The Rintrarian Archive

My theory about shampoo is that there is only one reason for it. And that is to make your hair smell nice. Basically what shampoo does is take out the oils in the hair and put in artificial ingredients with strange names so that we assume they are good. And then we do it again and again just so the companies can continue to sell us their crap because we use so damn much of it. Just like politics. And when we get tired of the scent we have we buy a different flavour but they do the same exact shit.

The Liberals had some corruption on their hands. Whether or not those in office were the ones who perpetrated it is irrelevant. We needed someone to Plame. (Oops, I mean blame, although we could just out one of our spies just to get even in some psychotic way.) So we took a bold step right-ward. Or did we? The Australians seems to get it, why can’t we? Or the Americans? We did not “move” to the right. People were reacting. Changing shampoos. Likely changing back when we see our safety nets crumbling while our army being handing cash hand over fist. On the plus side we would have Polar Bears with guns. That would be cool, in a psychotic sort of way.

Canadians did this with John A. MacDonald and the Pacific Railway scandal. They ousted him but after one term being out of office he was back again. But Conservative scandals such as that are not an issue. I mean both the Liberal scandal and the railway thing only had something to do with uniting the country or maintaining that unity. Nothing significant.

And with Hamas getting in power after the Fatah party corruption stuffs it would appear that changing our flavour of shampoo is our only option. Although with Hamas they switched to shampoo plus conditioner. Canadians seem to have permanently shelved all flavours of Suave, and Pert and have settled on Head and Shoulders. (Mind you, Selson Blue was shelved when Chretien stepped down.)

The US has their share of corruption and is in dire need of a new brand of shampoo. The question is, did Canada move to the right after the scandal here? Did Palestine move to being more terroristy after ousting Fatah? And will the US move “left” as a result of the Republican lobbying scandal? Or is ousting corrupt or seemingly corrupt politicians not an indicator of the political affiliation but rather just an indication of the smell that is making us sick at the moment?

The way I understand it, the US invaded Iraq to bring democracy to the region. But the US tried to stay out of the Canadian election in order to allow Conservatives to win.

Some US conservatives think that Canada is “hedonistic” and “liberal.” Hedonistic? Blah blah blah, plank in your own eye, blah, before, blah blah, speck in mine. As for liberal. Sure. But the idea of the US bringing democracy to the middle-east and ensuring conservatism here in Canada. Funny funny. No one likes to be told what to do. The US should know that by now.

But this US Weyrich guy is an idiot. He labels same-sex-marriage and abortion as being Marxist. This is no more true than infidelity and murder are Capitalistic.

And in regards to Harper’s partisans saying that he could hold onto power for four years, while it is possible, those words are coming from a partisan source. Of course they will say that.

If this guy is the head of a think-tank and think-tanks are supposed to have the brightest and best then I fear what the rest of the country is like.

*Shrug*

Hammas wins in Palestinian election. The militant Hammas defeated the corrupt Fatah party. But, according to some guy I heard on CBC news when I woke up this morning, this may not be Palestine becoming more radical but rather votes were cast against the Fatah party and their corruption.

And CNN appears to give credence to this idea as well:

“Mostly, they were voting for opposition and voting against Fatah — against corruption, against nepotism, against the failure of the peace process, and against the lack of leadership,” said Mustafa Barghouti with the Palestinian National Initiative, a democratic opposition movement.

But then I was thinking about the Canadian election. People were saying that our own election was a referendum on Gomery. Then would it not be true that we did not “shift right” but rather we voted against the Liberals?

On the Hammas victory
• The Washington Post
• The New York Times

The Bush Administration still calls Hammas a terrorist group and it will be interesting to see how they deal with this. They will, likely, consider this election in a very different light than the Canadian one. And for good reason. The Conservatives in Canada don’t have the terrorist stigma that Hammas has. But there is somewhat of a similarity between the two elections. Both were dealing with corruption on some level or another. But the Canadian one is being touted as a “shift to the right” while the Palestinian one is reaction to corruption. Considering that the entire campaign process in Canada was about the corrupt Liberals it seems silly to ignore it now when analyzing the results.

Bush called Harper and said “Atta boy.” Or something to that affect.

The CTV article suggests that Harper will refrain from being too friendly with Bush. This idea seems to suggest that Harper could be quite friendly and that, for some reason or another, Canadians may not like if he were. This would also suggest that Harper is somewhat aligned with Bush.

