Owner: Prairie Fire URL:www.saskprairiefire.blogspot.com Join Date: Mon, 23 Jul 2007 00:05:26 -0500 Rating:0 Site Description: A true Saskatchewan Grit. From the bright lights of Saskatoon’s synchrotron, to the intrigue and inspiration of Canada’s capital, to the political heart of the free world, and back again – commentary on real life, politics, and everything in-between Site statistics:Click here
Less Jobs, More War: Why I Don't Like John McCain 2008-01-30 22:59:52 In the past 24 hours, the media punditry has reached a fever pitch with prognostications about the increasing inevitability of John McCain
becoming the Republican nominee for President of the United States of America. The official storyline, if you will, of the mainstream media in the United States is that John McCain is a war hero, a man of great character, a principled independent thinker, etc.. etc... And at first glance that all seems to check out. It certainly seemed to all fit back in 2000 when he ran against G-Dubya.But this time, as I watch and listen, something just doesn't seem to add up for me. I think Matthew Yglesias of the Atlantic put it well when he wrote "McCain is a kind of empty suit -- a heroic biography followed by an extended legislative career that's been long on Su
Risk: Real Life Edition 2008-01-28 01:51:54 For one of the better reads on international relations that I have come across in awhile, I'd invite you to check out this article from the New York Times by Parag Khanna of the New America Foundation. Read more:Edition
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This is the story that will never end... 2008-01-27 23:35:07 I have largely withheld any comment on the Northern Saskatchewan Orchard-Beatty-First Nations-Goodale saga over the past few weeks. In large part because more than enough has been said by more than enough people. But after reading the article in the Globe and Mail this weekend claiming breathlessly that "Saskatchewan Liberals May Boycott By-Election", enough is enough. Here is what I posted in the comments section for this article on the G&M website yesterday:All of the Conservatives and Dippers out there should take a moment and think about the old adage: 'Don't throw stones in glass houses'. Every single current leader of federal parties in Canada have shown a willingness to use the appointment powers they have to circumvent local nomination processes either preemptively or retroacti Read more:story
Monopoly Update 2008-01-25 23:52:17 In my continuing series on the contest to pick the cities for the board of the new Monopoly World Edition (see, it's not all politics here at Prairie Fire!) I have most exciting news - Canada has moved into the winners circle! That's right baby - both Montreal (#11) and Vancouver (#17) have moved into the top 20 with Toronto just at the cusp at #21. Of course there is still 34 LONG days to go...and given that Monopoly is only providing percentages not the actual total numbers of votes cast, I have no actual idea if my...uh...tens of readers (sigh) are having any real impact on the results. But what say we pretend that we are and keep voting, ok?If we get all three cities in the top 20 maybe they will give us our own colour block on the game - red of course...right next to "Free Parking" :- Read more:Update
Timmmmberrrrr! 2008-01-25 20:03:17 One of the big stories today was the Sask Party moving forward with their plan for clear cutting old growth...no not in the northern forests but in the civil service. Much less than anticipated, with about 70 provincial bureaucrats being given their walking papers. All of whom, we are told. were NDP functionaries buried in the bowels of government or other malcontents otherwise unwilling to serve under new political masters. They did however try to provide a distraction from the story by today very shrewdly announcing a little transplanting process from another old growth forest from days of old with the appointment of former Liberal NDP Cabinet Minister Janice MacKinnon as the Chair of Investment Saskatchewan.This is a bit of a tough one to assess from the outside. While the Canwest artic
So Facebook went to this party and... 2008-01-24 00:07:36 Watch this for a pretty funny take on social networking sites. I particularly enjoyed the Facebook
character - so true. Though I have to say I am feeling my age as there were at least a half dozen characters whose sites I didn't recognize (seems to me that in the Web 2.0 world that while being over 25 isn't exactly elderly it is certainly over the hill!).------------------------------Monopoly Update:Though I have no empirical evidence to back this up, I am going to take credit for the stunning rise in Canadian city rankings in the Monopoly International Edition contest I posted about yesterday. Montreal has leapfrogged to 21st place (one away from getting into the top 20 and thus in the board game), Toronto has risen to 23rd and Vancouver to 27th. Keep it going!
