...instead, let's ban union leaders who are stupid, insensitive, ignorant and bigoted.

...or remove the banks' charter to operate, because they are being stupid and insensitive, too.

Bashing union leaders and bank executives in one posting, and it's not even 9 a.m.! Man, am I ever a Liberal!

Took my wife three seconds to start bawling when the national anthem started up.

Taken at a demo in Manhattan last week.

Words fail, and not just me, either.

Who has this morning written this.

Who should perhaps look at this.

And this.

And this.

Channelling, indeed.

Now, not only does Bork Newsbought copy all of his newslinks from National Newswatch - he also now has rejigged his look to resemble National Newswatch. You might ask: Why would anyone pay anything for a copy-cat?

Oh, that's right. The Conservative Party does.

Seeing as how a certain columnist has penned a missive this morn about Michael Ignatieff, and seeing as how some caucus folks might notice same, we bring the following to your attention:
• The last thing voters want during any holidays is politics.
• The last thing Canadian voters wanted during the 2008-2009 holidays – particularly following the Harper regime’s now-infamous constitutional crisis – was one minute more of politics.
• If the entire Liberal caucus had stuck around during the holidays, working 20 hours a day to get in the paper, the very same columnist would have written that the entire Liberal caucus had gone bonkers, and that the last thing voters want during the holidays is politics.
• We had an “SC Strategy:” less of Stephen’s Crisis, and a lot more of Santa Claus.
• This thing’s a marathon, not a sprint. It always is.
• You’re welcome.

Okay. Everyone's miserable.

It's cold. It's winter. Work starts in earnest tomorrow. School, too (yay! say us parents).

What better way to cheer up a mopey nation than with a heretofore unseen Summertime Warren At Arm's Length - one about the simple, pristine beauty of throwing around the pigskin down on the beach? Crikey, does it get any better than that?

There, see? You're feeling deliriously happy, already.

You're welcome.

Spotted at a Toronto rink just now: the elusive, perfect Almond Joy.

First Diet Dr. Pepper, then fishy crackers. Who needs America?

[Pause.]

Oh, wait. We still don't have Rice Chex, do we? Never mind.

So my daughter and I are at Mass, and she decides that giving the Eucharist a "minty fresh" taste will help fill the pews.

The Kinsella Family, on guard for your PR needs, 24/7.

Now that Israeli troops are moving into Gaza, the rhetoric - on both sides of the divide - will grow a lot more heated. That's to be expected, I guess.

My views on Israel haven't changed. I'm a Liberal, and a liberal, and I stand with Israel. I don't tend to be as enthusiastic about the leadership of other side, who are - in the views of Liberals and Conservatives alike - terrorists.

Now, while shuttling between rinks, today, I have noted things are getting hotter online. A pro-Israel thing I put on my Facebook page set off a flame war, with one francophone Liberal friend from Ottawa defending Israel's actions, while one Iranian Liberal friend from North Vancouver took the opposite point of view. I ended up deleting the thread because it was getting nasty and personal. In a similar vein, after he linked Israel to "genocide," I've decided to ban a former Liberal activist from commenting here for the forseeable future. Or until he gets his head out of his ass, at least.

(And, before the Conservatives get all pious, remember: you're the ones who promote the Brain-dead Animal on Blogging Tories - you know, the woman who mocks the Holocaust, and champions the "rights" of Holocaust deniers.)

So: as in all things, there is a lot of emotion, and therefore stupidity, on all sides. To my side - on Liblogs and elsewhere - I would simply suggest that you think before you open your mouth, or hit post. What you say can and will be used in all sorts of unhelpful ways, I guarantee it.

I may not be able to impose peace in the Middle East, but I certainly plan to promote it on the little piece of cyber-real estate which I control. It isn't much, but it's something.

You can call this one the Ting theory.

A couple weeks before Christmas, we brought our kids to Jamaica for my brother's wedding. We'd been there many times, but it was a first for the kids.

Among other things, we told them about the many new tastes they'd experience, and they were immediately skeptical. Being kids, they didn't want to try anything new.

