It always amazes me that Obama’s superpower is that he gets his opponents to shoot themselves in the foot without ever raising a finger.  He’s like that guy on “The X-Files” who could get people to do things just by thinking about it.

We thought the guy had only gotten into her email account.  But it’s looking like he actually hacked Sarah Palin.

In the news media clip, it’s fascinating to me that she goes back again to a position where I get the sense that she thinks she’s running for re-election as governor of Alaska.  With all due respect to Alaskans, srsly, you are not going to win very many votes by getting all pissy about how other people think Alaska is some kind of provincial middle of nowhere place.  Alaska has fewer inhabitants than the part of town I live in.  And they’re all members of the Republican base, and they’re all going to vote for you anyway just out of parochial chauvinism.  You cannot win an election by appealing to Alaskans.

And everyone else in America can pretty much agree that Alaska is a provincial middle of nowhere kind of place.  It’s quite literally in the middle of goddamn nowhere, and nobody lives there.  They’re not going to cut you any slack, there, even the ones who live in places the “coastal elites” would consider godforsaken provincial middles of nowhere.  Because even they think Alaska is the middle of nowhere.

Nice sky, today, Mnemosyne.  Cerulean blue, a beautiful cerulean blue.  Not just your ordinary blue.  Cerulean blue.

The Opoponax’s post made me realize something.  Chicago doesn’t have a coast; Alaska does.  And Ms. Palin is at the apex of her state’s political power structure.

It has to be said: Sarah Palin is a coastal elite.

She’s circling the drain like a moose turd.

It’s a fact:

Alaska has more coastline than the entire rest of the continental US, possibly even including Hawaii.

When New Mexico, Colorado, Iowa, and possibly Nevada go blue I’d love for the wingers to explain how Denver, Las Vegas, Santa Fe, and Des Moines are “coastal”.

“The Opoponax’s post made me realize something.  Chicago doesn’t have a coast; Alaska does.  “

The wingnuts count the Great Lakes as a “third coast”, I kid you not.

Sorry Michigan, Illinois, Minnesota, and Wisconsin—you’re all “coastal elites”.

And everyone else in America can pretty much agree that Alaska is a provincial middle of nowhere kind of place.

I can’t speak for others, but for me one of the weirdest things about America is this:  People who live in places like small-town Alaska or Heartlandwhereveritis can revel in being out of a modern loop, can boast about not needing more perspective than their grandfathers did, can speak of their values (read “views and actions”) as being immune to change to the point that they just don’t need to think and obsess about things like anal and freaked out city folk (etc. etc.) .... They can do all this, but call them on it, point out that the world needs to be learned about, understood, contemplated and integrated with in a way that we just didn’t dream of fifty years ago, take them to task for not learning the things that they proudly stated that they didn’t need to learn….  Well, do that and they start calling you a “hater” and accusing you of looking down your nose at them.

Shorter Values Voter America exchange:
“I don’t need to learn or think, and proud of it.  And I only vote for people who reflect that back at me, whether they are fit for the job or not.”
“Jeez, that’s crazy.  What about X, Y, or Z?’
“What a bigot you are!  How dare you condescend to me!!!!”

Nice sky, today, Mnemosyne.  Cerulean blue, a beautiful cerulean blue.  Not just your ordinary blue.  Cerulean blue.

OMG that guy was so creepy. If that’s Obama I’m totally not voting for him . . . not that I’d have a choice, lol.

But, yeah, stick it to her. It’s great that they’re running candidates who can be carpetbombed by youtube alone.

</blockquote>The wingnuts count the Great Lakes as a “third coast”, I kid you not. </blockquote>

*headdesk*headdesk*headdesk*

Okay, Ben D.  I’m guessing, too, that all those fine red staters who live around the coast of the Gulf of Mexico, a part of the Atlantic Ocean, don’t consider themselves to be coastal, either.

Okay, Ben D.  I’m guessing, too, that all those fine red staters who live around the coast of the Gulf of Mexico, a part of the Atlantic Ocean, don’t consider themselves to be coastal, either.

