Shorter

Shorter Globe and Mail editorial on chosing the next Governor-General:

Here's how we can stop Harper from picking a yes-man for the next Governor-General!

The wrong decision

Ski jumping is the only Winter Olympic sport restricted to men.
And that's just fine with the Vancouver Olympic Committee and the British Columbia courts.
The BC Court of Appeal made the wrong decision when it denied the women ski jumpers:

...an earlier court decision had found that, while the women were discriminated against, in breach of the Charter, Olympic events are determined by the IOC, which is beyond the Charter's reach.
'The Canadian court system is a little bit weak if it can't stand up to the IOC and apply Canadian law,' Ms. Vonn said. 'It seems the IOC can come in here and do whatever it wants.
'I mean, it's 2009 and the Canadian courts can't even uphold their own laws about discrimination and equality. From my point of view, it's pathetic and a little bit sad.'

More than just a little bit.

Great white hope

Sounds like the Republicans may have found their great white hope.
No, not that one:

That one:

John Thune from South Dakota

In the Hudson

If you've ever said to yourself that you can't imagine what it must have been like to be in that plane that ditched in the Hudson, here is the 3D version:

Men are from Mars yada yada

From Slate Magazine's Dear Prudence -- maybe I'm just getting too cynical, but this did make me laugh:

Dear Prudence,
My husband and I recently attended a funeral. The service was so intense that someone actually fainted. I'm a nurse, so I dashed over to the man's side. He had a health issue, so 911 was called, and he was taken to the hospital. On the way home, my husband asked me about the fellow who fainted. I shared the experience of helping a stranger and talked about the funeral and the eulogy. I was pouring my heart out, but when I took a breath, he broke in and said, "I see Pedro's in the game." When I told him that he was being insensitive, he said he thought I was done and that he was ready to move on. I don't see the value in discussing the World Series while trying to process an exhausting experience. How can I let him know that it means a lot to be able to share my feelings and experiences with him?
—Strike Out
Dear Strike Out,
The funeral sounds grueling, and I understand why you are upset. However, I hope you don't think I'm insensitive when I tell you your letter made me smile because it could be titled "Men and Women, Summed Up." Look, your husband asked, he thought you were done, and, ah, Pedro just got in the game. It would be better if he now came to you and apologized for not hearing you out, but staying mad over this is just going to make both of you defensive. Your husband sounds as if he is capable of listening to you, and can do so—just not while a sporting event is being broadcast. I promise you that if a football game was on, and I called out to my husband, "I'm on fire, our daughter is giving birth, and the cat is eating the dog," he'd say something like, "Ah, yeah. That sounds great. … Be right there. Defense, you idiots! Defense!"
—Prudie

Remember

My mother was a WREN in World War II, and my aunt was a war nurse in Italy, and my father-in-law flew bombers for the RAF, my American cousin survived Vietnam, and now my children's friends are in Afghanistan -- a boy my son went to school with was buried in Saskatoon the other day.
The older I get, the more I agree with Bobby Darin -- we the people here don't want a war.

Great line of the day

Boris visualizes...:

This video (Sen. Mike Duffy calling Peter Stoffer MP, a "faker" prior to dashing off an RCMP mess dinner), and this post at Dawg's, caused me to imagine a near future headline reading "Mike Duffy appointed RCMP Commissioner".
I hope I haven't ruined anyone's dinner.

Good, bad, ugly

Good.
Bad.
Ugly.

First in the West!

The Riders do it -- go Green! Tonight they played like the champions they are.

Speaking of stupid...

Firedoglake ranted all summer and fall about how absolutely crucially important it was that US heatlh care reform include a public option.
So tonight the US Congress passed a health care reform bill which includes the public option.
Is Firedoglake happy?
Of course not.

Stupidest headline ever

The Globe and Mail asserts

As the Forces spend money and sacrifice lives in Afghanistan, Canadians have warmed to the country's new role as a warrior nation.

No, we haven't.

What the hell's that singing

Long gun registry isn't worth the trouble

The gun registry was a classic example of a well-meaning government program brought in with such unsympathetic, ignorant, arrogant, high-handedness that it became a symbol for everything western Canada dislikes about eastern Canada. And on top of that, somebody in Ottawa also had the bright idea that they could use the registry to test run for a whole lot of expensive, complicated, poorly-understood new technology.
So the Liberals ended up wasting millions of dollars to piss off millions of Canadians.
Finally, the long gun registry is on its way to being abolished and I can hardly wait. I am not opposed to a gun registry as such, but I continue to be amazed at how many people, particularly in western Canada, are.
And at the top of their lungs.
And for all the trouble it has caused, the registry seems to have accomplished very little of value for Canadians. Good riddance.

There's a lesson in this

Why did an upstate New York congressional district election matter so much? Because it pitted Sarah Palin against Newt Gingrich for the soul of the Republican party.
And guess who won?
Neither of them.
Obama took it, for the first time since the Civil War.

Another freak-out is on the way

Well, we can expect another freak-out over the latest flap on health care reform -- the "opt-in" public option instead of the "opt-out" public option.
Did you know that Harry Reid, Nancy Pelosi and the pharmaceutical companies were manoeuvering all along to pass a horrible health care bill? Did you know that the White House secretly plotting to screw America? Did you know that the only truly patriotic thing for the Democrats to do now is join the Republicans in voting down the health care bill? I expect to be reading all this and more next week in the Comment threads at Huffington Post, Firedoglake, Daily Kos, Americablog . . .
Its just a funny coincidence that voting down the health care bill is exactly what Republicans and the health insurance industry want to happen, isn't it?
I just posted this comment over at Digby's place and I'm repeating it here:

I hope Americans will soon realize there is no perfect health care plan -- single-payer, opt-out, opt-in, public-private mix, whatever, they all have problems and none are going to be effective in all circumstances.
In pushing for a reform bill to be approved, what Obama is actually doing here is shifting the momentum toward health care reform. But you will find that health care reform is not an event, its a process.
Canada approved medicare in the 1960s and we have spent the last 40 years fighting about it. As it turned out, it wasn't so important exactly what we passed, as that we passed SOMETHING that gave everyone a place to start.