Category: Canada

Yeah, I know this should have been posted yesterday but what can I say; I don’t blog when I’m sick as a dog. Flingin’ fluids fore and aft is not conducive to the production of readworthy materiel. 🙄 You’re welcome. But I’m back up and about, more or less, and it’s time to fire off what should have come out last night. Leading the list, from the “gee, what a big surprise” department, it turns out that Blochead Raymond Gravel didn’t have permission from the Vatican to run in the byelection in Repentigny after all, and has been “relieved of the exercise of sacramental duties,” according to Joliette Bishop Gilles Lussier. Seems that Church has some sort of thickheaded rules about the mingling of secular and clerical responsibilities. Seriously now; I’m not the only one that saw that coming, am I?

Catholic Online
Priest’s political candidacy ‘painful’ for Catholic Church

The Suburban
Rotrand urges Fortier to run for office

Freeps
Loner parachutes into race

Well, that’s the end of that. No more jokes about some backwoods, white trash, yee-haw hollerin’ hillbilly from Arkansas or the Ozarks or wherever marrying his sister. Damn. Some of those were damn funny, too. But you can forget all about them now because, yessiree, the practice seems to have caught on in the Great White North. It seems like gettin’ hitched to your sis (or, hell, even to your mom, for that matter) is one hell of a good way to fast track your sorry ass into Canada. Yeah, you read that right. Why can I never be making this crap up?

But seriously, now; does anybody really have any damned business acting surprised by any of this? After all, it’s not as though we haven’t already thoroughly buggered up the institution of marriage in the first place now, is it? Gee whiz, I wonder what could possibly be coming down the pipe next…

Ah, it begins. The Great Poop Typhoon of ’06 is beginning to build up steam, right on schedule, with the also-rans and Garth “outside lookin’ in” Turner accusing the Tories of salacious skullduggery of paleolithic proportions. The first volley of caterwauling comes over accusations that Tories are (EEK!) … encouraging some people to help out the Tory candidate! 😯 Oh… my… GOD!! Why, I’ve never heard of such a thing (and I’ve read Orwell).

Clearly, this is yet more proof that the Tories are just a bunch of conniving, underhanded miscreants bent on nothing less than breaking up the country, destroying health care, forcing women to get pregnant so they can deny them abortions, and passing legislation requiring that all poutine gravy be made from the fat rendered from murdered babies. And turning Canada into Jesusland; don’t forget about that one. 🙄

Apparently a friend of Haskett’s sent a letter to some friends of his asking them to ask some friends of theirs to help out with Haskett’s campaign. Yup, that’s it. But listen to the Chicken Littles, and you’d think that the Tories were getting set to strap civil servants to oars and go at ’em with a cat o’ nine tails to get them tooting from the Haskett bandwagon. Look to see more of this. Lots more.

The Freeps
Conservatives criticized for byelection attack plan

The handwringing continues over the war in Afghanistan. Do we support it or don’t we? Should we stay the course or cut and run? Are we warriors or peacekeepers? What’s the latest from Bin Layton on all this? Has there been another poll on this yet? Why do we see all these antiwar types all over the media when poll after poll shows that most of us actually support the mission? Who, what, where, when, how, why!? ACK!!

For months (no, make that years) now, we’ve been pummelled from all sides by media utterly obsessed with this melodramatic gawking at our collective bellybutton. Sun Media and cnews hopped on that bandwagon themselves today with a whole slew of articles and links on their website chewing over the question of what we think about the war; including:

Waging a war of words
(Adam Clayton, Winterpeg Sun)

[…]The plan was to walk through some of Winnipeg’s busiest spots with a sandwich board sign urging people to support our soldiers in the war-torn country — and then hit the streets a few days later with another sign saying the opposite.

After my first sign sparked virtually no reaction outside the bus shelter at Portage Place on Tuesday afternoon, I headed to Osborne Village thinking I was bound to get a response from a youthful, anti-establishment crowd.

No such luck, as people would read the sign and then quickly look away.

Calling it a day, I hoped the anti-war sign would provoke more of a reaction. Man, did it ever.

Give war a chance
(Dave Breakenridge, Calgary Sun)

Trying to figure out how many people in Calgary support the war in Afghanistan should be like asking first-graders if they like puppies, right?

Drawing battle lines
(Thane Burnett, TO Sun)

Our signs gave no indication we were from the press. We were to stand silent, and let people react to an opinion.

Polls suggest about 59% of Canadians support Canadian combat troops being used in Afghanistan — with about half the country wanting our men and women to all return home when our current military commitment ends in 2009.

Despite the numbers, any debate seems low and muffled.

When I suggested this national project to test our convictions, I assumed almost everyone — as Canadians often do — would walk politely past any controversy.

I thought you wouldn’t have much to say. And I was wrong.

Battle on homefront
(Nelly Elayouby, Ottawa Sun)

A dishevelled homeless man wearing a camouflage cap charges toward me, the smell of booze wafting in my direction.

Arms stretched out, he grabs at my picket sign as I walk through a downtown underpass.

