As you likely know by now, the CRTC has decided to give in to the cable monopolies – and jack up Internet rates. It’s anti-competitive, it’s anti-common sense, and it will cost you and I – and the “employers” the Reformatories profess to support – a lot more. Unless Tony Clement fixes it, it is going to be an election issue.  Guaranteed.

What to do?

You can make a complaint to the CRTC here.

All of the contact information for Tony Clement is here.

The petition containing tens of thousands of names can be signed here.

Bottom line?  The Reformatories claim employers need a break.  In reality, they only want to give big corporations a break – and they want you and I to pay for it.

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A few years ago, during a wonderful trip to Israel, I asked a local if he was looking forward to the happy day when the much-despised PLO leader, Yasser Arafat, would be no more.

My Israeli acquaintance shrugged, seemingly indifferent.

“Here, you have to be careful what you wish for,” he said. “The next guy could be way worse.”

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Dear God:

So, there I was, heading to work out at the little gym in my condo building, and one of the concierge people – the nice one, the only one I like – approached me.  He told me there had been a “complaint” about me.

I listened.

I don’t want to give away the ending, Almighty Person, but this is one of those times that I am pleading with You (begging, actually) that the complaint goes ahead.  Please, God. Please.

I don’t know if it will.  The fact that I burst out laughing, and insisted that the Nice Concierge take all of my contact information so that the complainants may more readily find me, may have suggested to him that further official action is inadvisable at this time.  You already know what will happen, natch, but you aren’t talking.

Being my Creator, you also know that I live for moments like this. You made me, after all: you know that I regard peacetime as indescribably dull.  As one of my lawyer friends (whose identity you know) explained to another lawyer friend (ditto) one night:  “Warren doesn’t sue because his feelings are hurt.  He doesn’t have feelings.  He sues because he enjoys it. It’s his entertainment.”*

But I digress, Lord.  This is all I am asking for, Yahweh.  Please give me this, just this, and I’ll be super-good, and for the foreseeable future, too.  Or next month, whichever comes first.

Yours faithfully,

Warren

* Okay, fine, it was BFF Brian Shiller talking to BFF David Shiller.  Way to wreck part of the story. W/e.

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Ontario PC Leader Tim Hudak to Make an Important Election Announcement

For immediate release:

Ontario PC Leader Tim Hudak will hold a media availability and photo opportunity for an important election announcement.

Who:              Tim Hudak, Ontario PC Leader
Date:              Tuesday, February 1, 2011
Time:              Media availability and photo opportunity:  10:00 AM
Location:        Queen’s Park, South entrance on the lawn

***

SW Ontario bracing for Blizzocaplypse Now

Wiarton Willy may have trouble seeing his shadow tomorrow as southwestern Ontario braces for Blizzocalypse — a storm Environment Canada has called “dangerous” with near blizzard-like conditions and heavy snowfall.

At 11 a.m. Monday, the weather office issued a winter storm warning cautioning that between 20-30 centimetres of snow was expected to fall between Tuesday and Wednesday afternoons, with the possibility of winds gusting up to 60 km-h.

“This storm has the potential to create near-paralyzing conditions,” the notice read. “Environment Canada continues to monitor this dangerous winter storm.”

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Watch this:

Then read this.

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Ontario PC leader packs in the supporters in the GTA.

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…I don’t know about you, but I sure wish my Christmas holiday extended until February 1.

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Out of the pool, kids!

Look, I’m sorry to be a party pooper and all that, but I just don’t see this spring election thing. In fact, I’m not even sure there will be one this year.

I know, I know, the Parliamentary Press Gallery are all frolicking in the pool, dreams of overtime dancing in their heads – and the politicians are all warily eyeing the horizon, fretting about bad weather, wondering when they should head back into the House to start packing. When Official Ottawa decides something, it’s decided, right?

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A couple weeks ago, it was “ethical oil.” Oh my! The punditocracy loved that one. You couldn’t get into the parking lot at Tim Horton’s (another popular meme) without hearing all about “ethical oil.” It was everywhere, that one.  Democratic deficit, the angry vote, the West wants in, blah blah blah.

Now, the latest political equivalent of the pet rock: “only fifteen per cent of Canadians pay attention to politics.”

Really? Is that so? How does one measure that, pray tell? If the pollsters define “paying attention” as eating, breathing and sleeping Tony Clement’s tweets, and being positively breathless about every idiotic thing that Official Ottawa says or does, well – I guess – the number of those who “pay attention” would indeed be rather small. Sure.

But what of the millions of Canadians who vote in elections? What about them? Is the pollster saying the sixty per cent who regularly show up to vote are sleepwalking? That they are heading to polling stations to merely socialize?

Or, maybe – just maybe – this is a way for elitist snobs to publicize Plato’s Protogaras, and insinuate that they think voters are dumb, because the dummies don’t pay as much attention to Question Period as pollsters do. Or the media. Or shut-ins.  And, ipso facto, they are therefore not worthy of a vote.

If you ask me, and perhaps a pollster will one day, I think voters are pretty smart. And they see quite enough coming out of Ottawa, every day, to form a rather accurate assessment.

To suggest that only fifteen per cent of them “pay attention” is pure snobbery, or worse.

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• Vancouver Sun: The ads are “totally dishonest…These latest ads show that Conservatives are willing to do whatever it takes, to stoop to the very depths, to damage the prospects of the Liberal leader. There is no fairness and no integrity whatever to these ads.”
• The Canadian Press: “ADS SPARK BACKLASH…entirely out of context…Carleton University communications professor Josh Greenberg said the latest Tory ads are “insulting to the intelligence.” Political ads are notorious for taking opponents’ words out of context but he said he’s never seen anything quite so blatant.”
• The Globe and Mail: “Would Tories use an Ignatieff clip out of context?  Yes! Yes! Yes!”

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