I’m heading out for a few days of mooching off relatives so I’m turning the place over to all my readerstrolls. Play nice until I return sometime this weekend.

Start reading here, then go here and here.

It’s your choice, leftwingers. You can either fight the brownshirts now as a united front or you can try to take them on alone when they come for you. Either way, it’s inevitable that at some point and time you’ll end up fighting them.

Update: Canadian Cynic gets it.

Given that, as Dr. Dawg writes over here, the CBC caved in to Kate McMillan’s threat to sue for libel, I think the rest of the roundtable have an obligation, out of pure principle, to resign in protest.

Update II: Ed Hollett gets it too.

Now compare Klander to say a Rob Anders, or even a Stephen Harper, and you can see the fundamental difference between Liberals and the Conservatives - the Reform-a-Tories - the Connies.

Klander resigns, likely before he was fired.

Anders? Well, the guy who still thinks that Nelson Mandela is a terrorist, the guy who was too chickenshit to take Mandela’s phone, the guy who is spreading anti-gay propaganda in other ridings besides his own?

Anders is a star Conservative candidate.

And Stephen Taylor’s blog is remarkably silent on the entire affair of Mr. Anders and his current campaign activities.

Compare that to the number of Liberal blogs that have denounced Klander.

So it looks like the peasants are grabbing their pitchforks and torches and are gathering to run the politically incorrect monster out of town. One person–a progressive–has even gone so far as to suggest Klander be charged under the hate speech laws.

I for one say Klander should suffer the exact same fate as everyone else who has ever said something stupid. We should do to him what’s been done to the politically incorrect monsters of the past.

From In Their Own Words.

“Homosexuality is a mental disorder that can be cured through counselling.” - Stockwell Day, February of 1992, quoted in Alberta Report.

Stockwell Day is still a Conservative MP.

“Then came the mandarin from Manitoba [Lloyd Axworthy], the whiner from Winnipeg who now lavishes upon himself as the Minister of Foreign Affairs. He has begged for political pork, dined diplomats and grovelled for government goodies. Who could forget the hyena from Hamilton [Sheila Copps] who shrieked and shrilled her way under the public’s skin…” - Conservative Defence critic Rob Anders in his first ever speech to the House of Commons, Oct. 2, 1997 Hansard.

“[Honouring Nelson Mendela is a] total political-correctness poster-boy thing… He was a Communist. He was a terrorist…” - Conservative MP Rob Anders, explaining why he voted against a resolution to make former South African president Nelson Mendela an honourary Canadian citizen, June 6th, 2001.

Rob Anders is still a Conservative MP.

“In the 1950s, buggery was a criminal offence. Now it’s a requirement to receive benefits from the federal government.” - Yorkton-Melville Conservative MP Garry Breitkreuz commenting on same sex benefits, The Leader-Post, March 3, 2000.

Garry Breitkreuz is still a Conservative MP.

Until these 3 are punished for their callous, cruel and bigoted remarks, everyone, especially the right whingers, should just shut the fuck up. And progressives should be ashamed of themselves for joining in with the brownshirts and their ultra politically correct campaign to intimidate and smear people.

Update: So Klander has resigned yet the cretins mentioned above keep getting re-elected. At least we now know which side takes accountability seriously.

So it looks like the lack of news over the holidays has already prompted some people to begin trying to fill the void with whatever they can find. Naturally, the right whingers are already spinning this out into orbit with wild accusations of racism and sexism and claims that it’s going to sink the Liberal ship.

Well, I have news for you rubes. Mike Klander, like Scott Reid, is not running for political office. He’s just the hired help and campaigning against the hired help is not only a losing strategy, it’s also a strategy that could only be concocted by the mind of someone who wants the Conservatives to lose.

So keep campaigning against Liberal party flunkies while the liberals continue hammering Harper. That way when the Conservatives lose yet another election, you’ll at least be able to say that you convinced every single Canadian not to vote for Klander and Reid.

Update: According to a comment by Buckets of Grewal left on Calgary Grit’s blog, this story was in the print edition of the Toronto Star.

From The Toronto Star, December 23, 2005 Friday ( Pg. A06): Federal New Democrats are mad about a blog posting by an Ontario Liberal organizer comparing NDP candidate Olivia Chow to a dog.

The web page, operated by Mike Klander, showed a picture of Chow, wife of NDP Leader Jack Layton, and below it a picture of a “Chow Chow” dog with the caption “Separated at Birth.” In fact, the dog resembles a Pekingese, which had some New Democrats crying racism. The blog was removed soon after the Star contacted senior Liberals seeking comment.

