2009 Sea Ice Update
The latest Climate Denial Crock of the Week from Peter Sinclair.

Now Who Can Argue With That
Via Antonia Zerbisias is the best argument ever for taking action on climate change.

For Fox Sake!
Jon Stewart answers the question: What is Fox News.

Suspicious Canadians
A log report from the Sheriff’s office in Custer Country, Montana.

The good for nothing hacks at the National Disgrace will get to keep their jobs while 1,600 autoworkers in St. Thomas will be thrown out on the street. That’s just not right.

Is this the end of the line for the National Disgrace?

The National Post newspaper will cease operations unless a Toronto court approves a new ownership structure for the paper by Friday, the paper’s owners say.

A committee overseeing the company’s restructuring “has made it clear it would not continue to allow the funding of the losses of the National Post past Oct. 30, 2009,” a Canwest Global Communications Corp. court filing released Thursday says.

“In the absence of any funding for its operating losses, it is doubtful that the National Post could sustain its operations.”

The increasing frequency of stories like this is leading me to believe the Conservative Party is beginning to crumble from the inside.

A fight among Conservatives in the federal riding of London-Fanshawe has prompted a wannabe candidate and some supporters to jump ship to the Christian Heritage Party.
In so doing, Gilles Rancourt says he left a Conservative party that doesn’t embrace ethnic members and cares little for grassroots democracy.
“We do so in protest of the racial discomfort shown locally,” he wrote in a letter to party brass in Ottawa. “We are tired of top-down democracy.”

It’s not surprising that bigotry would remain a problem for a party that courts bigots but this shouldn’t pose any more problems for them than it already does. The growing sentiment from the grassroots that they no longer matter to the party should be of great concern however, to a party built and funded almost entirely by grassroots support.

Via Aaron Wherry, all you ever wanted to know about Conservative views on media coverage.

Miller said the focus on the cheques is a Liberal attempt to turn the spotlight from their own problems.

“This is about the national media trying to help the Liberals deflect the attention off their problems right now,” said Miller. “Anybody that has seen Mr. Ignatieff and his crew in the House of Commons in the previous two or three weeks, it has looked as bad as when (Stephane) Dion was there and the media knows it, the Liberals know it and they are just trying to make an issue out of something.

Yup, you read that right. Miller, and likely most conservatives, believe that holding the party in power accountable is nothing more than a distraction from what should be the real focus of the media; the troubles of the party that’s not in power. Unfortunately, most of the time our media agrees with this belief.

Friday’s release of the final accounting for `08/09 fiscal year doesn’t contain much we didn’t already know. Those of us in the reality based community have known for a year, thanks to Mike Watkins, that the Harper Conservatives would be running a deficit for that year. There is one thing however, that stands out on table 5 (Revenues as a percent of total). Personal income taxes accounted for a record 49.8% of federal revenues. By comparison, this number stood at 39.5% at the beginning of the Mulroney government 25 years ago.

Conservative MP for St. Catharines, Rick Dykstra, at Memorial Public School.

Conservative MP for London West, Ed Holder, at University Heights Public School.

Conservative MP for Miramichi, Tilley O’Neill-Gordon, at Belledune School.

Conservative MP for Kildonan-St. Paul, Joy Smith, at Margaret Park Elementary School.

Conservative MP for Abbotsford, Ed Fast, at Ecole Clearbrook Elementary School.

Via No Right Turn is news that a Member’s Bill introduced by New Zealand’s Green Party MP Keith Locke has finally made it into Parliament. Locke’s Head of State Bill, if passed, would call for a referendum to determine if New Zealand should become a Parliamentary Republic.

The Bill proposes a referendum with three options:-
1. The status quo - a monarchy with an absentee British Head of state selected by birth and a Governor-General appointed by the Prime Minister;
2. Parliamentary election - a republic with a head of state nominated by the people of New Zealand and elected by a three-quarters (75%) majority of parliament; (the German model) or
3. Direct election - a republic with a head of state nominated by the people of New Zealand and elected by popular vote, using STV (the Irish model).

With the recent furor over the identity of our own head of state, the debate in New Zealand could be a preview of one that will soon make its way to Canada.

“Name Them, Duffy”
Liberal MP Glen Pearson calls out Conservative Senator Mike Duffy.

