The phone rang this evening. Caller ID said "Private Caller", but I answered it anyway because it says that whenever a friend of mine calls from the States. Except it wasn't my friend, it was a call on behalf of Stephen Harper and the Conservative Party of Canada, looking for Mr. Dr. Prole (the registered voter in the household). "He's not available, but I'd be happy to speak with you," I said.

"Oh, great!  Ok your name is Dr. Prole, same last name?  Dr. Prole, are you a supporter of the Conservative Party?" says the nice lady.

"No."

"Oookay then, thank you!  Buh-bye!"

I wonder if the Onion Ring is starting to get under Steve's skin.  

We know that deficits are bad.
It takes years to get out of the hole, as our own nation found out after the Mulroney years. Conservative slash corporate taxes and spend policies are bad for any country that also expects to have things like education and healthcare, and social safety nets.

And Canadians do expect these things.  We are pretty civilized as a whole. We do not usually leave our fellow human beings to rot as some of the hard core right wing are so wont to do.

This Harper deficit, started well before the official recession. Let us be perfectly honest here.

Compare and contrast: President Obama took questions for over an hour from the most hostile audience that could be assembled, witn no scripted questions and no notes or teleprompter.   After giving them what had to be the smoothest ass kicking of their lives, half the GOP were asking for his autograph and could they please get a picture of him with their kids? 

Sarah Palin spoke at the friendliest of friendy events, the Teabagger Convention, for which she was paid a reported $100,000.  Then she sat down to take some scripted softball questions from a doting admirer, which in order to answer she had to look at the cheater notes written on her hand.  Observe.

Yeee haw!

Approx 53% of the population of Canada, is made up of women.

An important voting block? One would think.

Steve's numbers have been falling recently. Many pundits think it is simply a temporary blip in the rise to stardom of Harper the Master strategist......I always hear John Lovitz's voice when anyone calls him that....

But it begins to look like a "structural" deficit after a month of dropping polls. 

The really galling part is that, despite the way the Harper Conservatives have been treating 53% of the population (minus the .254424% of self loathers who call themselves "REAL wimmin") for the past 4 years, Mister Harper and his anti women MP's have decided that they can make us think they are suddenly all about maternal health. 

If you are visting ACR for the first time via the fabulous Antonia Zerbisias treeware column, might I direct your attention here, here, here, and here.  Oh and here too.  And there's plenty more where that came from, darlin'.  If you scroll down and look left we have a google search box thingy for you to find anything else that your heart desires. 

Welcome to A Creative Revolution.  

California has a GOP senate primary battle royale in the works. Get the popcorn! Ladeez and gents, I present to you the winner of the Most F**ked Up Political Commercial Ever Made in the History of Elections on Earth and Possibly the Galaxy. Seriously, you have to watch the whole thing. It gets weirder by the second.

New Video about some of the Ten Percenters, and the absolute waste of money from the Prorogue.

Pass it on...

Use that card.

Ixnay on the eligionray.....

I know, I know.....Some Canadians look at the kind of stuff I write and say.....They are religious? So what? It is not polite to talk about that!

I think we learned that from our Mother's. Polite conversation does not include the following: Religion, Politics, sex, or bodily functions. And I think that is what the Harper Conservatives are partly counting on.....Our politeness.

How can you identify a Canadian? When you bump into them they say, "sorry"!

As I have said so many times....
I will always defend anyone's right to religion......As long as that includes my right to be free from religion.

Interesting how that works hey? We have a pretty diverse country as far as religion goes, and personal freedom of religion is a guaranteed right in the Charter. As it should be.

But we are not just talking about religion here, no.

Somehow I missed this in December, but Ottawa wants to know if you are OK with food companies putting a "cancer fighting enzyme" into baked and fried foods. 

Putting the enzyme asparaginase in baked and fried food is a "high priority" for Health Canada, the government said Tuesday in calling for comments.

snip

Companies such as McCain's and Frito Lay are urging Ottawa to approve the food additive and any other substance that cuts down on the levels in processed food, junk food, bread and cereal of a probable carcinogen.

Hear ye, hear ye!  From this day forward, if you are caught using a cell phone in your car in British Columbia, you will get a $167 fine.  If you are caught texting while driving, it's $167 and 3 points.  Unfortunately they cops are not really allowed to cuff you upside the head for that. 

Here's an idea. If you don't like the way someone blogs, instead of scolding the whole wide blogosphere and proclaiming how irritating you find their style, you could, say, NOT READ THEM ANYMORE?! Nobody's forcing you to have your delicate sensibilities offended. It's a free country in most ways.

Over the years I've had over 20 pelvic exams, all done while I was fully conscious.   I made the appointments myself, even.  I was able to tell the doctor if anything was painful or unbearably uncomfortable.  If they would have asked me nicely, maybe I would have consented to having a student observe or even perform the exam or parts of it, like collecting the cervical smear sample to test for cancer.  Maybe.  It's an invasive examination done on a woman's most private of parts, and depending on my mood or the demeanor of the doctors, it's just as likely that I'd not consent, which would be my choice because I was conscious.  

Until this morning I was unaware that in Canada's teaching hospitals, my consent to a pelvic examination while under anesthesia is implicit.  Excuse me, but HELL NO. 

UPDATE: As quietly as it "disappeared", it is back. Nothing from FB. But a lot of noise was created. So there ya go.......Wheeeeeeeeee! Rock on.

How does a FB group with 130,000 members go into the ozone? I am not sure either....
I noticed something this morning in my travels, and have been watching for more info....

Bill Tieleman The Facebook protest group NO BC HST - BC's biggest Facebook group with over 130,000 members - has completely disappeared this afternoon! I have filed a report with Facebook and hope it is a technical problem that will be soon resolved but at this time I don't know what has happened - stay tuned!

Fri at 5:32pm

Stuff happens.....But then.....

Bill Tieleman Another Facebook protest group disappears! Axe The BC Gas Tax has also disappeared completely! This is the second group I created and adminster that has vanished into thin air in the last 24 hours -I cannot tell you what is going on but I am very, very concerned at this point!

Now. I am NOT an Obamamaniac. I don't say too much normally about what I think are Obama failures.

He ain't my president. I knew he was centrist before the election, even if many chose not to see that. Dr Prole was the same, she was just so desperate to get the Repubs out. She has family down there.....We have discussed this, and ya. Well aware of the shortcomings of St Obama.

And REALLY grateful McCain lost.

But today......HOLY MOLEY.
Obama attended the Republican retreat; he gave a really strong speech. Then came a Q and A? Televised.

Click here, will not let me embed.

According to Luke Russert on MSNBC, a Repub told him privately that it was a BAD bad thing to allow the cameras in.

FOX news saw the writing on the wall and cut it off halfway in and have not mentioned the BAD time since on the air.

Send them to this video. The REAL news covers the Pro Democracy movement in Canada.

One of the people they quote sayz Canadians will forget all about this come March? I certainly hope not.

10 minutes out of a day. Well spent.