Just another reason to doubt the leadership of President Nursultan Nazarbayev.
Tag: News, Politics, Events
Ed the Orange
Are the NDP on a national rebound? Or is it a really slow dead cat bounce? Who knows but all of a sudden Broadbent is back in town.
The biggest problem they have faced is the lack of credible leadership. Libertarians and evangelicals will gnash and wail that it is the wacky Volvo in cords vision that people reject. Foooohaaa, I say. These days we do not vote vision so much as visuals. With the “New Conservative Party”™ and the “New Martin government”™, Canada politically has just taken one or two tiny steps but firm steps to the right. As a result, the left is wide open and, supposedly, that is where the heart of many Canuck beats, at least on the social side. And when the visuals align with the heart, who knows?
All they need is a solid presence. Jack Layton has proven himself to be a quality leader – neither strident and ideological or shrieking from the pulpit. Reasonable, if opposing and socialist. A recent poll released three days ago places them, with a commanding 14% of voter support, ahead of all parties other than the Liberals (pretending that the joint 21% of the PCs and the Alliance are still separate – as most of their supporters still are).
If I look back over 22 years of voting status, I have voted Green the last two times, NDP, against the Charlottetown Accord, Hec Clouthier as an independent liberal in 1993 and solid NDP before that – when Ed was king…if socialists had kings….which they do not… because they are socialist.
I like socialist politics given that we fundamentally believe in socialist policies in Canada: free universal healthcare, peacekeeping, welfare – even the wacked Ontario Tories only downloaded it and renamed it Ontario Works (expect that last link to die soon). It is just a matter of ensuring no rip-offs and no debt financing which, given the farcical dependency of Canadian conservatives on rip-off and debt, should not to be taken as much of a ideological challenge to the NDP.
I Am Crushing Saddam’s Head
At work at 70…and at home at 43
It has not always been the public eye for Donnie Rumsfeld. Earlier in his life, he led more secretive life, honing his skills, planning his day on centre stage. Preparing to crush a really big head.
Queen Angered by Bush
From
Rob, the
Queen is not amused with the state of her gardens after Mr. Bush’s recent
visit.
First Big Snow
Mom always said bright colours would help me get noticed
We have been lucky around here watching lake effects hammer Central New Yourk State to the south and nor’easters riding up the coast burying Maine and the Maritimes. It has been a long and late fall around here. Ended today with the north tip of this low pressure zone landing us with a few inches of Christmasiness. Thirteen weeks to spring. Order your seed catalogs now.
Rats: “See ya, Ship!”
From Brother Iain’s yellow press:
As Ontario’s Conservatives continued to trail in public opinion polls, dozens of Tory aides, including senior staff, have been shopping their resumes around ahead of the Oct. 2 election. Among them are members of the office of Premier Ernie Eves, senior members of Finance Minister Janet Ecker’s staff, and an administrative assistant in Education Minister Elizabeth Witmer’s office. Many of the resumes — posted electronically on workopolis.com or monster.ca — [Emphasis mine] have been updated in the past week or two, and several in just the past few days.
Good web savvy reporting.
My Favorite Guy
I think of all the people I never met – outside of long departed family – this guy’s is my favorite. When I vote, I vote for him. In 1998, the BBC said he was never caught.
Go Beijing Dilbert in front of tanks guy! I’d send you paypal but they’d catch you that way.
Chong Gone
Done for a bong…or maybe a thousand bongs. He made my high school years funnier. Canada’s own. Put him on a Molsons’s ad.
Gwynne on Bush
Gwynne Dyer, who frosted the cake of my teen nuclear fears with his TV series War, has written on the situation faced by the US in Iraq as the money starts to tighten. First, good call having the Barbados Advocate as a client, Gwynne. It is always important to organize your tax deductable business trips well. Second, interesting observation:
…many governments are also privately debating whether they want to help save the Bush administration from the consequences of its own folly. Without a lot of military and financial help that can only come via the UN, Bush may be dragged down to defeat by the Iraq war in the November 2004 election. With the extra troops and money, he might contain the problem enough to survive. However, they ask themselves, do we really want that?
Hat nod for the topic to Ron’s Box of Soap, librarian and, with Gwynne, fellow Newf.
Time to Pay the Rent
You’d think the Crown would get this sooner or later.
As my old law prof, Bruce Wildsmith, has pointed out one more time, we recognized the rights of First Nations in 1761, did deals with them (especially in the Maritimes) as we dealt with other nations, we continued the recognition in theory until the time of the Charter, we locked them in section 35 of the Constitution in 1981 and now we have to recognize them as having practical and – hey – even commercial value.
Bring it on. Earning your living from your own assets. Imagine.