Yeah. I’m still not sure who I’d vote for in the next election, but I really don’t want another 4 years with Harper, is all I know.
That’s a funny thing; Nenshi has indeed had amazing success here (like I keep telling youse guys, we’re not all rednecks here), but there are still far too many people who spit after they say NEP here (and you can’t divorce the name Trudeau from that).
It does. Well, if he and his Liberals do win, I hope they have something in their platform that doesn’t include an NEP II, because that would end in civil war in Canada.
Oh, I forgot - blizzard. Fuck.
And I may need to go out in it now.
Double fuck.
On a non-political topic, if the Montrealers around here are interested, there’s an exhibition lacrosse game happening on Sunday at the Bell Centre. Team Canada is playing the Iroquois Nationals in a gear-up for the 2015 world championships. The best of the best in box lacrosse will be playing in that event, including for Team Canada arguably the best goalie of all time, Matt Vinc, the defending NLL MVP, Shawn Evans, and a former NLL MVP, Dan Dawson. On the Iroquois side, Johnny Powless is one of the best young forwards in the game and well on his way to being an MVP candidate, Jeff Shattler is a former NLL MVP and transition player Jeremy Thompson is one of the toughest, fastest guys I’ve ever seen.
This game, and the attendance they draw, will be yet another indicator as to whether Montreal is a viable option for NLL expansion. If everything goes well and they get the right management in place, Montreal could have a shiny new pro lacrosse team sooner rather than later.
In other mayoral news, Calgary Mayor Naheed Nenshi is being sued by homebuilder Cal Wenzel. I believe his suit is based on, “Well, yeah, I said all those things about buying off Calgary councillors, but you weren’t supposed to find out about that.”
Part of the video where Wenzel discusses “looking after” councillors.
Anybody watching the semi-final CFL games today? It’s not looking good for Calgary at this point!
I watched a practice for my university lacrosse team once. The object of the game seemed to be to beat up the opposing team members with your stick. I’m wondering- is it that way in pro lacrosse too, or are such things discouraged?
Yeah, it looks like you’ve got it. 
The indoor game actually tends to be more physical than the field variety because there’s so much less room for players to operate in. The rules, basically, are a combination of hockey and basketball, but with more bashing each other than hockey these days. The speed and athleticism is amazing, with several of the scoring plays in any given game being highlight reel-worthy.
Hands down, the best spectator sport ever created, in my opinion, and I think I’ve watched pretty much every sport there is.
The leader of the Liberal Party is not usually called upon to pilot a spacecraft, so Garneau’s qualifications to be leader of the party are not especially obvious to me.
Of course you could say the same about Justin Trudeau, but his qualifications *as a politician *are at least as good as Garneau’s.
As smart as Garneau is, you can’t really show how he’s smarter than, say, Ted Hsu (Liberal - Kingston and the Islands), a man of uncommon brilliance, experience and charisma who’s often cited as one of the finest MPs the Grits have had in decades. But nobody complains that Ted Hsu isn’t the Liberal leader, I would assume because being a nuclear physicist isn’t quite as rock-starrish as being an astronaut.
The ability to win a leadership race is itself a rather critical test of whether a person should be leading the party at all, and Garneau was never able to get beyond the “Look, I’m an astronaut” part of a leadership bid. Trudeau was. Garneau never gathered any significant support from party movers and shakers OR the rank and file. So why should he ever have been leader? What evidence is there he could have impressed voters at large?
Of course, maybe the Liberals made a mistake in choosing Trudeau. After all, they made a horrible mistake in choosing the hapless Michael Ignatieff. But I’ve got to think Garneau might well have been a worse mistake still.
As to this, I honestly don’t get it.
Stephen Harper’s been Prime Minister for seven years now. The country is basically pretty much the same as it was the day before he became Prime Minister. Such legislative changes as have happened are, let’s be honest, pretty minor in the grand scheme of things. Our idea of a major national debate is whether we should let Verizon sell cell phones here. Harper and his party appear to have no plans to change anything of significance about the country between now and the next election. If anything, their ambition and vision appears to be basically gone; the Conservatives seem happy to just keep drawing paychecks and bumble along. I guess the European free trade deal is pretty cool but increased free trade is just a continuation of what the government has been doing for twenty-five years anyway.
