Will the real pornographers please stand up? (don’t worry – it’s not a confidence vote)

Cherniak sets off wet firecracker on Conservatives; forgets Liberal thongs and rubbers

Undaunted by the fact that his last attempt at nailing the Conservatives blew up in his face, Britney Cherniak is at it again, claiming the Tory yout’ have borrowed an image from a porn site.

Of course, burned from his most recent fiasco, Britney is careful to insert this blanket caveat:

. . . please note that I do not take credit for the research. Somebody else sent me the information and I wrote the post.

Unfortunately for Cherniak, the Liberals hardly qualify for membership in the anti-sex league described in George Orwell’s 1984:

Politics isn’t sexy? Tell that to the thousands of delegates at the Liberal convention.

Forget the hunt for undecided delegates, people here want to get their hands on the sought-after “I’m Liberal” thong underwear.

Five hundred pairs were ordered, in both official languages, and already size medium is sold out in French and English.

The $16 underwear has generated a lot of interest from delegates stopping by the Liberal merchandise table.

“I should get one of those,” retired senator Marian Maloney said when she spotted the mini black cotton underwear.

Ms. Maloney, who is 82, bought a pair. They’re for her daughter-in-law, she said, after playfully posing for a picture.

Condoms are also being distributed at the convention. More than 2,000 bright red contraceptives bearing the Young Liberals of Canada logo will be given out throughout the weekend.
--CanWest News Service, December 1, 2006

Well, it looks like the condoms were a good idea. Here's a tale told by an anonymous commenter on Big City Lib's blog:

My longtime "friend" who I accompanied to the convention went out to "vote" friday evening and although she made it back to the hotel alright she must have had a little too much of the free, cheap wine because she ended up in the wrong room, in the wrong bed!

It was her first convention and I guess she must have known that liberals go to get laid so didn't want to let the party down. This inciddent has now started in motion a chain of events that will ultimately reflect very poorly on her and her riding. But on the up side the sex was apparently great and she did get a free scarf!

Bush takes Hillary fishing on Lake Tahoe

White House clarifies that it’s Hillary who’s holding up release of her records as first lady (as if there were ever any doubt)

The White House on Wednesday blamed the Clintons for a month-long delay in the release of some 11,000 pages of records relating to Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton's years as first lady, despite Sen. Clinton's contention at Tuesday night's debate that she has "urged that the process [of releasing documents] be as quick as possible."

White House Press Secretary Dana Perino said that Clinton representatives have known since Jan. 31 that the documents -- Hillary Clinton's daily public schedule during her husband's presidency -- have been deemed ready for public release by the National Archives.

But under a November 2001 executive order, the White House can't make them available to the public until approval is given by a designated representative of former President Bill Clinton.

"Presently, we have not received notice that the Clinton representative has reached a decision on the release or withholding of any of Mrs. Clinton's schedules," Perino said, adding that the White House has not objected to approval of any of the more than 550,000 pages of documents released so far from the Clinton years.

"It is our intent and has been the practice to act on any requests as quickly as possible," Perino said.
--ABC News, today

Perhaps George W. Bush had finally had enough of Hillary’s stump speech line that refers to Bill having to “clean up” after Bush 41, and her expecting to do the same after Bush 43.

Hillary Rodham Stalin

Democrat lawyer recalls Hillary’s attempts to turn Watergate into a show trial

From an article by Jerry Zeifman for Accuracy in Media (h/t: NRO’s The Corner):

At the time of Watergate I had overall supervisory authority over the House Judiciary Committee's Impeachment Inquiry staff that included Hillary Rodham-who was later to become First Lady in the Clinton White House.

During that period I kept a private diary of the behind the scenes congressional activities. My original tape recordings of the diary and other materials related to the Nixon impeachment provided the basis for my prior book Without Honor and are now available for inspection in the George Washington University Library.

. . .

