Wednesday, July 22, 2015

Mid-Week Post

Stuck in the middle...



Is the love affair with the Shiny Pony over and done with?

The Liberals are smarting at the unfairness of it all – Justin Trudeau has just hit a 12-month low in a Nanos Research poll that asks voters who they would pick as their preferred prime minister.

Tom Mulcair, the New Democratic Party leader, has, not coincidentally, hit a 12-month high.

The blame has been attached squarely to the Conservative heavy rotation attack ads that have targeted Trudeau as “just not ready” to be prime minister.

“One leader is attacked with a multi-million dollar ad campaign. The other isn’t. It’s not much more complicated,” said one senior Liberal.

But that is too glib an explanation. While it’s true that Trudeau’s personal numbers have fallen since the ads appeared at the end of May – 30.7 per cent preferred him as prime minister three months ago, compared with 23.3 per cent  this week – his year-high number was 35.8 per cent.

In other words, his reputation was bruised long before the Conservative campaign was launched. ...

Yet the person who put most doubt in the minds of the voting public was Trudeau himself. If the Conservatives and the NDP contributed to his fall from grace, many of the sins were his own.

While Mulcair was clear, Trudeau was vague — supporting the troops, but not the mission in Iraq; backing the Conservative anti-terror legislation, but opposing many of its measures.

His suggestion that if an election had not been looming, he would have voted against Bill C51 made him appear as cynical as his opponents – as did the decision to accept former Conservative MP, Eve Adams, into the Liberal caucus.

Flippant comments about “whipping out CF-18s,” admiration for China and budgets balancing themselves added to the sense that he may be in over his head – a habit one of his own MPs referred to as “bozo eruptions.”

Any ad against Justin Trudeau could be produced easily. Simply record any number of stupid things he has said and put it out there.

I think that about the time the October election rolls around, people will get scared and vote for the more competent of the choices for prime minister.

That will not be Justin Trudeau.



There really are two tiers of legality in Canada:

Stained by organized crime and demonized by multinational cigarette makers, aboriginal reserves in Ontario and Quebec known for their cheap smokes are finalizing rules to raise prices and drive the criminal elements out of the industry.

(Sidebar: yeah, that must be it. Oh, wait...)



Ontario, which should easily get power from its own hydroelectric and nuclear power plants, is in talks with Newfoundland to get energy from it:

Ontario is the latest customer to line up to purchase Newfoundland and Labrador’s growing supply of hydroelectricity in a move that could one day lead to a “national grid.”

The two provincial energy ministers will announce Monday they’re launching a study of the potential for Ontario to buy power from the Muskrat Falls hydroelectric plant and the pending Gull Island development at Lower Churchill Falls, the National Post has learned. But power won’t start flowing west from Newfoundland for years to come as both projects and associated transmission lines are still years away from coming online.

This is the government Liberal voters wanted.

Also:



(Gracias, El Barto.)



A judge has ordered a new psychiatric assessment of convicted terrorist Chiheb Esseghaier.

Just as with Chattanooga shooter, Mohammad Youssuf Abdulazeez (who apparently wanted to be an Islamic martyr), all Islamist terrorism (as lone wolf as it always seems to be) is the result of mental illness.

Or poverty.

Or global warming.

But not because of a seventh century war-monger or the book he wrote or because of deeply ingrained cultural beliefs that have been exercised in bloody fashion time and time again.

Moral culpability cannot ever enter the equation lest society at large embraces clear concepts of right and wrong and working values and dispenses with the utterly ludicrous delusions about Islamism.



Racism is alright when other people do it:

Public-housing officials have relocated a Caucasian family after they went public with allegations of racially charged bullying by their neighbours.

Internal documents suggest the stone-throwing and harassment by children running rampant had escalated at the Shaganappi Village complex after the family aired their complaints.

Blair France moved into the Calgary Housing Company complex with her husband and two children last November.

In April, she claimed her children were subject to racial taunts and punches from children who come from East African immigrant families, who form a significant presence among the complex’s roughly 900 residents.

When France had rocks thrown at her house in May, she wrote to the mayor and local media, and hosted an anti-bullying barbecue. The event made news nationwide. Their story was picked up by a British tabloid and was even circulated by the white supremacist website Stormfront.

While the barbecue went peacefully, documents obtained under a freedom-of-information request show that the problems quickly worsened. ...

France, who did not respond to Herald interview requests, claimed CHC contacted the alleged bullies she had named and told them that “if they don’t comply to the rules they will be kicked out.”

She said things worsened two days later, when neighbouring kids threatened to kill her children. “They are so scared, they don’t want to go to school or even outside,” wrote France. “We just need to move.”


Did the US scratch Putin's back for support on Iran?

It’s true that Ukraine is off the front pages of global news media, and that’s not good for a country that’s dependent on Western aid and sympathy and, at the same time, coveted by Russian President Vladimir Putin as a satellite state or at least a buffer against further expansion of NATO. Some Ukrainian and anti-Putin Russian commentators saw Nuland’s Kiev visit and her attempt to persuade the legislators as a sign that the U.S. is selling out Ukraine to Putin in exchange for his support for last week’s nuclear deal with Iran.

I would say yes.


And now, a three-fer:

If this husky-owner was away for ten minutes, as opposed to six weeks, would the dog still react the same way?




South Korea is super-cool:

(source)


This is so much like my dreams, it's scary:




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