Exactly. Because in the Gulf of Mexico, they drill for oil, which is a totally non-elite thing to do. Or something.

And the southern part of the Atlantic Coast isn’t really elite. Yet. It might be elite this year if VA and NC go, but you can rest assured that the SC coast will be a non-elite coast.

There’s a lot to dislike or even ridicule Sarah Palin over.  The fungible (this is the word, not “fungeable”) quote by itself starts out strong.  Oil is indeed fungible—at least within grades.  Export restrictions do essentially nothing but add transaction costs.  The problem is that she then waffles into saying that they have to go to the domestic markets first, and export restrictions should be set by congress, but not “to such a degree”.  It’s a mess, but I get the impression that much of the ridicule is over the first part with the tagging metaphor that is actually spot on.

“All of Them”

Isn’t that published by What the Fuck Am I Doing Here” publishing company?

Also, as an aside: I can sort of forgive her for not naming a lot of SCOTUS cases but she missed the ones even my most dim-witted criminal defendants know: “Them cops didn’t read me my Miranda rights, man…” I mean, one of the reasons Miranda wasn’t overturned was that it was said to have entered the common understanding of people- it was so FREAKIN WIDESPREAD and Known everyone relied on it…

As Cousin Eddie says: She is the gift that keeps on giving.

Wanna know how Palin will handle the debate (i.e.: waaaaaaaay better than we all think) without knowing a goddamned thing?  See this article by Andrew Halcro, an independent who debated her during the gubernatorial election in 2006:
http://www.adn.com/opinion/sarah-palin/story/539459.html

“Palin’s debate style is simple: She’s a master, not of facts, figures or insightful policy recommendations, but at the fine art of the non-answer, the glittering generality. Against such charms there is little Sen. Biden or anyone can do.”

Definitely worth a read.

Ben D.:
You owe me a new desk.  I’ve broken this one with my forehead.

“I don’t need to learn or think, and proud of it.  And I only vote for people who reflect that back at me, whether they are fit for the job or not.”
“Jeez, that’s crazy.  What about X, Y, or Z?’
“What a bigot you are!  How dare you condescend to me!!!!”

Yup.  And they can basically call every person who lives in a city a treasonous sodomite, but if you so much as hint that they don’t know what they’re talking about, YOU are being the snob.

She a’int winning this debate.

She might no enough to B.S. Alaska policy, but this is the big leagues.

Seeker—

I’m looking forward, once again, to seeing how they can explain away Colorado as a “coastal elite” state. Or even better, dismiss Iowa as “not part of the heartland”.

I don’t know about anybody else, but when I think “heartland” two states come to mind—Kansas, and Iowa. You can’t get much more heartland-y than Iowa.

I hear ya, killjoy.  They want it both ways: they want to denigrate learning, intelligence and credentials, but they don’t want to be called stupid or ignorant.  Being know-nothings they think that they can suck and blow at the same time, being self-lionizing cultural narcissists they think that they’re entitled to have everything revolve around their frames, and being intolerant they think that have no say, or any right to have an opinion on the matter.

I’m looking forward, once again, to seeing how they can explain away ...

“Vote fraud!  Cheaters!!  Illegitimate!!!!” and such-like, I think.

I think the more moderate ones will say “The media was too biased” and the fringe Freepers will be ACORN DID IT!! ACORN AND THE DALEY MACHINE!!

Basic difference between the two types we’re talking about?

Blue:  “The more we know, the more we realize that we need to know even more, and we should.”
Red: “The less we know the better.  Don’t need it.  Don’t want it, lest some part of us realizes that we need it.”

