Stephen Harper and the War on the Unemployed

You don't have to be a weatherman, or an economist, to know that a cold wind is blowing in Harperland, and that a recession could be just around the corner.

So what are the Cons doing? Answer: Planning to cut corporate taxes even more, and taxing our paycheques.

Canadians will see the biggest increase in payroll taxes in a decade next year, according to a Canadian Taxpayers Federation analysis of how many of your dollars will go to federal government coffers.The combined net increase of 4.84 per cent is the highest since 2002.

Even though businesses are just sitting on their money, instead of creating jobs. And if you miraculously manage to qualify for employment insurance, good luck collecting any benefits. 

Jimbo Flaherty's Strange Upside Down World

I'm proud to say I've never believed anything little Jimbo Flaherty, the one-time King of the Mole Hill, had to say about ANYTHING. But his recent behaviour leaves me wondering whether he's gone completely batty.

The stock market is tanking. The dollar is diving. Food prices are soaring. The IMF has just downgraded the Canadian economy.

So what is the nasty little Con gnome doing? Stubbornly insisting that slashing the deficit, lowering corporate taxes, and killing jobs is the best way to save the economy. While paying some fat cats $90,000 a day to draw up a list of those who must be thrown into the street.

And going after...wait for it....Bob Rae.

The Finance Minister went on to quote some of the IMF’s more flattering adjectives, but then Bob Rae was up noting that the same report had suggested this country had some flexibility to deal with economic malaise. And now Mr. Flaherty was growling and snarling about Mr. Rae’s handling of the Ontario government in the early 1990s.

“What we would not do is run the Government of Canada like the member opposite ran the government of Ontario,” Mr. Flaherty declared. “He ran the province of Ontario into massive debt and deficits from which that province is still trying to recover.”

When in fact Rae was just trying to mitigate the effects of a brutal recession. And the guy who did the real damage to Ontario was Jimbo himself.

When as a member of Mike Harris' thug government he tried to kill government, just like Stephen Harper is trying to do, and ended up creating more poor and homeless people than that province had ever seen since the Dirty Thirties...

So many homeless people that Jimbo wanted to JAIL them.

Sound familiar? 

Why do you think they are building all those prisons when the crime rate is going down? Answer: because the Cons know they are going to create so many poor people, there won't be enough shelters to hold them.

Oh boy. I wish I could jail all those cretins who voted for the Cons because they thought they were good money managers. The drooling brain damaged IDIOTS.

So what can we do about it? Take to the streets by the THOUSANDS and let those Cons know that we're not going to take their ideological nonsense. Before the price of food goes up so much, we're too weak to march eh?

Which is no doubt what the Cons are counting on. While they stuff their fat faces with caviar.  

In the meantime, if you need a temporary boost, and you want to see the world like Batty Flaherty.

May I suggest you try looking at it like he does...



Or better still call Batman.

Because with these criminally incompetent  Cons in power.

We are going to need all the help we can get....

------------------------------------------------------------------

P.S. Please kids don't try this at home...without a helmet on...or you could end up as brain damaged as the ghastly Cons. Thanks.

Jimbo Flaherty and the Con Depression

Holey Moley. I see the Con gnome Jimbo Flaherty has gone from being the king of his tiny castle, to being the moron on the mole hill.

Unemployment is rising, the economy is contracting, the stock market is tanking.

Jimbo and Great Economist Buffoon Leader have finally been exposed as frauds.

But that STILL hasn't stopped the nasty little gnome from lecturing the Europeans, trying to drive the continent into a recession, and kill Greece.

Finance minister Jim Flaherty raised the spectre of Greece leaving the euro zone unless it pushes forward with its severe and highly unpopular austerity program, even though the cutbacks seem to be pushing the country deeper into recession.

Just like him and his ghastly Cons are trying to do to Canada.

OMG. How embarrassing eh? Somebody please put him in a tiny padded box, and ship him back to Ottawa IMMEDIATELY.

For the record, the Cons didn't see the first recession coming. They had to be forced to stimulate the economy. But instead of using it to create new green jobs for the future, they used the money to build gazebos, and buy votes.

