Bud Talkinghorn: Bud Bites

More frightful health news

A Mr. Evers, who worked in a senior management position for DuPont chemicals. has blown the whistle on a major scandal there. In an interview on CTV, he maintains that for years DuPont knew that a poisonous chemical was leaching out of their plastic paper [other materials? check NJC] used in endless food products. Despite levels of this chemical--three times over the FDA "acceptable level" being known, they kept producing it. Evers tried to get them to leave out the chemical, or at least reduce these levels, but DuPont refused to listen. The chemical enters the blood and accumulates. What human health damage it produces was not mentioned. He did repeat that it is poisonous to humans over a long period. This scandal has the potential to explode worldwide. Everyone of us has dipped into a popcorn or potato chip bags and each time we pick up some of this chemical coating.

While it is just a supposition, I have always suspected that something in our environment has accounted for all the autistic and asthmatic conditions in kids. They either didn't exist or were skillfully hidden in the attic. And where did all these allergic reactions come from in adults? I used to think that these "sudden allergics" were merely the reserve units of the new killjoy army. But God knows what chemicals they now use in the perfume and cosmetics businesses. And how is this for a nightmare scenario: That those "air refresheners" people use to cloak normal smells are actually emitting deadly vapours--24/7. Mr. Evers was so ashamed of his part in the cover-up, that he broke into tears during the interview. "How could I have allowed this?", he blubbered. How could DuPont and the U.S./Canadian health and industrial inspectors have allowed this poisoning is another question to be asked. Of course DuPont will legally fight this allegation tooth and nail. Just like the tobacco companies endlessly maintaining that nicotine is not addictive. The lawyers are already salivating.

© Bud Talkinghorn


I love Americans

What's not to love? They have the sense of true democracy, adventure and self-reliance that has marked my own life. Not for them the statist, top-down control that marks our Greater Sweden mentality here. Yes, they have their flaws--their absurdly harsh criminal penalties for marijuana production or use come readily to mind--but they haven't reached our Supreme's "written-in" judgments arrogance yet. The heavy hand of politicians on our constitutional freedoms is evidenced everywhere. Americans get to elect much of their judiciary. He or she turns out to be utterly unfit for office, you throw them out. That pure government-- for the people, by the people-- is highly suspect around here.

Americans whom I have met--and I've met many, at every possible societal level--have been quite fascinating. Rarely have I come across the phalanxes of hard-core ideologues that we have in Canada. Granted, my times there did not include much of the deep South. I've heard that they are a tad more fundalmentalist in their viewpoints. But I sure liked those Hillbilly folk--heck, they might as well be Maritimers who are from the tail-end of the Applachians--but with more gumption. The American hillbilllies' distain for "gubmint" intrusions into every facet of life was, however, most unlike their distant Appalachian cousins. There, they have not come to rely on the "gubmint" for everything. Back here, Canada's Martin lately announced some multi-million dollar package for the Chinese, who had to pay a head tax 80 years ago. He wants to give billions more to the aboriginals, who seem to squander away the annual $9 billion Canadians already give them. No serious strings attached of course. Ah, the sins of our fathers never leave us Canucks. The Americans formally apologized in Congress for their slave period. The North sacrificed hundreds of thousands of lives to free them--that was it--period. Now let's move along smartly to today's concerns.

It has to be acknowledged that the American airways carry a greater diversity of social/political thought, and I definitely like that. In Canada we have the taxpayer-supported liberal CBC, and a bunch of their ideological clones, like CTV and the Toronto Star. The socialist indoctrinization of our youth, starting big time with the Trudeau era, has reached its apogee, where any idea--other than the politically correct "right speak"--is taboo. The Americans have their share of this leftist pablum, but there is a raging conservative media backlash to it.

When things go seriously awry socially, the U.S. government acts quickly to tamp it down. They don't aways succeed, but the media vigorously dukes it out on the merits of the solution. In Canada we call for another tax-guzzling commission to "study the problem".

The only people who have a more pompous self-regard for their society are the French. Postulating that the Americans are as good as the French? Unthinkable. I'm sure that I will be asked by some to turn in my maple sugar jar for such heresy. However, two of my father's ancestors were sea captains who left Scotland to be free of the same elitist ideology that now rules this country, so I don't think I will. I think I will just stay here and needle the lefties for their endless inanities. Even with the moronic gun registry, there are still ways to puncture those liberal sacred cows.

Bud Talkinghorn--and you anti-American crowd, you better start cashing in your loonies for real money. If the United States ever dropped Canada as its best trading partner, you wouldn't even be able to afford to visit America, but you could still whine away on this side of the border about Parrish's "bastards".

© Bud Talkinghorn


Iraq's scary future

What you have is a stalemate in the war because the Shi'ites haven't officially entered yet. A Sunday CNN afternoon program featured two former CIA agents. Both concurred that Iran is training thousands of Iraqi Shi'ites for what they see as the final battle for supremacy. The Shi'ites' restraint in the face of monstrous suicide attacks by the Sunni Baathists and the crazy foreign jihadis has been stunning. But their patience is not infinite. It is thought that the Shi'ite intelligence units are planning a future revenge that will be breathtaking in its intensity. Already there have been mass murders of "unknown men" along the Iraqi-Iranian border. Nobody ever claims responsibility but reports suggest they are Sunnis. Both the agents agreed that an immediate withdrawal of the U.S. troops would lead swiftly to a civil war. Where the Kurds would fit in was unknown. Their more permissive brand of Islam is equally suspect by both Sunnis and Shi'Ites. Maybe they will be like the Druze in the Lebanese civil war, where they float between combatants, essentially mercenaries for political concerns.

