UPDATED AGAIN: If Sun Tzu had access to a demon dialer …

By kadyomalley - Tuesday, October 14, 2008 at 12:45 PM - 62 Comments

… this is totally the kind of thing he’d include in the second edition of Art of War. otherwise, I can’t imagine who could possibly come up with an election eve strategy as evilly brilliant – or brilliantly evil – as the one that apparently played out in the race underway in Saanich-Gulf Islands on Thanksgiving Monday – spotted by the force of nature that is National Newswatch, of course:

A number of residents in the Saanich-Gulf Islands riding received recorded telephone messages Monday, urging them to vote for NDP candidate Julian West – who left the race after controversy over a public-nudity incident 12 years ago.

Irene Wright, executive member of the NDP’s federal riding association for Saanich-Gulf Islands, said Monday night people started phoning her around 5 p.m. to say they had received an automated call encouraging them to vote for West in Tuesday’s election.

A woman’s voice in the recording said the call was endorsed by Bill Graham, president of the NDP Saanich-Gulf Islands riding association, and from the “Progressive Voters Association of Saanich-Gulf Islands.”

By using caller identification information, the call’s origin appeared to be the fax number at Graham’s address.

“It’s not coming from our fax machine,” said Graham. “Somebody is fraudulently using our name and our fax number to send out a misleading message.”

UPDATE: Is it just me, or does anyone else find it odd that nowhere in this story does it mention the fact that this is Gary Lunn’s riding?

AND EVEN UPPERDATED: The Tyee has more, including an on-the-record denial from Lunn’s campaign chair, Byng Giraud.

NOTE: Reposted from the comments, just to make it clear what I’m saying here: This has nothing to do with the use of a demon dialer – which, while obnoxious, is a perfectly legitimate campaign strategy. But this appears to be a deliberate attempt to frame the NDP for making calls supporting West’s candidacy, which the local NDP organizer – whose number apparently appeared on the calls  -categorically denies having done.

Megapundit: Checkers anyone?

By selley - Wednesday, October 8, 2008 at 1:54 PM - 17 Comments

Must-reads: Dan Gardner on Afghanistan and opium; Lorne Gunter on the Tory ebb; Rosie DiManno on the white-collar bank robber.

The smartest guys in the room, no more
One outrageously absurd genius theory notwithstanding, the verdict is in: the Tories screwed up royal.

There is a rumour going around among the “Conservative ground troops in Quebec,” Chantal Hébert reports in the Toronto Star, that “to avoid securing a government that is overly beholden to Quebecers for its majority on Tuesday, Stephen Harper’s brain trust took the deliberate risk of snatching defeat out of the jaws of a Quebec victory.” Let us pause here to contemplate the sheer ridiculousness of that idea. Okay, that’ll do. Far more likely, Hébert concedes, is that the war room simply buggered the whole thing up, miscalculating the impact of youth crime and arts funding proposals and realizing too late that Canadians want to hear their leader acknowledge and deal with the looming financial crisis.

Seeing as even L. Ian MacDonald doesn’t see fit to include this losing-as-winning theory in his column in the Montreal Gazette, we feel safe in discounting it entirely. So what happened? Harper’s calculatedly laidback approach during the debates produced an “empathy deficit” that he’s only belatedly trying to make up, MacDonald believes, but it wouldn’t have mattered had his party not so disastrously miscalculated on the youth crime and arts funding fronts. “Suffice it to say that for a lousy $15 million, Quebec’s share of cultural cuts, the Conservatives could be giving up 15 seats,” he writes.

Continue…

Malalai Kakar: Lest we forget

By Anne Kingston - Sunday, September 28, 2008 at 8:32 PM - 11 Comments

The assassination of Malali Kakar, Afghanistan’s most senior police officer, by the Taliban earlier today is a brutal reminder that, in the seven years since the “liberation” by invading US and British forces, Afghanistan has seen a steady erosion of womens’ rights. Yet it was the plight of Afghani women, recall, that galvanized support for invading that country post-9/11. Indeed, at the official end of the Afghan war  Laura Bush was among those who declared that one of the most important achievements in overthrowing the Taliban was the emancipation of women. 

Few were as emancipated as Kakar, a mother of six, who was  shot in the head leaving her house in Kandahar on her way to work. Her son, injured in the ambush, remains in a coma. Kakar knew she was a marked woman, having received death threats for months.  Other female activists have been murdered in recent years. One of Kakar’s closest friends, Safia Amajan, a prominent female-rights activist, was killed also on her way to work. Yet Kakar remained a fierce and courageous champion of women’s rights, heading up a unit that specializes in spousal abuse and other crimes against women which are on the rise in southern Afghanistan, as reported in a Marie Claire profile of Kakar last year. 

Canadian photo-journalist Lana Slezic took this iconic photograph of Kakar a few years ago; it’s included in Forsaken, Selzic’s important, harrowing book published last year that documents the lives of Afghani women who need advocates like Kakar.  After Amajan’s death, Kakar was interviewed by The Independent. With  typical defiance, she spoke of the Taliban: ”These are the kind of people we are having to fight,” she said. “They hate any thought of women having freedom. None of us can be safe from such hatred.”

Oh yeah, she's also a woman…

By Anne Kingston - Monday, September 22, 2008 at 2:42 PM - 0 Comments

Shimon Peres has chosen Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni to form a new Israeli government, giving her 42 days to pull together a coalition. When she does, Israel will have women heading three branches of government–Livni as PM,  Dalia Itzik as Knesset Speaker and Dorit Beinish president of the Supreme Court.  How many modern democracies can boast the same? Clearly a comfort level with female power explains the refreshing absence of  ”gender” blather surrounding the appointment.  Still, obvious comparisons with the last woman to hold the post are being made. But as The Age argues here the mother of two and former corporate attorney and Mossad secret agent isn’t a “second Golda.”

