Stephen's Harper One Step Forward, Two Steps Back Policy

So Gurment Grehwal is not running. Good move but that is only half of the problem. Nina Grehwal is still running. Gurment may be a corrupt politician and amateur audio-tape edior but by all accounts Nina Grehwal's whole constituency office was actually run by her husband's and she hardly talked to the media at all. Get rid of the crooked politican and leave the proxy.

It's like the same move they made last campaign. They didn't let Larry Spencer run but still let Rob Anders run.

Michael Ignatieff- Anti Ukrainian?

"My difficulty in taking Ukraine seriously goes deeper than just my cosmopolitan suspicion of nationalists everywhere. Somewhere inside I'm also what Ukrainians would call a great Russian and there is just a trace of old Russian disdain for these little Russians" from Ignatieff's book Blook and Belonging

He wouldn't get my vote if he was running in my riding.

Little Napoleon leads Edmonton to its most exciting Grey Cup win ever

Danny Maciocia had an abysmal regular season. It looked like we might not even be able to beat Calgary and rumours were sirculating that Ron Lancaster might return as head coach. But by pulling Rick Ray in favour of Jason Mass (who didn't play at all this season) was gutsy and it paid off twice. Don Matthews is suppossed to be the madman of the CFL but today Edmonton's madman beat Montreal's madman. Then in the final game when it all mattered he stayed with his no.1 guy and he prevailed throwing a long pass on a 3rd and 4 to get the eskimos last touchdown before overtime paid off. The eskimos secondary almost halted the alouettes hopes at the end of the game by nearly intercepting the ball with 8 seconds left. Overtime and I thought it was exciting when Tony Tompkins set a CFL record for the longest punt return in a Grey Cup.

Overtime (Grey Cup overtime with rules I haven't heard of) hasn't been played since 1961. Even Don Matthews coach one. Regular CFL overtime has 2- 5 minute halfs to declare a winner. This overtime had rotating series till one team scored more than the other team. No punting here all three downs are used to score here.

The Als looked like they had it and then Edmonton came back. The maddness wasn't over yet. Then immediately afterwards went down the field for a field goal. Montreal failed and the esks triumped.

More entertaining the game was the Danny Maciocia, the eskimos coach who over the past three games has made former head coach Higgins look like a pragmitist, He started jumping around like a little green laprachon who stole the gold with the whole country watching. With his daring moves you would think they were made by a madman with visions of alien encounters but there is method behind his madness. The reason why Jason Maas didn't play was because next season he will be playing for a different team and why ruin Ricky Ray's confidence when you know he is going be your guy next year. Here's to Grey Cup 2006. Ray vs Mass. Edmonton vs Hamilton?

Let's Bomb Al Jazeera

The US led an attack against Afganistan and Iraq. Now according to British reports Bush wanted to bomb Al Jazeera in Jordan but Blair was against it. Isn't it ironic that in the fight for freedom that sometimes you have to bomb media outlets that transmit oppossing views, and replace them with puppet media channels like what's happening in Iraq.

Mulroney's Secret Tapes

I watched half of the special based on Mulroney's secret conversations with Peter C Newman and 2 things struck me.

First, Mulroney sounded like a paranoid-power hungry politician like Nixon or even Stalin. The word goddam was repeated every second statement. Sometimes he used the f-word or croc of shit to stir things up. He tells what he really thinks of Turner, Clark, Wells, Trudeau, Chretien, McKenna, Bouchard, Manning, Broadbent, and Crosbie. One good argument by Mulroney though is why he wanted to reform the consitution. He brought up Quebec not be included and the getting rid of the notwithstanding clause which annauls most of the human rights included in the charter.

Second, Peter C Newman came off as even worse then Mulroney. Clearly, Mulroney thought these comments were private and to a friend not a journalist. Newman constantly repeats to Mulroney how much of a loyal friend he is and gets Mulroney to open up.

Esks headed to Grey Cup

Everyone doubted the eskimos chances this season. In a league with only 9 teams and if you have the best QB you are almost a shoe-in to win it all. Ray is the league's best QB but he sure hasn't been playing like it. They added Davis a capable running back and when things weren't going well they were able to rely on Maas who nobody was expecting to play at all this season. Jason Maas has stepped up and he is the only reason why they are in the Grey Cup. I am not a big Cavillo fan and the eskimos will have to play miserable not to win their 2nd Grey Cup in 3 years.

Join Bill O'Reilly's Blacklist

The Huffington Post is collecting to give to Bill O'Reilly who will include these names along with the inhabitants of San Francisco as allowable terrorist targets.

Bush is popularity is falling and wait till the other show falls when people turn off FOX News.

Star Wars: Episode 3

I finally saw the Revenge of the Sith and was amazed George Lucas was able to make up for his previous two disasters. It explained quite a bit and Anakin's transformation into Darth Vador was believable. But one question did arise- what was the point of episode 1 and 2. They didn't really add to the storyline and were dreadfull to watch.

