Partisan Iced Tea

What He Said 7 Comments

Has AdScam got you all heated up? Going ape over the Grewal Tapes? What you need is a nice, cold, glass of home-brewed iced tea.

Ingredients:

1 gallon (4 litres) of cold water
5 orange pekoe tea bags
1/2 cup (125 ml) lemon juice
1 cup (250 ml) sugar

Directions:

Find a one gallon container (an old glass pickle jar works just fine) and fill it with one gallon of water and add the five tea bags. Put the lid on the jar and place it out in direct sunlight for ten hours where it can cook like Scott Brison during Question Period.

Once the tea has brewed, add the lemon juice and sugar. Chill and serve.

Partisan modifications:

Liberals: Double the sugar if you’re serving it to someone else. Gotta sweeten ’em up if they’re gonna vote for you, right?

Conservatives: Double the lemon juice to one cup so that it’s extra sour in keeping with your party’s dour reputation.

Greens: Substitute green tea for orange pekoe, raw organic sugar for the white granulated crud, and make sure the lemon juice is fresh squeezed from an organic lemon. Don’t forget to compost the tea bags and lemon rinds afterwards or David Suzuki will show up on your doorstep and give you a Wet Willie.

Dippers: Card carrying NDP members are welcome to modify the recipe however they see fit so long as they remember to shoplift all the ingredients. Remember, you’re doing your patriotic duty by sticking it to the Capitalist Oppressors.

Bloc Heads: Paul Martin says we can’t consort with separatists, so no tea for you. Bugger off and go be ‘distinct’ somewhere else.

Naked Cyclists in Oil Protest Ride

Insufferable Twits 9 Comments

One hundred odd protestors rode bicycles naked through the streets of London to protest the West’s obsession with oil.
Naked cyclists in oil protest ride

A group of naked cyclists took part in a bike ride to protest against oil dependency and to “celebrate the human body.” Crowds gathered as about 100 people set off from Hyde Park corner, London, in the World Naked Bike Ride past some of the capital’s most famous landmarks. Most of them stripped fully naked for the 10km (6.2 miles) cycle past Piccadilly Circus, Big Ben, Covent Garden, Oxford Street and the United States Embassy.
Some bikes were decked out with banners reading ‘Oil is not a bare necessity but a crude obsession’ and ‘Support the trade justice movement’. Others have slogans painted on their backs and some were on roller-skates.
One of the organisers, Chad Neilson, 24, from North London, said part of the ride was to celebrate the human body. “It’s a protest against oil dependency and car culture and the overuse of cars for unnecessary reasons. There is too much pollution, it stinks in London, and we use too much fossil fuel. I think people should be a lot more comfortable with their bodies. There is nothing wrong with the naked body.”

I’m guessing that this protest will have negligible impact on our energy dependency and will cause approximately zero people to switch from cars to bicycling, naked or otherwise. Indeed, I would wager that the bicyclists used more oil on their chains than they “saved” with their protest.
via OTB

A Word on Beer

stuff 19 Comments

Greetings, I’m R, and I’ll be your host tonight. Kate asked me to keep you entertained while she’s in the custody of liberating democrary-bringers from the South or something.
But I disgress…
mainImage.jpg
Being a proud member of Old Europe, I feel a tad strongly about the quality of beer. One of the greatest advantages of Old Europe is that something worth being called beer actually exists. While not new to the concept of piss in bottles (mostly originating from Belgium, Mexico or Japan), I was totally unprepared for this.
I mean, really. It was… indescribable. I’d rather scour my mouth with a used toilet brush from a heavily frequented public toilet in the South of France than ever having to drink any Canadian beer (did I just call this crap beer? Sorry for the confusion…) again.
So that’s it for today. I’ll think I’ll just grab a bottle of Bier and enjoy the show.
Laterz, dahlins…

Weinreb on Chaoulli

Great Moments In Socialism 6 Comments

Arthur Weinreb has a blistering editorial on the health care system of the Great White North in today’s Canada Free Press.
Supreme Court said what politicians won’t say

