A Solid Cockpunching

UPDATE: For thundra, a graphical demonstration*.

I'm not a big fan of Karen Stintz. A card carrying member and supporter of teh Conservatives, she was Rob Ford's personal choice to head up the TTC. She's been a solid voice for the right-wing of LEAFS SUCK Council since she was elected.

But credit where due - about a month ago, she came out swinging for the original Transit City plan for the Eglinton Crosstown. The other Ford-ites on the TTC board blocked her. She then put together a coalition of other councillors and forced a special meeting today, capped off with a 28-15 vote to endorse the old surface route plan. She fought for rational transit, fought hard, and at the expense of cutting herself off from her political allies. Good work Stintz.

Here's teh background, and there's a lot of it. Transit City was a massive project with over 100 km of light rail across seven lines, mostly in dedicated at-grade right-of-ways. There were also some dedicated bus ROW's in the plan as well. This got cut in half after the provinical government decided how much cash was actually available for the project. Then they deferred half the money. And then David Miller who had championed the thing announced that he wasn't running for Mayor again. Then Adam Giambrone, who was the TTC chair at the time and Transit City's best spokesman in the 2010 mayoral election dropped from the race because of a sex scandal. And then Rob Ford was elected with a historically huge margin of victory, and he proclaimed Transit City dead.

Rob Ford's plan was to use the 8 billion in provincial funding to build one line, but bury it all. Because putting rails in the middle of our streets is part of Teh War on Teh Car. Or something. And he used his huge electoral win to bully the province into changing the plan yet again to ensure that cars would nevar be bothered by new rail. This is the 2011 Memorandum of Understanding plan that you'll see referenced if you're interested in this thing enough to read moar about it.

And then the inevitable fallout from electing a jackwad shitbag asshole fucktard pus-filled boil on teh backside of humanity started manifesting. Ford ran on a magical fairy tale - about rich fat cat swivel servants and boondoggle porkalicious bloated super waste in teh City budget which he would personally fix and teh taxpayers would suddenly get a pony. His slogan was Stop The Gravy Train. Turns out that there wasn't any gravy in the city budget. Unless you count stuff like public libraries. His "Core Services Review" was about as well received as a solid cockpunching.

So while Rob Ford had big victories early in his tenure, his influence has basically entered freefall. The first coup was when Council told him to stuff his waterfront plan (with a Monorail! yes teh inevitable Simpsons joke was bandied around a lot at teh time) and then council reversed a bunch of his budget cuts. That budget cut reversal vote was on January 17th, and was a squeaker at 23-21. Karen Stintz voted with Ford that day.

Anyways, Rob Ford's plan was obviously stupid. Here's a look at the various plans. The part of the Eglinton Crosstown that he wanted to bury is out east into Scarborough - my neighbourhood. Here Eglinton is seven lanes wide. There is space for a dedicated ROW. Also too, density is pretty low. A lot of it is strip malls and big box stores with big box parking lots. Getting the density to support a full subway would require a massive shit-ton of development. Not that it matters since Ford wasn't even actually proposing a subway. He was proposing the exact same LRVs as in the Transit City plan, just with all of the rail buried. Because cars.

But that's now a thing of the past. You see, LEAFS SUCK has a "weak mayor-strong council" system of governance. The mayor only gets one vote and he needs to build support amongst councillors for his proposals. There was in fact a legal ruling (solicited by Council) that the Mayor did not have the authority to unilaterally bind the city to the 2011 MOU. And Rob Ford is a stubborn ideologue who is actually physically incapable of compromise without becoming violently ill, so his ability to build consensus is directly tied to his ability to intimidate and bully. And now that the city has had the opportunity to see how useless and ignorant he is, he's a lot less intimidating.

Which brings us to tonight. Council got a taste of victory in the budget cut reversal. A lot of councillors are serving their first terms, but they now have some experience with the system. And Council exercised its power and basically told the mayor to go fuck himself. It is about fucking time.

*Bear cockpunch stoleded from this thread.

