Bloc MP Elected, Quebec Town Loses Entitlements, Town Whines

An amusing, if not entirely rib-shatteringly funny article in the Globe today about the Quebec town of Trois-Rivieres, and their loss of federal welfare… I mean entitlement… I mean subsidy, because they elected a Bloc M.P.:

MONTREAL — The recent election of a Bloc Quebecois MP may have cost the Quebec town of Trois-Rivieres a $2-million federal subsidy for its 375th anniversary celebrations, Trois-Rivieres Le Nouvelliste has reported.

Radio-Canada quotes sources from the office of Tory MP Christian Paradis, Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s Quebec lieutenant, as saying the Conservative candidate Claude Durand would have had a better chance of netting the subsidy than the current Bloc MP Paule Brunelle.

Radio-Canada reported that a spokesperson for Mr. Paradis confirmed the federal government wouldn’t be granting the subsidy.

On a campaign stop in Trois-Rivieres during the elections, Mr. Harper told Le Nouvelliste that the grant money had already been allocated and that he “was looking forward to working with a Conservative MP.”

Mr. Durand had also promised to get the $2-million subsidy if elected.

Oh, that vile and evil Stephen Harper, plotting and scheming again to keep Canadians from their well-deserved subsidies. Never mind the fact we elected a separatist representative in the Canadian Parliament, because if we don’t get our $2 million blood money to put on celebrations that glorify our nation-province, we’ll stop paying taxes and declare independence tomorrow. We will also fart in your general direction, Canada.

Mr. Levesque added that the Minister of Canadian Heritage James Moore floated the possibility of a $200,000 subsidy.

“They told me: ‘If we give you $200,000, will you be happy, Mr. Mayor?’ So if I’m not happy, will I not get the $200,000?” he said.

This is kind of like a street person scoffing at the loonie you just handed him while he nevertheless slides it into his pocket and proceeds to call you an asshole.

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Social Engineering In Ontario Liquor Laws

It would seem illogical, perhaps, to think that only a few days ago I advocated against selling alcoholic beverages in movie theatres. Wouldn’t that be inconsistent with my libertarian leanings and attempts to control the responsibility of the population? Well, yes and no. I also support liquor laws when they pertain to impaired driving, since it’s also my neck on the line out there when people can’t drink and decide not to take public transit home. Similarly with movie theatres, the enjoyment of everybody can be ruined by a single person who isn’t being “responsible”. But the odious price-fixing of Ontario’s beer laws being based on some kind of ridiculous social engineering formula to ensure we don’t assist alcoholism, is an insult:

The Ontario government last month quietly hiked the minimum price that can be charged for beer, to $25.60 from $24 for a case of 24 bottles.

That 6.7 per cent increase in the floor price of a case, bottle deposit excluded, has nothing to do with supply-and-demand, production costs, overhead or distribution expenses.

Instead, the Liquor Control Board of Ontario sets minimum prices as part of its “social responsibility” mandate established in 1993. Translation: If alcohol is too cheap, you may abuse it.

It isn’t just the idea that because we have a social responsibility to alcoholics, that we should all pay more to deter abuse, nor the clearly interrupted logic of that concept. Nor is it that I care whether people in Ontario have to pay a few cents more on the bottle for a 2-4, since I can recall on one hand how many times I’ve required that many bottles for consumption. But that the government has any hand in price regulation whatsoever is an absolute affront to the free market system, controlled “substance” or not. Worse yet, it appears that this wasn’t some ridiculous Provincial LCBO decision made by some back room lackey with too much time and not enough work on his hands. It would appear this choice morsel has come directly from the Ministry of Finance itself.

“The Ministry of Finance recommends an increase to the minimum retail price for beer effective November 24, 2008,” says a memo distributed to board members for their Oct. 15 meeting in Toronto.

Then these LCBO phonies attempt to pass it off as an inflationary adjustment, as though that makes more sense than the Ministry of Finance looking for pennies to increase revenue trickles. But if that’s what it is, come out and say it. Don’t pass it off as altruistic formulas for “responsibility” or stuff about inflationary adjustment after gasoline just tanked and transport costs have been more than halved.

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$500 Later, I’m Back

My previous post was nothing if not prophetic. I knew my computer was going to die, and die it did. A miserable and agonizing death. When a friend did the autopsy and forensic analysis, it was determined that a virus had destroyed or infected 208 different programs or files. That’s got to be some kind of nasty trojan. Not only did it infect my computer under the watchful eye of Avira, it destroyed Avira itself by corrupting the executable and then infected Explorer.exe as well. I spent the last few days looking for a new computer under the advice of readers who had expounded at length on the subject before [and thanks for that].

Today I finally decided to buy the computer, and on the worst day possible. The snow has been falling steadily since yesterday evening and today the driving was possibly as bad as I’ve ever seen. How I got my two-wheel drive Saturn to downtown and back is quite possibly the most incredible feat of driving ever witnessed. But in order to qualify that remark, it was quite possibly also the most impressive act of hubristic stupidity as well. I should have been nailed by that black SUV on the first block. I can’t understand why, but Vancouverites simply don’t believe that snow plows or shoveling is important. That, or they’re just bewildered by this soppy white stuff and are collectively hoping it will eventually go away [which it will].

For the computer experts out there, I got an Acer E2180 dual core processor with 2GB of DDR2 RAM, 320 GB Hard drive, 9-in-1 card reader, and 4 USB ports not including 2 in the front, and Vista and McAphee loaded on for $399. I picked up the Acer 19″ LCD monitor for an extra $100, bringing the grand total to $500, not including the environmental fee for when this computer becomes an obsolete piece of junk in a landfill in mainland China five years from now. I didn’t go with the Mac, first because they’re too expensive, and second because… they’re too expensive. As a middling income earner my discretionary spending was quite literally stretched to the limit here. Thank goodness I’ve been public transiting it lately.

At any rate, now you know why and where I’ve been away. Blogging bloggers in bloggerland stuff to follow. In the meanwhile, why not check out the white insanity that Ontario has donated to B.C. this year:

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