"I guess the looming crisis..."

"...that most worries the Obama campaign right now is Joe Biden's next speaking engagement."

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I wanna be

One toke over the line sweet Jesus...
One toke over the line...
Sittin' downtown in a railway station...
One toke over the line

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How green my valley?

Looks like it's time to thin the herd...

In the Ministry of Natural Resource’s eyes, the return of elk to the Bancroft area is a success story, born out of the work of environmentalists’ concern for an indigenous species that once disappeared.

But to the agriculture sector, they are a nuisance, causing farmers thousands of dollars in crop damage for which they can’t find compensation.

“Imagine a 500-cow beef herd running loose in the Bancroft area,” he said. “They eat a lot of feed. And the best grazing is on improved pastures and in field crops. You can’t blame the animal, but that happens to be farmer’s livelihood.”

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Sounds like their first witness...

...is gonna be Martha Stewart...

"One notes that the colours of the pamphlet (white of the paper, red and black inks) wittingly or unwittingly utilize colours very much associated with aboriginal people, for whom four colours have come to be associated with the four cardinal directions and have great spiritual significance."

The pseudo-legal dreamworld of the Canadian "Human Rights" Commission.

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Everything you need to know...

...about Bob Rae's dodgy relationship with truth...

In an interview with CBC News, Rae insisted he had "NOT YET DECIDED" whether he would run for the position, which Dion announced a day earlier he would vacate once a successor was chosen.

Now that the king is dead... "let the games begin in earnest"... yet again.

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UPDATE: Who cares what I said this morning?

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RELATED: And while we're on honesty...

And after Freddie Raines, the CEO of Fannie Mae who made $90 million while running it into the ground, was fired for his incompetence, one presidential candidate's campaign actually consulted him for advice on housing.

(via kate)

You figure the families...

...of outlaw bikers and mafia sluggers get "special support" from the local constabulary?

Five men have been arrested under the Terrorism Act in a series of dawn raids across the Birmingham area.

Meanwhile, specially trained officers have been supporting the men's families and have been speaking to community leaders.

Perhaps the fuzzy-bunny Brits could take a lesson from Indonesia.

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Gonna be a slow day at the Halls

We have a stand of dead elm downhill from the house, so this weekend I got out and cut a little more firewood. Always a good feeling to nail down more fuel for the stove... (I'm running behind this year)... and policing up deadwood just makes it all that sweeter.

I cut by myself, so it's important to think stuff out before you actually fire up the saw. I'm tryin', these days, to be a little more careful about taking breaks and staying hydrated. A couple times in the past, I've kept on sloggin' after getting too tired and ended up fannin' my leg with the saw... which, by the way, is lots more exciting than it sounds.

I think I'm also getting better at reading where stuff is gonna end up. You always try to lay them down where there's space to work, but so many things... proximity, asymmetry, incline, wind, woodrot... can turn things sideways in a second.

The biggest one I tackled this go-round ended up falling off to one side, spinning with the weight of uneven branches... but I'd actually anticipated the possibility and was able to step off as it lurched left and spiraled down.

It wasn't a huge amount of work, but I was feeling pretty pleased with myself... no real aches or scrapes... until this morning when I reached out for my coffee and my back spasmed.

Simply amazing.

The day before, I'd been carrying 40 pound rounds of elm a couple hundred meters to where I could trailer them up the hill... and this morning I just about collapsed in my own kitchen.

It was something I'd almost forgotten about... that incredible electric whap as your muscles decide to snap tight seven ways from Sunday. And it zapped me another couple of times during the day.

Managed to get some comfort and mobility after an overlong, scalding shower... but I think I'm off hard labour for the rest of the week.

Shouldn't complain... it's been a while since I've had any real trouble. Might just be time to pull out a good book.

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Boy... have I got a wedge issue...

...for Steffi to champion when Parliament gets off the ground...

-- VANCOUVER -- Two British Columbians serving time for drug offences in the U.S. have filed a lawsuit against Public Safety Minister Stockwell Day for blocking their transfers to Canadian prisons.

Mr. Czinege and Ms. Lam also claim their constitutional rights have been violated and that there should be an immediate order for their return to Canada.