They also allowed Big Oil, and the high dollar, to destroy our manufacturing sector with the so-called Dutch Disease. Reducing us to drawers of dirty oil and hewers of commodities, even though as I've pointed out before, the commodities market has a bad habit of going up, up, UP.

And then down, down, DOWN...

Which of course is where we are going with the Cons. Heading into another recession, with no safety net.

We have less manoeuvring room today than we did three years ago. Our budget is $30 billion in deficit, our employment insurance account has a $10.4 billion shortfall and we have the highest level of household debt in our history.

If Canada falls back into a recession — or if we’re already in one that hasn’t shown up in the statistics — millions of families will have no cushion.

Great eh? And to think they managed to convince enough cretins in this country that they were good money managers. If you know how to grow potatoes in your bath tub now might be a good time to start.

The good news? After a couple of years of recession they could have avoided, they'll NEVER be able to fool us again. And when they're finally gone, they'll be gone for a generation.

Yup. From the king of his tiny castle, to the moron on the mole hill.

To the idiot in his igloo...

Jimbo, Jimbo, can you see your shadow?

I didn't think so.

May the Monkey God save us all...

All You Need to Know About the Economic Crisis

As the casinos meltdown, and the bankers run around like firefighters in tuxedos, and I'm forced to contemplate the possibility that the future of the global economy depends on whether the Europeans buy Berlusconi bonds.

Which isn't too reassuring eh?

I think the time has come to simplify this ghastly show, so even the dumbest Canadians i.e. the ones who voted for Stephen Harper, can understand what it's really all about:

(1) The Republican Teabaggers and their Big Business masters are entirely to blame for triggering the latest capitalist convulsion. The Teabaggers want to destroy the government and Obama.

The Big Business porkers want to hose him down for daring to suggest they should pay more in taxes...

Because just the word TAXATION makes them belch and squeal. Like piggies at a sausage factory. Even as the rich get richer, and the poor get poorer.

(2) Sooner of later some politician is going to have to make the case for taxation.

And convince the dumb and the greedy that you can't have the benefits of civilization unless you pay for them.

Or we're all going to end up living in a JUNGLE.

(3) All of the above are just symptoms of a far greater problem. The leaders aren't just clueless, the blind are fighting the blind.

Neoliberalism and free market fundamentalism are both used up, obviously failed dead ends in the world of ideas. Yet the proponents of these ideologies both cling desperately to their beliefs, fighting for control of Washington like two people fighting desperately for an inner-tube as they fall out of a doomed airplane, confident that their preferred version of the same policies will save them from certain death. Meanwhile, progressives have all the parachutes, but are strapped, helpless and curiously irrelevant, into the plane as it careens inevitably into the mountains ahead.

And all the clueless media can do is report on who's winning the seesaw battle for the useless inner-tube, while moaning about how they could both be saved if only they would learn to share it like nice little children.

Yup. It is just kabuki theatre. The economic system that has governed our lives has failed. Just like Communism failed, and another version of the Capitalist system failed before that.

We need to be really clever and come up with a better one, if we are going to survive the challenges of the 21st Century. It's really as simple as that.

And as complicated. Because when you're steeped in the values of a society, the simplest truths are the hardest to see and understand. Just ask the Mayas.

Oh well. Fasten your seatbelts, or hang on to the bar eh?

Because until the truth hits us, or sinks us.

When you're on the good ship Rusty Capitalism.

You can count on a thrilling ride...

The Capitalist Pig and the Harper Cons

I really have to hand it to John Ibbitson, his timing couldn't be better. As the bloated capitalist pig stumbles around in its final agony. And threatens to plunge us into another devastating recession.

He's scribbling away furiously, urging Stephen Harper to give in to his wild side.

The past five years suggest that Cautious Stephen will keep Wild Steve in check. But if the Prime Minister does want to let his inner über-conservative twin loose, this is the time to do it.

As if this is the time to mutilate E.I., screw the poorer provinces, and start privatizing the medicare system, when Harper's Teabagger plan to cut taxes for the rich, and slash jobs, is leading this country to economic catastrophe.