Within a couple days of our arrival, however, they were consuming lots of ackee, festival, jerk chicken, rice and peas. And Ting.

Ting is a popular Jamaican soft drink. It sort of tastes like grapefruit, and when we told the kids that, they were mightily unimpressed. We'll never change our tastes! Shortly thereafter, they were consuming the stuff by the gallon. Ting, Ting, Ting. They now love Ting so much, my wife has been forced to find places where we can buy it in snowy Toronto.

So here's the, um, ting about Ting. It's political. It's about political choices, to be specific.

Lots of people make political choices, and they infrequently stray from those choices. They do this because of the Four Ps: place, parents, personality and pocketbook.

Where they live, their place on Earth, matters a lot. When I lived in Calgary, I'd meet up with Newfoundlanders or Montrealers who had been pur laine federalist Liberals for their entire lives. But they'd get to Alberta and - presto! they would be transformed into hardcore angry Conservatives. I even met a few who became Western separatists, which was crazy.

So place matters a lot.

So do parents. How your parents voted - and if they voted - has an impact on how you look at things. If you grew up in a Liberal household, that kind of thing has a tendency to seep into your ideological DNA. It legitimizes "Liberal" as a political choice.

Now, every kid rebels against his or her parents at one time or another, and sometimes they do that by rejecting the family political consensus - so a Westmount friend became a Green Party guy, or a Calgary Conservative friend became a socialist to spite his Dad. But, mainly, folks end up looking like their parents, and voting like their parents. It's genetics.

Personality matters a lot, as well. Not your personality, per se, but the personality of the politician seeking your vote.

When I am evaluating a politician, I pay the closest attention to their personality, not their policies. That may sound superficial, but you do likewise, whether you are aware of it or not. That's how a political choice who was so manifestly inferior (George W. Bush) could beat alternatives that we so clearly better (Al Gore, John Kerry): Dubya had an easygoing personality, even if he was dumb as a post. You could, as the cliché goes, picture yourself having a beer with him.

He was a HOAG - a Hell Of A Guy. So, too, Bill Clinton, Jean Chrétien, Ralph Klein, Dalton McGuinty, Danny Williams. All of them understood your life, whether they had lived it or not, and you liked them, whether you agree with their policies or not.

Now, I know what some of you are thinking. You angry conservatives out there - and angry conservatives dominate cyber-space and editorial boards, although they don't generally dominate anywhere else - are about to write to me, and say: "Ah ha! Warren, Harper is Tim Horton's - you said so yourself - and the new Liberal guy is Starbucks! Gotcha!"

Well, yes, I did think Stephen Harper was all about Tim Horton's. I did. But, upon observing his behaviour in power, I have revised my assessment. He is a politician who merely hangs out at Tim's because he thinks that's where the votes are. But he doesn't actually like being there, you know, talking to people and stuff. He just wears these comfy sweaters because Muttart and Giorno told him he had to. People at Tim's know it, too. They know he'll always prefer to do the drive-through - in a big honkin' SUV with tinted windows - than come inside and talk to his neighbours. It's the way he rolls.

Pocketbook, the final "P," is the big one. It matters more than place, parents and a politician's personality.

I've written about it before, but here's a historical example I like. I'll keep it short.

Once upon a time, whenever the Bolsheviks attempted to overthrow the Czar, the Cossacks put them down every time. Take that, Bolsheviks!

But when the Czar neglected to ensure the Cossacks and their families were properly fed, guess what happened? You got it: the revolution succeeded. The end.

Providing for your family - the pocketbook factor - is the biggest "P" of all. It dwarfs everything else. (It connects everything else, too: people are going to have to move to different places to find work. And their parents' savings are all gone, now that markets are collapsing. And, in the midst of all this upheaval, the personality of the guy in charge isn't very appealing to them anymore: "It's a good time to invest," he says, which isn't a very Tim Hortonsy thing to say. And it isn't what they wanted to hear. At all.)

What the Hell has a soft drink called Ting got to do with any of this, you ask? Good question. Let me try and tie it together.

