What's wrong with this picture?

Remember when getting involved in another country's electoral politics was a faux pas? Ralph Klein certainly doesn't. And I remember conservatives bitching about Michael Moore coming up here and getting involved in our politics...

"It's only bad when the Liberals do it," take 274

It seems that Stephen Harper and Vic Toews, after bitching and moaning about the Liberal judicial appointment process engaging in political favouritism, are engaging in the very same behaviour themselves. Surprised? If you aren't, you're not alone.

I'd like to rant about the Liberal Party for a moment

I would like to add my voice to the collective call of a great number of Liberals for this party to get its act together.

This parliamentary session is over for the summer, and during that time, the party needs to regroup. If the Liberals head back into the fall session as disjointed, disoriented and disorganized as they have been, the new leader may as well deliver a concession speech to Stephen Harper upon taking the opposition leader's mantle.

These past few months, the Liberals have been utterly painful to watch. Performance during Question Period has been abyssmal. With the exception of Bill Graham and a few assorted MPs, Question Period has been an exercise in futility, as Liberal MPs set themselves up to be trounced by Conservative cabinet ministers. With the added embarassment of Liberal MPs wasting time sparring with the NDP - a party we should by all rights be trying to portray as irrelevant - much to the joy of the Conservatives, you can see the makings of a very disorganized effort. The leadership seems to be going with the "when everybody plays, everybody wins" truism, touchy-feely BS that works well with children's sports, but falls flat on its face in the adult world. Some of the Liberal MPs who (quite regularly, in fact) are asking questions are, to put it simply, appalingly bad at that part of their jobs. Bill Graham and the House leadership desperately need to set up a new rat pack, a group of MPs who can effectively challenge the Conservatives.

Other notable incidents include the surprise passage of a budget the Liberals were adamantly opposed to, due to, let's be frank, complete ineptitude. The Liberals - unknowingly! - gave unanimous consent to the passage of the budget. There is really no excuse for that. Let's also not forget the fact that, on any given day, one can reasonably expect to find about half of the Liberal caucus present in the House of Commons during its peak hours (ie: Question Period). What the hell is that? What are taxpayers paying these people for?

I understand that there is a leadership race going on, and that is a good enough reason for the eight leadership candidates who are also MPs to miss a good deal of time in the House. But what about the others? What's their excuse? This isn't just a matter of bad attendance during QP. These guys are absent during votes! I believe about ten or so Liberals were missing from the House on the day of the Afghanistan vote (possibly more). Where, exactly, were they, and why were they not in the House voting on this issue, especially considering their votes could have tipped the balance against extending the mission?

And what about allowing that vote to happen in the first place? If so many Liberals voted against extending the mission because Harper was playing politics, why allow him to play politics in the first place? The Liberals could have refused to grant consent for that debate to even take place, but instead, they decided to let Harper play his divisive games using Canadian servicemen and women, and came out of it humiliated and defeated - defeated by their own caucus dissidents, no less! It was a debacle, and the Liberals are at fault for allowing themselves to be drawn into such an obvious trap.

So guys, I guess what I'm trying to say is - get your act together! This is embarassing.

In belated honour of pride week...

The right-wing blogosphere is always a good read. Conservatives there are much more willing to express views that they wouldn't express in public, or for cameras (most unfortunately).

I'm just gonna let these speak for themselves, with no comment from myself:

All that's apparently missing is a float from NAMBLA, the North American Man-Boy Love Association. That's the organization of homosexual pedophiles that has a goal of getting adult male to boy sex made legal.

Yeah, that's how far homosexuality has come in degeneration.

How many of us think that back, oh say, thirty years ago, when homosexuals claimed they just wanted societal tolerance and to not have consenting adult homosexual sex illegal, the rest of society would have expected it to degenerate to what we have today?

Homosexual "marriage"; homosexual adoption; affirmative action for homosexuals; homosexual "diversity" bureaucrats on public payrolls...and anyone expressing any moral or religious objections is immediately shouted down as "homophobic". (Which is really just an ad hominem attack, as the LAST thing homosexual activists want is to have to engage in an intelligent, dispassionate public debate and discourse on all this.)

That's what you call an incremental agenda, the extreme left's favorite tool to get the formerly illegal, aberrant and unacceptable to become legal, "normal" and acceptable. With those objecting to be made the objects of derision and marginalization.

NDP homosexual activist Svend Robinson has publicly advocated for a 12 years old Age of Consent. What do you think Svend & Friends had in mind for those 12 year olds?

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It probably wouldn't be a bad idea for everyone to keep in mind that the gay collective isn't about sexuality any more, it's become just another socialist front.

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This is the key to understanding the mental illness that is modern liberalism: it is never about what it is alleged to be about.

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Iggy is now a gay dhimmi.

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yes, all this talk about pride day brings back a special memory....about 10 years ago my kids and I (3 daughters) were enjoying what is called the teddy bears picnic...we were enjoying our pancakes, when all of a sudden we hear these whistles, pots banging and bad music...when i looked up and saw the pride parade ending at the teddy bears picnic..i almost peuked...instead, i grabbed my kids and made a run for it.....unbelievable....

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I lived in downtown Toronto for 15 years, and am soooooo glad that I'm not there anymore, especially during the week from hell.

Someone was surprised that there was a teacher's float??? Well, there are lots of gay teachers in the system, and there's a unit on "families - diverse" (can't remember the correct name used for it) that is taught in the primary grades. There's a gay agenda going on....oh yes there is...this is more of a political/social agenda that equal rights.

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It has changed from the love that dare not speak its name to the love that won't shut up.

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The Mounties are a Canadian icon being co-oped by gays for their own perverted purpose.

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Iggy should research what happened to Joe Clark after being in the gay parade in Calgary. He just lost what few votes he may have got in the west, and maybe gained some in Vancouver. Is he married, I have never seen or heard about a wife. Maybe he is also a closet gay. (For the record, Iggy's wife's name is Zsuzsanna.)

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But here in Toronto, we had 8 shootings- two by cops- in the past two days. None of that was connected with gay pride..........

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I mean really, where else will you find the bull dykes consorting with the faeries, the pre and post op transgendered swapping spit freely, the catchers given equal footing with the pitchers, the bus depot washroom crowd celebrated for spreading the word and the elder statesmen from NAMBLA volunteering their time to give guidance to the youth.

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What's wrong with putting children under the care and supervision of male homosexuals you wonder? Where were you during the scandals in Christian Brothers schools, the abuse of alter boys and the awful degradation of young inmates by warders in various provincial detention centres? Sure, your daughter is safe, but what about little boys in the class?

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Teachers Union??? This explains why the Pedophile teachers rarely get fired and merely lay low for awhile and get relocated at another school to access a whole new stock of children or teens.

