The Clown Show Files X

Well Joe Volpe's leadership run is dead. Apparently he got caught getting five grand "donations" from the kids of execs trying to circumvent pesky federal law donation limits.

Before we declare RIP to Volpe, I think we have to keep in mind that Volpe's chances from the get go were pretty meek. His run has more to do with positioning himself in the party more than becoming the Supreme Leader himself - although I'm sure the man's aspirations greatly outstretches his legendary temper.

So we must examine this development from a purely political perspective of how does this affect Volpe's position in the party? I say it harks back to the worst of AdScam... But you never know with those Liberals... They might even consider this endearing knowing them...

h/t CCC

The Clown Show Files IX
The Clown Show Files VIII
The Clown Show Files VI
The Clown Show Files V
The Clown Show Files IV
Clown Show Files III
Enlightened Utterings From the Clown Show Files
The Clown Show Files

Still Afraid Of Being Tared and Feathered...

Driving through NY.

About ten miles out of Syracuse.

Some nameless town off of the I-81 comes up.

I go into Arby's needing to evacuate and replenish... Preferably to evacuate first then to replenish.

Girl at counter 20 feet away: "Hello! How are you doing today! How can we help you?!!"

Part of me wanted to scream out, "I'm 20 feet away, no where near the counter, why the hell can't just let me pee first!"

Instead I hold it, and order. One problem: no cash.

No problem: Arby's in the USofA takes MasterCard. God Bless America.

I hand girl at counter credit card.

Girl: "So you're from Canada, eh?" Yanks just can't help but add in the eh at the end of sentence when dealing with Canucks can they?

I wonder how this Yank managed to figure out what Armed American Security Guards can't seem to figure out on a daily basis... Then I look down.

My CreditCard has MapleLeafs all over it.

Me: "The Card kind of gives it away doesn't it?"

Girl: "Yes, it does."

PS - I think you Yankees are getting worse not better with your driving. Back when I was living in NY I don't remember that bad drivers...Honestly, who makes a right turn, in FRONT of another driver making a right turn? That's just being a jerk.

Retire The Shuttle Early

Or so the refrain goes:
The most sensible course of action, one which we have called for before in these pages, would be to use the shuttle for a handful of critical missions—like saving the Hubble Space Telescope—before retiring the fleet for good. ...The money saved by retiring the shuttle early, more than $20 billion through the end of the decade, would free NASA to speed the development of the powerful new heavy-lift launch vehicle it is planning, which could in turn be used to complete the station. Finishing the station with the shuttle is like hiring a workman to move ten tons of bricks across town in a small wagon even though you know you’re going to buy a pick-up truck in a few months anyway; it makes much more sense just to get the pick-up truck early and move the bricks more quickly once you have it.

Unfortunately, as he mentions, there is too much politically for Congress to loose by such an act. How many Congressmen's consituents would loose jobs from doing something like this?

Of course they won't think of how many more jobs they will create - that's not important. It's all about welfare for aerospace and science nerds.

Politically there is no way that something like this can happen. The only thing that can be done, is to venture ahead and take every set back as an opportunity to cut back on another mission of the Shuttle... We may not be able to retire the Shuttle tomorow, but we can sure nudge it's death date sooner.

And, by the looks of it, Griffin seems to be doing just that.

h/t Curmudgeons

When Prostitution Turns Into Slavery

Reports are that 40,000 women will be imported into Germany to sexualy service men.

The legalisation of prostitution combined with Germany's welfare state has created a frightening situation where women could be forced into prostitution by the state.

What's really amazing about all this, is that this prostitution drive is state sponsorsed.

So, if you have a moral problem with women being used as objects, in Germany you have to deal with the fact that probably some of your tax money is indirectly going to support it.

Anti-Semitism on this blog...

"The wars of the USA apart from being at the behest of the Zionist lobby, are mostly about maintaining the hegemony of the US dollar balanced against the more important and overriding goal of controlling the world energy resources."


This was part of a series of comments made by certain people believing apparently that I would be open to this racist looney bin nonsense.

