HUH!?? This has to be some kind of early April Fool’s joke. Or something. I mean, come on now, even that dingbat Dion can’t possibly be that deluded… Can he?

I guess I should explain myself, eh? Okay, here goes. According to an article in todays NP, stunned Stephane actually thinks that… Aw, hell; just see for yourself:

Federal Liberal leader Stephane Dion brushed off bad press coverage and polls that put his party behind the Conservatives on Monday, saying he was confident of winning a majority in the next election.

Yeah you read that right. What the HELL has this guy been smoking?? Here’s a dude that was everybody’s third pick, from a B-list of candidates, and he thinks he can take down Her Majesty’s Prime Minister of Canada, the Right Honourable Stephen Hardass? Even though polls have the Grits trailing the Tories by anywhere from 6 to 11 points? Apparently so…

“That’s not so bad … and I’m very confident that at the right moment Canadians will support us very strongly and will give us a majority Liberal government.”

Hey, Steffy; let me clue you in a little bit. At the Librano$’ leadership convention, you turned out like that kid picked last before the ballgame. Your own party isn’t particularly impressed with you and Canadians… well, we just plain don’t trust you. You welcomed back Adscamers after PM-da-PM kicked them out for life (one of the few things he did right), you twist in the wind of public opinion on issues like the Afghan War and — whether it’s true or not deosn’t matter — the recent turd typhoon surrounding the ATA vote sure as hell has you looking like somebody else is pulling your strings.

You try taking on Harper right now (and I really, really think you should), and you ain’t gettin no cakewalk back to the other side of the House. What you’re in for is more like…

As most of you already know, the Librano$ have their collective panties in one hell of a bunch lately over the supposedly underhanded comments that the Prime Minister didn’t make in the House on Wednesday. And we’ve seen the Liberal/Left-loving media spin it every which way ever since. We’ve seen everything from “Liberals shout down PM over ‘base’ attack” to “Harper forgot the dignity of his office in quest for blood” and just about every damn thing in between.

Oddly enough, the least slanted-sounding headline that I could find, “Gloves off in terror law fight,” cropped up in the damned TO (Red) Star, of all places. No idea how the hell that happened… 😕

Everybody and their dog knows that the media spins things whatever way the staff leans (which usually means to the Left of the political spectrum) but very few publications ever actually come right out and say it. Well, the National Post did just that today. Not only that, but they also bluntly point out some of the BS we’ve been getting fed lately for what it is: a Left-loving, almost Machiavellian, MSM busting it’s ass to reinforce their beloved Grits. It skillfully paints a picture of deception, misdirection, hypocrisy and most of the other things that spring to mind when you think about the Fiberals and their lapdog media.

So, since I’m not above stealing somebody else’s stuff when they say it better than I would, here is the NP editorial in question, in full (with a little emphasis added here and there by me)…

‘Shame’? Hardly

National Post
Published: Friday, February 23, 2007

Journalists employ a special term when a politician accidentally speaks a forbidden truth out loud: They call it a “Kinsley gaffe,” after the legendary American editorialist Michael Kinsley, who pointed out in 1992 that the word “gaffe” is never really used by native writers of English except to describe such a situation.

The catcalls of “shame” that drowned out the Prime Minister in the House of Commons on Wednesday are the infallible sign of a Kinsley gaffe. Mr. Harper was about to describe an article from the Vancouver Sun pointing out that the father-in-law of an important young Liberal MP and organizer was once a spokesman for Babbar Khalsa, a group officially recognized by the Canadian government as a terrorist organization. This same individual is a potential witness in the Air India investigation, the very same inquiry that will be hobbled if Stephane Dion prevails in his new-found and oddly passionate quest to kill provisions of the 2001 Anti-Terrorism Act that permit such investigations.

None of the Liberals leaping to their feet to denounce Mr. Harper have bothered to deny the facts presented in the Sun by Kim Bolan: given Ms. Bolan’s reputation as an investigator and chronicler of Sikh separatist activity, it would be foolhardy to try. It is the context in which the fact was brought up that bothers them. Or so they say.

No one–including us –is accusing the MP in question, Navdeep Bains, of any illegal behaviour. And voters are entitled to make their own individual judgments on whether the PM was engaging in dirty pool by opening the pages of the Sun in the privileged environment of the House of Commons. But they would be advised to ignore the slanted, indignant language that some other media outlets are trying to disguise as impartial reporting.

