Trashy's World

Interesting little piece over at the MotherCorp about a mad dash to the department’s mailroom, a released and then “un”released report and similarities to Adscam.

In short, a ATIP request initiated by Canadian Press asked for the annual report on Public Works’ real estate portfolio, which contained data on such things as vacancy rates and returns on investment. These reports are never made public.

Initially, the Department OKed the release after the legal eagles said that there was no real reason to not release it.

The department’s real-estate branch had consented to the full release, and the Access to Information office at Public Works had determined after extensive consultation that there was no legal basis to withhold any of the report.

The file, though, was deemed “sensitive” — partly because it was a media request — and was sent to the Conservative minister’s office for review. The office initially gave the green light, but had a change of heart on the very day it was being mailed out.

Togneri insisted that only one small section of the report be released, despite the uniform view among Access to Information officials that the entire 137-page document could not be withheld under the legislation.

The copy was in the mail room when work from the Minister’s office was received that some minion had better get their sorry ass down there and get it back. I woulda hated to be that minion!

In the end, though, the department released only a heavily censored version just as Togneri had insisted — 82 days later than allowed under the law. The final release included just 30 pages.

Trashy,
Ottawa, Ontario

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man, are these guys for real?

I mean, seriously?

And they have enough synapses to walk and breathe simultaneously?

Trashy,
Ottawa, Ontario

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Answer

Please, alien overlords, come to Earth and smite all of those weak-kneed liberal stupid-heads. And bring some more sweater-vests too!

Question

What would Stephen Harper say if he had a chance to send a message to the stars?

I am by no means a science geek or someone who stares into the night sky looking for E.T.  (though as a kid I did… grew out of it I guess… too bad in a way). But I did run across this neat site that the Aussie Government has set up. A site dedicated to leaving a message for a planet far, far away…

Here’s how they describe the project

At COSMOS magazine, we thought it would be a cool way to celebrate National Science Week in Australia – and the International Year of Astronomy – by sending a message to a potentially habitable planet outside the Solar System.

Thanks to the support of Australia’s Department of Innovation, Industry, Science and Research, the CSIRO and NASA, and a bunch of other really helpful people, the text messages collected on this site will be transmitted to the closest Earth-like planet that might harbour life: Gliese 581d.

At the end of Science Week, NASA will transmit the messages to Gliese 581d using the Canberra Deep Space Communication Complex in Tidbinbilla.

Here are some of the messages – mostly from down-under – that will be sent to Mssrs Orn and Turng of Gliese 581d:

You are cordially invited to an Interplanetary BBQ. 6.00pm, 4th October, 2452 at my place BYO Meat and Beer. RSVP: Year 2100 Cheers
Daniel Edmonds
Melbourne, Australia

How is it that you understand English? That’s very convenient!

Sophie

Sydney, Australia

Hello from planet Earth. Please tell us how you don’t get dizzy in your spinning UFO’s – I get sick looking at Merry-Go-Rounds. Are you Aliens good looking ?

Billy

Portland Victoria, Australia

Hi. I need some new friends. Anyone out there interested ? Preferably quirky and a little left of centre. cheers !

liz

Canberra, Australia

And my message

By the time you read this, I’m sure the Toronto Maple Leafs will have won the Cup a hundred times and Canada’s conservatives will have never won a majority.

Trashy,
Ottawa, Ontario

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Yet another staffer at the PMO has flown the coop.

Carolyn Stewart-Olsen has worked for the big guy for more than seven years (!) and was the director of strategic communication. She was considered the “gatekeeper” who strictly and loyally controlled access to her boss. Ms. Stewart-Olsen is the second major cog in the PMO machinery to bail in the past little while. Kory Teneycke, the PM’s Communications Director was the last to bid adieu.

“Stephen is not the easiest guy to work for. He takes a lot of handling sometimes. And Carolyn, she was good at that,” said University of Calgary political scientist Tom Flanagan, a former Conservative campaign adviser.

Gee Tom, really? I’m starting to picture meetings with Stevo and they ain’t pretty.

“Kory, get the hell in here. NOW!”

“Ye-ye-yes sir….. wh-wh-what’s wrong s-s-sir? You look angry…”

“WHO authorised THIS picture???

“WHO, Damn it???!! I want them waterboarded!!”

