Category: Americas

“We will not release or comment on our audit report on the G8 Legacy Infrastructure Fund. Under the Auditor General Act, we can only present reports when Parliament is sitting. The Office of the Auditor General of Canada remains the custodian of its reports until they are presented to the Speaker of the House of Commons for tabling.”

-Auditor General Sheila Fraser

Funny, ain’t it, how just when the Terrifying Tory Majority™ was starting to look more and more likely (uh, waitaminit, wasn’t the Tory campaign supposed to be stalled??), out of nowhere pops up one of those handy-dandy “leaked documents” that news outlets love so much.

Next thing you know, it’s all AHA!  AHA!  GOTCHA!GOTCHA!GOTCHA!

Gimme a friggin’ break.

CP supposedly has a draft of a confidential report Sheila Fraser was to have tabled in Parliament on April 5.  Now they’re claiming that:

The Harper government misinformed Parliament to win approval for a $50-million G8 fund that lavished money on dubious projects in a Conservative riding, the auditor general has concluded.

And she suggests the process by which the funding was approved may have been illegal.

Well, now.  Ain’t that just some damning stuff, huh?  The only fly in the ointment seems to be that the AG doesn’t want to go along with the little dog and pony show.  Unfortunately, the law does not allow her to come right out and address this head-on, but there are a few things that she can say: (more…)

I have to say, this is kind of refreshing.  Small c conservatives like myself have been going on for years about how the Ottawa press gallery is blatantly biased against conservative ideas in general and Stephen Harper in particular.

“But-but-but,” sputters the Left, “the media gives every government a hard time.”

Please.  Give me a damn break.

Ever since he became leader of the Canadian Alliance, and then the new Conservative Party, the media (and Mothercorpse in particular) have accused Harper of everything anyone could dream up. They were more critical of him than they were of PM the PM during Adscam, fer chrissakes! They obediently paraded out the boogeymen of “using the notwithstanding clause to ban gay marriage,” “criminalizing abortion,” “taking away a woman’s right to choose,” and played the hidden agenda card until it was ragged.  If you didn’t know better, you’d have thought that they were the ones running the Lieberal campaign.  But, of course, whenever a conservative brings this up, it’s all deny, deny, deny.

Too bad John Ibbitson spilled the beans on the air… (more…)

… I know that I’ve never had a very high opinion of the MSM, and I’ve never pretended to, but at precisely what point in this particular election campaign did they fall down the rabbit hole completely?

PMSH has been doing his best to keep all the hullabaloo confined to the issues (which is like herding cats at the best of times) this time around, but what are we getting from the MSM?

Utter asshattery and a surprisingly good impression of Harald the Missionary from Erik the Viking.

The big thing on Canadians’ minds these days is the economy — as in “it’s the economy, stupid” — but Alex Marland is hung up on “Why Stephen kisses Laureen.”  No, goddammit, I am NOT making that up!  Why does the PM kiss his wife????? [answer at the bottom of this post, if you really, really need it]

Hey, Alex, lemme ask you something… Have you ever kissed a girl? Maybe if you had, you wouldn’t need to ask such dumbass questions. (more…)

No, this isn’t going to be a rant about the registry; not today.  Everybody and their dog has been wondering just what the hell might be going on between Uberdipper Jack! Layton’s ears these days and I have to admit that I’m no exception.

How could this guy possibly want to trot off into an election right now?  Is he nuts? Forget for a minute that his health isn’t the best; he still started off the week at least seeming to have most of his marbles.   The MSM hasn’t been saying much about it (no real surprise there) but when the budget came down, Layton said he wasn’t making up his mind until after caucus.  Seems logical to me so far.  So then the budget comes down, and even Canadian Labour Congress Complainer In Chief Ken Georgetti, of all damn people, says it’s good.  Didn’t see THAT one coming, did you? (Don’t feel bad; neither did I.) (more…)

Okay, so there’s been a lot of bibblebabble south of the border lately about something called “quantitative easing.”  So much that it’s apparently trickled into the conversation up here, somehow.

I have to admit, this isn’t something I’ve ever heard of before.  Seriously – quantitative easing sounds like something Stephen Hawking came up with to explain interstellar flatulence.  But why do we give a damn about it?  Well, let’s face it; we aren’t so intertwined as we once were, but what buggers up the US economy still has a nasty habit of taking a dump in the punchbowl up here, too.

That and, as we all should know by now, stupidity is contagious.

So, not wanting to be the guy who had nothing to say when someone asks “what the #@%* is quantitative easing,” I did some digging around to find out what the hell everyone is gabbing about.  Turns out it’s not such a complicated thing as it sounds.  It’s just bafflegabese for “printing up a buttload of money.”  Here’s how it “works” … (more…)

Speaks for itself; some animals are more equal than others…