Monday, November 28, 2005

Historic Night My Ass

Yep. Mr. Stephen Harper just declared this evening as "historic", after he joined the NDP and Blocheadquebecois to knock over the Liberals.

Historic? Please. We've seen minority governments toppled before. There was nothing unusual about this! All the parties got together and kicked out the Paul Martin Liberals out for something the Jean Cretin Liberals did. Don't worry, I spelled Jean's name the way I did on purpose. What a frigging circus. I'm going to make some predictions right here, right now. If I'm wrong, don't bother to point it out, because I'm sure I will have figured it all out by my wittle self.

1) Everyone will attack the Liberals over the whole corruption thing, and for the most part, the Canadian public won't care. The Liberals will attack the Conservatives and Stephen Harper, and the Canadian public won't care. They have nothing against Harper, they just don't like what he's selling. Oh. And Harper will say something stupid. When the dust settles, we'll still have a Liberal minority, albeit with less seats.
2) Stephen Harper will be gone by August.
3) Jack Layton will continue to push his socialist agenda with increased fervour.
4) With the exception of the Bloc, the other two parties will be loathe to force another election for fear of further pissing off the Canadian's and thereby handing the Liberals a majority government.
5) Conrad Black will be denied his request to recover his Canadian citizenship. This has nothing to do with the election, but that embezzling blowhard just grinds my gears.

More to follow in the coming weeks. Harper also asked Canadians to ask themselves if they are better off from the last government. What a gift to Martin. Most Canadians will answer yes. Lower unemployment and lower debt load are just two of the war chests of arguments that Martin has on his side. Seriously! Anyone hear reading this less better off from the last two years? I welcome your comments to prove so...

I love it... Allan Gregg with the strategic counsel just called this a "perverse exercise", in light of the fact that the Liberals will likely get another minority. God bless you CTV Newsnet, you always get right to the point.

Later, I'll post a massive missive from the last election in which I totally owned a Harper booster via email... Good times.

Sunday, November 13, 2005

Not Going To Be A Dad Anymore

My wife had a miscarriage at the beginning of October, but I didn't quite feel like writing about it until now.

More to point, I'm not terribly interested in writing about it at all, so I am going to leave it at that. We're still broken up about it, but are trying our best to move forward.

We just returned from a trip out to Calgary and Winnipeg, which included a very nice weekend in Banff. Beautiful place! It was quite the contrast to Winnipeg, which is freaking hole. Seriously. Picture a bunch of buildings constructed in 1975, left to flounder, throw in a few abandoned grain elevators and factories, and some that SHOULD be abandoned, and you have Winnipeg.

Oh, and many people in Winnipeg are rude and quite ignorant. Want examples? Too bad, you'll just have to take my word. I'll worry about evidcence the next time I'm writing an essay, treatise, or political speech.

Here is a random picture of myself and my better half in Banff.

















Now, here are two random and cynical observations of the North American political landscape:

1) Our opposition parties in the Canadian House of Commons are the sorriest bunch that I've ever seen. It's like watching a bunch crackheads play 'double dutch' on the edge of a short pier. They all cry moral outrage at the Martin Liberals over something the Chretien Liberals pulled, yet don't have the balls to pull the trigger and send us to a Christmas election. That, and they are also not eager to have an election because the Gomery report did not triggger the appropriate public outrage and corresponding dive in the polls for the Liberals.

2) To defend his War in Iraq, Bush recently went to a gathering of veterans on Veteran's day and delivered a completely self serving speech. I would normally expect sleazy behaviour from people of all political stripes at many occasions and not feel any true sense of moral outrage, but seriously folks... Bush basically went to a gathering designed to honour the sacrifices of all past, present, and future soldiers, and tried to tie his reasons for going to war to the sacrifices of those people. Unnacceptable. He even used that forum to call his critics a bunch of liars, further drifting away from the point of the ceremony. In contrast, our Prime Minister went to a Remembrance day ceremony, talked entirely about the sacrifices of our troops, and left it at that. I don't know what makes me more angry; the audacity of Bushs' stunt, or the relative lack of outrage from veterans and the public alike. There was some standard rhetoric from Democrat leaders, but nothing of a sufficient nature.

Stupid planet.