Only 28%? Ah Man!

Hat tip to Timmy the G:

 

 

Shooting Self In Foot

The "deal" between the NDP's Jack Layton and the Crooks R' Us Liberal's Paul Martin always seemed like a bad idea to me. Considering that even combined they don't have majority in the Commons and that the optics were easily shifted to "Martin doing anything to stay in power" I had to ask myself why he would try this desperate ploy?

No sympathy for 'devil' deal

AMHERSTBURG -- Conservative Leader Stephen Harper has vowed to topple the Liberal government over its "deal with the devil." Harper blasted Prime Minister Paul Martin's deal with NDP Leader Jack Layton to replace $4.6 billion in corporate tax cuts with an equal amount of social spending.

The ammunition this deal has given Conservatives is perfect for sound bites. I'm no political expert but the attacks just write themselves.

The Tory leader said Martin has destroyed his credibility with the business community and "anyone in this country who cares about financial responsibility."

The public is going to eat this up because instead of making the Conservatives look like they don't want the government to work, this move makes Martin look even more desperate than he already did!

"To deal with Liberal corruption, we get an NDP budget," he said. "What the Liberals don't steal, the NDP gets to spend."

Dear Paulie, here's a hint: when you are running for your (political) life, don't shoot yourself in the foot.

The Tories and Bloc hold a combined 153 seats in the 308-seat House, which is short one MP because of a vacancy. The Grits would need all their 131 votes, the NDP's 19, and possibly those of all three independents and the Speaker to survive a non-confidence motion.

Moron. Of course, I'm pleased as pie. I believe we need an election sooner than later and a chance to throw this bloated corpse of a party out for a good 4-5 years of airing out. And get a new leader, one not tainted with the scent of corruption like our current goober of a Prime Minister is.

That's just ... Creepy

From Canoe:

Tom Cruise dating Katie Holmes

LOS ANGELES (AP) -- Tom Cruise has a new girlfriend -- actress Katie Holmes. Cruise, 42, and Holmes, 26, have been dating a few weeks, Cruise's publicist and sister, Lee Anne DeVette, said Wednesday.

Maybe this is very close-minded of me, and I'm sure there are lots of example of even larger age gaps in relationships, but I still find this a little creepy.

I'm just saying.

Back in the U.S.S.R.

From Daniel W. Drezner's blog:

I definitely feel better about investing in the U.S.S.R..... I mean, Russia

In the wake of the Russian government's prosecution of Yukos oil tycoon Mikhail Khodorkovsky, president Vladimir Putin tried to assuage domestic and foreign investors in his state-of-the-nation address.

Lots of fun quotes like from the AP article he references like:

President Vladimir Putin lamented the demise of the Soviet Union in some of his strongest language to date, saying in a nationally televised speech before parliament Monday that it was "the greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the century.''

And:

Putin, who served as a colonel in the KGB, has resurrected some communist symbols during his presidency, bringing back the music of the old Soviet anthem and the Soviet-style red banner as the military's flag.

I don't know about you, the idea of a re-emerging Soviet empire makes me a little nervous. All you gung ho neo-cons chasing after shadows screaming "Bin Laden!" better take note.

Spring is a time for Change

After a very restful and relaxing weekend (which saw me watch not one, but TWO Star Wars movies in anticipation of this May's upcoming release) I feel very reinvigorated and pleased with life in general. I'm still losing weight (down 45 pounds now), I've got new contacts to wear, getting to re-discover my joy of playing tennis, and work has returned to the enjoyable pace of this time last year as opposed to the hell I was through for the past 6 months.

I have a busy Spring lined up in front of me. A trip to Niagara Falls for the Victoria Day weekend to celebrate my 8th Wedding Anniversary, lots of weekends visiting family, and Spring Cleaning of the garage is in the offing (before the Boss nags me to death about the mess in the garage).

Speaking of Spring, lately there have been blog rolls springing up to match wits with the Blogging Tories. Robert at My Blahg has started the Blogging New Democrats and James Bow has kicked off the Blogging Alliance of Non-Partisan Canadians. This has led me to question where do I fit in the scheme of things and should I join one of these blogrolls or not.