“I further understand he (Klander) has apologized. Those were, in my view, the appropriate actions,” said Steve MacKinnon, executive director of the Liberal Party.

Chow said she was “saddened” by the swipe: “I’ll debate policy anytime but to descend to this level is quite disappointing.

So the NDP brought this up and Klander not only apologized but also deleted the entire blog. Meanwhile, we’re still waiting for Brian Pallister, a Conservative MP who is running for re-election, to apologize to David Dingwall for making false accusations against him over his expense account.

Did Kinsella just slag his new buddy Stephen Harper?

From Dec. 23rd, 2005.

For Harper, this headline on today’s Chantal Hebert’s column is what the conservatives have been hoping to achieve for 13 years: “Harper puts progressive back into conservative.” That’s Chantal Hebert and the Toronto Star saying that, folks. And I agree with them.

From April 4th, 2005.

Yesterday was busy with family stuff. So I didn’t get a chance to fire up the old P.C. (that’s Personal Computer, not Progressive Conservative, two terms that have always struck me as oxymoronic) until after the kids were tucked in bed.

So if Warren thinks the term progressive conservative is oxymoronic, he must think Stephen Harper’s attempt to look like he’s a progressive conservative is too.

Step 1: Buy the wife’s Christmas gift early.
Step 2: Hide it where she won’t find it.
Step3: Run around the house in a panic Christmas morning because you can’t find it.

I’ll tell you something. It’s amazing how fast you can find religion when you’re tearing apart the gargage and begin praying to the imaginary sky being that the wife’s Christmas gift wasn’t hidden in the pile of crap you took to the dump a few weeks earlier.

Anyhow, disaster was averted when it was found and the gifts were all exhanged. Now I can start giving the relatives the “Are you still here” look. Hey, just kidding. I don’t start giving them that look till after we’ve finished eating Christmas dinner and they’ve done the dishes.

MERRY LINK DUMP
In case you’ve had enough of granny’s phlegmy cough or listening to uncle Bill talk about the six operations he had this year and need to escape to the two internets on Christmas Day, here’s some interesting stuff to read.

Canucky Stuff
Macleans now sucks.

Elexmas Stuff
Drunken sailor election spending style kung-fu.
Two timing Tories.
Is it just me or does the photo of Harper accompanying this story make him look fat? Hmmm, the wingnuts better get on this one too just to be safe.
No momentum for you.

Worldly Stuff
A reality based perspective of the Iranian president’s recent speeches.
Yet another similarity that shows Iraq is nothing at all like Vietnam.

Chimpyland Stuff
Reasons, we don’t need no stinking reasons to arrest you.
The most outrageous wingnut statememts of `05.

Fun Stuff
Pimp My Nutcracker.
Rove Implicated In Santa Identity Leak.
The 24 Days Of Christmas.
The Santa Game.
Jingle Bells–Aussie style.

Ah, I always feel better after a nice big link dump. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to wipe my arse with the nearest conservative.

Dude, that’s harsh firing a guy right before Christmas.

I know it’s a couple days early, but I figured I’d start handing out gifts to everyone from My Blahg.

To Paul Martin: An excuse-a-day calendar. I know the big guy must be running short of them these days.

To Stephen Harper: A bottomless sack of empty promises. I know he can put it to good use. What’s that? He’s already got one of those. Dammit. I bought it at a store that has a restrictive return policy too.

To Jack Layton: A can of whoop-ass because I know he doesn’t have one of those. Get Olivia to show you how to use it.

To Gilles Duceppe: An oversized Canadian flag and a pack of matches. Have fun you squirrely separatist, you.

Jim Harris: Oops! I forgot about you, Jim, just like the media has. Sorry.

More gifts to come.

You know, I was all set to announce that I’d be following the lead of 3 of the 4 Canadian political parties and would refrain from posting anything political over the Elexmas holidays until I read about this story of how Fox News did a gushing piece on the racist organization, Stormfront.org and realized that evil does not take a holiday.

Fox affiliate “FOX Carolina” last month ran a one-sided fluff piece exploring StormFront.org, an online hub for white supremacists.

The Anti-Defamation League describes StormFront as a “veritable supermarket of online hate, stocking its shelves with many forms of anti-Semitism and racism.” Yet not a single critical voice is included in the Fox story — only StormFront members and moderators are included.

Think Progress has a followup article on how the reporter who did the story has become active on the Stormfront.org forum. And The Poor Man outlines how this is just the latest attempt by the right to mainstream racism.

