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The Ultimate Simpsons Episode Competition

A bit of a departure from my usual topics, but my office is swept up in Simpsons fever with the launch of the Ultimate Simpsons Episode Competition!

Me and my fellow office Simpsons fan have identified 16 key Simpsons episodes which will compete against each other in the fight to earn the title of Ultimate Simpsons Episode!

Albeit, the judging will be completely subjective and open to all kinds of personal biases, but here we go!

Here are the 16 episodes that will be competing:

Simpsons Go to Australia VS Cape Fear

Homer Badman (Gummi Venus De Milo) VS The Krusty Special

Deep Space Homer VS Homer: Union Boss

Monorail VS Behind the Laughter

A Streetcar Named Marge VS A Fish Called Selma

The Stonecutters VS Bobo:Mr. Burns' Bear

Homer vs New York VS The Chowder Episode

Mr. Plow VS Secrets of a Successful Marriage (Homer the Teacher)


So, how's the list? Did we miss one? Let us know your thoughts.

Leave Tuition Fees Where They Are

Yesterday was a "National Day of Action" for the Canadian Federation of Students to rail against rising tuition fees and the cost of post-secondary education. The CFS complains that the students are forced to rely on student loans to pay for school, and argue that education should not be a "debt sentence" for students. (Kudos on that clever line)

While I admit that higher education is an expensive activity, I'd argue that it should be, and that the real cost is actually much higher. Taxpayers already subsidize the majority of tuition costs for students, which would be 2 or 3 times more expensive if that was taken away. Plus, there are many opportunities to receive bursaries and scholarships for students that excel---I received open scholarships which paid for probably half of my tuition---and universities and colleges should be pressured to increase their spending on those programs.

However, the real problem isn't that education is too expensive, it's that there isn't enough of a return on investment. And making it cheaper will only exacerbate this problem. Education should be something that takes an investment of time, energy and money, for it gives skills and credentials that will further careers and future salaries. The problem is that this ROI is diminishing.

In the effort to be fair, to make education a "right," we've flooded the market. This 'educational inflation' made it easier to get into university, easier to get good grades, and easier to get that BA or BS or BBA, or whatever alphabet soup you were aiming for. But it has also made it harder to get a job. Degrees are run of the mill now, handed out by increasingly shady institutions to increasingly greater numbers of students. An undergraduate degree doesn't stand out any more, and so people are completing their Masters and writing theses in art history and communications and are still finding that there are no jobs. The answer to this problem isn't to pump out more degrees.

Canada already has the highest proportion of university graduates per capita in the world, even with the crushing burden of highly subsidized and tax-deductible tution fees. Instead of increasing our lead in this area, we should be focusing on making sure degrees handed out in Canada mean something, and that education is preparing students for the real world. We should be emphasizing excellence in the public education system, not passing through failing students and creating more holidays and vacations for students. We should be identifying the industries and skills where we have huge gaps in knowledge and put together comprehensive plans to get students to learn trades, study math, excel in science and power our future economy. While it may be easier to promise students the moon, it would be a lot more productive to tell them the honest truth.

BCTF On the Airwaves

The BC Teachers Federation has new ads out, which make you wonder if they are planning to escalate their current job action to include an actual strike.

Of course, the ads recycle old adages without providing any context.

They claim there are 12,000 overcrowded classrooms in BC, without any definition of what overcrowding means. Why is a class of 30 senior students overcrowded? I could be convinced that the early grade classrooms need to be kept small with focused attention, but in the years that lead students up to entering college, university and the workforce, the classes should get bigger if anything. How is a coddled student getting hand-holded in a class of 22 students supposed to be prepared for life in a lecture hall of 400 or an office of 50?

They claim there are 700 fewer special needs teachers today than there were a decade ago. But how many fewer special needs students are there? Regular enrollment is down 60,000 over that same time period, so does it not hold that there may be fewer special needs students as well?

They finally claim that BC teachers are second-to-last in compensation in the country. While I have no idea if this is an accurate claim or not, it strikes me as irrelevant that Ontario is paying its teachers more while the province goes broke. Salary should be determined based on what the employer HERE can pay and what the teachers HERE should earn.

Will be interesting to see where the NeverEnding Bagaining Story takes us next!

Speaking of waste....