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Vitruvius,agree completely that it has gone WAY past acceptance and is now an agenda to completely normalize homosexuality.
Openly gay elementary teachers?I'm no prude but why is ANYONE'S sexuality a topic of conversation at an elementary school?How about letting our little kids just be kids for a change,and not a social experiment?
Let's say gay lobbyists dreams come true and male/female becomes completely redundant in relationships and kids are taught in school having 2 moms or dads is A-OK.What will happen to these kids when their hormones go f*cking crazy at puberty.Experimentation will be rampant and what boy or girl won't TRY both camps to try and find themselves?(anyone else here young enough to remember the confusion of those days,even without this added pressure?)
I am thankful my two daughters will make it through high school before the PC police demand everyone accept homosexuality as normal.

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It is time to put sodomy back on the books as a crime. You used to get 14 years for it, now you dance in the strets to flaunt it to all the "breeders". Time to send these sickos back to where they belong.

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BTW, there is a big difference between heterosexual lust that may attract a adult to a under age person of the opposite gender and the outright sickness of a man that only wants boys and has no desire for any female adult.
The twisted logic used to defend homosexual pedophiles doesn't hold water when you apply it to the prison system, if gay males are believed
to be close to 2% of the population then this means the high homosexual activity in jails makes gays predisposed to crime because the numbers show a 10% gay-sex rate in jail.
Of course the arguement will be that the lonelyness makes the gay , but I thought we settled the debate about being Born that way and you can't Choose to be gay.
Men that enjoy being naked in front of little boys are sick and qualify as pedophiles, even when Mayor Miller and Chief Blair choose to ignore it and tell the world it's a Family event and bring the kids ( fresh meat) . (For the record, "situational homosexuality" inside prisons is a well-established and accepted phenomenon.)

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So what's the comment count running at... 120 or thereabouts? Brilliant!! Gay Pride sure as hell must be important.

Really, the most important way some can find to define themselves as sentient beings is their sexual proclivities. (Incidentally, most of these comments are people going apeshit about a harmless parade.)

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BTW, NAMBLA, the North American Man/Boy Love Association is an unabashed booster of sexual relationships between men and boys, long before these boys have reached "the age of consent." If I was the mother of boys, I'd be watching the NAMBLA agenda very carefully and monitoring its appearance in the MSM and in my children's schools. The public system is becoming a champion of GLTB "rights."

What rights would these be?

What about kids' rights to a NAMBLA- and GLTB-free education? What about parents' rights to a real education for their children, not an education laced with socially engineered lifestyles which, BTW, could be injurious to their health, not to mention their life span?

NAMBLA's Web page has a photo of Dr. "Frits Bernard (1920 - 2006)...the esteemed Dutch clinical psychologist, died May 23, 1998 [?????], in his 86th year. He was a courageous activist in the cause of personal liberation and respect for the rights of homosexuals, gays and lesbians, boy-lovers and other oppressed sexual minorities."

I don't know who's more "oppressed": the adult gay, transexual, bisexual males or the boys they want to "love"?

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One from a gay Tory (those strange political masochists):

Just have a few comments on gay pride parades. First off, before anyone guesses I'm gay. I'm also a Tory and a solid right wing, pro-death penalty, pro-gun, pro-free trade, end all subsidies, turf the CBC, kind of guy. Yet many of these comments about gays and lesbians and gay pride parades just irk me. They do because they draw out the most idiotic and hurtful comments. People say they don't hate gays but then say "deviant" "perverts" and the age old link and insinuation that gay = pedophile. If you've ever been to gay pride parades and I've been dragged to a couple you'd know the "freaks" as I call them are far and few. The vast, vast bulk of people are fully clothed, normal, etc etc etc.

All these kinds of really nasty comments accomplish one thing - they send gay moderates to the Liberals and god forbid the NDP.

(What he seems to forget is that these people want nothing to do with gay people, don't want them in the Conservative tent, think that they're pedophiles, are ought to be in jail.)

There's far too many to post any more. But you get the general idea. I suppose I'll end with this:

Many consider me a pretty centrist sort of liberal, even centre-right mostly on economic issues. Many friends wonder sometimes why I don't vote for conservatives or the Conservative Party. I think the next time someone asks me that, I'll send the permalink to this discussion thread.

Big Myron is Watching You

An amusing post from a new blogger in the Liblogs community. I got a laugh out of it, anyway.

Boys with older brothers more likely to be gay

This is truly fascinating. For each older brother a boy has, his chances of being gay increase by a third. (For the record, I'm the oldest of two boys, with a girl in the middle.) Actually, the older brothers link was already established in previous studies, and was written off by those determined to believe that sexual orientation is not inborn with the "explanation" that family dynamics affected the psychological development in boys in such a way as to influence their sexual orientation (and of course the truly loony stuck with their ever-unproven, logical cul de sac "it's a choice").

What's fascinating is that a new study by the same man, Dr. Anthony Bogaert of Brock University, shows that this pattern only exists in brothers who are biologically related; in brothers who did not share the same biological mother, there is no link between fraternal birth order and sexual orientation.

The birth order thing kind of lends credence to my theory (shared of course by many others) that a non-heterosexual orientation could very well be a means of natural population control; as the more sons you have, the more necessary some kind of population control becomes.

Poll Update

A shocking new development in my leadership poll has Bob Rae taking it on the final ballot. It seems that a small surge in Kennedy support, while not allowing Kennedy himself to take it, has provided a lot of second-choice ballots for Rae, enough for him to shoot into first place over Dion. The ballot by ballot results are as follows:

First Ballot:
Stephane Dion - 21.9%
Scott Brison - 21.3%
Bob Rae - 19.4%
Michael Ignatieff - 15.6%
Gerard Kennedy - 14.3%
Ken Dryden - 7.6%

Second Ballot:
Stephane Dion - 25.7%
Scott Brison - 23.2%
Bob Rae - 19.4%
Gerard Kennedy - 16.2%
Michael Ignatieff - 15.6%

Third Ballot:
Scott Brison - 30.3%
Stephane Dion - 29.3%
Bob Rae - 23.9%
Gerard Kennedy - 16.6%

Fourth Ballot:
Bob Rae - 34.2%
Stephane Dion - 33.9%
Scott Brison - 31.9%

Fifth Ballot:
Bob Rae - 51.9%
Stephane Dion - 48.1%

Change

When I took on this monicker, it was actually appropriate. I was a reluctant Liberal with a libertarian bent. Mind you, I haven't turned into a flaming lefty, but nevertheless, my views have since changed; about the only major issues on which I'm to the right of other Liberals are foreign policy ones, ie: Iraq and Afghanistan. And while some clearly disagree, (labelling Ignatieff right-wing for such crimes) I personally don't think being for the Iraq war is enough to make you "right-wing" or in my case, "blue." It simply doesn't make very much sense for me to continue to hold on to a name that, at this point, doesn't mean anything to me.

Thus, over the next few days or so, I'll be switching over to a new blog: Clear Grit. (This is not to be mistaken with this blog, which has been idle for over two years, and has no contact information so I can't ask him/her if they'd delete it for me.) The name is a reference to the historical origins of the Liberal Party in Canada.

