Giving Credit Where Credit Is Due

NDP MP Peter Stoffer made the motion in Parliament today to have a State Funeral for the last Canadian WWI vet. It recieved unanimous consent in the house, though the Conservative Government House Leader whined that it 'was only one option among many' that they were considering, and that the Government would reluctantly support the motion.

There were initial concerns that the Conservatives would not support the motion.
A spokesman for Veterans Affairs Minister Greg Thompson had said the Tories wouldn't say whether they would back the motion until they saw it.

The NDP also have fought for better veterans pensions, in another motion that was passed in the house, which the New Canadian Government, like its Liberal minority predecesor, is refusing to recognize.

And in Blogging Tory land does the NDP get kudos for their efforts? Nope they still slander Layton calloing him Taliban Jack and whine that the NDP stole the thunder from the Dominion Institute. Or they ignore who made the motion in the house, and they ignore the Conservatives continued reluctance over this issue.

Some folks can never just say job well done.

The Dominion Institute first floated the idea of a state funeral for the last surviving First World War veteran, and the idea quickly gained ground through online petitions.

As of today, 89,500 people had put their names on the petition.

The institute had planned on forwarding the petition to the Prime Minister’s Office on Dec. 11.

“Canada’s veterans are our greatest heroes and our country’s greatest volunteers. Offering a state funeral for the last Canadian veteran of the First World War is a fitting and symbolic tribute to recognize the great personal sacrifices of those who have served and who are currently serving our country,” Stoffer said in a statement.

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NDP

Veterans



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Does This Load Faster

I get comments on how slow this blog loads.

Now I understand that some problems occur due to my links on the side. However it also is the problem with the need for instant gratification we have become used to on the internet. With high speed loading and broadband ISP's the average websurfer expects instant gratification.

"People make instantaneous judgements about whether to stay on a site, and if a site doesn't give the right impression users will bypass it," said Dr Jim Jansen, Assistant Professor at IST.

The average wait time is not minutes nor even a half minute it is mere seconds, 2 to 4 seconds and then folks move on. If a page does not appear immediately they leave.

As one wag called it; What I Want Is Instant Results, WIWIIR.

Well I guess if I want readers I will have to make my page more time efficient for loading. Though it does load faster if you keep it in your cache.

So I have removed some of the widgets, dodahs, etc. on the sidebar, does it load faster now? And I seem to have solved the pop-up problem.

Let me know if this loads faster now.

And while your at it check this out;

Penn State Study

Web Surfers Impatient With Search Engines Diss My Web Site, Please

Study: Two-Thirds Of Searchers Click On First Results Page


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Old News

The Edmonton Journal has discovered blogs about the PC Leadership race and that they are having an influence on the campaign. Partisan conservative bloggers that is.

Blogs wield online influence in campaign
Information first published in blogs carries impact, garners thousands of hits

Whats this with the inordiante fascination of the MSM with Conservative bloggers, I thought the media was dominated by lefty liberals.

Bloggers influencing elections and leadership races is old news. Just as this is.

For all the Lethbridge audience knew at the final candidates' debate last Friday, Ted Morton was unleashing new details on Jim Dinning. But Morton's jab at Dinning for sending a note and a $25,000 corporate cheque to Liberal leadership candidate Paul Martin in 2002 was already old news on the Internet. In fact, online Progressive Conservative partisans had been talking about it 10 days ago.

Yeah well I posted about this as did other progressive bloggers over 115 days ago back in July. And we all got it from the same source, Paul Wells at Macleans. So lets give credit where credit is due. It came from the lefty liberal media.It did not come from the PC bloggers, but they have used it to slam Dinning.

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Conservative Leadership Race

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Gay Business

Big Business
Chance Mitchell and Justin Nelson and the growth of the National Gay and Lesbian Chamber of Commerce.

The reason that homosexuality is socially and politically recognized is the power of the dollar, regardless of the power of the social conservative lobby.

Once out of the closet, the gay movement created a business niche that has grown to become a multi-billion dollar market. Ask Toyota and other companies that recognize and advertize to the gay market.

Gay readers, consumers, and a dominant gay habitus: 25 years of the Advocate magazine

This essay extends Bourdieu's analysis of taste, cultural capital, and habitus to address the identification of and appeal to gay consumers in the Advocate magazine between 1967 and 1992. From its humble beginnings as a local activist newspaper to its incarnation as a gay and lesbian, glossy, lifestyle magazine in the early 1990s, the Advocate consolidated the image of the ideal gay consumer, his (occasionally her) tastes, pleasures, and concerns, for readers and advertisers alike. The magazine thus helped to construct a dominant gay habitus that would increasingly characterize an openly gay, professional-managerial class. This process provides both opportunities and costs for a diverse gay citizenship and for a lively, heterogeneous, sex-positive gay politics.

