If anyone should stop a spring election from happening, it is the Bloc Quebecois. You can read the argument between the lines of this Chantal Hebert column.
The Bloc has no advantage to gain through an election. They can do, at beast, little in terms of seat count or, in terms of raison d'etre, advancing separatism.
The downside, however, happens on day 18 of the campaign, when Quebeckers realize that the Harper regime will swallow up another 20 seats and be the majority government of Canada. Suddenly, the Bloc Quebecois is at most an irritating rash on the Canadian skin. Chantal Hebert hides this point in her column, maybe because she doesn't want to scare the Bloc into avoiding the election. Because Quebeckers won't figure out the future flaccidity of the Bloc Quebecois in a majority government scenario too late. It will be Day 18.
Fun to mention: Duceppe is in his third decade as a major political figure in Canadian politics. This is historic proportions and I think lovers of Canada should pay tribute to his contribution to the richness and stability of Canadian political life.
Monday, March 14, 2011
Tuesday, February 22, 2011
Liberals & Libya
Like John Ivison and Warren Kinsella, turmoil in Libya has me remembering fondly the days when a long-toothed Liberal regime happily sold brand Canada to promote the wise stewardship of Colonel Kadaffy.
It sounded like smart politics at the time. Canadians, in full moral prim-itude, were not hip to the concept of human freedom. That was dangerous W dummy talk. We were sophisticated realists who knew the sum of human happiness was assured by men like Saddam Hussein. How better for Paul Martin to establish his anti-W cred than with a visit to newly-repented Colonel Kadaffy. Canada, our Prime Minister was saying, was a friend of Arab dictators and few dead dissidents wouldn't spoil the party.
Interestingly, today's Liberals are basically nowhere on what's going on in Libya specifically and the middle east generally. If they are saying something, clearly, no one in the media thinks they have anything noteworthy to contribute. Probably, knowing that pictures of Juggernaut Martin and Colonel Kadaffy, hanging in the Colonel's bedoin tent, are all over the internet.
And Iggy, who once stood with the Kurds against another violent loony tune - Saddam Hussein, is in an awkward position on Libya in particular. He famously threw the kurds under the bus and argued that wthe orld would be a better place if Saddam Hussein was restored to power. From that, we can only infer that he has his fingers on Colonel Kadaffy's behalf. However sincerly held and rigorously considered, Iggy's preference for status-quo autocracy in the middle east is not the fashion these days.
It sounded like smart politics at the time. Canadians, in full moral prim-itude, were not hip to the concept of human freedom. That was dangerous W dummy talk. We were sophisticated realists who knew the sum of human happiness was assured by men like Saddam Hussein. How better for Paul Martin to establish his anti-W cred than with a visit to newly-repented Colonel Kadaffy. Canada, our Prime Minister was saying, was a friend of Arab dictators and few dead dissidents wouldn't spoil the party.
Interestingly, today's Liberals are basically nowhere on what's going on in Libya specifically and the middle east generally. If they are saying something, clearly, no one in the media thinks they have anything noteworthy to contribute. Probably, knowing that pictures of Juggernaut Martin and Colonel Kadaffy, hanging in the Colonel's bedoin tent, are all over the internet.
And Iggy, who once stood with the Kurds against another violent loony tune - Saddam Hussein, is in an awkward position on Libya in particular. He famously threw the kurds under the bus and argued that wthe orld would be a better place if Saddam Hussein was restored to power. From that, we can only infer that he has his fingers on Colonel Kadaffy's behalf. However sincerly held and rigorously considered, Iggy's preference for status-quo autocracy in the middle east is not the fashion these days.
Sunday, February 20, 2011
Protests in the Middle East and Middle America
Protests are busting out all over. Will democracy bloom in the middle east? Or will Turkey, Israel and Iraq be the only free-vote trio in that area?
I have no clue. I know Ghaddafi's facial hair creeps me out. But would I brave sniper fire over it? Probably not. Instead, my protest would be quiet and incremental: I'd get lazy. And lazy is what really kills dictatorships.
It is something like having an asshole for a boss - nobody works hard anymore. Nobody comes up with any good ideas or makes any helpful suggestions. Everybody keeps their head down but their eyes on the clock. Laziness is a slow-motion tsunami.
