It's Getting Hot in Here

Am back in D.C. and just melting from the heat. Turns out the best is yet to come. The city is bracing itself for another heat wave - how does 37 C sound to the people back home?

It's also getting hot in D.C. for those 17 years old and under, with the city imposing a new curfew to help curb a rash of violence... And people say they don't like the state trampling on the freedom of their everyday lives....Can you imagine if they tried to ban hang guns?

Looks like things are heating up for the Liberal leadership race: a missing Ignatieff (not to mention rumours of a bizarre documentary surfacing with him firing an AK 47 (or is it another type of weapon? Being from a peaceful country with attempted gun bans - I am not so hot on my weaponery knowledge) AND rumours of Frank McKenna jumping into the race to save us all... well, rather than comment on all this, I'm happy to let things simmer for a bit under this hot summer sun and see what happens...

(PS – thanks to the Calgary Grit for providing the inspiration for this posting… it’s sooo hot that I am currently devoid of any original thoughts… not that I had any before, but it’s just nice to know that there are quality blogs available for inspiration when the heat dries up any creative juices.)

I'm the Decider

As promised quality YouTube clip on my Decider obsession. This video is pretty good - a little long - the biggest downfall is that the tune got stuck in my head all day... "I'm the Decider and I decide what is best." Hmmm, I actually think I might use that line next time someone disagrees with me.

True North Strong and Free

Am home sweet home for the weekend. So nice to be back in a pleasant summer climate - the sauna-like conditions were killing me (and I've lived in some hot climates) but D.C. seems to foster it's own kind of climate beast.

A couple of things have been on my mind in my first 24hrs back at home.

Here's a little medley:

1) I been obsessing about George Bush being "the Decider", I know this is old news - but as I saw his motorcade driving into the back entrance of the White House, for some reason, the whole "Decider" episode slipped into my mind and I can't stop cracking up about it. Found some great clips on You tube - which I will post.

2) Uplifted state of mind since returning home. Turns out there is a pseudo - scientific explanation. Canada is a Happy place!
We ranked 10th out of 178 countries on the National Happiness Index.

3) Am loving John Ibbitson’s column today in the Globe about why the Reform/Alliance, opps, I meant Conservative party, will be hard pressed to turn their minority into a majority.

4) Predictably so, been thinking a lot about foreign policy implications for domestic politics. Normally the mantra is that the electorate doesn’t vote based on foreign policy. Not sure that that mantra stands given current state of global affairs. Thought what Dryden had to say in the Toronto Star today was interesting…

5) I’ve noticed that there are a lot of “I”s and “me”s in this entry – could it be the impact of quality individualistic American living, slowing creeping through…

That being said, am off to enjoy my quality Canadian beer with quality Canadian company.

Three Strikes? Or Two Too Many?

…. See my previous post about Little Red Riding Hood and the Big Bad Wolf. Is this the third strike , or only the second? In any case, I’d hoped that leadership campaigns would apply a more stringent lens to when they should call it quits than a baseball metaphor.

Rectifying the gender inbalance

Kudos to Calgary grit for highlighting female candidates in his “Best Prime Minister We Never Had” contest. Just wish that we’d be able to get equal numbers of male and female candidates on that ballot. Verdict’s still out on whether France’s system of “ballot parity” (i.e. equal number of female to male candidates on ballots) actually translates into equal number of male/ female elected officials. Though, one could argue that perhaps because of France’s new interest in gender parity, Ségolène Royal actually looks like a viable contender for the Presidency (and she is light years above Edith Cresson – the last female French political figure of any note – and an absolute disaster at that).

Apologies for all the French stuff – it’s all the Buddha Bar talk that got me reminiscing of glory days in the City of Lights.

Spinning all night long

Ohhh – so NOW I understand. According to Canada’s very own relentless pursuer of the truth, Jane Taber, PMO staffers were too busy hanging at Buddha Bar to deal with an international national crisis and saving Canadians overseas.

Hey, if I had just paid 30 euros for two spring rolls, I’d want to make the most of my night and come down from the all the G8 fandango while listening to DJs spin the next Buddha Bar album, rather than say, extricating vulnerable Canadians in the middle of an escalating war.

Seriously though, I think that sometimes we give political staffers a hard time. If you need a few hours to chill and take your mind off of things, then all the power to you. I bet you anything that the Harper “rescue mission” was drawn up on the back of a heavy cloth Buddha Bar napkin.

The only reason that I’m writing about this and complaining that Tory PMO staffers should have been working during a national crisis instead of gallivanting about in Paris is that this is exactly the kind of thing that the Conservatives would pounce on if Liberal were caught with there hands in Buddha Bar cookie jar.

