Today is a day that has been many years in the making. Twenty years ago, Preston Manning spoke to my law school class and, while pleasant, was not really considered all there or at least fringy. Not sure that has changed all that much... except his follower's follower is now PM. What does that mean? This for one thing:
The National is sometimes a disgrace, a meandering journey though the mind of a flibbertigibbet who spent the day garnering news bits from a hodgepodge of online sources. Bizarrely, it treats Ottawa politics with grave and tedious seriousness, failing to see the theatre that is obvious to everyone else. Every night on CBC seems to end with George Stroumboulopoulos doing a half-baked late-night talk show that neither he nor the audience cares about. Every week seems to bring some new, desperately conjured tweak of Dragons’ Den. The result is that the public broadcaster has been out of sympathy with its traditional supporters and resolutely out of sympathy with this government. Whatever this budget brings, here’s a message to CBC – suck it up, you should have seen this coming; now use the opportunity of retrenchment to redefine your mission and values.
See, that is in the Globe and Mail. You have the Globe complaining about Dragon's Den, one of the boring bones the CBC tosses to business to prove it is not an organ of the left. But the Globe is an organ of the left, no? Are they out bidding each other to prove disloyalty to the red banner? No, they are just sheep who have lost their way, organizations who have been a bit brow beaten and lack leadership.
They are not all that far off the Federal level. While Harper will never face the problems Chretien did in the early 90s - thanks to Jean's fix - he has to pretend he is doing something magnificent as he and his forefathers have foretold that they are bringers of a message and that message is important. Never mind that it is all propped up by $100 a barrel oil. Never mind that the ideology is not transferable from this economic... nay, politico-geological reality. We have to go a long with these things because we got locked into a manner of doing things in 1867 and the world has turned in a given direction until now. So we follow along to today.
Last time I saw one of these was back in 2005. It may have a ways to go before it is done but we do have a fire boat now.
Hot. +22C after supper. Redwing blackbirds. Crocuses are up. It's not even that muddy. With any luck we'll get back to wet, cold and dreary soon. Normal would be nice. What's normal? Not Ottawa. Who questions that a revival of Grit fortunes is the real risk to Harper? Odd that we have gotten so far down the road that we forget things like that. Its it a wish for the return of Cold War certainty? Or is this all a blip? The fact that "popularity" just seems to wrong might suggest so.
♦ Jeese - I hope it makes it to DVD at least.
♦ It's NCPR pledge drive week starting Monday. I'll be over next Friday to deliver some prizes as a thinks this time for adding out town to one transmitter's call letter location.
♦ Christ apparently hates objective rational sports management decision making. Ain'tcha missing that promised evangelical theocratic political system now?
♦ Sweet. Dissension between the military and the government.
♦ Maybe just unplug the machine and stick it in the basement like everyone else does?
Friday. Not sure I am still riding the benefits of a stretch of holiday in Montreal. How long do the mellowing effects of venison burgers and walks down old city lanes last?
March Break this week. Spring the next. Warm weather straight through as far as I can tell from here on out. Seeds have arrived from Stokes and checking to see if I can get 25 wine grape vines. Plonk de backyard. Why have a backyard urban chicken coop if you can grow grapes? Or onions for that matter. Price of onions drives me nuts. I must have mentioned that before. Five bucks for ten onions in a hurry. 25 bucks for 2500 onions in four months. This year I take control of my own onions once again... err... that didn't come out right...
♦ Are the last of the GenXers hitting 40 now? I've been hitting 40 for almost 9 years now. Might need to change that header up there.
♦ You would think there would be a faster way to deal with this and an easier way to prevent it.
♦ Freaky. Belleville just a bit closer than outer space.
♦ I am not going to say I have seen a Maher related misunderstanding before but I am not saying I haven't either.
♦ Following the money. Excellent plan. Because there will have been money to follow.
There/ Sunday night for the Friday morning deadline. Great thing this self-publishing...
While it is not politically correct to suggest this sort of thing, it has been a bad week for conservatism. Politically correct? Any movement that is a constipated and constrained as conservatives are at the moment can suffer from it. Steve is facing the reality that some may have taken up his slash and burn approach to politics and committed election crime in his name. Rick Santorum proves he can't read when he says a speech against effective theocracy makes him barf. Toronto's Tory Mayor wants new taxes or other wacky plans to make his pipe dream happen. But best of all, leading GOP candidate Mitt says he won't light his hair on fire to kiss up to the base.
