Plagiarism is Bad

"to accuse a potential leader of plagiarism - an academic no less - on the basis of a couple similar sentences and statistics (which are always similar!) is beyond the pale in my books."
-Jason Cherniak

Mont Royal Jewish Politics

I was waiting for the bus at Snowdon metro this morning and I saw how Irwin Cotler's signs had been defaced. Here is a picture



I was wondering why anybody would put a Hitler mustache on Irwin frickin Cotler.



I called a few friends from the riding, visibly perplexed.

My friend from Cotler's riding said the most interesting thing too, but he refuses to allow me to name him.

"Irwin's problem isn't that he is Jewish, his problem is that he is not Jewish enough."

He went on to explain to me that Irwin's human rights positions have favored Palestinians every now and then. Run of the mill stuff like, you know, they are human beings...

Apparently that didnt please some people in the jewish community.

Anti-Semitic acts have been far from rare in the area in recent years as well. Could be anybody really

DISCLAIMER:
we do NOT know why or who defaced the signs in this extreme manner.


I hope they take the sign down soon. It is kind of disturbing since there is a Jewish school a few blocks away. There is no place in politics for shit like this. It is really despicable.


But seriously. Irwin Cotler not Jewish enough?

Reality is Setting in for Canada's Left

The left deserves to be governed by the right for four years just so the left can understand what goes on in the heads of the third of the country that is traditionally conservative.

The Liberals deserve to pay for their poor choice in leadership. This isnt bitterness. It is stating plain truth. Dion has been everything that his detractors predicted. AND MORE! Vote against the tide by voting against a candidate based on a very progressive vision of Quebec has caused the party to pay for their lack of foresight dearly.

The NDP have to pay for trying so hard to dethrone Harper, they gave him a 4 year carte blanche with the country.

Bloc voters deserve a Tory Majority for thinking that sovereignty was still a more important issue than everything else going on. These Ivory-tower BQuistes in Montreal dont understand that there are more important issues. They are out of touch, and deserve to be defeated.

Green voters had an option to pick a doofus PM who would get stuff done or vote for a fringe party and elect Harper for 4 years.

By having her best showing for the Greens Lizzie May only proves that the best thing the Greens can do to help the environment is to disband their party and join the Liberal Party of Canada and effect change from within.

The Tories suffered over a decade of futility while they were divided. If the left doesnt want to suffer the same fate, they better act together...

They have four years

If it Ain't Broke...

Wait, the fiscal imbalance is broken again?

«Je n’ai pas de comptes à rendre au gouvernement fédéral sur la gestion des fonds au Québec», a-t-il laissé tomber. Pour lui le règlement du problème du déséquilibre fiscal passe aussi par une solution au financement de l’éducation post-secondaire, malmenée par les coupures d’Ottawa dans les années 1990.

«Comme premier ministre du Québec je vous dis que ce n’est pas réglé et qu’on va continuer à réclamer du financement pour le post-secondaire», a déclaré M. Charest.

h/t La Presse

In case you dont read French, that means Bubbles, Premier of Quebec, has decided that the fiscal imbalance, isn’t exactly solved. Apparently, education money wasn’t included, despite the fact that the money that was transferred in the fiscal imbalance deal included more than enough to cover for the cuts made in the 90s.

Well good luck with that one Bubbles. You were doing great in the polls. Now you come out and say one of your biggest accomplishments was a sham.

I’m sure when you take credit for it again in the next provincial election, Mario Dumont will be there to burst your bubble…

Somebody Please Make Me Care

Maybe I have Canadian political fatigue or something, but I am having a hard time caring about this federal election.

I tried everything. I made a few attack ads on notaleader.ca. Boy was that fun. I looked for the make a policy section on the Conservative website. No dice…

I went to a campaign event too. I was at Dawson for the Dion announcement on Monday. I asked a few of the students at Dawson, mostly of voting age, what they thought of the event, since the national media was literally 10 feet away from them with spotlights and 5 campaign vehicles. “What election?” “Who is Stephane Dion?” Ugh! These people cared as much as I did. Although at least I knew there was an election.

I tried listening to Jack! Layton for 30 seconds. That guy really gets me riled up. He surely must be up to something stupid. He doesn’t want Elizabeth May in the debates because she supports the Liberal Carbon Tax Shift-a-Palooza. Lucky for Jack! the NDP Budget amendment in 2006 didn’t disqualify him from that election debate. Agreeing with other parties is conducive to a constructive functional situation. Jack! would have none of that.

Wait, the NDP backed down? They decided to be democratic after all? God DAMMIT! surely there would be another issue that would dominate the campaign and get me back on track with regards to caring…

WHAT! The Puffin (A Noble Bird!) was POOPING on Dion. I have heard of throwing shit at your opponent, but this is really taking it to a new level. First of all, if the tories were paying attention, they would know the puffin (a noble bird) cleans up his own poop! The Tories leave their poop at Julie Couillard’s house.

And how exactly is Puffin poop going to prevent the economic shit from hitting the proverbial wind turbine? An election about the economy…I hate to admit it but I am beginning to slightly feel sorry for Paul Martin. Seriously, can someone go track him down and give him a hug?

34 days left until the election, hopefully someone will find something fruitful to debate, because with all this rolling around in the mud, the lipstick on this smelly pig is bound to come off…

Obama Campaign Should Hire This Guy

In 5:51 Jon Stewart manages to ably and wittily (is this a word) dismantle all the spin the Republicans have been successfully throwing at the media.

FD will probably go into election mode tomorrow so I will try and lay low with regards to the American election.

The Democrats have bungled the Palin rollout. The media have mishandled the Palin rollout (It was CNN's John Roberts who infamously questioned Palin's ability to be a mother and VP at the same time.)

As a result, we are back where we started with an energized republican base to boot.

Time to focus on the Conserva-majorita-palooza that the media will attempt to sell to us this upcoming week.

Sarah Palin "Hits it Out of the Park"

Wolf Blitzer and Gloria Borger should really be my teachers at journalism school.

A+ for EVERYONE!

I watched Sarah Palin's speech with great interest.

This woman has been vilified for days as not ready, and a disaster, and simply not ready in case John McCain kicks the bucket.

However, there were a couple of lines that, in my opinion, did the traditional VP's role and attacked her opponent with lines that were rather feisty but extremely effective.

Barack Obama attacked Palin's small-town mayor experience directly, saying his campaign had more people working on it than lived in Palin's small town.

This is true. Obama is the mayor of Obamanation. I guess it is easier to be mayor of a town where everybody signs up to support you...

"And since our opponents in this presidential election seem to look down on that experience, let me explain to them what the job involves.

I guess a small-town mayor is sort of like a "community organizer," except that you have actual responsibilities. I might add that in small towns, we don't quite know what to make of a candidate who lavishes praise on working people when they are listening, and then talks about how bitterly they cling to their religion and guns when those people aren't listening."

This race really will be about small-town America vs. the big cities. The amount of community organizers outside the inner cities is very small, and it is a fairly democratic constituency. Palin went after those voters in small towns.

"A writer observed: "We grow good people in our small towns, with honesty, sincerity, and dignity." I know just the kind of people that writer had in mind when he praised Harry Truman.
I grew up with those people.

They are the ones who do some of the hardest work in America ... who grow our food, run our factories, and fight our wars.

They love their country, in good times and bad, and they're always proud of America. I had the privilege of living most of my life in a small town."

We need to remember this is an election between McCain and Obama, not Obama and Palin. So when Palin comes out with a line like "there is much to like and admire about our opponent.
But listening to him speak, it's easy to forget that this is a man who has authored two memoirs but not a single major law or reform - not even in the state senate." Democrats cant fall for this trap again.

John Kerry attacked Dick Cheney for much of the 2004 campaign much to the benefit of George Bush who won his second presidency much more easily than he stole his first one.

The line that sold my mom, the ever-undecided voter in Canadian elections, was

"When McCain shuffled back from torturous interrogations, he would turn toward Moe's door and flash a grin and thumbs up" - as if to say, "We're going to pull through this." My fellow Americans, that is the kind of man America needs to see us through these next four years.

For a season, a gifted speaker can inspire with his words.

For a lifetime, John McCain has inspired with his deeds."

She spent her time bringing Obama down to her level of experience, making herself Obama's equal, which greatly helps John McCain. If the Democrats keep arguing she is less experienced than Obama, they will lose. That is a guarantee.

Democrats were whining that Palin's speech was mean. Harry Reid, Senate Majority leader said it was "shrill". I would like to see the last man that Reid has called shrill, and when he realizes he made a sexist remark, I fully expect him to come back with his tail between his legs.

Last night, the test was Sarah Palin's toughness. Judging by the fact that it was the Democrats crying at the end of the night, I'd say she passed the test with flying colours.

For all those who thought Obama would run away with this, some Democrat-supporters like Scott Tribe boasting that the speech was so terrible Obama would now get 350 electoral votes.

