So yesterday, the Toronto Star ran with a story that’s heating up the Liberal blog world. Many of the usual wing-nuts are down right offended that Giambrone has been “let out” in this manner. Phaw, more proof of the “…a women scorned.” adage.

Naturally, and as expected, the most balanced assessment comes from Calgary Grit. He makes fun of the whole schmozzle. The expected result has now been confirmed. What I wonder though, is where were those wing-nuts when Bernier was being dragged through the muck for his own sex-scandal? Oh yeah, calling for an election, or something, maybe a facebook group.

I think both of these men are tools though not for sex with beautiful women. They deserve my disrespect because they scoffed at the public trust that had been granted them.

Bernier left gov’t documents at his girlfriends house, Giambrone supposedly told his girlfriend that TTC rates where going up. Each abused the trust relative to their respective jobs. They are equal actions deserving of equal consequences.

Cheers,
lance

Stephen Taylor has the Youtube of CPAC catching the Garth Turner campaign team in just a small sleight of hand.

“Dat was unfair!”

I’ve heard some doozies before, but I’ll tell ya, this has got to take the cake.

What Mr. Harper should have done was to govern in coalition mode, presenting legislation that the other parties could legitimately sign on to, in recognition of his minority PM status. And he should have refrained from abusing the ability to make so many pieces of legislation confidence matters. That’s a glaring offence that’s been committed by Mr. Harper yet still, Mr. Layton is again capitalizing on Mr. Harper’s affront today, as Layton has, really, over the course of the minority parliament, chiding the Liberals for not voting down the government 43 times. The offence to our democracy belongs squarely on the shoulders of Mr. Harper for his practical abolition of minority government in this country. I would really like to hear Mr. Layton speak about the challenge that Mr. Harper poses to our democracy for a change.

Umm, what? Prime Minister Harper should have passed Liberal policies because he was in a minority? He should have taken over the NDP platform because the Liberals couldn’t decide whether to abstain or vote the minimum? He should have surrendered the advantage because they were the gov’t?

The Liberal bloggers are in panic mode. Impolitical certainly doesn’t have her towel handy.

Cheers,
lance

After a day standing in the paint booth (and more ahead) my eyes are again taking a beating – the frequent consequence of staring at fuzzy lines for hours on end. Blogging may be light around here while they recuperate.

Tips for Saturday

“I come not to praise the competition, but to bury it.”

At the moment, The Daily Smut is running a somewhat competitive second, jeopardizing this year’s goal of topping SDA’s 2006 record of taking 53.8% of votes cast.
This must not happen.
If we must throw Kathy Shaidle into the ditch to crack the 50% barrier, so be it. She was happy just to be nominated.
I, on the other hand, find no satisfaction until I have the leftosphere writhing in outrage and defeat.
Polls close November 8. It’s time to focus on the task at hand, jettison the wounded (“I’ll never forget you, Angry“), and close for the kill.
No mercy – because mercy is for Liberals.

Living in Quebec I don’t much care about the Ontario election, but from what I’ve followed of it I know I’d be pretty disappointed at the lack of a real conservative platform to vote for. I notice I’m not alone, here’s John Robson’s opinion:

Then there’s John Tory. We did not need another demonstration that a sophisticatedly amorphous Red Tory approach is as futile in political as in policy terms. We got one anyway. Then he crumpled on his only principle-like position. Thanks for coming out. Now go away.

He concludes the best option is to find the least objectionable marginal candidate and vote for him. If you have a chance to vote for a Libertarian, Freedom Party or Family Coalition Party candidate this might be a good opportunity to park your vote there until there’s a real conservative option.
Speaking of small parties, Kateland at the Last Amazon shares the low opinion of current conservative candidates and opts for an albino candidate standing for The Party for People with Special Needs. Make sense to me.
And as for the referendum on the Mixed Member Proportional representation, it would be worth going to vote just to bury this dumb idea. There’s nothing wrong with our electoral system in my opinion, the problem is with the lousy candidates we elect. Funny enough, John Robson says exactly that, too:

Ontario is slated to hold a “historic” referendum this October on whether to discard our centuries-old system of electing representatives in favour of something called MMP or “mixed member proportional.” Just say No. It’s a bad solution to the wrong problem.

