— Musings —08.19.2015 07:48 AM
KCCCC Day 17: on loose cannons
- A loose cannon: Noun – a person who cannot be controlled and who does or says things that cause problems, embarrassment, etc., for others
- There are a few rolling around on deck, today. Now, of course, whether someone is a “loose cannon” or not is quite subjective. It is in the eye of the cannon beholder, you might say. I’ve been called one, in my day. But I believe that you sometimes need to take big risks, in order to score on an opponent. Like with this trip down memory lane. (My good pal Jon Kay said I won the 2000 election with that stunt, but that isn’t true. Anyway, I digress.)
- Randy White is a loose cannon. And he’s back in the news, broadly hinting that he’s going to be voting for the godless socialists. My only advice to my Bolshevik pals? Be very, very careful. This is the same guy who sank the Conservative campaign in 2004, snatching defeat from the jaws of victory, when he mused out loud about overruling judges and the Charter.
- Asa was a loose cannon, too. And as we documented on these pages yesterday, the charming Calgary Liberal candidate had some decidedly less-than-charming things to say about others. To her credit, Asa decided she had become a liability and pulled the plug.
- Donald Trump is the Father of all Loose Cannons. But he’s using his enhanced loose cannon status to win the Republican race and now, look quite competitive with the Democratic Party front runner. To wit, being a loose cannon can raise all boats just as much as it can sink all boats. Trump is proving that, at a historic level. However much he is a racist piece of human garbage, he’s doing it.
- Loose cannons roll around on the deck, sure. But sometimes they can score a direct hit on the other side, too. As Chrétien used to say me: “If you don’t try, you won’t lose. But if you do try, you might win.” Fire!
The best cannon.
Sorry, there is no room for loose cannons in any respectful, rationale discourse, at any level. Both sides are always better off without the collateral damage.
I like your work Warren but you should be clear in your commentary whether you are engaging in analysis and discussion or just providing entertainment value to the reader.
Congrats on wedding and wonderful family. Twitter stuff reminded me of when my young family and I went to KBP for a break in 1992 after my father passed away.
Cheers
Rationale discourse sometimes requires stating hard truths, which is considered being a loose cannon in politics these days.
So. What are you telling us? You want to run in Calgary as a loose cannon?
Notley provides a little insight to what’s in store for the nation, should the NDP win…
http://business.financialpost.com/fp-comment/how-the-alberta-government-is-trying-to-downgrade-the-oil-sands
You vote for unicorns and pixie dust, you’re bound to end up with Disneyland.
..and you vote for an amateur economist and you get this gong show. Canada has a weak economy, thanks to your BFF
ttps://www.facebook.com/drigcanada”>Government for all Canadians, not just the wealthy on Saturday, 1 August 2015
you forgot the conservative genius in TO who somehow thinks duffygate is about revenue canada…
He is just a typical Conservative supporter who proves once again there are only two kinds of Conservatives “Millionaires and Suckers”.
He was wearing a Doug Ford button on his jacket, lol
He was wearing a Ted Opitz button too, which I’m sure Etobicoke Centre Liberal candidate Borys Wrzesnewskyj is thrilled about. Ted beat out Borys by only 6 votes in the riding last time around, after a bunch of court battles. Borys should start circulating clips of that crazy con supporter.
They prefer to think of themselves as “low-information voters”.
Warren,
Republicans can only win when their nominee can skillfully tact to the center before the presidential election. (Nixon knew that.)
As for Donald Trump, he is largely unelectable. He reminds me of presidents Howard Dean and Rudy Giuliani.
I miss Cheryl Gallant and Hedy Fry battling it out for the loosest cannon award.
I can’t remember ever hearing so many people so disgusted with TV news broadcasters. Came up at work yesterday during coffee. To a man, nothing but utter contempt, particularly regarding the coverage of the Duffy trial. Same with family members, not a single one of whom would, quote, “waste a single minute of their lives” listening to any of it.
To put it politely, people are seriously fed up with unabashed media bias and slanted news reporting.
“Media Party” hardly does this crap justice.
Al,
Nice try. Full points — a big A for effort.
How come we never hear about Mac Wall? You know the Liberal senator who has actually been charged by the RCMP for Fraud and Breach of Trust? Do you think his pending trial will generate the same coverage?
Nope, I don’t. Reason why? Unlike Duffy, Mac Harb’s fraud and breach of trust can’t be easily tied to a cover up in the prime minister’s office. It’s a simple case of having one’s hand in the cookie jar, and that’s not inherently interesting in and of itself. Duffy, on the other hand, was caught with his hand in a cookie jar that he actually probably had a right to have his hand in, although it didn’t look good. So the PMO concocted a bullshit story about how he was voluntarily removing his hand from the jar and putting back the cookies he had taken to prevent themselves from looking bad.
Harb = crook = no news
Duffy = crookish + PMO lies and deception = news
Why is this hard to understand?
Why does it not surprise any faithful reader here that you dislike the media, in particular, those reporting on Duffy?
Can we expect you to tell the MSM what you honestly think of them when/if Harper visits Cranbrook? Most of us would really love to see you tell it the way it is on national television. I hope you don’t disappoint if an opportunity arises. If Mulcair or Trudeau come to Cranbrook, you could try to get your aforementioned friends to put up signs and hopefully get interviewed. It would solidify your folk hero status!
Be careful or Al in Cranbrook will really tell us what he thinks of the other MSM acronym too.
The Media Mafia?
Perhaps not sufficient. Al Capone or Lucky Luciano probably could have got better public approval ratings than the MSM. Certainly their product quality was better. What was in the bottles and barrels really was booze.
