Mark Steyn; So it’s corruption plus socialism. That’s great news, isn’t it?”
Class victory speech of the evening – openly gay Conservative – turned – Liberal Scott Brison : “There’s not a lot of room for Red Tories in a party with a lot of red necks.”
We have a minority government with a “tie” potential. The Liberals and NDP, who are expected to work in concert, will have 154 votes in parliament, less the appointed speaker.
The Conservatives and Bloc Quebecois have 154 seats, plus Chuck Cadman, who was a Conservative MP who won his seat as an Independant after losing the local nomination.
No word yet on whether the newly enfranchisedCanadian Convicted Felon community influenced any of the outcomes.
Cosh has a synopsis
Saskatchewan anhilated the NDP – a Conservative sweep of 13 of 14 seats, with the exception of Finance Minister Ralph Goodale, who has respect across all party lines. (Plus, he’s good insurance – smart strategic voting there). Premier Lorne Calvert’s shaky majority is more vulnerable than ever – this is a message to the provincial NDP as much as it is the feds.
With this Anti-American, left wing alliance and David Pratt gone – the only decent Liberal defense minister in the past decade – things look desperate for the military. Short of an attack on Canadian soil, nothing substantive will be done with the NDP holding the hammer. And hopes for early BSE-border resolution just evaporated.
I said on the Shotgun last night – the unofficial slogan of Western Canada, The West Wants In may be on the cusp of changing to The West Wants Out.
Busy Day
I’ve been running around town all day, tying up loose ends on shipping a dog to Australia, getting my insurance claim for a generator I had stolen in Montana, etc. etc.
Plus, it’s a bit difficult typing with your fingers crossed. The polls close here at 7:30 pm – simultaniously from Quebec to Alberta. We will get the results of Newfoundland and the Maritimes before polls close here. The old election blackout on information on results was finally lifted due to a BC court challenge. We have freedom of speech. Just not during elections.
One interesting story brewing. Not sure of what will come of it, but a small community in the province had their town hall rented by Elections Canada, for polling station use, as has been the tradition – only to be later informed they were to vote on the nearby Indian reserve. The first question is the legality of this location – reserves may not qualify as public land. (I’m no legal expert there, can honestly say I don’t know if that’s an issue or not.)
But, there is a First Nations candidate running for the Liberals. And questions about why those phoning, trying to get to the bottom of the last minute change, are being told it’s up to the returning officer, who is in turn, blaming it on directions coming down from “Ottawa”.
I just hope they have a bucketful of scrutineers. First Nations administrators haven’t got a stellar record of keeping track of polling stations in their own elections.
The Shotgun posse will be blogging election results from Stephen Harper’s headquarters at the Calgary Stampede Grounds tonight.
and in other tidbits….
A couple of interesting links from James Joyner and Instapundit – Bush’s cowboy unilateralism in the Sudan (where Canadian – French owned oil company TotalFinaElf is again, at the profitable end of their governments’ blind eye to genocide.
Perhaps it is unfair to suggest that business interests might be tipping the balance against France’s taking a stand on human rights in Sudan. Jemera Rone of Human Rights Watch explains that TotalFinaElf has oil concessions in southern Sudan that it cannot touch until the peace deal between Khartoum and the south sticks. The French are wary of giving the regime in Khartoum a hard time about its ongoing ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity in Darfur, in case it walks away from the southern peace deal, thus imperilling Total’s prospects.
Which reminds me – is “PetroKaz” Chretien in Iran yet?
OTB also tips us off to this gem from Lileks. Scroll down to the Parable of the Stairs. Perfect way to commemorate Tax Freedom Day in Canada.
I Spy
I spy with my little eye….
Something that is yellow.
Cake.
In.
Niger.
Louise Joy Sarin
Weapons of mass destruction are like test tube babies.
Nobody cares about the second one.
