Were we Fooled Twice?

You know what they say... "Fool me once, shame on you.  Fool me twice, SHAME ON ME."

Of course, not on me personally, but on ALL OF US, the entire province of Ontario, collectively... or at least those who actually believed and voted for Mr. McGuinty when he said that this time, he really, really, REALLY, wouldn't raise our taxes.

Well guess what?  Queen's Park is looking to add on an extra set of "fees" on to the cost of computers, laptops, and TV's.  You could call it a "Technology Premium"... sorta like a "Health Premium", I guess.

Translation?  TAX INCREASE.

"Recycling fees of $10 for TVs and up to $13 for computers would be charged on all new sales under the proposal being given to Ontario's environment minister for approval today."

Hey Ontario, guess what?  Yep, looks like we're gonna get hosed... AGAIN.  Did we actually believed that they would keep their word THIS TIME?  I didn't, and many of us didn't, but no one would listen.  Some of us said that they'd find a way to do it, and guess what... looks like they have.

For the record, I don't care how little the increase is, and this isn't likely going to cost me a penny for the next few years, but it's the principle that I'm talking about... they said that this time, we could really trust them, that they weren't going to raise taxes if they were re-elected.

It's a tax... yet another tax folks, and you know what?  It's quite possible that they knew this was coming down the pipes when they once again made their promises not to raise taxes this time... I quote again from the Toronto Star article...

"Last year, the province asked Waste Diversion Ontario to come up with a way to reduce the tens of thousands of tonnes of electronics being dumped in landfills every year, which wastes valuable resources and unsafely disposes of toxic components."

Last year?  When, exactly, was that?  Was that before the last election?  One would assume that a report of this nature took some time to develop... so it's very likely that it was initiated prior to last October's provincial election... the election where he promised again not to raise our taxes.

So stop and think about it, just for a second... don't you think that it's likely that the Ontario Liberals would have at least considered that the folks at Waste Diversion Ontario might recommend some sort of fee or levy on consumer goods?

My read on this?  I'm thinking that they intentionally handed off this decision to Waste Diversion Ontario before the last election, in an effort to duck the decision and to give them some political cover once the recommendation came in to impose these levies.

Which would make this whole thing somewhat deceptive, at best.  At worst?  You decide, because I'm not going to go there.

CC in the Layton's Den

Who says I can't be non-partisan?

The LPT - Liberal Party of Toronto

Darryl Wolk has written a fantastic analysis of the current political climate in Canada right now, with a good examination of the current electoral prospects for the Liberal Party of Canada... or, more accurately, the Liberal Party of Toronto.  (which, ironically, used to be known as "Tory Toronto"... my how times have changed)

I know I'll be passing copies of it on to a few folks... nice job Darryl.

Things are heating up in Guelph

All of a sudden, it seems like everyone is paying a lot of attention to Guelph, as sitting (and MIA) Liberal MP Brenda Chamberlain has announced that she's officially stepping down on April 7th.

I've been closely watching the national media for stories about Guelph, with a by-election impending.  (even set up my Google News with Guelph specific news reports)  Wow, talk about a jump in activity... the local paper, the Mercury, of course has a lot of stuff on it, but even the national papers are starting to pay attention to this, until recently, completely unnoticed riding.

Jack Layton even made an appearance in Guelph yesterday, calling on the Prime Minister to call a by-election as soon as possible.  (h/t to Dr. Roy and Joanne)

I think the article on MP's voting record that Mr. Layton and Mr. King refer to is this one from the Ottawa Citizen that I (and others) posted on Thursday.  Here's the specific quote regarding retiring Guelph Liberal MP Brenda Chamberlain:

"Ontario Liberal MP Brenda Chamberlain, who retires next month, has made it to only 10 votes since the session began in October."

Yikes, that's 10 out of 76... a whopping 13%.  Still, she's got a better record than her old boss, former Prime Minister Paul Martin... who registered, or should I say, didn't register, at 0 out of 76... yea, that's zero, zip, zilch, nada.