As if Stephen Harper has ever been held in check, or needed any encouragement to morph from Mr Sweater Mr Hockey Dad Mr Kitten Lover Mr Mini-Golf.

Into Mr MANIAC.

Gawd. It's enough to make you scream Ibbitson you IDIOT !!! Or I want my money BACK!!!

This June in Canada, 10,000 more jobs were created than in the U.S. But before tax cuts are given credit, consider these facts: Part-time jobs outnumbered full-time by three to one; construction and manufacturing jobs didn't increase; 51,000 new jobs were in the public sector while only 22,000 were in the private sector; the unemployment rate didn't drop.

Or ask the nasty Con gnome Jimbo Flaherty to give back the "Finance Minister Championship Belt" the Ford gang gave him. 

Before he shows us HIS wild side.

But then he's the one who wants Canadians to prepare for retirement by putting their non-existent savings into an office pool, and playing the stock market casino.

So he's capable of ANYTHING.

Oh boy. Some things are for sure eh?

The Teabagger Cons don't know what they're doing. We're heading for financial disaster.

The time has come to take to the streets, and try to stop them from destroying the country.

Or surrender to the capitalist pig. Stock up on dog food.

And sing along with Bobby....

Jimbo Flaherty and the Championship Belt

Holy hobbit. How ironic eh? There was little Jimbo Flaherty the other day at Rob Ford's millionaire redneck BBQ. Being hee hawed as a financial genius, and awarded a "Finance Minister's Championship Belt" by the Fordzilla himself.

Only to wake up this morning, to find himself considerably diminished, the belt around his ankles, and a ratty little dunce cap on his head.

Because once again, he didn't see it coming, and he doesn't know what he's doing.

His Cons have spent billions of dollars on dubious vote-buying projects, with no long term economic benefits. They have allowed the dollar to rise and finish off our manufacturing and tourism industries.  

They have turned us into a nation of hewers of commodities and drawers of dirty oil. Even though the historical record is clear: what goes up usually comes down...

(clic pic to enlarge)

And now with inflation rising, job creation stalled, a shrinking economy, and a tanking stock market, they are planning to throw thousands of Canadians into the street.

Even though that will almost certainly cause another recession.

So why are they doing this? Answer: because they are rabid Con ideologues like the Teabaggers in the United States. They want to destroy government, and they only know two ways to do that. Cut taxes for the rich, and slash spending for the poor.

And how do they get away with it ? Answer: Because you CAN fool enough of the people all of the time. Just like you can make the video of Flaherty receiving his Championship Belt, mysteriously disappear.

Oh yeah. Jimbo Flaherty is a champion Finance Minister. Stephen Harper is an economic genius.

Canada is back baby !!!!!

And it's morning mourning in America...



Now the lights are about to go out in Canada. Now we're about to pay for the greatest and dumbest mistake in Canadian history.

Take to the streets, stop the Harper teabaggers.

Before they destroy our country...

Swine Flu: When All the World's a Barnyard

OMG. Hit me with a pork chop. With all the things that can kill us these days...the recession, the Cons, Pakistan, Iran...who knew it would be these guys ?

Or that the mortal danger would come from Mexico.

Caramba. Don't forget to keep your party sombrero handy eh? So you can wear it to your funeral.

Although also don't forget that we've seen this panic before.

U.S. officials ordered the manufacture of swine flu virus vaccine and the country proceeded to launch a mass immunization program that saw upwards of 40 million people injected with the vaccine.

The feared pandemic never occurred. But the vaccine appeared to trigger a high level of cases of Guillain-Barre syndrome, a type of paralysis that is often, though not always, time limited.

And the reaction was more dangerous than the disease.

On the other hand this is troubling.

The new strain contains gene sequences from North American and Eurasian swine flus, North American bird flu and North American human flu.

Most of Mexico’s dead were young, healthy adults, and none were over 60 or under 3 years old, the World Health Organization said. That alarms health officials because seasonal flus cause most of their deaths among infants and bedridden elderly people, but pandemic flus — like the 1918 Spanish flu, and the 1957 and 1968 pandemics — often strike young, healthy people the hardest.

