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I remember when we were only talking a paltry 9 billion dollars on new fighter jets (powered by the tears of Canadian children with no access to nationalized day-care). I though wow, this is a real super hyped up plus sell hunk of bullshite being foisted on Canadians. Apparently, Harper and his braintrust of strategists have managed to come up with the cluster-bomb grade version of stupidity things to endorse. Brian Stewart from the CBC illustrates the madness of the CPC:
“The who-knew-what about the real costs of the F-35 fighter jet Canada wants to purchase is worrisome enough. But at the heart of the fiasco is a far more serious concern about what public honesty means to this government.
It’s a sad state that few Canadians appear surprised by the auditor general’s findings that Parliament was kept in the dark over the real costs of this program and what looks to be a $10-billion overrun.
Many seem to assume that misleading and denying whenever it suits is a government’s normal default position. After all, this government seems to have done it for years on Afghanistan and with its other problems in national defence.
In my own attempts to unravel the F-35’s real costs I never once met a single soul outside government and knowledgeable about defence purchases who believed the prime minister’s promise that the planes could be delivered for a bargain-rate $75 million each.
I never met anyone inside the Canadian military who thought so either.”
It’s like watching a child caught in a obvious lie slowly admit guilt –
“But the amount of money that is in the pot is still substantial. The 19 F-35As that the U.S. will acquire in fiscal year 2013 will cost $197 million each. In 2001, the projected cost for these jets was $69 million.
The cost per plane is expected to drop later in the production cycle, assuming the order numbers do not.
Over the course of the U.S. program, the “average” cost of acquiring each F-35 should be about $162 million each, according to Pentagon figures.
The Canadian government has estimated its 65 F-35s will cost just $75 million each to acquire. But the parliamentary budget officer pegs that number at $148 million.”
Err… Almost double of what was told to the Canadian people? Hmm. The ‘open and transparent’ Harper government once again proves its true colours. Oversights of this magnitude are like slapping the Canadian people in the face with a bag full of rotten fish, for about 2 years now and counting.
We need to wake up and demand a responsible government because it seems as of late a lot of crappy things are being done in my name without my knowledge, and I for one, do not like it one bit.
Exercise the bare minimum of what is required for us to have a democracy, if you’re an Albertan make your way down to the polls and participate in the political process.
Not at all actually. Good Riddance evil snow!
Luckily, due to a variety of meteorological factors, Alberta experienced a very mild winter, we’ve been very lucky this year, meaning that I’ve been wearing these:
Instead of these for much of the winter/spring season. –
Here in western Canada, we really don’t have much to complain about. However, a different story is being played out in the East.
“Eastern, Southern and Central Ontario will be hit with snow starting Sunday night and lasting through Tuesday, Environment Canada says. Ottawa, Kingston, Peterborough, Toronto and Hamilton can all expect a possible dump of white stuff, while North Bay and Sudbury could continue to see wintry precipitation through the end of the week.
Temperatures in most of those areas are forecast to fall to one degree C, and in some places will be several notches below freezing, which is up to 10 degrees below normal for this time of year, Environment Canada said.
Meanwhile in Quebec, it’ll look like a winter wonderland. Parts of the Saguenay region around Lac-St-Jean and southeast of Chicoutimi, as well as the Lower St. Lawrence, Gaspé and North Shore regions, are expecting 15 to 20 centimetres of wet snow beginning Saturday night and lasting until Monday.
The federal weather office has issued snowfall alerts for most of those areas and cautioned that strong winds could whip up the snow, impeding visibility on roads.”
Late season snow can be very demoralizing as it brings back all the dread of winter when its “supposed” to be all nice and warm and sunny. We’ve had our late season snow here in the Alberta and thankfully it went away fairly quickly, I hope that our Eastern neighbours have similar results.
Only in Alberta does the the electorate consider ending the 40 year term of the staunchly right wing Progressive Conservatives with a party that is, you guessed it gentle reader, further to the right. It is only the false populist veneer of the Alberta Wild Rose Party that makes it appear palatable to the people of Alberta.
