Guidance misses the point, so does the UK Government.

Whatever Ed Balls is up to in the UK, it is laughable. His latest stunt, launching an anti-homophobia guidance for schools drawn up by gay rights group Stonewall, disheartens me as I see relevance and common sense sink deeper in the British Government's priority list.

Set the record straight, homophobia is as evil as racism, it is a despicable form of discrimination and I share some of Stonewall's concerns, such as the use of the word "gay" as a negative attribute or to say that something is not up to par. However the group's advocacy of active homosexual lifestyle promotion in the school environment for children as young as FOUR is not something I will stand by. Kids four years old should be taught to read, write and count, especially when many secondary school leavers, statistics at hand, do not fare well in literacy and numeracy according to both international league tables and government targets. Now that's what I call below par.

Stonewall misses the point. Kids should be taught respect for others. It all begins with respect and the ability to see beyond the apparent differences that might pull us apart. The befuddlement over two mums, two dads or a gay character in a book are not tackled by the teacher rambling on about how good that is or, let alone, discuss feelings and TEACHERS" PERSONAL LIVES.

Schools are not places for teachers to discuss their personal lives with their pupils. When did that become accepted as the norm?

Ed Balls, as the whole secondary education system in Britain, has lost its focus. I cannot help, I have to quote Maggie in 1986, whose message rings as loudly and clearly as it did then:

"Education of all levels (teachers, training colleges, administrators) has been infiltrated by a permissive philosophy of self-expression, and we are now reaping the consequences that for some children have been disastrous".

The best education against discrimination and bullying is respect. Teachers answering "So what?" when pupils ask about why a character in a book is gay, placing them before the hollowness of homophobic arguments, allowing pupils to realize themselves how discrimination is unjustified and how differences in aspects as sexual orientation do not matter in the way we relate to other people, teachers, parents, peers and fictional characters.

Just yesterday I was telling a very good friend why I wanted to move away from the UK. I would like to add one point: the UK system currently makes one loathe oneself for not being distinguishable into a minority. A system is in place whereby the social fabric, built upon the common aims and values of a nation is being ripped apart by this focus on individual narcissism, a hedonism that thrives on differences and divisions, and a Government that aims to regress human reasoning back to the fear of punishment rather than the benefit of cooperation and respect.

Punishment and making people hate themselves achieves only social instability. Less and less emphasis is placed on stimuli for cooperative behavior and respect. The whole notion of respect is being degraded from a high moral value to an attitude that avoids you being punished. This does nothing for the cause of integration and equality.

What supreme folly!

Plot to behead a British soldier foiled!

More evidence of Britain breeding violent terrorists at home and complacency, silence or, at worst, collusion within the Islamic community. The fact that a plot to kidnap and behead a British soldier was being prepared in Birmingham is distressing. The silence of those in the know is alarming.

I'll say no more. Good citizens report conspiracies to the police. Good citizens don't suspect of any neighbor, but they do keep an eye out for things that can cause death and damage. No excuse for silence, it's complicity! Good they're being prosecuted.

Would you like a McDiploma with that?

Even nuts would say that's nuts!

Now one will be able to gain an equivalent of an A-level in "basic shift management" or similar, awarded by none else that McDonalds. Mind you (for those who aren't familiar with the system) that A-levels are the qualifications you achieve when you are 18, i.e. the ones that end your secondary education. Although I doubt these McGraduates will use this qualification to get into university, it still puzzles me as to who would actually do it. A-levels currently offer very valuable technical skills (aside from the classical academic subjects) that can be employed in a variety of fields. This addition is not something I approve of.

In all honesty, academic qualifications are for academic purposes. The skills taught by this new Mc-Level can be learned through an apprenticeship, which it ultimately is. But an apprenticeship has to be subject to rules of employment, it is much easier for a company to get paid and not have to hand out a job at the end of it. Bring back the apprenticeship and give academic qualifications their credibility back!

Italy without a government, again!

A minuscule party, which through coalition blackmailing obtained far more Senate seats than it deserved (three instead of none) has just brought down the Italian government. Whatever happens in the coming weeks and months is ground for speculation and betting.

Elections would see new party arrangements, and a possible absence of a coalition between democrats and leftists. Proportional representation at its worst will still rule the parliament. A transitional government will not be able to make any reforms because no-one can afford to lose their small allies in passing a decent electoral law, liberalizations are unpopular with everyone except consumers, who are the last ones the political caste cares about, and decisionmaking is synonymous with political suicide.

I have frequently criticized Prodi's government, and my opinion does not change. It was a concoction of incompatible ideologies that ensured few of the many things to do were done. It takes courage to eradicate the factionalization of politics, to make the bold moves the country needs to enter the 21st century and turn Italy into a powerhouse again as it deserves to be.