If this is what the right considers to be fair and balanced media, then I’ll take the liberal media any day.

Have you been following the story about Guy Masse, a Zellers employee who was fired for taking chocolate out of a dumpster home to his three children? Well, there’s a new development in the story. Someone from Zellers has responded to the criticism the company is receiving from the press and that someone is Hillary Stauth, a former press secretary to ex Conservative Premier of Ontario, Mike Harris.

“We have more than 70,000 (workers) across Canada. They work so hard especially at this time of year,” Stauth told the Canadian Press.

“It’s very upsetting that one bad employee tarnished the reputation of everybody else,” she concluded.

What in the hell is wrong with these people?

Whinger World #18

Since Festivus is almost up us and I still have to prepare my list for the Airing Of The Grievances, I’m reposting this post from the old My Blahg that is very appropriate for this election. Remember, this is the true face of the Conservative Party, not the one they’ve slapped on after a summer spent flipping burgers on the BBQ circuit.

I thought I’d take a look at some of the legislation Conservative MP’s are trying or have tried to push through parliament in the past year in order to give you a sneak peak of what a Conservative government’s agenda would look like.

Bill C-213: An Act to protect the institution of marriage. Introduced by MP David Chatters of the Alberta riding of Westlock–St. Paul.

Whereas marriage has from time immemorial been recognized as the union of one man and one woman to the exclusion of all others;

Whereas, because of certain court decisions, it is now necessary to clarify the meaning of marriage;

1. This Act may be cited as the Marriage Act.

2. Marriage is the lawful union of one man and one woman to the exclusion of all others.

Bill C-268: An Act to confirm the definition of marriage and to preserve ceremonial rights. Introduced by Conservative MP Rob Moore of the New Brunswick riding of Fundy Royal.

2. Despite any other Act of Parliament, marriage means the lawful union of one man and one woman to the exclusion of all other persons.

This isn’t new to most Canadians as it’s common knowledge that the Conservative Party is the champion of religious bigotry and is seeking to prevent homosexuals from enjoying the same equality as all other Canadians. While it’s true that they have finally accepted civil unions for same-sex couples in our country, it’s also true that they seek to preserve their antiquated notion of marriage as an exclusionary club for only those who are defined as the “right sort of people” or lead “the right sort of lifestyle”.

Bill C-294: An Act to amend the Criminal Code (destruction or desecration of national flag). Introduced by Conservative MP Mark Warawa of the British Columbia riding of Langley.

(1) Every one who, without lawful excuse, willfully damages or destroys in any manner, burns or defaces, defiles, mutilates, tramples upon or otherwise desecrates the national flag is guilty of an offence and liable on summary conviction

(a) for a first offence, to a fine of $500; and

(b) for a second or subsequent offence, to a fine of not less than $500 and not more than $15,000 or to imprisonment for a term not exceeding six months, or to both

What can I say about this other than it just goes to show how much the Conservative Party is emulating the Republican Party. What’s funny though, is that the CP’s supporters are the ones who would be most likely to burn the Canadian flag.

Bill C-307: An Act to amend the Criminal Code to prevent health care practitioners from being coerced into taking part in medical procedures that offend the practitioner’s religion or belief that human life is inviolable. Introduced by Conservative MP Maurice Vellacott of the Saskatchewan riding of Saskatoon-Wanuskewin.

(2) Every one is guilty of an offence punishable on summary conviction who, being an employer or the agent of an employer,

(a) refuses to employ a health care practitioner,

(b) refuses to advance or promote a qualified health care practitioner, or

(c) dismisses, or threatens to dismiss, a health care practitioner from employment,

because the health care practitioner is, or is believed to be, unwilling to take part in, directly or in an advisory capacity, any medical procedure that offends a tenet of the practitioner’s religion, or the belief of the practitioner that human life is inviolable.

This is the socalled “Conscience Clause” that has become the conservative’s new line of assault on abortion and contraception. The Gracchi and Canadian Cynic have already taken apart this bit of idiotic legislation.

Bill C-269: An Act to amend the Supreme Court Act (constitutional validity of any Act). Introduced by Conservative MP David Chatters of the Alberta riding of Westlock–St. Paul.

52.2 Where the question heard and considered by the Court concerns the constitutional validity of any Act or any provision of an Act and the judgment of the Court is not unanimous, the decision of the Court shall be deemed to be applicable only to the particular case being heard and not considered a precedent in relation to other circumstances in which the same constitutional issue arises.

