Don't Let the Facts Ruin a Good Fundraising Drive

Back to politics:

Buckdog reports that Doug Finley is beseeching the Conservative Party faithful to fight the evil CBC. This all goes back to the tempest in the teapot over a CBC reporter feeding questions to a Liberal MP about Mulroney. This is amusing because a while ago Paul Wells pointed out that this sort of thing happens all the time in Ottawa. A sample:

"I don't know whether I ever did it with Reform, Alliance or NDP MPs when the Liberals were in government, but I know it got done and if I had a story I needed advancing, I'd have done it in a second. 'Hey, you might want to ask about....'"

Anyone who has anything other than a totally, totally naive view of politics must surely assume that such things happen all the time. Of course feigned naivety is a great political tool. Stephen Taylor and Doug Finley are shocked! Shocked that the media and the opposition sometimes share information.

Having solved all other problems, Canada's Newest Government EVAR tackles garage sales

According to Buckdog Health Canada has released a warning to garage sale shoppers. It goes on long enough that it's probably a good page in length if you bothered to print it out. All they are really saying is that stuff sold at garage sales might be old and/or broken and therefore dangerous. Maybe Harper should create a Minister of the Obvious to handle future issues like this.

In the meantime let me issue my own warning to garage sale shoppers: When you look back on your life will you really feel that your weekends were well spent taking up parking on residential streets and blocking traffic in order to look for "deals" on broken children's toys, inexplicable grade 8 shop projects, and ill-fitting old clothing? Statistically speaking you will NOT be the one to find the hidden Paul Cezanne masterpiece for $5.

Harper's Dirty Wars?

There was something posted on Buckdog a couple days ago that continues to bother me. Jason Kenney, the man Harper put in charge of drumming up ethnic votes said the following:

“[Canada] will pursue every possible avenue in concert with our allies to ensure that [Iran] does not come into possession of nuclear weapons, which could unleash unimaginable violence.”

Every avenue? Normally this would just seem like posturing, but remember we have 2000 troops in Kandahar, Afghanistan. Now I'm not saying that Harper would cast aside our NATO commitments (though it sure is convenient that our main battle tanks are there already). Afghanistan though would be a great operational base for, say, JTF 2. I could see both Hillier and Harper being willing to commit JTF 2 to some kind of foolishness in Iran if they were asked.

We need to ask tough questions when we're being told that Canada is pursuing every avenue. What are we committing to here? Given that no one is ever told what JTF 2 does, I don't think this is far-fetched at all.