Winds Of Change
Andrew Coyne has a must read column for those interested in Canadian politics and tomorrow’s election. That includes you Americans, by the way. You cannot understand Canada and our schizophrenic foreign policy without a cursory understanding of the political system and regional idiosyncracies that have allowed a single political machine to install itself in virtual perpetuity.
Andrew argues that this machine is on the verge of finding itself dismantled.
For the country’s sake, I hope he’s right. The tentacles of government have been increasingly rewoven under the Liberals to entrench that power. Majority governments hand 95% of the decision making power of parliament to the office of the Prime Minister, and challenges to the constitutionality of legislation are adjuciated by a Supreme Court – also appointed by the Prime Minister. New campaign finance laws shovel out taxpayer cash to parties on the basis of the votes they garnered during the previous election – and forbid corporations and unions from contributing at all, giving the governing party a financial edge. Private interest groups and individuals are gagged by strict spending limits in elections, effectively muzzling all but the political parties and the media. That media that includes a government funded CBC with it’s own self interest in conflict with the prospect of Liberal party defeat.
Short of reform from within – highly unlikely – the only hope for cutting those tentacles permanently is from the outside, and I will argue, like Andrew – the outside represented by the more inately democratic political mindset of western Canada.
Whatever the precise result on Monday, and whoever forms a government, one thing should by now be clear: the political landscape of Canada is on the verge of historic change — radical, permanent, and mostly for the the better. Eight decades of Liberal dominance, punctuated by occasional Tory interludes, are about to come crashing to an end. This isn’t 1984. It isn’t 1979. It isn’t even 1957. It’s something completely new.
We shall see. Go read it all.
Why Must I do This?
Why isn’t it being reported on by our taxpayer funded media, and their competitors?
Via Instapundit
Amir Taher has been touring Iraq. .
Iraq today is no bed of roses, I know. I have just come back from a tour of the country. But I don’t recognise the place I have just visited as the war zone depicted by the Arab and western media.
[…]
Despite the continuing terrorist violence Iraq has attracted more than 7m foreign visitors, mostly Shi’ites making the pilgrimage to Najaf and Karbala where (despite sporadic fighting) a building boom is under way. This year Iraq has had a bumper harvest with record crops, notably in wheat. It could become agriculturally self-sufficient for the first time in 30 years.
“Iraq has always had everything that is needed to build a successful economy,” says Heydar al-Ayyari, an Iraqi politician. “We have water and fertile land. We have oil and a hardworking people. What we lacked was freedom. Now that we have freedom we can surge ahead.”
Nor should one believe the claims of self-styled experts that the Iraqis are not ready for freedom. During the past 10 months elections have been held in 37 municipalities. In each case victory went to the moderate, liberal and secular candidates. The former Ba’athists, appearing under fresh labels, failed to win a single seat. Hardline Islamist groups collected 1% to 3% of the vote.
What is wrong with our media? What great dysfunction has set in, that I must go to the internet, to private sources, to find these reports for myself?
Surely there are reporters and editors who surf through here. I see it in my logs- “cbc.ca”, “abc.com”.
I want to hear from you. You covered every anti-war demonstration. You quoted every naysaying Canadian politician. You gave a closeup to every half-wit Hollywood actor who could move their lips. You covered UN deliberations. You’ve dissected every hoped for disaster, from the “massive humanitarian disaster” to the “quagmire” of the stretched supply lines, to the “failure” to catch Saddam, to the “uprising of the Arab street”, to the “Vietnam” of El Sadr’s militia, dancing to the rhythm of every RPG to be tossed into the Green Zone. You even reported on the ones that “caused no casualties”. So, it’s not like you didn’t have the time and space.
Are you intentionally trying to mislead and misinform the Canadian public by reporting out a tiny window facing in a single direction?
Pro-democracy voices dominate the new privately owned Iraqi press which, with more than 200 dailies, weeklies and periodicals, represents a breath of fresh air in the state-controlled Arab media.
