Cathie from Canada

If Sun News Network is Fox News North, then Pierre Karl Peladeau sounds to me like Donald Trump.
Michael Den Tandt's list of anecdotes sure makes Peladeau sound grotesquely egotistical poseur, more than a little unwrapped:

"His claims to being entrepreneurial, decisive, and an innovator, which he reiterated Sunday, are absolutely fair. An insistence on having his own way, at all times and in all circumstances, however, has long been part and parcel of his management style, and often led his newspapers into thickets that verged on the farcical...

His reputation, which circulated everywhere through the senior ranks of Sun Media in the years after he took personal executive control, was that of an intelligent, determined and ruthless manager — who was also capricious, temperamental, and often enraged at his underlings...

There were stories of tirades that lasted for hours; very-late-night briefings with senior managers that went on and on, with Peladeau lecturing, Fidel-Castro-like, as his helpless employees struggled to keep awake; the Quebecor corporate jet wafting into small-town Ontario airports so the Boss could barnstorm into a newsroom of three or four desks, to sign a sheaf of backlogged expense cheques, as the workers stood quaking nearby. I know of one small-town publisher who received an email from Peladeau at 3 a.m., angrily querying the purchase of some T-shirts for a local charitable event. PKP made a virtue of intense micro-management, believing it integral to the operation of a good business.

Den Tandt seems to think it shows remarkable chutzpah for Marois to bring Peladeau into the PQ. I think it smacks of desperation.  The Parti Quebecois will regret getting involved with a guy like this.
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In Stephen Maher's article about the terrible optics of the Vic Toews judicial appointment:

The bench should not be used as a retirement home for burnt out politicians.

That’s what the Senate is for . . .

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It only took six years, but the Harper Con clawback of disability benefits for injured Mounties has finally been ended:

Lawyers for a group of disabled RCMP officers say they have reached a settlement with the federal government over disability payments that were clawed back....

The case involves about 1,000 disabled RCMP officers who had seen their long-term disability payments reduced by the amount they received every month in disability pension payments from the Veterans Affairs Department.

The proposed agreement also means the reduction would end for all RCMP veterans now receiving benefits and Mounties who are medically released in the future....

The case is almost identical to one that a judge deemed harsh and unfair in a class-action lawsuit by military veterans.

About 8,000 wounded military veterans were awarded a $887.8-million settlement after former army sergeant Dennis Manuge launched a class-action suit against Ottawa in 2007.

Now if they could just stop insulting veterans with one penny cheques....

But I guess the Harper Cons have been trying to save money so they can run some more of their damned Action Plan ads:



One popular reason to vote for the Liberals in 2016 will just be to STOP the ridiculous ads.


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Once again, Peter MacKay is way, way ahead of the Harper Con cabinet -- Pot legislation 'under serious consideration,' Peter MacKay says:

Justice Minister Peter MacKay told reporters on Parliament Hill Wednesday morning he has tasked the justice department "with looking at and coming forward with what could be a draft legislation."
"We have not arrived on the exact mechanism in which that could be done. The prime minister has signalled an openness to this," he said.

Yeah, I'm sure he has.  Somehow, I never thought Harper was sincere when he sang the "I get high with a little help from my friends" line.

Either the Harper Cons are desperately trying to subvert Trudeau's popular pot-legalization policy, or MacKay is so far off the Con reservation he cannot see the borders from here.

Or both, of course.

I wonder if this is the next ball cap we will see MacKay wearing?







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Once again, we're seeing terrifying world events reduced by the US media to a dick-swinging contest.
CNN and the New York Times seem to think the Russian invasion of the Crimea is just another dispute between Obama and Putin, and they want Obama to swagger around showing everyone how much tougher he is. NYT says

The Russian occupation of Crimea has challenged Mr. Obama as has no other international crisis, and at its heart, the advice seemed to pose the same question: Is Mr. Obama tough enough to take on the former K.G.B. colonel in the Kremlin?

If you want actual news about what is going on, check the BBC
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Apparently Target thinks it has been doing us Canadian bumpkins a favour

“Our goal was to bring the true U.S. Target experience to Canada, which included bringing the brands and products our guests [customers], who have cross-border shopped, know and love – and we have,” Tony Fisher, president of Target Canada, said in an e-mail this week.

Well, no, Tony, you haven't -- not unless the experience of U.S. consumers is empty shelves and no product variety.
Our local Zellers closed last Christmas and Target opened in the spring. I have been there three times, and each time I found empty shelves, no variety, and few of the well-designed products I had been seeing in the ads -- the Nate Berkus "section" was a tiny display with just two or three items.   Though the location is a convenient one for me and I drive by it all the time, I haven't bothered going in since last fall -- fool me twice and all that.  I now assume they likely won't have anything I am looking for, nor will I find anything interesting or unexpected.
Its really too bad.  I never thought I would miss Zellers!
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This is all my fault -- Extreme wind chill warnings around Saskatchewan

The entire province of Saskatchewan was one big wind chill zone Friday morning — and it looks like conditions are going to get worse before they get better.
Temperatures were in the -20 to -30 C range, with winds gusting as high as 80 kilometres per hour.

At the beginning of February, I said to myself that now that January was over, the weather was bound to get better.
It didn't.
Then last week, I said to myself that now that February was almost over, the weather was bound to get better.
It got worse.
So it must be me, and my foolish prognostications about how the weather will improve -- apparently, even THINKING such a thing is dangerous and offends the weather gods.
I promise, everybody, that I won't even think about the weather getting better, ever again!
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