This story is awesome:
"A fast-thinking pilot with passengers in cahoots fooled a hijacker by
braking hard upon landing, then accelerating to knock the man down. When he
fell, flight attendants threw boiling water in his face, and about 10 people
pounced on him, Spanish officials said Friday."
Look at this online new article from CTV.
Notice the images? Liberal leader Stephane Dion looks determined. Liberal MP Pablo Rodriguez has a nice glowing profile shot.
Conservative minister John Baird? It was like the photographer intentionally sought to find Baird's face squished in a scrum. I mean, the CTV got good photos of the other two men, why was Baird's so myopic?
Bias perhaps? Damn straight.
Here's what the opposition Liberals are up to on several fronts. You wonder where they're coming from sometimes.
Terrorism at home
Although they originally introduced the act, the most Liberals not supporting the renewal of the anti-terror legislation. Granted, it did have a sunset clause, but this is perfect timing kids! Right at the time when the Saudi faction of Al Qaeda said they should attack Canada's oil industry. Oh, no, that's okay, it's been getting attacked by Liberals since the early 80's!
Senate Reform
On Senate reform, there's a bill in the Senate right now that sets renewable 8 year term limits. Stephane Dion wants it to 12 to 15 years with no renewal. Prime Minister Harper is open to that, but Dion is against elections, because once again, same old excuse "we'd have to open up the constitution". But what Harper is suggesting in his proposed legislation is that provinces can have non-binding senate elections, that the Prime Minister will seek the will of the provinces and appoint their choice. We've done this before, people! While I believe the most important "e" of a triple-e senate is "equality", progress is better than no progress on an issue that's been dragging its ass for oh, what, 160 years?
Kyoto
Back in May 2006, a Liberal MP introduced a private members bill which recommits the government to the Kyoto protocol and commits them to implementing a plan 60 days after the bill becomes law. It just passed last night as the Liberals teamed up with the Bloc and NDP. The Liberals did nothing when they committed us to this protocol (without parliamentary approval, I might add). They had no plan, so now they're painting the Conservative government into a corner. This has nothing to do with how much the Liberals believe in saving the environment. It's pure political football and the football is Kyoto (I wish it were Dion's dog). Hypocrites! And they know it!
What's interesting is the government appealed to the Speaker that this private member's bill was out of order due to it being a money bill, which a private member cannot introduce. But Speaker Milliken said that the chair cannot determine from the bill how the government chooses to implement it, so the bill stands. Fair enough. But what the Speaker is saying then is that essentially, the government doesn't have to spend any money on this. So it really doesn't have any teeth. Environment Minister John Baird calls it "a joke". I agree. Not only that, but so are the Liberals' hypocracy. Even their own deputy leader admits that we can't achieve the measures in Kyoto.
So already, environment groups are threatening to sue the government if it doesn't implement the unattainable Kyoto accord. Will the Liberals call a vote of non-confidence on the government? But wouldn't that be admitting to themselves that they didn't get anything done so they're now putting the blame on the Conservatives for their own ineptitude?
Election Junction
As a result of this, there's a wiff of election fever in the air. Without the budget even being released yet, the Liberals are poised to defeat it. Nice. Real nice. Way to work within parliament guys. All Stephane Dion has as an argument is "They're right wing. Canadians are moderate." Geez, can't you come up with something better? Or is it "difficult to make priorities" Stephane? "Not fair?" Well, too bad. Canadians should expect more from the opposition rather than just opposing for the sake of opposing. Two years ago, the opposition Conservatives voted in favour of the budget. Granted, no one wanted an election at that time.
So the question is, do the Liberals really want to have an election? I'm going to say, no. They're not ready, nor will they ever be to "go back to power" if that's all they want, rather than doing the right things for Canadians and actually getting things done.
Do you remember in 1993, when then campaign manager of the PC Party of Canada, and current PC Party of Ontario leader, John Tory, ran those attack ads of Jean Chretien's face? That was mean. It was like young kids making fun of another's disability. It completely backfired and helped Campbell Tories reduced to two seats.
Do you remember in 1997 when the Reform Party ran attack ads against the Liberals and Tories showing how many leaders there have been from Quebec (Chretien, Mulroney, Trudeau, Charest)? Was it mean? No. It was simply telling the truth, but it did have a negative tone to it.
I saw the daily poll numbers for that. The Reform Party saw a quick jump of about 5 points and the Charest led PC Party saw a drop of the same. Then Charest went on TV and did an interview. He was asked abou the ad. He said, and I'll never forget it, "Preston Manning is a bigot." The next day, those 5 points flipped back around. Good, quick spin on Charest's part, but the ads probably solidied the Reform base more than anything.
This week, you saw it--the polls showing that a majority of Canadians found the Tory ads saying "Stephane Dion is not a leader" was not fair or effective. This was plastered all over the front covers and on news websites like CTV. Blogger Calgary Grit gives some insight.
Yeah but. .. but they worked.
Have you seen the latest poll? Probably not, because it's very favourable for the Conservative Party. Take the Toronto Star for instance. This article is buried somewhere in the website, but nowhere on the front page. I found it by searching Google. But notice what is says...
---
Poll gives Tories the edge
Feb 08, 2007 06:21 PM
Canadian Press
MONTREAL – A recent poll suggests the Conservatives have a slight lead over the Liberals.
The Leger Marketing survey gives the Tories 38 per cent support, the Liberals 31 per cent, the NDP 14 per cent and the Bloc Quebecois eight per cent.