Yes, that's right, a global conspiracy of Jews is scheming to get the US to go to war...

Let me guess, the moon landings were false, the world is flat and Reagan was an alien too eh?

BTW - If you want to convince me that Bush is evil, the best way to do so isn't to start by talking about the "Zionist lobby."

If anyone is offended by these comments, please let me know, and I can delete the blog post it comes from.

All Hail Overlord Galloway!


This guy just joined my "notorious nutsos" list:

"Would the assassination of, say, Tony Blair by a suicide bomber - if there were no other casualties - be justified as revenge for the war on Iraq?"

Mr Galloway replied: "Yes, it would be morally justified. I am not calling for it - but if it happened it would be of a wholly different moral order to the events of 7/7. It would be entirely logical and explicable. And morally equivalent to ordering the deaths of thousands of innocent people in Iraq - as Blair did."

Morally equivalent?

For those that know me, know that I wasn't a big fan of the War of in Iraq.

Even myself, a "dove" on Iraq, can see the two are not morally equivalent. In the one case a concerted effort by superpowers has come together to remove a dictator from power - a noble goal. I believe it to be misguided, but it's still based on good intentions at the very least.

In the other, a democratically elected leader is being assisinated in cold blood. Those are not morally equivalent by any stretch of the imagination.

This is just a sober reminder about why the anti-war movement failed. There was no principled opposition by anyone. The anti-war movement in western society failed because it had more to do with hating the "evil" Bush, than with actually preventing a needless war.

Placing much needed distance between this lunatic fringe was almost immediate for some:
The Stop the War Coalition criticised Mr Galloway: "We don't agree with Tony Blair's actions, but neither do we agree with suicide bombers or assassinations."

No kidding. Neither do I, and I'm sure neither does it represent the views of the majority of those that were against the war. However at it's root, I'm not entirely convinced that the thinking of many in the anti-war movement is much different. None of them seem to consider the logical conclusion of their thinking.

For the greater part, I think their thinking has more to do with how "evil" Bush is... If he's that evil, then surely someone needs to kill him... And that's one line of thinking that is just quite frankly looney and goes to the root of why the anti-war movement failed.

Let me leave you with one final condemnation:
Mr Galloway shocked panellists on a live television discussion show in Havana by emerging on set mid-transmission to offer passionate support for Castro. Looking approvingly into each others' eyes, the pair embraced.

If this is the poster child of the anti-war movement, I want nothing to do with it.

Harper, what THE?...

I'm desperately trying to figure out the strategic wisdom of this:
"Unfortunately the press gallery has taken the view they are going to be the opposition to the government," Harper told London's A-Channel.

"They don't ask questions at my press conferences now.

"We'll just take the message out on the road. There's lots of media who do want to ask questions and hear what the government is doing."

Over two elections with Harper's crew, the one refrain they chimed the most to party workers on the media can be summed up as "suck-it-up and suck-up."

They all knew that the media - both national and local - were against the very thought of anything Conservative. Local media being slightly less so and more inclined towards fairness due to their lack of supermassive egos of Neil McDonald proportions.

The very concept of journalistic neutrality is one often debated to even exist by Conservatives. Going to enough Tory rallies that were massive successes, only for them to get reported as insinuated failures tends to lead one to such a conclusion. If that wasn't enough, certain Tory candidates would get letters and emails from certain enlightened media pretty much confirming what they suspected. But the final nail came when Liberal strategists admitted the obvious in books...

But what could done? Nothing. There was no way of sending out the message that most media outlets were biased without detracting from the issues, or that quite frankly people would believe... Remember, they said, the media will twist that message and would never report on their own bias.

The party needs the media and nothing can be done about their secret Marxist-Leninist tendencies. So even if they were slaughtering you and your guy, you had to be nice and not kill nobody.

Nope, Harper's office always seemed to stress at every opportunity to "suck-it-up and suck up" when it comes to the media. And they also seemed to live by it.

So this latest move by Harper seems perplexing. Why the change in tact now? Is it that they feel now that they are in government they can make a better case about media bias that's believable?