Did no one tell him that the whole strategy of the movement is to light one's hair on fire to kiss up to the base?
♦ The opportunity to watch Charlie Rose on the CBS Morning News over coffee at the start of the day is an amazing treat. He just disassembled a pundit who oddly rejected the notion of "the women's vote" in 17 seconds to get her to acknowledge his question's validity.
♦ It begins.
♦ Sad to see the Tim Horton's franchisees suit for better treats was lost. I need to create a Treats Law Action Foundation.
♦ Finally it is clearly stated: "The prime minister and his colleagues have remarkable ability to turn themselves into victims,"
♦ In five years, there will be a five dollar computer.
Well, enjoy your Friday. March break is coming. Spring is coming. Seeds must be ordered soon.
Previous celebrations: 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011. Even though it is snowing, it is again already too late to start sprouting your asparagus seeds for 2012 planting but baseball is close as is BBQ.
End of the week. End of the month. Nearing the end of the winter that wasn't. I hear we are in for a bit of a zap this weekend but it's all millionaire's snow from here on out. That is what they called a later winter storm in PEI. Sure, it usually comes in April but winter usually... you know... shows up. A busy week, however, even if not with the weather. I am not sure how much I actually like hard work that comes with results.I will have to get back to you on that one.
♦ Remember when Vic Toews was the news? Now it's all about the Tory call centre. If I were any of these politicians, I would be staying away from anything that smacks in any way of Radio Shack for the foreseeable future.
♦ For some reason I recalled being crammed in here for dinner in 1986.
♦ We stumbled upon this place last weekend, only 35 minutes from town. Eerie shuttered down for the winter season.
♦ "...the Montreal Star described Montreal as “the most drunken city on the continent,” with a liquor licence for every 150 residents..."
♦ Maybe my best beer blog comment ever.
There. Early start today. Off I do. Hi. Ho.
Canadian Minister of Public Safety Vic Toews has found himself caught in a 1998 style flame war that would be the pride of usenet. As the Federation devolves, this is the sort of thing that entertains. Most fun is not the fact that it appears his nemesis is related to an opposition party but the surprise experienced by so many Canadians this evening that someone in the opposition has the gumption - I said it, gumption - to, you know, oppose:
An IP address connected to what is known as the Vikileaks30 Twitter account — which has been burning up the Twittersphere with claims about Public Safety Minister Vic Toews' personal life — originates within the House of Commons. In a bid to determine the origin of the account, which posted a string of tweets online offering alleged details relating to Toews's divorce proceedings, the Ottawa Citizen undertook an investigation on Thursday. An email was sent to the writer of the Vikileaks30 Twitter account, containing a link to a website. The website was monitored by the Citizen and only the author of Vikileaks30 had the address of the website. About 15 minutes after sending the email, Vikileaks30 opened the link and visited the page, leaving behind an IP address that belongs to the House of Commons.
Sadly, the needy CBC hipster class of Canadian sees all and learns nothing, considering it "...lovable inclusiveness...a very Canadian kind of protest." Mr. Taylor is really only upset that his gang did not think of it first.
So usually writing about how winter sucks is dull. But this sucky winter is just weird. A bit above freezing today. A bit above freezing Monday with a bit of a bite of cold air over Saturday and Sunday. It'll be March so soon there won't be a chance for a dump of snow. And me with new snowshoe bindings. This was going to be the year I snowshoe-ed. I was going to hit the big leagues of snowshoeing. I was going to go on and on and get quite insufferable about it. Now, it's almost baseball season. Tomorrow is truck day. The seed catalogs are in. I know where I am getting my cardoon seeds from for heaven's sake. What a sucky loser winter.
♦ When George F. Will is opening himself up to be accused of being a RINO, well, you know there is something wrong with the conservative movement in America.
♦ I want.
♦ It will be fun watching Harper explain how the long term needs of the old aged pension require cut backs when it is not the long term needs that need to be taken into account. Anyone else notice the man has a habit of making no sense?
♦ Dad's are the original hipsters.
♦ Probably the weirdest economic policy of a sovereign nation ever.
There. Another week goes by. Another week older and deeper in debt. St. Peter won'tcha help me...
