Who won?

The debate now becomes about who won tonight. But of course, the real issue should be that we all lost. Seriously, agriculture trumps Canada's place in the world? Is there any hope for us?

I hope there will be five topics in tonight's four part debate

So we're going to have a federal election and not discuss defense or foreign policy? (I take it we're officially done with the idea of peacekeeping as national identity).

Instead, this entire debate seems to be about which of the candidates for Prime Minister can scream the loudest that they were born in Quebec. Gentlemen, let me see your birth certificates!

They grow the food we eat! God bless the humble farmer!

Also, the Gap makes the clothes I wear. Without them, I would freeze in the winter. Therefore, should not the government be supporting clothing retailers in Canada? Paul, Stephen, Jack, answer me this: do you really want Canadians to freeze to death? For shame!

What the hell is a working family?

It makes me ill. I'm not sure who it was that ran the survey that proved that the term "taxpayer" doesn't go over as well as "working family", but it needs to stop. Are there a lot of children going to work with mum and dad? "Families" don't work (that's not social commentary, just a statement of fact). Individuals work. Is there anybody running for office in this country who remembers the term?

I was so hoping that question was going to go in a different direction

Did anyone else hope that Steve Paikin was going to ask the party leaders about their views on swinging when he mentioned the recent Supreme Court decision in raising the issue of values?

I think a bit of wife swapping would go a long way toward healing the rifts between the leaders. And, of course, everyone would get to have a go at Belinda (in keeping with her flexible political values).

Gilles, will you marry me?

The separatist leader just pointed out that Paul Martin is "a living democratic deficit".

This is why we let him debate!

People must be held accountable for their actions

King Paul wants you to know that he believes in transparent government and if people do wrong, they must be held accountable. By the way, has he told you about his proposed amendment to the constitution that would mean all of his strongly held opinions should not apply to the Finance Minister?

New rule: take a drink every time Paul Martin says "I would set up a commission"

Like Communism, it works on paper

In response to a question posed to him by Jack Layon, Paul Martin pointed out that of course he believes in ministerial responsibility. You know, it's just very hard to put into practice.

Bitter Lemon: The Most Trusted Name in News

CNN is running a Reuters story that the Serbian government is going to stop paying war criminal Ratko Mladic his military pension.

Authorities said the pension had been suspended because of unspecified illegalities, but the fact that Mladic received the cash will be seized on by critics of the government as evidence that the general had high level protection in the military and there is little real will to turn him in.

I'm glad to hear that he won't be eligible for his pension anymore ("unspecified illegalities" would those be something other than the genocide and the war crimes?). You would have thought that government critics would have seized upon this information 13 months ago, when it first made news.

Although indicted in 1995, Mladic lived more or less openly in Belgrade until former strongman Slobodan Milosevic was ousted then extradited to The Hague in mid-2001, when the general went underground....Serbia has repeatedly insisted it does not know where Mladic is hiding and vowed that it is doing all it can to deliver him to justice, including freezing his assets.

The international media are playing Serbia's game in all of this, because they report the Serbian governments claims, rather than the actual facts. When they say that he went 'underground' in 2001, what they actually mean is all the way underground to Belgrade, where he attended a ceremony commemorating the Bosnian wars last summer.

I know ten years is a really long time in the age of 24 hour news, but could we at least pretend show a little bit of respect for the people that he massacred? How hard is it for major media outlets to fact check when a genocidal killer was last seen at a public event?

More unbiased reportage from our state run media outlet

Because Paul Martin has failed to do his job, the CBC would like to remind you that Stephen 'Handmaid's Tale' Harper has a hidden agenda. Social conservatives in Alberta are happy to keep social issues off the table for the moment, but once SHTH is elected, watch out! Content that he will never have to run for re-election, Stephen Harper will outlaw abortion, ban gay marriage, and kill all the injuns.

The CBC is just reporting the facts. You do what you want with that information.

Why is Paul Martin campaigning for Stephen Harper?

Paul Martin is selling me on a vision for Canada. Granted, it's his vision of Stephen Harper's vision for Canada, but it sounds really good. In Paul Martin's version of Stephen Harper's Canada, people would be expected to fend for themselves. A nation of well-educated, middle class people being asked to take responsibility for their own lives. This is the fear-mongering and negative campaigning I was promised in the New Year? Come on Paul, at least tell us he's going to force women to reproduce against their will.

And what is Paul Martin promising us? That a certain new issue-that-will- not-be-named is going to become as important a part of our national identity as the original issue-that-will-not-be-named. With no debate or discussion, everyone in this country seems to have bought into the idea that this new issue is one that only the federal government can solve. Why? Because the Liberals told us it is. Proving that not only can Canadians not be expected to fend for themselves, but they seem incapable of thinking for themselves also. Thank god we have King Paul!

Call off the investigation!

King Paul has come forward to defend the honour of Ralph Goodale: "He is a good man and he is an honest man. He is a person of the greatest integrity and he will not be stepping down." Wow Paul, that means so much coming from you. Would that be the 'greatest integrity' within the Liberal party? You see, he opted not to go the route of outright theft.

That's why Martin's Liberals are so much better than Chretien's Liberals. As I'm sure Paul could tell you, Chretien's Finance Minister sat by while the Liberal party used it's power to steal money from the taxpayers. That's not the kind of person you want as Finance Minister. I wonder what happened to him....

