Stephen Harper aka Boy in a Bubble

So, Haper's people kicked university students out of his rallies. Great move to win over the youth vote.

One was a woman who had a picture of herself with Ignatieff and another with Layton on her Facebook page. Yes, Harper's people check the FB page of people coming to their rallies. The asshats that kicked her out actually tore up her guest pass when they ejected her.

Another participated in a non-political rally to get students to vote. When he went to the Tory rally afterwards he was kicked out.

What can I say, considering the contempt the Harper Tories seem to have for Parliament, democracy, and Canadians in general that they would do this is no surprise. Harper's response when asked about the ejections today was surprising.

He started off by refusing to answer questions about Carson. Carson is the staffer with a criminal record who was given access to Secret documents and worked for Harper. Harper previously said he knew of the older convicitons but not the newer ones. One would think that the previous ones alone would have precluded his hiring.

Then he was asked about the students who were kicked out. After saying he couldn't comment on it he said;

"... it is better when you are turning people away than when you can't get people to come."

What an out of touch moron. He actually equates people being ejected with people being turned away because there is no room for them. Maybe he really is living in a bubble that keeps him out of touch with reality.

Bullying

2 teens committed suicide in the past month and bullying is being blamed. Once again people are up arms over bullying and demanding something be done. Unfortunately, people have short attention spans and in a few weeks the outcry will be about something else. Bullying has been a problem for DECADES if not longer and nothing ever seems to be done about it.

They need to treat bullies like criminals. That is what will happen to them if they act the same way when they hit 17. If someone 17+ threatens you they can be charged with assault. If they physically touch you that is battery. If you can prove they have been harassing you that is a whole other criminal charge. One guy I knew in High School, who was a bully, ended up in trouble with the law within a year of graduating. He was acting the same way he did in High School, pushing a smaller guy around and punching him, but now he was an adult. The guy ended up calling the cops and the ex-bully was arrested, charged, convicted, and became a felon.

Why should someone in High School be treated any different? By letting them get away with their bullying in Elementary, Middle, and High School we are giving kids the wrong message. And I am not just talking about the victims. The bullies get the idea that they CAN act like that pretty much with impunity.

Then you have the way they are dealt with in school. I know when I was in school bullying was pretty much ignored. If you complained about it you just got a bigger target on you. A lot of the time you were simply told that it would "build character" if you were the victim. From talking with people about it the situation hasn't improved all that much since then.

I like a measure South Korea took. If you can prove the Public School knew about the bullying of your child they can be held responsible. The school and teachers. A High School a friend worked at was in the middle of being sued for ignoring bullying when I left.

We should hold the schools responsible for not reacting properly to bullying and hold the bullies criminal responsible if they are repeat offenders.

Meatloaf Meltdown

I just finished watching Celebrity Apprentice. Wow. What a meltdown!!!

'loaf went at Gary Busy like you wouldn't believe it. I thought he would have a heart attack. And in the end Gary actually hadn't done anything wrong. Meats bag was misplaced.

I have to say I was impressed by 3 people.

John Rich handled it quite well. He was instrumental in getting the situation under control.

Gary Busy was impressive. He was focused in on Meatloaf but kept his cool.

Meatloaf ended up impressing me in the end too because he didn't just know he did wrong, he apologized for it. And Gary Busy was magnanimous in his acceptance of the apology.

I think this has been the most hyped "event" of this Celebrity Apprentice. It has been in commercials since day one and had people wondering just when the shit was going to hit the fan.

Coalitions

When is a coalition not a coalition? When it the Harper Government trying to set one up.

Harper has castigated the Liberals, and more directly Ignatieff, for trying to form a coalition with the NDP and the Bloc Quebecois. He points to the 2008 coalition attempt as well as talking about what is going on currently. Here is some of what Haprer has had to say about coalitions.

The opposition has every right to defeat the government but Stéphane Dion does not have the right to take power without an election.

-Prime Minister Stephen Harper gives the nation a lesson in parliamentary democracy from the foyer of the House of Commons (November 28, 2008)

"I think he's about to play the biggest political game in Canadian history," the Prime Minister said, adding that he would not want to have to govern the country in hard times while being beholden to socialists and separatists, referring to the NDP and the Bloc Québécois.

