Romeo And Juliet

just because it's time for a change of pace.

"Apparently Dion has been demoted to webmaster."

h/t Yowza

Reader Tips

Good evening ladies and gentlemen, welcome to SDA Late Nite Radio. Tonight, for your delectation and pursuant to our Monday night jazz show, here is Mr. Stan Getz performing Blood Count at the Newport Jazz Festival (1984, 4:32).

Your Reader Tips are, as always, welcome in the comments.

It's Twenty Minutes Before Midnight, Eastern

And a blog site run by a commercial artist in Saskatchewan is still logging over 1.400 visits an hour.

You stupid sonsabitches have no idea what you are about to unleash.

Always Look At The Bright Side Of Life

Ray Heard;

The Liberal Party, which I joined in 1961, has done a Nixonian deal -- no, make that a Neville Chamberlain deal -- with two devils, the separatists and socialists, that will destroy it, just as the British Liberals fell after WW1 by compromising their principles in pursuit of unattianable power.

A CBC Calgary Poll Goes Horribly Wrong

Despite the attempted vote splitting.

And now it's going to go even worse. Heh.

Quebec Handshake

"Coupscam"

Dawn Breaks On Your-Buck-Ninety-Five-Or-Your-Country Coalition

Hard. (Bumped)

Down 630 points in 15 minutes. What a country!

Sun sets on Your-Buck-Ninety-Five-Or-Your-Country Coalition
TSX records biggest point drop ever - 864.41 points down.

SDA Gets Results!

UPDATE!! According to John Baird (on Charles Adler) Gilles Duceppe will have veto power over every single bill put forward by the coaltion.

Oh man, I do think I see the twinkling of the asteroid about to extinguish the Liberal Party as we now know it.

If it doesn't take out Confederation first.

Related thoughts from Kelly McParland.

Step One

660 News Calgary;

The Stelmech Tories are floating the idea of creating a western based financial hub, hoping to turn the province into a major global financial player.

The hub would cluster financial operations, as the province continues to look for ways to take financial clout away from eastern Canada.

The Finance Minister tells The Herald major banks in Toronto don't always understand the financial needs of the energy sector and it would be in the province's best interest to create it's own hub.

Attempts To Reach Justin Trudeau For Comment Have Been Unsuccessful

(Bumped)

Update - where SDA leads, David Asper follows!

Y2Kyoto: An Inconvenient Oprah

Where there's a Gore...

The Gore Effect is sure to follow.

Nice Try, Luser

Date: Mon, 1 Dec 2008 07:29:56 -0600
From: Noam D. Garrett
To: harpermustgo@hotmail.com
Subject: Harper must resign to save our party

[snip]

Please help in spreading the word about this petition to urge Harper to resign to save our party:
http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/resign_now_harper/

IP Address: 192.251.226.205
Hostname: anonymizer.blutmagie.de

We'll be seeing lots of this in coming days.

I Thought They Only Did This To American Soldiers

“But the reason I would not want to talk to anyone is because our safety was actually compromised by CNN, which broadcast where we were. The terrorists were watching CNN and they came down from where they were in a lift after hearing about us on television."

Western Separatists Are Doing The Happy Bum Dance Tonight

That is all.

Reader Tips

Good evening ladies and gentlemen, welcome to SDA Late Nite Radio. Tonight, for your delectation and pursuant to our Sunday night classical music show, here are the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra performing the finale from Johannes Brahms's Symphony #1, Leonard Bernstein conducting (9:57).

Update: Courtesy of EBD in the comments, here is Mr. Andrew Coyne's most excellent essay: The Tories Made Them Do It.

Your Reader Tips are, as always, welcome in the comments.

Rifts Threaten Your-Country-Or-Your-Buck-Ninety-Five Coalition

John Ivison;

A person close to Mr. Ignatieff said that any deal with the Bloc Québécois and NDP struck by Mr. Dion would be a “poison chalice” for the next leader. He said that Mr. Ignatieff has the support of more than 50 of the 77 Liberal MPs, so the success or failure of a coalition proposition will depend on how the leadership candidate views any deal.

