Not to sound like some kind of doom-monger, but what the hell is going on?
Double D hints at a stalling global economy...
Meanwhile, Loonytoongate continues:
Daniel Pipes:
The key issue at stake in the battle over the twelve Danish cartoons of the Muslim prophet Muhammad is this: Will the West stand up for its customs and mores, including freedom of speech, or will Muslims impose their way of life on the West? Ultimately, there is no compromise: Westerners will either retain their civilization, including the right to insult and blaspheme, or not.
More hilarity, and a little perspective, from Iowahawk
Angry in the Great White North Gets it:
So I ask again, if you believe in free speech, if you believe that Church and State have distinct roles to play, and that they need to respect each other's authority, if you have spared any thought about the sort of world you want your kids to grow up in, and if you have ever wanted to poke an Islamic terrorist in the eye but figured you would never get the chance, then post a cartoon if you are a blogger.
State that the cartoon is offensive and in poor taste, if you find it so. Call it puerile and juvenile if you like. Misleading even. But if you have a blog, post a copy. Whatever your point of view, stand up and be counted against those who have not only have no interest in your point of view but would have your point of view silenced, violently if need be.
Another spot to see Cartoons
And because I am a believer in equal-opportunity offending, here are some offensive cartoons of a different stripe....sauce for the goose, I say... and yet for some reason, I don't recall any embassy burnings, boycotts or riots over these bad boys...
Though we continue to feed the crocodile, Captain Hook is finally getting what is coming to him. Now people are pissed that he wasn't investigated earlier.
Here is a scorecard of the spectrum of responses from the West.
Wednesday, February 08, 2006
Tuesday, February 07, 2006
NEVER FORGET
YOU HAVE A RIGHT TO THINK AND SAY AND BELIEVE WHAT YOU WANT
NO ONE CAN TAKE THAT AWAY FROM YOU
EVER
Cartoons here
One ought never to turn one's back on a threatened danger and try to run away from it. If you do that, you will double the danger. But if you meet it promptly and without flinching, you will reduce the danger by half.
Sir Winston Churchill
YOU HAVE A RIGHT TO THINK AND SAY AND BELIEVE WHAT YOU WANT
NO ONE CAN TAKE THAT AWAY FROM YOU
EVER
Cartoons here
One ought never to turn one's back on a threatened danger and try to run away from it. If you do that, you will double the danger. But if you meet it promptly and without flinching, you will reduce the danger by half.
Sir Winston Churchill
Saturday, February 04, 2006
SITZKRIEG
A hundred years hence, some historians prone to periodization and the identification of historical parallels, as problematic as both these approaches may be, will no doubt look upon the first decade of the twenty-first century and debate the moment at which the West ended its policy of accomodation with Radical Islam and entered "the next stage".
Historians looking for the ominous signposts along the road to the conflict may well point to this development and the current showdown with Iran, to argue that we had already entered the phony war by 2006.
The early tremors often portend calamities to come, as the vagaries of history illustrate:
In an act of terror, an obscure young nationalist fires a pistol into the motorcar of an imperial heir, killing him and his pregnant wife. Six weeks later, millions of people are engulfed by conflict on an unimagined scale.
A public building is razed, and a dissafected former Corporal rises to absolute power amidst the turmoil of a worldwide depression, paving the way for the most horrific war ever visited upon civilization.
The seeds may well be sown.... if so, what will civilization harvest?
A hundred years hence, some historians prone to periodization and the identification of historical parallels, as problematic as both these approaches may be, will no doubt look upon the first decade of the twenty-first century and debate the moment at which the West ended its policy of accomodation with Radical Islam and entered "the next stage".
Historians looking for the ominous signposts along the road to the conflict may well point to this development and the current showdown with Iran, to argue that we had already entered the phony war by 2006.
The early tremors often portend calamities to come, as the vagaries of history illustrate:
In an act of terror, an obscure young nationalist fires a pistol into the motorcar of an imperial heir, killing him and his pregnant wife. Six weeks later, millions of people are engulfed by conflict on an unimagined scale.
A public building is razed, and a dissafected former Corporal rises to absolute power amidst the turmoil of a worldwide depression, paving the way for the most horrific war ever visited upon civilization.
The seeds may well be sown.... if so, what will civilization harvest?
Free Flow
Presidential Candidate? Well...ya know... I could... see it
Why the Europeans are not waked up?
I did a Babelfish translation of a Mark Steyn interview with Guilio Meotti of Il Foglio. It was bizarre.
My favourite thing was the literal Italian translation of Alito as "Breath". Supreme Court Justice Sam Breath --a breath of fresh judicial air. I think it works!
Speaking of Steyn (as I often do... I can almost hear the sound of eyeballs rolling), I thought one of his comments on the Hughes story was hilarious:
Mr Hughes's current claim of "bisexuality" has the whiff of artful centrist positioning about it: bi- is the proportional representation of sexuality in a world where most of us - straight or gay - operate a first-past-the-post system.
After watching last night's horrifying Dateline NBC/Perverted-Justice.com Child Predator Sting, I was certain of one thing. If parents are letting their kids put up Web pages on
MySpace.com, they better make damn sure they are vigilant. We live in scary times.
Presidential Candidate? Well...ya know... I could... see it
Why the Europeans are not waked up?
I did a Babelfish translation of a Mark Steyn interview with Guilio Meotti of Il Foglio. It was bizarre.
My favourite thing was the literal Italian translation of Alito as "Breath". Supreme Court Justice Sam Breath --a breath of fresh judicial air. I think it works!
Speaking of Steyn (as I often do... I can almost hear the sound of eyeballs rolling), I thought one of his comments on the Hughes story was hilarious:
Mr Hughes's current claim of "bisexuality" has the whiff of artful centrist positioning about it: bi- is the proportional representation of sexuality in a world where most of us - straight or gay - operate a first-past-the-post system.
After watching last night's horrifying Dateline NBC/Perverted-Justice.com Child Predator Sting, I was certain of one thing. If parents are letting their kids put up Web pages on
MySpace.com, they better make damn sure they are vigilant. We live in scary times.
Wednesday, February 01, 2006
Joe Knippenberg lays the smackdown on Shadia Drury and her ilk. The hysterics of leftist Canadian academics and their paranoia over the Calgary Cabal of Conservatives (I'm copyrighting that one) are also laughable to our neighbours to the South:
Much of the noise about the Calgary School's alleged Straussianism has been traced to one source, the University of Regina's Shadia Drury, who has made her career by writing increasingly shrill and implausible screeds purporting to expose the anti-democratic elitism (and ultimate nihilism) of Leo Strauss and his students. Her work has often impressed those who haven't actually read Strauss, especially if they're fond of conspiracy theories and have a visceral hatred for conservatives. Her commentary on the Canadian scene, warning of "radical populists hiding behind the cloak of rhetorical moderation," is hard to square with her picture of Strauss and his students as anti-democratic elitists. What are those Straussians-elitists who manipulate the credulous people by lying, or radical populists? Apparently, Drury can't decide.