Down in Wisconsin, they are protesting too. In fact, there are hippie punks with the nerve to compare themselves to the brave punks of Cairo. If they have the nerve to compare themselves, let's look at that seriously:
In Cairo, part of the protest is about bureacrats getting rich from corruption.
In Madison, Wisconsin, the entire protest is about keeping the fat, corrupt benefits that public unions have extracted from tax payers for their workers.
In Cairo, they protest under the threat of violence for economic fairness.
In Madison, they protest with no threat of anything for economic gluttony.
Someone should spank public unions and their members. Do they know the value of their pensions? They are all millionaires. And none of them understand how unique the rewards of their labour are.
I have no clue. I know Ghaddafi's facial hair creeps me out. But would I brave sniper fire over it? Probably not. Instead, my protest would be quiet and incremental: I'd get lazy. And lazy is what really kills dictatorships.
It is something like having an asshole for a boss - nobody works hard anymore. Nobody comes up with any good ideas or makes any helpful suggestions. Everybody keeps their head down but their eyes on the clock. Laziness is a slow-motion tsunami.
Down in Wisconsin, they are protesting too. In fact, there are hippie punks with the nerve to compare themselves to the brave punks of Cairo. If they have the nerve to compare themselves, let's look at that seriously:
In Cairo, part of the protest is about bureacrats getting rich from corruption.
In Madison, Wisconsin, the entire protest is about keeping the fat, corrupt benefits that public unions have extracted from tax payers for their workers.
In Cairo, they protest under the threat of violence for economic fairness.
In Madison, they protest with no threat of anything for economic gluttony.
Someone should spank public unions and their members. Do they know the value of their pensions? They are all millionaires. And none of them understand how unique the rewards of their labour are.
Friday, January 28, 2011
Settle Science, Unsettle Planet
I share two links that should not be overlooked:
Warm Water flowing into the Arctic.
Hymalayan glaciers aren't melting, afterall.
So the science is settled. Marge Atwood could sing it to you to the tune of "Your so Vain". But the song is actually about her.
There is a slice of people at any time and place in human experience that feels the evils and horrors of the world are directly connected to our moral crimes. We commit these crimes whenever we stray from that slice's strictures for good living. As with global warmers this time, inevitably, the bullshit blows up in their face.
This was never a call to guzzle gas or make believe about dinosaur bones. Only a plea to accept one unforgiving, unrelenting fact of life: change happens. Islands sink. Glaciers melt. Some summers burn a little more than others. Rain clouds shift. Rivers carve. Mountains crumble. My greasy body, if the timing is perfect and the compression sufficient, will power some future subaru a mile or so. Or not.
Warm Water flowing into the Arctic.
Hymalayan glaciers aren't melting, afterall.
So the science is settled. Marge Atwood could sing it to you to the tune of "Your so Vain". But the song is actually about her.
There is a slice of people at any time and place in human experience that feels the evils and horrors of the world are directly connected to our moral crimes. We commit these crimes whenever we stray from that slice's strictures for good living. As with global warmers this time, inevitably, the bullshit blows up in their face.
This was never a call to guzzle gas or make believe about dinosaur bones. Only a plea to accept one unforgiving, unrelenting fact of life: change happens. Islands sink. Glaciers melt. Some summers burn a little more than others. Rain clouds shift. Rivers carve. Mountains crumble. My greasy body, if the timing is perfect and the compression sufficient, will power some future subaru a mile or so. Or not.
Monday, January 24, 2011
TV Shows and TV Ads (Liberal ones, both)
From Yankeeland, they piped into my tv a preview of the show that will replace Parker-Spitzer on CNN: Spitzer-Steele. Michael Steele is unemployed, Kathleen Parker is a dud. Swap the two and you have the spectacle of too obnoxious men trying to out-obnoxious one another. That's basically a distillation of the finest moments in the history of reality television. If CNN didn't realize this before hand, it should by now and their lawyer's should be drafting a contract with Michael Steele's lawyers.
Meanwhile, I got to end my twenty minutes of telly with a couple of anti-Harper ads from the Liberals. From the gist of the ads, Liberals expect a revolution over fighter jets and corporate tax cuts. As always, Liberals are charging to defeat before anyone started playing.