I got news for Scott and other Obamacrats. This one is going down to the wire, because the Republicans came to fight last night, and they arent going anywhere.

Palin Derangement Syndrome

I challenge anyone from any part of the political spectrum to knock down any of the arguments made by Michelle Malkin in this post.

There’s something about outspoken conservative women that drives the Left mad. It’s a peculiar pathology I’ve reported on for more than 15 years, both as a witness and a target. Thus, the onset of Palin Derangement Syndrome in the media, Democrat circles, and the cesspools of the blogosphere came as no surprise. They just can’t help themselves.

Liberals hold a special animus for constituencies they deem traitors. Minorities who identify as social and economic conservatives have left the plantation and sold out their people. Women who put an “R” by their name have abandoned their ovaries and betrayed their gender. As Republican officeholders and conservative public figures who are women have grown in number and visibility, the progression of Conservative Female Abuse has worsened. The astonishing vitriol and virulent hatred directed at GOP Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin is the most severe manifestation to date.

The first stage of Conservative Female Abuse by the Left is infantilization. Right-wing women can’t possibly believe what they believe about the sanctity of life, self-defense, free markets, or foreign policy. They must be submissive little dolls of the White Male Hierarchy. Or, as a far Left (is there any other kind of Left in San Francisco?) San Francisco Chronicle columnist wrote of First Lady Laura Bush, they must be put in their place as “docile doormats” with no brains of their own. True to form, no sooner had John McCain announced Gov. Palin as his veep pick than jeers of “Palin = neocon puppet” sprouted across the Internet.

The second stage of CFA is sexualization. A conservative woman is not merely a sellout. She is an intellectual prostitute. Unable or unwilling to argue with them on the merits, detractors resort to mocking the physical appearance of their ideological opponents in skirts and denigrating them with vulgar epithets. MSNBC hosts insulted former GOP presidential candidate Fred Thompson’s accomplished wife and mother of two, Jeri Thompson, as working the stripper pole. Newspaper cartoonists Ted Rall, Pat Oliphant, and Jeff Danziger caricatured Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice as a mammy, thick-lipped parrot, and Bush “House Nigga” armed with “hair straightener.” New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd derided former GOP Florida secretary of state Katherine Harris for applying “her makeup with a trowel.”

True to form, Dowd was first out of the box to snicker at Gov. Palin’s beauty pageant past, ridicule her “beehive and sexy shoes,” and compare her path to the vice presidential nomination as a “hokey chick flick.” Joe Biden backhandedly praised her as “good looking.” And left-wing bloggers worked overtime on lurid photoshops of Palin as a bikini model and porn star. At the Democratic Underground, a highly trafficked liberal website raising money for Barack Obama, members held a contest to come up with nicknames and posters to slime GOP Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin — and then to “spread [them] all over the ‘net.” Among the “nicer” entries: “Cruella,” “Gidget,” “Governor Jesus Camp,” “VPILF,” “Fertilla the Huntress,” “Iditabroad,” and “KILLER PYSCHO FUNDIE BITCH FROM HELL!!”

The third stage of CFA is demonization. When the Left tires of hurling whore insults, it turns conservative women in the public eye into nefarious creatures. Bill Maher called Laura Bush “Hitler’s dog.” George Carlin attacked Barbara Bush as “the Silver douchebag.” A Huffington Post website member wrote of Nancy Reagan: “Like her evil husband, she has lived far too long. Here’s hoping the hag suffers for several weeks, then croaks in the tub.” Another added: “I feel no pity for the bitch who took delight in watching thousands die of a horrible disease and watching the poor having to eat out of dumpsters because of her husband’s political beliefs.”
True to form, rumors of Palin being a crypto-Nazi surfaced on the Internet and the fringe media. And liberal critics used her gun-rights record to smear her as bloodthirsty.

And the final stage of CFA is dehumanization. Conservative women aren’t real women according to the liberal feminist establishment’s definition. Remember when Gloria Steinem called Texas Republican Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison a “female impersonator?” Or when curdled NOW leader Patricia Ireland instructed Democrats to vote only for “authentic” female political candidates? Or when Al Gore’s fashion consultant Naomi Wolf described the foreign-policy analysis of Jeane Kirkpatrick as being “uninflected by the experiences of the female body?”

Echoing the bottom-feeders in the liberal blogosphere, mainstream journalists and Obama water-carriers now question Palin’s commitment to motherhood and even challenged her pre-natal care decisions in an effort to destroy her. Forget about questioning their patriotism. I question their sanity.

The following was a post made by Michelle Malkin, a Republican pundit in the United States