Sister Sage's Musings

Posts Tagged ‘John Baird’

Susan Delacourt is one of the few columnists who has been not only printing the facts about Iggy’s bus tour, but has actually remained positive about it. I only wish some of the more Liberal leaning columnist would have (and would) followed her lead rather than to continue nitpicking and lamenting him. After all, while Iggy may not be the first choice for leader of any federal political party due largely in part to his long absence from the country and many other reasons anybody could think of, he is here to stay and we should make the best of it. Anything less only helps keep Stevie spiteful in office longer to continue doing his damage; perhaps even get a majority.

If I may sidetrack for just a moment, his latest slap in the face to the civil service and by extension, to Canadians; particularly, vulnerable Canadians, he has just laid off 600 employees who work for Service Canada; employees who work for EI and Pensions. It becomes more ridiculous on the radio when we hear that the reason cited is because “the economy has improved”. No joke! The newscaster on the radio said that was the reason for the cuts. Never mind that folks are still losing their jobs. Never mind that the aging baby boomers are retiring, thus an increasing demand for CPP payments is looming.  Stevie Spiteful must gut the civil service for his own amusement.

Anyway, back to the topic at hand, I had seen a poll from Harris Decima earlier yesterday reflecting that the bus tour has provided modest gains in Liberal polling numbers (they’ve broken 30% for the first time in a long time), but unfortunately, Iggy’s approval numbers have not improved, according to Allan Gregg.  Now, how could this be?  Michael Valpy over at the Grope & Fail has recognized changes in Iggy:

There’s no doubt at all that a new political Michael Ignatieff is on stage. And no doubt at all – after 27,000 kilometres travelled and 110 events staged across the country this summer, with more to come on a tour intended to reintroduce Mr. Ignatieff to Canada – that the people he meets are responding to him with what looks to be a lot like enthusiasm.

His robotic body language has gone, along with most of his leaden phrases. He speaks with a lively cadence; he has lost the faux dropped g’s. He can be genuinely funny. He shows a keen curiosity in what people tell him and feeds back what they say in his speeches.

He now sounds like the 17 books he has written, warm, engagingly anecdotal and authentic.

I tell him on the final day of the B.C. tour that he has changed so much since I first wrote about him as a politician four years ago. He says: “A lot of it is storytelling, a lot of it is connecting to something I always used to do. I’ve been a storyteller all my life, and I had to recover, get back to that stuff. Nothing else was working.”

So, who has Gregg been polling? Folks in Calgary West or in other Harpercon strongholds?  I realize that Gregg, like  John Wright of Ipsos-Reid, is nothing more than a Harpercon shill, but, as I’ve pointed out, time and again, at the end of the day, those polling numbers, along with those columns are pretty much all those politicians have to work with before they make decisions. It’s the reason why I suggest to folks to write their MPs.

It’s also the reason why I’m thankful for social media outlets like Twitter, Facebook and blogs. If not for social media, we would only get the skewed version of how much of a failure the bus tour was. We didn’t. We got to see crowds warmly receiving Iggy. We got to hear him answering questions without missing a beat.  We saw him more relaxed and yes, having fun. There are those from the Blogging SupposiTories and even some Prog bloggers still determined to hate him who chided him for not being himself, but yanno, I think he was probably more himself over the summer than he has been since he joined the Liberal Party. I got that vibe when I saw him at the Papineau event.

By the interviews Iggy has been giving as of late and the vibe folks who have attended events on the stops of the Liberal bus tour seem to have been picking up, it seems to be that Iggy is in no hurry for the tour to end.  I remembered the NattyPo’s Kelly McParland lamenting earlier in the summer about Stevie’s summer of needless crisis in his column.  He sort of gave some simple advice to Iggy, although, I think he meant it more as a joke; sarcasm at the time:

If I was Michael Ignatieff, I’d stay on that bus tour until Christmas and leave the government alone. At the rate it’s going, it should have completed its self-destruction by then.

After reading Susan Delacourt’s column last night, it looks like Iggy is, at least in part, taking McParland’s advice to heart and extending the bus tour into the fall.

