The game's up; the majority is not there! Instead, Harper wants to test his strength in Quebec with a series of by-elections, and then maybe go in the fall(1) or in 2008:One would be in Lapierre's Montreal-area seat of Outremont; another would be in St. Hyacinthe-Bagot, vacated when long-time Bloc Québécois MP Yvon Loubier left earlier this year to run in the provincial election. The third would be in Roberval-Lac-Saint-Jean, where Bloc House leader Michel Gauthier announced recently he was stepping down for health reasons.
Of course, partisan Tories will portray this as another bedazzling move by Harper the master tactician. You know what I think.
And didn't I damn well say so? Huhhh? Huhhh? NO SPRING ELECTION!
(1) ...which in itself will be pretty difficult, since we have at least the Ontario provincial election on tap for October, and maybe several others (Manitoba, Saskatchewan, P.E.I, Northwest Territories, Alberta) between now and year-end.
27 comments:
I don't feel pansy boy is a gay specific insult. Many gays, for example, know karate.
Main Entry: 1pan·sy
Pronunciation: 'pan-zE
Function: noun
Inflected Form(s): plural pansies
Etymology: Middle English pancy, pensee, from Middle French pensée, from pensée thought, from feminine of pensé, past participle of penser to think, from Latin pensare to ponder -- more at PENSIVE
1 : a garden plant (Viola wittrockiana) derived chiefly from the hybridization of the European Johnny-jump-up (Viola tricolor) with other wild violets; also : its flower
2 a usually disparaging : a weak or effeminate man or boy b usually disparaging : a male homosexual
nice picture of Belinduh . . .
at least she is smart enough to see the Dion writing on the wall and get off the turd ship before the stink over powers what's left.
It's always safer to call Harper a ponce, BCL. The rightwing language police don't really know what it means, and would be less inclined to clog up your comments with their useless drivel.
Most Conservatives are ponces anyway; at least those who aren't drooling rednecks.
You Liberal hypocrites are pathetic. First you bleat, blather, and squeal loudly that Harper is preparing for an imminent election, and now you are calling him a "pansy boy" that is "chickening out" for waiting.
And speaking of chickens, is it more important for the Liberals to see a Green MP elected and McKay defeated rather than battling for a seat themselves? Or are they too "chicken" to run a candidate there?
I wonder how the rest of the Liberal "Dream Team" feels about giving up a riding just to TRY and hurt the Tories.
Boy, can you ever tell the Liberals are in trouble.
Wow, man, that chicken really sets people off.
What a perfect opportunity for Garth Turner to show his strength of character and allow the voters of Halton riding to decide which side of the House he should sit on (or find other employment).
And perhaps the voters of Newmarket-Aurora could find a new MP who wants the position, not someone who squeezes in it after their day job.
Yes, Polly, but did you like the chicken?
Whooee! Well BigCity, maybe pansy was a poor choice o' words. How about lily-livered, yellow-bellied, wussy, wimpy, pusillanimous, milquetoast or just plain cowardly?
JB
Yes,
at 17% Dion is fear inspiring, for his own party that is.
What are we at now, 17 Libs jumping ship?
And I hear they can't even get nominees in many ridings.
Oh yes, Harper is very frightened.
It helps to make sure you all grow up little detached cogs with very little empathy for others...not even yourselves.
And what does the scolding school marm say about grown women, Polly?
BCL called Harper a pansy.
Polly called non-effeminant heterosexual males "little detached cogs with very little empathy for others...".
I'm not sure a slur against "effeminant" males as spineless and lacking in conviction is so much worse than a slur against "masculine" males as monolithic automatons lacking in empathy.
I'm not a fan of heteronormative stereotypes either, but it's no more fair to attack someone for being too "butch" then it is to attack someone for being too "fem".
"Pansy" is a silly word to use, and it is childish and insulting. There's nothing wrong with being an effeminate male, or not conforming to traditional stereotypes of what it is to be a man.
However, there's nothing wrong with people who do match those stereotypes either.
People aren't freaks if they don't conform to stereotypes, but neither are they sociopathic automatons if they do.
I think this is the point ti-guy was trying to make. BCL made a childish comment and was called on it. However, once he (and by extension many of us) was then called a detahced cog lacking in empathy for his childishness, the shoe moved to another foot.
I assume your 'scolding school marm' comment is directed at me though. Most ironic.
I know! Irony is what gives life texture and we should be grateful for it. I know you're up to responding directly and dispassionately, so that's why I wrote that.
Nothing to get off my chest, except the same old thing...I got tired of language policing long ago, Polly. People will continue to use the language they do until there's no longer any reason to. That's how language works; it's used to describe the reality around us.
When we're dealing with equality, human rights, social/economic justice and patriarchal abuse of power, policing language strikes me as rather frivolous...as does the full-metal school marm routine.
Notes to Self: 1) Utilize picture of chicken at next available opportunity; 2) Employ controversial epithet in title.
Smashing work!
Who I am stalking? I'm not stalking you, OL. I just notice your screeching and hissing and moaning and crying and whining and wailing and flailing at pretty much every Liberal blog I've checked lately.
Your presence in the comments repels me, so you can't possibly call that stalking.
And, aside from a few drive-by's, I never troll. I can't stand rightwing miseries. Most people can't.
No? Following me around commenting after me about my presence on numerous blogs and whining about it is eerie. Go get some help for that.
What numerous blogs?
And here is Ti-Guy, gleefully and firmly in possession with his turn today at the single lonely left-tard brain cell..
