I Get By.....

Jeez what a weekend for old blue-eyes. A command performance at the National Arts Centre with the Yo Yo Man [Commanded by Laureen? - Ed], and then watching Denis Coderre kiss up to "the leader" on Tout le Monde en Parle. It doesn't get any better than this. And it's quite a change from last year when I was badly misquoted about it being so rich that bunches of people liked to go to galas.

Now if we could just get the opposition to defeat us on a non confidence vote... I know, I know, Canadians don't want another election, but do we have to endure another six months of blathering - not from the politicians, from the media - about "now it's the NDP's turn" etc etc ad nauseam.

Look people, parliamentary pensions and Crouton's election financing law have put the opposition in a real bind. The Bloc will support us until their pensions click in. The NDP will support us because, hey, why take the risk of losing some seats and all those sweet taxpayer dollars that go with them? And the Liberals will support us because, frankly, they are still dead broke. Why can't the working press get this? Is it because most of them are Pierre Trudeau Liberals and because they just can't face the facts?

It's a weird old world, but I get by with a little help from my friends across the aisle.

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Pix: Mike Carroccetto, Canwest; James Moore

Welcome Back Class!

Welcome back to Hogwarts on the Rideau.

I'm pleased to announce that Count Ignatula will be head boy this term, with responsibilities for moving non-confidence motions, and keeping up his public intellectual persona in order to befuddle the public. Jack and Gilles, depending on the bill, your job is to rage and complain in committee, but in the Commons you will either support or vote against the Puffin motions, depending on your turn in the rotation.

Once in a while either Jack or Gilles will introduce a non-confidence motion, in which case the other aggrieved third party agrees to vote with us. The Puffins can vote as their conscience dictates.

In conclusion, I want to sincerely thank the Count and his brains trust for their loyal support in the past two terms, particularly in getting us out of that Three Stooges imbroglio. I particularly want to thank Jack and his new buddy Jim Flaherty for bailing Ontario out of that GM/Chrysler mess.

Isn't it wonderful what we can do when we work together for a better Canada! Gilles, I'm still waiting to hear from you about some forestry biomass projects we've got on the boil. Come on, la nation québecoise wants you to get going on this, so if I can be unparliamentary for a moment, bouges tes fesses!

Remember, team, a lot of parliamentary pensions are at stake here, and there should be no election for another couple of years. That does not mean we stop talking about an election. Au contraire, we always have to give the slathering journos something to write about, because economics is boring on TV, right?

OK, any questions? No? OK, see you in QP.

Class dismissed. You have a free period in the Library.

More Political Satire From Calgary

You can tell this pix is fake. His buttons are not pearly, and there should be two breast pockets with triangular flaps. Plus where's the goofy cowboy hat? Did his wife nix that photo op? Just asking.

Farewell Old Fellow

You did your best. God speed.

Radwonky Piles on the Count

My heart is increasingly going out to my esteemed colleague across the floor, Count Ignatula the Public Intellectual, as he braves a growing stream of criticism from crazed journos like Adam Radwonky, who recently opined,

Dion’s problem was that he had a vision; he just couldn’t find the right words to sell it. Ignatieff has managed to flip things around; time after time, he articulately ties himself into knots trying to get around the fact that he has very little to say.

Come on people, this is not fair. He's got a job to do, and has several years to learn how to do it, so let's cut him some slack.

And let's squelch all this crazy talk about going to the polls. Jack and Gilles don't want an election, because they will lose votes (er, and money - Ed?), and who wants to do that?

So we're stuck with the Count, until the Justin Child grows up and can take his rightful place as the Obama of Canada.

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Pix: "Puffin Troika," by Tom Hanson, CP

Puffin Bashing

Apparently an election is not in the cards for at least a year (Three? - Ed.) , but we've got to keep the troops in fighting trim, and what better way than trashing and bashing "Canada's sexiest public intellectual"?

Thirty four years. Imagine! The guy has time-travelled here from way back in the Seventies. Scary.

Over to you, Warren.

Buttman versus Canada

You wouldn't believe the cranky e-mail we are getting about Buttman's alleged cartel-like behaviour in not letting Ballsley acquire the Coyotes.

The gist of the letters is, "where was Buttman when small market teams in Winnipeg and Québec were sold to American shopping plaza millionaires?"

Other comments: "Garry gives away tickets and then claims attendance records? Isn't this indecent?"