Although Mr. Ignatieff has publicly maintained the official Liberal line that the government should fall over its handling of the economy, his supporters say any coalition deal with the left-wing NDP and separatist Bloc is fraught with risk. It would only take nine Liberals to be absent from the House next Monday for the government to survive and the source said he fully expects a number of no-shows

“Dion is like Frankenstein’s monster - he’s on the slab and just had a jolt of life injected into him. He’s going full tilt ahead with this coalition but his caucus isn’t going with him,” the source said.

More - Maybe not so imaginary...

Y2Kyoto: Stop Taking Your Vitamins

Computer models have predicted the end of civilization as we know it will be pre-empted by the end of the economy as we know it.

Jack And Gilles

Update: now with audio, courtesy Stephen Taylor.

Blow up the Hill...

The New Democrats and Bloc Quebecois had a secret plan to form a coalition party well before the opposition's uproar over the government's fiscal update, CTV News has learned.

NDP Leader Jack Layton was in talks with Bloc Leader Gilles Duceppe for a "considerable period of time," reported CTV's Ottawa Bureau Chief Robert Fife.

Layton held a telephone-conference meeting with his caucus Saturday morning that was recorded by a Conservative member. According to the audio tape, Layton appears to take credit for the possibility of a coalition.

"Let's just say we have strategies. This whole thing would not have happened if the moves hadn't been made with the Bloc a long time ago and locked them in early," Layton says. "Because, you couldn't put three people together in one or three hours. The first part was done a long time ago."

He then goes on to say that the NDP "spotted and prepared for the opportunity and had taken the steps that were required, so that when the opportunity arose, which was when Mr. Harper made his disastrous strategic error by not providing stimulus to the economy and instead playing political games, we were able to move and things began to move very quickly."

Update 2 - Signs arise of a rift between the Loser Who Would Be King and the Heir Apparent...

Seven Year American Depression Watch Remains On High Alert

Sales during the day after Thanksgiving rose 3 percent

... to $10.6 billion, according to preliminary figures released Saturday by ShopperTrak RCT Corp., a Chicago-based research firm that tracks sales at more than 50,000 retail outlets. Last year, shoppers spent about $10.3 billion on the day after Thanksgiving, dubbed Black Friday because it was historically the sales-packed day when retailers would become profitable for the year.

But this year, many observers were expecting consumers to spend more time browsing than buying, amid contractions in consumer spending and growing fears about economic uncertainty and trouble in the global financial markets.

"Under these circumstances, it's truly amazing when you think about all the news that led into the holiday season, it certainly appears that consumers are willing to spend more than most expected," said ShopperTrak co-founder Bill Martin. "Everybody wants value for their dollar, so we saw a tremendous response to the discounts."

"The greatest character assassination in the 20th century"

After the war, there seemed to be a consensus among Jewish leaders about Pius. On Dec. 1, 1944 the New York Times reported that the World Jewish Congress publicly thanked the Holy See's protection of Jews, especially in Hungary. In October 1945, the World Jewish Congress made a financial gift to the Vatican in recognition of Pius's work to save the Jews. In May 1955, the Israel Philharmonic played at the Vatican as a gesture of thanks to the pope for his services to Jews during the war.

When Pius died on Oct. 9, 1958, the public accolades continued. In fact, the New York Times received so many tributes over the next three days that it could only publish the authors' names, among them, leaders of major Jewish organizations. Two days later, the Times cited memorial services for Pius in several New York City synagogues.

Last month, at a meeting of the Vatican's synod of bishops, Haifa's Chief Rabbi Shear-Yashuv Cohen advised that Pius "should not be seen as a model" or be canonized. Israeli social affairs minister Isaac Herzog called the canonization process "unacceptable."

What sparked the sea change? Most historians mark 1963 as the year that soured public opinion, with the production of a play, "The Deputy, A Christian Tragedy."

