A Future Obituary For Christie Blatchford

Christie Blatchford died, alone and unloved, surrounded by her cats.

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Damn

Well it shouldn't be a surprise, but it is. I thought if anyone could beat the bastard, cancer, it would be Layton. This is a huge setback, but don't count the NDP out. It really is bigger than one man. It survived after Douglas, it survived after Lewis, it survived after Broadbent. It hung on during the dark days of the nineties and it will survive now. Condolences, go out to his family.

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Free Trade To Nowhere

Harper is busy opening trade deals with poor countries -- not that they will buy anything from us -- but they sure are a pool of cheap labor, eh?

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My My

Aren't we turning into a junior league imperialist power? Sending troops to Jamaica and cops to Costa Rica. Soon we will have people burning Harper in effigy all over the third world.

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Knee Jerk

What do you do if you have a riot? Well, if you are a British Conservative, you dictate who can and can't join Facebook and who can and can't own a cell phone. Yeah, that will work. It's not as if kids won't borrow or steal phones and won't create fake accounts on Facebook.

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A Few Good Signs

It looks at this point as if the Europeans may have gotten their act together (for the moment). I choose to take joy from small victories.

However, I am not confident in our own government. They are talking the same way they were talking in late 2008, as if everything is normal and deficit fighting is job one. People forget that the one and only reason the Harperites changed their minds about stimulus the first time round was because the opposition held a gun to their heads. Well, the opposition have no bullets this time. The Harperites are in absolute control. If they stay on their present course and we do head into a recession, Canadians will suffer needlessly. I am not hopeful that the Harperites will give up on their deficit mania. It is imprinted in their DNA and no one can stop them. It is going to be a very bad few years (of blaming teachers, doctors, and civil servants for the world's ills).

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As We Drive Perilously Close To The Edge Of A Cliff

Jim Flaherty says, "Drive faster!". Flaherty is, of course, utterly wrong. And we are totally fucked.

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QOTD: The Real Gravy Train

From the Guardian on the riots (read the whole thing, it is worth it):

While bankers have publicly looted the country's wealth and got away with it, it's not hard to see why those who are locked out of the gravy train might think they were entitled to help themselves to a mobile phone. Some of the rioters make the connection explicitly. "The politicians say that we loot and rob, they are the original gangsters," one told a reporter. Another explained to the BBC: "We're showing the rich people we can do what we want."

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Funny

I can't find anything about Harper locking himself in a Brazilian bathroom, in the Canadian press. However Pogge has found it in the Brazilian press. Strange that none of our intrepid press corps is reporting it? Draw your own conclusions.

Update: The Canadian Press is now reporting... the denial. H/t, once again to Pogge in the comments. Also from the comments, I should have made it clear that Harper reportedly locked himself in a bathroom and wouldn't come out until the Brazilians bent to his demands for a change in protocol. That is some mature guy we have running the country.

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A Study In Contrasts

Watch this video and note the difference in the worldview between the witness and the presenter. The ruling class (and their lackeys) truly has no idea what the hell is going on in their own country and they really don't want to know. The old guy was put on to condemn the riots and when he wouldn't play along, he had to be shut down and fast.

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Ok I'll Bite

So, what are the Conservatives saying, that Denis Lebel has no chance of ever becoming leader of the Conservatives because of his separatist past? How about Maxime Bernier? Does that reasoning apply to him as well?

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Shorter Michael Spence

The policy elites, in the developed world, are seized with a deficit mania that crowds out the reality of an unemployment crisis. This mania threatens the world's people with years of needless pain.

Read it here and get ready because our government is full of people who think like John Ibbotson.

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Welcome To Armageddon

This going to get really, really bad. Worse than it has to, because the assholes who are running the world see debt as a bigger problem than unemployment (largely, because they live off rents rather than salaries). So, we will have more cuts to government spending, leading to more unemployment, leading to less tax revenues and therefore more debt, leading to more cuts, leading to more unemployment and on and on and on, until these motherfuckers (out of self preservation if nothing else) get a clue, or until there is a revolution. The common people are going to be put through hell so that the ruling class can be cushioned from its own folly. My money is on revolution.

