As It Happens has the best theme music on radio. Alas, it’s nearly impossible to find on iTunes or anywhere on the Net. Fortunately there’s a version of it on YouTube, here. The closing music “Koff Drops” is somewhere out there too. The musician, Moe Koffman, passed away in 2001.

This is a fun video from Saskatchewan, that appeared in the Leader-Post.

The Conservatives’ bloggers have a message for you Canada. Our international reputation in shambles is less important than a photoshopped picture of Stephen Harper.

Devin says pretty much everything that needs to be said about this photo that so few Canadians know about anyway.

Give it a rest already. Jeff says that “[t]he photo was unacceptable, way beyond good taste, and should never have gone online” and yet you think “[t]here is no admission of the root cause of the problem”?? Sorry, you’re wrong on this one.

The photo was dumb. Posting online was dumb. But it’s been removed now and the Liberals have apologized. Move on.

As to your claim that the Conservatives have never posted an “assassination photo” on their website, I think that Jeff does a fairly good job of pointing out the falsehood there. And yet, have the Conservatives removed the image he identified? Have they apologized for it? No. And that, it seems to me, makes the Liberals adults and the Conservatives hypocritical and disingenuous.

And before you accuse me of being partial for the Liberals, consider that I am a New Democrat. For us, the Liberals are the biggest strategic obstacle. I have written very critically about the Liberals and their policies. I have no reason to defend them here – except my interest in a reasonable and civilized discourse. The Liberals made a dumb mistake. Fair enough. Now get over it and move on to more important things.

If that isn’t enough of a rebuttal to Janke’s ridiculousness, CC finishes up rather well too.

The front page of the Leader-Post today says “Saskboy Was Right” (I may be paraphrasing a little). I’m not usually one to toot my own horn (okay, sometimes), but when I do get something (very) right, I feel a blog is an ideal place to note the fact. If Saskatchewan’s Sask Party government had simply come to me for my thoughts on what a nuclear power plant would do for the province, they’d have saved a lot of money and time consulting the public.

-The future of nuclear in Saskatchewan: Stonewalled!

It’s at times like this when I miss my blog’s archives (currently offline when I write this), but fortunately there’s Google’s cache available to remind everyone that what I was saying 6 months ago matches the current position of the Saskatchewan Party government. Am I a fortune teller? No, I can just do simple math, and apparently it takes millions of dollars of study for the Sask Party do so the same. Plus I read the news in Ontario, and apparently they don’t pick up the Toronto Star at any point in the week. Maybe they were on vacation at the time, I know I was when I saw it announced by Ontario that it’d cost $25 Billion for nuclear power plants of the kind proposed for Saskatchewan!

I must also point out that the Saskatchewan Chamber of Commerce also thinks that increasing everyone’s tax/power bills, is good for business in the province of Saskatchewan. I am also slightly terrified that an organization with “Chamber of Commerce” in their name, is incapable of doing math as well as me, or is being intentionally dishonest.

Sask Party, this has been an “I told you so” moment. Thanks for (finally) agreeing with me, even if it’s for your wrong reasons (AKA you ran the province out of surplus money).

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A portion of a Google search result, and I couldn’t agree more!

Anti-nuclear opinions dominate uranium forum in Regina
10 Jun 2009 … Ingrid Alesich of Clean Green Saskatchewan said the UDP process “lacks …. Saskboy…

Fortunately I did provide myself to the process, and was among the vast majority of Saskatchewan residents who formally objected to higher energy bills from an adoption of nuclear power generation as the energy plan of the next decade.

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Here’s an out-of-print story about CCS technology.

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The right wing is decidedly depressed that we’re not going further into debt in Saskatchewan to give a handout to Bruce Power.

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The UDP report (a frustrating PDF file with copy-protection!), containing input from Dr. Florizone. He claimed this week that with “clarity” on carbon pricing, nuclear would then possibly become economically viable over coal electricity generation. The Premier of Saskatchewan kindly provided clarity last week, if you’d like to watch. He’s opposed to carbon pricing systems like Cap-and-Trade. Is that clarified for you Dr. Florizone?

Renewable power and energy conservation will always be cheaper and cleaner than nuclear in the long term, that’s the bottom line. Nuclear power is based on uranium, a non-renewable resource, so the supply will always be getting smaller, meaning price will always increase if demand stays constant or increases as predicted.

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Kevin at the Leader-Post had a bitter editorial on what was obviously the demise of his nuclear power plant aspirations. Here’s my reply:

I find it offensive that you’d use the word “greenies” and deride renewable energy sources. People are concerned about nuclear power for more than just ecological reasons, it’s also destructive economically. You should look into what Germany is doing with solar and wind energy, and how Ontario recently rejected new nuclear power plants because their more populous province could not afford such foolishness.

Joe is such a drag.

The windchill is back to livable levels, and so too is the recession (according to the TD Bank). I think Michael Ignatieff will find he and the Liberals waited 12 months too long in bringing down the Harper Conservatives, because the spend-happy Flaherty and “No Deficit” Harper, will be able to defend themselves against charges of economic mismanagement because the world was able to almost recover from the 2008 crash.