Much of the noise about the Calgary School's alleged Straussianism has been traced to one source, the University of Regina's Shadia Drury, who has made her career by writing increasingly shrill and implausible screeds purporting to expose the anti-democratic elitism (and ultimate nihilism) of Leo Strauss and his students. Her work has often impressed those who haven't actually read Strauss, especially if they're fond of conspiracy theories and have a visceral hatred for conservatives. Her commentary on the Canadian scene, warning of "radical populists hiding behind the cloak of rhetorical moderation," is hard to square with her picture of Strauss and his students as anti-democratic elitists. What are those Straussians-elitists who manipulate the credulous people by lying, or radical populists? Apparently, Drury can't decide.
Sunday, January 29, 2006
Variety is the spice of life
Colby's latest column on the Pigeonhole Principle (From January 14th's National Post) raises the alarm on the reproductive revolution in the developing world and the resulting "engineered" sex ratios -- another by-product of the colision of traditional social values and modernity. Basically, many people prefer to have male children, and are taking the necessary measures to ensure they have them. As a result, for the first time since humankind first appeared, the species is consistently producing more male offspring than female. What are the implications? The mind reels...
Meanwhile, Nero plays his Lyre (not his fiddle, as widely reported) as Rome burns
In a not entirely unrelated vein, Zombie goes for a walk.
So now they have a catchy name: The Condinistas begin to gear up for a White House Run in 2008.
Shocking news: Nice Guy Eddie just passed away.
Let me say this out loud, 'cause I wanna get it straight in my head. You're saying that Mr. Blonde was gonna kill you, then when we got back, he was going kill us, take the satchel of diamonds, and scram. I'm right about that, right? That's correct? That's your story? Mr. Orange: I swear on my mother's eternal soul that's what happened. Nice Guy Eddie: The man you just killed was just released from prison. He got caught at a company warehouse full of hot items. He could've fuckin' walked. All he had to do was say my dad's name, but he didn't; he kept his fucking mouth shut. And did his fuckin' time, and he did it like a man. He did four years for us. So, Mr. Orange, you're tellin' me this very good friend of mine, who did four years for my father, who in four years never made a deal, no matter what they dangled in front of him, you're telling me that now, that now this man is free, and we're making good on our commitment to him, he's just gonna decide, out of the fucking blue, to rip us off?
Why don't you tell me what really happened? "
Someone was bound to write something on Jack Bauer's propensity for wounding people with bullets in order to extract information and the US policy on torture. Jack Bauer and the Ethics of Urgency is a thought-provoking take on this timely topic.
Speaking of which....
In the spirit of Norris, here is Bauer:
1. If you wake up in the morning, it's because Jack Bauer spared your life.
2.Upon hearing that he was played by Kiefer Sutherland, Jack Bauer killed Sutherland. Jack Bauer gets played by no man.
3.If Jack Bauer was in a room with Hitler, Stalin, and Nina Meyers, and he had a gun with 2 bullets, he'd shoot Nina twice.
4.Jack Bauer killed 93 people in just 4 days time. Wait, that is a real fact.
5.Jack Bauer got Hellen Keller to talk.
6.Jack Bauer was never addicted to heroin. Heroin was addicted to Jack Bauer.
7.Jack Bauer's favorite color is severe terror alert red. His second favorite color is violet, but just because it sounds like violent.
8. 1.6 billion Chinese are angry with Jack Bauer. Sounds like a fair fight.
9.If Jack says "I just want to talk to him/her" and that him/her is you... well amigo, you're fucked.
10.Jack Bauer once forgot where he put his keys. He then spent the next half-hour torturing himself until he gave up the location of the keys.
11.Jack Bauer doesn't miss. If he didn't hit you it's because he was shooting at another terrorist twelve miles away.
12.If you get 7 stars on your wanted level on Grand Theft Auto, Jack Bauer comes after you. You don't want to get 7 stars.
13.When you open a can of whoop-ass, Jack Bauer jumps out.
14.Jack Bauer does not sleep. The only rest he needs is what he gets when he's knocked out or temporarily killed.
15.If you are still conscious, it is because Jack Bauer doesn't want to carry you.
16.Jack Bauer has no problem following orders, unless you tell him to do something he doesn't want to.
17.Jack Bauer's gun is actually a water pistol, but the water shoots out in the form of bullets. Why? Because the gun is being held by Jack fucking Bauer.
18.Lets get one thing straight, the only reason you are conscious right now is because Jack Bauer does not feel like carrying you.
19.As a child, Jack Bauer's first words were "There's no time!"
20.While being 'put under' in the hospital, Jack Bauer can count backwards from 100 every time. This annoys the doctors.
21.Jack Bauer can watch all 4 seasons of 24 in 24 hours.
22.Jack Bauer literally died for his country, and lived to tell about it.
23.Jack Bauer's family threw him a surprise birthday party when he was a child. Once.
24.Killing Jack Bauer doesn't make him dead. It just makes him angry.
25.Everytime Jack Bauer yells "NOW!" at the end of a sentence, a terrorist dies.
26.If Jack's starring at someone and his eye twitches, assume that person has less than 15 minutes to live.
27.When life gave Jack Bauer lemons, he used them to kill terrorists. Jack Bauer fucking hates lemonade.
28.Guns dont kill people, Jack Bauer kills people.
29.David Spade always says 'yes' to Jack Bauer when he wants to redeem his credit card miles.
30.Don't ask what Jack Bauer would do for a Klondike bar...
BONUS: Say it ain't so! Jack's Pops is a pinko!!!
Colby's latest column on the Pigeonhole Principle (From January 14th's National Post) raises the alarm on the reproductive revolution in the developing world and the resulting "engineered" sex ratios -- another by-product of the colision of traditional social values and modernity. Basically, many people prefer to have male children, and are taking the necessary measures to ensure they have them. As a result, for the first time since humankind first appeared, the species is consistently producing more male offspring than female. What are the implications? The mind reels...
Meanwhile, Nero plays his Lyre (not his fiddle, as widely reported) as Rome burns
In a not entirely unrelated vein, Zombie goes for a walk.
So now they have a catchy name: The Condinistas begin to gear up for a White House Run in 2008.
Shocking news: Nice Guy Eddie just passed away.
Let me say this out loud, 'cause I wanna get it straight in my head. You're saying that Mr. Blonde was gonna kill you, then when we got back, he was going kill us, take the satchel of diamonds, and scram. I'm right about that, right? That's correct? That's your story? Mr. Orange: I swear on my mother's eternal soul that's what happened. Nice Guy Eddie: The man you just killed was just released from prison. He got caught at a company warehouse full of hot items. He could've fuckin' walked. All he had to do was say my dad's name, but he didn't; he kept his fucking mouth shut. And did his fuckin' time, and he did it like a man. He did four years for us. So, Mr. Orange, you're tellin' me this very good friend of mine, who did four years for my father, who in four years never made a deal, no matter what they dangled in front of him, you're telling me that now, that now this man is free, and we're making good on our commitment to him, he's just gonna decide, out of the fucking blue, to rip us off?
Why don't you tell me what really happened? "
Someone was bound to write something on Jack Bauer's propensity for wounding people with bullets in order to extract information and the US policy on torture. Jack Bauer and the Ethics of Urgency is a thought-provoking take on this timely topic.
Speaking of which....
