And today as our Prime Minister headed into exile in disgrace
Well as law abiding, decent Canadians we could only wish.
Tip Dawg
I love it when the Washington medja tries to connect with the hoi polloi and fail miserably.
We’ve all read or heard the famous JS Mill quote on the link between Conservatism and stupidity,
I never meant to say that the Conservatives are generally stupid. I meant to say that stupid people are generally Conservative. I believe that is so obviously and universally admitted a principle that I hardly think any gentleman will deny it.
But some of the statements given by Harper Con MPs after this mornings bit of hand waving by the grey man illustrate that Mill’s first comment could indeed be the truthful one.
“We’re taking the heat on the doorstep because of the behaviour of an unelected senator,” said one Conservative MP.
No. You’re taking heat because your lack of honesty and integrity coupled with a total willingness to do exactly as you were told created this arrogant leadership that thought it could do what it wanted without reproach. You basked in your majority and rubbed the vast majority of the electorates and opposition’s noses in it. You’re cowardice and willingness to be a puppet created this mess, so you are responsible for it.
“Honest backbenchers didn’t start this mess — it started at the centre.
If you had honestly carried out your duties in the first place this couldn’t have happened. You didn’t so yes you did start this mess. Own it you spineless, worthless whiner.
There needs to be an apology to caucus and the public,” said another MP.
Why? He’s never apologised in the past, he’s run away, lied or thrown people under the bus and you let him do it.
“One rule-breaker is bad but three, plus the chief of staff [Nigel Wright] is a systemic problem. The real problem is, we crossed the moral red line a long time ago.”
Yes and well before this, but you still kept supporting him and his gang of idiots, so what does that make you?
The National Post that is now crying for Harper’s head is just as bad as these MPs. The unwavering support of the likes of Ivison, Coyne and the other water carriers helped create this mess and now they wnat their part in it forgotten. Not going to happen.Especially when they right his kind of crap,
But ethics, accountability and principled government are core to the Conservative agenda too — that’s why many people voted for the party.
After proroguing parliament twice, lieing to it on innumerable occasions and abusing the public trust repeatedly those journos and others endorsed this criminal enterprise whole heartedly. It’s too late to try and make amends now, you are part of the problem.
Finally this
Conservative MPs are, for the first time in my experience, talking about open mutiny. “The question for my caucus colleagues is increasingly: Who is for Harper and who is for the party that will, hopefully, outlast him?”
only illustrates what a bunch of venal, pathetic children the Canadian right are; only roused to do the right thing when it threatens their privileged position personally. That’s not ethical behaviour, that’s exactly the same thing that Duffy, Wallin etc did.
Amidst all the hoopla over Harper’s predictable antics in his CYA exercise today one important piece of news will be ignored. Business and this Reform government are destroying the once proud Canadian achievement of finding stuff out and being a world leader at it.
Alarm bells were ringing when the production of Isotopes was destroyed by the ignorant Harper clan, but the country “was doing well” compared to all the other G20 countries so anybody pointing it out were ignore as party poopers. (It’s really odd how that fact was pointed out, but the policies of this idiot in charge were to emulate those who we were doing better than, but that’s another story.)
Unconditional tax breaks were given to corporations, so why should they invest in R&D. This current crop of bean-counters and otherwise unemployable puppets in power fear knowledge and excellence so they sure as hell weren’t going to fund it either and now we are slipping.
The bad news is that Canada is letting its science advantage fritter away, as if that could somehow help its private-sector R&D gap close. In 2007 Canada continued to rank first among G7 countries in HERD, or R&D expenditure in the higher-education sector. But as I have argued elsewhere, it’s increasingly useful to consider the G7 as an international losers’ club. It’s the U.S., Japan and Old Europe. When you throw Canada into the larger pool of 41 countries STIC looks at — countries with a bit of mojo, like Brazil, India, China, Poland, Israel and Sweden — Canada has fallen from third in 2006, to 4th in 2008 — to 9th in 2011. “With their significant investments in research and higher education,” this panel writes, “other countries are catching up and overtaking Canada.”
