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. 😛

Where, oh where, oh where do I begin with this one? Let’s face it, boys and girls, we all knew damned well that it wasn’t going to be too long before the Librano$ got to the point where the itch to get their hands back on the national till and back to the business of buggering up the country got to be just too much not to scratch. Lo and behold, in the Commons yesterday, the Fiberals got that collective hind leg up behind their ears and went at it like a 70-year-old viagra addict in a $2 cathouse with a fistful of fifties.

On the off chance that you’ve been either spelunking or in a coma for the last few days, here’s what happened: Greener-than-thou Steffy took his stiffy a little too seriously yesterday and led the Kyoto Kook parade even further off to the Loopy Left when they passed Bill C-ThroughRoseyGlasses (AKA Bill C-288), demanding that the Conservative government under HMPM Harper come up with a plan to meet Kyoto’s “why yes, the moon really is made of green cheese” targets by 2012 . . . within 60 days. Yup, two months. Bibbitty-bobbitty-boo; just like that. Come to think of it, I do know exactly where to begin with this! Now why in the world didn’t I think of it in the first place?? It’s so obvious…

Dear Santa,

Thank you very much for heeding my letter that I sent you back in November. I know that I asked for a Rae Bomb and I should have trusted in your judgement (after all, you’ve been at this a lot longer than I’ve been around). The gift of Steffy “no relation” Dion as national UberGrit is clearly MUCH better and more fun than a Rae Bomb would ever have been. I’ll never doubt you again.

Your friend,
Dennis

This really is an early Christmas present for a guy like me. And it fits in so nicely, too, with the theme that I was going to work on before I got so rudely interrupted there…

Just who the hell does little M. “Do You Think It’s Easy To Make Priorities” think he is, anyway? This little arsehole — along with the Blocheads and Taliban Jack!’s YGBKMP — actually has the gall to demand that Harper do in two months what his party, and he himself as environment minister, utterly failed to do in more than a decade in power: come up with a plan to implement Kyoto by 2012.

And if that didn’t get your bullshitometer up to the redline, try this one on for size: li’l Steffy himself said, on the record to columnist John Ivison, that there was NO POSSIBLE WAY TO IMPLEMENT THE KYOTO TARGETS WITHIN THAT TIMEFRAME and that “energy will be the next crisis for the economy of the world.” See for yourself (emphasis mine, of course):

Dion admits Liberals’ Kyoto goal impossible

National Post 2006-07-01 John Ivison

OTTAWA – Former environment minister Stephane Dion has conceded that a future Liberal government would be unable to meet its Kyoto commitment of reducing greenhouse gas emissions below 1990 levels.

Mr. Dion, a candidate for the Liberal leadership, said that if he became prime minister after an election next year, he would try to reduce emissions, which are thought to contribute to global warming.

“In 2008, I will be part of Kyoto, but I will say to the world I don’t think I will make it. Everyone is saying target, target. But … it is to be more than to reach a target. It’s to change the economy. It’s to have resource productivity, energy efficiency when we know that energy will be the next crisis for the economy of the world.”

Canada signed up to reduce emissions to 6% below 1990 levels by 2012, but government statistics suggest they are currently around 35% above that level. The Conservative government has said it will not be able to meet Canada’s targets for the first-phase of the Kyoto accord — an admission that has led Liberal critics to charge that the Tories have abandoned Kyoto.

The Liberal party maintains its climate-change plans would meet the 2012 deadline. Mr. Dion is the first senior party figure to cast doubt on that claim.

A spokesman for Environment Minister Rona Ambrose said Mr. Dion’s comments were cause for concern. “It is concerning that the Liberals were prepared to mislead Canadians on the Kyoto targets even though the former Liberal environment minister now admits the targets were unachievable.”

Mr. Dion defended the Liberal record on Kyoto by saying Canada signed on for far-tougher targets than many other countries. “If France does nothing between 1990 and 2010, their emissions are likely to grow by 4%. If Canada does nothing, emissions grow by 44%.”

He said the election of George W. Bush, and the subsequent U.S. decision to pull out of Kyoto, left Canadian industry, and some Cabinet ministers, uneasy with the government’s climate-change plan. [of COURSE! It’s all Bush’s fault!! Gimme a fucking break 🙄 -D]

Mr. Dion advocates binding commitments for industry to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions through a domestic trading system. Companies able to cut their emissions below target levels could then sell credits to less energy efficient businesses. He said he is also working on environmental tax reform and would put the environment at the centre of government. “All my ministries will be green. Maybe I’ll make one department of industry and the environment — a department of sustainability. That’s not a commitment, but if you want to change the mind, you have to change structures.”

So, he does nothing, admits that nothing can be done, and then screeches like a shrill schoolmarm at the Tories for not waving the magic wand and making it all disappear. The Grits even try to accuse Harper of “act(ing) like an emperor” if he chooses to ignore their little parliamentary temper tantrum (which I think he should).

Hell, even Green Party Ubertreehugger Elizabeth May isn’t being fooled by this bullshit publicity stunt. I can’t help but wonder, though… Which do you think is going to get through the Fiberal-dominated Senate first, hmmm? The Federal Accountability Act (which would make the kind of corruption that is the Grits’ stick-in-trade one hell of a lot harder in the future), Bill S-24 (the Senate Tenure Bill), or this little Grit-spawned publicity stunt? Anybody feel like laying some money down on it?

All I can say is: Please, please, please let this trigger an election!! And let it happen BEFORE John Q. Canuck has the chance to doze back off again. Let it happen before the Canadian public can foget that Dion has flip-flopped on everything from Kyoto to Afghanistan to antiterror legislation. Real quick, in point form:

• Librano$ sign Kyoto (a pipe dream), do nothing, blame Tories
• Librano$ pass antiterror measures, now call them draconian
• Librano$ send troops to Afghanistan, now want to run away
• Librano$ to nominate candidates based on crotch plumbing, not merit
• Librano$ get to boot for Adscamâ„¢, Dion welcomes back scammer into the party fold

It’s one thing to be a populist; it’s another thing entirely to make a political career out of twisting in the wind of public opinion. I could go on, but why bother? The facts are that he’s out of touch with regular Canadians, he’s an elitist and he’s weak. The Grits picked everybody’s third choice to lead their party and, as the ads said, Stephane Dion is NOT a leader. Never has been and never will be. The little snot even mewled like a petulant child when someone pointed out that there really IS a problem with wanting to be the leader of one country while being a citizen of another!

Yup. Best Christmas present a little Rightwing nutjob like me ever got. Can we go to the polls now?

Um… I have NO idea WHAT the hell to make of this. I don’t even know how the hell this managed to happen, let alone what it means or what to say about it.

And I’m willing to bet my left nut that none of YOU out there saw this coming either. Nope. No way in hell.

Okay, alright; I suppose I should tell you just what the hell I’m going on about. It’s simple: SES reasearch had themselves a little poll in Ontario — yes, that Ontario. The one with all the liberals in it — that asked folks a simple little question:

Thinking about the federal party leaders – those being Stephen Harper for the Conservatives; Stephane Dion for the Liberals, Jack Layton for the NDP, Gilles Duceppe for the Bloc Quebecois and Elizabeth May for the Green Party – who do you trust the most to safeguard our environment?

I know; not exactly earth-shaking stuff, is it? What baffles me is the results. No, bonehead, Harper didn’t win by a mile. 🙄 What he did manage to do is tie. You’ll NEVER guess who.

According to Ontariens, Harper is equally trustworthy on matters of the environment as . . . Green Party leader ELIZABETH MAY! 😯

Don’t take my word for it. Click here and see for yourself.