Poundmaker

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I’ve been home a couple of hours, mostly cleaning the house and cleaning up my email inbox. I probably won’t do much more blogging tonight, but I have a treat for you. Lance has several posts up on his impressions after doing a grocery run for the Poundmaker Working Group. The first;

I found Democracy and it wasn’t in a Greek text, it wasn’t in England, it wasn’t in Regina, it wasn’t in “parliamentary tradition”. I found Democracy in the hearts and minds of thirty people trying to get their little piece of the world back in their hands. It was in the majority of the band backing them, it was in Tyrone Tootoosis picking out the groceries, and Diane filming the reenactment of the move from Jacob’s place to the present site of the Band office (not quite, but only a km away). Democracy was in Marvin recounting the accident on the Pow-Wow grounds. Democracy shone and the clouds parted. They’ve finished sitting, the trail did not grow over, they are finding their way back.

Be sure to read them all.

Reader Tips

Reader Tips 56 Comments

This post is for the tips you have for other readers, links to scintillating posts at your own site (I recommend you use the trackback function). Keep descriptions brief, please. No discussion please – links only.
See you guys in a couple days. Have a good weekend!

Upcoming Carnival Of The Newbies

Blogging 12 Comments

I’ll probably pull a Newbie Carnival together by next weekend. If you’ve started a blog in the past month or two, and haven’t already been part of one of the previous two, send me your URL and a brief description, and start writing. Suggestion: if you’ve only just begun, maybe wait a little longer and build some content before asking to join in. My email address is on the sidebar.
(Past carnivals here and here.)
Also – to round things out I’m asking established bloggers to share their helpful hints on getting your blog off the ground and building traffic. Just shoot your comments to me by email, or if you prefer to compose a post on the topic, send me the URL.

Don Martin, You Got A Problem

Media 53 Comments

Every so often, someone in media exposes their cultural bigotry towards the rural west. I just sent a letter to Mr. Martin.

Mr. Martin – as a lifetime resident of the rural prairies, I cannot adequately explain how abhorrant these cultural slurs (“prairie knuckledraggers”) towards our lifestyle and values are becoming.
“Knuckledragger. Redneck.”
For reasons unexplained, these are the favoured terms of elitist politicians and media alike, when referring to those who have committed the “crime” of adhering to the conservative values that have been the mainstay of rural culture since the founding of our nation.
Yet, to you, we are someone that “mainstream Canadians” should fear – indeed, something less than fully human. We are “knuckledraggers”.
(Let me ask you – when writing about an immigrant politician in Toronto, would you refer to those in their community as “spearchuckers”?)
You are devaluing our culture, you are demeaning an entire class of Canadians and in so doing, suggesting we do not deserve a voice in the political process.
I suggest that you owe a great number of Canadians a sincere apology. You may not agree with conservative rural values, but you have no right to dehumanize those who hold them.
Kate McMillan

update – May 30 Don Martin replies;

I can’t believe I’ve been so misunderstood by so many readers. Apologies
indeed for not communicating better. I was attempting to belittle the stereotype, which seems so ingrained around here in Ontario, of Prairie residents somewhere low on the evolutionary chain. They’re anything but . And I know that as someone who in Alberta (rural for part of the time) for 22 years. I only moved here reluctantly five years ago and will return eagerly at the first opportunity.
Again, apologies.

Well, I’ll take him at his word. But if the stereotype was being “belittled”, it was with a good measure of subtlety, considering that suggestion that certain politicians try to distance themselves from it.
I’d rather they attack it for what it is.

They Are Not The Same

Political Animal 57 Comments

Monte Solberg reminds me of why some of us refuse to be cynical about poltiicians, to entertain the argument that “all politicians are the same”. They are not.

I look forward to going to church where I wish to be chided, and made to feel very sorry and then to be forgiven.
I will also do chores, and will be happy to do as I am told. I will inspect my trees, many of which we planted.
I will entertain a recurring and dangerous fantasy that politics at bottom is about what is just. From this shaky premise I will, I am sure wrongly, conclude that justice implies the frightening idea of a moral standard.
This wild idea being firmly and I suppose errantly fixed in my brain I will, like a more ridiculous Don Quixote, retreat to my modest castle to bind up my wounds, to marshall my resources and to gird again for battle.

