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Our current Canadian Government is funny. It campaigns to be tough on crime while cutting funding to women’s groups and trying to kill the Gun Registry. Another ‘fixture’ in the Conservative platform is a strong sense of fiscal responsibility and wise money management.
Obviously, the best way to show Canadians about sound fiscal management going on under watchful Conservative government is to build a two million dollar fake lake. I am not making this up, we are adding another two million dollars onto the millions we are pissing away on the G8 summit.
“Prime Minister Stephen Harper has defended building a $1.9-million tourism pavilion at the G8/G20 summit media centre in Toronto that includes an artificial indoor pool to simulate Ontario’s cottage country.”
One of the traditional ‘selling points’ about Canada is our abundant natural environment. Apparently, Mother Nature fails in the Conservative play book.
Your Tax Dollars in Action!
So instead, lets build a fake lake.
“His comments[Harper] came as the government scrambled Tuesday to correct the price tag associated with the so-called fake lake at the $1.9-million G8/G20 “Experience Canada” pavilion in Toronto’s Direct Energy Centre.
During Tuesday’s question period in the House of Commons, Liberal Leader Michael Ignatieff asked how Harper could instruct other countries how they should manage their own funds amid the government’s “astonishing” waste of taxpayers’ money on the summits.
The Liberal leader also questioned how much the public could expect to see at the end of three days of meetings, with topics such as climate change not even on the agenda.
“Canadians wanted leadership, and all they got was a fake lake,” Ignatieff told the House.”
I think Ignatieff is being a little hard on Harper and the government. I mean, for a 3 day meeting experiencing the (simulated) Ontario cottage country 1.9 million dollars is super cheeeep! Only more outrageous things could cost more such as, oh say, actually going to cottage country?
Wait..no no no it can’t be just a lobe shattering grossly negligent abuse of the public purse. It is a marketing opportunity! Steven the Harper-Douche says so!
“In fact, it’s a $2-million marketing project,” Harper said, “We must not miss this opportunity.”
The mock lake inside the centre will actually be a 10-centimetre-deep pool, built at a cost of $57,000, Foreign Affairs Minister Lawrence Cannon told the House. It was initially reported the pool itself cost $1.9 million.
Liberal MP Mark Holland hit back, saying $57,000 is more than the annual income for 40 per cent of Canadian families.”
Amazing! I’m sure the ‘buzz’ generated will pay big dividends to the poor people of Canada, I can just imagine the dollars rolling in!
This government is anything but fiscally conservative when it comes to spending the tax dollars of Canadians.
Extra Bonus!
The Liberal Party does Fake Lakeing on the Thrifty-Side!
“OTTAWA – Creating fake lakes for the amusement of reporters appears to be turning into a cottage industry.
Liberals have installed their own water feature in the garden at the Official Opposition leader’s residence in Ottawa.
And, they’ve done it for just $19.95 _ a fraction of $1.9 million the Harper government is spending to recreate the look of Muskoka cottage country in a Toronto media centre for the G-8 and G-20 summits.
In the middle of Liberal Leader Michel Ignatieff’s yard was a blue plastic children’s wading pool. A cardboard plaque proclaimed it to be “Fake Lake Harper” and warned “No Diving.”
Another sign declared the pond to be a project funded by the federal economic action plan, “supporting Canada’s fake lake industry.”
Obviously some political hay is being made at the Conservative Governments’ expense. I’m okay with that.
“Reporters were invited to lounge on vinyl Muskoka chairs and watch plastic ducks and tiny boats bobbing in the pond, while recorded loon calls played in the background. Life jackets were available for anyone who wanted to venture into the three-inch deep waters.
One boat _ carrying muppet Ernie and his rubber duckie _ was dubbed the “Captain Tony,” after Industry Minister Tony Clement, whose Muskoka riding has been flooded with cash in advance of the G-8 summit.
A remote controlled craft with a plastic action figure glued to its deck was dubbed the “Stuntwell Day” — a reference to Treasury Board president Stockwell Day, who once famously arrived for a press conference wearing a wetsuit and riding a personal watercraft.”
This will end badly for the Conservatives. Probably not as bad as their leader arriving to a press conference on Jetski, but close.
I miss the days when the Conservatives could actually display how batshite crazy they actually are. Thanks to the Harper 'Muzzle on the Crazy' we'll have to be happy with the Fake Lake-Gate scandal.
How do we frame arguments? What context do we use to determine what is a bad argument versus what is a good argument. The Liberal Viewer uses an interview with Ayaan Hirsi Ali to put forth the argument that once religious thought touches the public policy sphere, it must be evaluated on rational grounds.
My chosen ordeal by instrument.
I did it. I went to my first piano recital and played not one, not two, but three pieces I have been slaving over for the last couple of months.
You know what? I completely massacred two of the three. What I did not do was stop playing, my left hand encountered landmine after landmine in the bass clef, but I just kept on going. I think the wine had a lot to do with my confidence as I unskillfully added my musical renditions from J.S Bach’s Anna Magdalena’s Notebook: Musette BWV Anh 116, Minuet in G major 114, and the Minuet in G minor, BWV Anh. 115. It worked though, I kept a rough tempo and ended things with as much as a musical flourish as I am capable of. Hence, the piano musical WIN!
The performance was another major milestone for me, along with the gruelling group singing lesson that I participated in with my vocal instructor. You see, I also sing with Intransigentia, she has a beautiful soprano voice that she also happens to be honing with the same vocal instructor. We sing a haunting duet of Ave Maria that Intransigentia arranged for us.
