The devil must be lacing up his skates.....

Never thought I'd see the day, but I have to agree 100% with Raphael on this one. http://unambig.blogspot.com/2008/09/poor-sportsmanship.html

Election strategy for voters

There probably has never been an election where strategic voting has been more important than this one. Let’s face facts. At this time, the only party that has even the remotest chance of forming a majority is the Conservative Party. And the only way that will happen is if the other 3 (or 4, in Quebec) parties manage to split the vote on a riding-by-riding basis, giving the Cons undeserved wins with 30% or less of the popular vote in those ridings.

To simply suggest that folks vote Liberal (or NDP, or Green, or Bloc) across the board will only increase the Cons’ chances, possibly giving them the win and leaving us all with 4 more years of Harper, this time with a possible majority. If that happens, you can say goodbye to the Canada we know and love. It will take years to repair the damage.

So if you want to help ensure that the Cons do not get a majority, then the objective of this election has to be to deny them seats wherever possible. And to do so may mean supporting the candidate in your riding who has the greatest chance to win and/or to unseat a Con incumbent regardless of your own political stripe.

Political affiliations are important, but I believe that preventing a Con majority in this election is even more important. And in reality the differences that exist between the Liberals, Greens and NDP are far, far less than between any of those parties and the Harper Cons. And if we all do this right and deny the Cons their majority, even if they get another minority, we’ll have an opportunity to do it all over again in a couple of years, most likely with Harper gone, at which time you can vote away for your party of choice.

Go get 'im Brent!

Brent Fullard of CAITI fame has announced he will run for the Liberals against Jim Flaherty, subject to approval by the Liberal riding association (who'd be fools not to agree). Fullard will attack Flaherty on all manner of fiscal and policy issues, not just income trusts.

Flaherty is certainly at risk given his remarkably inept handling of the economy (income trusts, Ontario bashing, free-spending budgets, improper contracting, inaction on job losses, and now flirtation with a deficit after blowing the Liberal's $13 billion surplus in 2 years) so this seat offers a real opportunity for the Liberals.

We're with you Brent. Send Jimbo back to ambulance chasing.

A new Senate seat opening up?

http://www.cbc.ca/story/canadavotes2006/national/2006/02/06/emerson-jumps060206.html

So can we now assume that on Monday Michael Fortier's resignation will be on Harper's desk?

Update: September 7. According to this story, Fortier has done the right thing and resigned to run in the upcoming election. I have to admit I am surprised.

When did political discourse in this country become a hate issue?

Politics has always has the ability to inflame passions and get the blood boiling, hence the long-standing warning that “sex, religion and politics are not to be discussed in polite company”. Now personally I believe that any discussion that does not include at least one (and preferably all) of the above is singularly boring, but the level of debate has certainly deteriorated recently and has now reached dangerous levels.

Historically political leaders have always served as something of a lightning rod for strong sentiments such as: “Stephen Harper, I hate that son of a bitch with a passion!” In fact pretty much every PM – Liberal or Conservative (with the possible exception of Kim Campbell) - has attracted that kind of comment from those who disagree with them. It goes with the territory. But what is happening now is that more and more frequently those strong feelings are being directed beyond the leadership to include supporters of the party. One need only peruse the comments made by Con trolls on any liberal, progressive, or left-leaning web site to see evidence of this.

But what is even more worrisome than their usual unintelligible and intellectually void jabberings in the blogosphere is that those expressions of hatred are now being manifested in criminal behaviour such as was recently seen in Guelph with the spray-painting and life-threatening vandalism to Liberal supporter’s cars.

No one yet knows who the Guelph criminals were and whether they were actually politically inspired or not, but it’s not hard to see where the sentiment comes from when, according to Tom Flanagan, Harper’s goal is not simply to govern Canada, but to utterly destroy the Liberal Party of Canada. Under Stephen Harper’s leadership, political “debate” on issues of importance to all Canadians has deteriorated from being an enthusiastic and vociferous sharing of opinions to the dismissive personal put-down and the nasty sound-bite. Combined with his deep-seated and frequently demonstrated rage against many of Canada’s institutions, his continued referrals to opposition parties being crooks and liars who are out to “screw” Canadians, and his divisive style of politics it’s not hard to see how impressionable and pliable Harper followers can make the leap to a passionate hatred of all things non-Conservative.

The Americanisation of Canadian politics continues.....

The way I see it

Is it just me, or has anyone else noticed the similarities between this video and Progressive Bloggers over the past while as the "puck" moved from Kick Ass Blogger Awards to the demise of Bill C-484 to the Harpercrite's current election posturing?

I'm just sayin'.....

"Just imagine what athletes could do if we actually funded them well"

The title to this piece is taken from Cam Cole’s commentary in the Ottawa Citizen today where he criticizes the Canadian government (and by inference all Canadians) for our “pathetically small” investments we make in our world-class athletes.

Well my question is why should we make any investments in them at all?

The number of medals Canada wins (or doesn’t win) in the bi-annual sponsor-fest known as The Olympics has not one iota of relevance for me or any other Canadian not directly affected. It doesn’t improve our standard of living. It doesn’t provide work to the unemployed. It does nothing to house the homeless. And no one out there seriously believes that the true measure of a country is how many gold, silver and bronze medals its athletes take home every few years. All The Olympics do is provide 2 weeks of 24-hour television coverage every 2 years of sports we would never pay to go and watch (weight lifting, equestrian, synchronized swimming to name just a few), and enough gnashing of teeth and angst-ridden editorial comments by the national print media when we don’t win our fair quota of medals to fell a few hundred thousand trees.

The entire Olympic movement has devolved from a celebration of amateur athletics to a huge political-commercial venture that impoverishes host countries (Don’t you think China could have used that $40 billion more wisely?) while enriching sponsors, television networks, and sundry others associated with the games. In fact, any use of the term “amateur athletics” and The Olympics in the same breath is simply laughable.

I say take the tens of millions we invest in the Canadian Olympic Committee and put it into true amateur sport. Build and staff arenas and swimming pools so that Canadian youth can enjoy sport for fun and fitness. Build more soccer pitches and ball diamonds. Increase funding for sports in schools. Actively encourage true amateur competition in all sports.

And if MacDonald’s and Coca-Cola and CBC and all the other sponsors still feel the need to host a periodic “world-class” sporting event let them pay the athletes to compete, the same as the NHL, the NFL, the NBA, and all other professional sports franchises.