Thanks, Tommy

Well, I just spent an exciting evening in the emergency room with my elderly aunt, who had fallen and they wondered whether she broke a bone -- turns out she didn't, but they are keeping her in hospital for a few days anyway until she can walk better -- and it was worth every penny.
No, I'm not being snarky. There's a popular misconception, of course, that Canadian health care is "free", that we aren't paying anything for it. But of course we ARE paying for it, thousands of dollars a year from our income taxes.
And yes, it actually is worth it. My aunt and the doctors and her family were able to make decisions about her care based on what was best for her, not based on what we could afford or what insurance she had.
The continuing problem hospitals have is bed shortages -- politicians absolutely hate spending money on medicare, a bottomless pit which offers them too few ribbons to cut for the billions spent. So we the public have to keep screaming at them. But other than that, its actually pretty great.
Thank you, Tommy Douglas, for Medicare.

So the Mormons call themselves religious?

So the Mormons refused to sign a letter against torture because it was "too political" and then turned around and spent $20 million in a political fight against gay marriage.
Jesus wept.

Toronto syndrome

You know, if the United States had their own version of Toronto, they'd be better off.
We Canadians know that Toronto is considered by our national media to be the centre of the universe -- the weather is only news when it happens in Toronto -- and so we bring a healthy dose of skepticism to any media types who opine without any evidence on "what Canadians want".
We know that this actually translates to "what Toronto wants", and maybe not even much of Toronto at that -- likely only the people they chatted with at the restaurant last night.
In the United States, their media frequently seems to opine on "what Americans want" based on no evidence at all except restaurant chatter.
But because they don't seem to realise how flimsy this actually is, the rest of their country is at risk of taking it far too seriously.

Greatest post title evah!

From Alison (who else!) at Galloping Beaver and Creekside:
"OK, coffee break's over. Everyone back on your heads!"
Describing, of course, the Con Con.

Yeah, you do that

Columnist Joseph Quesnel is outraged that the Conservative party thinks its own members are just another stakeholder group, and says the Conservative Party should embrace its inner Reform at their convention this week:

Many are not pleased that the party prevented debate on human rights commissions and their growing use in silencing conservatives within Canada.

In an editorial aside, I can only interject: We wish! But back to the column:

By far, social conservatives feel the most marginalized within the party. What seemed like a simple bill to recognize the loss of unborn life in the commission of crimes was lambasted by party leadership.
Many of those who supported this bill still believe that the Conservative Party is a different type of party that respects the will of the membership.
The Conservative Party leadership should not let them down.

And on the sidelines, the Liberals and the NDP are saying, yeah baby, you just do that! Please do demonstrate to women and ethnic minorities across Canada that we should never ever let this bunch of far-right ideological anti-abortion anti-human rights conservatives control a majority government!

Framing Harper

In memoriam for the national portrait gallery, Art Threat announces Framing Harper, a national contest of Harper portraits. Here are some examples:



(ht Drawn -- one of my favorite new links. Check out the rest of my new links on my blogroll and my new section on the economy.)

Rat-f**king Obama, and the Georgia run-off

So someone from Gaza who says he is with Hamas -- AKA the Blue Meanies of the Middle East -- is saying that Hamas met with Obama staff in October.
What a crock! Why would Obama's staff do this ever, much less in October?
I smell rat-fucking, to try to save the Georgia Senate seat.

Did they bang the drum slowly?

I was looking on YouTube to post a reading of In Flanders Fields when I found this song and it expressed better my feelings about war generally -- though it relates particularly World War One: Green Fields of France.

First, learn to say you're sorry

So now Air Canada thinks that smiling at customers will help:

"it's up to each and every one of us to work together to be sure that we're also out in front in the soft attributes such as a ready smile, eagerness to help customers and simply perform jobs well."

