Wow. Fifteen minutes without political blogging, that's gotta be a new record:

Oh, William McBeath, after this:

And this.

I was waiting to see this.

And really, were you willfully blind to the favourable coverage you were getting from all media sources Will? I'm not really willing to play the coverage watch game right now, because in a 24 hour news cycle and subjective analysis from all parties it becomes very diffficult to point to a set of data as objective or subjective. My rule of thumb, when a page or screen makes me want to talk back, it's subjective. And the papers that make me want to do that the most, agit-prop weeklies and the Edmonton Sun, both actually agree with me (more or less) on the Emerson file.

Really, you neo-conservatives make it far too easy.

Well, while Dylan's doing my work for me I may well just post about trivial stuff:

To the Creators of Bonus Stage: Were you aware that the overarching theme of your work was that your only dynamic charactter was forced into a metaphysical nightmare deviod of free will, growth, or any degree of faith in benevolence, and that, when free will was sought the ultimate puniishment was meted out and thus the themeatic thrust of your work is, that free will is, at best, a bar to happiness in western society, and that Tetris used to be fun, but there are better games now?

Twylackian Princesses notwithstanding, this is a curveball for our normally political blogster!

Shut up narrator.

OK!

This is what I get for only paying moderate amounts of attention:

So Edmonton's finest free paper, the Agitprop Weekly has refused to run the latest Bob the Angry Flower cartoon, and I'm not sure why because, it makes fun of the idiotic bomb turban cartoon that supposedly caused so much trouble in the first place. Way to go Vue, you'll stand up for the right of someone to hit an elected official in the face with a pie, but a cartoon lampooning a cartoon about blasphemy, that doesn't attack Judeo Christian faith? That's too damn far. FYI I'm an agnostic at any rate so I'm not offended myself and actually think that maybe there ought to be substantive discussion as opposed to howls of anguish from the post-modernists, liberals, and soft theocrats and hoots of derision from libertarians, classical conservatives, muslim refusniks, and the like, but that's not happening anytime soon is it?

Anyway the whole Vue Weekly thing is kinda ironic considering the only reason that Vue was Publishing Bob in the first place is because See Magazine (the other weekly agitprop/massage parlor ads publication) wouldn't run this cartoon.

So to conclude, the impulse to sensor will destroy art.

Also, thanks to Dylan at Right of Center Ice for pluggin' my blog by putting it next to the giant PC logo. You done me a solid dude, here's your plug, or you could just check out my blogroll, you regular readers you.

Now the Democrats are planning to take us too:

Partial Transcript of Jon Stewart talking with Peter Tertzakian, author of, "A Thousand Barrels a Second":

JS: People will find this surprising, but where does the majority, not the majority I should say, but where does the largest percentage of the foreign oil that the united States imports come from?

PT: Comes from Canada.

JS: Now that shocked me when I read that fact I thought that Saudi Arabia or Iran after goin into Iraq.

PT: No, Canada is your lagest suppliier or in the addiction metaphor your pusher I guess (laughter, applause) but in fact, Canada supplies more than twice as much as Saudi Arabia does, and equal to basically the whole Persian Gulf area.

JS: To the United States?

PT: Right

JS: Then why havent we invaded them if I may?

PT: Longest undefended border in the world that's a good question.

JS: I mean we could go up there tonight. Just you and me in my Humscalade and I can get halfway to Winnepeg.

PT: You're right you wouldn't even need to call Tommy Franks.

Meet you in the Diefenbunker. I'll bring the tinfoil hats.

No Diefence today, but rather some internet fun/Canadian political wankery:

So, I was futzing around looking for something to do online when a URL popped into my head from some years back:

www.urban75.com

Now this is a wonderful webpage on its own thanks to the game Downing Street Fighter.

It's pretty much what you think it is. But I wen't and tried another wonderful timewaster today that I had never tried before: The Cossack Love Calculator!

