I said stop okay?!

Professional Gay demonizer retires...

Bishop Martino in Scranton, Pennsylvania will be walking off to his church paid retirement after taking a few good shots at the queer folks and any effort to open a dialogue with those in the Catholic Church.

As is usual for these types of professional gay haters, The good Bishop couched his language around , love the sinner not the sin.


Earlier this year Misericordia University hosted prominant Gay rights activist, Keith Boykin as a speaker. Boykin wrote the book, "One More River to Cross: Black and Gay in America."

Bishop Martino has called on the school to dissolve the "Diversity Institute" that sponsored the event. Now The Bishop went further this February when he asked Misericordia to seriously consider discontinuing its Diversity Institute, which co-sponsored Mr. Boykin's appearance," noting that the Institute previously invited Boykin to serve for a week as a visiting scholar.

Now that's telling the University what for.

The good bishop can now go to his nice little retirement and have no one but little boys and men attend to his every need till his dying days.

There much more that I don't have time to look at but its clear he was pushed out the door as the Catholic Church tries to deal with its members supporting Obama, not like the good Bishop who actively campaigned against Obama.

Now, in a stunning turn that has taken even veteran church-watchers by surprise, Martino on Monday resigned his post under highly unusual circumstances -- citing the stress of the job and saying he could not continue in a post that should have been his for another dozen years, at least. - Politics Daily

.

Optics and wooden nickels

Now one of the things that the backroom boys in the Liberal party always told me, when I was a little kid (in their eyes) optics was everything and you need money to run a campaign. I learned well from them, even won a few elections operating on that premise.

Still as I got older and I am sure smarter, optics are not the only thing that counts but they can sure as heck give you a pain in the neck. Lets look at the current LPC effort in Sudbury. It was a pretty smart idea to hold the gathering of the clan in small city Canada.

The optics are great. Sudbury is hurting. Lets go there and show them and other Canadians in similar small towns that we're with them. Besides the money we spend (House of Commons) on rooms, meals, car rentals, escorts, golf, real nickel nickels and drinks, we will have a great time out of the direct glare of all those nasty national media types.

Then things started to go wrong. Sudbury workers are engaged in what looks to be a long strike against the town's largest employer, a Brazillion mining giant. You see several years ago the workers signed an agreement with the company that said we will take less now, but as the price of Nickel goes so do we. So when the price went up the workers got a share. As the price went down a little the workers got a little less.

That apparently is not good enough for the big Brazillion company. They want to extract more than nickel out of the ground, it looks like they want a little bit of the workers hide as well.

Still this isn't totally lost for the LPCers. They could do something for these workers right? Maybe talk to the company about being fair here. Maybe they could meet with the strikers and show their support. Walk the picket line or bring Timbits and coffee down and have little chin wag.

I am sure the local LPC candidate loves having the party there to show support and perhaps give them a boost in maybe, just maybe, unseating the NDP Member of Parliament.

It seems the optics have got out of hand, even in the area that they have control over. The local LPC nomination is spilling messy stuff all over the place. Accusations of the the party wanting someone over someone else and who knows if membership applications arrived early or late, it was just 90 or so potential members.

The situation in Sudbury doesn't look so great now. At least you will all be able to gather around a grand hall and have dinner and reassure each other you have the right stuff to govern. Its so silly voters that haven't recognised this yet. At $550 a plate its a sure bet that many of the people the LPCers want to vote for them won't be at the table. Heck it would take a person working at the grand hall serving up this feast for a king, over 50 hours to earn enough to attend. That sucks for him or her, right?

Then we have that wily NDP MP from the area that the LPCers would love to upset, he goes and hosts a dinner for $5.50. Every cent of that goes to the local strikers. Just how do you compete with that kind of logic. Doesn't he know you need money to win elections? He's giving it away for crying out loud. Heck Maria Minna said this to CBC in defense of the Liberals fundraiser ...

"saying it was planned long in advance. She insisted this week's gathering will benefit the local community and the country politically and economically."We're also going to be spending money, by the way," she told CBC News. "I think we're giving." - Maria Minna, Toronto Beaches Liberal MP

At least the LPC is good for something, Maria can afford a $550 dinner.

The LPC still haven't learned a thing since the good ole days. They would have been better off going to cottage country or trying out the York Hotel. At least they know how to talk to those people.

Now I post this because I think we deserve better than this and of course it shows the LPCers slipping up again. Maybe, just maybe some LPCer blogger or PR guy will do something.

One last piece of advice, don't take any wooden nickels, especially in Sudbury, oh that looks bad...


update: Iggy is meeting with local strikers today. Hope it went well, anybody here?

Update: 4pm Aug 31 - LPCer Jeff says on Twitter: Iggy calls on Vale Inco to come back to bargaining table

Update: 4:30pm Aug 31 It appears Jeff's view of event in Sudbury neglected to include Ignatieff's refusal to support the workers beyond calling for the company to come back to the table. CBC reported that Ignatieff met with Steelworkers for about 90 minutes. The Union was hoping Ignatieff would support their efforts to open the agreement between the Government of Canada and Vale Inco. Ignatieff said NO.

