Once you descend to the vulgarity of voting for Barack Obama, anything is possible

Whoopi Goldberg on Roman Polanski:

I know it wasn't rape-rape. I think it was something else, but I don't believe it was rape-rape.

"He pled guilty to having sex with a minor and he went to jail, and when they let him out he said 'You know what, this guy's going to give me 100 years in jail. I'm not staying'. And that's why he left.

Now that the blogosphere is dissecting this bit to pieces I thought it is perhaps fitting to simply realize that this is another dumb statement in a long line of moronically offensive things said by Whoopi.

Whoopi Goldberg on murdering babies:

So, when you talk about it, a little bit of reverence to the women out there who have had to make this horrible decision. And one of the reasons that, that we have had to make this decision is because so many women were found bleeding, dead, with hangers in their bodies because they were doing it themselves. The idea of this was to make it safe and clean. That was the reason the law came into effect. That was why it was done.

I took on this "back alley abortion myth" a little over a year ago: basically if a person dies in the course of murdering another, can we really get too worked up over it? Fatally stab somebody only to die when they take the knife and deal you a mortal blow with their dying breath and nobody bats an eye. Do it with a coathanger and suddenly I'm supposed to get all worked up? No thanks.

Whoopi Goldberg on pillow-biters:

If you have a concern about gay marriage, don't marry a gay person.

Somehow I think the concern over the legitimizing of sick sodomist relationships goes a little further than that...

Finally, inspiring the post title, Whoopi Goldberg on President Monkey:

I find it extraordinary as I listen to folks talk about the free-market system that they don’t recognize that the free-market system is truly broken and beyond repair so that we have to start all over again. I think Barack Obama sees this, and so I am very, very pleasantly surprised at his determination to fix something that is not of his making. As President Bush sails away into the sunset leaving us with a trillion-dollar debt, I think to myself, “I’m glad it’s Barack Obama, because at least he’s got a different way of looking at it.”

Different way of looking at it? Like a fifty-trillion-dollar debt?

So clearly you see the problem: once you start defending Obama or faggots, there's no limit to how low you can sink...even to defend raping 13 year old girls.

Zombieland

Okay, I haven't seen the movie yet, but I'll probably see it before I see the new Wolverine X-Men prequel.

But if you liked the Johnny Cash song from the trailer, here it is:


And if you think it sounds a bit different, its because you actually heard this remixed version:

"Dairy Causes Diarrhea, Chunky Creamy Butter Cheese"

On September 8th I tweeted about a case involving family not revealing the name of who died in a crash.

Specifically, the story is thus:

A Rimbey man was killed while seven people in a separate two motor vehicle crash walked away unscathed Monday.

Cpl. Terry Best of Stettler RCMP said a 36-year-old man died in single motor vehicle collision about 1.5 km north of Hwy 601 on Range Road 17-5 near the village of Red Willow.

Best said the man’s name was being withheld from publication at the request of the family.

Best said it’s believed the driver of the 1990 pickup driven lost control and rolled into the east ditch about 2:30 a.m. Monday.

He was ejected from the vehicle and pronounced dead at the scene by Stettler Regional Fire Department and Stettler Emergency Services which attended the scene.

Best said investigators are following up on information that alcohol may have been a factor in the collision.

Now this caught my attention: why would they be able to not release the man's name? This past weekend I was in the Stettler area and did a couple casual inquiries. The first thing that everybody knows is that he's originally from the Stettler area and only moved west a few months ago. Beyond that...we got nothing. I used to know a couple of the hotter nurses at Stettler Hospital a decade or so ago, but they don't work there anymore. Lots of people are curious mostly once they discovered that its a local, but so far nothing.

It became really interesting as a curiosity when today a couple dead in north Edmonton are being kept hush hush at the family's request. It makes a turn for the creepy when you learn CTV Edmonton reported the victims were 39-year-old Jeff Bostick and his 11-year-old autistic son Jeremy.

We know that this 36 year old louse from Stettler died drunk driving. I'm sure people who know them personally (it might shock cityfolk to learn, but the "Heart of Alberta" has 5,000 people living there, plus another 5,000 in the county. Some of them know who this asshat is, and I would appreciate it if anybody with such knowledge could tack it into the comments.

(and for those wondering about the post title)

Update, 5:08pm: It turns out that Jeff Bostick murdered his autistic child. Yet Edmonton Police have decided to continue the family's personal publication ban.

It's about time!

A hearing is underway for two officers accused of using excessive force during the Stanley Cup riots in Edmonton three years ago.

And thus begins some sort of action to punish the crooked Edmonton Police officers named Tori Tagg and Denise Turkawski.

Two chicks who just hated the fact that Brian Fish, a 68 year old lawyer, was photographing police brutality during the 2006 Oilers playoff run. (Further discussion was here). They were doing horrific things, despicable things. Their boss told them that it was okay to assail and batter the citizenry who were out trying to have fun and enjoy themselves. They talked themselves up. They pretended they had balls and that those balls were huge. While their coworkers slapped handcuffs on people seemingly at random for trivial activities that in no way could be considered crimes, Brian Fish was documenting it. He was recording, he was watching, he was collecting a record on the events unfolding on the publicly owned streets of Edmonton -- those same streets where Tagg and Turkawski enforced their own vicious third world opinions of justice.

And so they attacked -- they lashed out. As a senior citizen took photographs in a public place, photographs that Brian Fish was legally allowed to take, without interference, they decended upon him like wolves and demanded that he give up his constitutionally protected activity. And when he refused? They turned vicious, drew their weapons, and fired. Fish fell to the ground as three bolts burst into his flesh, thousands of volts of power surging through his aging body at the hands of thugs. Thugs with badges. Thugs who represented and continue to represent Edmonton Police Services and all that they "stand" for.

Nail them. Nail their asses to the wall. Publish their names, place their faces on billboards the size of semitrailers.

Denise Turkawski. Tori Tagg. Corrupt cops.

George W. Bush Video Countdown, #9

As we approach the October 20th appearance of George W. Bush live and in Edmonton, the Third Edge of the Sword Top Ten Bush Video countdown continues:

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

It almost brings a tear to your eyes... in his final speech as President of the United States (and indeed his final full-out speech until he landed in Calgary in April) George W. Bush thanks the people who elected him and implored a smooth transition into the administration of President Monkey.

Well, we didn't all take him to heart on that one... sometimes it helps to fight fire with fire.

Stress

Canadian scientists found that the more emotional or mental challenges a person faces in a day, the less resolute they become to work out physically.

However, the findings should not deter us from keeping fit. Experts believe that willpower is like a muscle, which needs to be exercised to avoid the temptation of a night on the couch instead.

Kathleen Martin Ginis, an associate professor of kinesiology – the science of movement – who led the study, said we all have a limited amount of willpower which is whittled away by stress.

Miss Martin Ginis, from Canada's McMaster University, explained: “Cognitive tasks, as well as emotional tasks, such as regulating your emotions, can deplete your self-regulatory capacity to exercise."

Er, correct me if I'm wrong but isn't the "willpower gene" more of an "I'm tired and don't want to exert more physically gene"?

Ironically, I turned down an after-work workout last night for much the same reason. Ha! It's my willpower gene! Free excuse!

So was it green jobs or dirty jobs?

Today (er, yesterday) the Liberals filed a non-confidence motion to defeat the Tories.

Of particular interest is the economic update that Harper put out. Remember Iggy's presser in an empty field?

Harper said 90 per cent of the stimulus funding has been pledged for more than 7,500 infrastructure and housing projects.

This is the third economic update since the Conservatives agreed to issue quarterly reports in exchange for Liberal support for the Jan. 27 budget.

Accountability was an absolute necessity for the Liberals to continue supporting the government and that has not happened, Ignatieff told reporters outside the House of Commons.

"Two weeks ago, they let slip out that they're going to boost payroll taxes. Today, they came out and said 90 per cent of their projects have been committed … and the reality we've found is only 12 per cent of their infrastructure money has actually got in to shovels in the ground," Ignatieff said.