Read Marcia DeSanctis’ article over at Huffpo on that very topic:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/marcia-desanctis/what-i-learned-in-grad-sc_b_130599.html
Money portion:

Two months ago, I completed the Global Master of Arts program at Fletcher, a one-year intensive degree in international affairs. [snip]  The exhaustive curriculum, which included courses in politics, economics, negotiation, finance and law, required weekly readings, problem-sets, papers and massive preparation. Getting through it, and my final thesis, was itself an act of endurance. It’s hard to believe that Governor Sarah Palin is doing in a few weeks what it took me a year to cover. And even though I now have a Masters degree, which I guess suggests I’ve “mastered” something, what stays with me is not how much I mastered but how much I missed, how vast, how intricate, and how humbling this area is. If there is one sobering truth about studying foreign affairs, it’s that each bit of knowledge one gains only opens the door on another hundred bits of ignorance.

Believe me, Alaska is like a microcosm of America.

Umm, that word doesn’t mean whatever it is she thinks it means.

Neil,

You win the thread. That was hilarious!

The wingnuts count the Great Lakes as a “third coast”, I kid you not.

...

I’m guessing, too, that all those fine red staters who live around the coast of the Gulf of Mexico, a part of the Atlantic Ocean, don’t consider themselves to be coastal, either.

Nor those of us around the Great Salt Lake, I reckon, since Utah is right up there for reddest state in the Union.

The one where I actually found myself (gulp) feeling terrible for her was the one where McCain sat in on the interview with her, and answered her question for her, Great Santini-style, then, AFTER answering her question, said, “Look, she agrees with me, i’ll let her speak for herself…”

Look, Palin is everything I’m against; she’s quite possibly the Platonic Ideal Form of Hannah Arendt’s “banality of evil,” from which all other instances are merely cast shadows against a wall—BUT, to see a woman, ANY woman, put in that position and forced to smile through it; it irked the shit out of me. I understand she willingly signed up for this kind of thing and threw her family, their concerns and needs, totally under the bus of her own ambition. I get it.

But there’s still the knee tap of cringe to see a woman put in that position by a creepy old dude.

Mormons are totally non-elites according to Red Stater calculus, Sam. After all, how else could you explain Mitt Romney attacking “eastern elites”? He CAN’T be an eastern elite, cause he’s Mormon.

Bible Spice!  tee hee

Every 10 minutes I have another “I can’t believe she said that” moment. It’s insane.

A bit off-topic, but I have to say, as fascinating as your election is (and American politics has always been my reality TV) I really wish my fellow Canucks would also pay attention to our election (which I’m sure our filthy PM called b/c he knew your historic election would overshadow it). I’m optimistic for you guys, what with Batshit Insane and the Straitjackets campaigning for election, but I’m frightened for the future of my own country since uninformed morons seem to want to vote against their own interests. I’m sure you are familiar with this frustration, however.

Lake Superior comes damn near being an inland sea, I’m not surprised some call it a “third coast”.

Yeah, despite how Wilmington was starting to look like it was going to become “Hollywood East” there for a while (what with “Dawson’s Creek” being filmed there and all), nobody inside or outside of NC would think of us as “east coast elites”.  Usually outside the state they think of us more in terms of inbred moonshiners back in the hills or in the swamps, it seems. And yes, we do realize we have a coast—the tourism bureau’s slogan is “From the mountains to the sea” after all.

“So that I believe that what Congress is going to do also is not to allow the export bans to such a degree that it’s Americans who get stuck holding the bag without the energy source that is produced here, pumped here…it’s got to flow into the domestic markets first. ”

If I have parsed this correctly (and it took me two bottles of lemon-flavored vodka and some quality hallucinogens to even try), she’s contradicting herself, in the very same comment!

She’s saying 1) that Americans need domestic oil to be sold to them, rather than exported out of the country, so Congress should 2) NOT allow export bans… i.e. they should NOT STOP the oil from being exported to other countries... because banning exports would keep Americans from…getting the oil they need….?????

I’m frightened for the future of my own country since uninformed morons seem to want to vote against their own interests.

I hear you.  It is truly depressing that the Conservatives are polling a majority after all the shit they’ve pulled.

