From fat kids to hockey

The CBC and others have reported recently on what they are calling a Canadian child obesity epidemic. The reasons for this according to everyone they asked is what the kids are eating. Fast food, soda, chips and cookies. Surprisingly kids prefer eating junk food to healthy snacks! No way. The solutions according to the pointy heads who did the study are to remove soda machines from schools and to make fast food restaurants put warnings on their packaging and to stop advertising to kids. This is supposed to help parents make healthier choices for their kids. Maybe.... but isn't there an easier solution? Sure, of course parents should try to limit the amount of junk their kids eat but once in awhile they should let them off their leash too. Stop holding their hand, stop driving them 3 blocks to school, (this alone would help solve global warming, childhood obesity and road rage all at once). Stop picking them up everywhere they go. Let them ride their skate board and their bike, and let them leave the driveway. Let them play hockey and football and baseball. Stop closing community centers. When I was a kid I didn't stop running or biking or swimming or break-dancing from 1977 through 1987. I ate all the healthy food my mother gave me along with all the junk-food I could get my hands on, like every kid. Kids today spend too much time playing video games it's true but so did we. I remember 6 hour stretches playing Intellivision and drinking Big Gulps. Afterwards though I was allowed to go play hide and seek for 3 hours. So were all the other kids. Oh but times have changed, it's a different world now than it was then. I guess that's true if you mean the world is alot safer now than it was then. Crime is way down from where it was in the 70's and 80's. Pedophiles drove around in their white vans back then too. The Boomers were young and drunk driving their GTO's through your neighbourhood and mine and doing historic damage. Assault, murder, rape and every other violent crime were way more likely then. Yet it is remembered as some innocent past time when we used to be able to leave our doors open and let our kids run free. It's all about perception. The belief is that things are getting worse and worse, crime is out of control and the streets are dangerous. This myth is what Stephen Harper exploits when he talks about cracking down on imaginary crime. When the Americans decided to go hard on crime in the 80's they at least had a crime wave, we don't. Some things have changed for the worse. Gangs are more prevalent, but that is what happens when you cut every program in your welfare state, like Jim Flaherty did in Ontario, and when you close those aforementioned community clubs and kiddie pools. Of course, more kids slip through the cracks and end up easy recruitment targets for gangs. Society forgets about them until a suburban white girl gets caught in the cross-fire on Boxing Day. But even with these gangs running around shooting at each other, you're still much less likely to be shot than you were in the "good old days". This mind set, it seems, has also crept into the NHL. Now I can't pretend to be an expert on today's NHL (I stopped watching when my beloved Jets left town), but the attitude today seems to be that fighting and stick swinging are up. Each time anybody hits anybody with their stick in an ugly way, they get suspended for a longer and longer time. They sometimes even face criminal charges! I've read many sports writers who have even talked about getting rid of fighting!! What a docile little girl's world this has become. There was more stick swinging, fighting and genuine ugly behaviour in one period in a 1977 Flyers game than there was in the whole season last year. But I digress, if you want your kid to be skinny, kick his ass outside!

Get tough on crime, put Stockwell Day in jail.

It's a good thing Stephen Harper has decided to crack down on criminals because apparently there is one in his own cabinet. It seems that in 2000 Mr. Day had just become leader of the Alliance party but was without a seat. It was decided that Mr. Day should be given a safe seat in the southern BC bible belt. MP Jim Hart was willing to take one for the team and give up his seat in Okanagon-Coquihalla. He was hailed as a hero for sacrificing his seat. But was it a sacrifice? It turns out Mr. Hart may have been paid to step aside. The Tories tried to say this was old news and that the RCMP had concluded in 2001 that no wrongdoing had taken place. The RCMP however almost certainly did not have in its possession then, documents which have surfaced recently showing correspondence between Mr. Day's office and Jim Hart which discuss his compensation for giving up his seat. See today's Toronto Star for details. Scott's Diatribes also has an excellent article on the subject. When Harper was first elected I crossed my fingers and said "please put Stockwell Day in the cabinet". Everything that tool does eventually ends up hurting Conservatives. This scandal is gonna be huge. It should be the only thing any Liberal talks about in Question Period and on the news until it brings down these backward trolls who currently run our gov't. My only concern is that the RCMP will try to bury it or exonerate Mr. Day, (I think we know what side those guys are on). Liberal MP Mark Holland is all over this scandal and I don't thing he's gonna let it go. Stephane Dion should stop talking about supporting Harper's super-fascist crime bills and start talking about this scandal. My favorite part of this whole story is how it was the Conservatives' own documents left behind in the opposition offices that are gonna be their undoing. Right wingers just have to write everything down. Maybe it's all the self help books they read? I don't know but I'm sure glad of it. Harper is going down over this or at the very least Day will be the scapegoat and get turfed. Either way, go get 'em Mr Holland.