So, what we have now is a senator spouting unnamed sources to substantiate his false claims. And as we’ve learned from the “floor-crossing” Liberal MPs story, we’re all demeaned when falsehood is used to belittle others. Now we have a former media personality doing the same thing. He should know better, but, after all, he loves this pit-bull stuff. Duff, name who they are. I’ll bet you can’t, because they don’t exist.

It’s a fairly decent slap to Fluffy’s face, but for some reason Pearson fails to use the words lying crapweasel even once when describing him.

Put Up Or Shut Up, Keddy
Speaking of lying crapweasels, Accidental Deliberations slaps down Conservative MP Gerald Keddy’s lies.

Keddy:
If (the NDP) actually cared about improving the EI system, why did they join the Liberals in refusing to even sit on the panel?

Now, it’s worth pointing out that this goes beyond mere falsehood to the realm of absurdity. After all, the “EI panel” which Keddy is referring to was based on a deal cut between Michael Ignatieff and Stephen Harper - who both had obvious reasons not to offer the NDP any chance to participate, and by all accounts designed the panel to exclude the NDP and the Bloc precisely to remove them from the table.

Of course, if Keddy wants to provide even a shred of evidence that the NDP was offered the chance to join the Libs in lunching with Pierre Poilievre but declined the opportunity, he’s welcome to do so.

For some reason the Jurist also fails to use the words lying crapweasel when describing Keddy.

A Lying Crapweasel Trifecta
Millard Fillmore’s Bathtub knocks the stuffing out of lying crapweasel Lord Monckton. Monckton isn’t called a lying crapweasel even once. Seriously people, lying crapweasels is what they are.

The 8th Deadly Sin: Learning
Jehovah’s Dumbasses.

I was sent this scan of a delightful article from Watchtower Magazine — you know, that bizarre piece of pulp from the Jehovah’s Witnesses. Look at their list of wicked temptations that might lead a faithful person into a life of sin. Take special note of #2.

“A well-intentioned teacher urges you to pursue higher education at a university.”

From The Department Of Duh
Abortion prohibition doesn’t work either.

Restricting the availability of legal abortion does not appear to reduce the number of women trying to end unwanted pregnancies, a major report suggests.

The Guttmacher Institute’s survey found abortion occurs at roughly equal rates in regions where it is legal and regions where it is highly restricted.

Is The Cheque In The Mail
My Blahg is worth a paltry $3810. I blame the depressed value on all of you who keep parking your junkers on my lawn.

Touchable Holograms

From The Department Of Duh
Owning a gun doesn’t protect you.

In a first-of its-kind study, epidemiologists at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine found that, on average, guns did not protect those who possessed them from being shot in an assault. The study estimated that people with a gun were 4.5 times more likely to be shot in an assault than those not possessing a gun.

Canada’s Back
Our reputation dropped from fourth to seventh in a new global survey.

The first feature is Peter Sinclair’s Climate Crock of the Week: Birth of a Climate Crock.

The second feature is NASA: Arctic Sea Ice 101.

If you’re a driver you’ve undoubtedly passed by a police cruiser equipped with a radar gun to catch speeders. You undoubtedly also know that police officers point the radar guns at all passing vehicles regardless of whether or not they have cause to believe the driver of the vehicle is exceeding the speed limit. This is not an infringement upon your rights, a presumption of guilt or an unfair harassment.

The proposed law to allow police officers to conduct breathalyzer tests on motorists without a reasonable suspicion that the driver is impaired is no different than the laws that allow police officers to point radar guns at passing vehicles without a reasonable suspicion that the driver is speeding. Both do nothing more than screen motorists to determine if they’re breaking the law. The proposed law is more inconvenient than a simple radar trap, but inconvenience should not stand in the way of getting drunk drivers off our roads and reducing the number of deaths they cause.

The Conservatives, New Democrats and Liberals are right to support such legislation regardless of how much inconvenience or misplaced angst it causes motorists.

There’s a good reason why the Liberal Party is falling further and further behind the Conservatives in the polls. It’s because of nonsense like this.

Random breathalyzers an unacceptable infringement of the Charter (UPDATED)
The title says it all, and I can’t express it in any more uncertain terms: Jack Layton’s push to implement random breathalyzer tests on our roads is an unnecessary infringement of Section 8 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms (the right to be free from unreasonable search and seizure).

And nonsense like this.

