Modeling Journey

Recent news reports have touched on the division in the Liberal Caucus between the leader, Dion, and many of the MPs - Dion does not want to take steps to have an election now, when the Tories are vulnerable, but to spend the summer marketing his carbon tax concept.

But that is not what causes me alarm. Rather, Dion is reported as not being in favour of adding a cap and trade element to the Liberal Party's global warming policy plank.

He is reported as saying that this 'confuses' the issue.

Dion is wrong. Harper's Tories have already started to brand his global warming as a tax increase. To roll out half a policy on global warming is not politically wise.

Nor is it wise political leadership.

Dion should roll out a comprehensive energy policy, including a cap and trade initiative.

Come to think of it, Dion should, as leader, roll out a series of political policies, so as to give Canadian voters reasons for voting FOR the Liberals, not just against Harper's Tories. Leaders should have policies.

Where are Dion's?

RR: rhubarb and other uncertainties of life

I'm really a remarkable man.

added me some devil ridden rhubarb buy. With a stick I would have been even handle, I actually like eating it. But in the business it was packed with four rods, and even a bit faded in places. Now I think about everything I should do with that because rhubarb. A bar I've eaten raw, but he happens to be sour, this is not an alternative for the rest a bit, I tried a vegetable soup to shave - no chance. It tastes like soap flakes and also has a similar consistency. To cook jam I'm first lazy and b. to untalented. Have now cut a rod as a salad addition. 'm Curious. Why rhubarb but I really wanted to have me 24 hours later, remains a mystery.

I've found that I the company of other people, if not work-related or caused birthday can endure for a limited time. Something like 2-3 hours. Then it's like an itch, I keep seeing on the clock and wants to leave. For my privacy and it works wonders sarcastic * must * cried, I can say. I think my new friends think I'm cranky for a bit and not particularly interested in friendship, but because I know I'm slightly paranoid, I do not know the extent to which it corresponds to reality and in which only the imagination. My old friends have become used to it, but I've also mostly an excuse ready. God, what a mess ...

did this I had yesterday a half-hour fit of laughter, because I blog from the William Gibson had read the entry in which he chased one of the newer medical library by the Babel Fish. The problem I have known for some time, and I've already read the Terry Pratchett Discworld series completely, my latest pick-me-the translation of any English-language interview by Google's Language Tools. I mean, how difficult it is to teach a translation engine that has the word Kid has been forever and a bit more than just the importance of kids ... Works every time, I can then usually quit for at least fifteen minutes not laugh and giggle.

Good thing the Keystone Cops have already been invented, or we would be calling Dion and his merry band of disappearing fighters the Dionstone Cops.

Does anyone in the current leadership team of the Liberal Party really understand how pathetic an excuse it is to not cause an election before the Easter weekend? But perhaps, later?

Pathetic is too mild a word. Somebody, somewhere, please give Dion and his close advisers a lesson in Communications 101.

Didn't anyone amongst the Liberal Leaders think through what they were doing when they slipped in a bill to amend the Tory government budget? What did they expect the Harperites to do? Play dead?

Haven't they learned that Harper and his boys are sharper than they are when it comes to gaming the opposing party? That Harper has consistently out thought, out planned, out smarted, and out fought the Liberal pack for some two years?

Does Dion and his advisory group think this was a fluke?

If so, then it's time for them to wake up, smell the coffee, search for the Easter eggs, beat the bushes to flush out the Easter bunnies, and get some intestinal fortitude.

Why on earth should voters vote for a party whose leaders show such obvious stupidity, by not thinking through what they are doing?

It is time to come out with some sound policies, give the voters reasons for supporting the Liberals. If the Liberals don't do it, then it might be time for voters who oppose the Tory rightwing agenda to take a fresh look at the Green Party, or the NDP.

Support has to be earned from voters.

Apparently the House of Liberals had a meeting of the caucus (a mere fifteen??!), and were divided on the response to Harper's trinkets-for-all budget:

"Others argued that they should not acquiesce to Mr. Harper by triggering an election that he seems to want; the election should be called on their terms and timing.
"It's a mess," said one MP about the state of play in the caucus over triggering the government's defeat. Some MPs believe that if the campaign team is not ready, after being put on notice as far back as the fall, then the leader should fire them all."

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20080227.wbudgetliberals27/BNStory/budget2008/?page=rss&id=RTGAM.20080227.wbudgetliberals27

How pathetic can the Liberal MPs get?

I expected Harper to buy off the Bloc to avoid an election.

I was wrong.
Harper took one hard look at the so-called opposition, and it its leader, Dion, and bet that the Liberals were afraid of him and of an election.

And Harper bet right.

Dion caved.

And why?

Because they lacked the guts to table amendments to the Harper budget which would have reflected Liberal values, and, if those amendments did not pass, then vote against Harper's budget, and fight the election on the basis of the Liberal budget.

Simple.

If you really know how to play hardball, and actually fight for your own principles.

What a sad, sad sight: Dion and his MPs with their tails between their legs, with Harper smirking all the way to another year in power ...

Wouldn't it be nice if the Liberal Party actually had a leader with the courage to fight?

Here we go again, the same weak arguments against voting for principles in case that act results in the minority government of the Tories falling, and an election is called.

Harper has run rings around Dion yet again in the past few weeks.

Harper outsnookered Dion and his leadership team on the Afghanistan file. Instead of the Liberal Party setting out a carefully thought, comprehensive alternative to the debacle of a policy now being implemented by the government, Dion allowed Harper to frame the discussion, and meekly fell in line with what Harper wanted: an extension of the mission with some meaningless words about change. Was it Harper's smile that convinced Dion that he had found a new buddy?

Harper outsnookered Dion and the leadership team on the crime bill. Look what happened: Harper challenged Dion - tell the Senate to pass it, or we treat it as a vote of confidence. And Dion? He ducked the fight. Skipped the vote. Then, apparently, quietly passed the word to the Liberals in the Senate to pass the crime bill. The result? Dion looks like a diminutive chicken, afraid of his own shadow.

Now comes the budget, and already Dion is capitulating, using the tired old story about the cost of an election.

Whatever happened to Liberals who had principles, who possessed courage, who were prepared to fight for Canadians?

What a sorry lot we have leading us in Parliament. Perhaps we need another election to wipe out a third of sitting Liberal MPs, so that the party can start all over again, with a new slate of candidates for election to parliament, replacing these timid souls, and a new leader.

It is becoming very hard to hold your head up as a Liberal.

А у нас начала зацветать первая вишня ...

и скоро всю главную pink snow buried a street and I'll rave Japan, miniature figures in kimonos and fascinating exotic expression of "admiration blossom festival вишни ....

blog list in the Green Hell

Wow, cool, there is now even possible, the blog posts of the people from the Green Hell presents get ready to serve. Most have their blog links so hang somewhere in the signal anyway, and if I am interested in a user forum, I like to look at me sometimes. But now I get it it were delivered by UPS. Whether I should have put me out? On the other hand, I have not posted anything for ages, not necessarily because I did not want to, but also because for some unknown reason LJ sometimes in HTML format not wanted to post my entries. Technology hates me. And some things from the recent I should not post publicly, if I want to get at the latest trouble with the employer, no matter how anonymous a blog (which he is not, of course, I'm not a child who believes an invented name would be all the security you need ). So my Mum was