Now as more than a few have noted, once the money is doled out of the fed's pocket, there's a limit to how much Stephen Harper can actually do. Is he supposed to show up at a construction site with a fleet of kidnapped Mexicans, hand them shovels, and get them to start digging at gunpoint? The cities for the most part have this money.

Of course, if Harper had started digging right away, there would have been an outcry even without coloured slave labour. After all, you can't sneeze in this country anymore (thanks to the Liberals, incidently) without filing environmental impact reports, consultations, etc. etc. Well, all those safety engineering studies, environmental studies, stakeholder meetings, policy initiative consultations, etc. etc. all create jobs too. You'd think that the same Liberal party that gave us all of these "innovations" wouldn't be shocked to discover that they exist and that they do stuff.

The Conservatives basically made the same response: we're paying the "economy of tomorrow" people (ie. people who don't do physical labour) to do their part, then all the 9-4 schlubs with hardhats and Molson Canadian stickers in the back of their F-150s show up to do the rest.

Uh, Mikey, aren't you busy putting commercials onto the airwaves about how Liberals want to build the "green jobs of tomorrow"? I assume you don't just mean cleaning up toxic sludge but also environmental protection officers, environmental analysts, etc. etc. In that case, exactly the sort of people that get helped when 90% of the money is allotted but so far only 12% are employing guys with dirty 1993 pickups rather than new Priuses.

Was I expecting Ignatieff to make sense? Well, not really. Maybe a little. Sorry.

Update, 5:07pm: Whoops! Turns out Iggy was in the wrong field. And, as I suspected, it had just completed its environmental impact assessment.

Zoom Zoom

Santa's bikers rev things up for charity

Try as I might, I can't find any reference to this on the CBC website. Read into this as you will.

Liberals from the East telling Conservatives in the West who they should vote for

CalgaryGrit EdmontonGrit TorontoGrit weighs in on the Wildrose Leadership race. Naturally he has little good to say about Jeff Willerton:

So, to recap: Willerton was running to become Premier of Alberta because he dislikes the federal Liberal Party. And he's not a separatist, but he believes Alberta should hold referendums to separate...every time a Liberal government is elected federally.

So to recap the recap: so? The notion of electing a strong provincial government in order to keep a dangerously strong Liberal government in Ottawa at bay is hardly a new one. And its not like we have just made grievances up for shits and giggles...

The National Energy Program.

With that in mind, what's quoted from Willerton makes perfect sense:

I believe we should go to the polls to reconsider our options in Confederation - each and every time a Liberal government is elected or reelected in Ottawa. We can't tell people how to vote, but if the east insists on having a Liberal government they need to know they might have it all to themselves at the end of the day.

(well, then he continues to go on and claim to be a committed Canadian, and all those things that real Albertans don't say). Nobody's perfect.

The comments (so far) to the entry are also very illuminating (far more than the repost at National Post's Full Comment site are, as is almost always the case). Take the first:

The numerous endorsements (remember Jim Dinning had lots of them!) on Ms. Smith's website and this "leak" about at least 10 MLA's crossing the floor if she becomes leader are nothing more than spin by her campaign team to try and create the optics that she is the only one with enough support to become leader and that the Wildrose Alliance Party is going somewhere only if she becomes leader.

The electoral math it lists below is a little telling, so worth considering. Another commenter compares Wildrose with the ADQ, which has its own parallels except for one important fact: Alberta is not Queerbec. This alone pretty much removes much of the impact of the comparison. A young bright and talented libertarian-leaning politician creates a big impact in the stale Quebec scene. Bright and talented libertarian-leaning people are pretty much the entire young population of Alberta excepting the imports at our universities. Apples and oranges involved there.

(rare) Things I didn't know

The author of the insanely useful Think Oracle blog (which naturally is blocked at work) is from Calgary

Keeping track of what Regressive Democrats say

Last week I linked to Hell Upside Down blog and a post about Jack Layton.

Well, today it's gone (the post, not the blog). This entry contains part of it. Thanks to Google Cache, here's the article in its entirety:

Dear Jack Layton, Thanks For Reminding Me Why We Need A Liberal Minority

There's nothing like being sick as a dog to give a person time to spin the wheels in their head...er... what I really mean to say is... there's nothing like being sick and hallucinatory to give yourself time to reflect and indulge in existential abstractions and that's what I've been doing.

The best possible world for me would be one in which we elect a government based on some form of PR. We would likely not have another majority government unless one of the parties were suddenly overrun by geniuses who had fantastic ideas to improve our lives and the communication skills to sell those ideas and put them into practice.

Every once in a while we get something approaching that. Lester Pearson and Tommy Douglas being the obvious example. There's nobody like that on offer today. The Liberals, Conservatives and NDP are a far cry from what they were back then. The world has changed. Time to stop living in the past. Time to move forward. Time to take stock and work with what you've got.

Today we have Stephen Harper and his supporters who seek to turn Canada into an evangelical theocracy where they can put their religious ideals into action. Period. Slap any sugary coating on it you want but that fact doesn't change. That threat doesn't change.

Politicians work very hard to deliberately confuse us. If the choices were easy, we wouldn't be so easily confused. But what is left after you strip away all the strategic posturing, all the rhetoric, all the head games? At the end of the day, when all is said and done, you have to ask yourself a simple question, "what do we have to work with here?"

If we have an election this fall we will find ourselves with one of three results. Conservative majority. Conservative minority. Liberal minority. That's what we have to work with.

My vote will play a small part but it will contribute to one of those results. What is the best result for me? Liberal minority. Why? Jack Layton made the argument perfectly yesterday in his mailing. Here's what he was able to negotiate with a Liberal minority government - $1.6 billion for affordable housing - $1.5 billion for post-secondary education - $900 million for transit - $500 million for foreign aid - $100 million for pension protection.

Stephen Harper has never made any such concessions to the NDP. In fact, he has declared jihad on them. He has portrayed the NDP as evil. He has called them the enemy. He has said the NDP is a threat to our country. The very presence of the NDP sitting at the table in government will cause long-term damage to our country. What Stephen Harper is saying in no uncertain terms is that he rejects our system of government. He wants to rule alone. He thinks that is his right. If Stephen Harper is starting to sound like he wants a dictatorship, well yes, the shoe fits. None of this is news.

What more do I really need to know about the prospects for our country if the Conservatives continue to control the government? Stephen Harper will not work with the other parties. He rejects the the basic premise of our parliamentary system which in the best of all possible worlds assumes that the political parties that are elected and hold seats must work together in good faith for the betterment of the country. Even the Bloc grudgingly participates in this system despite the lies being told by the Conservatives.

There is only one person causing long term damage to our country. His name is Stephen Harper. There is only one party that rejects our democratic system. The Conservative Party.

I'm the first to complain that our electoral system is not perfect and it is populated with imperfect people, some of whom have questionable motives and are probably not much better than Stephen Harper, but unfortunately, for the time being, this is my reality and this is all I have to work with.

It's not even a choice between Liberal and NDP or between right or left or middle. It's not a choice between lesser evils, between ideologies, ideals, ideas or personalities, between track records, failures or any of the other confusing minutiae that politics is made of.

I have only to ask myself one question. Do I want Canada's system of government to work the way it was intended to work or not? If my answer is yes then Stephen Harper is standing in the way and he must go.

So thank you Jack Layton for the reality check.

The choice is now simple.

It looks like the entire site was gutted, rather than just that specific post included here. You can read what's been deleted on how great Garth Turner is:

For only pennies a day, $20 or less in fact, you can join HUD's Adopt-A-Politician campaign to teach Stephen Harper a lesson by sending Garth Turner back to Ottawa. For more information click here

or maybe reading how great President Monkey is working out [and, inexplicably, how Keifer Sutherland should be Prime Minister?? -ed] and how to save us from Prime Minister Harper:

What a stark contrast it was watching Obama's healthcare speech followed by Harper's little performance for his loyal followers caught on sneaky-cam and leaked to the CBC.

