Taking a break from party politics

I will be taking a break from patisan politics and blogging for the next little while to work on a new project with a few friends. If you care to find out what the new project is, visit www.movecanadaforward.com. And if it tickles your fancy, join us as we fight the good fight.

I thought it would be most appropriate to let the fans of this blog know about this before I stop posting here for a while. (I may post something every once in a while, but I will not be a regular blogger.)

Scott Reid: A Source?

I was going to post this yesterday but I worried about potential lawsuites. Today, I am less worried so I'm going to post it.

The readers of this blog know my absolute distaste for cowards who hide behind anonymous quotes. In fact, there is no one worse than the PMO when it comes to giving anonymous sources. And there is no one worse than than the Globe when it come to using them.

So yesterday the Globe reported:

A source in the Prime Minister's Office said Mr. Martin was careful in his choice, but "we do not live in Stalinist Russia and we are not going to make people crawl on their bellies and demonstrate their loyalty to Canada."

The source added: "We do not select the Governor General using a scratch-and-win card."

First of all: this must be one of the most silly ways you can hide a source. A source in the PMO, talking to reporters.. let's see.. that could be all of 5, maybe 7, people? This is not DC where a source in the "administration" can be anyone in a group of almost 100 people.

Second, Scott Reid is the wittiest person in the PMO so the scratch and win comment could only be his. The Russia comment was only icing on the cake.

Now, today the Post had this:

"Understand this: The governor-general is not selected from a scratch-and-win ticket," added Mr. Reid.

Is there any reason why Reid would float the quote to the Globe anonymously while allowing it to be sourced in the Post? Hmmmm.. we must ask:

1. Was it Reid who decided to hide behind anonymous source to bash the Tories and sell the "Harper got told not to go in bed with hardline Quebec nationalists" line? If so, why was the Globe so willing to accept that spin while shielding the PMO from having to stand by their spin?

or

2. Did Reid not care if he was quoted and the Globe did so just so it would sound "more in the know"?

Now, I may be wrong about Reid being the source for both quotes but at the very least both people are reading from the same talking points.. why can't they be quoted? The same questions need to be asked.

Like I said before reporters MUST start putting an end to this anonymous sourcing and talking "on background." At least they should end it when it comes to clear, obvious, and partisan spin.

Augusto Pinochet

Ok.. there will be a long post about this later.. I just found out my uncle met August Pinochet when he was the Commander in Chief of the Army. We are about to get into the car and head into horrible California traffic. So I will ask him about two hours worth of questions and post something about it here when I get a chance. (likely Sunday or Monday.)

So as Drudge would say: DEVELOPING.

Tisha B'av

I just had a long post about Tisha B'Av that I somehow lost. Here is some of what I had written:

I believe today is Tisha B'Av which is the ninth day of the month of Av in the Jewish calendar. It is the saddest day of the year for the Jewish people.

On Tisha B'Av, on different years: (I'm copying the below because I just don't want to retype my version.)

1. The sin of the spies caused Hashem to decree that the Children of Israel who left Egypt would not be permitted to enter the land of Israel;

2. The first Temple was destroyed;

3. The second Temple was destroyed;

4. Betar, the last fortress to hold out against the Romans during the Bar Kochba revolt in the year 135, fell, sealing the fate of the Jewish people.

5. One year after the fall of Betar, the Temple area was plowed.

6. In 1492, King Ferdinand of Spain issued the expulsion decree, setting Tisha B'Av as the final date by which not a single Jew would be allowed to walk on Spanish soil.

7. World War I – which began the downward slide to the Holocaust – began on Tisha B’av.

In 2005, on Tisha B'Av the Jewish people in the holy land of Israel are being expelled once again. But this is the first time in history that Jews are expelling other Jews.

Sharon should be ashamed of himself. I'm not Jewish, but I think this year's Tisha B'Av will go down in infamy as being at least equal to 1492's.

Bloggers miss the point on softwood

Most people who have commented on recent US reaction to the NAFTA softwood panel seem to have misunderstood the basic principles of world trade. (If you are going to Brock's blog, read this comment as the most apparent misunderstanding of the system.)

I wish I had the time to go into detail about various reasons why it is wrong to think that the United States is cheating. However, I only have time for a short post. (And experience has shown that the audience of this blog is not really interested in my posting long essays about free trade.)

Anyway, any good lawyer would tell a client to breach a contract if it is in the clients interest to breach. There are obviously penalties to breaching, but sometimes the best option must still be breaching.

An FTA is not much different. The United States can ignore panel rulings all it wants. (I'm talking about WTO panels here.) There are consequences, but it can do so. EU (EC) has refused to comply to the WTO ruling on Beef hormons for oh.. about a 15000 years now.

Now, this case specifically:

First, the United States is NOT ignoring the panel ruling. It is simply stating the obvious that this panel ruling was in response to a appeal on a ruling that was made under an older scheme. Now we all know that the new shceme and the old scheme are not all that different, but this is a fine point. Japan (on Apples I believe) causes three seperate panels. (And those were WTO/GATT panels that took much much longer than NAFTA panels.)