Which makes Jack's request to Mr. Dion even more interesting... now that Ms. Chamberlain has decided to "Do the right thing" and resign her seat, (by the way, that's Guelph's Liberal candidate Frank Valeriote's campaign slogan) maybe Mr. Dion should be asking his former boss, Prime Minister Paul Martin, to also "Do the right thing" and give up his seat in Montreal for a by-election?

So, Mr. Dion, Jack Layton asked you a question about your absentee MP's... a question that deserves an answer.  Will you "Do the right thing" and ask your MIA MP's like Mr. Martin to resign?  Just asking.

Oops, silly me, I almost forgot, that's a really dumb idea for them right now... we all know that their organization is so shot in Quebec that Mr. Dion can't risk another Outremont fiasco...

Looks like they buried the hatchet

...at least for today.

Prime Minister Harper and Premier McGuinty announce three new federal-provincial initiatives
27 March 2008
Ottawa, Ontario

Prime Minister Stephen Harper and Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty today announced three important initiatives that will support provincial programs that provide assistance for workers and communities who have been negatively affected by the rapid appreciation in the Canadian dollar, softening in the US economy, high oil prices, and intense competition from emerging economies, as well as support for public transit and policing.

Liberal MP's turnout lower than 2006 voter turnout

Ouch... seems that Liberal MP's are, on average, showing up to vote at a lower rate than the Canadian electorate at large. It's a bit ironic, considering they're the ones who like to talk so much about "voter apathy" and such.

So... could one say the Liberals are suffering from "MP apathy"? Or, could you say that it might be more like "Leader apathy"?

Well, let's put it this way... if they'd rather not show up to the House to vote, they should all step aside to allow some fresh new Conservative and NDP MP's report for duty in the House to, you know, do the job we pay them for.

Absent Liberals under fire for giving Tories de facto majority
Official Opposition skips votes to avoid toppling government
Glen McGregor, with files from Elizabeth Thompson, The Ottawa Citizen
Published: Thursday, March 27, 2008

Liberal MPs are casting votes in Parliament at a rate lower than the turnout of Canadian voters who made it to the ballot box in the last federal election.

By choosing to sit out confidence motions that could topple the minority government, Liberal MPs on average participated in only 64 per cent of recorded votes in the House this parliamentary session --just below the 64.7 per cent of eligible voters who cast valid ballots in the 2006 general election, a Citizen analysis shows.

When they did show up for votes, more often than not the Liberals voted in line with the Harper government. More than 60 per cent of votes by Liberals on bills, amendments and motions before the House were in step with the Conservatives. The official Opposition supported the government on extending the Canadian mission in Afghanistan, motions on its centrepiece crime bill, and on other parliamentary arcana, such as a bill regarding the settlement of international investment disputes."

Presidential Family Trees

I find this stuff facinating, how intermingled all the political types are. Kinda scary if you think about it... how "the elite" keep on running our nations. Another reason I like Harper... I haven't seen any connections between him and the powers that be who have run Western nations for generations.

Anyway, CTV has an interesting report on who the current crop of Presidential candidates are distantly related to. Some of the interesting ones...

Obama - Brad Pitt, President George W. Bush, along with former Presidents George Bush Sr., Gerald Ford, Lyndon Johnson, Harry Truman and James Madison, former British Prime Minister Sir Winston Churchill, and interestingly enough, Confederate General Robert E. Lee.

Clinton - Angelina Jolie (kinda a Mr. & Mrs. Smith deal, eh?), Madonna, Camilla Parker-Bowles (Prince Charles' wife), and loads of Canadian connections including Alanis Morissette, Celine Dion and former prime minister Pierre Trudeau.

McCain - sixth cousin to present First Lady Laura Bush

QUEBEC LPC TO REVOKE DION'S MEMBERSHIP?

WHAT THE...?!?!? It looks like the open revolt has begun...

Dion Faces Ouster
Quebec Grits say they'll yank his membership if he doesn't resign
By MATHIEU BELANGER, SUN MEDIA

MONTREAL -- Federal Liberals from Quebec will move to show Stephane Dion the door if he doesn't give up leadership of the party on his own, Sun Media has learned.

Former Liberal candidate Pierre-Luc Bellerose, who ran for the party in Joliette, northeast of Montreal, said dissatisfied members will begin the process to revoke Dion's party membership if he doesn't quit as Liberal leader.

