In Praise Of Longos

Or as I call it, Samples.

Today, for example, they were giving out Fuya Fruit*, Turkey Sausage, Kobasa, Blue Cheese, Prosciutto Pizza, and Gouda Cheese on a cracker.  Something from every food group!  I figure I sucked back about 2,400 absolutely free calories.

I do this trick where I walk in wearing my glasses and hit all the sample booths two or three times in the first ten minutes. Then when they start wondering what's with the guy with the glasses? I take them off and carry my coat over my arm.  The staff don't recognize me right away, and I can get in another circuit or two!

Because when you have a mortgage to pay every free cracker counts.

* Looks kind of like a small tomato but is a sugary delight.

The Alberta Climate Plan: Is Ezra Levant Right?

Not when he says the oil companies don't represent the oil companies, but in his generally negative attitude towards the whole thing?  Well, let's play Devil's advocate for a minute.  What does Alberta get from the rest of the planet for imposing on itself an economy-wide carbon tax?  We know what it wants: pipelines West and South so it can sell its oil to Asia.   Nobody really cares about Energy East.

But Keystone is dead.  So we're down to Northern Gateway and Transmountain.   Does the plan buy them either?  Well, the Trudeau government is going to formally ban oil tankers along B.C.'s North coast, so Northern Gateway is still dead.  What about Transmountain?  Well, a lot of the opposition to this line has nothing to with climate change, and of course there is a faction in the enviro community who would like the oil-sands shut down regardless of any commitments to better behavior the province and the oil companies might make.  They won't be swayed.  So maybe Transmountain goes through, or maybe not, but even if so it will be years down the line and billions spent along the proposed route to grease the skids before its open.  And who knows whether the market will need it by then.

And that's the only prize Alberta gets...potentially...from the whole endeavor.  So: good for the planet, good for Canada, but arguably not so great for Alberta.

On Adele: A Brief Note

Finally connected that singer called "Adele" with an actual tune, on a radio station I wouldn't normally listen to.  Gawd she sucks.  The Youth Of Today...The YOTS...The Millennials...listen to royally shitty music.  Its like they took every electric guitar that ever existed and buried them in a field somewhere and replaced them  with a lot of overproduced bloopy sounding synthesizer noises.

As a result I, as a near-senior, an old x-hippy from the 70s, am starting to feel less guilty about exploiting them, if they're going to listen to crap like this.  When I'm 90 and they're 50 I'll fly into McDs on my jewel encrusted walker with a jet-pack attached and demand my free coffee and throw dimes on the floor when they look at me sad-eyed for a tip.

I blame cell-phones for the YOT's dissolute nature.  They give off magnetic fields (the cell phones, not the YOTs, although maybe they do too), and kids carry them around in their pants all the time and irradiate their nads.

This kind of thing could cure them:

...but I doubt they'll listen.

No, Donald Trump Didn't Say Muslims Should Be Issued Special Badges.

What he said is he wouldn't rule out giving them some form of special identification that noted their religion.  This could be a badge, but it might also be a chip-card, or an arm-band, or maybe a tattoo.  Get it right, Liberal Media Party.

Kirsty Duncan: The Science Minister And Science

So Kirsty Duncan once supported a "largely disproven MS treatment" known as chronic cerebrospinal venous insufficiency, or CCSVI.  And indeed it seems like the treatment is not particularly effective, and the theory behind it hasn't been borne out.  But it might have been.  It takes time to determine such things; they can't usually be shown a priori. And most of her statements in regards to CCSVI are several years old; the Motherboard (who?) thing refers to the presentation of a parliamentary petition, which usually does not signify commitment from the MP doing the presenting (although I admit I once mercilessly hounded CPC MP Mike Lake over this).  And in Science its OK to get things wrong; the problem is persisting in folly when your wrongness has been demonstrated.  We shall see how Ms. Duncan conducts herself in future re this issue.  That's the proof in the pudding.

PS.  The remainder of the NP article reads like a gossip column, so I didn't bother addressing the claims in it.

PPS.  This is genuinely douchy.  Sure its just another junk email in your inbox, and I'm sure Kent Hehr's original sentiments were genuine.  But its still using Remembrance Day to harvest email addresses so as to hit people up for donations a few months down the line.  Tut Tut! Justin Trudeau. Tut Tut! 

The Death Of Keystone: A Brief Analysis

There will be celebrations, but it strikes me as anti-climactic.  Lucky timing for the new government, though; its way too soon for it to have to wear any of the failure.   Whereas this decision will be the big fat fucking failing cap-stone to the too-long-but-now-ending political career of Stephen Harper. And I think Justin's nominal pro-Keystone stance was quite clever.  It was a bit like supporting the continued existence of the sun and the moon.  It ain't up to you, so why not?  But why not go the other way a la Mulcair?  Well, there were potential votes out West to be harvested for being a least a little "pro-pipeline", and support for Keystone could be used as a vote-harvesting carrot, even if it was a carrot made of smoke and mirrors.  Mulcair refused to wave the fake carrot, and lost.  Not that this was the sole reason he lost.  There was also that increasingly tattered looking beard. 