The PM is being accused of suggesting that the Liberals changed their policy on ant terror legislation to protect Mr. Bains’ father-in-law, Darshan Singh Saini, or, more generally, to cripple an Air India investigation that many in the Sikh community oppose. In fact, it is only by clairvoyance that reporters can claim to know what Mr. Harper would have said in his complete reply. He was shouted down long before he had the chance to make the “suggestion” being freely attributed to him (readers may wonder why the Liberals did not sit quietly and let him continue covering himself with “shame”).

But even if Mr. Harper intended to suggest what he is being accused of suggesting, his only “shame” lies in saying what millions of Canadians are thinking. The Sikh voting bloc that Mr. Bains drew to the Dion camp (via Gerard Kennedy) at the Liberal convention in December is a critical reason why it is Mr. Dion, as opposed to Bob Rae or Michael Ignatieff, who now sits as Leader of the Opposition. Why would it be out of bounds to suggest that Mr. Dion’s sudden and stalwart opposition to key anti-terrorism provisions — even over the objections of many influential members of his own divided caucus — might somehow be traced to those same provisions being potentially used to compel testimony from the supporters of a king making MP?

We recall that, in 2000, the Liberals used the same specious calls of “shame” to attack Reform politicians who questioned the Liberals about their party’s stance on a Tamil terrorist group. Yet it was the Liberals themselves who were disgraced when it turned out Paul Martin and Maria Minna had attended a fundraising event for a group identified by the U.S. State Department as a front for the Tamil Tigers, which — like the Babbar Khalsa outfit for which Mr. Bains’ father-in-law once acted as spokesman — is classified as a terrorist group under Canadian law (over Liberal objections, of course).

Even given the premise of Mr. Bains’ personal unimpeachability — a premise to which the Prime Minister’s press secretary was glad to assent on Wednesday — this may be a trickier question than it appears. The premise that a Member of Parliament’s family and ethno-political connections are irrelevant can easily be carried to the point of absurdity. Apparently in recognition of his delivering the votes of his fellow Sikhs at the Montreal convention, Mr. Dion appointed Mr. Bains to the party’s national election readiness committee last month. If an equally important Conservative had a father-in-law who stood to benefit from a newfound Conservative policy, are we to believe that no reporter or opposition member would dare ask uncomfortable questions? No one can show that Mr. Bains’ family connections to a possible Air India witness have played any part in the sudden Liberal rediscovery of civil liberties, but when did it become inappropriate for a politician to point out a potential conflict of interest among his opponents?

It seems to have happened right around the time the conservative parties reunited and formed a national government. We recall that some of the publications now lashing out at Mr. Harper were happy to wallow in “family legacies” when it came to Stockwell Day’s Western-separatist father or Preston Manning’s ancestral Social Credit connections. Could the apologies owed to these men have gotten misplaced in the mail?

I don’t know about what a lot of you out there may think of this but I say, “damned good for him.” Yes, I know some are going to say it’s a publicity stunt, it’s this, it’s that, it’s some other damned thing. It doesn’t matter. For either of you that haven’t heard yet, HRH Prince Henry of Wales (aka Prince Harry) is going to Iraq.

As His Highness puts it:

“There’s no way I’m going to put myself through Sandhurst and then sit on my arse back home while my boys are out fighting for their country.”

Well said, if I do say so myself…

Our country has lost another defender and witness to history today. Lloyd Clemett, one of the last three of Canada’s veterans of the Great War, passed away in Toronto late in the evening on Wednesday, the 21st of February, 2007. He was one hundred and seven years old.

Mr. Clemett’s passing leaves only two living veterans of the First World War remaining in all of Canada, one of whom will be given a full state funeral upon his passing, in accordance with the unanimous decision of the House of Commons in November of 2006.

“It was something you had to do, so you went and you did it” was the explanation Clemett offered when asked why he went to war, his son David Clemett said in an interview.

“It’s really something that he never elaborated on, he never talked about when I was growing up. It was just a fact, that at some point in time he was in the First World War.”

The only indication his father had served in the conflict was a brass-bound war chest containing his service uniform, tucked away in the basement of the family home in north Toronto. It was only in recent years that Clemett shared his war stories with family.

Like so many others anxious to join their countrymen in the trenches of France, Clemett told the army he was 18 – the official enlistment age – when he signed his papers in January 1916.

More on the loss here, here and here.

With proud thanksgiving, a mother for her children,
England mourns for her dead across the sea.
Flesh of her flesh they were, spirit of her spirit,
Fallen in the cause of the free.

Solemn the drums thrill; Death august and royal
Sings sorrow up into immortal spheres,
There is music in the midst of desolation
And a glory that shines upon our tears.

They went with songs to the battle, they were young,
Straight of limb, true of eye, steady and aglow.
They were staunch to the end against odds uncounted;
They fell with their faces to the foe.