I'm sure you've all seen Metro Vancouver's latest "Green Angel" campaign designed to encourage locals to use less and reduce waste. Popping up everywhere through a huge media buy, the Green Angel campaign encouraged us all to give personal gifts instead of buying things this Christmas (and by Christmas, I of course mean gift-giving holiday season, as Metro Vancouver white-washed.) Bus shelter ads, websites, print ads, you name it, Metro Vancouver paid for it. And for what exactly? To tell us to buy dancing lessons for Grandma? Go bungee jumping with pops? Do we really need a massive advertising campaign to tell us what kind of gifts to give people? Talk about waste---this is a massive waste of taxpayer's dollars. Big government spending at its finest to try and save some boxes and bows. What a joke!

And to top it all off, Metro Vancouver had an hour-long video produced to go along with the "Create Memories, Not Garbage" campaign. At who knows what cost, the organizers created The Christmas Flame, which according to the Metro Vancouver website, "is a live storytelling event featuring 16 of the region’s top story tellers." That's, count 'em, SIXTEEN storytellers. Oh, what a Christmas treat! So glad we're paying for this stocking stuffer.

Feds begin move to tighten up retirement

Earlier this week, the federal government made the smart move of abolishing mandatory retirement for employees in federally regulated industries/organizations. Where the employer had been able to force people to retire at 65 or even 60 in some cases, they have now lost that power. With people living longer, healthier lives, and with 1/3 of Canadians aged 55+ still having at least 16 years of mortgage payments left owing, the idea of freedom at 65 will not be attainable or realistic for many. For those reasons alone, this is a good move by the Feds, ignoring the discrimination of forcing people to leave their jobs when they reach an arbitrary "expiration date," regardless of their abilities.

There's been talk that this is the beginning of a tightening of retirement rules to being to deal with the coming Boomer surge and the pressure it will put on our public retirement schemes. If this is true, it's great news. Our pension plans are in good shape now, but without tweaking, they will be in the same mess as much of the rest of the world's. I hope the government continues down this path and investigates increasing the age you receive Old Age Security and CPP from 65 to at least 66 or even 67 and instituting means testing for OAS. Taking steps like these may be just what's needed to ensure there is something left of these cornerstone programs for the next generation.

Green Leader Highlights Pointlessness of Kyoto

This morning Elizabeth May, Leader of the Green Party of Canada, underscored the pointlessness of the Kyoto agreement in what I'm sure was meant to be a passionate defense of its ideals.

Speaking on CKNW, May lambasted the federal government for its recent announcement that it was pulling out of the Kyoto agreement, nearly 15 years after it ratified the agreement. When asked about the Tories' claims that staying in Kyoto would cost Canada more than $14 billion, May scoffed, explaining that this would only be true if Canada tried to meet the targets of Kyoto by purchasing carbon credits from other countries, which nobody is forcing us to do. In the very next breath, however, May admitted that the only way to reach Kyoto's targets for emission reductions would be to purchase these very credits, which she expected
would cost "much more than $14 billion."

But the mask really slipped when May insisted that it would have cost Canada nothing to simply stay in Kyoto and not try to achieve the targets. What leadership! What courage! Why couldn't Canada just agree to feel-good international agreements and then pay only lip-service to them like the good ol' days? That's the Canada that Elizabeth May and the Left want, not this principled, responsible and conservative approach we have now.

Tories Score Another Win with Burqa Ban

Yesterday, Citizenship, Immigration and Multiculturalism Minister Jason Kenney announced that starting immediately, no one would be allowed to wear any face coverings while taking the oath of citizenship and pledging allegiance to Queen Elizabeth II. While some media outlets tried to play up the "controversial" nature of the law, Muslim Canadian groups paraded out, one after another to support the move and people across the country could hear their fellow Canadians nodding their heads in approval. Fundamental Islamic face coverings like burqas and niqabs are fundamentally oppressive and run counter to both the Western and Christian traditions and beliefs which have formed the basis of this country and the government's new policy is a smart move.

With this sudden announcement, the government tossed conservatives like me another hunk of red meat and notched another victory in the win column of the growing list of conservative accomplishments. It's impressive the scope of conservative changes this government has made in half a year: putting the "royal" back in the navy and air force, killing the gun registry, killing the wheat board, pulling out of Kyoto, passing the crime bill, expanding the number of Commons seats in the West, challenging Insite injection site, and the list goes on. With nearly years left in the Conservatives mandate, I'm looking forward to seeing how else this government will move the country away from the long, stale Liberal agenda that has defined it for years.

