CAPRU TGIF edition.
Michael Harris: It's getting harder and harder to say bad things about the NDP these days.
In these dark days, with the economy going down faster than Carey Price on a breakaway, NDP-haters are going to have to come up with some new talking points.
The usual knock against the party of Tommy Douglas is that it doesn't know how to manage the economy. The NDP equals financial Armageddon.
In contrast, the Conservatives and the Liberals just somehow innately understand the mysteries of fiscal management. What they don't understand is best left to their buddies -- the guys in the pin-striped suits, the captains of industry.
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So if Jack and the NDP are would-be wastrels, what can be said about the truly big spenders, Dalton McGuinty, Stephen Harper and even Barack Obama? Do the people who decry giving millions to ordinary Joes really support dishing out billions and even trillions to the guys with the $16,000 shower curtains?
Dave Pugliese thinks Peter Mackay's trying out for his new role in "Red Dawn".
As you remember Mr. MacKay released details of the incident last Friday (more than a week after it actually happened). That set off a lot of chest-beating among the Prime Minister, Mr. MacKay and former CF-18 fighter jock and now Conservative MP Laurie Hawn, about how they won’t stand for those Godless Russian hordes getting close to our shores. Of course, that was followed by breathless news coverage of about how CF-18s "forced" the Bears to turn around.
Military folks I’ve talked to had a big laugh about how the news media fell for Mr. MacKay’s telling of the "incident." They say the Russian flights have been a pretty regular occurrence since 2007 and of course a normal occurrence during the Cold War. In addition, the Russians provide advance warning of such flights although they don’t go into specific details; it’s all about testing flight crews on both sides.
Other military folks point out how they thought it was pretty interesting that the "incident" came to light only after a journalist with CTV asked Mr. MacKay about it. (you cynics out there will probably rehash that old wives tales about how CTV is so chummy with the Conservative government that it’s known on Parliament Hill as Tory TV....which of course would set off all kinds of whispering about this being a question planted by the Conservatives in order to get exactly the type of media coverage they received ).
Jim Coyle: Goodbye to bad rubbish
But the political gods were not done yet in tormenting John Tory.
Last night, they added the coup de grâce to an almost epic period of one man's anguish, humiliation and torment.
It can be said of him that few candidates have ever tried harder. Few have cared more. Few can have worked as many hours.
But almost no one in the long history of provincial politics can have had such a run of underperformance and unmet expectations.
His failure was a combination of bad timing and bad judgment. Tory arrived in the PC leadership to find McGuinty enjoying a sustained run of prosperity and occupying the moderate Red Tory terrain that would normally have been his.
Rick Bell
A final report is on the city of Calgary's website. The municipal deep-thinkers pay out $140,000 of your money to a Vancouver consulting firm to buy its supposed insights on commercial and retail plans for the Calgary of the future.
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"Avoid the development of Asian malls that cater only to a specific ethnic group. Avoid the concentration of ethnically dependent developments in any specific region or node."
"An effort must be made to avoid exclusive cultural-specific retail developments as they lead to marginalized ethnic enclaves which can diminish overall community cohesiveness."
Asian malls? Cultural-specific retail? Individuals not given to complain read and wonder. Where's this coming from? What are they trying to say? Many find it misguided at best and offensive at worst.
Laurent et Louis Émond
Notre système scolaire devrait être un outil qui permet à chaque enfant d’aller au bout de ses possibilités, d’atteindre les limites de son potentiel de développement. Après le combat pour l'accès à l'école des années soixante, depuis plus de 20 ans, c’est celui de la réussite qui retient l’attention. À ce chapitre, il faut l’avouer avec franchise, nous ne brillons certainement pas parmi les meilleurs!
Pour nous cacher à nous-mêmes l’ampleur du problème, nous nous consolons avec la diplomation tardive obtenue après un retour aux études par la porte de l’éducation aux adultes.
John Gormley: To people who want Li locked up forever in a dark solitary cell to "protect society" : It is important to note that Li may not be criminally responsible for the death of Tim McLean, but that doesn't mean he won't be locked up in a proper psych ward until it is certain that he is no longer a threat. He's a schizophrenic, not a criminal.
Chantal Hébert:
The Conservatives are arguing that expeditious means are needed to deal with an extraordinary economic downturn; the opposition parties point out that Harper already has billions of unspent infrastructure dollars from last year's budget at his disposal. They are adamant that they will not cut the government a blank cheque to create what they say could amount to a Conservative slush fund.
The fact is that the last time a federal government took accountability short cuts to throw money at a crisis, the issue was unity and the result was the failed Liberal sponsorship program.
Rick Salutin:
What is the sound of one side condemning? It's the media rendering of Israel Apartheid Week, now under way. B'nai Brith ran full-page newspaper ads asking universities to "prevent" it and the attendant "anti-Semitism on campus." There were no ads from organizers, so we didn't hear them being anti-Semitic in their own words – or denying the charge.
Here's the Toronto Star's Rosie DiManno: "That detestable, despicable annual campus hate-fest ... Jew-bashing cloaked in self-righteousness ... students who don't recognize racism when they're spewing it."
I don't know if she meant to be ironic, spewing hate at the spewers. But I've talked with friends, Jewish and non, about these claims. They're disturbed, they don't want to witness the rise of a new horror. Here's my take.
That's all for this week.