I, like everyone else, have been having a grand old time with this Rahim-Helena stuff. On my web site, on radio and on TV, I’ve been having a go at them, too.  Yuk yuk.

Enough, as they say, is enough. For starters, this “news” story – which even reputable news aggregators have headlined, and which I am only linking to in the hope that you will feel as I do – is a goddamned disgrace. It is disgusting. How, in God’s name, is this anyone’s business other the than the couple in question? How? Shame on the “journalists” who considered this newsworthy.

We have to be better than this.

And while we are on the subject of this ill-fated couple, here’s another contrarian opinion: the police completely screwed up the Jaffer case. Thee was no conspiracy, there was no dirty deal: the cops screwed up, big time. As CBC revealed this morning, the charges got tossed because the police wouldn’t let the former Conservative MP speak to a lawyer when he was under arrest – one of the most fundamental constitutional rights there is.  They’re lucky they got the  careless driving charge to stick, in fact.  They’re fools.

Personally, I now believe the Guergis-Jaffer thing is getting really, really out of control. And, quite frankly, it looks bad on us – not them.

Therefore, I’m off it for a while.  Mob scenes don’t appeal to me, much.

UPDATE: The original headline, below, has now been amended.  Good call.

UPDATER: The news outlet has pulled the story and headline, apparently due to the commentary on this web site.  See that commentary here.

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Rahim Jaffer’s assistant, Matthew Johnston (left) was caught impersonating Rahim Jaffer during a live interview on BC’s CKNW in 2001. This 1997 photo shows Jaffer celebrating an election victory with Johnston and Reform Party backroomer Ezra Levant (right).

Add your own caption here! Winner gets a signed copy of The War Room!

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Link here!

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It’s highly scientific, and its results are binding.  Vote now, Canada, and vote often!

poll by twiigs.com

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The horror, the horror.

“…It’s also not clear if the Prime Minister will be in the Commons tomorrow given his schedule this week. Last night, however, Mr. Harper was rocking a different house. He, his son, Ben, and 17,198 others attended the Nickelback concert at Ottawa’s Scotiabank Place.

He went with some other neighbourhood fathers and their sons. The Harpers are huge fans of the band, according to spokesman Dimitri Soudas. They even had lead singer Chad Kroeger over at 24 Sussex Dr.”

(Vote for the pickle!)

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Their campaign manager has quit, they’ve got no web site, their top strategists are squabbling, they don’t know what the campaign is doing from one day to the next, they’ve got no message whatsoever, and – now – they’re attacking the media for doing its job.

It’s official: The Friends of Barbara Hall are back!

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The source, who isn’t involved in a campaign, said it appears prominent Conservative backroomer Jeff Bangs got fed up with “too many cooks” directing how to keep Smitherman the frontrunner in a marathon race that heated up unexpectedly early.

The “cooks”, they said, include Smitherman and Jaime Watt, a key figure in provincial Conservative campaigns in 1995, 1999 and 2003 and co-chair, with Smitherman, of Barbara Hall’s 2003 mayoral bid that saw her frontrunner status collapse in a loss to David Miller.

There’ll be plenty more scrambling for the exits before this thing is over. Believe me, I know.

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I’d been warned about this.

A week ago, after lining up in the dark at a Buffalo mall to purchase three iPads – one for me, one for my lawyer, and one for another guy I owe big time – my kids have appropriated my shiny new iPad. It’s theirs.

The stuff they seem to like the most are the games (including the extraordinary Scrabble app), the interactive stuff (like the drawing apps), and – of course – the amazing clarity you get when you watch movies and videos. You see movies more clearly on the iPad than anywhere you’ve ever seen ’em, including movie theatres.

The kids didn’t need primers on how to use the iPad. Immediately, they seemed to know how to slide, swipe and pinch the images on the screen. It was like they understood it right away.

I’ve been asked a hundred times if it’s worth getting, when it appears in Canadian Apple stores later this month. My answer is that you don’t need it for music (the iPod does that), or calling people (the iPhone does that), or word processing (the Mac does that). But for everythig else, it’s amazing. For books, newspapers, movies, games, photos – anything visual – it is revolutionary.

Now, I’d get mine back, but my youngest boy is playing Scrabble on it.

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Warren shows how thick Reformatory integrity is. As in, not very. Link here.

UPDATE: Josh sends a better link, here.

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Globe and Mail, August 3, 2007:

The early days in the portfolio were stormy as Mr. Smitherman took on doctors, hospitals, nurses, drug companies, community-care advocates and pretty well anybody…Mr. Smitherman acquired a couple of nicknames, Furious George and Old Yeller, from his blunt dealings with health officials.

He told doctors looking for a contract that they could take or leave what he had offered. He pointed a finger at an Ottawa hospital official who was unused to being treated that way. He criticized Taj Ma-hospitals being built with fashionable atriums and he called optometrists “terrorists” for fighting cuts in health-insurance coverage…His staff rotated faster than the turnstiles at cinemas showing the new Harry Potter film…

“Spend more time with his family.” I always love that one.

UPDATE: Ryan adds an update over on Facebook: “Once upon a time I worked for him at Queen’s Park and I know exactly why Jeff, or anyone would quit. In 2003 Smitherman’s Press Secretary quit after one week on the job.”

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