I just hope that they weren’t paying for those exorbitantly priced (and mediocre tasting) spring rolls on my tax dollars.

Days until Bush leaves

This blog is random and hilarious with some good links on the side. Check it out: daysuntilbushleaves.blogspot.com.

Chinks in the Armour

Randomly passing through a small town in Virginia about 20 minutes outside of Washington, DC, I started flipping through a local paper while waiting for a coffee at the Starbucks.

Causally flipping through, noticing outrageous house prices and reading about municipal issues, one article caught my eye: a scathing commentary on President Bush .Now when I say scathing, I mean really scathing – like to a degree that I’m not use to even in minority parliament Ottawa.

Now, granted I’m not far from Democrat D.C., but I didn’t imagine in that peaceful Virginia town that there would be such an open blasting of the President. This article is something that I’d expect to see more in the Montreal Mirror or the Ottawa Express. The fact that a local rag is the vehicle of this commentary is also interesting. Could this be a sign of changing times? Something slowly boiling up below the surface? A revolutionary movement of anger and frustration and despair slowly sweeping through small towns ending in a final roar at the 2008 Presidentials?

Now I could be barking up the wrong tree and totally over analyzing one random column. But it did make for interesting Saturday afternoon reading and the chance for some sort of politico-anthropological analysis of a small Virginia town.

The Error of My Ways

A friend (a Canadian who just returned home after 2 years in the US of A) recently commented on the glaring hypocrisy of two of my postings. In the first, I go “on and on” about the necessity of more women in politics. And then, in my very next post on American candidates for leaders of the Liberal party, I do not have a gender balanced poll ballot.

My friend suggested a number of strong potential American female candidates: included Oprah Winfrey, who (according to my friend: “if I spent a little bit more time in the States, I’d realize that Americans considered her to be a serious contender”.)

To rectify the error of my ways, I am now accepting nominations for other American female candidates as leaders for the Liberal party. Please let me know and I’ll reformulate a new and improved, gender balanced poll.

FYI - results, so far, of previous sexist poll: (12 votes and counting, well 10 actually cause I voted twice from two different computers) is former US President Bill Clinton leading with 57% of the vote.

To op or not to op

I thought this wasn't supposed to be a photo op? Just a gesture of belated good will from our fearless leader rushing in to airlift out a few selected foresaken Canadians. No? It's interesting for a non photo op trip, when Stevie had to shed staff and go down to a skeleton crew, he chose to keep three comms staffers (to serve dinner no less) on board instead of maybe a policy or security advisor, oh say, what about a trauma councilor? Check out the Globe and Mail's rendition of events and the diversion of limited Foreign Affairs staff to make way for the PM's tour.

Women in Politics II

Well if we can't actually rectify the low number of women in politics, I give you an alternate solution: Politicians in drag. Strategically targeting demographics of both young and old voters. Enjoy!

Life and Death Decisions

Just wondering: How is our fearless leader going to decide who gets to ride shotgun with him on the plane?

As for Bush's first veto...66% of Americans support this life saving research. Whatev - just another example of the tremendous value that Bush seems to place on human lives....

Mini organizing break

Just want to let folks know that blog is still up and running - haven't had a chance to post due to a bunch of organizational issues surround the move (i.e. settling into new job and moving into new place, etc). I plan to be back in no time – offering up tons of spicy political commentary with a southern flavour – just need a few days to let the dust settle. Thanks and apologies for the delay – I do plan on being consistent in my daily ramblings in future.

Cross border polling

Inspired by the Frog Lady’s online poll re: Liberal leadership candidates as South Park characters, I’ve come up with a (much less exciting) poll to further foster Canada – US political relations (and if you have any other suggestions for possible candidates - please let me know and I'll add them on):

Which American would you want as the leader of the Liberal party?

Al Gore Hillary Clinton Bill Clinton John Kerry Condoleezza Rice Angelina Jolie Arnold Schwarzenegger Colin Powell Dick Cheney Warren Beatty

view results

(It's a little risky for me to put up a poll cause I don't even know if anyone reads this blog. So if you do happen to come across this page, please apply a similar mantra to this poll as you'd apply to election day: vote early and often!)

Let’s hear it for the Women in Da House

In honour of Stephane Dion’s fanfrickentastic policy announcement yesterday, I thought that I’d serve up this article and poll in the Washington Post today about Hillary Clinton as a possible presidential candidate. The figures are interesting.

