Well, they finally come out of the woodwork–the businesses that support the harmonized sales tax (HST) being introduced to British Columbia. Apparently Dracula John Allan, president and CEO of the Council of Forest Industries, decided to step up and throw his cape into the ring:

Switching to a harmonized value-added tax is one of the best things the government could have done to help the ailing forest industry, John Allan, president and CEO of the Council of Forest Industries, told The Vancouver Sun editorial board last Friday.

With lumber prices lower than the cost of producing it, the forest industry is “burning cash,” Allan said. But with the softwood lumber agreement in place, the government’s hands are tied on how it can help.

So harmonizing the tax, which is allowed under the softwood lumber agreement because it applies to everyone, “is a huge huge deal for forestry,” Allan said.

Speaking of huge huge deals, it might be worth noting that the forestry industry has received over $1 billion this year in direct aid from the federal government, $420 to $440 million going to the British Columbian producers alone. The president of the Communications, Energy and Paperworkers Union of Canada is also asking for guarantees–not subsidies!–for the forestry industry.

People like John Allan can’t just come out and admit a quid pro quo, but all of the signs are there. An industry interested in improving “efficiency” is doing everything but that. Rather than simply stopping production, if they really are “burning money” as they are claiming, they want to continue running the Potemkin mill and approaching the government pleading poverty. The article points out that the BC government claims that the construction industry, which uses a lot of lumber, will be saving an incredible amount of money. However, with the HST burden shifted to the consumer, people will be far more reluctant to buy any of BC houses already over 50% higher than the Canadian average. So with the heavily subsidized lumber producers, we should be building a lot of houses that no one would want. I’m hoping there is some sort of surplus system designed to drive down housing prices, but isn’t that a little too close to price control?

Premier Gordon Campbell’s ideas of lateral-shift taxation are not helping anyone. If he was interested in really helping out BC’s forestry industry, he would simply drop corporate taxes. Good luck getting a sweetheart deal on debt relief and direct subsidies for that new first house for the average taxpayer in BC. (And I’m still waiting on my $100 cheque.)

It wasn’t too long ago that the forestry industry, among other industries, were protesting the carbon tax, which will rise to $30 a tonne by 2012. Now that the industries are going to enjoy a tax break, they suddenly like Campbell’s tax ideas. Amazing timing, isn’t it? Meanwhile, average folks will pay more tax from the HST and already pay more tax from the carbon tax. Bear in mind that the HST was such a brilliant idea that the Campbell government specifically swore it was not on their radar right until last May, right after the election.

Try to imagine that this as close as it gets to a conservative mindset in British Columbia. Businesses that are likely going to be dependent on government handouts will have no incentive to modernize or become more efficient and competitive, but they make the perfect puppet for when the government is actually raising taxes to make it seem like we’re paying them anyway.

In order to stamp out racism and sexism, dozens of tax-funded groups across Britain have come together to purge the English language from what they deem *offensive language*:

Among the everyday sayings that have been quietly dropped in a bid to stamp out racism and sexism are “whiter than white”, “gentleman’s agreement”, “black mark” and “right-hand man”.

The Northern Ireland Human Rights Commission has advised staff to replace the phrase “black day” with “miserable day”, according to documents released under freedom of information rules.

It points out that certain words carry with them a “hierarchical valuation of skin colour”. The commission even urges employees to be mindful of the term “ethnic minority” because it can imply “something smaller and less important”.

The National Gallery in London believes that the phrase “gentleman’s agreement” is potentially offensive to women and suggests that staff should replace it with “unwritten agreement” or “an agreement based on trust” instead. The term “right-hand man” is also considered taboo by the gallery, with “second in command” being deemed more suitable.

Advice issued by the South West Regional Development Agency states: “Terms such as ‘black sheep of the family’, ‘black looks’ and ‘black mark’ have no direct link to skin colour but potentially serve to reinforce a negative view of all things black. Equally, certain terms imply a negative image of ‘black’ by reinforcing the positive aspects of white.

“For example, in the context of being above suspicion, the phrase ‘whiter than white’ is often used. Purer than pure or cleaner than clean are alternatives which do not infer that anything other than white should be regarded with suspicion.”

It’s about time. I can hardly sleep at night knowing there are words out there that can possibly cause offense not to ethnic minorities, but to white people that want to protect ethnic minorities from themselves.