I'll be sure to leave a redirect at this blog, and I'll continue posting at it for a little while, but the plan is to eventually post exclusively at Clear Grit, and I'll probably delete this one.

Religion and Politics

For those who say they ought to go together.

Afternoon laugh

Check out Big City Lib's brilliant post on the Conservatives' age of consent law. It so perfectly encapsulates one of the major flaws with the legislation; it's a solution looking for a problem; it's looking to make victims out of people who clearly aren't. I can't confirm this for myself, but every straight boy I've ever talked to about it confirms for me that they would have loved to bang the hot teacher, and can't imagine why anyone beyond prudish sexaphobes would want to criminalize such a thing. Seriously, Vic Toews, stop trying to take your sexual frustration out on others!

Oh, and just a small warning. Faggots, if you're gonna click on that link, avert your eyes a bit. I was fine with it (I can certainly appreciate beauty) but I know others are a bit more squeamish.

Also, your daily reminder: poll. Vote!

Of chickens and eggs

Some American chicken little says that the sky is falling, and it's all Jon Stewart's fault.

Apparently, a new study has found that young people don't vote, and are increasingly cynical. (You don't say?) It also found that a lot of young people watch The Daily Show with Jon Stewart. (No shit?) Incidentally, a new study has also found that a watched pot never boils, Belinda Stronach has a lot of money, and that George Bush doesn't have a clue.

Here's where it gets funny - according to this blowhard, the clear implication is that Jon Stewart is making people cynical and less likely to vote. The more reasonable explanation, that cynical young people who don't vote like to watch Jon Stewart instead of "hard news" because they're cynical about democracy and what passes for the media already, is conveniently absent from the editorial.

Rest assured, Jon Stewart couldn't possibly do any more than the Bush administration, Congress, lobbyists, big money, corporations, skyrocketing debt, the 2000 and 2004 presidential elections, Ann Coulter, reality shows, the religious right, and a compliant news media have already done to make people cynical about democracy and the media.

Speaking of which, I miss Bill Maher. I can't wait for the new season.

(Hat tip: liberal catnip.)

A couple of quickies

First, try out this quiz. See if you can tell the difference between things said by Ann Coulter and things said by Adolf Hitler. Personally, I got 14 out of 14, but that's just because I'm so familiar with the particular smell of Ann's bile that I can smell it a mile away. Try it out for yourself.

Also, Progressive Right has written a post on the same article I wrote on earlier about the imposition of morality.

Oh, and also, vote in the leadership poll! Current results have Brison winning with 50.7% over Dion, with 49.3%. Rae's the third-place candidate, topping out at 28.1%; Dion has a narrow lead over Brison on every ballot until the final one, when Brison just barely takes it.

More Quoting

“Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same in any country.” — Nazi Reich Marshal Hermann Göring during the Nuremberg Trials

Why Ignatieff should not be leader

I really agonized over writing something like this, because I honestly do like Mr. Ignatieff. But the fact of the matter is, putting aside whether or not he'd make a good prime minister, he is simply unsuited to be the leader of the opposition and the prime minister in waiting.

I don't think Mr. Ignatieff can win a general election. If he is elected leader, I hope that I'm proven wrong. But I don't like his chances.

First of all, the torture allegations. They are vile, baseless, and digusting allegations. It is unfair that Ignatieff now has a reputation among some people as the guy who supports torture. But he does have that reputation nonetheless, and you know, you KNOW both the Conservatives and the NDP, not to mention the Bloc, would use it against him mercilessly. They would perform that trick they do where they repeat something so many times that, in the eyes of the public, it becomes true. "The Liberal Party is corrupt." A ridiculous statement, given that all the facts show is that a few high-ranking Liberals were corrupt, who have been both kicked out of the party and some of them jailed. But nevertheless, "The Liberal Party is corrupt." There's no way to argue against it if half the public is dead-set against believing anything else. "Michael Ignatieff supports torture." I don't know about you, but I think that one's worse. And they'll do it, too. They will all assassinate the character of a good man over baseless allegations, just like they did to Paul Martin.

Second, his support of the war in Iraq. Now, I know Scott Brison also technically supported that war - but he was not nearly as vocal a supporter as Mr. Ignatieff. Ignatieff has used a lot of ink writing about his vehement support for the war, and even though I sort of agree with him, that makes it very easy for the NDP to take the anti-war vote. Too easy, in fact. I mean, the only thing that would make it easier to steal left-leaning votes would be if there was some ridiculous but nevertheless widespread belief that the man supports, I don't know, torture or something.

Third, I don't like his chances in Quebec. Quebeckers tend, more often than not, to vote for the favourite son. (Laurier, St. Laurent, Trudeau, Mulroney, Bouchard, Chretien, Duceppe.) He has to beat back both Harper and Duceppe in Quebec, which will be no easy task - Duceppe has the homefield advantage, and Harper is currently neck-and-neck with the current favourite son. An Albertan had enough trouble winning just ten seats in Quebec - imagine someone who hasn't even lived in the country for the past quarter-century!

And finally, I just can't see him being good for party unity. He himself is already the most divisive subject within the party - Iggy-boosters and Iggy-haters alike are very, very zealous in their defences and detractions. (Particularly the latter.) Yes, he does have Chretien and Martin people behind him, but really, will that matter if he creates an entirely new division based entirely around him? Given that he's generally estimated to have the support of about 25-30% of the party right now, how will that other 70-75% feel if he wins; more importantly, what if he only wins by a bare margin - what will the other half think? Obviously, you win some and you lose some, but there are enough people who just flat-out dislike Ignatieff that I can't see an Ignatieff victory being good for party unity, and we absolutely must be united going into the next election, otherwise we're toast. The pro-Iggy and anti-Iggy sides of the party can't be fighting their own battle DURING an election campaign - and we really, REALLY can't afford to lose the left of the party to the NDP. That's a ticket to third-party status.

Pat Martin, Conservative in sheep's clothing

The Liberals have taken a well-deserved shot at Pat Martin, the NDP MP for Winnipeg Centre. Anyone familiar with Martin's performance during Question Period knows that the Liberals (and the Hill Times) are right to be suspicious about his motivations. The man seems to be driven first and foremost by a pathological hatred of the Liberal Party. He lobs softball questions at the Conservatives while attacking the Liberals, and giving the ministers he's questioning ample opportunity to do the same. Maybe someone should inform Pat that the Conservatives are currently forming the government now.

