SDAP Goes Crazy

This will probably be the last post that I ever make regarding SDAP and the Heritage party because at this point we are just feeding the Troll's ego.

That being said, you have to check this out, Lance busts the guy hard (you have to read all the comments to get the full gist of it) and then the guy goes nutzo over at Murney's blog to the point where he has to cancel comments entirely. And then he goes even more nuts over on Saskboy's blog (again read the comments for a good laugh)

I particularly like the party where he starts ending his posts with "Legal Office Saskatchewan Democratic Action Party" like that matters. He accuses Lance of not existing (or of being some other guy) and photoshoping records, he accuses people of faking a Saskatchewan gazette, accuses other bloggers of not being real people, and he basically just goes completely off the deep end.

This guy is mentally unbalanced to say the least.

Update: So then I get this e-mail:

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21 September 2007

Smarten up...

We are inviting you to take down the Libel you are posting and we'll
consider ignoring the behavior...

We'll be posting on political issues when ever and where ever they
appear as is our right as a registered political party.

If you figure you're just begin clever or that you are serving your
political party, consider that you aren't blogging to one of your
buddies, but you are attacking a registered political party. There
are legal ramifications to your libel.

Standard Legal: You have 30 days to remove the Libel against the SDAP
from all of your sites and pay us $250,000 for damage to our
reputation or legal action may be taken against you. It is our
opinion that your behavior has damaged our reputation and we believe
this is worth the amount above. Each day that passes we will consider
to be an aggravation of the damages you are creating with your libel.

Saskatchewan Democratic Action Party.

This correspondence is private communication between the Saskatchewan
Democratic Action Party and its recipient.

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The message was sent from "Saskatchewan Democratic Action Party: sdap@accesscomm.ca" with the orignating IP of 65.87.230.25

Koo Koo, Koo Koo.

Nutter.

Uperdate: I am moving to comment moderation to stop the spam.

Liberal MP Donations Vs. NDP MP Donations

Nice little Canadian Press story:

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Still reeling from Monday's humiliating byelection losses, Liberals are turning their attention to another horror story - their dismal fundraising record.
...
Only 29 per cent of Liberal MPs have donated to the party and almost none of their staff members.

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Wow! I don't understand how you can be a Liberal MP and NOT make a single donation to the Party.

Let's take at look at the NDP. Each MP and how many times they donated in 2006 (for example)

Jack Layton - 13 times
Charlie Angus - 14 times
Alex Atamanenko - 7 times
Catherine Bell - 14 times
Denis Bevington - 13 times
Dawn Black - 11 times
Bill Blaikie - 15 times
Chris Charlton - 3 times
Olivia Chow - 14 times
David Christopherson - 13 times
Joe Comartin - 13 times
Jean Crowder - 15 times
Nathan Cullen - 13 times
Libby Davies - 12 times
Paul Dewar - 12 times
Yvon Godin - 11 times
Peter Julian - 15 times
Wayne Marston - 13 times
Pat Martin - 13 times
Tony Martin - 16 times
Brian Masse - 12 times
Irene Mathyssen - 13 times
Alexa McDonough - 14 times
Peggy Nash - 13 times
Penny Priddy - 12 times
Denise Savoie - 14 times
Bil Siksay - 16 times
Peter Stoffer - 12 times
Judy Wasylycia-Leis - 14 times.

So that is 100% of the NDP caucus making a donation. Sure, most of them are on a monthly donation system but still, recall that only 29% of Liberal MP's made ANY donation at all.

Now by Wikipedia's count there are 96 Liberal MPs. So 29% of that is 28 MPs who have donated.

So assuming the trend holds from last year MORE NDP MPS WILL HAVE MADE CONTRIBUTIONS THAN LIBERAL MPS. And we only have 1/3 as many MPs.

Yeah, I don't know why the Liberal Party is in trouble.

SDAP Troll busted!

This may be the only time I link to Catprint in the Mash, but when you pull off a bust this good, it deserves to be recognized.

It turns our that the so-called "Saskatchewan Democratic Action Party" that has made comments in Saskatchewan blogs that include statements about 36,000 members and getting 60% of the vote in the next election is actually just a front for the Heratige Party that got 36 votes in the last by-election and has, like, 6 members province wide.

