Funny Headline Of The Day

Harper turns his gaze to Liberal supporters.

Recommend this Post

Ruh Roh Shaggy

It looks like Sun TV may be cavorting with criminals.

Recommend this Post

Back Handed Endorsements

All of the endorsements for the Conservatives run about the same, but I particularly liked this one from the Vancouver Province:

Stephen Harper doesn’t come across as a warm man. He’s seen as secretive, controlling and has shown contempt for Canadian institutions and those who don’t share his vision for this country.

In other words, Harper is a prick. So, why would anyone want to vote for him? The papers who endorse him make vague statements about the economy, but the real reason is, Harper has been very good to the corporations that run our media and they don't mind a prick running the country as long as he keeps taxes low and the lower orders in their place.

Recommend this Post

Message To Jack From Our Owners

We will crush you if you get out of line. These stupid peasants can vote for whomever they want, but never, ever forget who owns the place.

Recommend this Post

Patrick Muttart May Be Gone

But his spirit lives on.

Recommend this Post

Our Media Masters

Are having a meltdown. Imagine what they will say, if the NDP ever does take power?

Recommend this Post

Mr. Learn Nothing

Stephen Harper today:

“We will accept any mandate from the Canadian public,” the Conservative Leader told reporters at a Montreal campaign stop Friday. “But my fear is that if we have a minority mandate, the other parties will not accept it.”

In other words, the other parties have to treat a Conservative minority mandate like a majority. No talk of compromise, no talk of consultation. Harper deserves his fate.

Recommend this Post

Nah, They Couldn't Be BSing Us.

From the Globe:

A key part of the Conservative strategy is having a higher election-day turnout among their supporters than their opponents. But Mr. Layton’s popularity could help change that.

That being the case, the extent to which the Conservatives have alienated the majority of voters while trying to cobble together their voting coalition could prove costly. “Motivating your opponents is a bad idea,” Mr. Lyle says. And the various bones that the Conservatives have thrown out to keep their own base motivated could have that effect.

So, when they tell us, it's ok, not to worry about a majority, that isn't strategy, is it?

Recommend this Post

Beware Conservatives Bearing Gifts

It's almost like they are saying to people who want them out, "Stay home, it's ok, we aren't going to win a majority anyway.". This isn't over until the bastards are packing their U-Hauls.

Recommend this Post

The Alberta Conservative View

Jack Layton, race traitor.

Recommend this Post

Musical Interlude

Recommend this Post

Globe And Mail Endorsement And The Triumph Of Compartmentalization

Shorter Globe and Mail: Sure Harper is an anti-democratic thug, but we love the tax cuts. It's a variation of "Sure he beats me, but we have such a lovely home."

Recommend this Post

End Of the World Watch

A nice story about Jack Layton and in a Post newspaper.

Recommend this Post

Dear Mr. Harper

Until you can explain how you are going to pay for jets and income splitting, I can only laugh at your warnings about other parties being fiscally irresponsible. Thanks for your time.

Recommend this Post

And At The CBC

Red baiting. Yes, you did read it correctly.

Recommend this Post

Meanwhile At The Red Star

The scribes are all walking around with crucifixes and jumping at shadows and whispering to themselves "Not Ontario, surely not Ontario!"

Recommend this Post

Resistance Is Futile

Shorter Globe and Mail: The corporate gods will be angry if you don't vote the way they want. Tremble with fear!!!! I expect to see a lot of this shit over the next couple of days.

Recommend this Post

Losers

If the Liberal party wants to reach out to NDP voters, they are going to have to better than to send out two opportunists who are bitter because they see their opportunities shrinking by the minute. They are really starting to piss me off.

Recommend this Post

Disturbance In The Force

I haven't felt this way since the Charlottetown referendum. I think the people are going to give the middle finger to the establishment. What's going on? Two things. First, a majority of Canadians intensely dislike Stephen Harper and want to see the back of him. He has triumphed, in the past, only because the Liberal party was seen as a terrible alternative and was presented as the only alternative by the elites. That view is changing.

Second, I think Harper overplayed the Bloc as boogeyman. He, in essence, said that no legitimate government could exist with them as players. So, Quebecois said, "Fine, then we'll elect the NDP." Once Quebec started to go and the numbers started turning the NDP's way, that made it easier to see the race as multifaceted and not a binary choice. After that, came the wave. And it still seems to be building.

