So much for the “most honest, most open, most ethical congress in history.”

YouTube: Democrats doing business as usual

Canada will be among the first countries in the world to ban the purchase of traditional light bulbs as part of the government’s plan to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions.

The government’s announcement yesterday follows the lead of Australia and Ontario and will take effect in 2012. Canadian retailers will be required to stock more efficient light bulbs such as compact fluorescents and halogen bulbs.

The best part:

“I see it as an end-run around the United Nations system,” Beatrice Olivastri of Friends of the Earth Canada said. “Anything that is a U.S.-related program is clearly outside of Kyoto, so that to me is very worrisome.”

The Globe and Mail: Canada to ban traditional light bulbs

Some food for thought, should Senator Hillary Clinton be elected the next President of the United States and serves two terms:

• In 2016 it will have been 40 years since the Democrats had won the presidency without running a Clinton—and 32 years since the Republicans had won without a Bush.
• It will have been seven consecutive terms with a graduate of Yale University in the White Houe
• The Republican Party will have gone 88 years (!!) since winning without someone named Bush or Nixon on some part of the ticket (President or Vice-President)

The Corner on National Review Online: Dynasties

Democrats in Michigan, in the middle of working on a crisis budget plan due to the billion dollar state deficit, have added language to “invest” in education by purchasing, with tax money, a MP3 player or iPod for every school child.

Detroit News: An iPod for every kid? Are they !#$!ing idiots?

Just three days ago there was the story in the Evening Standard about George Orwell’s home being surrounded by CCTV cameras. Now come this from the BBC:

“Talking” CCTV cameras that tell off people dropping litter or committing anti-social behaviour are to be extended to 20 areas across England.
They are already used in Middlesbrough where people seen misbehaving can be told to stop via a loudspeaker, controlled by control centre staff.

There is even this creepy ‘montage’ to show how it works:

The British are aware that 1984 was a warning, not a how-to, right?

BBC: ‘Talking’ CCTV scolds offenders

A memo for the [House Armed Services Committee] staff, circulated March 27, says the 2008 [defense budget] and its accompanying explanatory report that will set defense policy should be specific about military operations and “avoid using colloquialisms.” The “global war on terror,” a phrase first used by President Bush shortly after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the U.S., should not be used, according to the memo. Also banned is the phrase the “long war,” which military officials began using last year as a way of acknowledging that military operations against terrorist states and organizations would not be wrapped up in a few years.

Committee aides, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said dropping or reducing references to the global war on terror could have many purposes, including an effort to be more precise about military operations, but also has a political element involving a disagreement over whether the war in Iraq is part of the effort to combat terrorism or is actually a distraction from fighting terrorists.

I’ve never been a big fan of the phrase “Global War on Terror” because I’ve never thought we were at war with terrorism, but rather terrorism was the tactic of the people we are at war with. (I am hardly the first to make this point.) This said, it is a useful phrase because it at least recognizes that we are at war.

This move by House Democrats is indicative of what is to come, should a Democrat take the White House in ‘08. During a primary debate in 2004 John Kerry described the war on terror as “occasionally military” and said that it is “primarily an intelligence and law enforcement operation.” Richard Holbrooke, Kerry’s would be secretary of state, told the New York Times that “The war on terror is like saying ‘the war on poverty.’ It’s just a metaphor.”

And as these “metaphors” are inconvenient for Democrats, they must be gotten rid of.

Military Times: No more GWOT, House committee decrees

Within 200 yards of George Orwell’s London home (27B Canonbury Square in Islington, North London) there are 32 CCTV cameras.

Britain has a staggering 4.2million CCTV cameras - one for every 14 people in the country - and 20 per cent of cameras globally. It has been calculated that each person is caught on camera an average of 300 times daily.

Only off by about twenty years, George.

Evening Standard: George Orwell, Big Brother is watching your house