America’s politicians are not the only...

MONTREAL - A former chef who goes by the nickname "Big Mike" has had his sentence for drug trafficking reduced because the provincial jail where he's incarcerated isn't dealing with his 430-pound weight. Michel Lapointe has already served 20 months behind bars awaiting sentencing in what his lawyer described in court as hellish conditions. "For the first eight months he didn't have a bed adjusted to his size," defence lawyer Clemente Monterosso said in an interview Thursday. "He never got a chair adjusted to his size. The chair and the tables were too tight and he could not sit down....

If "free" is what you want - and who doesn't? - "free" is what you're going to get. So says Chris Anderson, editor-in chief of Wired magazine and, according to Time magazine, one of the world's Top 100 influencers. Speaking to The Globe and Mail from his office in San Francisco, the author of The Long Tail, who pseudonymously curates Wikipedia entries in his spare time, explains how "free" has emerged as the new economic model. Let's start with the term "freeconomics." What is it and how do you define it? It's a little bit cheeky, I know. It's a...