My progressive bones shudder with the thought of electing a party that is considered the fast-track to completing the journey to the dark-side of corporatocracy. Make no mistake, the WRP party was spawned by the Conservative effort, namely the Royalty Resource Review, to give the people of Alberta a more reasonable deal when it came to the extraction of resources from this province. The Royalty Review, even in its gutted state, cost Ed Stelmach his job as premier and cries rang out through the oil patch of ‘never again’; cue the WRP resurgence – a party for the oil companies people of Alberta.
Fortunately, for sanity’s sake, the WRP is made up mostly of dyed in the fool social and fiscal conservatives. These conservative-clowns have now been unleashed on the public and have been busy finding ever larger calibre of guns to shoot themselves in the foot with as the election draws near. Let’s begin with Allan – Homos Will Burn – Hunsperger’s thoughts on sexual orientation –
“Musing on the Lady Gaga song ‘Born This Way,’ which preaches tolerance, Allan Hunsperger wrote that: “You can live the way you were born, and if you die the way you were born, then you will suffer the rest of eternity in the lake of fire, hell, a place of eternal suffering.”
Wow, now that is Christian bigotry Love in action. All the stupid fuckwittery of religion and intolerance on display, you would think the leader of the WRP would kick this sack of bug-frak crazy out of the party. It would be the rational course of action…
Time to burn homos. Love Jesus. How can you believe in shite like this in the 21st century?
“At a campaign event in Calgary, Wildrose leader Danielle Smith refused to condemn Hunsperger’s views. From Postmedia:
“When a person is making personal statements in their capacity as a pastor, which he was, I don’t think anybody should be surprised that they’re expressing certain viewpoints,” she said outside a Wildrose photo opportunity at the Calgary Hindu Society’s temple.
“It was a year ago when he was talking in his capacity as a pastor. He now understands, we’ve spoken, we’ve communicated on this, that we will not be legislating on contentious social issues. He understands that. He accepts that.”
Hey, in the WRP upfront religious delusion is A-OKAY. Nothing like this will go into making secular public policy…honest..we swear on the very tears of Jesus!!! Oh and there is bonus material as well apparently Captain Crazy also has his pastor mojo on over another great evil in society – The public school system!!1!!11! In his own frothy words:
“This includes those students, staff, and families who identify or are perceived as lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, transsexual, two- spirit, queer or questioning their sexual orientation, gender identity, or gender expression. The Board expects all members of our diverse community to be welcomed, respected, accepted, and supported in every school.” Why this from our public educators? Because they believe people were “born this way” and have a right to die this way. The blind leading the blind! Now every Christian school that has come under the Edmonton Public School board will have to adopt this as well. Trapped! For years I have warned Christian educators that you can’t partner with public education because public education is godless. As far as public education is concerned, there is no God“
Yes, there you have Admiral Nut-Butter Von Douche-Bigot of the good ship Homophobia whinging on about the anti-bulling policy of the school board. How dare it be tolerant of the devil children and all their evil! Frak me jebus, why isn’t this man running the party!
Religious delusion aside, the Wild Rose Party of Alberta also happens to be chock full of privileged while males…
And Everywhere the Wild Rose Party is as well.
“I believe that for the people of Calgary-Greenway they need a change. They need someone who has a passion for their community, someone who will represent their community and I believe that as a Caucasian I have an advantage that for the Punjabi community I am able to speak for the whole community and to lift the community up in our region,” CTV reported Leech as saying on the video.
“I believe when I come to our community here I am very concerned that the Punjabi community have not been esteemed, lifted up. When a Punjabi leader speaks for the Punjabi, the Punjabi are listening but when a Caucasian speaks on their behalf everybody is listening.” The host of the program then said he agrees with Leech’s statement.Wildrose officials said the video was recorded about two weeks ago, before Leech made similar controversial comments to Fairchild Radio on Sunday.“I think as a Caucasian I have an advantage,” Leech said during the radio interview. “When different community leaders such as a Sikh leader or a Muslim leader speaks they really speak to their own people in many ways. As a Caucasian I believe that I can speak to all the community.”
Leech, a long-time a pastor, apologized earlier this week for his radio comments, […]”
This is lobe exploding material – Ron Leech who honestly believes that by default White is RIGHT when it comes to representing a constituency. Because isn’t it superobvious that the white man represents all people much better than any of those colour folk. Amirite? Y’all?!?