Edmonton or San Fran?

I spend a good deal of time reading Garth Turner's Greater Fool
blog where he has been sounding the alarm about Canada's unsustainable real
estate market. Recently, he compared what you could snap up for $600,000 in
Edmonton versus San Francisco and like all the stats surrounding Canadian real
estate, it makes you shake your head:

In Edmonton, six hundred buys a 1950s house that four years ago sold for less than $400,000. It’s a 1,400-square foot bung with all the curb appeal of a utility substation, a cheap suite downstairs and a jet tub imported from a garage sale.

In San Francisco, six hundred buys a house that was worth $866,000 at the end of 2007. It’s about the same size, and is now priced $25,000 less than it sold for in 2004. Built in 1928, it is a classic west coast villa, walking distance from Golden Gate Park. Kitchen to die for.

So, one home has risen in value by half, the other dropped by a third. One’s in a regional market dependent on volatile resource prices. The other’s in a hive tied to intellectual entrepreneurship. But in Edmonton you get a pine tree. Americans are total idiots without a clue how to value property and opportunity. After all, it couldn’t be us.

End Occupy Now

Only Vancouver's uber-liberal Mayor (as Bill O'Reilly calls him) Gregor Robertson could waste an opportunity like this. As if Occupy Vancouver's tents, permanent structures and open drug use wasn't enough reason to shut the protest down, there has also been an overdose, a death (!) and now Vancouver police officers are being bit by the protesters. It's time to end Occupy Vancouver now. Mayor Robertson should have had the place shut down the day after the woman was found dead in her tent. What better reasoning to end this than when people start to die?

Instead, the Mayor dithered and stalled, allowing the protesters to become more belligerent and entrenched, to the point that they claim to not recognize the city's authority and even declaring their own sovereignty. Vancouver's civic politicians need to find their backbone and shut this thing down. If the Occupy Vancouver sit-in doesn't recognize the government's authority, it's about time Vancouver shows them, up close and personal, who really runs the City.

Occupy Vancouver's Run of the Mill Protest

Well, Metro Vancouver's professional agitator and activist class has another pet project to fill its time. There never seems to be a shortage of people to protest....everything. Stanley cup playoffs, safe-injection site Supreme Court rulings, beginnings of Pickton inquiries, and now corporate greed, or whatever it is they are protesting against.

And that is the big problem with the "Occupy" protests. Despite the Left's attempts to compare the protests with the Tea Party movement, there are few discernible objectives or goals of this uprising. Look at the Occupy Vancouver group's mantras: "we are the 99%," and "end corporate greed." What do those slogans mean? Nothing. Like most of these protests, Occupy Vancouver is made up of bored old hippies, entitled college kids, and aggrieved minorities and their demands run the gamut of more organic farming, less war, lower housing costs, higher taxes, arrest George Bush, Free Mark Emery, and you can guess the rest. This is typical left-wing whining about everything under the sun.

Where the Tea Party in the US took real legislative concerns (government spending and debt) and turned that into legislative accomplishments (the biggest wave election--2010's midterms--in decades), Occupy Vancouver likely won't accomplish much. And the question remains why there would be an "occupation" in Vancouver. The American protests are a result of rampant and record-high unemployment, huge government debt, record-busting deficits, and a left-wing President who has failed and crushed the expectations of his liberal supporters. I don't quite see what the parallels are in Vancouver for all these iPhone clad, Arts Degree-holding, Save-the-Whale-chanting complainers.

There are real problems facing us, what with our economy weakening and our housing market bubbling, but these occupations, whether on Wall Street or in Vancouver, are't going to do anything to move us forward.

Amateur NDP and the Dick Cheney Protests

Former Vice President Dick Cheney's book tour was interrupted yesterday by protesters who argue Cheney is a war criminal who's admitted to torture. The protesters went on to attack police officers and choke on of the employees of the Vancouver Club venue.

Now, I expect the left-wing zealots to argue that interrogating 3 terrorists using water boarding, a process signed off by the US Justice Department as legal and which yielded tons of actionable intelligence is "torture". However, what surprised me is that Don Davies, the Immigration Critic in the NDP Royal Opposition (-shudder-) agrees and thinks Canada should have barred Cheney from entering the country.