Do Not Pass Go...Do Not Collect $200...Do Not Forget Canada! 2008-01-22 20:54:59 Alright friends, it is time to rally the troops in the cause of Canadian pride. Seems that Monopoly is putting together an international edition of the game and they are having an on-line contest to select which cities will be on the board. It would obviously be a slap in the face if Canada
didn't have at least one spot on this cultural icon of a board game so it's time to get busy and start voting!Three Canadian cities are in the running - Montreal, Toronto, and Vancouver - out of 68 in total. The top 20 cities will make it on to the game. As of this evening Toronto is the highest ranked Canadian city at 25...so there is some work to be done. Go vote today! Read more:Collect
double-teaming Obama 2008-01-22 07:55:34 And now a tag-team effort by Clinton and Edwards attacking Obama
's voting record and abstentions when he was a State Senator. Obama held up well I thought and Clinton actually got booed by the audience at one point. Remarkable. Sent from my BlackBerry device on the Rogers Wireless Network Read more:double
A Few Final Thoughts on Last Night's Debate 2008-01-22 07:54:31 To close off my few spontaneous crackberry blog postings last night, I really was struck by the debate as being one of the most interesting (dare I say best) I have seen in recent years. Obviously the media attention is on the official "coming off of the gloves" but I thought it was additionally remarkable because there were some substantive policy debates that took place as well, particularly around health care. As an outsider observer who has been following the "horse race" side of the primaries, but not the various policy proposals in any depth, I walked away understanding clear philosophical and practical differences between the three candidate's health care plans. I can't remember the last time I watched a political debate and could say the same thing afterwards.As for winners and los Read more:Final
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Clean Coal on the Cheap 2008-03-26 01:59:40 PM Stevie was in Saskatchewan today with his BFF Brad to talk about clean coal. Specifically the Harper Government's pledge to put $250 million into the $1.4 billion pot needed to implement a pilot project at the Boundary Dam coal power plant near Estevan.I think carbon capture technology and research into "clean coal" is exciting stuff. Sure it isn't perfect, but it is a realistic solution to a real problem. We burn a lot of coal in Canada, in the United States, and in many other industrialized countries. And most quickly growing countries, China in particular, are building literally hundreds of new coal plants in the next few years to feed their insatiable appetite for energy.So here is my beef. I know for a fact that Sask Power is a world leader when it comes to the research behind carb Read more:Clean
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Brad Wall's House Party 2008-03-26 01:40:20 Though I am obviously a few days late on this, just came across the Saskatchewan Young Liberals response to the Sask Party
's budget (great stuff guys!):Seriously, why is it that whenever Conservatives get into power they spend money like drunken sailors? Look at Brad Wall and Stephen Harper - both have the distinction of having higher annual increases in spending then their so-called fiscally "liberal" predecessors, and both now have the dubious accomplishment of presiding over the highest public sector spending in their respective jurisdictions histories. What gives? Read more:House
Where's Ryan? 2008-03-25 00:52:46 What was suppose to be a two-week break from blogging during a real-life vacation seems to have turned into a month-long hiatus. In part because I was pretty busy catching up on life once I got back to Saskatchewan, in part because I have been fighting this nasty little chest cold that seems to be going around, and in part because I have been putting together my plans for the next few months and years after getting some exciting news the other week.So as not to keep you all in suspense, the exciting news first. After the provincial election I took some time to reflect and make a few decisions about what I wanted to do next. One of those decisions was to go back to university to get a Masters degree. So I couldn't have been more excited to get the news last week that I have been accepted in
Sask Party to Saskatoon's West Side: "Read my middle finger" 2008-03-28 07:44:43 The Sask Party
has shown a few of its true colours with the Station 20 West debacle. Day two of the story, and at least now the Sask Party has figured out how much the project actually costs. So I guess they get a big gold star for that.The two key arguments advanced in support of the decision to pull the funding, the first by Health Minister Don McMorris and the second by Premier Brad Wall, are quite enlightening in so far as their absurdity underscores that this decision is clearly about politics, not about good public policy.Argument #1 - "we felt that it's more important right now, a priority is to make sure that the acute care facilities that we have here in Saskatoon, for example, are equipped properly"Sure no one is going to argue that our hospitals and other health care facilities Read more:middle
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A Riddle 2008-03-27 18:46:31 Question: How badly does a President need to screw up for you to find yourself actually rooting for the CIA?Answer: Watch the fascinating Frontline series "Bush's War" to find out. Read more:Riddle
More on Station 20 West 2008-03-30 03:18:24 For those interested in the controversy that is swirling around the Sask Party's decision to pull the funding for Station
20 West development, I'd encourage you to check out this very thoughtful posting by Jordon Cooper. I think he hits the nail on the head in terms of debunking this notion of Brad Wall's that Station 20 West is a shopping mall, socialist or otherwise.