“I’ve got a job to do in Parliament, I will do the job in Parliament, because that’s what folks pay me to do. But I will also be out on the road a lot, because I enjoy it and Canadians are responding to it and they want to see their politicians up close and personal and they want to ask them questions.” The Liberal leader has made no secret of his joy at being out of Ottawa over the summer, often calling it an antidote for the toxic, partisan climate of Parliament under Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s government.

Oh dear, and now, given that Stevie spiteful’s pitbull, John Baird, is the new government house leader, count on the ambiance in parliament being even more toxic than before.  There is also the problems with the mass firings, demotions, potential firings and non renewals of contracts of public servants as of late. With such heated issues waiting such as Mullet-head Hoeppner’s scrapping of the long gun registry and the census scrapping (Liberals are introducing a new private members bill to reinstate it, minus the threat of jail time which is sure to pass among all three opposition parties) and of course, the threats of unreported criminals, Canadian Idol rejects and “Russian spy planes” in the north.

It’s great that touring the country, meeting and greeting Canadians suits him so well as the tour has achieved one of its’ goals; to prepare Iggy for the rigors of an election campaign.

If the tour is going so well for him and he is still getting positive responses, why not continue for at least awhile longer? Parliament doesn’t sit until later next month anyway.

Given the polling numbers that have improved the numbers for the Liberals, but not that of Iggy, maybe the strategy of Iggy continuing the road show and having his MPs do the politicking in Ottawa might have some logic to it on the surface.  However, like everybody else, he will eventually have to go back to work and yes, his true test will be how he handles himself once parliament is back in session. That, I suspect will be make or break for him. If  his newfound confidence can be seen in action in parliament, perhaps we may well see his approval numbers go up as well.  However, that is a two way street. It’s one thing for him to be more confident; to be more oppositional. However,  given the Harpercon friendly corporate media, with the latest addition of the wingnutty efforts of Fox North, as well as some of the nay sayers of the few more Liberal leaning columnists and opinion writers,  can he be more oppositional without getting smacked to the point where his polling numbers plummeting across the board to the point Stevie Spiteful’s  teeter around majority territory yet again?

Another test for Iggy will be how will he counter not only Stevie Spiteful’s attack ads, which as we’ve seen are doozies, and I’m sure, we ain’t seen nothin’ yet, but also those from the NDP;  Layton and Mulcair have shown to be more than capable of of attacking them sometimes (it seems)  even more often than attacking Harpercons, as well as those of Gilles Duceppe and the Bloc. While the Liberals may have begun to make some inroads in Quebec, given that Duceppe is slowly reviving the sovereignty movement with some modest degree of success and with the troubles of the Jean Charest Liberals as of late, I  wouldn’t be surprised to see Duceppe resurrect the Sponsorship scandal. That will be an uphill climb indeed. Dion couldn’t counter the attack ads, neither could Paul Martin before him.  Iggy had been lacking confidence to do so since that violent reaction from Jane and Joe Canuck and the pundits when he dropped the gauntlet last September.  Let’s hope he can draw from his new found confidence coming off the bus tour to effectively counter these attacks.   He will also have to go more on the offensive. Sadly, taking the high road will get him nowhere.

The Harpercon shill, Allan Gregg did point out an interesting fact I think we’ve all noticed:

Pollsters have discovered that the Conservative vote is much more resilient than the Liberal vote. That means when the Conservatives get in trouble, their support drops, but in the absence of trouble it springs right back again. The same isn’t true for the Liberals.

Why is that? Why are folks so much more forgiving of Stevie spiteful than they are of Iggy? It seems to me that Stevie Spiteful could put his own grandmother out on the street and most (from his own base, anyway) would hardly bat an eyelash, but the Liberals, with, or without Iggy can take forever to be forgiven for far less?

After writing all that, perhaps Kelly McParland was right all along: Iggy, stay on that bus and let your MPs take care of the rough and tumble in parliament.

I caught this over at Calgary Grit this morning.  Yes, Baird the ever faithful pitbull to Master Stevie comes to the rescue yet again when Thomas Mulcair from the big bad opposition, well brings up the obvious about Flaherty travelling on a private jet for a photo op at Timmy’s while he presents a budget basically telling the majority working class to tighten up and get used to no services.

“This time, he (Flaherty) used a chartered plane for a photo-op at Tim Hortons to ‹ wait for it ‹ teach us a lesson about the importance of controlling government spending.”

