Party at Alan's!

Err...no. Perhaps "small group seminar on perceptions of current themes in Canadian politics at Alan's!"

Drat. This is like that time Mom and Dad told me they were leaving for Mexico for two weeks except that they actually get a hotel room in town the night before they actually left and then came back to the house at 10:00pm and found beer.

Canadian politics: Frustrating. I'm still bitter about Harper prattling on about democracy and completely misrepresenting the parliamentary system, the same one that he tried to manipulate exactly the same way in 2005. Granted it was no more popular, but at least there was nobody trying to lie about its meaning. I'm mostly bitter not because of what he's saying but because people seem to be believing him, and I don't understand why we as a nation aren't better educated about the system we claim to respect. I skipped Social Studies 10 and I still know more than half the people they're interviewing, so what's their excuse?

...How's that?

Well... that Dominion Institute poll that's done every year shows that less than 10% of Canadians know that the Queen is head of state. (I'm guessing that the majority of the people answer "the PM" to that question -- as it's kinda difficult to miss Her Majesty on all our coins.)

Whatever.

The opposition has the right to take over, and the electorate has the right to reduce them to "radioactive dust" (Paul Wells' phrase) at the next election.

I'd say this: after May 2005, it looked like Paul Martin had won -- the Liberals zoomed up to 40% in the polls. Coyne insisted that they had actually done themselves irreparable damage then and that they'd have done better to admit that Parliament had lost confidence in them.

It's not impossible that the same is true for Harper.

I need some bullet points so I can pick the least important and vent or at leats put forward some inane personal experience story related to it. Its what makes my Fridays.

Here I'll do my own:

And With a Soft Thud, We all Enter The Weekend.

- What do you make of the end of days, I mean the non-approval of the Bailout in the US. Will Harper hang back or leap forward with a package nonetheless?

- 2008 is being extended. What will YOU do with the extra time? ( dsc.discovery.com/news/2008/12/09/time-second-change.html)

Okay I give up, this is harder than I expected Alan...

On nixing the first try at a government bailout for the some of the North American auto makers: good. There needs to be some Darwinian forces brough to bear on the big three so that we can all be in a better state 12 months from now. I like that Ford is positioning themselves as the most viable of the three stooges - that is a good strategy.

The UAW's intransigence is telling. I hope that they were playing a violin while they said no - that would be very appropriate.

There'll be a bailout, one way or another. So says Cynical I. Harper will toss the CDN-POP:US-POP ratio of money into the pot (maybe with kickins from Ontario).

Bullets for Friday, it the style of Al following on sean's lead:

- Finally, the Moon is within shooting distance
- Betty Page dies at 85

I am surprised at Ford being as stable as they are. Just assumed they would be in the same boat as GM. I say, let em crash and burn but I agree with David in that Harper will jump in. I mean, why not be first, ahead of even the US. That might buy him a few voted from disgruntled CAW people.

Saw that Bettie Page died. Odd that, two days ago I actually thought about renting a movie of hers after seeing a clip on Biagraphy channel just so I coudl say I watched one. Instead, I rented Tropic Thunder.

My guess wasn't bad. I'm soooo glad to see we're bailing out the billionaire investors in Cerberus.

The federal government and Ontario have reached a deal to offer a proportional aid package to Canada's auto industry if a proposed $14-billion US package is approved in Washington, Industry Minister Tony Clement said Friday.

Speaking to reporters in Toronto, Clement said the proposed aid package to Canada's ailing auto sector would amount to approximately 20 per cent of the planned U.S. aid proposal, or about $3.3 billion Cdn.

Ford apparently has 30 billion in cash. I think they were playing GM and Chryslers setting them up by not mentioning they really didn't need a bailout.

Are we 20% of anything US? I mean, isn't that a lot?

We're way more than 20% awesome. G'Oh Canada!

Something like 10-20% of their population I think. I'd look it up but, well, Meh.

Good golly! It appears the inmates have taken over the asylum!