Wednesday, August 25, 2021

Election Funnies and Follies #7

Latest polling: Tonight Frank Graves was also tweeting some hints about new polling coming out tomorrow, showing Conservative gains - at least, I SAW some of his tweets about this, I know I did. 
But I didn't save them and now I can't find them. 
So I don't know, maybe the polling has changed even in the last few minutes. 
But anyway, Graves has also been tweeting today about Singh's slip to the effect that the NDP might support a Conservative minority government -- a ridiculous statement that will not do him any favours with the faithful:
Other campaign stuff: A worthwhile discussion from Ivey Business School prof Mike Moffatt about the Liberal and Conservative housing platforms - click on the tweet to open the thread: The problem is, the Conservatives can SAY whatever they want, but will Canadians actually believe the leopard will change its spots so quickly? 
One theory I read today was that the Conservatives can tack left in this campaign without losing their base, who have such a visceral and irrational hate for Trudeau that they will vote Conservative regardless of what O'Toole says during the campaign. And how little respect would O'Toole and the Conservative brain trust actually have for any left-wing voters who might get taken in by his spot-changing lies? The Conservatives tried an Afghanistan smear about refugee visas but it didn't work very well: And I hope their attempt to start a Fox News-style feeding frenzy on Maryam Monsef for her using the term "brothers" to refer to the Taliban will not get any traction either:
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Tuesday, August 24, 2021

Election Funnies and Follies #6

So this happened: And Conservatives across Canada went batshit. 
Liberals smelled a rat - or at least, something a little odd: Then @gill_godwin sniffed out some relationships - between the public relations professional who was originally outraged that Freeland had chopped up her O'Toole "interview" where he made the truncated remarks about Canadian healthcare, and her friendship with Twitter's public policy manager who used to be a parliamentary assistant to Harper. So maybe this helps to explain why Twitter was ON IT!!! Dean makes an interesting point about the larger issues here: Trudeau has Freeland's back: In other news: Here's Ed The Sock's latest: Sounds good to me:
EDITORIAL NOTE: something went badly with my blog formatting, apparently due to one of the tweets I had inserted here yesterday. So tonight I had to delete it, sorry about that.
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Sunday, August 22, 2021

Election Funnies and Follies #5

I am absolutely terrified that Canada will again turn down a national day care program like they did when Layton torpedoed the Martin government. 
Even my own relatives were saying today that "Oh, but O'Toole has a day care plan too!" when he very much does NOT -- just a tax credit for people who don't actually need it. 
Its the Canadian working poor who need $10-a-day daycare, so they can take home more from their lower-income jobs, while their kids get better day care from the child care spaces a national program will create.


I do wish the Liberals could do a better job telling Canadians why they are seeking a majority government now. Parliamentary reporter Dale Smith explains the "toxic spring" we had this year: And I'm glad to see Trudeau strike back: And then I see something like this, and it makes me feel better too: And in other news:
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Friday, August 20, 2021

Election Funnies and Follies #4

I think that tracking the O'Toole Reversals will keep us busy I found out today that the Cons want to pass this stupid anti-Indigenous picketing legislation. 
They are  disingenuously attempting to criminalize only those awful, disruptive, controversial protests, the ones that endanger "critical infrastructure", not those nice polite protests that are actually OK. 
But of course any road anywhere in the country can be described as "critical" to someone, along with rail lines, pipelines, docks, etc.  
Its strikes me as such an overreach that the Supreme Court will eventually strike it down as against the Charter. But in the meantime, Indigenous and First Nations groups, and settler allies across the country will be getting arrested, and maybe also will be hurt, as protests are broken up because of this new law: Other issues: Here is today's funniest news report from the election trail - apparently now it is newsworthy when a random voter just smiles and nods at a party leader? And here's an idea:
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Thursday, August 19, 2021

Election Funnies and Follies #3

Here's one thing I'm a little worried about - Canadian news media is mainly Conservative in their editorial stance, and while I do believe their reporters and editors are even-handed, its easy to find fault with the way that news stories get "framed" when reporters are deciding what and how to cover. Today, O'Toole was promising that the CPC would not be taxing home sales. He made it sound as though some other politicians might be suggesting this. But actually, nobody pays taxes on home profits now, and nobody is suggesting they should. 
The media covering his press conference did not point this out and ask him about what he was trying to imply. We also saw some deceptive advertising for the CPC's "holiday GST" promise, illustrated by a grocery store photo obviously implying this promise would save people on groceries. But actually, nobody pays GST on groceries now and nobody is suggesting they should.
Again, the media just talked about the promise but did not point out its limited usefulness. 

