Frank McKenna - your dork in Chief

“Right now the United States is in many ways a theocratic state, not dissimilar to some of the other religious states in the world where religion has a huge part to play in government.”
Frank McKenna

That quote lifted from a story in the Edmonton Journal today. That combined with this gem leave me thanking heaven that this induhvidual is not a leader of anything right now.

He referred to a congressional investigation into whether partisan political and religious loyalties were used in the hiring and firing of U.S. attorneys and immigration judges. He also alluded to a report that 150 graduates of a Christian evangelical school have worked at the White House in recent years.

By contrast, he said in a speech to a business audience hosted by the Ottawa Chamber of Commerce that “Canada is truly a secular state. Religion and politics do not mix in this country.”

Personally I find this bigotry so tough to swallow. It is that same smugness which led people to despise Liberals while in power. We are so much better because we do not have religion in our politics, well except for power, now that is a religion the Liberals know all about.

The funny thing is this arrogant person was the leading representative to take the place of Paul "I am a Catholic, really" Martin. I do not know why this upsets me but I think it has to do with sitting back and watching Liberal social engineering effectively destroy the country only to have people like Chretien, Martin and McKenna brag about how wonderful it all is.

Ah post secular dogma at its finest.

Romney seems to be surprising

Mitt Romney, the governor of Massachusetts, is running for the Republican candidacy for United States President. Romney just happens to also be a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

Romney has impressed many of the prognosticators who saw him as an also ran much like Orrin Hatch, another LDS member, was in 2000. With Rudolph Guliani and John McCain in the race it seemed like they would be the two to beat.

Then along came Romney. Mitt has already got the most fundraising money of any of the other candidates. Most impressively he has been considered the hands down winner of the first debate which happened earlier this month.

So in the last few months America has finally started to question whether they can be lead by a member of the LDS church. For some, who see Mormonism as a cult, Romney is the vision of evil who must be stopped.

For others, the social liberals, he was the man who stopped same sex marriage in its tracks when he put through protection for traditional marriage in his state.

To me that is the track record that makes his political career so impressive. In the most liberal of liberal New England states he did what few others were willing to do.

For me making tough choices is what a President must do. Even unpopular decisions must be made no matter what others may say.

At the same time the Republican Party needs new leadership, it has to be viewed as a break from the George W. Bush presidency. Guliani and McCain I think would have a much more difficult time doing this because the perception of both of them is caught up in 9/11 and its aftermath.

Romney is a fallback position to some extents but I think he has already proving he has the ability, political savvy and media friendly appearance to be a great candidate to go up against the Hillary machine.

The only thing which seems to be the biggest stumbling block seems to be his church membership. In the modern era I think most of us would like to think religious bigotry is a thing of the past.

Reality has proven time and time again bigotry still comes in many shapes and sizes. The reality is Romney will win people over despite his being a member of the LDS faith not because of it.

Hopefully, like John F. Kennedy, Romney can break down this mental wall in enough of the population to win. The time for faith litmus tests is far past.

sigh... TV gets boring now

Total non political post.

I do not know if there is general agreement out there but you know I am not a big watcher of TV but when I do watch a show it is interesting to see them go on hiatus in the summer. It means the three shows I do watch are basically useless until September-October.

So now with Hockey winding down and the NFL so far away I am left with... not very much.

That is a good thing. Because honestly I could use more time out in the real world. But my three hours of TV time goes bye bye.

Oh and is anyone else looking forward to Pirates of the Caribbean 3 as much as I am. Just a few more days... arrrrgh.

Baseball hypocrisy and the shame of "stuff"

Jason Giambi, New York Yankees designated hitter, called it "that stuff". Barry Bonds and Gary Sheffield called it the "Clear and the Cream". What is it, well it of course is Steroids. The performance enhancing "stuff" has been debated regularly since the 1998 Home run chase of Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa.

Now nearly a decade later all of baseball is now focused on Barry Bonds, the 42 year old left fielder for the San Francisco Giants. Bonds has been accused for years of using steroids, it became particularly vicious as the slugger chased McGuire’s record home runs.

What of course is left unsaid is how Baseball has arbitrarily treated their anti-heroes. McGwire’s claim to not want to look at the past during the congressional hearings into performance enhancing drugs in sports looked bad enough that he was excluded from the Hall of Fame on his first try.

Barry Bonds on the other hand may have even less chance, though he WILL be the home run king both in career numbers and in a season. In fact I suspect reaching 73 home runs could make the Babe's record look easy by comparison.

What few in the media or in and around baseball will admit publicly is it is easier to go after Barry because Barry is not a nice media friendly guy. In fact Barry is noted mostly for his hitting and his churlishness.

What is so frustrating is that Barry Bonds is not the problem. Baseball has a long history of people looking for angles, spit balls for example, ways to “cheat” their way to victory.

Lets be honest, I would never say to my kids, that Barry Bonds he is who you should model you life after if you want to be successful. But by the same token, watching the Giants play in Washington I was disappointed Barry did not play the day game.

Bonds for all his faults is still the greatest player of this generation in baseball. Just like Mickey Mantle, Babe Ruth, Jackie Robinson, and Ty Cobbs he has a darker side that you have to take with him like baggage.

To baseball commissioner Bud Selig and various writers let me say grow up. Go to the game, do not celebrate his achievement but yet I suggest you should congratulate him as you did Mark McGwire because without them modern baseball would continue to struggle post-1994 lockout in more places than Canada.

Of course I also think Shoeless Joe Jackson and Pete Rose deserve to be in the Hall of Fame so maybe I am too lenient on players.

Shane Doan 1 Politicians no score....

Congratulations to Shane Doan and Canada on a magnificent 9-0 tournament. And to all you petty politicians... nuts to you!

Hi, I'm a Marvel...and I'm a DC. (Mac PC Parody) #1

If you follow comics at all this is soooo funny. At least if you are sad like me and find these things funny.

Shane Doan

Well if I am a Conservative politician I would be smiling after all this stupid focus on a what a hockey player MIGHT have said once. When you consider how all the focus had been on Afghanistan detainees this functioned as a release valve for them.

Personally this is right up there with the Nova Scotia motion griping about when the Senators game was on.

STUPID waste of taxpayers time.

Romney looking good early on

If you are a Mitt Romney supporter, as a Canadian he is one of my favourites... though of course I cannot vote for him.

He kicked butt during the debates last night. I recommend a few quotes here...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BldzP8JLdCc

On Health care

More to come.