I just had to link this

This is a beautiful story and must tell all of us that the dippers have something going for them! Jack and Olivia are Britain's most popular baby names. read about it here.

A touch of Christmas and the New Year

Only one observation about Cobourg's seasonal recreation - the frink was used by people. As one of the opponents of this facility I am not eating crow, as some writers to the editor are suggesting, because we knew that the facility would be used. Things like the location, cost and maintenance obligations just led the majority of the taxpayers to gag on the project. The fact that the frink is being used is not a demonstration of success, I would prefer to judge that at the end of the operating cycle when we can see just how much it costs to provide recreation to the few. Unfortunately a Council that lives on "Bread and Circuses" only diverts attention from the real issue - can we afford to tax the population anymore and if we can't what do we stop funding. This issue is going to reappear when the Community Centre report is issued, hopefully just before the next election and then we will see which candidates have the "cajones" to defend it in public.

Another year end note - the Kenora police issue and the way Kenora Council handled it
In an editorial in the Kenora Miner and News here Bob Stewart, the news editor, has an illuminating piece, titled "Contempt for Citizens Damaging" about the way Kenora Council handled its decision to use the OPP and disband the local force. It will be telling for all municipalities to revisit Kenora in two years time and look for the promised savings.

Sad news
Bob MacCoubrey has died. Very sad and relatively young too. A great loss to the community. I liked Bob, didn't speak to him much but we knew each other - I respected and liked him. Condolences to his family.

Is this a conspiracy or just sour grapes?

Dan Rather, remember him, the dashing correspondent who was a figure in "Nam" and continued to sensationalise stories on "60 Minutes"? Well he is back in the news today with a 70 million dollar lawsuit against CBS, read it here. Funny how this case is not printed in the US where ViaCom controls a large amount of the media! Anyway it is interesting reading because it brings the last eight years of Bush back into focus.

I love conspiracy theories

Conspiracy theories usually are proven to be true when the people involved start to talk. For instance it took thirty odd years before "Deep Throat" revealed himself. The Kennedy assassination cannot be proved because nobody is talking, how could an alleged conspiracy involving many not have at least one blabbermouth? Now in this story here we have General Patton, of WW2 fame, in a story about his assassination by the OSS, the forerunner to the CIA. As all the warriors in the secret wars get close to death watch for more deathbed confessions - I can hardly wait.

And now consider this obscenity
AP is reporting here that 1.6 Billion of the bailout has gone to pay bankers perks and bonuses, this at the same time Bush and the hypocritical Southern Senators want to wipeout the UAW. Just another example of class warfare. Support the workers and jail the crooks and liars in Wall St.

More on the Puffster
Chris Selley of the National Post sums up the reaction in the MSM here.

Yep the Puffster made the list

The list of the lifetime Senate lottery winners is here. One pundit has estimated the cost of a Senator as nearly $850,000 a year, that includes all costs - 18 more what a cost for Democracy. Oh I forgot these folks aren't democratic, they never had to shake a hand or get vote in their lives.

The Monday Morn

I'm not one of the lucky ones
Well it never happened - my sitting by the phone and sending telepathic messages to the PM didn't work. I am not one of the 18 people who will win the lottery this morning. The PM is to announce the names of his new Senators today, or tomorrow - but soon. All we have to do is wonder at the qualifications needed to be one of the lucky 18 as we scan the list and look for character to jump out at us so we can say, "Good Choice, Steve!". My bet for one of them is the Puffster, the four foot cubed personality that oozes unction - Mike Duffy. of CTV. Well at least the appointment will do two things: increase the minimum width of a Senate stool and get him off the airwaves.

The Nanny State strikes again
Say goodbye to the best buy of the Season, "Buck a Beer" is dead. In a story in the G&M this morning here, one of the regulatory boards that the Government has (buried so far deep in the bowels of the Province nobody knew about it) has decided to raise the minimum price of a box of beer. Citing its "Social responsibility" mandate this obscure board has raised the price from $24 to $25.60 a case. This is supposed to send the message that beer is too cheap and some people may abuse it and the raise will forestall that possibility. [that message stands by itself - ed]

Now how about that snow?
The snow must have been cumulatively 30 inches high at the end of the driveway. The plethora of ploughs pushed the piles [enough -ed] higher all weekend. All we have to do is to sit for another day and we can have more - can't wait!. Seriously as a spectator on the main road that the Town trucks travel on it has been my privilige to observe just how much salt this stretch of University gets - a lot. Surely two applications might do it not a dump from each truck.

