to tie those laces…
h/t

Paul Wells;

“Because the campaign offices of trailing candidates tend to be so empty in the week before an election that anyone can just stroll in and do some freelance smear work.
That’s plausible.”

So – as pointed out on John Gormley Live just now – not only did some unidentified homeless guy sneak into Axworthy’s campaign headquarters unnoticed to “freelance”, he sat there on hold for 12 minutes.
Yes. Plausible.
Hengen affadavit on caller’s identity. (pdf)
CBC video
(Wells claims he was speaking tongue in cheek, and that I missed it. This is plausible. I have been forced to live in a state of suspended disbelief ever since Lorne Calvert endorsed a Conservative government.)

update – the original link was to a legitimate site, but has now gone dead. I can’t find anything online indicating this is a hoax, but it has the distinct smell of one. There are a lot of net references to a petition for a “UNITED NATIONS DECADE OF CONTACT” Petition, but nothing much else.

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Until now, it only seemed like UN funding dropped into the void …. now, they’ve made it official;

For the first time in 27 years, the United Nations General Assembly will be debating the issue of establishing diplomatic relations with advanced Extraterrestrial Civilizations that may now be visiting Earth. On December 16, 2005, a Resolution to establish a United Nations Decade of Contact was formally transmitted to the incoming President of the General Assembly, H.E. Jan Eliasson of Sweden by the Institute for Cooperation in Space (ICIS), a Non-Governmental Organization. Almost to the day twenty-seven years ago, on December 18, 1978, the United Nations General Assembly voted to approve decision 33/426, inviting U.N. Member States “to take appropriate steps to coordinate on a national level scientific research and investigation into extraterrestrial life, including unidentified flying objects, and to inform the Secretary-General of the observations, research and evaluation of such activities.”

This sounds like a job for a former Canadian defence minister!
h/t Heard Here

The political pollsters never call me. The marketing/research types, on the other hand, seek my views quite regularly. This is a roughly paraphrased and greatly abbreviated version of a phone survey I took a couple days ago;
After a brief introduction and explanation as to the type of questions to expect, she began;

Q: “Of the two following health problems, which would you say is more prevalent – heart disease or lung disease?”
Me: “What do you mean, which one? They usually go together.”
Q: “No they don’t.”
Me: “Yes they do – heart failure generally leads to lung problems and lung disease can cause the heart to fail.”
Q: “I’m not sure that’s…”
Me: “It’s why they call it cardiopulmonary.”
Q: “Oh.”
Me: “It’s a stupid question.”
Q: “I’m not sure what to tell you, other than you have to pick one.”
Me: “Oh, whatever – put down heart disease”.

Prematurely relieved, she went on to Question 2.

Q: “Which would you say is more common, cancer or blood disease?”
Me: “Well, there they go again! What do they mean by “blood disease”?
Q: “I don’t understand”.
Me: “Is leukemia a cancer or a blood disease?”
Q: “I see your point.”
Me: “Who designed these questions? They’re illogical.”
Q: “I don’t know”.

And so it went. It didn’t take long to figure out that “injury related health costs” were on the poll designer’s mind – a survey to test or design communications strategy for the Worker’s Comp or some other “tell us how to live our lives” program. (Perhaps the mandatory bike helmet or spikey-shoes for seniors lobby?) Near the end we got into the numbers.

Q: “What would you estimate to be the cost to the Saskatchewan heatlh system of preventable injury – $500,000; $1 million; $500 million; $1 billion; $1.5 billion?

It’s not so hard to spot when questions are designed (the only age-relative question being “whats the greatest killer of Saskatchewan residents under the age of 40?”) to push results towards a general conclusion – in this case it appeared the one they were aiming to prove, “Saskatchewan residents vastly underestimate the incidence and cost of injury to the health care system”.
So, I picked $1 billion. “Oh.” Her voice registered surprise. She went on with a few other questions, and closed with this;

Q: “On a scale of one to five, five being ‘very in favour’, how supportive would you be to programs designed to lower preventable injury?”
A: “Is there a zero?”

Expect to hear in the upcoming weeks, a news release from some government agency advising us that Saskatchewan residents “greatly underestimate” the costs to the health care system of work-related and preventable injury – justifying yet another regulation, program or communications strategy designed to perpetuate their own existence.

Medienkritik; “Another highlight of Germany’s #1 investigative journalism magazine: the current edition of left-wing, fiercly anti-American SPIEGEL presents an article on “THE EMPIRE OF SHADOW – The worldwide operations of the U.S. Secret Intelligence Service”, and the picture on the cover shows … members of the Canadian military!”

It’s actually a few of fine men of Canada’s Joint Task Force Two. Heh.

“I hate to see their display at Easter.”
The link at the bottom comes via Michelle Malkin, who also offers up an item titled “Notes On The (Tookie) Freak Show.
Ordinarily, I would consider mention of the California execution of a multiple murderer with worldwide childrens’ book sales nearing the 300 mark, made famous by his founding of the “Crips” (a short form of “cripples” to reflect their trademark practice of maiming or crippling their victims) a little out of place under a “Christmas themed” subject line.
Not this time.

