Last year I sent an angry email to the NDP explaining to them that Global Warming, as it was then called, is not man-made, and that they were wrong in their environmental policy. I promptly got a reply thanking me, and that they too were concerned that human-induced global warming is destroying the planet (?), and then they added me to their email list calling me “friend”. So I sent another email asking them if they even read the email that comes in, to which I got no reply.

And so, this evening I received another email from my NEW Democratic “friends” begging me for money because they want to put a new ad on TV but they don’t have the money, so if I could please send them some.

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Dion’s New Creed: Ditch the Shift, Pitch The Team.

Yes, Dion has ditched the widely unpopular and poorly understood Green Shaft plan, and is pitching a newly minted “team approach” on the campaign. Apparently, Ignatieff is doing the announcements now. At least we can understand what he is trying to say: over $80M for the auto industry. I don’t hear Jackie complaining about this ‘corporate bailout’… Oh, in the “Another Day, Another Billion” file: another $1B or so for farmers. Since we ran into one on the campaign trail.

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Why on Earth is Lawrence Canon apologizing for what his aide said in Maniwaki? She said nothing insulting. She said nothing out of line. There is a history there: six of the same group were hauled off on June 26 for disorderly conduct during a “sit in” at the constituency office. Then last week one of them showed up at the office looking intoxicated. She merely said, in order not to repeat past troubles, that if you want another meeting, conduct yourselves (reference to the “sit in”), and be sober (reference to last week’s incident). How is this insulting to all aboriginals across Canada?

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And we’re spending like drunken sailors!

I complained before Harper is only rolling out small announcements. I am beginning to understand his reasons. These are hard economic times, whether the electorate realises it or not. The recession in the States WILL drag us down, the question is how far. And reckless spending will not help this situation in any way. A measured, controlled spending will be the best thing to do economically. Canadians should realise we’re on the brink of a recession. This is not the time to go spending like drunken sailors.

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Free University Education, Anyone?

The Liberals promised to make University virtually free for most students. Yes, in a country with a crumbling health care system, crumbling infrastructure, crumbling Military, we need to make universities free for most people. Students can’t possibly be expected to work to make about $6000/yr to pay for tuition & books. That means, well, you’d have to work two nights a week and an entire Saturday! And you can’t go out and drink anymore! We can’t have that, so we’re all gonna pay their tuition for them. Nice. You know, we already have extremely low tuition fees. Name me any other country where you can get a year’s worth of quality University education for under $5000. They promise 300,000 grants and bursaries of $3,500 – $4,000 each. That’s around $1,200,000,000 ANUALLY. That is in ADDITION to the $25B education endowment fund. I suppose our carbon tax will pay for that. Oh wait, it was going to pay for those fisheries announcements earlier. Or income tax cuts. Wait, I’m confused…

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A Hidden Agenda, A Pie in the Sky, and Other Fluff

I know this is only week two, but geez, this election must be one of the most  b o r i n g  ones in recent history. I mean, all we have talked about so far are pooping puffins and whether or not certain people are in the debate. I was going to write a blog on day 10, well, there’s nothing to write about!

It’s just more of the same… the Liberals have rolled out the Hidden Agenda again. If they are so afraid of this hidden agenda, why did they go along with it and help implement it for the last 43 votes in the house? He also jumped on the Newfoundland ABC campaign – Anything But Conservative. So, even Dion thinks his party is not a good alternative. Layton, as usual, has a pretty decent idea for health care, but then follows it with a completely out-of-touch way of implementing it. I think, in general, New Democrats think that money just falls from the sky to be deposited on your kitchen table.

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Hear no evil, speak no evil.

Elizabeth May has resurfaced. Yes, after two days of curious absence, she has reappeared. It took her two days to come up with this plausible excuse: No, I said DISagree. I have a speech problem where I speak too fast and people didn’t hear the “DIS”. Are you kidding me? Are you such a Dion groupie that you’re even reaching for the same excuses now? One can’t hear, the other can’t speak. Great. And these two want to lead the country? For me, this just confirms it. If you expect us to believe this, you must really think the electorate are stupid. It seems Elizabeth May has made the final transition from fringe party to national party. In the words of the Marg, the Warrior Princess: Welcome to the sleaze-fest!

How does buying ‘offsets’ save the environment?

The press is complaining that the Conservatives are the only national party that didn’t buy any offsets for the flying around they are going to do during this election campaign. That makes them an environmentally unfriendly party.

