Consistently Inconsistent, Thy Name Is Jack Layton

[h/t to Paul] Thanks!

As you may or may not know, one of my favorite subjects is the delightful wackiness of Jack Layton, and few things make me smile as I do when a little light is shone on whatever insanity (or pure lunacy) he’s up to at the current moment. I swear, this man makes it just too easy. Again, I put forward the disclaimer that I am no fan of Jack Layton, and no other politician frustrates me more with their irrelevance on Parliament Hill as he does. (Aside from Stephane Dion who has pulled a ‘Houdini’ since he stepped down)

Now Jack Layton is coming out (again) flopping around like a fish out of water.

Only just the other day, Jack Layton was responding to Michael Ignatieff’s implication that he may just leave the NDP to prop up the Government in the fall, bragging about his record on 79 confidence motions.

Today, he’s saying he’s willing to compromise on E.I. (Again, thanks Paul), and presumably, Michael Ignatieff will use the results and subsequent actions taken from this “committee” when it reports in September as the catalyst once again for a fall election.

So, if Jack Layton has proven only one thing this past year or two, is that not only is he willing to lift NDP skirts to the highest bidder, but that any ‘hard line’ position he takes is subject to probable change. And given that this will likely be Jack Layton’s final year as NDP Leader (assuming that there are term limits with the NDP) he needs to do an about face on the direction he has been taking the party recently: The Hinterlands of Parliament Hill.

Can you imagine this man having to explain why an “historic” success in Nova Scotia can’t be followed up nationally? I mean, he was bragging about the huge gains the NDP were going to make in Quebec in the last election and that didn’t exactly work out for him…

No. Jack Layton is a has-been who is so far out in left field that the news has to be shipped in along with daylight.

Hangin’ with the Priz-nat

President Clinton spoke in Halifax on Thursday. It was pretty cool to be in the same room with him, I must confess. His delivery was excellent and his jokes were well-placed and natural. Clinton was everything you might expect of a former President and now circuit speaker of some 350 engagements per year.

His polished veneer aside, it was (and is) clear to me that Clinton remains a dedicated neo-liberal.

His entire speech was built upon the classic “it takes a village to raise a child” Hillary-ism.  From the environment to pandemics to Katrina to 911 to economics to AIDS to activism, the message was loud and clear: we are forever joined as a global community and there is no tearing us asunder. The key phrase of the day, interdependence. We can do nothing without each other; we will henceforth be constantly affecting one another; we are one big global family and it’s time we start acting like it.

On the environment the President figuratively channeled Al Gore, devoting as much as two minutes of his speech to anthropogenic global warming (AGW) hysteria, specifically catastrophic sea level increases due to a 9-degree Celsius rise in global temperature and the melting of the Greenland ice cap by the end of the century, along with the death of the oceans due to man-made CO₂ emissions. Capping the fear mongering was the call to act quickly to avoid certain disaster.

Of course the methods we should employ to overcome the aforementioned “big problems” is where Clinton was conspicuously short on detail, probably because that’s where the devil lives and few be there who want to unleash him without first taking the time to convince people that he’s innocuous. The “devil” in this case being larger, farther-reaching government, which, judging by the themes of his speech, is Clinton’s vision for the future.  In fact, I remarked to my wife later in the evening that Clinton carefully sowed the seeds of world government without actually uttering the specific words — we can’t solve problems independently; we aren’t individual nations; our economies are intertwined; we cannot make progress without each other; solutions must be global in nature and reach; we will either rise or fall together, and only together.

The whole thing left me wondering if I the only person in attendance who had the slightest misgivings (”eebie-jeebies”) about what the President was saying and not saying.

128 Days Later – Yes it Can Always Get Worse!

Worth a Laugh

While lounging around the house today I caught a few minutes of Craig Oliver’s “Question Period”, and found the entire experience to be pretty laughable. Watching Warren Kinsella discuss the Mulroney affair appears to be an effort in futility.

To begin with, Mr. Mulroney is a bit irrelevant at the moment, isn’t he? Neither major party seems to want him, and someone whose charisma gave him the opportunity to become an “elder statesman” has become more of a target for low-level media bulldogs to take potshots at.

The program did have one redeeming value, though. Watching Kinsella practice pronouncing “Mulroney” was worth a laugh or two. He’s working very hard on it, as once he’s mastered the name he’ll only have a couple more phrases to go before he can be taken seriously as a political commentator.

The Liberal Party Is Hiring!

That’s right folks, the party of Adscam, pizza parlor deals and Jean Chretien is looking for an accounting intern…on CharityVilliage.com? Personally, I’m having a hard time swallowing the party that gave us the missing millions of taxpayer dollars a decade ago now being referred to as a “non-for profit”.