One of the biggest gripes from both the media and the Canadian public in regard to the state of politics in our country seems to boil down to how boring the choices are. Now I get why the media wants more razzle-dazzle because it makes their job easier. But is it really charisma or excitement that's lacking? People certainly get excited every time Harper starts crowing about his majority prospects. There's a certain sleaziness about him that even overshadows how truly dangerous he would be given unlimited power.

While Obama represents a return to the kind of politician who has the skills to inspire, here in Canada, we haven't seen anyone enter the political arena in some time who can inspire much more than their own partisans. But have the politicians gotten smaller in this country or is it just our perception of them? Are they really less worthy of our respect or have we become too cynical?

Maybe we have rose-coloured rear view vision about the Canadian politicians of the past. I don't remember the election campaigns before I started voting and taking a serious interest in politics so I thought I'd take a look at what was really on offer back in the 60s when Trudeau was in his heyday.

If you want to get really depressed about the degradation of political discourse in Canada in the 21st century just watch this clip from the 1968 leadership debate from the CBC's online video archives.

What strikes me most is the fact that the issues haven't changed that much. Even more shocking is the realization that the politicians are not more exciting or more good-looking or better public speakers. Trudeau's badass attitude on camera makes Iggy look as soft and cuddly as Mr. Rogers by comparison. Poor Robert Stanfield was never made for television though he is more intelligent and articulate than most Conservative politicians today. The only one who's "got the power" is Tommy Douglas. Clearly a born orator with strong convictions, it makes one wish that his grandson might consider a career change in the future.

The biggest change I can see is that our politicians were far better behaved forty years ago and were more skilled or willing to make their case in specific terms than the current crop of candidates. Having a lot of Twitter followers and Facebook friends is no substitute for substance.

Perhaps it's unfair and unrealistic to expect politicians to meet some fictitious heroic archetype but not unfair to say that they can't win our trust and respect if they believe in nothing and stand for nothing beyond winning elections.

Who spoiled Toronto's miraculous ethnic transformation?

What a difference a decade or so makes. This is from a 1996 National Geographic article on Toronto by Richard Conniff:

you may be under the impression that it is a white-bread kind of town, largely Anglo-Saxon and Protestant. Indeed, a lot of people in Toronto were under that impression until recently, and they are typically bemused and delighted by the miraculous ethnic transformation that has taken place in their city during the past 25 years.

"I grew up when you went to Sunday school and dropped your pennies in the box for the missionaries to convert the pagans and the heathens," one older Torontonian told me. That was back before World War II, when the biggest parade in Toronto was the Orange Order's July celebration of Protestant supremacy. Then, in that agreeably noncommittal tone Canadians have perfected, he said, "Now the pagans and the heathens have moved in here, and they're quite nice people, eh?"

Not only have the Orangemen receded, but their children now boast that Toronto is the most ethnically and racially diverse city on earth. It has six Chinese newspapers. Its Caribbean community celebrates a huge two-week-long Mardi Gras-style festival (permanently scheduled in summer on account of weather), It has a radio station, CHIN, which broadcasts in 32 different languages. Asked which language is playing at the moment, the station's owner, Johnny Lombardi, looks at his watch: "It's 11:45am. So..yeah, that's Croation.

About a third of the 230,000 immigrants who arrive in Canada each year end up in the Toronto area. Refugees arrive in sychrony with the latest international nightmare -- Tamils from Sri Lanka, Hutus from Rwanda, Chechens from the former Soviet Union. Not only have they turned out to be quite nice people, but they have also made Toronto an infinitely nicer city.

Wow, all those closures on the Gardiner freeway and mass protests that demand the Canadian government take a side [possibly the wrong side, but who cares? -ed] in their civil war have really made Toronto "infinitely" nicer haven't they? Remember the bad old days when cars drove down roads?

How about the non-Tamil ethnic groups...? I've written before about Sudan's ethnic problems following them to Edmonton, but Jamaican gun violence is a routine fact of life in Hogtown these days. Speaking of Edmonton problems, it is to laugh that just 3 years before Edmonton's Boxing Day slaying at West Edmonton Mall you could have read this bit:

It occured to me that Toronto has remained law-abiding partly because so many newcomers, arriving from places like Vietname in the 1970s and '80s, have seen how bad the world can get when order slips away to madness. Like Tran, they are usually middle-class. Canadian immigration policy encourages what critics call designer immigrants.

Yep, designer immigrants. Imagine how great things could be if, like the critics request, we just did it blindly!

Speaking of blindly, here's Wayne Hayes from Ontario Welcome House:

"Canadians appreciate order, and we are willing to sacrifice certain freedoms to have that order. So we don't carry handguns. We readily give this up. Canadians believe in lining up. You wait your turn, whether it's for a movie or a bank teller.

Or healthcare. Hey, do you remember that time you went to a movie in Buffalo and you never got in because reams of black men kept shoving ahead of you in line? What, that doesn't happen? Go figure.

Well, you'd think this massive immigration worry was all a figment of your imagination. Don't dispair: after talking to regular people who support immigration I'm sure a National Geographic writer would then find ordinary people or perhaps academics and professionals who have valid and reasoned concerns about assimilation.

I went to visit 56-year-old Ernst Zundel, one of the leading neo-Nazi propagandists in the world.

See, I told you he'd find a reasoned criticism and not go to the most discredited crank he could find!

Zundel, an immigrant from Germany, lives in a gentrified Toronto neighborhood on a street with Caribbean, Mexican, Italian, Chinese, and Spanish restaurants. His house was crammed with too much narrative, in the form of the books and videotapes he sells, with titled like Did Six Million Really Die?

"Canadians deserve all the problems that are coming with immigration," he said. I asked him which problems, and he mentioned drive-by shootings, rapes, robberies. Which immigrants did he blame? "Blacks," he said. "I'm objecting to allowing hordes of racially unabsorbable populations to invade the living space of a specific race."

But if it was easy to dismiss Zundel, it was also easy to detect a developing racial tension beneath the city's genteel surface. Other Torontonians spoke euphemistically, but with unmistakable edginess, about how the population of 241,000 blacks, mainly Caribbean immigrants, is fitting in."

Ask Jane Creba's family, for example. Today with the Caribbean immigrants causing huge amounts of violence in Toronto's streets it seems like despite the distasteful titles of his tomes Zundel was onto something... in 1996, for example. Drive-by shootings by non-blacks in Toronto...quick, somebody name the last time that happened. Was Capone still alive?

Naturally the article is quick to go to blacks claiming police harassment and employment discrimination. Wait, I thought "Canadian immigration policy encourages what critics call designer immigrants" just a few paragraphs ago? Whoops, guess not.

Elsewhere in the article we can find reference to our favourite of creatures,the "community organizer". Oh hey, forced marriages make an appearance too:

In one paper there were brokered marriage proposals: "Punjabi Khatri Hindu/Kayasta parents seek suitable match for their beautiful daughter, Canadian born...doing Master's in Education.

But hey, that's just another great aspect of the Toronto melting pot...like those wonderful Tamil Tigers that a 'restrictive' immigration policy brought in.

We'll always have weird holodeck simulations

Space is currently playing "We'll Always Have Paris", where Picard calls up a holodeck simulation of the day that he no-showed on a girl to join Starfleet... and the computer simulation featured a woman mising on a man who no-showed to join Starfleet. That always seemed a little odd to me.

Anyways, Michelle Phillips of the Mammas and the Poppas plays Janice, the woman that Picard no-showed. She's in the news today responding to the Mackenzie Phillips incest scandal.

In an statement to CNN, Michelle Phillips, an original Mamas & Papas bandmate who divorced John in 1970, called the situation "very hurtful."

"McKenzie's drug addiction for 35 years has been the result of many unpleasant experiences," Michelle Phillips said. "Whether her relationship with her father is delusional or not, it is an unfortunate circumstance and very hurtful for our entire family."