Anyway, going forward, I'm betting against Northern Gateway; I am inclined against Trans Mountain; and I suspect Energy East will pipe oil (or whatever) one day.  

Tom Mulcair Prepares To Leave?

Listing the highlights of your political career is like picking the tunes for your Greatest Hits album, right?  Its what you do when you are done.  And, weirdly enough, Gary Doer is coming back home.

Coincidence?

Ezra Gets His Date

Ezra Levant

Type: Hearing First Date of Hearing: Feb 29, 2016 Last Date of Hearing: Mar 02, 2016 Date/Status Details: Calgary Hearing Detail:         CO20142249 / HE20150107 It is alleged that you were publicly discourteous or disrespectful to a Commissioner or Tribunal Chair of the Alberta Human Rights Commission and that such conduct is deserving of sanction. It is alleged that your public comments regarding the Alberta Human Rights Commission were inappropriate and unbecoming and that such conduct is deserving of sanction. CO20140632 / HE20150107 It is alleged your public comments regarding the Alberta Human Rights Commission were inappropriate and unbecoming and that such conduct is deserving of sanction.

Some background.  The road to this hearing has been long and winding, passing through Alberta Law Society Appeal Panel.  Their decision was pretty damning:

Bit more background here.  FWIW, the law society website now has Ezra's status as "non-practicing".  Given how often he screws up, you'd  think he would want as much practice as he could get.  He's obviously not very good with this law talking thing.

A Modest Proposal: A Trudeau Government Should Restore Section 13 Of The Canadian Human Rights Act

That's the hate speech provision, which I've written about it at numerous occasions in the past.  The CPC ditched it after a years long smear campaign engineered by white supremacists, Ezra Levant, various scribblers in the press, and a few easily gulled artsy farts.  But the point is--and this should be obvious when you considered the ill-favoured crowd that pushed it--the repeal was never popular. The deed was accomplished via a private member's bill in the dead of night and pundits who had howled for repeal for years suddenly found something else to ruminate over.  And while we may argue over the philosophical underpinnings of any hate-speech law, its worth noting that the concrete misdeeds ascribed to various government agencies in enforcing S13 were fabrications. Furthermore, some of the real weaknesses in the Human Rights Commision/Tribunal system pointed out during the ongoing debate (the possibility of forum shopping among federal and provincial bodies) were fixed at the adiministrative level by the bodies themselves.  So these issues will not likely come up again.

The CPC just ran one of the ugliest campaigns in living memory, and the repeal of S13 gave them a little more rhetorical space to propogate their various hate messages during this campaign.  I would love to watch them try to frame their opposition to a reinstatement; however, I suspect those of those left will cave out of pure embarrassment.  And I would love to watch the punditorcracy shit themselves in blind fury.  Remember, all they've got now are philosophical arguments against, and a few obviously self-serving economic ones like "If we have to live up to standards, we won't be able to publish as much."

Fun times ahead, hopefully.

Federal Election: Thanksgiving Dinner Edition

At the in-laws last evening, dinner never really deteriorated into a discussion of federal politics. However, it appears that the choices have been whittled down to CPC vs. LPC, with the NDP falling out of the equation. They're all longtime liberal-leaners, so I suspect when the final decisions are made it will go that way.  More interesting is the fact that one of father in-law's McDonald's friends says he'll bring PCPO leader Patrick Brown down to a local McDs one day for a chat.  I've put in a call to the Premier's office, to see if Kathleen is willing to come around and clean father in-law's eaves-troughs.  Or at least send around a minister or two to rake his back yard.  You gotta work for folks, or they'll turn on you.

Why Is Kathleen Wynne Running So Hard For LPC?

Because the Ontario Pension Plan is dead otherwise.  Harper has already said he won't cooperate. That means Ontario can't piggy-back everything onto the CPC, then pay the feds a cut to use their infrastructure and manage the money.  Ontario would have to start from scratch, to build a whole parallel bureaucracy.  Expensive and inefficient.  Wynne's most significant campaign commitment depends on a Liberal government taking power in Ottawa.

Harper Hanging With Crazies (ie Andrew Lawton)

Prime Minister Harper went on Andrew Lawton's show?  To bash dark skinned foreigners and liberals? That's a pretty low move, even for this campaign.  Andrew's history of Muzzie baiting can be seen here, for example.  So it looks like Harper is using the Niqab thing to reconnect with his lunatic base. But its interesting that he thinks they need to be given such personal attention at this point in the campaign.  As I've said occasionally in the past, Harper and Co. have made efforts to distance himself from these people in order to be seen as fit to govern  Now suddenly he thinks he needs them all on-side.

The Munk Debate: A Quickie Review

Jt looked fine.  Got in a few zingers, gave quite a good answer when asked about the LPC position on our ISIS mission. In fact he seemed to echo my position, so you know he's thought about it deeply.  Harper did fine.  Or rather, he did what he always does.  To me it's starting to sound like mumbling in bureaucratize; others might see it as evidence of competence.  Mulcair did poor.  His beard looks awful; he sounds oily and arrogant, passive aggressive; hiding an essential unlikableness via vigilant self-medication.  But, though the debate was about as entertaining as it is possible for such things to be, nobody except hardcore polinerds watched.  So it won't matter but to the the extent some of the "zingers" become headlines.  And in that regard our boy did good.