Recommend this Post

Dear Iggy

You are not making it easy for me to vote for your party. You are not my first choice as PM. But, I am seriously considering voting for your party because a vote for your party in my riding might just deprive Harper of a seat. However, the more you talk down to people like me, call us "boy scouts" because we disagree with your stupid policy stance on Afghanistan, the harder it will be for me to continue with my plan to vote strategically. As a kindness to me, knock it off. The more you remind people like me how insufferable you are and how little difference there is between you and Mr. Harper, the more I am tempted to say screw it and vote for my preferred choice. Thanks for your time.

Recommend this Post

Closing, Closing, Closing

Jack Layton. The "Happy Warrior" of Canadian politics?



A great ad. Positive and plays to the dissatisfaction with the other guys.

Recommend this Post

Old Timer's League

Gilles Duceppe brought out Jacques Parizeau and Iggy is bringing back Chretien. The Conservatives would have brought back Mulroney, but Harper ate him a few years ago.

Recommend this Post

Question Of The Election

If the polls stay the same or increase in the NDP's favor, will Liberals vote NDP, especially out west, to stop Stephen Harper?

Recommend this Post

Wow

Liberals are really losing their minds (see the spittle-soaked comments, here). And I say this as someone who is probably going to vote strategically Liberal in my own riding this time.

Recommend this Post

Jack's Narrative

That "Ottawa is broken and people want change" is working, because it is demonstrably true on both counts. Now all he has to do is get the anti-Harper vote to coalesce around him and he is home and dry.

Recommend this Post

If You Want To Stop Stephen Harper

And you live west of North Bay, Ontario. Unless you live in a riding with a Liberal incumbent, I would vote NDP. This has been a brief message from a concerned voter.

Recommend this Post

Message To Jack Layton

Enjoy it, you are scaring the shit out of them.

Recommend this Post

I Hope Ian Capstick Was Misunderstood

By the Montreal Gazette:

Capstick said that means taking advantage of an increased budget to hire more staff, including economists, and public policy and public service experts.

The party will need a strong shadow cabinet and will probably have to "moderate" some of its positions, especially those relating to defence and foreign affairs.

I for one am not interested in the NDP becoming the new Liberal Party. I hope Mr. Capstick will clarify nonsense, immediately.

Recommend this Post

Shorter John Ivison

I am getting really, really nervous about the NDP's chances this time. It might be time to dust off my UK passport. I hear Doug Finley might be doing the same thing.

Recommend this Post

The Harperites and Choice

When it comes to reproductive choice, the Harperites take their direction from Homer Simpson. Remember, it is uterus, not uteryou.

Recommend this Post

Look Out Jack

I hear the sound of artillery being swung in your direction. Of course, in the perverse world you inhabit, that is a much better place to be than out of the battle altogether. As an aside, it does kind of put Harper's coalition argument down the crapper. If you happen to destroy the Bloc and hold the balance of power, you will be a hero in English Canada (and you are already the most popular leader). It is hard to create a constitutional crisis in those circumstances. Harper will of course, now try to chip at your numbers in Quebec, in order to help the Bloc out. As I said, you live and work in a perverse world.

Recommend this Post

Shorter Question And Answer

From John Duffy and Tom Flanagan. John Duffy: Does the Conservative Party accept the constitution? Tom Flanagan: No.

Recommend this Post

Shorter Jeffrey Simpson

I am getting really nervous that the NDP is actually going to do well in this election.

Recommend this Post

Forget the IPod Tax

The real problem is the Playbook Tax. Are the Conservatives going to kill our one high tech champion (and with it, thousands of high paying jobs in Ontario) and help a foreign corporation create a monopoly in tablet technology?

Recommend this Post

If You Want to Know Harper's Majority Health Care Policy

Just ask the Fraser Institute.

Recommend this Post

Laugh Of The Day

Imagine a party that spent the last five years distorting, lying and out of contexting all of their rivals. Then imagine them complaining about someone doing that to them. Imagine no more. Ladies and gentlemen, I give you the Conservative Party of Canada. They really do have to stop doing this, I keep snorting coffee through my nose when they do things like this.

Recommend this Post

Breaking

I woke up this morning and thought my radio was saying the NDP and Liberals are now tied. Maybe I was still dreaming. More as this develops.

Update: I knew it was too fantastic to be true. That will teach me to not listen to a clock radio. LOL.

Update 2: Ok, so my radio was right about polling numbers, but they reported it as Nanos, not Angus Reid. So, who do you believe? Are the Liberals and NDP tied or are the Liberals 12 points ahead? Makes you kind of wonder about polling, doesn't it?

Recommend this Post

Creeping Fascism

The Conservatives are getting much closer to creating their own Il Duce:

Stephen Harper had the suburban Vancouver crowd stomping and cheering, to the extent people who hold up signs like “Harper is Stability” can stomp and cheer.