Preparations for self-rule have been under way for months. All but four of the 26 government departments set up after liberation are now under exclusive Iraqi control. The provisional government headed by Iyad Allawi, the prime minister, has been sworn in ahead of the formal transfer of power at the end of the month.
I want to hear from my politicians. The ones who echoed the false predictions and doomsday scenerios like trained parrots. You, whose job it is to represent our interests and direct an intelligent, informed foreign policy. Why aren’t you talking about the progress? Setting the record straight? You’re sending our tax dollars to this country. Why aren’t you talking about the achievements of the Iraqis?
I want to hear your explanation for denying the Canadian public information as important as this. We are paying for it. We are paying your salaries.
You surely cannot say you don’t know, can you? Are you that lazy?
Or do you have so much invested in your smug Canadian superiority and faith in the UN that you cannot bring yourself to display any information that contradicts your fondest failed predictions of the past year?
If lives are to be saved in the region, both Western and Arab, if the threat of Islamism is to be defeated without the use of thermonuclear devices, these people, these fledgling democracies, need to be celebrated and supported. To do anything else is to aid and abet the enemy.
It does not mean we do not need to know the bad news. But it’s dishonest to ignore the good in order to preserve your “told you so” as long as humanly possible.
It’s not about you. It’s about them. It’s about us.
Moore Script Leaked
Breaking News:
ESR OBTAINS SCRIPT FOR NEXT MICHAEL MOORE MOVIE: It’s apparently entitled “Pig at the Trough” and it blows apart conventional thinking about the Oil for Food scandal that has conservatives salivating at the prospect of embarrassing the United Nations. According to Moore’s next movie, the villain behind the scandal isn’t who you think it is.
hat tip – Flea
The Lessons Of Chechnya
Wretchard explains why, “Despite the importation of fighters from all over the world and the use of weapons in numbers orders of magnitude greater than those directed at the Russian Maikiop brigade, the Jihadis have been unable to keep the inept Americans from creeping to within a hairsbreadth of installing a new government in the heart of Arabia.”
He reminds us of the tactics that led to the Chechnya massacre.
The first unit to penetrate to the city center was the 1st battalion of the 131st “Maikop” Brigade, the latter composed of some 1,000 soldiers (120 armored vehicles and 26 tanks) … Russian forces initially met no resistance when they entered the city at noon on 31 December. They drove their vehicles straight to the city center, dismounted, and took up positions inside the train station. Other elements remained parked along a side street as a reserve force.
Sixty hours later, the unit had been wiped out. “By 3 January 1995, the brigade had lost nearly 800 men, 20 of 26 tanks, and 102 of 120 armored vehicles.” It had been surrounded and despite urgent pleas for relief, been utterly destroyed.
[…]
What looked like a Shi’ite- Sunni deal to drive the US out of Iraq in April turned out to be a deal, all right, but not the kind the Al Qaeda had bargained for. An enraged Abu Musab al-Zarqawi’s vowed to kill Prime Minister Iyad Allawi, murdered 100 Iraqis in a single day and probably engineered an attack on Shi’ite political party headquarters.� Allawi responded by announcing a plan for checkpoints, a curfew, a ban on demonstrations and even hinted at declaring martial law. The man who had pleaded with America to lift the siege on Fallujah was all smiles at the news of the latest American precision strike.
Zarqawi’s woes were compounded by Grand Ayatollah Ali al Sistani whose response to his offensive was pretty nearly blood-curdling.
Atkins Diet
I’m going to give it a try. I have good kidneys, am in good health, so why not? I’ve signed up for the Atkins diet. Last night’s menu:
Dinner:
Two Superstore No-Name [tm] all beef hot dogs, boiled, wrapped in a slice of white bread, with canola margarine and mustard.
7 Presidents Choice [tm] Decadent Chocolate Chunk Cookies.
(Not necessarily in that order)
Snack:
Tomato sandwich. (White bread, canola margarine.)