It's about change. It's about things that influence changes to the political choices you make. If the circumstances are right, people will embrace change. Ting included.

There. That's it.

Change is coming. All of the "Ps" are in play, this time, and the incumbent is not going to like the result very much at all. The pocketbook one, in particular, is killing him.

I'd encourage him to try something new, like Ting, but he'd never do it.

You, however, will.

I forgot I was on their show, this week, with Peggy Nash and Harvie Andre, for one of those year-end commentariat things. We agreed more than we disagreed.

It's here.

Happy Noo Yeer!

Lots of media folks – who have never stuffed a political envelope, or walked a campaign canvass in their lives – are writing thumbsuckers about their political predictions for the year ahead. To balance out the universe, I thought I would make some media predictions for the year ahead. But I couldn’t think of ten things to predict about the media – other than the demise of the Post – so I’ll stick to ten things to predict about politics.

And what do I know, anyway.

1. There’ll be an election. A minority government, and a country in a near-Depression, are mutually-exclusive concepts. As things get worse, the pressure on the Opposition parties to topple the Conservative administration will be enormous. Personally, I’m all for toppling ‘em right now.
2. The Liberal Party of Canada will win the election, because we’ve got the most impressive leader: he’s super-smart, he’s accomplished, he’s decent, he has an extraordinary ability to bring people together. We’ve also got the best team: we’ve got a Rae, a LeBlanc, a Trudeau, a Dryden, a Garneau, a Hall-Finlay, a Dhalla…I could go on. (I will, too.)
3. The Liberals will win the election for another reason: in the extraordinary circumstances in which we find ourselves, it is traditional “liberal” policy which makes the most sense – smart government involvement in the economy, and everything that means. Hoary old “conservative” chestnuts – tax cuts, privatization, indifference to the weak and the poor – just don’t appeal to people in times like these.
4. The Reform Conservative Party of Parts of Western Canada will lose the election, because they’ve got an angry leader that people – women and young people in particular – just can’t warm up to. They’ll lose because they’ve got a pretty unremarkable team, too. Apart from Jim Prentice and a couple others, I’m guessing 99 per cent of Canadians couldn’t name five ministers in the federal cabinet. When the face of your entire political organization is one man – and a man whom voters are increasingly unenthusiastic about – you’ve got trouble, baby.
5. The economy, as I’ve suggested before, will be the answer to every political question. Foreign policy matters a bit, as we are seeing right now; so do important questions like Afghanistan and so on. Of course; that’s obvious. But, to many voters, none of that matters as much as their ability to feed their families, or pay the mortgage, or figure out how to keep the hydro on. That’s not right or wrong – it’s just the way it is. And no incumbent government has ever been elected, to my knowledge, after presiding over a deep recession and/or near-Depression. That’s why I believe the Harper Conservatives are toast. Every factory closing, every job loss, every bad economic headline is killing them. In these circumstances, their political opponents need only maintain a pulse.
6. The Conservatives iron communications discipline will continue to crack. Now that caucus and cabinet and staff see how many mistakes Mr. Harper has made in a very short period of time – cozying up to ADQ loser Mario Dumont and angering majority Premier Jean Charest in the process; blowing a Parliamentary majority with a ton of rookie mistakes during the election campaign; causing a constitutional crisis that united the Left and left the Conservative leader looking like a tin-eared rageaholic – they will continue to lose confidence in him and his PMO. They will start reverting to type, and showing up in print.
7. The Liberals, meanwhile, will continue to embrace communications discipline – because, as Michael Ignatieff clearly has shown them, communications discipline works. The Grits will utterly dispense of the Chrétien-Martin era internecine warfare, because nobody remembers anymore what they were fighting about in the first place. (I sure can’t.)
8. I can’t predict what the Conservatives will do in their budget; they’d gotten crazier than shithouse rats, around the end of 2008, and it’s hard to predict the behavior of crazy people, let alone rats. But if they come up with a stinker, and more silly games, they’ll be defeated in the House of Commons and at the ballot box. If they figure out a way to evade the executioner, they’ll be governing during the worst of the worst economic downturn in decades. Either way, they’re screwed. Short-term, long-term, they’re hooped.
9. We’re overdue for some sort of environmental calamity. That, when combined with the Reform Conservatives’ complete disinterest in things like climate change, will make people angrier. John Baird will wish he had listened to Al Gore. So will everyone.
10. Warren will spend quite a bit of time in Ottawa, starting, well, in just a few days. My little web site will therefore get a lot more partisan, disappointing Conservatives and delighting me in the process. Spring will come, flowers will bloom, the natural political balance will be restored. God bless us all.