Damn, you would think that bigots and racists would have learned by now to keep this kind of shit holstered until after the election. And unfucking surprisingly, we get these progressive words from yet another kindly loving Man of God. The vile duplicity of religion is being put on glorious display, you would think that our news media might mention that fact somewhere… but no we get the lukewarm saccharine mewings from our media about candidates questionable behaviour.
Certainly now, Denial Danielle Smith (The science is still out on whether or not Danielle Smith has more than two neurons to rub together) would apologize for this carnival of crazy and boot these loons out of the party. Instead we get a rancorous “Oh Hell No!” from Danielle Smith –
“EDMONTON—Wildrose Leader Danielle Smith on Friday headed into the final weekend of the Alberta election campaign on the defensive, insisting that a candidate who said a white politician was better able to represent the community had simply misspoken.“
Ah yes, let us NOT hold Mr.Lake of Fire and Mr.White Power accountable for their reprehensible actions, just STFU Albertans and elect them already; the WRP has a province to run in the interests of the Oil companies.
Vote for the WRP party! Embrace Corporatism!
There seems to be a lot of chatter in the blogosphere about abortion lately. I’m thinking it could possibly maybe be about CPC MP’s motion to discuss when life starts. This motion is, without a doubt, no matter what the detractors say, a backdoor attempt to try and take away Canadian women’s hard won human right to their own body. Attempts to paint this as anything but that are either disingenuous or misinformed. The only result of Woodworth managing to redefine when life begins at anything before birth is for him to carry on and propose a bill to then introduce limitations on abortion. Supporting this discussion is to support the attack on women’s reproductive freedom.
I bring this up because of what I’ve been seeing on other blogs I frequent, namely Dammit Janet and Unrepentant Old Hippie. They’ve both left progressive bloggers because it seems that suggesting that human rights, in particular a woman’s right to bodily autonomy, is not up for debate is worthy of calling said people idiots and shrill.
My response to said “progressives” is simple.
It’s regressive to think debating the merits of a particular group’s human rights is a good idea.
Stop playing Woodworth’s game.
It makes you a bad person.
Stop it.
Trust Women.
The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation provides a great window into Canadian culture (as it is) and gives Canadians a platform to interact with each other to express and share their views. The CBC also provides news and commentary that is not vetted by commercial interests before going to air as it is a publicly funded broadcaster. Being publicly funded allows the CBC to promote a more diverse set of opinions that more accurately reflect the diverse nature of our country.
Dissident views and public oversight/scrutiny are two qualities Harper’s Conservatives despise. Hence, under the guise of “austerity” and “economic necessity” they are doing their insipid best to ruin the CBC for all Canadians.
“Lacroix said the Corporation expects to eliminate 650 jobs over three years, including 475 this fiscal year. He said 60 per cent of the budget goes toward salary and that it would be impossible to take a hit of this magnitude and not affect jobs. Nearly 10,000 people are currently employed full time at the CBC.
Kirstine Stewart, executive vice-president, English Services, said $43 million worth of programming will have to be cut out of the English Services budget, meaning that some current shows in prime time will have to be cancelled and that viewers can expect more repeats.”
You know how much the CBC costs each Canadian? $34 dollars. That friends, for the service provided is a fantastic deal. Carol Maszur beautifully articulates what this means to her and Canadians –
“The billion plus the Government spends on the CBC, on our behalf, is some of the best money ever spent. We get terrific value for that money, world-class journalism, world news coverage, unparallelled coverage of Canadian news national, regional and local, strong promotion of Canadian culture (Canada Reads, Canadian musicians, authors), thorough coverage of pressing issues in Canada and abroad, unbiased, non-commercially influenced material. CBC belongs to the Canadian people and has lasted for over three quarters of a century . It is as relevant now as it was when it was first established. We need the CBC more than ever, with the blurring of countries and cultures. This venerable institution is not to be tinkered with but supported and celebrated.”
Well said Carol. Let’s not destroy the CBC as it is one of Canada’s most important institutions.
Fantastic. Our cracked conservative government is floating yet another trial balloon on its anti-empirical evidence “tough” on reality crime bill. Listen to all the surreal talking points from the interview on CBC’s The Current Podcast.
Civilized states do not put people to death. We should remain counted as a civilized state.
bleatmop
Mystro
Dead Wild Roses 
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