Many Canadians, myself included don’t care; we just don’t understand the urgency to head off for a photo op, basically giving Timmy’s free advertising it doesn’t need.  Ottawa to London can be done by train or even bus.  Set an example and use cheaper ground transport, or is it unCanadian to ask her finance minister to set an example of financial restraint?

Silly us, it would seem that it’s not very patriotic when we express concern over hiddent torturegate documents while the Harpercons, themselves, ever so patriotically throw the troops under the bus. Hell, I bet they immediately even accused the family of the late young Jonathan Couturier of being radical Quebec Separatists  when they spoke to the media regarding young Jonathan’s last words expressing his views of how useless that Afghan war is before deploying.

We’re unpatriotic for boycotting the Vancouver Olympics, root for the underdog protesters and hope for the Canadian Team NHL not win the gold medal at the Olympic finals.

Some like Chuckles Adler would say that talking against the Alberta tar sands is very disloyal to Canada. Wanting to talk climate change it would seem is also a no no as it’s a dark spot.

Now, the latest from Stevie’s pitbull to Mulcair would seem to be that he’s unCanadian:

“against Tim Hortons,” which is a position Baird said is “un-Canadian.”

Yep, well, put me up there too, because I always thought Timmy’s coffee SUCKS!! However, that is beside the point. Baird like a good pitbull played Stevie’s game of deflect and distract, although it failed miserably.

And now, with a little help from an old post at  Buckdog, I will  remind  readers how  very ‘Canadian’ ol’ master Stevie is:

“Canada is a Northern European welfare state in the worst sense of the term, and very proud of it. Canadians make no connection between the fact that they are a Northern European welfare state and the fact that we have very low economic growth, a standard of living substantially lower than yours, a massive brain drain of young professionals to your country, and double the unemployment rate of the United States.”
- Stephen Harper, then vice-president of the National Citizens Coalition, in a June 1997 Montreal meeting of the Council for National Policy, a right-wing American think tank.

“Your country [the USA], and particularly your conservative movement, is a light and an inspiration to people in this country and across the world.”
-Stephen Harper, then vice-president of the National Citizens Coalition, in a June 1997 Montreal meeting of the Council for National Policy, a right-wing American think tank.

“Canada appears content to become a second-tier socialistic country, boasting ever more loudly about its economy and social services to mask its second-rate status, led by a second-world strongman appropriately suited for the task.”
- Stephen Harper in his article “It is time to seek a new relationship with Canada,” December 12th, 2000.

“In terms of the unemployed, of which we have over a million-and-a-half, don’t feel particularly bad for many of these people. They don’t feel bad about it themselves, as long as they’re receiving generous social assistance and unemployment insurance.”
-Stephen Harper, then vice-president of the National Citizens Coalition, in a June 1997 Montreal meeting of the Council for National Policy, a right-wing American think tank.

“What we clearly need is experimentation with market reforms and private delivery options [in health care].”
- Stephen Harper, then President of the NCC, 2001.

“We also support the exploration of alternative ways to deliver health care. Moving toward alternatives, including those provided by the private sector, is a natural development of our health care system.”
- Stephen Harper, Toronto Star, October 2002.

Also read some more from Buckdog, showing just how Stevie is ‘Canadian’. Many more details of Stevie’s all-Canadiana  here. Other reminders of why St-Stevie should never ever get that totalitarian regime he oh so desires.

Frankly, Baird, you’re going to have to come up with better material.

Transport minister, John Baird announced new taxes user fees in flight ticket prices.  We have only ourselves to blame for this.   Let’s get this straight, folks: you will be paying higher prices to accommodate this government porn. What is wrong with this picture?

Strippers, lap-dancers and porn stars are paid for their trouble, thus they have more dignity than anyone who voluntarily submits themselves to paying extra for some rent-a-cop to gawk at your naked body.  I had already blogged about this, complete with a pic of the anatomically correct scans.

It has been said  that kind of machine would never have picked up the underwear bomber, as it does not pick up powders, plastic or liquids; key ingredients for homemade bomb making. So John Baird arguing that higher prices for these machines will keep Canadians (or anyone else for that matter) safe is bogus.

