How do you tell if Stephen Harper or one of his MP's are lying? It would seem it's when their lips are moving. So far this week we have Labour Minister Jean-Pierre Blackburn claiming that he spent less on flights than his predecessor, and being caught in that lie by a simple web search. Then today, during question period, we have Stephen Harper lying about what the language commissioner said in his report. It's getting to the point where I'd require independent verification if a Tory were to sate the time.

Wow, it would appear that Canada's New Government (TM. Pat. Pend) is being run by three year olds who'll throw a tantrum if they don't get their way. They don't want to hear what might happen if they suck up to the Americans, so they storm out of a committee meeting. What's next, holding their hands up to their ears and going "LALALALALALA?"

Years ago I used to hang out on FidoNet before the Internet made it big. One of the people I used to debate with, a rabid right winger, used to have the tagline "Rules are for other people." Now a bunch of us thought this was a little odd from a law and order kind of guy, so when asked, he simply stated that as a conservative he would never do anything that would be illegal so he didn't need rules. We thought he was full of it and if the actions of the current federal Conservative government are any indication, he probably was.

Just how paranoid about the world do you have to be for this to be an interpretation of a new coin? Not that this is a new story but news from the US always seems to prove the axiom that "no one ever lost money underestimating the intelligence of the American public." or their defence contractors apparently.

At their Annual General Meeting, members of the Alberta Progressive Conservatives voted to avoid rent controls, backing the Stelmach government's position. This would appear to have the current Stelmach government just as ideologically blind as the previous Klein administration. The holy market must not be interfered with, even if that market is completely failing to provide the necessities of life. Homelessness is reaching epidemic proportions in Alberta as the number of rental units falls and the owners of the few rental units available are either converting them to condos or doubling or even tripling the rents. It would appear that the market, far from providing affordable housing, is doing exactly the opposite.

Politicians love to wrap themselves in the flag and say how wonderful the military is. Some of them love to send the military off on adventures in foreign lands where our young men and women are put into harms way, sometimes for a greater good, sometimes not. Given our current government's predilection towards the use of military force, I began to wonder how many of our politicians had the stones to do the job themselves, that is, how many of our MP's and PM's had served in the military in the past.

We started out with Stephen Harper having loads of credibility with the Canadian voter. Harper and Canada's "New" Government (TM. - Pat. Pend) took office with promises of being different, more open and accountable than the previous Liberal administration. What a difference a year has made. There have been so many different government positions on the treatment of prisoners handed to Afghan authorities by the CF, you need a score card to keep it all straight. The Harper government didn't know about it, then reports show up that they did. The government claims that there is no torture, then admits there is. There is is an agreement on prisoner inspections and there's no agreement. The merry-go-round just keeps going around and around. It's beginning to become clear why Stephen Harper needs to micromanage everything since it would appear that his ministers are incompetent based on the widely conflicting stories out of the mouths of cabinet this past couple of weeks.

Since spring has finally decided to show up here at Castle Evil, I was able to do some yard work yesterday. So I raked the yard to get rid of the dead grass, hindered only by the rake breaking and a trip to the hardware store to replace it. The job got better after that since I had a more appropriate rake for the task. So after four and a half hours (I have a big lawn) I was finally done and spent the rest of the evening doing laundry and aching. I'm still aching today, though not nearly as much as last night or as was expecting. I need to get more exercise....

I've been thinking about how to get people to either give up their cars or to drive smaller cars. This is what I've come up with. To put it simply, the more fuel efficient your vehicle, the cheaper it is to register it annually. Also, to provide incentive to get older cars off the road, after a certain number of years, it starts to cost more to register an older car. Of course, since car registration is a provincial responsibility, you'd have to get the provinces to play ball, but one thing at a time. Here's what I propose:

I've noticed in my perusal of the blogosphere a call for an election from some opposition blogs. The reasoning is that since it's unlikely for Harper's Conservatives to win a majority, the Tories will drop Harper like a bad habit. There is some logic to this argument, as most parties only want a winner at the top. The argument is flawed though in that the Conservatives aren't most parties. Here's why I don't think that if the Tories only make another minority, or even move to opposition, Harper will stay.