Just Busy With Stuff, and Things

I'm onstage in a play at the moment, but leave a message at the click, and I'll get back to you.

I notice that our Prime Minister pro tempore is tired of never getting his own way in a minority government, and has publicly mused about pulling the trigger on an election.

All polls suggest that it's a dead heat, so it's quite possible Harper would get back much the same as he has now. No mandate, just placeholder status.

It's not as though I feel the same way about the Liberal party as I do about Barack Obama--there's no clear Canadian choice for a departure from the whinging, small-minded, petty policies of the past five years. Worse, no-one really wants a return to the cronyism and patronage of the years two elections ago.

But my choice, the Green Party, isn't likely to do more than perhaps capture a seat or two--in fact they're less likely than last time bacause a lot of swing voters, such as we have, will vote for the Liberals in order to push Harper and the Conservatives off the throne.

So the best I can hope for is less paranoia, less government censorship, and less dirty politics.

I would actually vote for anyone who offered to reinstate the hallway questions following Cabinet meetings.

Note to my USian Avid Fans [all one or two of them] and other aliens--the Hallway Question, or Corridor Question was an unscripted, impromptu press conference and communications opportunity/challenge wherein Cabinet members exiting the meeting got grilled by reporters. Of necessity it was a very open process requiring good communication skills on the part of the grillees. Naturally Harper, possesed of the communications skills of a fifth-grade playground bully, shut that practice down as soon as it could be done.

In this he was reflecting the policies of his best friend ...


... who enjoys parrying the press so much, and is so renown for his wit and his quick tongue that he calls them "Gotcha conferences".

Just recently, Harper or his minions within The Party ordered eleven Conservative officials to stay away from Parliamentary hearings into Conservative election finance abuses. Here again he's taking a page from the Bush White House.

Does this remind anyone of events elsewhere? Now let's not always see the same hands ... Mr. Cheney? Mr. Rove?

Harper is the most secretive, uncommunicative person we've ever had in the hot seat. To get me to even consider him a viable candidate (overlooking for now his 19th-century Christianist "morality" and adherence to economic policies discredited several times over the last couple of decades), he'd have to be a lot more open and honest, and accountable.

Seems to me that those are words I've heard before ...