The idea that "government in waiting" NDP would take such a stance regarding an American Vice President is preposterous and underscores the fact that the NDP is not ready for prime time. This isn't a government in waiting or a royal opposition, its a group of activists and partisans who've found themselves fortuitously on the brink of power.

Conservatives Restore Royal Candian Navy

Today, Defense Minister Peter McKay announced that the Canadian Navy and Canadian Air Force, which were stripped of their "royal" heritage back in 1968 by the revisionist and meddling Liberal federal government, would again be named the Royal Canadian Navy and the Royal Canadian Air Force.

As McKay points out, this would correct a historical mistake committed by a party that has committed to removing whatever links to Canada's colonial and British past it could, from renaming our armed forces to renaming our national day (eliminating Dominion Day in favour of the pedestrian-sounding Canada Day). This is a great decision, and an honour to the countless who served and died under the banners of the RCAF and RCN.

Of course, the NDP, ironically now the Royal Opposition, came out against this move, claiming its a step back to the 1950's. In fact, the NDP's Jack Harris even called it a divisive move! If honouring our past, knowing our own history and acknowledging the role the British crown has played in our country is divisive, then that would be a sad commentary on the shallowness of the Canadian story. For me, however, it's a honourable and wise move and just the first step along the way towards reclaiming our shared history and culture that has been whitewashed and ignored for too long.

HST Vote Deadline Today

It's been 2 years. TWO YEARS of fighting over the harmonized sales tax (HST) in BC. But today hopefully marks the end, as referendum ballots are due in today by 4:30pm. I have voted to keep the HST and I hope my fellow British Columbians have joined me.

The HST is more efficient, raises more money, is easier to apply, is more broadly applied, saves the government and business billions in administrative costs, makes business more competitive, fosters investment and job creation and eliminates the cascading PST, where tax is applied on tax.

The HST was and continues to be sound economic policy. It was implemented in a foolish and insulting way, but the people's distaste over that has cost a premier his job, and for a while at least, his legacy. It's time to end this. A vote to kill the HST would only serve to drag this sideshow on for months and year longer, as we untangle the existing system. I'm tired of hearing about it. I'm tired of debating it. Let's move on to other, more pressing priorities, and let this go.

I've voted to keep the HST. Here's hoping enough of you did too.

Gingrich Offers Advice on Mosque and Qur'an Burning

Newt Gingrich, former House Speaker who led the Republican Revolution in 1994 and a likely future presidential candidate, offered some sage advice for President Obama regarding the Ground Zero Mosque and the cancelled (for now) Qur'an burning.

Obama came out early in support of the Ground Zero mosque. In front of a Muslim crowd, and resulting in rounds of applause the once-exalted Obama likely misses, he clearly made the case for the mosque being built where it was planned and argued that no one should try to stop the Imam from exercising his right to practice his religion. Of course, Obama missed the point that no one questions the right the build a mosque there, only the sense of doing so.

However, when a man in Florida proposed a Qur'an burning, the President had no problem coming out clearly against this act, and he argued against the Pastor's right to express his views in this way. The President was right to speak out against the Qur'an burning. It was insulting, incendiary and insensitive. Quite like the 9/11 mosque. And this is where Mr. Gingrich had some words for the President. "It's wrong to burn the Quran and it's wrong to build the mosque at ground zero, and both should be stopped," said the former-Speaker. The President should have been as straight forward with the Imam as he was with the pastor and oppose both efforts on the grounds of good taste, sensitivity and common sense.

Advice the President should have heeded.

The Tamils Aren't Refugees

When the UN isn't on the side of the Tamil refugees, you know the refugee ships should be looked at with skepticism.

Sri Lanka's brutal 26-year civil war, one marked with ghastly terrorist actions by the Tamil Tigers (including the invention of the suicide bomber, a now widely used horror), finally came to a close last year. I therefore find it odd that in the year of the closet thing to peace the country has known in a generation, Tamil "refugees" are now arriving in Canada.