From now on, following the long established policy of this blog, I will only allow people to post with their real identity if they are using a cover to troll. So SDAP, post under your real name and/or party from now on here.

Update:
http://www.qp.gov.sk.ca/documents/gazette/part1/2007/G1200737.pdf

The Election Act, 1996 [clause 223(b)]
________
NOTICE OF AMENDMENT
Pursuant to clause 233(b) of The Election Act, 1996, notice is hereby given of an amendment to the name of the Saskatchewan Heritage Party to the Saskatchewan Democratic Action Party and the abbreviation of the name of the registered party to Saskatchewan Democratic Action Party – SDAP. Dated at Regina, Saskatchewan, this 4th day of September 2007.

Jean Ouellet,
Chief Electoral Officer.

New Simpsons Game

The Simpson's fan in me just had to post this one:

In stores November 1st

Sask Party Candidate makes odd comment about Jewish People

So buckdog had this great post on Serge LeClerk, the new Sask Party candidate in Saskatoon:

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Saskatchewan Party Candidate Takes Heat For Calling Charter of Rights And Freedoms 'A Piece Of Garbage'

A candidate for the Opposition Saskatchewan Party has been challenged to explain comments he has made concerning the Charter of Rights And Freedoms

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Well it turns out that Mr. LeCerk has a couple more interesting things to say in his book "Untwisted" available on his website here, (copyright 2007) but I don't know that the Sask Party would want them brought to people's attention.

On Page 11, Mr. LeCerk has this to say:

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And then there were the Sheeney Men, Jewish men with long black coats, black hats, and curls, who came down the street with their horse-drawn wagons.

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"Sheeny" Men!

For those of you not in the know, I point you to dictionary.com. Sheeny can mean one of two things:

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adjective, sheen·i·er, sheen·i·est.
shining; lustrous

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or:

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n. pl. shee·nies Offensive Slang
Used as a disparaging term for a Jew.

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I will give you one choice as to which meaning Mr. LeClerk meant. I guess he could have meant shining Jews, but is that likely?

Which Middle East country remembered 9/11? (Answer may surprise you)

Which Middle East country held spontaneous candlelight vigils for victims of the World Trade Center Attack on 9/11?

• Kuwait - No.
• Saudi Arabia - No.
• Qumar - No.
  
• Israel - No.
• Iraq - No.
  
• Iran - Yes.

Read more here

Sask Party / PC Merger?

There is some evidence that shows that former Sask Party leader Elwin Hermanson approached the leader of the PC Party to discuss a merger between the two parties.

Why?

Follow the money.

According to the Sworn Affidavit of Rick Swenson (the PC Leader) after the 2003 election campaign he was approached by Hermanson to discuss merging the two parties together.

His sworn testimony is as follows:

(See the full affidavit here on the Sask NDP website)

So it is all about the money.

Perhaps that explains this story today:

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The Progressive Conservative Party of Saskatchewan Trust Fund was set up in 1981 from contributions from the party "for the purpose of insuring the long-term survival and existence of the Progressive Conservative Party of Saskatchewan," according to the deed.

In 1997, with the formation of the Saskatchewan Party by Tory and Liberal MLAs, the PC party amended its constitution to allow the party to become inactive for two consecutive provincial elections.

During that time, the fund continued to disperse money to the party.

Swenson alleges funding was cut off when members of its board began discussing revival of the party.

---

Read more about this issue here and here

What happens when Democrats spot a backbone...

hat tip: crooks and liers

Russia has a new Prime Minister

From BBC News

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Russian President Vladimir Putin has accepted the resignation of PM Mikhail Fradkov and nominated a financial crime investigator to replace him.

Victor Zubkov, head of the federal financial monitoring service, is a relative unknown in Russian politics.

The change marks a major political shake-up ahead of parliamentary and presidential elections.

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snip

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Russian media had been speculating that First Deputy Prime Minister Sergei Ivanov - long considered a frontrunner for the presidency - could have been about to be made prime minister.

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What the Saskatchewan Democratic Action Party stands for...