Bellerose has threatened to invoke Article 3.7.1 of the Quebec wing of the federal Liberal party's statutes and regulations to force him [Dion] to resign.

The provisions of this article give the Quebec wing the right to strip a party member of his membership.

He said his strategy is supported by a number of influential members of the party, along with a dozen riding association presidents and a few elected MPs from across Quebec.

Bellerose said he is convinced Dion has lost control over the party in Quebec and the organization is no longer following its leader.

Bellerose said Dion would do everyone a favour by quitting the leadership within the next few weeks, which would allow the party to choose a new leader and regain strength over the summer to prepare for a potential fall election."

Okay guys, my question is this... HOW DO WE PULL THE TRIGGER ASAP?!?!?

Another election trigger?

Honestly? I'm expecting this to pass... which of course, would invoke Murphy's Laws, which means that it will fail, and the House will fall. (Boy this gets more and more confusing... of course, we're talking about the Liberals, so who knows what's going to happen... according to the article, they don't even know yet.)

The government has attached an immigration bill to the Budget implementation motion... not to force an election, but to ensure it gets passed expidetiously. As an immigrant, I can see the sense in this legislation... it's directly related to how my family got into this country, as the Government was actively looking to bring in people with my dad's skillset at the time. (thanks Mr. Trudeau... I guess)

Anyway, it's gonna pass, I don't see what all the fuss is about. I've resigned myself to an October 2009 vote, and a de facto majority until then. It just means that we have to go through all this hooping and hollering by the Liberals every single time before our stuff gets passed, that's all. If you ask me, it's a small price to pay in the interest of cleaning up the mess they left us in.

Talk Radio and Tory Talking Points

Seems that the Liberal Party, err, I mean the media, has uncovered another nefarious plot by the Conservative Party... to take over talk radio!

Yes, that's right... the Conservative Party of Canada has set up a section on their website where interested persons can find all the information they need to locate and call into their local talk radio station's call in shows.  And what's more, they're even providing some basic Party viewpoints for these callers!

Oh horror of horrors!  They're informing the Party faithful of our basic policy views, and making it easy for them to contact their local media!  Whatever shall we do to stop this infernal plot to take over yet another piece of Canada... the realm of talk radio!

For the record, I've called into various talk radio shows over the years, and have had my opinions and Letters to the Editors published in local and national newspapers on multiple occasions... and have never once used "the talking points".  My opinions are my own... and in my opinion, if someone has to read from talking points when they call in to a radio show, they shouldn't be calling in the first place... cause the on air host is likely gonna eat them alive if they don't know their stuff.

Anyway, the site in question just provides people with another means to get involved at their local level... why is that such a big deal?  I thought personal involvement in the democratic process by citizens was something to be ENCOURAGED... guess I was wrong.  Silly me... why on earth would we want to encourage Conservative minded folks to be more involved?

Because as we all know, Liberal = GOOD, Conservative = BAD.

The NDP's Credit Card Fee Reduction Kit

Now this is interesting... the NDP is putting out a "Credit Card Fee Reduction Kit" to everyone on their e-mail list... I got mine today.  Have you got yours?

You've got to give them some "credit" (ha ha) for this though, in their continued efforts to portray themselves as the Party of "the working class".  This initiative is one that could get people's attention as being something that will have a positive impact on their daily lives... and if done right, could get some people actually taking another look at today's NDP.

Nice move guys.

Getting more and more disgusted with the "right"

I'm really starting to get sick of this garbage... you know, the folks who claim to be supporting "freedom of speech", and then bring things down into the gutter with personal and baseless attacks like this.

John West, if that's even his real name, is the kind of guy who makes me wish I wasn't aligned with the "conservative" movement.  Get a load of this disgusting shot he takes at Warren over on the Doggeral's blog...

John West said...

 

Don't be too hard on Kinsella. Rumor has it that his father died at Auschwitz. Apparently, he got drunk and fell out of the gun tower. ;0)

 

3/23/2008 11:36:00 AM

Oh, you think you're funny dude?  Well guess what... you're not.  That was a disgusting comment, and completely unwarranted.  Everyone know's Warren's dad died of cancer, thanks to the tobacco industry.  Your sickening personal attack on Warren, via his father, who he dearly loved and still misses very much, was WAY OUT OF LINE.