Under the spreading chestnut tree, I sold you and you sold me

"Power is in inflicting pain and humiliation. Power is in tearing human minds to pieces and putting them together again in new shapes of your own choosing. Do you begin to see, then, what kind of world we are creating? It is the exact opposite of the stupid hedonistic Utopias the old reformers imagined. A world of fear and treachery is torment, a world of trampling and being trampled upon, a world which will grow not less but more merciless as it refines itself. Progress in our world will be progress towards more pain. The old civilizations claimed that they were founded on love or justice. Ours is founded upon hatred. In our world there will be no emotions except fear, rage, triumph, and self-abasement. Everything else we shall destroy - everything. Already we are breaking down the habits of thought which have survived from before the Revolution. We have cut the links between child and parent, and between man and man, and between man and woman. No one dares trust a wife or a child or a friend any longer. But in the future there will be no wives and no friends. Children will be taken from their mothers at birth, as one takes eggs from a hen. The sex instinct will be eradicated. Procreation will be an annual formality like the renewal of a ration card. We shall abolish the orgasm. Our neurologists are at work upon it now. There will be no loyalty, except loyalty towards the Party. There will be no love, except the love of Big Brother. There will be no laughter, except the laugh of triumph over a defeated enemy. There will be no art, no literature, no science. When we are omnipotent we shall have no more need of science. There will be no distinction between beauty and ugliness. There will be no curiosity, no enjoyment of the process of life. All competing pleasures will be destroyed. But always -- do not forget this, Winston -- always there will be the intoxication of power, constantly increasing and constantly growing subtler. Always, at every moment, there will be the thrill of victory, the sensation of trampling on an enemy who is helpless. If you want a picture of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face -- for ever." - George Orwell, 1984

On the "imposition of morality"

One of the favourite tactics of the reactionary right is to charge their opponents with engaging in the very same behaviour in which they themselves are engaging.

For example, they will often say, "the left demands tolerance, but they are intolerant of our beliefs." But the thing is, being tolerant demands being intolerant of intolerance. A proper analogy is that the use of force is wrong, but one must oppose the use of force with the use of force. The charges fall flat on their face; if your "beliefs" are intolerant; if your "beliefs" hold that I should be a second-class citizen (or worse); if your "beliefs" are that others should be oppressed using the civil law, I have no duty as a tolerant individual to tolerate them. In fact, it is completely the opposite - to be morally consistent in my demand for tolerance, I have a duty to oppose intolerance, even if that requires being "intolerant". To say that one should tolerate intolerance is as morally bereft as the cries of the pacifist who demands that violence be met with passivity. There is nothing wrong with being intolerant of intolerance - racists, sexists, anti-semitists, and homophobes should be relegated to the fringes of society where they belong.

Another example is claiming, in defence against the charge that they are attempting to legislate morality, that their opponents are also trying to legislate morality by, say, changing the definition of marriage to include same sex couples. (Their counterparts a couple of generations ago fumed equally about changing the definition of marriage to allow divorce; their counterparts in the United States did so when the definition was changed to include interracial marriage.) But this flaim is absolutly faulty on its surface, and here's why:

The belief that the government should not impose morality, is not imposing morality, no more than refusing to tolerate intolerance is wrong. It is completely inconsistent to claim that a belief in the moral neutrality of government is itself a moral judgment, just as it is inconsistent to claim that atheism is a religion. As atheism is, by definition, the absence of religion, so to is the moral neutrality of government a committment to amorality.

This does not mean that the citizen of a country are amoral, or that the members of the government are amoral. What is means it that the government itself, as a body, will not make moral judgments.

Some will say that protecting people against murder or theft is a moral judgment. I could not disagree more - that is simply the government performing its duty, and its duty is the safety of its citizens. That is why it exists - not to enforce moral rules, but to protect people.

Remaining morally neutral on questions of conscience is the best way to ensure social harmony. This is why the government should not legislate against abortion, nor should it make moral decisions about sexuality, nor should it decide who can and cannot get married, nor should it criminalize those who choose to speak virulently against gay people, or even black people or Jews. The cultural left must concede that last point, because again, the government should not side with their point or view no more than it should side with the cultural right's.

So no, allowing gay people to get married along with straight people is not "imposing" morality; nor is allowing abortion; nor is allowing responsible drug use; nor is allowing any form of consensual sex (even if paid for). The government in all of the above cases is quite explicitly leaving the question of morality to its citizens to decide without its interference and meddling - and that is exactly the way it should be.

(Cross-posted at Centrerion)

I endorse Scott Brison

I suppose this was a long time coming.

My decision to endorse Mr. Brison was a completely personal one. There is no way that I can generalize my experiences and political views to such a point where writing a formal endorsement will sway too many people to the cause, unless they share my particular views. But I will try.

What it comes down to is that, of the eleven candidates currently running to be Liberal leader, the one with whom I share a spot on the political spectrum is Scott Brison.

I am fiscally centrist; I don't support the right-wing dogma of tax-cuts, cutting social spending, and "government is evil (unless it's being used to oppress gays or pot-smokers)", nor do I support the left-wing dogma that all social spending is good, the more things run by the government the better, and corporations are supremely evil. I think it is dangerous to manage an economy from an ideological point of view - the American government is currently doing this, and their deficit and debt are reaching staggeringly high levels. The left-wing policies of Trudeau left Canada with a huge debt, but so too did the right-wing policies of Mr. Harris end up leaving Ontario with a large deficit (which they hid from the voters, lying about the state of Ontario's finances until the bitter end, obviously aware that they were going to lose the election, and they could try to blame it on McGuinty's Liberals.) Governing from either of the "wings" on fiscal matters is not sound economic policy.

I think the GST cut was garbage as economic policy, and I like the fact that Scott has had the courage to stand up and say that he would reverse it and bring in some tax cuts that would actually stimulate the economy. I find his promises to be innovative; I like that he tries to find new ways of doing things, to save money, which can then be used in more productive ways.

On foreign policy, I am distinctly to the right of most of my fellow Liberals, and I neither hide this nor am I ashamed of it. I support the continued presence of Canada in Afghanistan, and I am proud of Mr. Brison for not pulling a John Kerry, who lest we forget, "voted for it" before he "voted against it". That line made me cringe coming from Kerry (and it probably cost him the election) and I don't like hearing it from the other contenders. Brison and Ignatieff are supporting perfectly defensible positions, especially considering that their positions are identical to the position taken by the Liberal government as late as January and February of 2006, a position I wholly supported, and a position, if I recall, supported by most Liberals. To be fair to some like Mr. Dion, I am aware that some Liberals voted against the Afghanistan extension because Harper was using it to play politics. But the fact that the prime minister was using Canadian troops to divide the Liberal Party is no reason to play into his hands - in fact, it doesn't make sense to play into his hands like that. I know that Dion supports the Canadian presence in Afghanistan, I just wish he'd shown that support in the House of Commons when the vote was called.