The leading theory on why so many young, healthy people die in pandemics is the “cytokine storm,” in which vigorous immune systems pour out antibodies to attack the new virus. That can inflame lung cells until they leak fluid, which can overwhelm the lungs

Great eh? Why go out with a bang? When you can go out with an OINK...choking in your own mucus.

Because that's the same kind of mixture and the same deadly demographic that resulted in this catastrophe.

So I guess the questions that need to be urgently answered are these:

(1) What exactly is this virus... and is it being spread by humans?














(2) Are the young and the elderly being spared because they are more likely to be vaccinated...or because their immune systems aren't as strong?

(3) Is the virus being spread by migrating birds as it was in 1918?

And of course the ultimate question. Is it just panic.... or the beginning of a pandemic that could make the recession look like a picnic?

Gawd. Just what we needed eh? Another reason to worry.

Another reminder of how puny we are.

And that all the world's a barnyard...

You Know the Auto Industry is in Trouble...

When not only are the big car companies asking for more money in the gas tank.

They're taking down the clocks at Chrysler.

You won't see many clocks on the walls at Chrysler's headquarters in Auburn Hills.

The automaker took most of them down -- to save an estimated $20,000 a year on batteries and having workers change the time twice a year for daylight saving time.

Well that's something. Who need clocks eh? When they can use setting sun dials.

Next to go?

The calendars.

So they can pretend it's 1955 again....



Oh baby baby. Why was I born too late?

Why couldn't I have had a forty-foot car with FINS?

Instead of a clunky bicycle. *Sigh*

Oh where did the good times go?

The Recession and my Friend Scott

They should have seen it coming like a ghost ship out of the fog. But they didn't and now the monster is here.

And everywhere I go all I see is suffering. The people in the hospital with cancer or other serious illnesses who are worried about their shrinking savings and how they are going to pay the bills. The little stores with no customers. My friends in Toronto who are having their hours cut until they hardly have enough to live on.

And then there is my friend Scott in Montreal who blogs at Tattered Sleeve.

Who sent me this comment yesterday:

Well I got laid off because the small software company I worked for couldn't make payroll suddenly. They can't pay any of the bills because they can't get financing and they can't get their customers to pay their bills. Sometimes when they DO pay, the wire transfers are held back for ridiculous reasons owing to a European bank in the middle that has no liquidity itself. It's like the whole world's institutions are all suddenly only paying anyone if they absolutely bloody well HAVE TO, like if a collection agency has been busting their chops for months and they are being served with lawyers' letters......

.....I got the minimum severance as dictated by law, by the way (two weeks), and they haven't issued my pay or severance owing. But I don't blame them, considering all the ways they tried to finance the company bottomed-out on them at the same time. Of course EI is overloaded and I have to wait a few weeks still to get anything there. I have to submit my Record of Employment to them, but my former employer is dragging their feet on that too.

You see, they were a successful company with a good product and big ticket customers (some even Fortune 500) - this is all new to them.

They've never had to lay anybody off before...

Can you imagine having to wait weeks for E.I. after suffering the shock of losing your job? Can you imagine what's going to happen to all those who aren't even covered by E.I. and will have to go on welfare to try to pay the bills? Can you imagine the misery?

And what does our Con government have to say about this?










"We are not interested in making it lucrative to pay people not to work, it's not what this government is about, that's not what the taxpayers expect us to spend money on...not making Employment insurance more generous"

Stephen Harper December 19, 2008




"We do not want to make it lucrative for them to stay home and get paid for it."
Diane Finley January 30, 2009

The heartless BASTARDS.

You know I remember a time when Canada was a kinder gentler place. Now these foul inhuman Cons are trying to turn it into a jungle. And I don't want to live in that place. I want my country back.

For Scott and all the other Canadians who are suffering and worrying about what could happen next. And all those who are about to join the growing lines of misery. Force these bastard Cons to at the very least overhaul our useless E.I. system.

Or defeat them, crush them, finish them off....

------------------------------------------------------------

P.S. Scott...you ARE rich...with all the things that count.

Hang in there buddy.....