American Unilateralism

Barack Obama put the Bush era decisively behind him today in a speech to the United Nations in which he rejected unilateralism in favour of countries working together to tackle problems ranging from the Middle East to Iran and North Korea.

In his first address to the UN general assembly, Obama said he would need the support of other countries in tackling what he described as the world's most intractable problems. "Make no mistake: this cannot solely be America's endeavour. Those who used to chastise America for acting alone in the world cannot now stand by and wait for America to solve the world's problems alone," he said.

I think Obama misses the point here: the same people -- including some in his own party -- will chastise America for acting and not acting. It's happened before. In this environment, the options are either do the right thing, or sit on your hands. What will Obama do? Any guesses?

Obama, despite the sentiments expressed today, has so far failed to translate his popularity round the world into concrete achievements

Er, I don't think Ewen MacAskill quite gets it. The reason President Monkey is popular around the world is because people around the world are fully aware that he has neither the will nor the ability to acheive anything concrete: an unacheiving America is the sort of sick snobbish attitude that permeates much of the planet. If Obama was capable of any of the acheivements listed in this article, he wouldn't be popular around the world [but might push above 45% in America! -ed].

You heard it here...er...6 months late

A couple days ago I told Michael Ignatieff to shut up. As in close his mouth, go away, and stop talking. Liberal lies just aren't a good way to enjoy an Indian summer.

After all, I'm not the only one noticing that Michael "I want to sign off on the new budget I have forced" Ignatieff is wearing this deficit like Michael Moore wears mustard stains:

As Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper puts a positive face on the $50 billion deficit for the current fiscal year, he should take a moment to thank the coalition, and the Liberal leader Michael Ignatieff in particular.

Somehow I just know there's a catch...

Today we have Stephen Harper and his supporters who seek to turn Canada into an evangelical theocracy where they can put their religious ideals into action. Period. Slap any sugary coating on it you want but that fact doesn't change. That threat doesn't change.

Stephen Harper is going to put religious ideals into action? Will he stop worshipping the Big Government Buddha after all? One can only dream.

Stephen Harper has never made any such concessions to the NDP. In fact, he has declared jihad on them. He has portrayed the NDP as evil. He has called them the enemy. He has said the NDP is a threat to our country.

And the NDP, of course, have never vilified Harper. Never. Not once. Nor have their sodomist lap dogs.

There is only one person causing long term damage to our country. His name is Stephen Harper. There is only one party that rejects our democratic system. The Conservative Party.

Who's declared jihad on whom, exactly?

The lyrics are only the second best part

The best part of DMX's "Where the Hood At?" isn't just the lyrics

Last I heard, y'all niggaz was havin sex, with the SAME sex
I show no love, to homo thugs
Empty out, reloaded and throw more slugs
How you gonna explain fuckin a man?
Even if we squashed the beef, I ain't touchin ya hand
I don't buck with chumps, for those to been to jail
That's the cat with the Kool-Aid on his lips and pumps
I don't fuck with niggaz that think they broads
Only know how to be ONE WAY, that's the dog

It's singing along in the car while cruising Whyte Ave. Ahhh, Saturday afternoons how I love thee.

Backdoor Angels

Move to force homeless into shelters draws scorn: Civil libertarians question whether bill will pass Charter challenge; front-line workers question its practicality

A proposed provincial law that would give police the right to force homeless people into shelters during bad weather has angered civil libertarians, who claim the move is a back-door bid to clean up Vancouver's streets in time for the Olympics.

Backdoor bid? Why not a front-door bid? Not a huge fan of Olympic funding myself, there's probably nothing too wrong about sending crazy homeless people into shelters.

While civil libertarians may be able to raise a stink, "homeless advocates" should be keeping their mouth shut: they just today were protesting at the Alberta Legislature that we do more to provide for the homeless. Well, guess what? We are. If there are homeless on the streets of Edmonton and Vancouver who refuse to use the shelters, then the cities should be selling the shelter (a la Calgary) to private developers and kicking the homeless back out onto the streets they seem to love so much.

You're kidding me, right?

Ignatieff slams Tory financial 'mess':

Michael Ignatieff yesterday accused Conservatives of making a "mess" of the country's finances, saying it is now impossible to tell what spending cuts are needed to eliminate the projected $56-billion deficit.

The Liberal leader said yesterday his party would cut government expenditures in a bid to rebalance the budget. But he offered no specifics about possible cuts, saying the Tories' "wishful projections" make it difficult to determine the deficit's size. "Upon taking office, we'll conduct a full audit of our public finances. We'll open the books and find out where we really are," he told the Toronto Board of Trade.

The government has repeatedly hiked the projected size of the deficit for the current fiscal year, from $36-billion in January's budget to $50-billion in May to $56-billion this month.

"I can't tell you if it will be $60-billion at Christmas," Mr. Ignatieff said after the speech.

Christmas, eh? Christmas, Christmas, Christmas. What was going on at Christmas last year?

C'mon, somebody can come up with it. Somebody?

Oh yeah. The Liberals joined with the NDP and the Bloc in order to try and force the Conservatives out of office and replace it with a Coalition Government.

Now we all know the real reason for this attempted coup: the potential revoking of the $1.95 funding to political parties. But that's not the reason they told us. The lying Liberals claimed it was because...

...the Tories were trying to keep the budget balanced. Does the word "stimulus" ring a bell?

OTTAWA -- A two-year economic stimulus package that focuses on infrastructure, housing construction and the ailing manufacturing sector, overseen by a Finance Minister from the Liberal ranks, would be the top priority of a proposed Liberal-NDP coalition government.

Even though this might put Canada into a deficit position, the leaders say there is an agreement to undertake policies that would return Ottawa to a surplus position within four years.

Four years from last December would be December of 2012. Doesn't that mean Stephen Harper should be given that same amount of time to reverse the deficit?

Ultimately, the Liberals have no right -- no right at all -- to try to complain about the Harper Conservatives bringing in a budget that featured massive stimulus (read: huge government expenditures at a rapid rate) at the same time as keeping the existing Conservative stimulus (tax cuts... you know, the only stimulus that actually works). You don't want a deficit Ignatieff? Then you shouldn't have supported the coalition! (Or demanded a voice in the federal budget just six months ago)

What a difference a year makes: Conservative and NDP scandals

It was a year ago today that I covered this story:

Cannon was officially opening his campaign office in Maniwaki, Que. on Thursday when protesters from the Barriere Lake community arrived to make their demands known to Cannon.

Cannon listened to some of the group's concerns before he left in a vehicle.

However, one of his aides, Darlene Lannigan, continued to speak with Norman Matchewan, the 25-year-old man leading the protesters.

In a video clip from the Aboriginal People's Television Network, Matchewan asks if he would be arrested if he came into Cannon's office.

"If you behave, and you're sober, and there's no problems, and if you don't do a sit-down and whatever, I don't care. One of them showed up the other day and was drinking," Lannigan said in the clip.

And then my reaction:

Er, I'm sorry, this is a massive non-issue. Not only was this a staffer, but also one who had just recently had to deal with unruly intoxicated Indians from Matchewan's own lobby group. Sorry, no excitement here.

So where are we a year later? Well, its another non-issue involving Indians and the Conservative government. This time, swine-flu related bodybags:

OTTAWA – Health Minister Leona Aglukkaq has apologized for the delivery of body bags to native communities as part of H1N1 flu preparations and has launched a full inquiry into how the "offensive" error was made.

"What happened is unacceptable. It was insensitive and offensive," Aglukkaq said in a statement issued this morning.

"As Minister of Health and as an aboriginal I am offended. To all who took offence at what occurred, I want to say that I share your concern and I pledge to get to the bottom of it. I have ordered my Deputy Minister to conduct a thorough and immediate inquiry into the situation."

Aglukkaq said she will make the result of the inquiry public.

Her comments came shortly after Liberal leader Michael Ignatieff called on her to apologize this morning.