Memo to Egypt: It's only okay to kill Sudanese in Sudan

The murder of at least 20 Sudanese refugees in Cairo last night by Egyptian police is a harsh reminder of the situation that many of the world's refugees face. Those that reach Europe or North America are the lucky ones, most are trapped in nations that themselves have poor human rights records and are ill-equipped to deal with them.

However, the reaction of the media is telling. The incident is currently the top world news story on Google News and has made the front page of all the major news sites, as well it should. On the other hand, the Sudanese government has been murdering its citizens for years and that only ever seems to catch the media's attention when foreign dignitaries see fit to visit. Why? Because the world doesn't really care as long as you are killing your own. Just keep it within your own borders and everybody's happy to go on ignoring it.

So yes, the Egyptian government should be brought to task for its treatment of refugees, but the true outrage should be reserved for the government of Sudan who seem to be constantly creating situations from which people need to seek refuge. But instead of being turned into an international pariah, they are set to host African Union and Arab League summits this year, and will likely take presidency of the AU. That'll show 'em! Unlike refugees, summit attendees have to be fed, can you imagine the catering expenses?!!

Ralph, as in puke

The RCMP is now conducting a criminal investigation into the income trust scandal. Personally I don't see what all the fuss is about. Sure the Liberals are criminals, but is insider trading worse than outright theft? I could be getting ahead of myself, as nothing has been proven yet. But you know what they say: if it walks like a duck, and it quacks like a duck... it should probably form the government.

Hug a thug!

In my grade 11 law class, my teacher and I got into an argument after she marked an answer on my test wrong because I listed immorality as one of the root causes of crime instead of the "correct" answer: poverty. Of course, I explained, I could memorize the answers that she had given me, but I really didn't understand how memorizing your teacher's opinions constituted learning.

Today, the Prime Minister wants me to believe that the murder of a 15-year old girl in my neighbourhood yesterday shows us the "consequences of exclusion". I think I'm going to be getting the answer wrong again. I would suggest that the problem is that there is not enough exclusion. I suspect that anyone who fires a gun in a busy street was likely involved in lots of other criminal acts beforehand and should have been excluded from society a long time ago by means of imprisonment.

I'm not exactly sure what the Prime Minister's point is (granted, not a rare state of affairs). What has society supposed to have done to these people that they think it is okay to open fire on a crowded street? What could we have done to prevent them from having such utter disregard for human life? Did they not have state run day care growing up? Were they treated with disrespect when they went to register their handguns? Did people give them funny looks?

Why can't we acknowledge that criminals are responsible for their own actions? 'Society' didn't exclude that little girl from her future, the person who murdered her did.

Happy Birthday Jesus

So for the tenth anniversary of me not celebrating the birth of your Lord (yes, I've been told that it's not just for Christians anymore, but I'm not a pagan either), my mother decided to go completely over the top with the gifts.

So in the spirit of the season. I got:




And Bitter Lime, who never gave in on Christmas and has not yet given in on Canada got:

Oh, and I got the shiny new camera that these pictures were taken with.

Fuck the farmers. Yeah, that's right. I said it.

I hope that Stephen Harper's secret agenda is that of a fiscal conservative. Today he announced $500 million in farm subsidies (it's much like corporate welfare, but when they mention the word 'family' everybody's heart melts... along with their common sense). Why? Because we have to keep the tradition of farming alive. Why? Because it's tradition and you don't mess with tradition, even if it makes no financial sense.

As an added bonus, farm subsidies are completely destructive to the economies of developing nations. So not only do I get to see my hard earned money squandered to support an outmoded industry, I screw over a farmer in Malawi in the process. Everybody wins!

Haven't heard enough about you know what yet?

So I just called Liv's office to see if there was time scheduled for an all-Candidates debate. Nothing seems solid at this point. In addition to the riding debates there will be issues debates for Toronto. The nice lady on the phone seemed a little perplexed when she pointed out there will be a childcare debate and my response was "Yeah. Anything else?" (You'll be pleased to know that the answer is yes. Those great federal issues of education and the waterfront). I'll keep you posted....

Almost makes you lose faith in mankind

Saddam thinks that somebody betrayed him, and that is why the American forces were able to capture him. For decades you torture, and you brutalize and you murder and what thanks do you get? At the end of the day, somebody turns you in like a common criminal. There is no justice.

And I know it's not going to get any better

So the Bloc is disastisfied and wants to return to a more debatey style debate format. Only in Canada! Not only does the party that is only running candidates in one province get to participate, but they are the ones complaining.

I must confess that despite being your hey-wait-a-minute-those-aren't-federal-issues!-free source for news, I have not yet watched a debate during this election season. I watched a few minutes on Thursday but I won't pretend I speak enough French to follow along, and live translations are just painful. And then, continuing on the general theme of 'huh?' that they seem to be going with for this election, they went and scheduled the English debate for Friday night. Because, well, people with children are home anyway and, outside of French-speaking Quebec, nobody else matters in Canadian politics.

Having heard all about it, it doesn't seem like I missed much. From what I understand, much to Paul Martin's chagrin, Stephen Harper is still managing to keep his real agenda hidden (READ THE HANDMAID'S TALE PEOPLE. How many times do you have to be told?!). But it doesn't matter anyway because Canadians are pretty much fine with the government stealing tax money as long as they set up an inquiry to look into it afterwards (nobody's perfect), and picking another party is hard work. And given that not a single issue that I consider to be relevant to federal election campaigns (national defense and foreign affairs) has received any coverage yet, pretending to care is getting to be a real challenge.

Does anybody know who Belinda's boffing these days?