I think in all likelihood, the change in strategy has really been brought on as a response to the medias child like spaz of recent weeks. Unhappy over new rules brought in by the PMO, the enlightened super beings in the media decided they weren't going to take it anymore.

Now Harper's decided to take his message to local media outlets in an effort to circumvent the national filter. This isn't much different than what he attempted to do later on in Harper's first attempt to be PM which failed, or when previous Liberal Prime Ministers did the same.

So the effectiveness of this move is questionable, but I think it may be the last recourse for Harper. If the media won't report, there's not a whole helluva lot he can do.

Polls are for Dogs

"Prime Minister Stephen Harper's Conservative government is so popular with Canadians that it would be swept back into power with a majority if an election was held now, a new poll has found..." (link)

And so it starts. Already I can see the next Head Clown of the Liberal Party spouting out in the next election "Vote Liberal; Stop a Harper Majority!"

The only thing that these polls reveal is that people like to be with the winners. This time around it's my guys. For the last 13 years it was the opposite. Post Harper, the Liberals enjoyed support that was rumoured to be "a mile long but an inch thick." Most of that support came from the day after know it alls, that don't want anyone to know that they didn't vote the same way everybody else did.


This time the Tories are the winners.

Hey... I'm with the winners. That's a weird thought. 100 days later, and the thought of saying the words "Prime Minister Stephen Harper" still seems odd. I remember meeting Harper when he was nothing... Just some guy running for a leadership position no one wanted.

Nothing matters except elections - and no poll matters unless it's done during an election as far as I'm concerned.

Nice numbers from Quebec though. I watch La Belle Province with glee.

The Clown Show Files IX

The press is brimming with stories about how Harper just whacked into disarray the opposition Liberal Party and put Liberal Leadership candidate Egghead Harvard Brat Ignatieff in a precarious position.

Of course, in all this they avoid the obvious hypocrisy, that most of these distinguished honorable members of parliament in the Party of No Principle, were all too ready to be silent about Afghanistan when they were in power. No, back then Afghanistan was a mission deemed worthy of Liberal support.

Now the Liberals are divided over the subject.

That's quite a conversion process for a party that was a hawk on Afghanistan. I guess that now they are part dove part hawk - - depending of course on whether or not they are in power or not.

For all the banter about how this was a strategic move on Harper's part meant to back Ignatieff into a corner there are too many circumstances here that were out of Harper's control. First of all the vote was close - - were talking within a few votes.

For a strategic vote, it seems like an awful big risk. Harper did not run in the last election on anything remotely close to a foreign policy centered platform. Now that may be part of the strategy for the next election - - though I highly doubt it.

Harper's future lies in Quebec. And my thinking is that Harper sees the real opportunity here when it comes to the fiscal imbalance. I expect to see serious movement from him at the end of this year and the beginning of next. An agreement with the provinces, and Quebec in particular, is what is required. That agreement will be what the next election will be about in my humble often wrong opinion.

I think what this does more, is it exposes how much the media has nothing good to write about right now. No doubt that some leadership candidates made strategic decisions in this vote, but on the overall the Liberal Party does not want to go into an election right now. They can't. They would be decimated. I would be surprised if there wasn't some structure set up by the Liberal whip ensuring the vote would pass.

So all in all, I don't find much here to be concerned about. There isn't any conspiracy by Harper to take down Ignatieff. The question is, is there one by Liberals in the Liberal Party? I think some former anti-Martinites might know something about that.

The Clown Show Files VIII
The Clown Show Files VI
The Clown Show Files V
The Clown Show Files IV
Clown Show Files III
Enlightened Utterings From the Clown Show Files
The Clown Show Files

WWIII beckoning?

Apparently another holocaust is just around the corner in Iran:
' "The world should not ignore this," said Rabbi Hier. "The world ignored Hitler for many years -- he was dismissed as a demagogue, they said he'd never come to power -- and we were all wrong." '

Except that this time, it's very well possible Hitler may HAVE the bomb.