After hiring Hillary, Doar assigned her to confer with me regarding rules of procedure for the impeachment inquiry. At my first meeting with her I told her that Judiciary Committee Chairman Peter Rodino, House Speaker Carl Albert, Majority Leader Tip O'Neill, Parliamentarian Lou Deschler and I had previously all agreed that we should rely only on the then existing House Rules, and not advocate any changes. I also quoted Tip O'Neill's statement that: "To try to change the rules now would be politically divisive. It would be like trying to change the traditional rules of baseball before a World Series."

Hillary assured me that she had not drafted, and would not advocate, any such rules changes. However, as documented in my personal diary, I soon learned that she had lied. She had already drafted changes, and continued to advocate them. In one written legal memorandum, she advocated denying President Nixon representation by counsel. In so doing she simply ignored the fact that in the committee's then-most-recent prior impeachment proceeding, the committee had afforded the right to counsel to Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas.

I had also informed Hillary that the Douglas impeachment files were available for public inspection in the committee offices. She later removed the Douglas files without my permission and carried them to the offices of the impeachment inquiry staff-where they were no longer accessible to the public.

Hillary had also made other ethically flawed procedural recommendations, arguing that the Judiciary Committee should: not hold any hearings with-or take depositions of-any live witnesses; not conduct any original investigation of Watergate, bribery, tax evasion, or any other possible impeachable offense of President Nixon; and should rely solely on documentary evidence compiled by other committees and by the Justice Department's special Watergate prosecutor.

Only a few far-left Democrats supported Hillary's recommendations. A majority of the committee agreed to allow President Nixon to be represented by counsel and to hold hearings with live witnesses. Hillary then advocated that the official rules of the House be amended to deny members of the committee the right to question witnesses. This recommendation was voted down by the full House. The committee also rejected her proposal that we leave the drafting of the articles of impeachment to her and her fellow impeachment-inquiry staffers.

You know, some people like to refer to Hillary as “Hillary Milhous Clinton” but I think that’s unfair. To Nixon.

Update: Commenter Dennis Prouse suggests that this video provides a more apt comparison:

Dump Tory group shoots itself in the grassroots

Bizarre news release helps McGuinty, discredits pro-review forces

I have not weighed in publicly on the John Tory leadership review (for the record, I helped out on the campaign and am against review), but this release, issued by the “Grassroots PC” group headed by former party president Rueben Devlin and former MPP Bart Maves, needs to be cited for its clumsiness, in both ideation and execution.

The release attacks Tory’s recent speech to the Registered Nurses Association of Ontario. Below are some excerpts, followed by the response of Tory supporter John Ratchford:

Grassroots PC: [Tory] called for new initiatives to attract and retain nurses – a great idea. The slightly embarrassing fact, though, is that the Liberal government has already implemented each one of the great new ideas he suggested.

Grassroots PC: Great New Idea #1: “Implementing the creation of 70 per cent full-time employment for nurses”
Slightly Embarrassing Fact #1: Every hospital in Ontario is already required to have 70 per cent fulltime employed nurses…it’s government policy.

Ratchford: Fact: Ontario’s nurses say the Liberals haven’t kept their promise. Doris Grinspun, Executive Director of the RNAO, said: “Targeted funding is crucial if the government is going to achieve its goals of increasing Ontario’s nursing workforce by 9,000 and having 70 percent of nurses working full-time.” (RNAO press release, January 22, 2008)

Grassroots PC: Great New Idea #3: “Establishing nurse-led clinics that would allow nurses to take a lead role in areas such as chronic disease management.”
Slightly Embarrassing Fact #3: On November 30, 2005 the Liberal government announced $15 million for the creation of 69 new diabetes education and care teams.

Ratchford: The error-ridden news release also declares that the Liberals have kept their promise and created nurse-led clinics, pointing to an extremely small $15 million program as proof of the accomplishment.
Fact: Here’s what the RNAO said in their January 22 news release: “RNAO says the need to immediately improve the public’s access to primary health is why the association wants to see 12 of the 25 nurse-led clinics, promised during the election campaign, up and running in 2008.”

***********************************************************

Well, to point out the obvious, the fact that something is “government policy,” doesn’t mean it’s actually happening. For example, it’s “government policy” that class sizes from grades JK to 3 are capped at 20. But the McGuinty Fiberals have failed to achieve that, despite spending a couple billion and having four years to do it.