Trudeau Vs. Suzuki: A Brief Note

During the course of a campaign, its always good to prove your center right creds by kicking a few hippies https://t.co/Wdw5WNH7Ts

— Bigcitylib (@Bigcitylib2) September 27, 2015

The Problem With Hosting Trolls

As you can see, The Sun chain of newspapers (now part of Post Media) have decided to kill off the comments section to most of their stories.  But all is not lost!

...we will continue to post our stories, columns and editorials on social media, including Twitter and Facebook, and you will be able to comment on them there as you always have.

In other words, the trolls can still have the cheap seats.   But there may be a problem.  They've apparently tried this before:

Not a surprise, since the non-Sun PM sites did this awhile ago. That said, a few years ago, a similar ban on comments was attempted by the Suns. PKP was all for it. Then the web traffic just cratered.... and comments were allowed again. So it will be interesting to see what occurs since, these days, clicks are all that count.

In other words, while you and I may call them the scum of the Earth,  the sun chain calls them readers and they need 'em to to convince advertisers to place banner ads on their various websites.  So, a conundrum.

Cannibalized From Within: The Fate Of Postmedia?

From The Toronto Sun Family blog:

If you want to glimpse the future, consider LaPresse, which will no longer be publishing weekdays. One paper a week on Saturdays - otherwise, it's all on their tablet app.

Expect similar things in PM along with the merging of various products. Several sections of the Post, for example, are now going to be running within copies of the Edmonton Journal and other PM broadsheets.

The Leap Manifesto: Naomi Klein, Communism, and The Hollywood Hippys

CBC says:

"This is a document that was written collectively," [author Naomi] Klein said, flanked by national indigenous Anglican bishop Mark MacDonald and environmentalist and broadcaster David Suzuki.  Actor Tantoo Cardinal, author Joseph Boyden and newly crowned Mrs.Universe Ashley Callingbull were also at the press conference.

...which is good to know, because the IQ emenating from this document surely reflects some lowest common mental denominator.  And its fucking out there.  Among other things, it proposes a kind of Universal Law of NIMBYISM with respect to energy projects.  In technical language, Klein's bunch are BANANAs.  They write:

The new iron law of energy development must be: if you wouldn’t want it in your backyard, then it doesn’t belong in anyone’s backyard.

...which dictum, if ever followed, would pretty clearly result in no clean energy projects ever being built in Ontario ever again.  Because its not just wind people hate; they bitch about solar, too.  In fact, people will bitch about anything.  Deciding a priori that all their bitches are worthy is ridiculous. The iron law also borders on rejecting the notion that a man, within a certain regulatory framework,should be able to use his property as he sees fit.  That the fate of what was previously considered private land is determined...communally.  Lets just put it that way: communally.

You can't really blame Tom Mulcair for this stink-bomb, though people will anyway, and he has a couple options for dealing with it.  One is silence.  This whole bag of silliness is  an elaborate stunt by Naomi Klein on behalf of her hubby's new film at TIFF.  The controversy will leave town with her and the Hollywood crowd.  Or Mulcair could emulate Bill Clinton when he repudiated Sister Souljah; ie during one of his appearances Mulcair could do the rhetorical equivalent of dragging a hippy on stage and kicking them to death.

Life In Scarborough: A Lost Generation Of Scarborough Youth

Was on the bus today, and listening to a couple of young kids talk about rock music.  One of them wore a Motley Crue t-shirt, out of teenage irony.  Another one thought Alice Cooper was a girl.

These kids are doomed.  You can't get through life with this low degree of cultural knowledge. There's no hope for them other than gangsterism.

In The Internet Age You Have To Watch Your Fringe Candidates

Nothing wrong with this piece.  Candidate fuck-ups are stories finished in a day.  But of course, as Tim Powers notes, you lose that day's news-cycle. There's a way to think of it in economic terms; the money you spent that day to get your message out has gone up the flue.  So when someone like Jago greases a Tory, you can measure what it cost the campaign in cold hard cash.  "Winning the debate" is nice.  Making them bleed money is better.

The Story Of Gerry Bance

From Canadian Cincinnatus, some background:

I attended the Conservative nomination meeting, which was held this spring, in order to support my favoured candidate, Paul Egli, a retired and distinguished businessman. In the contested nomination flight, Egli sold about three hundred memberships and felt pretty good about himself. In contrast, Bance sold over a thousand memberships and most of them showed up that night to vote for him. Egli was buried. The attendance at nomination meeting was bigger than at any nomination meeting I have ever attended – by an order of magnitude.

Gerry Bance, you see, is that character that should be familiar to anybody who has ever been involved in riding-level politics: the ethnic fixer, somebody who wields mysterious power over the people in his own ethnic community. In a democracy where the guiding principle is one man, one vote, somebody who can mobilize a thousand voters out to a nomination meeting is a powerful man indeed. Gerry Bance is (or was) such a man in the Tamil community.

More through the link.