The Clown Show Files VIII

Apparently Liberal Leadership candidates and Liberal boogeymen are pouting about unfavorable, or as they call it "unfair", bilingual tests done by linguistic fanatical "national" newspapers.

See up in the Great White North, if you aint bilingual, you can't speak the language of Quebequers to Quebequers. So, you're sent into linguistic purgatory until you can cleanse yourself of your unhappy anglophone ways.

I shouldn't forget to mention that there is no lack of room for growth at this point for the Liberal Party in Quebec after the Sponsorship scandal. Right now the Liberals find themselves, ironically, in the same situation of their oft criticized seperatists: more seats than they have votes. At this point they are third in the province of Quebec.

This factors highly apparently in the ego-centric consciousness of the Liberal Party. You see that party has billed itself as THE party of canada. Infact, it's boasted before of beying the only TRUE national party of canada.

Obviously they aint so national no more. Hence the bilingual self conscious banter by leadership candidates recently. Fortunately for those of us sitting on the opposite side of the fence, laughing at the clown show that our beloved Fiberal Party of Canada has descended into, we see more toomfoolery to laugh at now that the likes of Scott Brison is making himself look like an unhappy school boy that just failed a test.

It's an asset for a leader of a national party to be bilingual. But it shouldn't be pulic policy or a law. If anything having a bilingual leader helps the party electorially to gain seats because he can better communicate the message to Francophones.

And surely, it is better to look at substance than ability. Someone who has the right principles, and who will make the right decisions is a better candidate in my opinion than someone that has all the ability but no substance.

But again we are assuming that our Friends in the Party of No Principle, in the party that believes the consitution is a "Living Document" free to be manipulated at will, in the party that can't decide if a fiscal balance exists or not, in the party disappearing cash in brown paper bags, and in the party of opportunistic turncoats for leadership contenders, that they would possibily see any appreciation for substance.

The Clown Show Files VII
The Clown Show Files VI
The Clown Show Files V
The Clown Show Files IV
Clown Show Files III
Enlightened Utterings From the Clown Show Files
The Clown Show Files

A Burst of Enlightenment From Foaming Mouth Hairy Armpitted Lefties...

Courtesy Relapsed Catholic, we have what Collectivist Canadian Hippies think are right wing "code words..."

Here are some of my favorites:

"Anti-Christian (Secularist)"

So apparently bashing Christians is religion now... Wait a minute wasn't it-ahum!-always?

"Child pornography. (We're going to convince you that we are protecting your children from exploitation when we restrict your online civil liberties to appease religious conservatives and big business.)"

Ya, that's right, registering sex offenders is all a big plot to restrict your liberties because apparently businessmen that ordinarily care about making profits and churchgoers that normally care about children get a high off of it.

"Anything with 'choice' in it. "

How 'bout choice in horse manure?

"Anything that refers to 'family'"

Horrible right wingers... Bringing up families and loving each other and stuff.

"'Pre-born'
This word just drives me up the wall, though I really can't explain why ('Unborn' doesn't bother me at all). I maintain that if they can refer to a fetus in that manner, then I should be able to refer to them (or anyone else alive, for that matter) as 'pre-dead.'"

That's sounded like a threat boys and girls... I wonder if he plans to kill us all off with his "registered" firearm.

"'Activist judges' -- i.e. judges who make decisions we don't like, usually the kind that nibble away at established areas of privilege ..."

Maybe they could do some nibbling away at the class of Starbuck's coffee drinking Toronto centered Liberals?

Seriously though, the suggestion that "Activist Judges" don't exist is the respite of the lost. Just how many cases need to go in the left's favour before they admit that maybe, just maybe, having left wing judges makes a difference?

But this one just makes me laugh:

"But it's time we 'run the government like a business!' "

Actually that's a Liberal codeword my hairy armpitted friend.

It came from PIERRE ELLIOT TRUDEAU!

But what about other Liberal Codewords?

How 'bout "Progressivism"... ie how we are superior to you and all you other puny mortals.

Or what about "Sustainable" anything? Really it's just a codeword for how we can create government programs to funnel money to Liberal friendlies out there.