"He mismanaged a mainstream sport and turned it into a cable TV obscurity. There oughta be a law, right?"

This whole business reeks the big one. It's a disgrace to our national sport.

Maybe when I retire from politics I can get involved in the league, and sort this whole mess out.

Dr. Rubie Dwalla, Chiropractrice

Checking in from the medieval delights of Kandahar city, and the staff just briefed me on a shocking article in Torostar, that Dr. Dwalla is having a nanny eruption - something to do with the Ontario Labour Code - and McGuilty's ministers are sitting on it....

If I can be personal for a moment. Rubie, we offered you a friendly reception if you crossed the floor a few years ago, to replace Ms. Belinda, and you should have taken us up on it. It's a little late for that, since we now have enough decent looking and talented female MPs.

Kory handed me the attached picture, with Rubie allegedly engaging in unparliamentary behaviour, and it sure looks doctored to me - this is the Photoshop generation, right? Kevin thinks it may be a good way of helping slumdog bikers deal with back problems. My wife thinks it's a fake. and she should know. Not in our wildest dreams would we ever try this stunt....

BTW, Kory assures me we had nothing to do with it, but he smells the hand of Puffin indie film maker Warren Kinsella. Rumours are flying that he is trying to mix punk and Bollywood in his basement studio in the Beaches.

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SOURCE: Sun Media

Buttman versus Ballsley

What? Huh? Did something happen last week in Vancouver? Oh, yeah the Canucks started round 2.

Meanwhile I'm seriously contemplating setting up a Royal Commission to investigate the Un-natural Hockey League for non competitive behaviour. The way most of my friends see it is, Buttman and his slimy gang of shopping plaza millionares who own these pathetic southern teams just gotta keep them going to fulfill Garry's vision - to be the Selig of shinny.

Gretz and his buddies want to sell to Ballsley, I say go for it.

I think I speak for all parties in the House when I say I'd like to see Buttman come up here to Parliament Hill and join the old German sausage maker under the committee room kleig lights. I personally have a few questions I'd like to ask him, and there's a few guys from la ville de Québec and Winnipeg who want to slam him into the boards. Capiche, Buttman?

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(This is satire, right? - ED.)

Ask Not What You Can Do For Your Iggy

Just got handed True Patriot Love. ZZZZZ - what a lame read. Clearly Count Ignatula writes his own stuff.

At least Jack Kennedy had his own tame writers like historian Arthur Schlesinger to pen books like Profiles in Courage.

Hey, what's Peter C. Newman doing these days?

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FLASH: Newman roused from retirement to do the dirty deed. Couldn't find anybody else....ZZZZzzzzz.

The Man Can't Count

Here's Mikey the Mike talking about his hereditary title, which does not exist. We've researched this exhaustively with a team of genealogists, and to tell the truth, he is five times removed, being the son of the fifth son. Sorry, this doesn't cut it. I once had a taxi driver who was the real King of Ruritania. Honest to God, it was in the Almanach de Gotha.

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Some feel the real royalty in this benighted country is Justin Sinclair Trudeau. According to our consultants Dan Brown and Associates, he is a direct descendant of Mary Magdalene. Apparently, I'm a very distant relation as well.

The Person Who Must Not Be Named

Lighten up, everybody. This is just an exorcism exercise to prevent Puffin demonization of Yours Truly by Torostar and the Canadian People's Agitprop Network. Everything is under control, and the Rt. Hon. gentleman's reputation will be vindicated by history.

More From the Stickings Article

Curiouser and curiouser. Kory's krack research team has come up with some interesting material on Count Ignatula that I should share with you. You will remember my comments on the Michael Stickings article in the Guardian, and that Stickings is a former Bobama Rae operative.

There are some hilarious new comments on the Guardian Web site. One reader pointedly says, regarding Mikey the Mike:

"he's a dreadful old pseud. he ruined bbc arts programmes in the late 80s.

we were glad to be rid of him. our gain, your loss."