And giving the Liberals credit by citing a two-year-old funding announcement that equates to maybe 20% of the full clinic idea Tory proposes? Talk about apples and oranges. Or more like the way teachers are being encouraged to mark these days: no marks off for incomplete or late assignments.

I respect the right of the dump Tory crowd to get their messages out. But I fail to see the “strategery” in putting out a release that credits McGuinty with things he hasn’t achieved. It doesn’t advance their cause; it just hurts our caucus and whoever might succeed Tory, should these guys achieve their goal at the review in London.

In addition to serving as unpaid water-carriers for McGuinty, “Grassroots PC” have ceded the high ground they tried to claim with Devlin’s introductory comment on their website: “while we respect John Tory and appreciate his service to the party, he is not the leader our party and Ontario need to succeed in the future.” Issuing a release that could have come from the Liberal war room falls rather short of showing respect for Tory.

I grant that opposing the leader while supporting the party can be a tough wire to walk. But these guys have deliberately dived off that wire headfirst – without a net.

Endnote: Hugh MacIntyre has a different view.

Absent Liberals leave Dion red-faced

30 Liberal MPs AWOL on Monday, caucus sporting scarlet scarves on Wednesday. Coincidence?

These days, it is not always clear that the official opposition has the fire in the belly to acquit itself of some of its most basic parliamentary duties. On Monday, the first day back in Parliament after a six-week break, more than 30 Liberal MPs were missing in action for question period.
--Chantal Hébert, Toronto Star, today

Mike Duffy also noted the thin Liberal ranks to Liberal whip Karen Redman on his program Monday. The clip is titled "Party whips discuss the stance on Afghanistan" and Duffy refers to the absent Liberals at about 4:20. Redman defends the absentees at about 8:00.

As some politician once said: "You can fake that you care, but you can't fake being there."

Perhaps Monday's embarassing attendance is why Liberal MPs were wearing red scarves in the House today (after this morning's caucus): a public gesture of solidarity.

But maybe it's Dion who needs the warm garments. If I were a leader possibly facing an election in a matter of weeks, and 30 of my MPs couldn't be bothered to show up to support me during the first question period after the winter break, I'd be feeling pretty chilled.

Update: According to commenter Jason, the red scarves had to do with a charitable initiative, and not Dion's caucus support. My apologies.

Mrs. Lynne Yelich (Blackstrap, CPC):
Mr. Speaker, tomorrow, January 31, is National Red Scarf Day. Twelve year old Miss Hannah Taylor initiated this campaign. As a young child, she witnessed a person homeless and hungry and was moved to take action to combat homelessness in Canada.

The Minister of Human Resources and Social Development and I met with this charming young lady this morning to express our government's support for her great work.

We recognize that a safe and stable home is an important first step on the path out of poverty. Our new homelessness partnering strategy works with other levels of government, the private sector and community organizations like Hannah's Ladybug Foundation to implement solutions that address local problems. Together, our work is delivering results.

We recognize National Red Scarf Day. On behalf of the government, I am pleased to acknowledge the valuable work of Hannah Taylor, the Ladybug Foundation and the Canadians who support this worthy cause. We thank Hannah.
--Hansard, Wednesday

May too Liberal with her punctuation

Harper never used Keen’s given name, nor the word “waiting” in the Commons

Taking a break from her rantings about Adolf Hitler, Green Party supremo Elizabeth May turns to another old lib-left chestnut, Stephen Harper’s supposed sexism. Unfortunately, she relied upon some invented facts to make her case:

And now I turn to an unexamined aspect of the Harper abuse: sexism. The ways he spit out the name “Linda Keen” day after day in Question Period, suggested he felt he could make hay out of the fact the President of the CNSC was a woman. If CNSC member Dr. Christopher Barnes, with both an Order of Canada and membership in the Royal Society of Canada, had been its President, I simply cannot imagine the Prime Minister rounding on Michael Ignatieff, as he did in the House, demanding if he was prepared to wait for “Dr. Christopher Barnes” with the scorn in his voice he emoted for “waiting for Ms. Keen!”.
--Elizabeth May, guest-posting at Scott’s DiaTribes, January 21, 2008

Just for a lark, I checked Hansard. Harper referred to Keen by name a grand total of five times: once on December 12, and four times on December 13. On every occasion, he referred to her as “Ms. Keen,” not “Linda Keen.”