In the spirit of Norris, here is Bauer:
1. If you wake up in the morning, it's because Jack Bauer spared your life.
2.Upon hearing that he was played by Kiefer Sutherland, Jack Bauer killed Sutherland. Jack Bauer gets played by no man.
3.If Jack Bauer was in a room with Hitler, Stalin, and Nina Meyers, and he had a gun with 2 bullets, he'd shoot Nina twice.
4.Jack Bauer killed 93 people in just 4 days time. Wait, that is a real fact.
5.Jack Bauer got Hellen Keller to talk.
6.Jack Bauer was never addicted to heroin. Heroin was addicted to Jack Bauer.
7.Jack Bauer's favorite color is severe terror alert red. His second favorite color is violet, but just because it sounds like violent.
8. 1.6 billion Chinese are angry with Jack Bauer. Sounds like a fair fight.
9.If Jack says "I just want to talk to him/her" and that him/her is you... well amigo, you're fucked.
10.Jack Bauer once forgot where he put his keys. He then spent the next half-hour torturing himself until he gave up the location of the keys.
11.Jack Bauer doesn't miss. If he didn't hit you it's because he was shooting at another terrorist twelve miles away.
12.If you get 7 stars on your wanted level on Grand Theft Auto, Jack Bauer comes after you. You don't want to get 7 stars.
13.When you open a can of whoop-ass, Jack Bauer jumps out.
14.Jack Bauer does not sleep. The only rest he needs is what he gets when he's knocked out or temporarily killed.
15.If you are still conscious, it is because Jack Bauer doesn't want to carry you.
16.Jack Bauer has no problem following orders, unless you tell him to do something he doesn't want to.
17.Jack Bauer's gun is actually a water pistol, but the water shoots out in the form of bullets. Why? Because the gun is being held by Jack fucking Bauer.
18.Lets get one thing straight, the only reason you are conscious right now is because Jack Bauer does not feel like carrying you.
19.As a child, Jack Bauer's first words were "There's no time!"
20.While being 'put under' in the hospital, Jack Bauer can count backwards from 100 every time. This annoys the doctors.
21.Jack Bauer can watch all 4 seasons of 24 in 24 hours.
22.Jack Bauer literally died for his country, and lived to tell about it.
23.Jack Bauer's family threw him a surprise birthday party when he was a child. Once.
24.Killing Jack Bauer doesn't make him dead. It just makes him angry.
25.Everytime Jack Bauer yells "NOW!" at the end of a sentence, a terrorist dies.
26.If Jack's starring at someone and his eye twitches, assume that person has less than 15 minutes to live.
27.When life gave Jack Bauer lemons, he used them to kill terrorists. Jack Bauer fucking hates lemonade.
28.Guns dont kill people, Jack Bauer kills people.
29.David Spade always says 'yes' to Jack Bauer when he wants to redeem his credit card miles.
30.Don't ask what Jack Bauer would do for a Klondike bar...
BONUS: Say it ain't so! Jack's Pops is a pinko!!!
Wednesday, January 25, 2006
Expect more on this....
Coyne highlights new conventional wisdom out there in blogland --Central thesis: The urban-rural split is a fallacy, a media myth Tories outpolled the Liberals in Quebec City, Ottawa, Regina, Winnipeg, Calgary, Edmonton, and St. John's. Outside the three metropolises, the Tories won 33 seats to the Liberals 7.
There is actually an idea floating now of an MTV/rest-of-Canada divide, caused largely by overwhelming immigrant support of the Liberals. (picking up on the stat that three quarters of immigrants settle in MTV).
Coyne says: "He may or may not be right to attribute the difference to the immigrant vote. I'd say that was a subset of a larger phenomenon of cosmopolitanism. Big-city diversity has many faces: ethnicity, language, class, sexual orientation, etc. Tories have got to show they get this. (In particular, the sooner they put the gay marriage issue behind them the better.)"
How will this affect Conservative policies toward regionalizing immigration? I'm willing to bet that "spreading 'em around" is going to become a bigger priority.
Something to think about...
Coyne highlights new conventional wisdom out there in blogland --Central thesis: The urban-rural split is a fallacy, a media myth Tories outpolled the Liberals in Quebec City, Ottawa, Regina, Winnipeg, Calgary, Edmonton, and St. John's. Outside the three metropolises, the Tories won 33 seats to the Liberals 7.
There is actually an idea floating now of an MTV/rest-of-Canada divide, caused largely by overwhelming immigrant support of the Liberals. (picking up on the stat that three quarters of immigrants settle in MTV).
Coyne says: "He may or may not be right to attribute the difference to the immigrant vote. I'd say that was a subset of a larger phenomenon of cosmopolitanism. Big-city diversity has many faces: ethnicity, language, class, sexual orientation, etc. Tories have got to show they get this. (In particular, the sooner they put the gay marriage issue behind them the better.)"
How will this affect Conservative policies toward regionalizing immigration? I'm willing to bet that "spreading 'em around" is going to become a bigger priority.
Something to think about...
Tuesday, January 24, 2006
Will the Board fall on their swords?
I predicted:
LIBS 96 / CONS 120 / NDP 30 / BLOC 62
Actual:
LIBS 103 / CONS 124 / NDP 29 / BLOC 51 / IND 1
(difference +7 / -4 / -1/ -11)
Two things I did not anticipate:
The refusal of much of Ontario to swing over to Harper (meant less Tory seats in Ontario, same trend seen in BC)
The unexpected Conservative breakthrough in Quebec (meant a few more Tories in Quebec, alot less Bloc)
My verdict: A good night for the Federation. The West got in. We now have two
national parties, and a discredited Bloc that has lost all momentum now that the Gomery thing has been put to bed.
1 Samuel 31, King James Bible
Now the Philistines fought against Israel: and the men of Israel fled from before the Philistines, and fell down slain in mount Gilboa.
And the Philistines followed hard upon Saul and upon his sons; and the Philistines slew Jonathan, and Abinadab, and Melchishua, Saul's sons.
And the battle went sore against Saul,and the archers hit him; and he was sore wounded of the archers.
Then said Saul unto his armourbearer, Draw thy sword, and thrust me through therewith; lest these uncircumcised come and thrust me through, and abuse me. But his armourbearer would not; for he was sore afraid. Therefore Saul took a sword, and fell upon it.
And when his armourbearer saw that Saul was dead, he fell likewise upon his sword, and died with him.
So Saul died, and his three sons, and his armourbearer, and all his men, that same day together.
From today's Globe
Most fingers were pointed at the so-called board, the close group of strategists around Mr. Martin, such as David Herle, Scott Reid, Tim Murphy, Terrie O'Leary and Michele Cadario.
One long-time Liberal was harshly critical of this group. "They are mean people," said the Liberal organizer. "They have destroyed the reputation and integrity of a brilliant world businessman . . . because of their own egos." He said that the board members are "finished."
"No leadership contender, if there is a leadership, will be seen in the same room as them," he said.
Postscripts:
I have been convinced for some time now that there are two new solitudes in Canada. THIS confirms it.
Toronto is entitled to its entitlements!
