Wow That Was Quick!

The anonymous dude with the private basement war-room has already forged Stephen Harper's "Hidden Agenda Speech" into an attack ad:

Looks like the anonymous dude has managed to steal some half decent editing software, because the production values on this one are are definitely good enough for TIFF. But for me there's something missing. For me, any ad about Stephen Harper should include this portrait, in which his face is illuminated by the very flames of Hell itself, from which place he emerged so many years ago.

Get with it, anonymous dude.

All Hail The New King

...of patronage appointments.

Although I must admit to being a fan of Jacque Demers. If you're old enough to remember what he accomplished with all those crap 80's teams in the Snorris division, you would be too. They said he was doing it "with mirrors" (little pun on his name there).

Here's our boy in action from the 1987-88 season. I'm betting he could kick Mike Duffy's ass anytime.


Note the guy on audio. Don Cherry has always been a huge fan

Harper Backs OWG!

Also notable for how Tony Clement plays Flavor Flav to Harper's Chuck D. This clip is already circulating in the U.S. right-wing nut-o-sphere as an example of how our leaders have sold out. (Stephen Harper meets Al Gore! and etc.)

Is The Calgary Stampede Next?

After Diane Ablonczy got herself politically perished for handing out government cash to the gays, the Harper Tories are moving to ensure something like that doesn't happen again:

“We’re in the midst of doing a review of the program and that review is to ensure that the funding is providing genuine stimulus to the economy and we’ll have to look at it in that light,” [Darren] Cunningham [spokesperson for Industry Minister Tory Clement] said, noting that federal support of the Calgary Stampede and the Vancouver Jazz Festival, for example, are all facing the same review.

Say no more. Say...no...more.

More Tory On Tory Violence

First, there was Harper vs. Mulroney. Next up as the coalition unravels: Harper vs. Manning?

Given Harper's "multiple betrayals", that seems quite possible

Cue The Peasants With Pitchforks!

Catholic Insight's Alphonse de Valk:

It is highly undesirable that Stephen Harper continue to hold the Prime Ministership for very much longer for a number of reasons.

— First, he has made the mistake of coming to believe that his persona is the personification of Conservatism. Thus he tolerates no views other than his own, is suspicious of others in the party, bullies his MPs, and cannot delegate tasks without giving up personal control.

— Under his regime the PM’s Office (PMO) with over 100 people has consolidated the vices introduced under previous prime ministers. For example, during preparations for elections, candidates are parachuted in, ignoring the wishes of riding associations which increasingly tend to be bypassed anyway.

— The democratic character of the party organization is set aside whenever it is deemed desirable. Even the local handling of candidates is taken away, as was the case with Diane Haskett, a former mayor of London, whose efforts were thwarted by direct interference from Ottawa (which did not like her Christian convictions).

— Also, Harper seems to have turned his back on what he himself understood in earlier days to be threats to the nation, such as the electoral gag laws silencing third parties, as well as the ever more unsavoury actions of Human Rights Commissions which, instead of bringing equality to Canadians, are pitting groups against one another while extinguishing freedom of speech.

It is almost impossible to understate the influence of Mr. de Valk and his magazine, and you can make a good argument that Harper won the '08 election without the SoCon gang on-side and can therefore ignore them going forward. That is, Harper won by ignoring his base, not embracing it. But it is interesting that Mr. de Valk's commentary echoes, in some of its complaints re the anti-democratic process involved in choosing candidates, allegations made by disgruntled non-SoCons within the party. For example, Charles Conn (Mississauga Reform Party candidate in 1993) represents the small government/socially moderate wing of the CPoC. During this election campaign, Mr. Conn wrote:

The history books are full of 'strong leaders' whose dictatorial, my-way-or-the-highway rigidity led to disastrous consequences for their people.
[...]
...lwhatever you do, whichever party is involved, shun like the plague every appointed parachute candidate who was shoved down the throats of members in so many constituencies. Just last fall, an impressive majority of Ontarians rejected MMP. Don't let the backroom party big shots in Ottawa sneak it in by stealth.

So what's the possible upshot of this simmering discontent?

MPs should revolt over this “trained-seal” scenario by quietly but aggressively organizing a bloc of members who will, if necessary, break away to form a new Reform party and do what our Prime Minister will not do but what must be done to save Canada.

