Yep, just what we all need

It's a mad world.

You gotta hand it to the Frankenstein types, they are very good at cloaking their evil with a plea to help stop suffering of some sort. What is it about the practitioners of progress that they are always working to help stop suffering but seem to create more. Progress my ass!

BBCNews:

Scientists in Newcastle claim to have created human sperm in the laboratory in what they say is a world first.

The researchers believe the work could eventually help men with fertility problems to conceive.

But other experts say they are not convinced that fully developed sperm have been created.

Writing in the journal Stem Cells and Development, the Newcastle team say it will be at least five years before the technique is perfected.

They began with stem cell lines derived from human embryos donated following IVF treatment.

The stem cells had been removed when the embryo was a few days old and were stored in tanks of liquid nitrogen.

Imagine that. Daddy's a freak.

Self-Esteem: the wasted years

Isn't the entire public school curriculum focused on 'advancing' self-esteem? It seems that way. Aside from producing a generation of narcissists, the school system may be wasting their time and should revisit the curriculum. Maybe math, languages, history and science are best?

WinnipegFreePress:

OTTAWA -- So maybe you've been reading all the self-esteem books, chanting the magic phases meant to bolster your self-image -- and you still feel lousy.

You're not alone. So-called self-help books may only help the people who need them least, such as those with high self-esteem, and can be destructive for those who really need help, according to a new study by Canadian experts published Thursday in Psychological Science.

Standing in front of the mirror chanting phrases meant to "empower" yourself -- like the one famously satirized in a Saturday Night Live spoof featuring fictional guru Stuart Smalley: "I'm good enough; I'm strong enough; and, gosh darn it, people like me!" -- can have a negative effect on those with low self-esteem, ironically the very people who tend to buy the self-help books in the first place, experts say.

In their study, psychologists Joanne Wood and John Lee from the University of Waterloo in Ontario, and Elaine Perunovic from the University of New Brunswick, found that individuals with low self-esteem actually felt worse about themselves after repeating positive self-statements such as "I am a lovable person" or "I will succeed," typically found in many self-help books.

During the study, researchers asked a total of 68 participants to repeat the self-help book phrase, "I am a lovable person."

The individuals with low self-esteem reported feeling worse after repeating the positive self-statement than did another low self-esteem group who did not repeat the self-statement, the study found. The participants with high self-esteem felt better after repeating the positive self-statement -- but only slightly.

They found that, paradoxically, low-self-esteem participants' moods fared better when they were allowed to have negative thoughts than when they were asked to focus exclusively on affirmative thoughts.

I don't doubt the research for one moment. Self-confidence builds character while self-esteem builds trouble.

What is a bleeding heart to do now.........

Tyranny - the latch key of the modern liberal

Perhaps it is from reading Mark Levin's book, Tyranny and Liberty, that the 'current' state of the world has me concerned. Or, perhaps it is that I am awake, aware and alert that I am sensitive to reality. Either way, there are some writers who always hit the nail on the proverbial head when describing reality. Reality is different from 'a state of mind' where too many are confined and too many seem unable to escape. That's why I like truth because it helps one escape from a drug infested, or intellectually lazy condition brought about by modern liberalism, political correctness and cowardice.

David Warren is that writer:

[...]
It becomes almost impossible to recover reality, because the tyrants so assiduously tampered with it. "The people" still half-believe the indoctrination; conversely, many of them openly embrace real evils, simply because they appear the opposite of the evils the regime embraced. Confusion reigns. Everything has been demonized; time is required, and the longer operations of nature, to sort what is good from what is bad.

[...]
I remember the outrage of a Czech exile, a generation ago (before the Communists had fallen), receiving an uptight, self-righteous lecture from a shallow Canadian acquaintance. The latter said the enslaved Czechs should be blamed for co-operating with their Communist masters. Why didn't they just refuse to obey orders?

He was speaking to a man who had spent 12 years in labour camps for disobeying orders. Yet that was beside the point. The Canadian was speaking about things beyond his comprehension. My Czech friend, who had turned almost purple from his effort to contain himself, said only: "You are a fool." His Canadian interlocutor walked off, looking even more pleased with himself than usual. This Czech could have said more. I will say it for him.