How to steal an election (a Conservative view)
Normally it is the left of centre pundits who scream about stolen elections, but Minnesota has produced the same cry from Conservatives, inevitable really they are now losing. Here is an article written from the Con perspective about (the author calls himself the Intellectual Conservative) Franken stealing the votes. BTW he is now ahead by a slim margin giving the Dems in the Senate another seat.

Where's the snow?

This post may come back to bite me, but no snow here yet. Snowmageddon, as Enviro Can has dubbed it already has claimed victims - air travellers and school buses. One nauseating point, AM 640 has for the past 18 hours has been poohpoohing the idea of a snow warning. Encouraging "Real Canadians" to ignore the deal, "Are we a Nation of Wimps?". Callers are being encouraged to recall how they used to crawl naked through the snow to appear in the one room schoolhouse that produced university grads on a regular basis.
The National Post has someone liveblogging the storm here

What Don Martin (G&M #1 pundit) has to say about "Snouts at the Trough":
read it here

Snouts at the trough

Is anyone else getting offended at the number of people speculating upon the common good. Lists of potential Senators are being tossed around like lottery winners' tickets. Even if you like the idea of an appointed Senate, each one costing $150,000 plus plus, turns some noses. An unelected Senate is a throwback to to the class riddled, House of Lords at Westminster, where chinless wonders affected by years of inbreeding strut their stuff and sit in Pater's seat. Totally unrepresentive and devoid of the knowledge needed to govern common folk. Just look at the recent spat in the Island of Sark where the two richest men on the Island didn't get their slate elected in an exercise of democracy, the first in 400 years, and promptly shut their businesses down and destroyed the island's economy. That's the same attitude as in an unelected Senate - feudalism!

Today, a patrician of the G&M - Lawrence Martin, another man elevated to the stratosphere by the quality of his thinking (or so he implies) makes his list. And even more offensive than his punditry, to progressives, is his number one choice - Mike Harris. Read the article here

Just to change the subject, there is no place to escape the snow, but I'd rather be here to enjoy it!

This comment is so important it must not languish in the comments

This comment was received last evening and I judged it to be of such quality that it deserves more than just 'publish or reject'. The reason being is that I don't apologise for any of the content in my post, if there was sentence that may be out of line because it named the Chair, I could have phrased it differently. If the Anonymous writer is asking for contrition it is not available. If Ms Rudd will email me her address I will express my feelings that the post could have been less specific. But that doesn't change my thinking that this committee should not exist and tax money should not be used to fund it. If the three year budget of this area is only equal to the amount that Quinte spent on one Doctor that makes the case even stronger for not engaging in bribery. If the committee has only spent one third of the amount that Quinte has and has recruited seven Doctors to their one then congratulations but that does make the case that some of them might have come even without bribes. Perhaps they liked this area better than Belleville?

In conclusion if Quinte is spending three times as much as Northumberland and achieving a seven times lower success rate then that is ammunition for the argument that says that the Province and the Feds should be directing where Doctors can work. With all the advance planning in health demographics then they know better than we the under-serviced areas. And, if the public purse pays for the tuition of these Doctors then the funders should have a greater say in the location of their practices. So we, the Municipal tax-payers, should not be paying for this - income taxes should. But if locals feel that it is important to get involved then perhaps this is one of the issues that is too important for the Politicians and use local Service Club money. Why eradicate Polio in the World when we can't find a Doctor in Cobourg?