The Greatest Economic Crisis in 100 Years?

In Britain a monster recession and a monster storm are battling each other to see who can make the country collapse first.

And so far the storm monster is ahead.

Roads in Gloucestershire will be treated with table salt on Sunday night, after low supplies of rock salt forced the local county council to resort to ordering 500 tonnes of normal white salt.

But The Beast is gaining.

Britain is facing its worst financial crisis for more than a century, surpassing even the Great Depression of the 1930s, one of Gordon Brown's most senior ministers and confidants has admitted.

Mr Balls said yesterday: "The reality is that this is becoming the most serious global recession for, I'm sure, over 100 years, as it will turn out."

He warned that events worldwide were moving at a "speed, pace and ferocity which none of us have seen before" and banks were losing cash on a "scale that nobody believed possible".

"These are seismic events that are going to change the political landscape. I think this is a financial crisis more extreme and more serious than that of the 1930s, and we all remember how the politics of that era were shaped by the economy."

Meanwhile in the sleepy Great White North...where Stephen Harper's Cons can't even agree on whether we need to do MORE.... to protect Canadians from a potential economic and social CATASTROPHE

Because they didn't see it coming, and they don't know what they're doing.

I head down to the harbour to watch the proud swans begging for crumbs outside the local Tim Horton's.












And I can't help feeling that so many Canadians are still in a state of denial.

Splashing around like the swans and the ducks.

With absolutely no idea how bad it could really get.

Or what a mistake it is to let Stephen Harper and his foul incompetent far-right Cons lead us at a scary time like this one

The awakening will come. The feathers will fly.

And it will be BRUTAL...

The Cons and the Budget that Can't Fly

OK. Here's an easy question for a Friday night. If the pilot who landed his plane in the river had done that because he forgot to gas her up, would he still be the Hero of the Hudson?

Or would he be a criminally incompetent and irresponsible bum like Jimbo Flaherty.... the Idiot from Oshawa?

Who forgot to put enough boost in his useless smoke and mirrors budget to keep it in the air for more than a few minutes. And now wants to try to takeoff AGAIN.

“I'm open to the possibility of doing more,” the Finance Minister said Thursday.

“We said in the budget that we would do whatever is necessary. We said there was a large degree of uncertainty in the world economy – which there is.”

Even as the recession claims more and more victims.

But at least Jimbo was willing to concede that maybe he didn't have enough real boost to takeoff.... and clear the trees at the end of the runway. Until Great Economist , Leader , Crazy Captain Harper seized the controls.

And shot that idea down in flames.














"We have got to be able to stick to the course," Harper said."We're not going to get blown off track every time there is some bad news."

Because of course, this isn't about our economy, or what's good for our country. This always has been and always will be what's good for Stephen Harper. The pathetic klown ideologue who didn't see it coming. And doesn't know what he's doing.

You know I heard a story today about a woman in Nova Scotia with two daughters, who had to wait nine weeks for a E.I. cheque. Now multiply that suffering by a million times or more. Remember that most Canadians aren't even eligible for E.I.

And ask yourself what kind of a heartless psycho monster is running our country?

For the sake of every Canadian. For the sake of our beautiful Canada.

Somebody please grab the controls from these criminally incompetent and brutish Cons.

Before they kill us all....

The Recession and the Flames of Change

For those who still believe that the coming Great Depression can be tamed by spraying money on the bonfire....or pissing on it with tax cuts.

Or think that we can hold back the burning devil of protectionism...with the watering can of rational arguments.

Or forget what could happen when all the deadly threats facing the planet come together in one roaring inferno.

I offer up this somewhat gloomier view from Britain.

The International Labour Organisation predicts that another 50 million or so will join the jobless queues around the world, out of a world workforce of around 3 billion. The wildcat strikes at refineries and power stations across the UK, and anti-government protests from Latvia and France to China and Mexico, may be just the beginning of much more radical, violent backlash against globalisation.

Despite pledges to resist "the retreat to protectionism", the pressure on governments to "protect" domestic industries and jobs has become irresistible; legislators on Capitol Hill plead that they can do no other than inject "Buy American" clauses into the fiscal packages and other bailouts now being assembled, such is the public anger about what has happened to the economy.