And he never used the word “waiting” in reference to her in the Commons. In fact, if you search the entire Parliament site for the phrase “waiting for Ms. Keen” you get 0 results.

Well, as some say, never let the facts get in the way of a good story. Or perhaps May just doesn’t understand what quotation marks mean.

I checked the video too. You can view the December 12 clip here (Harper starts at about 21:00) and the December 13 clip here (Harper starts at about 04:19:30). I guess if May wants to describe Harper as spitting that's her prerogative, but he struck me as more bewildered and bemused at the Liberals' flip-flopping.

Delacourt: Keen coverage is payback for Harper’s treatment of press gallery

Media are making a point – about themselves

In case anyone missed Friday’s “Politics” broaaadcast on Newsworld, Toronto Star columnist Susan Delacourt provided a rare moment of insight into the media’s attitudes (or at least her own). Her comment starts at about 49:30:

Delacourt: This is where, I’ve been thinking about this for the last couple of days, their media strategy – I know it sounds like we’re fixed on this – but remember, that we here in the media, one of the things that we’re supposed to be is independent as well.

And for the last two years, this government has sort of shown, sort of, the back of the hand to that whole idea of independence, or sort of distance, and I think this is where it catches up with them.

The media is gonna tell this story from the experience they know which is – we don’t know what it’s like to get someone on your doorstep firing you at ten o’clock at night – but we certainly know what it feels like to be trifled with and to be played around with and bullied.

And I think that’s where, if these guys had had a little more of a farsighted media strategy, that maybe this story would be being told a different way. But I’ve been very surprised watching the way this story has been reported. And how else would we report it? It’s what we know here.

While it’s indisputable that the Harper government has imposed a strict discipline on government communications and spokespersons (an understandable policy for a conservative government), this can hardly be described as giving reporters the “back of the hand.” What it has given the back of its hand to is the old style of media relations under the Liberals.

Under that style, Hill reporters were not treated with independence or distance; they were treated as pets to be cultivated and – if deemed sympathetic – rewarded with leaks from inside government, weekly caucus meetings, and not-so-underground leadership campaigns. (Sounds like trifling and playing to me.)

Delacourt’s comments suggest that reporters have decided to take a stand on their independence – by sabotaging it (“How dare Harper treat us like we’re biased, we’ll show him – by being biased!”). Which seems rather like cutting off one’s nose to spite one’s face.

This is why Kimmel rules my late night

Check out this YouTube of Jimmy Kimmel’s interview Monday night with two guys from Louisiana, who had been thrown out of their (former) favourite all-you-can-eat Chinese buffet. (You may have heard about this incident in the news.)

Unfortunately, the video has a one-minute gap starting just before 6:00, but if you skip ahead to about 7:00, you will get a last laugh.



I think Letterman still does interviews like this too, but his are painfully unfunny. Like the rest of his show.

This just in . . .

CP figures out that February holiday won’t come cheap and wasn't thought through – four months after it was announced

The Liberal government's plan to give Ontario workers a new holiday next month will cost municipal taxpayers millions of dollars, and Premier Dalton McGuinty admitted Tuesday there are still "wrinkles" to be ironed out regarding Family Day.

There are also fears the new statutory holiday will mean increased costs to clear roads if it snows on Feb. 18 because towns and cities would have to pay a premium to anyone called in to work due to a storm or other emergency such as a broken water main.
--“Family Day to cost Ontario municipal taxpayers millions of dollars,” Canadian Press, today

But CP saved the best for the end of the story:

"We're going to have to find a way to iron out some of the wrinkles that develop as we bring in place the very first Family Day," McGuinty said. "Undoubtedly there were wrinkles of this nature when they first put in place the original eight statutory holidays."

Damn you, Jesus!

