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pathetic liberal communication efforts diminish coalition's credibility

Wednesday, December 03, 2008


Whoever allowed Dion to appear on national television like that should be kicked in the stomach. Is it Dion or his staff who don't understand how political wars are won in the 21st century? He's lucky he has reason on his side, because that looked pathetic.

It's pretty obvious the NDP have been charged with the coalition's web strategy, because when you compare that with what the liberals have come up with, there's no competition.

Get a real bloody communications team already.

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posted by James
Wednesday, December 03, 2008

4 comments

"While it’s true that during the campaign the leaders all said they wouldn’t form a coalition, and it’s true that Mr. Dion won less support in the election than any previous Liberal leader, those are not arguments against the democratic legitimacy of the coalition.

Consider that Winston Churchill governed throughout the Second World War as the head of a coalition government without ever winning an election.

Mr. Harper himself sought to participate in a coalition with the Bloc and NDP in 2004.

Many similar countries, including New Zealand and Ireland, are governed by coalitions."


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posted by James
Wednesday, December 03, 2008

0 comments

An anti-democratic power grab by the separatists? WE'RE ALL GONNA DIE

Tuesday, December 02, 2008



Seems that a solid chunk of people don't have a faint clue what's going on, and it terrifies them. So let's address that: the notion that the country will "implode" or that this all amounts to an anti-democratic "power-grab" is nothing more than ignorance. It's just a self-reinforcing, self-defeating fear.

Canadian constitutional conventions have been described as less-than-democratic, but the fact is we have a popular majority with this coalition (44% Lib-NDP; vs. 37.6 for Cons. And if we include the other parties, that's 54% including Bloc; 61% including Greens). That's a popular majority essentially shedding their pre-packaged ideologies in favour of working together to achieve a common aim - when our government refused to do that very same thing.

The fact that the NDP and the Liberals do not have the majority of seats despite their popular vote share only highlights the sad inadequacy of our first-past-the-post system. And while I'm quite in favour of significant reforms, that doesn't negate the fact that this new arrangement is quite unequivocally democratic.

In Canada, we DO NOT vote for a Prime Minister the way Americans vote for a President. We vote for individual members of parliament.

This is democratic.

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posted by James
Tuesday, December 02, 2008

0 comments

Thursday, July 10, 2008


"TOKYO, Japan -- Prime Minister Stephen Harper conceded Thursday that biofuels are 'probably' a small factor in the rising cost of food."

In other news, understanding a problem is probably a small factor in one's ability to find solutions for it.

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posted by James
Thursday, July 10, 2008

0 comments

Wednesday, July 09, 2008


Um, apparently Harper hasn't yet made any kind of impression on the international media. I saw this picture and caption on the Times Online:



"Joseph Harper, the Canadian Prime Minister, is seen off by preschool children in Date, Hokkaido island. Mr Harper pressed the assembled leaders to take a strong stand against Robert Mugabe's regime (Toru Yamanaka/AFP/Getty Images)"

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posted by James
Wednesday, July 09, 2008

2 comments

the NDP carbon tax vote grab

Saturday, July 05, 2008


A "carbon market" sure does sound attractive, doesn't it? It sounds democratic and anti-interventionist. But because this plan - yes, the same one championed by the NDP - includes a government auction scheme, it will in fact mean more government intervention and a larger government bureaucracy.

Rather than simply measuring and taxing carbon output, in a market scheme, the government will not only have to measure and, for all intents and purposes, "tax" the output, but it will also be required to create a bureau that will auction off the credits and then verify that companies have in fact used the credits appropriately. This is a very government-heavy project.

It will likely function as poorly as the government-managed market has in the EU, where huge loopholes have essentially enabled large companies to use the credits as subsidies, with no measurable gains for the environment.

CARBON TAXES

On the other hand, "Denmark, which brought in a carbon tax in the 1990s, reduced its greenhouse gas emissions dramatically, and its economy grew faster than Canada’s."

This might come as a shock to those of us who seem inclined to believe that the tar sands have all but BECOME the Canadian economy, but we're way behind here - economically and environmentally - and we will continue to be for as long as we think that expensive oil will grease rather than grind down our economy. From a recent editorial in the Halifax Chronicle Herald:

"As long as we can run our cars on cheap gasoline and generate electricity with cheap coal, it is not economical to develop greener sources of energy.

When prices go up, the market seeks alternatives. According to a recent survey of the state of the world’s energy economy in the Economist, there is every reason to believe that the market will find alternatives.

Rich, smart innovators from the dot-com world are putting their brains and money into the energy market — billions in private research money. Google, for instance, is investing heavily in a project to develop green energy that will be cheaper to produce than dirty old coal.

Wind power, which used to be expensive, is already as cheap as electricity generated by natural gas, and it has the promise to be even more useful, if electricity grids are managed more intelligently. The price of solar power is coming down, although it is not yet practical on a large scale. Both geothermal and tidal power have great potential.

In Scandinavia, governments committed to reducing emissions in the 1990s. With wind power, energy-efficient buildings and community heating plants that run on waste wood or straw, communities there have radically reduced their energy consumption without ruining their standard of living.

In Canada, the government wasted money with popular but useless incentive programs and advertising campaigns, and our emissions steadily rose, driven by SUVs and the filthy oilsands."

In Japan, they're so far ahead that they're already installing solar panels ON WINDOWS to generate power (see pic below)!

We know we have to put a price on carbon. But if we want to put a price on carbon in the quickest, most effective way, we will select a carbon tax option.

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posted by James
Saturday, July 05, 2008

0 comments

Wednesday, June 18, 2008


"The Royal Bank of Scotland has advised clients to brace for a full-fledged crash in global stock and credit markets over the next three months as inflation paralyses the major central banks.

'A very nasty period is soon to be upon us - be prepared,' said Bob Janjuah, the bank's credit strategist.

A report by the bank's research team warns that the S&P 500 index of Wall Street equities is likely to fall by more than 300 points to around 1050 by September as "all the chickens come home to roost" from the excesses of the global boom, with contagion spreading across Europe and emerging markets.

Such a slide on world bourses would amount to one of the worst bear markets over the last century."

MORE

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posted by James
Wednesday, June 18, 2008

0 comments