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There is a long fictional tradition of police planting evidence to ensure a conviction; the police know who the criminal is but don't have quite enough evidence to prove it. The 1958 film Touch of Evil has a marvelous scene…
Continue readingThis is interesting:
The Forum Research survey found Hudak’s Tories at 38 per cent — down from 41 per cent in June — to McGuinty’s Liberals at 28 per cent, up from 26 per cent. NDP Leader Andrea Horwath jumped to 24 per cent from 22 per cent an…
It’s August 1 – British Columbia Day. This being a relatively new holiday, we have not really come up with a tradition such as we have on Thanksgiving and Christian holy days. One might think of May 24th, the significance of which could not be…
Continue readingNot surprisingly, plenty in the Canadian media have responded to the NDP’s first big news of the summer with all kinds of discussion as to where the party will go next. But let’s take a quick look at some of the particularly noteworthy coverage.Sheila …
Continue readingWell, what do we have here? Some Harpercons along with Timmy Powers, warning that Nycole Turmel will be “no 1 target” of her political opponents.
“She will find herself under scrutiny, and already has, for her past support of the Bloc Québécois. The NDP is vulnerable on issues of separatist accommodation and she . . . → Read More: I’m Sure Mme Turmel Expects Nothing Less
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The night before Tim DeChristopher’s sentencing was like any other before an action – we were all up way too late, distressed about work that hadn’t gotten d…
Continue readingIn 1996, under the Harris Conservatives, an MPP by the name of Frank Klees introduced a private member’s bill that would limit access to abortion by mandating parental notification before any minor can terminate a pregnancy. Regardless of the myriad of reasons a young woman may not want her parents to know. Tim Hudak voted […]
According to Heather Mallick in Today’s The Star: But what he and Hudak and Harper should understand is that abortion is not a “chip” on a woman’s shoulder, it is her body and her life, her internal sanctity and her choice. I am warning those who want Canadian women to lose their right to abortion […]
There’s this story in the G&M, so you know it isn’t a joke. Nevertheless, the email from Craig Chandler at the PGIB (Progressive Group for Independent Business) wants you to know:Craig Chandler, the “don’t move to Alta. if you…
Continue readingIts been an eventful couple of past weeks for this blogger readers, since I last updated my little corner of cyber space I celebrated yet another birthday, my 45th. But that’s not the reason for my recent funk, at least not directly.
I’m currently si…
Shale Gass Fredericton Inn Thurs. June 23, 2011 044.jpg
On August 1st and 2nd, a Day of FRACtion involving marches and protests is taking place across most of Canada’s Atlantic provinces in…
Continue readingThe US debt crisis is being oversimplified. The message we here is we cannot pay our debts and therefore we need balance our spending and balance the budget. Average people can understand that – but here is what has been done so far to combat debt via Whatever Works and a big thanks to Moe […]
Sam Shields that is.From the Green Bay Packers.As you probably are aware Super Bowl winners receive championship rings. Big, ugly, impressive especially to the guys at the bar when you are 30 years out and living a regular life. Very impressive.Deads…
Continue readingThis week’s sign of the apocalypse – an e-mail sent out today by Craig Chandler to all PGIB members:From: “PGIB Head Office” Date: Mon, 1 Aug 2011 11:33:02 -0600To: Craig ChandlerReplyTo: “PGIB Head Office” Subject: A Serious Leadership Message For Alb…
Continue readingWhen Elijah was four years old, he wanted to dress as a polar bear for Halloween trick-or-treating so his mother, Sandra, sewed him a costume from an old white bed sheet. As she was making his costume, it occurred to her that global warming may mean th…
Continue readingCompare the New Democrat “policy” announcements on the fishery and shipbuilding, slipped out there last week with the Liberal one on health care and seniors, announced on Monday morning at a news conference.
The Liberal one wasn’t available online as of 1330 hours local time on Monday. That’s not encouraging, given the announcement happened at 1000 hrs.
The Libs will need to sort this out to make sure their information is readily available. Online media coverage of this announcement sucked. Most didn’t have a story and the one that did appear covered only a small portion of a much larger announcement.
But this is not just a case of announcing a vague intention. The Liberals announcement includes:
How this announcement plays with the public remains to be seen. Just recall that health care is the single biggest issue for voters according to polls. And don’t forget that seniors and seniors’ care is already a sensitive political issue. it will only get bigger in the years ahead.
From the sliding a sheet of paper department, a lot of this will look familiar to people who have been paying attention to any sort of policy announcements over the past decade.
That’s because many Conservative policies after 2003 just continued work that was already done or already in train under the Liberals.
From the superficial reporting department, consider that any media coverage of how many candidates the parties have nominated at this point is pretty much a pile of irrelevant bullshite.
Update II: Here’s the policy document in a version you can read and enjoy.
– srbp –
Update: CBC has an online story that went live after this post first went up. It is pretty vague on details despite the fact the Liberal announcement had tons of specifics.
What’s more interesting to see in the CBC comments section are the number of NDP astroturf (fake identities, likely all done by one or a small number of people) comments that criticise the announcement or claim – falsely – that the ideas are NDP ones.
You can expect a lot more of that sort of foolishness, especially if the NDP can’t come up with solid policy announcements of their own.
Today’s New York Times editorial isn’t pulling any punches about Obama’s debt ceiling deal, calling it precisely what it is – a capitulation….The deal would avert a catastrophic government default, immediately and probably through the end of 2012. T…
Continue reading…but a diagnosis. I’d missed this one: it appeared last week. But you should read every word of it, not merely my excerpt. Anyone who thinks we can sit down and break bread with these people—look for what we might…
Continue readingQuite the kerfuffle erupted last week over the federal government muzzling a leading fisheries scientist whose work could shed light on the reasons for the crashing of salmon stocks off the west coast of Canada.
This has led to further criticism of th…
Continue readingTo all of you in Canada who get this first Monday off, whether it’s called Civic Holiday or whatever, all the best to you. As for politics on this day, attention has turned to our US neighbour’s attempts to get their debt ceiling agreement in place before they default tomorrow. A tentative deal has been reached, which still has to be voted on and passed, but many progressives and liberals – both in the US and here in Canada – are dismayed at the Democrats and President Obama’s unwillingness to force the Republicans to compromise more in the agreement. They view it as a sellout of Democratic and progressive/liberal […]
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