In the end I have decided to continue to be a "Blogroll of One" for now, but I reserve the right to change my mind.

 

Fricking Hilarious!

From PolSpy: An Economy of Words

That was just awesome.

"Oops, My Bad"

Last night Paul Martin came out and said:

What happened with the sponsorship file occurred on the watch of a Liberal government. Those who were in power are to be held responsible and that includes me. I was the Minister of Finance. Knowing what I've learned this past year, I am sorry that we weren't more vigilant -- that I wasn't more vigilant. Public money was misdirected and misused.

Allow me to paraphrase.

We know nasty stuff occurred on our watch. We acknowledge that this crap should not have gone down while we were at the wheel. Must have been too busy managing my shipping line to notice. Picking tax havens based on cool looking flags for my fleet is tough work! My bad, yo.

If you are elected to the highest office in the land and you are basically admitting that you were incapable of doing your less important job in the past, what makes you think you deserve to lead this country for another day much less another 9-12 months? I, as a Canadian, demand your resignation, sir. And I demand it NOW.

Anything less is an insult to my intelligence.

"We're Not Desperate!"

Calgary Grit hit the nail on the head when talking about PM the PM's (nod to POGGE) address to the nation. (Did I say address? I meant the desperate plea from a desperate man leading a desperate government to not think they are desperate.)

Voted Off the Island 

"If you'd like Paul Martin to be your next Prime Minister dial 1-900-VOTE-PAUL. If you'd like Stephen Harper to be your next Prime Minister dial 1-900-VOTE-STEVE. Then, tune in next Tuesday when I reveal the winner in a special two hour show!"

 

I Can See Clearly Now!

Well actually I can see just as well as before but the song was in my head.

As part of the Bill 2.0 renovations I decided to give contacts a try again. I had some about 8 years ago but lost interest in university but lately I've been considering them and today I went and got a trial pair to try out.

With my glasses my vision is about 20/15 and its pretty much the same with the contacts. It was tough getting used to them for the first few minutes but I've adjusted now and it feels fine. I can tell they are there but it is not irritating me. We'll see how it goes for the next two weeks until I have to make a decision of whether or not to order some.

Lesson of the day: When describing vision, we often hear 20/20 or 20/30 etc. From How Stuff Works:

By looking at lots of people, eye doctors have decided what a "normal" human being should be able to see when standing 20 feet away from an eye chart. If you have 20/20 vision, it means that when you stand 20 feet away from the chart you can see what the "normal" human being can see. (In metric, the standard is 6 meters and it's called 6/6 vision). In other words, if you have 20/20 vision your vision is "normal" -- a majority of people in the population can see what you see at 20 feet. (From here on, please assume that the word normal has quotes around it.)

If you have 20/40 vision, it means that when you stand 20 feet away from the chart you can see what a normal human can see when standing 40 feet from the chart. That is, if there is a normal person standing 40 feet away from the chart and you are standing only 20 feet away from it, you and the normal person can see the same detail. 20/100 means that when you stand 20 feet from the chart you can see what a normal person standing 100 feet away can see. 20/200 is the cutoff for legal blindness in the United States.

You can also have vision that is better than the norm. A person with 20/10 vision can see at 20 feet what a normal person can see when standing 10 feet away from the chart.

Now you know.

Why We Need An Election

Listening to the discussions about the revelations at the Gomery Inquiry I am struck by how often I hear the following topics that really bug me.

1) We are spending more money for the inquiry than was taken or used inappropriately.

Rebuttal: The statue of Justice is blind because she's not counting the money being spent on ensuring justice is served. If we as a society decide that we only investigate and prosecute crime where we are sure we will not cost more than the cost of the crime, then tomorrow there could be a crime wave of petty theft and not one case would be investigated because the cost of having the police officers out and asking questions would quickly outstrip the cost of the crime. Its not a society I would wish to live in.

Crime should be investigated, criminals brought to justice. Cost should not be a deciding factor of when we do this.

2) Its only a few bad apples, why punish all Liberals for the actions of a few?