Related - A Jew recommends John XXIII for the title "Righteous among the Nations"

Just In Time For Christmas

The perfect gift for the lefties on your gift list, a priceless reminder of the day the world changed.

h/t

Reader Tips

Good evening ladies and gentlemen, welcome to SDA Late Nite Radio. Tonight, for your delectation and pursuant to our Saturday night contemporary music show, here is Mr. Barry White performing Let The Music Play (4:22).

Your Reader Tips are, as always, welcome in the comments.

Name That Coalition - Final Voting Round

Postcards From The Geographical Center Of Progressia

Dear Canadian Liberals, Including That Pack Of You With Dead Tree Columns

Only three years ago, the Liberals were flush with cash, with over $17 million flowing from the government allowance and contributions from supporters.

Fast forward to 2008. Of the 305-member list of top donors from 2005, a mere dozen have contributed the maximum to the Liberals this year, even though the limit is far lower.

So much for the "existential threat". If you want them to exist, then get out your cheque book and shut the hell up.

"An attack of this nature cannot be thrown together overnight. "

An analysis of Mumbai terror tactics and likely suspects, by Bill Roggio at the Long War Journal.

How Deep, Señor Chavez?

Preparations begin for another great moment in socialism!

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez is asking the military and his supporters to prepare for a showdown with his newly elected political opponents.

He is telling his backers they must be prepared to die for the revolution.

Name That Coalition!

As is the norm here at SDA, the best ideas come from the comments - With Kate's permission perhaps it is time to speculate on a name for the coalition. Perhaps the Traitors, Commies and Clueless party?

My favourite so far - "The Coalition of the Swilling"

Add your own in the comments. It's time for a new thread, anyway.

Update - already several exceptional suggestions and a first-rate rant...

New Libloq
The Progressive Pork Party
The USSR - Union of Separatists and Socialists against the Right
New Libs on the Bloc
The Raucas Porkas Caucus
Bloc Torontois

"The Treasonists... The Terminally Stupid party... The Pathological Self Preservationists... The Can You Repeat the Question Again Party... The Peoples Temple of Trudeauvia Party... The F##K Democracy Party... The Entitled to their Entitlements Party... The Canada Schmanada Party... The Don't Vote For Me, and We'll Seize Power Anyhow Party... The Naturally Governing Seperatist Party... The Clarity Act Seperatist Alliance... The New, New France Party... The Nationalist Socialist, Seperatist Alliance... The Gerard Kennedy Just Won't Shut the Hell Up Party... The MSM Party... The Coup D'Etat Party... The We're Not American Party... Sorry, I could go on, but won't."

Voting Has Begun - help spread the word!

Y2Kyoto: "Mr. Obama rejected that view"

"... saying that his plan would reduce oil imports, create jobs in energy conservation and renewable sources of energy, and reverse the warming of the atmosphere.

Economically speaking, this is total lunacy. But he believes. Nor does he need Congress to act, since the EPA is already dealing with petitions to regulate CO2 as a pollutant. He simply does what he said he would do before the election, which is to regulate CO2 as a HAP. Even farms would have to go through permitting, as would large stores, etc.

Last week an EPA appeals board dumped another coal plant, and said the EPA should develop national rules for CO2 emissions. That ruling is widely believed to have placed about one hundred coal plants in jeopardy, at a time when the US is rapidly running out of electricity. Plants in Utah, New Mexico, Kansas and Georgia have all recently been stopped by legal action.

That leaves the US with no new drilling, no new nuclear plants, no new hydro plants and no new coal plants. In short, it leaves us with no real substantial new energy sources except perhaps plants that burn natural gas.

Reader Tips

Good evening ladies and gentlemen, welcome to SDA Late Nite Radio. Tonight, for your delectation and pursuant to our Friday night old-time radio show, here is Sir Michael Scudamore Redgrave, CBE, as Cecil Scott Forrester's indomitable Admiral of the Fleet and 1st Baron Horatio Hornblower, GCB, in Disguised As a French Ship (1952, MP3, 5 MB, 21:48), with a tip of the tricorne to Her Majesty's Canadian Prime Minister, the Right Honourable Mr. Stephen Harper, PC. Godspeed, sir.