Substitute "Canada" for "Stability" and we are there. To hell with democracy, he makes the trains run on time.

Recommend this Post

Well, She Does Know What She's Talking About

Conservative Campaign Chair, Jenni Byrne, was probably laughing her ass off as she wrote the following sentence:

“The Liberal ad uses some of the dirtiest tricks in the book — including twisting words out of context and deliberately altering dates to make old words appear recent."

I know I certainly laughed my ass off, reading it.

Recommend this Post

Score One For Vote Suppression

Though the Guelph votes will count, the Harperites have managed to shut down special balloting at other Canadian universities. Election's Canada has ordered that there be no more of these events held on campus.

I noticed the following sentence in the article and it raised my eyebrow, to say the least:

Elections Canada issued a statement Friday that reaffirms special ballots are to be used to assist electors like snowbirds or military personnel who cannot get to a regular polling station.

Gee, I wonder why the Harperites aren't bitching about those ballots and those voters?

Recommend this Post

Well, At Least They Didn't Burn The Place Down

Of course, if voter suppression doesn't work, I am sure the Conservatives are leaving all of their options open.

Recommend this Post

My Reaction?

I wish Duceppe spoke better English.
I wish Layton had a prayer.
I wish Harper would stop lying.
I wish I could believe Iggy.

Other than that, who cares? The MSM, caught up in an endless cycle of sports cliches will declare that there was no "knock out punch" or "game changer". It doesn't matter that Harper is a liar. It doesn't matter that he has no respect for democracy -- he probably will be declared the winner of this game, simply by sticking to his lies, no matter what. The idea that Canadian democracy is the loser is not even considered important. After all, it's the game that's the thing. Everything else is secondary at best.

Recommend this Post

What Does A Harper Majority Mean?

Well, to Steve Janke, it means firing the entire civil service because of a leak, destroying the CBC and generally striking back at their "enemies":

If the Conservatives win a majority, and they begin their program of shrinking government, who seriously doubts that the motivation will be less philosophy and more self-defence? Somewhere in that vast army of bureaucrats, many, if not most, honest and hardworking people who take their responsibilities and their oaths seriously, is a cadre of hyper-politicized activists who see their role as choosing the “right” government for Canadians.

Can’t find the rotten apples? Then throw out the barrel. Furious Conservatives might be tossing out many barrels. The media might be in for a rough ride too. The CBC, recipient of a billion dollars in direct government funding? They’re in trouble. The others? How many of them tap into a multitude of taxpayer-funded government-run production funds? Or have their production infrastructure underwritten by tax breaks?

Recommend this Post

Conservative Moral Equivalence

According to Tim Powers, not fact checking whether Iggy voted in England is exactly the same as lying to Parliament about a $50 Million dollar slush fund and taking quotes from Sheila Fraser out of context in an official House committee report.

Recommend this Post

A "Perp Walk" For Steamboat Tony?

If God is just, yes, but I won't hold my breath. I expect the Dear Leader to call in the RCMP by this afternoon. That way he can stonewall during the debate tomorrow night.

Update: Well, I have to admit, I didn't see this coming. The Conservatives are really going for broke. They are saying that no matter what the draft report says, the final report vindicates them (perhaps they have read a version that is lying next to the secret letter from the U.S. government giving us planes for less than cost). They say this, knowing full well the final report cannot be released until after the election. They are rolling the dice that they will get their majority by turning this into another he said/she said issue they thrive on. If they get their majority and the final report does not vindicate them, well they have four years of unfettered rule ahead of them anyway. They are hoping that Canadians are suckers, one last time and that the Harperites will have the last laugh. We will see.

Recommend this Post

Signs Of A Conservative Collapse

The first open mention of "autonomy"for Alberta in the MSM. Will this mean a coalition of the separatists?

Recommend this Post

A Challenge To Stephen Harper

Harper is using the old "If you knew what I know" routine in his defense of his $75 million dollar price tag for the F-35 fighters. Well Mr. Harper, produce your evidence. Show us the letter you say you have, from the U.S. government guaranteeing Canada a fixed price of $75 million, a price not available even to the U.S. government. If you will not show us proof of what you are saying and given the mountain of contrary evidence available, no one is going to buy your story.

I doubt Mr. Harper will ever release the document, because I don't believe it exists. If pressed, he will drop the pretense and pick up his favorite human shields, the men and women of our armed forces. Harper is a lying sack of shit.