Another goes even farther:

"Everything Mr. Stickings said about Iggy is true. I have read Iggy's extensive bio and there is nothing loyal or true about this man. The way he was parachuted into the liberal safe riding is one thing, but the way he managed to become Liberal Leader without an election of membership is another. He added insult to injury the way he kicked the former leader, Dion, when he was down. On top of that he refused to even name Dion to any shadow position and sent him to the back benches. Imagine after all those years of service to be treated that way! Iggy did not pay any Canadian taxes for 36 years. He felt after teaching in British Columbia that Canadian students were 'beneath' him. After moving to the UK, he became a Thatcher boy and supported union busting. When his popularity waned in the UK, he in true form, took off for the US, where he became a Republican, Bush worshiper. It dawned on him that he could never become President of his beloved U.S.A. (where he still owns his home) so he returned to Canada, bought a liberal party membership (he was never a member) and thought he'd save those dumb Canadians and bless us with the glory of all things 'Iggy'. Aren't we lucky? It will be a sad day for Canada if he manages to become Prime Minister. Mr. Harper is doing a fine job and is very well thought of, and is a true Canadian in every sense."

Union busting? A "Thatcher boy"? a Republican? Who knew....

And now we find that he told a British interviewer that he was a real count, when it's clear from the evidence he is nothing of the sort. More as this develops.

The National Attention Span

Guy says if it doesn't pan out, the Count can always get a job on TV Ontario. Here's a clip from ten years ago. He lost me at about the 20 second mark.

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Managing Canada vs. Managing a Graduate Seminar

Now the Count says he wants to raise taxes to pay for the Recession. Sorry, it doesn't work that way. The plan is, we wait till prosperity improves, and let increased revenues pay down the debt.

He's reverting to type, and starting to lecture his Party faithful as if they were grad students. He sure knows how to put people to sleep. Here's everything you want to know about Giambattista Vico. I can't wait to listen to his victory speech when he becomes official leader.

Moi? International Money Czar?

There was a lot of goofing around at the G-20, and I kind of felt shut out from the cooler kids, but they're just jealous because we have a whole pile of the world's wealth - oil, water, minerals, forests, plus a kick-butt banking system second to none.

Barry even had the Queen buzz me on my BlackBerry to try and get me to miss the photo op. What a card.

Anyhoo, there was a lot of buzzing about international reform and regulation, and it was proposed, only half in jest, that I should leave this job and become despot of some new super IMF, headquartered in Iceland or somewhere.

Get real, I said. Who will take care of Canada while I am away? Count Ignatula? The coalition? You guys will carve up our dear country like a pumpkin.

Bringing Them Back to Reality, One Socialist at a Time...

Hopefully my Manning speech in the Star, Only Conservatism Can Lead Canada Forward, will appeal to all those exhausted Canadian leftists whose world view has come crashing down, with the inexorable decline of the US under the obnoxious Obama regime.

Down With Puffinomics! Viva the Reality Party of Canada! Venceremos!

Warren Kinsella is Grit Girl

This Just In Over the Transom: After John Iveson's article, a lot of people were wondering who is this "theGritGirl". No she's not Krista Ericson, although several Puffins wish she was.

Surprise, we've just learned she doesn't exist; she's just a fantasy of Warren and his New Grit War Room. Grit Girl is the name of a dutch punk band.

Catmeat and the Puffin Band. What a bunch of headbangers.

Pretty decent production values for something coming out of a basement home video studio.

Obama in Trouble

Apparently the new president is running into some heavy weather on his big tax plan. Seems to me he's turning into the American equivalent of Backpack Boy, with his own Green Shaft plan.

The sticking point is coal. As he said to a San Francisco audience last year during the campaign:

"Let me sort of describe my overall policy.

"What I've said is that we would put a cap and trade system in place that is as aggressive, if not more aggressive, than anybody else's out there.

"I was the first to call for a 100% auction on the cap and trade system, which means that every unit of carbon or greenhouse gases emitted would be charged to the polluter. That will create a market in which whatever technologies are out there that are being presented, whatever power plants that are being built, that they would have to meet the rigors of that market and the ratcheted down caps that are being placed, imposed every year.

"So if somebody wants to build a coal-powered plant, they can; it's just that it will bankrupt them because they're going to be charged a huge sum for all that greenhouse gas that's being emitted."

You can listen to him also on YouTube.

Senate Budget Committee chairman Kent Conrad (D-N.D.) says he has "spoken to enough colleagues about several different provisions in the budget to make him think Congress won’t pass it. Conrad urged White House budget director Peter Orszag not to “draw lines in the sand” with lawmakers, most notably on Obama’s plan for a cap-and-trade system to curb carbon emissions. ”Anybody who thinks it will be easy to get the votes on the budget in the conditions that we face is smoking something.”

Presidential Protection?

I'm still basking in the glow of the visit from my new friend Barry, even though he still has a tendency to want to hog the spotlight, and the pathetic Torostar and CP fotojournalists are still trying to get what they call the "Bob Stanfield dropping the football moment".