In contemporary Canada we also face tyranny, but of a sort that we have brought upon ourselves in ways no Czechs, no Persians, ever did. There is no regime in Ottawa that seized power by violence, and imposed the "politically correct" ideology on us from a party manifesto. The advance of this tyranny -- of the Nanny State and all its trappings -- has been accomplished in plain view, by incremental advances, with our co-operation.

In two generations, we have witnessed a transformation, and nearly an inversion, of all the moral and ethical principles that guided us through countless generations before. The "revolution" has been accomplished by such means as George Orwell predicted: by changing the meanings of words.

Most overtly it has been done with "rights language" -- by the construction of new, artificial and quite abstract "group" rights that are anathematic to individual freedom. But beneath this, we have watched court and legislative interventions to redefine such basic ideas as manhood, fatherhood; womanhood, motherhood -- a purposeful destruction of the family in the cause of extending the powers of the state. We have likewise watched the religious order of society being systematically undermined, so that atheism or "irreligion" has become the default position from which the state now issues its ukases.

And we have allowed this and more, through the very laxity that shallow Canadian condemned in Czechs. We have accommodated the new powers, for fear of being isolated and ostracized.
[...]
Tyranny -- dehumanization -- advanced, because men failed to be men, women failed to be women, and both sexes pretended to become "persons" on an analogy more animal than divine. And today, nothing in our country is quite as it appears.

I am a witness to the nonsense that many weakened Canadians espouse. David Warren's Czech example is typical. I hear ignorance stated unchallenged on call-in radio programs. I hear conspiratorial tales, knowing that the opinion holder is not in full control of his own thoughts, and I pity him. Yes, I pity him or her, for I know that they are dumbed.

Let's help stop tyranny here before it is too late.

Québec: Déclin Tranquille

Or, what happens when you completely abandon your cultural values for something akin to rigid secularism.

National Post:

MONTREAL -- The end of June, when the fleur-de-lys is flown from balconies and face-painted on children across Quebec to celebrate the Fête Nationale, is usually a high-spirited time for the Parti Québécois. But after starting the week with an embarrassing byelection loss on nationalist turf, the separatist party reeled from an even worse blow on Thursday when one of its most respected members announced he is quitting politics.

François Legault, a successful entrepreneur who entered politics in 1998 to serve in the Cabinet of then-premier Lucien Bouchard, said he detects little appetite among Quebecers for an audacious project such as the creation of an independent nation. And he warned that Quebec has entered a troubling slide that has it losing ground against other North American states and provinces.

"I leave," he said, "worried for the future of Quebec, worried because I sense that Quebec has begun a déclin tranquille [quiet decline], and this, unfortunately, too often in resignation and indifference." His phrase was a play on the Révolution tranquille, or Quiet Revolution, Quebec's modernizing push of the 1960s.

Quebec's decline may be the proverbial canary in the coal mine, and a warning to the rest of the country where modern liberalism/socialism have infested the country with hopelessness and despair.

Quebec came close to 'remembering' its values when the ADQ came close to replacing the government, but alas, they were crushed by the mainstream elites who wanted nothing to do with anything that made the French fact a force in Canada.

Bye, bye Quebec.

Speechless - Quote of the........

Best quote I've read in weeks, maybe months:

"For as long as I can remember liberals have been running around in a state of indignation, shouting that the government is being taken over by a dangerous band of religious fanatics who want to abolish [free speech], establish a national religion, force their bizarre sexual morality on children in public schools, rewrite the nation's laws to enforce their personal moral preferences, and punish anyone who dissents from their views. Unfortunately it's all true. That's precisely what liberals are trying to do."


link

Start Spreading the Manure.....

Be in this place and be protected by nannystate, the mommy you didn't or couldn't have.

The economic crisis is sooooo bad, the government has to keep pouring on the regulations because they want to known as a "green." Green, the colour of eco-fascists, the colour of barf, the colour of our money being sucked in the direction of government.

