Author: Alan

NuEthics for NuCons

The days events are best summed up by Bob at Let It Bleed:

IF …in May 2005 you were OPPOSED to Belinda Stronach crossing the floor to the Liberals

THEN …in February 2006 you should be OPPOSED to David Emerson crossing the floor to the Conservatives…

There is of course more so go read the whole post. How delicious to watch out new rural overlords ineptly and unnecessarily fall on their faces on day one and watching their bloggy pals split off the thinnest shavings of a hair you will ever see to distinguish the bad old Grits (quite evil actually) from the new ethical Tories. Thankfully, there are many blue bloggers and fellow libertarian travellers who are as disgusted as I am. Actually I am more amused than disgusted as I have every expectation the Tories will operate exactly like the Grits except for the sanctimonious grin on their mugs.

Now…to be fair…Don points out that PM Harper never said that this flipping of parties was wrong. He just never quite said it was #1 on his plan for governance.

Update: Steve the Angry Man twigs to what this new math means:

…There is also the independent. That means that a tie does not actually exist. Either the CPC+NDP or the Liberal+Bloc would have to entice Andre Arthur to their side…

So the Quebec City shock jock André Arthur now holds the balance of power in the Parliament of my country. Excellent. Thanks Prime Minister Steve.

#9 – Rewards For Treachery

So, it was Emerson, was it?

I didn’t see that coming. I thought it’d be Brison, myself. Or Holland. Or, now that I think about it, just about anyone else . . . except Stronach, of course. Even Harper couldn’t take Stronach back.

You can’t even blame him for that: who’d trust her on that side of the house? [Sotto voce] Or this one, either?

Other than David’s little plum, who else did he have to call upon? They’ve been out of government for long enough that they really are having to entrust rookies with big responsibilities. That Solberg kid, for example, is just bound to trip up. He may play well in the sticks, on that internet blog circuit, but he’ll soon find that running a ministry is much more difficult than just coining a few quips for his basement-dwelling blog readers.

Oh, and Jim “I’m a yes-man for Harris” Flaherty to Finance? We don’t even need to write the press releases for the Toronto Star . . . they’ll write ’em without prompting (or payment). Harper really handed us a good media hook there. Clement in Health is nearly as good — we can count the Toronto media as on our side again with those two in Cabinet.

And does Harper really think he can run a government with so few ministers? Please. The civil servants will keep them so busy that they’ll always look flustered and badly briefed in front of the cameras. It’s such a nice set-up for us, and they think they’re doing something clever.

The Red Ensign Standard #36 Flies

The Phantom Observer has done a masterful job with the latest issue of the Red Ensign Standard, a group of which I am proud to be a early adopting member though only an editor once. Go have a read of some interesting writers many of which are, admittedly, to the right of where I stand but who try to raise the discourse a wee bit more than is usually for we pajamistani.

Dang!

I wasn’t paying attention and I’ve already missed the pre-pre-game show for Super Bowl Extra Large. I hope the pre-warm-up-show is still on the other channel.

Predictions? The team I pick will lose. That makes it Pittsburg. Jerome Bettis, however, will win MVP for guys with guts everywhere. My newly discovered but slowly loading pal Deadspin has a post on what you might watch on TV other than the Super Bowl this evening.

Germany: Aventinus, Schneider And Sohn, Kelheim, Bavaria

The classic wheat double bock or weizenbock from Munich – and not a dunkel weizen! The high test version of Schneider Weisse. The brewery’s bottling hall was on Aventine Street according to Michael Jackson’s Great Beer Guide.

This beer has all the moreishness supreme of the mere weisse but with even more zow-ka-pow and zam! It pours that funny grey tinged brown that reminds me of gravy with a tan head. In the mouth it is a cacophony of spices and creamy malts and yeasts: nutmeg, all spice, clove plus caramel from brown malts, raisin from crystal malt and a good bread crustiness from pale malts. There is a cutting hop as well that is below much of these flavours as well as a bright acidity that may have a lime tone. The water feels soft but there is so much going on it is a little hard to tell. In the cream yeast, banana and soft apple like Golden Delicious.

One of my favorite beers.

Screw You Pluto!

Hah! The new newest planet is also bigger than the old newest planet:

An icy, rocky world reported last year to be orbiting the Sun in the distant reaches of the Solar System really is bigger than Pluto, scientists say. New observations of the object, which goes by the designation 2003 UB313, show it to have a diameter of some 3,000km – about 700km more than Pluto.

This is great. I have always really really hated Pluto. The most extreme…sorry…X-treme planet without really anything to really show for itself. What other ball of methane gets such good press? Anyway, 2003 UB313 or Vulcan or whatever they choose to call it (I prefer “Marzipania” myself…the planet of marzipan) kicks Plutos arse all over town. Soon we will be hearing no more about Pluto than Uranus and that ain’t much.

Being Asked

ncpr1For an old school radio nerd like me, getting the chance to join other listeners to give feed back to the staff at NCPR yesterday was quite the thing. Well loved by its fan base, the station is apparently one of the best rural stations in the NPR system. It was interesting having come across the border and after a drive of one and three-quarter hours to find that I was not the person from farthest away, that the station reaches all the way south-east to Saratoga Springs, NY, not to mention into Vermont at Burlington.

Lots of good talk about new technology but it was very interesting to sit in a room of people from another country and listen to them discuss their views on what the local community could benefit from – the notion and scale of both local and community not quite being the same as what Canadians might think. Interesting to note with well experienced staff that they were very concerned about the realistic and possible as opposed to the e-dream. All hopeful.

When morning news host Todd Moe introduced himself I immediately said “I love your voice” then “when else could a man tell a man that” – he laughed but it was true. There is something about the immediacy of radio that means that is how it works. Oddly, though, I did have this feeling that the data on the screen below to the upper right was incoming from Castle Flea.
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Tobin’s First Prize Hots

I lived a little dream. One stage in my investigation of the NY hot. This may seem odd to those that do not know me but I like this sort of stuff. I find it very interesting to have a very basic food item which in Canada would not be the focus of a restaurant and would really be considered a kids food here but in the states is more like getting a pizza slice. It’s a hold over perhaps.

The street Tobin’s sits on is a poorer street in a poorer part of town. Down the way there are a few very small bars each probably sustained by a side street or two. I mentioned this street to portland once and he, too, had noted it as being an American classic of a sort: run-down sure but also a neighbourhood which had likely seen far better days yet which still acted like a neighbourhood, if a hard one. In Tobin’s itself there were five or six people plus two pleasant staff sharing five or six counter stools and maybe three table. There was still wainscotting walls, narrow tongue and groove lathe ceiling with one small grill at the back with the burgers (each a “Whimpy”) and hots. It likely looked like that in 1949 and 1974.