Recommend this Post

Dear MSM

I know you are limited to 4 questions per day, but can someone please ask Mr. Harper since he is making billions of dollars in promises (mostly tax cuts) that come into effect after the budget is balanced, why we should go to the trouble of balancing the budget, if we are going to instantly go back into deficit? I know you aren't allowed follow ups, but can someone ask him if this is just a camouflaged version of "Starve the beast"? It seems the Conservatives want to cut government like crazy and then pass more tax cuts as an excuse to cut more government (Hello Wisconsin). That is all fine and good, but stop treating voters as suckers. Also, can somebody please ask why, if there is so much waste in government, the Conservatives have not found it in over five years in power?

Update: Paul Wells, God bless him, tried to ask John Baird about where the government has cut in the last budget. It seems no one in the government can tell him where the savings were found. I may be wrong, but Wells does not sound satisfied with Mr. Baird's "answer".

Recommend this Post

Low Level Staffers

They don't cost much and they are so blameable. That's why the Conservatives love them so.

Recommend this Post

Is It So Damn Hard To Say Sorry, Stephen?

You have to love the conditionality of the following "apology", uttered this morning by Stephen Harper: “If anybody is kept out of any of our events that’s there to hear our message, we obviously apologize to them,”. "If"? Is Harper questioning the reality of the incidents cataloged over the past week? Our PM must think his ass will fall off if he just says "We screwed up and we are sorry."

Recommend this Post

What Harper's Defender's Say About Him

According To Kate Heartfield:

The caricature of Harper does bear some similarity to the flesh and-blood original, of course. Yes, Harper and his party have centralized control, favoured ideology over evidence, manipulated the democratic process, bullied civil servants, exhibited mistrust and disrespect for Parliament, the media and even, sometimes, the public -as shown by the party's strict vetting of participants at rallies and willingness to eject anyone whose partisan allegiance is in doubt.

Yes he is all these things, but Kate grows faint when anyone draws the conclusion that Harper is a "tyrant". Perhaps she would prefer, "despot"?

Recommend this Post

Democracy For Dummies

Lede from an article in the Brandon Sun:

The RCMP is reminding its officers that they have a duty to protect the safety of Prime Minister Stephen Harper — not the Conservative Party of Canada.

And I suppose we are all supposed to believe that these adult police did not already know this? Where am I, Egypt?

Recommend this Post

Fact Check Time

Harper says: “We’ve had thousands of people, far more people come out to hear us than the other guys have,” Mr. Harper said. “When the other guys are complaining we’re turning people away – and they can’t get people –I think that tells you how this campaign is going.” Ok MSM, is this true or is Harper just lying his ass off again?

Recommend this Post

Is Harper The Gorgan?

Being a geek, I see all things in terms of Star Trek. Harper's "Aw shucks" routine is being stripped away and his evil, lying just beneath the surface, is becoming obvious to everyone. It is very much like the Star Trek episode "And the Children Shall Lead", in which the "Friendly Angel" is exposed for the evil monster he truly is.

Recommend this Post

Fairytale Theatre

Item: Harper confident Quebec’s $2-billion HST deal won’t hinder deficit battle . And since he won't show anyone the books, we will just have to take his word for it.

Recommend this Post

Iggy May Be On To Something Here

It is totally bizarre that the PM's people do a more thorough background check on teenagers attending his rallies than they do for people working in the PMO.

Recommend this Post

At Least The Message Is Clear

You get a Harper majority and the long march to abolishing gun control begins.

Recommend this Post

Platform Shoes Vs. Powdered Wigs

Some friends and not so friendly ideological fellow travelers of this government are calling the Liberal platform a trip back to the 1970's. They, on the other hand, would prefer to take us back to the 1770's, a time when the message of low taxes and limited government was totally rad.

Recommend this Post

Targeting The Message

A professor from Conservativestan explains who the coalition message is aimed at:

Steve Patten, a political-science professor at the University of Alberta, has a different view. He thinks Harper had an "effective" first week, got the news coverage that he wanted and ultimately planted his core message in the minds of voters.

"The emphasis on the coalition is something that backfires only for those who aren't predisposed to be supporting the Conservatives," says Patten. "It backfires only for those who are thinking a lot about politics and the complexities of our parliamentary system. But the people he's trying to sway are people who would like to see stability in governance, and they're people who don't want to see the NDP or Bloc have too much power and influence."

It is a simple message for people who don't think too much and find complexity too taxing. In other words, it is aimed at the Conservative base.

Recommend this Post

Stability For Whom

Stephen Harper is asking for a stable, majority government but, how stable will the country be if he keeps picking fights with Quebec?

Recommend this Post