Be careful what you wish for

This election is happening because Harper wants his majority government and he thinks he's going to get it.
While adopting the appearance of supreme confidence, the Harper Conservatives are throwing money around like drunken sailors and making promises to leave Afghanistan. They're so desperate to get Maple Leaf foods off the front pages that they're promising an inquiry -- yeah, I'm sure that'll happen, just as soon as they finish the Mulroney one. And their website is chock full of stories about how awful they think Dion's green shift is.
But they shouldn't underestimate Dion. Though Harper is more popular than he was, and than I think he should be, Canadians still just don't trust the Conservatives.
We trust Dion and support Liberalism in general. At today's Liberal town-hall campaign opener in Edmonton, Dion came out swinging:

"We are all playing, all of us, we are in the game," he said. "If we fight, and if we fight well, with Ken Dryden as our goalie, we will win....
"Don't waste your time looking at polls going up and down."
After a town hall-style meeting - in which he went to work on explaining how the green tax shift will benefit Canadians in general and Albertans in particular - Dion said he envisions the Liberal campaign as a series of such meetings with Canadians across the country.
"We are everywhere, as you have seen," he said.
And, he slipped in references to the way Prime Minister Stephen Harper has handled the media since coming to power in 2006.
"I am here, working without a safety net, answering any questions Canadians have to ask," Dion said. "I want this election to be a big town hall where we will discuss what's best for this country."
He also questioned, again, Harper's decision to call an election short of a fixed date in 2009.
"He gives a bad example to Canadians by not respecting his own law," Dion said.

Boris went to see Dion and gives us this report:

Dion spoke for about an hour, beginning with a short and clear campaign type speech to much applause, followed by a long question and answer period with the audience. The prelims introduced the Edmonton area Liberal candidates, and Dion's opener was all about the Green Shift. This is clearly the major policy issue they'll run on.
Overall, he appeared confident, well spoken, most definitely passionate, and approachable. I'd say handled himself very well, standing in utter contrast to the character assassinations coming from the Cons, let alone Harper as a person dead fish crooked pine 2x4. Definitely an A grade on form . . .
I made the comment to a friend afterwards that I was left wanting to corner Dion and pick his brain over coffee or beer. If he can stimulate that sort of interest in the broader public, perhaps he's on to something.

Harper has been listening to the polls telling him how popular he is, but as Jack Knox points out, the public mood isn't particularly positive for this election -- in fact, people are annoyed that Harper is pushing it:

...an election now is like going to the mailbox and finding a notice from your dentist saying it's time to get your teeth cleaned. You look at the notice and go, "Already? I thought I didn't have to go again until October 2009." That's when we were supposed to vote under Harper's fixed-date election legislation, the law that was supposed to free the process from political manipulation.
But the Conservative guy on the CBC show said no, no, another election campaign might be like going to the dentist, but we have to do it because Parliament is so dysfunctional. I guess he's right, if by dysfunctional you mean no one party having enough votes to do anything wingnuttish without the others taking away the car keys until the government sobers up.
Indeed, the Conservatives keep repeating to us that Canadians seem to like minority governments and that the forthcoming election is likely to breed another one. Super. Then let's keep the one we've got. It's only two years old, barely has the motor broken in, doesn't even have a dent. (Don't worry about that Bernier-Couillard business; it will buff right out.)

But since we're being forced to make a trade, maybe we'll go for a different model.

Seat prediction

Sean in Saskatchewan handicaps the Saskatchewan seats here and here and here. Sean's bottom line:

Conservatives - 10 seats, 3 to close to call
NDP -0 seats, 2 to close to call [Nettie Wiebe, Janice Bernier]
Liberals - 1 seat [Ralph Goodale], 1 to close to call [David Orchard]

Sounds about right to me.
Of course, if oil prices on the stock market keep going down, and the Saskatchewan public starts to feel a cool breeze signaling the end of our booming good-times-roll economy, maybe the voters will start to wonder whether they should actually support the bunch who so quickly broke their equalization promise when Harper told them to shut up and get with his program.
Or maybe not.