This picture shows President Obama telling the press corps to lay off and treat me with more respect (I later told him he was wasting his time).

Laureen joked that perhaps he was preventing me from being hit by a shoe.

Shades of Mister Dithers

It's clear that some of the great Obama charisma has rubbed off on me, to the detriment of the Leader of the Opposition, Count Ignatula, who has suffered a terrible drumming from some pinko journo by the name of Michael Stickings at the British newspaper, the Guardian.

Stickings leads off his hatchet job by saying, "Naive and egotistical, Canada's Liberal leader isn't the saviour his supporters believe him to be." What did the poor man do to deserve this treatment?

Sticking goes on:

"Why did Ignatieff do what he did? Because he has no interest right now in bringing down the government and thereby being compelled to share power. Because his political career has been about his own glorification, about his desire – for it seems to be the only reason he entered politics in the first place – to be prime minister. He may generously be called a chameleon, a shifty academic difficult to pin down, but perhaps more accurately he ought to be called an egotist who is sure of his own superiority and who seems to lack any real passion for the country he intends to lead..."

And on...

"With an air of haughty detachment, an arrogant sense of entitlement to leadership, limited charisma, Bush-friendly positions on key foreign policy issues, hardly any record on (and relatively little knowledge of) social and economic issues and next to no experience in the political trenches, Ignatieff is hardly the saviour so many Liberals delusionally think he is."

I must say I don't disagree on this point. The saviour is Prince Justin.

And on...

"To me, though, he has never seemed to be much of a Canadian, and certainly not enough of one to be our prime minister. It's not that he has spent so much of his life overseas – mostly in Britain and the US. It's that he has seemed to aspire actively to be anything but Canadian, and more specifically to be American. Which is fine, in a cosmopolitan sort of way, but he comes back to Canada with an air of condescension about him, as if he has seen the world and conquered it and has now decided, with the coaxing of a party eager for him to lead it back to the promised land, to sully himself in the world of politics supposedly on our behalf but really because he just wants to be prime minister, so great would it look on his resumé, a capstone to a long and successful career."

And on...

"Today's Canada is very much Trudeau's Canada, the Canada of Trudeau's vision, for better and for worse. Trudeau was, like Ignatieff, an intellectual, but, unlike Ignatieff, he obviously cared deeply about this country and sought to leave his mark on it, which he did. Ignatieff may feel "passionately and proudly Canadian", and there may be a bold vision behind his egotism, somewhere, but he has a lot to prove before he should be considered anything more than an opportunist, if not a self-absorbed charlatan."

What can I say. This is an ugly pathetic hatchet job on a good hearted Canadian politician, and I condemn it utterly.

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UPDATE: Apparently this Stickings pig used to work for Bobama Rae.

The Wolf Blitzer Interview

This kind of thing is great for Brand Canada:



I'm still getting feelers from the Republicans about running for them next time. Sorry guys, I tried that last time and it didn't work.

Our Obama Agenda

President Barry, if I can get personal for a moment, you're a great orator, but you're no economist - not even Chicago School - so here the main things I'd like to accomplish with you during your short visit.

1) First I want to give you a quick Harpernomics lesson. Lesson one. The trillion bucks has to come from somewhere. Carney and Finance want to know, are you going to inflate or tax?

2) The offer I made election night still stands, if you need help in reforming your banking and health care systems, just give me a buzz, and we'll send some experts down to the White House. As you may know, Canada is a great believer in helping our neighbours with foreign aid.

3) Let's talk about what to do about thorns in our side like Premier Danny Chavez and George Boros.

4) Now I know you're going to pledge to maintain NAFTA, and you will probably turn around and do the opposite, by putting up non tariff barriers against Canadian industries and producers. Are you OK if we negotiate free trade deals with Europe, Japan, India and China?

5) Let's discuss whether you're serious about the environment, or are you thinking that four years of hot air will heat enough homes to make the difference? Yes We Can make the Alberta Oilsands more environmentally friendly. But who's going to pay for it?

Look, I wish you all the best, and I really do sympathize with the tough job you have ahead of you. Our experts tell me that a Canadian PM has far more power than a US President, who has to spend all his time negotiating with Congress. I don't envy you, and if there's anything I can do in the way of economics education, give me a buzz.

Anyhoo, if you talk the talk, people will expect you to walk the walk. So keep talking in generalities, OK?