Finally, the most important issues to me are social/cultural issues. This is just who I am - I see as the gravest of injustices the unnecessary restrictions governments places upon the freedom of their citizens. All of the candidates endorse same-sex marriage, and that's good, but I have to wonder about their support for other things. For example, legalizing marijuana - currently, an insufferable amount of non-violent, all-around good people are charged every year in this country for possession of a drug that is less harmful than alcohol and less addictive than tobacco. Some are in jail for it. It's not right, it's not fair, and it's patently unjust. It's also unfair and unjust that women (and men) who choose to trade sexual acts for money can be charged criminally for doing so, as can their clients. And it's completely unjust that the only protection these sex workers can get is from pimps, often violent, or worse. They should be able to get protection from police and government, not the exploitative scum of society. Even if some of the other candidates pay lip service to social issues (and to my knowledge no one really has talked about social issues yet) Brison has talked the talk when the talk meant something, when it wasn't just a popular political position to take. As a Progressive Conservative, since 1997, he was for same-sex marriage - remember that in 1999 a majority of Liberals voted for a Reform Party motion against same-sex marriage - for legalizing marijuana, etc. So I think the best chance of any movement being made on these issues is under a Brison government.

That's really all there is to it. If you agree with Scott's positions, if you match him (and myself) on the political spectrum, I would encourage you to vote for him. If you don't, there's really not much I can do to change your views.

Hooray, I guess

Some good news for you masochistic queers who are still Christians for some reason. Presbyterians have opened the door on gay clergy. And the US Episcopal church (isn't it funny that there's an American branch of the church Henry VIII created so he could get some?) has ruled out banning gay bishops.

Doesn't mean anything to me, but I know a lot of gay people are religious despite the obvious difficulties they face. Congrats, people. (But I still don't get you.)

I'm scared

Yeah, it's a light day; I just can't think of anything to talk about. So, here's a picture of Tori Spelling, looking like she wants to devour my soul. Do you find it as frightening as I do? Discuss.

The results thus far...

Well, I've already got 147 votes in my poll, so I figure I may as well post the results as of now. (If anything substantial changes, I'll update it again.) And by the way: go vote!

First Ballot:
Stephane Dion - 24.5%
Bob Rae - 22.4%
Scott Brison - 19.0%
Michael Ignatieff - 16.3%
Ken Dryden - 9.5%
Gerard Kennedy - 8.2%

Second Ballot:
Stephane Dion - 26.5%
Bob Rae - 24.5%
Scott Brison - 19.0%
Michael Ignatieff - 18.4%
Ken Dryden - 11.6%

Third Ballot:
Stephane Dion - 30.6%
Bob Rae - 25.2%
Scott Brison - 23.8%
Michael Ignatieff - 20.4%

Fourth Ballot:
Stephane Dion - 37.4%
Scott Brison - 34.0%
Bob Rae - 28.6%

Fifth Ballot:
Scott Brison - 51.7%
Stephane Dion - 48.3%

I'll withhold comment for now, except to say that for a considerable period yesterday Dion was taking it easily on the third or even second ballots. I don't know what happened.

Shades of Coulter

So, let me get this straight: a bunch of ruffians beat up a kid, the school makes a stupid decision not to punish them, and suddenly "liberals" like to beat up children? I wasn't aware a ten year old was capable of having such well-defined political beliefs.

Political discourse has reached a new low when you actually accuse "liberals" of beating up children. But that's exactly what this hack is claiming. "Liberals in Lexington Massachusetts have taken to beating up the seven year old children of their political opponents," pontificates this buffoon. Charming. Liberals like to beat up children, cutting edge, really.

Of course, this is hardly surprising considering the kinds of things that get said all the time about "liberals" by conservative blowhards; it's just a logical progression. First, liberals are "hysterical." (Though the irony is, the guy who wrote that blather is acting with quite the case of hysteria.) Then they're "traitors" and "godless" (thanks Ms. Coulter!) In Canada they're "corrupt." And now they, yes, "beat up children."

How low are these guys going to go? Apparently, as low as they can. As "Mr. Nasty" (read the article and you'll get it) himself concludes: "But then again liberals don't believe in absolutes, morality, or the law - so why should we be surprised?" Wow. Clever. Never heard that one before. At least his "liberals beat up children" line was actually somewhat original.

As to his implication that the school didn't punish those kids for political reasons, I can tell you from personal experience that is baseless - I got beat up in elementary school enough times to know that school administrators are quite often horribly in remiss of their duties when it comes to disciplining children for things like that.

Anyway, I wonder if Mr. Nasty gets as indignant as he is here when gay kids are beaten up for being gay? (Or straight kids are beat up for being gay for that matter?) Somehow I tend to doubt it - at least, I doubt he's written columns about it in which he asks for donations to a legal fund.

Whatever happened to "rugged individualism?"

Tim Harper has a great piece in the Star today about the decreasing levels of freedom in the United States. It's a very in depth piece, and it contrasts the state slogan of New Hampshire, "Live Free or Die," with the new reality in the United States - a reality where people live in fear of terror and are willing to sacrifice their freedom.

The Big Six

By now it must be obvious that there are really only six candidates capable of winning the Liberal leadership - Scott Brison, Stephane Dion, Ken Dryden, Michael Ignatieff, Gerard Kennedy and Bob Rae. I've decided to add my own little contribution to the litany of leadership polls using Demo Choice's preferential ballot system. Head on over and vote. Sorry to all you Volpe-backers (I know there's a whole lot of you), but I've seen polls like this sabotoged by Conservatives who like to vote for Volpe as a means of skewing the results.

Brison news

Two pieces of news regarding Scott Brison. First of all, he's promised that a Liberal government led by him would revoke the Conservatives' GST cut. Calling the cut "dumb and gutless," he noted that it makes no sense from an economic or social standpoint, only a political one. He says he would instead direct the money to an income tax benefit that will make working more appealing to lower-income Canadians.

"I've seen time and time again where people can explain to me why they are better off on social assistance than if they take a minimum wage job and that's not right socially, morally or economically,'' he said, according to CP.

"And you can't blame those people if taking a minimum wage job means that they are going to be bringing home less money to their family. They are simply making a rational choice when faced with an irrational policy.''

In addition, his old rival Peter MacKay got a shot in as well, saying, "It's poorly thought-out economic policies like that that I think will contribute to his failed leadership bid."

And second, he's picking up solid financial support from the east coast business community.

The captains of East Coast industry are quietly lining up to offer their financial support to Scott Brison, Nova Scotia's dark-horse candidate in the federal Liberal leadership race.

Attracted by promises of cuts to corporate taxes, the province's business elite is showing unusual solidarity in their support of the former Tory MP from the Annapolis Valley.

"There was a certain reluctance in the past to be seen to be supporting anybody,'' said John Risley, Canada's leading fishery tycoon. "People would rather be doing it covertly and behind the scenes.

"There's less reticence about that today ... It's the responsibility of the business community to give him a boost.''

Source. Well, Mr. MacKay, his poorly thought-out economic policies seem to be fairly popular with the business community. I wonder why that is...

THIS will freak you out while high...

Just trust me on this one.

Or, you know... don't.

But either way, wow. Add in the fact that I, as a rule, avoid sunlight whenever possible, and we have the makings of the nightmare from which I'll be awakening in a cold sweat tonight.

Colbert skewers another victim

It's funneh!