Mr. Czinege was convicted in January 2007 after he was caught trying to smuggle 110 kilograms of cocaine from Washington to Canada inside a truck's fuel tanks.

Ms. Lam is serving a seven-year jail sentence after she was caught with 1,000 ecstasy pills at the Seattle airport.

They are also seeking to have their legal fees reimbursed.

C'mon... they're at least as deserving as this guy.

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FROM THE COMMENTS:

"What, no Human Rights Complaint?"

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Dion... the diabolical genius

I guarantee, you'll only get this sort of shrewd political analysis... from a graduate of the "Rainman Institute of Leftospherics & Social Policy."
Oh, no... we've been outfoxed again!

**********

UPDATE FROM THE COMMENTS:

He might not ever win a battle... but he'll never lose a moment...
See nonny... I know you felt kinda stupid and were looking for a zinger here... but maybe you should have used up some of the nine minutes it took you to respond... to look up the word "lugubrious" (mournful, dismal, or gloomy) in a dictionary.

I think maybe the word you were actually looking for was "pathetic"... also strangely and ironically appropriate.

And Nonny... at the risk of bursting your uber-academic bubble...

"The MSM seems to be missing the notion that Dion has also made it incredibly easy for the CPC to do what it wants over the next several months as there is no way the Liberals will want to go into another election under this guy."

"Dion has made yet another blunder."

**********

LAST WORD: "...when nobody reads your blog"

Hey Nonny... I think they like you
Feeling a little "lugubrious"?


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The Little Engine... that couldn't

For all them fightin' words... looks like he's a quitter after all.

Say... has anybody checked on Frodo?

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"Today... we are all..."

"...'Communication, Energy and Paper Workers'... whether we like it... or not.

" -- CANADA -- Around CAN $500,000 of federal funds will be used to process ground pork from animals slaughtered through the new federal cull breeding swine program."

Whaddaya wanna bet there's a sudden, massive lack of curiosity about this story in the mainstream media... a la Obama-Ayers...

Is there a single mainstream reporter out there who will ask Winnipeg Harvest executive director David Northcott about his sudden surplus of food?

Will any reporter go to any of the agencies that get food form Winnipeg Harvest and ask they why they suddenly don't need any donations?

Who was the Winnipeg Harvest volunteer who allegedly made the decision on his own to feed the strikers ahead of the truly needy.

Wouldn't that be a lovely good news story?

Don't count on seeing that story anytime soon.

Funny how that works.

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Just don't...

...call it a newspaper...
Reminiscent of Obamamania... the Globe and Mail is in full "eco-flight mode" this morning.

Today... it's miracle houses...

Homes are such energy guzzlers because they're not airtight. They're typically so full of cracks they replace all their inside air with cold outside air at the rate of four to five complete exchanges every hour, forcing furnaces into overdrive.

Of course, there's a solution for every problem, right?

Mr. Braden has built a house that is so airtight and insulated it needs next to no heating. The house is so efficient, he claims, that it "doesn't make any sense" to spend $4,000 on a furnace.

Anyway, Mr B. admits his house is so tight, he needs an air-exchanger... which... hang on a second... as I understand it...

"...replaces inside air with cold outside air multiple times every hour."

And, as someone who actually has a tight house and a high-end air-exchanger unit... lemme tell you, solar gain included... this guy ain't gonna go all winter on that claimed "single pick-up truck load" of wood.

You don't need to be a physicist to know that mixing the warm air inside your house with the minus 25 degree air in the rest of the world is a constant and totally one-sided losing battle. On another note... the only air-exchanger units I'm familiar with, run off the blower in the furnace... perhaps Mr. Braden has one of those new squirrel powered units.

The fact is, so much of this miracle technology is so far beyond the reach of ordinary people, it's really a joke to be touting them as actual real-world solutions.

This isn't news... it's propaganda...

Currently, the homes are at the demonstration stage, making them costly and unaffordable, except for the well heeled. The Toronto CMHC renovation cost about $85,000, to achieve a $1,000 cut in gas bills and a 60-per-cent cut in electricity use, but the hope is that economies of scale will eventually bring expenses down.