The sound of selective science

(With apologies to Kate)

From the New York Times’ John Tierney (h/t: Andrew Potter):

Today’s interpreters of the weather are what social scientists call availability entrepreneurs: the activists, journalists and publicity-savvy scientists who selectively monitor the globe looking for newsworthy evidence of a new form of sinfulness, burning fossil fuels.

A year ago, British meteorologists made headlines predicting that the buildup of greenhouse gases would help make 2007 the hottest year on record. At year’s end, even though the British scientists reported the global temperature average was not a new record — it was actually lower than any year since 2001 — the BBC confidently proclaimed, “2007 Data Confirms Warming Trend.”

When the Arctic sea ice last year hit the lowest level ever recorded by satellites, it was big news and heralded as a sign that the whole planet was warming. When the Antarctic sea ice last year reached the highest level ever recorded by satellites, it was pretty much ignored. A large part of Antarctica has been cooling recently, but most coverage of that continent has focused on one small part that has warmed.

When Hurricane Katrina flooded New Orleans in 2005, it was supposed to be a harbinger of the stormier world predicted by some climate modelers. When the next two hurricane seasons were fairly calm — by some measures, last season in the Northern Hemisphere was the calmest in three decades — the availability entrepreneurs changed the subject. Droughts in California and Australia became the new harbingers of climate change (never mind that a warmer planet is projected to have more, not less, precipitation over all).
--John Tierney, New York Times, January 1

Telegraph names General Petraeus its first Person of the Year

Nuts to you, Time!


From today’s Telegraph:

Today, we put him in the spotlight again by naming Gen Petraeus as The Sunday Telegraph's Person of the Year, a new annual accolade to recognise outstanding individual achievement.

He has been the man behind the US troop surge over the past 10 months, the last-ditch effort to end Iraq's escalating civil war by putting an extra 28,000 American troops on the ground.

So far, it has achieved what many feared was impossible. Sectarian killings are down. Al-Qaeda is on the run. And the two million Iraqis who fled the country are slowly returning. Progress in Iraq is relative - 538 civilians died last month. But compared with the 3,000 peak of December last year, it offers at least a glimmer of hope.

To appreciate the scale of the task Gen Petraeus took on, it is necessary to go back to February 22, 2006. Or, as Iraqis now refer to it, their own September 11. That was when Sunni-led terrorists from al-Qaeda blew up the Shia shrine in the city of Samarra, an act of provocation that finally achieved their goal of igniting sectarian civil war.

A year on, an estimated 34,000 people had been killed on either side - some of them members of the warring Sunni and Shia militias, but most innocents tortured and killed at random. US casualties continued to rise, too, but increasingly American troops became the bystanders in a religious conflict that many believed they could no longer tame.

Things are far from perfect but, after four years in which events did nothing but get worse, the sight of a souk re-opening, or a Shia family being welcomed back home by their Sunni neighbours, has remarkable morale-boosting power.

Where once Iraqis saw the glass as virtually empty, now they can see a day when it might at least be half full.



Hat tip: NRO's Web Briefing.

The most hated person in Dallas since J.R. Ewing

If that's not what they're calling Jessica Simpson in Dallas tonight -- they should.

The tuna enthusiast and champion hair flipper was in attendance today at Texas Stadium in Dallas to watch her latest boyfriend/prey, Cowboys quarterback Tony Romo. Romo played his worst game of the year, which was only Dallas’ second loss of the season (to the Philadelphia Eagles, 10-6):

Romo was 13-of-36 for 214 yards. All three pickoffs came on balls forced to Owens. He also was sacked four times, all on the final two drives, when his banged-up hand bothered him so much he dropped a ball while cocking to throw.

His quarterback rating of 22.2 was easily the worst of his career. His previous worst was at home against Philadelphia last December, another game attended by a starlet love interest. It was Carrie Underwood then, Jessica Simpson now. When cameras spotted Simpson in the first half, she tugged the front of her pink No. 9 jersey, then mouthed the word “Romo!”

Well, at least she didn't have to spell it.

Now, in fairness, Jessica Simpson does have loads of beauty and talent. Compared to her sister.