It’s happening in the UK too, though the alternative to the conservatives is hardly the good-looking fine-talking hope-spruiker that 27% of US voters are planning on ignoring. But it mystifies me to see people do it, regardless (and I just spent 10 years suffering under the consequences of it in Australia).

We have noticed over here in the UK, though, that this current financial crisis appears to clarify peoples’ thoughts, a little. I am filled with hope by the combination of financial crisis and Palin, since only lunatics would vote for McCain and Palin in such a situation, and Americans aren’t lunatics… right?

Fuck me, that “heavy hitter” Couric could barely name any of the major pubs either, I’ll wager. Were I Palin, I’d tend to refrain from giving any cult-of-personality journalists and their “institutions” a shred of free publicity, too.

Flashheart, Americans were smart enough to vote for Reagan when we needed to reassert our authority on the world stage, and those of us with a shred of intellect would take Maggie Thatcher in her prime in a heartbeat.

Several weeks ago, I wandered onto this site. I mistakenly attributed traits to opoponax that were really off and out-of-line. I humbly regret this as opoponax is indeed a fine writer and a very worthwhile human being.

A part of me (a very small part) hopes she’ll be around for a while because I didn’t really believe people like Palin exist.  I mean, I’ve heard of them, and I’ve seen them lampooned on My Name is Earl, but I didn’t really believe it.

Of course, I don’t want her to be around in any decision-making capacity, but maybe she could play Jessica Simpson’s mom on Dukes of Hazzard 2.

One more thing:  Couric should have asked Palin if she could spell and define the word “fungible” that she used in her answer about energy.

maybe she could do it, but I want to hear Palin give a spelling-bee answer.

“I’m frightened for the future of my own country since uninformed morons seem to want to vote against their own interests.”

I realized a while back that this feels a whole lot more to me like sports fandom than politics, especially from the right. It isn’t about policy, or pragmatism, or “their own interests” or anything quite so much as “their team.” They want their team to win. End of story. If their team has the old guy, then experience matters. If their team gets the inexperienced babe, then suddenly it’s all about freshness. If their team does it, it’s patriotism, if the other team does it, it’s treason. By definition.

The sad thing is that it feels to me exactly the way most big sporting events do - treated like life or death in the leadup, but then “ah, well, it’s just a game. What’s on the other channel” afterwards. They really don’t seem to get that in politics, it is the reverse, that it is the consequences that matter far more. If their team does badly, it really doesn’t effect them; it’s the coach’s fault.

The Democrats I speak to seem to take for granted that politics is integrally and totally linked to their day-to-day life situations, their jobs, their insurance, their freedom, their future, while the Republicans I speak to seem to treat all those things as a given, completely divorced from the politics. They somehow don’t see it as voting against their own interests, because somehow they don’t see voting as having anything whatsoever to do with their interests, except on the dog-whistle issues that never seem to get addressed by the politicians on their team anyway.

Somehow, astonishingly, it seems that Democrats are voting about how politics affects themselves, while most of the Republicans seem to be voting about how politics affects other people.

I’m optimistic for you guys, what with Batshit Insane and the Straitjackets campaigning for election, but I’m frightened for the future of my own country since uninformed morons seem to want to vote against their own interests.

Yeah, how did Canada manage to catch our wingnut disease? I’m truly sorry that we seem to be exporting that madness- that’s yet one more thing for which the world can justifiably revile us.  But I still have more confidence in your ultimate recovery than in ours.

Nixon is looking pretty good right now, Mike. Someone on here (forgot who it was) gave me the 1968 Republican Platform. If I didn’t know any better, I would have thought it was the Democratic platform from 1968. I mean, civil rights? Equality for women? A “living wage” and “expanded healthcare”?

Fuck me, that “heavy hitter” Couric could barely name any of the major pubs either, I’ll wager. Were I Palin, I’d tend to refrain from giving any cult-of-personality journalists and their “institutions” a shred of free publicity, too.

