Not only has the Harper Conservatives been trying to turn Canada into a right-wing dictatorship but now they are actively campaigning on becoming a dictatorship. The only amusing part of this is the one and only war-room Con-bot in the comments section of the Macleans posting trying to defend the position.

As well as any other one party state you can think of. The re-branding of the government from the Government of Canada to Harper Government is moving along quite well. As evidence I present the website of one Bruce Stanton (www.brucestanton.ca). It has the same layout as any of the official Government of Canada websites.

In keeping with the spirit of the new requirement to call the Government of Canada "The Harper Government", the Harper Government is pleased to announce a new Canada wordmark:

A week or so ago my attention was brought to this article by former NCC vice president Gerry Nicholls about why Harper wants to pull the trigger for a spring election. Putting the election parts of the article aside, Nicholls goes on at length about how Harper is bound and determined to destroy the Liberal Party and by destroy it is meant the elimination of the party not just at the polls, but as an entity. It can be safely assumed that Harper and his party, especially the war room Con-bot trolls would see this as a Good Thing (TM), and Nicholls does explain some of what he sees as Harper's reasoning for this. I think this pathological hatred for the Liberals that Harper and his supporters have has blinded them to the reality of the negative consequences of the elimination of the Liberals would have on their own party.

If one thing this past week has made clear, it is that the Conservative Party of Canada under Stephen Harper has developed and fostered a culture based on lies and deceit. From the lowliest back bencher to through cabinet ministers to Harper himself, it has been quite clear this week that pretty much any time any of the Harper Conservatives open their mouths, smart money is on that a lie will spill out. Bev Oda is only a symptom of a larger rot that exists in the halls of power under Stephen Harper as evidenced by the fact that Harper and Baird are now openly lying in the House of Commons.

… the best politicians money can buy. Quite literally. Since Elections Alberta has finally left the dark ages and published the financial reports of Alberta's provincial political parties on-line. So if you want to see who's giving how much to the provincial Tories, here's where you go to look. So for example, the Alberta PC's brought in $2,337,252.50 in donations in 2009 (the last year for which data is available, 2010 data isn't due into EA until the end of March). Where this money comes from is an interesting study of why the Alberta Tories act the way they do.

Well really another photo of the same thing, M42 but with longer exposure (4x30 seconds for a total of 2 minutes) and different filters. Why the fascination with M42 (The Great Nebula in Orion)? Well a few reasons. First I'm still learning the ins and outs of my new imager so by using the same object I can compare what happens when I change things. Second, M42 is bright so easy to photograph with relatively short exposures. Third, since I'm doing this from my backyard in the suburbs of Calgary, the light pollution is brutal and the brightness of M42 again makes it easy to image.

All the signs are there, a massive wave of attack ads, John Baird and the rest of the Conservative caucus denying it, Stephen Harper desperately wants an election sooner than later. He can't be seen as wanting one of course so the question is how is he going to do it?

CBC is reporting that the Newfoundland and Labrador government is asking the federal government for money (in the form of loan guarantees) to expand the Lower Churchill hydroelectric project (I originally heard this on CBC Radio One, the link is the closest at CBC.ca). This poses a dilemma for Harper. Does he give the money in an attempt to buy needed votes in Atlantic Canada? This despite the fact that this would mean that federal money would go to ridings that aren't represented by the Tories and that there would be no local Tory MP available to hand out a large novelty cheque with a CPC logo on it in the resulting photo-op.

Back in December I picked up a new CCD imager for my telescope. Prior to this I had been using my DLSR to take astrophotos and with an upcoming course requiring an actual astronomical CCD imager it seemed like a good time to take the plunge. Now the imager I wanted the SBIG ST7ME was a bit out of my price range for the time frame I had so I ended up going with the monochrome Orion Starshoot III . The Starshoot III has a larger sensor than the ST7ME (1392x1040 pixels vs 784 x 520 pixels) but lacks the second auto guiding sensor. It also costs, with a 5 filter magazine, about $1000 less than the ST7ME so it's the imager I went with.