Anonymous has left a new comment on your post "Who's in charge of this Agency?":

Ben, it is very interesting to me that you of all people accept verbatim what is printed in the newspaper. In the interests of clarification, no one is in or near my back pocket. This volunteer position consumes hundreds of hours per year of my time as well as that of the committee in addition to our own money in terms of hosting events and billeting visiting doctors. We are not "bribing" doctors. Of the 3 you mention that are from the are there is actually only one Erin Pepper. The other two had family in the area, among many other areas. They are not from here. If you had been at the presentation you would have know that in fact we do not give huge amounts of money to the docs. Instead we assist with moving expenses and some tuition reimbursement. Our whole budget for 3 years is equivelant to just over what Quinte West would offer one doctor and we have recruited 7!!! To be wiithout a doctor (and fortunately I have one) is putting a huge cost on our community, both in terms of health and economics. Our hospitals deficit is due in part to not having enough local docs to cover emerg. Yes you are absolutely right it is a provincial responsiblity and we have certainly continue to advocate in that arena. The reality is someone has to do it and our committee has volunteered to take on the challenge. The message to the municipalities is that when the time comes that we are faced with a doc who wants to move here and we do not have enough funds to assist with moving expenses we will come back to the municipalities and they will decide whether or not we find the money or we say no thank you to the doctor who wants to move here. Each physicians needs are evaluated and assisted on an individual basis. We do not simply write a cheque. Ben you are way off base on this one. On a personal note as someone who does a ton of volunteer work in this community your desparaging remarks were uncalled for.

If you have ten minutes to spare

If you have ten minutes to spare watch this interesting you-tube video of the last |Governor of Minnesota, Jesse Ventura, telling tales about the scope of the CIA's activity in the US> YouTube - Jesse Ventura: CIA Embedded in Every State Government

Start the week off with cheesy puns

I hate puns, not funny not clever and just too cheesy. Here is a page chock full of them. The subject is the shoe attack on Bush yesterday in Baghdad. At last Bush said something I could agree with, calling the attack an expression of free speech. I wonder how Canadians would have reacted? This event will keep the late-night talkers in material for a month.

For those people who love the electoral process

The Senatorial election in Minnesota has been a strange one ever since the SNL comedian Al Franken decided to be the candidate. On election night Franken was about 300 votes behind the sitting Republican and ever since the counting process has been long and involved. The latest twist is detailed here Personally I can't wait until it finishes. But will it be cut short by the counters and governing boards, just as the counting in Illinois in 2004 and Florida in 2000 was?

Who's in charge of this Agency?

Reading the local papers this weekend, I was out of Town last week, and the report that the "Doctor Retention Committee" is running out of cash jumped out at me. This is probably a misnomer, they spending cash they have never had! It seems to me that whoever is running this agency is running on the wrong assumptions and therefore committing money it never had - or never had any hope of getting. Just who is on the Board of this Agency or does it get run out of the back pocket of Kim Rudd and a couple of chums? The budget was based on taxpayer funded donations from all of the Municipalities in West Northumberland. Unfortunately some of the Municipalities canvassed didn't contribute or only gave partial donations. Thus the cash flow estimate was out of whack. Instead of cutting back activities the committee went ahead and committed to an aggressive budget that will require extra funding to fulfill its purpose.

The question now is should lower tier municipalities fund this kind of activity? I think not - the Province is responsible for Health and to have Municipalities compete with tax dollars in the lottery to attract Doctors is an irresponsible use of tax money. If we have to bribe Doctors to come here how long will they stay, and will they move to a better offer the next time a Municipality comes along with money in hand? It is interesting and satisfying that two of the three new Doctors came from the area before training. Would they have come back home without incentives?

The whole process is unseemly and wasting tax dollars and without good cash flow controls the Committee will be forever coming cap in hand trying to guilt Councils into paying for a process that should be out of their jurisdiction!


And talking about spending money - just who paid for the fireworks in the opening ceremony of the "Peter Delanty Memorial Rink" that interrupted dinner last night?

Now this is how to handle online disagreement

Taken from John Draper's excellent online edition - The Cobourg Blog wonderful way to handle differences of opinion. Christie does a great job of deflecting potential insult.

1. Daniel J. Christie Says:
   December 13th, 2008 at 12:39 pm

   A botonist once told me that most species of tree increase their output of seeds in the last year of their lives. So it is that Stephen Harper, a Manitoba Maple in the throes of death, appoints 15 seeds to The Senate thereby ensuring that the species -acer conservatus- no matter how undesirable, lives on and, through political insemination, is perpetuated.

2. Joe Fountain Says:
   December 13th, 2008 at 2:47 pm

   I would have thought that a “Sun Media” columnist would get the facts correct. There are 18 Senate vacancies.