Rebuttal: There is actual corruption, and then there is the environment that fosters corruption. Power corrupts, and the longer a single party is in power the more corruption seeps in. Its a fact of government. The reason democracy works better than many other forms of government is that the party in control gets changed every few years to keep corruption from becoming systematic.

Even if most Liberals had nothing to do with actual corruption, they are part of a government that has become more concerned with being in power than governing. Its the nature of the beast. The whole party requires a shakeup that only being on the opposition benches can provide.

Therefore, I do not see it as punishing the Liberals so much as cleaning house and forcing out all the dust and skeletons and starting fresh. That is why I feel an election is needed sooner rather than later, we need to put in a new government and get Canada moving forward again while the Liberals clean house and the sycophants move on the new governing party.

BBQ Season Is Here!

Got the old barbecue running on the weekend for some hamburgers, but the season officially opened with sirloin steak last night. *drool* It was very tasty, with some foil-boiled taters to boot.

I like barbecuing because it is easy to do and I can sit in a chair beside the grill and read in between flips. That's the life.

Of course, I'll have to be eating frugally for the rest of the week to burn off the points accumulated last night. I guess I need tennis season to start soon. Sigh.

Another Weekend On The Books

I had a pleasant weekend just past.

On Saturday morning I did some yardwork that involved raking leaves from last fall, trimming shrubs and low branches on trees, and some weeding of the garden. In the afternoon Kim and I scooted off to Ottawa to shop for a recliner chair for Kim. Her neck ache has been not improving recently and she's in constant pain, so we've decided that the current sofa we have provides improper back and neck support and is possibly aggravating the situation. Its a bit of a long shot but at this point I'd do anything to make my wife's life better.

So we purchased a Laz-e-boy recliner that was on sale and its getting delivered next Monday. Hopefully it helps but if not at least its a really comfy chair. It would go unused.

The evening was movies. Electra gets 2 out of 5 stars for lacking in much martial art action in a movie that should be all about the martial art action. Wicker Park gets 3 out of 5 stars for simply being amusing in a such contrived way.

<Warning! Gaming Geekiness Ahead>

On Sunday I was visiting Andrew where we participated in an awesome game of Twilight  Imperium (3rd Edition). There was four of us and we had a great time. Much pizza and pop was consumed and Andrew was victorious in the end (I blame the War Suns of DOOM!). Definitely got to play that again.

Shameless Plug

Do you own a dog and live in Ottawa? Visit Happy Doggie for doggie treats or dog walking services. It runs by a good friend of mine and I thought I would help out his advertising.

One Comment

Over at True North, mahigan talks about the problems of the Conservatives:

The Prophecy 

[...] Nor does it benefit them that they have chosen the Prairie Weather Model for their policy. "If you don't like our policy now, wait ten minutes." This government by polling approach is also a throwback to Mulroney whose model was poll them, find out what they want, promise them whatever it takes to get elected and then do whatever the hell you were going to do in the first place.

I'm sorry, for a minute there I thought he was describing the Liberals for the last ten years! Pot, meet kettle.

Meta-Blogging

I'm approaching 1500 hits, sitting at 1491 this morning. Wow.

I average 14 visits a day, 94 a week. My busiest day was Tues, Feb 8 with 64 visitors, probably due to my post about the CBC losing the TV rights to the Olympics. People like to link to political opinion posts so I try to get one or two of those a week up. What can I say, I like to keep the public happy.

Most of my referrers come from Andrew's site, for example this morning 13 out of 20 of my last referrer visits. Sometimes I consider wrapping up Obsidian Tempest and asking to join Andrew back on BBG again. While blogging has been fun, I'm not sure its a long-term thing for me. We'll see.

In the meantime, the adventure continues.

Doh!

"Jade Empire is the Role Playing Game to own on the Xbox, the best game on the Xbox period, and probably one of the best games released in the last 5 years."

And here I am owning a Game Cube. :P

Rubbish In Winnipeg

Tom Brodbeck of the Winnipeg Sun has this article on Canoe today:

Sleaze irrelevant to hot-for-Grits Ontario

Listening to some Ontario voters whine, you'd think they live in a two-party state where only Liberals and Conservatives run for office.