Check out Colby Cosh’s take on the WS Cruise, to which I will add “what he said”. It was a tremendous amount of fun, and I know we’ll be adding a few new readers to the blogosphere. As you folks stop by, be sure to send me an email to say hi, or should you want advice on how to best circumnavigate this new world of “citizen media”.
At some point near the end of the cruise, I came to the realization that I had lost my designation as non-smoker, by virtue of exposure to an uninterrupted and intense concentration of tobacco fumes. Apparently, one is not allowed into the journalistic fraternity without first passing a nicotine means test. (When I remarked on this, I was informed that this fact had been noted and it was time I chipped in for cigarettes.)
A few other observations – Ezra Levant should be bottled and sold. Both he and Kevin Libin need to sue whatever photographer was responsible for the creepy portraits they use in the magazine (Libin actually bears more than a passing resemblance to Nicholas Cage), David Warren’s frequent references to 17th century poets/philosophers/x-ray technicians are almost certainly a complete fiction and Lorne Gunter should be running for office.
I don’t have a lot of pics, though I’m sure I can count on a few compromising shots by anonymous email. There are a few more in this directory and I’ll try to add others as I find them.

Mr. McBride, a pioneer in Alberta politics, shows off his Libranos tshirt.

Though, I confess to one regret about the experience – that I did not capture for posterity the image of Colby Cosh sunbathing on the “tops optional” beach in St. Maartin, during an hour long stop on our “Wild and Mild” Pinzagauer excursion – (“Ladies and gentlemen, over to your right is a KFC”).
Picture, if you can, a glimmering white ribbon of sand stretching into a rolling turquoise sea, human forms bobbing in the surf, scantily clad tanned figures strolling the edge of the waves – and Batman stretched out in head to toe black on a lounge chair under the blazing midday Caribbean sun.

Speaking of blogging… this appears to be an official Liberal Party of Canada blog. I say “appears” for a reason;

Wow, look at me! I’m in “cyberspace,” where no one can hear you scream. Or maybe they CAN hear you scream but they don’t pay attention because they’re too busy looking at naked ladies. Either way, stop screaming, would you?
I for one am betting this so-called “Internet” is really going to catch on. It’s neato. Take, for example, these things knowns as “blogs” – you’re soaking in one right now! These blogs are great because they allow people with special insight to instantly convey their astute observations and sage opinions to a knowledge- starved world. Or so I’m told. Personally, I’m mostly going to use this one to talk about the lost thespian promise of Erik Estrada. Because really, someone ought to. The man had screen charisma the way Marlon Brando had neck fat.
I may also touch on this whole “who should run the country” deal we’ve got going on here in Canada.
Last night, the opposition voted non-confidence in the government and forced an election campaign that will take place over the holiday season. This means two things: 1) the prime minister will this morning be visitng the Governor-General to ask her (very nicely, possibly while eating a crumpet) to dissolve the 38th Parliament. And 2) millions of innocent Canadian children will be confronted with the onerous task of staring into the television this Christmas season and trying to tell Stephen Harper from the Grinch.
Remember, kids: one is grumpy and has a heart two sizes too small. And the other one’s the Grinch.
Travelling as part of what is officially called the Leader’s Tour (and what is colloquially known among staffers as That Plane That Hardly Ever Seems To Land in Alberta for Some Reason), I will be filing typo-ridden, thumb-pecked dispatches on my Blackberry over the course of the campaign.
Remember: views expressed on this blog do not necessarily represent the policies or beliefs of Paul Martin. Except when I write about the hypnotic musical stylings of Nana Mouskouri. We’re totally in sync on that.

Quoted in its entirety, because something tells me this thing is likely to go *poof*.

Feel kind of sorry for that little fella in the green sweater.
H/T to “Shaken”

As I mentioned a couple of days ago, the Honourable Member forNewmarket-Aurora was inviting participation in a little poll on the issues…

It seems to have been wrapped up early.

So, if we awake one morning in mid-December to find out the election campaign has been suspended on the basis of polling results, don’t claim you didn’t see it coming! It’s just that “democratic renewal” we were promised!
update – the Globe & Mail’s blog Dan Cook on politics has picked up this item as well.