To be honest, I've been disgusted with a growing number of posts I've seen on the blogroll lately... pretty much every post I see on this issue, for the record.  Most of them seem to be nothing more than another Warren bashing session, which all seem to delve down into the gutter of personal attacks... when the irony is, I tend to agree more with Warren on this issue than anyone else.

Yes, I'm an advocate of LIMITED free speech... I don't believe that anyone, ANYONE, has the right to say that anyone from any race is better than, or lesser than, anyone from any other race.  We are all created in the image of God, and as such, are inherently equal to one another... we're all cousins in the human race.

And yes, I agree with Warren in that anyone who publicly advocates any form of racism deserves to be locked up... for stupidity, if nothing else.

Racism is a cancerous tumour that needs to be rooted out of our society.  I support the aims and objectives of everyone who seeks this goal... and I oppose anyone who does not agree with this view, even if they only claim that they're supporting "free speech".

(And yes, I recognize that some people may see a conflict in my views on this one, since I believe, for example, that Muslims, Hindus and Catholics are wrong when it comes to their faiths.  Here's how that works... I believe that we are all equal as persons in the eyes of God.  However, I believe that there can only be one Truth when it comes to faith, as each of these faiths have elements that are mutually exclusive... basically, they can't all be true.  I also believe, however, that everyone is entitled to believe as they wish... regardless of how wrong I may think they are.  Hope that makes sense.)

There, got that off my chest.  Feel free to flame away... I'm sure many of you won't be able to resist.

My bottom line is this... either bring up the level of debate folks, or just SHUT UP... many of you are not doing the cause of conservatism any favours with your gutter level rhetoric.

UPDATE: Welcome to all the readers tuning in via Warren's site.  I sent him the link to this post to let him know firstly of the personal attack on him, and secondly to let him know that not everyone on the right thinks he's an idiot.  Now that I see he's posted it on the front of his website, I'm thinking my hit counter is going to get a workout.  For the record, I still haven't had a chance to actually meet the guy, but I'm pleased to see that he considers me a friend... and not just on Facebook.

UPDATE II: Based on some of the comments, I'd like to be clear... I'm not saying that folks like John West are representative of "the right", just that it's folks like him that bring the rest of us down with him in the eyes of the public. Hope that clears that up. I don't have any intention at this point to drop out of the aggregator, I was just pointing out that some of the stuff that's been said on this issue, and broadcast via the aggregator, hasn't been the most shining examples of conservative thought... and that we need to bring the dialouge up a couple more notches, in my opinion.

"How Liberals Vote"

A creative compilation video on YouTube, documenting some tips and tricks from the Liberal Party of Canada's playbook on how to keep a Conservative Government alive... at any cost.


I dunno... sort of reminds me of this video, that I still can't get enough of! (it's up to 32,300 views)


Or this one, from a few months back...


h/t to hunter of Climbing Out of the Dark

Anti-war activist promoting Death & Destruction?

Guess these yahoos didn't get the memo reminding them that they don't support the use of military force...

It pays to listen to your IT guys

So, some people were questioning the rational for moving one of our systems to a new server a couple months ago. The transition involved some pain, and re-jigging of processes and procedures, as is the case with all upgrades... and some people didn't think it was worth it.

My standard line was, "The old server is now obsolete, is out of warranty and has no service contract. If it dies, we're in serious trouble. Therefore, we also have to upgrade the application, because the old version we're currently using does not support Windows Server 2003, which is what we're running throught our domain."

Anyway, that was about two months ago. Today, we're on the new server, and still have a couple of kinks to work out, but all is well... but just in case, we kept the old server live in case they needed to look at something.

Until today, that is... cause one of the hard drives on the old server just died, and I don't think we can get a replacement. Since it's a RAID5 SCSI set up, it's still running, but with limited disk space, and no guarentee as to if and when another drive will fail... at which point, it's toast.

There were a couple of smiles when I informed the staff of the old server's demise... and recognition that indeed, once again, the techies were right.

