What a difference a “d” makes (MP3 file)
via David Akin

First Liberal: What’s this?
Second Liberal: We’re chipping in, sir.
First Liberal: Oh. Clearly.
Second Liberal: For jet fuel, sir.
First Liberal: I suppose the cowboy hat is Herle’s idea of a joke.
(A shameless ripoff of a classic PW * series)

Angry has a rumour that Dear Leader has sent out a call for help.
I say call Team America!
Update – got word from a second source that there may be something to Angry’s rumour that there may be issues involving Paul Martin’s plane. Breakdown? Or – and this is pure speculation on my part – with stories of the Liberal party’s massive debt and possible bankruptcy, maybe it’s cash only at the PetroJetFuel pump… heh.
Send in the Sea Kings!
Update #2 – Paul Martin’s plane did a touch and go in Saskatoon, arriving about three hours late. They blamed freezing rain in Vancouver for delaying their departure.
So, was there freezing rain in Vancouver? It’s 46F there at the moment.
Update #3 I’ve been stuck in Vancouver airport when they’re hit by freezing weather – it’s a mess. Or maybe not. I just placed a call to an agent at Air Canada cargo (located in Vancouver) who couldn’t remember any freezing rain or commercial flight delays. Well, there should have been lots of media on the plane. Perhaps we’ll hear from them.

A reader comments that the latest Liberal attack ad has her “shaking in anger”.

How Stick People Became Extinct.

has obviously done a good job indoctrinating their Quebec star candidate. Watch the clip attached to this story, and pay close attention to the last 20-30 seconds. Particularly his response to Craig’s last question. “I want to work effectively for the Liberal Party of Canada.”
Shouldn’t he want to work effectively for his constituents?
cross-posted at Waking Up on Planet X

It turns out that Brian Diesbourg is really, really lucky he wasn’t a 55 year old grandfather when he kicked that 50 yard field goal…

The fast-food giant found itself in the middle of a minor boycott yesterday after a halftime contest during Thursday night’s Toronto-Hamilton CFL game made 25-year- old Brian Diesbourg a millionaire.
The Belle River mechanical engineer made a 50-yard kick and secured the grand prize – – but he’ll be 65 by the time he’s done collecting it.
Wendy’s insurance structure is set up as such that the $1 million will be paid out in yearly $25,000 instalments for 40 years.
[…]
“I can’t believe that they’re giving it out that way. What if you were 50, 55 years old and you won it? You’ll be dead in 40 years,” said Steve Goodman, 50, who was at the game with his nephew and heard promoters say Diesbourg would get $1 million, tax-free, if he made the 50-yard kick.

But just think, Steve! If he were a 7 year old girl with a good tax advisor, he might never have to work a day in his life!

John Hawkins polled a number of bloggers and asked them to choose a team to run every country in the world except their own home country The results are in. Three of my choices (of four submitted) ended up in the top four rankings – see if you can guess who they were.

There is a new ad campaign trying to warn tourists away from Florida. They figure that Canadians are apt to get ventilated by angry Floridians under the state’s new Shoot First law. My personal feeling is that it will probably be safer to vacation in Florida than the rest of the U.S. now that criminals are on notice they can be taken down with fewer consequences. And if this law has the side-effect of encouraging everyone to improve their manners when dealing with other members of the general public, so much the better.

Apparently, Quebecers are really getting on board with the notion of an English monarch, titular head of the Anglican Church, as Canada’s head of state. Vive l’Angleterre!

Overheard on a CNN “Ask the Doctor” segment just now;

“I am 48 years old and have recently been diagnosed with prostate cancer. I am devastated. My doctor says it’s “localized” – a medical term that I can’t understand. What are the odds that I’ll recover and go back to my life as a teacher?”

For Public Release.

The SFDS, officially known as Infight*, is a clean, safe environment where the illegal handgun users can discharge their weapons under the supervision of fully accredited firearms instructors. National Firearms Association representatives will provide on-site access to small-bore rifles, high-power rifles, pistols, and revolvers. Infight also provides nurses and counselors to tend to first aid and wound care.
To operate legally, the Department Of Justice has granted SFDS an exemption from Bill C-68, otherwise known as the Canadian Firearms Act.
The Department, in association with Citizenship and Immigration Canada has committed funds of up to $2 million to fund the program costs of Infight until April 2006, as well as $1.2 million to renovate a former convenience store into a Canada Standards Council approved firing range. (A proposal for funding for ammunition for underprivilaged gun users is presently under Cabinet review.)
Infight has been established in partnership with the City of Toronto, the Toronto Police Service, and the Lawrence Park Community Services Society.
The Canadian Firearms Center is conducting the scientific research project, with the goal of assessing whether a discharge site will reduce the harm associated with firearms to individuals and the community.
Over the course of the next three years, researchers will examine if it reduces gang-related executions, drive-by shootings, improves the health of illegal handgun owners, increases their appropriate use of health and social services, and reduces the health, social, legal and incarceration costs associated with illegal firearms discharges.