I have come up with a small, but brilliant list of words & phrases that I would like to see banned or at least changed. Some have sexist overtones, some have racial overtones, but all of them make someone, somewhere, cry:

• Black & Tan Beer – replace with *Coors Lite*
• Black Top – replace with *Pave over with not-white colour*
• Manhole Cover – replace with *Personhole Cover*, and then replace “person” because it has the word “Son* in it, so let’s call it *Round Metal disc-like unit*
• Black Eye – replace with *ocular boo boo of non-descript colour*
• Manatee – replace with *Fat aquatic sea mammal*
• Menstrual cycle – replace with *femalestrual cycle*
• Mannheim Museum – replace with *Goldstein Museum*
• Menopause – replace with *Bitching time*

I’m sure there are many more I haven’t thought up yet, but it’s only a matter of time before I trip over a few more.

We have reached an age where everything is offensive. In one way or another everyone is a victim, everyone is offended, and everyone deserves, and will get reparations. Are you gay? Here’s some money. Are you black? Here’s a house. Do you have a limp? We’ll get every business in the country to install a ramp JUST FOR YOU!

The Righteous® know as well as we know that words have no affect on a person if that person chooses not to let it have an affect on them. Put another way, if you choose to be offended by a word, then you’ll be offended. If you choose not to be, you won’t be. The Righteous® are out for power, and power only. They want to make everyone miserable, and taking words with historical meaning and shaking them out of our vocabulary is one way to do it. How do you fight back against this sort of thing? Mock and ridicule the little cocks. The one thing The Righteous® can’t stand is to be made fun of. But they’re easy to make fun of and it’s our duty to do so.

In the words of The Righteous®, “Do it for the children”.

Did you know that you needed a cell phone? According to the US government, we must leave no stimulus unturned:

SafeLink Wireless offers qualifying customers FREE cellular service. This service is currently available in Alabama, Connecticut, D. of Columbia, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Massachusetts, Michigan, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Virginia, West Virginia and Wisconsin.

And more to come! What’s this all based on? A simple report by one Nicholas Sullivan, who wrote a report in April, 2008 that claimed that giving the poor free cell phones would help boost their economic activity:

This new study on cell phone usage in America is based on two new surveys—a scientific national sampling of 1005 households by ORC and a statistically large online sampling of 110,000 TracFone prepaid phone users.

…

In the much larger (albeit non-scientific) Tracfone survey, where 30% of working households (not retired, student, unemployed) attributed gains to their cell phones, the average annual gain cited was a much higher $2,361 per household.

I bet if I asked people if their cars made them money, they would likely say yes–they get you to work, they let you drive to the mall to buy work clothes, etc. That doesn’t mean the car is the factor that lets you gain wealth. But this is the false premise being given here, and is being asked of people here who realistically wouldn’t know how wealth is generated in the first place. (Likely answer: the government.)

The pushers for this program came from the New Millennium Research Council, of whom Sullivan is affiliated, a Washington-based “think tank.” The group is really a project of Issue Dynamics Corp., and has a list of clients that include:

Bell Atlantic
BellSouth
Coalition for Affordable Local and Long Distance Service (CALLS)
GTE
Metricom (a wireless Internet company)
Pacific Bell
Personal Communications Industry Assoc.
Qualcomm
Qwest
SBC Communications
Sprint
Telecommunications Research & Action Center
Teligent, Inc.
United States Telecom Association (USTA)
Verizon
Verizon Wireless

Any clue what these corporations and groups might have in common? You couldn’t find a bigger list of lobbyists trying to get the government to pick up the tab for “free” phone usage. Sullivan’s own book released two years ago, You Can Hear Me Now: How Micro Loans and Cell Phones are Connecting the World’s Poor, made the same argument but was using data from the poorest of the poor countries, and is starting to look like the telecom industries are the ones making the profits. Where’s his follow-up data saying how much better off the people of Bangladesh are now that they have cell phones? Cell phones are a means of conducting business, but they don’t suddenly make people richer just by sprinkling them on the masses.

Sullivan’s floppy logic has just increased the dependence of poor people on the government for a product they should be creating wealth to achieve, not simply being handed to them. The entire poverty industry has already disincentivized people from wanting to earn, and these free cell phones are another entitlement that a responsible government is now going to have to convince people that they have to be taken away.

Nick, can you hear us? Quit shilling for corporations and advocacy groups looking for more welfare when the cookie jar is already tapped out.