Well, to be fair, Couric probably can, because A) she’s a working journalist, even if she’s a soft-focus one (she’s got to be at least nominally familiar with the rest of the journalistic community), and B) she lives in New York, where our local papers are the de facto national papers for the whole country (Along with Washington, Chicago, L.A. and maybe Boston).  Saying “The Times, of course!” would be a good answer, even if you only read the Times because that’s what the corner newsstand has, and it’s what your parents subscribed to when you were a kid.  This doesn’t quite work for an Alaskan, or anyone who lives significantly outside a major city, because if you were honest about what paper you read you’d come off as a provincialist twit who lacks a global perspective. 

Growing up in Louisiana I had pretty much never heard of any newspaper aside from the New Orleans Times-Picayune.  If I were running for Vice President and answered this question, “Well I read the Times-Picayune, of course!” I’d come off as the above-mentioned provincial twit. A provincial twit from Queens can say “The Times, of course!” and sound a little more cosmopolitan, just due to the luck of being from a big city. 

All that said, however, Palin could easily have answered Newsweek or The Wall Street Journal and not sounded like the ass she came off as.

Er, Democratic platform from 1996. The 1968 Democratic platform was better, of course.

Not to mention, negotiating with China.

Dubya would have refused to “talk with evil” and would have tried to “rid the world” of Mao.

Ok, how come whenever anyone mentions the great lakes they always forget about New York?  Of the five great lakes, we have one all to ourselves.  I mean, I know the Republicans wrote off New York for national elections years ago, and were a member of the Coastal Elites even without the great lakes, but still, don’t forget Lake Ontario and New York. 

What?! it’s hard living in Upstate New York (real up state, as in 5 or 6 hours from NYC), State Government (not to mention our Senators) forget we exist except when they want us to pay for a new stadium for the Giants.

Heh, funny Voice in the Crowd, I always hear NYC metro dwellers complaining about how upstate “bleeds the city dry” or some variation of that.

Ben D.:
There’s some merit in such bitching.  One of the more infuriating things about being an urban dweller is that we frequently directly and indirectly subsidize/support rural and suburban areas, and only get complaints in return about how bad we are.  I notice that in America Red states love to bitch about how vile Blue states are while never sending back the money.  “FuckTheSouth.com” had the best take on it (and they used to have links to the congressional reports backing up the assertions, but now now, oddly enough):

Nine of the ten states that get the most federal fucking dollars and pay the least… can you guess? Go on, guess. That’s right, motherfucker, they’re red states. And eight of the ten states that receive the least and pay the most? It’s too easy, asshole, they’re blue states. It’s not your money, assholes, it’s fucking our money. What was that Real American Value you were spouting a minute ago? Self reliance? Try this for self reliance: buy your own fucking stop signs, assholes.

Here is Canada Toronto is robbed blind of tax money, sending billions upon billions to the province of Ontario and Ottawa while our infrastructure falls apart.  But the bridges in Asswipeoutthereburgs are just fine.  And it’s not as if we can vote to change this: both the Liberals and the Conservatives do this.  (Put yourself in the position of a Premier of Ontario or a PM of Canada.  If you could steal, with complete Constitutional impunity, from the richest city in the country and never pay a political price for it—because everybody who doesn’t live in Toronto thinks that’s just fine—wouldn’t you?)  The current Conservative government (having dropped the “Progressive” from its name, thus meeting the truth in advertising laws!) does not have a single Member of Parliament from any of Canada’s three biggest urban centres: Toronto, Vancouver and Montreal.  Not.  One.

I’m betting that the not naming newspapers thing was an attempt to keep Palin’s wingnut cred. If she admitted that she reads the New York Times and Washington Post, they’d have her all over as a commie sympathizer. If she said all she reads is newsmax and the WSJ opinion page she’d lose the “moderates”. And she can’t admit she read any of the Alaska papers because they keep saying nasty things about Troopergate.

PBS has an online poll posted asking if Sarah Palin is qualified.  Apparently the McCain supporters knew about this in advance and are flooding the voting with YES votes.