In July, the UN said that the country was no longer in such dire straits that refugees should be accepted no-questions-asked. Instead, now that the war is over, any refugee claims should be closely considered and evaluated on their merits. There are serious questions as to whether these people are Tamil terrorists, or terrorist sympathizers, a distinction which should mean little. There are suggestions that the Tamil diaspora in Canada, the largest anywhere other than Sri Lanka itself, is using this country to organize, fundraise, and recruit for a future effort to restart the civil war. There is also questions about Canada's Tamil population. As you'll remember, thousands of Tamils in Toronto shut down traffic in the city last year when the Tamils were being defeated in Sri Lanka. So many Tamils showed up to the protest that authorities noted that we didn't even know that many were in Canada. With these many questions, this much concern, Canada should be taking a much firmer approach with dealing with these refugee boats, of which there are already reports of two more preparing to depart Sri Lanka.

Racism is the go-to attack today

Read a great article today by Victor Davis Hanson about using the charge of racism to silence your opponents and critics. You can read it here.

"We live in a complex, multiracial and religiously diverse society. A majority of black voters in California opposed gay marriage. Most Muslims probably concurred. Some 70 percent of Americans expressed support for the Arizona law, an overwhelming figure that would have to include some Asians, blacks and Hispanics. White and Hispanic congressional officials have faced ethics charges, often more serous than those leveled against Rangel and Waters.
In other words, there is no simple ideological, racial or religious divide between a monolithic "us" and "them." Instead, we have devolved to the point where promiscuously crying "Bigot!" and "Racist!" signals a failure to persuade 51 percent of the people of the merits of an argument.
It is too often that simple -- and that sad."

Enforcement Works? Get OUT!

Stumbled across this article in the Vancouver Sun last week and couldn't beleive what I was reading. Just look at the headline "Vancouver's homicide rate on pace for record low due to anti-gang efforts." Note that due to in there? You mean, the enforcement of laws and punishment of criminals may actually reduce crime and recidivism? Who would have ever thought, eh? What I propose going forward is we try to apply this novel concept to drug dealers, murderers and thieves too. Maybe if our "justice" system--and nothing deserves those quotations more than "justice" in Canada--actually punished the people who steal our cars, shoot up on our streets and murder our neighbours, we might see even less of these crimes and people might begin to have more confidence in our legal system.

BC Lottery Lawsuit a Joke

A gambling addict in BC has filed a lawsuit against the BC Lottery Corp. because it didn't do enough to stop her from losing over $331,000 in its casinos. Joyce May Ross says she couldn't help herself from gambling and even though she signed up for the self-exclusion program, she was allowed to continue gambling. The self-exclusion program involves the gambling company putting your name on an exclusion list, taking your photograph and having you sign a contract agreeing to not enter a BC casino for 6 months, with penalties up to $5000 in fines available for those who go anyways. Sounds like a reasonable program to me. But Ms.Ross just couldn't help herself, and even though she had signed up for the program, sh went back to the casinos, over and over and over until she had lost hundreds of thousands of dollars. Now she's blaming the government and wants it to pay her back the money she lost. Can I get in on that? I dropped 60 bucks in a Wheel of Fortune machine and all I got was a smile from a digital Pat Sajak. There was no digital Vanna, or it was so waif-like that I missed it. But regardless, could I get reimbursed now too, now that I've had time to think about it and knowing that it didn't end with bells and whistles? I wonder if this lawsuit would still be waged if after Ms. Ross snuck back into the casino she had struck proverbial gold. I bet not and that's the safest wager around.

The NDP has predictably come a-running, backing this lawsuit with vigour. "She's a victim," they cry. "Oh horrors," they scream. "The government should have helped her," gaming critic Shane Simpson wails. Well, what about personal choice and responsibility? This woman chose to gamble. She made that choice besides not having the money for it, besides having been self-excluded, besides being told not to come back. She put the quarter in the machine, and she made the choice again, and again, and again and each time she sent the slots spinning, she made the choice again.

Is another government program really what we need here? More educational commercials? More money coming from hard-working taxpayers to fund some bureaucratic project to help people who don't even help themselves? Clearly, what is instead needed is an emphasis on personal responsibility. I know that in today's world, an especially in the Vancouver part of the BC part of the Canada part of today's world, personal responsibility is largely unheard of. We give hand-outs to everyone, treatments for everything, we are ordered to feel sympathy and understanding for all sorts of bizarre behaviour. But nonetheless, personal responsibility is what we need here and that is what Ms. Ross needed too. While it is easier to look to government to blame, to blame society, to blame addiction, to blame someone, anyone, other than yourself, the buck stops with you. And in this case, if Joyce May Ross had made the buck stop with her, she'd have at least one more buck than she has now.
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SarahPAC

sigh :)