But she is a painfully transparent starf***er, having unsuccessfully pursued Maroon 5 frontman Adam Levine, before latching onto sensitive singer-songwriter John Mayer. (But he eventually wised up.) Both "relationships" were punctuated by media leaks that obviously came from Simpson's camp.

Now, I don’t really care if Jessica Simpson ruins John Mayer’s career. But my Cowboys? Time to hit the road, Jess.

Update: Chelsea Handler agrees with me:

"Jessica Simpson attended boyfriend Tony Romo's football game. The Cowboys quarterback had the worst game of his career. It's a bad year for the name Simpson. Even O.J. is pissed, he feels like they're making his name look bad."

By the way, I recommend Handler's nighly show on the E! Network, seen in southern Ontario on CH at 12:00 midnight. Her topical panel at the top of the show is very funny, and she has continued to have new shows throughout the writers' strike. (I also recommend E!'s "Talk Soup," which is like three Kimmel monologues in a row.)

Well, Chrétien did publish two ghostwritten memoirs . . .

Allegations that someone at the CBC is the Wayland Flowers to the Liberals’ Madame (ask your grandparents) bring to mind this clip from last week:

Steve Paikin: They wanna call you. Are you prepared for that?

“Fifth Estate” producer Harvey Cashore: Well, I’ve gotta, you know, think about what that means. My job as a journalist is not to go speaking to, you know, to be a function or an arm of a committee like that. My stories speak for themselves. So I would say what I’m excited about is they have the power to subpoena people who I couldn’t talk to. Let’s hear what they have to say.
--“The Agenda,” TVO, December 6

Video here. The above excerpt is about three-quarters through.

Now, of course I’m not saying that Cashore himself had anything to do with ghosting or suggesting Liberal questions to Brian Mulroney (and if they were the questions about the wireless spectrum decision, I very much doubt he did). But it will be interesting to see if there’s any response from the CBC.

Update: The Conservative Party has complained to the CBC, and the CBC is investigating. (h/t: Stephen Taylor)

Liberals tried to delay Mulroney’s appearance until after David Johnston’s report

Afraid Mulroney’s testimony will weaken case for public inquiry.

CBC's Cashore suggests he would not testify voluntarily.


This little nugget, reported on TV yesterday by CTV’s Bob Fife and Globe and Mail reporter Brian Laghi, appears to have flown under the radar:

“Actually Lloyd, the Liberals tried to block Mr. Mulroney’s appearance until late January, after the independent investigator sets the terms of reference for a public inquiry. They were afraid that if he shows up Thursday and he shows he didn’t do anything illegal, that the public inquiry wouldn’t be held. The NDP wouldn’t go along with this.”
--Bob Fife, CTV News, December 6

Presumably, this discussion took place at the in-camera meeting of the committee’s steering committee, after Karlheinz Schreiber gave his testimony Thursday.

Video of Fife’s report is here (titled “CTV News: Ottawa Bureau Chief Robert Fife reports 3:21”). The above comment starts around the 2:40 mark.

The Globe’s Laghi also mentioned the Liberals’ attempt to delay Mulroney’s testimony, on “Mike Duffy Live,” but video is not available.

Interesting. The party that insisted on having the ethics committee conduct hearings and got Schreiber out of jail with a rarely-used Speaker’s warrant – all while knowing that a public inquiry is coming – tried to delay the appearance of one of the key witnesses after only three days of hearings.

Another interesting shoe yet to drop in this story is whether the journalists of interest, such as Stevie Cameron and “Fifth Estate” journalists Linden MacIntyre and Harvey Cashore, will testify before the committee or a public inquiry.

Cashore appeared on TVO’s “The Agenda” last night, and suggested he would not testify voluntarily, but demurred when host Steve Paikin asked him what he would do if served with a Speaker’s warrant:

Paikin: You know who else they [the committee] wanna call (points to Cashore).

Cashore: Uhm, me. Yeah. (laughs)

Paikin: They wanna call you. Are you prepared for that?

Cashore: Well, I’ve gotta, you know, think about what that means. My job as a journalist is not to go speaking to, you know, to be a function or an arm of a committee like that. My stories speak for themselves. So I would say what I’m excited about is they have the power to subpoena people who I couldn’t talk to. Let’s hear what they have to say.