The sub-$10,000 car is back

I've said for a while that which ever auto maker came out with a sub-ten thousand dollar car would do well in today's market... looks like one of them may be giving it a go.

With the high Canadian dollar, and to celebrate their 25th year in Canada, (can you believe it's been a whole 25 years since the horrible Pony made it's debut?) Hyundai Motors Canada is offering a $3,600 instant rebate on their base model Accent... which brings the sticker price down to $9,995, below the $10,000 mark.

Let's see if there's a surge in economical gas sipping sub-compact sales...

Dion's hand picked candidate gets trounced

Looks like more trouble in Liberalville... another one of Mr. Dion's hand picked candidates has been rejected by the voters.  This time, it's by a whopping 16% margin, 47.7% vs. 31.5%.  (as of 11:53pm)

Of course, Rae and Findlay both won handily... things were a bit tighter in Vancouver, however.

One thing of note though... Dion, in celebrating with Rae tonight, went and stuck his foot in his mouth with this quote...

Dion, who posed arm-in-arm with Rae in Toronto soon after the results were announced, called Rae "an architect of the Canada of tomorrow" and said Monday was a great day for the Liberals.

Ooooh... not a good thing to say.  Are you serious?  Mr. Bob Rae, "an architect of the Canada of tomorrow"???  Mr. Dion, are you REALLY sure you want to conjure up images in the minds of the average Ontario voter of the LAST time we put our futures into Mr. Rae's hands?

Harper heading to Guelph on Wednesday

Hey all, just got a request to post this... the Prime Minister will be attending a rally in Guelph this Wednesday, March 19, at 7:00pm.

The word I've been given is come one, come all! Admission is free, BUT, pre-registration is REQUIRED... which you can do at the local candidate's website here.

I'm planning on showing up... if you're in the area and want to show your support for the Prime Minister, head on over there!

Liberals setting themselves up to fall?

This is interesting... the Liberals snuck through a private members bill yesterday which has serious implications for the Budget, which makes RESP's a tax shelter just like RRSP's. Problem is, the resulting loss of tax revenue may put the Government into a deficit next year. (and the Liberals are trying to say that they won't go into deficit if returned to power... hey guys, thanks for proving us right!)

The Globe reports that the Tories may add an amendment to a future Ways and Means motion in order to kill the bill, forcing the Liberals to either allow it to be killed, or force an election... which, we all know, nobody (read, "No Liberal") wants right now.

(Again, comments closed due to my absence)

Arbour stepping down from UN

Former Canadian Supreme Court Justice Louise Arbour is stepping down from her post as the UN's Human Rights chief.

For the record, I think it's a vitally important job, and support the need for this post... but unfortunately, Ms. Arbour continually used her position to go out of her way to criticize Mr. Harper's government, and I found her to be quite unreasonable in so doing.

Notice I said "going OUT OF HER WAY" to do so... it's one thing to bring important issues to light... it's a completely different thing to intentionally seek to undermine a Prime Minister and a Party you don't agree with.

Anyway, as I'm sure this post will generate a nasty reply or two, I'm turning off the comments... because I'm not going to be available to keep an eye on the playpen today...

Garth wants to know about 10%ers

Liberal MP Garth Turner is complaining about the Conservative 10%ers that are being bombarded into his riding.

Well, let's stop and think about this for a second... Garth is a Liberal. We, the CPC (when Garth was on our side) did fairly well in Halton during the last election. Now that it's a red riding, we're spending some of our Parliamentary resources to win that riding back. This is perfectly normal. I'd like to know what riding his own 10%ers are going to... I'm assuming that they're going to some Conservative riding somewhere? Come on Garth, do tell.

Anyway, in reply to his request, I thought I'd let him know that yes indeed, I have been getting some 10%ers over the last few months...



For the record Garth, I've received three of four of these in the last year... while only one from the Conservatives.

So Garth, care to take Jack Layton to task for all the trees he's killed? (cue the crickets...)

Liberals: "The Offical Abstainers"

Marni Soupcoff of the National Post's Editoral Board ripped into the Liberals today, taking them to task for looking out solely for their own interests, and for not doing the job they were elected to do.