"Sex Sells: Sex, Taste, and Class in Commercial Gay and Lesbian Media"
The question of when and how sex sells takes an interesting turn when we consider the cultivation of the gay market, especially since the distinguishing feature of this market is its nonnormative sexuality. The past thirty years have witnessed an exponential rise in attention to gay consumers, increased representations of gays and lesbians in mainstream and niche media, and the diversification of gay and lesbian media. Interest in gay and lesbian consumers from national corporations such as Seagram, Subaru, and American Express has helped take gay media from small, local newspapers and journals (such as the earliest days of the Advocate)

I recently saw a truck in Edmonton with the familar gay rainbow symbol on it, a local construction renovation contractor entitled Pride Construction.

Butch construction workers coming out on the job. Thats why Same Sex Marriage will remain the law in Canada.

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Gay

Homosexual

Same Sex Marriage


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Domino Pot.

Will that be cash, credit or debit card.
I loved the headline, and the article even more.
Do they promise to deliver in thirty minutes of less.
Drugs are the free market in action. Which makes drug dealers free marketeers.

Pot buying goes corporate

NEW YORK — In a city where you can get just about anything delivered to your door — groceries, dry cleaning, Chinese food — pot smokers are increasingly ordering takeout marijuana from drug rings that operate with remarkable corporate-style attention to customer satisfaction.

An untold number of otherwise law-abiding professionals in New York are having their pot delivered to their homes instead of visiting drug dens or hanging out on street corners.

But experts say home delivery has been growing in popularity, thanks to a shrewder, corporate style of dealing designed to put customers at ease and avoid the messy turf wars associated with other drugs.

“It's certainly been the trend in the past 10 years in urban areas that are becoming gentrified,” said Ric Curtis, an anthropology professor at John Jay College of Criminal Justice who specializes in the drug culture.

The corporate model — and its profit potential — were demonstrated late last year when the Drug Enforcement Administration announced that it had taken down a highly sophisticated organization dubbed the Cartoon Network. DEA agents arrested 12 people after using wiretaps and surveillance and making undercover buys. The operation's alleged mastermind, John Nebel, “should have been the CEO of a Fortune 500 company,” said his lawyer, Steve Zissou.

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Marijuana

Drugs




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Harper-Toon

Wow that was a great buffet. I'm stuffed. Do you think it shows?


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Chinese Take Lessons from PMO

Looks like PM Harper gave Chinese President Hu some tips on how to handle the media when they had their brief meeting in Hanoi this weekend.

No queries please, we’re Chinese

The usual practice in New Delhi is for reporters to gather at Hyderabad House, where talks are being held between Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and President Hu.

After the talks, the leaders step out to read out a written statement after which they answer two questions — one from the Indian reporters and the other from the visiting media contingent.

But what happened yesterday was a first. While reporters were allowed to hear both Singh and Hu make their opening statements and sit through the signing of 13 agreements, no questions were allowed. Most Indian reporters went back grumbling, wanting to know why they had been invited if they were only expected to wait and listen.

It later emerged that questions were disallowed to accommodate the visitors. In China, the media is not allowed to question the Communist Party leaders.

Just like in Canada.

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Harper

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Fascist Killed in Lebanon

Not the headline you are going to see in the MSM. And before folks go blaming Syria, one must remember that the Gemayel family has many enemies in Lebanon. As the Guardian points out;

Pierre Gemayel, the anti-Syrian politician shot dead in Beirut today, came from one of Lebanon's most prominent political dynasties.

His grandfather - also called Pierre - founded the Phalange party, a Christian Maronite paramilitary youth organisation modelled on the fascist organisations he observed while in Berlin as an Olympic athlete in 1936.

During the 1975 Lebanese civil war, the Phalange party was the most formidable force within the Christian camp.

Its militia shouldered the brunt of the fighting against the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) and, as part of the Lebanese Front - the mostly Christian, rightist coalition - the power of the Gemayel family increased considerably.

The Phalange were also the name of Franco's Fascists during the Spanish Civil War.

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Lebanon

Fascism


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Chantal Hébert Agrees With Me

As I wrote the other day the Leadership Race to replace Ralph will have national implications. Even more than the Liberal Leadership race.I see that Toronto Star columnist Chantal Hébert agrees with me.