3. Wally Keeler Says:
   December 13th, 2008 at 3:18 pm

   The same “Sun Media” columnist is also incapable of differentiating between Aldous Huxley and George Orwell.

4. Daniel J. Christie Says:
   December 13th, 2008 at 9:00 pm

   Both your arguments are iron-clad, well put and beyond any defence I might offer. I therefore defer to your superior intelect, researching skills, grasp of calculus, and, above all, deft and gentle-but-scathing wit. Thus, faced with towering opposition armed with such withering asides, I withdraw.

   For now anyway….

5. Wally Keeler Says:
   December 14th, 2008 at 5:42 am

   Hyperbole will get you everywhere.

Anybody know what this means?

PORT HOPE, ONT. — It's late afternoon in this pretty, historic town east of Toronto, and the light is getting crepuscular in the sunroom of the clapboard house that Farley Mowat and his wife, Claire, have lived in for more than 30 years.
Time, in short, for a libation.

Such is the lead for another fartcatching feature, in the G&M here, about our own literary icon - Farley Mowat. The article gets easier to read and there are lots of words containing few syllables. However the lead just got to me.

Almost as much as the report that Rick Norlock, our very own conciliator and man of many olive branches saying that he welcomes Mr Ignatieff's suggestions about the "New Harper Era". But it is reported, in the CDS, here that"He did not like Mr Ignatieff's tone, interpreting it to mean that discussions would take place "if the prime minister comes crawling" to the new opposition leader. Well (RN) has been sniffing the fetid air in the PC caucus room too long. Nobody has suggested such a thing and perhaps nobody likes the PM's tone either! It's easy to see how Norlock's EA- Tom Rittwage - can be as obnoxious as he is - he must have been sniffing the fetid air too.

The wrong symbol

Just driven back from Strathy Rd and the Town is busy clearing snow from the intersections on the West side. The question is - since when have we cleared snow, on sidewalks that abut private property? This little tractor had not only cleared the intersections into a parking lot but ploughed the snow on a sidewalk connecting the lights at the MoneyMart building and the entrance into Walmart and the entrance of the parking lot into the Bulk Barn. This sidewalk runs along land owned by somebody that wants Loblaws on that spot for their future store. Are Loblaws?property owners going to pay for this?

Clearing sidewalks which private owners should be doing is one thing the other is that this is a Department - Public Works that turned down the idea of clearing snow for Seniors. Some symbol of arrogance, some symbol of not caring and the wrong message entirely.

Of course I will be pleased to eat every word of this post if the Town actually gets paid by Loblaws/property owners for doing this!

Yep it's King Iggy!

Now where does this leave the progressive side of the Libs? Iggy represents the old Libs, no matter what he says. These guys just think that changing the monarchy in the Party will bring everyone back into the fold. Sorry, that's not going to cut it. The new Libs need more than that. Like policies, like a leader that relies on consultation as opposed to Royal edicts. I await to be convinced. But if this guy thinks he can deny Harper a majority, in January, I have some swamp land in Florida for sale!

Late comment
A quote from Warren Kinsella's page. WK is an Iggy fartcatcher in the biggest way and represents the moral superiority of the Liberal Party

"...and we will win it. With the best front bench anyone has ever seen - including, notably, Stephane, Bob and Dom. We have got some of the best political organizers around, from all sides. And the party and the grassroots are itching for a scrap, too, as evidenced by last week's events."

For those who have been away for a week

This guy works for the National Post and has summed up all of the columns written in the last week. He must have spent his time reading for days but he did a good job in producing this summary The perfect tsunami. In a teacup .

So we get to see Iggy crowned today!

Pundits are proclaiming that the Libs secret cabal of movers and shakers have decided to dump Dion and install Iggy, either today or Wednesday. Can anybody see the hand of our very own Senator from Bagot St. in this? Still a huge influence in the party Sen David Smith has been a big backer of Iggy from day one. He brought him up from the depths of obscurity, in Harvard, to be foisted on the Party as the Messiah. It will finally happen now, circumventing the Party leadership process and completing the putsch.

What it means for the anti-Harper forces is up to question. In an ideal world one would be structuring an arrangement to run a two party race in close ridings to eliminate vote-splitting, but that means the NDP has to be convinced that there is something in it for them: either more seats or more friendly legislation. In the absence of such a deal then the Libs can only depend on the dislike of Harper and the fact that Iggy is not Dion for more votes. Will there be enough votes to take power? That is debatable!. So we are back to square one - the ascension of Harper to power for the next four years.