"The Post editorial board: The abstention party

The Liberals' reasoning here is quite transparent. Throwing eggs at the government over the Cadman allegations might win them votes in the next election, while voting against the budget might actually trigger such an election. And while the Liberals are keen to improve their electoral fortunes, they are deathly afraid of bringing the government down now because they are said to be badly in debt, bitterly divided over Mr. Dion's leadership and unprepared to face voters. So instead of performing their proper role in the national debate -- providing sensible alternatives to government bills -- the Liberals are hiding in their Parliament Hill holes and poking up their heads only when it suits their party's parochial interests.

The recent shenanigans only reinforce the impression that Mr. Dion and his charges have neither the spine nor the stomach to provide Canadians with anything except ad hominem catcalls."

I'm not sure how much longer they can survive this onslaught. People keep saying they're just waiting for their fortunes to get better in the polls... if they keep getting these sorts of reviews from the media, I have a feeling that their chances for electoral improvement are slim to none.

It's Official: NDP Motion on the Order Paper

From Mike Duffy Live... the NDP has put forward their notice for their Motion of Non-Confidence for Friday, to be voted on either Monday or Tuesday.

Here are four of the five motions they're putting forward:

March 5, 2008 — Mr. Layton (Toronto—Danforth) — That, in the opinion of the House, this government’s budgetary policies have been marked by an unbalanced approach of corporate giveaways to the big banks and big polluters and have failed to address the priorities ordinary Canadians care about, such as health care, housing, infrastructure, manufacturing and forestry, climate change, child care, Aboriginals, women, seniors, poverty, and therefore, that this House has lost confidence in this government.

March 5, 2008 — Mr. Layton (Toronto—Danforth) — That the House note this government’s two years of inaction in the fight against poverty in Canada and failure to build on such initiatives as the Canada Child Tax Benefit, affordable housing, literacy, and the Supporting Communities Partnership Initiative and that for these and other reasons the House has lost confidence in this government.

March 5, 2008 — Mr. Layton (Toronto—Danforth) — That the House regret this government’s failure to live up to Canada’s international climate change agreements, and it’s refusal to bring forward for debate and vote, the Clean Air and Climate Change Act, the climate change plan called for by a majority vote of the House, and that therefore the House no longer has confidence in this government.

March 5, 2008 — Mr. Layton (Toronto—Danforth) — That, in the opinion of the House, this government has failed to introduce policies which will diminish the inequality between men and women, in particular by its refusal to provide adequate resources and policies governing child care; legal assistance; long-term care; home care; health care; support for women's equality seeking groups; support for seniors; support for Aboriginal and minority women; pay equity; reform of employment insurance; support for preventing violence against women; public housing and transportation and other services so vital to the hard working women of this country, and therefore the House has lost confidence in this government.

If any one of these motions passes, the House will fall and we're going to be into an election.

 

McCain hits the magic number: 1191+

Just reported on CNN... John McCain, with his wins in Texas, Ohio, and Rhode Island tonight, has locked up 1195 delegates... four more than the "magic number", 50%+1 of the delegates to lock up the GOP nomination for President.

Congrats to Mr. McCain... now the only question is who the VP is gonna be.

UPDATE: Just in via the LIVE feeds from CNN.com, Mick Huckabee has officially conceded.

Ezra Levant: "Harper & Flanagan don't do bribes"

Ezra Levant has come to both Mr. Harper's and Mr. Flanagan's defence, by recounting his dealings with both men in the 2002 by-election that brought Mr. Harper back to Parliament... and cost Ezra a near guaranteed seat in the House of Commons.

The jist of it can be summed up in his last sentence: "But I can speak to how Tom Flanagan and Stephen Harper negotiate political problems. From personal experience, offering bribes just isn't how they operate."

And that's coming from a guy who certainly doesn't owe them any favours.


NOTE: With all the hubub over the Human Rights Commissions, I'll put a proviso up that I don't necessarily agree with everything that Ezra says, but I posted his statement and linked to his article on this one issue because I think it provides value in the Cadman debate, by relating the experience of one man with these two key players, who are being accused of doing something that is out of character for both of them.

UPDATE: NDP Confidence motion March 7th?