The Trouble With Sensors VI

About those ECO sensors...
"Engineers were never able to determine the exact cause of those earlier problems..."

That's an understatement.
"... and many favored changing a launch rule to permit a flight if three of the four sensors were working properly."

I go back and forth on this one. Usually the reason for a rule set in place years ago is a good one. USUALLY. Sometimes it can be redundancy, or something that had to do more with bureaucracy than anything else.

However, with a lack of evidence of such a situation, we have to assume there was infact a good reason. In which case, changing the rule just seems reckless.
"But in a bit of a surprise, shuttle program manager Wayne Hale today decided to stick with the four-of-four ECO sensor launch rule..."

This persistence in sticking with the rule makes me believe that there's something more to this rule that we really don't know about.

Then again, this could just be the stubborn nature of a manager.
"The launch team left open the possibility of revisiting the three-of-four rationale if a failure is actually observed."

So... basically there saying were sure we need this rule, until it causes a problem... Then we can modify the rule at our own convenience?

Now that's bad safety, not to mention bad engineering.
"We have a great deal of confidence we're not going to see any issues..."

Just like you did the other bagillion other times?

The Trouble With Sensors V
The Trouble With Sensors IV
The Trouble With Sensors III
The Trouble With Sensors II
The Trouble With Sensors I

Oh No! The Sheehan Strikes!

Cindy seems to have become an expert on Canada and Canadian political issues after a single tour. I not going to say much on her vehement diatriabe, but there are just some things that just need to be corrected:
Canadians are distressed that defense spending rose by 5.3 billions of dollars ... while the preschool budget is being cut and college tuition is rising. ... This manipulation of facts and the exploitation of fear and false patriotism is being fueled by the Canadian media who seem to be turning, for the most part, into propaganda tools of their government a la our rightwing 4th estate.

Mrs. Sheehan, it would be wise to please read a paper, a Canadian magazine or maybe even a book on Canadian politics before making bold pronouncements on something you obviously know so little about. And I don't mean that in a malicious way, that's just plainly obvious from that statement.

Honestly I think that whole diatribe almost seems comical... Like it comes from the once popular Canadian political TV show "This Hour Has 22 Minutes." Once that TV show had a segment where they managed to get an American Professor from Columbia to sign a petition asking the Canadian government "to stop the practice of sending Canadian seniors north on Canadian icebergs..."

The fact is that the Canadian military for the past 13 years of Liberal rule faced cutback after cutback after cutback after cutback... We couldn't even afford to give our soldiers desert combats. Instead we told them to use their Forrest green combats, good for forest, but not quite the terrain of Afghanistan. Things were so bad even the Liberals couldn't ignore the problem, and started increasing funding themselves.

We couldn't even afford to replace 30 year old Sea King Helicopters that were falling out of the sky... It was so bad that the Sea Kings became the subject of jokes by many.

I would suggest Mrs. Sheehan please repeat that comment she made about military funding to anyone of those pilots that died or were injured from the Sea Kings. That may her change her opinions on the subject a bit.

And I would also like to point out that the Canadian media is about as Left wing as it can possibly get. In the US, they have the right wing FOX news. In Canada we have CTV who's board mostly contributed to the Liberal Party over the years, and the CBC, whose governing board of directors donated even more.

Harper has come under fire for commenting on the apparent media bias countless times. There has been no lack of hate between the PMO and the media in Canada contrary to Sheehan's divined - or should I say fabricated? - opinion.

And if Mrs. Sheehan has a real problem with the war in Afghanistan she has no where farther to look than the Liberal Party of Canada which brought the country there. Of course, she never did protest on former Prime Minister Paul Martin's lawn asking him to pull out troops calling him a "Bush Clone" did she?

Apparently neither consistency, or research are Cindy Sheehan's strong suits.

Gun Registry Dead Like Dinner

The Auditor General still has plenty more Liberal Corruption to uncover by the looks of it:
OTTAWA - The former Liberal government "broke every rule in the book" when it signed a $273-million computer contract for the federal gun registry -- now the subject of a "stop-work" order -- and never reported the costs or terms of the deal to Parliament, a long-time Conservative gun-registry critic alleges.