"What's required is a simple, frank and human apology to Canadians. This just isn't good enough," Ignatieff told reporters.

Lillian Dyck, a senator and first nations' member from Saskatchewan, said she was "in a state of shock" when she learned yesterday that body bags had been shipped by the Health Department to aboriginal communities in Manitoba.

"It's like someone had taken a knife and driven it into my heart," she said. "As a woman, how would you feel if you were worried about being infected with H1N1 and what you were sent was a body bag, indicating that your family was going to die?" Dyck said.

Aglukkaq, in her statement, warned against critics trying to "sensationalize" the mistake.

"I was born and raised in remote communities and I understand the challenges better then anyone - that's why I have met frequently with First Nations organizations. Anyone suggesting that our Government's solution to H1N1 is body bags is sensationalizing this situation."

The federal Health Department has issued an apology and a clarification amid the furor over body-bag shipments to native communities preparing for the H1N1 flu virus.

The body bags were shipped to Manitoba's remote aboriginal communities, according to Health Canada, as part of orderly restocking of medical supplies to remote areas -- and not because of any direct connection with pandemic preparation.

"Health Canada apologizes for the error that was made in the number of body bags that were ordered for the Wasagamack First Nations. We regret the alarm that this incident has caused," the department said in a statement issued this afternoon.

"Health Canada delivers services in remote areas through Nursing Stations. We routinely stock commonly required medical materials such as personal protective equipment, pharmaceuticals and other medical supplies such as body bags," the statement says.Noting that the stock is replenished on an "as-needed basis," the statement went on to explain that medical supplies are shippedwell in advance to remote locations because they can often be unreachable during winter months. "It is unfortunate that this has been linked exclusively with H1N1. Whether it's a nursing station in a remote First Nations community in northern Manitoba, or a hospital in downtown Vancouver, supplies are constantly being re-stocked to prepare for unknown and unforeseen events, whether it be a plane crash, environmental disaster or pandemic," the statement says. Health Canada also hastened tooffer assurances that the number of body bags does not reflect any scientific evidence or predictions about potential H1N1 fatalities in aboriginal communities.

"Again, Health Canada apologises. We all regret the alarm caused by the stocking of this particular item. It is important to remember that our nurses are focused entirely on providing primary health care services under often-trying circumstances. We value the excellent work they perform," the statement says.

The Health Minister is in Manitoba today, meeting with provincial health ministers. Yesterday, her department issued a list of "priority" groups to get the H1N1 vaccine.

I think my above comment for the sober crack basically sums up this story as well. It's high time that Indian Chiefs whose entire communities are kept out of complete depravity by the generosity of the Canadian taxpayer take a massive chill pill when the taxpayer's course of action is exercised a little bit on the clumsy side.

The body bags may have been part of a hospital restocking, which is the current claim by Health Canada. The body bags may have been part of the H1N1 vaccine preparations as the Professional Indians claim. The kicker is that in either case, there's really no scandal here. As Colby Cosh noted on Twitter, pandemic preparations involve preparing for large numbers of deaths (ie. body bags). For those keeping score, pandemics involve large numbers of deaths, that's pretty much the dictionary definition. In other words, if the band leaders are too stupid to provide themselves with body bags, and instead outsource it to the Canadian taxpayer, there's a limit to how much they can whine when the bodybags actually show up.

That's really what we're dealing with here: rank stupidity by the Indian leaders. They want to run their "soverign nations" but in reality they aren't capable of running an icecream truck. Plum morons like this David Harper asshole have to attack the feds, because otherwise he and Ron Evans have to admit that they are incompetant. Unable to do so (and similarly unable to do the jobs they claim to assume) all they can do is raise a stink over minor issues like this.

As always, there's a reason I'm not the minister for health, or aboriginal affairs, or indeed the PM. Otherwise, I'd be making a speech along the lines of this:

Over the past 48 hours we been forced to endure endless sniping by the Leader of the Opposition, and by the so-called leadership of bands which on one hand demand our deferrence to them in matters of the operation of their communities and on the other insist that we provide them with all the necessities that their communities uniquely in Canada are unable to do on their own. It gets all the more difficult to continue to provide these services when in fact the smooth operation of Health Canada's difficult job is the thing we are criticized for. Now Mr. Ignatieff and his Liberal attack dogs which for us to apologize and to make ammends. Now I know how "ammends" and "apologies" are made in Ignatieff's ivy league universities, but here in Ottawa our government is determined to operate much as a business would, and that requires that we not apologize for doing our job.

Now the optics of such an event are unfortunate, however what Messrs Ignatieff and Evans need to understand is that the requisitioning and supply chain managment of medical supplies is not something which ministers or department heads or even mid-level functionaries conduct. It is inappropriate to expect an apology for those of us higher up the ladder without extensive information. Now matters such as this are conducted by the civil service, and undoubtedly there's a good union-dues paying civil servant who took the course of action to deliver bodybags to reserves on Manitoba. Without strong evidence to the contrary I can only assume that this decision was made based on policies and procedures that had been longstanding and brought in with a certain degree of sensibility. In other words, odds are this decision was made by some poor soul in an office in Hull who was following proper procedures and doing the right thing with what he had to ensure timely delveries of a variety of supplies to reserves along with consolidated shipments to protect the budget of the Canadian taxpayer.

However, I do understand there's some difficulty in accepting this course of events, despite the fact that for some reason the Government of Canada is now supposed to be holding off on bodybag deliveries due to what a Liberal Senator from Saskatchewan insists is the inability of Indian women to handle the sight of bodybags, or that several Chiefs returned the bodybags claiming some magical danger from the Great Crow. As a result, I think it is more than fair that the Government of Canada listens, on the condition that Indian Chiefs across Canada listen closely as well: if you don't want our bodybags, feel free to return them. We promise we will never send you bodybags again. Though your women and children might be choking in the streets, and the streams of your towns run red with the infected blood of the dead, and while your elders and your babes together shiver in the cold and die as H1N1 pandemics spread across your primitive towns, be rest assured that this government will never again be so culturally insensitive as to provide you with medical supplies of any kind. Clearly the system we have in place isn't working. I look forward to seeing the supply chain management programs that you will be instituting in its place, and give you my assurance that never again will Canadians dare to send you medical supplies. We are truely sorry.

So lets officially agree to drop this body bags nonsense. Nothing in this shows "callousness" or "uncaring" on the part of the Harper Conservatives. Memo to corrupt and incompetant Indian Chiefs: uncaring Prime Ministers would have given you nothing. Careful what you say, or the next Prime Minister might just not care.

Bonus Bodybag controversy: Kevin Libin of the National Post noted that bodybags are sort of standard fare. Something about that got me thinking, that after Swine Flu and Mexican Flu its maybe time to change the name again: H1N1 used to be accurate, but now they should change it to H1N0 - Harper 1, Natives 0

---

Now onto the NDP: they had their own scandal a year ago. This is also the day last year that the NDP started hemmoraging candidates. This one for being caught smoking pot. When he's a hippie. In British Columbia.

Now the NDP scandal is their decision to change their tactics to support the Tories. I covered that in detail last night, so if you're interested you can read that. But this was where the last election was on this day (less than a month before we went to the polls): serious scandals hurting the NDP and the Tories. End result? Uh, both parties gained. Maybe there's a rule in there.

Danielle Smith's snowball of support

Travis Chase has listed the Bloggers so far who have endorsed Danielle Smith for leader of the Wildrose Alliance.

Now I have a soft spot for Danielle. I was the first person she started following on Twitter. I remarked that if Sarah Palin wins the US Presidency in 2012 and Danielle won the premiership of Alberta and initiated separation from Canada, in 2017 or so the two of them could participate in the hottest summit ever.

Is she going to be my choice when I vote for the new Wildrose Alliance leader? Hard to say. Jeff Willerton was actually going to be my candidate of choice: he had no chance to win, but its the same motivation that keeps people in Battle River-Wainwright voting for their local regressive NDP or Green or Liberal candidate.