Individually, neither of these issues are obvious wins for Liberals. Fighter jets fly over wide expanses of arctic. Making the fighter jets an issue plays into Conservative hands by reminding voters that the government is acting on the citizenry's top priorities. While Liberals will look empty-mouthed when it comes to our foreign policy worries. Meanwhile, giving Canada kick ass corporate tax rates will pull in additional foreign investment and keep a greater portion of our own capital at work here at home. Liberals, by contesting the corporate tax cuts, look wilfully clueless about the foundations of job creation.
Together, these issues point to another problem. These two issues are about as stale as bread in a rue Prince Arthur restaurant. Tories have been long-term planning military assets for half a decade now. The vision to have hyper-competitive corporate tax rates has been in the wind for at least the last three years. Liberals have to go back into the archives to raise a couple of issues from the dead?
The ads both end with the question: is this your Canada? Or Harper's? My answer, yes.
Meanwhile, I got to end my twenty minutes of telly with a couple of anti-Harper ads from the Liberals. From the gist of the ads, Liberals expect a revolution over fighter jets and corporate tax cuts. As always, Liberals are charging to defeat before anyone started playing.
Individually, neither of these issues are obvious wins for Liberals. Fighter jets fly over wide expanses of arctic. Making the fighter jets an issue plays into Conservative hands by reminding voters that the government is acting on the citizenry's top priorities. While Liberals will look empty-mouthed when it comes to our foreign policy worries. Meanwhile, giving Canada kick ass corporate tax rates will pull in additional foreign investment and keep a greater portion of our own capital at work here at home. Liberals, by contesting the corporate tax cuts, look wilfully clueless about the foundations of job creation.
Together, these issues point to another problem. These two issues are about as stale as bread in a rue Prince Arthur restaurant. Tories have been long-term planning military assets for half a decade now. The vision to have hyper-competitive corporate tax rates has been in the wind for at least the last three years. Liberals have to go back into the archives to raise a couple of issues from the dead?
The ads both end with the question: is this your Canada? Or Harper's? My answer, yes.
Thursday, January 13, 2011
By the pricking of my thumbs, someting Palin this way comes
Our man Tiger has links to Sarah Palin's facebook video. She posted it yesterday as a "response" to the Arizona political assasination over the weekend.
Tiger may find what she has to say rationally compelling, let me tell you what Tarkwell thinks:
I think Sarah Palin would rip a suckling baby from her breast and bash its brains out if it would make her King.
She scares the be-jeezus out of me. Not because her head is full of scary right-wing ideas; like Tiger, I accept her basic premises and most conclusions. But words aren't everything. Timing, delivery, circumstance - the context matters too. In those things, ambition, lust and greed can be unmasked.
A politician has survived an assasination attempt. Many bystanders did not.
Just like it is wrong to apportion some guilt from the crazy bastard's acts on Sarah Palin; it is wrong for Sarah Palin to apportion some victim-ness from the crazy bastard's acts. But that's just what Sarah Palin is doing - using the occasion to point out how mean people have been to HER.
A weak and prickly person is a weak and prickly president.
Further, one of the sickest displays possible is rehearsed remorse. There was a chilling roboticism to her address - it was so bad, even Tarkwell Robotico could have looked more sincere. In the "grieving" half of the speech, Palin gives this weird, non-sequiter smile when she talks about the United States: she's reminding us all that she loves her country the way simple country folk love old and loyal horses. Victims get a shrug, the United States gets a wink and a nod; real emotion only barely surfaces when Palin finally gets to talking about her favorite subject, Palin.
A robotic and solipsistic person is a robotic and solipsistic president.
Sarah Palin cannot be president. She is weak, prickly, robotic and solipsistic.
Her advisors a idiot boobs who, if they had any sense, would have told her to shut up and take the cheap roughing up at the hands of the usual slithering pricks in silence. The adivsors should have told her to stick to grief and maybe say a kind word about the Rep. Giffords. Look human, they should have shouted!
Instead,she turned Andrew Sullivan's lunatic ravings about her into prescient forewarnings.
Tiger may find what she has to say rationally compelling, let me tell you what Tarkwell thinks:
I think Sarah Palin would rip a suckling baby from her breast and bash its brains out if it would make her King.
She scares the be-jeezus out of me. Not because her head is full of scary right-wing ideas; like Tiger, I accept her basic premises and most conclusions. But words aren't everything. Timing, delivery, circumstance - the context matters too. In those things, ambition, lust and greed can be unmasked.
