CW

I think Conventional Wisdom is swinging against the Harper Conservatives. A summer marked by a thousand needless arrests, tanking poll numbers, stupid press conferences, arbitrary firings and PMO office resignations has forced even John Ibbitson to raise a mild question about Prime Minister Sweater's managerial brilliance.
And Harper shouldn't be waiting for Kory Teneycke to cover his back -- Kory has got some credibility problems of his own to deal with.

Catch 22 for MS victims

Shorter Canadian Institutes of Health Research:

We won't do any research into whether liberation therapy is an effective treatment for multiple sclerosis, unless we already know that liberation therapy is an effective treatment for multiple sclerosis.

So do we want the gun registry or not?

In the end, nobody is going to remember exactly how Harper dismantled the gun registry, only whether he did it in spite of having a minority government.
If the registry is dismantled, that the Tories abused the Private Members Bill to trick the NDP into abandoning their rural members will be portrayed by the media as an example of Harper's masterful parliamentary finesse.
In retrospect, the bill should not have made it through second reading last fall. But by promoting the mantra about how private members bills are "free" votes -- as though that is some kind of inviolate rule --Harper got just enough Liberal and NDP support.
Yes, usually PMBs are free votes, because PMBs are not supposed to be used to implement government policy. But in this case, dismantling the registry is definitely a Tory policy.
So Michael Ignatieff basically had to decide whether the Liberals wanted a gun registry in Canada or not. As the Liberal leader, he had to take the pressure off his MPs by taking the heat himself, and whipping the Liberal vote to support the registry.
Its a decision Jack Layton should be making.

Telling me I've got to beware

There sure seems to be a lot of news lately about how Threatened we are by Tamil "terrorists" by Russian jets and now by "homegrown terrorists" -- is this all just another Lucy and the football moment for the media? Or is there something weird underway?

Shorter

Shorter Glenn Beck's "Restoration of Honor" rally:

The South shall rise again

UPDATE: Steve Benen argues that the Beckapalooza rally wasn't actually ABOUT anything. He has a point. But just as the message of the Iraq War was, get those Iraqis away from our oil, the message of the rally was, get that black man out of our White House.

The rules have changed

Back in the day, if a natural resource company started screwing around, a government would just expropriate the company, or at least would threaten to do so..
So if BHP Billiton started screwing around with Saskatchewan potash mines -- like, shutting down mines because they were playing hardball on royalties or some other corporate game -- could the Saskatchewan government just expropriate the mines?
Not really, not anymore -- NAFTA would be angry. And we wouldn't like NAFTA when its angry...

Dog-gone

The owners must have set up the camera because they couldn't figure out how this puppy could keep getting out of the crate:



Also too


UPDATE: And here's the one I was looking for:

Not ready for prime time

I'm not sure really how much we need to worry about the QMI news agency and Fox News North problem -- judging by the content of CNEWS lately, their stories will be about one step up from the National Enquirer.
Today's 12 front page stories include these seven gems:

Russian spy goes public with sexy shoot
Sea monster or big fish in BC lake?
Sex offender busted babysitting
Home invasion horror for Toronto family
Australian lizards on verge of evolutionary leap
Road rage gets British man 9 years
Victim says couple 'like the Bernardos'

Check them out if you want, but I cannot be bothered to post a CNEWS link on my blogroll anymore.

Coward

I feel about former Republican National Committee chair Ken Melman finally coming out as gay the same way I felt when Robert McNamara finally apologized for the Vietnam War.

Too late, you scumbag. Too late.

Shorter

Shorter PMO spokesperson Dimitri Soudas:

Small fish in a big pond

Oh, who cares about where the PCS head office is located, or how nicey-nice BHP Billiton is talking about how wonderful we are.
Here's what worries me about BHP taking over Potash Corporation of Saskatchewan.
Instead of our potash being owned by a company which needs to continue to mine it to make money, our potash would be owned by a company which could well afford to shut it down if they want -- maybe to sell it cheap to China, or maybe to play hardball with the province to cut royalties, or maybe for a thousand other reasons which make sense to BHP shareholders but hurt Saskatchewan.
As Jeffrey Simpson says "The company spans the globe. Potash will be but one part of a mining empire, and Potash Corp. will be but one part of that empire."
Saskatchewan's future will be a small fish in someone else's big pond.

Thought crimes

Now that the charges against the G20 protesters are finally being heard in court, the darkness at the heart of this story is being revealed. 1,100 arrested, 800 of those jailed but never charged, 67 charges now dropped, withdrawn or stayed -- including the guy who wrote "Shame on you" in charcoal outside the Toronto police station.
So there are 227 charges remaining, some of them actual crimes like vandalism , but others which sound just about as stupid as the ones which prosecutors dropped.
Toronto Star columnist Thomas Walkom provides the analysis of what was happening in Toronto that weekend in June :

...what occurred at the G20 was a massive and quite possibly illegal array of pre-emptive arrests. People were picked up and charged not because they were doing anything wrong – not even because they were about to do anything wrong.
Rather they were arrested and charged because those in charge of the police found civil liberties inconvenient. Their thinking: If everyone who might conceivably cause trouble is put in jail, there can be no trouble.
It is the totalitarian’s recipe for public order.