Winston Churchill was not the same as Neville Chamberlain. Ronald Reagan was not the same as Jimmy Carter.
Monte Solberg is not the same as Alphonso Gagliano, or Belinda Stronach, or Carolyn Parrish, or Joe “KKK” Volpe.
Some Canadians understand better than others that the premise is not only false, but dangerous. The argument that “all polititians are the same” is not only a falsehood – it is a falsehood with a hidden intent. Manufactured in an attempt to pull all those in the public service down to a lowest common denominator, it sustains the apologist’s rationale to endorse “The Devil You Know”. That particular devil just happens to be the soil in which corrupt governments take root.
Buying into the canard is not a product of cynicism, but an admission that one’s own moral compass should be sent in for a rebuild. If we truly believes that “all politiicans are the same”, then we must also concede that all citizens are “the same”, held to no particular standard of honesty or integrity, and that with such low expectations of government, undeserving of better.

Reader Tips

Reader Tips 4 Comments

A very good, relatively new blog on “goofs, bias and hypocrisy in the media”. That ought to keep them busy.
Looking at it from the “inside”, The Toronto Sun skewers the bias at the Liberal Death Star.
At Proud To Be Canadian, “Exile” does a little venting.
A few days ago, Macleans columnist Steve Maich came to the (weak) defense of Maurice Strong and PowerCorp. Somebody who actually knows what he’s talking about rebuts. Read the comments, too.

Poundmaker Blogger Alliance

Gopher News 4 Comments

poundmaker2.jpg
Lance is going to be making a grocery run to the Poundmaker group’s band office sit-in on the weekend.

I’ll be making a grocery / phone card run up to Poundmaker on Saturday morning depending on the amount of stuff to take up. Help increase the stuff by making a PayPal donation. [there’s a link for that on his site – ed]
I just talked to Diane Tootoosis at Poundmaker to get an idea of what is necessary food wise. I’ll be providing her with the receipts of the foodstuffs and phone cards. She also requested names of the donors, if you don’t want that, let me know, (lance@catprint.ca). Her list, in addition to phone cards for the cell, was: breads, fruit, vegetables, meat (stored off-site in a freezer), and easy to store dry goods like pasta and rice. I’ll probably pick this up in the Battlefords.

Background – there have been “inconsistancies” in the band governance and elections, and this group is attempting to force some accountability.
Full story at Dust My Broom.

Guinness World Records

The Libranos 15 Comments

LONGEST SANDWICH: The longest sandwich measured 634.50 m (2,081 ft) and was created by Pietro Catucci and Antonio Latte of EuroSpin in Mottola, Taranto, Italy, on August 7, 2004. The ingredients included 920 kg (2,028.25 lb) of flour, 512 litres (112.6 gal) of water and 25 kg (55.11 lb) of salt.
MOST UTTERANCES OF WORD “NO”: In May of 2005, during telephone conversations between members of the Canadian government and staff, and an opposition Member Of Parliament, the word “no” was uttered by government officials 14,327 times (averaging just under one “no” per second) over a taped four hour time period.
WALKING – GREATEST DOCUMENTED LIFETIME MILEAGE: Between 1969 and 2000, Arthur Blessitt of Florida, USA, walked 34,501 miles on seven continents while carrying a 3.7-metre cross.
LONGEST GUITAR MARATHON: The longest guitar marathon by an individual lasted for 42 hours and was achieved by Guillermo Paolisso Terraza (Argentina), at the Galleria Umberto 1�, Napoli, Italy, from 22 to 23 January 2005. During the marathon Guillermo Paolisso Terraza played about 800 songs in an assortment of 16 different musical styles.
HEAVIEST KIDNEY STONE: Peter Baulman (Australia) had a kidney stone removed from his right kidney in December 2003 at The Gold Coast Hospital, Southport, Queensland, Australia, weighing 356 g (12.5 oz) and measuring at its widest point, 11.86 cm (4.66 in).
More Guinness Records here

Iraq: Credit Cards And ATM On The Way

Little Known Facts 7 Comments

Bloomberg;

The Trade Bank of Iraq on Tuesday issued the country’s first credit and debit cards, from Visa International Inc., at a ceremony in Baghdad.
Visa cards were given to cabinet ministers, government officials and financial professionals, the bank said. Bank Chairman Hussein al-Uzri presented the first card to Adel Abdul Mehdi, one of two vice presidents and a former finance minister.
The bank said it would issue 30,000 Visa cards in Iraq by the end of the year. The company also plans to install the country’s first network of automated teller machines, which would enable cardholders to withdraw Iraqi dinars or U.S. dollars from their accounts.

