674...Former Failed Leader Gives Advice To NDP

Ed Broadbent, who was a spectacular failure as a leader of the New Democratic Party, is now an elder statesman, eminent grise and all that of Canada's perennial fourth place national party. Mr. Broadbent gave a speech last night at the Dipper convention in Halifax that Michael Valpy of the Globe and Mail breathlessly reports was blah blah blah and blah.

Seriously, same old, same old.

Mr. Ed "...proclaimed the arrival of “a social democratic moment” in Canadian politics." in his speech.

Well, la di f'ing da. Where have I heard that before? Oh yeah, from you, Mr. Ed, repeatedly in the 60's, 70's, 80's, 90's and 2000's.

Tax the rich, social equality and on and on and on.

Again proving that he and they don't get it the New Democratic Party, which very well could be the Democratic Party when you read this, will still get destroyed in the next election, picking up its usual handful of seats here and there and ultimately contributing next to nothing to Parliament.

Not even bronze medalists they are tired. So tired.

WFDS

403...Tim Horton's Moving To Canada

Weird headline, I know, but Tim Horton's has been corporately outside our home and native land for years, based in the States.

Now that Canuckistanian corporate taxes are lower than the Yankee ones Tim's has come home.

Yay.

WFDS

223...WhyCBC Should Have Carried Tory's Iggy Ads

I started this thread in Post 205 and continue here with a sound agrument for why the CBC should have run the ads slamming our next Prime Minister, Michael Ignatieff. In truth, there are a number of reasons they should have, the foremost being they need the money. It goes deeper than mere money. Over the air media companies seem to forget that the public airwaves are for the public. All of the public.

Newspapers are different. Ditto the 'net. The air, is the air.

Glen McGregor quoted a Conservative insider, off the record, in the Ottawa Citizen Thursday as stating that "...the party thought it was odd CBC would turn down its advertising dollars at a time when the network was struggling under financial pressures. CBC has had to reduce staff and programming as ad revenues have plunged..."

Any port in a storm, folks, any port.

I am anything but pro Conservative and I sure did not think those adverts were kosher but, hello, note to the CBC: y'all need the money.

Deeper it goes, public airwaves and all that, and it is not just mainstream political thought that is rejected by the CBC [and other over the air broadcasters]. Adbusters, a Vancouver-based magazine, has been fighting a long-running legal battle to force media organizations to sell them spots for thing like "Buy Nothing Day".

I personally think that there should be no limits on what political parties and political advocacy groups like the one fronted by Adbusters, can spend, in and out of writ periods.

Plus, to reiterate, you-guys-say-you-are-broke.

WFDS

202...If The Liberals Did That!!!

Left briefing papers lying around, under estimated the budget by a trillion or two, miscounted the power of gold, dated ex biker chicks, well, you get the picture, Lowell Green, Steve Madely and their ilk would have their panties in a knot.

WFDS

196...Who Let The Gold Out?

Spin doctors are on high alert at the Royal Canadian Mint in Ottawa where Christine Aquino, mint spokeswoman, said in a prepared statement Tuesday in response to questions from the Ottawa Citizen. "An unprecedented demand in gold in 2008 has led to an unreconciled difference between the mint's financial statements and the physical count of precious metals. There's a difference there that we're looking into..."

Unreconciled difference.

Love it.

Rolls off the tongue.

Unreconciled difference.

This isn't the first time someone has thiefed from the Mint; but every time it happens the Mint seems to spin their way out of it by essentially, well, spinning.

An example thereof from Ian MacLeod's Ottawa Citizen article is his reporting that "The largest reported theft at the mint was in 1996, when a machinist at the Sussex Drive plant pocketed 85 ounces...of almost-pure gold...A charge of theft against the man was later dropped for unexplained reasons and the mint was spared the humiliation of a trial that would have explained how the man snuck the precious metal past metal detectors, surveillance cameras and electronic sensors."

See, it is real important that the mint spin bad acts under the rug coz security is paramount to the mint's success. Or, more to the point, the appearance of security.

Your tax dollars, in action.

WFDS

168...Bernie Sanders, Junior Senator From Vermont

Watching him on HBO's Real Time With Bill Maher and Bernie The Red makes a couple of great points about the USA and their f'd up economy.