I predicted:
LIBS 96 / CONS 120 / NDP 30 / BLOC 62
Actual:
LIBS 103 / CONS 124 / NDP 29 / BLOC 51 / IND 1
(difference +7 / -4 / -1/ -11)
Two things I did not anticipate:
The refusal of much of Ontario to swing over to Harper (meant less Tory seats in Ontario, same trend seen in BC)
The unexpected Conservative breakthrough in Quebec (meant a few more Tories in Quebec, alot less Bloc)
My verdict: A good night for the Federation. The West got in. We now have two
national parties, and a discredited Bloc that has lost all momentum now that the Gomery thing has been put to bed.
1 Samuel 31, King James Bible
Now the Philistines fought against Israel: and the men of Israel fled from before the Philistines, and fell down slain in mount Gilboa.
And the Philistines followed hard upon Saul and upon his sons; and the Philistines slew Jonathan, and Abinadab, and Melchishua, Saul's sons.
And the battle went sore against Saul,and the archers hit him; and he was sore wounded of the archers.
Then said Saul unto his armourbearer, Draw thy sword, and thrust me through therewith; lest these uncircumcised come and thrust me through, and abuse me. But his armourbearer would not; for he was sore afraid. Therefore Saul took a sword, and fell upon it.
And when his armourbearer saw that Saul was dead, he fell likewise upon his sword, and died with him.
So Saul died, and his three sons, and his armourbearer, and all his men, that same day together.
From today's Globe
Most fingers were pointed at the so-called board, the close group of strategists around Mr. Martin, such as David Herle, Scott Reid, Tim Murphy, Terrie O'Leary and Michele Cadario.
One long-time Liberal was harshly critical of this group. "They are mean people," said the Liberal organizer. "They have destroyed the reputation and integrity of a brilliant world businessman . . . because of their own egos." He said that the board members are "finished."
"No leadership contender, if there is a leadership, will be seen in the same room as them," he said.
Postscripts:
I have been convinced for some time now that there are two new solitudes in Canada. THIS confirms it.
Toronto is entitled to its entitlements!
Tonight, Canada gave itself a high-colonic
I was pretty close with my predictions. Not sure exactly how close, since I left my seat projection at work. In spite of the best efforts of some in the MSM to try to paint tonight as a "disappointment" for the Conservatives, the fact remains that Stephen Harper will be moving from Stornoway to 24 Sussex. He broke through in Quebec--beyond anyone's expectations, and made some marginal improvements in Ontario. That's what he needed to do, and he did it.
Particularly skewed coverage was provided, as usual, by the Mothercorp: at one point the following factoid crawled across the bottom of the screen--Liberals and NDP have more seats than the Conservatives... so-f*cking-what? The Conservatives won a plurality of seats -- any way you slice it, they get to govern, notwithstanding any "spin" that attempts to portray a half-victory, or a "technical" win. Today is a good day for Federalism, for our political process, and --with voter turnouts up from 2004--for our democracy.
Like Harper said in his speech "The West is in"... now how long can they stay in?
I was pretty close with my predictions. Not sure exactly how close, since I left my seat projection at work. In spite of the best efforts of some in the MSM to try to paint tonight as a "disappointment" for the Conservatives, the fact remains that Stephen Harper will be moving from Stornoway to 24 Sussex. He broke through in Quebec--beyond anyone's expectations, and made some marginal improvements in Ontario. That's what he needed to do, and he did it.
Particularly skewed coverage was provided, as usual, by the Mothercorp: at one point the following factoid crawled across the bottom of the screen--Liberals and NDP have more seats than the Conservatives... so-f*cking-what? The Conservatives won a plurality of seats -- any way you slice it, they get to govern, notwithstanding any "spin" that attempts to portray a half-victory, or a "technical" win. Today is a good day for Federalism, for our political process, and --with voter turnouts up from 2004--for our democracy.
Like Harper said in his speech "The West is in"... now how long can they stay in?
Sunday, January 22, 2006
"A hierarchichal ape that did not like being bossed around"
That's how an anthropologist on CBC News Sunday describes the common ancestor of humans and apes in a clever little item that shows the paralels between our political process and the social behaviour of chimps. Intercutting clips of chimpanzees growling, babbling and attacking each other in the wild with scenes of the party leaders gladhanding and posturing, it's a wonderfully subversive piece. Why no shots of chimps flinging poo, though?
Well, tomorrow, all the chimps will climb out of their trees to get a look at the situation on the ground.
The media sez:
Liberal midshipmen are putting on their dress uniforms to go stand on the burning deck Martin is lashing himself to the mast.
Tequila Sheila is carving Junior's tombstone Conservative Majority you say?
The irrepressible Greg Weston starts counting Cabinet chickens before they hatch
The Venerable Doug Fisher passes sentence
Warren bathes in schadenfreude Revenge of the Soccer Moms? Yup, I think so!
The Coshster weighs in with his eleventh-hour prediction. A fellow cynic; Colby's seat prediction is pretty close to mine.
And then there"s Maude! Barlow, Paul Martin's new second-most bestest friend (after Basil "Fawlty" Hargrove), continues to show Jack Layton why he should give her the cold shoulder (or the finger) after this election.
DAIFALLAH! Is it just me, or does the young fellow's name sound like some kind of warcry? Adam gives us the skinny on Quebec.
Paul Wells, the most consistently anti-Martin commentator I have ever seen, does what he does best
Coyne continues his systematic dismantling of Liberal puffery and misdirection
Finally, The Master seems to see the light at the end of the tunnel
That's how an anthropologist on CBC News Sunday describes the common ancestor of humans and apes in a clever little item that shows the paralels between our political process and the social behaviour of chimps. Intercutting clips of chimpanzees growling, babbling and attacking each other in the wild with scenes of the party leaders gladhanding and posturing, it's a wonderfully subversive piece. Why no shots of chimps flinging poo, though?
Well, tomorrow, all the chimps will climb out of their trees to get a look at the situation on the ground.
The media sez:
Liberal midshipmen are putting on their dress uniforms to go stand on the burning deck Martin is lashing himself to the mast.
Tequila Sheila is carving Junior's tombstone Conservative Majority you say?
The irrepressible Greg Weston starts counting Cabinet chickens before they hatch
The Venerable Doug Fisher passes sentence
Warren bathes in schadenfreude Revenge of the Soccer Moms? Yup, I think so!
The Coshster weighs in with his eleventh-hour prediction. A fellow cynic; Colby's seat prediction is pretty close to mine.
And then there"s Maude! Barlow, Paul Martin's new second-most bestest friend (after Basil "Fawlty" Hargrove), continues to show Jack Layton why he should give her the cold shoulder (or the finger) after this election.
DAIFALLAH! Is it just me, or does the young fellow's name sound like some kind of warcry? Adam gives us the skinny on Quebec.
Paul Wells, the most consistently anti-Martin commentator I have ever seen, does what he does best
Coyne continues his systematic dismantling of Liberal puffery and misdirection
Finally, The Master seems to see the light at the end of the tunnel
Thursday, January 19, 2006
Having your cake and eating it too
The Grits, who think of themselves as the party of immigrants, have made certain decisions concerning party orthodoxy -many by fiat from the PMO- that were bound to have consequences come election time.