Chantal Marshall and her four daughters have had 9 breast enhancement surgeries, which sets the British record for the family with the most boob jobs (PM Gordon Brown’s family excluded)

While most mums and their daughters enjoy shopping trips together, Chantal, 50, and her daughters have spent nearly £40,000 on visits to cosmetic surgeons to have their breasts enlarged.

Ripley, 18, Tara, 22, Terri, 25, Emma, 28, and mum-of-nine Chantal, of Kirkby-in-Ashfield, Notts, now boast chest sizes ranging from 34DD to 32GG.

On one occasion, Emma and Ripley even ended up having breast enhancement surgery on the same day and at the same clinic as their mum.

Tara had booked her consultation aged 17 so she could have the op as soon as she reached the age of 18.

As the saying goes, “the family that cuts together, sluts together”.

According to the article, all the girls seem very happy with the choice they made to have breast enhancement surgery. Even though many of the girls had good sized breasts, that excellent parenting baby momma was dishing out, gave them the courage to go and spend thousands of dollars to fill their vanity. Why be really  happy if there’s a slight chance you can be super-dee-duper happy? So what if in a few years their breasts start to explode and poison their body, at least they had temporary happiness. Actually, at least whoever is squeezin’ them had temporary happiness.

I couldn’t help but wonder what this family of geniuses did for a living, to be able to raise that much money for something so important. What they do happens to be exactly what The Mayor thought they did. Let’s start with the baby momma and work our way down the sliding scale of stupidity:

• Mum Chantal — Age: 50; No of ops: 3; Spent: £13,500 — CARER and mum-of-nine
• EMMA — Age: 28; No of ops: 2; Spent: £9,500 — Emma is a beauty therapist
• RIPLEY — Age: 18; No of ops: 1; Spent: £4,500 — Ripley, 18, fashion and design student and trained nail technician
• TERRI — Age: 25; No of ops: 1; Spent: £4,500 — Terri, 25, is a dancer
• TARA — Age: 22; No of ops: 2; Spent: £8,000 — Tara, a receptionist 

Baby momma just isn’t a mom, she’s a *carer*. I suppose that’s different from an *I don’t give a shitter*.

The world is pretty much over, isn’t it? The truly pathetic part of this sad exhibition is these dullards have reached their full potential and realized all the dreams they have ever had. Next stop: a gaggle of welfare children, two broken marriages, and *free housing* courtesy of Gordon Brown and his traveling nitwits.

The Kevin Federline of Alaska, Levi Johnston, has something to say:

Levi Johnston, 19, whose wedding to Bristol Palin was called off earlier this year, said Thursday he lived with the Palin family from early December to the second week in January.

He claimed he heard the governor several times say how nice it would be to take advantage of the lucrative deals that were being offered, including a reality show and a book.

A half million dollars debt from guerilla lawsuits will make a person just so greedy! What exactly is his position on Barack Obama writng a couple of books? How does a busy senator find the time to write a book?

“She had talked about how nice it would be to take some of this money people had been offering us and you know just run with it, say ‘forget everything else,”‘ he said.

This is from a high school dropout and a fellow walking out on his new baby. He thinks his sporadic visits make him a dad, too.

It’s interesting because he would go on several talk shows and say how hurtful it was when people accused him of trying to cash in on the Palin name, even after appearing in GQ, and as it states in the article, shopping a memoir around and getting a movie deal. Now he’s accusing the governor of doing the same.

Levi, if you think Ms. Palin was in over her head, you really have no idea. If this is some attempt to cull some favour with the Hollywood liberals, I have news for you–you have already served your purpose to them by getting Ms. Palin’s daughter knocked up. You aren’t going to steal an election like Al Franken. You aren’t, you know, like, uh, articulate enough to put in front of a camera. The left does not need you anymore, and the right still have enough pull in America to make your life a more miserable one. You can’t hide in the protection of the media spotlight for much longer. Get your GED and stop embarrassing yourself.

An altercation between a waitress and customer at a Waffle House in Clarendon County got out of control yesterday, as shots were fired, people were assaulted, and waffles, well, they dun got cold:

An early morning run for breakfast at the Waffle House on Paxville Highway in Manning turned terribly wrong for Crystal Samuel.

“I thought I was gonna get me an All-Star,” says Samuel. A popular meal on the menu. “Grits, sausage, toast, eggs and a waffle,” says Samuel.

