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.