Actually, I’ve been on a diets that resemble this, on and off, for most of my life. (I went through a regime of Gatorade and Frosted Mini Wheats once.) Indeed, I’m polishing off three more cookies this morning as I write this.
Yum.
Dear Mr.Nader,
Dear Mr. Nader,
I would like to thank you for your input on the Canadian federal election. Considering that you managed to receive 2882955 votes from a population of a third of a billion, while a bunch of God-fearing, capital-loving, deregulating conservatives in the Canadian Alliance managed to garner 3277037 votes from a population approximately a tenth of your country’s, I can only imagine how valuable your comments are to us.
Sincerely,
Kelvin Chan
Full Retraction
Michelle Malkin is sympathetic, but unhappy about Vice President Dick Cheney’s suggestion to Patrick Leahy in the Senate.
I am still have nightmares about the dangling heads of Nick Berg and Paul Johnson and Kim Sun-Il, and all the mainstream media will be prattling on about today is Dick Cheney’s use of the F word.
She’s asking for more creative suggestions. “Feel free to leave the profanity-free putdown you would have used on Leahy.”
Unfortunately, the damage is done. The only befitting action now for Cheney is a full, unequivocal retraction:
“I was out of line, Mr. Leahy. I take it back. “
“Unfuck yourself.”
It’s The Idiots Stress
The Canadian Kennel Club is a self-important, politically infected, management-heavy little non-profit organization with delusions of grandeur, completely reflective of the incestuous nature of the Canadian dog show otherworld.
The organization is currently in political crisis and flirting with financial collapse.
With an annual gross income of around $6 million (CDN), half paid out in “human resources”, last year they lost about a quarter million dollars – the third straight year of loss.
The CEO is reportedly paid in the neighborhood of $600 dollars a day – with non-performance related bonuses. It’s hard to be sure – it’s a self-renewing contract with a “confidentiality clause” that meant for years, board members could not get access to details of that contract, including how much he was being paid.
The last time I wrote something about him, he called the Ontario Provincial Police to charge me with issuing a “threat”. Funny little man.
Anyhow, none of this flood of red ink seems to have any effect on encouraging business efficiency. Today, on an email list, someone noted the following;
“This is not CKC bashing…..just facts. Yesterday I received a large brown envelope from the CKC…it said ‘DO NOT FOLD OR BEND” across the face of it. Postage was .98 cents.
Upon opening, it revealed a letter saying enclosed was a new form. The new form was an “invoice/record of transaction which was informing me of the cost of transferring a dog to the new owner.”
I replied;
I wondered about that – a full sized business envelope, covering letter and full colour invoice. I got one too, just yesterday. I thought it was a freak mistake. Apparently not.
Idiots.
That’s not CKC bashing, mind you. Idiots.
And, it wasn’t actually directed at anyone idiots in particular.
It wasn’t idiots even intentional.
I have idiots the typing variation of tourette’s syndrome��.
It’s a struggle idiots to control the problem, whenever I’m subjected to the stress of dealing with idiots the CKC.
It’s completely involuntary.
Idiots.
Like I said, I wouldn’t want idiots anyone to feel threatened or bashed.
Idiots.
Black Fly In Our Chardonnay
Today is officially Tax Freedom Day in Saskatchewan. That means that the average taxpayer has finished working for the governments of various levels, and may now earn their first penny of true family income.
Tax Freedom Day for Canada as a whole falls on June 28th. Monday, the 28th of June, happens to be the date of the federal election.
Isn’t it ironic?
Half the year, we work to pay taxes. But, don’t be bogged down by negativity. Be positive. The glass isn’t half empty, as they say. It’s half full.
“Glass half full.”
Say it over and over until you can visualize it. Then, on Monday, go down to the voting booths, and remember which two parties are actively campaigning that it’s un-Canadian to lower taxes.
You should know what to do with that glass.
Sweet Grapes
I remember seeing Beckie Scott interviewed just moments after she made Olympic history in Salt Lake City – the first North American to capture an Olympic medal in cross country skiing. It was a bronze.