My friends at the G20 protests were outside a subway station 20 blocks away from any protest when they had their own run-in with this police attitude. First they were targeted by police because they saw police arresting someone else and didn't move along fast enough. Then they were almost arrested themselves because they had a legal aid phone number written on their arm, which apparently was interpreted as proof that they were thinking of breaking the law.

It's the most wonderful time of the year

Dr. Grumpy shares his advice on shopping for school supplies:

Today's issue will focus on what I discovered to be a horribly traumatic life-altering experience: Back-to-School week at OfficeStaplesMaxDepot. There's one right across the street from my office, so I go there regularly for supplies. It's quiet, the employees are generally helpful, and I know my way around it pretty well.
I naively thought this would be easy.
So on to the lesson:
1. Do NOT volunteer for this job (flip a coin, or arm wrestle, or have a duel to decide instead). Silly me. When Mrs. Grumpy was wondering when she'd have time to get the school supplies, I volunteered. I figured "How hard can it be? Hell, it's just some pencils and a bottle of glue". DUMBASS!!! The list is HUGE, and features items from the mundane (No. 2 pencils), to the specific (Expo dry erase markers, wide tip, in blue, green, yellow, and black) to the odd (1 Pringles can with lid, original flavor, empty). It took me 2 freakin' hours!
2. Be prepared. Normally there are 5-10 other quiet business-type people in there. NOT THIS WEEK! Holy Crap! An African street bazaar is an orderly affair compared to this! Deranged parents running on caffeine! Kids running amuck! Store clerks running for their lives! And all the crazed parents are trying to read off a list, push a cart, yell at kids, text, and scream into a cell phone at the same time. Bring a water bottle, food, a map, a cattle prod, and a flashlight. A card with your blood type, hospital preference, and next of kin is also a good idea.
3. Do not leave your cart unattended. People will steal your shit out of it. I AM NOT MAKING THIS UP! I had my cart 2/3 full with the crap on my list, when I left it at the end of an aisle to go find notebooks (spiral, wide-ruled, 100 pages each, single subject, 1 red, 1 blue, 1 green). When I returned 3 minutes later about half the stuff I'd already put in it was GONE! I watched a few minutes later as it happened to others. Apparently, when you walk away from your cart, people think it means they can raid it for supplies they haven't had a chance to pick up yet. "Hey, this guy has those index cards (2 sizes, lined and unlined, 100 each) that my kid needs. Cool. I'll scratch that off my list".
...Best part was when I went to ask an employee for help finding something (Flair Correction Pens, in 4 colors). When I got back to my cart the box of 12 ultra-fine tip Sharpies I left in it had been opened, and someone had taken one of them. They'd even doodled on the shopping list I left in my cart to make sure they were taking a pen that worked.
Oddly, you can leave valuables in your cart. Your wallet, purse, and gold jewelry will be perfectly safe if left unattended, but the $2.69 box of high-lighters (12 markers, large tip, in 3 colors) will vanish.
My recommendation: bring a child to guard your cart, preferably one with an iron bladder and who's old enough to use a Taser or firearm if needed. If your kids don't meet this requirement, stop by Home Depot and hire one of the day laborers who hangs out in front looking for work.
4. Do not look for certain numbers of things. The people who make these lists have no idea how things are sold, so it lists things as "1 Expo dry erase marker, chisel-tip, red). Great. They don't sell red ones individually, just in boxes of 4. Or the Flair Correction Pens don't come in only 4 colors, but they do come in 8. Just buy it. If you aren't certain what item the teacher wants, just buy everything in sight and return the rejects later.
Alternatively, if the teacher only wants 1 of an item, such as, say, an ultra-fine tip Sharpie (which only come in boxes of 12), you can always look for an unattended cart with a box of them in it, and take one. If paper is handy, try doodling on it to make sure you are stealing one that works.
5. Hold your place in the check-out line AT ALL COSTS. Reserve it as soon as you walk in the store BEFORE shopping. Use a child (preferably your own) if possible. Other options include day laborers from Home Depot, mannequins, dogs, and aggressive Venus Fly Traps.
6. When in doubt, ask the bleary-eyed, terrified employees for help. If nothing else, it's fun to watch them try to convince you that they don't speak English as they run outside for a cigarette.

For Barb

Observations

Two peripheral observations which came to mind when I was writing my last post:
First, if Harper hates civil servants who object to his policies, how much more he must hate the Access to Information laws which allow journalists to find out about the battles. I would think ATIA itself now has a even more prominent place on Harper's enemies list.
Second, if the Liberals or anyone else thought that the end of the Zaccardelli era in 2006 also marked the end of the RCMP's covert support for the Harper Conservatives, they were wrong.