Well, yes, that would be nice.
But first, Air Canada has to learn how to apologize to its customers.
Look, its like this. In Canada, things will always go wrong for Air Canada travelers at our airports. An international company like Air Canada is affected whenever American airports screw up, and this is going to happen regularly. Also, we're heading into storm season, when airports in Eastern Canada regularly have to close due to winter weather. Also, Toronto-Pearson is an airport which is so big it is beyond a human scale, yet this is a central airport for Air Canada's operations. Finally, Air Canada seems to have a "just in time" business model where there is no capacity for back up planes or crews or gate staff. The result? Small problems will inevitably become big problems. Flights will leave without the customers who paid to get on them. Or the customers will be there but the flights won't be. Or the customers and the flights will connect but the luggage will go astray.
So, Air Canada, you're going to have to spend a portion of each work week, if not each day, apologizing to people.
Please, learn how to do this right -- I don't want abject misery ("Oh, forgive us!"), nor to I want any non-apology apologies ("I'm sorry if you're upset") or the insult apology ("I'm sorry but would you want to fly in a plane that might crash?").
Rather, I want just a simple, sincere "I'm sorry this happened. Here's what we are going to do about it..."

Next year country

Bryan Schlosser's photo of Ken Miller leaving the field

Ghandi-style

Over at the Sideshow, commenter QrazyQat suggests that progressives use Ghandi tactics to pressure the Obama administration:

I want to suggest that we keep in mind the Ghandi method for getting results from our new administration and Congress.
In a nutshell: You ask for everything you want and use, if necessary, some action (like finger wagging, or marching, or whatever) to get them to acknowledge your demands; when they offer a smaller concession (as they always do, because they don't want to do it all) you congratulate them for acceding to you and call off the action.
Then you repeat it.
They get used to giving in, and eventually they just give in every time, until finally they've given in so much they're up to what you asked for the first time out.
It's like working the refs, Ghandi-style.
This is not to be confused with the Buffy/Ghandi style which you use for wingnut politicians:
BUFFY: Hey, Ken, wanna see my impression of Gandhi?
(crushes his skull with a club)
LILY: Gandhi?
BUFFY: Well, you know, if he was really pissed off.

Lipstick on a pitbull

So maybe the Liberals have succeeded, at least for now, in forcing the Tory pitbulls to grin and bear it.
I admit I haven't really been following much about Canadian politics just lately, but I noticed that the tone of this story two days ago was much different than this story today. And what came in between was this story yesterday.
Steve at Far and Wide explains what's going on:

Setting the tone, letting the government know that the Liberals will not roll over, they are prepared to vote against legislation which comes without compromise or consultation, nothing will be jammed down our throats, is really what caused the Conservatives to sing a different tune. How else to reconcile Harper's mouthpiece threatening a mere three days ago, only to now hear Harper "isn't eager" for confrontation? The only thing that's happened in the intermediary, a largely defiant and united Liberal caucus sending a clear signal that this parliament it's a different animal.

I have an idea

Maybe people would buy more cars if they cut their prices.

Two little boys

Photos from a Manassas, Virginia rally:

A loneliness about him

I think Lance Mannion's article is probably quite perceptive because he brings his knowledge of performance and drama to this analysis:

What some have called his cool, others have called reserve, and others have resented as aloofness, appears to me to be a deliberate, disciplined, stepping back. He's watching himself with a deeply critical and skeptical eye, ready to come down hard on the first sign of an emotion or egoistic urge getting out of hand . .
Good performers---and a politician on the stump is a performer---are often their own toughest audience, particularly the ones who aren't naturals. Some performers are able to watch themselves with a sense of humor, others with an ironical detachment. Obama seems to be watching himself with an open grade book in his hand.
And there's a loneliness about him. . .
with Barack Obama we have a President-elect who is a reluctant public figure. He strikes me as a brilliant, active, but scholarly man, introspective, even introverted, who's been granted gifts for public speaking, moral persuasion, and leadership that he is temperamentally not inclined to enjoy . . . I think Obama became a politician because he felt it was his responsibility, not because he thought it would be fun.

And he goes one to discuss why Joe Biden, who does think politics are fun, is Obama's perfect vice-president:

Biden's the guy you can see reminding an annoyed and exasperated President Obama to smile and nod while listening to a blowhard and a boob waste his time by smiling and nodding himself. Biden's the sort you can see walking you to the door after you've just been dressed down and having you convinced by the time he's helped you on with your coat that you've been given a medal and a two-week vacation . . .
Biden, I think, is the perfect complement to a basically shy and skeptical man interested more in policy than in other politicians, drawn more to individuals than to crowds, more at home in private than at ease in public.

I think this may be why it took Hillary supporters a little while to warm up to Obama, because he didn't have that spontaneous, warm, gregarious manner.
But once you get past that difference, then his commitment to leadership and his simple basic decency simply shines.