In this morning’s Moncton Times & Transcript the sanctimonious leader of Canada’s fourth most important national party, the mighty NDP, says he would support efforts to craft a new law to curb impaired driving by giving police the power to conduct random breathalyzer tests.

When the NDP is targeted for criticism over actions by the Conservatives it demonstrates liberal priorities are seriously misplaced. Even worse though, is when this misplaced criticism amounts to an own goal.

There appears to be all-party encouragement for moving on the file later this fall. The Liberals and New Democrat leader Jack Layton have pledged their support for any move by government to give police random testing powers on the grounds it appears to have saved lives in other countries.

The obsession liberals have for attacking the NDP has gone on for nearly four years now and it’s done more damage to the Liberals than it has to the New Democrats. Until liberals recognize that and do something about it they better get used to seeing their party sitting on the opposition side of the House of Commons because they’re going to be there a long time.

A remix of Harper’s weekend performance from A Creative Revolution.

Whinger World #47

Hot on the heels of news that Harper is set to call four by-elections to fill vacant seats in the House of Commons is silly commentary by silly pundits for silly people.

There are no easy wins for the Tories among the seats up for grabs. Conventional political wisdom is that by-elections tend to be hard for governing parties to win because they often turn into protest votes.

The riding of Cumberland-Colchester-Musquodoboit Valley in Nova Scotia has sent a Conservative to Parliament on all but one occasion–in `93 a Liberal managed to win when the Reform Party and PC Party split the vote–since the dawn of time. Bill Casey, running as an independent, won the riding with a staggering 69% of the vote in 2008. In 2006 he won it with a measly 52% of the vote running as a Conservative. To say that there are no easy wins for the Tories simply takes rationality out behind the woodshed and puts a bullet between its eyes.

Here’s another silly bit of commentary by silly pundits for silly people.

But for Michael Ignatieff, they’re the next true tests of his leadership. Because these by-elections are the first chance he’s had at running a campaign since he became Liberal leader…
And in order for him to pass these tests, he’s got to win one.

I’ve already pointed out that the riding in Nova Scotia is a lock for the Conservatives but what about the others. There are two up for grabs in Quebec and one in British Columbia.

Montmagny-L’Islet-Kamouraska-Rivière-du-Loup: This riding, created in 2003, was won by the Bloc in 2008 with 46% of the vote. The Liberals came in third with 15%.

Hochelaga-Maisonneuve: This riding, created in 2003, was won by the Bloc in 2008 with 50% of the vote compared to 20% for the second place Liberals.

New Westminster-Coquitlam: This riding was won by the NDP in 2008 with 42% of the vote. The Liberals finished third with 11%.

The only test Ignatieff and the rest of us face is the test of our patience as silly pundits make silly comments about these by-elections.

Neoliberalism Explained

Neoliberalism As Water Balloon from Tim McCaskell on Vimeo.

Maybe The Liberals Need To Attack The NDP Some More
So Liberals, how’s that strategy working out for you now.

Voting Intention:
Con. 37%
Lib. 27%
NDP 17%
BQ 11%
Grn. 6%

Conservanomics Update
Sell low, buy high. That’s the Conservative way.

The federal government has quietly paid nearly $100,000 to buy back historic antiques from Rideau Hall that it accidentally sold on an online government auction service, Sun Media has learned.

Since May, it has paid $95,150 to buy back silver and china that it flogged for $3,934.37 on the Crown Assets Distribution website usually used to offload old desks and filing cabinets.

Democracy Under Siege

Weekend Reading
Julien Russel Brunet on the lack of pension protection in this country.
Jesse McLean on the damage corporal punishment can do to children.
Dawg’s Blawg on the Conservative Minister of Blackmail, Gary Goodyear.

From Nanos.

Nearly three Canadians in four, 72.6 percent, do not want a fall election, while only 22.6 percent would prefer to have one. 4.8 percent are unsure.

Click on image to enlarge.

Why then, do Liberals continue to insist they know better than most Canadians.

Republican senator Bob Corker calls Canada parasitic.

“One of the things that has troubled me greatly about our system is the fact that we pay more for pharmaceuticals and devices than other countries, and yet it’s not really our country so much that’s the problem, it’s the parasitic relationship that Canada and France and other countries have towards us,” the Tennessee lawmaker told Carolyn Bennett.

A rightwing commenter at the nativist site Unambiguously Ambidextrous remarks on Kyle Freeman’s fight to end the discriminatory ban on gay people giving blood.