A Big Night for Santorum

By Dragon-King Wangchuck

If Mitt Romney thought the road to the GOP nomination was going to be smooth and easy, last night has changed his mind. Surging to victory in all three state-wide contests, Rick Santorum has shown Romney that despite his well greased entry into the frontrunner position, a lot of vigorous work still lies ahead.

It started with Iowa. Santorum's campaign to penetrate deep into America's heartland suffered when Romney showed strong in the first contest. But in the end, it was Santorum that was left as the symbol of Iowa's GOP.

Santorum trickled in the next few contests, with just a small showing on the bottom of the candidates. This led many to believe that he had blown his wad in Iowa, but that's the point about Santorum. Everyone just seems to forget about him despite the fact that he's always there at the finish.

And last night was the reminder. Spreading outwards from that first Iowa victory, in a crack right down the middle of America, Santorum has shot out to the front of the pack. Bursting forth all over the three states Republican parties, Santorum seemed to be everwhere.

He surely hopes to capitalize on this momentum, perhaps by producing a flood of donations. Who knows, maybe this underdog can come from behind and ride the Santorum wave right to the convention. If Romney is having troubles with Santorum now, a long hot summer filled with Santorum is only going to stink up his dreams of the candidacy.

Edit: added byline and cleaned up some booboos

Pike 2012

The story of teh GOP nom ination run is of teh boom and teh bust, with each succesive Tea Party favourite taking their turn at Mittster. And while Talking Pants Marshall is playing with yarn, the National Post brings much better graphics and analysis almost a week earlier. Anyways, we're left with the question of who is to take teh reins as Tea Party saviour after Newt flames out? I think teh answer is pretty obvious:

Through The Fire and Herman Cain

I was going to let this sit until next year, but that plan only works if Romney's campaign suddenly totally craps out. Plus I need paddle that post count something fierce if I'm to make 100 by year's end. Anywho,,,

On a cold autumn morning,
He’s teh Hero of teh Right!
Leading polls is Herman Cain,
Be president he just might.

When the darkness has fallen down,
And the times are tough alright,
The sound of evil laughter falls
Around the world tonight.

Fighting hard, fighting to cut funds
Ensuring wastelands evermore
The scattered souls will feel the Hell
Bodies wasted on the shore

On the blackest plains of Hell’s domain
He watches them as they go
For he is always Herman Cain, teh rest of you can blow.

So now we’re flying and free!
Of entitlements and welfare moms
They’re left out in the wilderness
While the rest of us carry on

Far beyond just tax cuts
Far beyond a means test
Deep inside the social contract TEEEERRRRMMMS!

So far away! We wait for that day,
When the hippies oh so wasted are all gone
Vote Herman Cain, for lifetimes lost in a thousand days
Vote Herman Cain and he will carry on.

[Guitar Solo]

As the (commie) Red day is Dawning (WOLVERINES!)
And the liberals raise up a cry,
They’ll raise their hands to the heavens above,
With resentment in their eyes.

Running hard the conservative right
Has a burning in their souls
To banish liberals to a fallen land
Perhaps to Mexico.

It’s their darkest dreams and they believe
It’s their destiny this time
And endlessly
They’ll all be free
Of LIBERALS!!!!

But their count of votes GOP
Is so far beyond reality
They’re alone in desperation
Now the time has gone

Lost inside, they’ll never find
Their way back to this real world
Day after day their misery must go on!

So far away, they wait for another day
2012 was so wasted and gone
On Herman Cain, election lost for a thousand days
But through Usurpers reign, they will carry on.

[Crazy ass guitar solo - RED SNAKE OF DOOM]

So far away, they wait for the day
Since 2012 was wasted and gone
On Herman Cain, election lost for a thousand days
To One L – twenty sixteen it shall belong.

Now there they stand, limp dicks in hand
They fapped so hard, we still can’t understand
They’ll break civil society if they possibly can
For teh Freedom of every man!

So far away, they wait for the day
Since 2012 was wasted and gone
On Herman Cain, election lost for a thousand days
To One L – twenty sixteen it shall belong.

