Canadian Right Takes Half-Assed Aim at Canadian Health Care (Again)

Canada's right blog-"oh god we're all going to die-o"sphere is taking the occasion of vigorous health care debate in the US as an opportunity to aim their cherished Ronnie RayGun, Grenada Island collectible pea-shooters at our Canadian medical system. You know, the one Canadian's are overwhelmingly supportive of.

But, take heart, oh progressives. The whole developed world has gone, or is going, to public health care! The global market has provided the answer, just not the one your friendly neighbourhood wingnut wanted to hear.

One Party System

In my station here, frugally trolling the streets around the private golf club waiting in vain for a threesome to invite me to play along for free, I'm often overcome with dismay - as I step over the no tresspassing signs on some fucker's fence - that my vote, both provincially and federally, is almost always wasted on the NDP. But then, I think, - pissing on that same fucker's lawn - that I'd rather waste my vote on an incompetent progressive party who couldn't get elected in my riding if Pol Pot was their only competition, than be an American and have to suffer the serial-buggaring saved for progressive Democrats.

30 years of Democrat supported neo-liberalism and neoconservatism, unending acquiescence to the mother corporations, the continual tacking to the right under the banner of triangulation, and now, with the all those right wing ideals in shambles, you've got the Dems unable (at least so far) to deliver health care reforms for a system that spends twice as much per-capita than any other western health care system only to achieve the same (sometimes worse) results.

I wonder how many people there are like me in the US, people who will abandon the Democrats forever if they can't come through this time?

At least I have Jack's moustache to cheer on, neatly trimmed and wagging away in the House, ineffectual as an old porn star who's lost his Viagra.

Harper, Fungus and Indefinite Detention

So the Portobello mushroom that leads this country, Stephen Harper, has his fungal fingers all over this decision to Deny Omar Khadr due process and keep him festering forever in a foreign prison for nothing. At least, nothing proven, and that used to be the rub.

The sad thing is that this would be happening even if Iggy were in charge. The encroachment of the conservative wet-dream of a jackboot-state is unmistakable. Another attack and, "Free No More.

Bang?
Whimper?
Who cares?

In the US, the supposed lefty, Obama, provides the proof, riding right alongside Bush on the range. The horse of civil liberties is out of the barn, replaced in its shit stained stall by a two big steads named Surveillance and Torture.

Thanks for the Memories

I was thinking how Harper's reign has been like a series of Bob Hope Specials - on three or four times a year, always from overseas, and brought to us by oil companies.

Did you know the Western Standard still exists?

Like Quakers, glaciers, and tuberculosis, the Western Standard still exists!





I know. I stumbled, by mistake, across its barely breathing cyber-hulk yesterday on my way somewhere relevant. Of course, I popped in to have a gander, because with most of my time learning about climate change, economic collapse, and all the wars being lost and people being killed, I felt I should see how we were doing with the truly transformational issues of the day - the ChiCom's taking over the world; gays slaughtering straight families in their sleep; and all the machinations of the Nanny 911 state.



I found I couldn't stay very long. Everything was dark and crestfallen. The place reeked of stairwells and urine. The blog was being updated at the rate of your average conservative's logical thought (OK, maybe not that slow.)

The big issue -Manitoba Premier Gary Doer is proposing a provincially run education TV channel. As the blogger put it:

Will you feel comfortable with government programmed TV influencing your kids under the guise of education?

And I think he's right. Because, you know, provincial governments currently have no other way of influencing our children - except for that whole public education system thing.

Our Lefty Conservatives

It never fails to amaze when Canadian market-nuts like Diane Francis spout the (paraphrasing, here) "well I'm a conservative Canadian which means I'm to the left of the Democrats in the US," meme.



Yes, as the predictably disappearing public health care option in the US attests, the Dems are almost equally store-bought by corporations, but this argument made by Francis (on Toronto radio Tuesday) and many other over the years is a bugged-out lie designed to FOOL the public. They say this lie for one reason - to wedge out some legitimacy with the centre to centre-left Canadian public that they don't deserve.

Now Francis is most often thoughtful, measured and honest in her opinions and I actually respect much of her work (while often disagreeing). However, if she's to the left of Al Franken and Russ Feingold (among countless others in congress) then I'm the biological product of a pickle and tall stack of Pringles.

This generalization is always an attempt to label him/herself as some sort of Canadian progressive, which, most certainly, the never are.

Lest We Forget

No, it's not yet November 11.

But let us all remember with every death past and future that our current PM would have had us there:

Baghdad - "At least 95 people were killed and 563 wounded..."

Maybe you know someone who's alive because Jean Chretien was in office? If you do, give them a hug today.

A Proposal for the 35% Who Keep Electing Harper

In the spirit of electing government leaders who hate government, perhaps you should consider:

- sending your spawn to teachers who hate children,
- hiring Filipino maids who hate dust,
- utilizing condoms made by the Vatican,
- listening to music made by Celine Dion, and
- going to a doctor who hates people and doesn't give a flying fadoo if you hang around this planet much longer.

Tough Night in Harperville

Big deal, the ex is squeezing me - lawyering up and going all out for a chuck of the big fat nothing I ain't got.

Ah well, I man up, tough it out - I'm still alive, corn is in season, the Internet is full of recipes for a guy who can't cook, and I'm in love.