Paikin: I’m sure you’re thrilled about that. But what happens when the Speaker issues his warrant to get you and put your butt in that chair? You gonna go?

Cashore: Well, we’ll have to see what happens. We’ll have to see.

Paikin: We’ll have to see what happens? What kind of answer is that?

Cashore: (laughs) I’m being a politician!

A link to video of the December 6th show is here. The above exchange is about three-quarters through (there is no time counter on the video).

My guess is that no reporter will appear voluntarily before the committee or inquiry, and would fight a Speaker’s warrant in court.

But it would be interesting to see whether the committee would even take steps to obtain Speaker’s warrants for journalists. Stay tuned.

Lend me your vote – and some binoculars

Rae veteran Irene Mathyssen didn’t see what she thought she did on Moore’s computer

As an unjustly-persecuted American politician once asked, “Where do I go to get my reputation back?”

Perhaps that would be making too much of the swiftly-evaporated voyeurism charge, levelled by rookie Ontario New Democrat MP Irene Mathyssen against BC Conservative MP James Moore (for which she has now apologized). But there are few allegations that can be made against a male politician that are more damaging than that he might enjoy pictures of attractive, nearly nude women.

What’s interesting here is that Mathyssen went beyond saying it was inappropriate to view such material on the floor of the House of Commons. She argued that such material is inappropriate anywhere:

“It reflects an attitude of objectifying women and we know that when women and other human beings are objectified and dehumanized, they become the object of violence and abuse.”

As it turned out, however, Mathyssen was more Mr. Magoo than Sherlock Holmes: Moore soon realized that the photo Mathyssen had spotted from several desks away was of Moore’s dog and former girlfriend, who was committing the secular sin of wearing a bikini more than 100 metres away from a gay pride parade (the girlfriend, not the dog).

So, if you’ll forgive me, I couldn’t help but think that Moore could have easily deflected the allegations by saying that he was looking for information about the gay, bi-sexual, lesbian and transgendered communities. Or that he was looking at photos from the 2007 London Pride festival. Mathyssen marched in the parade, and placed an ad in its directory (page 52).

Irene Mathyssen was a cabinet minister in the late-and-unlamented, one-term government of one Robert K. Rae, now carefully drafting the Liberal policy platform for the next general election, which must be just good enough to allow Stéphane Dion to finish second in a minority Parliament. Tonight, he must be grateful that at least he doesn’t have to deal with the likes of Irene Mathyssen anymore. She was Rae’s minister without portfolio for culture, tourism and recreation from October 1994 to June 1995.

Mathyssen’s sputtering outrage over girlie pictures is typical of the attitude that prevailed in the Rae government and still prevails among Old Democrats and Liberals. The Rae government published the notorious Words that Count Women In, a painfully silly “guide to eliminating gender bias in writing and speech” (no, really). Also on its watch, Ontarians witnessed the absurdity of a sex scandal in which a minister had to resign, even though there had been no actual sex performed.

Today, the Liberals were quick to demonstrate that they could still give as good as the Dippers, with MP Karen Redman recklessly piling onto Moore, based solely on Mathyssen’s assertions.

You’d think the Dion Liberals would be more careful these days, having lately been embarrassed that their game of Six Degrees of Schreiber is not turning out how they had hoped. Oh, I forgot: the capacity for embarrassment is unnecessary ballast, to be shed early on the way to becoming a successful Liberal politician.

And now even Mark “Nancy Drew” Holland is pleading that an inquiry, not the ethics committee, is the place to question Schreiber. Um, yeah, that’s what the government said. But in fairness to his suggestion, the benefit now would be that the committee would be free to turn its attention to simpler but more pertinent matters, such as requiring all male Conservative MPs to submit to lie detector tests to determine whether they watched all or part of the "Victoria’s Secret" fashion show on TV last night.

Vote for Schreibergelder!

(But only if you really want to)

My recommendation – “Schreibergelder” – is in the running at Andrew Coyne’s “Name That Scandal” vote. The final four:

Airbust
Schreibergelder
Airbucks
Schreiberbriber

Frankly, I’m surprised I made it this far, as I got little support at the original post. But hey, I’ll take it!