...a scenario which is probably not likely at the moment. But who knows? Given the economic hardship ahead of the country, and the persistence of Quebecers demanding money from the Conservative government while not offering it much in the way of electoral return, such cracks in the fragile alliance that is the CPoC could be exacerbated.

Update: What I said.

The Only Reformed Senate Is A Dead Senate

Any of the changes to the upper chamber proposed by Stephen Harper thus far amount to an attempt to shift power from Central Canada to the West without having to shift the requisite bodies out West to force a redistribution of power in the HOC, which is based more or less on rep. by pop.

On the political level, an NEP in reverse, in other words.

Ontario and Quebec MPs of all stripes should oppose any such changs. Abolition should be the only reform acceptable to Central Canada.

(But of course talk of Senate reform at this point is simply a slice of red meat waved before the Tory base. It isn't like Harper is serious about pushing Senate reform in the face of a looming recession and looming deficits. But if he ever got serious about it, that's what I would say.)

Pinker And Chomsky Weigh In On Plagiarism Debate!

Well not really, but this observation, originally due to Chomsky, is quite apropos to the "does this amount to plagiarism" debate going on in Jerad's comments section.

...almost every sentence anybody voices is an original combination of words, never previously uttered, therefore a language cannot consist only of word combinations learned through repetition and conditioning; the brain must contain innate means of creating endless amounts of grammatical sentences from a limited vocabulary. This is precisely what Chomsky (1965) argues with his proposition of a Universal Grammar (UG)."

The idea that a close match like the one under consideration might be a coincidence is, from a linguistic sciences stand-point, extremely implausible.

Harper Channels Harris: More Examples Of Tory Plagiarism?

It looks like Jerad Gallinger has struck again, discovering some rather striking similarities between a 2003 speech by then Canadian Alliance Leader Stephen Harper in response to the 2003 Federal budget and Ontario Premier Mike Harris' December 2002 address to the Montreal Economic Institute. Read it all by clicking through the link above, but here I would like to raise a couple of points.

1) It is no less surprising that Harper should be channeling Mike Harris on the domestic front than he should be channeling Coalition of the Willing partner John Howard on international issues. Watch any Tory Majority to be the Mike Harris government gone national. Expect the three Ds: divisiveness, Deficit, and Debt, as he runs the nation into the ground while setting region against region, class against class, and transferring the nation's wealth up the social scale and out of the cities.

2) On several occasions, Harper's Canadian Alliance gang plagiarized material from other Conservative figures. Both of the examples noted so far come from 2003. Can both be traced to the hand of speechwriter Owen Lippert, who so conveniently fell on his sword over the first incident, or was the practice more widespread? Remember, before these two recent discoveries, Harper insisted to the press that he was always deeply involved in the writing of his own speeches.

Tories Find A Fall-Guy

Who the hell is Owen Lippert and why are the Tories throwing him under the bus?

Statement by Owen Lippert:

'Since the beginning of the election campaign, I have been employed by the Conservative Party of Canada at Conservative Campaign Headquarters.

'In 2003, I worked in the Office of the Leader of the Opposition. I was tasked with -- and wrote -- a speech for the then Leader of the Opposition. Pressed for time, I was overzealous in copying segments of another world leader’s speech. Neither my superiors in the Office of the Leader of the Opposition nor the Leader of the Opposition was aware that I had done so.

'I apologize to all involved and have resigned my position from the Conservative campaign.

Typical Tory MO. Find some obscurity to take the blame.

This is Owen Lippert.

In Praise Of A Harper Majority

Recently, a number of stories and polls have appeared suggesting that Canada's gay community is united against Stephen Harper's Conservative Party and, furthermore, fear the outcome should it achieve majority status after the next election. Many of the Principled Conservatives at Free Dominion concur (and even throw in a little bit of "folk art" to mark their point with a flourish):

They better be scared. If they weren't scared we'd be doing something wrong.

About time reason and sanity return to our society and cultural bearings.

What's wrong with pointing out the obvious? Their lifestyle is unhealthy and unwelcome in many parts and communities of the country.

Oh my! This guy isn't going to be too happy.

RB from the comments:

It's noteworthy that no one on FD, not even their pet "moderate" Vundo Draxon, had a word to say about the violence-advocating cartoon. You'd think they could dredge up SOMEONE to at least PRETEND to be offended while, of course, fully supporting the person's "right" to freely advocate violence against gays.