Election Day Again

Third time in less than a year, tomorrow is voting day in Ontario.  It's been a pretty lousy year as teh first election got us Mayor Rob Ford and teh second one got us a Conservative majority government at the federal level.  So I'm not feeling particularly optimistic.

Right now, opinion polling is looking pretty good.  This is the end of the second consecutive Liberal majority, so the public was certainly in a mood to toss teh bums out.  8 years is plenty long enough to develop a good collection of bad decisions, but that's something I certainly don't have to tell my American readers.  At the beginning of the year that mood dominated with the Progressive Conservatives enjoying close to a ten point lead - but the shine has already started to come off the right-ward swing.  The last polls before the official one are calling for a Liberal victory - just a question of whether it will be a third majority government in a row or not.

Maybe it's that Ford Nation am disappoint.  With good reason.  Maybe it's because, teh Harper majority, although only convened for a few weeks, has managed to Law and Order teh fear of totalitarianism into teh public.  Maybe being ignorant selfish fucktard assholes is a phase that most Canadians work through in under a year.  Maybe it's because the Ontario's PC party went with teh most unlikable shitbag they could have found for leader.  I don't know what the reasons are, but I am hoping that they hold strong throughout tomorrow.  Because a conservative trifecta will make being in LEAFS SUCK pretty fucking sucky.

Anywho, my predictions (based on pure guesswork) - first the Dippers are going to do a lot bettar than anyone's calling for.  Not an Orange surge like in teh Federal election, but at moar than teh 10 to 20 they are projected to pick up.  Also, I'm calling for a not-quite majority Liberal government.  Plus one seat for the Greens, because why not.

Lib: 53, PC: 28, NDP: 25, Green: 1 - that's the results after all the too-close-to-call ridings are finally called.  I'm guessing that there'll be three of these - close enough for recounts, which may or may not happen but don't actually flip any seats.

My own riding was one of the few LEAFS SUCKian ridings that flipped Conservative during the federal election and went for Rob Ford really strongly.  I'm predicting that my neighbours have been disillusioned enough with the right that we'll keep our Liberal MPP.  He's also fairly high profile being teh Minister of Energy - and that's actually one of the issues being talked about right now too.

Anyways, we'll see how out of touch I am with my province in just a bit over 24 hours.  And there's an unopened bottle of Bulleit in case I need consoling.

We'll see how totes off teh mark I

Good-bye Jack

Jack Layton has passed away this morning.

He was that odd thing which confuses everyone - a decent politician. He was genuinely liked and respected throughout the nation. If anything, people thought he was too naive and not cynical enough to be playing teh game. And yet he lead his party to a historic showing in the last election, the first non-Conservative and non-Liberal to be elected Leader of the Opposition.

A hippie and an idealist. The guy was a complete and total dork - but in that honest and endearing way. This is him on the campaign trail for that historic election:


It does seem like a smaller world without Jack in it.

Dippers, Grits and Tories*

Election Time!

I was going to write something about our retarded First Past Teh Post bullshit system and Proportional Representation and such. Stuff about 40% majorities and snarky comments like "if PR governments are so unstable, explain why we are going to the polls for the fifth time since 2000."

But with the new polls showing Team Orange stomping teh crap out of teh Liberals I've decided to shelve that rant and instead talk about what might be an actually interesting election.

Polls are showing that Jack Layton has a good shot at Leader of the Opposition. Some are even indicating a potential for a NDP-Liberal coalition, in which case we would be looking at Prime Minister Layton. This is a pretty big deal - it would mark the first ever non-Grit or Tory PM. Closest thing before was Meighen back in WWI winning with a Liberal splinter group (a sort of Blue Dog-Gang of n type thing).

And numbers from opinion polling for Canuckian federal elections tended to be in the neighbourhood of +/- 1% in 2006 and 2008**. Still FPTP in Canada with 4 parties at 10% or more - it does some crazy shit to number of seats won despite share of popular vote. Makes teh Electoral College look downright fair and democratic. Not to mention that Canada doesn't have a one-person-one-vote thing and rural voters often have twice as much voting power as anyone else not in Quebec.