Are we willing to pay to undignify ourselves for a little sun? That question pisses you off? It should, but not at me: I’m only pointing out a truth. The solution is simple. Stay at home. Don’t fly anywhere. Only travel to places that can be done by bus, car or train. You’ll survive very well, if not, better without it.

Perhaps if these airlines start losing business due to folks not flying anywhere anymore, they can start doing what most major corporations do best: lobby. Lobby to get rid of those ridiculous rent-a-cop peep shows.

It’s the same thing for rising gas prices. It’s because they can get away with it. Folks are suckers for their cars and governments know it. Again, perhaps if people radically cut down on driving, thus the purchase of gas becoming less of a necessity, they would eventually have to lower their prices in order to stay in business. But no, not only are a lot of folks insistant on driving their cars only a few blocks away but a lot of them insist on buying gas guzzler mini-vans. I digress.

Thomas Mulcair, N.D.P. finance critic called the Harpercons for their euphemisms.

“They can call it whatever they want, but at the end of the day, a tax by any other name is a tax.”

Another thing that would keep Canadians safer? Read my previous post on this subject; there is also a link to a great article by Ric Salutin. Basically, it’s  how we approach the Muslim world and how attitudes need to change where that is concerned. Heaven help us that we should actually try getting along with each other rather than insisting on keeping up this silly and useless war.

Perhaps it’s about time to adapt that old line from the Wizard of Oz: ‘There’s no place like home…’

As a matter of fact, terrorists should be the least of those fears. Giving in to those fears does nothing but capitalize on a fact most of us already know but don’t want to admit aloud: they’ve won.

Fridays on CJAD, Tommy Schnurmacher has a segment on his show called “The Single Ladies”, usually during the last half hour of the show; Two of the usual suspects are Tatiana, the ‘star’ real estate agent and Tommy’s  producer, Laura Casella, a junior lightweight from the right.  Tommy, one word of advice; leave grown-up talk for grown-ups please; having them on, talking over each other like gossipy teen-agers is hardly dignified for serious discussion. Please Tommy, if you want to discuss airport security, have people that are more qualified to talk about the subject; such as people who have travelled to and from Israel in the last few years;  a witness to terrorism or an expert on terrorism. In other words, no one who’s sole qualification is having drank Bush’s  and now Baird’s kool-aid.

Laura and Tatiana just can’t seem to understand why Canadians would be outraged at the idea of a body scan. To paraphrase Laura, ‘just a quick pic deleted in 5 seconds’.  You want some underpaid, undertrained rent-a-cop gawking at your body. How do you know you don’t fall on a bad one who not only won’t delete it, but adds it to his/her porn collection? For those who didn’t know what they will see and didn’t watch this Morning’s Question Period, Here is what these rent-a-cops will be eye-balling:

Image courtesy of Natural News

Looks pretty anatomically correct to me.    Self-respect and human dignity are not applicable? Are you really willing to be stripped of your dignity and for what? Sorry, I think there is more dignity to going to be filmed in a porn peep show; pole dancing in front of oglers at the strip joint;  at least they’re paid for their trouble.

Yes, most Canadians seemed to be in favour of those scans. Those who drank the kool-aid Corporate media is feeding us. The  question asked was if they preferred it to being frisked. Of course the answer would be a resounding ‘yes’. Now, put this question forward:  Would you prefer to not have to be touched and be seen naked. The answer of course would be resounding No. It’s a no brainer. Especially if one stopped to take a look at what those rent-a-cops would be gawking at.  No, don’t count on them not being saved on some data base. They are in favor only because the likes of the corporate media spoon feeding us that we must submit or we will get bombed.

Well, Laura,  did you know that John Baird mentioned to Jane Taber on Question Period this morning that children under 18 will be frisked?  You don’t see anything wrong with it? Traumatizing a child for the sake of airport security. It’s bad enough with the new hand luggage restrictions, toys that occupy an otherwise restless child would be banned. Again, rent-a-cops aren’t the most professional and have those same character flaws; what if some poor kid is unlucky enough to be padded down by some  pedophile?

Did you or anyone else for that matter check up on studies about radiation exposure particularly to frequent flyers? Before submitting to lighting our naked butts like Christmas trees; shouldn’t there be a study about the potential harm of the radiation exposure?