This is also the result of proportional representation: carelessness, factionalization, politicization of everything, blackmailing and instability. MMP proponents take careful note.

McGuinty's protectionism

I cannot understand Dalton McGuinty's politics. Honestly. His proposal to slap an additional duty on Korean cars makes as much sense as eating cabbage for breakfast. Unless you're nuts that is!

If Ontario were a nation of its own a higher duty might make some sense in the short term, although helping domestic industries with subsidies and barriers just serves to prolong their inevitable agony. As the G&M says, though, one would be able to buy a car in Quebec and Manitoba as easily. Unless my understanding of Canadian regulations is at absolute zero, there's no barrier to consumers doing this.

McGuinty would force consumers to go buy cars in other provinces, damage car dealers, and generally bring the manufacturing inductry elsewhere (what's the use manufacturing in a province where less people shop for cars anyway?). OK, there's other makes one can buy, but the point is that more business will move to the neighboring provinces, carmakers in Ontario won't have a victory to celebrate, relations with South Korea would be damaged and McGuinty will look like a fool. Protectionism is never the answer!

Ontario doesn't need to frighten business away from its borders, this is the time to encourage it, encourage failing manufacturers to sell their plants to more successful ones or to foreigners. Offset the wage difference with tax credits. And instead of spending money subsidizing provincial manufacturers invest in out-of-province buyers of Ontario cars by offering rebates on federal taxes if this is permitted. I'd never expect a Liberal to restrain spending, so I'd rather advocate spending it on someone more useful, i.e. the consumer.

If a sector is struggling people are not liking the produce or someone can do it better and cheaper. Wisdom has it that if you are riding a dead horse, you should dismount. Rather than waiting for the carmaking sector to collapse completely McGuinty should draw up a plan for incentivating job changes, re-training and re-adsorbing the workforce that will be displaced from closing plants and sales to other makers. After all, Korean cars rock!

Screw the global, my backyard needs care!

Came across this interesting commentary by Richard Black of the BBC. His suggestions, thankfully merely a proposition, miss the point of giving power back to the people. He correctly identifies the current decisionmaking process as the main cause of stasis in climate change talks (and by default in most international decisionmaking frameworks), but the proposed alternatives are just as bad.

A global referendum? First of all, a lot of the world's population can't even read! Not so long ago a referendum in Kenya had to have the voting options not in the classic "yes/no" format but "orange/banana". Even if we were to overcome this hurdle, the broad range of issues involving climate will inevitably warrant a very long and exhaustive list of questions with multiple answers, yielding a leviathanic ballot paper (or booklet, which is apter).

Secondly, sound voting systems are in place in a minority of nations, while in a large proportion of the world people might never have heard of the right to vote. Any such referendum would be prone to falsification, misinformation, voters' unawareness of the value of their vote, ballot box stuffing and a chronic infrastructure deficiency.

Thirdly, the power to decide and administer should be in the hands of those concerned directly by the specific problem. Globalizing the debate just waters down the real, local, relevant solutions to a mishmash of incoherent policymaking, sandwiched between a lavish brunch and a black tie post-conference dinner enjoyed, as Black rightly puts it, by dogs who can't agree on how or whether to share a bone.

An answer to the climate change debate will come when the big talking shops are disbanded and governments allow market forces take control. Black's disdain for self-interest and business-as-usual is unjustified. Global conserns are not made on-the-spot but are an ocean of local wants and needs. Although it is true that a CO2 particle can originate anywhere, it still has to be emitted, and it is thus a dumping of waste into a valuable asset as the local environment is.

Let local citizens own their environment through property rights. Let them be able to decide how much to charge for dumping waste into their air, soil and rivers. Those who have a clean environment and wouldn't mind some industry will charge less, while Beijingers would most probably vote en masse to charge more, considering their smog problems. Result: cheaper emissions and more industry in Africa and cost increases in China.

Governments and international organizations fear property and the free market because these essentials of progress undermine their very existence. Black argues for global citizen involvement, but fails to identify the principal worry of every human being: his backyard.

Let us tend to our own backyards and the world will be fixed.

Pledge allegiance or get out!

Some wisdom from Canadian courts, which have decreed that Canadian military staff must pledge allegiance to Her Majesty, no exceptions. I am fed up with people thinking the world is a cafeteria where you can pick whatever you like and leave the rest, with governments and employers being merely your servers. Whatever your views, if you are in the military HM is your Commander-in-Chief and Head of State. There's no "personal views" in the military, for pete's sake! Again: follow the rules or get out!

Repeat after me:

I, Aralt Mac Giolla Chainnigh, do Solemnly swear that I will be faithful and bear true allegiance to Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth the Second, Queen of Canada, Her Heirs and Successors according to law, forever. So help me God.

