Shorter

Shorter Andrew Coyne:

I'm shocked SHOCKED that the Liberals and NDP are not sufficiently outraged at what the Harper Conservatives are doing now.

So what are they doing now? Well, here's Bill 38:

The bill runs to more than 420 pages. It amends some 60 different acts, repeals half a dozen, and adds three more, including a completely rewritten Canadian Environmental Assessment Act. It ranges far beyond the traditional budget concerns of taxing and spending, making changes in policy across a number of fields from immigration (among other changes, it erases at a stroke the entire backlog of applications under the skilled worker program), to telecommunications (opening the door, slightly, to foreign ownership), to land codes on native reservations.

But nowhere in Coyne's column is a statement that the Harper Conservatives are wrong to try to govern this way. Instead, somehow, this is all Parliament's fault.

. . . the increasing use of these omnibills extends Parliament’s powerlessness in all directions: it has become, if you will, omnimpotent — a ceremonial body, little more. What is worse, it cannot even seem to rouse itself to its own defence . . . today’s Parliament is so accustomed to these indignities that it barely registers.

Gee, isn't it just too bad that we don't have some people watching what goes on in Parliament who could maybe tell us what's going on there, or maybe even criticize it, or something. Oh, well....

Arrested for jogging while brown

The news story doesn't mention the racial angle at all.  So I guess Windsor police and prosecutors think its OK to arrest people for jogging while brown:

As he [plainclothes police officer Van Buskirk] was heading back to the station he saw a man, who turned out to be [Dr. Tyceer] Abouhassan, running along Dougall Avenue next to Jackson Park.
He pulled Abouhassan’s headphones off, then asked him why he was in the park and why he was talking to girls.
Abouhassan replied that he didn’t know what Van Buskirk was talking about, and asked who he was.
Van Buskirk grabbed Abouhassan by the neck. The doctor stepped back and tried to get away. Van Buskirk pursued and punched him in the face at least three times.
The detective then called the tennis club employee, who said it wasn’t the same guy. At the hospital Abouhassan learned he was under arrest for assaulting a police officer. The Crown later stayed that charge.

I'll just bet they did. Now the police officer involved has pleaded guilty to assault.
But what I found curious about the story is why this obviously innocent and blameless doctor was ever put under arrest for anything whatsoever.
(h/t)

Going Godwin

When the Harper Conservatives talked about a law and order agenda, I didn't think they meant Godwin's law about bizarre Nazi analogies too.
But nobody escapes the Spanish Inquisition, nobody can win a land war in Asia, and nobody can stop themselves from slinging Hitler at their enemies, however inaccurate the reference.
So now we have #HarperHistory trending on twitter as we consider all the other craven examples of NDP's historical perfidy over the years. Like these:

Noah's Ark was just another pet project by the NDP for its union buddies. #HarperHistory
The NDP killed Bambi's mother. #HarperHistory
The Titanic sunk after it collided with the NDP. #HarperHistory
The NDP shamefully stood by in the fight against plaque and gingivitis #HarperHistory
The NDP was on the grassy knoll. #harperhistory
The NDP's pro-serf policies and insistence on taxing feudal lords was an impediment to trade throughout the Middle Ages. #HarperHistory

When will those guys learn to get with the program and start sending Canadians to war like everyone else always wants to do.?

Words I thought I would never say

I never thought I would actually be happy to see the PCs win in Alberta. But that's just so much better than the alternative.
Warren Kinsella called it:

Wildrose has been dropping sharply since the bozone layer eruptions began. The PCs now own Edmonton, and the huge Wildrose lead in Calgary has vanished. Rural Alberta is rural Alberta: WCC, blah blah blah.
Contrary to what Canada’s conservative-dominated media pundits may tell you, (a) the PCs have run a solid campaign under Stephen Carter (he of Nenshi fame) (b) the homophobic, racist stuff has hurt Wildrose and (c) there has been a lot of vote moving around in the past few days, just as Tom Flanagan wrote about, presciently, in respect of the 2004 federal vote. It matters.

Happy spring

A photo from the soap bubble festival today in St. Petersburg, Russia:

What a week!

It was one of those weeks at work. And the next ones are going to be worse!
For me, the light at the end of the tunnel is shining on about June 15.

Its SUCH a mystery!

