I’m shocked!  Is freedom making a comeback in Canada?  Does this mean we might not have to liberate them after we get done with the Mid-East?  I know–I’m getting way ahead of things here.  They still officially have their gun registration scheme and they haven’t actually reversed their downward spiral into the abyss of the most failed political system of all time, but they did have an important court ruling that may cause some serious ripples in the fabric of the ‘reality’ of socialists in both Canada and this country.  The socialists know it and even say it out loud.  Here’s the story:

In the decision of Chaoulli v. Quebec (Attorney General) that was handed down on Thursday by the Supreme Court of Canada, the court found that Quebec laws that prohibit the purchase of insurance to cover private medical treatment violated the Quebec Charter and the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

The majority of the court found that waiting times in the public system violated the Quebec Charter of Rights. While it was not necessary to decide, three of the justices found that the Quebec law violates section 7 of the Canadian Charter of Rights that guarantees the right to life, liberty and security of the person. The court held that delays in the public health system led to prolonged pain and suffering, deteriorating medical conditions and in some cases, death. In coming to this conclusion in what will inevitably be to the dismay of those on the political left, the Supreme Court followed its 1998 decision in R. v. Morgentaler that held that delays encountered by women seeking abortions breached section 7 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

The interesting aspect of the Chaoulli decision, and the one that most deviated from what politicians of all political parties have been spewing for years was the finding that this breach of a charter right was not reasonable. The court found that while the preservation of a publicly funded health care system was a substantive and legitimate government objective, the outright ban on private health care insurance had no rational connection to saving the public system and went further than was necessary to meet that objective. In the majority’s opinion, the government of Quebec failed to show that allowing Quebeckers to purchase insurance for private health care would destroy Canada’s public health care system. In reaching this conclusion the court examined other countries in the OECD such as Sweden and the U.K. that have strong public health care systems despite allowing private parallel health care services.

This finding is at odds with what the politicians have been saying for years; that not only will allowing private medical services destroy our health care system; it will destroy Canada as we know it. The entire fabric of our society will disappear. We are constantly being told that our health care system is what defines us as a country. Allow someone to actually pay for what is now a public service and we will be no different than the United States.

From The Salt Lake Tribune:

 A state legislator is setting up free concealed weapon classes for policy-makers and their families this summer, while at the same time formulating a proposal to make it easier for Utahns to secretly carry a firearm.
    Clearfield Republican Rep. Curtis Oda says the sessions are aimed at educating lawmakers and debunking gun-control advocates’ criticism of Utah’s gun laws.
    The first two students were Gov. Jon Huntsman Jr. and Lt. Gov. Gary Herbert. Since then, 12 legislators and eight other elected officials have taken the free gun-handling classes. And Oda has another 25 legislators interested, with the next class scheduled for July.

The reporter is biased (notice the use of the word “secretly“ instead of the more common “concealed“ and the picture of the legislator is terrible) against gun ownership but still our side is on the offensive and making progress.  And of course it’s always pleasant to hear the other side whine:

    Gun Violence Prevention Center of Utah board member Maura Carabello calls Oda’s classes “exposure lobbying” that gets around Utah’s lobbyist disclosure laws but still persuades lawmakers to be sympathetic to his cause.
    “I object to this being framed as merely educational, with no larger political intent,” Carabello said. “This is not government responding to the public. This is a special interest trying to affect lawmakers.”

…

     But Carabello says the free classes don’t pass the proverbial “smell test.” Oda’s classes, she says, are a subtle form of lobbying for looser laws – something Utah doesn’t need.

Since my posting nearly a week ago there has been speculation I was fired because of my blog or it’s content.  Technically I’m sure that is not true or at least it is a very small component of the official internal record.  The blog was used to find sufficient cause to investigate other things.  At least one item was ultimately found, which I knew was wrong when I did it and admitted to it when asked about it, which was sufficient cause according to company policy to terminate my employment .  That item was allowing my wife and daughter to browse the web using the company laptop.  I suspect there were other things which they believed to be wrong, but in fact were not, which were also used to justify their actions.  I probably will never know because they did not and probably will not ever allow those items to be examined and refuted.  But it doesn’t matter because it only takes one step “over the line“.

A full report from my viewpoint, about what happened, the lessons learned, and how you can protect yourself will probably be released sometime next week.  Please keep your speculation to a minimum until then.

I absolutely love Neanderpundit’s post on Great Americans (Thomas Edison and Henry Ford).  Dearborn Michigan is now on my list of places I must visit.

I just got a call from [deleted–for reasons of security].  They are going to do a phone interview with me at 13:00 today.

Update: It seemed to go well for the most part.  The worst of it was I had not used some of the programming language they were interested in such as SmallTalk and Visual Basic and of course they asked why I was leaving my previous job.  I was blunt–“I was fired“.  That was early in the interview and I did well on all the rest of it.

Barb’s brother has a son, Jason Scott who is in Iraq now.  He was trained as a tank commander but they are doing patrols in Humvee north of Bagdad.  I’d much rather he was in his tank than a Humvee but you do the job you have to do. 

It’s kind of a local-people/human-interest story.  It’s nice to hear about him and hear his voice.

They did an “investigation” starting with my web site Boomershoot.org, then this blog and other web sites of mine, asked me a few questions along the way, suspended me without pay effective May 30th, then announced the results of their “investigation” yesterday–”You are being terminated.”  When I asked for the details of what I did wrong or an opportunity to dispute the findings of their “investigation“ I was told, “That discussion wouldn’t be productive.“

I turned down a job in Moscow just two weeks ago and now they have hired someone else.

Most annoying.

I got email from Crystal, the ATF investigator, yesterday.  Even though the locks I used on the magazines were approved years ago without “hoods” by a different ATF person there is now some question about that approval.  I could apply for a variance or I just just put the hoods on.  I think I’ll go with the hoods.  I suggested that since the magazines are empty now I could just wait until later in the summer when the ground is dry enough to drive out there with a portable welder in the back of the van and Crystal agreed.  I’ll send her pictures when the work is done and if she needs to inspect things again she can probably visit without me being there.

My thought is that if there is ever a loss of material and the lock was breached I would be at greater risk if I went the paperwork route rather than the mechanical route.  And besides, it isn’t all that much work anyway.

I corresponded some with Kim Griffis at KING5 Evening Magazine who did the Boomershoot story for them (complete video is here).  As of May 19th they had zero negative responses to the story.  And that was despite having numbers that were “very high“.  She speculates it was because people saw what a great shot she was and were too afraid to complain.  🙂

Here is a picture of the cameraman, Kim, her detonated target, me, and Ry:

Picture by Jason

Xenia’s comments on it are here.  Xenia got four hits, I was just hit once.  No, I didn’t “return fire”.  Colleen didn’t intend to hurt anyone and was just trying to do her job.

Xenia got MMR, Tetanus, HEP A, and HEP B shots.  I just got my Tetanus booster.  While nurse Colleen was out of the office I told Xenia that she was going to get it in both arms and both cheeks.  She wasn’t too keen on that idea and I wish I had brought my camera in to record her reactions to the various things–she can be so expressive without saying a single word.