Hudak stays on his stupid message

Tiny Timmy was back on CFRA yesterday.  He was extolling the virtues of two of his caucus who have decided to stage a sit in at Queen's Park.  They are battling the dreaded HST legislation.  What heroes they are.  Here they are a ray of sunshine standing, or sitting, or sleeping, against an unwanted tax.

Rob Snow, who is well known for his Liberal leanings,... NOT, asked every self-serving question that Timmy could easily answer.  The only question he ignored was..."If you get elected in 2011, will you cancel the HST?"

Now, Timmy knows the sound-byte answer to this one.  He claims that the dreaded Liberals have made the HST legislation loophole resistant by putting in clauses that tie the hands of future government for 10,000 years.  Iguess no one has told him that if he forms a government he can do whatever he wants with past legislation including lower the rate.

But, you know, Timmy will hide behind his accusation because he knows that the economic mess that Ontario is currently in will not be solved by growth.  It will take tax dollars and to lower the rate or cancel the harmonization with the GST would make him dumber than Tiger.

Grow up, Timmy.

CFRA Question of the Day?

On their web page, CFRA runs their Sound Off poll that asks major questions of the day and then crafts the answers so that no matter what you wish to answer you have to follow their script.  Today's questions is:

"Should public sector workers in Ontario - be told to take "Dalton Days"? These would be days off - without pay - similar to "Rae Days" in ‘93 when all provincial employees took 12 days of unpaid leave as a cost cutting measure. The Ont. gov't is running at a $20B per year deficit, salaries represent 80% of operating costs."

Here is the answers that they offer:

1. Yes. All provincial & municipal managers, employees and politicians
2. This is unfair to the employees
3. Yes. But only "non-essential" workers
4. Other

I have two major problems with this "poll".

The first is that it not in fact a poll.  If you right click on the poll and then click on "properties" you will find an interesting hidden comment.  The "poll" is listed as an "ad" sponsored by the Ottawa Taxpayer Advocacy Group.  It is an ad, not a poll.  I wonder why CFRA keeps that fact secret?  The Ottawa TAG, as they call themselves, appears to be a small group of wide-eyed future councilors, MPPs and MPs.  These are the people that recently referred to city taxes as "legal extortion" and then challenged Alex Cullen and Marianne Wilkinson to a verbal duel at city hall.  The evening's discourse was anything but civil.  I wonder how much the Ottawa TAG paid for the ad/poll to CFRA?  And where Ottawa TAG gets that kind of funding?


My second major problem is that none of the answers offered goes to the heart of the problem.  The problem is not Dalton Day's.  It is not how much the city/province would save by having public servants take a few days off without pay.  The problem is that we have allowed city and provincial managers to grow the size of the bureaucracy with no regard for cost or what these new people will be doing.  Why has the city added so many new workers at the same time as they ramp up more numerous contracts to outside firms?  The problem is not the size of paychecks but rather the number of them and the work that gets done for them.

It is time for the city and the province, and for that matter the federal government, to take a harsh look internally and figure out what works and does not work.  Look for body count (FTE) savings and start doing the job you were elected or selected to do.  Dalton Days is a crass slap at a government that deserves criticism but it is not the long term solution to the problem.

So much for "guess who"

With these latest court rulings that demand that anonymous bloggers be named, one has to wonder what goes next?

Will callers to CFRA have to identify themselves and swear an oath to that identity? That may not be a bad thing as many of the loyal Green callers would never dare call in on that basis.

What about the editorials in the newspaper? We never know who actually writes the editorials. We know who writes the letters to the editor but not the editorials. Hmmm.

In the Ottawa Citizen, some person writes about government under the fictitious name Mr. X. I wonder how his/her colleagues will feel when he/she is outed?

What about letters to Santa Claus? How does Saint Nick really know if Bobby's signature is real or if his Mom wrote the letter for him? Maybe Bobby does not really want the puppy and a pearl necklace.

Cons go to the attack... again

It took the Cons about 30 seconds to whip out the attack ads against Ignatieff.  This comes about 20 seconds after Harper declared that he wanted cooperation between the "major parties".

Great!  And the talk shows are pushing it along.  Mouthpieces like CFRA's Michael Harris are convinced that they know more about being a Liberal that do real Liberals.  The grassroots of the party are beginning the long road of expanding support for the party.  The fact that the leadership at the federal level is settled (and it is settled, Michael) means that the local executives can get to work with no distractions.

Unless and until the talk show mandarins acknowledge that they are simply being mouthpieces for Adolph Harper, the real democratic process in Canada being eroded.

Vitriol on the airwaves

I am the last person to suggest that the airwaves need to be censored but something needs to be done about the way talking heads on CFRA are allowing their callers to make slanderous and libelous comments and statements under the anonymity of the phone booth.

Shame on the heads for not stopping the rants before they slipped into the high end of the lunacy scale. Have you no professional integrity? Do you not recognize hate speech when you are slapped in the face by it? Are you so dense that you have not realized the power that you are wielding with no regard for truth, fairness, the rule of law or even common decency.

On Lowell Green's show today he lamented that no Libs or NDPers were calling him. When one did, he began to crap all over the guy; cutting off his every thought and asking the misleading questions that characterize his partisan style.

I feel sorry for Capt Sandy who advertises a ship cruise to France and Belgium on Green's show. The cruise sound fabulous but 62% of the potential customers for cruise will refuse to take part in anything that Green promotes.

In a sea of change, some things stay the same

I watched and listened to the US election last night.  I couldn't be more enthusiastic for the decisions taken by a majority of Americans.  They listened to their hearts rather than to the pundits and press and they voted for change.

But in the midst of all this change the rabid right wing in the media just continues along spewing their invective as if nothing is happening around them.  On CFRA last night, Rob Snow and John Counsell, those bastions of enlightenment that they think they are, pontificated that the talk show hosts like Limbaugh were going to have a field day with the Obama win.  The truth is that Limbaugh doesn't care if Republicans win or lose, he is a simple showman not a studied analyst.  The same goes for Snow and, to a lesser extent, Counsell.

The rabid right doesn't care about facts - if they need facts - and none exist - they just invent them.

Take for example a headline on Fox News today.  "Obama Victory Resounding, But a Landslide?"  Obama's electoral college totals were 349 versus 144 for McCain.  This result, they assert, does not qualify as a landslide compared to some past election.  One election they cite as comparison was the landslide win of Roosevelt over Parker in 1904.  The electoral count then?  336 - 140.  That was a landslide but the 2008 results were not?  Give it up, Fox News.

I was at the hockey game last night when results were pouring.  Twice during the evening a message went up to let the crowd know what was happening in the election.  The cheers for the lead of Obama drowned out the cheers when they flashed that Toronto was losing to Carolina.  The people of Ottawa spoke.  One exception was that guy standing behind when I went for water.  I overheard his buddy ask him who he liked in the US election.  His answer, I fear, almost made me swallow my dentures.  "The choice is clear," he stated.  "You can vote for a true war hero or for a guy who hates Canada."  Seems this guy listens too much to CFRA and Fox News.

Change is good.  Embrace change.  Change brings new idea.  New ideas bring change.  (That's enough of the Chi.)

That's a good message to remember during the next municipal election, when change is needed.