Of Spuds and Royalty

(1) Homegrown Errorists

Portly Peter says: Canada's home-grown terrorism doing well, while U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano apologizes for saying that the 9/11 terrorists got into the US through Canada, and then goes on to pay the bare minimum of lip service to the truth:

... but what you need to hear from me is all the things that we are doing with Canada and will continue to do with Canada to further our joint security because we share the same interest."

We hardly need to hear that we need to hear all the things the US is doing with Canada. But, in the absence of anything worth hearing, I am left to muse on whether or not Janet kissed Peter just before the press conference. Her lipstick looks smeared and his lips look a little too pink.

Sorry, but I just can't take these bloated, propped up caricatures seriously anymore. I've put Peter Van Loan into the same category as all the other scary Mr. Potato Heads (See Same Old ... 3rd paragraph - in which I forgot to include former PM Paul Martin and TV stumper for right wing "Christianity" Michael Coren).

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(2) GG wins Approval of Seal award

GG caught in seal-snacking incident

What's the big deal? She's royalty, ain't she? And hunting small game is the second sport of kings after horse racing, ain't it? I'm not saying that the folks in Nunavut don't have a right to harvest seal; I'm just saying that the GG is scarfing it (or pretending to) for an entirely different reason.

The big question is: if the sealers themselves don't make more than just enough to live on, who makes the real profit from seal hunting? Take a look at the products. Fat cats with money to burn buy them from other fat cats who rake in huge profits.

And that, my friend, is why no amount of protest will end the seal hunt; it will end only if and when seal products are no longer considered status symbols.

Both the EU and the US have banned the import of seal skin products. But this does not prevent ritzy-ditzy designers such as Gucci and Prada profiting from offshore manufacture and sales, for example, to Russia.

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(3) Flaherty in trouble, sort of

Soaring deficit undermines confidence in finance minister, say Liberals

NDP finance critic Thomas Mulcair also took dead aim yesterday at Flaherty's credibility. "He's wearing the dunce cap of all Canadian finance ministers," Mulcair said of Flaherty.

And everybody knows how the NDP yearn for a chance to wear the dunce cap.

Photo of Flaherty (another Mr. Potato Head, of course), practising a sermon for his next career as a televangelist:

"And man shall live in plenty according to my will, sayeth the Lord, but the time cometh when only the few shall prosper, and in that time what little a man hath shall be taken from him and given to the rich."

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(4) Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain (Wizard of Oz)

The Nanaimo Daily News may not have succumbed entirely to the type of lazy journalism that speed-dials the same people passing themselves off as "institutes" every time a quote is needed to pad out a lean "news" item. Surprisingly, NDN are actually warning against the reports from one of the most oft-quoted:

Don't take lists too seriously

[The Fraser Institute] describes itself as "an independent international research and educational organization" and its motto is "a free and prosperous world through choice, markets and responsibility."

The Fraser Institute has put out another one its report cards - assigning grades to hospitals - designed to strongly suggest universal health care should be abolished. It also grades public schools in order to prove that private schools are the better option. They are all about fundamentalist capitalism and privatization of everything, which alone ought to make one wary of their research.

If you've seen The Corporation, you've already witnessed seedy old academic big player wannabe Michael Walker (yet another Mr. Potato Head - don't you just want to pinch those chubby cheeks?) enthusing on how virtually every blade of grass and drop of water should be owned by somebody who would then have to take responsibility for it.

The plebes who own nothing because they can't afford to should be obliged to pay per use to visit a park, travel a road, swim in or drink the water. Meanwhile, we've already seen that unrestrained capitalism is not being held accountable at all for the destruction of Mother Earth. Instead, it's the plebes again who must cut back on vacations and water and energy consumption so as not to deplete resources that a few fat cats require to maintain an exorbitant standard of living.

Walker is a plebe who thinks he will survive by grooming the fat cats.