“B-b-b-ut… you said the other day th-that you wanted to portray a more, uh, human image… and our strategic communications staff thought this would do the trick… sir…????”

“I look like a freakin’ WIMP! Maybe even GAY! And you KNOW what I think of THEM!” CAROLYN! GET THE HELL IN HERE!!!!!”

Hee-hee. At this rate, Mrs. Harper will be the one and only staffer in the PMO!

Trashy,
Ottawa, Ontario

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By now, everyone has heard of the incredible story of the 3 year old who drove his mini- electric car into the river, floated with it downstream for 12 klicks and was none the worse for wear at the end of it all. When rescuers caught up with the boy, the truck had capsized and he was hanging on to the axle for dear life… so we think… but based on his first words said to the rescuers as he was plucked off the ad hoc plastic floatation device -  “where’s my truck”? -  I think he was more worried about losing his truck than being swept away down the river.

A rather practical decision, wouldn’t you say? Hold on to what is dear and don’t do anything stupid that may jeopardise it.  It’s kind of like a businessperson ensuring that his or her key clients are happy with the services or goods being provided… especially in economic downtimes.  Or a country that relies on tourism as a staple of its national economy. No government in their right mind would let go of their truck during a recession. When tourists from the biggest house on the block, the U.S., is way down and those coming from other countries are steady or rising.  Why put those relationships into risk.

Well, with the recent decision to demand visas from those visitors from nations like Mexico, the Harperites didn’t just lose their grip on the floating truck, the punched a hole in it, stuffed in some dynamite and blew it out of the water!

Using an escalating number of refugees as the reason for doing so, the Harper government has in one fell swoop, nailed another nail into the coffin of our already struggling tourism sector. Mexican tourists have been on the rise for the past few years but now you can pretty much kiss that bye-bye due to this, yet another, short-sighted policy.

NAFTA. The first two letters stand for North American, right? So we can declare the continent a free trade zone but rightfully put onerous visa requirements on Mexicans seeking maple syrup in Ottawa’s By-Ward Market? Where is the sense in that?

As they plan next winters’ vacations south, Canadians should expect the same from the Mexican government.

Thanks Stevo! Now you go on and climb back aboard your truck and revisit this decision. And soon!

Trashy,
Ottawa, Ontario

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I am sitting on the deck of the cottage that we are renting for the week. The weather has kinda sucked so far with the exception of a few hours here and there. In fact, it was supposed to be t-storming, like right now. Thinking this, the girls headed off to town to catch a matinee at the Strand (I’m amazed it is still called the Strand after all these years). I was left behind to tend to Owen, who is having a nap.

Happily for me but sadly for the others, the storms have yet to appear and I just spent the past hour on the dock, with two fishing rods workin’ and enjoying every minute of it. No worries, no kids, no sounds save for the distant traffic, the odd boat and the sounds of the loon. Simply splendiferous!

I’m looking out on the lake. A clean lake that has been intelligently developed mostly without the monster homes that one can see on some of the larger lakes in Muskoka and on Georgian Bay.

I cannot help but wonder what this place would have been like if the ilk of Harper and his gang of ninnies had been in power for the past few decades instead of the Grits. Almost certainly there would have been largely uncontrolled development and few environmental controls in place. Yes, Mulroney was one of the greenest PM’s in history, but the ReformCons are not of the same stripe as Bri and the red Tories who, while I never was one of them, I could at least respect.

I suspect that if the NeoCons had been in control of the legislative agenda for the past 50 years or so, there may have been a Constitutional Amendment forced through that may have entrenched private property rights and limited the state’s role in the controlled and sustainable development of areas like these. Maybe Canada would have been at lot like certain cities in the U.s> – especially in Texas – where By-laws are non-existent or unenforceable and development is hell-mell and it’s every man for themselves. The CPC likes it that way. State bad, chaos good.

Aw hell, I’m on vacation. Why can’t I give it a rest? I dunno. I wonder if dyed-in-wool politicos like Kinsella ever take a break from thinking about things like these. I doubt it.

Owen should be waking soon. I’ll end the thread before I begin to ramble on about how the shitty weather so far this week (today excepted) was a result of climate change, which was a result of ReformCons inaction!

Trashy,
Ottawa, Ontario

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Seems like the combination of anti-Iggy ads and the Grits thumping on the election war drum has given the ReformCons a bit of an edge in the polls. While this does fall a bit within the “who cares” territory – after all, no election till at least the fall – it does point out that the Liberals do have some work ahead of them before the next drop of the writ.