[…] In the decision of Chaoulli v. Quebec (Attorney General) that was handed down on Thursday by the Supreme Court of Canada, the court found that Quebec laws that prohibit the purchase of insurance to cover private medical treatment violated the Quebec Charter and the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
The majority of the court found that waiting times in the public system violated the Quebec Charter of Rights. While it was not necessary to decide, three of the justices found that the Quebec law violates section 7 of the Canadian Charter of Rights that guarantees the right to life, liberty and security of the person. The court held that delays in the public health system led to prolonged pain and suffering, deteriorating medical conditions and in some cases, death. In coming to this conclusion in what will inevitably be to the dismay of those on the political left, the Supreme Court followed its 1998 decision in R. v. Morgentaler that held that delays encountered by women seeking abortions breached section 7 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
The interesting aspect of the Chaoulli decision, and the one that most deviated from what politicians of all political parties have been spewing for years was the finding that this breach of a charter right was not reasonable. The court found that while the preservation of a publicly funded health care system was a substantive and legitimate government objective, the outright ban on private health care insurance had no rational connection to saving the public system and went further than was necessary to meet that objective. In the majority�s opinion, the government of Quebec failed to show that allowing Quebeckers to purchase insurance for private health care would destroy Canada�s public health care system. In reaching this conclusion the court examined other countries in the OECD such as Sweden and the U.K. that have strong public health care systems despite allowing private parallel health care services.
This finding is at odds with what the politicians have been saying for years; that not only will allowing private medical services destroy our health care system; it will destroy Canada as we know it. The entire fabric of our society will disappear. We are constantly being told that our health care system is what defines us as a country. Allow someone to actually pay for what is now a public service and we will be no different than the United States.
[…]
The Supreme Court of Canada was right � the public system as we know it will not end. But hopefully Chaoulli will mark the beginning of the end to all the political spin where the reality of the existence private medical care is denied. Perhaps it will also mark an end to this notion that it is better to allow people to suffer and die than it is to allow them to have access to private treatment.

Of course, allowing those with the means to escape the socialist system to do so creates inequality. There are a not insubstantial number of people who would indeed prefer that outcome.
crossposted to OTB

No Relief For Canucks

The Libranos 5 Comments

As you read this, your government representatives are busily trying to push through debt relief for poorer nations at the G8 conference. In the meantime, retailers like Sears Canada continue to nail the poorer members of our nation with 23.15% (and higher) interest rates on their borrowing.

That’s kind of a double insult. You’re so heavily taxed that you have to put that new refrigerator on your credit card, and in the meantime your taxes are being given away to someone in another country. Oh, and the monster Annual Percentage Rates on your credit cards are just icing on the cake.

Whatever happened to charity beginning at home?

(Not that I want the government to start regulating credit card rates, it’s just hard not to notice how little the Libs care for the plight of the poor they have helped create in their own country.)

Death Threats?

Media 49 Comments

Michael Coren says he’s been receiving death threats:

I receive death threats and abuse on a regular basis. My address and phone number have been placed on the Internet by gay militants and people told to harass and assault me. Jokes were made when my father died, insults made about my family.
I have been told by editors and publishers that I will never work as a writer in various places because I defend marriage. But I will not react in kind and I will not surrender. I do, however, want people to know that there is hatred at work.

As a staunch advocate of gay marriage, I am upset at the notion that Coren would be threatened for his views. He’s entitled to express them, just as we on the other side of the fence are allowed express our views.

So much for ‘tolerance’.

Grewaling, Grewaling, Gone?

The Libranos 26 Comments

Buy it if you can, deport it if you can’t:

OTTAWA (AFP) – Three weeks after implicating Canadian Prime Minister Paul Martin’s chief of staff and a senior member of his cabinet in an alleged vote-buying scandal, an opposition lawmaker is now facing possible deportation.

Immigration officials refused to divulge Friday whether they are investigating Conservative MP Gurmant Grewal for allegedly faking a business transaction to fulfill his obligations as an investor immigrant when he moved to Canada from Liberia in Western Africa in 1991.

But spokesperson Greg Scott said: “If there is evidence that somebody obtained their citizenship through fraudulent grounds, false representation, knowingly concealing material circumstances, it is something the department takes very seriously.” — Yahoo News

No further comment necessary.

Going Down Down Down

Political Animal 42 Comments

I’m going down down down down
I’m going down down down down
I’m going down down down down
I don’t know when I’m comming up
— I’m Going Down by Gorky Park

The other song choice to open this post was Free Falling by Tom Petty. Whatever. All I can say is that this is a helluva thing to wake up to:

The Conservative Party has lost more support, a new poll has found — and that can be tied to a popularity drop for its leader Stephen Harper.

Nationally, the numbers break out like this (the May 8 figure is in brackets):

  • Liberals: 34 per cent (27), +7
  • Conservatives: 26 per cent (31), -5
  • NDP: 19 per cent (20), -1
  • Greens: Nine per cent (7), +2
  • Bloc Quebecois: 13 per cent (14), -1

Stephen Harper was viewed favourably by 50 per cent of respondents on May 8. In the June 9 poll, that dropped to 40 per cent — a 10-point decline. — CTV

While I’m admittedly a Green Party supporter, I find the willingness of the public to shift away from the CPC distressing. This doesn’t bode well for any other party that is hoping to present an honest alternative to the Libs, either.