(Please note a few major caveats to this post: 1) I have not stated which Liberal leadership candidate I’m endorsing – I want to establish some blogging street cred before doing that – so don’t take my endorsement of Dion’s policy as necessarily an endorsement of him as a candidate. 2) While I agree with most of Dion’s proposal, I’m still not sure what I think about bypassing riding selection to appoint candidates. 3) I am not necessarily backing Hillary Clinton as potential presidential candidate, either. Caveats in place, I invite you to read on.)

I want to comment on some of the responses in the blog world to Dion’s policy. There seems to be a big discontentment with the “affirmative action” quality of the announcement. Some bloggers are saying that there are tons of different minority groups that aren’t equality represented in the House. That’s a really fair and valid comment.

However, people seem to keep forgetting that women aren’t a minority group – they actually make up (and wait, I know this is a shocker): over 50% of the population! So let’s start treating them that way – and recognize that there is a serious and bizarre disconnect when it comes to the low numbers of women in parliament.

Rwanda ranks number one in the world in terms of number of female parliamentarians – and if Canada can’t do better than a country that has undergone a genocide and serious economic, political, and social strife – then we have a major problem. Let’s stop hiding our head in the sand with this one – call a spade a spade and take some real and concrete action.

Red Hot Grits

Apparently Ambassador Wilkins likes grits too! (see page 2). Who knew?

Balancing the Books

Republicans are celebrating today. The forecasted deficit for fiscal year 2006 is now down to $296 billion instead of the $ 423 billion predicted five months ago. I’m trying to wrap my mind around this. A $296 billion deficit! That’s like I decide to go shopping, go nuts on Prada and Gucci and Dior, buy (or take over or what have you) some prime middle eastern real estate and wind up spend $ 296 billion dollars more than I earn in one single year. Granted I’m not a country of 300 million plus people, but still.

The real clincher is that when Bush came to office he inherited a surplus of $284 billion! At that time, the Bush administration predicted a $516 billion surplus for 2006. (I’m quoting directly here from Daily Kos – you can check out their website for more figures, details, and sources).

This kind of stuff makes me proud to be a member of the Liberal party. This is the party that managed to take the $42 billion deficit legacy of the Conservative party and turn it all around to deliver 8 consecutive balanced budgets. Never before done in the history of Canada!

I know this is a strange thing to get excited about – but can you imagine that an individual just went crazy and spent not even $42 billion, but let’s say just $42 million dollars more than they make in a year! Let’s just hope that Stevie’s not picking up any accounting tips from his new BFF Georgie…It’d be a real shame for the Tories to put us back 14 years.

To quote a wise Liberal from out west: “Conservative times are bad times.”

Ned Lamont Has a Messy Desk

The States is supposed to be the bastion of sophicated campaigning: vast fundraising machines and savy communications strategies - I here by give you a taste of the newest campaign strategy to hit the US of A: The Attack Yourself Attack Ad. Enjoy!

Little Red Riding Hood and the Big Bad Wolf

Something’s been bugging me about this leadership race. It’s sort of been gnawing at the back of my mind for a while. Now that I am out of the country and have a little distance, this festering itch has surfaced as a full-blown rash. Especially now with the membership numbers coming out.

So here’s my beef: it’s the Volpe factor. Now here’s a little Italian 101: Volpe is a derivative of wolf in Italian – and there is definitely something sort of wolf – like, in the Little Red Riding Hood sense – going on here. I mean in spite of the shady fundraising tactics, the guy still manages to be the leader in membership sales?!?

I’d be hard pressed to say what exactly Volpe stands for. But regardless, it would appear that Canadians across the country – and non card carrying Liberals at that – have managed to see something in Joe Volpe that I haven’t. Some sort of vision, some sort of Prime Ministerial or Official Leader of the Opposition quality. So much so, that they are running in droves to join the party. Call it women’s intuition, or gut feeling, or whatever, but I just have an inclining that something is not quite right in Kansas.

I could be biased. Maybe I’ve seen one too many of his “bored out of his mind” performances in Question Period. Or maybe it’s that in my entire Hill, campaigning across the country, Wonderful Wednesdays experiences, I have yet to meet anyone who actually really liked the guy.

Even chatting with some of his organizers at the beginning of the race, I asked them what Volpe stood for, what sort of policy issues he wanted to raise, what he thought about party renewal, etc – and in all open-minded honesty: they didn’t tell me anything, nothing, nada, zip. In fact, they were the least able to article any vision or platform of any campaign I talked to.

I know that it’s naïve to think this, but I would at least like candidates for the leadership to PRETEND to be in the race to raise important issues facing our nation and the Liberal party; rather than it just being about a power grab.