This is the real story that typifies the priorities and aims of this government, but I guess we missed another serious foul up while pandering to Harper’s need for publicity, while answering no questions fully or honestly.
I’m a subscriber to a British magazine Private Eye. There used to be a section in this magazine called “luvvies” and another called “Pseuds Corner” that lambasted the effete, excesses of the Arty types that inhabit many a college of Art and Drama today.
On listening to Alberta at Noon today it was my privilege to listen to the outpourings of such a luvvie in all his Pseudish glory holding forth on the chicken killing in old Calgary town. I give you Peter Such of Victoria college of Art.
Apparently this killing of a live bird in a place where people eat is no big deal, it was a way to shake the bourgeoisie out of their complacent slumber. This student was just following on in the fine tradition of Byron and Shelley in their drinking out of human skulls at parties. He finds it unbelievable that ACAD should respond as they did as they are an arts establishment and there are no easily shocked Engineers around to pander too. And this is where Such’s argument, such as it is founders on the rocks of reality.
This whole incident was poorly conceived and inadequately defended. Ferguson showed himself to be a very poor instructor and most of those carrying water for him and this act of inaccurate self promotion, are waving their hands trying to distract the rest of us from the paucity of their arguments. Venue, rationale, research and methods sucked ass and the student should be failed for being an attention seeking wannabe who couldn’t create a worthwhile project.
Oh and in wrapping up; has Such ever been to an engineering college? I can assure the good Prof that engineers are pretty unshockable and the source of most complaints in most real universities is usually from the humanities and artists who are appalled at the behaviour of the engineers. There are many examples of this on the net – google is your friend.
In what must be one of the most myopic and toadying editorials I’ve seen in quite a while the G&M outdoes itself in deliberate understatement in order to cover for its choice in the last election.
The Harper government has usually been quite tough in dealing with parliamentarians who have been seen to have crossed a line, and caused it embarrassment,
It then goes on to identify the dismissal of Bernier (since reinstated) and Guergis as examples of this straight shooting. Remember Guergis was disciplined solely because she and her man embarrassed Harper and she after all was just a “chick” to Harper.
Other embarrassments that Harper failed to deal with were, Clement (Gazebos), MacKay (F35 lying), Fantino (You name it), Del Maestro (Election Financing), Paradis (Access to Information) and Finley (Election Financing and rewarded with a senate seat) to name a few are still receiving his full support. Bev Oda was only dealt with once it was obvious just how entitled to her “entitlements” she felt. Then the political embarrassments like Rait (Nuclear Issues), Goodyear (Anti-Science), Oliver and Kent (Turrurists and PoS issues) still bravely soldier on at their masters pleasure.
The G&M is a corporate paper just like all the others and pushes the interests of the folk who own them. Those people are not of the left, they are capitalist and are natural allies of Harper and Co as well as the Liberals; the way Mulcair is going it will soon be the NDP too. This horrible piece of banality illustrates this only too well.
It’s something that could not have been written for comedy without the author thinking it might be totally unbelievable, the idiot savant and tailing ponds taster Joe Oliver has declared the actions of the EU unscientific.
“It’s discriminatory, it’s not based on science and it would potentially hurt Canada’s ability to access markets for its resources,” Oliver said in the interview.
And just a few paragraphs later
A group of 12 scientists sent him a letter this week saying Canada is delaying the transition to an economy more reliant on alternative energy.
David Keith, a Canadian teaching public policy and engineering at Harvard University, said in the letter that the Canadian government needs to “grow up” in balancing development with climate change.
“We don’t need these exaggerated claims, these insults flying around,” Oliver said in response.
“They have a view that we can basically reduce significantly the production of the oilsands and, really, other hydrocarbons they seem to think that it’s possible to wean ourselves from oil and just to move into an alternative energy… that is not realistic.”
Seriously how can so much cognitive dissonance result in a Ministerial position? The Science that Oliver appeals to for support disagrees with his basic premise and it’s unrealistic. It’s either science or not. It’s not science when it agrees with what you think and then ceases to be science when you don’t like it.
This government doesn’t need the House of Commons it needs a creche.