I know—it’s only a poll.  But it will be reported on PBS, picked up by mainstream media and can influence undecided voters in swing states.

Here’s the link: 
http://www.pbs.org/now/polls/poll-435.html

The last thing we need is PBS having to say its viewers think Sarah Palin is qualified unless we ALL vote..

The current Conservative government (having dropped the “Progressive” from its name, thus meeting the truth in advertising laws!)

I recall hearing about the merger of the Reform Alliance Party with the Progressive Conservative Party. They powowed for days figuring out what name to use for the newly merged party and declared at a press conference that they had decided on “Conservative Reform Aliance Party of Canada”....

...and someone in the press snickered… there’s your truth in advertising “CRAP of Canada”... 2 hours later they were back as the Conservative party.

(my uncle loves that story to this day!)

It will be a sign of the end times if America has a more progressive-minded ruling majority than Canada or the UK, and this just might happen. Which kind of freaks me out.

How bad is Stephen Harper, anyway? Is he a real winger or more milquetoast?

Ben.D:
He’s a genuine winger, but without Da Crazy.  And he’s as sharp as a bag of razor blades.  If he gets a majority government we will get a big swing to the right.  The inability of the centre and left in this country to agree on a unified front will come back to bite us in the ass.

The Liberals and NDP are having trouble working together to stop the Cons then?

They don’t work together.  Period.  They had a working arrangement at a provincial level back in the 1980s, and that was fine for the public, but both parties hated it.  Most NDP workers that I’ve met hate the Liberals every bit as much as the Tories, thinking them soulless machines who will do anything for power, rather than having any genuine ideals.  There is some merit in that criticism.

Ranylt:

Sobering?  It makes me want to drink.  The Tories as a general rule have no grasp of urban issues and even less interest in them.  In the words used to describe a former Tory premier of Ontario, “they think that cities are places where bad things happen to good people who visit there”.  the situation is worse when you consider that the federal Minister of Finance (a position akin to Treasury Secretary, but much, much more influential in government or cabinet, like the Chancellor of the Exchequer in the UK) used to have the same job for the Ontario government and HAAAAAAAAAAAAATES Toronto with the intensity of a supernova. 

Except the bankers and industrialists.  He loves them.  Even though they are more socially liberal and fiscally sensible than he is.  (TD Canada trust has produced some of the best research publications on the needs of urban areas and the importance of urban issues.  There is no American comparison to this.)

Disgusting, isn’t it? I just hope that it doesn’t take.  This is the country that elected Trudeau umpteen times.

Yeah, how did Canada manage to catch our wingnut disease?

The increasing power and population of Alberta, Texas of the North, who discovered what hardy, independent, up-by-the-bootstraps workers they had always been the day they figured out they were sitting on an assload of oil; disaffection with the Liberal government (in the 12+ years they were in power, they accumulated some scandals); and I have no idea what else.

The large cities still hate the Conservatives (much as the large cities in the U.S., by and large, hate Republicans) because the Conservatives, like the Republicans, campaign on a “fuck cities” platform.  But the suburbs are a different story.

One thing that amazes me about Canadian politics—although it shouldn’t—is that the Conservatives always choose election season to remind me of just how despicable they are.

I mean, most days I just think of them as fiscal conservatives; I wouldn’t vote for them and I hate the decisions they make, but I don’t think of them as Rethuglican-level bad.  But at election time, they send pamphlets around about how Teh Welfare Cheats and Teh Criminals are bleeding hardworking Canadians dry, include a whole bunch of lies about the law and repudiations of basic concepts of human rights, pander to the lowest, LOWEST common denominator…and they must have some reason to think this works.  Yeah, we’re in a crazy military quagmire in Afghanistan, but putting ballot boxes in prisons—THAT’S the road to fiscal ruin!

Here is Canada Toronto is robbed blind of tax money, sending billions upon billions to the province of Ontario and Ottawa while our infrastructure falls apart.  But the bridges in Asswipeoutthereburgs are just fine.

Hahaha, another bitter 416er.  Cheers, neighbour.