Vote here.

“Me fail English? That’s unpossible!”

More bad spelling* from the Liberals

A federal Liberal Party mailing from leader Stephane Dion into a Vancouver riding about the controversial InSite safe drug injection site is under attack as "fear mongering" by the Conservatives, while the New Democratic Party calls it a "waste."

And the mailing, which misspells the word "minister" in referring to Prime Minister Stephen Harper, is a "rush job" and "confusing," say the two parties.
--24 hours Vancouver, today

* see also the post below

Bad timing for glad tidings

McGuinty Fiberals holding fundraising "celebration" on anniversary of Montreal Massacre

Well, I guess this is par for the course for a Premier whose advisers make misogynistic comments about female MPPs. Below is the graphic and text from an e-mail I received from the Ontario Liberal Party.

Also, their graphics people can't seem to spell "holiday."



Join us for the
Ontario Liberal Party
Holiday Celebration!

Celebrate the holiday season with fellow Liberals, including caucus members, Party President Gord Phaneuf and the Premier, at the 2007 Ontario Liberal Party Holiday Celebration.

This year's celebration takes place Thursday, Dec. 6 at the Intercontinental Hotel 225 Front Street West, in Toronto.

Tickets are $75 each or $750 for a table of ten.

To find out more, please call 416-961-3800 or 1-800-268-7250 or holidayparty2007@ontarioliberal.ca

You can click here for a form and fax it to 416-323-9425. Tickets are limited, so hurry.

Have a happy holiday season and a tremendous 2008!

Kindly resume sorting your recyclables

Halifax rejects Celine Dion, and vice versa

I’m a Celine Dion fan. I admit it. I went to Las Vegas solely for the purpose of seeing her show (and didn’t gamble a dime). I bought a program, a mug, and a keychain.

Of course, I am well aware that some people don’t like Dion’s music and/or her. They find her saccharine, bombastic, irritating, etc. They find her husband creepy. Whatever. It doesn’t bother me that other people don’t like her.

Frankly, it irritates me that Bill Clinton seems to come to Toronto every six months or so to speak at some event (for a fee in the neighbourhood of $100,000, I hear). Clinton is a narcissist who embodies everything that is wrong with his generation, plus he bombed my relatives in Serbia. So I really don’t have time for the guy.

But if a ballroom full of fools wants to pay $500 or $1,000 to have Bill Clinton look down their wives’ dresses, I really don’t care. So why should a few reporters in Halifax care whether people want to see a Celine Dion concert?

Celine Dion has never encountered such a negative reaction to a proposed concert as she did from Halifax, her husband-manager has told a Montreal journalist.

In response to a question from La Presse reporter Alain De Repentigny about the cancelled show on the Halifax Common, Rene Angelil said in French: If we’re not welcome in Halifax, we won’t go.

“Si nous ne sommes pas les bienvenus à Halifax, on n’ira pas,” Angelil said in the article posted Sunday on the Cyberpresse website.

This contradicts promoter Gillett Entertainment Group, which said the concert was cancelled Friday because the venue was not suited to the show’s elaborate production needs.

Gillett couldn’t be reached for comment yesterday, but the promoter confirmed to a Halifax newspaper last week that Dion will play a free show on the Plains of Abraham in Quebec City for its 400th anniversary celebration Aug. 22, the day before she was scheduled to play on the Common.

Angelil saw negative stories about Dion’s Halifax concert from two different journalists, he said.

“I asked him, ‘Well, maybe two journalists expressed their opinions; it doesn’t mean that the people wouldn’t go and see her sing,’” Repentigny said.

“He said, ‘If it sparks controversy there, if it’s a problem, we won’t go.’”
--Halifax Daily News, today

“Chuck Norris doesn’t endorse. He tells America how it’s gonna be.”

Mike Huckabee has launched his first campaign ad, which premiered on yesterday’s “Fox News Sunday.” It is inspired by the Chuck Norris “facts” that have been around for a few years now, and features the man himself.