CALGARY WEATHER
TODAY: 9, 60% Chance Showers
TONIGHT: 1, Partly Cloudy (*Chance of Frost)
TUESDAY: 13, Partly Cloudy
>Low Pressure pushing into Central Saskatchewan — the back of edge of the system providing a chance of rain today, with clearing beginning overnight…temperatures trending upward through the week.
-Meteorologist Andrew Schultz.
CALGARY WEEKEND WEATHER
TODAY: 6, AM: Flurries / PM: Rain
TONIGHT: 1, Scattered Showers / Flurries possible
SATURDAY: 6, Chance morning Flurries, changing to Showers
SUNDAY: 10, Partly Cloudy
-Clearing finally in sight (Sunday) – in the meantime…maybe a chance to catch up on some DVD rentals…Avatar? Sherlock Holmes? — tough choice!!
>Meteorologist Andrew Schultz.
Hard to believe it’s been almost three years since Mario last took to the stars. Super Mario Galaxy was a huge success for Nintendo, so it really didn’t come as a surprise to hear at last year’s E3 that a sequel was in the works. Now one year later we finally get our hands on the latest Mario game. Does it live up to my expectations? For the most part, yes.
Canadian taxpayers were taught an important political lesson this past week, but it’s laden with irony because the instructor, the professor if you will, was those taxpayers themselves.
When an opinion poll reveals that 80 percent of the populace suspects or in fact believes members of parliament and by extension senators, too, are guilty of claiming expenses which violate the rules, it’s no surprise that politicians would react very quickly. Not to put too blunt a point on it, but the Decima poll, to summarize it another way, discovered that four of five Canadians figure their elected and appointed representatives may be petty thieves or crooks, or actually are. To say the poll results attracted the undivided attention of MPs and senators would be understatement of the first order.
This all has to do, as you’re doubtless aware, with the insistence by parliamentarians, aided and abetted by Prime Minister Harper, Liberal leader Michael (Iffy) Ignatieff, and the unctuous Jack Layton of the NDP, that personal expenses are their business and auditor general Sheila Fraser need not worry herself about taking a look at the books. All is well, they said: we’re upstanding and worthy politicians, they said: the Board of Internal Economy (BOIE) takes care of such matters, they said: Ms. Fraser cannot be serious about delving into our trivial little spending habits, they said.
(It’s always been thus. Back in the 1980s the Commons Sergeant at Arms, a fellow named Gus Cloutier, quietly set about establishing an exclusive restaurant on Parliament Hill with the tacit knowledge and consent of the BOIE but without leave from the house finance committee or for that matter anybody else in authority. It was only when the speaker of the day, Jeanne Sauve, intervened that Cloutier’s culinary hideaway was exposed, and then shut down).
In any case, let it be noted that in the current controversy, the glee club of self-righteous protest and pleadings of honesty was in full voice on parliament hill……before the Decima poll results were released. But now? Well, my oh my: how the tide has turned because we have a full-blown political Dunkerque underway in Ottawa, with our previously haughty politicians in stampeding retreat from their original positions of defense and denial.
But they’re reversing course not because of sudden pangs of conscience, or because of a belated comprehension that expense money is in fact taxpayer money. They’re in precipitous abjuration because the Canadian public has delivered, by vast majority, a resounding vote of no confidence in their alleged spending habits. We’ve said we don’t trust you lot, and we want answers provided not by your little BOIE, but by independent analysis from an independent examiner.
Clearly that manner of external financial review is not what we get from the BOIE, which is chaired by the house of commons speaker and which is populated entirely — you guessed it — by members of parliament and senators. The foxes preside over the financial affairs of the parliamentary chicken coop.
The expense account imbroglio detonated a couple of weeks ago when Ms. Fraser suggested the operational costs of our two parliamentary institutions — commons and senate — should perhaps be subject to scrutiny. After all, she said, the total bill is $533 million dollars a year (half a billion in short phrasing) and surely the politicians would have no quarrel with perusal of who’s been spending how much on what.
But Fraser’s subsequent and formal request that the ledgers be opened to audit was abruptly turned aside by the BOIE, which claimed it makes absolutely certain, pretty much guarantees actually, that personal MP expenses are placed under microscopic review with every nickel and dime accounted for, nothing amiss, no larking around with claims, you can bet your life on that. And then there was the observation from the commons benches that there can’t possibly be financial impropriety in a $4 cup of coffee here and there. MPs do have to provide “refreshments” from time to time for visiting constituents and guests, you see.
(By way of context, members of parliament earn $157,731,00 annually. Committee chairs, and there are a good many of them, are given a supplementary allowance which takes their yearly pay to $168,896.00, while cabinet ministers also earn an extra reward which delivers an annual salary of $233,247.00).
There aren’t all that many Canadians earning almost $158K a year, never mind $233K, and it’s a sure bet the great majority of them, whatever the salary, buy their own coffee. Perhaps with that in mind, Ms. Fraser’s rejoinder to the java reference was immediate and caustic. “I’ve got better things to do than look for $4 cups of coffee.” And furthermore, she said MPs and senators should not be afraid to have their expenses audited if it’s true the BOIE rules and regulations are as effective as everybody on the hill says they are.