We sang the duet at the group lesson once through, then our teacher asked Intransigentia to sit down. I was about 
to follow her, but was quickly waved back up to the music stand. The next, oh million years (20 minutes), was spent meticulously going over the fine points of my part, especially the really high parts (my vocal folds were in full revolt by the seventh time the high G# came around). This was the first time I had sung this song in a small group learning situation; my knees were jelly and my stomach was fluttering about trying to do its bit for chaos theory.
But I survived. I sang in front of strangers and was corrected (repeatedly) while doing so. I bent, but I did not break. The confidence I gained allowed me to perform the next Sunday at a church much better than I could have without this Ogre of a lesson.
Confidence is a massive part of performing music, and it seems that I am gaining some small modicum of it. It only gets harder from here, but I’m all over that. :)
Notice the sand - Keep them at the beach, please, folks.
I get a little snarky during the summer as people decide that ‘everyday is a beach day’ and decide to wear thong sandals or ‘flip-flops’ as regular footwear. Aesthetically, the typical flip flop is an eyesore as it is usually grimy and worn down almost to nothing. Folks, replace your three dollar footwear if it looks ratty, I’m sure you have the spare change. The typical FF also as a recent article from the World Daily points out, is bad for you.
“When people wear flip-flops, the muscles on the front of their shins work harder than they do when people are barefoot. The increased muscle activity may be a result of the toes trying to grip the shoe to keep it in place.Flip-flops shorten your stride length and can cause pain in your lower legs.” (See the study here)
So, stop it and cure me of my vexation over your poor choice of footwear.
Friends, country men lend us your chil...errrr... ears.
The insipid organization known as the Catholic Church continues to fumble along now begging forgiveness for violating children and destroying their lives.
“Pope Benedict XVI has begged forgiveness from clerical abuse victims and promised to “do everything possible” to ensure priests don’t rape and molest children ever again.”
Well that is nice, but as the CBC reports it is too little, a lot too late.
“Benedict made the pledge during a Mass Friday in St. Peter’s Square, marking the end of the Vatican’s Year of the Priest, a celebration of the priesthood that has been marred by revelations of hundreds of new cases of clerical abuse, coverup and Vatican inaction to root out pedophiles.”
I’m sure that now, he means business.
“On Thursday, Benedict strongly defended celibacy for priests as a sign of faith in an increasingly secular world, insisting on a church tradition that has come under scrutiny amid the clerical sex abuse scandal.”
Well, it would seem there is a correlation of sorts between sex starved priests and the innocent children they systematically and repeatedly target. One might, if possessing even a moderate grasp of reality, ascertain that the policy of Celibacy for priests is not working very well. Will the pious make a decision based in the real world? Wait for it.
“The pope called it “a great sign of faith, of the presence of God in the world.”
The Vatican has long denied that its celibacy requirement was the root cause of priests who rape and sodomize children.”
OH SNAP! Celibacy is the presence of GOD in the world let the rape-train continue full steam ahead!
When people talk to me of religion and morality they wonder why I look at them funny.
I am going to use the discussion points found on RichardDawkins.net as the basis of this feature.
Calilasseia is the author of the post and deserves many rich accolades for assembling so much useful information in one spot. This constitutes an open thread of sorts, please leave your opinions and observations in the comment section.
[1] Parroting blind assertions does not constitute “evidence”.
Let’s make this explicit, just so that even the most casual of observers of this thread cannot avoid having noticed it.
Mythology (and I don’t care how precious you consider your “holy books” to be, that is what they contain – mythology) merely erects unsupported blind assertions about the world, and presents those blind assertions as if they constituted “axioms” about the world, to be regarded uncritically as eternally true, and never to be questioned. Well, those who wish to adopt this view will find that they are given short shrift here. Because one of the fundamental rules of proper discourse is that whenever an assertion is erected, no one is obliged to regard it as valid unless proper, critically robust supporting evidence is provided for that assertion. Which means independent corroboration from an outside source, or a direct, methodologically rigorous, repeatable empirical demonstration of the validity of that assertion. Without this, any blind assertions, particularly those erected from mythology or mythology-based doctrines, can be dismissed in the same casual manner in which they are tossed into the thread. Failure to provide proper evidential support for blind assertions will result in a poster being regarded as an inconsequential lightweight. Just because you think that mythological blind assertions constitute “axioms” about the world doesn’t mean that everyone else does, and you’ll soon discover the hard way how much firepower is directed toward those who come here expecting the rest of the forum to genuflect before said blind assertions uncritically. Plus, in the case of supernaturalist blind assertions, parroting these and expecting everyone else to accept them uncritically as established fact in the same way that you did, constitutes preaching, and is a violation of forum rules. Learn quickly to qualify assertions properly when erecting them, unless you wish to be regarded as tediously sanctimonious, boring, and boorishly ill-educated into the bargain.
Oh, and while we’re at it, don’t bother trying to assert that your favourite invisible magic man is “necessary” for the biosphere or some other observed entity, until you can provide proper, critically robust evidential support for the postulate that your magic man actually exists. Given that 300 years of continuous scientific endeavour has established that the universe is not only comprehensible without needing magic, but is thus comprehensible in precise quantitative terms, you will be well advised to devote some serious time to providing methodologically rigorous support for all assertions concerning magic supernatural entities, because without it, you’re fucked from the start.
A fantastic start. Just the basics for any rational discussion, you need to back up your assumptions and arguments with verifiable fact. If not, you may as well be asserting that Unicorns and Dragons really DO exist just because you say so.
The vivisection of common creationist science continues as yet more baseless creationist assumptions are scrutinized and their vacuous nature exposed to the world.
I wonder how long they can keep it up? Although admittedly, making stuff up is much easier than actually doing science.
bleatmop
Mystro
Dead Wild Roses 
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