What a pertinent post

Mathew Ingram of the G&M has a post about the topic that we have been blazing away at for the past two days - anonymity. Here it is; it says it all.

This is the kind of rubbish that should be outed!

A comment just received from a person obviously afraid to put a name to this crap:

Typical NDPers -- incapable of seeing individuals as individuals. They only see stereotypes in racist and sexist groups. No doubt it was NDPers/left-wingers in the Carlton University Student's Association, who wanted to discontinue charity work for males with white skin.

Obviously NDPer have contempt and hatred for white-skinned people. What a load of self-loathing racism. No wonder 4 out of every 5 Canadians continue to reject NDP policies that are motivated by racial/sexist resentment.

Only dinosaurs continue to evaluate people according to their skin colour, rather than the merits of character or opinion.


Now how do civilised people deal with this invective? No wonder this poster remains Anonymous. It really should be rejected but I put it up to show how some people spend their time. Am I guessing that this person has lived in his mother' basement too long! The only saving grace is there was no F-bomb in it.

The stats page tells me that the poster is not a local - either from Montreal or Toronto.













I have started to log the comments from a person calling themselves "Anonymous" I believe it is the subject of this post. Here is the log

Still on the topic of Federal Politics

Reading the pundits this morning nothing has changed, all seem to think that the coalition is shaky and most can't wait for Harper to get his majority in the election after the confidence vote in January 09. However the only original commentary, I can find, comes from Richard Gwyn of the Toronto Star, where he posits that the G-G did have a greater role than just being a rubber stamp for Stevie. Here is the aricle where Gwyn states that perhaps the PM was being rude to the G-G by treating the chat as a mere formality to getting what he wanted. It didn't work out to be such a formality and Stevie had to miss the big photo-op in Woodstock where he would have got to rub shoulders with non-union workers and Dalton M.

One thing I would like to see

In Parliamentary tradition members are not allowed to call each other liars or place misleading statements before the House. Now we know that the PM lied, prevaricated, was irregular with the the truth etc, etc, etc. He told the House that the Coalition was unpatriotic because they signed the bad deed in the absence of a Canadian flag. This was untrue. In this case any member who pointed out the truth would be expelled for explaining that the truth was in fact a lie perpetrated by the PM.

How do we settle this? I think that the Speaker of the House should discipline the PM for lying to the House. But how many of the House will demand this?

None alas.

On another point, here is an open invitation to attend a rally:

Hi Folks

Reminder that you can meet and hear the Ontario (NDP) leadership candidates tonight in Peterborough. An all party rally for democracy has been organized for Peterborough on Saturday at 11:30am at Confederation square (that is right downtown).I will be forwarding more details as soon as I receive the press release.Thanks for coming out yesterday.

Be prepared for a six week election period

Now the G-G has suspended Parliament be prepared for the biggest ad campaigns we have ever seen in electoral history. The Cons have oodles of money, and the others will be playing catchup. It will be interesting to see if there is any thing other than picking up where we left off today. We will be waiting for that but be prepared for lots of nasty ads.

Back to real issues

Cobourg Council, on Monday recommended that water and sewage rates be escalated to reflect market costs. Has anybody asked if we are getting value for the assets we own? If the County Growth Study is to be believed we have far more capacity than we can use for the foreseeable future. We also have to pick up the slack for the loss of water sales to Kraft.
“If we don’t do it, we know we’re going to be hit with millions of dollars of infrastructure cost someday,” said Deputy Mayor Gil Brocanier. “I don’t want to be in that position or put another council in that position.” How does this statement square with the overcapacity problem.

Overcapacity, and having to pay for it, brings into question the dividend we receive from OUR utility and how we use it. It is now absolutely necessary to wrap that dividend into the bottom line to reduce the tax increase. It must not be used for any other purpose, least of all to be Council's playmoney.

Now is the time to aggressively market the water across the Town borders.

