Courtesy of Macleans.ca

Last week in the United States Congress, Senator Jim Bunning of Kentucky took a lot of guff for stalling the renewal of unemployment benefits for millions of out of work Americans. Bunning was the sole voice of objection to passing the proposal by unanimous consent, and after being asked again to drop his objection shortly before midnight by Oregon Senator Jeff Merkley, the besieged Bunning replied simply, “tough s**t.” After the close of the debate after 12am, Bunning said he was ambushed by Democrats and forced to miss the Kentucky-South Carolina basketball game on account. To which a nation of people worried about putting food on the table this month replied, “Now we know who the real heroes are.”

Bunning made himself a pariah by the media, the picture of a politician out of touch with everyday, normal Americans, which furthered the narrative of a broken governmental system in Washington. If that weren’t bad enough, The Daily Show and others made him a farce, as his fanboy disappointment left many to ponder, “Has this guy never heard of Tivo?”
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I am a pragmatist. I am not a Gordon Campbell-hater. He’s done some things I strongly supported, like crushing a rather frivolous teachers strike and saving money while he did it, and he made some harsh but fiscally necessary decisions in respects to health care. I have parted ways with him, however, over the HST debacle which some people still don’t see gives increased borrowing power to successive provincial governments via the de-facto 7% they will extract from each home sale, and be able to hold and invest for a fiscal year (in some cases a tad more) until they are obligated to turn this GST over to the Feds. “What” you may ask “will be the incentive to reduce PST in BC if they are already doing short term investing with GST from the same transactions?” Well anyway…

I am also not an Olympic hater. Not to say that I like them either. I really do not care about what kind of ball or rubber cookie young people from the lower classes are going to chase about on ice or grass or snow for the amusement of the bored and easily amused Euro-American middle class. I with only one exception I will expound on later, will not watch a single minute of the games, successful or otherwise, because I do not feel them any more relevant than the colors of Elizabeth May’s sweaters. Generally speaking, unless strong moral obligations present themselves, I am a fiscal conservative. So if the Olympics irritate a few Birkenstock-clad dreadlocked hippies, I really don’t care, but if they are going to bleed the province of what is ultimately my money, or infringe on the rights and freedoms of BC residents, then I am going to take serious issue with them. So, unlike the Olympics of 76 or 88, though perhaps because I have not really cared to look into these, I do take issue with the 2010 games.
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Canadians need a new national animal

Compelled by a strange feeling of responsibility to manufacture one of those generic end of/beginning of the year articles, I recalled a memory from my childhood. Thumbing through a geography textbook as a young mushroom-haired boy, probably wearing either a Spiderman jumpsuit or an entire Toronto Blue Jays uniform, I found a cartoon that was comparing the size of Canada with Russia. Russia, represented as a grinning bear in a fez cap, was much larger than Canada, which was depicted as a beaver holding a hockey stick. In my approximately seven year old brain, these images didn’t demand much scrutiny beyond wondering what the bear thought was so funny. After all, what’s laughable about a beaver? Nothing, that’s what.

The beaver is a builder, a herbivore, an aquatic genius, a noble beast with work ethic that can make hot-blooded Protestants feel fancy. Indeed, the beaver is a majestic creature, an animal that deserves better than to be sullied as Canada’s national creature. A suggestion: re-illustrate our geography books to include a species that actually reflects Canada’s behaviour domestically and internationally. I think some variety of snake is more fitting. Unlike beavers, snakes do not have legs, movable eyelids, external ear-openings, or eardrums, just like many of the government officials and corporations that represent us here and abroad. Therefore, considering the troubled eggs our dry-eyed, legless, and hard of hearing Canadian elites have been laying all over the planet this year, I don’t believe it’s fair to ridicule the beaver any longer as Canada’s national creature.
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Terminology from George Orwell’s classic novel 1984 often gets thrown around in politics. For instance, it’s not unusual to hear those on the Left claim the state’s monopoly of public surveillance, such as the cameras in London or homeland security bills in the USA, are signs of a looming Big Brother. It’s also not unusual to hear those on Right alluding to thoughtcrime whenever they’re being accused of human rights violations.

