Trudeau denies SUN News a year-end interview.
December 17, 2013
In a column today Warren Kinsella bemoans Trudeau’s refusal to talk to Sun News. I offered the following online comment to his empty-chair interview:
Trudeau has built his career on an adversarial relationship with SUN News. His finest moments have come when under attack from the likes of Levant and Lilley. Last spring’s celebrity boxing match would have been nothing without SUN T.V.’s breathless promotion. All of Canada tuned in to SUN for one excruciatingly bad evening until the main event lit up the screen. Then we watched the victorious Trudeau easily outwit the shameless Levant.
But the same night SUN News also broadcast the single image which won Trudeau the Liberal leadership and likely the keys to 24 Sussex: The Kiss. While Brazeau was still gasping in his corner, Sophie burst into the ring and none-too gently embraced her husband. All of Canada saw the passion of this couple, and approved. We realized right then that Sophie and Justin are what we want in a first family.
Their Christmas card reinforced the family-appeal. On the campaign trail the Trudeaus will be very, very hard to beat.
All year SUN News has delivered for JT. We watched another fine moment when Justin calmly carried on a conversation with a companion while completely ignoring a badgering SUN reporter in an extended camera shot. Awesome.
Trudeau can’t jeopardize this thing with SUN News by getting all friendly. He needs Levant, Lilley and the odd vapid reporter as adversaries to make him look good to Canadians.
More “Gotcha!” journalism produces storm of outrage
December 15, 2013
I just listened to the tape of Conservative cabinet minister James Moore’s scrum interview last Friday with Sara Norman of News1130 in Vancouver. Moore has a point when he claims that his comments were taken out of context. The ensuing headline: “Federal Minister says child poverty not Ottawa’s problem” is not strictly inaccurate, but it certainly didn’t reflect what Moore would have chosen to say on the topic.
On Twitter Norman devoutly maintains that the headline is legitimate: “.@saradnorman responds: It’s on tape and taken directly in context. I asked the questions about child poverty, those were the answers.”
I believe that Norman overstates her case. Moore did wheel out standard Tory talking points to avoid the reporter’s question, and he did come off as unfeeling as a result, but to selectively edit Moore’s words as Norman did is not fair, and Moore doesn’t deserve the Twitter storm currently under way.
http://www.news1130.com/2013/12/15/raw-james-moore-in-scrum-with-news1130s-sara-norman/
Conservative attack ad in Punjabi
December 14, 2013
This one really rankles. The outright lies in it I highlighted.
Justin Trudeau has a famous last name, but he lacks the judgement to be Prime Minister. His only policy priority so far is to promote the legalization of marijuana. He wants to make it available for sale, like alcohol and tobacco. But that would dramatically increase its availability to minors and send the message that recreational drug use is acceptable. To highlight Justin Trudeau’s policy and his lack of judgement, the Conservative Party has released ads in communities across Canada. Stephen Harper’s Conservative Government is following a very different priority, working to help make our streets and communities safer. This includes combatting drug trafficking and grow-ops*, especially in residential areas. Justin Trudeau and the Liberals don’t stop to consider the harmful effects of marijuana on users and society, especially when it comes to younger Canadians. Justin Trudeau’s plan to make marijuana more freely available without considering the consequences shows he doesn’t have the judgement to be Prime Minister. He’s in way over his head.
I stated early this year that I would contribute $50 to the LPC for every attack ad I encountered (up to the $1100 maximum), so I guess it’s time for me to open up the bank account again and send another contribution to battle unfair advertising directed at JT.
*While condemning the legalization of marijuana and Justin Trudeau, Harper’s neo-cons have nevertheless gotten in on the ground floor of a growth industry they are creating by banning the licensed home production of medical marijuana. Witness the purchase of the Hershey Plant in Smiths Falls for conversion to a legal grow op. The whole deal is designed to take advantage of favourable legislation the Harper government will provide in the spring. When you get past the figureheads on the incorporation papers, I’d be very interested to see who’s behind this one.
Not another Friday 13th!
December 13, 2013
The second Friday in September this year was really bad, and I have memories of quite a few unfortunate Friday 13ths with which to compare it. So this time I vowed to be especially careful and to avoid all contact with machinery until the day was over or I had accumulated three catastrophes from other sources.
Bad things travel in threes for me on Friday 13th.
So I cowered inside on a beautiful day and waited. Not much was happening. Took the dog for a run in the woods and we came back chilled, but intact. Then I noticed the truck tracks in the driveway. Gas delivery. No problem.
My mother asked me to check the calculations of her propane bill. O.K., disaster #1 for the day. Propane has gone from 57 cents per litre to 75.9 in the year since I installed the furnace.
Speaking of furnaces, Bet checked the oil level in ours and quickly called the fuel company. Apparently they had forgotten about us, and the tank was below 25%. Disaster #2.
An online payment froze up when I pressed “Send” on Paypal. Disaster #3. O.K., I’m set now.
But then I received an email receipt for the payment. Oops… back to waiting for #3 and watching sitcoms. In bed.
Got up to go the the washroom and somehow, I don’t know how, managed to drop my cell phone into the W.C. I immediately rescued the little LG and dried it off while it cycled through its on/off routine. Then it uttered a sad little bleep and died. None of our efforts to revive it produced any reaction. It had shorted out.
That’s my only phone. We don’t have a land line. So now I have to find a replacement for it. That’s about standard for me on Friday the 13th.
Seat cushions for cold weather
December 11, 2013
My grandfather and even my dad used to talk about the importance of the right seat cushion for horse-drawn implements. The favourite for hot weather use (pressed tin or cast iron seats) was a loon skin. Apparently loon plumage prevented scalding. I don’t remember what the prescribed insulation for winter piles-prevention was, though it was strictly forbidden to sit on anything hard and cold. For example you’ll never see a Leeds County rural resident sit down on the ground until at least June.
Now that I think of it, the wealthy had buffalo robes and raccoon coats, and the embroidered wool seat upholstery on buggies and cutters had more wool underneath as padding.
As a student I used my grandfather’s raccoon coat for winter attire. I remember a couple of bike rides across Kingston shielded by the full-length coat. Wonderful wind protection. On one occasion I got out onto Lake Ontario on glare ice and rode to Wolfe Island, then turned right and fetched up in Amherstview, where I asked my uncle for a ride back to Morris Hall. Tailwind. It was kinda hairy riding across Collins Bay, but I was young and immortal.
Other ramblings about cold weather seat cushions (perhaps our most basic technology) are welcome.
Dismantling of Fishery Library ‘Like a Book Burning,’ Say Scientists
December 9, 2013
UPDATE: 8 January, 2014
Gail Shea, Canada’s Minister of Fisheries, has denied the relocation of library materials was anything other than a cost-cutting move, though Huffington Post further rebuts that argument:
http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/2014/01/08/gail-shea-fisheries-libraries-book-burn_n_4562894.html
Columnist Frances Russell weighs in from National Newswatch:
http://www.nationalnewswatch.com/2014/01/08/book-burning-21st-century-style/#.Us2xf_aE4us
This The Tyee article is too important to miss.
Candice Bergen apparently thinks her Cornwall audience is stupid.
December 8, 2013
Long Gun Registry poster girl Candice Bergen spoke to supporters in Cornwall recently. The willful stupidity of her comments got my goat.
Conservative MP Candice Bergen:
“Would you want him (Justin Trudeau) to be the principal of your children or grandchildren’s school, much less leading this country?”
(She belittles the teaching profession. It’s one of the highest rated in public esteem, but she pushes the job of school administrator down lower on the scale than that of a politician, one of the lowest rated occupations.)
“I’m deeply concerned with this movement that somehow marijuana isn’t harmful and it doesn’t hurt our kids,” said Bergen.
(Bergen doesn’t quite commit libel here, but in the context of her earlier comment, she’s clearly attempting to tar Trudeau with this made-up brush.)
This juxtaposition of images is deceitful in that it drags the reader into accepting that JT wants to give marijuana to school children — a favourite Tory meme. Bergen willfully ignores Trudeau’s frequent references to the research on marijuana’s psychotic effect upon growing brains.
JT firmly believes that marijuana is bad for kids, particularly for adolescent boys with ADD and ADDHD, because that’s what the research says. Trudeau wants to take the underworld out of the cannabis market so that there can be reasonable controls on access to the product. He wants to get the drugs out of the schools as much as any grandparent.
Bergen and the Conservatives know this, but they willfully dumb their arguments down to black and white because they believe their supporters are too stupid to understand Trudeau’s reasoned argument and they can benefit from that stupidity.
What’s more, Bergen may be right:
https://rodcroskery.wordpress.com/2011/03/21/the-authoritarian-voter/
Ice Reports begin today.
November 28, 2013
If you look to the right you’ll find a page entitled “A New Ice Report…” I’ll try to keep it updated throughout the season.
First snow
November 27, 2013
About 8″ of soft, slippery stuff. My 2WD tractor was at a loss without tire chains attached, and I had little inclination to muck around in the slush to put them on.
So I hitched the 5′ snowblower to the small Kubota I bought to mow lawns and fields of tree seedlings. Its 4WD HST and compact size made short work of the snow.
Mind you, I did get very wet. The TAFE has a good loader and a cab with lights on it. On cold winter nights it may well still appeal, though for a moment this morning when the Kubota B7510 was chewing its way uphill on the slush while pushing a snowblower, I allowed myself to think about how the farm might run without any tractors larger than the 21 hp ‘Bota.
If the facts don’t fit, change them.
November 18, 2013
The morning chuckle today: accused mastermind of the Robocalls Scandal Michael Sona was apparently vacationing in Aruba at the time his co-workers accuse him of confessing his plot to them.
It’s hard to argue with travel records, but who cares if he wasn’t there at the time the offense was committed? This is Toryland, where if the facts don’t fit, change them until they do.
If Justin Trudeau’s speaking to students about marijuana legalization last week wasn’t nefarious enough, change them to elementary school kids. Right, Peter MacKay, Minister of Truth?
the Walnut Diary 