Good news.

Someone reminded me of this* today.

Cruel bastard.

I see the hand of Maurice Strong….
h/t

Maybe I’m a little punchy because I just finished doing my taxes, but I nearly fell out of my seat laughing when I saw the juxtapostion of these two headlines on Google News.

I’m thinking that the problem in the second headline goes a long way towards explaining the problem in the first headline. In which case none of us should expect action from Ottawa on the second problem any time soon.

Ah, whatever. I’m getting $8640.48 back. Me so happy. 🙂

I don’t suppose anyone visiting this blog knows where one can obtain a list of the people/organizations who didn’t pay their taxes? It would be interesting to see if any prominent lefties, the ones who are staunch advocates of more taxes, made the list.

OTTAWA (CP) – The Canada Revenue Agency has written off almost $2.4 billion in taxes owed but never paid after an internal audit found there was little likelihood of ever collecting the money.

The writeoff is the largest in Canadian tax history, and almost $1 billion higher than last year.

Much of the money struck from the books was for stale accounts, many older than four years, which an internal audit said have been piling up unpaid since 2000.

So the CBC has found a way to recycle their old archives. Not only that, but they’re going to do it in such a manner that they also get to poke right wingers in the eye with the pointy end of a stick.

Niiiiice.

Maybe it’s just me, but I figure that the best way to get Canadians interested in the CBC’s archival materials is to give Canucks the complete right to use them in their own projects in any way they see fit. After all, it was all bought and paid for by Canadians, right? Wouldn’t it be cool to see a new generation of Canadians going through the raw footage and interpreting our history for themselves, and others?

Except that ordinary Canadians can’t be trusted to tell a story that is in line with ‘Canadian values’ (Liberal values, that is). And giving the power to the people would take opportunities away from the CBC intelligentsia to insult those foot their bills.

Can’t have that.

Six o�clock – tv hour. don�t get caught in foreign
Towers. slash and burn, return, listen to yourself
Churn. locking in, uniforming, book burning, blood
Letting. every motive escalate. automotive incinerate
Light a candle, light a votive. step down, step down
Watch your heel crush, crushed, uh-oh, this means no
Fear cavalier. renegade steer clear! a tournament,
Tournament, a tournament of lies. offer me solutions,
Offer me alternatives and I decline

It’s the end of the world as we know it.
It’s the end of the world as we know it.
It’s the end of the world as we know it and I feel fine.
— It’s the End of the World As We Know It by R.E.M.

So is it time to sell your home, pack your bags, and head for the hills? A commenter in the Publication Ban thread, HappyDaze, dropped this bomb on his way through:

I just returned from a function with high level corporate individuals. A fund raising golf tourney to be precise.

Profound advice is to move all financial assets off shore; out of Canada. Paul Martin’s own company CSL has already done this but my friend is now taking most of his assets to Australia; plotting his own personal move there and advising anyone who will listen to get all of their assets out of canada now!

There are many complicated reasons – one is that the federal debt has been understated by the Liberals by many many billions; the revenues over stated and that it is not only the UIC 50 billion funds that have been plundered but the pension funds are suspect as well.

Personal debt is now the highest of the G8 and the impending and inevitable raise in interst rates partially because of Federal Overspending in non-priority areas is going to put interest rates over the sustainable rates and cause thousands of bancruptcys’.

The financial community is already preparing for Canada’s demotion to a Banana Republic and quietly moving assets.

The Liberal destruction of Canada is well underway. Apparently it is easier to move assets to another Commonwealth country so if you can my friend advises Australia in the short term.

There is so much more he and numerous high level financial advisors told me tonight that my head spins – the conspiracy theories some of you have been musing about no longer seem in the least bit far fetched – and yes, China does have a role in some of this.

Changing the government from Liberal will not change the behind the scenes power mongers, it is too late.

Paul Martin, Jack Layton et al have no choice but to play along. If Stephen Harper cannot be bought or comprimised he will be replaced.