My e-mail, predictably, was flooded with angry Ontarians yesterday after I wrote yesterday how Ontario voters must like scandal because they keep re-electing Liberals. I got an earful.

And Ontario readers gave me every reason in the book why they still vote Liberal -- a once proud party that has taken on mafia-like qualities in recent years.

The most common reason they claim to vote for the party linked to the sponsorship scandal is that they don't want to vote Conservative.

They say there's no one else to vote for.

Ok, enlighten us then.

There are plenty of other candidates from which to choose.

I tallied them up. In 2004, there were at least 10 registered political parties, covering a wide range of political philosophies and world views, to choose from in Ontario.

You had the NDP, the Green Party, the Christian Heritage Party, the Canadian Action Party and the Progressive Canadian Party. There was the Marijuana Party for the pot smokers. And for the Commies, there was the Communist Party and the Marxist-Lenninist Party.

Well, voting for single issue parties seems foolish. And there are some argument that voting for a party that will not get elected in your riding (or any riding most likely) is like saying I don't really want a voice in government. Making a rational choice between two front-runners seems like a logical thing to do.

No, the real reason Ontarians vote Liberal is because they really like Liberals and don't mind this kind of scandal. It's not a big deal to them that tens of millions of tax dollars were funneled into Liberal party coffers.

"Not voting for the Conservatives has nothing to do with the voters in Ontario loving scandal," writes Philip from Brunner, Ont. "However, it has everything to do with the voters in Ontario being more partial to Liberal political philosophy/values."

What value is that, Phil? Is it the one where you hand over envelopes of tax dollars to shady Liberal hacks in dark restaurants? Or is it the one where you give millions of tax dollars to Liberal-friendly ad firms who donate to the party and do no work whatsoever for their "commissions?"

Whoa. That's too far. First off, when the last election was held we did not know the extent of the corruption completely and all we had were allegations of wrong-doings or unethical deals. At that time it did not have the obvious feel of illegal activity that pervades the inquiry now. To say that we support this level of corruption then is insane.

I will agree that what we knew at the time was compelling and should have moved more voters to not vote Liberal, but it was not the overwhelming stench of corruption that the current allegations present now.

Help me out, Phil. I'm trying to figure out the Ontario psyche.

No you're not. You're doing what many westerners do. The party you support goes after issues and takes stands that conflicts with what people here want and you blame us for it. So quite frankly, f*ck you. You want to honestly discuss why people voted for the Liberals in the last election, drop me a line and we'll discuss it. If we can agree that most voters are pretty ignorant of facts and are one issue voters (whether in Ontario or Manitoba), we'll be just fine.

But to rant like you did in your last article doesn't help. its not trying to understand, its trying to demonize. We need far less of that, not more.

 

I'm With Him

From Jay Currie:

The Midst of Moving Hell

Moving Hell is taking longer than we thought it would so blogging will stay light. Meanwhile, the polling seems to be firming up for the CPC...or is it?

[...]

All of which is too bad because in many close, urban, ridings in Canada, CPC candidates will have lots of support from people who are mad at the Liberals but will be missing the votes of people who cannot imagine why the Tories insist on making a big deal out of SSM. Probably the difference between majority and minority status.

Agreed.

MSN Follies

I was working away when suddenly an MSN message comes in. I click to investigate:

X says: So how is life without access to the Russian babe.

X says: ?

Bill says: er....

Bill says: what russian babe?

X says: sorry, clicked on wrong person

X says: my appologies

Bill says: LOL

Now of course I'm wondering who is the Russian babe and who lost her.

Frankly, I Think Canada is Doomed

A government that operates like it runs a third world dictatorship. An opposition obsessed by social issues. Separatist parties in the East and West. Provinces sending their own trade representatives to other countries. The U.S. ignores trade rulings in Canada's favour. Our military is disintegrating year after year. Other countries are imprisoning or killing our citizens and our government does virtually nothing.

Canada is not a country. Its a dysfunctional family with a rotten head.