I think I've tweeted about this before: its ultimately that old political game. Do you want to win (c.f. Jean Chretien) or do you want to stay principled (c.f. Preston Manning)? Bear in mind that the first comparison can also give you a Stockwell Day, and the second can also give you a Pierre Trudeau. Does the Wildrose Alliance membership wish to destroy the Tory dynasty next election and take the reins? In that case, you have to go with Danielle. She's hot, she's smart, and she's "media saavy". On the other hand, two of the three also apply to Justin Trudeau...or Belinda Stronach...or Barack Obama. Mark Dyrholm would be the other example: he's more principled (which, if you know Danielle, really says a lot) but also less electable. If you want to weaken the Tory dynasty and risk a minority Liberal or Tory-Liberal coalition screwing up Alberta in ways that will make Stelmach look like a kitten, Dyrholm is your guy. On the other hand (how many hands are we up to?) if Dyrholm wins a Wildrose Majority, we will see real progress, real change, and a real and immediate benefit to the people of Alberta. We may see some with Smith, but expect a Wildrose government under her to look a lot more like 1995 Klein than...well, what I would do if I was Prime Minister (or President, or Chancellor, or whatever I decided to confer upon myself) in 2020.

I didn't say it was an easy question, did I? [that's probably why its an age-old question, rather than an age-old answer -ed]. Count me in the undecided camp, leaning toward Dyrholm. Is it too late to convince Ted Morton to switch parties?

And wait...do either of them imbibe in a happy pop now and then?

Why Stephen Harper will still be the Prime Minister in 2013

Do you remember January? It was a weird time in politics: the national uproar over the coalition was dying down as Harper got the prorogued Parliament back in session. Dion was humiliated, Ignatieff was on his way in, and now was time for the Liberals to do something totally new...talk tough about bringing Harper down only to actually pass the legislation he was proposing. Well, okay, that's exactly what Harper-haters were mad about the Liberals doing in 2008, so that left Jack Layton as the voice demanding Harper be brought down. For the rest of winter and all of the spring and most of the summer, this was the script: Harper would do something, or propose something, or have something happen to him; Ignatieff would either disappear or speak seriously about what a big problem this thing was; the Liberals would either abstain or support the Tories at the next non-confidence vote and Layton would stand up and angrily rally that Harper needed to be forced into an election. The Bloc, so much as they (or anybody) cared, agreed with Layton. But with the Liberals votes or abstentions the Conservatives were able to keep governing. Okay, everybody following along? Here's how things went down:
Conservatives - didn't want an election
Liberals - didn't want an election
New Democrats - want an election
Bloc Quebecois - nobody cares what they want

So finally, finally, Prof. Igg decided enough was enough. The Liberals had demanded changes to the EI program that the NDP argued weren't enough and the Conservatives claimed were too much. At the end of summer as Parliament resumed, the Conservatives blinked and drafted up the demanded changes. Naturally, the Liberals voted against it. Why? Oh, well the Liberals had decided that the Harper government's time was up [in an unrelated story, a poll indicated the Liberals and Tories were a statistical tie. -ed]. So it was time to vote against the government, even though it was to oppose EI changes that the Liberals had demanded. Er, that didn't make a lot of sense, but whatever. Its election time, readiness committees met and everybody held their breath... and naturally, Jack Layton decided to vote in favour of the Conservative government's bill. Er, anybody following along?

[I think you need a break here. Read this. It has women's tennis and the anti-Harper ranting of a progressive hater. -ed]

Okay, where were we? Oh, yes, the situation looks something like this:
Conservatives - didn't want an election
Liberals - want an election
New Democrats - didn't want an election
Bloc Quebecois - nobody cares what they want

Things seemed to get weird there, didn't they? The Liberals now voted against the EI changes they wanted. The NDP voted for the EI changes they didn't want. The Bloc turned around and supported the Tories. Meanwhile, the Liberals are putting out endless ads talking about bringing down the Tories, while the Tories are busy putting out very negative attack ads pointing out the whole coalition mess could have Ignatieff losing this election and then forming a coalition government. These same negative ads totally thrash the NDP and the Bloc, who turn around the very next day and "prop up" the Conservatives. At this point even politically astute folks might notice their foreheads are throbbing and they have an urge to sit down and drink some neo citran.

Relax, I'm here to explain everything. I won't make any crazy prediction here, the post title notwithstanding. Its entirely possible that the current minority government will last 5 years from October 2008, and for the next 4 years the political game will keep operating the way it has been for the last month. Sounds fun, I know, but its entirely possible.

First off, read this article from Full Comment on the National Post website:

In Ontario, the Conservatives won 51 seats last October with 39 per cent of the vote, while the Liberals won 38 seats with 34 per cent. The polls now show them both around 40 per cent, pointing to about 50 seats each, with gains for the Liberals to be sure, but mostly from the NDP, which has 17 seats.

But for the sake of argument, give the Liberals 11 more in Quebec, and 12 more in Ontario, taking them to 100 seats. Where, then, do they find another 20 seats?

That's a very good question, because the math becomes really uphill for them from here. In British Columbia, with 36 seats, the Conservatives now hold 22 ridings, the Liberals five and the NDP nine. The Liberals might pick up five seats on the lower mainland, but again mostly at the expense of the NDP.

In Alberta, the Conservatives hold 27 of 28 seats, and the NDP has the other one. In Saskatchewan and Manitoba, with 28 seats, the Conservatives have 22, the NDP four and the Liberals two. In Marzolini's regional breakout of these two provinces, the Conservatives lead the Libs by 58 to 20 per cent. Hardly a groundswell.

Which leaves the Atlantic, with 32 seats, of which the Liberals already hold 17, while the Conservatives have 10 and the NDP five.

So the trick is to look at the riding-by-riding gains and losses. As things currently stand, if the Liberals make significant gains in the next general election they will be coming at the expense of the NDP as much as the Conservatives. With only 38 seats, if a resurgent Liberal Party takes 20 from the NDP and 20 from the Conservatives, they will form a minority government with 127 seats to the Conservatives 123. This is, of course, decently good news for the Liberals. Ergo, this is in fact bad news for the NDP. Jack Layton doesn't want another election under these circumtances, obviously. His 37 caucus colleagues, some of whom are looking at their jobs withering away (not to imply personal motives for Parliamentary votes) agree with him. Whatever the voting public who might vote NDP think, the actual members of the party who control the timing of an election don't want one. Unless, of course, the Liberals are weak and would be destroyed. This is part of the reason Layton has demanded the Libs pull the trigger since January.

The other part is fundraising. As we all remember from the $1.95 fiasco last year that caused the coalition crisis, the NDP are the 2nd best fundraising party after the Tories. The best way to keep money flowing into NDP coffers is to have Layton keep hammering podiums and demanding the Harper Tories be brought down. Even when he doesn't really want an election, Layton is big on talking tough. But when the rubber hits the road, Layton only wants an election when the NDP will do well. This may just mean losing 5 seats or so, or holding steady. They don't have much room to gain but a lot of room to lose. Still, an election would have to be held eventually, and I'm sure a 43-member NDP caucus in a 164 seat Conservative majority (with a 45-50 member Liberal caucus) is Layton's personal private wet dream. However, the only way this election result can be held is if the Tories lose a confidence motion when the NDP poll numbers are high and the Liberal poll numbers are low.

Does this situation seem familiar to you? It should, we already had it in January. The end result? The Liberals propped the Conservatives up to avoid an election. And now you see it: the only way there can be a defeat is if the NDP and the Liberals both vote against the Conservatives. But that, in the current calculus, can't happen. Either Ignatieff or Layton is going to be in a position of weakness at the drop of the writ. If the Liberals are riding high as they were a month ago, the Liberals want to hold an election and the NDP want to prop up the Tories. If the Liberals are struggling in the polls, the NDP want to hold an election and the Liberals want to prop up the Tories. They might talk tough to keep the money-earning rhetoric in the papers, but when it comes time to shit or get off the pot, one party will always be running for the door while the other one...er, shits in a pot [come to think of it, that's disgusting! -ed].

