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Politics aside, there’s just something weird about a man (especially a lawyer married to another lawyer) who doesn’t buy birthday presents for his children.  Or, for that matter, one who - in this day and age and with kids travelling in the circles that they must - gives his daughters an allowance of $1/week.

There’s something oddly unpleasant about the Obamas.  I certainly wouldn’t want to be their kid.  And, really, given that the ideology might be described as being paternalistically left-wing (or, more accurately maternalistically left-wing), it’s probably worth thinking about what their parenting style says about their governing style.  And I say "their" advisedly - it’s become increasingly clear to me that Mama Obama wears the pants in that family, moreso than I ever thought the same of Hillary Clinton.

When she goes around saying things like, "Barack Obama will require you to work.

(Read the full post about ‘Obama Doesn’t Buy His Kids Birthday Presents’…)

As anyone who saw the recently pulled Obama Love video can attest, Amber Lee Ettinger, the "Obama Girl," is not the only one with a crush on Obama; the American, Canadian, and international press have also gone positively ga-ga for smooth Barry.

Lest you despair McCainiacs, let me assure you that the cheering squad we call The Fourth Estate are equal opportunity ass-kissers. A week ago, Jonathan Chait, a senior editor at the liberal magazine The New Republic wrote an opinion piece called "A McCain Presidency Wouldn’t Be So Bad," despite the lukewarm title, Chait is quite pleased with the prospect of President McCain.

(Read the full post about ‘Liberals love McCain, “the country’s foremost progressive champion”’…)

I remember Oliver North once saying with baited breath that the North Korea nuclear issue might be settled "for fear of bad ticket sales" to the Olympics.  The idea was Communist China would convince North Korea to play ball with the U.S. on the nuclear issue to avoid damage to the Games.

As it turned out, all North Korea did was play us.

Unsurprisingly, much of the world’s media is writhing with onanistic glee over Senator Obama’s Berlin speech. I don’t recall when being able to inspire hundreds of thousands of chanting Germans again became a positive quality in a world leader, but I digress. Still, for Senator McCain, there’s an opening here.
If I were John McCain, I would have my staff working overtime to produce an ad – tonight – that sounds and looks something like this:

“Citizen”

FADE IN: Frozen black and white footage of Obama speaking in Berlin.

NARRATOR: When Barack Obama goes overseas, he says that he’s a…

(The footage moves)

OBAMA: …citizen of the world…

(The footage freezes, then dissolves).

CUT TO: Footage of John McCain.

NARRATOR: John McCain is an American citizen.

(Read the full post about ‘Barack Hussein Obama, World Citizen’…)

Report graffiti – especially on City of Edmonton property
I did a column recently lashing the City of Edmonton’s bylaw that puts the onus on victims of graffiti to remove it or face a $250 fine.

I argued that it’s wrong to target the victim of a crime – especially when the fine for the person actually tagging a property with graffiti is only $50-$150!

A city spokesperson said she sympathized with people who are forced to clean up such vandalism, but, a law’s a law.

I said, “How can the city in good conscience fine citizens hit with graffiti when the city has tons of the stuff on its own property?”

She said, the city is scrubbing off all that it can and really, really wants more calls from citizens if they see more on its property.

Folks should call the city’s Citizen Action Centre at 780-496-08200 if they do see graffiti on city property.

And, all you bloggers out there … (Read the full post about ‘Report graffiti – especially on City of Edmonton property’…)

Telesat wins approval from Industry Canada to develop six planned new frequencies for direct-to-home broadcasting services and two-way broadband Internet for consumers and small businesses. “With these awards we can now move forward and advance our planning of Telesat’s future satellite fleet,” says Telesat CEO Dan Goldberg. The Ottawa-based company is currently looking for private- and public-sector partners to develop services for any of the six frequencies.

Enablence Technologies will soon be providing broadband service to rural US communities, having been certified under the US Department of Agriculture’s Rural Development Broadband Loan Program. “This acceptance by the USDA further reaffirms that Enablence’s products meet the various requirements for full FTTP (fibre-to-the-premise) deployments,” says Enablence CEO Arvind Chhatbar. The approval means that network operators can now access funding while using Enablence’s Trident7 systems to build rural high-speed networks.

Inspectors find invasive beetle in east end Staff with the Canadian Food Inspection Agency are inspecting trees in the St. Laurent and Ogilvie area after the emerald ash borer was discovered on city and residential ash trees in that neighbourhood. The federal inspection agency was called once city staff noticed the invasive pest in Ottawa’s east end.

An insect pest that destroys ash trees, the emerald ash borer was first discovered in Canada in 2002. According to a city release, the metallic green-coloured beetle has killed a large number of ash trees in south western Ontario and poses a major economic and environmental threat to urban and forested areas across Canada and the U.S. (Read the full post about ‘Inspectors find invasive beetle in east end’…)

What’s open, what’s not this coming long weekend Homeowners will need to put their garbage out a day later next week. Due to the Civic Holiday, there will be no curbside garbage and recycling pickup on Monday, Aug. 4. The Monday pickup will take place on Tuesday, Aug. 5.

In addition, the curbside collection of garbage and recycling materials will be delayed by one day for the remainder of the week.

While multi-residential recycling container collection will be delayed by one day for the remainder of the week, multi-residential garbage container collection is not delayed and collection will take place on its regular scheduled day during the week. (Read the full post about ‘What’s open, what’s not this coming long weekend’…)