Second, Jim Peterson is a freaking moron. I can just imagine Busch/Purgeous crowd wanting to pull their hair out when they read this:

"This is a binding decision that clearly eliminates the basis for the U.S. imposing duties on our softwood lumber. This is a key win for Canadians but let me be very frank with you, we are not out of the woods yet," Canadian Trade Minister Jim Peterson said.

"I'm not going to speculate on what the U.S. may or may not do, but we know in the past that they have been extremely litigious," Peterson said.

Memo to Jim Peterson: Stop being a jacakss and stop grand standing. This case should have gone away about 20 minutes after it started if you were willing to negotiate.

Third, the fact that this case has not gone away yet is because the US knows that Canada is not willing to make the sacrifices needed to make it go away. On the other hand, the US cannot lose this fight over stumpage fees. If it does, then what will it do when China, now a WTO member, starts giving away iron or cole away for free? Will the US just tell its manufacturing sector to move? It's kindda hard to move a smelting plant! And it's even harder to move the city of Pittsburgh!

I think Canada made a big mistake by going to the WTO with this once. The audience cost on this to the US is now huge.

The Most Negative Campaign in History

I disagree with people who say that the CPC should be running a positive campaign in the next election.

In fact, I hope that this next election campaign goes down as the most negative election campaign in the history of modern politics. These guys are bunch of liars, cheats, and crooks. We should destroy their reputation. We should do so to point out that there are consequences to one's actions. We should do so to teach the kids of this country a lesson. We should do so to make sure that no politician will ever again think of the public treasury as his own personal bank account.

This should not be a battle of ideas. This should be a battle of morals.

We are not liars. They are.
We are not cheaters. They are.
We are not thieves. They are.

It should be that simple.

Now, as I've advocated before, I think we should have good ideas so that when we get into power we can do something. I think we should publicize a conservative platform to fight the hidden agenda message. However, I do believe that for the sake of our country we must make sure that the next election will be studied for years to come in university politics classes for being unusually cruel.

Google Fights Back

with this.

I feel like bit of a tool because I hadn't checked the "new services" link for a while. Well, this (officially posted less than 5 minutes after the last post) makes my thoughts about switching completely invalid.

I now wish that the people in my FantasyFootball and all those listserves that I'm on would switch to Google.

I'm considering switching back

to Yahoo!

For about two years now, I've been fairly loyal Google user. I love their interface and have made Google my homepage and use Google bar.

But over this summer, I have begun using Yahoo! again. (The company mandates Yahoo! is the homepage of all laptops.) During this period i have found that I like the Yahoo! added features. I like the news on the side, and I like that you can personalize it.

Now I admit, even with the recent news regarding its index size, Google often gives slightly better search result than Yahoo! However, I'm not sure if that's good enough to warrent my complete loyalty.

I am officially what one of my favourite profs used to refer to as "margin sucking maggot." I demand that my homepage/search bar meet all my demands. In that way, Yahoo! is clearly superior to Google. I just wish they would go back to the days when Yahoo! was using a Google engine to run their searches.

There is no way I'm getting a bike,

if my girlfriend sees this. Quick, can someone tell me how I can delete something from cyberspace?

Seriously, this is shocking!

I have wanted a Harley for as long as I can remember. So I have been following the death/accident rate on bikes for some time. This is a huge spike.

I wonder if the numbers are similar for Canada. Does anyone have this info? Specifically, does anyone have any info on accidents on bigger bikes vs. smaller bikes?

Sometimes Generals Say Stupid Things

I think it is important for conservatives to be mindful of what our military officers say. After all, our military is the most visible contact point that many foreigners have with Canada.

So we want our Generals to reflect Canadian values accurately. Certainly, we would not want something like this to happen in Canada. (In case you don't want to follow the link, this is an incident from a few years ago when a US Admiral in Japan talked about how a soldier should have just gone to a prostitute instead of raping a teenage girl.)

I say all of this to point out that I don't think outspoken Generals are a good thing. I am sure what Rick Hillier says is true. I am sure his reputation for being honest is well-earned. However, do we really want our Generals to be so public with their statements? Would we not rather have the civillian leaders of her Majesty's military speak about it?

I don't care if they are Liberals or even NDPers, I think General Hillier speaking to the press is like any other Deputy Minister speaking to the press.. it's just a bad idea.

Forget bias, sometimes they are downright stupid

I really wish that we had smarter reporters. Or at least less lazy reporters.

I don't even care if they were all liberals. I just wish they were smarter.

Here is a perfect example of piss poor journalism.

In a story about the daylight saving situation. In a report filed by CTV.ca News Staff, we find this gem:

"It's unclear if Canada will make the same time change. At least one business leader believes Ottawa has no choice but to follow the United States."

Yes. Ottawa HAS NO CHOICE... since this is a provincial area of jurisdiction.

I am starting to think the only reliable news source in this country is.. well.. I can't think of one but the Asper chain comes close.