Now there are things that can change this: a major gaffe or error or screwup by the Conservatives can hurt their poll numbers to the benefit of both parties (specifically, the Liberals can collect enough votes on the right to make up for the NDP siphoning off votes from the left). The Bloc could somehow be pressed into service for some weirdo coalition with the Liberals at the same time a split in the NDP ranks leaves some joining up to defeat the Tories as others go against. Finally, one of the parties could receive incredibly bad advice: modern in-house party polling is extremely accurate so this seems far-fetched, but then again Dion did try an ill-timed coalition push in December. Other than these options though, I don't see the current political climate change too much.

In other words, Stephen Harper's minority government could last a full 5-year mandate as the Liberals and NDP keep flipping positions on who wants an election and who wants the status quo. If we have an election soon and/or without a massive gaffe or mistake that drops Tory support, the only possible explanation is that somebody got really really bad advice. This one is a guarantee: in that event, look for one or more of the major parties to experience a very very rude awakening the morning after the election.

Everything queer is new again

The Edmonton AIDS Walk for Life was held this morning.

I'm confused: wasn't the fag pride parade in June?

Baby you can drive my czar

President Monkey's czar-obsession brought into musical form (but not the song implied in the post title, which would also be hilarious):


(h/t Mark Steyn)

as others pick up my slack

While I haven't had any hot ass in a while, if you click here you can find a hot asian chick and a couple of douchebags on the LRT. Fun fun!

I keep meaning to buy one of those

The Super 7 Lottery has been shut down.

Starting next week, it will be replaced by a new lottery — Lotto Max — that will be a lot more expensive.

So, er, yeah, this is another attempt to con poor people into spending more of their money to build fancy playgrounds for the upper middle class.

Sometimes it just feels too creepy.

"Just let me have my fun tonight. A'ight?"

There's something seriously disturbing about this:

"Man, I'd pay money to skip this line." "Uh, you just did."

ABFreedom gets healthcare:

I stepped into the medical center, filled out a few lines on some paper work, and didn't even get a chance to sit down, when I was called into one of the rooms. The Nurse took some info about allergies, and family history, and said she would be right back. Within minutes the Doc come in, took a look, and told me to lay back. He did the surgery, which took about 10 minutes, sewed me up, and left. The nurse did a little clean up, and I was done.

The whole procedure sign in, diagnostics, surgery, and clean up was done in 45 minutes! .. No playing around.. no referring me to here, there, and everywhere. No waiting for hours in the waiting room. No coming back at a better time.... Just getting it done... Period.

George W. Bush Video Countdown, #10

With October 20th being my day to see George W. Bush live and in person in Edmonton, Third Edge of the Sword is counting down the best 10 George W. Bush videos.

Here's the first entry, where President Bush unveils the nu-cu-lar aircraft carrier that bears the name of his father.

Send Ed a message...er, another one. Louder.

Ed was sent a message...

This by election was a referendum on Ed plain and simple. The WAP currently has no leader, sold no other platform than to send Ed a message, and ran against what I consider a strong PC candidate. While the win was necessary, it is not time to gloat the win (maybe for a day or two:). This was a major step for the party in the fact we took the win from the right, and beat out the Libs which in my mind is the other political powerhouse, but we are far from being a government or strong opposition for that matter. This being said, we can be.

But Ed didn't get the message:

Ed Stelmach showed very little class with his press release from the GOA. This stinks of flying the party banner with no acknowledgement of Paul Hinman. How he could use taxpayer money to give thanks to Diane and assure the residents of Calgary-Glenmore that the other city MLA's will continue to represent them is simply wrong. This statement should be on the PC website, not the GOA. Paul is the representation of these voters, as they have decided. Undermining their decision shows his sheer ignorance of what the message is the voters in this riding are sending. People are sick and tired of the way he is running the province, and if he won't address the problems the Wildrose Alliance will.

No Fat Chicks

Can we all just agree once and for all that "Supergirly", besides being fat and ugly, aren't even remotely funny?

Update, June 21 2020: Previous link broken:

V I C T O R Y

Step 1...

Paul Hinman has been elected in Calgary-Glenmore:

An upset in Calgary-Glenmore Monday night, as Wildrose Alliance candidate Paul Hinman has won the by-election in the southwest riding.
Liberal Avalon Roberts finished a close second, while marquee Tory candidate Diane Colley-Urquhart placed a relatively distant third.
Only about 300 votes separated Hinman from second-place finisher Roberts.
The riding has been held by the Progressive Conservatives since the late 1960s, most recently by former deputy premier Ron Stevens.

It's true: a gayfish just can't live in the outside world

With the Kanye West/Taylor Swift incident last night I thought it entirely suitable to present to you this:


(and the full version with all the swears:)


Bonus Kanye: Gold Derby at the Los Angeles Times has a couple quality blog posts (with some interesting pro-Kanye comments from weirdos) up here and here. Also interesting for several black commentators, particularly one from "denard":

ad but true, once again Kanye goes out of his way to give hip-hop a black eye. It's not always the racial conspirators that ruin it for us. Sometimes, we can look at our own outlandish buffonery and find more fault. I am not happy that Kanye has once again made a true jack@$$ of himself. But when you're music begins to lack in the depth and complexity that it once had (because your hunger has diminished), you have to find other ways to stay relevant. Your ignorance fuels that negative stigma that makes it hard for us (universally) to escape the perception that all of us who produce, purchase, and purvey hip-hop are coonish apes. I would ask you to kill yourself. But if you did that, I'd have to endure endless rotation of what has become an increasingly shallow catalog of your music every anniversary of your death. Simply stated: build a bridge and get over yourself or jump off it after you build it.

Also check out MTV's comparison of Joe Wilson to Kanye West. Of course, Obama wasn't "attempting to debunk the myths created around health care reform", he was trying to spin an issue his way. Not that MTV would clue in. On the other hand, of course, Beyonce's video (black chicks shaking their ass) isn't exactly breaking huge swaths of new ground. [neither is Taylor Swift's mind you, but nobody called it the greatest video of all time last night either di they? -ed]

I'll Bury Those Cock-a-roaches

So an Edmonton Senior is terrorized by cockroaches:

A city senior says life in her downtown apartment has become unbearable after cockroaches infested her kitchen.

"They are all over the place," said a teary-eyed Kathy Szaniszlo, from her third-floor suite at 10408 92 St. yesterday.

In August, the 64-year-old widow submitted a written request to the building management to have her unit fumigated, but says no one has helped her.

Pests crawl over her dishes in the cupboard, kitchen counters and floors.

She has tried to combat the critters herself by placing sticky roach traps around her cluttered but clean one-bedroom suite.

"No one can help me fix the apartment," said Szaniszlo, a 10-year resident of the building who immigrated to Canada from Hungary in 1975.

The woman is unable to tend to the problem herself because she receives little funding from Assured Income for the Severely Handicapped (AISH) for depression and has a broken finger.

Building management said fumigators were sent to the apartment twice, but didn't provide service because the renter didn't remove her belongings from the suite.

"She has to take her stuff out but she didn't do it," said building manager Hamid Elhag yesterday.

So where exactly did she turn "came to help, couldn't fumigate with her stuff there" morph into "no one has helped her"? So much of this story makes a person cringe. The fumigators and the landlord, cruelly yet sensibly, didn't do beyond their requirements to assist her. She seems to have no ability to solve the problem herself beyond putting up roach traps. The real killer? unable to tend to herself because she gets AISH funding for depression. You read that right, depression. Sort of puts all the political propganda pushed on us by the NDP in perspective, doesn't it? They always manage to pick out the spokespeople for this group by finding the most severely handicapped and injured sufferers they can find, and that's who stands next to Rachel Notley as they "shame" the government for not doing more to help those qualifying for AISH. But then a random sampling of the "Severely Handicapped" population receiving assured incomes is plucked in a news story and the house of cards comes crashing down.

