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Been up for hours (I’m a worrier – I’ve packed the kids’ bags three times) but I wanted to draw your attention to this Gerald Caplan column. It’s from a Dipper perspective, natch, but worth a read.

Bon voyage!

UPDATE: Typical Warren. I thought Daylight Savings Time kicked in today, not tomorrow. Oops! Go back to sleep, kids. Dad’s a total idiot.

Here’s Caplan, who is a partisan NDPer, but is right about the Grits’ (apparent) push for an election:

As for the Liberals, for my money they must be certifiable to have talked themselves into wanting an election at this time.

In five published polls in the last month, their best total is 27 per cent, their average is 26 per cent, and one poll offered 23 per cent (as does a new one just published). This is Stephane Dion country, folks, even lower, and goes to show the extraordinary self-contained bubble in which Ottawa exists. When it’s over, there’s a good chance Michael Ignatieff will be pleading with a community college to take him on as a part-time teaching assistant.

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Incredible images. You can donate to Red Cross relief efforts here.

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Someone who I thought knew better apparently doesn’t. Pretty disappointing.

@kady: I’d actually love to bring ‘tar baby’ back to acceptable usage. There’s really no satisfactory alternative.

@kady: I’m sorry, but “tar baby” – and, indeed, “cotton-pickin'” – are orders of magnitude less dubious than, say, ‘gyp’.

Someone just sent me the bit of idiocy below, which Kady retweeted. I don’t think someone is getting the point:

@johnbowman: @kady Must we be so niggardly with our language? … Oh, crap.

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“@redcrosscanada: Canadian Red Cross is accepting donations #japan #eqjp. Please donate here: http://bit.ly/4Wx1mO”

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To wit: the media are lazy, a pro-families group are liars, and the PCs will release their policies “when we feel like it.” Quote unquote.

And what, pray tell, does Timmy Hudak think about what his Big Tobacco/Big Pharmacies lobbyist has to say? Well, he says he’s “a leader,” and he thanks him for his commitment to the PC cause. Yep.

How much do you want to bet we won’t be hearing again from the Big Tobacco lobbyist for the rest of 2011? Anyone?

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Hudak PC candidates prepare for release of law and order platform.

“A former member of a Canadian Tamil organization described as ‘a peaceful separatist group’ by the Ontario Progressive Conservatives attended a weapons training session with the Tamil Tigers in Sri Lanka in 2003.

A photograph of the training session, used by U.S. authorities to convict a Toronto man who tried to buy arms for the Tigers in 2006, raises new questions about the National Council of Canadian Tamils (NCCT), a group linked to a Tory candidate from the Toronto area.”

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“…go to school, work hard, get married and have a family.

“If you follow this path, then you and your family will all succeed,” said [Hudak campaign boss Mark] Spiro.”

And if you’re single, didn’t graduate, or are childless? Well, you’re screwed under the Hudak-Hillier junta.

Actually, under these troglodytes, you’d be screwed anyway.

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Quite a few of you regulars – Lala, Namesake, et al. – have suggested to me that the Libs are smart to make the election frame about ethics, and not economy. They’ve accordingly told me I’m wrong to be worried about what’ll happen to my party if a campaign happens in the Spring.

Fair enough. Maybe they’re right, maybe I’m wrong. Here’s my three-point rationale:

1. The top of mind issue for Canadians, by a long shot, is the economy. It usually is. I consequently don’t see how we can ignore the economy in a 36-day campaign. I understand the desire to avoid talking about an issue that is a Conservative strength. I get it. But the economy? Get serious. That’s the 600-pound gorilla in the room. Ignore it at your peril.

2. I like the ethics theme as a ballot question. I do. I mean, it is clear that the ruling party was engaged in a widespread conspiracy to defraud taxpayers, and that they cheated in the election. It’s not conjecture: Conservatives have been charged with breaking the law. But here’s the problem: voters are pretty skeptical about “scandal” stuff – they’ve heard too many baseless allegations get thrown around too many times. That’s not all: it takes weeks and months to publicize and explain something like the “in and out” conspiracy – Hell, it took Harper more than a year to capitalize on the sponsorship stuff. It’ll take too much time to tell the story right.

3. Look at the polls, folks. If you take Quebec out of the picture (where the Bloc utterly dominates, anyway), the Reformatories have A TWENTY POINT LEAD in English Canada. Twenty points! That’s massacre time.

I understand the grim assessment made by some Libs – “let’s just get it over with, nothing is going to change.” I also have heard some senior staff in OLO have simply given up.

But that’s emotion – that’s not a strategy, folks. It’s also a formula for disaster.

I don’t want us reduced to third party status. I think going now, and going on the ethics theme, will lead to a majority Harper Government.

That’s what I think, anyway. What’s your view? Comments are open.

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