Specifically, they need to better define the Iggy brand. It is not enough for the leader of the party to make election threats and fire cannonballs across the bow of the blue ship, Canadians need to better understand who he is all “about”.

Hitting the summer BBQ circuit will help rebuild the grassroots support that will be absolutely crucial to future electoral success, but it will do little to better define the brand.

My humble suggestion is that Grit staffers spend their summer canvassing all ridings – but especially those that are “winnable” – to clearly understand what is on the minds of Canadians and the role they see for the Liberal Party. From this, put together a brand spankin’ new set of policy statements that are clearly different from the CPC as well as the Dippers and the Bloqistes.

In fact, if they are smart, they would have started this months ago and are right now putting together said statements.

The party needs to distinguish itself from the trash that surrounds it. Both the party as the brand and the leader as the brand must stand out as the only viable alternative.

All that being said, I believe that the Harperites’ rise in the polls is temporary and largely reflects the desire of the nation to avoid an election at this time.

Trashy,
Ottawa, Ontario

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Possible summer election

As much as I’d like to say that I’d like to see an election this summer I have to counsel caution… leadership numbers still too soft, unpredictable and therefore the Grits are vulnerable to the slightest slip-up. Give Iggy the summer. The Harperites will no doubt stumble some more and give the Grits some firm wedge issues on the leadership front.

The risk is that we really are seeing the beginnings of an economic recovery and this will bode well for the Harperites. I doubt that this is the case and that we are at least a year away from seeing real recovery. And even then the manufacturing sector in Ontario will still be undergoing a long period of restructuring.

Regardless, give the ReformCons the summer to (pick one or all of the following:

• Say something stupid about race, religion, immigration or language
• Leave Top Secret docs on an OC Transpo bus
• Leave Top secret docs in the washroom of the Spark Street CBC studios
• Reveal information that links a sitting ReformCon MP to a white supremacist group or a  loony religious sect
• Miss a photo op with other world leaders
• Wear a leather vest or something equally unflattering – like a sweater vest for instance

Sprawl

Ottawa will expand the boundaries of the City by a few hundred hectares.  Despite the Official Plan provisions that intensification projects be preferred over more suburbanization, the City staff and politicians will undoubtedly give in to pressure from developers and allow a further stretching of the designated urban area.

I am a Planner by training. Have a Masters degree in the field as a matter of fact. And, in planning school we were taught that sprawl was bad. Infrastructure costs are higher, a sense of community is more difficult to foster, there are higher GHG emissions due to higher automobile traffic, etc., etc.

Haven’t we sprawled enough? Time to give up the quaint notion of the Greenbelt and plan our City more sustainably.
The kids who are running the government

Is it my imagination or does it seem like most of the staffers who work with the ReformCons are under 30? Not to put down those who have yet to experience the delights of middle-age, but the inexperience is beginning to show. Witness the problems that various Ministers have experienced lately that have been the direct result of ill-prepared staffers.

Still. The buck stops at the Minister’s office, doesn’t it? Folks like Lisa Raitt have to accept responsibility and not use the poor kids as scapegoats.

Trashy,
Ottawa, Ontario

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How Conservatives try to distort the truth. Lesson #231.

I recently blogged about this right-wing site that at times will register right off the ol’ cynicism meter.  But I do enjoy my visits there – if not only for the “wtf” factor than anything else.
It is also quite well-written. Although I don’t think the author and I would agree on much past “good morning”, I do respect his talent vis à vis the written word.

But.

I was on the site this morning to see what latest drivel was seeping from the blog. The most recent post was about the “eviction” of the much-aligned Grit, Ruby Dhalla (and man, this guy has some hate on for poor Ruby!).

I, being the curious cat that I am, went immediate to my trusty Globe and Mail to see what their take was on all of this.

Hmm… nothing there.

OK. The National Post would OF COURSE have something… likely a half-page column!

Nope. Nada.

So I Googled her name combined with the word “eviction”.  And the only things that rained out were on a bunch of right-wing blogs… most of them citing the aforementioned Angry in the Great White North blog.

So, I, being the helpful little guy that I am, commented on the posting noting that I couldn’t find this information anywhere else and could someone please help me verify it.