So a poster who goes under the name "Saskatchewan Democratic Action Party" has been posting spam on my site and others'. When challenged over on John Murney's blog the poster had this to say:

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With our current membership of over 36 thousand members and growing, asking us who we are would fill several pages of your blogs here.

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So they claim to have over 36,000 members. Which is pretty impressive for a group I had never heard of until they started posting on my blog. So I started trying to find out about them.

And them I came across the best electoral Youtube Video ever. This beats the wolf in sheep's clothing video hands down. It conclusively explains what the SDAP stands for.





I am laughing so hard I hurt right now.

Oh, and in case you want to go to an event and actually, you know, meet one of these 36,000 members, you just have to look at thier event calendar here.

Busy guys.

Update: As it turns out the guy who is running this is a total and complete nutjob, I mean, call-the-men-it-white-coats-crazy. See this post for the full scoop

It has got to bug them that this blog post is the number on google hit for "Saskatchewan Democratic Action Party"

Ha Ha.

Why Fred Thompson has his work cut out for him

So from the mouth of Peggy Noonan herself (Regan's former speachwriter and senior adviser to Bush senior).

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For Fred Thompson, spurning the debate and announcing on Leno was rude and shrewd. He loped on like a long, tall, folksy fella and got a good burst of applause from the audience when he said he was running. The Web video was fine, the 60-second commercial unveiled Wednesday too self-consciously presidential. A young journalist brutally remarked to me of the makeup and lighting, "He looks like a skull on a Disney pirate ride."

He faces three big challenges. He has come in saying, essentially, I'm not the other guys. That's good, but raises the questions: Who are you? And the reason you're running for president would be . . .?

Second challenge: You can come to the rescue only when someone calls "Help!" You can save the drowning guy only when he falls through the ice; you can't do it when he's skating by and giving you a friendly nod. Three and six months ago, the Republican Party was looking at its slate of candidates and shouting, "Help!" Since then, the candidates have been out there making an impression, getting known, declaring their stands. They've found supporters.

Is the party still yelling "Help!"? Is it falling through the ice?

A third challenge, I think, is a certain dissonance in Mr. Thompson's persona. He seems preoccupied, not full of delight that he's at the party. John McCain has been having sly fun with the idea of Mr. Thompson's sluggishness. When asked why Mr. Thompson didn't come to the debate, Mr. McCain said "Maybe we're up past his bedtime."

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Hah! Love the snark at the end. Bedtime indeed. If I was a Republican (And I SOOOOOO wouldn't be,) I would probably be a McCain supporter.

Irony

In case you can't read the sign it says:

"If you don't have GIO Third Party Property Insurance, we suggest you don't hit this bus"

A refrigerator that runs without electricity?

This is just in the experimental stage obviously, but if this can be developed as a working product, think of the reduction in power consumption!

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First, the technology is potentially more energy-efficient than the alternatives. It only really uses energy to move the magnetic field to and from the magnetic material. The model currently under development produces the magnetic field through a system of powerful blocks of magnets similar to those we use on our refrigerator doors, only stronger. These do not get worn out, and thus do not need replacing, which is very good for the environment.

This leads to the second major benefit, namely the fluid, which could turn out to be just plain water. Consequently, there would not be the same environmental impact as with today’s compressor-based refrigerators. The third great potential difference is the noise level. Bahl expects their demonstration model, which should be ready in 2010, to be practically silent. The opportunities are obvious.

“It is probably not realistic to think that magnetic cooling technology will be used in consumers’ homes right away. Manufacturers have spent too many years streamlining the prices of the existing refrigerators. Initially, it will be about implementation in various types of niche applications – large-scale refrigerating plants, soda machines or places where a noise-free environment is important,” says Bahl, adding, however, that he believes it will ultimately spread to the rest of society.

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The Cost of War

McDonalds, then and now

Commercials have always been a little weird.

This is the first McDonalds' commercial ever.

And this is a more, uh, modern one.




And the strangest ad of all here

Great High School Prank

And typical overreaction from the principal:

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A high school student who tricked football fans from a crosstown rival into holding up signs that together spelled out, "We Suck," was suspended and banned temporarily from extracurricular activities for the prank, according to the school's principal.