She was angry. She said some intemperate things about the two Russians who had bested her.
Textbook sour grapes. I hear it all the time in my own sport – subject to subjectivity and political alliances and feuds, complaining about dirty tricks is commonplace, but neatly deflected by the “sore loser” accusation.
 |
Maybe Beckie has something to teach us about the difference between sore losers and undeserving winners and standing your ground in the face of contraversy. |
Today, it’s a gold. Congratulations, Beckie!
The New York Inquirer
Actually, that’s unfair. In recent years, the National Inquirer has cleaned up its act. They actually fact check their stories.
The New York Times simply buries the ones that don’t slide neatly into the intended bias. The fiasco of last week, in which the 9/11 Commission allegedly declared “No Ties Between Saddam And Al Queda” has properly been debunked throughout the blogosphere, and disavowed by the commission members themselves.
Until now, the media was given the benefit of the doubt – if you can call it that. They were characterized as sloppy or conveneintly obtuse. It turns out, that it’s been a little more complicated than that.
The New York Times reports an Iraqi document — one that it obtained several weeks ago, but that the 9/11 Commission seems somehow to have overlooked — outlining collaboration between Saddam and Osama back in the 1990s. This is, of course, consistent with these media reports of such contacts from 1999.
That’s right. They were sitting on evidence that refuted their own reporting.
Go read Glenn Reynolds round up of links, including this timeline.
Jeff Goldstein;
New York Times: “Okay, so there is a document proving ties between Iraq and al-Qaeda, but the document doesn’t really prove prove those ties — or rather, it does prove prove ties…
…but it doesn’t exactly prove prove that Bin Laden and Saddam ordered a single milkshake and two spoons, if you catch our drift.”
Another 15 Minutes
I’m supposed to be a member of the Murray Wood show’s “people’s panel” on 650 CKOM this afternoon. We’ll be talking about the election, of course. Show starts at around 1:30, they tell me. (I believe the station is at 980 in the south.)
All day yesterday, I practiced talking out loud about the LIberals without the use of interspecies reproduction analogies.
It’s harder than I thought it was. I hope they have a 6 second delay.
update
We were on for nearly an hour and a half.
Overall conclusion?
I want my own radio talk show.
And I Was Named After Mary-“Kate” Olsen
Silent Running: noticed this timeline discrepency in Bill Clinton’s book.
In his recently released book “I’m a Democrat so the rules don’t apply to me” Bill told us that his wife was named after Sir Edmund Hillary making Ed his “second favorite Hillary”.
Ohhhh, isn’t that just so sweet.
The question is why did her parents name her after a little known New Zealand bee keeper who’s most notable activities to date had been to hunt crocs while he was serving in the air force in the Pacific during WWII.
Of course when little Hillary was six years old Ed became a tad more well known when he got to the top of world.
McGruff The Crime Poodle
Canadian Crime Safety Tips:
Tip #5 : Safety in numbers – to protect oneself from risk, always travel in groups.
Whip Vs Whip
 |
Dominatrix and Marijuana Party candidate Carole Taylor is running in the riding of Ottawa-Vanier, against Liberal MP Mauril Belanger. Belanger is chief government whip. |
I couldn’t make this stuff up.
hat tip – Ghost Of A Flea
The Lesser Challenge
Mark Ames has a challenge for Ann Coulter.
“So here is my public challenge to Ann Coulter: I propose that you and I spend a night together in a four-star hotel. We will wine together, we will dine together, we will harden each other’s nipples with erotic pillow talk about Sen. Joe McCarthy, and yes, Ann, we will fuck. Ann, here’s the dare: I am betting that no matter how much you try, no matter what prostate-massaging tricks a John Birch Prom Queen like you possesses, you, Ann Coulter, cannot make me come.”
Ahem.
Mr. Ames – a real man would challenge the woman not to come.