Unless the huge scandal of torture overseen by the Conservatives in charge of the Afghanistan war stick to the MPs responsible, Ignatieff and the Liberals appear to be in for a rough 2010.

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In other news, the Sask Party is reluctantly driving the last nail in the coffin of nuclear power plants in Saskatchewan. YAY!

They started to take my advice, which happened to also be the example of Ontario, which concluded that a nuclear power plant is bad for taxpayers’ pocketbooks.

Now the government should focus on real alternatives to coal, which are renewable, and make the people of Saskatchewan wealthy and self sustaining. One possibility is paying people a premium rate for electricity they self-generate (through wind, solar, micro-hydro, or other means) and contribute back to the grid.

The Windchill warning for Regina has ended, but it’s only a balmy -39C accounting for the windchill factor, so don’t head out without a coat (and toque, and skipants or longjohns, or boots, or a scarf) just yet.

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And it’s soon going to be easier to get your own medical record to keep a copy for yourself.

Electoral Reform anyone? Okay, we’ll just stick with what the trolls prefer then.

The poll by EKOS’s Frank Graves of 5,759 (a huge sample) Canadians shows that the Green Party enjoys the support of 23.4 per cent of voters between 18 and 25 years old compared to 21 per cent for Stephen Harper’s Tories, 24.7 per cent for the Michael Ignatieff’s Liberals and only 18.8 per cent for Jack Layton’s NDP.

“The Green Party is actually within the margin of error for the leader, which is kind of a shocking result when you think about it,” Mr. Graves says.

Check out the cookie cutter comments from a Conservative troll (or set of them *shudder*):

Latest Comments

JD Smith

11/26/2009 11:13:46 AM
As people get older and smarter they become conservatives.
[Recommend This Comment]
158 {The votes for}
[Disapprove This Comment]
360 {The votes against}

Guilaume Affleck

11/26/2009 11:17:18 AM
So the more ignorant, and the less experience and wisdom people have, the more likely they are to support liars and frauds.

Some surpise there.
[Recommend This Comment]
112
[Disapprove This Comment]
239

Divad

11/26/2009 11:17:38 AM
Ummmm, yeah. And pray tell how many actually know who the other leaders are? In that age group politics is irrelevant to them.
[Recommend This Comment]
75
[Disapprove This Comment]
186

hooter mcgavin

11/26/2009 11:20:25 AM
….scarry $41t.

…. when you have no downside, communism looks attractive. as you become wiser and wealthier, you have more to loose.

[Recommend This Comment]
87
[Disapprove This Comment]
112

White Noise

11/26/2009 11:21:28 AM
And as people begin to make decent money for their hard work, they want to keep more of it.

The Greens would be a financial disaster for this country.
[Recommend This Comment]
123
[Disapprove This Comment]
176

Joe Dick

11/26/2009 11:21:32 AM
Young and foolish = greens

Idealistic and arrogant = liberals

Experience and common sense = conservatives
[Recommend This Comment]
131
[Disapprove This Comment]
235

PEM

11/26/2009 11:22:07 AM
wow… now that’s scary…. but halloween was last month.

Seriously though… if that age category cared enough to vote, they’d probably care enough to know better than to vote Green.

And you’ll get no argument from me that the Green Party has to do a better job promoting itself, and communicating with Canadians. It’s just inexcusable that their news section has no comment on the enormous torture scandal that will prove to bring down the torture implicated Minister MacKay (Elizabeth May’s rival last election, no less). They do say that Canada’s reputation is at stake worldwide, but didn’t update the comment to include the fact that we’re no better than American torturers now.

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And speaking of Conservative trolls…

Day, and the Conservatives, as usual, are offering a load of hogwash. The people who’d see the report would have high level security clearances, who are previously investigated by CSIS to ensure they are not a threat to national security. They would not release the classified information to anyone, under pain of prosecution. The reason the documents are leaked, is BECAUSE they were redacted even for loyal Canadians allowed and entitled to see them.

Day’s government is the one endangering Canadian troops’ lives, because now they have no moral high ground of the Geneva Conventions!

Who’d have thunk it? It’s pretty funny seeing someone with a typewriter in public, I think I’ll have to try it some time.

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Hat tip to Alec

Ever wonder what a jumble of letters spells? Now you know. You could find out using the Internet.

==

It’s now confirmed, again, that Peter MacKay knew that there was torture in Afghanistan’s prisons. No word yet on if a Minotaur was used.

Whistleblowers are the next group after Afghan detainees on the Harper/MacKay torture list, by the way.

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Hat tip Devin

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In first aid class today, I learned not to wrap babies in cellophane. Actually it wasn’t covered, but maybe it should have been.

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Iggy, don’t go! If Ignatieff can’t go now, with MacKay and Harper on the ropes as likely war criminals, then nothing will work for him.