Taking a Moment to Remember Martin Luther King 2008-04-04 21:50:02 Today is the 40th anniversary of the death of MartinLuther
King. I would invite you to take a few minutes and re-listen to the famous speech that then Presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy gave that evening in which he poetically described not just what King meant to the United States (something that those present knew all too well), but the long road that Americans, and indeed all people, have yet to walk before reaching true racial reconciliation and equality.About a month ago I was in Memphis, where I had the opportunity to visit the national civil rights museum and see the spot where King was killed. That trip provided some unique insights for me into the struggles that Americans still have in overcoming racial barriers between blacks and whites. The night before the picture abov Read more:Taking
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Karma - it's a bitch (Updated w/ video) 2008-04-03 18:34:02 This story just hitting the wires: Former Sask Party Executive Director and now Regina-Lumsden-Lake Centre Conservative MP Tom Lukiwski and Sask Party Premier Brad Wall caught on a 1991 video
tape making homophobic and bigoted remarks (you can view the Lukiwski portion of the tape here). Why has said videotape surfaced some 17 years after the fact? Seems it was left behind in their former opposition caucus office at the Saskatchewan Legislature for the incoming NDP occupants to find.Looks like Lukiwski and Wall have joined the list of Saskatchewan politicians making bigoted remarks on camera (or on the record) that just didn't seem like it was that big of a deal at the time...UPDATE:For those who missed it on the nightly news, here is the Lukiwski portion of the offending video:And for thos
Don't let it go to your Head 2008-04-10 02:22:11 When I first read the editorial in the National Post last week by Shoal Lake First Nation Chief Marcel Head I thought that maybe something had changed since I commented on his involvement in the Beatty-Orchard-Dion-Goodale fiasco back in January. Maybe he actually WAS the riding association president now.Apparently not.Good on Sask Liberal President Frank Proto to point out the key fact that the national media seems to keep ignoring every time Head pumps out a news release or an op-ed (which they breathlessly cover as proof of the "Liberal Party" rebelling against Dion), namely that:"Head is not, nor has he ever been, the riding association president for Desnethé-Missinippi-Churchill River constituency. Any statement to the contrary is misleading and untrue."Why is it that the national me
This just in from the Bureau of Overused Metaphors 2008-04-11 19:02:06 Speaking of going down in flames...Yes, that's right, that is Hillary Clinton's campaign office in Terre Haute, Indiana burning down last night.