One does not need to be a CIA agent to safely prophecy about a much larger area war. To the west there are primarily Sunni countries like Syria and Jordan, while to the east, a now-bloated Shi'ite contingent. To muddy the scenario, there is the fanatical Wahhabi state of Saudi Arabia to the south. Ostensibly Sunni, but one that considers all other Sunni sects as being near heretics. All sub-groups are capable of suicide attacks in the name of their branch of Islam. This will allow the hated Israelis to kick off their shoes, crack a beer, and sit back to watch the mutual slaughter of their collective enemies. A delicious irony. Stay tuned.

© Bud Talkinghorn


Time for Conservatives to get off their ideological pot

The Liberal Party is in bunker mode, the NDP is in blackmail mode, and the Bloc Quebecois is in attack mode. So where is the Conservative Party? I suspect that they believe they must kowtow to the totems of the "center". As our flamboyant turncoat, Scott Brison, so elequently put it to Peter McKay: "I was a man who believed in a centralist party, which believed in multiculturalism, bilingualism and tolerance. You don't." Those three qualifiers are what Conservative fear to challenge, no matter how humbly.

However, thanks to recent developments, these shibboleths should all be tackled head-on. England, that faintly-remembered mother country, was a champion of multiculturalism; nevertheless, a poll showed that the vast majority of its Muslim immigrants hate British values. A frighteningly large number either passively, or actively, supported the London bombings. The British are now having a serious re-think of their diversity policy, as are the Dutch, French and Austrians.

The submerged subject of bilingualism must be brought to the surface. How on earth does the party not realize that the francophones have come to dominate the federal discourse? A 1989 survey showed that the government was greatly over-represented by francophones. Now the Liberals have rammed through some legislation that dicatates that all top civil service managers must be bilingual form the git-go. No pretense anymore that anglophone managers could upgrade their linguistic status. Now hopefuls had better be fluently bilingual at the interview. So, almost all unilingual English-speakers--the overwhelming majority of Canadians--are now effectively disenfrancisized from any control of the national agenda. Where is the Supreme Court when we really need them? Sorry, that was a rather weak joke, wasn't it?

Ah, but now we come to the nub. "Tolerance" is the cri de coeur, of the Liberals. That encompasses any trampling of the majority sentiment necessary to advance some leftist agenda. Gay marriage? But of course that is a necessary righting of wrongs. Too many aborigines in prison? Well don't sentence any but the super felons. Appoint more francophone-activists to the Supreme Court? Well why not? [How about train an aboriginal lawyer for the Supreme Court? We already have one law school graduate who sprinted from law school to article in the SCOC. Reference: on this website NJC]

The very idea that these issues have been left off the Conservative election platform infuriates me. Look, get real. You Conservatives are never going to get any Quebec or francophone area support. They support federal government parties that promise, and deliver . . . about 70% of all federal amateur sports grants and other unjust subsidies--asymmetrical federalism / grants--to their region. Think about it, boys, the Party Quebecois elected a young gay cokehead to be their leader. Where do you think you Conservatives fit in? Therefore, my modest proposal is that you concentrate on the anglophone precincts. While the current social milieu stops any open display of resentment, believe me, there is a constituency out there that is as infuriated as I am about the destructive drift in our country. If you identify too much with our ideological opponents, you will end up on the cutting room floor. You showed promise, but were too generic to be a star.

© Bud Talkinghorn


Brian Mulroney--Vulgar, but deserving of some respect

I am no fan of Brian Mulroney nor his Red Tory Party. Then there were his endless Quebec appeasements, which were rewarded by the birth of the Bloc Quebecois Party. Merely hearing that Mulroney line, "I wanted to roll the dice."--meaning to decide the future constitutional rules forever in favour of Quebec. Canada as a gambling chit. So I am not a member of the Mulroney fan club.

That said, the treachery of Newman in recording Mulroney's every midnight conversational ramble is underhanded at best. He could have edited out some parts that were probably the result of too much scotch, but he choice to highlight them. Now we have those tapes being broadcasted by the CBC. The timing of this program is rather well-timed to the up-coming election. Since the strike, the CBC has become even more stridently leftist in their news and documentaries. I realize that seems impossible. You would think that the reality of how few people cared that they were on strike would make them less ideological. Alas no! So long as they singalong to the basic Liberal social tune, they will get their salaries. This Mulroney program will further turn people off not only the man himself, but his political party as well. See the more you can cast cold water on the last Conservative reign's successes, the better this current enfeebled Liberal Party looks. And CBC knows how to listen intently to their master's voice.

Considering the hagiography afforded his Highness Trudeau, you would think that this dissing of Multoney would be verboten. But then CBC never has been good at hiding their ideological stripes.

© Bud Talkinghorn