Harper claiming the Liberals were playing political games.

Harper has argued a coalition is not a legitimate or principled way to form government, and he's pointed to the Bloc in particular, arguing Liberal Leader Michael Ignatieff shouldn't consider relying on the support of separatists.

The 1st day of the 2011 election.

So, according to Harper a coalition is wrong because it is not legitimate and to form a coalition with the Socialists (NDP) and Separtists (BQ) is just wrong.

That is now ... but in 2004 and 2005 Harper was singing another tune.

He formed a coalition with the NDP and BQ to bring down the Liberal government. He even went so far as to send a letter to the Governor General at the time and talk about forming a coalition government without having another election. This was done just 3 months after the Liberals formed a minority government. The letter said

Excellency,

As leaders of the opposition parties, we are well aware that, given the Liberal minority government, you could be asked by the Prime Minister to dissolve the 38th Parliament at any time should the House of Commons fail to support some part of the government’s program.

We respectfully point out that the opposition parties, who together constitute a majority in the House, have been in close consultation. We believe that, should a request for dissolution arise this should give you cause, as constitutional practice has determined, to consult the opposition leaders and consider all of your options before exercising your constitutional authority.

Your attention to this matter is appreciated.

Sincerely,

Hon. Stephen Harper, P.C., M.P.

Leader of the Opposition

Leader of the Conservative Party of Canada

Gilles Duceppe, M.P.

Leader of the Bloc Quebecois

Jack Layton, M.P.

Leader of the New Democratic Party

The very first signature on the letter belongs to Mr. Harper.

That was then and this is now. Harper claims it wasn't a coalition. The parties would just work together but only Tories would be in the cabinet. It was kind of funny to read what one conservative blogger had to say about the coalition Harper made and why it was right.

The governing Liberals had just been implicated in the perhaps the greatest scandal in Canadian history

So you see, my dear Liberal friends, in that context, it was the RESPONSIBILITY of Her Majesty's Loyal Opposition to work together to remove a potentially corrupt Government from office

In that context, Mr. Harper's comments are not only defensible, THEY'RE COMMENDABLE, for having gone beyond Party rhetoric to defend the Canadian people.

Well, considering the scandals and controversy, including Harper's obvious contempt for Parliament and the Canadian people, that would make any coalition against him legitimate, defensible, and COMMENDABLE using the logic of my dear Conservative friend.

Sorry Stevie, you can spin it any way and call it roses but it still smells like shit. You are an opportunistic hypocrite.

The discussion continued

Just as we were finishing getting the leader talk out of the way H made a commentt you hear a lot. "All politicians are crooks."

I don't agree with that. They aren't all crooks but I do find that they all get co-opted by the system. It doesn't seem to matter how principled they are when they start out eventually they all give in to the temptations of the office. Especially when they get into power.

I was active in politics back in the ,ate 80's and early 90's. I was a Provincial youth riding President and Federal youth riding VP. It was by being that active that I got turned off. I saw just how two faced and hypocritical all politicians or all stripes could be.

Our Federal MP back then was a great guy. Even if it meant going against the party he would do what was right. Until his party became the governing party and he wanted a position of some sort, especially a cabinet seat. Then doing what was right became doing what was politically expedient.

Provincially, around the saw time, you saw the knives out for the party leader. At a closed door meeting of the youth you saw senior party members and MLA's going table to table basically telling the youth to shut up. Don't talk about the leadership problem. It is none of your concern. It was pretty disheartening.

After I mentioned some of this H started going on about the rich getting richer and the poor getting poorer. He didn't like when I started laughing at him. He is supporting Harper and complaining about the rich getting richer. That is, pun intended, rich. :)

I asked him why he was surprised there were so many tax loopholes and legal loopholes for people, especially "the rich", to exploit. He had no answer. So I asked him how many of our politicians were lawyers. A lot of them. What do they do when they get out of politics, even if they get jobs within the party? Most go back to practicing law, even if they are just a figurehead position at a company for a healthy pay check.

Most of our politicians are professional politicians, lawyers, doctors, and the like. They aren't your average everyday person who actually has to live life in the real world. One of my problems with Iggy is that he has lived his life within the hallowed halls of academia and hasn't had to face the real world. Christ, once a professor gets tenure they can't be fired unless they do something very heinous. Compare that to someone who can be downsized at a whim. you tend to look at things from a more realistic angle when you can go from working to unemployed that easily.

And you know what? If they were your average person no one would vote for them! We have become indoctrinated that we need the "elite" governing us when often the "non-elite" have more common sense and honesty.

And when I use elite I am not trying to separate people by class. It is just how we look at politicians. Your average working person doesn't "look like" a politician and people would hold that against them. Face it people are THAT judgemental. (I still remember talking with someone who started going on about a lawyer. The lawyer is question was fat so theh person went on and on about how they couldn't possibly be a good lawyer because they were fat. They didn't LOOK like a lawyer. The persons skill never came into the equation it was all appearance.) Add to that the fact that it isn't easy to run for office unless you have money. But I digress.

After we got past H's irrational hatred of Iggy it made for an interesting discussion.

Talking about Politics

I had an ... interesting discussion about politics at my brother's last night. It was my brother, his wife, his friend H, and H's wife. We were talking about life and food when H slammed a hand down on the table and said "I am going to talk politics now."

He then launched into a small tirade about Ignatieff. The reason he won't vote Ignatieff is because Iggy lived and worked in the US. He talked about how Iggy only came back to be PM. Basically, pretty much Harper's line word for word. thought for thought.

It irked me that he said he was against Iggy mainly because he had lived and worked in another country. I just spent the last 10 years living and working in another country. Using his logic I shouldn't be allowed to run for office. Seriously, if thaht is THE only reason you don't like someone and think someone shouldn't be allowed to run for office you need to re-evaluate your priorities.

I don't think a lot of Iggy as a leader myself. Not because he lived and worked in the US ... and liked it. I find he has no charisma and isn't that personable. He comes off as a dispassionate at times. When he should fight back he seems to hold back. Instead of castigating Harper for his BS he plods on. Not my idea of a great leader.

H was taken aback by that. He had been ready to label me a Liberal who blindly follows Iggy. What can I say, he doesn't know me very well. I am not much into following anyone or anything blindly.

So I asked him about Harper and why he likes him. Basically he feels Harper is the lesser of the evils. He can't get past his hatred of Iggy, dare I say blind hatred. He considers the NDP to be too far to the right. In some ways it reminded me of talking with my students.

My student tell me that they hate (insert Korean object of hatred de jour here). I would ask them why and they would give me a stock answer or say because they are bad. They just couldn't give a real reason why. The answer would basically be "because". That is what it felt like trying to find out why H hated Iggy.

I find that of all the candidates the one I should dislike the most is the most charismatic. Gilles Deuceppe leads the Bloc Quebecois, a party that wants to break up Canada. I watched the leadership election and some of the campaigning in the last election and Duceppe was actually the one who spoke out the MOST about what would be best for Canada. It was sad to see the bloody separatist being the one to confront Harper the most about things that would be in the interest of Canada. Of course they were also in Quebec's interest which is why he did it.

Ignatieff just isn't charismatic. Harper is an opportunist liar. Layton, well, of the non-separatist party leaders he is the most personable. Duceppe is the most charismatic but I don't like his cause. Luckily I am not basing my vote on the party leaders, I am basing it on the candidates in my riding. If not I would have a hard time picking who to vote for.

Anthony Bourdain - No Reservations - Vienna

I just finished watching Bourdain's show on Vienna. It was pretty interesting, definitely a great food place. Two things REALLY stuck out.

The first was a Puss Stick. Bad name for a cheese filled sausage but it looked delicious. They call it the puss stick because if you aren't careful grilling it the sausage will end up exploding. If cooked properly it sometimes oozes in spots like puss from a finger. They say it is good hang over food, especially with some schnapps.

The second thing was Krampus, or as they called him in English Bad Santa. He is supposed to be Santa's Helper. They ate a pork dish called Krampus which was named after him and it is traditionally eaten the day before Christmas.

Great show.