Because he wanted to live without accessing the electricity grid, Mr. Braden did spend $42,000 on his solar panels and wind turbine, an expenditure he confesses "is a little bit over the top," but his high-efficiency house doesn't rely on them.

So, despite the fact that the MSM has been screaming for the last little while about how we're all gonna be eating catfood in our retirement years... the Globe presents this one house as a shining beacon of environmental hope.

Speaking of hope, you'll notice that the main innovation in this home, the double wall with the unconventional vapour-barrier setup... is also totally experimental, and I quote...

"...he doesn't THINK he'll have condensation problems."

Again... this is all about "HOPE & CHANGE."

That remind you of anything?

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You know...

...as opposed to the certitude of Obi Wan Ignatieff and the rest of the Fiberal Jedi...
Thank you, once again, Canadian Press.

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Forget about Dion...

...taxpayers are already getting the "Green Shaft"...

The TTC is going back to buying diesel buses because the batteries on its newer hybrid diesel-electric models are proving too "hit and miss."

Batteries that should be lasting five years are surviving only about 18 months, which affects service because those buses have to come off the road for repairs, he said. The hybrids have also failed to live up to projected fuel savings because the technology is most beneficial in stop-and-go downtown traffic and there are a limited number of such routes.

Much of the financing for the new buses came from Ottawa, which gave the TTC $303.5 million last March – enough to buy almost 700 of the new hybrids.

Ouch.

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Is Hanoi Jane Taber...

...floating a trial balloon for Stephane Dion?

If so... its name may be Hindenburg.

Over the weekend, Mr. Dion told one defeated candidate to “stay strong and trim and be ready,” surmising that the budget that the Harper Conservatives deliver in February “is going to be a mess.”

The Harper Tories were held to a minority government last Tuesday and a budget vote is a confidence matter that could bring down the government.

“He didn't sound like someone who is leaving,” a senior Liberal source said.

**********

RELATED: From the obituary page...

"Stephane is politically survived by a bankrupt party, his professorial pals Bob and Iggy, Jane Taber, Craig Oliver, Jim Travers and TorStar (for now), Justin Trudeau, Warren Kinsella and a myriad of socialist Canadians who are entitled to their entitlements."

"He will be sadly missed by both large and small C conservatives alike."

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LAST WORD: Best comment bar none...

...on Dion's self-imposed exile at Stornoway this last week...

"For most people, this triggers a visit from a hostage negotiator."

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Of course, he skips right over...

...ACORN, Bill Ayers and Jeremiah Wright...

It was an important high-profile endorsement for Obama from a fellow African-American who served first as the nation's top military officer and later as its chief diplomat.

**********

RELATED:

"The Left is already rejoicing at the news, despite the fact that some of the the very same people spent endless hours cataloging Powell's alleged lies and deceptions to the UN in 2003, essentially destroying the man's public reputation."

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FROM THE COMMENTS:

"It will be transformational with Robin Hood in the White House."

And...

"There will be a lot of American companies 'spreading their wealth' to other more tax hospitable countries once Obama is done socializing the nation."

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And once again we have...

...the capricious and unknowable "Will of Allah."

Defense Ministry spokesman General Zahir Azimi says the militants hijacked the bus and its 50 passengers Thursday in the Maiwand district of Kandahar province, a Taliban stronghold.

The spokesman says about 30 dead bodies have been found, six of them beheaded.

That's some bloodthirsty deity.

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RELATED: Allah... he's flexible

Taliban militants have launched dozens of suicide bomb attacks this year, about half of them aimed at international troop convoys.

But only some 4 per cent of the victims are foreign soldiers, and the vast majority of those killed, some 80 per cent, are Afghan civilians, security experts say.

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LAST WORD: A "made in Afghanistan" solution...

The woman, Gayle Williams, was a UK and South African national. She was killed by two men on a motorbike, witnesses told the BBC.

The Taleban are reported to have said they killed her because she was working for a Christian organisation called Serve Afghanistan.

In August the Taleban killed three foreign women near Kabul.

And...

Gunmen in Somalia have killed an aid worker employed by the United Nations during an attack against humanitarians in the war-ravaged country, witnesses reported Monday.