The last federal election campaign demonstrated that a few weeks can really be an eternity in politics. The next two weeks will change the Canadian landscape in fundamental ways.That starts Saturday when Alberta Conservative members take the first step in picking the successor to Premier Ralph Klein. With eight candidates running, the process is expected to require a second ballot a week later.In time, its outcome will have a profound impact on the rest of Canada. The balance of economic power is shifting west and with it unprecedented clout for the leader who will next be speaking for Alberta at the federal-provincial table.

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Conservative Leadership Race

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It's Not An Election

The Tories are tryng to pretend their provincial leadership race is an election. It ain't.

The biggest challenge facing the next premier will be rekindling interest in the Tory party, says a political expert who expects voter turnout to fall well below projections.

"The number of voters will be a lot fewer than candidates estimated back in September," Steve Patten, a University of Alberta political scientist, told the Sun yesterday.

Three months ago, the camps of top Tory leadership candidates Lyle Oberg, Mark Norris, Jim Dinning and Ted Morton all expected to sell upwards of 100,000 party memberships.

"Add up all their claims and we're talking in the neighbourhood of 500,000 memberships sold to people who would be expected to vote for the next premier," Patten said.

"Nothing close to that kind of number has materialized."

Patten said he's interested to see how close voter turnout will be to the 78,000 who cast ballots in 1992, when Ralph Klein won the premiership on a second ballot.

Since 1992 our population has grown to be 3.5 million. And it is still growing.

Edmonton is expected to gain 83,000 residents by 2011

Although many former Saskatchewan residents return home for a visit, there are still far too many heading for black gold in Alberta."Pretty much everyone is moving to Alberta these days," said Fritsche, who thinks Saskatchewan should try and capitalize on the growing population that lies right next door.

So when Klein was elected leader 78,000 PC members voted. Even though more memberships than that were sold.

Today we know that the membership sales will not be reflected in those who vote. For instance business and unions have bought up memerships to hand out to get out the vote for their candidates. The Building Trades unions are supporting Oberg, despite his right wing views, because he is promising them jobs with his position on increasing funding for infrastructure.

The Edmonton Business community has gone all out in buying memberships in bulk to hand out to their employees and friends to support Mark Norris. Its a campaign to get an Edmontonian elected leader. They have abandoned Hancock the other Edmontonian because he is a Red Tory, and Norris has pull because of his political family connections.

So less than .o5% of the population will make the decision on who will lead the party and thus elect the leader of the One Party State in Alberta.

When Klein ran it was against Red Tory Nancy Betkowski. A second ballot was needed because he lost to her by one vote. He had sold more memberships than her but his supporters did not come out on the first ballot. This is the fear the Dinning folks have.

That vote was then spilt between the Calgarian For Leader and the Edmontonian for Leader factions. The Red Tories lined up behind Betkowski, the social conservatives behind Klein for the second ballot.Still in the final tally more memberships were sold than came out to vote.

In this race the front runners are Dinning and Oberg.

But the race is split this way;

Dinning represents the Calgary Establishment, a centerist candidate, a liberal fiscally and politically as was Lougheed who supports him.

Norris represents the fiscal conservatives, social liberals, business establishment of Edmonton. Its the anti-Calgary Tories he represents.

Hancock is a Red Tory to the left of the other candidates. His support is really limited to Edmonton to those not supporting Norris. Whom he throws his support behind on a second ballot will be important.

Oberg, Morton, and Doerkson split the social conservative vote between them.

Oberg relies upon the rural anti-urban anti-Calgary voters, based in Southern and Central Alberta. He also has the support of the traditional Liberal Building Trades unions. Though how many of their members will vote is questionable. As it is boom time and the tradesmen are busy working, working, working. Lots of OT versus taking time to vote.

Morton has organized the grass roots social conservative base, and is getting support from Manning, Harper, Day, Kenney, etc. So he poses a second ballot threat to Oberg. Failing that he and Doerkson could combine to push Oberg past Dinning on the second ballot.

Doerkson is a spoiler, taking votes away from Oberg, but a late comer so his campaign is really about anybody but Lyle. His supporters will go to Morton.

Ed Stelmach, farmer, rural vote, fiscal conservative, in this race a centerist compared to the social conservative gang above. His chances are zip, nada.
Though on the second ballot who he throws his support behind could be telling.

Advance polls opened yesterday. The vote is this weekend. Place your wagers.

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Conservative Leadership Race

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