Okay, so a couple of points. Firstly, I don't think Layton could do a worse job as PM than Harper has so far - but it ain't gonna happen. Unless the major vote splitting that occurs is that a lotta Conservative voters vote Liberal to keep Layton from becoming Leader of the Opposition and it backfires giving the NDP the plurality of seats - because there is no way that even a dying Liberal party will sign on to be second fiddle in a coalition government.

Secondly - a dying Liberal party really does make things much more interesting here in the Great White North. One of the things that has kept the NDP from gaining seats is that strategic vote-splitting group that see the Liberals as the only alternative to Canada's own Talibangelicals. But if the NDP manages to grab more seats then the primary reason to vote Liberal is gone. No longer will the Red be the logical alternative to the Blue. This changes the electoral map considerably and the reinventing/rebuilding of "Canada's Natural Governing Party" will have to be pretty darned substantial. Popcorn-a-licious-ness!

But that's for further down the road. What of the upcoming session - the one that we're voting on tomorrow? That all depends on whether Harper ekes out his 155th seat. If he does then it'll be dark times ahead. The Conservative Party doesn't give two shits about it's members, and rightly so. The guy they're running in Lethbridge has decided not to give any interviews or participate in any debates. All he does is go around knocking on doors because he is an absolute disaster of a candidate and can't be trusted in front of media. And he will still most likely hold the riding. There will be no questioning of the harper regime and party discipline will be cultishly strict. At least on the moderate end. A lot of the party discipline problems Harper's had is from the far right whackaloons that he's tried to keep reined in to improve his appeal to the mainstream - but with half a decade of majority rule, he won't have to worry as much. So yeah, Conservative majority would be seriously bad shit for Canada - so bad that I'm not going to contemplate it any further.

Here's my prediction then. Conservatives 140, NDP 80, Liberals 60, Bloc 25, Green 2, Independent 1. This is all hoping for strong voter turnout - a return to the 65% neighbourhood it should be in. Also, that the strong turnout is primarily a result of NDP momentum. We'll see tomorrow.

Post election, Iggy steps down - Bob Rae becomes the new Liberal leader. Harper pivots further to the right and portrays his party as the last bulwark against SOCIALISM! Then tries to re-pivot in two years when a looming confidence vote creeps ever nearer and he realizes that non-Albertan Canadians don't respond to SOCIALISM! the way he expects them to. Hilarity ensues.

Anyways - that is a helluva lotta rambling and blathering just to get my seat predictions in, but there's my guess for what tomorrow holds.

* To balance out teh NDP news for McGravitas, Post Title is from a Moxy Fruvous song. Here's an amateur cover version.

** Seriously. I guess Canadians don't lie to pollsters. Here's 2006 and 2008.

Uh - Okay, I Forgot to Title the Post.

HOLY FUCK. Set your stupid-ass bullshit blockers to max folks, this one's a humdinger.
Althouse's latest post is part of one of the batch of next conservative blog putrage. Apparently Obama is practically Nixonian in his keeping of an enemies list. Proof? Check it out.

House Republican Leader John Boehner plans to hammer President Obama during an election-eve rally on Monday night, for his use of the word “enemies” during an interview with Univision radio that got huge play in the conservative blogosphere.

OMG! Obama's all about teh ENEMIES of TEH STATE! TOTALITARIAN SOJALLESMASM!!one!

The president said: “If Latinos sit out the election instead of saying, ‘We’re gonna punish our enemies, and we’re gonna reward our friends who stand with us on issues that are important to us’ — if they don’t see that kind of upsurge in voting in this election — then I think it’s going to be harder. And that’s why I think it’s so important that people focus on voting on November 2nd.”

Uh- wait, that doesn't sound so bad.

In remarks prepared for delivery to a rally in Cincinnati with Rob Portman, the GOP nominee for Senate in Ohio, and John Kasich, the GOP nominee for Ohio governor, Boehner says:

“Ladies and gentlemen, we have a president in the White House who referred to Americans who disagree with him as ‘our enemies.’...Mr. President, there's a word for people who have the audacity to speak up in defense of freedom, the Constitution, and the values of limited government that made our country great. We don't call them ‘enemies.’ We call them ‘patriots.’”