If you’re interested in the position though, please note that while the Liberals like to force everyone else to pay their employees a “living wage”, the position only comes with a skimpy $12/hour wage, which wouldn’t even meet the cost of living in downtown Ottawa. But then again, when the Liberals aren’t using their first slogan “Get power at any cost, keep power at any cost”, they love to steal that catchy line, “Do what we say, but don’t say what we do!”. Just ask Warren “Cookies” Kinsella, he seems to have a pretty good grasp on the whole thing…

1934 Chicago Tribune Political Cartoon – How Things Stay the Same

[Via The Big Picture]

President Obama Should Leave the Teleprompter at Home

Over 100 days in office and that damn teleprompter keeps getting in the way. Seriously, how many more painful videos do we have to watch of the President looking like a jackass before he figures out prepared notes are a better solution?

“In addition to John – sorry, the – I just noticed I jumped the gun here,” Obama said, pausing for several seconds as he looked at the prompter. “Go ahead. Move it up. I had already introduced all you guys.”

Marque my words you scallywags…

The National Post is reporting on a suggestion being floated by former Presidential Candidate Ron Paul on reviving an old law allowing for private individuals, or in this case ‘enterprises’, the freedom to arm themselves and go after pirates without being persecuted as pirates themselves.

The particulars involve the United States Government issuing a “Letter of Marque” to a merchant ship as a kind of free pass to attack and repel hostile forces on the sea, by any means necessary.

It’s funny really, just the other day I was thinking about letting loose the “public” to protect themselves on the shipping lanes, or private enterprises operating as a for profit security force to go after these pirates who have been hijacking international ships. Turns out, I wasn’t alone on that. And even further to that, there is legal accomodation in the United States to do just that!

Obviously the system would have to be modernized, but if done quickly, it would provide an alternative means by which companies can protect their investments when entering designated ‘Pirate infested waters’. Additionally, it would provide jobs, security and investment opportunities without being a burden on the ‘public purse’.

Why can’t everyone do this? Well, back in 1856, the Paris Declaration Respecting Maritime Law expressly abolished Privateering. The major powers of the time agreed and signed on, but the United States (whose navy at the time was virtually non-existant comparitavely speaking) declined to agree citing the need to have the option of arming merchant vessels in a time of war and retained the privlige of issuing these Letters.

Can Canada do this? I’m not certain of the legal inheritance of the obligation and/or adoption of this Declaration by Canada given that at the time, we were not an independant nation, but now that we are, and Canada’s name does not appear to be recorded… I’ll leave that to more legal minds than my own. However, if allowed, it would certainly be a possibility for some enterprising groups who might like the idea of patrolling the high seas for Queen and Country…

Just a thought.

Canada: Where Pot-Legalization and Tobacco-Hating Collide

It`s not often that I have something resembling sympathy for any Hollywood starlet, let alone Britney Spears.  Her life is a train wreck and I`ve never seen a sign of her trying to get it together yet.

However, I want someone to explain something to me.  Why is it that pot-smokers get a pass to blowing smoke in everyone`s faces while cigarette smokers are persona non grata in every Canadian city?

At the Britney Spears concert in Vancouver the other night, she was so overcome by the amount of pot smoke that she left the stage.  Granted, the PA system did make clear that GM Place was a non-smoking venue, but think about the attitude of the people doing the smoking.

Billy Bob Thornton in his most recent well-publicized interview with CBC’s Jian Ghomeshi, noted “I think it’s odd that you have to smoke inside a white stripe outside,” apparently referring to a no-smoking policy at buildings in the city(quoting CP).

What I don’t get (and I know because I live in Vancouver) is that the same granola-munching NIMBYs in Vancouver who suck on fatties like they’re Popeye candy sticks are revolted by cigarette smokers, and are seeking just as rabidly as residents of the Big Smoke (heh, that’s an ironic nickname for Toronto) to ostracize the nicotine-addicted.

But oh no, Cannabis is good for you!  Nicotine is evil…

It never even strike them for a moment the hypocrisy of their position, that it should be legal to blow Cannabis smoke around wherever and whenever they want, but SHUN!   SHUUUUN the EVIL CIGARETTE!

Now, I don’t smoke either of the weeds, but in this one instance I find myself sympathetic to both Britney Spears (cough) and the cigarette-smoker of Canada (choke).

Real Canadian Comedy Doesn’t Need CBC Coddling!

Five Feet beat me to the punchline, but Steven Crowder is someone that I’ve been following for a couple of months now, his latest Thursday update doing a nice job on the racists in our Great White Midst. Still doesn’t compare with the PETA classic that tuned me into Crowder in the first place!

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