If there was one thing this pandemic convinced us to deal with, it is how we treat people who need long term care. That's why I am very glad to see the Liberals stepping up with some policy ideas: One of the big topics today was the CPC position on abortion. 
O'Toole swore that he himself is "pro-choice". Yeah, well, so what? - Canadians need to know whether he will allow his pro-live MPs or his Cabinet to bring forward federal legislation permitting provinces to regulate access to abortion. And that is a question O'Toole wasn't asked. The situation in Afghanistan getting covered, with election twists: Miscellaneous other stuff: Something to keep in mind, too: And - this is hilarious: And finally:
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Wednesday, August 18, 2021

Election Funnies and Follies #2

First up, the Nova Scotia election results: More commentary on the stupid Conservative campaign promises: And in other news And for anyone who thinks the Trudeau government hasn't been working on providing water to reserves:
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Tuesday, August 17, 2021

Election Funnies and Follies #1

Every day or two for the next month, I'm going to try to do a "funnies and follies round-up" of the election news and tweets that I find most interesting or hilarious or annoying or whatever. 
It won't be comprehensive, but sometimes it might be funny! 

First of all, I keep reading the media saying they just don't understand why Trudeau is calling the election. Its perfectly obvious to me: he wants a majority so he can pass the legislation the Liberals want to pass, for the benefit of Canadians, without the opposition parties continuing to try to gum up the works, slow-walk everything, raise pointless objections, and search for ways to undermine Trudeau's leadership. I'm sick and tired of it; its way past time for Trudeau to ask Canada for a new mandate.
Monday the media laughed at the Willy Wonka video and thought this election would revolve around Trudeau's vaccine mandate - and how O'Toole is disappointing people by refusing to require vaccinations -- but yesterday it started revolving around Trudeau's day care plan - and how O'Toole is disappointing people by telling Canadian parents to forget it, ain't gonna happen when he is PM. 
Basically, O'Toole is rapidly proving himself to be Not Ready For Prime Time. 
And the Conservative shilly-shallying didn't help the NDP either:
I wonder what O'Toole will decide to do tomorrow that will disappoint Canadians? 
And his "t-shirt man" booklet is going to turn out to be a treasure-trove of media stories -- it already started tonight with the sprinkling of miscellaneous tax credits and dinner coupons:
And now Dale Smith has found another one too - O'Toole criticizing Trudeau for the same health transfer policy that Harper had: I can hardly wait for what we're going to be talking about tomorrow.
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Monday, August 16, 2021

Biden had no other choice

Excellent updates from Josh Marshall about Biden's Afghanistan withdrawal:
  The more I see the more I’m convinced this was the right decision – both what I see on the ground in Afghanistan and perhaps even more the reaction here in the United States. 
 It is crystal clear that the Afghan national army and really the Afghan state was an illusion. It could not survive first contact with a post-US military reality. As is so often the case in life – with bad investments, bad relationships – what we were doing there was staying to delay our reckoning with the consequences of the reality of the situation. ... 
 The perpetual effort to stand up an Afghan government that could exist on its own did not work. That doesn’t mean the decision to topple the Taliban government in 2001 was a mistake. But that was twenty years ago. We are living in a dramatically different world today. 
We have been in a perpetual occupation in pursuit of no clear national security interest of the United States. At a certain point you have to realize that and act accordingly. 
 Someone had to make the decision that Bush, Obama and Trump did not and apparently could not. Biden did. 
   As a matter of strategy, and as one of keeping faith with Afghans who depended on us, this withdrawal is suboptimal. Biden is fully responsible for it. 
 But from his point of view it probably looks like the best option available — the others being, respectively, no withdrawal at all and a protracted, semi-public tug-of-war with senior military officers deeply invested in putting off unpleasant decisions about an Afghan project that has defined so many military careers. Biden looks determined not to let the military leadership do to him what it did to Obama a decade ago. 