But perhaps the doubleplusgood thinkers of them all are the Ministers of the Conservative Party of Canada. While not specifically using the terminology with any particular proficiency, these parliamentarians recently exemplified their understanding of the novel in what can only be described as a textbook case of espousing doublethink. In the novel, doublethink means to accept and believe information (espoused by the state) that one rationally knows to be contradictory. The case in point? Copenhagen.

Once upon a time there was a quaint little climate summit in the quaint little country of Denmark. Statesmen, and stateswomen, from all over the world came to negotiate an accord that would hopefully save the planet’s environment from spinning wildly out of control into the fiery depths of hell. Canada, as the sovereign country occupying the world’s second largest land mass, would naturally have a lot invested in the crisis, as its vast territory covers an array of starkly different ecosystems, including that of the Arctic, where Canada’s iconic polar bear has recently been seeing less seal than Heidi Klum on a weekend.
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Prince of Pot Marc Emery, in a familiar pose

We Canadians can all sleep a little bit easier at night.

That’s because Marc Emery, Vancouver’s Prince of Pot and officially one of the DEA’s most wanted kingpins, is off the streets and in prison, awaiting extradition to the United States on drug and money-laundering charges. His capture represents a major victory in the War on Drugs.

For ten years now, Emery has corrupted the very fabric of our society by selling marijuana seeds and donating virtually all of the after-tax proceeds to cannabis-friendly organizations with a mind to “overgrow the government.” A pot activist and retailer since 1994, Emery has had many run-ins with the law. 10 arrests, in addition to police raids in 1996, 1998 and 2005 of his Hemp BC headquarters would have crippled a lesser evildoer, but Emery (and I ask that my readers forgive the analogy) is as resilient as a weed, unerring in his insubordination.
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In case you missed it, here is Stephen Harper’s performance of The Beatles’ “With A Little Help From My Friends.” Harper came on stage at Ottawa’s National Arts Centre on Saturday to sing the tune with Ma and Ottawa band Herringbone during a gala held to support the next generation of Canadian musicians.

Former Liberal leader Stephane Dion got more bad news today when his official backpack sponsor dropped him. The 30- year lucrative deal which was worth somewhere in the neighborhood of $15,000 CAD per year was cut short by Targus Canada. A Targus representative could not be reached for comment but it is assumed all the negative publicity with Dion’s loss in the Federal election and his failed attempt in overthrowing Stephen Harper resulted in the termination of the contract.

Dion was disappointed but upbeat. “I was saddened by this fact as I enjoyed taking my knapsack everywhere. It is how my dog Kyoto got in to see everything in Parliament without anyone suspecting. I never put my paperwork in there because Kyoto has a weak bladder and the knapsack gets very heavy by the end of the day,” he added.
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Stephen Harper announced today that he will be firing all of his cabinet except himself. “I was wondering what I could do to cut government spending and at the same time hold on to more power”, he said with a constant twitching of his left eye. “As of today, I will be taking over all of the ministerial jobs in Foreign Affairs, Justice, Finance, Revenue, Indian Affairs, Inter-Governmental, Fisheries, Environment and any other departments I can think of. I will be giving myself a healthy raise for taking on this extra workload but rest assured that the rest of the savings will be passed on to Canadians. My first order of business is with the department of Technology. I have ordered them to develop a new device that will transfer all the information of the various departments straight to my brain,” he confided. Harper’s move means that his Conservatives have completely been relegated to backbencher status.
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2008 got off to a very slow start in terms of political news, but certainly picked up steam in the last few months.
So, without further ado, here are Top 5 Political Scandals of 2008:
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On a current trip to Iraq, US President George Bush hailed progress in the war that will ultimately define his presidency. A war in which 4,209 soldiers have perished and over $500 billion worth of taxpayers money spent. He also got a size-10 reminder of his unpopularity when a journalist threw both shoes at him, barely missing his head. The video can be seen here: