When Canada Goose was sold to a U.S. Hedge fund, I stitched this over their logo in protest. Today, I display it to remember Tuff Gong on his 70th birthday. Likkle more!

 

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Choose your gut over your head. You can’t go wrong.

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At what point, exactly, do you finally admit you were tragically, fundamentally, historically wrong?

(Reuters) – Islamic State militants are selling abducted Iraqi children at markets as sex slaves, and killing other youth, including by crucifixion or burying them alive, a United Nations watchdog said on Wednesday.

Iraqi boys aged under 18 are increasingly being used by the militant group as suicide bombers, bomb makers, informants or human shields to protect facilities against U.S.-led air strikes, the U.N. Committee on the Rights of the Child said.

“We are really deeply concerned at torture and murder of those children, especially those belonging to minorities, but not only from minorities,” committee expert Renate Winter told a news briefing. “The scope of the problem is huge.”

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About this:

“Twitter is expected on Thursday to announce a new partnership with Google, clearing the way for tweets on the microblogging service to be easier to find on the world’s most popular search engine.

The deal, according to a person familiar with the matter, will give Google direct access to the hundreds of millions of tweets that flow through Twitter every day, and make it possible for tweets to more quickly appear in Google search results.”

The war roomers will be delighted that they will now be able to quickly locate stupid tweets made by their opponents, and disseminate them to grateful media organizations who cannot afford to cover campaigns like they used to.

And then the war roomers will remember that, um, their opponents will be able to do the same thing to them.

Ain’t politics grand?

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She’s a pro.

 

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My friends at Abacus have come up with the most fascinating survey – and the most important one – of this election year.  It will make you smile, and it will make you think.  Here it is summarized in three helpful bullets.  The link is below the graphic:

• Stephen Harper will win if the big issues are the economy and the future
• Justin Trudeau will win if the big issue is who is most likeable
• Tom Mulcair will win if everyone needs to borrow a hundred bucks in a hurry

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Quote:

“…the Liberals and NDP are running scared. They are so worried about Harper outmanoeuvring them in the public opinion polls that they are giving his fatally-flawed bill a pass. They think that will make us vote for them.”

Forget about the fact that lazily calling up a bunch of civil libertarians, and asking them about just about anything a government does, will always elicit a predictable response.  Forget about the fact that even a cursory review of Supreme Court decisions will strongly suggest that the anti-terror bill will pass constitutional muster.  Forget about the fact that public opinion – which, you know, Parliamentarians are asked to occasionally consider – is wholly supportive of measures to make civil society safer, and oppose genocide.

Forget about all that.  And consider that, on the very same day that Parliamentarians were starting to consider C-51, these things happened:

• A Jordanian pilot was seen being put in a cage, doused with gasoline, and set on fire by ISIS – who filmed the entire murder
• Two jihadists were in a Toronto court, facing terror charges, for a plot to kill hundreds on a Via Rail train
• Three jihadists were charged by RCMP in Ottawa, for a terrorist conspiracy to finance and recruit for ISIS

All. On. The. Same. Day.

I, for one, am happy to see that the Liberals and the New Democrats are starting the painful process of extracting their collective heads from their nether regions. I, for one, think the NDP and the LPC should be applauded for starting to consider that, you know, Harper may actually have had a point. Rhetorical bluster aside, (a) jihadist attacks really are becoming more frequent, (b) attacks are not confined any longer to the Middle East, and (c) sending over bags of rice, and nothing else, will never defeat ISIS/ISIL’s genocidal campaign.

Mr. Walkom is doing what columnists always accuse politicians of doing: he is fighting the last war.  He needs to pay attention to the current one.

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Place your bets! Comments are open!

1. NDP ahead by three points!
2. Liberals ahead by four points!
3. We don’t have a clue who is ahead, but we’re going to use up 804 words to give you the impression we know, when we actually don’t, not in the slightest!

My gut, which I have resolved to listen to more often, tells me that the Libs will win – solely and entirely due to the favourable impression folks have of Kathleen Wynne.

What’s your take? Speculate recklessly, without making recourse to facts! The pollsters certainly do, so why can’t you do likewise?

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We wonder:

What decision would #LPC and #NDP make now, if they could do the #ISIS decision all over again? #cdnpoli http://t.co/KUiZtl70iw

— Warren Kinsella (@kinsellawarren) February 3, 2015

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That’s what he was known as, back in university days: Rusty. Many of us were at Carleton, and he went to Queen’s, but we all knew each other through student politics. He was the head of the Ontario Young PCs, and I knew a lot of those guys. They basically run the country, now.

If you had suggested he was going to be Canada’s foreign minister one day, we would have told you that you were on crack. The OPCYA didn’t seem very much like a breeding ground for future statesmen, in those days.

But here is, being trumpeted by all and sundry, as he gets ready to take his leave. Did he have ambition? Buckets of it. Did he have unwavering loyalty for his leaders, Harris and Harper? Unquestionably. Did he have political smarts, acquired over three decades in Conservative corridors of power? Indeed he did.

Mostly, however, he was a success because he was always loyal to the top guy, and because he delighted in beating the stuffing out of the opposition. He was good at it.

Is Harper in trouble now that Baird is going? No, he’s not. Harper is the lead minister on the terrorism/security file, not Baird. Harper is the lead minister on broad economic themes, too. Not Joe Oliver.

Stephen Harper is this government. Rusty Baird was an important part of it, bien sur, but in a couple months – just like Lawrence Cannon, David Emerson, Peter Kent, Vic Toews, Chuck Strahl, Marjory LaBreton and so on – he’ll be more or less forgotten. That’s just how it goes, in politics as in life. You’re a winner and then, poof, you’re a memory. So it goes.

Rusty will move to Toronto and make lots of money and sleep in more. But his departure will not bring down this government.

Only Stephen Harper can do that, and he’s not going anywhere. No rust on him.

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