Barrel Strength

This morning I believe I have found a worthy successor to Linda McQuaig’s mantle as Canada’s weedy and not very bright leftist. Marci McDonald, who has just scribbled the tome The Armageddon Factor: The Rise of Christian Nationalism in Canada, regaled listeners with a conspiracy theory marked by the same depth of research as those who are convinced the moon landings were faked by NASA.

Am I exaggerating? Consider these cubic zirconia-like gems of wisdom:

How was Stephen Harper transformed into a millenialist Protestant fundamentalist? Preston Manning encouraged him to read C.S. Lewis and Malcolm Muggeridge.

• Obviously reading the contemplations of Anglo Catholics is the gateway drug to eschatological fanaticism. And Khalil Gibran’s “The Prophet” will set you on the path to jihadism.

Christian activists look to the growth of the Fraser Institute as a model for research and advocacy. But the media no longer calls the Fraser Institute “extreme right-wing”.  So Christian activists are working under stealth.

• Because it is inconceivable that the Fraser Institute could have somehow developed a reputation for policy analysis over the course of years. And only Marci McDonald has remained immune to Michael Fraser’s use of The Voice as taught to him by the Bene Gesserit Order.

The naming of Canada can be attributed to fundamentalist biblical prophecy.

• The Dominion of Canada and the motto “A mari usque ad mare? The work of notorious end-of-days advocate Sir Samuel Leonard Tiley. Or maybe not quite .

Clearly “The Current” is degenerating into the “Coast to Coast AM” for the brie and chardonnay set.

UPDATE

The audio is now available.

AND MORE

If McDonald can’t convince a jazz-loving cosmopolitan journo like Paul Wells, then there is a small ray of hope for the chattering classes.

A guy who has never run a business in his life is now giving financial advice.  What is this world coming to?

President Obama had just flown into Hampton, Va., Sunday morning to deliver a commencement address. But before he donned his silky academic robes, he was on the phone with Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany, offering urgent advice — and some not so subtle prodding — that Europe needed to try something big.

Weeks of hesitant half-steps to address Greece’s debt problems had only worsened market worries about the euro, and were threatening the still-fragile economic recoveries in the United States and Asia. Now, Mr. Obama told Mrs. Merkel that the Europeans needed an overwhelming financial rescue to end speculation that the euro — and European unity — could crumble.

“He was trying to convey that he knew these were politically difficult steps that the leaders there had to take, that he had gone through them as well,” said one senior administration official familiar with the conversation. “And that, from his experience, trying to get out ahead as much as possible was the right way to go.”

While on the topic of stimulus, how did that US stimulus turn out?

The recovery is picking up steam as employers boost payrolls, but economists think the government’s stimulus package and jobs bill had little to do with the rebound, according to a survey released Monday.

In latest quarterly survey by the National Association for Business Economics, the index that measures employment showed job growth for the first time in two years — but a majority of respondents felt the fiscal stimulus had no impact.

Thank you O!

Let us assume, as it is safe to do, that Mark Steyn is correct about everything, particularly British Tory leader David Cameron . The British Tory leader is therefore a trimming weasel of leftist tendencies, who has abandoned the conservatives of Britain for some fluff and twaddle that cannot be made to work. If he comes to power with the Liberal Democrats, says Steyn, the Conservative Party will be in office but will not hold power. But would you want the Conservatives to come to office in Britain without the ability or will to handle its burgeoning debt, its uncontrolled immigration, its festering underclass, its creeping suppression of Christianity and common sense, without the will, vision, and leadership to tackle the problems? Would you want the Conservatives to hold office at the price of proportional representation, which would make the Lib-Dems kingmakers in perpetuity?

If you believe, as I do, that Britain is heading for an existential crisis, would it not be better for a Labour/Lib-Dem alliance to be holding the can for the oncoming disaster?

The Telegraph reports that the Lib-Dems and Labour are now in negotiation to form the next government.

I wish them success. They deserve each other. And it gives the Tories time to change leaders or for its leader to change his ideas.

Robert Samuelson has some sage observations in Real Clear Politics today about why Greece may be the first but not the last to implode.

“But the central cause is not the euro, even if it has meant Greece can’t depreciate its own currency to ease the economic pain. Budget deficits and debt are the real problems; and these stem from all the welfare benefits (unemployment insurance, old-age assistance, health insurance) provided by modern governments.”

A financially-oriented blog at Recovery Partners, a firm which specializes in dealing with sovereign countries that have gone off the rails, discusses this further.