Desi In Toronto

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Liberal MP Wayne Easter called for the Agriculture Minister’s resignation Wednesday after he heard about comments made by the minister making light of deaths attributed to the listeriosis crisis, including a PEI fatality he hoped was Mr. Easter.

The remarks were made in a conference call on Aug. 30 at the height of the listeriosis crisis, between Gerry Ritz and members of the Canadian Food Inspection Agency. Mr. Ritz joked during the call that the crisis was causing the government a death of a thousand cuts “or should I say the death of a thousand cold cuts.”

When informed that one fatality had taken place in Prince Edward Island, Mr. Ritz is reported to have said, “please tell me it’s Wayne Easter.” Mr. Easter is the Liberal agriculture critic.

All right children!!!! Spell it with me – C.L.E.A.N. campaign.

UPDATE : And what does this comment mean?

“In a time of economic uncertainty, I do think the country needs a strong government that’s able to govern,” Mr. Harper told journalists in Toronto. “My concern is that obviously, going forward, that we have a government that’s going to be sabotaged by a bunch of parties who don’t want our economy to be successful.”

What!!?!!! Again Harper proves that he is following the Rovian handbook of campaigning.

In the past few months all opposition parties have time and time again walked in-step with the conservatives. Be it arm twisting or a “dare” by the conservatives but we seen that Liberals, NDP and the BLOC have voted with the Harper government on one issue or the other. And it was the CONSERVATIVES who brought down their own government and not the opposition parties.

What the hell is this guy talking about? Here’s a clear picture of how effective Harper has been :

The Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives always has such interesting ideas about what we can do other than the status quo. Their document has some interesting facts. After several attempts to get excel to create a pretty graph, I’m going to give you the table and let you take a look. I’d love it if someone had a good graphing program which they could direct me to.

The low scores are mostly conservative governments, and they remain the low scores even when you factor the time in.

Harper really needs to stop wearing these sweaters. They are probably cutting his blood supply to the brain.

Well, I refer to not Dilbert, perse, But the creator of Dilbert, Scott Adams. Here is his latest post on cnn.

This summer I found myself wishing someone would give voters useful and unbiased information about which candidate has the best plans for the economy.

Then I realized that I am someone, which is both inconvenient and expensive. So for once I asked not what my country could do for me.

At considerable personal expense, I commissioned a survey of over 500 economists, drawn from a subset of the members of the American Economic Association, a nonpolitical group, some of whose members had agreed in advance to be surveyed on economic questions.

The results do not represent the economic association’s position. The survey was managed by The OSR Group, a respected national public opinion and marketing research company.

I should pause here and confess my personal biases, since the messenger is part of the story. On social issues, I lean Libertarian, minus the crazy stuff.

Moneywise, I can’t support a candidate who promises to tax the bejeezus out of my bracket, give the windfall to a bunch of clowns with a 14 percent approval rating (Congress), and hope they spend it wisely.

Unfortunately, the alternative to the guy who promises to pillage my wallet is a lukewarm cadaver. I’m in trouble either way.

I just hope whoever gets elected notices that the economists in my survey don’t think that raising my taxes is a priority

I was a big fan of Dilbert in the heydays of The Dilbert Principle but the strip fell out of my favour when I noticed :

a) the strip was becoming heavily commercialised

b) the jokes were repeating themselves

c) Scott Adams is a believer of Intelligent Design

After going through his blogs (here and here), I cannot find his post where he claimed that ID asks “pertinent” questions. Only a completely moronic person could make such a claim. Anyway, here’s PZ Meyers breaking down Adams’ argument the way he does best.

and now I can add

d) Scott Adams, the multi-millionaire is whinning about how he is going to be taxed by Obama (true) and by McCain (not true).

I just don’t understand how someone could be earning millions upon millions of dollars and moaning about having to pay a little more in tax. This is not the thinking of a confident, self made man. This is the thinking of a ego-maniac.

What a tool.