You’re welcome. Bill’s in the mail.

It’s not my list anymore, really. It’s Scott’s list.

Every year, right around now, Scott – the top PR guy at Random House, a great pal and the manager of SFH for about a day – writes to me, and inquires about the list. That is, the Top Ten Albums of the Year List.

No one else inquires about it, naturally. Everyone else comes here to read about politics. But those who know me – those who know the deepest recesses of my darkest soul – know that what I love to write about is rock’n’roll, not politics. And that Lester Bangs was always my muse, not James Carville. And that ‘Barney Rubble Is My Double’ is a more enduring legacy than Barney the Dinosaur. And, and, and.

I digress, per fucking usual.

So, heretofore and herewith, Scott’s list. It’s for you, brother. To Hell with the rest.

1. FUCKED UP, The Chemistry of Common Life – Take it from me, a guy in a band of aging degenerates called ‘Shit From Hell’: the name’s a mistake. A mistake! It’s what curious youngsters will focus on first, and they’ll form all sorts of unhelpful preconceptions, and they’ll get nervous about what their parents will say, and then they’ll move on to Fall Out Boy or something horrible. But if you get past the name, which is as goofy as Shit From Hell and then some, what you will find is not just an amazing hardcore band from Toronto, Ontario, Canada. What you will find, what you will see, what you will hear is a hardcore/punk band that isn’t – a band that folds, spindles and mutilates hardcore/punk out of all recognition, and comes up with something that is new and terrifying and therefore perfect. I was going to liken them to Minor Threat and Fugazi meet the Pixies, with some Pearl Jam on acid thrown in, but that’s trite and it just doesn’t begin to describe Fucked Up. 2006’s ‘Hidden World’ was amazing; ‘The Chemistry of Common Life’ is amazinger. Forget the name; there is genius at work, here.
2. FOXBORO HOT TUBS, Stop Drop and Roll! – The guys in Green Day are the same guys in Foxboro Hot Tubs, but the similarities end there, pretty much. Formed late at night over a few bottles of plonk by Green Day – what Western Canadian punk combos indelicately call a “fuck band” – the Foxboro Hot Tubs first (and likely last) album is the pop-punk waxing of the year. Catchier than a drawer full of fish hooks, this one. Each tune here recalls some other garage-era classic, while somehow managing to sound totally new and rockin’. I had thought GD would follow up the genre-busting political indictment of ‘American Idiot’ with more angry anthemic stuff. But Dubya was on his way out, thank Christ, and Billie Joe and the boys were accordingly less incensed – and in a melodious mood, too. The results are worth picking up. You’ll be humming these scruffy ditties for a long while.
3. THE HIVES, The Black and White Album – It came out towards the end of 2007, when we were over in London for the Pistols’ 30th anniversary mini-tour, but this record has received many, many spins around the Kinsella homestead in the interim. That’s why I regard it as more 2008 than 2007, and piss off if you disagree. As always, the pride of Fagersta, Sweden have not forsaken punk rock for commercial success, but commercial success is what Pelle and his co-conspirators richly deserve. They are, indisputably, the best live act in rock’n’roll; they have a pop sensibility that would put their fellow Swedes in Abba to shame (and, like all Seventies-era punks, I always nursed a secret love of Abba). Why aren’t they famous? Why aren’t they millionaires? Is there a God? Speak, damn you!