Having just elected the most protectionist Congress in 60 years, American voters expect their legislators – and their President – to deliver on promises about "American jobs", and are deaf to the arguments for free trade.

The scale of the economic, social and political problems the global rise in unemployment represents are frightening. Indeed, this recession could easily result in the biggest loss of paid employment seen in human history...

Pressure on land, water, food and housing, and levels of poverty, will soar; the temptation to argue with neighbouring nations over natural resources will grow. The world may soon witness its first "water war". The price of mass unemployment – human, economic, social, environmental – has always been high. This time it will be higher than ever.

Sorry.

But when I think about all that suffering, and my cheated generation, I'm afraid I'll go even further.

I'll predict that when all the Horsemen of the Apocalypse come together on the burning battlefield, a lot of people are going to question whether the jalopy of Capitalism needs more than an oil change....or a shiny new set of wheels.

And will shake the world to its foundations.

With demands for real change.




















Can you feel the anger...and the despair?

Can you smell the tear gas?

Can you hear the song...

Doris Day and the Spam Factory

Gawd. I know we're in trouble when I have more confidence in what Wiarton Willy has to say about the length of this ghastly winter.

Than I have in anything Stockwell Day has to say about our economy.

Canada's international trade minister warned that products other than steel and iron could be swept into the "Buy American" clause of the U.S. stimulus bill, but he's hopeful U.S. legislators will retreat from the controversial policy.

Because even a groundhog could have predicted that one.....LAST year.

But then that's our Doris....

The Reform Party homophobe and all-round incompetent who has been making us laugh for years. And is now threatening to take his comedy act to Washington.


















Our Doris who doesn't seem to understand how desperate the Americans are, as their economy continues to implode. With thousands of jobs being lost every day. Consumer confidence lower than it has been in almost fifty years.

And one of the few booming businesses is the Spam factory.

Our Doris who doesn't seem to understand how much Obama hates our Cons for trying to sabotage his primary campaign at a crucial moment. By leaking stuff suggesting that he was lying about his promise to do something about NAFTA.

So how sympathetic do you think he's going to be to the pleas of Canada's Republicans? Does anyone really think he's going to make it look like they were right....and he was a LIAR?

Oh boy. We should have ditched these Cons the moment Obama was elected. But now it's too late.

All we can do now is see if we can raise groundhogs for meat, stock up on Spam and Kraft Dinners. Try to grow vegetables in the bathtub.

And of course sing along with Doris...



Because with these foul incompetent Con klowns in power.

What will be will be.

And ANYTHING could happen...

-------------------------------------------------------

h/t Let Freedom Rain.

The Recession and the Frozen Body

As I watched this little tug trying to tow a ferry across the frozen lake, only to give up and turn back, I couldn't help but think of Stephen Harper's useless budget.

And wonder why anyone could think that it's going to pull us out of a recession.Or prepare us for the horror that lies ahead.

Or why anyone is surprised that the Americans are becoming protectionists.

When their economy is imploding, millions are suffering, and entire communities are dying.....like the once great city of Detroit.

Where they dug this poor guy out of the ice the other day...













Finally.

There are at least 19,000 homeless people in Detroit, by some estimates. Put another way, more than 1 in 50 people here are homeless.

The human problem is so bad, and the beds so few, that some shelters in the city provide only a chair. The chair is yours as long as you sit in it. Once you leave, the chair is reassigned.

Thousands of down-on-their-luck adults do nothing more with their day than clutch onto a chair. This passes for normal in some quarters of the city.

It's so bad in Motown that some people are predicting that it could become the first ruin of the American Empire.

Meanwhile across the river in Canada we're preparing to go into a brutal recession with a sham of a stimulus budget, and an Employment Insurance system that covers less than half of unemployed Canadians.

And our idiot leaders are in a state of denial.

Neither the governing Conservatives nor the opposition Liberals seem to understand the seriousness of this crisis. Rhetoric notwithstanding, both parties appear to think they are dealing with a problem that will go away in two years and allow the world to return to business as usual.

