Ras Pierre Schenk and Nuclear Age Winkie Smith, onstage at Bishop Carroll High School, Calgary, Alberta, June 1979.

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This report is consistent with this analysis.

Both are highly disturbing, and both suggest that we are at the beginning of a very long struggle. I won’t even bother to add that restricting ourselves to a humanitarian role is foolhardy, because sensible folks know that already.

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Ce jour, en 1980, Pierre Trudeau a gagné un gouvernement majoritaire, ayant annoncé sa retraite que quelques semaines auparavant. #CDNpoli

— Daisy Group (@DaisyGrp) February 18, 2015

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Here’s what the bright Mr. Grenier says on CBC’s web site this morning. But what do you guys think?

Last week, Lala and me had a long-overdue dinner with two of the smartest political folks I know. We decided to wager on the outcome of the 2015 election, region by region.

I’ve blurred out the names of the participants in our little election poll, to protect the guilty. On the left side of the Moleskin notebook page, however, is a column representing the Atlantic region, Quebec, Ontario, the Prairies and B.C. (Moleskin didn’t leave enough room for the Territories, sorry. And some of my addition may be wrong, but tant pis.)

On the right side, you’ll see that I have prognosticated that the Liberals will do well: they’ll dominate in the Atlantic and Quebec, do better in Ontario than they did in 2011, pick up a few in Manitoba-Saskatchewan-Alberta, and then get a third of the British Columbia pie. But I don’t see the NDP disappearing completely, which is why the Tories will remain in the Grits’ rear view mirror. It’ll be close, I predict, and we’ll be back at it in 2017, after a Conservative leadership race. Yay! More opportunity for baseless speculation!

Now, Grenier and various pollsters say the Conservatives are edging ever-closer to a majority. Trudeau has lost ground, they say, due to his stance on the international effort against ISIS, and because of uncertainty about his ability to manage an economy that seems fragile. The verbal missteps certainly haven’t helped, either.

But that’s them. You’re smarter, Dear Reader. What do you think? Place your bets, in comments, and have fun.

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Ronald Zajac, right here. Read.

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Just sayin’.

You can (should) read the whole piece. But these bits I found interesting:

If anything, Adams’s inclusion on the Trudeau team has more to do with a dogged Liberal quest for deterrence on the field of dirty tricks than with making inroads in voting intentions.

And:

Conservative spin doctors have been quietly bragging about having collected dirt on Trudeau ever since he ran for the leadership.

Coming as it does from a take-no-prisoners rival camp, the threat has certainly been preying on the minds of Liberal strategists.

Pre-emptively mitigating potential damage is a part of their job description that they have been taking to heart.

And:

Allegations that would be laughed off the front pages for their flimsiness over a couple of news cycle in between elections take on a life of their own in the pressure-cooker atmosphere of a five-week campaign.

And:

The Conservative war room may not have any dirt worth dishing out on Trudeau next fall…But the fact that Trudeau has brought under his tent — at some political cost to himself and his party — [Dimitri Soudas], a backroom operator he would have been expected not to touch with a ten-foot pole speaks to the potential for the upcoming election war to go nuclear.

She sure seems to know something she isn’t telling us, eh?

Personally, I believed that Trudeau’s autobiography was an excellent opportunity to inoculate against whatever the Conservatives possess, and whatever it is that Hebert is hinting at. But that didn’t happen. The book was standard political fare: a couple revelations, a bit of news, but no shocking, front-page confessional stuff.

But let’s say, for the sake of argument, there is indeed something that the Tory war room possesses.

Hebert cites the example of the leak of the 2011 Jack Layton allegations to Sun News Network as an example of the sort of “damage control” the Liberals may accordingly need to do. I was there at the time, however, and urged Sun News against the use of such material. They went ahead anyway – and I firmly believe that, in the end, the “scandal” helped Layton more than it hurt him. His party went on to its best showing in its history.

My point is this: the Conservative war room, and possibly others, may be holding something surprising about Justin Trudeau. Fine. But if it ever sees the light of day, why are they so sure that it will hurt Trudeau, and not them?

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Finally, someone says what I’ve been labouring to say about pornography for years. Full link is below the quote:

BOSTON—“Fifty Shades of Grey,” the book and the movie, is a celebration of the sadism that dominates nearly every aspect of American culture and lies at the core of pornography and global capitalism. It glorifies our dehumanization of women. It champions a world devoid of compassion, empathy and love. It eroticizes hypermasculine power that carries out the abuse, degradation, humiliation and torture of women whose personalities have been removed, whose only desire is to debase themselves in the service of male lust. The film, like “American Sniper,” unquestioningly accepts a predatory world where the weak and the vulnerable are objects to exploit while the powerful are narcissistic and violent demigods. It blesses this capitalist hell as natural and good.

“Pornography,” Robert Jensen writes, “is what the end of the world looks like.”

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A: If you’re a criminal defence lawyer, you dance a jig, and then skip down to court to secure a mistrial, that’s what!

Not sure it's a good idea for a Justice Minister to call the accused "murderous misfits" before trial.#cdnpoli http://t.co/2zsN4a2AmN

— Warren Kinsella (@kinsellawarren) February 14, 2015

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So says no less than Pope Francis, in response to ISIS’ barbaric killing of 27 Egyptian Christians:

“The Pope departed from the script of an address on Monday to emphasise the unity of all Christians regardless of the sect they follow.

“Their only words were: ‘Jesus, help me!’ They were killed simply for the fact that they were Christians,” Francis said while addressing members of the Church of Scotland. He spoke in his native Spanish, departing from the Italian he uses at most formal events.

The leader of the world’s 1.2 billion Catholics, who has said it is “lawful” to stop an unjust aggressor, went on: “The blood of our Christian brothers and sisters is a testimony which cries out be heard. It makes no difference whether they be Catholics, Orthodox, Copts or Protestants. They are Christians!”

Again, as before: at what point do those who object to military action against ISIS change their view? What new atrocity must take place before they acknowledge that they were wrong?

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When we were home in Calgary, during the NEP, someone burned the flag we had up on the roof.

“What should we do?” I asked my Dad, as we stood looking at what was left.

“Get another flag,” my Dad. “And we keep getting them until they stop.”

Not going to the Chretien flag rally today: it’s my Dad’s birthday. But if he were still here, we would all be going there together, because he loved Chretien. And the flag.

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