Your Reader Tips are, as always, welcome in the comments.

STAY STEPHANE STAY! (Bumped Again)

Evening Update - via a reliable source:

This story started with a Canadian Press story that obviously did not understand House of Commons procedure. The Ways and Means Motion being voted on Monday is for tax measures only. The elimination of political subsidies will be in the enabling legislation for the fiscal update as planned, it will be a confidence vote.

I told you this'd be worth it!

Bourque seems to be on top of the other news headlines, so I'l redirect you there...

Original post continues below:

Opposition hold coalition talks, Grits may dump Dion

One option under consideration is to suspend plans for the May 2 leadership convention and just go straight to the cage match.... developing....

Updates:

A CBC poll goes horribly wrong.

Breaking - after calls to the Saskatchewan "a leadership convention date has yet to be decided" Liberals produced a "this number is no longer in service" message, opposition parties are reported to be seeking advice on coalition-forming from Jean "when I'm finished with Paul Martin he won't get elected dog-catcher" Chretien.

ROTFLMAO Update... via John Gormley Live. ... With the opposition parties on record vowing to take down the government over the "lack of a stimulus package" in the economic update ... Harper The Merciful has announced he'll remove the party funding portion and separate it from the confidence vote... developing...

To the Liberal/NDP supporters whining that the CPC is exploiting the opposition's financial vulnerability to play "partisan games", I offer this advice - get out your checkbooks and shut the hell up.

Tony Blair's Britain

Where the foxes caper unmolested, the government packs your school lunch, and multiculturalism means more pavilions at Jihadifest;

Two British-born Pakistanis were among eight gunmen seized by Indian commandos who stormed buildings to free hostages, Vilasrao Deshmukh, the chief minister of Mumbai, reportedly said.

The Vast Right Wing Conspiracy

Proceeds apace...

*

Tony Blair's Britain

Where the foxes caper unmolested, the government packs your school lunch, and Party Girl Police fan out across the nation;

Drunk women who stagger about in high heels are to be protected - at public expense - from twisting their ankles.

They will be handed flip-flops to wear by police outside nightclubs as they wend their way home. The scheme is part of a £30,000 drive by police and councillors to prevent 'alcohol-related harm'.

It has been prompted by fears that women wearing stilettos or similar footwear could tumble over.

Can Your Office Provide A Quote From The Communist Secret Police To Help Flesh Out Our Hit Piece?

Newsbusters;

New York Times European correspondent Dan Bilefsky bizarrely relayed the contents of a secret police file from the former Communist state of Czechoslovakia to boost his argument that Vaclav Klaus, the new president of the European Union, is a dangerously arrogant proponent of the free market. Bilefksy's Tuesday story from Prague, "A Fiery Czech Is Poised to Be the Face of Europe," read more like a cautionary left-wing editorial than a news story.

More - It's a hit that carries the fingerprints of the climate alarmists.

IBD - "Right man, right job, right time."

Previous - "Can Your Office Provide A List Of Your Critics To Help Us Flesh Out Our Hit Piece?"

RE: Barbara and not volunteering at church anymore.

"I had the same experience."

After years of volunteer work, taking vacation days to teach a "genius" class of bright kids from our church school (itself clearly a social crime in the brave, new and disgusting "Beneath the Wheel" world of leveling education), I was told I had to undergo vetting for criminal behavior. I told them to go to hell, a place they profess a deep knowlege of. Others, more compliant, will take my place, and argue that it is not so bad, and well intended. Like helping the Jews by resettling them in the East, perhaps?