Even since Harper was elected people have been saying “he’s going to change Canada in unspeakable ways” and I just have to ask, when the hell is it going to happen? It’s been years. Can you tell me when this horrible transformation is going to happen and why they’re waiting so long? Is it going to happen in 2014? 2015? 2019? What’re they waiting for, exactly?
Let’s not forget that during his reign of terror that has Canada in basically the same shape as it was when he took over, the world went through a massive financial meltdown that affected the entire world. “Status quo” is something a lot of countries would kill for.
One of my golf buddies hates Harper with a passion. When asked why, he explains it’s because of Harper’s “tough on crime” stance. When pressed further, he explains it’s because of the “tough on drug crime” stance. (Golf Buddy has been known to indulge in weed from time to time.) When I explain that the drug law changes apply to those who are growing over six plants, he shuts up.
Of course, he’s back at hating Harper and the Tories during our game the following week. He’ll let the drug thing go for a week or two; but in its absence, I can guarantee that he’ll tell the group that Harper will outlaw abortions, curtail gay rights, and force everybody to go to a fundamentalist Christian church. :rolleyes:
Rick, you may have given me the ammunition I need to let this guy know that I’d rather concentrate on golf (or at least non-political topics) during our games: “Okay, Golf Buddy, after seven years in power, just when is Harper going to do all this?” Thanks!
And it wasn’t good for Calgary. Looks like it’s going to be the Riders vs. the Ti-Cats.
Pretty sure that our friend from Regina is celebrating at this point.
He’s lulling us into a false sense of security, softening us up for the strike.
I am quite sure that right now, some Ontarians believe this. My golf buddy certainly does.
It’s the secret agenda thingy. He’s been laying low all this time, but it’s coming, it’s coming… They’d tell you what it is, but it’s a secret and it’s going to be bad. He’s just waiting for a majority…er I mean the right time to spring it upon us.
All joking aside, I hear the same thing from people. People in Quebec hate him. But I don’t even bother getting into it because there’s no point any longer. I watch the french media where they get their info from and it’s a constant stream of Harper is the devil, hates Quebec, hates Francophones. I try to remind them that he is the first PM that has butt out of provincial affairs and Quebec has never had a more hassle free existence from Ottawa since he has been in Power.
Non, non , non…
I’m getting a bit too old to stay up all night celebrating, but Mrs P and I did find a nice BBQ restaurant right by the pedestrian bridge from McMahon to the C-train and had a good meal with a few happy Rider fans.
I like going to Rider games at McMahon - the Calgary fans are always friendly, with a lot if good-natured ribbing back and forth - this was no exception. They were good sports about the loss as well - conceded that the Stamps didn’t deserve to win, the way they were playing.
I did think the Stamps had a chance to make it a game with that long toss, where their guy was looking like he’d make the touchdown - until one Rider punched the ball out and Terrel Maze recovered for the Riders. I really got the impression that was the turning point. Once a major play like that goes south on you, a sense of inevitability creeps in. Mrs Piper commented that after the half, the Riders came bouncing onto the field, and the Stamps looked slumped as they came on.
After the clock hit 0:00, the Riders went running to their dressing room, and had to be coaxed back to the field to accept the West Division trophy. They had their picture taken with it, but none of them would touch it - they have a superstition that that’s not the trophy they want, so they don’t touch it.
After that, they came along the front of the stands and high-fived Rider fans who were there - Dwight Anderson was particularly chatty, of course; somebody asked him why he hadn’t been in the papers this week, slagging the Stamps; he grinned and said “This week, I did as Coach told me and let my playing do the talking for me!”
Sounds like you are referring to Big T’s BBQ, which is one of our favourite restaurants in town. The fried pickles are awesome, the blues music is always nice to listen to, and I can honestly say I’ve never had a bad meal there.
I assume y’all had the Elvis Platter? Mmmmm… Elvis Platter.
Glad you had a good time during your visit!
A few things have changed in Canada since 2006. For one thing, I don’t think we ever earned the ‘Fossil of the Year’ award at any of the climate change talks until the Conservatives took power. Now, we’ve earned five of them - Peter Kent was even perverse enough to have considered them a badge of honour.
And Leona Aglkkaq is off to Warsaw for her first climate change conference.