What is Stephen Harper doing? What are the Liberals thinking by supporting a budget like that one without demanding major changes? Can't they even IMAGINE how bad it could get?

It's time to stop putting cheap politics before the real lives of suffering Canadians.

Because time is running out. The Big Chill is almost here.

And we're going nowhere...

How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Recession

All that recession talk getting you down ? Don't like the idea of picking up your dinner from the foodbank...or sleeping on a bench instead of a bed? Can't see yourself selling pigeon pies or chestnuts in the street ?

Can't shake that sinking feeling that the bubble is about to burst?

Five prominent economists who correctly predicted the 2008 world economic meltdown say the crisis is only going to get worse.

"Beware the happy talk from those who say we are 'turning the corner.....Ignore the daily ups and downs of the market and tighten your belts. This is going to hurt....As the U.S. economy shrinks, the entire global economy will go into recession. In Europe, Canada, Japan and the other advanced economies, it will be severe."

All that bad news making you feel like this little guy?



Well don't worry. Be happy. There's always a bright side to everything.

For example, if you lose your job like millions of others, and are forced to work as an organ grinder, you'll be able to hire Ezra Levant to be your monkey...... for peanuts....for writing this shite.

And besides who says poverty needs to be a bummer? When if the bubble bursts you can have a bubble bath

Only one thing's going to get us through 2009, and that's romance. And possibly cannibalism. But mainly romance.

Dim your lights. Here's the highlights reel. The worst recession in 60 years. Broken windows and artless graffiti. Howling winds blowing empty cans past boarded-up shopfronts. Feral children eating sloppy handfuls of decomposed-pigeon-and-baked-bean mulch scraped from the bottom of dustbins in a desperate bid to survive

But maybe it won't be so bad. Picture yourself sharing a meal with a neighbour. Or maybe a bath. A bubble bath. Look, there are little tealight candles round the edge of the tub. And you're having a glass of red wine together! It's lovely! Assuming you have attractive neighbours. If not, sorry.

Mark my words, you'd be wise to practice your romancing skills now, because when, circa October, we're huddled together in shelters sharing body heat to survive, the ability to whisper sweet nothings could prove useful. Come the dawn, you'll need to pair up with someone to go hunting for supplies with, and it'll help if you've been cuddling all night.

The world outside will be dangerous, so there'll have to be two of you. One to root through the abandoned Woolworth's stockrooms and another to stand outside warding off fellow scavengers with a flaming rag on a stick.

Hmmm....you know I think I could learn to love the Greatest Depression. The cuddling, the bubble baths, the flaming torches, the thought of Ezra....the organ grinder's monkey.... who predicted it wouldn't happen.

And of course I LOVE the idea of sharing with my fellow Canadians...you know...like Prince Harry was doing with his friends the other day.

Sucking beer out of a bong....










Now we're talking eh?

C'mon Canadians cheer up. At this point I figure all we've got to fear...apart from fear itself and Stephen Harper...is too much sobriety.

Our ugly neighbours.

And of course the cannibals....

Please Feed the Rich... or Bleed them

Lordy. You know the shadow of the Great Depression is upon us when the rich start pawning their possessions.

In Beverly Hills, one of the nation’s glitziest post codes, so-called “collateral lenders” report an influx of well-to-do customers pawning everything from fine art to designer watches and diamond-encrusted jewellery worth hundreds of thousands of dollars.

They need the money for everything from plastic surgery to keeping their businesses afloat and meeting mortgage payments on their mansions.

Holy Caviar. Is nothing sacred? They can't even change their faces from one season to another? What's next.....public transportation?

And if you think the adults have it rough.

Pity the poor rich kids.

“The other night Christian had eight friends over and I spent $110 on pizza...I don’t mind doing that, but he’s got to know that the pizza budget is not $500 a month.”

Oh no. Not the pizza budget.

Will somebody please feed the rich?

Or bleed them....



Feed them. Bleed them. But keep a few around eh?

Because before the Great Depression is over.

We may need to EAT them....