I am concerned that ‘buying offsets’ is now seen as being “environmentally friendly”, and if you don’t buy them, you’re some sort of bastard who doesn’t care this planet is going to waste. Nobody has of yet been able to explain to me how buying offsets is cleaning up the environment. You’re still flying around the country. You’re still driving that car. You just feel better about it. I have written before in my blog, the majority of these carbon credit offset selling companies will plant a vague number of trees for this money. And that is only found out after prying: go visit any number of Carbon Credit companies, and you’ll be hard pressed to find what they are actually going to do with the money. They use vague terms like “We need to put back the trees that have been cut down” and “Change human behaviour” or “Offset: what you can’t reduce today with certified offsets “. After prying, for some companies it comes out to be about 20,000 trees per $1,000,000 worth of credits. It may sound like a large number of trees, but 20,000 trees is what one good tree planter can plant in about 10 days. And those trees would have been planted anyway (there are about 600,000,000 trees planted in Canada every year by the logging industry), but these 20,000 have found a sponsor other than the logging business: you. read more…

Still No Sun Spots: The Ice Age Cometh.

Jackie today was big on platitudes, small on substance. That seems to be the NDP’s matra. He’s going to “take on” big oil, and “watch your backs”. He’s also going to “oversee” gas prices. As usual, no talk on exactly HOW he’s going to bring down gas prices, HOW he’s going to stop big oil. Oh, but he’s going to MONITOR them. Thanks. That’ll save us. You know, Jackie, just wishing something doesn’t make it so. You gotta have a plan.

Dion, in the mean time, wants to reverse the new immigration rules he so readily abstained from defeating just this spring. It seems he now disagrees with the fact we’re fast tracking more skilled immigrants that can actually do some good work in this country. I guess he would rather see doctors drive taxi cabs than perform operations. He also said he would apologize in the House of Commons for some other thing our government did over a century ago. Don’t you think we’ve apologized enough already? We weren’t even alive when those things happened. We’re not responsible for them, so why must we apologize? Let’s just say this: we appologize for anything and everything we did up until now. Now, let’s go on with running the country.

As usual, Danny Williams of Newfoundland has to tell his constituents how to vote, as if they they don’t have a mind of their own. For some reason, he doesn’t like the Conservatives, even though the Conservatives plan is clearly the best for his province. How does he think a Liberal Carbon tax would work in his oil rich economy? The Green carbon tax is even worse, and Layton’s Cap and Trade scheme can’t be good news for oil money either. The Conservatives are the only national party that wouldn’t tax his oil income. Sure, you miss out on some equalization payments, but you get to keep all that big fat oil money! Maybe it’s time Newfoundland starts to give something back to this country.

Gilles was, once again, in Quebec, so who cares.

Where is Elizabeth May? Has anyone seen her? Elizabeth May has not been seen or heard from for two days. This is her big thank you to the people who voiced their opinions so loudly that two party leaders and a consortium of old men changed their minds. “Thanks for getting me in, folks! Now I’m going to disappear. See ya later!”

You know, I went to the CBC.ca website to pick up on some election news bits. I couldn’t find any. I wondered why that mouthpiece of the Liberal party has NOTHING on the election on its front page. Then it dawned on me: there is nothing good to report about the Liberal campaign. They’re way down in the polls. They are not coming out with new policies, although the Green Shaft plan is changing so much every day, you may call it a new plan every time it is mentioned. In order to get to the ‘election subsite’ you have to click on “Federal Election” in the “Recent Searches” box! I thought the election is the biggest story in this country, but the CBC website lists “Blue Jay Baseball” as its main headliner, followed closely by “Saturday Afternoon at the Opera”. Nice to see our tax dollars at work over there.

News flash for Jack: CO2 is plant food. It is good for the environment

Layton, once again followed in Harper’s footsteps by visiting cities where Harper had just been the day before. He criticized Harper and Dion’s environmental plans, saying they would not clean up the air, while offering his own “Cap and Trade” scheme, which, of course, will not clean up the air either, because 1) a trade scheme will just move the emissions from one company to another, and 2) Carbon Dioxide is NOT A POLLUTANT.

Dion vowed, when elected. he would ban all “military assault weapons” and “take them off our streets”. Someone ought to tell him there are no military assault weapons on our streets because they are banned outside the military. They’ve been banned since, like, forever. Day 4 and still no points for Dion.

Once again, the Conservatives’ campaign got overshadowed by stupidity. An aide has been suspended for making insensitive remarks about the father of a fallen soldier who criticized Harper’s fixed withdrawal date for the Afghan mission. Harper dealt with it swiftly and justly. However, these mistakes have got to stop! I know we’re still in the early days here, but geez, can we get some focus on policy?

Liz White, of the Animal Alliance Environment Voters Party, yes, that one, said May’s inclusion in the debate is great news for the fringe parties. She said all of her 72 supporters would like to see her up on the debate podium as well. And why stop there? Let’s invite all party leaders, including a dozen or so independents. Let’s see if we can have a debate with 30 something people up there.

I am happy Hypocrisy 1 is up and flying, so Dion can leave the province. It was starting to feel like house arrest. Like he was being punished by the other leaders. Yay, five days in and the Liberal campaign is off!