A politician has survived an assasination attempt. Many bystanders did not.
Just like it is wrong to apportion some guilt from the crazy bastard's acts on Sarah Palin; it is wrong for Sarah Palin to apportion some victim-ness from the crazy bastard's acts. But that's just what Sarah Palin is doing - using the occasion to point out how mean people have been to HER.
A weak and prickly person is a weak and prickly president.
Further, one of the sickest displays possible is rehearsed remorse. There was a chilling roboticism to her address - it was so bad, even Tarkwell Robotico could have looked more sincere. In the "grieving" half of the speech, Palin gives this weird, non-sequiter smile when she talks about the United States: she's reminding us all that she loves her country the way simple country folk love old and loyal horses. Victims get a shrug, the United States gets a wink and a nod; real emotion only barely surfaces when Palin finally gets to talking about her favorite subject, Palin.
A robotic and solipsistic person is a robotic and solipsistic president.
Sarah Palin cannot be president. She is weak, prickly, robotic and solipsistic.
Her advisors a idiot boobs who, if they had any sense, would have told her to shut up and take the cheap roughing up at the hands of the usual slithering pricks in silence. The adivsors should have told her to stick to grief and maybe say a kind word about the Rep. Giffords. Look human, they should have shouted!
Instead,she turned Andrew Sullivan's lunatic ravings about her into prescient forewarnings.
Tuesday, December 14, 2010
2012: The Year of Right-Wing Miracles
Last weak, news leaked that President Obama and Prime Minister Harper were secretly negotiating a step towards something I have long advocated: eliminated the border between Canada and the United States.
Our opposition, led by celebrity academic Michael Ignatieff, is confused - nay, wounded - that the government hasn't come clean with them on the secret negotiations. Iggy asks, "Why does this government want to impose a secret agreement on Canadians without debate? What do they have to hide?"
Here's what's hiding in plain sight Iggy: a campaign platform. A big idea. A majority-making move from the government. Canada is not a land of Maude Barlows, just because she reacts to the idea like its wheat gluten don't mean the rest of us are as allergic.
Get ready, Iggy, for Campaign 2012. Its polarizing. Its a big idea. And here's the fun-nest of all:
Obama will be campaigning FOR the deal. You and your Obama-worshippers will not only be fighting Tories - you'll be spitting venom the great O's way.
No wait, there's something even more fun about Campaign 2012:
You. Today, you were about a deal to ease border congestion in terms of our charter rights. You lived there. In Boston. I'm not making this up. You were not so worried about your own charter rights and you weren't just crossing the border - you were setting roots in that evil, charter-usurping land. If Beantown works for you, how come I'm not allowed a hassle free visit?
No leader in the history of the Liberal party is as badly positioned to play the hysterical, anti-Yank card than Iggy Ignatief.
Big Idea. Obama's backing. Iggy's inauthenticity. We's in grand slam country now.
Our opposition, led by celebrity academic Michael Ignatieff, is confused - nay, wounded - that the government hasn't come clean with them on the secret negotiations. Iggy asks, "Why does this government want to impose a secret agreement on Canadians without debate? What do they have to hide?"
Here's what's hiding in plain sight Iggy: a campaign platform. A big idea. A majority-making move from the government. Canada is not a land of Maude Barlows, just because she reacts to the idea like its wheat gluten don't mean the rest of us are as allergic.
Get ready, Iggy, for Campaign 2012. Its polarizing. Its a big idea. And here's the fun-nest of all:
Obama will be campaigning FOR the deal. You and your Obama-worshippers will not only be fighting Tories - you'll be spitting venom the great O's way.
No wait, there's something even more fun about Campaign 2012:
You. Today, you were about a deal to ease border congestion in terms of our charter rights. You lived there. In Boston. I'm not making this up. You were not so worried about your own charter rights and you weren't just crossing the border - you were setting roots in that evil, charter-usurping land. If Beantown works for you, how come I'm not allowed a hassle free visit?
No leader in the history of the Liberal party is as badly positioned to play the hysterical, anti-Yank card than Iggy Ignatief.
Big Idea. Obama's backing. Iggy's inauthenticity. We's in grand slam country now.
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