How mysterious -- first nobody knows who "Pierre Poutine" could possibly be, even though he apparently made thousands of calls on election day from one disposable cell phone.
Now nobody knows who accessed the lists of non-Conservative supporters in Guelph who got those thousands of calls sending them to the wrong polls.
But don't worry, the Harper Conservatives are just trying to help all they can:

"As you know, we have proactively reached out to Elections Canada and offered to assist them in any way we can," party spokesman Fred DeLorey said Monday night. "That includes handing over any documents or records that may assist them."

And they even did their own investigation:

Conservative party lawyer Arthur Hamilton...was asked by Prime Minister Stephen Harper to get to the bottom of the matter.
Hamilton, a veteran who handled the party's legal business in the In and Out elections-spending affair and the Helena Guergis scandal, is said to have concluded that no party workers outside of Guelph are implicated, a point that party representatives repeatedly emphasize.
... Hamilton interviewed key party workers, asking them about their knowledge of events and instructing them not to discuss the matter publicly.

Maybe now we need to get Duckman to take the case.

Shorter

Shorter Marcus Gee:

Toronto City Council should help Rob Ford do something because otherwise voters won't get any benefit from electing a buffoon as mayor.

Dumbest stuff on wheels!  We all knew (the lefty blogosphere) that  Rob Ford would be a disaster as a mayor and as a leader, not because he was right-wing but because he is an incompetent egotist.  And now the Toronto city council is supposed to let Ford "win" sometimes because the city might be better off if some of Ford's half-baked ideas are supported?  It doesn't work this way.

The melody lingers on

When I read this story I immediately thought of this song, I wonder why?

Goofy again!

Our dog Chillou is feeling a lot better these days!

Maybe its an age thing?

Or maybe not.
I sometimes wonder whether people who were born in the Mulroney years or later can actually understand what it meant to Canadian women when, in 1988, the Supreme Court struck down Canada's abortion law, and the decision about whether to have an abortion became a woman's own decision to make.
Not an easy decision, nor a casual one, to be considered profoundly and made with regret -- but always, indisputably, the pregnant woman's own decision to make.
Those of us who DO remember it know that Stephen Woodworth's "let's have a respectful dialogue like reasonable people" approach is really just a backdoor attempt to criminalize abortion again.
And actually, I don't really care whether people who support Woodworth's "discussion" are just too young and naive to realize what is going on here, or if they actually share his goal of outlawing abortion again.
I agree with Orwell's Bastard:

I am not going to "debate" about the notion of fetal rights or when life begins or whether or not women have the right to control their own bodies. That's done. Anything that purports to "reopen" such a question needs to be seen for exactly what it is: a transparent attempt to reassert patriarchal control over women's sexuality and reproductive autonomy.
Anyone who wants to have that "conversation" can go fuck themselves.

Darwin award runner-ups

Naked, drunken trio survive car wash 'typhoon'

The trio had stripped down naked, loaded themselves into the cart, and selected either "typhoon" or "super typhoon" and tried to wash themselves and the buggy.
The Abbotsford police were alerted when neighbours heard screaming.

Whiners and bitchers

They whine to the Harper Cons about how unfair it is that the CBC is a "state broadcaster" and then they bitch when the CBC competes with them to become more self-supporting.
You know, anytime any private broadcaster wants to set up transmission towers and stations to connect all of the people in the netherland reaches of this country that nobody but the CBC has ever cared about or broadcast to, feel free then to complain.
Anytime another broadcaster wants to offer programming in English, French and eight Aboriginal languages in Canada, and nine languages in its international service, and eight languages in its web broadcasts for immigrants, feel free then to complain.
Anytime another broadcaster wants Parliament to pass an act requiring it to "be predominantly and distinctly Canadian ...made available throughout Canada", feel free then to complain.
Until then, please just shut up.

Fiona's story

I saw this last week on Brilliant at Breakfast and have to share it:

Risking it all

Its not often you see a politician, with an insouciant air and a sublime and total confidence in their ability to make their own luck, risk it all.
Remember Hillary downing a shot of whiskey, neat?
Remember Obama making a three-point shot in front of American soldiers in Kuwait?
They would have been laughingstocks if they had sputtered, or choked, or missed.
But they didn't. Instead, they came off as confident, gutsy, in charge.
And now we have Justin Trudeau, winning a boxing match and obviously having great fun doing it.
Canada will never see him in quite the same way again.