Maybe, but according to the CBC 3 million people watched their political panel on the National last week discussing the Duffy trial. A significant number in mid August, about double those who actually watched the debate. The news organizations know from clicks, ratings, internet searches etc what people are interested in; that’s why they are covering Duffy.
And you believe the media? They’ve been lying about their numbers for years, while losing money, audience and jobs. I don’t care one way or another who’s watching and who’s not, but to believe the MSM is just not on. A recent poll shows less than a third of the folks believe anything they say and that’s from a report by one of their own. Sounds about right.
Yeah, I am pretty clever about not believing the media…I am even more clever when I believe it they show a few obscene vids and conflate some incidents that have nothing to do with each other and whip up my support for bombing somebody or other on the other side of the planet
So what are you saying? That ISIS should be left undisturbed in their assorted beheadings, enslavement and genocide?
That’s why I put the caveat “according to the CBC”. I also have my doubts about the debate ‘numbers’ mclean’s put out. And they weren’t very high to begin with. The set and lighting were so bad that no doubt people who tuned in tuned out. But I do think people are interested in this phase of the Duffy trial. Very few people have knowledge about the inside of offices like the PMO so for them this is ‘new’ information.
Harper continues to claim (or refuse to address the question) that Novak don’t know about about the payment when the evidence from the trail is clear that he did. That is why the media is after him. I would have thought you would agree the lies and illegal activity was justified to get the taxpayer’s money back.
I have never heard a friend, colleague, or family member express such a similar sentiment.
It is an amazing thing, that Conservative Persecution Complex.
Hard to take much of the media seriously when the Canadian Media Guild (www.cmg.ca) are a registered third party in this election (www.elections.ca/content2.aspx?section=thi&dir=42ge&document=index&lang=e).
I think this is appropriate for the “Loose Cannons” thread.
“The environment and the economy go together like paddles and canoes” said Justin Trudeau.
Why does the name of a famous creek come to mind?
This one might leave a mark, self inflicted gunshot wounds usually do.
http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/justin-trudeau-pledges-millions-of-dollars-to-support-green-technology-1.3194875
You are right. It would be better in Conservative meetings if all questions were on just the agenda of the Conservative Party. That way, the answers can be just a gloss on the initial presentation, and it would still look as if the politician was engaging with the public via the objective media.
Warren, there’s a lot more loose cannons rolling around than just Asa. The Dippers have more loose wingnuts right now than an 18-wheeler in the repair shop. Their King-Hants candidate was forced to step back for a string of anti-Israel rants. Aside from her oil sands debacle, McQuaig has been wetting her panties for years over Venezuelan dictator Chavez. And the oh-so-sensible Dipper candidate in Guelph equates Canadian soldiers with ISIS murderers. Not to mention the fact that he regards Christians as insane.
What is it about the far-Left anyway that they always seem to have such admiration for bloodthirsty tyrants?
Israeli regimes have done their share of blood thirsty work; Chavez committed heresy by using oil wealth for everyone in Venezuela; ISIS was committing atrocities for two years with no problem and was not declared a world global threat until they took some oil refineries from the Kurds; you want video death porn to set your foreign policy? Try the stuff that comes from Mexico.
Posts like this one, Davie, just make me tired.
I’m reminded of how isolationism managed to keep Roosevelt and America out of WW2 for a couple years while Britain was pretty much on the ropes for its very existence, and Hitler was building his death camps.
That kind of thinking probably resulted in, what? Maybe 20,000,000 deaths that otherwise could have been avoided in a shortened war?
I’ll take Israel over middle east tyrannies every time. And Chevez was nothing more than a two bit Castro wannabe.
The Mexican drug cartels certainly are evil and worrisome enough…but it’s the question of how many jihadists are working with them to infiltrate that border with the US that damn well should be of greatest concern.
Methinks foreign policy is not just military engagement. I will take Israel/Palestine as a single state with equal rights throughout.
I was embarrassed this spring when our House of Commons committee soft balled a trio of well heeled people form Venezuela who had plotted with USA to overthrow their own government, and were crying ‘freedom.’
I think it is Nicaragua that is the dagger pointed a the heart of America…er…no, that was the Reagan regime slogan when they and their proxies did what they did to Central Americans.
People from the Middle East travelling to Mexico to pretend to be Mexicans so as to risk the border crossings into USA so as to …sounds like the next ‘Red Dawn’ movie.
Upon reflection, the most blameworthy entity in this saga is Team Trudeau. Why didn’t they properly vet her? They didn’t have time to drill down through a few hundred tweets? And isn’t there a blanket policy to scrub all candidates social media? And why didn’t they force her resignation?
Also disturbing is the Buzrebas are still trying to spin this: “But this isn’t about her apology, this is about how not a single news agency – from CBC to the Huffington Post to the Sun – not a single one, explained why Ala was saying those things…Ala was repeatedly bullied by a group of conservative bloggers at the time…” (Twitter)
Hard to figure how conservative bloggers triggered her “flipping lesbian” quip. Indeed, Buzreba appears the staunch conservative.
The elephant in the room is that homophobia, “anti-Zionism” a/k/a Jew hatred is near ubiquitous in the hijabi set. Liberals and the Buzrebas can spin and deny all they want. Their credibility is falling apart. Trudeau can’t have it both ways: sharia and supporting the constitutional rights of homosexuals, Jews, other minorities, are diametric opposites. Meanwhile, Justin Trudeau is holed up in a Regina mosque where the press are not allowed. There is something rotten here.
and there is the CANNON Steve shoots himself in the foot with each day when he answers questions about the Duffy affair
“shoot (oneself) in the foot”
inadvertently make a situation worse for oneself.