Tuesday, January 12, 2010

Top Ten Reasons to Prorogue Democracy ... so far

~Recalibratin' Economic Action Plan Pt 2 but not making any changes
~Time out to go to burning stick festival*
~We got nearly everything we wanted passed anyway
~Busy busy busy back home on winter barbie circuit
~Everybody does it, albeit mostly in the 19th century
~Only "elites" and "chattering classes" will notice anyway
~Can't do what we like in stupid minority parliament

Last night we got two more :

Tom Flanagan, former mentor to Steve, on CBC :
"The government's talking points don't have much credibility. Everybody knows that Parliament was prorogued in order to shut down the Afghan inquiry, and the trouble is that the government doesn't want to explain why that was necessary. I personally think that was a highly defensible action but instead of having an adult defence of it the government comes up with these childish talking points so then you try to backfill with other stuff that doesn't make much sense either so it's a self-created problem."

And if you were starting to warm up to Tom a bit here, by "highly defensible", he explains it was the Libs' fault, long time ago, yadda, yadda, yadda, the NDP don't like "force" anyway and the Bloc are trying to break up the country... Just in case anyone was even thinking about some kind of new-fangled coalition.
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Then on Business News Network tonight, Harper explained that markets don't much care for parliament either :
"The games begin when Parliament returns. The government can take time now to do the important work, to prepare the economic agenda ahead. That said, as soon as parliament comes back, we're in a minority parliament situation, the first thing that happens is a vote of confidence and there'll be votes of confidence and election speculation for every single week after that for the rest of the year. That's the kind of instability that I think markets are actually worried about."

Gosh, best get this man a majority for the sake of the markets then.
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Ok, that's only nine reasons from the Cons so far. #10 should be along shortly. Any time now...
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* burning stick festival™ - The Rev
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7 comments:

Holly Stick said...

#10 Some Parliamentarians have been seen walking past a library while drinking Pepsi; clearly a violation of flaming thingy copyright. Harper Saved the Games!!!!11!!

http://thetyee.ca/News/2010/01/12/2010Sponsors/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+thetyee+%28The+Tyee%29

Holly Stick said...

Sorry, here's the link without all the extraneous and unsponsored extras:
http://thetyee.ca/News/2010/01/12/2010Sponsors/

Rev.Paperboy said...

As much as I would love to take credit for coining the term "burning stick" I must give credit where credit is due

Rev.Paperboy said...

That's the kind of instability that I think markets are actually worried about.

Yes, the markets' distaste for representative democracy is well documented, but it used to be mostly confined to Central America

Alison said...

Holly : Good grief. What to do if a library is showing a film during the Owelympics and the AV isn't a Games brand?
The same care must be taken for audio-visual equipment. The branch should try to get devices made by official sponsor Panasonic. Should staff only be able to find Sony equipment, the solution is simple.


"I would get some tape and put it over the 'Sony,'" Kavanagh said. "Just a little piece of tape."


Will get to that later. Thanks, Holly.


Thanks, Rev, and yeah, we're going banana republicans!

Holly Stick said...

Olympics tie-in from Andrew Nikiforuk:

"And what does this say about the rule of law in Canada? To generate revenue to pay for an international event, an urban-based government will install deadly sour gas wells near rural schools. When regulators become facilitators, bombers create violence which, in turn, only begets silence. Under Olympic deadlines and in the name of "public security" a sullied federal police will treat fellow Canadians like Afghan detainees. In this bizarre story a convicted felon and sarcastic preacher becomes a convenient fall guy for all sorts of bad behavior.

All in all it remains an ugly spectacle of uncommon corruption and uncivil conduct befitting a third world nation."


http://thetyee.ca/Opinion/2010/01/13/BombingsAndOlympics/

Holly Stick said...

#11 Harper had an urgent photo-op

http://www.hilltimes.com/blog/?p=247

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