CBC news:

New regulations that will ban the use of lawn-care chemicals are being panned by critics on both sides of the issue.

Environment Minister Roland Haché announced on Thursday that the Liberal government had enacted regulatory changes that will prohibit the use and sale of 200 over-the-counter lawn-care pesticides and the pesticide 2, 4-D.

Ellen Snider, a spokeswoman for the Canadian Cancer Society in New Brunswick, said her organization was hoping the province would follow Ontario and make it a complete ban on lawn-care pesticides.

"I wish that the New Brunswick government had made the decision to align more closely with … the desires and wishes of the vast majority of constituents here in New Brunswick, and sadly that didn't happen," Snider said.

There will be some exemptions to the ban for the agriculture and forestry sectors, as well as golf courses.

The pesticide prohibition will take effect in the fall, giving stores enough time to pull the products off their shelves. Companies carrying out lawn-care services using commercial grade pesticides will have to acquire an integrated pest management accreditation by February 2010.

The new accreditation process will require businesses to curtail their "blanket treatment" on problem areas and promote spot treatment. The accreditation will be required when lawn-care companies seek operating permits.

[...]

John Evans, the president of Landscape New Brunswick, said he's unclear what the new regulations will mean for lawn-care companies.

"I would have liked to have seen the government consult with the industry a little more — to have more knowledge on this topic as far as writing regulations go — but for now I think it's been an important step," Evans said.

But David Coon, policy director for the Conservation Council, said he fears more people who have used pesticides on the banned list will turn to professionals to spray them instead.

"Our government blinked in the face of a strong lobby from the lawn-spraying industry to give them the ability to continue to spray pesticides on people's lawns, with the exception of 2, 4-D," Coon said.

I am sick to death of modern liberals and their merry band of eco-fascist. I hope the H1N1 virus gets them all.

I have the best solution for all concerned - buy and spread on your lawns the foulest, dungiest, rotten cow, pig and chicken shit available. It's 100 PERCENT NATURAL.

Who would complain about natural?

They Don't Need No Thought Control

The statists are always at it - pushing their statist utopia and demanding that the taxpayers pay MORE. Ontario statists want parents to send their babies to them. They are hoping to spread their government run family centers across the country - a model they hope will end the hopelessly outdated notion of a man and woman actively caring for their children. Children don't need daydream time, they have to have daycare time - and loads of it. Pity them all - children raised to be humachines - devoid of any childfullness. Thought control - the perfect statist mindset and engineered by sociologists.

Margaret Wente hits back - Globe and Mail:

[...]

But is all-day kindergarten the panacea for all our social ills?

Dalton McGuinty thinks so. Ontario's Premier is so convinced that he has pledged untold amounts of money (from where, he doesn't say) to begin expanding kindergarten to every four- and five-year-old in the province. Ultimately, the idea is to create a “seamless” merger of child care and early childhood education, with elementary schools acting as year-round hubs for children from birth to age 12.

Charles Pascal, the Premier's kindergarten guru, says the scheme is nothing less than “transformational.” More and earlier kindergarten will boost literacy, graduation rates and postsecondary participation while reducing crime, poverty and social inequality. Middle-class parents like it because they think it will give their kids a leg up in life (and be a lot cheaper than day care). Advocates even say all-day kindergarten is essential to equip the province for the rigours of the innovation economy.

Yet, one of the most credible authorities in the field demolishes these claims. James Heckman is a University of Chicago Nobel laureate in economics. He is a strong believer in early intervention, and his work on the subject is routinely cited by Barack Obama's education team. He is also a realist about the evidence. It shows that early childhood education confers no long-term benefit on middle-class kids. Nor, in the form proposed by Mr. McGuinty, does it shrink the gap between the haves and have-nots. “Advocates and supporters of universal preschool often use existing research for purely political purposes,” he warns.

read the rest

Tell me why so many 'older' kids smoke dope, abuse alcohol and use drugs in record numbers? Maybe cause momma and daddy ain't there.........