Saskatchewan Conservative MP Garry Breitkreuz, who discovered the existence of the 15-year contract last fall, said it was never reported to Parliament in government estimates on spending, or disclosed by the Treasury Board, which controls the government purse.

I can't help but think how this provides Breitkreuz the opportunity to push to completion the anti-gun registry agenda. There was some concern recently that since the promise to scrap the registry was not one of Harper's 5 priorities it could pushed to the wayside in this session of parliament...

But now, with this report, Breitkreuz has everything he needs to seal the political deal. There is no better way for the Harper government to deal with the Auditor General's report than to scrap this wasteful experiment in gun control for duck hunters and farmers.

Will he do it? It's very well possible that he has another strategy in mind. Though I think Breitkreuz and the rest of the anti-registry crusaders in Ottawa have just received a huge wonking piece of ammo to use to get rid of it - especially in a minority conservative parliament.

...


Though this does provide Harper with something: fresh "sponsorship scandal" ammo. The Liberal Party of Canada apparently has much more corruption blowback to deal with in the near future. I wonder if Liberals will be considering this when selecting their new leader in the fall.

The Clown Show Files VII

Apparently the Liberals are being told to focus on rural Canada in the next election:
"There's a fear and anger out there in rural Canada..."
That's an understatement. There's a seething white hot anger against the Liberal Party not just in rural Canada but everywhere across the DOMINION. Who would have figured that the Liberal Party of Canada would finally manage to unite both Quebequers and Albertans?

Two solitudes as one... Pierre Trudeau would have been proud.

Also apparently Gerard Kennedy is moving his arse to La BELLE province. This is all an effort to make him look more pan-Canadian, and reach out the whole whack of Liberals that we all know will be voting for Stephane Dion.
"Kennedy and his wife, Jeanette Arsenault, are now looking for a home as well as schools for their children, aged 3 and 7. They'll move as soon as they can and spend at least several months there in advance of the Dec. 2-3 leadership vote."

One question: Does Kennedy actually think he'll be able to win a seat out there? Besides Montreal, me thinks that Quebec is turning quickly into a Liberal wasteland.

And on another note Bill Graham gave a little pep talk this week about Harper's "mean-spirited agenda..." Whoops! That must've been a Freudian slip by the Great Graham Cracker, doesn't he mean Harper's hidden agenda? Aren't we all supposed to be afraid of what Harper isn't saying that he will do?... Oh ya, that's right, BECAUSE HE'S DOING EXACTLY WHAT HE SAID HE WOULD DO.

But this was the kicker:
'"Canadians can't be bought," he said.

He knows that from personal experience...

And just so that this story has some lib leadership material:

'Admitting to his party's recent setbacks, Graham promised a Liberal renewal.'

'Part of its rejuvenation, he said, is an "honest and transparent" leadership race.'

Uh-oh. We've seen honest and transparent government a la Liberal and their was money moving around in brown paper bags to Liberal friendly ad firms in Quebec...

Maybe he should've chosen a different jumble of words.


The Clown Show Files VI
The Clown Show Files V
The Clown Show Files IV
Clown Show Files III
Enlightened Utterings From the Clown Show Files
The Clown Show Files

The Trouble With Sensors V

This is like a never ending story:
'NASA managers today ruled out a June 1 fueling test with the shuttle Discovery, deciding there was no clear-cut technical justification for a complex exercise that would put unwanted stress on the tank's foam insulation and use up valuable contingency time.'

'Shuttle program manager Wayne Hale ordered engineers to make tentative plans for a tanking test earlier this spring as a way to make sure recently replaced engine cutoff - ECO - sensors would work properly on launch day. '

No clear cut reason? How 'bout, we don't know what's causing the ECO sensors to fail, so maybe we should find out...

Just how many times are Engineers at NASA going to request a re-fueling test only to have it denied?... This is becoming almost cartoonish...