Naturally, you know what comes next: a desperate plea for the uncaring provincial government to get off their keisters and do something for a woman who already receives free money because she feels bad.

Unfortunately, there is little help available for struggling seniors, said Ruth Adria, chairman of the Elder Advocates of Alberta Society.

"There is really no one to protect seniors. That's reality. We live in a society that hasn't compassion or morality."

Ruth Adria has apparently never heard of the Shriners, or United Way, or any of the gazillion other charities in place to help people like this. In fact, if Adria is herself an "elder" she may just remember a bygone era where people banded together to help each other in a very real sense. Why can't the Elder Advocates of Alberta Society just make a few phone calls, grab a bunch of committed able-bodied citizens to show up at Szaniszlo's door and help her evacuate her apartment so it can be fumigated? Oh, wait, that's right: the EAOAS is not a charity organization, they're a advocacy organization. In other words, lobbyists. Why would you help people yourself when you can demand that other people do it? It's way easier, and more fun, to just place (further) demands on the Alberta taxpayer. [nevermind that the current 'helping people from the public purse' demands on the Alberta taxpayer are the reason so many don't 'have any compassion'. We gave at the office (literally) -ed]

It's too bad that Kathy Szaniszlo has cockroaches. It may even turn out to be the landlord's problem. But its not my problem, and its not your problem, and its not Ruth Adria's problem. Two of the three of us may think we want to do something, but then the two in the equation should be the ones to do it. It's easy to say "why won't Ed Stelmach help out a senior in central Edmonton solve her cockroach problem?" It's not so easy to say "hey, rather than chastize citizens for not having morality, I'll use the power of my organization to solve problems for the group of people we claim to be helping". The big concern here is that one woman's problem will somehow morph into mine, all because of the bleating of a few people who would rather say than do.

Bush coming to Edmonton

As some of you may be aware, I now have my ticket to "A Conversation with George W. Bush". It promises to be fun, exciting, informative, and a great way to piss off liberals.

Already Mimi Williams is upset:

I am quite chagrined that Edmonton Economic Development is co-sponsoring this event. Many Edmontonians hold the former president in the lowest regard; some even believe he should be prosecuted for war crimes.

Given what we know from his Calgary visit, his appearance is obviously provocative and will surely trigger disruptive, and potentially violent, demonstrations in front of the Shaw Conference Centre.

In my view, it is inappropriate that EEDC--funded by taxpayers--is participating in any event celebrating this man's actions.

First off, let me officially note that I would rather have an Edmonton of 1,000,000 George W. Bushes than an Edmonton that contains the one Mimi Williams we're already stuck with. [I've been sitting off on a half-done post regarding how Mimi Williams got a job with Telus specifically to strike -ed].

As I've noted before, war criminal and impeached disbarred ex-President Bill Clinton has come to Edmonton and Calgary without fanfare, so its already illogical to be upset over Bush.

As another note, Marilyn Manson came to Edmonton. He's at least an order of magnitude worse to have in our city than Bush. He even played on 9/11. As Mike Ross's review noted, not so much as a whimper of a protest.

It's a shame George W. won't get that kind of a reception.

Update, 12:42pm: A few other posts on the subject at connect2edmonton (they ignore Clinton the War Criminal), Hawkeyi (featuring ignorant youtube comments from a bunch of kids who get their news from Jon Stewart), Colin Horgan (who decided to make up what Klein was "best known for" -- the correct answer was "balancing the books"), and ProtestBush.com (well, they are actually quite reserved on the subject as wingnuts go).

Update, October 20 2009, 12:30pm: Well, the big day is here, and since this is the high Google ranking entry in this series, here are more recent posts regarding Bush's visit:

• The George W. Bush Top Ten Video Countdown
• Welcoming Bush to Edmonton with bonus psychological analysis about Bush Derangement Syndrome
• Little fanfare when War Criminal Bill Clinton made it to Montreal last week

and to think I've been doing it for free!

Apparently I can get paid:

by ralldrittvsa
Sep 11 2009
4:29 PM

Whoa, look at all the liberal comments all over Canadian news websites today.

It's almost as if the 2 or 3 paid conservative posters that spam canadian online news are on vacation.

What day is it?

IT'S SATURDAAAAAAYYYYYY!

Alberta Government departments that can be cut

(in regard to this tweet)

Here's a list of Alberta provincial departments from the Government of Alberta website. Departments in GREEN can afford to have their budgets cut by at least 25% (as high as 60% in some cases) in order to lower the tax burden required of the people of this province. Departments in BLUE can similarly be eliminated entirely to lower the tax burden.

Aboriginal Relations
Advanced Education and Technology
Agriculture and Rural Development
Children and Youth Services
Culture and Community Spirit
Education
Employment and Immigration
Energy
Environment
Executive Council
Finance and Enterprise
Health and Wellness
Housing and Urban Affairs
Infrastructure
International and Intergovernmental Relations
Justice and Attorney General
Municipal Affairs
Seniors and Community Supports
Service Alberta
Solicitor General and Public Security
Sustainable Resource Development
Tourism, Parks and Recreation
Transportation
Treasury Board

Eight years ago...

The planets all align and Lara Croft saves us, or something

Or maybe its just:

09:09:09 on 09/09/09.

SPOOKY!

What a difference a year makes: Stephen Harper and the blue sweater

One year ago today I blogged about the new Conservative ads put out to precede the fall election.

Even I, politically astute as I am, first glanced up at the TV (sound was off as it was in a bar) and first thought "is Ted Danson in a new movie?"

Well, its a year later, there's another fall election on the horizon, and this time the Liberals are the ones planning to drop the writ. So naturally, they also have come out with new campaign ads.

Hugh MacIntyre at the Shotgun blog has reviewed one of Ignatieff's new English ads. Also a twitter review from @DeanTester. No blue sweater, but this time a green-screened nature shot, which I've made a brief joke regarding.

Saskatchewan Driving Tips

The Weather Network actually has a link to something called "Saskatchewan Driving Tips". I have my own Saskatchewan driving tips for you. It looks something like this:


View Larger Map

You make the call

Okay, so here's the situation. BC Lions versus Montreal Alouettes, September 4th, 2009 in BC Place.

With 3rd and 1, and the ball on the BC 6 yard line, a first down for Montreal is more likely than not a touchdown gimmie. The teams line up, and the BC Place crowd is so loud that Montreal's O-line can't hear the calls from backup QB Adrian McPherson. In fact, its so loud that nobody can hear the whistle blowing that BC is calling a timeout (oh Wally Buono, you clever asshole). Montral makes the push, but the play doesn't exist as the timeout was called long before the snap, as confirmed by video replay. The 3rd down has to be redone. Okay fair enough, and you see that the loud crowd was exactly what Buono had in mind: let Montreal make their play.

Well, it was a giant mistake from the CFL's winningest coach. On the next play, 3rd and 1 with 1:00 left on the clock (recently reset from 0:58), Montreal hands off rather than pushes for the last yard, and runs into the end zone. It was 19-12 before the play... now Montreal has to decide to push for the 19-19 tie or try a 20-19 win with a 2-point conversion. Wait, there's a flag on the play, and the CFL has challenged the ruling...

...so it turns out that while TSN reset their clock to 1:00, the official clock was still 0:58. So now what would you say the correct call is?

Change the clock time from whatever it ended post-touchdown (ie. 52 to 54 seconds) to replace the missing two seconds? No, that's not it.

Reset the clock to 1:00, replay the 3rd and 1, and negate the touchdown? Absolutely! That's it man, you got it right there!

Okay, does anybody want to explain how this works? One of the basic rules in problem solving is that you pick the item that does the least harm to parties that had no role in the problem. Montreal had nothing to do with the clock being reset, so why is their play (which they only did in the first place because BC did an asshole trick by calling a timeout just before a play in a home environment with excessive noise) negated after the fact?