The hilarious thing to me is that my agnostic self can name all ten commandments, and this putz, who claims that if we were without them we might lose a "sense of direction" can only name three - don't murder, don't lie and don't steal (ie: the most obvious ones).

For the record, the others are:
No other god before me, 'cause I get jealous easily
Honour mom and dad, even if they beat ya
Every sunday has to be boring
Don't say "Jesus" unless you mean it
Don't covet your neighbour's wife
Don't covet your neighbour's goods
(And ESPECIALLY don't covet your neighbour's wife's goods), and finally
Don't build things that look like things.

All CLEARLY rules that we have to obey in order to be good people.

The Volpe Award

I'll always call my own guys on bullshit. Apparently, Monte Solberg believes that immigrants from countries which do not use Latin alphabets (Asia, eastern Europe, etc.) should receive special attention when it comes to teaching them English or French. Denis Coderre thinks that this makes him a racist.

Congratulations, M. Coderre! You have officially made a more ridiculous comment than Joe Volpe's "Conservative Klan" comment regarding the "Libranos" poster.

For those of you who claim my blog is one-issue...

I have seen some gay things in my life. This is far and away without contest the gayest.

Some added commentary, the song is one of those songs that, if written at the right time, like during the 70's, would have been just a big inside joke among the gay community, that no one else got. Like the YMCA was originally. And In the Navy. And just the Village People in general.

Using government to stamp out your enemies...

So Stephen Harper is trying to make it illegal for anyone who has donated more than $5 to the Liberal Party this year to attend the leadership convention as a delegate.

Words escape me.

NDP-Liberal coalition?

Hey, it's worked before. Ontario was governed from 1985-1987 by an enormously popular Liberal-NDP coalition led by David Peterson and Bob Rae. Now Nova Scotia Liberal leader Francis Mackenzie is floating the idea of propping up Darrell Dexter, the NDP opposition leader. As premier Rodney Macdonald's Conservatives only won a minority government, this is distinctly possible.

But let's look at the downside for the Liberals - if the NDP-Liberal government is popular, they risk getting hit the same way Rae did in 1987, when people credited Peterson with the popular moves the government had made, and rewarded him with a huge majority government. Nevertheless, the alternative is another two or so years of Conservative rule for Nova Scotia. If Dexter's looking to be premier, he should jump at the deal - two years from now, he can turn his minority into a majority, or lose it entirely. But what's he got to lose?

Oh, Danny boy

Danny Williams has long been one of my favourite Canadian leaders. Here's a good reason why.

Gerard Kennedy - burnt too bright?

There's been some discussion in my comments section about Brison's chances vis-a-vis Kennedy's. To expound, some (like myself) think he has as good a chance as Kennedy of winning; others think Kennedy has a much better chance.

I don't know about that, though. Kennedy runs the risk of being the victim of high expectations; some are wondering exactly what that initial enthusiasm for him was all about, including me. He's still a good candidate, but to be frank he's not even in my top 5. (Which consists of Brison, Dion, Ignatieff, Rae and Hall-Findlay, not necessarily in that order.)

As a result of this, however, Kennedy does have a disadvantage that a candidate like Brison (or Dryden or Dion) doesn't have - people have very high expectations of Kennedy, and whenever he fails to meet them, it will be considered a negative; likewise, when he meets them, it will be par for the course. On the other hand, Brison, Dion and Dryden, have much more room to work, and can easily exceed expectations, as I felt both Dion and Dryden (but especially Dion) did this weekend. In fact, Dion's placement in my top 5 is entirely because of what I saw in the debate.

(As for Brison, I felt that while he did not exceed, he met my expectations, but I'm kind of biased, and I have been following him since his days as a Progressive Conservative, so my expectations are fairly high to begin with.)

Kennedy-backers better hope that their guy starts out-performing the big boys (Iggy, namely, but also Rae, and now Dion) if they want him to make it to the final ballot.

It's time to narrow the race

Okay, Carolyn, Maurizio, Joe, and Hedy. None of you have any realistic chance of actually winning this leadership convention; Volpe until very recently was the most likely among you, that's saying something.

It's not that you're bad candidates. Far from it; Ms. Bennett's got some great ideas about democratic reform, Mr. Bevilacqua is a very smart man, Ms. Fry is our Liz Taylor and a passionate advocate of social and activist liberalism, and Mr. Volpe... well... he really hates Stephen Harper. (And Michael Ignatieff, apparently.)

But the hard fact is, we need to have an actual leadership debate, between the candidates who stand a chance (and Ms. Hall-Findlay, because let's face it, she's fantastic, and if there's going to be a dark horse, it should be her) so that we can better narrow down our choices. You've all made your points - Ms. Bennett, we need democratic reform; Mr. Bevilacqua, you'd make a great finance minister; Ms. Fry, we need to be passionate; Mr. Volpe, you really hate Stephen Harper. (And Michael Ignatieff.)

You guys probably won't even really have enough delegates to play kingmaker, and even if you do, you're going to be knocked off so early that picking a candidate to kingmake, as it were, is going to be a gamble anyway, because your votes won't be enough to put them over the top. You may as well just get out now and make that gamble early. Get behind a winner and secure your cabinet job, post haste! (I do want most of you to be in the next cabinet.)

It's time for Volpe to fall on the sword; he should probably refrain from endorsing anybody, actually. As for the rest of you, you can't take it this time; maybe next time. But for now, we need to get some good discussion going. And 11-candidate debates are just insane logistically.

/geek

Yep, it's a slow day... Kudos to Messrs. Pig and Swine.

Uh... huh...

Liberal leadership debate fails to ignite.

Liberal debate in Winnipeg a heated affair.

Oy...

Bigotry

Chantal Hebert has a great column in the Star today relating her experiences as an obviously French Canadian during the 1970 October Crisis. A great read, check it out.

Go Garth!

Well, at least some Conservatives aren't afraid to call it like it is and stand up to their bigotted base.

“I have no time for groups in our society who try to force their morals, or their culture, on the rest of us." - Garth Turner

Turner has also labelled those who share right-wing anti-gay activist Charles McVety's views as "people who share his divine Kool-Aid," "single-issue monochromatic militants," and "religious vigilantes."

Cross the floor, Garth!

Moral Cowardice

If Rahim Jaffer sat in the House of Commons in support of a party which sought to pass a bill saying that Arabs are not allowed to marry, he would have a duty to explain to Arabs why he was doing such a thing. If Diane Finley, or Carol Skelton, or Diane Ablonczy, or any female MP were standing in the House of Commons in support of a government which sought to roll back women's rights, they would have a duty to explain to the women of Canada why they were doing such a thing. If the Liberal government had, god-forbid, gone crazy and decided to pass a law saying that black people are no longer allowed to marry white people, Jean Augustine would have had a duty to either defect from that government, or stand and explain to all black people in Canada why she was supporting that government. Or if that same government had passed a law saying that Jews aren't allowed to marry, Irwin Cotler would have a duty to explain to Canada's Jews why he continued to support that government. And on and on. Surely this is just common sense.

