Category: Uncategorized

Election Watch: Tories

It took some coaxing from certain parties but here is a link to the March 2005 Policy Declaration of the Conservative Party of Canada. I do not seem to be able to actually save the document and even my operatives deep within the Big Blue Blob had difficulty locating the document on the rather badly laid out CPC website so read it while you can.

Update: I have had a quick look through and am not drastically concerned except for all the wingy property rights things not to mention a federalism (aka constitutional) review of the needs of those poor Western Canadians (aka the rich Albertans!). Here is a list of some of the highlights as far as I am concerned:

    Apparently, you will not be encouraged to be an autonomous slacker under Tory rule. Being yourself is not part of well being, just money, money, money and I, me, mine. Nothing to fear as a constitutional amendment will never never never pass. It is nutty dreamerism of those with to pretend that their Audi and cottage on the lake is worth the same protection as the independent media or those personal characteristics which are used by discriminating state agencies against individuals.

  • Tighter breach of public trust provisions are fine and the Tories will be able to consult with their own incarcerated Senator on the idea.
  • Big science projects are the best science projects. I love big science.
  • I am happy living with the health care and pharmacare principles which include universal access and public funding but public and private delivery as well as catastrophic illness drug coverage.
  • The principle of respect for provincial jurisdiction over housing and immigration gets a little confused as deals with municipalities appear to be on the table.
  • I have no idea what it means that Parliment will run foreign affairs matters. Leadership by disfunctional committee in time of crisis. Brilliant.

So all in all the best thing is it is all there for you to see. I will have to see whether the other parties can pull our a broad ranging paper on what they stand for. Operatives behind the blue wall inform me that this document will form the basis for the election platform in the next election. I may think some of it is nuttsy Alberta speak but at least it is speaking. So not more hidden agenda talk from me. It is all there and some of it is scary but no scarier than those guys who date or married your female pals from undergrad who monopolize dinner parties boring everyone with softie rightist monologues on whatever. Do you want to see that guy on TV every night with PM after his name?

Two Years

Noonish tomorrow I will have been doing this blog for two years. I was blogging for years before that at other places but for two years, I have had this pulpit. I can’t for the life of me think of anything of value that has come of it other than the daily pleasure at seeing the stats and the converstaions with some of those people represented by those stats. Some things I might draw from the 1849 posts prior to this one:

  • I like music less than I thought I did and I like sports more. A quick look at the number of post under category tells you that. Unlike sports where I have a deep and abiding relationship with my favoured teams, I have an interest in politics similar to my interest in NASCAR and Formula 1. I watch for the crashes. I am quite surprised by those who are strongly Tory or NDP. I dislike Tories but only due to their consistent record of practical incompetence rather than for any theorical basis. I vote NDP but whenever I think I will pop round for a night of envelope stuffing, the whole fellow traveller thing puts me off.
  • I find the discourse of the nature and place of the web and blogging is quite poor. Participation in the medium appears to qualify in itself as expertise. Could there be a more classic example? The web is less interesting and less important that fans grant it but it is more promising than most futurists project. It wil be replaced by an unknown and this era will seem quaint. That is as certain as death and taxes. We will obey fascist ants controlling it all one day.
  • Very little consideration is given to the downside of the medium of the internet generally and blogging speficically. Far from being a self-correcting system, it is most often a self-justifying one, confusing opinion for fact and popularity for reliability. I have not become more intellegent through blogging. I have likely become stupider. Will may be feeling the same thing. I have warned people away from its use in professional contexts and been later thanked. Yet I will continue to do this. I can’t think of a process other than blogging where so many people in it feel it a curse. Maybe relying on employment for income. Quitting is often a badge of honour. It is a fantastic waster of time and productivity which, like pollution, is never calculated into the cost-benefit analysis.
  • Blogs do not compound knowledge or create opportunities for collective advancement of a proposition. Where there is a shared interest there can be growth in an idea but for the most part it is genial yapping – not a bad thing in itself but I have also come to have quite visceral dislike for individuals who I have never met and who otherwise have absolutely no affect on the course of my life. On the other hand, I have learned much about being gay in America, being a former artillery officer, being on anti-depression medication, Kylie Minogue and central and western New York State.
  • Of all the things I post I am happiest about the photos. I am proud to share my ribs with you. I have chronicled the sparking of my new fascination with the USA which has little to do with 9/11, the war on terror, societal envy or access to sun in the winter. It’s the BBQ and the bold freedom to celebrate slow cooked meat. I love the experience of experiencing and that is always better with a smokey tomato based sauces. And beer. And jets on sticks.

I may have more to say about this before the end of tomorrow and some of you might care to point out the hypocrisies in what is above. That is fair. Anniversaries ought to be days of atonement as well as celebrations.

47 seconds later…

Paul Martin did very well. But he’ll lose the election.

Harper did not do well. There is nothing stopping Paul Martin from the TV spot and Harper was wrong to imply here was any type of convention relating to the Prime Minister presenting on the TV. Harper wrongly said that Martin asked to be the one to fix the scandal. Martin said the opposite. He said he will call the election for 30 days after the final report. In the election in June or January, we may all learn what duds the Grits are but we will also get another bucketful of twisty Harper. And then likely a minority Tory government.

Ottawa Sky Stuff

I marched around Ottawa this noon hour as my hearing was adjourned to 2:00 pm from 9:30 am. All was well in the end judicially speaking – but on my march I took a photo of the biplane at the top of the Department of Justice in its weather vane with my snazzy new zoom lens. Little did I realize I took the inset shot of a jet in the sky in one corner of the 4 MB picture as well. I am liking the zoom.

I also got some nice panoramas from behind Parliament looking north including Hull from Place Du Portage to the Museum of Civilization. No sign of Paul back there hiding or anything.

No sponsorship money went into the following photo:

Death of a Camera

So my camera died sort of. It flashes “turn off and on again” over and over on the little screeen. Something wrong with the lens which I suspect is a little beach sand. If I can take it apart, do some highly technical blowing, flapping and flicking, I might get it to work. But I had a wedding to get to so I bought a Sony DSC-S40 to replace the Sony DSC-P32. Virtually the same camera that cost $250.00 Canadian in December 2003 cost $250.00 Canadian in April 2005 but it has a 3x Zeiss lens. Having taken over 4,000 shots with the first one and having not bought film and processing for a year and a half I figure it has paid for itself. But if I get it going again, it is definitely the beach camera.

Portland, Maine

One of my favoriter cities, I was quite pleased to find I could get to the Mall and back in a pinch without discovering new streets. I am pretty sure most of these photos are not of South Portland but Portland proper…except maybe that one of the ship going under the bridge.

The bowl is full of $3 Dewey’s smoked seafood chowder. The best.



Seven Hours

Who knew that the beaches of New England were 7 hours away from Lake Ontario? Who knew that once you have 512 MB on your camera you get 342 photos to look through when you get home? Who knew that I would have first-and-first-cousins-once-removed-in-law-to-my-second-cousin with whom I might go to see the Bruins play if the NHL ever gets going again? Who knew?