Southern Somalia resident Abdi Aden said three gunmen shot the Somali employee of the UN Children's Fund, UNICEF, late on Sunday evening as he walked home in the southern town of Hudur.

Another UN employee was shot three days ago as he left a mosque in the port of Merka. Fourteen humanitarian workers have been killed in Somalia so far this year.

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Gotta have priorities

Must be nice to live in a place... your biggest problem is, somebody's kidnapping your beaches...

"It's a very complex investigation because it involves so many aspects," he told the BBC.

"You've got the receivers of the stolen sand, or what we believe to be the sand. The trucks themselves, the organisers and, of course, there is some suspicion that some police were in collusion with the movers of the sand."

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RELATED: Got kids? Live in Toronto?

Then my only question would be... "Are you nuts?"

Sixteen months ago, Toronto discovered a cancer under its streets.

Old lead pipes, installed in the 1950s and earlier, was leaching the potent neurotoxin into tap water -- posing a serious health risk to pregnant women and children in particular.

Frank Zechner, the executive director of the Ontario Sewer and Watermain Construction Association, said he believes the city will take longer than nine years to replace its lead service connections.

But even its stated timeline, he charged, is far too slow. Similar programs in the U.S. have mandated timelines to replace lead pipes tied to test results. "Replacing 5,500 out of 65,000 in just over a year is still a pretty lax pace," Zechner said.

That work also does nothing to address lead pipes and connections that run on an individual's property.

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LAST WORD: The other "lead-poisoning"

Police patrolling the area saw a man fire a round of bullets at the back of a nightclub in a parking lot near Richmond and Simcoe Streets. A suspect was then seen entering a white stretch SUV limousine that was parked nearby on Richmond Street.

Authorities stopped the vehicle and held it until the ETF arrived on the scene a short time later, around 3:30 a.m.

Just another reason.

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Poor old Parizeau finally snaps...

Compares Quebec to oppressed Soviet client states...

Mr. Parizeau said he doesn't share Mr. Sarkozy's vision of the world, pointing to the emergence of numerous sovereign states in recent years, such as those from the former Soviet Union, as a sign of the growing need for people to obtain their political independence.

Ol' Jacques decides to ice this particular cake by crapping all over one of Quebec's strongest supporters in the community of nations...

“What this implies is that it is a judgment that is very anti-Quebec sovereignty that says: ‘We do not agree with Quebec sovereignty, we do not want additional divisions. We accept divisions everywhere in the world but not that one.'”

Yet another victim of Canada's evil, racist oppressive society... and, of course, France.

NEXT!!!

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UPDATE: On further reflection... I'm thinkin'...

Quebec IS starting to resemble Chechnya...

The fire was started around 9:30 p.m. on Saturday when witnesses reported seeing a tanker truck ram into the hideout. Police confirmed on Sunday that a truck was found in the wreckage.

A large security perimeter was set up Saturday night and dozens of people were evacuated from nearby homes. Quebec provincial police are investigating the possible link between the bunker fire and two other criminal fires in Sorel-Tracy the same night.

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I guess they drew straws...

...and McCallum lost...

Ontario Liberal MP John McCallum has been tapped to take over the reins of his party as interim leader if Stephane Dion steps down as expected on Monday, CTV News has learned.

"People in the Liberal Party are still telling us Dion intends to quit Monday afternoon," CTV's chief political correspondent Craig Oliver said Saturday. Oliver said that McCallum was chosen because he is bilingual, an authority on finance and well-regarded by the Liberal caucus.

"He's thought of as a consensual interim leader, he's not going to be flying off on his own making decisions that they can't support," Oliver said.

Hmmm... John McCallum... flying... why does that sound so familiar?

**********

UPDATE: Not over 'til the stout party hack sings...

-- OTTAWA -- Liberal House Leader Ralph Goodale is pushing hard behind the scenes to line up caucus support to become interim leader if Stephane Dion steps down Monday, party insiders say.

Sources say the unilingual Goodale appears to have substantial caucus backing but his team understands it needs a francophone MP as a deputy leader.

And don't miss Canadian Press stirring the pot even further.

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