Update: Krugman has coined a new phrase, the "Downgrade Doom Loop", to describe the situation we are in. That just about covers it I think.

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My Guess

When they find these idiots, they will be white teens from the suburbs. Make them scrub this filth from the walls and have them take classes in world religions and multiculturalism. Wankers.

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It Isn't That They Are Stupid Exactly

But Wall Streeters have been making so much money trading worthless pieces of shit back and forth to each other, over the last couple of decades, that they haven't a notion about how a real capitalist economy works. They saw what was going on in Washington over the last month as irrelevant to them. They are the masters of the universe after all and can't be expected to tune into the bullshit petty politics of the little people. Well, now they are being schooled in macroeconomics 101 and the shock they are feeling is real. Who knew that austerity during an economic downturn was bad medicine? The sad fact is, our masters haven't a fucking clue.

Update: And if you look at Europe's bankers, they make Wall Street seem Krugmanesque. We are well and truly boned.

Update: Speaking of Krugman, he weighs in with a piece about the root causes of this problem, namely delusion and the substitution of sincerely held beliefs for working economic models.

Updater: It's a Nobel pile on as Joseph Stigliz catalogues the insanity.

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Shades Of Mike Harris' Ontario

When people start to die of bad water, the government will, I am sure, take full responsibility. That's what Mike Harris did, right? Right?

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How Disappointing For Them

I am sure prairie farmers will turn around and throw this dirty government money back into the faces of the Harperites. After all, these folks are mostly good, free market capitalists, who vote the straight Conservative ticket. Giving them a government handout is surely an insult to their independent spirit. Or is it that Conservatives are only rugged individualists until something bad happens to them?

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Last Word On The Turmel Fiasco

To the MSM, give your collective head a shake. You have been played. You chased after the shiny rather than using your heads (or whatever the hell Rob Silver uses for thinking). You have now said to soft nationalists that they have no right to change their minds and vote for a federalist party rather than the Bloc. Not only that, if they have the nerve to actually run for a federalist party, they will be held up to ridicule and suspicion. Way to go gang. Your truly are a bunch of stupid motherfuckers. Harper is right to hold you in contempt.

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Yup

Turmell is much more fun than that boring old economy.

Update: Yes it is as bad as it seems.

Update: It looks like the fun times are gone. Will this sober up the shitheads of the MSM? There is only about a one in five chance,is my guess.

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While The MSM Is Having Fun

Chasing the "important" Nycole Turmel story, the government is gutting Environment Canada. It is good to see our intrepid press has its priorities straight. Fun, fun, fun. Don't worry folks, look at the shiny.

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And So It Begins

The panic that is. There shouldn't be much time for our MSM to engage in frivolity over the next several years. Never fear though, they will find a way. The destruction of our economy is just so damn boring compared to inside the Queensway tittle tattle, n'est-ce pas?

Update: Hear that sound? It is the sound of Wall Street grasping at straws. Stimulus dreams and lollipop wishes.

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The NDP's Culpability

The NDP's sin in the Turmel business was assuming they were dealing with people who have an internal moral compass. They should have known better. The Liberals made the mistake of thinking there was a low point past which the PMO wouldn't stoop and they lost two leaders as a result. The NDP have to realize they are dealing with a group of sociopaths, led by the Prime Minister himself. They will literally do anything to destroy anyone who opposes them. The NDP can either fight back or not. It won't matter to the PMO, either way.

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Liberal Witch Hunt

Shorter Rob Silver: Have you now,or have you ever been, a member of the Communist Party Bloc Quebecois? According to Mr. Silver, once you have tasted from the well of separatism, you are no longer qualified to hold office in another party. Oh Liberals, it is so sad to see you reduced to Bloc baiting. Desperate times, I suppose. Oh, and I wonder if Jean Lapierre thinks of all this? You know Jean, Martinite Quebec strongman and co-founder of the Bloc Quebecois.

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