There you have it. Not voting is PATRIOTIC.

UPDATE: Kudos to Althouse commenter Irene who points out that Althouse has cried about this Wolf before.

The pattern apparently is: Obama does something (encourages Latinos to vote, talks directly to CEO's of major corporations instead of their Special Interest Group, &c.). It upsets a Republican who then mischaracterizes it as some sort of "ENEMIES LIST". Althouse calls Obama Nixon. I think she must have a Google Alert for "Obama enemies list".

Mayor May Not

Municipal elections for LEAFS SUCK are Monday and we're going to have a new Mayor.  That means the current one is retiring since the pattern appears to be that you don't get voted out of office.

Some history - back in '97, LEAFS SUCK was comprised of five cities and one borough were amalgamated into what is now LEAFS SUCK.  There was some pretty serious opposition to the move - in fact a referendum held on the subject came back at over 75% No.  Anyways, at the time the term "Megacity" was being used because amalgamation would take Toronto's population from 2/3 of a million to over 2 million.

The new Megacity got its first Mega Mayor in Mel Lastman, one of those salesmen who makes a name for his local business by acting like a spectacle.  He continued that trend as Mega Mayor and is remembered mostly for the many episodes of embarassment he brought upon LEAFS SUCK.  Anyways, despite being a huge embarassment he was re-elected for a second term and then retired despite the fact that he probably would have won had he run again.

The next guy, our current mayor, is David Miller.  He's a leftsist enviro Harvard graduate elite hippie intellectual &c. who bikes to work.  He's finishing out his second term and, despite the fact that he would have easily been re-elected, is retiring.

To be fair, apparently the job of Mayor of LEAFS SUCK sucks almost as much as the Leafs do - so running for re-election even once has got to be a major sacrifice.  Our local government is council-strong, executive-weak as just about everything needs council approval.  Gotta be frustrating as the Mayor of LEAFS SUCK has the largest direct mandate in Canada (we have parliamentary governments at the higher levels).

Right now the front-runner is Rob Ford, who was viewed as a joke when he entered the campaign.  At the time he was most famous for holding his council office expenses to zero.  As you've probably already guessed, he's a small government guy running on the magical power of tax cuts.

The opposition consists of Miller's deputy mayor - Joe Pantalone, and George Smitherman who's transitioning down from the Provinical government.  While our municipal elections are party-free, the current crop is basically a Conservative, a Liberal and a New Democrat.

I think the most important lesson learned from this campaign is that "running as an incumbent" is the stupidest fucking advice anyone can give a politician.  Sure incumbents get re-elected a lot, but if you aren't actually the incumbent, it's not going to help you out at all.  Smitherman started this thing with nearly majority support in a field of eight-ish.  He "ran as an incumbent" since he had incumbent-level support in the polls as well as backing from Ontario's Liberal Party Machine. And now he is now trailing.  In fact, a couple weeks ago Rob Ford was out-polling him two to one.  Joe Pantalone, who is the closest thing to maintaining continuity through the mayor's office, has never polled higher than undecided.

I know it goes against all the conventional wisdom of politics, but you have to take positions on things - and do so early on.  This goes even if you take the wrong position because flip-flopping is less damaging than being a total unknown quantity.  Sack up and stand for something, you can always act like a coward and do a one eighty later on.

The other lesson learned is that "Strategic Voting" is basically the entire bag of tricks for the Liberal party.  The only time Smitherman's numbers improved was when Ford opened up a huge lead and the fear of a conservative right-wing hack getting in siphoned support from anyone left of centre.  Ah, Canadian politics.

Peering Into the Krystal Ball

If I could have any one thing this upcoming midterm election - it would be the election of Krystal Ball. Yes, her name is Krystal Ball - blame her dad Ed, fucking physicists and their obsessive fixations on regularly ordered lattice structures. And yes, her politics and mine don't exactly line up - she's a card carrying NRA member and I'm not particularly enthusiastic about businesspeople/entrepeneurs that decide to take up politics.