The mark of the socialist is to classify, since that is simplier than having to think. Thus to the nazi, Jews were a class of subhumans, and to Pol Pot's murder squads, those who wore glasses were intellectuals, thus a threat to the perfect agrarian society, and should be shot. To the racketeers of the Left, white men, who largely were the inventive and operational core (for whatever reason) during most of the development of Western Society have to be the class of oppressors (although very few ever were). But why? Because that is where the money is! Western Culture brought us the toilet, the telephone, antibiotics, photography, ships of the sea and air, institutionalized curiosity (a.k.a. Science) and the engineering that makes science useful. It made freedom possible, because it made us rich (well, overall). But like the Nazi's, who went after the Jews with invented claptrap and insane ideas, because the Jews were where the money was, the rise of the sensitivity culture is a piracy culture, an extortionist racket.

At the root of this piracy is the legal system, which has developed an infuriating, disproportionate ability to collect damages beyond all proportion. Thus churches and corporations, being largely productive(the magic word is "have assets") are thrown open to ruin by the disconnect between the jury awards and reason, since the ethical spine of the jurors themselves is the pivot. Most jurors are well meaning, but suckers for spending other people's money (as are, co-incidentally, your governments, which in the midst of a developing depression, want an even larger division of your labor...why should (socialist) public pensions and salaries and other comforts be inconvenienced by your troubles?).

What has really created a problem is that as socialist dogma in the public schools spreads it has infected jury pools with irresponsible, self-absorbed free-lunch types. At least in part because of this, sexual abuses, and God forbid, personal slights and perceived unkindness, which we all know will occur from time to time, become the fodder for disproportionate and destructive awards extracted from well-meaning and/or productive organizations. Small wonder then that the "touchy-feely" elements of the legal rackets promptly step forward with antidotes for the very venoms they spew. The price is reasonable! Just a few thousand dollars per session, or per backgrounder, plus the decency, dignity and presumption of innoncence once promised to us as citizens, and always deserved by decent people. So what if you get thrown under the bus by the indifference of law and the vile greed of the hyperbolic, extortinate left: on the one hand they have the opportunity to extravagantly loot productive organizations, on the other to to make money immunizing against lawsuits. What's not to like?

This degrades society and wastes resources, but it is easier for institutions and corporations to become the handmaidens of fraud-peddling social engineers, abusing and insulting volunteers or employees, rather than take a principled stand against this abuse.

This is truly a high tech middle ages that is evolving. The age of reason is over.

Reader Tips

Good evening ladies and gentlemen, welcome to SDA Late Nite Radio. Tonight, for your delectation and pursuant to our Thursday night wild-card show, here is M. Maurice Chevalier performing Thank Heaven for Little Girls from the movie Gigi (1958, 2:29).

Your Reader Tips are, as always, welcome in the comments.

The Sound Of Settled Science

A scientific research station in Ely, Nevada, part of an "air quality and environmental monitoring program".

It is an impressive station with multiple state of the art sensors, solar power, and a datalogger with a satellite uplink to DRI’s HQ.

Update and correction - this is not part of the USHCN climatology network as originally indicated, but a scientific research station run by the Department of Energy and Desert Research Institute.

Open Challenge To That Party Of Perpetual Also Rans

It took only 10 years for the Reform Party to self-fund itself from nothingness to Official Opposition.

What's your excuse?

Update: Yes, indeed.

Full Steam Ahead

Star Phoenix;

Potash Corp. of Saskatchewan will require the equivalent of 32,526 direct and indirect positions during construction of capacity expansion projects over the next four years, says a company executive.

When expansion projects are complete at its Allan, Cory, Lanigan, Patience Lake and Rocanville operations in 2012, the company will be responsible for the creation of an additional 14,583 direct and indirect jobs in Saskatchewan, Wayne Brownlee, PotashCorp executive vice-president and CFO, said at a Canadian Club of Saskatoon luncheon Wednesday.

[...]

The company is spending nearly $6.5 billion to add 8.95 million tonnes of annual capacity to its potash mines -- including its Picadilly, N.B., operation -- over the next four years. It expects the new level of capacity to be fully ramped up by 2014. In Saskatchewan, this means an investment of $4.8 billion, said Brownlee, and in a difficult economic environment, the timing couldn't be better for the province.