Bruce points out a video on Ontario’s health care system. I’m not sure there’s any real reform of the health system on offer in this election, but the video is interesting nonetheless.
Drop your opinion/links on the Ontario election and referendum in the comments.

The
Jurist asks a really good question.

Where is Dion? Probably not here.

Cheers,
lance

Thanks to
Saskboy for
organizing the Saskatoon Bloggers meet and greet. We’ll be meeting at
Jerry’s at Eighth and Grosvenor (south-side of
Eighth) on October 13th at noon.

Come one, come all. Be sure to leave a message at Abandoned
Stuff or at
Saskblogs.ca.

Cheers,
lance

Iraqi blogger Alaa, who has been blogging from Iraq at his blog The Mesopotamian has just relocated his family here in Canada.
Alaa has been one of my favourite reads from Iraq, though he has been posting rather rarely lately.
While it’s a bad sign for the future of Iraq that men like him are choosing to abandon it, I’d like to wish him and his family the best of luck with his life here in Canada.

Which one are you?

As promised, I’ve brought this post to the top.
On June 1st, I asked our readers the question – “What is your primary occupation?”
(Physicist and engineer) Ed Minchau collated the 633 responses as of 1:46 am, June 3rd. Do read the whole thread – many of our readers have multiple or specialized fields of expertise that general categories don’t quite do justice to.

engineers: 61
computer programmers/consultants/systems analysts: 47
management: 46
military: 36
educators: 31
scientists: 28
small business: 28
technicians/technologists: 27
accountants/bookkeepers/economists/taxation/insurance: 24
construction/electricians/plumbers/carpenters/contractors: 23
financiers/brokers/bankers: 21
farmer/rancher/cowboy/agriculture/veterinary: 19
stay-at-home parents: 18
consultants: 18
sales: 16
pilots/air traffic control: 15
lawyers/legal assistants/advocates: 14
doctors/nurses/healthcare: 14
pastors/priests/missionaries/social workers/psychologists/counselors: 13
civil servants: 12
artists/musicians/photographers: 12
manufacturing/machinists: 10
writers/journalists/reporters: 10
police/corrections/security/investigation: 8
students: 8
truckers/railroad workers: 8
statisticians/actuaries/data analysts/librarians: 8
architects/draftsmen/urban planners: 8
radio/television/telecom: 7
mechanics/heavy equipment operators: 6
oil workers: 6
real estate: 4
forestry: 3
purchasing/logistics/warehousing: 3
secretary/administrative assistant:3
quality assurance: 2
map maker/surveyor: 2
human resources: 2
other: 12
total: 633 (ignored obvious duplicate entries, general comments)
Oh, and … whorehouse piano players (aspiring or claiming to be): 10
piano teachers (listed under educators): 2

Responses are still trickling in.
Thanks to everyone who participated. To quote (air traffic controller) “Yukon Gold” – “Boy, what a bunch of highly-educated, highly learned and experienced bunch of mouth-breathing knuckle draggers we are.”
And to think – we do it all in our pajamas!
Note – submissions are still welcome, but please refrain from using this thread to chatter about the survey. If you wish to discuss the survey, please do so here.

Continue reading →

Michael Totten brings another excellent report from northern Iraq, this time with a fascinating interview of Kurdish-Iranian communists.
And the Daily Ablution interviews Michael Crichton:

What is the most serious threat facing our civilisation?
Loss of classical liberal values in those western societies that embraced them.

Kicking off a new category today. As some may have noticed, I’ve been unable to enable trackbacks since they became a favoured target of spammers. So, in the tradition of “Reader Tips”, I’ll be hosting dedicated threads for blog tips instead. Please don’t use these for media items or comments. You can use hyperlinks, but it does increase the risk of your submission getting caught in the spam filter. The safest way to leave a link to a blog post is to provide the simple url for readers to cut and paste into their browsers, along with a brief description.
Important – if your post isn’t work safe, has disturbing images, or contains excessive profanity, please warn readers of that fact.
You can still send blog posts privately, but some days I get so many suggestions there sometimes isn’t time to properly review them all. (Or space to use them).
Thanks, and we’ll see how it goes.