 And this:


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Sunday, August 15, 2021

"THIS time it will be different!"

My tweet isn't precisely true, of course, but it feels truthy all the same. 
The War on Terror began in Afghanistan 20 years ago, and it was one that I always had thought was justified by the World Trade Centre attack and the Taliban harbouring of Osama Bin Laden. 
But Bush never made it clear exactly what NATO and the Americans intended to accomplish in Afghanistan -- a lot of talk about going on patrols and building schools and negotiating with war lords, but that all went on year after year after year and nothing ever changed. 
In retrospect, of course, they should have pushed the Taliban out of power, declared victory, and left in 2005. But Bush didn't have the stones to do that over Cheney and Rumsfeld's warmongering. 
Then Obama got out of Iraq but the growth of ISIS left him without the credibility for another battle with the military over Afghanistan. 
Trump vowed to get out but of course he never did it because he didn't know how --except for sending Pompeo to make things worse by releasing thousands of Taliban prisoners. 
And so, finally, in the end, it all came down to Biden - he is determined to get America disentangled from the first and last of its Middle Eastern wars and he does what he says he will do.
So it wasn't pretty, but finally, today, it is done.

What frustrated me about the coverage of the fall of Kabul and the end of the Afghanistan War was the media compulsion to try to make it echo the ignominious American exit from Saigon in 1975 -- they wanted another "helicopter on the roof" photo so badly they could taste it.
The best they could manage is the photo above, showing a helicopter flying somewhere over Kabul yesterday.  This photo was all over social media.  
What they really wanted was something like this:

The fall of Saigon was a nightmare for the American army, the Vietnamese army, and the Vietnamese civilians. We have yet to see whether the fall of Kabul will also be a nightmare -- the videos of people on the airport tarmac are showing a shit show, but apparently the US military is now in charge at the control tower, and I still have hope that the Taliban will just let the airport operate to get people out.
Apparently other countries have now offered asylum to refugees, too.
Maybe it really WILL be different this time.
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Wednesday, August 11, 2021

Frog Stuff

Over at Balloon Juice, John Cole is posting his "find Mr. Frog" photos, and suddenly I was reminded of this great Brothers Four version of Froggy Went A Courtin' - best line: "You ain't no frog, you're a horny toad!"
Enjoy!
 
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Tuesday, August 10, 2021

Funny stuff again

Seen on Twitter:

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Monday, July 19, 2021

These robots dance better than I do!

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Friday, July 02, 2021

Here's some stuff to cheer about!

Well, it doesn't look like we're going to be able to celebrate the Habs winning the Cup, so here's some stuff we CAN enjoy! 
First, some very good boys: And some other funny stuff: We loved The Sopranos and particularly James Gandolfini as Tony Soprano. So we were thrilled to find out that they are doing a "pre-quel" movie with James' son Michael Gandolfini playing the teenage Tony - and he is going to have a great acting career, I think. Here's the trailer for the HBO movie coming in the fall -- I just hope we will be able to watch it in Canada:  
And Shapo got past Andy Murray today at Wimbledon so that's something else to cheer for!
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Saturday, June 19, 2021

Now here's the math prof we all should have had

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Monday, May 31, 2021

This sad week

I was going to put up another funny post, but not tonight. 
This week I read the books Nomadland and Snakes in Suits so I was a little bummed out to begin with. 
 And then we got the terrible news about the Kamloops Residential School graveyard, with the certainty that there will be more graves found across Canada. 
A few years ago, when the Truth and Reconciliation Report was released, their use of the term "genocide" was disputed -- I do hope now that that type of  self-righteous and hurtful residential school denialism will not happen again.
I have a Twitter list, Indigenous Twitter, which I set up so I can more easily follow Canada's most prominent Indigenous voices and important news. Here is some of the most useful commentary from today:
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