Today's Toronto Star has an article that may indicate some of those problematic issues are now bubbling to the surface:
"People are angry at the Liberals," says Sima Zerehi, who edits the English-language section of Shahrvand, a twice-weekly paper for the Iranian community.
There are many reasons why.
Among the national issues, only same-sex marriage seems to be a consistent problem for the Liberals.
People "are very unhappy with the Liberals about that," says Latafat Ali Siddiqui, editor in chief of Canadian Asian News, a monthly that serves people from Pakistan and India.
"We have extensive coverage of same-sex marriage," says Tak Lam, news editor of the Chinese daily Ming Pao. "Asians don't feel so comfortable with that."
The irony here, of course, is that this issue, like abortion and other matters of conscience, cuts across party lines. Some Liberals oppose Same-sex marriage. Some Conservatives are in favour. Nevertheless, the Liberals are now considered pro same-sex marriage, notwithstanding Martin's rhetorical gymnastics concerning the protection of the Charter of Rights (it is said that Martin, who is nearly seventy, is actually rather uncomfortable with the issue, like many of his generation).
Did it not occur to anyone in the Liberal Party that the whole Charter thing would not fly with immigrant communities? Contrary to what the politburo might think, immigrants understand the Charter -and they value it. They certainly do not wish to see it trivialized by invoking it to protect dubious "rights" that were never really in question.
Multiculturalism is founded on respect for other cultures. The Grits may soon find out that some of their client groups' cultures include a traditional (even "religious) streak and a distate for the trivialization of one of the documents they hold most dear as Canadians.
The Grits, who think of themselves as the party of immigrants, have made certain decisions concerning party orthodoxy -many by fiat from the PMO- that were bound to have consequences come election time.
Today's Toronto Star has an article that may indicate some of those problematic issues are now bubbling to the surface:
"People are angry at the Liberals," says Sima Zerehi, who edits the English-language section of Shahrvand, a twice-weekly paper for the Iranian community.
There are many reasons why.
Among the national issues, only same-sex marriage seems to be a consistent problem for the Liberals.
People "are very unhappy with the Liberals about that," says Latafat Ali Siddiqui, editor in chief of Canadian Asian News, a monthly that serves people from Pakistan and India.
"We have extensive coverage of same-sex marriage," says Tak Lam, news editor of the Chinese daily Ming Pao. "Asians don't feel so comfortable with that."
The irony here, of course, is that this issue, like abortion and other matters of conscience, cuts across party lines. Some Liberals oppose Same-sex marriage. Some Conservatives are in favour. Nevertheless, the Liberals are now considered pro same-sex marriage, notwithstanding Martin's rhetorical gymnastics concerning the protection of the Charter of Rights (it is said that Martin, who is nearly seventy, is actually rather uncomfortable with the issue, like many of his generation).
Did it not occur to anyone in the Liberal Party that the whole Charter thing would not fly with immigrant communities? Contrary to what the politburo might think, immigrants understand the Charter -and they value it. They certainly do not wish to see it trivialized by invoking it to protect dubious "rights" that were never really in question.
Multiculturalism is founded on respect for other cultures. The Grits may soon find out that some of their client groups' cultures include a traditional (even "religious) streak and a distate for the trivialization of one of the documents they hold most dear as Canadians.
Wednesday, January 18, 2006
Monday, January 16, 2006
Stephen Harper Wants To Eat Your Face
Stephen Harper wants to cut all your social services and use the savings to recruit radical right-wing american hillbilly commandos from red states to come up here and set up shooting galleries on the streets of downtown Toronto --preferrably the Annex, where all them pinkos live-- and then Harper will fund American-style private healthcare clinincs where victims of these gun toting lunatics will have to sell their blood and kidneys and lengths of intestine to pay for the suturing of their bullet wounds, which they'll have to do themselves because Stephen Harper hates immigrants and won't allow foreign-trained doctors into the country unless it is to drive trucks full of toxic waste up to northern ontario, where the trucks will dump biohazardous materials from his private, republican-style healthcare clinics into abandoned mines, causing flipper-babies and other such birth defects in expectant repressed lesbian mothers who live on a single income with no spousal support because Stephen Harper wants to use the notwithstanding clause to outlaw gay marriage and force the dissolution of all gay marriages that have take place, and force those gay divorcées to campaign against abortion by creating chain gangs of gay, formerly married Canadians to rummage through abortion pails behind Morgenthaler clinics so that the radical right wing fundamentalist christian zealots who want to get their filthy paws on your oviaries will have bloody props to brandish when they have their violent demonstrations on parliament hill as a prelude to the introduction of a conservative law that outlaws a woman's right to choose and donates all those babies from the unwanted pregnancies to experimental genetic supersoldier farms run by christian fundamentalist preachers to be set up in Kanata, Ontario, designed to breed unthinking killing machines that will be used by an all-powerful department of national defence to go to other countries and impose the nefarious Bush agenda of world domination and fascist imperialism with jackboots and bazookas.
Choose your Canada, dumbass.
Stephen Harper wants to cut all your social services and use the savings to recruit radical right-wing american hillbilly commandos from red states to come up here and set up shooting galleries on the streets of downtown Toronto --preferrably the Annex, where all them pinkos live-- and then Harper will fund American-style private healthcare clinincs where victims of these gun toting lunatics will have to sell their blood and kidneys and lengths of intestine to pay for the suturing of their bullet wounds, which they'll have to do themselves because Stephen Harper hates immigrants and won't allow foreign-trained doctors into the country unless it is to drive trucks full of toxic waste up to northern ontario, where the trucks will dump biohazardous materials from his private, republican-style healthcare clinics into abandoned mines, causing flipper-babies and other such birth defects in expectant repressed lesbian mothers who live on a single income with no spousal support because Stephen Harper wants to use the notwithstanding clause to outlaw gay marriage and force the dissolution of all gay marriages that have take place, and force those gay divorcées to campaign against abortion by creating chain gangs of gay, formerly married Canadians to rummage through abortion pails behind Morgenthaler clinics so that the radical right wing fundamentalist christian zealots who want to get their filthy paws on your oviaries will have bloody props to brandish when they have their violent demonstrations on parliament hill as a prelude to the introduction of a conservative law that outlaws a woman's right to choose and donates all those babies from the unwanted pregnancies to experimental genetic supersoldier farms run by christian fundamentalist preachers to be set up in Kanata, Ontario, designed to breed unthinking killing machines that will be used by an all-powerful department of national defence to go to other countries and impose the nefarious Bush agenda of world domination and fascist imperialism with jackboots and bazookas.
Choose your Canada, dumbass.
Saturday, January 14, 2006
Re-alignment
Will the centre hold? Jack Layton's message is shifting. While it isn't exactly what I suggested a while ago --that the NDP could work with a Conservative Government on common issues like electoral reform and accountability-- for the Tories, it's probably the next best thing. If Paul Martin does not "deserve" to be re-elected because of the pathetic campaign he has run, a simple process of elimination tells us that Layton is acknowledging the likelihood of a Conservative government.
Pragmatically, smiling Jack is mostly limiting his criticism of the Tories to ideology: "Conservatives are wrong on the issues that matter to Canadians". Knowing that Harper will probably form the next Government, if Layton continues to pound on the Martin regime, he may prevent NDP defections to the Grits on election night. But that isn't whole story. Calls for "disappointed" Liberals to join forces with the NDP this election are calculated to reverse the 2004 election trend. Layton is actually hoping left-leaning Liberals will abandon the Martin regime and flock to the NDP.
Such a development could signify the biggest re-alignment in Canadian politics in nearly a decade-and-a-half: A polarization of the political landscape, as voters abandon the "centrist" Liberal party, and vote ideologically, strengthening the mainstream right or left wing parties (or the Bloc or Greens, for that matter). This trend could decimate the Liberals outside of their traditional urban strongholds, paving the way for the Bloc to become the Official Opposition.
But of course, this is all speculation... and alot can change in a week!
Will the centre hold? Jack Layton's message is shifting. While it isn't exactly what I suggested a while ago --that the NDP could work with a Conservative Government on common issues like electoral reform and accountability-- for the Tories, it's probably the next best thing. If Paul Martin does not "deserve" to be re-elected because of the pathetic campaign he has run, a simple process of elimination tells us that Layton is acknowledging the likelihood of a Conservative government.
Pragmatically, smiling Jack is mostly limiting his criticism of the Tories to ideology: "Conservatives are wrong on the issues that matter to Canadians". Knowing that Harper will probably form the next Government, if Layton continues to pound on the Martin regime, he may prevent NDP defections to the Grits on election night. But that isn't whole story. Calls for "disappointed" Liberals to join forces with the NDP this election are calculated to reverse the 2004 election trend. Layton is actually hoping left-leaning Liberals will abandon the Martin regime and flock to the NDP.
Such a development could signify the biggest re-alignment in Canadian politics in nearly a decade-and-a-half: A polarization of the political landscape, as voters abandon the "centrist" Liberal party, and vote ideologically, strengthening the mainstream right or left wing parties (or the Bloc or Greens, for that matter). This trend could decimate the Liberals outside of their traditional urban strongholds, paving the way for the Bloc to become the Official Opposition.
But of course, this is all speculation... and alot can change in a week!
Thursday, January 12, 2006
Don't call the coroner yet
So, we have been led to believe that the Grit corpse is almost done twitching. The last bullet wound appears to have been self-inflicted, strangely enough. Should we blame lousy marksmanship?
And yet, while we may be tempted to draw a sheet over the body, and wheel it out on a gurney, the paramedics are still working away feverishly. Chances are, they will keep working on it long after it begins to stink. After all, it stank while it was still alive and kicking.
So, we have been led to believe that the Grit corpse is almost done twitching. The last bullet wound appears to have been self-inflicted, strangely enough. Should we blame lousy marksmanship?
And yet, while we may be tempted to draw a sheet over the body, and wheel it out on a gurney, the paramedics are still working away feverishly. Chances are, they will keep working on it long after it begins to stink. After all, it stank while it was still alive and kicking.
Monday, January 09, 2006
Prepare for impact in 3...2...
To protect his lead, all Harper needed to do in tonight's debate was to appear calm, statesmanlike, not freak out, keep hammering home his platform.
He achieved that.
Layton needed to slam both the Conservatives and the Liberals to position himself as the "third option".
That's exactly what he did.
Duceppe just needed to show up, and have fun poking at the other three.
No problem there.
To halt Tory momentum, Martin needed to hit one out of the park, and convince voters that Harper hates Canada, and was going to destroy Confederation and voluntarily surrender Canada to nefarious Republican interests.
Uh... didn't quite pull it off, did he?
To protect his lead, all Harper needed to do in tonight's debate was to appear calm, statesmanlike, not freak out, keep hammering home his platform.
He achieved that.
Layton needed to slam both the Conservatives and the Liberals to position himself as the "third option".
That's exactly what he did.
Duceppe just needed to show up, and have fun poking at the other three.
No problem there.
To halt Tory momentum, Martin needed to hit one out of the park, and convince voters that Harper hates Canada, and was going to destroy Confederation and voluntarily surrender Canada to nefarious Republican interests.
Uh... didn't quite pull it off, did he?
Saturday, January 07, 2006
So, have I ever told you that I did Basic Officer Training with one of the only Canadian soldiers to have engaged in combat between the Korean War and Afghanistan?...
Let me explain:
I only came to this realization last week, while reading Carol Off's new book, The Ghosts of Medak pocket, which my brother had gotten for me as a Christmas Present.
In the summer of 1997, I was in Gagetown, New Brunswick, suffering through RESO (Reserve Entry Scheme Officer), Phase 2 training. Our platoon was evenly divided between two groups. One the one hand, you had the mostly older (twentysomething) Reservists, many of whom had been Corporals (like me) or Sergeants in the Militia, and some of whom had done UN tours overseas in the early nineties in Bosnia and Croatia. On the other hand, you had the Regular Force "Ringnockers", as we called them: People from the Royal Military College. As a rule, these Officer Cadets tended to be younger, and extremely green, since most had gone directly from highschool to RMC. Most of them were hopeless at the beginning of the course, and many were hopeless right up to the end. There were, however, exceptions to this rule.
One of the exceptions was Scott Leblanc, a short, burly fellow in his mid-twenties with a friendly face, quiet manner, and bright blue eyes. When I first met him, aside from the fact that he was an older Officer Cadet at RMC, there was nothing remarkable about him. As time went on, some of the guys who had gone overseas in the early nineties would talk about Croatia and what happened to 2PPCLI (The Second Battalion of the Princess Patricia's Canadian Light Infantry) in the Medak Pocket. Every once in a while, someone would ask Scott about his decoration for his actions during a firefight which had never been made public, but the laconic former Artillery Reservist from the Maritimes who was not much of a braggart never seemed to have much to say about it. Even the instructors seemed aware of the "incident", which at this time, was fairly common knowledge among infantrymen. The Canadian Forces is not a huge organization, after all, and word seems to get around. We never really got the full story from Scott, only that in 1993, then-Private Leblanc's platoon had fought off an attack by Croatian forces during the course of a very dangerous operation in 1993. All that Leblanc would admit to is that he had burned off a couple of hundred rounds from his C-9 Light Machine Gun, and that the Croats had been repulsed.
I only got the full story when I read Off's account of that action, which included references to Leblanc and his section's heroics. It was easy to understand why this "incident" had never been made public. This fight occurred in '93, at almost the same time that the Somalia scandal broke, and Canadians had been shaken by the acts of the soon-to-be-disbanded Airborne Regiment. It simply wouldn't do to have another story in the media where Canadian troops, ostensibly involved in UN "Peacekeeping Operations", had been engaged in combat, and had probably killed Croat troops (The Croat government reported 27 KIA during combat in the Pocket).
Well, as we now know, the UN operations that took place in the Balkans in the early nineties were certainly not what would have been considered peacekeeping in the traditional sense of the word. It was an ugly, complicated conflict, and Canadian troops had been called upon to interpose themselves between the Serb and Croat forces in an attempt to halt the ethnic cleansing that we now know took place in that area. In spite of being hamstrung by complicated rules of engagement, the Canadians had acquitted themselves admirably, although many were scarred by what they saw there, and frustrated that because of the UN-imposed rules, they had not managed to prevent the murder of dozens of innocents. At the time, however, that isn't the way that the leadership of the Canadian Forces saw it, and so, as Off relates in her book, the brass decided to cover up the Medak Pocket incident. It wasn't until much later that the truth began leaking out. And only recently have the troops involved in that operation been fully recognized for what they did. Some of the members of the PPCLI Battle Group who were there have never recovered, mentally or physically.