In Quebec, the Liberals (32 per cent) and the Bloc (31) are in a battle and are followed by the Conservatives at 24 per cent.
In Ontario, the Conservatives are at 40 per cent, compared with the Liberals' 35 per cent.
The poll of 1,500 Canadians was conducted Jan. 30-Feb. 4, a period shortly after the Conservatives unveiled ads critical of Liberal Leader Stephane Dion.
The national results are considered accurate within 2.6 percentage points, 19 times out of 20.
---
Slight lead? Slight? That's a 7 point margin and the Conservatives are nipping at the nose of a majority. You know, if the Liberals were a couple points ahead, this would be front page news. I'm sick of the bias in Canadian mainstream media. And so is our Prime Minister. You see why the Conservatives had to run those ads?
Like any leader, Stephane Dion has his faults. When he was younger, he was a separatist, but was converted one night talking to older friends after getting drunk. The guy does not speak English very well. His policies? I don't even want to go there.
The question is, has the mainstream media picked up on any of this stuff today, like they did when Stephen Harper won the Conservative leadership? Hell, no.
The ads were balsy, almost crossed that fine line, but they worked. They showed actual verbal exchanges of Iggy and Dion at the leadership debates. Were they unfair? Only, I think, because Dion says attacks against him are "unfair".
But were they mean?
From what I'm reading, the Conservatives are aligning the planets to have an election in June.
How will they do that?
The Quebec election is in March. In the last week of the campaign, the federal budget will be presented, which is filled with tax cuts, including the tax back guarantee from interest savings on debt repayments, but also the deal to "solve" the fiscal imbalance.
All three opposition parties will defeat the coming budget in May. Duceppe will say there's still an imbalance (yeah, maybe in his head!), the Liberals will defeat it because they already said they would, and the NDP don't like tax cuts, so all of them will vote against it and this will kick off the campaign.
The NDP will be marginalized. The Green's will pick up a seat. The Bloc will lose seats to a few Conservative and Liberal gains.
The big issue is the environment of course, which the Conservatives appear to be handling. The Liberals are seen as no better on the environment, so Dion doesn't have a soapbox to stand on. He'll get creamed in the debates by cool, collected Harper.
The Conservatives need about an extra 30 seats to get a majority. With Jack Layton and the NDP sucking the hind tit lately (watch Question Period), the Greens gaining on them, and Jack making a deal with the Tories on the environment, unfortunately, those NDP votes will go to Liberals, and some to the Greens, who have some money in the bank now.
Watch British Columbia, a hodge-podge of folk who are pro-environment but also pro-democratic reform, which is an issue only the Conservatives have a handle on with Harper's push for an elected Senate. The Conservatives lost a few good seats there last election.
That said, the Bay Street business crowd will now turn against the Liberals with Dion as leader, so you may see the Liberals lose any blue liberals they had that liked Paul Martin, but what's potentially stopping that is the Tories reversal on taxing Income Trusts.
Any potential majority for the Conservatives will all come down to whether they can penetrate the Greater Toronto Area.
But will the economy hold? Housing prices are levelling. Thousands of job losses at Nortel and Chrysler can't be good. Industry is about to be regulated on pollution, which may slow things down at bit. There have been predictions for some time that the economy would slow as it's been going full-tilt for many years now.
Also, there are predictions that this summer will be very warm in Canada, fuelling the global warming hysteria.
So the timing of an election for the Conservatives isn't such a bad idea.
I'm going to go out on a limb and say that the Conservatives will win another minority, but with more seats than they have now.
I'm sure you've heard by now, last Friday, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) released its report. I wanted to wait a few days to see what the media and other folks had to say about it.
What's changed since the last report in 2001? Well, the hype about doom and gloom hasn't. I'd say it's increased, although the predictions have decreased.
This article explains how their predictions have halved by each report.
The 2001 IPCC report predicted that from 1990 to 2100 temperatures would rise 1.4C to 5.8C causing sea levels to rise by .09 to .88 metres (3.5 to 34.6 inches or 9 to 88 cm).
In other words, in just six years, predictions about temperature increases have plummeted by one-third and predictions about sea-level increases at the high end have been cut in half!
At that rate, by my calculations, we'll just have to wait for two more reports and the IPCC will be predicting no measurable increases at all!Incidentally, many climate scientists have been saying just that -- wait until 2025, when it's expected the sun's output may wane, leading to global cooling.
What's most troubling about all of this is the 21-page, much-hyped summary is not referenced at all.
The science that supposedly backs all of these predictions is nowhere to be found and won't be released until April and May.
This is problematic on many fronts, but as past IPCC reports have shown, the summary is not written by the scientists whose names appear on the cover, it's written by politicians and bureaucrats.
Indeed, some of those scientists after the fact have complained their work has been grossly misrepresented.
And don't expect the full truth to come out even when the 1,600 pages of science are finally released. The IPCC has a habit of censuring the work of scientists who disagree with the global alarmist orthodoxy. It has also instructed scientists still working on their academic contributions to the final report that those contributions must be modified after publication of the summary so as to "ensure consistency with" the summary's conclusions.
It is the political tail wagging the scientific dog.
"Changes (other than grammatical or minor editorial changes) made after
acceptance by the Working Group or the Panel shall be those necessary to ensure
consistency with the Summary for Policymakers or the Overview Chapter (Appendix A to the Principles Governing IPCC Work, p4/15)"
"You want to reduce back to 1990 levels -- how do you do it without destroying
the economy?" Stelmach said. "Nobody can deliver on it without hurting the
economy to the point where we will lose services."
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