She didn’t get what she came for. Instead, she says while she waited for her order, her friends started eating. That’s when Samuel says she was told they couldn’t eat from carryout trays inside the restaurant.

“I said what is your fuss about. I said we haven’t paid for our food. She (Ward) said well you all got to leave. How you want us to leave and we ain’t paid for the food yet,” says Samuel.

That’s when it got ugly. Samuel says she threw a waffle at the waitress. “I did actually throw some food but it didn’t hit her,” says Samuel. “That’s when she (Ward) jumped across the counter and we got into it,” says Samuel.

Clarendon County Sheriff Randy Garrett says the altercation continued outside where he says Ward got a gun from her car and a gun magazine from her trunk.

“It’s poor judgement on her part trying to settle this matter with a weapon. either way she had time to think about what she was doing when she was walking to her car,” says Garrett.

Investigators say Ward’s gun discharged during the altercation. They say a bullet fragment struck Samuel in the arm.

“Deputies were close by when they rolled up in the parking lot the victim and the suspect were still engaged in a fight,” says Garrett.

Before it ended, authorities say Ward struck the victim in the head with the gun.

“She got the last lick,”says Samuel. Meanwhile Ward has bonded out of jail. On Tuesday afternoon, News 19 found her inside the Waffle House where the incident happened.

She declined to talk to us on camera but says she got out of jail after paying $500. As for Samuel, she has only one thing to say about Waffle House. “bad customer service,” says Samuel.

Scenes like this are more common that you would think. I once got into an altercation with a Swiss Chalet waitress because the lemon wedge she gave me in the cup of hot water at the end of my meal was too small. I ended up stabbing her  in the neck with a pitchfork, it was bloody gruesome. Let’s face it though, sometimes unfettered, ramped-up, anger-fueled violence is the only way to settle minor food disputes. I’m pretty sure it says as much in the New Testament.

My time growing up in the Maritimes gave me a well-honed bloodlust which would later prepare me for my life as a conservative. Come to think of it, isn’t political diversity just as important as ecological diversity? Conservatives are a threatened species these days!

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Preventing terrorists attacks is well beyond US Department of Homeland Secretary Janet Napolitano’s capacity, but what about hindsight from nearly eight years ago?

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It seems to be comedy day here at the Lair. First, Keyser finds hilarity in Bloomberg’s reporting on the Obama “Budget.” Next, Keyser came across the blog of some leftist guy who was an Obama supporter, but who found the State of the Union shtick the other night no more encouraging than Keyser did.

And boy, does this guy let it show! He’s written out the whole text and interspersed it with is own commentary. He’s apparently fond of emphasizing text with color, italics, bold and the like, and this psychedelic emotion is flying all over the place as he totally loses it. Here’s just a small sample (the first few words in normal type are Obama’s):

You should also know that the money you’ve deposited in banks across the country is safe; How do we respond to such crap? Our President gets up in front of the world, and without even a hiccup or without having his fingers crossed behind his back, he simply lies with complete impunity. I am depressed. I looked so forward to not having to listen to that stupid, smug son-of-a-bitch “W” Bush. I was really excited about the prospects of having a smart, eloquent, level-headed leader speaking in plain truths and common sense. I am such an asshole! What I have come to realize is that even though I found Bush-the-dumber virtually impossible to listen to, I always thought it was because he was such a self-congratulatory moron. But what I have quickly come to understand is that it was NOT his insipid, shit-assed grin, or his quasi-literate references to Noooquoooler Weaponsssssssssss that made me nutso, it was his lying. And the reason I know that now is because I feel THE EXACT SAME WAY about our new President. It is the lying and the bullshitting that makes me so fucking insanely furious!! It is the fact that these guys treat us like fucking children—little kids who can’t handle the truth. Well, FUCK YOU Mr. President!!! The truth is so very easy to uncover, despite your lies! NO, Mr. President, our money is NOT safe in our banks. You are a liar. The FDIC is virtually insolvent. Bank failures means no access to money. Sure you can make the claim that, in fact, our money is safe because BY LAW it is insured. But “BY LAW” is not reality Mr. President. You can sit up there and obfuscate and dissemble and speak in half-truths and hedge your words with the greatest of care so that, if challenged, you can—you litigious asshole!—use your legal double-speak to defend your lies. But in the end it is just that, lies.

Buyer’s remorse, much?

Anyway, go read the whole thing. Leftist or not, the man is right.