'During a weekly program meeting today, the management team unanimously decided not to run the test, officials said, because any major problems with the ECO sensors almost certainly would preclude a launch in the July window anyway and because loading the tank with supercold propellant would subject its foam insulation to unwanted thermal stress.'

Are they saying what I think they're saying? Because the test would prevent any launch, we won't do the test? Is that a valid reason? Why would Engineers request such a test if it did indeed surely cancel the launch in the first place?

Now this just makes the mind go bonkers:

'Shuttle tanks are certified for 13 fueling cycles. When a countdown proceeds past the point where the tank is pressurized for launch - part of the plan for the June test - it counts as two cycles...'

Now this explains it. The Engineers requested the test, because they could do it and still be within the certified limit for the shuttle tanks.

No doubt doing the test would create thermal stresses in the foam, but according to this, it's still within the tolerance of the tanks... Or at least that's what it's suggesting in this article.

This is like watching a car crash waiting to happen...

The Trouble With Sensors IV
The Trouble With Sensors III
The Trouble With Sensors II
The Trouble With Sensors I

Why can't you Yankees keep your problems at Home?

Sheehan's wirlwind Canuck tour has just begun:
'Sheehan, whose son was killed in Iraq two years ago and who is now the most visible face in the U.S. anti-war movement, said Canada's presence in Afghanistan frees U.S. troops to fight in Iraq, a war she said the average Canadian and some families of Canadian soldiers oppose.'

' "They should take their tents and put them on the Prime Minister's lawn and say, `I want to know why you're making our soldiers fight and die, and kill innocent people in Afghanistan, and I'm not moving until you let me know,'" she said.'

I wonder where Cindy was when the previous Liberal administration was in power, and brought us into Afghanistan?... Why wasn't she protesting then?

This is horrible. It's obvious that Cindy Sheehan couldn't care less about her dead son. If she did, she would have been consitent on this count. Instead she sees an opportunity to attack a "conservative" government, and so she prowls...

But when it's liberals in power, then she keeps her mouth shut. For shame...

And looking at her personal life, I would suggest that Cindy would do well to personally reflect well on her life, her son, and just what she stands for. Her moral choices are greatly in suspect at this point.

To the Liberals we're all Sheep...

Not many things Liberals say make me steaming hot mad. This did:
'In one verbal slanging match, Human Resources Minister Diane Finley slammed Liberal MP Carolyn Bennett, who had dismissed the government plan to create child-care spaces as inadequate, for implying in a television interview that parents who want to raise their children at home will be "bringing up future criminals."

'Ms. Bennett, a feisty family doctor who is seeking the leadership of the Liberal party, shot to her feet. Staring across the aisle at Ms. Finley, Ms. Bennett said research shows that for very dollar spent on early learning and childhood, "we will save $7 later in special education and corrections, and you know that."'

I wondered what made me so emotional over this comment. It was hard to pin down. I think part of it had to do with the fact that I know some children that were raised by stay at home parents. I think that since this article implies that Ms. Bennett believes that stay at home parents cause criminals, it was the jab that caused the anger.

See I don't care if someone attacks me. I do care a whole hell of a lot if they attack someone else I know or someone who is defenseless.

The insinutation that stay at home parents cause children to become criminals because they don't enlist them in the "enlightened" government run day care schemes might just be a misunderstanding perpetuated by a gun-hoe Tory cabinet minister. But if it isn't, which, at least in this article, it appears that by Bennett's comment it isn't, then Bennett has lost her grip on reality.

Rural Canadian parents that own a farm, religious parents that want to home school, and other types of a situations where one parent decides to stay at home are not breeding grounds for Paul Bernardo's. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if Paul Bernardo was in day care as a child.

The suggestion of any study that says so is ludicrous. Now what I can see as a likely possibility, is that there is a certain demographic of single parents that stay at home because of poor social conditions and raise their children on their own. In such cases it's the poor social conditions that are the cause of the criminal behaviour, and not whether or not they've enlisted in a government run program.

And again even in such cases, it is better to assume the best of people - and not the worst. We should never fear people. We should only fear governments.