I keep waiting for things to get better. They never do.

Many times I wonder if things would be better if the taxes sent to Ottawa stayed in the provinces and the provincial governments were responsible for everything.

I'm sure many would protest this line of thought but I can't help but wonder if they are merely spouting off the blind patriotism force fed into us in school.

I think its time to really ask if Canada the country is worth the effort.

 

Another Milestone

I reached 210 pounds this morning. Although I'm not likely to make my short term goal of 200 pounds by May 24th, I'm still very happy with my progress. I decided to share my complete Weight Watchers chart with you all.

Weight Loss Chart

Note: Some of those straight lines in the second half are really drops of 0.5 lbs or 1 lbs but the chart is not detailed enough to show it. The only actual week there was not a loss of weight was the Jan 10 bulge from the holidays.

In other news, I was helping my sister-in-law's roommate pick out a computer on the weekend. I thought I was so smart until I picked out a video card that could not work with her graphics slot.

<WARNING! Geek Speak ahead>

I helped pick a PC that had what I thought was an APG slot in it (had the guy open it up to confirm it visually) but turns out it was actually a new type of slot (PCI Express?) that looks a lot like APG but is incompatible. Doh! Fortunately they discovered this at the store and we were able to return it without issue. I feel like I need to take a renewal exam for geek recertification.

What Philosophy Do You Follow?

(Hattip to Andrew for pointing me to this)

You scored as Existentialism. Your life is guided by the concept of Existentialism: You choose the meaning and purpose of your life. “Man is condemned to be free; because once thrown into the world, he is responsible for everything he does.” “It is up to you to give [life] a meaning.” --Jean-Paul Sartre “It is man's natural sickness to believe that he possesses the Truth.” --Blaise Pascal More info at Arocoun's Wikipedia User Page... Existentialism 95% Hedonism 70% Utilitarianism 70% Justice (Fairness) 65% Kantianism 55% Strong Egoism 55% Apathy 30% Nihilism 10% Divine Command 0% What philosophy do you follow? (v1.03) created with QuizFarm.com

I'm not sure what this means. I'll have to research it more and see if its accurate.

Chemical Spill

I'm at work waiting for the call that the they are ready for my late night emergency efforts. Around 11:30 the phone rings and its Kim. She smells something like chemical burning and she's scared so I have her check some things but no source is found. I think maybe its the dehumidifier. Frustrated, I don't know what to do and unsure if I should stay or go (knowing if I go home I'll have to come back anyway which is an hour round trip), we decide to wait and see.

No more word from Kim and later I get home around 2:30 wondering if she is dead from fumes or the house is on the verge of burning up.

I get in the driveway and smell it immediately before getting out of the car... SKUNK.

A skunk had sprayed something outside our home and the smell woke Kim up and she thought it was in the house. Close up skunk smells a lot stronger and not quite the same as normal skunk from a ways away.

She felt silly when I told her, but at least she's glad she didn't call the fire department.

Tired

Due to a crisis at a client site for work, I'm in the office at midnight. Its very quiet and I'm waiting for a phone call to tell me that the server is ready for my handiwork. I'm trying to think of something witty to type but words fail me at the moment.

I have to admit, I live for these moments at work when the chips are down and our backs are against the wall and the team needs me to take one for them. (Did I miss any clichés?) It gets me a large amount of work-political currency that makes my managers happy. Kim doesn't like it though, she hates being home alone at night.

I'll probably be in the office for another couple hours. Sigh.

Man, tomorrow I'm sleeping in for sure!

So THAT's How It Is Done!

Hey, we need an election NOW.

Death By Cookie

I had Subway for lunch yesterday. I was feeling pretty good, had a light lunch, decided to get the meal deal and pick up three cookies. Yum, good.

Get back to the office, look up the nutritional information and lo and behold: Each cookies has 220 calories and 10 grams of fat.

*stunned silence*

That's right, each cookies is equivalent to drinking a 600 ml bottle of Coke (not Diet Coke or C2, but real sugar-laden Coke). E-freaking-gads!

There goes the Weight-Watchers budget for this week.