Funny thing is that I can’t find this story anywhere but in the conservative blog world. Can’t find a mention of it in the Star either. Maybe I’m simply not looking hard enough but can someone point me to a source that I can believe?
I always enjoy reading these posts – from a “wtf” perspective. But I cannot believe that even a right-wing blogger would make something like this up!
Convince me otherwise!

THIS set off a number off “uh-oh” type comments. Some of which mentioned the word “libel”.  Soon thereafter, the poster placed a request from the MP’s office asking him to remove the post as it was patently untrue.

Of course, I, being the resourceful soul that I am, saved the original posting before it is erased.

Now, I’m not saying that the Grits or anyone else never tries this thing once in a while, but I would like to think that the non-Harperites would AT THE VERY LEAST do some background work BEFORE posting something that could harm the rep. of a public figure.  This was deceiving, deceitful and shameful.  Not to mention sloppy.

The postscript to this is that the blogger has apologized to the M.P. for the misinformation:

Since I have no reason to doubt this, I’ll retract the statement that
Ruby Dhalla has been evicted.  Appropriate sections have been struck out.

I have asked for clarification on two issues:

• Is the letter legitimate?
• If so, is the
  landlord providing permission for the office to operate?

If the letter is not legitimate, then it would appear that I’ve been snookered by someone who has access to
Ruby Dhalla’s office in order to post a letter on the inside.

If so, I apologize to
Ruby Dhalla, and wonder who would be interested in embarrassing both of us.  I would also like confirmation from
Ruby Dhalla that there is no problems between her and the
landlord.

Final Resolution:
Ruby Dhalla never responded to my requests for more information, including a clarification regarding the original notice terminating the lease.  I retracted the statement that she had been evicted, because despite the content of the letter, Dhalla insisted her office was open.

Fair enough.

I also received third-party confirmation that the letter had been posted.

Finally, I got in touch with the Bailiff, Earl Lewis.  His only statement to me was to say “The matter has been resolved.  I have no further comment”.

So it seems clear that
Ruby Dhalla had gotten into some sort of bind with her
landlord regarding “improvement maintenance and repair requirements”.  It had gotten to the point that the
landlord initiated action to terminate the lease.  At the 11th hour, it seems,
Ruby Dhalla sorted things out.

An honourable retraction and I give him credit for it. But it still does not erase the fact that ReformCons are getting more and more desperate and will stop at NOTHING to discredit the Liberals.
<

Trashy,
Ottawa, Ontario

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The conservativus canadiansus are sensing that they are currently a threatened species – certainly in some parts of the country. The conservativus fleur de lis was struck a deafening blow in the later part of last year when the more common conservativus albertus turned on its own kind and has driven the Québec sub-species to the brink of extinction.

The leaders of the herd (they do travel in herds – much like sheep or lemmings) were at one of the last habitats of the conservativus fleur de lis on the weekend assuring the sub-species that the dominant breed was confident that there really wasn’t a threat of extinction and that these were all lies put out by their primary predator, the griterus canadiansus.

As we were all taught in school, when an animal senses that they are cornered, they will bare their teeth, arch their backs or otherwise try to look bigger and more threatening. Cats and dogs do this. Ducks and geese spread their wings. And the conservativus canadiansus, being the most skittish of all fauna in the political animal kingdom, do likewise.

They are looking at their numbers decreasing across Canada, save for their main habitats in Alberta, Saskatchewan and parts of B.C. So, they try to make themselves look bigger by making their main predators and their leader (the michaelus iggitus) look smaller.  They do this by spreading rumours and innuendo among the other animals… saying that the michaelus i. is not really a canadiansus but a dreaded americansus of the dreaded intellectualitis sub-sub species. The conservativus is quite technically adept, using television and radio to get their messages of hate and cynicism out into the Canadian landscape.

But the rest of the animals in Canada are unlikely to by this ploy a second (or third or fourth) time as they, like intelligent creatures are wont to do, beginning to learn that these messages of hate and cynicism do not necessarily make the griterus look smaller. Instead, it is the conservativus that is shrinking. This is especially the case for the ruthless leader of the species harpertus stevo robotus.

Jeffery Simpson of the Globe and Mail recently penned his description of the latest chapter in the conservativus canadiansus’s quest for national domination.

The threatened conservativus canadiansus

Trashy,
Ottawa, Ontario

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