Basically it gives the liklihood of a match between two individuals based solely on thier names. Having rapidly run out of pop culture celebrities whose coupling liklihood I would be amused to see predicted, I went to the politicians:

Disclaimer: I hold no responsibility for the below results they are just an amusing list arbitrarily selected:

Margaret Thatcher and...

Tony Blair: 36.5%

Tony Blur: 57%

Tony Benn: 37%

Clement Atlee: 55%

Which led me to other mis-matches behold my Canadian Lesbian Politician Couplometer:

Kim Campbell and:

Sheila Copps: 48%

Flora MacDonald: 56.5%

Libby Davies: 58%

Maureen McTeer: 67% (Incidentally both made thier first foray into federal politics at the same time, political bedfellows if you will)

(Current PC leader) Tracy Parsons: 37.5% (One Tory who, according to a computer applet, doesn't think that Kim is particularly cuddly)

Rona Ambrose: 48%

Dianne Ablonczy: 56.5%

Laureen Tesky: 77.5%

Which got me thinking about Prime Ministers and their wives/significant others. I got the info either from Wikipedia or, in the case of Dief, Joe, Pierre, and Marty Muldoon, memory. I tried to go with maiden names as often as possible:

Stephen Harper and Laureen Tesky: 76.5%

Paul Martin and Sheila Ann Cowan: 36.5%

Jean Chrétien and Aline Chainé: 17.5%

Avril Phaedra Douglas Campbell (I should have used this earlier, but what the heck) and:
Nathan Divinsky: 87.5%
Howard Eddy: 89.5%
Hershey Felder: 88%

(Wood Nymph Indeed!)

Martin Brian Mulroney and Mila Pivnicki: 63%

John Napier Turner and Geills McCrae Kilgour: 90%

Pierre Elliot Trudeau and:
Margaret Sinclair: 91%
Deborah Coyne: 93%

Charles Joseph Clark and Maureen McTeer: 83%

Lester Bowles Pearson and Maryon Moody: 93.5%

John George Diefenbaker and:
Edna Brower: 93%
Olive Freeman Palmer: 88%

Louis St. Laurent and Jeanne Renault: 94.5%

William Lyon MacKenzie King and Joan Patteson(Singificant 'Female Friend'): 90%

Richard Bedford Bennett and (Rumoured Squeeze) Agnes Campbell MacPhail: 67%

Arthur Meighen and Jessie Isabel Cox: 64.5%

Robert Laird Borden and Laura Bond: 75.5%

Wifrid Laurier and Zoe Lafontaine: 85.5%

Charles Tupper and Frances Morse: 56.5%

Mackenzie Bowell and Harriet Moore: 95.5%

John Sparrow David Thompson and Annie Affleck: 70%

John Joseph Caldwell Abbott and Mary Bethune: 90.5%

Alexander Mackenzie and:
Helen Neil: 75%
Jane Sym: 56.5%

John Alexander Macdonald and:
Isabella Clark: 81%
Susan Agnes Bernard: 78.5%

Conclusions: Prime Ministers, paragons of family virtue, get around. Reagan was the only divorced President. We've had two Divorced PMs with 3 divorces total.

Nobody wants to visualise Margaret Thatcher and Tony Blair...

Sorry.

Not much to report today:

Some fucker stole my mp3 player at work. Now I can finally say that music theft has become a problem, because the theft of this music means I can't use it anymore.

In further Diefence: Part Three, Diefending Canadian Soverignty or, "You're not in Massachussets anymore Mr. President."

John Diefenbaker, 20th century Canada's greatest Prime Minister, was well noted for standing up to the United States not simply by pursuing a different economic policy, which is comparatively easy, but rather, by challenging the American perception that Canada would kow-tow when it came to American leadership on NATO-Communist relations. Diefenbaker fully supported his agriculture Minister Alvin Hamilton in successful negotiations to sell surplus Canadian wheat to Communist China, a bold move considering the country wasn't even recognised by most western nations at the time. Because many shipping companies operating out of British Columbia's ports were subsidiaries of American companies, the US government invoked the Trading with the Enemy Act to prevent ostensibly Canadian companies from the exercise of what was, in Canada, a legal market perogative. Kennedy raised the grain issue with Diefenbaker to which the PM responded with the aforementioned quotation.