They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old:
Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.
At the going down of the sun and in the morning
We will remember them.

They mingle not with their laughing comrades again;
They sit no more at familiar tables of home;
They have no lot in our labour of the day-time;
They sleep beyond England’s foam.

But where our desires are and our hopes profound,
Felt as a well-spring that is hidden from sight,
To the innermost heart of their own land they are known
As the stars are known to the Night;

As the stars that shall be bright when we are dust,
Moving in marches upon the heavenly plain;
As the stars that are starry in the time of our darkness,
To the end, to the end, they remain.

–For The Fallen, Laurence Binyon, 1914

There’s an old saying that I had drilled into my head over and over, once upon a time: “Once is an accident, twice is coincidence, three times is enemy action.” Let me tell you, ladies and gents, this stinks to the rafters.

It’s one thing to say that the Librano$ are soft on terrorism (which I think they are; but then I think they’re soft on all kinds of crime in general), but it’s another thing entirely to see something this damned suspicious and then hear nothing from the Grits except not-so-righteous indignation.

Don’t take my word for it. See for yourself what popped up in the Vancouver Sun today:

A young Liberal MP who delivered Stephane Dion 250 leadership votes is the son-in-law of a man police have interviewed in connection with the Air India bombing case.

Navdeep Singh Bains, MP for Mississauga-Brampton South, shot on to the national stage after the December 2006 convention in which he delivered huge support to Gerard Kennedy and later to Dion, who won the Liberal leadership by 437 votes.

The Vancouver Sun has learned that Bains’s father-in-law, Darshan Singh Saini, is on the RCMP’s potential list of witnesses at investigative hearings designed to advance the Air India criminal probe.

But the ability to hold those hearings will be lost March 1 if parts of the Anti-Terrorism Act expire as expected, after the Liberals recently withdrew support for extending the provision being used to hold them.

And before some little shit out there even thinks about trying any ad hominem bullshit: don’t even fucking bother. Yes, I’m partisan; yes, I’m a card-carrying member of the VRWC; and yes, whenever I hear something bad about the Natural Governing Party of Canadaâ„¢, I tend to believe it right off the bat. But for all that, I still know that if it looks like a duck, walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, it ain’t no God damned platypus.

I’m not the only one thinking what I’m thinking either. Groups from the Air India Victims’ Families Association to B’nai Brith to even other Liberals are calling bullshit…

Some privately grouse that Dion has been influenced by militant Sikh and Muslim groups, members of which helped secure his leadership victory last December.

Those complaints were echoed Tuesday by the chairman of the Air India Victims’ Families Association.

“It looks like the sympathizers of terrorism have more influence on (Liberals),” Gupta said.

He said Dion may have become “victim of vote bank politics,” referring to ethnic bloc voting.

[…]Frank Dimant, the Jewish organization’s executive vice president, said he too has heard speculation that the Liberals are “pandering to certain specific groups within the Canadian society.”

“In a way, it’s a little bit of a continuation of what happened at the Liberal leadership convention. This seems to be becoming more of a pattern,” he said.

The Air India bombing was (so far) the worst act of terrorism in Canadian history, claiming 329 lives. Prior to 9/11, it was the deadliest terrorist attack ever, anywhere. Now, just as some Grit’s daddy-in-law is about to get grilled over the whole affair, the Librano$ are trying to pull the plug on the very law, WHICH THEY ENACTED IN THE FIRST PLACE, that makes the investigation possible.

Don’t piss on my head and tell me it’s raining.

Some CTV footage is here.

They’re here! They’re finally here! The waiting is over!

Um… no, I haven’t been drinking. Lent starts today, remember? No, what’s got me all excited is: the awards we’ve all been waiting to hear about have finally been, well, awarded.

Oscar who? No, not those awards, bonehead. I’m talking about the Teddies…

The Canadian Taxpayer’s Federation has come through once again with the Ninth Annual Teddies Waste Awards and let me tell ya, boys and girls, it couldn’t happen to a nicer bunch of trough-snouters. Here’s just a sampling of the list (WARNING: spoilers follow): 😆

“And the federal Teddy goes to Senator Colin Kenny, once again showing that the last institution to get the memo regarding Canadians’ demands for accountability from lawmakers is the Canadian Senate. Rest assured Senator Kenny, the days of unaccountable officials thinking they can fleece Canadian taxpayers with impunity because they’ll never have to face the electorate will soon be over,” said Ms. Batra as she unveiled the first Teddy of 2007, a beautiful golden sow.

So what are you still doing here? Get your butt over to the CTF’s site and see for yourself. 😛