Just like their brethren to the south, the Conservative Party is already moving to marginalize the authourity of the courts so that it won’t conflict with their interests, even when those interests are clearly unconstitutional.

Bill C-283: An Act to amend the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act and the Immigration and Refugee Protection Regulations. Introduced by Conservative MP Gurmant Grewal of the British Columbia riding of Newton-North Delta.

This enactment amends the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act and the Regulations made under that Act to provide for the sponsorship of foreign nationals who apply for temporary resident visas as members of the visitor class.

Essentially, this legislation would force Canadians to put up sums of money to guarantee that when they invite guests to our country, they don’t commit what is the most egregious of crimes to many conservatives; overstaying their welcome. It’s an absurd bit of legislation and will no doubt be used to selectively target people from certain areas of the world. It’s also unfair in that it limits the ability of the poor to have relatives visit them.

Bill C-364: An Act to provide compensation to Canadian industry associations and to Canadian exporters who incur financial losses as a result of unjustified restrictive trade actions by foreign governments which are signatories to trade agreements involving Canadian products. Introduced by Conservative MP Brian Jean of the Alberta riding of Fort McMurray-Athabasca.

This enactment provides that the Minister of Finance shall compensate any Canadian exporter or Canadian industry association involved in the exportation of Canadian goods to a foreign state for any loss incurred as a result of unjustified restrictive trade actions by the government of that state.

There actually isn’t anything wrong with this bit of legislation but I’ve included it to point out the hypocrisy of the Conservative Party. If they actually believed in all that free market spiel like they claim to, then they’d argue against legislation like this on the grounds that if a company was shortsighted enough to limit itself to a single market, then they should accept “personal responsibility” for when the market conditions affect their ability to conduct business. But we all know their free market spiel is just nonsense and that Conservatives are just as willing as the Liberals to hand over tax payer dollars to corporate Canada.

Bill C-311: An Act respecting seat belts in federal vehicles and school buses. Introduced by Conservative MP David Chatters of the Alberta riding of Westlock–St. Paul.

The purpose of this enactment is to require that all vehicles under federal jurisdiction, including military vehicles, be equipped with seat belts for the driver and passengers, if they are operated on a public highway.

I’ve included this piece of legislation to once again point out the hypocrisy of the Conservative Party. This is “Nanny Statism” of the exact sort that they, along with the socalled “Libertarians”, love to hang the Liberals for implementing.

So there you have it. An assortment of legislation that gives some insight into what a Conservative government’s agenda would look like. In short, it’ll be pretty much identical to the one being implemented by the ruling party south of the border and demonstrates that the “scary conservative” label is justified.

You’ve probably noticed the spammers have finally found My Blahg and are increasingly bombarding the comments with ads for plastic dicks and pussies. Bastards. Oh well it was bound to happen. Anyway, to combat it I’ve installed a new plug-in that will turn comments and trackbacks off after 5 days since they only hit older posts. I figure 5 days is good since that’s about how long posts stay on the main page and nobody really comments on stuff older than that. But let me know if it’s too short and I’ll increase it by a day or two.

I found this great audio file on the website of the NDP candidate for Guelph, Phil Allt, of a speech by Tommy Douglas at the very first NDP leadership convention. It’s still applicable to today’s world.

Yeah, um, about that whole Afghanistan thing. It’s your problem now, Canada.

Canada could find itself isolated on the front line of a dangerous war as the United States withdraws troops from Afghanistan and doubts swirl about the military commitments from key NATO allies in the troubled country.

As Ottawa ramps up its military presence in southern Afghanistan and commanders warn of casualties, both Britain and The Netherlands have yet to confirm whether they’ll be fighting alongside the Canadians.

It’s a bloody good thing we didn’t join the Yanks in Iraq. Imagine having that quagmire dumped in our laps.

Update: I seem to recall a certain party leader bringing up the issue of Canada’s involvement in Afghanistan just a couple of weeks ago.

“We believe the prime minister owes Canadians an explanation of the goals of this mission, of the commitments we would be making and of what the withdrawal plan there would be and then there should be a discussion in Parliament,” Layton said.

Indeed we do need to know what the prime minister has gotten us into and it should be discussed in Parliament, especially now that it looks like the whole show is going to be left up to us.

Oh my, it looks like a few of the right whingers have gone a little too far with their hatred of the Supreme Court of Canada by railing against its recent decision that swingers clubs don’t harm society and are taking flak about it from their freepers.

Why should anyone care what consenting adults do in the privacy of a locked room if nobody is harmed?

