Auto bailouts won’t be repaid in full

"Auto bailouts won’t be repaid in full"

I will summarize my thoughts on this article with my favourite featured comment from the Globe's comment section:

We, the taxpayers, are not fans of poor business practice combined with massive government bailouts.

Bombardier Karl Manning

I have a real problem with this article:

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"Manning, 31, died in what the military describes as a "non-hostile" "non-accident" incident, which is code for he likely took his own life.

...Whether it was a deliberate or inadvertent gesture, it said much about how the military's "go get'em" culture struggles to deal with suicide."

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Firstly, the military's vagueness about the circumstances surrounding this proud soldier's passing does not describe how a 'go get 'em' culture deals with suicide; rather it describes the military's respect for a fallen comrade, their family and their friends. Discussing the suicide of a relative is still a very difficult thing for many families to deal with, particularly due to the anguish of knowing a loved one was in so much distress, but also because of the unfortunate stigma that still surrounds mental illness. Out of every biological disease, psychiatric illness is certainly the least understood by the public and also gains the least sympathy. No one tells a person with coronary artery disease to 'suck it up' or that 'they're just in a rut', and yet the biological basis of mental illness is just as concrete.

So in this set of circumstances, it is not at all surprising that the military would wish to say as little as possible in order to respect the privacy of a grieving family. Unfortunately, the journalist who penned this article decided to defecate all over this tactful approach and announce to the world what really happened, you guys.

Don't misunderstand my point here; PTSD, depression and suicide are all issues that the military has been miserable at dealing with; partly due to the military culture, yes; but also because it's actually not easy to tell who is silently suffering. You may not have noticed, but people are really good at hiding the severity of their illness and I'm willing to bet that there are those reading this who have lost loved ones to suicide and would wholeheartedly acknowledge this to be true. It must also be recognized that the general population is hardly any better at figuring out who is at risk for suicide, let alone providing this population with proper support and understanding.

Let me make myself further clear. This is definitely something that we need to talk about - from 'shell shock', 'combat fatigue', to PTSD, we have known about and described how battle affects soldiers for over a century - but we still have not learned how to properly deal with it. I am not saying we don't need articles drawing attention to the problem (we do) and I am most certainly not saying that we should just shut up and not talk about it. What I am saying is that journalists might have a little more tact and consideration for grieving families in the short term, a lot less less condemnation for a military that does, and a tone that is more constructive than condemning.

Rest easy, Bombardier Manning,

Layton gets it Bass-Ackwards

As usual.

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"Take away public financing and essentially what you are saying is those with the best ability to raise money get to have their ideas heard by Canadians and the rest are essentially silenced. I don't think that's helpful for a democratic society."

-Jack Layton

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I will never cease to be amazed at the inability of socialists to understand the marketplace and the concept of putting your money where your mouth is.

I would beg to differ with Layton here. Quite frankly, I think he has it completely backwards; it's not the parties with the most money that get their ideas out, it's the parties that get their ideas out - mind you, good ideas that like-minded people believe in and want to get behind - that end up raising the most money. This truth is best demonstrated by observing the current party fundraising statistics; the Tories benefit from large numbers of small-denomination donors, each of whom believes strongly enough in Conservative policy to vote with their chequebook. In contrast, the Liberals often relied on large corporate donations and never quite got over Chretien's changing of party fundraising laws. As a result, they suffer from a dearth of donations from private citizens and even now, years later, they still have not been able to persuade their supporters to send in a cheque every now-and-then. The same can essentially be said for the NDP, albeit to a lesser extent (and with Big Labour, not Bay Street as the primary donors).

If you believe that the NDP or the Liberals or the Greens have the best ideas, and you believe in those ideas, then put your money where your mouth is and write them a cheque. I am consistently surprised by those friends of mine who are outraged at the elimination of this subsidy, and yet have never once donated to (or even volunteered with) the party they support. They hate Harper, yet they can't be bothered to make a ten dollar donation to the Dippers or Grits to help them remove him from office. At the risk of making a sweeping generalization here, it's pretty typical of the socialist mindset - here's what I want to do: now somebody else step up and pay for it.

Days In Office:

Here's to 1,460 more.

OSAMA BIN LADEN IS DEAD

CNN is reporting that Osama Bin Laden has been killed in Afghanistan and that the USA has his body.

We told you: you can run, but you can't hide.