[Okay, this guy doesn't actually write out the whole speech, as he gives up in despair before the end. Better hope that's not a metaphor for the future!]

This glob of asphalt was personally poured into a pot hole over at Keyser’s Lair by Joey “Don’t nobody mess with me ‘cuz I’m dah man!” Biden.

Who would have imagined that reading the financial news would turn into a great way to start your day off with a belly laugh?

President Barack Obama’s first budget request would provide as much as $750 billion in new aid to the financial industry, as it lays plans to overhaul the U.S. health-care system and raise taxes on the wealthy.

The spending blueprint, sent to Congress today, forecasts record outlays for the current fiscal year of $3.94 trillion, up 32 percent from a year ago. That would yield a record deficit of $1.75 trillion in the year ending Sept. 30, equal to about 12 percent of the nation’s gross domestic product, the highest since World War II.

“It’s only by restoring fiscal discipline” that the U.S. can produce growth and prosperity “over the long run,” Obama said today. “That means cutting what we don’t need” to pay for necessary programs.

The person who wrote this is either a complete idiot or has one of the most sharply honed senses of irony across the internet. The man who proposes a deficit of monumental proportions is then quoted as talking about “fiscal responsibility” without the least indication that there’s a bit of a disconnect here. Comedy gold.
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In order to “prevent the outbreak of mysterious diseases in the village”, two seven year old Tamil girls were married off to frogs in what was referred to as *elaborate ceremonies*:

Amidst chanting of vedic hymns, the temple priests garlanded the brides and tied the magalsutras on behalf of the frogs pronouncing the two as wives of the amphibians before the sacred fire at the auspicious hour.

The villagers threw themselves into the ceremonies with gusto. While residents living in the western part of the village acted as relatives of the brides and those from the eastern part play-acted as relatives of the grooms. The ceremonies had all the usual elements of a traditional marriage including a sumptuous feast.

However, unlike the fairy tale `Frog Prince’, where the ugly toad turns into a handsome prince when the princess kisses it, the Villupuram village belles bid their amphibian grooms goodbye and lead a normal life thereafter. As for the terrified frogs, they are thrown back into the temple ponds after the ceremony.

An elderly woman of the village said the ritual was practised traditionally for several generations to ward off evil spirits and diseases from the village.

In my village, we ward off diseases using a strange invention the white man brought to us over 80 years ago: Medicine. Sometime’s the medicine is in pill form, sometimes it has to be administered with a needle. Other times it’s through the advice of a professional medical administrator, otherwise known as *doctors*. They say to me, “Mumbaka, you must rest now and for 7 days, you must drink plenty of fluids such as apple and orange juice, you should try to eat soups such as chicken noodle. Remember, Mumbaka, to take your pills, this will ward off or at least taper the runny nose, the stuffy head, and the sore throat–or as we call it in my village, ‘the suffering from sucking on the devils dick’”.

If that doesn’t work, we get a couple of pre-pubecent girls and marry them off to frogs. The girls hate that, of course, and who wouldn’t, it seems everyone hates the Fwench.

TY Dmorris for sending me this article, I toad him i liked it. Get it? Toad = told. Forget it, my humor is way past you.

This next story is what Australians like to refer to as a real lurk:

The court was told Burke wore a black leather mask and was armed with a large rubber dildo wrapped in duct tape, which he used to assault the 49-year-old female occupant of the house.

Burke then allegedly assaulted the woman about the face and head with the dildo leaving her with bruising and small bumps to the face.

The mother, together with her 19-year-old son, who witnessed the event, then escaped the home.

Burke and his female co-accused then allegedly took the family dog, a Lahsa Apso, to a nearby park where they taped the animal to a tree, causing it to choke to death.

Two of the charges carry a maximum penalty of life imprisonment.

At least we know it wasn’t Todd that committed the crimes, reports say his dildo is purple.

In Canada, if you get convicted of murder, you’ll get a maximum of 20 years in prison, which means you will be out in seven for good behaviour. In Australia, you can life in prison for beating someone up with a rubber dildo. Think about it.

I’m not sure what kind of street cred one gets in prison by beating the hell out of a person with a rubber dildo, but I have a feeling that when the other prisoners find out, they’re going to cook his shrimp on a barbie.

**Just to let any new bloggers know, if you are posting anything about Australia, if you end the post with the words “cook his shrimp on a barbie”, you can’t lose. You may want to write that down, I’m throwing you pearls here.