By their own admission (governments and manufacturers), these scans don’t pick up powders, liquids or plastics. In otherwards, once someone got their jollies looking at the scan of his Birthday suit, the underwear bomber still wouldn’t have been detected.

John Baird also points out that people will be able to bring a purse or laptop or blackberry. Well, bombs can be made from laptops and blackberries.

What about travellers with babies? For those who are parents, you  know all too well that an afternoon play date for your baby with  the neighbour’s children requires a huge bag for just a few hours; diapers, formula, bottles, extra clothes, toys, some food if they’re old enough, etc. etc. Think Parents, that big bag you would insist on packing for your baby for just a few hours locally would no longer be allowed as hand luggage. Nor would many of its’ contents as they’re pretty much all powder, liquid and plastic. I can see parents making alternate plans before taking their babies or toddlers on board a plane.

Speaking of parents, do they really want to deal with a restless child for hours because they can’t have their crayons and gameboys?

What would be next? Drug mules have proven  to hide condoms or balloons filled with drugs and /or other contraband in body cavities such as the rectum. Does this mean rectal searches become the order of the day? Wanna risk permanent health problems because of some rent-a-cop with zero medical training? Some of them swallow it; are we going to induce vomiting?  Sounds disgusting and yes, undignified; it is indeed.

How about those with the prosthesis? Internal (pacemakers, hip replacement, screws to hold joints together, etc) or external (false teeth, artificial limbs).  It has been said that these items have set off detectors.

Another new rule is no one is allowed to go to the bathroom an hour before landing.  Great! Another potential health hazzard and certain discomfort. How is forcing somebody to endure a full bladder going to help us feel more safe? How does that deter a terrorist? Or perhaps diapers for all would become in vogue?

Folks, let’s get some perspective here.  A few brief points:

• Air travel is still considered one of the safest ways to travel
• Terrorists do bomb and cause mayhem in places other than air planes like public transit during Rush hour, yet, do we subject ourselves to virtual strip searches or restrictions on the bags and packages we may be carrying?
• Everybody seems to forget about the potential dangers of ground travel; nobody remembers that beheading of Tim Maclean on a Greyhound bus?

Then, we hear Laura or Tatiana (so hard to tell; they keep shrieking over each other) that “The Israelis are Laughing at us!” Let’s talk about that shall we?

I had heard that Israel, a known target to pretty much most of the Middle-East has not had one incident on an El-Al plane or at Ben Gurion Airport in 40 years. Here is why.  Profiling, lists, extensive questioning, signalling suspicious behavior like paying cash for airline tickets, travelling far away with no suicase or even a hand bag; no change of clothes;  Extensive questioning for some who sends off the slightest of alarm bells.

I did not read anything about underwear scans or anything as creepy and ghoulish. The idea of profiling makes me cringe, but, personally, I’d rather submit to a bag inspection and extensive questioning and background check by trained agents rather than being groped or doing a virtual striptease for government porn before some rent-a-cop.

Just to be sure, I got in touch with an old classmate from elementary school over the week-end; now a wife and mother of three girls living in Israel and travels fairly often to Canada & the U.S. In addition to not being well versed about the new body scans, she says that only very special cases may be subject to a body scan at Ben Gurion.  She admits the checks can be a pain, but over all,  in any given airport, she feels safest at Ben Gurion; with no mass virtual stripteases. They’re not rent-a-cops, but trained professionals who know exactly what to look for and how to zero in on it with efficiency.

Before the official announcement of these body scans,  Dan Delmar, who was subbing on CJAD  very intelligently pointed out that good security is not confiscating colouring books, crayons and gameboys from restless children and making everybody suffer through an exploding bladder. He says, quite rightly, that good security is something the general population don’t see or feel. Undercover (well trained; not rent-a-cop; Hell, El-Al and Ben Gurion Airport have trained secret agents dealing with this detail) agents around the airport and on board the plane posing as travellers or even flight attendants. It was the first and will probably be the only intelligent discussion about Airport security we’ll hear in the corporate media.  Good, intelligent, balanced talk show hosts like Dan Delmar usually only fill in. That is too bad, I hope CJAD would consider giving Dan his own show some day.  He is one of the few who is balanced. Even his callers sound less psychotic & more reasonable.

