C-Harmony

In previous versions of this site we’ve pilloried “Hannity Date” for its creepy and quite often hilarious program of coupling like-minded wingnuts on the Internets… With that concept in mind — and this is posted just for fun as much as anything else — I’ve got a question after the break…

Okay, so e-harmony and other such sites claiming to match up people according to various metrics — or as they call it “levels of compatibility” — which sounds good in theory (albeit counterintuitive to the more emotional and viscerally magnetic theorems whereby opposites attract), how do they actually work out in practice? Does anyone have statistics on that? I would wager they’re most likely bullshit, but of course, I could be wrong… Still, I’d be intensely curious to know more about the numbers, and in particular about the couples featured in their ads to see how their “harmonious” relationships worked out in real life.

Rural Canada: Who Really Cares?

Here’s an absolutely pathetic “Conservative” attack video from “GritGirl” counterpart “ToryBoy” claiming that Michael Ignatieff “DOESN’T CARE ABOUT RURAL CANADA” because… get the logic here: the recent series of advertisements featuring him in a wooded setting was actually filmed at a lakeside park near Toronto.

Oh, and he lives in an “UPSCALE YORKVILLE CONDO IN TORONTO!” Well sheesh, what an elitist prick, eh! Actually, I’ve seen his condo (on TV) and it didn’t look all that fancy to me.

But wait, doesn’t Stephen Harper reside in Calgary Southwest? That’s wasn’t exactly “rural” the last time I lived in that city (average family income there is $123,000). According to the logic of “ToryBoy” I guess Harper must not “care about rural Canada” either.

Is this really the shoddy and ridiculous level of attacks the Conservatives are going to stoop to? Maybe they should take a page from the Liberals book and say: “We can do better.”

More “Twits”

No, not those hopeless nitwits… It’s another hilarious installment of the WP’s series where they pillory the inane and/or ridiculous Tweets of celebrities and others through dramatic reenactments.

The soulless, self-serving missives of Barbara Walters (or more likely her publicist) are particularly funny.

Windows 7.0 Party Time!

I’m beyond speechless. Sadly, the actors in this painfully upbeat “launch party” video for the release of the latest version of Microsoft’s Windows OS weren’t quite so reticent…

Apologies for making you suffer through that hacktacular video — presuming you watched it beyond the 20 second mark. In truth, it was a completely unrelated pretext just to note that there will be light posting and relative inactivity here for a while due to work-related and personal stuff going on at the moment (generally good things, but very time-consuming).

I’ll try to occasionally post on Twitter in the meantime. And yes, I know many people think that’s a thoroughly unserious medium, but I’ve decided to give it the benefit of the doubt for the time being. Beside which, I like the notion of attempting beat the challenge of the puny 140 character limit without all that maddeningly cryptic text-message crapola).

The Liberal Economic “Plan”

Here’s a couple of key passages of note from Ignatieff’s speech yesterday to the Toronto Board of Trade: “Liberals believe that growth won’t happen on its own without a government that leads” and “a Liberal government will grow our economy in three fundamental ways…”

The three pillars enumerated were: 1) “standing up for Canadian entrepreneurs, Canadian technology and Canadian know-how”; 2) “investing in Canadian people in every region of the country”; and, 3) “going where the growth is… India, China and the other emerging economies.”

Snore me a river.

Sadly, this insipid dissertation didn’t actually seem to be much of a “plan” as advertised so much as it was an ideological statement of purpose and faith-based belief, but with precious little detail fleshing it out. How exactly is this at all different in any way, shape or form from what the Conservative government is currently promoting or that successive Liberal administrations of the past have wishfully advocated?

Look, I get the whole idea that Liberals part ways with our Conservative friends when it comes to sincerely believing in the government’s role in the economy, but the plain fact of the matter is that the Harper administration has intervened on a truly massive scale across the board since coming into office (hence the crushing deficit we’re now presently facing), so where exactly is the daylight between Harper and Ignatieff on this score?

Teabagging in London

In a troubled climate of deep economic recession, I suppose it was only a matter of time before some version of the “mad as hell” anti-government “teabag” movement inevitably found it’s way over the border.

A non-profit, free-market civic watchdog group pleasantly called the Forest City Institute is sponsoring a “London S.O.S. (Stop Over-Spending) Rally” at the beginning of next month to “let London’s city council and bureaucrats know it is time to end London’s decade of darkness.”

A key speaker at the event will be the hateful right-wing tosspot and inflammatory bigot Kathy Shaidle. No word yet on who’s supplying the box for her to stand on.

