Iggy's Been Working Out

I've written once or twice about how Iggy should exit his summer tour physically: should he sport an Alberta beer gut, thus appealing to Der Volk and maybe making inroads into the Tory strongholds out West, or remain lean and efficient like the Eastern Liberal Hawk that seems to be his default setting?

And I'm proud to announce that it looks like Iggy's managed a classic Liberal compromise: nobody would dare call the man a scrawny elitist, but there's obviously a rowing machine at the back of that bus.

And he's been filing his fangs back a little, so as not to hurt anyone when he's baby-kissing. That too is good.

Victory will surely be ours.

Yowza! Iggy Should Force An Election!

The survey by The Canadian Press Harris-Decima, indicates support for the Conservatives stands at 34 per cent nationally, compared to 28 per cent for the Liberals, 14 for the NDP and 13 for the Greens.

[...]

Given the margin of error, the results are essentially no different than the 36-27 split garnered by the two parties earlier this fall when the government appeared to be on a roll and the Liberals in free-fall.

Just kidding. Do anything like that and Der Volk apparently get pissed off. But on the other hand, opposing a little harder--sandbagging C-15 and other bullshit Tory "law and order bills" in the Senate--doesn't seem to have done any harm so far. So why not do more of it, in the HOC? Why are a bunch of unelected geezers in the upper chamber the sole receptacle of the gonads of the LPoC? Huh, Iggy? Any genitalia available for display?

Iggy On Afghanistan: Perform For Me, O! Glorious Iggy!

Since this

...the journalist turned expat turned politician also urged far greater engagement with India and China than at present; [...] an honourable withdrawal from Afghanistan in 2011;

And this

[Q:] How would you stand on Afghanistan?

[A:] Our brave soldiers have sought to secure a safe Afghanistan for the people. But I feel we've done our turn. It's time to end our mission in 2011.

...are from May 13th, I eagerly await His Iggyness' response to Peter Mackay's announcement today that Canada may well stay in Afghanistan beyond its 2011 military mandate.

I just spent Saturday afternoon trying to convince Ms. O'Malley that you would display political courage one day, Iggy. The clock is ticking. Don't let me down: tell 'em no.

Otherwise, not a bad article in South Asian Focus. Iggy's insightful-stuff-to-boilerplate-ratio is fairly high, and his questioners ask him a couple of fairly decent ones re Tamil/Sikh terrorism.

Iggy's First Gaffe (In Awhile)

I’m probably walking right off the cliff into some unexpected public policy bog of which I’m unaware, but...

At this moment his aides should have run on stage and clubbed him with a stick. In fact, one of my "Lib insider" friends told me they were going to plant an electric buzzer under Iggy's jacket that would shock him any time he started improvising like this. Why has that device not been installed yet? Heads should roll.

FWIW, Iggy was right the 1st time; asbestos is terrible stuff and as a nation we should get out of the business of exporting it to 3rd world countries, not merely "warning them" of dangers they surely know all about.

As a baby step in that direction, however, why not end funding to the Chrysotile Institute (formerly known as the Asbestos institute before than name got too hot to handle)?

Why not at least make the industry pay for its own propaganda?

The Iggy Effect

Iggy raises $700,000 in three weeks, and Canadians love his stance on the budget.

He raises his hand, and we are all lifted up...

Now, if he only didn't look like he just huffed an entire bag of ganja.