Sunday, October 25, 2015

House of Commons Night in Canada takes the game to a whole new level



RON MACLEAN
Don...

DON CHERRY
Ron...

RON MACLEAN
The playoffs produced a whole new championship team.  Don, your thoughts...

DON CHERRY
Who knew?  It reminds me of Montreal and Philadelphia in the 70s.

RON MACLEAN
Smoked meat and cream cheese?

DON CHERRY
Sometimes I think you're part of the problem, not the solution..

RON MACLEAN
The speedy Frenchmen versus the Broad Street Bullies?

DON CHERRY
Sure.  Anyway, a lot of people wrote off Trudeau as a guy who wouldn't get into the corners, all sizzle and no steak.

RON MACLEAN
And now?

DON CHERRY
He took the high road and won.  No cheap shots, but up for toe-to-toe...

RON MACLEAN
What about Mulcair?

DON CHERRY
Like Yogi Berra said: when you meet a fork in the road take it. Mulcair was trying to be everything to everybody at the same time and turned out to be nothing.  He was good as an enforcer, keeping people honest. But it takes more than an enforcer to win games, never mind the election. He would have been better to be the enforcer with a plan.

RON MACLEAN
Better than what?

DON CHERRY
There you go.  It was a low bar.  Harper didn't have any plan at all. "Vote for us because we're going to keep doing what we're doing now but we're not going to tell you what we're doing now until after you elect us."

RON MACLEAN
So the Conservatives will be rebuilding?

DON CHERRY
Yeah, like rebuilding San Francisco after the earthquake..

RON MACLEAN
Ouch...

DON CHERRY
You're starting from a smoking ruin.

RON MACLEAN
That's a bit harsh...

DON CHERRY
It is if you're in denial about the earthquake.

RON MACLEAN
I'm getting lost in the metaphor...

DON CHERRY
If the Conservatives think they lost the election because they didn't have the right beer commercials, then they don't understand the fans weren't buying beer.

RON MACLEAN
You're so...profound.

DON CHERRY
I get that a lot.

RON MACLEAN
Until next time - if there is one - good night from House of Commons Night in Canada.

DON CHERRY
Did you notice my suit has the Magna Carta in the original Latin?

RON MACLEAN
No.

DON CHERRY
And my tie has the Charter?




Tuesday, October 20, 2015

Canada's Parliament 2.0 [*gasp,wheeze*] asserts self over Forces of Darkness



I wrote this 7 years ago.  It took longer than I would have believed but we got there.  

Full frontal optimism from a polite citizen

Rome wasn't burned in a day, Washington either. Canada tried to burn down Washington in 1814, allegedly for Americans' burning down Toronto, but we've noticed Washington has been rebuilt. Unfortunately, so has Toronto. Except for the Leafs. (If that sounds strange, any random Canadian will explain.) Meanwhile back in D.C., Dick and George have managed to finish the job and burn down Washington quite thoroughly. Those fires don't look to be going out any time soon.

We've had a similar problem up here, but dealt with it differently. This apparently caused confusion on The Daily Show, and stimulated a Canadian need to apologize to Americans (particularly) for being boring. The last thing we should do is apologize. I'm here to help clear up the confusion.

In a nutshell, the Prime Minister (Stephen Harper) built a Cult of The Leader inside the federal government and is about to get his head in a bag as a result. It's pretty straightforward. We don't normally hold with megalomaniacs up here, unless of course hockey is involved, but even in hockey it doesn't pay to act like a star, especially if you aren't one. There's no obvious government to replace Steve’s Conservative Party either, even if they found a new head, not that people haven't tried. Some have despaired. Heartfelt moaning can be heard about the decline in standards of civility and debate in the House of Commons, and about the inability of Members of Parliament to behave like grownups. People think the political outlook is like the economic outlook: dismal.

People should get a grip and Jon Stewart should pay attention. Canada is about to fire its executive using an antique method developed haphazardly over centuries. Charles I lost his head over it. It’s called parliamentary democracy and it’s a Rube Goldberg contraption with two standard and fabulously incomprehensible features built in: (1) it works, (2) it learns. I’m not an expert, I just grew up here and I don’t see anything confusing about it at all. Stand back and watch it work.

Bad news is everywhere of course, not just in Canada. Apart from the economic disaster, the last eight years have been ugly for anybody who thought that Nuremberg and International Humanitarian Law actually meant something, and Canada is in ISAF up to its back bacon. But so what? The good news is that the British form of parliamentary democracy has one thousand years of momentum behind it, and seems to evolve relentlessly towards open and responsible government despite frequent attempts at sabotage, including those made in Canada. I'm not saying Americans are doomed any more than the rest of us – I sure as hell hope not – just that it's too soon to know if the American Constitution can withstand the current savage onslaught from within.

