Give the woman an Oscar
In this story, the woman of the day, in Ottawa, gave a teary apology to assembled journos. I wonder what their cynical response to the waterworks was? My response was less than charitable, especially when I heard the tape. I'm sorry but I don't believe a bloody word these people in Ottawa or Toronto say. This Raitt performance will be viewed as maudlin nonsense.
10 comments:
Wouldn't catch Maggie Thatcher, Atilla the Hen, doing this weaker sex water works display of the essence of estrogen. Raitt doesn't have the ovaries for the kitchen heat of politics.
When struggling for a response to situations such as this, I draw on these two beliefs:
1) We are, none of us, wholly as bad as we are in our worst moments;
2) Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a great battle.
The real story for Canadians is about MAPLE, Canada's 20+ year attempt to design, develop, and implement a "final solution" to the medical isotope supply problem. Today the Prime Minister announced the end of that attempt, a project that most Canadians didn't know had even begun.
Oh William, listen, "The purpose of politicians is for target practice." -- Wally Keeler
I am sure the MP cried because her fantasy of her own glory and star power was spoiled by the revelations on that tape. Her tears had nothing to do with any alleged remorse.
Chantal Hebert pointed out in the Star that all of them harbour these same dreams of rising to the top of the political heap on the wings of a juicy, "sexy" issue they can exploit for their own benefit. Raitt just got caught.
A postscript to the real issue:
"The government has put $30 billion into AECL over its history and it's been one of the largest sinkholes of government money probably in the history of the government of Canada," said Kory Teneycke, the Prime Minister's communication director. He was attempting to explain why the federal government was planning to take Canada out of the nuclear research and isotope production business.
At the same time, the Conservatives are planning to increase defense spending to $30 billion ANNUALLY. Who will explain this? If ever there was a sinkhole for our money, it was and remains the military.
That would be an excellent question to pose to Norlock in an all candidate's debate when we have an election.
Better yet, maybe Mr. Hayes could email Norlock now with it. Be warned, he may not respond. He absolutely never responds or even acknowledges any correspondence from me.
The local tory team seems to have decided that if you don't vote for them, you don't exist. Simple as that!
Today's news: Ottawa is being urged to spend millions more on the Maple project. Here is the Globe & Mail report. Some quotes:
-- "We recognize this requires external expertise and we are urging the government to reconsider its decision to stop the Maple project." MDS Nordion
-- The “worst case” for fixing the Maple reactors would mean replacing the cores at a cost of tens of millions of dollars, compared to the hundreds of millions it will cost to keep the NRU in service until 2016 or the more than a billion it would cost to build a brand new reactor. U.S. National Research Council
-- Instead of wasting vast amounts of money, wouldn't it be far more rational to invite in outside help, and pay top dollar to do so? Make it a partnership if necessary, but to just give up and walk away....? Stephen Sanes, blog comment
To me, this sounds like what happened with eHealth: experts were brought in to get things back on the rails and going again. The experts apparently did just that and, in the process, spent lots of money in what is thought to have been unacceptable ways. BUT maybe they were right to do it?!
Sheeesh, if the military obtains no funding, how will they be able to kill people?
Oh I get it. The USA will protect our Arctic waters. Sure they will. In our interest, of course. Sure.
Weak countries are ignored. After decades of degrading our military, there are those who prewfer milqtoasts.
I think of all those spineless young men in Montreal who followed Marc Lepine's instruction to leave the classroom so that he could murder 14 women. Where was the chivalry? Where was the former value instilled in men, to protect women? What has happened to us as a society when a man cannot exert the John Wayne courage to risk his life or injury to rip the throat out of Marc Lepine?
Cowards. Every man a cowardly milqtoast. As a society we have devalued valour, bravery, courage.
I remember in Cobourg, after 9/11, a school cancelled a European trip for students because a few parents asked the school to do so. They were afraid of hijackings by Islamaniacs. They had to ask the school to do it because they were reticent to tell their own children. Cowards. That's what we educate into our children these days. Peoples can't even tell the truth as they see it these days because a swarm of people jump on them with widdle hurt feelings. Instead of toughing up, people weaken down.
The easiest kill for dictators and tyrants are the elderly, the children, the weak, the stupid, the pacifists.
There were fewer pleasures for me than to knock a man out cold with the swing of a small club when he was indecently assaulted a woman. I wanted to drag his leg to a curb and break it by stomping on it, but the woman and I thought it more prudent to flee.
Another time I stepped out of my apartment at the very moment when a bloodied woman fled her flat into the hall. I gestured for her to enter my flat, locked the door, turned up the rock and roll loud to drown out her crying and went to get a carving knife in case the brute came knocking.
Decade after decade of emasculating the military has a detrimental effect on the general zeitgeist of the nation.
May the United States of America remain the richest, most creative, most lethal nation on the planet for years to come.
Wally, given your obviously sincere and strong beliefs in the value of the military and chivalry, I can't fathom why you never joined the armed forces, or failing that, King Arthur's Knights of the Round Table.
Admiral Keeler kind of has a ring to it don't you think? We could take up a collection and buy you an inflatable raft so you could protect Cobourg's gentlewomen against the scourge of pirates from Port Hope.
I was a gunner in the 33rd medium artillery 1965-66. I learned how to make a bed. When the sarg flipped a quarter on it, it had better bounce or the sheets were ripped off and I remade the bed again until I got it right. The crease in my pants, the wrap of my puttees, the gleam in my boots were of the highest order. I was a lousy shot, but good at search and rescue, earned my St Johns Ambulance. Did time at Petawawa, maneuvers, set the trigger mechanism of shell for 155 mm howitzers, felt the whizz of shrapnel pass my face and tear into a compatriot's arm.
I left the military because I did not conform. If I could have been trained as an infiltrator or sniper, I would have found that appealing.
One of most memorable aspects for me was the comradeship, the bonding with a small group of men that was so tight -- I would have risked my life for them. I never felt that tight of an empathy with human beings in any other organization.
What I did end up doing was going on underground smuggling operations in and out and between the East European communist countries. I smuggled hard currency, gold, human rights literature, music, art, printing press parts, etc. I was arrested in Warsaw, had guns stuck into me in Romania, Securitate on my tail.
Of course I got some of my training inadvertently thanks to the Security Service of the RCMP in the early 80s.
I would probably come to your rescue if I witnessed anyone attacking you Debbie, and I would this in spite of the fact that you might denigrate and disdain such behaviour from a man. I couldn't care less that chivalry is spit upon or condescended towards.
I consider it pathetic that every single man at the Montreal polytechnique where Marc Lepine murdered 14 women meekly followed Lepine's orders to leave the room.
Those spineless men are more and more common in society. More and more women like men to be meek. Allan Alda is admired, not John Wayne. But Alda is more likely to walk out of classroom and let the women be murdered, whereas John Wayne wouldn't. Meek is in, swagger is out. (Btw, I don't swagger -- I have gestures that some women mistook me for being gay. Good, makes men think I am meek and not be guarded about. Heh heh.)
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