Say What You Like About Harper (Bumped)

But sometimes you just have to stand back and admire his style.

Reaction...

Bob Rae's "This is unfair!" moment.

"Should the government slash public funding for federal parties?" A CTV poll goes horribly wrong.

Shock and Awe.

Lots more in the comments.

Google Commemorative Logos You'll Never See

Reader Tips

Good evening, EBD here. Welcome to Vitruvius' SDA Late Nite Radio.

Several weeks ago I had the good fortune to see American songwriter Lucinda Williams performing live in a small local venue. By the end of the two-and-a-half hour concert I knew I'd witnessed something very special. Tonight, for your delectation, here is Ms. Williams singing the title track from her 1998 release Car Wheels on a Gravel Road.

Your Reader Tips are, as always, welcome in the comments.

"After 9 o'clock Chapters turns into an adult book store"

(photo/caption credit Karen P.)

Faster, Please.

Nov. 19

Heritage Minister James Moore has warned CBC executives that excessive spending on hotels, theatre tickets, and charity dinners "does not sit well" with Canadians, and has asked the Crown corporation's board of directors to rein in the spending.

John Cruickshank has resigned from the top job at CBC News to take the position of publisher of the Toronto Star.

Terror Attacks In Mumbai

Almost certainly perpetrated by Baptists.

With news just in that 9 of the perpetrators have been captured alive, the luck is that they're in the hands of Indian police. A waterboarding in Guantanamo will seem like a wishful dream in their coming hours.

More at BBC.

From the comments - "these guys will be confessing to killing jfk by the time the first set of battery cables are worn out."

Can Your Office Provide A List Of Your Critics To Help Us Flesh Out Our Hit Piece?

Mr. Klaus declined to be interviewed for this article. His office called a list of proposed questions “peculiar.”

Update - Vaclav Klaus, on global warming.

Holodomor

"The Holodomor, or Hunger plague, was a famine engineered by the Soviet Union as part of a series of actions, including mass executions, designed to destroy the Ukrainian nation. Census data reveal a shortfall of 11,000, 000 in the Ukrainian population by 1937."

Throughout Canada, in each and every year, the fourth Saturday in November shall be known as
“Ukrainian Famine and Genocide (“Holodomor”) Memorial Day”.

Y2Kyoto: Wind Power Prices "Below Zero"

Before reading on, just consider for a moment what the term "negative pricing" might mean in plain English.

Ready?

During these negative price periods, suppliers are paying [Electric Reliability Council of Texas] to take their power. Consumers (at least at the wholesale level) are getting paid for using power, and the more power consumers use the more they get paid. These prices are a big anti-conservation incentive. You could, as a correspondent put it to me, build a giant toaster in West Texas and be paid by generators to operate it.

Infrequently, a power plant might choose to bid below the short term marginal price in order to stay in the market and avoid shutting down. It can be economically rational for operators of less responsive generation units to offer negative prices in order for it to avoid the costs of shutting down for just a few hours and then start up again when load increases - think coal-fueled or natural gas steam turbine. When energy load is very low, near zero or negative prices can result.

This isn't the cast in West Texas. Instead, the negative prices appear to be the result of the large installed capacity of wind generation. Wind generators face very small costs of shutting down and starting back up, but they do face another cost when shutting down: loss of the Production Tax Credit and state Renewable Energy Credit revenue which depend upon generator output. It is economically rational for wind power producers to operate as long as the subsidy exceeds their operating costs plus the negative price they have to pay the market. Even if the market value of the power is zero or negative, the subsidies encourage wind power producers to keep churning the megawatts out.

The Man From Hope And Crawford

As the word "chickenhawk" goes into hiding...

"Leaving the Bush tax cuts alone. Putting Iraq-war supporters in as Vice President and Secretary of State. And now keeping Bush’s Defense Secretary on. I’m beginning to feel like I won this election!"

Not even inaugurated, and the once useful Noam Chomsky already feels betrayed...

Rove - you magnificent bastard!

Update - KABOOM!!