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This seems to me to be a pretty harmless prank that took a lot of work to get of the ground.

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Kyle Garchar, a senior at Hilliard Davidson High School in suburban Columbus, said he spent about 20 hours over three days plotting the trick, which was captured on video and posted on the video-sharing Web site YouTube. He said he was inspired by a similar prank pulled by Yale students in 2004, when Harvard fans were duped into holding up cards with the same message.

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Here is the video



And here is a news interview with the prankster.

New Sask NDP Website

So the Sask NDP website (after much delay) has finally launched. You can take a look at it here:

The party has been kind enough to send out some promotional screen shots that bloggers like me can use to profile some of the new features of the site. I am going to focus on the three that interest me the most.

1) First up: Facebook.

The Sask NDP have apparently bought into facebook in a big way. Not only does the Premier have a page on facebook but there is also an application for receiving the Commonwire Newsletter on facebook. Not sure how many people will sign up for something like that but it nice of them to provide it.

It is interesting to see that the Party is getting into social networking. I'm still not convinced that this is a great value add but then again I don't really "get" the whole facebook thing, I log on once every three months or so.

2) RSS Feeds

As a blogger I know how valuable these things are.

It is good to see that the party is using the tools of the "web 2.o" (another term that I hate) but if people are anything like me, your rss aggregator is better than your morning newspaper.

3) YouTube

It was a given that the new web site would have video on it (you can't have a political website without video these days) but it is interesting to see them integrate YouTube as much as they have.

In fact, the entire Premier's video bio section is done via YouTube. They obviously could have chosen to have those videos simply play on their own site, (like the intro on the first page) but instead they have made them public for the whole world to use on blogs and other places (no comments, however).

Is this a sign that the Sask NDP is "getting" the new web?

Or is is just a "me too" thing?

I'm inclined to give them the benefit of the doubt. They could have just put up facebook accounts without integrating them into the new web site and they could have just had flash video of their own playing on the site (and in fact they do) but the fact that they are trying to reach out and engage people tells me that, however slightly, they are starting to adapt to the Internet and the way things work here.

The true test will be to see how their forums work out:

I am kind of surprised that they are willing to take the risk of forums. But it has the potential to pay off in a big way if nurtured and used properly.

Also the fact that they are reaching out to bloggers with this information is a good thing - it shows that they are taking us a bit more seriously than any political party has done in the psat (with the possible exception of the Federal Conservatives)

The Sask Party is running scared

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REGINA - An NDP advertisement accusing the Saskatchewan Party of a hidden agenda has a dirty subliminal message of its own, the Opposition charged Tuesday.

The television ad in question consists of a series of written phrases, where some words fade away letter by letter. Saskatchewan Party MLA Nancy Heppner said that one phrase - "Sask Party stood for Privatization Of Crowns" - dissolves for a split second to read "Sask Party stood for porn", before the words fade out completely.

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So let me get this straight. If you freeze frame the ad and ignore one of the five letters (the "t") -then there is a subliminal message?

I franktly fintd thatt a litttle sustpicious.

Reaching much?

Political Courage

As a fairly left-of-centre person myself, I occasionally get discouraged by the waffling and hemming and hawing by those elected officials of the "left." It would be worse if we didn't have the Federal NDP and it would be even worse if I lived in the US.

I imagine that if I lived in the States I would be writing something like this:

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One thing I finally noticed about Kucinich during the AFL-CIO debate was how Kucinich always made more points during his alloted time than other candidates. I have been thinking about this and found the answer when I was reading the transcript. Kucinich doesn’t equivocate. He doesn’t dance around an issue - he goes straight for the explanation and since his past is not littered with idiotic support of bad bills, HE has nothing to fear, so why do I?

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And the final section is great:

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He is just like me. My values are the same as his. If I was in Congress, I would vote like he does. I no longer fear. I refuse to allow the GOP to manipulate me into supporting lesser candidates.

That just might be called courage.

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I am closer to Kucinich than any other US candidate and I have to think that if I lived down there I would be volunteering on his campaign.

Sask NDP Attack campaign - the video

The television commercial that goes with the brochure: