Radio Address Canuck Style...

I'm so friggin' behind on the news cycle lately:
OTTAWA -- Prime Minister Paul Martin will take to the airwaves tomorrow in a U.S.-style address to the nation that will become a weekly event.

Everyonce and a while some high flying politicos from all political parties from the high rungs of power in Ottawa get these crazy ideas. "Look at the US, why don't we do the same thing here?" That's the mantra. That's the rationale. Look to the US, 'cuz politically they're just so much more advanced than we are. After all dangling chads, and crab like jerrymandered congressional districts are something we have a high need for in the Great White North.

First of all, we aint the US. We do a lot of things differently, not because we're stupid Canucks, but because we drink more coffee, eat more donuts, and play more Hockey than the Yankees. That alone is going to lead to some minor differences. We have Prime Minister, not a President. The idea was we didn't want to give to much power into the hands of one man... Now, Paul Martin has more power in many ways than the Bush does, because some high flying politico though "Hey we should get with it. The Prime Minister is the leader. The President is the leader in the US. We need to give him the same powers as the Prez of the Yanks or else we'll look like fools..." And we got a little too excited, and gave the PM the a whole lot more than just that.

But that don't matter. All that matters is that the Prez has national radio addresses all the time... So what are we doing being so backwards in this country? Oh they probably sold it to Martin, telling him that this is something politically savvy that he can do... My eye... My friggin' eye!

The last time I remember the politicos convincing someone to do something "innovative," was with Ernie Eves's autoplant budget fiasco. Newsflash: budgets are delivered in Canada in Parliament or Legislature. Eves decided to deliver his budget outside, in front of an autoparts plant... Kinda like a US Governor... To heck with tradition, or Canadian responsible government.

See delivering the budget in the house is a good thing. There is nothing wrong with it. It's Canadian and unique. It gives the opposition the chance to respond and critique the government. That's Canadian democracy - not perfect - but it's one of the few checks on power we got. You see, in Canada, Ernie Eves is not a Governor - he's a premier. Maybe the politicos should've realised that before they pulled they jumped out of the plane and pulled the ripcord only to find that their parachute was filled with pots and pans. 'Cuz they did make a "splat" sound when they landed on that one.
"Given that there may be occasion to speak to political matters, the prime minister has instructed that the cost of these broadcasts be borne by the Liberal Party of Canada," said a news release issued last night.

Conservative campaign co-chairman John Reynolds called it "paid advertising" disguised as a public address as Martin gears into election mode. Reynolds said if it were truly a public address, the Opposition leader should have a chance to reply.

I wonder how much it costs to have a the Supreme Leader himself grace every radio station with his presence?... Depends how they plan to do this. It will probably be "voluntary" to air the address I'm guessing. They'll pay for major stations to air it, but probably they're all in cahoots with the media so the price won't be such a high factor. After all I wouldn't put it past the Liberalismos to put a couple phone calls to the CRTCC about certain radio station licenses if there happened to be some wayward opinions that didn't snap in line to the Supreme Leader's wishes. So I'm assuming were talking about most radio stations airing the darn thing regardless if they want to or not.

Though I can finally see some good reason to do this, not from the Liberals, but from John Reynolds. This is advertising that the Liberals don't have to account for to Elections Canada. They can bill this as a "public address," when really it's election spending. And this is one way to get around election spending rules.

Though it still has that stench of the politicos "modernizing" efforts. I can't stand the whole idea. Let the Yanks take care of themselves, and we should mind our own business and not forget our own good history and valiant traditions. There aint nothing wrong with us. That's who we are, and part of us will always be linked to that. We shouldn't be afraid of it, and we shouldn't apologize for it.

Look, there's a ton of stuff the US does, that we are behind in. And there are a ton of things that don't fall into that category either. We should do what is right, and what is Canadian and what is in our best interests. Keep what is good, let go of what is not so good.

Though I gotta say, I'm hoping that this "modernizing" effort will make a familliar "splat" sound when she lands...

Trust the Gut...

T.L. James reports on Elon Munsk's legal Shenanigans against big fat government supported Aerospace:
The lawsuit argues that EELV manufacturers Boeing and Lockheed Martin colluded to prevent competition from entering the market for EELV payloads, and that collusion and other anticompetetive actions prevented SpaceX from obtaining EELV launch contracts. In the suit, SpaceX asks for real, exemplary, and treble damages, along with the legal costs associated with the suit.

No really? I wonder who else thought the exact same thing back earlier this year...
Bearaucratic nonsense. It seems to me someone's constituency was threatened by SpaceX. They could have taken the risk. They weren't willing to take the risk because the government had already poured so much money into the Titan program they didn't want to take the risk and maybe they couldn't afford to let a small private company show that the government is wasting taxpayers money on big aerospace contractors who balloon the costs of going into space.

Those suspicions are unconfirmed however. Though my gut tells me that something's not right here.

Trust my gut.

Your Money Well Spent

Yikes:
OTTAWA, October 27, 2005 (LifeSiteNews.com) - A Conservative MP has discovered through documents obtained under Access to Information that Status of Women Canada has been funding anti-Christian bigotry and pro-abortion activism. However, in a startling exchange of correspondence, the Minister responsible for the funding neither offered to pull the funding nor to apologize to Christian Canadians for funding groups which defame them.

No kidding. I think I'm becoming more and more de-sensitised to this whole idea of government using my money to fund causes I have moral objections too... It's just becoming something everyday, and common now... And that's a scary thing.
Pro-CAN spokesperson Joyce Arthur uses derogatory labels to describe individuals who are pro-life, saying their opposition to abortion, "comes primarily from religious justifications for oppressing women" and a need to "maximize (the Catholic Church's) membership levels to maintain their worldly influence and wealth." Pro-CAN accuses pro-life Christians of being "religious fanatics" who do "little or nothing for children once they are born." She says pro-life Christians are "anti-woman and anti-child," have views which are "uninformed, sexist, cruel," and lack the ability to empathize which "breeds intolerance, hate crimes, and war." Ms. Arthur says that the pro-lifer's attitude towards women is like "the slaveholder's attitude to blacks, and the Nazi's attitude to Jews."

Martin's Secrets

Apparently the Liberals have scammed their way into getting an advance copy of the Gomery report... They will get the report a day ahead of its release giving them 24 hours to develop a response. Meanwhile the other opposition parties will get the report the same time everyonce else does, and will have to come up with a response pretty much on the spot.

It's been speculated lately that the Liberals have been making false leaks to the media about the contents of the report on the sponsorship scandal. Better to start the spinning process now, and crank out the propaganda early and often I suppose... 'Cuz that's all these clowns have left at this point.
One official speculated the government could leak selected tidbits to preferred media outlets to get their spin on the story out hours before the report is public.

Again, that process has already started, even though the report hasn't even been released yet. Not much news here.
Bloc Quebecois Leader Gilles Duceppe said under the current scenario he will only have 45 minutes to go over Gomery's findings before he has to make a public statement.

"It's tougher," Duceppe said. "Why don't we have the same conditions?"

Because having the same conditions would mean the Liberals would have to fight a fair fight. And when it comes to fair fights, the Liberals are... well Liberal. Lately they've been acting more like a Stalinist regime than a mature political party. They ignore clear votes of confidence in the house, change their minds on crucial public policy like missile defense at the last minute, and when all else fails they buy up NDP support like they bribe and corrupt in government.

But the quote of the day must go to that lovable pretty boy Conservative that just loves to brain fart everyonce and a while Peter MacKay:
"They don't sentence people in private first and give prisoners an opportunity to somehow come up with their own excuses before they release that to the public."

When asked if he was concerned that the Liberals would use their extra 12 hours to come up with a way to spin their way out of the controversy, MacKay told reporters, "That would be depended upon how it's spun and how you guys suck it up."

That's like a strong solid punch into the gut of the Liberal media. Peter must be proud. I think his head might be swelling at this very minute.

Saint Newman?

Close to it:
THE Vatican is preparing to give England its first post- Reformation saint by putting Cardinal Newman — the 19th-century priest whose conversion from Anglicanism to Roman Catholicism shocked Victorian England — on the road to canonisation, thanks to a long-awaited miracle.
...
the cleric responsible for arguing Newman’s cause, Father Paul Chavasse, the Provost of Birmingham Oratory, which was founded by Newman in 1848, said that a deacon in the Diocese of Boston in the United States had testified that he had recovered from a spinal disease after praying to Cardinal Newman. “At last we have a miracle cure,” he said.

I wonder what members of the Cardinal Newman Society feel about all this? Probably like a Saint has been guiding their mission all along...

Tip o' the hat to the Curt Jester.

Too Cool...

Via Curmudgeons:
The IPD is designed to provide nearly twice as much thrust as current space shuttle engines and to do it safer and more efficiently. It does this by using unique "full flow" preburners that provide more thrust than traditional rocket engines while operating at cooler temperatures.
...
To move that much fuel that quickly, a turbopump with high-speed turbines is used. In a traditional liquid-fuel rocket engine, a small amount of the fuel is "preburned," just enough to power up the turbopump so it can begin siphoning off the rest of the fuel into the combustion chamber. A similar process occurs with the oxidizer.

The IPD works differently. Instead of only send small amounts of fuel and oxidizer to the preburners, the IPD engine sends all of the fuel and all of the oxidizer. This causes the turbopump’s turbines to spin more quickly, producing more thrust. It’s like a pinwheel spinning faster as more wind is blown through its blades.

It'll be interesting to see if this lives up to it's hype.

I'm sorry... Well not really

I guess I should apologize for not posting lately to the few that actually bother to check this back alley shanty in the blogger world... but honestly I'm not sorry at all.

I don't regret at all where I've spent my time over the past couple of weeks, so I really can't offer you anything else except the gift of humour:
Paul Martin woke up one day last week and it was a glorious, sunny day.
There wasn't a cloud in the sky. So Mr. Martin
decided to walk into parliament instead of getting driven. As he was
strolling along he looked up at the sun and asked
"Mr. Sun, who is the greatest Prime Minister that there ever was?" And
the sun answered, "Why Paul, you are,
of course. So he smiled and went to work and had a great
day.

On the walk home, he once again looked up and asked the sun, "Mr. Sun,
who is the greatest Prime Minister that there
ever was And the Sun answered, "Paul, you are a moron. You are an
embarrassment as a Prime Minister, the
worst that the country has ever
seen.

"But I don't understand," Mr. Martin said. "This morning you said that
I was great." "Well yes," the sun answered.
"This morning I was in the east. Now I am in the west.

Hope that was good enough for now... Regular posting should resume pretty soon...

Can You Smell An Election?

I sure can.
"We have reduced taxes in every budget since 1997, including the two budgets I presented in 2004 and 2005, and -- just watch me -- we're going to do it again," Goodale told members of the House of Commons industry committee.

The next budget is likely to be in February or March.

That would probably coincide with Gomery's final report being released... The crooks will be bribing you with your own money...

Too Cool

Why is it that when a rich boozo pays his way as a tourist into space that the news story is always just that more inspiring?
His daughter, Krista Dibsie, 31, accompanied by her husband and 4-year-old son, Justin, videotaped the liftoff. Justin held his hands over his ears, his mouth wide open.


As Dibsie craned her head skyward, tears rolled down her cheeks, and she said quietly: "There goes Dad. Love you, Dad."


"Now I'm nervous for him," she said. "I wasn't before but now he's up there and gosh, he's out of this world. I can't believe it."
...
Olsen, who holds advanced degrees in physics and materials science, defended his presence in the capsule as a necessary step in the evolution of space travel.


"I would hope that my flight would help, if just to make space flight more routine," Olsen said in a telephone interview with The Associated Press on the eve of the flight.

You know the funny thing is that he's right. He's doing a lot more to help the cause of getting regular people into space than any of those snotty Astronauts (who didn't pay their way, and feel somehow that they deserve taxpayers to pay for them) do.