Which brings us back to Steve, Canada’s Prime Minister, who has alienated lots of Canadians including some of his supporters, by trying to run the country as if it were a one-party state like Alberta. Not all Canadians might use those words but people are riled and Steve can be fired in several imaginative ways; we don't have to wait eight years like our neighbors to the south. I don't think we should feel shy about pointing out these advantages to our American friends. In fact there's a good chance Steve will be fired in January, most likely by the Governor-General unless there's a revolt in his own party and the Conservatives fire him first. I'm impressed that the Governor-General can actually fire Steve, having no apparent power other than that conferred by history and tradition, and more remotely, some transatlantic telegraphy to the Queen. We don't talk about that much, and it doesn't seem to matter. When you learn that the Governor-General was born in Haiti and is getting her constitutional advice from a New Zealander, you'll have to admit American family dynasties look, well, awkwardly feudal.

And here's another thing, we have the Bloc Québécois, a federal party dedicated to removing Québec from Confederation (which arouses a lot of consternation) but the system accommodates this contradiction, and peace, order and good government continue to happen. A Venezuelan acquaintance saw his first Canadian federal election recently and couldn't believe it: “At home, there would be bloodshed, family breakup, and interruption of basic services. Here, everything keeps working.” Americans might think this is a little weird too, but last I heard there were some elements in the South that weren’t too crazy about joining up with the North and that pockets of disenchantment linger still.

I'm not saying Canadian parliamentary democracy is perfect, but it learns. The next stage of evolution might be the involvement of citizenry more directly in federal politics by means of the Internet. Word reached us some guy named Obama came to the same conclusion. Whatever. Within hours of Steve discovering he wasn’t Dear-Leader-for-Life and being forced to make an unplanned visit to the Governor General, thousands of comments about this were posted on websites of the CBC and Globe and Mail among other members of the “press”, and Members of Parliament heard from their constituents almost instantaneously. No more waiting for the news to filter out from Ottawa by mail or telegraph, even. I'm betting this will change the way government works, maybe even frustrate crazed Orwellian attempts to run Canadian politics as if selling lousy beer to stupid customers. Such change won't happen overnight of course but …we'll add a new feature to the Rube Goldberg contraption and then.....

Canada's Parliament convenes January 26, 2009. It's show time.

***
Oct 20, 2015

Rube Goldberg contraption addition probably in the works.

Saturday, October 17, 2015

Wednesday, October 14, 2015

Well, this sucks...

feel free to share...I was attacked early on.Then again, and again, and again. Here are the details:The...

Posted by Aaron Paquette on Wednesday, 14 October 2015

Harper's riding. NDP. Zing.

Tuesday, October 13, 2015

David Parkins, Globe and Mail

The failure of weapons


  1. It must be apparent that the invasion of Iraq has not transformed that country into a peaceful, prosperous, and constructive member of the family of nations.  Ten years of violent chaos have not been helpful.
  2. The bombing of Libya ditto.
  3. The bombing of whatever Syria is or ISIS is has not changed anything.
  4. Years of economic sanctions and hysterical warnings have not changed Iran in any significant way.
  5. The bombing of Yemen seems illegal, immoral, and incomprehensible.  It likewise, has made no significant changes in Yemen except, possibly, a descent into madness.
  6. A chronic state of violent anarchy leads to a culture of violent fundamentalists.
On the other hand, talking to Iran - after years of shrieking and hysterical threats - has produced very positive results.

It seems probable that similar talks could be held between Israelis and Palestinians, provided somebody keeps the assholes out of the way.

It is also obvious, however, that huge fortunes have been squandered on the world's arms industry, to benefit a very few, who apparently have every incentive to keep this evil and insane merry-go-round spinning forever.

Thursday, October 8, 2015

Lynton Crosby's brainstem politics of the niqab.



The niqab is perfect.

It's an 800 pound dead cat on the dining room table.

It's a so-loud-you-can-hear-it dogwhistle to our most ugly selves.

Monday, October 5, 2015

Friday, October 2, 2015

Stephen Harper, a bizarre pair of hands























In this they proceeded on the sound principle that the magnitude of a lie always contains a certain factor of credibility, since the great masses of the people in the very bottom of their hearts tend to be corrupted rather than consciously and purposely evil, and that therefore, in view of the primitive simplicity of their minds, they more easily fall a victim to a big lie than to a little one,  since they themselves lie in little things, but would be ashamed of lies that were too big.  Such a falsehood will never enter their heads. And they will not be able to believe in the possibility of such monstrous effrontery and infamous misrepresentation in others; yes, even when enlightened on the subject, they will long doubt and waver, and continue to accept at least one of these causes as true.  Therefore, something of even the most insolent lie will always remain and stick – a fact which all the great lie-virtuosi and lying-clubs in this world know only too well and also make the most treacherous use of.
Adolf Hitler
Main Kampf