Oh, hang on. Nice sock-puppeting, Parker.
You are always welcome here, Polly. You give the place some much needed class.
PollyGal, BCL has some bad troublems with trolls so maybe he's on the strong defense. I reckon when yer boog name is BigCityLib, yer gonna attract a fair number o' trolls who hate the big city (Trawna - centre o' the universe) an' hate Libs. BCL gives 'em a open forum fer postin' their cut an' paste BS.
Maybe you don't consider yerself classy, but compared to some o' the usual anonynumbnutses who post comments here, yer Princess Grace.
Wave after wave of insult hurlin' is da rigeur on some boogs but there's civilized discourse here an' there an' between the lines.
JB
No I am perfectly serious, Polly.
And I would admit to occasionally lacking empathy, and also to sometimes offending people who I did not set out to offend. If I have said anything to set you off personally, than I am sorry.
However, I also think people get offended way too easily these days and, especially in the political part of the blogosphere, DECIDE to be offended when they are not really (not that any of this applies to you).
Finally, some of the very BEST jokes, putdowns, and one liners are racist/sexist/homophobic, or have their roots in racist/sexist etc. language. I would not surrender those parts of the language just because someone might find their occasional use impolite. After all, jokes about straight males don't bother me.
(although in the case of "pansy boy" I was NOT origonally thinking of the specific gay connotation)
By the way, where have you been defending me? Are they on my case at Bread & Roses again?
Language is a mechanism of social control, Ti-Guy. It lends to the abuses you list above. You should take on defending Don Imus.
No, language is not a mechanism for social control, not one that works, anyway, and it is frightening to believe that language has that much power. You'll note that in the appendix to George Orwell's 1984, Newspeak is discussed historically, as something that was attempted, but ultimately failed. The feminist analysis of the power of language has not held up, despite several decades of evidence of attempts to proscribe/prescribe language to help modify beliefs and behaviours that enable illegitimate power structures.
Sexist/racist/homophobic language is no longer considered acceptable in polite conversation, but it nonetheless continues to exist, and will exist so long as it reflects the beliefs of sexists, homophobes and racists and those of us who recognise those things because they still exist.
I wouldn't take on defending Imus because Imus is a media problem, not an issue of bigoted language or freedom of expression. He should have been fired a long, long time ago.
Ti-Guy, I am thinking along the lines of Foucault and discourse which limits us from seeing possibilities and which conceals and strengthens the status quo.
On that we agree. But changing language won't work at all because you can't change language. Language changes in exactly the way biological evolution occurs; through the processes analogous to random mutation and survival of the fittest. When the environemt changes, language changes.
Polly,
Just for the record, I certainly wasn't offended by your comment, and I didn't mean to come off that way. I think I just felt the reaction to "pansy boy" (not just yours) was a bit overwrought. Especially, as it happens, to the comparison of "pansy" to the n-word, which I think is WAY over the top.
It would never have occurred to me that the use of the word "pansy" was being used as a homophobic insult, and I never thought that BCL was employing it with any suggestion that it related to sexuality.
I can certainly see myself joking with a friend who stubbed his toe and over-reacted "Man, you're such a pansy" (I don't honestly think I'd come up with that word in actual conversation, it's kind of anachronistic, but it wouldn't occur to me that it would be particularly offensive, and I would take it as an attack - such as it is- on someone's masculinity, not their sexuality). While, obviously, I would never say, even jokingly "Man, you're such a fa66ot". Although, come to think of it, I do have gay friends who have no problem with friends, even heterosexual friends using "fag" as an affectionate kid, as in "Man, you're such a fag" (with a smile, rolled eyes and tongue in cheek).
Now, "fa66ot", I agree is much more comparable to the n-word, imho (though less so the short form "fag", as above). However, I think it's all quite subjective. Within the gay community (much as within the black community, or at least the urban hip-hop culture with the n-word) I think even the "f-word" has some currency, even to the point of some feeling comfortable with "homofriendly" heterosexuals (anybody??? what's the right nomenclature for that sentiment???) using it in a playful good-natured context (and even more so with "fag").
Anyway, I just wanted to add that, to me (dictionaries aside) the modern usage of "pansy" may well be a heteronormative insult, and an attack on one's masculinity, but I wouldn't say it's necessarily a homophobic insult, or an attack on one's sexuality, and I certainly don't think BCL meant it as such here. An attack on masculinity and "manliness", while related, is different, I think, from an attack on sexuality. And I just think the former is much less offensive than the later.
Polly Jones you're boring us to tears. Say something substantive and don't bore us with this university seminar jibberish.
So now we see Dijon's hidden agenday for democracy under his watch. He'll decide which sex is allowed to run in any particular riding. He'll also make deals with other political parties to circumvent the democratic process. Is this idiot for real? This prick is manipulating the electoral process PURELY FOR POLITICAL GAIN!!!! and he has the insanity to claim that Harper is the enemy of democracy?
Dijon has clearly had a mental breakdown from all the unfairness and bullying. And pressure from making priorities. "It's hard, it's really hard. It's so unfair."
He makes John Turner look good.
And, perhaps, we can leave the image of me as the whipping-mistress aside for at least a couple of weeks, k?
Huh? It's a bit of stretch to go from school marm to "whipping mistress." That's what I'm talking about when I bring up language, Polly. Deal with the reference as it is, not with what you believe is being refered to. That is something you cannot know for certain.
PJ:
That's more like it.
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