Sorry, Kate, but I think the court got this one right.
Posted by: john g at December 21, 2005 04:33 PM

In a rare occasion the Supreme Court got this right. In no stretch of the imagination can you suggest that a group of people having sex in private constitutes intervention by the state. What is really frightening is that this even made it to court at all. To attack ones freedom of association is lethal to democracy.

People on this blog have generally advocated for less government intervention and control in our everyday lives.

You cannot have it both ways.
Posted by: Missing Link at December 21, 2005 05:21 PM

Anyway, I’m enjoying watching the heads of the prudes explode over this decision.

Over the past year we’ve seen a steady drain of support for Stephen Harper and his Conservative Party from the blogosphere. I was pretty much the first to go. Although I gave the new Conservative Party the benefit of the doubt in the last election, it quickly became clear to me afterward that my Progressive Conservative Party was truly dead. Since then I’ve noted several other bloggers jumping ship like Jay Currie did over the Conservative’s stance against same-sex marriage or for various other reasons.

Now, in just a few days time, the Harper camp has lost two more bloggers. The first to go was Kevin Brennen over at Tilting at Windmills, who like me ended up in the NDP’s camp. This is the heart of his reason for doing so.

Harper isn’t running away from a stance on a single issue. He’s running away from the entire philosophy of governance he espoused as a “private citizen”. That’s a lot to swallow. Without some kind of rationale for that change, Harper is also exposing himself as unfit for the PM’s office. Either he’s lying now about what he believes, or he doesn’t believe in anything. If I wanted that, I might as well keep Paul Martin in office.

And just today gdowler over at Gin and Tonic has decided to join the ranks of the undecided.

You know, I didn’t think anything would move my vote this year, but despite strong Conservative support, I now join the ranks of the undecideds. Why?

Because Stephen Harper has become convinced that the way to win this election is to cosy up to the Qubec separatists, going to far as to offer them a “voice” in international organizations such as UNESCO…I’m not sure I can bring myself to vote for a party so willing to abandon Federalism.

While the blogosphere represents only a small part of the Canadian electorate, it can’t be a good sign for the Conservative Party that Harper continues to bleed support from within its ranks.

Update: Gin and Tonic has already been booted from the Blogging Tories by herr administrator.

Okay wow. That’s pretty harsh.

I have to assume that it’s no coincidence that I’ve disappeared from the Blogging Tories blogroll roll the day I uttered some criticism. All without any explanation or even notification, which would have been polite.

No dissent allowed?

Talk about toeing the party line…

Hey, what did you expect from the blueshirts. Remember, the little weasel who runs the Blogging Tories issued a missive not long ago demaning absolute obedience to the party or else. Anyway, there’s plenty of room on the Progressive Bloggers blogroll for you and to date, I don’t know of one person who has been given the jackboot.

Stuff like this makes my blood boil.

Mr. Betito admits the e-mail was written in “a moment of insanity,” and says he was provoked into the foolish move by the tone of Mr. Cherwonak’s message and his concerns about the Dodge City environment in the Toronto ‘burbs. He has resigned from Ms. Brown’s campaign and apologized to Mr. Cherwonak.

But Mr. Betito says he now feels like he’s the one in the crosshairs. Once his e-mail was posted on a blog, it spread rapidly among the guns ‘n’ ammo set across North America. He says he has received hundreds of e-mails from the U.S. and Canada, many threatening in tone.

“I have been bombarded,” he said. “I got concerned about my welfare. I never knew the reach and breadth of these groups.” Mr. Betito says some e-mails are suggesting a boycott of Apotex’s drugs and others were sent to his bosses to demand he be fired.

One message confused his gender and began with the salutation, “You Liberal slut.” One website posted his home address. ‘This is the greatest level of intimidation I have ever seen,’ Mr. Betito said, and that’s something coming from someone who regularly picks fights with the most powerful industry in the world — the brand-name drug companies.

When is our media going to wake up and point out to Canadians how vile the supporters of the conservative party have become? These are not isolated incidents. The right in this country has launched a campaign of terror to intimidate anyone who is not one of them.

Conservatives are repulsive and so are their Vichy media enablers. I weep for our nation’s trust in a media that will not only turn a blind eye to this sort of daily occurrence, but will also thrust the person responsible for this particular campaign of fear into the limelight.

Wow! This is big news too. My Blahg has just learned that Jim Harris, leader of the federal Green Party, in a bold and daring move to get around being left out of the national leaders’ debates, has just challenged Stephen Harper to a one on one debate. Will Harper accept or will he turn tail and run like a chickenPaul Martin?

More as the story unfolds.