Trial 4?

Regardless of the notoriety of this case and the anger of the families involved, if all that has been achieved in ten years is one hung jury plus two verdicts overturned on appeal, then perhaps it is time to recognize that the evidence to convict beyond a reasonable doubt just isn't there.

Painting the roses red

I never really understood the Alice in Wonderland scene about painting the roses red until I read this Daily Kos story, about how McCain's people are rewriting the Vice-President's speech because their previous version was "too masculine". Then I suddenly began hearing the tune, "We're painting the roses red..."

Inquiring minds

Republicans find that if they live by the sword, then they must also die by the sword. In general, you could say that the media is giving the Palin pick the respect it deserves.

Shut up and smile!

Chet nails it -- the reason John McCain chose Sarah Palin as his Vice-President is because she will not challenge him at all.
She would look terrific at state dinners and funerals, however.

The Maple Leaf Election

So nobody seems to know what this election is about? Well, let's make it about listeriosis and Maple Leaf Foods.
Do Canadians want a government which will thoughtlessly risk their lives in order to cut government expenditures? If so, I guess you vote for Harper. If not, then vote Liberal.

Yeech!

The machines at the Maple Leaf plant were filthy:

While the machines were cleaned daily at the plant prior to the outbreak, the whistleblower suggested daily cleaning procedures were not consistently followed or thorough enough.
The Maple Leaf worker also claimed a shoestring night staff only manages to clean "what they see" and the production line where the recalled corned and roast beef were handled was not always cleaned thoroughly.
"They clean the surface, but not underneath. You can see the dust and meat sitting on it," he said.
For thorough sanitization, the slicing machines should have been occasionally disassembled and deep cleaned, the worker insisted.
"They should get a flashlight and look inside. It was terrible -- leftover meat -- the smell," he said, recalling what happened when workers did completely disassemble the machines this week.
What they found inside were the gritty, pasty remains of leftover meat.
"We used so much chlorine to kill the bacteria, my eyes were burning," he said.

Not an appetizing image, is it? But already, the cover-your-ass spin is starting -- the news story continues:

It is not clear whether the federal government requires meat processing equipment to be regularly disassembled and thoroughly cleaned as part of normal procedures.

I don't care whether there are federal regulations requiring this or not, Canadian meat processors should be doing it anyway.
I absolutely hate this kind of corporate excuse -- that something is OK because the government hasn't passed a law against it. Because out of the other side of their mouth, they're complaining about how too much government regulation is hampering profitability and industry should be allowed to police itself and blah blah blah.
And then we get a Conservative government which actually listens to that corporate tripe.
And then we get eleven deaths and counting.

That was then, this is now

The Globe and Mail has a photo feature which isn't actually about photos, but rather about words -- its all the things the Conservatives said in 2006 and 2007 when they passed the law about fixed election dates -- you know, Stephen Harper's promise to Canadians that he wouldn't do exactly what he is now doing, calling a politically expedient election.
Here are some of the words said then:

This kind of manipulation unnecessarily derails important government and parliamentary business and gives rise to cynicism among voters. - Jay Hill
Canadians will benefit from knowing exactly when these fixed elections will occur so they can plan their lives and the businesses around it. It improves governance by removing power from the prime minister's office and devolving it to the people, as it should be. - Russ Hiebert
Never again will the government of the day be able to play around with the date of an election for its own crass political motives. - Peter Van Loan
The increased electoral fairness through Bill C-16 ... will ensure that elections occur once every four years, not when the prime minister chooses to call them based upon whether his or her party is high in the polls. That was a terrible wrong. It was abused by the previous government repeatedly. This initiative will ensure that it is not abused again. - Scott Reid

Maybe their constituents will remind them of these words, during the coming campaign.