The other thing that I find surprising is that following the “children funneling money” incident - that no one within our party is really saying anything about Volpe. Shouldn’t we all be up in arms! This is the stuff that makes us look bad – really bad – and just reinforces all the negative messages being thrown at us by other parties. Now we don’t even have to look to other parties to smear us – there is a wolf within our own flock!

Why aren’t we more shocked, scandalized, outraged, demanding that he get out of the race? We can reinforce that Liberals do not tolerate corruption – or any breaking, bending of the rules whatsoever. So Volpe gave the money back – so what? The Liberal party doesn’t have the stomach, the chutzpah, or the stamina right now to deal with another bad apple.

And the fact that the number of membership sales indicate that Volpe could be kingmaker at the convention - to put it bluntly - just makes me sick.

A Urinary Track

So yesterday, I log onto the CBC website to get my daily quota of good wholesome Canadian news, when I see the headline of our number one story: Teen offers heartfelt apology for urinating on National War Memorial (and please note the name of the story in the URL: www.cbc.ca/canada/ottawa/story/2006/07/07/peecharges.html). I’m thinking this can’t be right – THIS is our number one story on our national news network? A story about some drunk guys that probably stumbled out of Darcy's and had to relieve themselves. Then saw a block of concrete and thought that was as good as spot as any, and then some dude with a camera takes pictures of them and they get in trouble…

This is our number one (not local rag) National news story ?!?

Now please don’t get me wrong. I am in no way condoning defacing our National war memorial or any other memorials for that matter. Nor do I take for granted the tremendous acts of bravery, courage, and lives sacrificed by our armed forces for the benefit of our country as well as the peace and security of world as a whole.

But I just find it extremely bizarre that there is a place or an appetite for this story in national news. Ah the glory days when then House isn’t sitting, I guess. Are we all so desperate for something even remotely (barely, vaguely) controversial? Look at what our society has become! A few months ago our very own Stevie, leader of the True North Strong and Free was disrespecting women and men in uniform by refusing to lower the flag. Now it appears that our whole society has drawn exponentially from Stevie’s example and is running amok, desecrating national war monuments…

After a bit of reflection though and reading today’s US papers, despite the fact that I find this whole thing parochial, I started to compare our leading news story to the headlines down here (all courtesy Fox News): U.S. Investigators Ask to Exhume Body of Alleged Iraqi Rape Victim , Evidence of Broader Plot Found in Guantanamo Suicide Investigation , FBI Thwarts Terrorist Plot Against NYC

Compared to these, I’d take peeing on monuments any day.

My Best Friend Steve

A few noteworthy highlights of yesterday’s Bush – Harper press conference:

1) According to Dubya, it might be possible, though not confirmed by any evidence, that North Korea wants to nuke Canada.

2) Harper’s now goes by Steve.

3) Canadian journalists were falling all over themselves with obsequious excitement – the only ones to wish Bush Happy Birthday (and predictably, though sadly, the only ones actually asking questions about Canada – US relations. American reporters only wanted to know about US – North Korea relations)

And the real humdinger: 4) Harper reminded viewers that Canadian values are American values… (such as, now I'm extrapolating here: privatized health care, abandoning Kyoto, and joining BMD?)

(Now note Condi barely containing her excitement while stifling back a yawn...)

UPDATE: For the Washington Post take on Stevie's visit, check out Dana Milbank's column: Washington Sketch...ouch!

Alberta: Canada’s Emissary to the US of A?

Maybe it’s Quebec’s seat at UNESCO that spurred Alberta into action, or maybe it’s just sheer western entrepreneurial spirit, but Alberta is making quite a name for its self as outreach ambassador to the United States.

Alberta’s sprawling exhibit at the Smithsonian's Folklife Festival on prime Mall real estate, complete with grain elevator demo, oil pump, and mini stampede, Mounties, Canadian cuisine, is enough to make any Canadian proud (even this Quebecker).

The exhibit is a genius marketing ploy that has a willing audience of thousands of 4th of July happy tourists and involves gimics like handing out yo-yos on the streets of Washington encouraging passer by to visit Edmonton, “Canada’s festival city” (who knew)?

Tonight it’s cocktail drinking and fireworks viewing with our very own father of the GST and Alberta’s Minister of International and Intergovernmental Relations.

Who needs a seat a UNESCO, when you are sitting on prime real estate, flaunting your goods, in front of our biggest trading partner?

NB – Remember to get those Liberal membership forms in - today is the day and the last chance to get your forms in to be able to participate in an anythingcouldhappenwide – open race...

Changing colours

Post election, post regime change, and hence job loss; here I am, a Canadian political refuguee in DC. All ready to exchange my Hill Times for The Hill and my Liberal red for Democrat blue.