Tag: 2012 US Politics

Your Weekend Bullets For The End of January

Will February be as soft as January? I make these observations thinking one day I will maybe go back and check how bad each winter has been year after year. But I don’t. These things just languish. Like so many dreams. Contemplating leaving other things aside first, however. The cable TV and direct line telephone are under the budget department’s eye. When we had the power outage the other day the land line failed us due to the electrified base the wireless phone depends upon. Why not just have another iPhone for about the same price? At least cable TV brings me 7 months of baseball.

♦ Quite right. Use of a martini glass does not make for a martini. Your government store in action.

♦ “As usual, the Flea is right: “I don’t expect I will be back to H+M any time soon. If you work in a “creative industry”, or hold any sort of intellectual property in any medium, I suggest you don’t either.”

♦ Neato. Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes (1841-1935) shaking hands during his lifetime with both John Quincy Adams, born 1767, and John F Kennedy who died 1963.

♦ As we have fun watching the GOP Super PACs lead to the GOP eating itself, consider, too, the guilt of the Tea Partiers whose great-granddad didn’t fill out the right paper work.

♦ Now I know why my Mother was enthroned as the Brisbane Queen in 1949.

So, there you go. I have to make this something more than an eight day commitment. But there is beer blogging to do, you know. Lots of beer blogging.

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Friday Bullets For A Week Of Actual Winter

What a funny season. Thaws, rains, freezes, winds, blackouts and snow with thunder. Reminds me more of the east cost than the center of the continent. OK, the eastern edge of the center. The debates go on for the GOP. Seems like every candidate is a bit sketchy but each distinctly so. Newt said that the media made it harder to attract good people to public office. Is the contest proving the point? Romney is still the most interesting character as his life has been so complex and alt. Mormonism, corporate savior and undertaker, the last man to buy Brylcreem.

♦ Loners and geeks outraged at outrageous slur against their lifestyle.

♦ I am pretty sure I met this man at college but had no idea that he had a life so well spent.

♦ I love the Soviet style use of anti-hero in this article.

♦ It boggles my mind that Ontario pays HST / GST to Ottawa and Alberta does not. Looks like 1 billion or so too much into the Federation. Can we get a rebate?

♦ Andrew Coyne really is a simplistic thick numbskull sometimes. Rather than discriminating all that is needed is an oath of office that manages the loyalty aspect. No need to create a huge class of second class citizens. But thanks for suggesting it.

♦ Framing one’s politics as conservative and being in favour of marriage is in direct opposition to swinger life style. Choose one or the other and stand by your decisions. But don’t pretend it’s not a core question of integrity.

There. Was this a big week? Who knows? Maybe next week will be really big. Or is that something we’d like, err, just to avoid.

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I Hear Some Traitors Get ‘Merican Cable TV, Too

Is there nothing as fraught as a Canadian of any political stripe claiming that we are being manipulated by the United States?

The ammunition for Ottawa’s broadside against the pipeline’s opponents is drawn in part from the work of a relatively little-known blogger from North Vancouver. In the last 15 months, independent blogger and single mother Vivian Krause has become a one-person clearinghouse on how U.S. money is helping finance Canadian environmental activism. Ms. Krause has used her “Fair Questions” blog to document the money trail behind what she calls the “U.S.-funded campaign against Canadian oil” – research that’s been used by defenders of the oil sands, including the lobby group Ethical Oil, to blunt criticism of the tarry resource.

While “ethical oil” is one of the silliest ideas going it’s obviously not as bad as the blood diamonds or blood chocolate of some other energy sources. Yet it sure isn’t so pure as to deserve the label ethical. Let’s just call it “relatively a lot better” oil. That being the case, there is a valid political debate over whether methods of extraction or delivery or price or any number of other things are as good as they might be.

There is a parallel debate going on near here in central New York about another method of extraction, hydro fracking. And there is debate. That is a good thing. But that might be only be a good thing in America. Because, according to the story, folks would “like to see the Gateway pipeline succeed, but after decisions made by Canadians alone.” That’s asbestos logic. There’s money in outsourcing so don’t ask those who have to take on the associated issues. Especially Americans. Because we are generally so dislocated from them, separated. Aren’t we. Makes sense.

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Friday Bullets For Yet Another New Year

Why do we moan about another birthday but not New Years? Consider the alternative. It’s me and the cat this week and I have been inordinately busy. The electrician has been in. The stash now has a light switch thanks to the electricians coming in on Wednesday. One wall has one coat of light sandy old paper sort of colour instead.of a grey plummy tone that looked like great auntie’s lipstick. I changed the furnace filter. I bought a toilet flap. I need to watch it. Handy is not a word associated with me.

♦ Paying a consultant to edit wikipedia to remove bad things people say is a bad business strategy.

♦ These new stats lead me to ask… what if Mr. Harper is not the economic wizz he admits he is?

♦ “…she’s upright…”

♦ What did you learn from Iowa? Can you even name the states that border Iowa?

♦ My in-laws are looking much better all of a sudden.

There. Caught up with the week. Tonight I strike a greater blow against plummy lipsticked walls. Viva! Viva!!!

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