Yours for defending the world's longest undefended border....

PS: You can have a five minute photo op with Count Ignatula.

FSH

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Pix: Explaining how power relationships work based on self-interest. Yes indeed.

Mike the Baptist

Of course we're all fascinated by the spectacle of a public intellectual like Count Ignatula holding court within these hallowed walls. We're flattered, but why is he here? To save Canada from Yours Truly?

A persistent feeling around Langevin Block and PCO is that he is only here to hold the fort while the Puffins try desperately to refill the piggy bank. His role is to prepare the way, like John the Baptist, for the coming to power of young Prince Justin, descendant of the Templars, and the Obama of Canada.

Because the Count dresses better than I do, has a press agent wife, never met a camera he doesn't like, and has refined his "Talk Tough Like Mike" road act, he will at least make Commons life more interesting than Backpack Boy. I'm thankful for small mercies.

Kim Dilute Pull Forced to Eat Cat

In what journalists are calling Catgate or even worse, Pussygate, (Catscam? - Ed.) a senior Ignatieff advisor has been forced to recant before cadres of Red Guards for his sins in failing to keep his mouth shut.

This has become a big issue in the PRC, with people taking Warren Kinsella (Kim Dilute Pull) seriously, to the detriment of Sino-Canadian relations so carefully nurtured since the days when St. Pierre pirouetted in front of that old beast Mao. Now it is back to square one, I fear.

Massaging Michael

Dear Fake Interim Leader of the Opposition:

Look, don't be so shocked. It's just my brand new multi billion dollar coalition style budget, and I hope you like it. We need another election like a hole in the head, right?

Hopefully we won't have to pull all those economic levers. Now let's work on those so-called "middle class tax cuts" you and the Torostar don't want us to bring in.

Anyhoo, I look forward to crossing swords with you in the days to come, and educating your entire caucus, including that McCallum guy, about what's important in the days ahead.

Yours for a better Canada,

FSH

US Media Goes Bananas Over Obama

I'd kill for these headlines:

- "A Day When Even the Seagulls Were Awed"
- "Cheney Exiting Like 'Dr. Strangelove'"
- "Press Gets Intimate with Obama"
- "An Inaugural Speech 'For the Ages'"
- "As Obama Ascends, Horn Honking Ends"
- "After Eight Years of Hell, Celebrating Soulful, Brilliant Obama"

So much for the noble profession of journalism.

Harpernomics for Socialists #11 - Helping the Poor

I see tough talking Mikey the Mike is still wandering in La La land. In a recent Le Devoir interview, he said that he will reject any Conservative budget that contains tax cuts for the middle classes, but will support any measure that help the poor and create jobs.

Sorry Count, but you're wrong on both counts.

1) The Poor pay a higher proportion of their income on GST and PST than the rich. Ergo, any cut to these taxes benefits the serfs and peasants more than the bourgeoisie. Or would you prefer government hiring programs?

2) Tax increases provide more jobs for bureaucrats and their programs. Tax cuts leave more money in the hands of people and businesses. One way makes things better. Your way will make things worse.

So I'll ask you again, who's doing your economics? My advice is, fire him.

Or did you get this stuff from focus groups? Or is the Coalition of the Damned™ still in operation?

Congratulations to the New Pres

Congratulations to you, the new leader of Obamastan, and I'm delighted you're paying us a visit first.

Look Barry, if I can get personal, I know you're going to have a hell of a time living up to all these expectations, but let's face it, it's your own damn fault.

So the offer is open. If you need any help reforming your banking or health care systems, or even NAFTA, just give us a shout.

Oh and by the way, ditto if you ever need any energy.

So good luck, eh?

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PS: I just want to say that I may have been critical of you in the past, but a recent report from Carleton University says it's important for us to be best buddies. So I'm willing to give it a try. Let's shoot a few hoops and maybe I can show you how to skate.

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PPS: Sorry, but we don't want Bill Ayers. Try Iceland.

The Puffins Still Don't Get It

Warning: Puffinomics eruption.

So Mikey the Mike says "Stephen Harper spent the government down to the red line in good times," and he's not going to support any more of my terrible terrible tax cuts.

This from a guy who never managed anything bigger than a graduate seminar.

Clearly the Count can't count. Where's he getting his economics from? Bob Rae? It sure isn't Obama, who has come out firmly for tax cuts.

So it's back to the Coalition, Mikey the Mike?