The Cons, the Cat, and the Great Fear

The other day I saw I guy standing at the end of this pier, and for a moment I thought he was going to jump. And I wondered if I jumped in to save him...since he was a pretty big guy... whether we'd BOTH go down in history as one of the first casualties of The Greatest Depression.

Wouldn't that be a dubious honour? It must be the Great Fear in the air.

Then at work I noticed the kind old Boomer in the corner was looking sad. And when I asked him what's up he said he's afraid he won't be able to retire next year...even though his wife is sick and needs him to take care of her....because the little money they managed to save is being slowly chewed up.

And there must be million of others like him out there.

On my lunch today I wandered over to the Eaton Centre where two of my friends work and they both told me business was down by about forty percent. And they both expect to get laid off after Christmas.

So they can join these workers on the unemployment line.

Oh yeah. The Great Fear is EVERYWHERE.

All of which makes me wonder whether Stephen Harper has a clue about what is really happening in this country, or what to do about it. When he probably doesn't even know what hit him. Everything he ever believed in or said was BULLSHIT. And now he's forced to pretend that neocons can change into Liberals....just like pigs can fly.

Harper was elected on a firm promise to deliver balanced-budget, fiscally-prudent government less than 50 days ago.

Be it campaign deception or denial, having tens of thousands suddenly face the loss of jobs, savings and perhaps their homes has twisted Harper's old beliefs into policy pretzels.

For this Conservative government, the age of ideology is over -- technically and realistically.

And whether that explains why his absurd and incompetent Finance Minister little Jimbo Flaherty seems to be paralyzed into doing nothing.
















Is it just incompetence or is it that they can't get away from their failed ideology? Can't really accept that EVERYTHING has changed and they've been written out of history. Can't throw off that neocon leash....even as the country goes down the toilet.

Just chase it around and around the crapper.

Like this cat does...



Oh boy. Wouldn't it be funny if we could get the cat to forget about the leash? And chase that nasty little Con Jimbo instead. Play with him like catnip. Or EAT him.

But these days nothing seems funny.

The Great Fear is EVERYWHERE...

Stephen Harper and Dr Strangelove

Tom Flanagan is Canada's Dr Strangelove.

The American-born and educated neocon, and member of the sinister Calgary School, sees politics as warfare. Believes that the Cons should not just defeat their enemies they should exterminate them. And that government should be DESTROYED..

That neo-conservative agenda may read as if it has been lifted straight from the dusty desk drawers of Ronald Reagan: lower taxes, less federal government, and free markets unfettered by social programs such as Medicare that keep citizens from being forced to pull up their own socks. But their arguments echo the local landscape, where Big Oil sets the tone – usually from a U.S. head office – and Pierre Trudeau’s 1980 National Energy Policy left the conviction that Confederation was rigged against the West.

And he's such a buddy buddy of Stephen Harper that when he sneezes Harper farts. And vice versa.

So when Strangelove blows air through his asshole, like he did today, Canadians should really pay attention.

I'm hopeful there will be some ideologically-driven, neo-conservative cuts to government," political scientist Tom Flanagan, a former chief of staff to Harper, said in an interview.

Such cuts, he added, would be consistent with Harper's long-term goal of reducing the size and scope of government.

"I think that's always been sort of the long-term plan, the way that Stephen was going about it of first depriving the government of surpluses through cutting taxes . . . You get rid of the surpluses and then it makes it easier to make some expenditure reductions."

Because it explains EVERYTHING.

Why the Cons blew a $12 billion surplus. Why they lowered the GST and threw away another $8 billion soon to be more like $11 billion as consumers buy less stuff.

Why they don't have any money to do anything.

Why they really LOVE deficits. And what they might do in the future to destroy the government they hate so much.

Choosing a government like that at a dark and scary time like this one, is perhaps the greatest mistake in Canadian history. If the left can't form an alliance or a coalition. If the Liberals don't change their plans to wait six long months to change their leader. If the NDP can't mobilize people who are losing their jobs or living in fear.

If we can't do something....ANYTHING....to stop these crazy inhuman ideologues who would turn our country into a jungle.

By the time most people realize what danger Canada is in.

There won't be much Canada left...