Posts from — December 2008

Yes, it’s the time of year when the Sun dies and must be re-born through an elaborate ceremony that involves some form or type of sacrifice, such as finding gifts for people you can’t stand and smiling brightly as you receive yet another gift based on an urban legend that you actually like truly stomach-wrenching color combinations. Some people get a little carried away .

Of course there was a time when the Solstice sacrifices were more visceral and the evergreen was covered in things that pleased only ravens and such, but we have put all that behind us by opting for the possibility of electrocuting one another and causing chaos on the power grid.

What a brilliant idea: moving a large supply of pre-kindling soaked with highly flammable resins into your house, loading it down with petrochemical-based ornaments, lacing it with heat-producing electrical devices, and surrounding the base with cardboard boxes and tissue paper. You just can’t have a traditional celebration without a proto-bonfire in your living room.

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The headline isn’t quite accurate: PM may suspend Parliament

OTTAWA – To save his job and his government, Prime Minister Stephen Harper is expected within Conservative circles to prorogue, or suspend, Parliament this week while his party blitzes the country with a public-relations campaign aimed at discrediting the notion of a Liberal-led coalition government.

The problem is that the Prime Minister can only ask the Canadian Governor General to ‘prorogue’ the Parliament, as that is a prerogative of the Governor General not the Prime Minister.

The next step is the Governor General’s Choice

OTTAWA – When Stephen Harper called on Gov.-Gen. Michaelle Jean on Sept. 7 and asked her to dissolve what he insisted was a “dysfunctional” Parliament for an Oct. 14 election, she bowed to his request.

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While India continues to demand that Pakistan take the blame for the Mumbai attacks more information is coming out about how ill-prepared and uncoordinated India’s security structure is.

It has been reported and confirmed that US ‘warned India’ about Mumbai. This wasn’t one of the Hedgemony’s vague political warnings about something happening, this was a warning about a seaborne attack on Mumbai with the hotels as a probable target, and it was last made a month ago.

What was done? Almost nothing because the BBC reports ‘Rot’ at heart of Indian intelligence. India’s first responders lack training, equipment, coordination,… everything.

Given that India’s claim about Pakistani involvement is heavily based on information coming from the only terrorist captured alive, McClatchy’s investigation of the claims being reported is rather interesting: Search for Mumbai gunman’s roots only deepens mystery

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The BBC reports that the Thai airport protests have been called off, and that is a reaction to the decision of an election case by Thailand’s highest court: Embattled Thai Leader Forced To Step Down

(CBS/AP) A court dissolved Thailand’s top three ruling parties for electoral fraud Tuesday and temporarily banned the prime minister from politics, bringing down a government that has faced months of strident protests seeking its ouster.

In some places election fraud is taken seriously and the people involved are punished.

Florida’s junior Senator, Mel Martinez (R-Havana), doesn’t want to play any more.

In as much as he had no base in Florida outside of Calle Ocho in Miami, having been hand-picked by the Hedgemony to run in 2004, a move that ticked off Florida Republicans, and faced with a “fun” re-election in 2010, Senator Martinez has decided to “retire” from the Senate after one term.

It would appear that Mr. Harper of Canada has stepped in something very nasty by not having a plan to deal with the economic recession. This is beyond idiotic. There is a standard approach that everyone uses, no matter where they fall on the political scale, but the newly re-elected Prime Minister of Canada refuses to pull it out of the file and present it to parliament.

His non-action has opened a golden opportunity for the opposition parties, and they aren’t going to let it pass: Liberals, NDP, Bloc sign deal on proposed coalition.

What they intend to do is call a no confidence vote in parliament, which they have enough votes to win, and then take over from Harper. Harper can try to dodge this, but it would be futile as he has lost the initiative to the other parties.

He just blew the extra votes he won in calling early elections by not having a response to the recession.  This is just brain-dead politics on his part.  It is positively Bushian.

Let the cover-up begin.

The BBC has the latest effort of Indian officials to blame it all on Pakistan.

No one explains why the 10 terrorists left 15 sets of personal effects on the trawler, or why they wouldn’t have had some people already in the city for last minute reconnaissance and to obtain transportation for those coming ashore.

No one explained why this crack team of terrorists used satellite phones when all professional terrorists know that the phones can be tracked and monitored.

No one has explained why a trawler known to have been seized earlier was allowed to simply sail in and anchor, despite calls from local fishermen concerned with the possibility of sea transport of explosives.

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I’ve been saying we went into a recession in October or November 2007 but the officials who get to rule on these things say I was wrong: It’s official: US has been in a recession all year

WASHINGTON (AP) – The U.S. economy has been in a recession since December 2007, the National Bureau of Economic Research said Monday.

I still think it was earlier, just look at the job and Dow numbers in the Fall.  Throwing a few bankers in jail last year and extending unemployment benefits might have saved it, but the the Hedgemony kept claiming “the fundamentals were strong” as the economy collapsed.