I know very little about Canadian politics, but I think you hometown commenters might be interested in this post from a writer who could be affected by the new policies.

It’d be funny in an apocalyptic way to see right wingers being the ones threatening to move to Canada November 5th.

Also, is it just me or does oil always seem to be located where the nuttiest people live (Saudi Arabia, Texas, Alberta, Alaska?)

Why can’t Manhattan be sitting on top of the world’s largest reserves?

Ah yes, Mnemosyne, the arts thing.  Harper (a pointy-headed policy wonk if ever there was one) is trying to get the “jus’ plain folks” vote by dissing everyone who works in the culture industry or has academic expertise in anything.  There’s a Facebook meme going around on this subject—“Faceless for the Arts.”

Also, is it just me or does oil always seem to be located where the nuttiest people live (Saudi Arabia, Texas, Alberta, Alaska?)

I think the presence of oil creates and/or encourages the nuttiness.  I’m sure someone has done research into the reasons.

I’m beginning to think the closest counterpart to Harper is Nixon. A really smart yet right wing guy that gets elected dissing everyone who isn’t “the common man”? Yep.

Yeah, Norway is cool. And they actually use their oil money in really good ways (healthcare, schools, roads) not blowing it on empty office buildings (Dubai) or nutty religious texts (Saudi Arabia).

Harper and Nixon really aren’t comparable.  The former lacks the latter’s extensive array of resentments, bitterness, bottomless unhappiness and baffling internal paradoxes.

But he’s not really like Bush, because you said he wasn’t as dumb as a bag of hammers.

Is he like a smart George W. Bush?

If she admitted that she reads the New York Times and Washington Post, they’d have her all over as a commie sympathizer. If she said all she reads is newsmax and the WSJ opinion page she’d lose the “moderates”.

This was my thought, too.

And then I remembered all the perfectly harmless publications she could have mentioned.  Newseek.  The Wall Street Journal.  Time.  One of the smarter “women’s” magazines, like Real Simple, Marie Claire, or O(prah).  Gourmet.  Saveur.  Reader’s Digest.  USA Today.  Parenting.    Shit, she could probably come across OK by making a salt-of-the-earth mommy comment and say that honestly she barely gets a chance to read for pleasure and probably sees more issues of Highlights or Ranger Rick than anything fun for grownups to read And if she were really on the ball, she could namedrop a news wire like Reuters, or AP.

Ben D.: You know how Bush 43 has a shitload of really, really smart rightwingers behind him?  People who are smarter than hell but hold opinions that are way off to the right?  Harper is those guys, and he’s the boss.  It remains to be seen, though, if he is as right-wing as them, or just very right wing for the Canadian context and consensus, which is waaaaaaaaaaaaaaay to the right of yours.

Just kidding.

Way to the left.

It remains to be seen, though, if he is as right-wing as them, or just very right wing for the Canadian context and consensus, which is waaaaaaaaaaaaaaay to the right of yours.

I think maybe you mean “waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay to the left”.  Canadians are generally very attached to our “socialized medicine”, and we don’t have nearly as many hard-core social conservatives as the States.  Campaigning against abortion or same-sex marriage is not a good way to get votes because it turns too many people off.  The Conservatives are running more on “law and order” and ‘don’t you hate those welfare bums?”

I don’t think Harper is much of a religious conservative.  I think he’s just a drown-government-in-the-bathtub sort.

Eep.  Sense of humour FAIL.

Eep.  Sense of humour FAIL.

(Friendly laughing.)  Me or you, killjoy, me or you? 

You’re right about the bathtub.  Add to that the fact that he is a biiiig believer in provincial rights.  He isn’t (to use Trudeau’s cutting comment about Joe Clark) a “headwaiter to the provinces”.  More like a Receiver giving away power and money to debtors and creditors alike, leaving his company with nothing.

Huh? Is she saying she chose to be heterosexual?

If it’s not a choice, and many say it is not, then it’s a birth defect.