One of Dan’s callers also pointed out that the terrorists have won and they will continue winning.  So true! After all, isn’t a terrorist’s goal to keep their targets afraid? There is also mental terror. These clowns know their enemy so well. The United States as a whole basically lives in hate and fear of anything different or whatever they perceive to be a threat on their materialism and capitalist greed. They have gotten today’s corporate media to serve that McCarthy Kool-Aid at every turn; convincing us that if we don’t comply to human indignities and /or potential health risks (short and long term).  No Laura, I wouldn’t necessarily say the Israelis are laughing at us as much as those bushwhackers on monkey bars (paraphrasing Michael Moore).

They have won  because they have not been brought to justice.  With all the intelligence at our disposal, why haven’t these thugs responsible for 9/11 or any other subsequent Al-Qaeda related incident been caught and tried before some tribunal and then sentenced appropriately? They will continue winning as long as they’re still at large.  Contrary to the rantings of yahoos like General McChrystal and Georgie and his cowboy speech following 9/11, reminiscant of John Wayne, more troops and bleeding financial & human resources in Afghanistan will not accomplish this.

In fact, these wars in Afghanistan and Iraq are provoking these terrorists further.  Then again, would the U.S. ever be happy during peace? I’m starting to wonder if they need constant conflict to keep their juices going. Did life get boring when the Cold war ended? One must wonder.

Ric Salutin, one of the few responsible, balanced columnists at the Grope and Fail wrote a very intelligent piece. Read it; I highly recommend it. The basic theme is:

A mom at her kid’s karate class this week said: “They keep applying Band-Aids, but it doesn’t stop the bleeding.”

No, it certainly wouldn’t. What Salutin meant was that instead of feverishly trying come up with newfangled ways of security at the expense of human rights and dignities; it’s time for change in foreign policy.

This is what’s so irritating: The security issue seems to drain scarce public discourse resources from that other topic, foreign policy. You’d think both could be talked about at once but apparently not. We hear more on security and less on the sources of the problem. Why are they angry in Yemen? Because U.S. drones invaded their space and menaced innocent people, once in 2002 and again (shhh, it’s supposed to be secret) last month. They didn’t like the 2003 invasion of Iraq either. The first attack on the U.S. embassy in Yemen came right after that, long before the one planned recently.

It’s not an obscure subject. The U.S.’s 9/11 commission said chief planner Khalid Shaikh Mohammed was motivated by American Mideast policy. Osama bin Laden said he reached his decision to strike the U.S. while watching its ships bombard Beirut in 1983. The supply of terror will remain endless if you keep replenishing it with invasion, war and other such policies.

I am not excusing these terrorist acts; I don’t think Ric Salutin is neither or anyone else like minded.  However, we shouldn’t be provoking them neither. In fact, it is time to at least attempt to make peace.

Yes, for the time being, find better methods of security that we don’t see or feel. However, work at foreign policy. Accept governments that were democratically elected by its’ own citizens instead of discounting them as enemy terrorists, like Hamas. This ‘tough guy’  attitude of ‘We won’t talk to terrorists’  just doesn’t wash anymore.

After all,  years of IRA  & Sinn Fein terror came to end in Ireland and the Great Britain. NowSinn Fein  is a legitimate  party of the government of Ireland.

Until we end those wars in Iraq (U.S.) & Afghanistan, until we change foreign policy and until we stop scrambling for new fangled airport security measures which will cause more harm to innocent people than good,  until the media stops spoonfeeding us the anti-Islam McCarthyist mantra, and until we bring these thugs to justice; these terrorists are the ones yucking it up at the rest of the world’s expense.

Perhaps flying should be boycotted. There is no reason compelling enough to subject one’s self to indignity, gov’t porn and potential health risks. With today’s technology and communication; things like skype, video conferencing and such; one can still conduct business overseas without leaving home.  a few weeks of sun just isn’t worth that kind of trouble neither.

Perhaps when commercial airlines start losing business, they can start lobbying governments to get rid of body scans and such and replace with less invasive yet more efficient security measures. After all, with capitalism, the threat of losing dollars grabs everyone’s attention.