Turns out there is a way to make money farming, after all;

According to Gretchen Shappert, U.S. attorney for the western district of North Carolina, “the Warren Farms investigation is literally the mother of all crop fraud investigations. It was a result of a perfect storm of individuals who were involved in fraud.”
Robert and Vicki Warren are among eight people who pleaded guilty to swindling the government and insurance companies out of more than $9 million in bogus insurance claims from 1997 to 2003. The Warrens were among the largest tomato growers east of the Mississippi; at one point they owned 26 farms in three states, including one run by Bobby Chambers.
“We grow different kinds of produce, tomatoes, green beans, cucumbers, just a little of everything,” says Chambers, a beefy, baby-faced, 42-year-old lifelong farmer who runs a spread that borders the Nolichucky River in Cocke County, Tennessee.
According to trial records, he helped the Warrens stage a hailstorm to make it look like their tomatoes had been destroyed, so they could collect the insurance money.
Chambers says he bought a bag of cocktail ice and a disposable camera, and, on his boss’s order, created a foul-weather tableau. “The way we did it, we was down taking pictures, out this row, and then we just stood behind it and throwed the ice over the top. To me, it looked like a hailstorm,” says Chambers.
To complete the scene of devastation, they then picked up wooden tomato stakes and attacked the unsuspecting vegetables. “They had one Mexican who did all the beating, he beat every 16,000 of them. He’d just go through there and knock the leaves off of them,” says Chambers, as he illustrates the activity with a long stick. “It made it look like where the hail had beat it up.”

It gets better. Not only does the US Treasury back insurers in the risky business, the USDA subsidizes premiums.

The government is so generous with crop insurance that it subsidizes farmers’ premiums. Edwards says the USDA paid the Warrens more than $2 million to help them insure their tomatoes. He compares it to the following hypothetical situation: “Every year a bank gets robbed and they notice the bank robber is using an old getaway car and they ask, ‘Would you like a car loan to have a nicer getaway car next year when you come to rob us?’ Because the government is subsidizing the farmer’s ability to defraud us for the coming season.”

Good ol’ farm ingenuity!

Paying off the provincial debt – �$22.7 billion Rewarding every man, woman, and child in the province – $1.1 billion Transferring $53 million in lottery sales made primarily in Ontario and Quebec to 17 oil field workers in Sedgewick, Alberta– Priceless!

(As an aside, be sure to read the link to the MacLean’s article above for a dripping example of Alberta envy masquerading as a story about a winning ticket.)

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Update: I crossposted this to the Shotgun, where a commentor took me to task for placing a capital “L” in “Macleans”.
Thinking more about the error, I can only say that where I come from, when we hear someone mention “Macleans” we just assume it’s a reference to MacLean & MacLean* in the plural. (And that Paul Wells writes their lyrics.)

The understatement of the decade;

“You are a fool if you enter North Korea to make money.”

Official Xinhua photo of the ” re-entry capsule of the Shenzhou-6 spacecraft” returning to earth.
via Drudge

Fred, over at Gay and Right, has picked up on a report that echoes something I’ve long argued – that if climate change is indeed real, then it’s the height of human arrogance to pretend we can reverse it, even if human activity is one of the contributors. Despite all the advances in science and technology, not much progress made in changing the weather.

One approach � mitigation � would limit carbon dioxide (CO2) in the atmosphere largely by reducing emissions due to human activities. The Kyoto Protocol is an example of this approach. The second approach � adaptation � would reduce society�s vulnerability to, or help cope with, the consequences of global climate change due to higher CO2 emissions.
The projections underlying this study are from researchers who are sympathetic to mitigation. However, their conclusions show that adaptation is preferable. Cost estimates are based on reports from various United Nations-affiliated organizations.

So, before you Kyoto-marxists come to “carbon tax” my personal resources (crippling my ability to adapt) , how about a little demonstration? Make it rain.
Then, make it stop.
Human (and animal) kind has survived massive climate shifts throughout our history, and barring cataclysmic change, will continue to do so. The resources that will be sucked down the wealth transfer hole under Kyoto would be better applied to adaptation.
The obvious advantage to the adaptation model is that there isn’t nearly as much guesswork involved. Furthermore, even if a magic device were invented tomorrow that neatly removed massive amounts of CO2 from the atomosphere for mere pennies a day, we cannot assume that the results would include a stabilization of weather. Because, meteorological��semantics aside, it’s local weather patterns that we must live with and adapt to, regardless of what direction the overall climate is going in.
Update – DO NOT MENTION THE WEATHER MACHINE UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES

The Firefly coming to Canada, specifically targeted at the 8-year old travelling salesman demographic.
What do I think?

I thinking I’m starting a pool on the first complaint to a Human Rights Commission.

Woohoo!

Have a great trip, folks.

A blogger poll by Right Wing News.
My pick for number 1 spot didn’t even make the list.

Now that you mention it, I wonder what the verdict might have been if Jackson were a man of the cloth, instead of a sequined man-thing of the closet.

Harper fans, be of good cheer. Sure, your leader is considered unsightly by many. Reclusive, even. No worries! A small surgical procedure can fix all your problems:

Stubbs performs what he calls �the Toronto trim,� a combo procedure that includes a reduction of the inner labia and a slight �unhooding� of the clitoris so the little man in the boat isn�t being quite so reclusive.

Can’t you just see Harper’s poll numbers shooting — up — already? Ontario here we come!