O'Connor wears clownshoes.

Defence Minister Gordon O'Connor showed he's right on top of the situation in Afghanistan again yesterday. Mr O'Connor said he would make a point of meeting with one Abdoul Noorzai, an Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission official. Mr Noorzai signed an agreement last month to monitor the condition of detainees who have been turned over to Afghan authorities. "I want to look the man in the eyes and I want to confirm that they are going to do what they say they're going to do, I just want assurance from him that he will monitor and he will inform us of any abuses." said O'Connor on Sunday. Sounds great, only one problem, Mr Noorzai didn't bother to show up. I guess he was afraid to look O'Connor in the eyes. I thought Canada was punching above its weight now and demanding respect. This total dis is only the latest in a string of embarrassing incidents for O'Connor. His meeting with Mr. Noorzai was an attempt at damage control already because it came out this week that the Red Cross was not monitoring Afghan detainees on behalf of Canada like he has been saying in the House Of Commons for months. Oops. It has also been reported this week that the family of a soldier accidentally killed in Afghanistan was kept in the dark about what happened for over 8 months. I'm not ready to put the blame for that on O'Connor yet but it did happen on his watch. Why are we handing over combatants to people we don't trust not to torture them? Oh yeah we couldn't hand them over to the US because we knew they would torture them. Why can't we hold them ourselves? Oh yeah because holding these dudes at all just might be a war crime. What a sad day it was when Paul Martin let himself get talked into this silliness by one Rick , "Decade of Darkness", Hillier. What an even sadder day it was when Micheal Ignatiaff stood up and voted with the government to extend the mission. Twenty-four other weasels did too. The saddest day of all of course would be a Harper majority. Then we could look forward to perpetual war with incompetent men like Hillier and O'Connor who obviously know nothing about the history or politics of the region leading boys off to die so they can sit at Uncle Sam's knee and play war games.

Kennedy Kicks Ass

Watched Duffy Live last night like I way too often do. I'm glad I did however, because I got to watch Gerrard Kennedy deliver an absolute verbal ass-whooping to Bernard Lord on the environment and a few other topics. Kennedy easily countered Mr Lord's attacks on Stephane Dion and himself and left Lord stammering and grinning his stupid grin. If the Liberals want to win the next election Kennedy should be on TV more often. Ralph Goodale has been good lately too, feisty. Even Ignatieff with whom I disagree on almost all topics has been effective. (Yes I watch too much Question Period.) Stephane Dion has yet to score big points with Canadians but has done the right thing when it comes to protecting their rights. He also plans to pull the troops out in 2009 when the current mission is over. This isn't fast enough for me but I predict that come this summer it will be a wildly popular idea among Canadians who will feel we have done our share and that other NATO countries should step up. In short there is lots to be positive about if you're a Liberal. I do think however, that there are many challenges ahead. Steven Harper and Karl Rove's attack and wedge election strategy can be very effective and attack adds can influence the weak-minded. Liberals should respond in kind if they must. This ain't no disco, this is war for the soul of Canada.

Big Daddy Harper will protect us.

Now that Stephane Dion and his band of freedom hating terrorist enablers have voted against extending two provisions of the Anti-terror act which allowed police to arrest and hold people for 72 hours without a warrant or force people to testify at secret hearings I don't know what to do. I'm that scared.What will stop the terrorists now? I'm sure there are many terror cells operating right now about to strike. The RCMP and CSIS know all about them but darn it, they just cant get an arrest warrant. I guess we'll just have to let them strike. Curse those Liberals and all their human rights talk. If only we could have make all the Muslims in every Muslim community testify about their neighbors in secret hearings we could find out all the nefarious plans of those who hate us for our freedoms. Or if we could just get everyone in the Indo-Canadian community to testify we could finally get to the bottom of this 25 year old Air-India investigation. Thank God we have big Daddy Harper and the Conservatives in charge. They understand that in a post 911 world all personal freedoms are trumped by Americans, (and dumb-ass Canadians) need to feel safe. If you want to feel safe demand the government get our troops out of Afghanistan. Poking at a hornets nest is an excellent way to get stung. If you want to feel safe stop hanging out with the worlds biggest state sponsor of terror, the USA. These are the reasons there is any danger at all of an attack on Canada. How come they don't hate Sweden for their freedom? People hate you when you kick in their door, or drop a bomb on their village, or shoot their Father for driving to close to your convoy. Security is an illusion. The idea that you can be safe from a group of people who are determined to harm you if you just take enough precautions and if you just limit your own freedom is a myth.