Symptomatic?

By John Geddes - Thursday, September 11, 2008 at 12:58 PM - 7 Comments

Sparrow’s fall might be just an episode, unless it turns out to be a symptom of a deeper flaw in the Conservative campaign. Harper seems to want to run a classic front-runner’s race: reassuring, quietly confident, besweatered. Stay the Course. The Land is Strong. Yet his own weird linking of climate change policy and national unity, and Sparrow’s ugly mistake, and even the silly Puffin thing—all suggest a party more naturally inclined toward the scrappy, noisy, risky, at times reckless, style of come-from-behind outsiders. Maybe that’s still how they see themselves. But they can’t have it both ways. Right now, their style undermines their intended message.

Will McCain pick a chick?

By Anne Kingston - Thursday, August 28, 2008 at 5:29 PM - 0 Comments

The Telegraph is reporting the Dems are quaking at the prospect of McCain naming a female VP running mate tomorrow. As a political move it would have the one-two punch of being both smarmy and canny. The Republicans have never had a woman on the presidential ballot,  so McCain’s ticket would be given instant historic import. It would also cast him the definitive alpha male, something that might be a problem, say, if he were standing next to the younger, chiseled Mitt Romney.

Herewith the femme front-runners:

The safe/uninspiring choice: Kay Bailey Hutchison, the Republican senator from Texas. The 65-year-old Hutchison is pro-life and knows Washington sub-committees, though she has never held office. Her name keeps resurfacing in cyber-chatter but months ago she said she doesn’t want the job.

The favoured outsider: Meg Whitman, the McCain campaign’s national co-chair. The 52-year-old billionaire former eBay CEO would bring major business cred to the ticket. She’s also a globalization expert and ace fly fisherman. The fact she’s an internet/technology guru will come in handy with a candidate who’s famously internet illiterate. McCain has referred to her as one of his three wisest advisors. And Whitman has made no secret about having political ambitions. Plus, she’s already been given a primo speaking spot at the GOP convention. That she lacks exposure to foreign policy machinations is a decided liability when squaring off against Joe Biden. She’s also pro-choice, a stance that could alienate McCain’s base. It’s a big risk for McCain to bring on a pro-choice male, say, Tom Ridge or Joe Lieberman, as has been rumoured. But a pro-choice woman could be political suicide.

The dark horse outsider: Carly Fiorina, 53, former CEO of Hewlett Packard, one of McCain’s top economic advisors. Fiorina’s well-connected, presents well (Fox News has tapped her as a business commentator even though she’s sane) and she brings economic smarts. But she has already provoked a campaign flap about abortion, even though she’s is pro-life. And her high-profile ouster from HP could come back to bite her.

And the potential masterstroke: Continue…

You Can Judge a Drink By Its Cover

By Alex Shimo - Monday, July 14, 2008 at 7:34 PM - 0 Comments

The taste of bottled mineral water depends its journey through different rocks and minerals. And while taste matters, so too does touch, according to a study by Maureen Morrin, a professor of marketing at the Rutgers School of Business. Studying the responses of 1,000 men and women, she found that people would rate the taste of the water according to the container holding it. When served in a firm cup, people would find it more tasty, compared to a flimsy one. Continue…

Sundown on Sundin's Leaf days?

By Charlie Gillis - Thursday, May 29, 2008 at 11:40 AM - 0 Comments

The appropriate line for the video grab here might have been “Sundin Ponders Role as Shrek.”

The story, though, points to an eventuality I still can’t grasp—the big man seeking greener pastures come July 1. With MLSE unable to attract flies to the Leafs front office, I guess it’s conceivable that Mats would test the water. Talking about it after winning a leadership award for his efforts in T.O. suggests his exasperation has gotten the better of him.

But Montreal? Really?

Trapped in Jeffrey Simpson's cocoon of fear

By selley - Monday, May 5, 2008 at 1:16 PM - 0 Comments

WEEKEND ROUNDUP

Must-reads: Scott Taylor on Andrew Leslie; Doug Saunders on Afghan corruption; Greg Weston on waiting 25 years for helicopters; Margaret Wente on Obama; Jeffrey Simpson on productivity.

This is why we can’t have nice debates
The following topics are too contentious for federal politicians to risk talking about, pundits allege: free speech, immigration and productivity. And in the case of the Tories, pretty much everything else too.

Rex Murphy, writing in The Globe and Mail, is amazed that the Tories would be willing to “to declare Bill C-10, dealing with tax-credits that support the making of Canadian films, a matter of confidence,” but not even utter a peep about the “noxious blot on the central dynamic” of Canadian democracy that our various human rights commissions have become. But C-10 is about all sorts of other things too, of course—many of them, we suspect the government would argue, far more important than whether David Cronenberg’s Crash would have received funding under the new regulations. (We suspect a crushing majority of Canadians would agree it shouldn’t have, incidentally, but never mind the rubes.) The Harperites aren’t touching the human rights commissions, we suspect, because talking about them makes Canadians go crazy.

We can’t have a debate about the declining fortunes of immigrants to Canada “because political actors are afraid of alienating ethnic groups,” Jeffrey Simpson writes in the Globe. (We’d suggest it’s more basic: talking about immigration makes Canadians go crazy.) Continue…