4. KINGS OF LEON, Only By The Night – It is weird, weird, weird going to see the brothers Followill, like Bjorn and I did, a few weeks ago. Kool Haus was packed, with jocks and puck bunnies jammed in there like it was a Summertime suburban sock hop with free shooters. Eyeballing that scene, I figured I’d get depressed – I remember seeing these Nashville alt-country sulkers at the Opera House, in front of a hundred or so true believers! – but I wasn’t. The songs are still there, and KOL exhibit a confidence they didn’t have before – and a maturity their lyrics seldom revealed, too. Could they be one of the biggest bands on Earth? They’re well on their way to that, for good or bad.
5. NOFX, They’ve Actually Gotten Worse Live - So there I am during the election, backstage at NOFX, watching el Hefe leap about to 'Leaving Jesusland,' which is one of the best political songs ever written, and I start getting emails from Tories, going on about some YouTube thing, like it was the Zapruder film, or the Dean Scream, or both. So I watch it. The ATV anchor dude certainly acts like they have tape of Stéphane Dion burning the Maple Leaf or something. But what I saw is funny, and even sort of endearing. What's next, Tory war room? Perhaps you could make fun of someone's facial paralysis, eh? Back to Fat Wreck Chord’s NOFX. They're about to do 'Murder the Government.' Fits.
6. RISE AGAINST, Appeal to Reason – On the first few listens, I was worried about Rise Against. Really worried. You see, this Chicago group have always been the straightest Straight-Edgers around – their politics were impeccably right, their attitude was indisputably right, their sound was righteous (but melodic) hardcore. On this one, Rise Against’s superior musicianship steps, a bit, on their message. It verges on glossy slickness, here and there, and that worried me, as noted. But frontman Tim McIlrath pulls it back, and ultimately delivers RA’s pro-peace, pro-green gospel with the requisite power and conviction. Wish I hadn’t missed their show in October – but I was deep in the woods, where peace and green were all around. McIlrath likely would have approved.
7. AMERICAN STEEL, Destroy Their Future – Another Fat Wreck Chords gem – and another record released at the very tail end of 2007 – this Oakland, California quintet’s fourth LP is noteworthy for its willingness to be simultaneously laugh-out-loud funny (“Mean Streak”) and deadly serious (“Dead and Gone”). Not easy to do, for most bands, but these guys navigate it with style. Some of the tunes here, like ‘Speak, O Heart,’ have that early Against Me quality – you know, wonderful proletarian pub sing-alongs. Never a bad way to ply one’s musical trade. Watch for these guys.
8. THE BUGS, The Bugs – “He used to be in Jane’s Addiction, for which I had no appreciation. Now he’s on TV, trying to earn a buck - Dave Navarro’s goatee fucking sucks…He’s got funny hair and funny goatee now…he was so much cooler when he was on drugs.” That’s ‘Dave Navarro’s Goatee Fucking Sucks,’ and that’s pure genius, folks. For my money, ‘Dave Navarro’s Goatee Fucking Sucks,’ with its Ramones-meets-Angry Samoans zeitgeist, was the greatest song of last year, and it still makes me giggle like a helium-snorting schoolgirl. The Bugs are a California trio, fronted by former Queers legend Dangerous Dave, and they likely never be as famous as they deserve to be. You won’t find their stuff in the iTunes store, which makes them even more perfect.
9. PENNYWISE, Reason To Believe – Like Bad Religion and NOFX, they’ve been going at it for a quarter-century, now. But Pennywise haven’t lost the spark. They are as angry, and as polemical, as ever. The Western World’ is the standout, here: “ We are the dregs of the western world, the steroid boys and video girls…We are the viral internet stars, and the anchor man can't stop crying.” Hope I’m this pissed off when I’m Jim’s age… Hey, wait! I am!
10. SHIT FROM HELL, Wheel of Wow – We are god-like geniuses, and you are fucking lucky to have us around. Here’s ‘Yellow Beetle,’ as played at Barrymore’s in April. You will worship us, mortals!

This is a rendering of Yours Truly, by Daughter. I sense ACA (or, sigh, OCA) in the offing.



Free WK book for the best caption. Fire away, cowboys. Be mean. I can take it.