Why is it, then, that John Baird, a gay man, should get off with a free pass on this? Why shouldn't he face the gay community and explain to them why he's supporting a party whose official policy towards gay people is that they ought to be relegated to second-class status? No self-respecting Jew would stand in support of a party which sought to make Jews second-class citizens, nor would any self-respecting Arab, woman, black person, Muslim, etc. stand in support of a party which sought to roll back their rights. Why should it be any different for gay people?

As it stands, Bill Graham, Pierre Pettigrew and Dominic Agostino, three (allegedly in the case of the first two) closeted politicians can be excused outing themselves because they are /were not supporting parties which sought to roll back the clock on gay rights. They have nothing to explain; they don't have to justify their actions.

I know gay Conservatives (the fact that they exist never ceases to baffle me) like to slander Scott Brison for jumping ship, sometimes calling him "ambitious" (apparently a bad thing now) or a coward for not "staying and fighting." But the point is, why should he have to fight in one party when another party was willing to accept him with open arms? That's not cowardice - it's self-respect. Is a battered wife a coward if she leaves her husband instead of staying and trying to make it work? Baird is a moral coward for refusing to justify his support of Stephen Harper and his hostile stance towards gay people. You want to talk about ambition? How does betraying yourself and everyone like you to your own ambition work for you? You want to talk cowardice? How about being so afraid of your own party's base to stand up for your rights and the rights of everyone like you?

So online polls aren't THAT accurate...

Who cares, they're fun! Plus, they can serve as a nice comparison to the more official level of support candidates have. (Michael Ignatieff currently has over a quarter of the caucus supporting him, for example, yet in this poll he's not even above the 10% mark.) Head over and vote in this one, a very impressive preferential ballot for the Liberal leadership. As it stands, first ballot results have Rae on top with 24.3%, then Kennedy with 18.6%, Volpe with 14.2%, Stephane Dion at 10.5%, Ignatieff at 8.1%, and Brison at 6.5%; with Bob Rae taking it on the final ballot with 55.5%, against Gerard Kennedy's 44.5%.

Moderate Muslims ask for help against radicals

A coalition of eight Canadian Muslims associations are asking for help from the government to combat the radicals within their own community.

Good for them. I have in the past criticized Muslims for not standing up and speaking out against the radicalism within their own community. This is a step in the right direction for them.

Thanks Jack

Jack Layton celebrates the third anniversary of same-sex marriage in Canada.

Layton has been a supporter of same-sex marriage since the 1970's, and shirking partisanship for a moment, I issue my most heartfelt thanks to him for supporting my rights long before I was even born.

Boy isn't this quite the topic, lately?

Witness John Stewart destroying a hapless Bill Bennett in a debate on gay marriage.

From Crooks and Liars' comments, "I think for most of us-we're so used to these right wing talking heads debating against lame duck liberals on television that always get bull dozed by personalities such as Bennett; we are then amazed how effortlessly Stewart handles these guys." It is amazing, and it is certainly a depressing reminder of just how pathetically the left-of-centre and even centrist views in the United States are represented. I can count on one hand the pundits who are able to stand up to blowhards like O'Reilly, Bennett and Coulter; namely, Jon Stewart and Al Franken, and occassionally James Carville.

Stewart puts it so well. Observe the following exchange:

Bennett: Look, it's a debate about whether you think marriage is between a man and a women.

Stewart: I disagree, I think it's a debate about whether you think gay people are part of the human condition or just a random fetish.

Perfect, no?

Moving on, love him or hate him (and a lot of people on both sides of the political spectrum do both) Andrew Sullivan is really at his most eloquent when advocating on this issue:

"Having attended [a gay wedding] last year and basically bawled through the whole thing, I know [how life-altering it is]. It is life-altering; it is ennobling; it's experientially more intense than anything most gay people have ever experienced. It heals emotional wounds many gay people don't even know we bear. And that's why some want to keep it from us. They want to keep us from those feelings of being one with our own families; they want to keep us outside the society we grew up in; they want to deny us the love and support heterosexuals take for granted. Marriage humanizes gay people and shows us in the context of love and commitment, rather than merely sex. This corrodes the far right's attempt to portray us as "subhuman" or "objectively disordered" or "sinners". That's why they are so adamant on keeping us as second class citizens. But we have to trust the good sense and ultimate tolerance of most Americans. They have every right to be leery of such a change; and we have a duty to explain and argue and persuade them why they're wrong. Person by person, state by state. But it's great, I might add, to be getting so much support from so many straight people as well. Thanks, Jon Stewart. We won't forget who stood with us in this."

Finally, the gay marriage ban that the far-right is trying to get passed in the Senate failed. It wasn't even close:

"A July 7, 2006 cloture vote on the amendment failed in the Senate 49-48. Sixty votes in favor of cloture were needed to move the bill forward and force a vote on the amdenment's passage in the Senate, which would have required a two-thirds majority."

Even with a much-increased majority in the Senate, the Republicans couldn't even get the numbers on that vote to budge from the last time they did it knowing it would fail (in 2004, conveniently also an election year.)

Oh, I wish they were voting on gay marriage in the House of Commons right now, too. It would be so wonderful to watch that one crash and burn as well.

Sullivan "pod-fisks" George Bush

This is brilliant. And pleasant to listen to; British people should talk more.

In his own words

Michael Ignatieff talks about liberal internationalism and defeating the NDP in British Columbia:

"I tell the crowd how pleased I am to have two good internationalists on the team, and I make the point that we need to re-invent liberal internationalism for the times we're in. With peace-keeping, Mike Pearson created the association between liberalism and international engagement. We need to renew this vision for the 21st century: peace-making, but also peace-building in tough environments like Afghanistan; promotion of good government in our aid policies; and most important of all, environmental stewardship.

I then speak to the Presidents of most of the riding associations in BC. They want to know how the party is going to beat the NDP. How about pointing out that by bringing down the Liberals, they torpedoed Kelowna, destroyed day care and early childhood learning, and sank a budget that had committed to reduce income tax on the lowest bracket to 15 percent! At the next election, we need to remind Liberals who 'parked' their votes with the NDP that it is time to come home."

More here.

Going after the NDP is a good idea - we need to win back those votes that the NDP took from us in the last two campaigns, particularly the last one. We need to convince left-leaning voters that the Liberal Party is the only party that is capable of standing up to the Conservatives, and that fleeing to the NDP just allows the Conservatives to win in a lot of ridings. In my own riding, Peterborough ON, the Liberals lost to the Conservatives a seat held by the party since 1993 because so many potential Liberal voters instead voted for the NDP - the NDP in this riding experienced a massive increase in votes - allowing the Conservative to win by a couple thousand votes.

Also, his comments on liberal internationalism show that he is still committed to that principle. He mentions Canadian involvement in Darfur (in a round-about way) which makes me wonder whether an Ignatieff government would indeed send troops there. Personally I hope so; the region threatens to become another Rwanda, which is the last thing we want.