Great line of the day

Taylor Marsh on Sarah Palin:

There's a lot of talk now about sexist language and judgments being leveled, with terms, phrases and graphics judged inappropriate. It's not sexist to call the selection of Sarah Palin what it is. She was chosen on purely gender terms, her looks, and her personality, along with her hard reactionary right wing views, so John McCain could buy the presidency through the pulpit wing of the Republican Party. That's how she will be judged around here. Sarah Palin is the Miss Vice President candidate, nothing more. She has been tapped to be Miss Republican 2008.

Emphasis mine.

Shaking our heads

I wonder if Americans realize how closely their presidential election is being followed around the world. And I wonder if Americans realize how pathetic the Republican party has now shown itself to be.
When McCain sends his beer heiress wife to Georgia, and then when she comes home she argues that the eye-candy political neotype chosen by her husband for VP is "ready to lead" because Alaska is geographically closer to Russia than California is, well, its all so ridiculous that the rest of the world is just shaking its head. The Republicans are willing to give control of their country to people like Cindy McCain and Sarah Palin?
Pathetic.

"I was there"

This is the most amazing story of the Obama speech:

. . . We were in the lesser rungs of the print media section, which meant sitting behind the CNN and ABC booths, with only a peephole sized spot through which we could get a glimpse of the podium. . . . [we noticed] the folks inside CNN's booth -- the techs and crew that helped the booth operate. At the moment Obama began speaking, even though they were sitting behind CNN's own cameras, they produced their personal cameras, help them up and started to take pictures. The same thing happened next door at the ABC booth, and at CBS, and around the curve at FOX. Each of these people was there to do a job, but they realized they were witnessing history, and they wanted to connect with it in a personal way. They wanted an image of their own to mark the occasion -- something they could look at and say "I was there, I was really there, the day Barack Obama delivered his acceptance speech."

Obama's acceptance speech may become one of those cultural events where, in ten years or twenty years, people still talk about the experience of hearing it.

Yes, he actually is The One

What a marvelous speech given by the next US president, Barak Obama.
Tweety was overcome -- he started babbling about how the whole tone of the campaign has been elevated and how Democrats and Republicans could put the politics of division and smear behind them and how everyone could join together in national conversation about life, the universe and everything that really matters to people.
And ponies. Don't forget the ponies.
Ain't gonna happen of course, because the Republicans are going to start whispering Did You Know Obama Is A Ni...? and so much for elevating the tone.
But it was a nice moment, and demonstrated exactly why Obama should be elected -- America needs him to bring out the best in themselves.

Risking lives to save a buck

The Conservatives thought the only risk to eliminating meat inspections would be in the area of "communications" -- in other words, that the stupid public wouldn't like it.
The risk of people dying so the government could save a few bucks didn't seem to be a factor in their decision-making.
Allison provides a copy of last November's Treasury Board memo which supported the elimination of on-site meat inspections. The idea was to allow industry "to implement food safety control programs and to manage key risks." But Vic Toews and the rest of the Treasury Board brain trust must have been impressed with the opportunity to save a million dollars this year, and three millions a year after that. The Treasury Board memo says, in the usual pompous governmentese:

In addition to the reallocation proposals announced in the Budget [ie, the ones we were told about], Treasury Board Ministers also supported the proposal shown in Annex B [ie, the ones we were NOT told about. This is where eliminating meat inspections is described] however, the announcement of these reallocations has been deferred owing to significant communications risks and to allow for further policy and communications work to be completed."

The Conservatives fired the food scientist who sent this memo to the union. Without his brave action, Canadians might have believed Health Minister Tony Clement's pious declaration that:

"When it comes to health and safety, you can't scrimp and save; you've got to do your job on behalf of Canadians and that's what we're doing."

Instead, as Allison points out:

What you're doing is privatizing food safety ... and lying about it.

Move on

I think it's time for self-important pundits and pseudo-feminists to STOP bitching about Hillary Clinton. Please!
Hey, maybe we should start an organization and we could call it "Move On"...