See, wasn't so difficult, was it?

Provincialism and mediocrity

Watch any edition of most Italian TV news and you’ll be flooded with petty squabbles between irrelevant individuals who insist they are important, rubbish reporting on absolutely boring topics; you will also notice a prominent overshadowing of events of major international importance by comments uttered by the most insignificant national party leaders. Italy is rarely stimulated to look outside its shell, so it is not surprising that Rome’s La Sapienza University, when deciding on the name of the guest speaker at the academic year inauguration, looked no further than their own backyard: the Vatican.

The decision to invite the Pope to speak at the opening of the academic year sparked protests by scholars and students alike (but the latter protest anything they aren’t too lazy to protest against). After seeing the stink he caused, the Pope wisely cancelled his visit.

Was this controversy about the secularity of science or the independence of Church and State? Was this another chapter of the catholics versus secularists saga in Italy, a major dispute that distracts everyone from the reality that the country is going to the dogs? In my opinion this sad drama is nothing but an indictment of the university authorities. They wanted to invite a person with power, prestige and respect. Why not a Nobel Prize winner? Why not an international leader? Why not a prominent United Nations official, or think-tank head, CEO, philosopher, economist?

Said shortly, I think any person with true international prestige would have underlined, in words or indirectly, the failure of the Italian system. Steve Jobs by his mere presence would have shown success stories like his are impossible in a system fraught with nepotism, favors and discrimination, while any Nobel prize winner would be obliged to describe education and research systems and mentalities that Italy can never outdo. And any think-tank head would be obliged to underline the necessary painful reforms Italy needs and nobody wants to carry out because of opposition by trade unions, minor political parties and special interest groups.

La Sapienza just looked for the lowest common denominator, someone who wouldn’t kick up too much of a fuss on the issues that really matter. Somebody who wouldn’t be THAT challenging or THAT inspiring. Inviting the Pope wasn’t just an offence to scholars and scientists. It was an offence to the Pope first and foremost, to what the Church stands for, its history and values.

Just another show of mediocre provincialism.

Besides, if my knowledge of Italian universities doesn’t fail me, I doubt the big professors would have been able to draft an invitation letter in basic English.

Torify it slow

A very very special mention for my friend Tim Mak, who wrote a striking comment in the McGill Tribune outlining the case for incrementalist conservatism over the radical folk who want torification, want it all and want it now. He said it so well I barely have anything to add on the topic. :)

But let me drift off and ramble: incrementalism IS conservatism, provided we accept the inevitability of change.

Whatever the color of your Tory inner self (corollary: there's a bit of Tory in everyone) conservatism has always been an ideology without a utopia, for we do not idealize human charity, human reason or human selflessness. Tories treasure people's right to do as they please within the limits of the law, fully recognizing that individual self-interest is not a deterministic quantity. Since we can't quantify the interest of a whole nation (but merely gauge it through elections) a government cannot impose courses of action or aims but merely steer the system in the direction of greater freedom and smaller government when the opportunity arises or the people want it. Many governments run out of steam because they fulfil all their promises by making sweeping reforms and then lounge around asking themselves "Now what?". Incrementalist conservatism yields governments that can be eternal, because they act wisely when the time is ripe, not when the election and propaganda schedule imposes it.

We have all seen how bad revolutionary conservatism can be when it is applied in a country that depended on centralization and dish-outs completely: Russia. Torify now and you torify a country. Torify one mind and one bit at a time and you'll torify a nation.

One king, two kings... Where's the third?

Since yesterday it was Epiphany, I wondered whether I could come up with three good gifts that have been brought to the cause of conservatism since the beginning of the year 2008. There might have been many, but I'd like to focus on two good facts and a hope for a third in the coming.

First off, Canadian conservatism scored a tremendous goal with the GST reduction. While one per cent less tax seems not much of a gift, it reduces government GST income by 15%, and gives every Canadian more money to spend as they please. Guard the pennies and the dollars will come by themselves.

Secondly, in Britain the Conservative Party received a Liberal Democrat defector. Faraz Bhatti, a Manchester city council member, switched to the Tories claiming the Party was the only one that could bring real change. The Tories now have their first Councillor in Manchester in decades. Score one for the Tories, their policies and their voice.

The third hope didn't materialize. I hoped Iowa Republicans would choose a conservative who didn't place an enormous emphasis on faith and abortion. Mike Huckabee is not what America needs if it is to stay true to real conservatism. The results of the Democratic primary propelled ultra-spender Obama to sky-high point leads. If he wins the nomination and the presidential election, after four years of his spending inflation maybe Republicans will wake up to the fact that the most powerful nation in the world can't decide its destiny based solely on religious faith or strictly personal beliefs. Hopefully NH will be wiser.

The third wise king got stuck on his way.