Nanaimo-Cowichan Conservatives

The Harper team has a winner, maybe?

John Koury has been selected to represent Nanaimo-Cowichan Conservatives in the next federal election. This guy use to work for Keith Martin, former reformer turned Liberal. He has run before and it was not too pretty when he did.

Koury had a major meltdown and was almost pulled as a candidate. Veteran politicians like Deborah Grey and Conservative MPs Gary Lunn and John Reynolds were called in to shut him up. (see publiceye for more).

Koury has allowed time to heal the wounds of the past. It seems to have worked as the Conservatives have elected him as their rep this time out. He will be up against a stalwart campaigner in Jean Crowder, NDP MP since 2004 in Nanaimo-Cowichan. Koury was recently elected to the North Cowichan municipal council.

LPCers addicted to Opposition

I know some of my LPCer (that's Liberal Party of Canada) friends won't like this. But sometimes tough love is called for...

A Decreasingly Brief, Updated History of Liberal Declarations that they Can't Go On Supporting the Harper Government's Every Whim

Now isn't that a nice way of putting it out there. The LPCer's are doing the same again. I suspect they have lost the will to govern, in that case get out of the way and the real opposition will do it.

Church silent on Health Care

In the "I'm not totally surprised category" the Catholic Church is missing in action on the health care front. I know the RC Church has strong opinions on us queer folks and abortion, but they also have a pretty good record in recent years in their own convoluted way, of trying to end poverty. Why not health care for people that can not afford it.

On paper, the church supports universal health care. On paper, the church supports a public option. On paper, the church says that ending poverty is a fundamental issue of our time. - Change.org

Take a look here at an article on Change.org. Its amazing the church remains as quiet and or so spend-thrift on a matter that would address their purported mission...

Hey wasn't Ted Kennedy just buried by the Catholic Church?

In the "Oh my, Gasp" section

The Illuminati pretend to make people into gods, but instead they become kitch- Heavens to Mergatroid, what the heck?? I am as if transfixed by the gaze of general xerxes or cornelius or bobo booboo bonoobo boy...


found on facebook today...

Harper strikes the RIGHT chords

So while others dither, Stephen Harper pounds the piano chords, releasing a whole different person.

I always knew he was an odd duck, just how scary, thats another matter.

Simon in Montreal says, "Don't say I didn't warn you...."

How do I get off this horse?

EI reform isn't coming anytime soon to workers exhausting their benefits. As unemployment continues to rise, banks make huge profits and the prospect of an election dimming, we can expect little help.

Ignatieff managed to avoid a spring election by having Harper agree to a panel of LPCers and Conservatives, discuss over the summer, possible changes to EI. They met over the summer and so far agreed to disagree. That's not a surprise really. Harper has been stating for months that such action when demanded by the NDP was not needed. Now Iggy is back peddling. How do I get off this horse?

Where are the roots to today's EI problems? Go back to 1994 and Paul Martin, then finance Minister in the Liberal government. He cut back the entitlements, building of Brian Mulroney's cut backs to make it even harder to qualify for EI. They expanded the number of regions and extended hours needed to qualify, cut weeks of benefit and unless your boss went belly up, you couldn't hope to get EI.

Today we see record numbers of people on EI. Those people will see their benefits run out in a few months. What then, there are few new jobs, heck more people than ever are losing jobs.

Back to Paul Martin. As finance minister he stole funds from EI to balance the governments budget. So while collecting ever larger amounts of premiums from employers and employees, they used the excess. They cut EI benefits to allow even more of the EI premiums money to go to balancing the general budget.

Now we have Harper who wants EI to cover the self employed. Not a bad idea, but one that is fraught with difficulties. It looks like his plan would see current workers subsidize the plan. It looks like workers in Canada are caught between a rock and a hard place, between Conservative and LPC boulders.

Why is it so hard to get either of these leaders to stand up for workers in this country? Why do they continue to block EI changes that would allow people more time to find work, to pay their mortgage and bills and get by. Just a couple of days ago the big banks announced that 16000 Canadian households are three or more months behind in payments. That's a record. Its still a small number but an ugly looking trend.

The prospect of a fall election looks dimmer. Harper managed to hide his nine appointed senators behind Gary Doer, Canada's new chief lobbyist in Washington. He is managing to look moderate in the media and the public.

Well then, imagine Stephen Harper with a majority. It won't be a pretty sight. The LPCers will have only themselves to blame. They will blame the NDP for failing to fall into line and support the so called centre left. There is nothing left about the LPC save CB in Toronto and soon there will be nothing.

How do I get off this horse? That's the question Iggy should have looked after before he forced Dion out. The LPC choose this horse and now I must admit, I am mildly amused watching them vote against still another non-confidence motion. Seems they prefer the opposition benches as they are, no need to spend money they don't have to run in an election that Harper just might win again.

Better talk to Jack and the NDP. He was supportive of working together a while ago. But remember, fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me. Jack may want a little more than a token cabinet seat or two when you come calling again.