That's Funny, I was Thinking the Same Thing About Edmonton

An Alberta Solution

I just love discussing politics with my friends...

Friend: Well what do YOU think we should do about those clowns in Ottawa?

Me: I say we take off and nuke the entire site from orbit. It's the only way to be sure.

Friend: Uh, okay...

Weekend Roundup

Wow, a lot has happened in the world over the past couple days, but I'm not going to cover it all here. No point in rehashing stuff covered fine and dandy elsewhere. For example, info on the thing spelled g-o-m-e-r-y is covered by Andrew nicely here.

Instead I'm going to mesmerize you with trivial stories of my weekend thoughts, ponderings, and activities. Onwards!

---

Overall the past week really sucked. Bad weather, no evening walks, wife had severe neck and head pain (which had her depressed, which had me frustrated and depressed), and the freaking daylight savings time change to boot. Fortunately, things started to look up yesterday and I was only mostly groggy this morning instead of completely groggy.

---

I'm still playing the Rome: Total War game, in fact the same game session I kicked off near the beginning of March! I cannot believe how playable and awesome this game is, and its only entering the end phase now. I have control of a third or quarter of the map and the time is ripe for my legions to march on Rome and become Caesar. Of course, the Scipii and Brutii families won't like that!

---

The philosophy reading continues. I finished the Utilitarian chapter and the Deontological (wow, spelled it right first try!) chapter, and I'm in the next chapter covering Virtue Ethics.

I've discovered that so far I can't identify one philosophy that fits me perfectly. While I often employ features of Utilitarianism, I have seen myself oppose actions on purely the value of the action itself and not the ends of the action. For example, the major reason I opposed the war in Iraq was because I felt that war requires the greatest of justifications before being employed regardless of the good that would be realized in the end. Or rather that the good had to be many orders of magnitude greater than the result of not having the war, and in the case of Iraq I felt that to be untrue. This is more of a Deontological position than Utilitarian.

Regardless, the exploration continues. I do have to say that this has been an enlightening experience even if the reading is sometimes very difficult.

---

We played hide and seek with the kids we were watching yesterday while their mother was at a course in Ottawa. Man, I love that game. It was always a favourite growing up and I sucked at it then. I rock now, but then I've had lots of practice hiding from extra assignments and managers at work.

---

Spring is finally here! I can tell because yesterday my garage door actually closed all the way.

You see, my garage is actually more of a carport converted with walls. I.e. not professionally done (hey, I didn't buy the house for the garage). Anyway, the main door of the garage has a poured cement blob for lack of a better word where the paved driveway meets the gravel floor of the garage (yes, I typed that correctly. Really, the house is great, the garage sucks). When winter comes moisture in the ground under said cement blob freezes and pushes blob up preventing the garage door from opening and closing. I leave the door partially open all winter so I can get in and out with recycling and garbage.

In the spring the ground finally thaws and eventually the garage door will allow itself to close again. And yesterday was that fateful day. Ah Spring!

And you Wonder Why Americans Think Canada is a Cold Cold Place...

Internet Romeo loses fingers, toes

The American who found love on the Internet then froze off his fingers and some toes trying to meet the object of his affection will spend another month in Winnipeg after undergoing multiple amputations this week. Despite his ordeal, his love hasn't dimmed one little bit for the Quebec woman he has never met in person.

[...]

Because a 1984 conviction for robbing a Pizza Hut in Arkansas prevented him from entering Canada legally, Gonsoulin snuck across the border near the Emerson-Pembina crossing. He had been denied entry to Canada in January 2004.

Gonsoulin walked during the night and slept during the day, eventually making his way to the Emerson Golf Club. He was found there on Feb. 23 by Red River RCMP members after about 100 hours of being outside.

[...]

Gonsoulin had taken off his mitts and opened his jacket. He was babbling incoherently and suffering from frostbite and dehydration. The temperature that night dipped to -25 C.

"Mr. Gonsoulin didn't really know that there was any place on Earth that could be so cold and so inhospitable," defence lawyer Mike Cook told court during his March 7 trial.

(Empahsis mine.) I'm speechless.