This same article suggests that Bush would play it low-key with his new friend PM SH. If that is true then it would also be true that Bush knows that being overly friendly may distance himself from Canadians – more so than he already is. If either of the two parties (Bush Camp and Harper Camp) have to consciously take a step back to avoid stepping on toes then the opposite of what is seen publicly is true. Deliberate avoidance would mean the desire for closeness.

So, will these two guys dance? At least in Brokeback Mountain the two cowboys, once in the tent together, did not waste any time dilly dallying. They spit on their dicks and up the ass we go. Bush and Harper are going to get sore balls trying to be coy.

Is it just me or is everyone overstating things? And I mean everyone. Or am I the only overstating things? And I am speaking, of course, in regards to the most astonishing, important and greatest election in Canadian history.

*sigh*

Sure the Conservatives made some in-roads into Quebec, but is it because they like the Conservatives more or that they just like the Liberals less?

And, yes, the Bloc lost some ground in terms of popular support and a seat or few but does that mean they are losing traction? If so, what about Montreal? Did Montrealers vote Bloc because they believe in the Bloc or because they do not like the Liberals AND they do not like the Conservatives? If that is the case then is it also possible that former Bloc voters switched to the Conservatives because they wanted to make sure that the Liberals did not get in?

And the Conservative sweep of Alberta . . . did anyone truly expect it to be that radically different? Does the Conservative gains actually mean Canada is moving to the right? What about the NDP gains? Though not as great as the Cons, are not these gains, along with the Cons, as a result of the Liberal scandal? So is this a shift or a momentary reaction? A reflex?

What about the fact that the Liberals retained as many seats as they did? Sure they lost Reg Alcock but they did not get hit as hard as some may have thought. Look, Goodale is still in. He actually was implicated in a scandal. And all the leaders minus Jim Harris got in. Does that say anything?

If this was a “referendum on Gomery” then what was the result? The Liberals lost the seat of power but are still in with a fair number of seats. The NDP gained seats and the Bloc lost some. So, what is it that we have decided?

In Harper’s victory speech he brought up Sir John A. MacDonald’s name. MacDonald himself was riddled with scandal. What does this say? Harper could not be implicated in that. Martin was not implicated in the Sponsorship scandal. What does that say about this so-called referendum?

And Churchill went Liberal. And Stephen Fletcher got re-elected. And the three NDPers in Winnipeg got re-elected – all three are wonderful, by the way. And Svend lost. But really, is this that much of a change? The Conservatives can implement their 6% GST, their Child-care plan and tax cuts but will the average person actually feel the so-called “change?” At the very least they will feel the negative parts of the Conservative platform: reversing Liberal tax cuts for the lower tax brackets, and possible cuts to social services. The only real change is for those who have the least use for it: the rich. But that is what we expect from Conservatives. And how big are the Conservative changes going to be? Especially in a minority government.

The 5 planks of the Conservative platform are small and sometimes petty changes. GST = small, childcare = small. The accountability question = sensationalistic (appealing to emotions). Patient wait times = does not affect everyone (broke a leg: no problem; bronchitis: no problem;) and will not affect day-to-day affairs of most people. And cracking down on crime and violence = typical Conservative answer: more punishment, more deterrents, and more force but less answers, more reactionary “solutions,” and less attention paid to the question of “why.” Harper’s idea of “change” is very overstated.

The foreign press (yes, CNN is not Canadian, it is foreign) seems to like to overstate things too. Apparently Canadians were riveted by the Belinda Stronach – Peter MacKay affair. This is only true insofar as they are the closest thing we have to a Princess Di – Prince Charles. And the Conservatives were trying to exact revenge on her for breaking Prince Peter’s heart. Princess Belinda won the hearts of the voters, to the newly minted King Stephen’s dismay. I will credit CNN for giving background information for foreign ears/eyes simply because what is foreign is, well, foreign. (American politics is foreign to Canadians, by definition, as well.)

It just seems that this was just another election in Canada. The Conservatives played it fairly centrist. The Liberals are centrist. And those two won the most seats. Canada is not moving left or right, Canada is just moving along, seeing the scenery and bitching all the way. (And by bitching I mean overemphasising everything, and being a little too melodramatic.)