Election Fever Pandemic

The Canadian Press today declared the recent outbreak of Election Fever a pandemic. A spokesman said that the outbreak, which initially began with a handful of election threats from particularly virulent Liberal bloggers, has now become widespread and begun to infect even mainstream media.

The spread has begun to grow exponentially, as Liberals issue threats of more threats of more threats. Today, in a much awaited announcement, Liberal/NDP/BQ Coalition leader Michael Ignatieff threatened that if the government did not cave into previously threatened threats, he would threaten them again - not definitely, but he was certainly threatening to.

However, some experts believe that Election Fever is not particularly dangerous and is unlikely, despite its name, to result in any actual Elections. A leading expert told TDPC, "No Liberal threat has actually triggered an election for years. Canadians should simply observe sensible precautions, avoid Warren Kinsella - or wash thoroughly if contact is unavoidable - and go back to their barbecues until hockey starts again.

The Worst Job In Canada?

I know times are hard (indeed, I'm one of the record number of new EI claimants from March of this year) but is it really so bad that this job will get filled at this time?

Do Dogs Go To Heaven?

Liberal Migrant Worker Scandal Widens

With all the recent news coverage of the so-called "Nannygate" scandal, others are now coming forward to report their experiences with Liberal employers in Canada. TDPC spoke to another recent immigrant to Canada - we'll call him Michael.

Michael's story begins with a chance meeting with a prominent Liberal MP. He alleges the MP promised him a better life in Canada, saying that if he was prepared to immigrate and work for them he would immediately become Prime Minister.

Instead of the comfortable life he was promised at 24 Sussex Drive, Michael told TDPC that he was forced to endure harsh and inhumane conditions. First, he was told that he would actually have to campaign to be elected to Parliament - hours and hours of hard work, not at all the kind of thing he had been promised and certainly not the comfortable life he had left behind in his home country. There followed a period of some years during which he was shut in with around a hundred squawking, defecating puffins.

The low point for Michael came just this week, when his coronation ceremony was interrupted by reporters asking questions about one of his associates. Michael told us that the 'snakehead', or handler who had promised to protect him from this kind of thing had suddenly disappeared for mysterious 'surgery'. Left alone to face a hostile press for the first time, Michael did the only thing he could - he ran away.

Warren Is Proud

to call the confessed member of neo-nazi online groups who posted this:

"Did you know we had an election and the new cabinet hasn't been named yet? We still have scum in government but we have to wait and see which scum goes where." (the 'scum' in question refers to Jews).

his friend.

Way to go Warren. Is that the advice you'll be giving the Liberal party, when you're asked? (Which you are, all the time). That they should be proud to have friends who post racist slurs on neo-nazi websites?

Does the end you're trying to reach - of censorship and thought control online - really justify means such as Warman used? Because it seems from your recent posts that it really does in your mind. A senior adviser to the leader of the opposition is proud to call a confessed member of neo-nazi groups his friend. Yeah, that would make people's heads explode.

For My Former Co-Workers at Nortel

http://search.barnesandnoble.com/Teach-Yourself-Finnish-Complete-Course/Terttu-Leney/e/9780071451086

This GritGirl / CdnTruth / Kinsella Stuff Looks Like Fun

So I thought I'd have a go. Let's see what happens if we turn the Cdntruth style mirror on Kinsella himself:

Warren Kinsella: Standing up for what he believes?

Warren Kinsella wrote that he has 'sympathy' for the Carleton University Student Association who cancelled support for a Cystic Fibrosis fundraiser because the disease is "not inclusive enough." He really wrote that. Sympathy.

One of Kinsella's friends wrote this on an extreme right wing message board: "Did you know we had an election and the new cabinet hasn't been named yet? We still have scum in government but we have to wait and see which scum goes where." (the 'scum' in question refers to Jews). Kinsella says the man who wrote this is "one of the bravest men in Canada."

Man, it's too easy. And it means nothing. A smear is a smear is a smear, whichever direction it goes - and borrowing again from Kinsella, he's too smart not to know that his particular brand of smear isn't just as much crap as this one.

He just doesn't have the basic human decency or integrity to admit it.

Aberwyvern Angela Hewitt: 17 April 2003 to 25 March 2009

It is with great sadness that I return to blogging after a lapse of several months, only to bring bad news to fans of TDPC. The corgi that started it all, the first of our dogs, the inspiration behind so much of what happens here at TDPC HQ, has died.

Angie was a blue merle Cardigan Welsh Corgi with personality plus. She was larger than life, certainly larger than her corgi legs might have appeared, always the centre of attention, friend, companion, joker, nanny and pest in roughly equal measures.

Angie was our first dog and we spent hours researching, planning, preparing and learning - then when she arrived, she pretty much threw the books out of the window herself. She always did everything her own way; at puppy school she earned top place, but at the same time while other dogs in the class would barrel toward their people when called, Angie would always perfectly obey the 'come' but at a nice sedate walk. She would chase and fetch a stick for hours on end - but it had to be one that was at least as long as she was. She wouldn't move for anything less than a small tree. Running across the yard she looked like an airplane, with a good two feet of stick on either side of the huge corgi grin.

Angie was a child substitute puppy for a couple married 12 years - whether it was her doing or not, our daughter was born when Angie was just over a year old. Worried how an only dog might take to the usurper, again we prepared and researched. Angie had her own plans as always and from the moment the baby arrived until the day she left us, Angie was nanny, policewoman and protector first of my daughter and then my son as well. She was the leader of the household as grew to four corgis and the two children - always in charge and always smiling.

Angie had a wonderful sense of timing, never better than on the night soon after my son was born. About a week earlier she'd had her first run-in with a skunk. We'd delicately washed her with peroxide and Dawn, and finally got things a little under control. But on the fateful night, I'd been in to the hospital to pick up my wife and new son - only to discover that the staff wanted to keep them another 24 hours. So I'd arrived back home at around 11pm on a cold November night, with a distraught two year old whose mommy wasn't coming home after all. I'd opened the door to let the dogs out, taken my coat off, and gone to call them back in. Angie trotted up, all smiles, but surrounded by a wall of the unmistakeable aroma... again. The peroxide bath she had in the small hours of that morning was not so gentle as the previous one. She never messed with skunks again.

She had strong opinions on many topics, and in particular home decor. She was so unhappy with the Ikea furnishings when she moved in that in due course she managed to eat enough of the couch as to render it unuseable. No mean feat for a 35lb dog.

She loved walking by the Rideau but preferred not to come into contact with it. When the canal achieved designation as a World Heritage Site, I think she felt that she had finally been accorded some of the recognition that was due to her.

It seems odd that a house with two young children and three corgis could feel empty, but our home is very empty tonight. God speed, faithful friend, teacher, comic and heart dog.

Well You'd Know...

vindictive and nasty. Wouldn't you, Danny?

Waiting For The Liberal Leader

That 11am press conference? Seems to have encountered the same difficulties as That TV Address.

Like Dion, like Iggy.

What was it WK said? Someone should be fired. Period. But that was before he was hired.