This story should be interesting to watch unfold, if for no other reason than to perhaps see if this is maybe a precursor to other such protests from frustrated ratepayers across the country who may well quite justifiably feel their civic taxes are being improperly spent by their marginally elected officials.

Rep. Chris Smith Unplugged

Has Congressman Chris Smith of New Jersey told you recently about his views on abortion and how President Obama’s “focused health care reform” proposals would fund abortions in addition to deleteriously affecting “those with cancers… [and] their unborn children” and how it would do “grave injury to those who are sick”? If not, then enjoy this clip:

Never mind Sarah Palin’s ridiculous “Death Panels” meme that was flogged to boredom by the mainstream media —sheesh, that’s so last month’s old news. The Democrats’ wimpy, industry-prostituted healthcare reforms now grinding through the congressional sausage factory have been re-branded as the “Abortion Industry Bailout Bill of 2009” — a heinous piece of legislation according to Congressman Smith that will “cause hundreds of thousands of additional abortions per year” — apparently through a wickedly clever combination of marketing, public subsidies and government funding of mysterious “new venues” (for abortions).

Oh, you may think Rep. Smith is a crackpot, but he confidently asserts he’s got “empirical evidence” on his side verifying that flaunting wads of cash in front of “vulnerable women” who feel they have absolutely “nowhere else to turn” has been proven to “tip the scales” in favour of incentivizing them to expeditiously liquidate their fetuses rather than turning to a local “pregnancy care center.”

Rep. King is also a bit ticked off at the all the political “bickering” in Washington that started immediately after January 20th and would prefer instead to characterize his vehement disagreement with the Obama administration simply as a matter of “standing up for fundamental human rights”…

Look! A Shiny Rock!

Hey, just for fun, let’s see what the Washington Post is up to today…

Okay, that was kind of a cheap shot because truth be told this video wherein celebrity Tweets are dramatically re-enacted is actually quite hilarious. But I wonder if Howie Kurtz will be ironically sneering at it on CNN next weekend.

Doomed in Saanich

I could be wrong, but allow me to make a not all that terribly bold prediction with regard to the outcome of the next election in the riding of Saanich-Gulf Islands. I’m guessing that Green Party leader Elizabeth May won’t even break 10,000 votes and that because of stubbornly entrenched partisan vote-splitting, Conservative minister Gary Lunn will once again emerge victorious.

“Progress in Afghanistan”

That title is taken directly from our Conservative government’s curious website about the “engagement in Afghanistan” — and yes, that’s the way it’s actually described. We’re not involved in a “war” apparently, but a conflict that’s been bureaucratically deemed an “engagement” of some kind.

According to the various benchmarks set out by the Harper government, it’s reported that the number of Afghan National Army battalions in Kandahar capable of conducting “near-autonomous security operations” has increased since our involvement. After eight years of our so-called “engagement” — at a cost of $18 billion or more, it should be added — it’s now claimed that the Afghan Army’s brigade HQ and 20% of its forces are capable of undertaking “near-autonomous perations [sic].” Evidently, results of Canadian efforts in that country are now such that less than half of the five Afghan Army battalions have an “effective strength of more than 70%.” Think about that statistic being reported as a measure of success…

The website goes on to state that “Three infrastructure projects for Sarpoza Prison” have been completed, including reinforcing the main gate. This is the same facility where it’s alleged that detainees were brutally tortured by their Afghan captors in the past and last year militant insurgents drove a car filled with explosives up to the aforementioned gate, blew it up, killed 10 police officers in the area and freed all of the prisoners. But we’ve now rebuilt the gate and cleverly branded it an “infrastructure project”… Yay!

Various non-security related achievements are also highlighted on the website such as the construction of three schools (a few dozen others are in the works, apparently) and providing “vocational training” for almost 500 Afghans. Not much to show for a population of 28 million some might argue, but hey, almost 9,000 women across the nation have received what’s called “literacy training” and nearly 200 people have been employed to build (or re-build) roads and bridges in the Kandahar area. Some judges have also been sent on a crash-course to bone up on western-style jurisprudence. And our forces have been used to improve irrigation canals and help build “energy and protection walls” — whatever those might be.

There are many more such indicators of “progress” if you care to investigate; from the expansion of a regional hospital’s obstetric and gynecological services to our sponsorship of a secretariat charged with facilitating a “Peace Jirga” between Afghanistan and Pakistan to discuss contentious border issues.

Doubtless these are all noble and worthy projects, but do they actually require our continued military presence in Afghanistan?