Verbatim

So I'm told that the Conservatives are really tolerant of gay people. No really! *ahem* From my comments section:

"Is Baird realy a fag he should lose his cabinet post if he is. Homo's always have an alterier motive and can only complain." (sic)

This is of course in reference to the President of the Treasury Board, John Baird (or "Uncle Tom" as he is known to some.)

Two questions:

1) Does the fact that Baird is still semi-closeted have anything to do with what party he's in? (Given comments like that, I think it does!)

2) Will he be speaking on this fall's anti-gay legislation, perhaps make an appeal to his fellow Conservatives that he deserves the same rights that they enjoy? (I'll bet not.)

Make no mistake, the right opposes ALL gay rights

While in Canada the debate is often sugar-coated, in the US you get a more clear picture of what happens when equal rights for gays and lesbians is not the national law of the land. While Conservatives here say they oppose gay marriage but support "civil unions," the fact of the matter is, they don't really support those either - civil unions are just the least they can get away with. If they had their way, they'd be making like this group and instead leading an organized campaign to eliminate sexual orientation from anti-discrimination laws (and, incidentally, Harper and his Canadian Alliance voted against including sexual orientation in the first place, just to drive that point home.) But Canadians are a more tolerant people, and would not accept such obvious displays of bigotry from the Conservatives. So the Conservatives camoflage their bigotry, saying in Orwellian fashion that their civil union plan is just as "equal" as the law which currently exists, which is already as equal as you can get.

The anti-gay movement in the US and the anti-gay movement in Canada share as their motivation sheer, hateful, neurotic, sub-intellectual bigotry against gay people. The fact that they're pushing for different things legally at the moment doesn't mean they both don't want the exact same thing as their end result. Pat O'Brien and Grant Hill want nothing less than the exact same thing James Dobson and Jerry Falwell want - to set the clock back fifty years, force gays back into the closet under fear of discrimination, physical violence or worse, take away all of the legal and social advances the gay civil rights movement has made, and return to a time where a gay person dying in a hospital died alone, instead of with their life-long partner at their side, because that partner isn't "family" and has no way of becoming so.

THAT is why Tony Blair's civil unions (or John Kerry's proposed ones) are different from Stephen Harper's. Blair did it out a desire to extend rights to gays and lesbians. Harper wants civil unions to take away rights already extended.

The forces of HELL?

"As you all very well know, marriage is under vicious attack now, I think from the forces of hell itself." - Looney McRightwing

I have a sudden urge to go "MWAHAHAHAHA!"

The Fight Against Evil (TM) continues...

Unconstitutional?

Apparently the Accountability Act is unconstitutional.

"Yesterday, [House of Commons law clerk Rob] Walsh singled out as problematic three sections of the bill dealing with rules for cabinet ministers and parliamentary secretaries that would prevent them from voting on, or even debating, a question that would put them in a conflict of interest.

The ministers and secretaries could be penalized by courts if they contravened the new law.

The chief law clerk says the bill confuses the roles of cabinet ministers with their roles as MPs, whose independence from court review has been established since the English Bill of Rights in the 17th century."

Yikes. I'd get on that, boys.

Batwoman burn

"And for all the right-wingers upset because a fictional character in a fictional universe won't sleep with them - don't worry, there's plenty of real life women that won't sleep with you either - that doesn't mean they're lesbians, mind you, they belong to a subset of heterosexuals called 'women of discriminating tastes'..."

Owned.

Can Iggy be Stopped?

He's got a quarter of the caucus, and according to Don Newman's politics, that's only the declared number. I'm not one of those Stop Iggy types - I happen to think he'd make a good leader and a great prime minister - but I do have to wonder whether any of the other candidates can still beat someone who has so much support, especially with heavyweights like Denis Coderre, Ruby Dhalla and John McCallum behind him, all three of whom were rumoured possible contenders themselves. Thus far, the following MPs are declared supporters of Ignatieff:

Mauril Bélanger, John Cannis, Denis Coderre, Rodger Cuzner, Jean-Claude D'Amours, Ruby Dhalla, Wayne Easter, Raymonde Folco, Albina Guarnieri, Susan Kadis, Derek Lee, John Maloney, John McCallum, Joe McGuire, John McKay, Stephen Owen, Jim Peterson, Marcel Proulx, Geoff Regan, Pablo Rodriguez, Raymond Simard, Paul Szabo, Robert Thibault, Roger Valley, Paul Zed.

That's pretty impressive, and more than all of the other candidates combined.

More Polling

Oh polls, how we all love and hate and hate to love and love to hate you.

Tories - 38
Liberals - 29
NDP - 21
Bloc - 8

That's within striking distance, though still uncomfortably behind for the Liberals. Breaking 20 for the NDP is probably the bigger threat to the Liberals, since they take away left-leaning votes in English Canada. Given that the Tories are poised to make inroads in Quebec - which is where most of their recently increased support is coming from, not Ontario - we need to hold our base and recover in English Canada to keep them on the ropes, and the NDP being that high is not good.

But the Bloc at 8% is certainly a happy development.

Killing for God

You know, the funny thing is, right-wing Christians go nuts when they see Janet Jackson's tit. They shout and cry, "What'll we tell the children!?" when they see violence on television, in movies, and in video games, and do everything in their power to ruin it for those of us who enjoy a bit of the more banal aspects of entertainment.

And yet they're very excited about the new Left Behind video game, based on the popular book series of the same name. For the record, this is a book series whose main character is a virgin male over the age of 30 - not for any particular reason, just because he apparently "never had time" to lose his virginity... right... - whose anti-Christ is actually the spawn of a gay couple. Okay?

The basic premise of the game puts kids in the role of a crusader for God, killing unbelievers and seeing all sorts of gruesome things, like rotting corpses in the streets of New York City. Oh, I take my pot of hypocrisy black, with two kettles. But more to the point, does this remind you, as it does me, of those games you can apparently find in the Arab world where the goal is to kill Jews and whatnot?

I hate this town...

So last night I just had everything I've ever thought about my home re-confirmed for me, as I sat at a bar listening to an overweight white guy bitch and complain about the black people (both of them) who live here. It's a good thing I already had a drink, because after that, I needed one.

And now, more conservative wisdom...

Verbatim:

"When I heard that Canada’s finest police force the Royal Canadian Mounted Police is allowing to male officers to get married I was shocked.

This is a bad decision and this is sending the wrong message to our children telling them that homosexuality is a healthy relationship.

Where is Stephan Harper when you need him this is what he ran on does he have the stones do keep his promise or is this another one of his famous flip-flops.

Pretty soon the pedophiles will want their rights too where does this stop.

Canada is going down fast.

I was watching the news today and the gays and lesbians tried to have a gay pride march in Moscow Russia it did not last long because the people showed them what they thought about them.

I hope that Stephen Harper can bring forward the free vote on same sex marriage before the summer break so the law can be overturned."

Beautiful. Just beautiful.