The morning after

Early talk radio shows aren't quite so bullish in their support of the PM. It seems that PM-SH didn't have much to say in his four minutes of an allotted ten minutes. People were expecting a positive plan for the economic crisis not a repetition of the ad hominem attack on the Separatists. They didn't get it So hosts are not quite so supportive, how will that go down in the rightwing corporate office? Wait until the afternoon shows the tone may have changed. But it does appear that the Libs haven't helped their cause by the use of an amateurish tape; DVD minicam doesn't broadcast well. "If these guys can't produce a good tape on time how can they run a country?" said one caller.
Meanwhile the shows are just waiting for the G-G's message.

A possible glimpse into the future: "Isn't this exciting with a coalition we can get rid of vote splitting." a local lib told me yesterday. "All we have to do is get an agreement to run only one candidate in close ridings" What a tired liberal idea, I can just imagine the local dippers handing over their 10,000 votes - what's in it for them? Let's see what seats the libs are willing to give up before we can discuss this for real.

The local Coalition speaks

At 4pm 3rd December the three defeated candidates in the recent Federal Election got together to endorse the national Coalition Agreement. These folks spoke eloquently to defend the agreement.

Paul Macklin (Lib) spoke first: "Everybody was looking for change and stimulus, in the recent Economic Statement but we got a "poison pill and incorrect facts." Holding up an impressive prop - the House rules of Rules, he told of all new MPs having to learn the rules from the big book. Reading this book is is obvious that the Governor General will find guidance in it. The main thrust of retaining power, according to th e book Government has to have the confidence of the House. This Government has lost the confidence of the House and must therefore hand over to people who do have the confidence or take it to the people if the others cannot govern. By signing the accord there is now a demonstrable alternative and the G-G must consider it. "A true majority in Parliament will nourishing"

Russ Christianson (NDP) "There are not just elected people in this coalition but unelected candidates! We are here for Canada we don't support bullying tactics and a PM who lies and he knows he lied." Expressing his support for the Coalition he said "I hear Mr. Norlock is crying, however I haven't been happier in thirty years!" He asked all in the room to go back to their friends and explain the situation and how we can have a brighter future for Canada. This coalition will work because it is supported by the 62% of the voters who didn't support the government"

Ralph Torrie (Greens) After thanking everybody for turning out he explained that even in the last election he had fears that the economy was tanking. "We have not changed gears fast enough. Mr. Harper had been told by the electorate make Parliament work. I waited and waited - it never happened" Saying that the economic stimulus did not give Canadians what they wanted. "This situation (the parliamentary crisis) didn't happen overnight, this system is not working. We learnt this in grade five civics. Being optimistic he told the audience that this coalition is one that we should expect if we ever implement Proportional voting. "Coalitions are the norm in the world today, we have to learn to work together." Turning back to the economic crisis Mr Torrie said, "We don't have time to waste, if we don't act now we will have wasted two months."

Moving to questions from the audience, the first question was from Martin Partridge who was worried by the exuberance of Conservative supporters who are accused of setting fire to a constituency office in BC and the threat of violence to MPs asked "Are you worried by these actions which appear to going over the top?" Macklin answered by saying, "Yes but perhaps prorogation may allow statesmanship and rationality may prevail."

Dylis Robertson asked if the PMs public rallies will pressure the G-G? Storrie said he was concerned about the misconstruing of the constitutionally of the situation, "But if any body who had Pat Carr in school (in Cobourg) would understand what is going on - you never got out of his class if you didn't!"

Rod Anderson asked the question, "Can I ask our legal expert - Does the G-G have the right not to grant prorogation? Paul M, a longtime local lawyer, answered, "These are uncharted waters but generally accepted practice is that the Government can only govern if they have the confidence of the House."

Finally the last question came from the back of the room, "What happens if the G-G resigns, who will make the decision?" No answer came back but the suggestion was that as the Queen is the Canadian Head of State perhaps she may intervene.

So there you have it folks God Save the Queen

Read this before you watch TV tonight

When Stevie tells us what dastardly people the Separatists are just remember the Neo-Cons have had at least two tries to form a coalition with the Bloc. This recollection comes from Jack Layton from an episode in 2005. Now Stockwell Day has a lapse of memory but others haven't read it here. All this proves is that the Neo-Cons (Alliance & the Conservatives) have been dealing with the Bloc for years. Funny how they have turned out to be the bad guys this week!

