they know who they are...

...if only they'd let us know too. Mr. Harper, you've done it again. What have you done? You'll know when it happens.

And here's Rex Murphy with a few thoughts of his own.

municipal politics in pleasant valley...

Pleasant Valley just elected a mayor who has never held any public office whatsoever, wants to crack down on the homeless and has promised not to raise taxes for the next four years while maintaining all services at current levels.

I should mention that he's from the private sector, and has pledged to run the city like a business using "21st century management practices." This isn't going to be pretty...

centrist soup?

In the wake of the Democratic sweep, Maisonneuve Magazine's 'Media Scout' weighs in today with some cautionary words to temper the mood of uncritical optimism that are worth sharing here:

Despite the general sense of optimism, there are some voices of concern and dissent. The Post and the Citizen both run articles about a new pack of “Blue Dog Democrats”: anti-abortion, anti-gun control Christian conservatives flying the Democratic flag and vowing to steer the party toward the centre of the American political spectrum. The Post also prints a Washington Post comment piece by Charles Krauthammer, who argues the shift in power is less significant than it may seem because of the specific people who won and lost. “The Republicans have shed the last vestiges of their centrist past,” he writes of the defeat of many Northeastern and Midwestern moderates. Add that to the new breed of right-leaning Democrats, and it seems the entire political field has shifted to the right. So perhaps that sea change is really more of a skimming off of moderate voices. And while the resulting concoction may inspire optimism because of the relative weight of its partisan divisions, deeper questions remain about the toxicity of the new political soup.

hello democrats and goodbye rummy...

It's official: the Democrats have won BOTH houses of Congress, answering a collective global prayer. The now infamous "checks and balances" once lauded as a model to be emulated by democracies the world over, may actually amount to something more than rhetoric. It's about time.

The Guardian/UK added its voice to this global glee at the new face of American politics in an editorial published in yesterday's edition. As they put it: "Thank you, America"!

Oh, and goodbye and good riddance to Donald Rumsfeld, who kept his job at least 3 years longer than he should have. May History judge him according to his worth.

the big 'Cs' out of step...

What a RELIEF to watch the blue trickle turn to tide last night; the election results were a test to the Republican lie that their status quo held the confidence of the nation. Mounting evidence of mismanagement across the US government, including most stunningly the War in Iraq as well as major domestic scandals, translated into a decisive loss of the House of Representatives and very likely the loss of the Senate for the "Grand Old Party." Maybe, just maybe, the system works.

Meanwhile back home our lesser 'blues' under Stephen Harper should watch their back if a newly released CBC/Environics poll is a portent of elections to come.

Pinch me.

promises made, blah blah blah...

See Rick Mercer's excellent blog for his take (with video evidence!) on income trusts. Priceless...

middling power corrupts middlingly...

Transparency International has just released its 2006 "Corruption Perception Index" and after a pretty rough ride (think Sponsorship Scandal and the subsequent Accountability Act as countermeasure) Canada manages to rank a reasonable 14th of a possible 163 (Haiti finished last, just below Iraq and Myanmar/Burma).

It's a pretty interesting little snapshot of the state of world governments, although the results are just the wrong side of objective according to certain "experts." Still, it puts things into perspective. No surprise that Northern Europe ranks decisively in the top 'least corrupt' spots, and as The Economist points out, Italy proves that corruption and poverty don't always correlate (the essential thrust of the analysis of this table) by ranking a dismal 45 (even the US manages a top 20 finish, in, well, 20th place).

dispatches from the southern front...

Election time is upon us again, or at least our neighbours to the south. The US has had a pretty tough time getting this fundamental piece of democracy right in recent years, so people of all political stripes are feeling rather anxious about how the vote will go on November 7 when the country is poised to hand at least part of Congress back to the Democrats. In the most recent US elections hopes ran high that the Democrats would either retain or regain power, but a lot of "voting irregularities" and subsequent conspiracy theories of outright election-stealing by the Republicans kind of killed the mood of optimism in more moderate and progressive camps.

A good friend forwarded to me an excerpt from an essay in the NY Times Books section on this very topic by UK Guardian's American editor Michael Kinsley, in which he unpacks the thorny issue of the recent US Presidential election. I've posted the excerpt below (though the whole essay is well worth the read):

The great flaw in American democracy is not electoral irregularities, purposeful or accidental. It's not money (which, even under current law, cannot in the end actually buy votes). It's not even the inexplicable failure of all other Americans to vote my way or of politicians to enact my own agenda. It's not the broken promises and the outright lying, although we're getting close. The biggest flaw in our democracy is the enormous tolerance for intellectual dishonesty.

Politicians are held to account for outright lies, but there seems to be no sanction against saying things you obviously don't believe. There is no reward for logical consistency, and no punishment for changing your story depending on the circumstances. Yet one minor exercise in disingenuousness can easily have a greater impact on an election than any number of crooked voting machines. And it seems to me, though I can't prove it, that this problem is getting worse and worse.

income (dis) trust...

In a surprise move this week Canada’s “new” government managed to drain over $24 billion from the Toronto Stock Exchange all in the name of creating a more stable long-term economic sector in Canada. It also bears mentioning that they stand to recoup billions in lost tax revenue; over the next five years they can easily expect to pad the national treasury to the tune of at least $5 billion. Yes, the issue of income trusts.

I have to ask myself, why do they need bigger surpluses? So they can make other "surprise announcements" of further cuts to federal spending in order to further increase the sacred surplus? How much surplus is too much surplus? Under the Harper government we may never know the answer. Cut is the new spend.

My essential point is that Canadians aren't exactly getting more for their tax dollar these days, and a Conservative promise is clearly not something anybody can or should take to the bank, so I ask again: WHAT is the point?

I'm not an economist (clearly!), and it's hard to decipher the contradictory analysis coming from various quarters of the famously self-contradictory schools of Economics (some say it's good, some say it's bad, some say it's too soon to tell...), but I do know that this is another surprise decision taken by a MINORITY government that struts about like it is the first and last word on all that is good for Canadians. Any critics are just activists, socialists or, worse than all of this, LIBERALS (that would be Canada’s “old” government).

If angering investors is the point, then fine. Let's all throw good money after bad decisions. Bear in mind that investors aren’t just corporate fat cats, but Jane and Joe Canadian, who invested because they were told it was a responsible thing to do, you know that whole ‘security-that-comes-from-having-a-nest-egg’ thing. And of course that includes anyone with a pension plan or RRSPs. I know many people who took direct and significant hits because of this “surprise announcement”.

Memo to Stephen Harper: They all vote.

maybe this isn't the answer...

Scientists have discovered that a substance found in red wine, known as resveratrol significantly increases the lifespan of mice on a high-fat diet, and also staves off diabetes and liver disease. A miracle cure! All we have to do is drink a bit of red wine and then we can get away with all kinds of dietary faux-pas, right? Now I've advocated drinking at least 3 bottles per sitting for years, so I anxiously read on to see what kind of health-related lottery I'd stumbled into, a certain jackpot winner no doubt. My joy kept climbing as I continued down the page, until that is I came across the hard truth of the matter:

"The mice were fed a hefty dose of resveratrol, 24 milligrams per kilogram of body weight. Red wine has about 1.5 to 3 milligrams of resveratrol per liter, so a 150-pound person would need to drink from 1,500 to 3,000 bottles of red wine a day to get such a dose. Whatever good the resveratrol might do would be negated by the sheer amount of alcohol."

Now I'm up for a glass or two, but I draw the line, ABSOLUTELY, at 4 bottles. 1500-3000 bottles, eek...