Cue MSM: “Not just a “quagmire”, but a quagmire run on credit.”
Via OTB

“Knaves grow rich and the good men are destroyed”

Military 9 Comments

A letter to David Frum;

“I work with serving US soldiers in Afghanistan and Iraq. These are, for the most part, wonderful human beings: bright, articulate, honest and possess a keen sense of morality, fair-play, and an unerring sense of honour and duty (one of my students was badly wounded in Iraq last year, but he’s right back at soldiering again).
“Then, I compare these soldiers to the alleged political leaders of Canada – and I find it embarrassing to the point that I feel like I am going to be ill. The lying, the cheating, the swindling, and the shear gutless heap of human immorality that has ensconced itself in the role of leadership enrages me and every other patriotic Canadian I know.

We Don’t Need No Stinkin’ Confidence

The Libranos 35 Comments

Via Nealenews this Globe And Mail item;

The federal Liberals would consider ignoring a House of Commons defeat should they lose any of the several coming votes that are matters of confidence between now and the end of the spring session, Chief Government Whip Karen Redman says.

She goes on to explain the reasoning, of course, but that’s irrelevant.
They have been governing illegally for a couple of weeks now. What’s another year or two?
update – Coyne weighs in.

Kroll Report: Contempt For Parliament

The Libranos 17 Comments

Habamus Rodentum has done something that the mainstream media couldn’t be bothered with – actually read and report on the contents of the Kroll report. While CBC and CTV reported that the actual figure for Adscam was $355, it did not occur to them to report how the Liberals managed to get millions in extra funding through without the approval of parliament – which is required under the Constitution Act.

The Kroll Report (KR) has indicated that the amount of $355 million, $105 million over the Auditor General’s amount, was increased because other funding was given by various departments of the Liberal government for SPS (Special Programs & Sponsorship) on top of the that given within the Public Works budget for SPS.
Any requests for money, under Treasury Board rules, were supposed to document what the money was to be used for by segregating the budget for each use. This was not done but allowed to pass through the [Treasury Board] and PMO’s office for authorization to spend, bypassing Parliament.
Anything that was submitted to Parliament for SPS spending did not contain appropriate details in “Reports on Plans and Priorities” (RPP�s), “which include the individual expenditure plans for each department”. Any increased spending over the budget does not have spending authority and has to go back to Parliament to be voted on.

The big story of the Kroll testimony yesterday wasn’t the extra $105 million – it was the fact that parliament was misled. This wasn’t the work of a few “rogue” ad executives or civil servants. The extra-parliamentary spending – or as “habamusrodentum” puts it, “a fraud against the government” – was directed by the Prime Minister, the Treasury Board and Public Works Minister.

Gun Blogging

Little Known Facts 16 Comments

Capt John Heinrichs sends along this info on the Hechler & Koch used in the Mayerthorpe RCMP murders, in response to comments.
1. Military rifles can be semi-automatic (one round per trigger pull) or select-fire (semi-auto and automatic fire). The latter are illegal in Canada, except for owners of such weapons prior to the Firearms Act of c.1965. The ban also covers the parts which can convert a semi-auto to select-fire.
2. Previous to our current weapons, the C7 (rifle) and C9 (light machine gun), the Canadian Army used the FN C1 (rifle- semi-auto) and FN C2 (light machine gun- select-fire). While there were cosmetic differences between the two, functionally they were the same. Except for one part in the trigger mechanism: by exchanging the part installed in the C1 for the part installed in the C2, the C1 became a select-fire weapon. Your commentators in the HK91 post were referring to this type of part switching. It was possible because the FN rifle was designed originally as a select-fire weapon. The Canadian Army decided the automatic function was useless in a rifle as the soldier would have difficulty controlling the FN on full auto. FN then redesigned the relevant part for the C1, making it semi-auto only.

Continue reading →

Anatomy Of A Sponsorship Contract

The Libranos 34 Comments

Angry ITGWN provides a breakdown of a sample sponsorship contract, from the Kroll Report;

Out of a total of $46.32 million:

  • $460,000, or 1%, went to sponsorship
  • $8.34 million, or 18%, went to actual work done
  • $26 million, or 56%, went to “unrelated or unknown parties”
  • $11.52 million, or 25%, was unspent or the invoices were not found

    • MK Braaten is liveblogging. Double funding of programs, double skimming of $$$! update And more here.

    -The Finance department was responsible for 115.19 million of the sponsorship costs.

    Apparently the Liberals are already issuing denials that more or less state that these latest revelations are just, you know, the word of an auditor.
    Meanwhile over at Occam’s Carbuncle, Alan has been looking past the limitations of Paragraph K, and guess what?

    …”the Gomery Commission terms of reference do not exactly call for the publication of a report. They call for the submission of two separate reports to Cabinet.”

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