The sign reads “Support Our Troops in Afghanistan,” a message he doesn’t agree with.

“You’re brainwashed just like the rest of them!” he yells, pointing his head toward Parliament Hill.

“Give me that sign, let me rip it for you!”

A war of words
(Joe Matyas, Freeps)

Tyler Fairweather had only been on the street for a minute with his “Support our troops in Afghanistan” sign when a man in a cube van flashed a thumbs-up in approval.

As he walked to the busiest corner in downtown London in the late afternoon, the affirmations kept coming — nods, waves, winks, a few “yeses” and “right ons” and more thumbs.

Fairweather, 17, has a 19-year-old cousin enlisted in the Canadian Forces who’s now in Edmonton preparing for a tour of duty in Afghanistan.

Strong views on either side
(Andrew Hanon, Edmonton Sun)

In my case, the people of Edmonton were too polite to get up into my face, no matter which placard I wore. The one that read “Support our troops in Afghanistan” earned more honks and thumbs-up from passing drivers, but drew more dirty looks and clucks of disapproval from pedestrians along Whyte Avenue. One young woman glared through her eyebrow piercings and shook her head, but never said anything as she shouldered her way past me. I even marched into HUB Mall at the University of Alberta to see if anyone would challenge me there. But the of only people who spoke to me were a former soldier and two active reservists, both whom had done tours in Afghanistan. Cpl. Marta Rzechowka said the media’s fixation on body counts has helped people forget the reason our soldiers are there in the first place ­ rebuilding a shattered country and routing the despotic maniacs who previously ruled it. She added that the federal government hasn’t done a very good job of explaining the mission to Canadians. Cpl. Greg O’Neil agreed: “The media report a lot on casualty rates, but nobody seems to hear when we build a bridge or a school. I guess that just doesn’t sell papers.”

So, just where the heck do Canadians stand on this issue these days, you ask? Well, the online poll at canoe.ca which was put up yesterday is still running and, while the number of votes has more than doubled, little has changed:

And yes, the poll that has been running here (at the top of the left sidebar) is still unanimous. That’s never happened before.

And it continues. Now that we finally have a Grit in the race (Glen Pearson, elected at a meeting with a piddling turnout of “about 175 party faithful … that failed to fill a quarter of the auditorium at Lucas secondary school,” with a mere “124 ballots cast,” according to the Freeps), Bob Ede has parachuted in from Thornhill to throw his hat into the ring as well. Dang, but it’s startin’ to get kinda crowded around here.

And, make some sense of this if you can, Pearson seems to be the most fired-up of the bunch so far, firing broadsides at literally everyone else in the race (except Ede, who technically isn’t even in the running yet) during his speech last night:

May, he said, can’t say she represents the grassroots because she, too, is an outsider.

And Layton, who asked voters to “lend” his party support, should realize “your time is up. We want that vote back.”

But the normally mild- mannered food bank director and organizer of humanitarian aid for Sudan, saved his harshest comments for Haskett…

Look to see a lot more of that. “Saving the harshest comments for Haskett,” that is. Everybody with any grey matter at all knows damned well that she’s the candidate to beat in this race, no matter what the MSM might bleat about London North Centre being a “Liberano$ bastion.”

Look for plenty bellyaching of all sorts from the MSM, including stabs at her choice of religion (as if Jesus was the bogeyman) and doleful warnings about her “devisiveness.” I’m not too worried, though. Remember that the last time the harping handwringers labelled Hasket an intolerant, fundamentalist, divisive nutjob, she won by a margin of two to one, without even opening her mouth for most of the campaign! Think on that. 😉

So, for those wondering, here’s where the slate stands right now in London North Centre:

• Dianne Haskett (Tories)
• Elizabeth May (Greenies)
• Glen Pearson (Fiberals)
• Megan Walker (Dippers)
• Robert Ede (ind. & pending 100 signatures)
• Steve Hunder (Progressive Canadian Party)

Meanwhile, here’s what else is floating around out there:

The Freeps
Federal byelection clouds city vote

Catholic Online
‘I’m priest first,’ says Catholic cleric running for political office

I like seeing stuff like this, really, I do. In spite of all the bawling and cut-and-run crap coming from all the usual suspects at the far left of the political spectrum, you still end up with poll after poll after poll saying essentially the same thing: Yes, we support our troops and, yes, we do support what they are doing in Afghanistan! Here’s the latest one from canoe.ca’s question on the subject:

Do the math yourself and you see that a clear majority (65%) believe that our troops should damn well stay right where they are until the job is done. So where the hell is all the “widespread opposition” to this “unpopular action” that we keep hearing about over and over again?

Well? I’m waiting… 🙄

Hell, even the poll here that’s been up for the last 3 days shows ONE HUNDRED PERCENT support for keeping up the fight until it’s one. Granted, I don’t exactly get a lot of Lefties on this site 😉 but it’s not like the odd one doesn’t pop by every now and then. You would have thought, listening to all the bleats from the MSM on the subject, that there would have been at least one of the over 20 people that voted so far would have said something other than ” When the job is done,” wouldn’t you?