In the two weeks since Ms. Fraser broached the notion of an audit, the issue has gained very firm traction, which of course is why our elected and appointed representatives are now running at flank speed for cover. There’s little if any doubt an audit will proceed, and it’ll go well beyond morning lattes. Tellingly, we’ve reached that point because of one single factor: the Decmia poll, which clearly advised MPs and senators we don’t accept their cooing assurances about how the clandestine Board of Internal Economy has everything well in hand.
Here’s the broader instruction arising. Canadian citizens, Canadian taxpayers, have a great deal of political power — if they choose to exercise it and in the Decima poll, that’s precisely what they did. For the first time in years hostile voter opinion has forced the sad sacks occupying commons and senate seats to completely and utterly reverse a previous position.
The lessons, two of them, are clear. First, we have before us a significant victory for democratic process in Canada because the audit controversy has proven beyond question that when the electorate pipes up in protest, en masse, politicians actually do pay heed. And second, the people of this country have now fashioned a template by which they might in future effect genuine change in Canadian politics with not a whole lot of effort. In this case, all they had to do was answer the phone and tell a Decima researcher exactly what they think. In the wider expanse, they need only take themselves into the voting booths the next time around, sharpen the pencils, and then in a manner of speaking stick them into the hides of incumbent politicians who would dare claim our money is well and usefully spent on coffee.
We can only hope, and while it may spring eternal I’m afraid in my case it’s faint. Voter participation in the last federal election was at an historical nadir: only 42 percent of Canadians bothered to turn out, and over the years one of the principal reasons cited for increasing electoral inattentiveness has been well, my one vote won’t make any difference, so what’s the use?
I’ve always thought it a feeble argument, a weak defense for abandonment of democratic responsibility. But the audit controversy has done one thing, if no other: it has caused Canadian citizens to rebel against the arrogant hive who thought they’d get away with lurking in secrecy behind the financial self-appraisal of the BOIE. I say again: in so doing we taught ourselves a valuable lesson, but it’ll take permanent root only if we decide to go to class full time.
As for the $4 cup of coffee, perhaps we should wonder about how many all told? Ten or 12, 10 or 12 thousand, 100 or 120 thousand? Ms. Fraser, even if uninterested in a single mug, may be inclined in summation to tote up the aggregate. Then we might really get mad as hell and not take it any more and teach a second, more permanent lesson to the parliament hill latte lifters.
You’ve seen the infomercial, you’ve heard the claims, but does Montel Williams Living Well HealthMaster really live up to the hype? I had to find out. A blender that can make smoothies, dessert, and cook hot soup as it blends? Sounds too good to be true. Mix direct, the company behind the Living Well HealthMaster offered up one of the machines for me to test out. I ran it through its paces. How well did it work? Click on the link to find out!
CALGARY WEATHER
TODAY: 6, Rain (up to 20mm)
TONIGHT: 2, Rain/Snow mix
FRIDAY: 5, Rain (Chance morning flurries)
>Soggy weather expected straight through until Friday….look for a chance of flurries mixed in with the rain overnight, lingering into Friday morning – clearing begins Saturday.
-Meteorologist Andrew Schultz.
CALGARY WEATHER
TODAY: 17, Partly Cloudy…Chance Late Day Showers
TONIGHT: 6, Chance Showers
THURSDAY: 8, Rain
>Wet weather on the way….a Pacific Low will start to pump in cloud cover late today, bringing a chance of showers, really into our area overnight – expect rain showers to be a factor until Saturday.
-Meteorologist Andrew Schultz.
There are two types of racing games hitting the market. You have the ultra-realistic racing simulators such as Forza Motorsport 3 and Gran Turismo 5 (if it ever comes out), and then you have your arcade style racers like Need For Speed. I, for one, have never been a big fan of either. While racing games are fun, I just find I get bored with them. I have no interest in pimping my ride with high end shocks, spoilers or neon lights. And I really don’t care if I can outrun the cops over and over again. I admit it, I’m a racing snob. So when Split Second arrived on my desk I’ve have to say I wasn’t exactly over the moon thrilled to try it out. Could a Disney racing game really hold my attention long enough to enable me to write a full review? Thankfully… yes.
CALGARY WEATHER
TODAY: 17, Partly Cloudy
TONIGHT: 5, Clear
WEDNESDAY: 18, Partly Cloudy
>Great looking weather…in the short-term. Tracking a large area of Low Pressure which will bring damp/cooler weather by Thursday.
-Meteorologist Andrew Schultz.
CALGARY LONG WEEKEND WEATHER
TODAY: 15, Sunny
TONIGHT: 2, Clear
SATURDAY: 9, Partly Cloudy (chance evening showers)
SUNDAY: 9, **Chance AM showers/flurries…late-day: Partly Cloudy
MONDAY: 13, Partly Cloudy
-What would the long weekend be, without a chance of flurries?…with a cool morning in the works on Sunday, look for a slight chance of a rain/snow mix….remember – I am just the ‘messenger’.
-Meteorologist Andrew Schultz.