When it came to accepting nuuclear weapons on Canadian soil to arm the Bomarc air defence complexes, Dief balked, having accepted the Bomarc II the US and Liberalsx argued that Diefenbaker had agreed to accept the nuclear warheads that they had been designed to carry. However Diefenbaker argued against the acceptance on two points: Invoking the Canadian anti-nuclear weaponry precedent, and further, citing the high explosive warheads that were developed for the first Bomarcs, stated that similar warheads could easily be designed, the problem being that the Americans would refuse to do so should they think that such a refusal held out any prospect of Canadian aquiescence. So Diefenbaker did what he had to do to ensure that Canadians would not act as an extension of the American nuclear battery, he held firm. And Pearson, accused Diefenbaker of flip flopping. Pearson then proceeded to repudiate his party's anti-nuclear stance and announced that as PM he would accept the nuclear warheads.

This led one NDP candidate in 1963 to sneeringly refer to Pearson as, "the defrocked priest of peace." Unfortunately, Pierre Trudeau was unsucssesful in his election bid that year. Though 21 years later he saw the last of the warheads leave Canadian soil for good.

Diefenbaker, willing to publicly disagree with the Americans on defence policy during the cold war. That about does it for me.

Godammit, now I have to boycott the Brier:

Apparently Monsanto is sponsoring the Brier. This disgusting absentee landlord company has left me nothing left damitt. Well, I will fight back. I'm giong to get drunk and possibly curl during the Labatt Brier. (PS it will always be called that to me) But I will not plant genetellicly (intentional high crusade reference) modified canola seed. That is all. I'm maybe dead to Steve Smith, but I don't know. Can someone guilt him into calling me back? Possibly John George Diefenbaker, whose legacy I'm going to the trouble of defending?

There's Ballsy and then there's Peter MacKay:

I have to have some degree of begrudging respect for someone who can make such obviously stupid statements and trust that people will not call him on his logic.

Quoth MacKay regarding the defection:

"What David Emerson did, I would suggest, is different, in the sense that he has done this early after the election in hopes of continuing the important work that he was doing inside a government which he was obviously very disillusioned with."

The only disillusionment that David Emerson suffered with the Liberals was that the Liberals wern't what they seemed to him to be, namely the government.


He would have been perfectly happy continuing to supportt them had they won. Now I'm not opposed to Mr. Emerson crossing the floor, though I would say that normally it's over an actual issue or having tried and become disgusted with the new situation in parliament. No, David Emerson is so disgusted by the idea of being on the wrong side of tthe mace that he ffelt it best to simply join the government of the day. The Liberals coalition hadn't changed, their stance on issues hadn't changed, they weren't allying themselves witth any party that made Mr. Emerson uncomfortable, as was the case with Blindie, he simply looked at the opposition benches and said, F*** that noise!


More From Peter:

"Unlike other moves, it didn't happen at a critical juncture that propped the government up. There wasn't that sense that there was strict reward or leadership ambition."

I believe that it is best to give people the benefit of the doubt regarding their motives, and only attack them if it is possible to disprove their reasons for taking an action. David Emerson has simply said he'd like to keep working on the Softwood file in Cabinet. He has explicitly stated that he crossed the floor for power.

David Emerson crossed the floor to retain power, it does help prop the government up, and there is a reward.

I suppose I should have come to expect this from the Ethical ConservativesTM, In fact I had I don't have a problem with the actions per se just that the Conservatives told the people that they weren't going to play the game this way. I never believed them for a second being twice shy, but I'm just going to take this opportunity to say:

I TOLD YOU SO!

This one's easy: Parliamentary Freedom

Dief NEVER invvoked Closure, no matter how annoying tthe opposition was.

Done.

Steve Told me to keep him posted so...