Point one is that they, the USA, are the only major country in the world without a national health care system and that has contributed to the demise of General Motors. According to the only sitting Senator who is neither a Republican or a Democrat, General Motors spends more money on healthcare for retired workers than they do on steel. That doesn't happen in Japan, Korea, etcetera, etcetera.

Point two from Bernie The Red is that the top 1 per cent of American wage earners make more than the bottom 50 per cent combined. President Obama has just raised the tax rate for the uber rich from 36 to 39 per cent; fifty years ago under President Eisenhower, in the greatest period of United States economic history, the top rate was 90 per cent. In fact the top marginal tax rate was 91 per cent until 1963. The alleged trickle down economy doesn't work because they, the ones at the top, don't trickle down. As Bill Maher says, they buy antique commodes. But, if the government has the money, they are more likely to trickle it done.

Food and fact for thought.

WFDS

140...Send In The Clowns/Only In Quebec

Beautiful story from the Globe and Mail Thursday last. In a place where the unthinkable happens on a regular basis the geniuses who run La Belle are signing a four-year, $293,000 agreement on Monday with Dr Clown, a provincial non-profit organization that sends clowns to visit residents in nursing homes.

As for important stuff, such as ordering staff in cotton head centres to feed, clean and care for the golden agers, that will have to wait.

WFDS

138...Teachers and Corey Booker

When is the last time you heard of a teacher getting fired? Seriously.

Corey Booker, the mayor of Newark, New Jersey, late last summer at the Democratic convention, made the point that once a teacher is hired he is never fired and that the reason is because their union is way, way, wayyyyyyyyyy too strong.

This isn't new of course. I cannot speak for you but I had at least as many bad teachers as good ones. I don't recall anyone getting their ass fired. And my high school, St. Pius X in Ottawa, had teachers that molested kids, not fired; teachers who punched kids in the head, not fired; teachers who were drunk, not fired; and on and on and on. According to HBO's Bill Maher, out of 43,000 teachers in Los Angeles last year, 11, e l e v e n, were fired. One would have to think that number would be a bit, and by a bit I mean a lot, low.

WFDS

135...If Only Brian Had Of Used H and R Block

It would have saved him so much trouble, Brian being the Honourable Brian M., late of 24 Sussex.

Because if there is a problem with your taxes, H and R Block will represent you.

It is all there in the fine print.

If only.

WFDS

131...Shouldn't They Be Paying Rogers/Shaw Etc?

The TV stations that is.

If you have been watching the box, CTV/AChannel have a concerted effort to make cable companies pay to carry them. Which, of course will mean you and I will have to pick up the tab coz, dead or not, Uncle Ted Rogers is going to pass the cost on to me. Ditto Mr. Shaw and Mr. Cogeco.

But, but, buttttttttttttttttttttt, here is what the World Famous Dan Shields doesn't understand. Isn't TV just advertising surrounded by programming? And isn't the more households that have access to your station, your programs and your ads the better?

Doesn't it follow that the cable companies are giving channels like A and CTV the opportunity to reach more households and therefore increase their audience?

Just asking.

Don't hate on me.

WFDS

127...You know how when...

...a panhandler asks you for money for food, he is usually/probably going to spend it on booze, dope or nicotine?

Same thing with A Channel and CTV Ottawa. They are running these ads talking about how important local TV is [it is] and how they are there for the community and so on.

Imagine my surprise when, today, Monday May 18, 2009, I turn on CTV Ottawa for the noon news to keep in touch with my community and so on and see some band I never heard of in concert. For the full newshour. So, it seems, like the aforementioned panhandler, they say one thing but do quite the other.

Guess holidays are not for the community.

WFDS

122...Panhandling

I am seeing the talent on Ottawa's A Channel panning for support from the government instead of actually, um, being entertaining. Please, clue in, the way to make money in the entertainment business is to entertain. Plus, as the Detroit stations we get on cable here in Ottawa illustrate, local is key.

In what is a visual medium you would think they could find hot people to read the news too, not just on A, on any channel in this town, this Canada. By hot I mean currently hot, not formerly hot, not hot in a certain light but hot, currently hot, like Shay Ryan from 7WXYZ Detroit [who is now on FOX5, New York], ESPN's Erin Andrews, CBS's Katie Couric etc.

I know this is anathema to the politically correct, but being hot, does not mean one is not competent. Cup size is not inverse to IQ.

The national sports channels get it, they are rife with fine looking [men and] women who also are great at reporting le sports.

WFDS