Notice the last few weeks, the drive to “replace Harper” – that is the real powers spearheading it. The next Conservative leader will have to be more pliable.

That is what is happening now. We have no say, no choice and no power to stop this.

Alarmist? Maybe. But he’s not the only one thinking in this direction. Jay Currie has a few words on the topic as well, sagely pointing out that an economic crash could be helped along by external factors:

For Toronto in particular and Canada in general, SARS was a wake up call and we seemed to have learned a few things. In particular we saw how quickly our high tech medical system can be overwhelmed by 50 or 100 cases of a deadly infectious disease. In Toronto, if avian flu hits, the number of case will likely be in the hundreds of thousands unless very strict quarantine measures are put into effect instantly. The same is true across the country.

However, and here is where the brittleness of the West and its economic and social structures kicks in. Assuming for the moment that Canada, because of the planning which resulted from the SARS scare and the decision to stock up on anti-virals gets off relatively lightly. Say 100,000 cases and 20,000 deaths – because we live in an interdependent world our good luck will not protect us from the economic consequences of an epidemic.

The worst case projections are that up to a quarter of a given population will be infected and, of those infected, 10-20% will die. So, to take our neighbour to the south, that would be 75 million cases and 7.5 million to 15 million deaths.

The harsh economic fact is that while those deaths will be concentrated in groups of already compromised people, children and the elderly, the already ill and, of course, the poor, enough highly productive people will be killed for there to be a real effect on the economy. An effect which a robust economy could absorb fairly easily over a couple of years; but an economy which is in budget and trade deficit and facing increasing competition for energy supplies? Much more difficult.

Worse, the loss of several million people is not without consequence for the booming housing markets which, in their turn, are underwriting the stacks of private debt Americans have been racking up. When five people on your cul de sac all die in the same week and that pattern is repeated throughout your suburb it is a pretty good bet that housing prices are going to fall – fast.

I’ve been picking up similar hints from numerous sources, many of them well placed enough to understand what happens when an immovable mass of ignoramuses collides with an unserviceable debtload.

My house is up for sale, and hopefully we’ll have a deal signed in the next couple of weeks. After that I’m heading for high ground and living the no rent, no mortgage lifestyle out in the country with a garden full of fresh vegetables.

Twenty-somethings are turning to beers their grandparents drank in an effort to be “cool.”
Old Brews Become Cool to Young Drinkers (AP)

A line of taps pouring elegant brews from Bass to Blue Moon beckon twentysomethings packed into Bomber’s bar. But 21-year-old Elliot Cunniff orders something homier for himself and a friend. “Two Yuenglings,” he tells the bartender, explaining the attraction after a sip from his pint glass. “Price. Color. Flavor,” he says. “And the name alone, ‘ying-ling.'”
Cunniff doesn’t come out and say it, but it becomes apparent as other Yuengling orders roll in: Old school brews are cool. Just as young consumers might wear `70s-look sneakers, sip `50s cocktails or download `80s hair band tunes, many are bellying up to the bar for the beers Grandpa drank � maybe a Rheingold, a Leinenkugel’s, or a Utica Club. They’re sometimes called “retro beers,” brands that might bring to mind old men in ribbed undershirts, and which are now finding a new audience with the young. It worked for Pabst Blue Ribbon and now others are playing the same nostalgic chords.
Getting new life from an old brand is a great deal for brewers because they avoid the cost of launching a new product. The trick is doing it right. Heavy-handed advertising can backfire. Word of mouth seems to work. Television commercials with the Swedish bikini team are a big no-no. “That’s the whole point of the retro thing, I think,” said Eric Shepard of Beer Marketer’s Insights. “The harder you try to push it, the more skeptical people are going to get.”
These are not the happiest days for brewers. Sales are growing slowly and beer is losing ground to spirits as consumers turn more to mixed drinks. Beer’s market share dropped from 56 percent in 1999 to 52.9 percent last year, according to the Distilled Spirits Council of the United States.
Among the recent bright spots was the quirky story of Pabst, which caught on early this decade with young hipsters in Portland, Ore., and its popularity spread out. Without initial prompting, “PBR” became a symbol of authenticity and cool. It has been enjoying double-digit growth every year since 2003, said Pabst brand manager Neal Stewart.

Interesting. Things definitely go in cycles. I’d never heard of Yuengling until a visit to Philadelphia a couple years back. It’s one of my staples these days. This is the first I’ve heard of it being “hip,” however.
via OTB