These numbers mean that it would be suicide to take the government out next week and we’re stuck with a bunch of thieves looting the treasury for another six months to a year, at least.

I’m bummed out. It’s time for coffee.

Selective earthquakes

Uncategorized 6 Comments

From Warren Kinsella’s musings for June 10, 2005:

Did you feel that tremor, yesterday morning? It was Canada changing under your feet. Without you, the voter, being asked first [by the judiciary] whether you approve.

He was talking about the health care ruling. Or was he talking about same-sex marriage?
Seems to me that some people are selective about which rulings are earthquakes that require approval and which ones are common sense that we must accept without substantive debate in Parliament or grassroots opposition.
Funny thing is, the health care argument is based on a right that does appear in the Charter (“security of the person”), while sexual orientation is not listed in the Charter as a basis for a charge of discrimination, nor is marriage listed as a right.
[Cross posted at Angry in the Great White North]

Won’t You Be My Carbuncle?

Blogging 3 Comments

I am anxiously awaiting the day when Alan, the Supreme Carbuncle himself, releases the entire Carbuncle’s Lexicon in book form. That’s some quality CanCon that I’d ante up for in a heartbeat.

It’s just a shame that he hasn’t rounded them all up into a single post for easy viewing. (hint! hint!)

Mea-culpa update

Commenter P-Air, who has much better reading comprehension skills than yours truly, pointed out the The Lexicon is already available in its own spot. Man, do I ever feel silly now.

What About the Victims?

Insufferable Twits 45 Comments

Isn’t this just lovely:

Reviled by many, defended by few, Canada’s most notorious female inmate won’t even be greeted by her family when she is released in less than a month. But CTV News has learned Karla Homolka does have some support in high places.

Homolka made her first public appearance in more than a decade last week at a court hearing in Joliette, Que. After two days of testimony, a Quebec judge imposed restrictions on Homolka’s movements for a year after her release from prison.

Liberal Senator Michel Biron, 71, was present in the Joliette, Que. courthouse last week. He sat beside Homolka’s lawyer during the hearing in a show of support for the convicted killer.

According to witnesses, Biron exchanged a slight smile with Homolka.

It’s a shame that there were no Senators sitting with the French, Mahaffy, and Doe families to speak out in favour of protecting their constitutional rights. You know, the right to not be drugged, raped, sodomized, beaten, and then murdered. But I guess that’s not as important as making sure that the people who do these things don’t get their widdle feelings hurt.

Ah, whatever. I’ve been following the coffee house conversations about Ms. Teale (what Homolka calls herself now), and the truth is that she’s a goner. There are enough people willing to cross the line and apply a little ‘retroactive justice’ that I don’t expect her to last a year before somebody plants her head first in some farmer’s field.

Grewal Tapes Get Clean Bill of Health

The Libranos 28 Comments

This is for MikeP who asked for a post on the latest status of the Grewal tapes. This CPC press release oughta take some wind out of the Libranos’ sails:

Jason Kenney, MP
Opposition Deputy House Leader
Calgary Southeast

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
June 9, 2005

News Release

Original Murphy/Dosanjh recordings clean and unaltered: expert

OTTAWA � Conservative Deputy House Leader Jason Kenney today released a letter to Conservative Leader Stephen Harper from Randy Dash, Senior Editor and Manager of Operations of dMAX Media in Ottawa. The letter summarizes Mr. Dash�s analysis of copies of original recordings supplied by Conservative MP Gurmant Grewal.

“Mr. Dash’s analysis of the recordings shows that they are clean and unaltered,” Kenney said. “These recordings speak for themselves. Now, it’s time for Paul Martin, Ujjal Dosanjh and Tim Murphy to begin answering the questions about their involvement in offering rewards to members of parliament in exchange for their votes. To this day, there has been no information produced by any of these individuals to dispute the facts on these recordings.”

Kenney pointed out that Mr. Dash, a professional audio engineer specializing in post-production work, is the only expert thus far to have examined copies of the original recordings, and invited others to do the same. “There has been a lot of conjecture about the authenticity of the recordings,” Kenney said. “None of this speculation is based upon fact, and would indicate that those speculating have not taken the time to listen to or examine the entire recordings, which are publicly available.”

Discussion?

The ethics commissioner on a hot tin roof

Uncategorized 10 Comments

As reported by Angry, The ethics commissioner Bernard Shapiro has had a bad few days, coming under some severe criticism from the House of Commons ethics committee:

“He’s making it up as he goes along; he’s not sure of himself,” Hebert said after grilling the ethics commissioner about the Grewal issue and about a separate investigation of former immigration minister Judy Sgro.
“He comes across as incompetent; he obfuscates his answers.”

Angry wonders if the opposition are planning to use the commissioner’s poor performance to their advantage in the future.

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