In Summer of 1997, Scott, who four years earlier had, in the midst of heavy fire, bravely risen from his trench to fire his machine-gun into a Croat force attempting to flank his platoons position, and probably saved some of his comrades in doing so, ended up coming in second place overall on the course. Top candidate in my company was another RMC type, Ryan Latinovitch, who had transferred to the Infantry late in his time at RMC, and was therefore also older than most of the Regular Force Officer Cadets. Last I heard, Ryan was a Captain in command of 3PPCLI's Recce (Reconnaissance) Platoon,and done a tour in Afghanistan. I admire both of these guys.
The days of Suez or Cyprus-style "peacekeeping" are long past. Today, the Canadian Forces operate under very different and far more dangerous situations, and have been called upon to use lethal force more than once to protect themselves and achieve their objectives. The national myth of Canadian peacekeepers as benign observers should be put to rest. Canadian soldiers are trained to fight, and they do it very well, when they have to. Canada should be proud that men and women of the calibre of Leblanc and Latinovitch serve this country, put themselves in harm's way, and sacrifice so much for the rest of us.
Let me explain:
I only came to this realization last week, while reading Carol Off's new book, The Ghosts of Medak pocket, which my brother had gotten for me as a Christmas Present.
In the summer of 1997, I was in Gagetown, New Brunswick, suffering through RESO (Reserve Entry Scheme Officer), Phase 2 training. Our platoon was evenly divided between two groups. One the one hand, you had the mostly older (twentysomething) Reservists, many of whom had been Corporals (like me) or Sergeants in the Militia, and some of whom had done UN tours overseas in the early nineties in Bosnia and Croatia. On the other hand, you had the Regular Force "Ringnockers", as we called them: People from the Royal Military College. As a rule, these Officer Cadets tended to be younger, and extremely green, since most had gone directly from highschool to RMC. Most of them were hopeless at the beginning of the course, and many were hopeless right up to the end. There were, however, exceptions to this rule.
One of the exceptions was Scott Leblanc, a short, burly fellow in his mid-twenties with a friendly face, quiet manner, and bright blue eyes. When I first met him, aside from the fact that he was an older Officer Cadet at RMC, there was nothing remarkable about him. As time went on, some of the guys who had gone overseas in the early nineties would talk about Croatia and what happened to 2PPCLI (The Second Battalion of the Princess Patricia's Canadian Light Infantry) in the Medak Pocket. Every once in a while, someone would ask Scott about his decoration for his actions during a firefight which had never been made public, but the laconic former Artillery Reservist from the Maritimes who was not much of a braggart never seemed to have much to say about it. Even the instructors seemed aware of the "incident", which at this time, was fairly common knowledge among infantrymen. The Canadian Forces is not a huge organization, after all, and word seems to get around. We never really got the full story from Scott, only that in 1993, then-Private Leblanc's platoon had fought off an attack by Croatian forces during the course of a very dangerous operation in 1993. All that Leblanc would admit to is that he had burned off a couple of hundred rounds from his C-9 Light Machine Gun, and that the Croats had been repulsed.
I only got the full story when I read Off's account of that action, which included references to Leblanc and his section's heroics. It was easy to understand why this "incident" had never been made public. This fight occurred in '93, at almost the same time that the Somalia scandal broke, and Canadians had been shaken by the acts of the soon-to-be-disbanded Airborne Regiment. It simply wouldn't do to have another story in the media where Canadian troops, ostensibly involved in UN "Peacekeeping Operations", had been engaged in combat, and had probably killed Croat troops (The Croat government reported 27 KIA during combat in the Pocket).
Well, as we now know, the UN operations that took place in the Balkans in the early nineties were certainly not what would have been considered peacekeeping in the traditional sense of the word. It was an ugly, complicated conflict, and Canadian troops had been called upon to interpose themselves between the Serb and Croat forces in an attempt to halt the ethnic cleansing that we now know took place in that area. In spite of being hamstrung by complicated rules of engagement, the Canadians had acquitted themselves admirably, although many were scarred by what they saw there, and frustrated that because of the UN-imposed rules, they had not managed to prevent the murder of dozens of innocents. At the time, however, that isn't the way that the leadership of the Canadian Forces saw it, and so, as Off relates in her book, the brass decided to cover up the Medak Pocket incident. It wasn't until much later that the truth began leaking out. And only recently have the troops involved in that operation been fully recognized for what they did. Some of the members of the PPCLI Battle Group who were there have never recovered, mentally or physically.
In Summer of 1997, Scott, who four years earlier had, in the midst of heavy fire, bravely risen from his trench to fire his machine-gun into a Croat force attempting to flank his platoons position, and probably saved some of his comrades in doing so, ended up coming in second place overall on the course. Top candidate in my company was another RMC type, Ryan Latinovitch, who had transferred to the Infantry late in his time at RMC, and was therefore also older than most of the Regular Force Officer Cadets. Last I heard, Ryan was a Captain in command of 3PPCLI's Recce (Reconnaissance) Platoon,and done a tour in Afghanistan. I admire both of these guys.
The days of Suez or Cyprus-style "peacekeeping" are long past. Today, the Canadian Forces operate under very different and far more dangerous situations, and have been called upon to use lethal force more than once to protect themselves and achieve their objectives. The national myth of Canadian peacekeepers as benign observers should be put to rest. Canadian soldiers are trained to fight, and they do it very well, when they have to. Canada should be proud that men and women of the calibre of Leblanc and Latinovitch serve this country, put themselves in harm's way, and sacrifice so much for the rest of us.
I waited a long time to see Fahrenheit 9/11, now here is my three-and-a-half word review:
Mendacious, misleading grief-porn
Mendacious, misleading grief-porn
Monday, January 02, 2006
The Electoral Reform Parliament?
On New Year's Eve, I was deep into a discussion on the election campaign with some of my fiance's family, speculating on all sorts of scenarios the morning after the polls close, when someone raised a fairly straightforward question:
In the event of a Conservative minority, what issue could the NDP and the Conservatives possibly find common ground on?
My answer: Fixing our democracy and changing the way we vote
As
this article reveals, both the Knee-dippers and the Tories lament the fact that our "First-past-the-post" system tends to exagerate and distort voting patterns, leading to the impression that "Alberta is Conservative" and "Ontario is Liberal", when in fact no region or province in the country votes as a homogenous bloc, and vote percentages are nearly always much narrower than final seat tallies would indicate. That's how some parties have won solid electoral majorities in the past in spite of not necessarily garnering a large plurality of the popular vote --Jean Chretien's back-to-back-to-back majorities comes to mind.
Both parties favour electoral reform in some form or another, mostly in order to fix a system that seems designed to produce Liberal Government after Liberal Government, often at the expense of the NDP and smaller parties. A proportional representation system, or some combination of A and B, might be a solution to this problem. One which Conservatives and NDPers could work on together in spite of the ideological chasm that divides them. I can think of a few more. Senate reform, for example.