I am amenable to a Draft Tisdall Campaign. If One Person tells me by 11:59 PM Saturday, the 11th of February evening that I should run for the SoCred Leadership based on a platffrom of the implementation of the Kierans Report (circa 1972) and an expansion of and pay cut to the legislative assembly of Alberta so as to make for a more active and democratic house then I shall run. I will contact David Orchard, Jim Love, Tracy Parsons, Steve Smith, and the spirit of John Diefenbaker, through a psychic if need be, to ascertain the momentum of the Sean Tisdall Campaign. If they all say no and no one says yes then I shall sit on the side lines and see what happens to my party.

God Speed.

BTW my Diefence was posted yesterday, thoug the first part was saved from the fourth. so consider the series having started FFebruary 9th.

UPDATE:

Apparently there's no leadership race, so that means someone sent me either an erronious or misleading e-mail. Whatever.

I'm not getting away from this no matter how much I want to ignore it so here goes:

I have the right to committ heresy. Some of Western society's ggreatest heros were heretics. Those who had the courage to oppose what they fought wrong without fear to offend. The danger is of course that that rightt may be abused in its exercise, but, as Galileo found out, peer review is not a sufficent principle to determine what is and isn't valid. I would defend to the death the right of these cartoonists to caracature someone who hasn't lived for hundreds of years. Has faith become so fragile that it is nott enough for the pious to be pious? Apparently not.

I don't really get the whole turban of Mohmammed being a bomb thing. It doesn't make sense to me. Many others, but of course One could just as easily put a trigger on W's cross. When faith demands violence it is no longer faith, but that strange mix of fear and hubris. I will insult any religion I please, if I please, even my own, because that is how to most basically assert my free will.

So, take off, eh?

PS: Does this mean we can take Hans Island in jihad?

In Defence of Dief, Part One: The Torying:

John Diefenbaker was the 20th Century's greatest Canadian Prime Minister. This is a rare assertion to make, doubtless, but it is an assertion that I make without reservation. Truly Pierre Trudeau ranks a close second and the likes of Liberalism shall never find such a leading light again, but while Pierre magicked us into addressing one fundamental problem at the expense of all others, John Diefenbaker addressed myriad problems, and acted as a political poultice during his time, his decisions tending to bear fruit after his rule.

I shall devote three weeks to this serialised defence of a forgotten leader. In seven parts I shall expose his impact on economics, parliamentary freedom, Canadian independence, the weaning of the Canadian preoccupation with high technology, civil rights, economic nationalism, and the shattering of the myth of the di-genious bi-cultural state. (I will note that this was not an assault on bilingualism, but rather an assertion of the Canadian Mosaic)

Economics:

Those of you old enough to, do you remeber the '57 recession? Didn't think so. Though there was a significant economic slowdown, the government of the day was determined to pursue steady state economics. Thus even though the Liberals had a report telling them that an economic slowdown was emminient, they had no public works projects to carry them through such a recession. The Diefenbaker government responded swiftly and effectively, spreading public works programs most heavily during the lean winter monts (the Winter Works program) and increasing all manner of transfer to get money into the hands of Canadians, where it could be used to stimulate demand.

The government intervened in key sectors of the economy to avert exascerbations of the slow down averting a railway strike, providing farm relief, and borrowing from the Bank of Canada to stop contraction of the money supply. Peter Newman puts these actions down to spend thrift seeking off the public's love. He would do well to remember that, during the Diefenbaker years, the Debt to GDP ratio fell by aboiut 10% (41-37 if memory serves). The Diefenbaker government kept a steadier hand on public finances than did its successors, because they failed to understand how to properly stimulate an open economy. Pearson subsidized the aquisition of capital in resource industries. Trudeau moved the country into cyclical deficit, and Mulroney could never bring himself to attack localised entitlements or expand the money supply, thus starving core services and unneccessarily pauperising the public treasury.

Diefenbaker has one of the most underrated economic legacies of Canadian Prime Ministers this century. Instead of being a basket case, the Diefebaker era, in no small part thanks to Finance Minister Flemming, was notable for its ability to combine growth, flexibility, and stability.