The Hillary Clinton Deathwatch 2008-04-11 18:43:45 A fun new widget from our friends at Slate to add a little dash of anti-Hillary
bias to your favourite blog or social networking site! Read more:Clinton
Yet another reason why I like Barack Obama 2008-04-14 03:29:48 Like many people, when I first saw Obama
in action I was impressed with his ability to speak to people's better angels and get them excited about participating in democracy again - something that is all too rare in politics. But the political pragmatist in me did ask the question that many others were asking themselves: given the rabid attack machine of the Republicans, can this guy take a punch?Not only has Obama proven through this campaign that he can take a punch, but today he showed pretty convincingly that he can punch back as well: Read more:Barack
Brother, can you spare a gallon? 2008-04-13 17:49:27 Was having a conversation with some family members the other week about the rising cost of gas (it was 1.24 a litre when I filled up last week in Saskatoon, not sure if it has gone up since then) and I raised the point that as high as the prices are getting here, it is still much cheaper than virtually everywhere in the world with the exception of the United States and oil producing countries in the Middle East (and Venezuela) which highly subsidize their fuel.I was reminded of this conversation today when a friend sent me a link to an interesting comparative chart tracking the average gas price in seven different countries on a weekly basis stretching back to 1996. The most recent prices are as follows:Weekly Retail Premium Gasoline Prices (Including Taxes)(U.S. Dollars per Gallon)Date - Read more:Brother
Lies, Damned Lies, and Rupublican Talking Points 2008-04-13 17:32:37 I'm sure many of you have heard about the underground e-mail rumour campaign that has been circulating in the United States for months now trying to implant the idea that Barack Obama is a Muslim because he spent part of his childhood in Indonesia (incidentially, how sad is it that being called a Muslim has become a curse word in the United States), that he could be a terrorist (or as GDubya would put it, an evil-dooer) because his middle name is "Hussein", etc... The jury is still out, btw, on if these e-mails originated from the Republicans, the Clinton campaign, or both.So in part I wasn't surprised when a friend from down south forwarded me one of these attack pieces on Obama the other day. Most of it is the usual detached-from-reality right-wing crap that those of you who have tuned i Read more:Talking
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I'll take those odds! 2008-04-16 00:00:57 Did some internal family betting tonight on the outcome of the Pennsylvania primary next week:Family member #1 - Hillary wins by 12%Family member #2 - Hillary wins by 4%Family member #3 - Obama wins by
Underground Weather Report: Prairie Fire on the Horizon 2008-04-17 14:59:52 As part of her I'm-desperate-so-lets-throw-everything-including-the-kitchen-sink-at-Obama performance at last night's debate, Hillary Clinton brought up Obama's links (which is using the work VERY generously) to former members of a group called the Weather Underground. Which left me, and I am sure many others under the age of 40, scratching their heads wondering: who the heck is the Weather Underground?So as I was doing some quick research on them today I discovered that in the mid-1970's the Weather Underground somewhat de-radicalized (i.e. stopped blowing things up) and reorganized under the name of Prairie Fire. I'd normally say right about now that great minds think alike, but in this case, not so much.Though my real motivation for this post is to see how much Google search traffic I c
The Ins and Outs of In and Out 2008-04-16 16:36:00 I hate to sound like I am defending the Conservatives, but I do frankly find it tough to get extraordinarily rilled up about the latest dust-up over the so-called "In and Out" scandal. Of course, the RCMP raiding the Conservative Party offices in Ottawa yesterday is certainly another example of karma in action after all their sanctimonious preaching regarding ethics and accountability. And obviously if they did violate the Elections Canada rules regarding election spending limits (to which they legally agreed to uphold) then they should be punished accordingly.That said, Atlas Hugged has some interesting thoughts on the scandal - and though I don't agree with everything he writes, he certainly has a point when it comes to how arbitrarily spending limits are created in the first place and t
Hillary Wins, Beats the Spread (well my spread anyway) 2008-04-23 02:40:59 As everyone I am sure knows already, Hillary
won by a decent margin in Pennsylvania tonight. I lost $5.In my quick, before bed, recap of the political news south of the border I thought the far more interesting story coming out of the past few media cycles was that Hillary Clinton has gone on record saying that she would nuke Iran. I am not kidding. Read more:Beats
Harper Today, Gone Tomorrow 2008-04-21 22:46:40 If the following screen shot is any indication, it would seem that Stephen Harper
's witness protection program coordinators may want to find him a more convincing new identity:(h/t to Dan Cook) Read more:Today
Some good news... 2008-04-25 16:10:40 ...for the spell-check generation.
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