mentalfloss

Diversion - cute method for ignoring facts.

Christ...

He made some good points during question period, but it looks like today's was essentially a bust with no new information coming from the conservatives. Oh, they did try to blame the NDP for a couple of things that had nothing to do with robocalls, but yea, otherwise nothing.

Wait.. what?

Closure of polar lab a blow to Canada's scientific reputation The announcement this week that the Polar Environment Atmospheric Research Lab (PEARL) in Canada's High Arctic will be closed has once again lowered this country's environmental reputation on the world scene. This is ironic because, also this week, Canada's highest scientific prize, The Gerhard Herzberg Canada Gold Medal, was awarded to a scientist who studies climate change. One of the scientists who relies on data from PEARL is Dr. Richard Peltier from the University of Toronto, winner of this year's Herzberg Award. As you will hear this week on Quirks & Quarks, Dr. Peltier develops models of the Earth's systems to not only understand changes in the past, but to try to provide indicators of what's to come. But any model is only as good as the real data that backs it up. In other words, models have to be checked against reality to make sure they reflect the way nature works; otherwise, they are just elaborate guesswork. That validation has to come from instruments out in the field, such as PEARL, that track the atmosphere year-round. When PEARL closes, one third of the data from the High Arctic will be gone, making the climate models less precise. The cost of running PEARL is about $1.5 million per year. That may sound like a lot, but when you consider the government has spent about $1.5 billion on submarines that still don't work a decade after we bought them, it's not a lot of money. Especially when you consider the returns. http://www.cbc.ca/news/technology/story/2012/03/01/f-vp-bob-mcdonald-pearl-closure.html

Two good articles released by G&M this morning about the discourse in the house on this matter. Tories lose control of agenda as they try to ride out robo-call storm From cautious discipline to denial and accusation: the Tory line on robo-calls

Time to get down for another boogie dance.. Mayor Rob Ford fumbles as city staff deem subway funding risky and unworkable

As I get older, I'm realizing that politics has always been better than the playoffs.

The Sun is getting a hernia over Ford's "subway tax" - comparing him to Miller. http://www.torontosun.com/2012/02/28/ford-should-bury-subway-tax-idea

Criticism of the environmental impacts of one resource isn't wrong simply because another resource also impacts the environment.

While I'm sure that there could be ridings that would be affected as a result of the fake robocalls, the main point is that they exist in the first place. No one cares that a Lib won Guelph by thousands of votes, but they do care that Pierre Poopoo from Splitsville was trying to suppress the vote.

Surely, the CPC brought forward evidence when they made such conspiracy allegations?

You're all over the place, but the facts are that the only evidence that could clear up this situation would come from Conservatives as they have the scripts.

And accordingly, the potential degree of harm caused by the Fords is much worse.

Conservatives are unfortunately taking the brunt of this because of their reputation in the house. When there is no smoking gun, the media will attack the most likely culprit. All the CPC need to do now is show their scripts so they can clear their name and end this unnecessary controversy.

It's time for the Conservatives to come clean and reveal the evidence. Mainly, the scripts that were sent during election. Right now, all we have is some massive coincidence of all these people, whether in Kitchener, Guelph, or as many as 30 other ridings, getting calls to say their voting location had changed. The Conservatives are saying that they provided only true, helpful, factual information to voters, though some mistakes might have been made. Let's go back to the December controversy over the calls made to Irwin Cotler's riding, in which constituents reported they were told that Mr. Cotler was resigning. The Conservative Party admitted that it paid the firm to do these calls and that it tightly managed what callers were supposed to say. In the process, we also learned a bit more about how these call centres work. In fact, numerous Conservative spokespersons, media outlets and the Marketing Research Intelligence Association were given copies of the script in question. Note: The whole defence in the Cotler-call controversy was that these robocall firms were just calling people with the words the Conservative party supplied to them. If someone went off script, well, that wasn't the fault of Campaign Research or the party. So. What we need to see now is the script that the Conservative Party supplied to Responsive Marketing Group. The party was able to produce one for the Cotler calls controversy; I'm assuming it has the one supplied to this firm too. In fact, let's see the scripts the Conservatives wrote for all the call centres. If it's all true information, it shouldn't be a problem, right? Let's see the scripts

Yes, "CPCFTW" speaks volumes about your take on the economy, lol

Don't really know about the guy, but I'm sure his propaganda machine doesn't compare to having your own radio show, then running away from the media the next day.

Rae handled this superbly. He will get brownie points from the media when they compare this to Harper's cowardice re: taking any responsibility for the Robocall thing.

Who?

No, I said that it would create a nice billion dollar bonus - in addition to cuts - that would cost no economic penalty. And considering you've continued to fail to prove that a 10% increase would have anything but a negligible effect on the economy, it looks like I was completely justified.

Crank-call scandal fits Conservatives' pattern of political expediency In all but one the race was viewed as being between a Conservative and a Liberal, and in every one the calls were made to Liberal supporters.

Avoiding a warrant is the new "streamline".

I think most people in the core were at least competent enough to predict he would be an abject failure. It was really quite a shock, to me at least, that people would even vote for him in the first place. Nice to see the natural course of events take place so we can get a responsible lefty back in power. No amount of AM propaganda will bring him back, but I'm sure he'll try.. Mayor Rob Ford pushes subways on inaugural Newstalk 1010 radio show Review: Radio show for Mayor Rob Ford brothers proves pretty dull

Right now Rae is mopping up in the house, while Turmel is just reading the script. While I think Topp is competent, he would be greatly overshadowed by Rae's passion and growing charisma. Mulcair is the showstopper the NDP need to gain control during QP.