Best of all, I can sleep tonight without worrying about Vlad Putin buzzing around the Canadian arctic in a submarine looking like Yul Brenner puffing on a cigarette in defiance of himself and the Russian naval code, seeking global ice and puffin dominance in place of losing influence in all those pesky "Stans." Yes, I can sleep well, because our boy Harper (or Harpoon Steve as he's known to his wife when he slips on his navy blue mukluks complete with logo of the Empire Club), is boarding the Prime Ministerial sled for Iqaluit to take part in military "anti-submarine exercises".

It's a mission called, if you can believe it, "Operation Nanook."

Here's how the gaming goes, according to an unnamed source:

One of our WWII vintage frigates, cathode tubes wrapped in insulation to protect against the cold, spots a nasty Ruskie sub (perhaps catching a serendipitous glace of shiny commie metal out a porthole; or perhaps by simply asking around at the whaling sheds) and the crew springs into action. The junior guys man the guns and place their fingers on the big red buttons, while the senior officers call the Prime Minister (for today's game only to be played by Albert Schultz) to report the grave breech of sovereignty, after which the PM retreats to his cabin, looks directly into the mirror, and rehearses the official, Canadian, hawkish response:

"please Vladamir, my friend (dare I say comrade?), give me a call the next time you come 'round for muktuk and I'll make sure there are no navy ships in the area - you know, out of sight, out of mind."

Why is William Kostric not dressed in an orange jump suit?

For the pathetic life of me (scrimpin' and scrappin' down here in Harperville on Pomona Creek to save up enough money to put into the car when next it breaks down), I might not fear poverty, alienation or having my nuts squeezed down to sweet scrotum juice, but I sure as hell do fear the encroachment of awful, insane AMERICA.

Take note of what a Harper majority might eventually bring:

This New Hampshit feller, Bill Kostric, shows up outside an Obama townhall meeting with a LOADED 9 mm pistol clearly visible on his hip, carrying a sign saying, "it is time to water the tree of liberty, " clearly referencing Tommy-gun Jefferson's quotation that "the tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants." What happens? He walks, not a question asked, and gets his ass invited on Hardball to chat with the Dean of Crazy, Chris Matthews.

So, apparently, in the United States of Coming Dark Ages your allowed to carry a gun to an event where the freakin' POTUS is in attendance AND, for good measure, you can issue a public threat against his life, and it's all OK?


I hate to say it, but the US deserves to have its leaders killed at the current rate of one every 50 years, just for sheer stupidity.

Imagine my surprise

So, in moving here to banks of Pomona Creek from up north in Belinda's old riding, I guess I was expecting just a modicum more enlightenment. But, then again, there's old money down here and old money crumbles when exposed to light. I should have expected as much. Turns out, my new MP is former "journalist" (news reader) Peter Kent.

Ah, Mon Dieu!

Not only do I still have a PaleoCon representing me in Ottawa, it's another one of them Manchurian Tory "journalists," (like the mutant potato that is Mike Duffy and the permanent wave that is Pam Wallin) who paraded around on the Tee Vee polluting our perspectives in favour of the rich and stupid for years, always forgetting to declare their clear establishment biases.

And what's worse?

Reader Peter was too stupid to take the obvious route of the rest of the career frauds, that starring role tailor made for Tory whores - Canadian Senator.

I mean, Minister of State for Foreign Affairs (Americas)? Please. If he had any brains at all he'd have defaulted to his true Tory instincts and raked in the guaranteed cash for life sitting in a body he didn't believe in tweaking policy for a country he likes even less than France.

The Essence of Harper

What is Harper?

Harper is not simply or solely our somewhat disembodied, Canada despising PM. Harper is everything and everyone and all the dark forces in this cold country that hate, hate, and hate with pathological derangement, anything OTHER than themselves.

Harper is the sick undercurrent of dumb machismo (now strangely silent on the matter) that would have sent us into Iraq in 2003.

Harper is the flatulence of disdain for anything brown, yellow, Muslim, gay, that, among thousands of other atrocities, considers a Muslim Canadian woman wrongfully detained in Kenya not even worth farting for.

Harper is the ash and disgrace gazed down upon by the eyes of Dr. T.J. Eckleburg.

Harper is:

Moloch, whose mind is pure machinery! Moloch, whose blood is running money! Moloch, whose love is endless oil and stone!

As the US rejects these creatures and cretins, we continue to elect them.

From the Banks of Pomona Creek

I'm not saying Stephen Harper's been the cause of my ending up down here on the banks of Pomona Creek, choked 'round ragweed, broke, dispirited, marriage over, missing my kids and otherwise happy as a lonesome fish. But, it's true that soon as Harper moved into office my groin started itching. I got fat as soaked mushroom. And the little amusements didn't seem to amuse as much, anymore.

Truth is, of course, I know Harper doesn't even know who I am. Nor does he harbour any more disdain for me than for any other Canadian grateful enough to love this country and what's it's accomplished or unlucky enough to be lacking in those most prized and admired attributes among conservatives: inheritance, bad hair, good health, and a deep-seated though never discussed desire to play with members of the opposite sex only!

Harper. I'm going to prove that you're a weasel, and so am I. This is our story.