News at noon

The PM is going on the air, we don't know which channel but he (the top guy in the Nation) owns the CBC (our own station) so it looks like Coronation St. will be bumped, Boy will that go down well with "Corrie" fans!!

It will not be one-sided as the Coalition is supposed to get equal time, but how many viewers will be staying to watch. The article announcing this, in the Globe here is a long and detailed account of the roles all the players had in the last TV event, same situation different components but the the roles of all today were reversed then.

Quikquips:

• Perhaps we should have a pool to estimate how many times SH sneers "Separatists".
• Don Martin of the National Post speculates on the Cabinet here
• website for the coalition here
• website against the coalition here
  

Now for some REAL local content

This just in:

"Christianson, Macklin and Torrie will hold a COALITION press conference at 4pm today in the Citizen's Forum at Victoria Hall"

an organiser for the Coalition

Stay tuned!

Another email came in at 2.35pm

Are you or any of our Liberal friends that you have contact with available to come to the press conference today at 4 p.m. in the Citizens Forum at Victoria Hall today? It would be good to have half a dozen people or so to be present who are supportive of the coalition.

Best regards
Paul

What has changed overnight?

In the Parliamentary Crisis only positions have hardened overnight. The Tories tactic of isolating the Bloc as the bad guys appears to have stuck. Despite telling lies in the House, the Weasel PM is getting away his diversionary tactics, Geobbels would have been proud of the man who stood in the House and told it that there was not a Canadian flag in the room when the accord was signed. Even when journos pointed out this was untrue no apology was forthcoming. Apologists did look stupid here is one of them - Chuck Strahl answering a question outside of the House:

Question: Why did you lie about the flag because there were flags behind them?

Hon. Chuck Strahl: The picture that I saw and the picture that I had — actually saw, somebody gave it off the Liberal Party website, shows that there is no flags there.

So now we know - it's still the Libs fault.

Pundits are still confused about the PMs next move, will he proroge and then force another election on a new budget, in January, or will he go to a vote on Monday? Either way he cannot avoid a vote in the House and then the GG has to make a choice - new government or new election.

Patriotism is the last refuge of a traitor

The above quote comes from Samuel Johnson on the evening of April 7, 1775. Just remember this in the ongoing debate about the constitutional crisis. Listening to Charles Adler on AM640 is interesting, I don't think there is a right winger in the country who has not been begged for support of his position, that the electorate has been jobbed, and the supporters of the coalition have only been interviewed for the collecting of soundbites for further derision.

The Conservative message is clear, anybody who supports the coalition is a traitor because the coalition is supported by the Bloc.

Adler has just interviewed Michael Bliss, read him in the National Post today - he is using his academic reputation to push his theory that the winners won and losers have to go to an election. The GG should only grant an election and nothing else.

Now James Travers is up. Being treated with kid gloves because he is a regular contributor. He is countering the RW very well. Travers advances the idea that far from being led by Separatists the coalition is neutering the message of the Bloc. Adler is quiet for a second!

Why selfish people are bad losers

This situation in Ottawa reminds me of the situation where workers go on strike and the selfish losers, who participated in the strike vote (implying a belief in the rule of the majority) still demand the right to work. Here we have outraged conservatives, phoning into call shows, describing themselves as 'ordinary Canadians' funny how they all sound white, demanding that an election take place. Not only does that position dismiss parliamentary procedure but demonstrates an ignorance or willful disregard of the process. If it is willful disregard then these people are showing their selfish sides.

What's in it for the Bloc?

As critics have pointed out the Bloc are considered to be traitors to the cause of Canada because their 'raison d'etre' is Quebec's independence. But that is not all they want as political goals. It stands for progressive (read left leaning) policies. In all of the debates I have seen Duceppe has hammered both the Libs and Cons for the mess that the EI system is in - only 30% of those paying in ever qualify, fund is in surplus yet benefits have been cut, differing qualifying rules for different regions and the list goes on. He wants to reform that for Quebecers not for an independent state that could not afford its own EI. He stands for workers' rights. On the whole the Bloc is against most of the Tory positions. Calling them traitors may be semantically correct but practically wrong at this time.

So in signing a timed contract will be a restraint on the Bloc because the Quebecers will not forgive anybody who makes the situation worse.

I am an optimist!