BUT, there are now some racy photos of her from a costume party floating around the interweebs. And my endorsement isn't due to the fact that she's hawt in that bored housewife playing at being naughty but not really understanding the explosively charged realm of hedonistic debauchery she's getting into kinda way (PS tell your mom I said Hi!). It's because of her response to having photos of her playing with a dildo released to the weebs.

I have a message for any young woman who is thinking about running for office and has ever attended a costume party with her husband or done anything stupid on camera. Run for office. Fight for this country. Don’t let this sort of tactic deter you. Of course, I am embarrassed by these photos,that was the whole point of these political operatives when they put them up. But more than just embarrassed, I’m angry! I’m angry that when we are suffering from high unemployment, record budget deficits and a broken education system, that crass political operatives will resort to the politics of personal destruction when they can’t talk about the issues.

w00t! That's even hotta than that pic with you and the sexy nurse tongueing the silver pocket vibrator.

UPDATE:  MB has pointed out that I'm treating this blog like it's delivered by truck as opposed to a series of tubes.  Text-only on a post like this?  Whooops.  Anyways (from the Gawker link above), this is Krystal Ball:

But I Didn't in Haley.

UPDATE: OMG, What's this doing here already? I am going to have to figure out this Schedule Posts option. My intent was for this to go up after the SC polls closed. I guess I'll have to console myself with the fact that my influence amongst SC Republicans is zero or less.

So, nevermind that she's up twenty points in the last poll so this is a safe bet - and nevermind that this endorsement is coming well over an hour after the polls have closed.

I am endorsing Nikki Haley. No, it's not my "firebagger" tendency to agree with Irky Irksome or The Quitta from Wasilla. Here's why:

Firstly, I don't know enough about Nikki Haley or her positions (heh) on the issues. The strikes against her are 1. She's Republican and 2. She's a Tea Party favourite. Well, that's just guilt by association - she might turn out to be a totally reasonable individual. Okay maybe not totally reasonable and still a member of the GOP, but not necessarily more deranged than your average pol.

I do know that Andre Bauer was the force behind the I BELIEVE license plate fiasco. So there's a big plus on her side - she's not Andre Bauer.

Regardless, it would be totally reckless of me to endorse someone based on just those reasons. There's two other repubs running in that primary that are also not Andre Bauer.

No, here is why - all I know about Nikki Haley is tied into the salacious rumours about her extra-curricular activities. And those are just rumours.

Why is that a reason? Well consider this - there are two(ish) possibilities - 1. that she sleeps around or 2. that she doesn't. Let's tackle #2 first. If that is indeed the case, and this entire thing has been part of a concentrated effort by SC GOP insiders to derail her nomination by ruining the two separate families. Ludicrous, but if that is indeed the case then I am solidly behind anyone that is being targetted by such an inhuman group.

So, what if she did do it. What if she is an adulterous libertine? Well, in that case I am also firmly in support. Seriously, whatever she does with other consenting adults in the privacy of some sleazy motel room that rents out by the hour - well so long as she was practising safe sex and not exposing her husband to unkonown risks of sexually transmitted infections - that is her business. Well and the guy's, however many of them there might be. And the photographer. And the media outlet that buys the photo and their readers. But other than that, totally private and without bearing on her fitness for the executive.

Besides, it would mean that she is pro-sex-with-bloggers, and I'm certainly not going to undermine that platform.

SRSLY, consider that Mark Sanford is still Govenor - obviously the SC-GOP doesn't have that big an issue with adultery. Also John Ensign is still sitting in the US Senate, Newt Gingrich is considered one of the top guys in the party, their presidential candidate was John Skirtchaser McCain the Third. Punishing Nikki Haley for sleeping around when those other guys get off (heh) without rebuke (well except Sanford, I guess we won't have him to kick around much longer) that would be sexist.

SO, if any South Carolinian Republicans are reading this and have access to a time machine that will take them back in time at least a couple hours - vote for Nikki Haley. Do it for gender equality.