Also I think the movie was partly by motivated by contemporary America's politics. While fast-forwarding through the commentary Lucas said he based the idea on the fall of the republic on Napolean who became emperor and killed democracy. But I can think of one nation today that claims to be fighting for democracy abroad and at home is limiting the right of its citizens and its President wants more executive power. The line in the movie, "You're either with me, or you're my enemy" makes this correlation blatantly obvious.

Pet Biased Media

In Edmonton the media is obsessed with the guy whose dog was killed. I couldn't believe that Thursday's Edmonton Sun's front headline featured that story especially after the terrorist attack in Jordan. What the Media is saying a dog's life is more valuable than anybody who lives in Jordan.

Will the real Mr. Dithers please stand up

The Liberal-NDP Pact is over. There will be an election, I think.

Harper was whining for Layton to withdrawl his support but when Layton did withdrawl Harper basically said I'm not the man who will start it. To make news worse for the conservatives Klein said he will campaign with Harper in the next election. Didn't Ralph lose over 10 seats in his own province and the rest of the country despises him.

Kyoto effects

Kyoto will reduce European economic growth

It looks like the europeans are willing to sacrifice economic growth to fight global warming. They wouldn't suffer economic consequences if the US was on board and with europe holding the world's most powerful and the biggest common market the US might suffer sanctions in the future.

New Comments Section available

There is a new form which will be on all the web pages which will allow everyone to allow feedback.

It's available on the Top 10 Explorers rant and will be soon available on all rants. Also soon I'll set it up so the comments will be automatically posted on the rant (which is not available now)

Gomery's wrath continues to sweep across the country. I still can't get over Stephen Harper's comment that he has never seen a worse scandal where the government wasn't removed like this one. In Paris the city is burning, Bush's government is accused of secretly torturing people in Europe and leaking CIA agents names, Blair is connected to Bush, Putin has imprisoned the owner of a media empire that criticized him, and in Australia the government survived despite having lied about the major issue of the last election campaign. (children being thrown overboard from smugglers ships). It's not that bad in Canada and if Harper thinks Canada is so bad and needs to be more like the US, Canadians are scared.

Gomery aftermath

It Looks like there's going to be a Christmas election. If the NDP doesn't agree to a new deal with the liberals the minority government will fall. Even if a deal is reached the conservatives, bloc, and all the independents could still bring the government. But the conservatives are weary because fighting an election over the sponsorship scandal won't get off to a get start if its just the conservatives and the separtists bringing down the government. Both the liberals and Conservatives need the NDP and Layton will have to decide which party's offer is more lucrative for the NDP. The NDP might want to wait and at election time claim they were the party that tried to make parliament work and didn't bring down the government the first chance they got. At election time the NDP will only experience modest improvements as it looks doubtful they get more than 20% support.

The outrage is limited this time. Polls still show a slight liberal lead at just over 30%. It wasn't as bad as the Brault testimony when the liberals dropped to 25%. Next election it looks like the Bloc will receive about 60 seats and the NDP 25 seats. That's all ready 85 seats which leaves only 223 seats. 155 is needed for a majority and for one of the major parties to form a majority the other needs to receive less than 68 seats. We're headed for another minority. If Martin doesn't get a majority- he's gone, if Harper doesn't get the PM's chair- he's gone. If the liberals win again look for radical conservatives to put up a hissy fit and become separtists.

This scandal will give a black mark to Chretien's legacy but in the end it still will be very positive. Every budget has been balanced since '95. The government's finances are the best run in the G8. The Conservatives and NDP have constantly criticized the government for spending the surplus money on the deficit. In the past right-wingers wanted balanced budgets but with Bush's administration they have refined their message by claiming the deficit is not the people's problem and giving massive tax cuts and recording even larger deficits is good financial planning.

Gomery's Big Bang

The Gomery’s Commission Interpretation certainly shocked the nation. I don’t think there has ever been a more awaited report. And now we have seen the full extent of Canada’s political spin machine.

First this was bad news for both the liberals and conservatives. The Liberals were expecting because there was no hard evidence given throughout the inquiry that either PM was involved in the scandal. But Gomery somehow pointed the finger at Chretien. The liberals are in a tough position because they can claim this government is Martin’s government but they will alienate Chretien supporters. They might convince voters not to vote for Stephen Harper but the conservatives aren't the only party.

The Conservatives tend to lose a lot because the people angriest over Gomery all reside in Quebec. The rest of Canadadoesn’t trust the conservatives either and the conservatives have been over negative over the scandal. Harper went even further calling it one of the worst scandals globally. Look to the south where CIA agents lives are being deliberately put in jeopardy, Halliburton contracts dwarf all contracts, and how about appointing the former commissioner of an Arabic horsing society to be head of FEMA. Right of reality indeed. The conservatives have set such high expectations that if they do form the government they will never serve two terms because if they misspend just a $1 million they will be ridiculed for double standards.

That leaves the NDP and the Greens. If the major parties screw up they could capitalize. But first they have to show why their relevant and prove they could govern and are not just protest parties.

Now to more partisan analysis:

If Martin is going to force Canadians to choose between him and Chretien. I'm going with Canada's toughest prime minister and that means I probably won't be voting Liberal no matter who is running.