According to an article on the CBC website, the NDP may move a motion of Non-Confidence in the government THIS FRIDAY, March 7th... NOT the 14th, as I reported last week. (I misread the La Presse article, it stated that there had to be so many Opposition days by March 14th... my bad)

From the CBC:

"NDP Leader Jack Layton has warned that another key confidence vote could be coming soon. His party might use an opposition day on Friday to table a non-confidence motion.

"We're talking about that right now within our caucus and will have an announcement," Layton said.

New Democrats have expressed frustration that the Liberals continue to ensure the government's survival, even though the Conservatives are embroiled in the so-called Cadman affair."

If the NDP do put it forward, it would likely be crafted in such a manner so that the Liberals would have a hard time voting against it, or sitting on it, or not showing up for it. If the NDP take this course of action, it's going to be something that's drafted in such a way that if it's not passed and the House remains standing, Jack Layton will be able to beat Mr. Dion over the head with it from now until election day.

But the real trick is going to be how to draft something that will get the Bloc to support it as well, because if the Bloc can't support it, it will give Dion the cover he needs to save face and vote non-confidence... something that Mr. Layton certianly does NOT want to do right now.

Warren on Polls

Warren has an interesting post on polling in the Alberta election, and the current US Democratic race in Texas. He points out that polls, these days, are quite unreliable, partially due to the fact that more and more people have cell phones and are never home. (I also think it's because more people are screening their phone calls)

In talking about the Alberta election, he says people have been asking him, basically, "What happened?" All the polls were saying that "Steady Eddie" was going to have a rougher ride than he actually had. So, he makes a couple comments, and then makes the most interesting point:

"Does this mean that polling firms will go back to much-more-accurate phone-based surveys? As they wipe the metaphorical egg of their faces, yet again, I suspect they want to. But, when more and more people are using cell phones - and fewer and fewer are using residential land lines - that's easier said than done.

What does it all mean? It means more election-night surprises. To get specific, here in Ottawa, I think it means Harper is ahead by more than a lot of hacks and flaks realize.

Over and out, from our seat of government. Later."

Anyone still wonder why I'm eager to get to the polls? Maybe it's because I agree with Warren on this one.

Harper to sue Liberals

Woah... Mr. Harper fired a shot across the bow today, telling them to either put up, or shut up, about the Cadman affair.

This weekend, prominent Liberals suggested that Mr. Harper explicitly knew of any wrongdoing that may have occured. Today, he said that a court of law will prove otherwise, and is willing to put his money where his mouth is. The Liberals? That's yet to be seen.

Many have said that Mr. Harper is a master tactician, and I agree... today, he made a made a move... "CHECK".

UPDATE: Plattytalk has a link to the legal letter here

UPDATE II: Sources close to Dion have provided an image of his reaction to reading the notice of Libel...

"WOAH! I guess we maybee went too far? I tink wee make him a little bit mad. Amm, since wee a have a no money, I guess wee need to back down again..."

UPDATE III: Wow... check out Warren's comment on this thing...

UPPERDATE: Rick Dearden at Gowlings is acting for the Prime Minister. I articled under Rick when the firm was doing a lot of work for virtually every major media organization in the country. In the past twenty years or so, I can't recall a single libel case he has lost. FYI.

Yikes, looks like the guy who is pinch hitting on behalf of the Prime Minister has a 1.000 batting average... I'd be worried if I was a Liberal.

UPDATE IV: Things are moving fast and furious on this one... Donna Cadman, Conservative candidate and wife of the late Chuck Cadman, has issued a statement indicating that she brought this issue up with Mr. Harper over two years ago... and that she was satisfied with his answer back then that he knew nothing of the alledged offer.

Well, there goes one of the Liberal's two key "witnesses"... boy, I'm really looking forward to the activities in the House today.

South America on the brink of war?

Leftist dictator Hugo Chavez has ordered tanks to the border of neighbouring Columbia, after Columbia killed rebel FARC leader Raul Reyes, who was taking refuge just over the border in Equador.

Venezuela's Chavez has been a vocal supporter of FARC, who has been leading a guerrilla campaign against the government of Columbia for many years.  Chavez seems to now be using this incident as a pretext to further his leftist agenda for the southern continent.

Anyone care to try and defend this madman?  Didn't think so.