But in the end this is an ideological debate - - and let's not kid ourselves about it. The question really comes down to this: is it better for the government to raise children, or parents?

I don't believe that we should be going by the assumption that people are stupid, and will spend any money they have on beer and popcorn. I we go by that assumption, then guess what? Politicians are people too - and therefore just as stupid. And if that's true, then what in the hell are we doing trusting them with children?

The truth is no one is more "civilized" than anyone else. No one should be more equal than anyone else.

We are not sheep to be hearded by some great politician. Because afterall, God isn't the Liberal Party of Canada.

If Terri could have screamed back...

It's a Brave New World:
'Les Burke suffers from a brain illness, cerebella ataxia, which may result in his eventual paralysis. He faces a likely future of being unable to move or speak, but with full mental capacity.

'Under General Medical Council guidelines, his doctors would be permitted to withdraw food and water from him once his condition deteriorates. Mr. Burke is trying to ensure that does not happen.

'A British High Court ruling that would have prevented his doctors from withdrawing essential nutrition from him was overturned last year when the GMC appealed the ruling. Mr. Burke was refused the right to appeal to the Lords.'

Private healtcare looks to be more and more of an attractive option lately... VERY private healthcare on some island in the Pacific...

Stephen Harper Eats Babies

One blogger's observation, has illicited a response from the Ad agency responsible for the AD "Stephen Harper Eats Babies" on GO Transit Electronic Advertising signs.

Apparently "misterious" hackers are to blame.

Damned Liberal Gremlins I guess.

It's all the shoes...

New Finance minister. New budget. But it's the same old shoe story.

See in the DOMINION of Canada, we Canucks like our finance ministers to wear shoes appropo to their budgets they are presenting. It's kinda like a tradition. For example he wears old shoes if he wants to say more of the same. The shoes he wears are supposed to say something about the budget.

When the Goodale delivered his budget, I dissected into oblivion Goodale's shoes.

So I figure, why not do it again with Finance Ministery Flaherty - the King of the Irish Dancers?

Look at those shoes? Doesn't that just smell of a hidden agenda eh? Look at how inconspicous and innocent those soles look... It hides an evil child killing, Iraq invading bunion of unimaginable proportions that will catapult us into deficit and lots of hell and brimstone... more fire... more... Ok that was the best impression that I could do of a rabid lunatic overly hairy armpitted socialist, but If you have better...

Well...Well start your own Blog then!

Not much is known about Flaherty's brand of shoes. But all we know is in the selection of the shoes he looked for shoes of "moderate cost, not too expensive, but hopefully decent quality..."

I guess that means Private TWO TIER healthcare!... There it proves it! The world is ending! The world is ending! Hidden Agenda exposed!

Ok so maybe the doomsday scenario that the Left hyped hasn't happened. Maybe, just maybe, the King of Irish Dancers aint planning to suck people's blood afterall.

We also know they are $185 shoes.

So we have a pair of generic dress shoes, at moderate cost, but they should last a while.

Contrast that to Goodale's $250 European fancy smanshy shoes.

It means this budget will be much like this government. It won't be flashy. It won't spend money like a monkey bank teller. But it should last a while...

La BELLE province...

According to the latest poll Harper's beating the Bloc in Quebec:
'Si des élections avaient eu lieu cette semaine, les conservateurs auraient obtenu 34 % des suffrages au Québec contre 31 % au Bloc québécois, après répartition proportionnelle des 11 % d'indécis.'

Where are the Liberals in all of this? In electoral "Hell" :
'Pendant ce temps, le Parti libéral du Canada, l'ancien parti des Pierre Trudeau et Jean Chrétien, poursuit sa descente aux enfers. Seulement 15 % des gens auraient voté libéral cette semaine, à peine mieux que le score du Nouveau Parti démocratique, à 13 %. Par rapport aux élections, il s'agit d'une descente de six points de pourcentage pour le PLC et d'une remontée de cinq points pour les troupes de Jack Layton.'

In my head I keep on hearing: "Ding-dong the wicked witch is dead..."