Whither thou goest, Dippers, in thy shiny orange bicycle at night?

Sorry, I was in the mood to quote Kerouac. So shoot me.

Anyway. With the morning papers comes news that the New Democrats’ Peter Stoffer, one of the most-liked-ever MPs, is a considering running for mayor of Halifax. This follows a discussion of anti-tobacco politicians yesterday at the Daisy GroupOntario Liberals, send in your CVs! – and how another top-notch NDP MP, Judy Wasylycia-Leis, is thinking about running for mayor of Winnipeg (that’s my former student Bartley’s byline, BTW – go, Bartley!).

What does it all mean, Virginia? Well, let’s see: two experienced, much-liked, much-admired New Democratic Members of Parliament are jumping ship before the next election. Sound like a ringing endorsement of Jack Layton’s prop-up-Harper-at-all-costs strategy to you? Um, me neither.

Peter and Judy, if I were in either Halifax or Winnipeg, I’d vote for you – as mayoralty candidates. As members of a once-proud political force that has completely and utterly lost its way, and is comically attempting to pimp itself as stern tax-fighters? Not so much.

Good luck and God bless, etc.

Warren


TIM HUDAK HECKLES THE L.G.

You know, maybe it’s just me. But I have to say that it’s pretty unseemly to see an aspiring Premier heckling the Queen’s representative in the Ontario Legislature. Showing up late, then giggling like a schoolboy.

Stay classy, Little Timmy.

Right to left: Little Timmy, Unidentified Reformatory political welfare recipient, Elizabeth Witmer, and Little Timmy's policy muse, Fred Flintstone.

UPDATE FROM SHARP-EYED READER! Hi Warren, I believe that Christine Elliott is in the photo. Not Elizabeth Witmer. You are probably used to seeing her with a lawn gnome. Catherine


McGuinty Throne Speech

I’m at the Leg – where, from time to time, I give the Liberal caucus comms advice – and listening in right now. This, to me, is the key part:

No place has escaped the Great Recession unscathed.

That is why your government is responding to the extraordinary challenge of the global recession with two extraordinary measures.

First: it plans to invest over $32 billion in roads, bridges, public transit and energy retrofits for our schools.

This is creating and sustaining over 300,000 jobs and puts money into the hands of families, where it is needed — and it is stimulating our economy while we emerge from the recession.
Second: your government is supporting Ontarians in their choice to go back to school so they can get a good job — not just any job.

Ontario’s Second Career Program is a first for Canada because it supports up to two years of long-term training.


Welcome to the New www.WarrenKinsella.com

…which should closely resemble the old www.warrenkinsella.com.  Actually, it’s identical.

There are some differences, I guess.  For example, if you look for old, old entries, we’ve whacked all of those.  Buh-bye. Some, like Stockwell Day and the dinosaurs, were positively ancient.  They may be out there in the Internet ether on Google or something, but I rather doubt they have much value.

The comments section is, certainly, different.  It’s better than that old external platform, I think, and I hope you will try it out (just remember I’m a hardass about republishing other people’s libels).

Anyway, here it is.  In the next few weeks, we plan to tweak the design stuff, and so on.  It’ll be fun.

In the meantime, and for no discernible reason whatsoever, here’s a still from a Janet Jackson video from about two decades ago.  Heh.


Friday Morning Bits and Pieces

• Adam: Wakey, wakey! Like, have you lost your mind?
• Welcome back, Bob! Great, great news – so much for Little Timmy’s promised surge. What’s that? Zero for three, now?
• Hook, line, sinker: we all take Harper’s bait – talking about what he wants us to talk about (a diversion), instead of what we should be talking about (the gargantuan program cuts that lie ahead). Sigh.
• Gotcha! Finally, from one of wk.com’s ever-watchful watchers, a missive about this weekend’s Ontario PC AGM in Ottawa. “We need content,” indeed:

From: Brett Bell <brettdbell@gmail.com>
Date: Wed, 3 Mar 2010 22:41:17 -0500
To: Brett Bell<brettdbell@gmail.com>
Cc: Joseph Lavoie<jl@josephlavoie.com>
Subject: IMPORTANT – AGM & Twitter

Hi:

Hope you’re well. As we gear up for this weekend’s AGM, I wanted to reach out to the more active Twitter users to talk about our strategy going into the Convention. Beginning around noon Friday, the current AGM site will be retooled to serve as an online hub to provide real-time update to visitors and Party members who cannot make it to Ottawa. We have a full compliment of bloggers, photographers and videographers capturing all the event and we will publish all of it to the web, Facebook and Twitter.

Speaking of which, I hope each of you will make a specific point of tweeting as much as possible about the AGM program – we need lots of content. I wanted to also let you know about some of the ways we will be using Twitter over the weekend, which will be spearheaded by Joseph Lavoie (copied).

First, the Party has set up a specific Twitter account @pcagm2010 that will post updates and content from the AGM website and the floor of the Convention. If you Tweet something and want the Convention folks to see it, tweet it to us there.

Secondly, we will be using a new hashtag for the AGM: #pcAGM. You can obviously still use #pcpo but the #pcAGM will go up on the AGM website. Beginning Friday, please use this to tweet about your AGM experience.

Please post as many pics as possible to the hashtag or to @pcagm2010. We will grab them and post them on the site. You can also e-mail them to pics@agm2010.ca.

Please let me know if you have any questions. Thanks so much for your assistance.

BB


Budget, Dos and Gritty Reality

What an interesting coincidence! A denial of service attack the very same hour the federal budget is released.

Sigh.

Anyway: wk.com’s Team Propellerhead™ has been busily tinkering in their Digital Demons© workshop for weeks, and building a More Robust Platform® for the website (all contents © protected, 2010, BTW). It’ll be unveiled this weekend.

Reformatory DOS stunts will continue unabated, I suspect. Or as long as I’m involved with the federal Grits, that is.

Ahem.