The "strategic voting" phenom of 2004 (soft NDP supporters who switched to the Liberals in the polling booth because a Conservative victory "scares" them) must be a spectre that loom large in the mind of Jack Layton. Although pundits indicate that Layton favours holding the balance of power in a Liberal Minority, his "Results for Canadians" campaign theme could get flushed down the crapper in 2006, if the Liberals steal his votes and a puny, impotent NDP caucus results.
It is clear that the NDP has choices to make. Generally, sending more NDPers to the house means sending less Liberals, because that is where the electorate on the centre-left intersects. The story is a bit different in BC, where you have three-way horse races, and in Quebec, where the NDP and Conservatives barely register, but in Ontario, the 900lb gorilla in the Canadian electorate, NDP fortunes will live or die depending on how many 905ers get spooked back to the Grits.
Knowing this in his heart, can Layton make common cause with the Tories and convince people to not fear a non-Liberal Government in the second half of the campaign in order to steal some Liberal seats? I'm not sure. I imagine he recoils in disgust at having to do so. But both the NDP and the Tories have stated their desire to see the Liberals punished --what better way to do so than being bounced from Government? --and it is useful to look at areas of possible collaboration in a house with a decimated grit caucus, a strong NDP, and a fragile Conservative minority looking to get things done.
On New Year's Eve, I was deep into a discussion on the election campaign with some of my fiance's family, speculating on all sorts of scenarios the morning after the polls close, when someone raised a fairly straightforward question:
In the event of a Conservative minority, what issue could the NDP and the Conservatives possibly find common ground on?
My answer: Fixing our democracy and changing the way we vote
As
this article reveals, both the Knee-dippers and the Tories lament the fact that our "First-past-the-post" system tends to exagerate and distort voting patterns, leading to the impression that "Alberta is Conservative" and "Ontario is Liberal", when in fact no region or province in the country votes as a homogenous bloc, and vote percentages are nearly always much narrower than final seat tallies would indicate. That's how some parties have won solid electoral majorities in the past in spite of not necessarily garnering a large plurality of the popular vote --Jean Chretien's back-to-back-to-back majorities comes to mind.
Both parties favour electoral reform in some form or another, mostly in order to fix a system that seems designed to produce Liberal Government after Liberal Government, often at the expense of the NDP and smaller parties. A proportional representation system, or some combination of A and B, might be a solution to this problem. One which Conservatives and NDPers could work on together in spite of the ideological chasm that divides them. I can think of a few more. Senate reform, for example.
The "strategic voting" phenom of 2004 (soft NDP supporters who switched to the Liberals in the polling booth because a Conservative victory "scares" them) must be a spectre that loom large in the mind of Jack Layton. Although pundits indicate that Layton favours holding the balance of power in a Liberal Minority, his "Results for Canadians" campaign theme could get flushed down the crapper in 2006, if the Liberals steal his votes and a puny, impotent NDP caucus results.
It is clear that the NDP has choices to make. Generally, sending more NDPers to the house means sending less Liberals, because that is where the electorate on the centre-left intersects. The story is a bit different in BC, where you have three-way horse races, and in Quebec, where the NDP and Conservatives barely register, but in Ontario, the 900lb gorilla in the Canadian electorate, NDP fortunes will live or die depending on how many 905ers get spooked back to the Grits.
Knowing this in his heart, can Layton make common cause with the Tories and convince people to not fear a non-Liberal Government in the second half of the campaign in order to steal some Liberal seats? I'm not sure. I imagine he recoils in disgust at having to do so. But both the NDP and the Tories have stated their desire to see the Liberals punished --what better way to do so than being bounced from Government? --and it is useful to look at areas of possible collaboration in a house with a decimated grit caucus, a strong NDP, and a fragile Conservative minority looking to get things done.
Saturday, December 31, 2005
Horserace
The winds of change are beginning to blow as the campaign rolls into 2006. The two main parties are now in a statistical dead heat in the polls. There is an undeniable sense of a momentum shift in the air, and the pungent stench of fear is beginning to emanate from the Liberals.
Throughout the election campaign I have been relying on three fantastic online sources to feed my hunger for info, and each of them have been buzzing over the past few days, as a new picture of the 2006 election begins to coalesce.
Bourque, who has been watching the Income Trust Scandal closely, and following its impact in the polls, reports seismic shifts in the upper echelons of the Liberal Party, as pretenders to Martin's throne await the results of the plebiscite that will determine PM's future. A failure to gain a majority may mean Martin's days as Liberal Party leader are numbered. A loss of power will seal his fate.
Kinsella, no friend of the Martin regime, reports with glee on the new Conservative spot--one he believes will effectively hamstring the Liberal's plan to "go negative"-- and proclaims that the bottom has fallen out of their campaign. He has been predicting with a certainty bordering on cockiness that this election will be a repudiation of Paul Martin's Ministry.
Not so fast... a cornered dog still has teeth, and the Liberals have been ramping up their efforts to uncover skeletons in Conservative closets --a tactic that has served them well in previous elections. Macleans Back-page guy Wells, who aired some ugly stuff about Peter Goldring's campaign manager this week, remarks upon the way the Conservatives moved quickly and decisively to neutralize the story before it got legs by summarily sacking Gord Stamp. One cannot fail to note the contrast between this deft stickhandling and the continuing inability of Martin to take any decisive action on, well, anything.
Happy New Year, people --the first month of ought-six promises to be very interesting.
The winds of change are beginning to blow as the campaign rolls into 2006. The two main parties are now in a statistical dead heat in the polls. There is an undeniable sense of a momentum shift in the air, and the pungent stench of fear is beginning to emanate from the Liberals.
Throughout the election campaign I have been relying on three fantastic online sources to feed my hunger for info, and each of them have been buzzing over the past few days, as a new picture of the 2006 election begins to coalesce.
Bourque, who has been watching the Income Trust Scandal closely, and following its impact in the polls, reports seismic shifts in the upper echelons of the Liberal Party, as pretenders to Martin's throne await the results of the plebiscite that will determine PM's future. A failure to gain a majority may mean Martin's days as Liberal Party leader are numbered. A loss of power will seal his fate.
Kinsella, no friend of the Martin regime, reports with glee on the new Conservative spot--one he believes will effectively hamstring the Liberal's plan to "go negative"-- and proclaims that the bottom has fallen out of their campaign. He has been predicting with a certainty bordering on cockiness that this election will be a repudiation of Paul Martin's Ministry.
Not so fast... a cornered dog still has teeth, and the Liberals have been ramping up their efforts to uncover skeletons in Conservative closets --a tactic that has served them well in previous elections. Macleans Back-page guy Wells, who aired some ugly stuff about Peter Goldring's campaign manager this week, remarks upon the way the Conservatives moved quickly and decisively to neutralize the story before it got legs by summarily sacking Gord Stamp. One cannot fail to note the contrast between this deft stickhandling and the continuing inability of Martin to take any decisive action on, well, anything.
Happy New Year, people --the first month of ought-six promises to be very interesting.
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