Crossfire
One good thing about the Blog Awards (our campaign motto here: “Vote CalgaryGrit – as a Calgary Liberal he never wins anything!”) going on right now is that it gives people a chance to get a look at some blogs they might have been oblivious to in the past. So I decided to glance through the Conservative blogs nominated and see what the right in Canada is saying. Here’s a sample:
Brock: On the Attack
Brock rips Martin to pieces over his lack of vision and leadership. No complaints by me on that. I do disagree with his conclusion that Harper needs to abandon his moderate persona and show some strong leadership of the small c conservative vision. The only way Harper wins is if he’s moderate – saying otherwise, is like saying Jack Layton can win by championing a far left agenda forcefully. Harper can still show vision and leadership, but it has to be vision of a centrist Canada or else he’ll never leave Stornaway. Diefenbaker ended 22 years of Liberal domination by running to the left of the Liberals and even Mulroney, to a certain extent, wasn’t any farther right than Turner (at the start). The problem with the right-wing ideologues is they often fail to realize that Canada is a small l liberal country. Just as the Democrats have to shift right to win in the States, the Conservatives have to shift left to win in Canada.
Andrew Coyne
Weighs in on the fall of the Berlin Wall and Brian Mulroney’s re-election chances. (Put it this way, it’s been a while since he’s updated his blog)
Jay Currie
Defends CHOI-FM. Is it just me or does anyone find it odd that the right in the United States is aghast at 2 seconds of Janet Jackson’s nipple being shown during the Super Bowl but the right in Canada defends a radio station’s right to repeatedly make off-colour, offensive, and tasteless jokes? Personally, I have mixed feelings on CHOI so I won’t take a strong stand one way or the other, but it does strike me as odd.
Bound by Gravity
Questions Global Warming. Yes, there are natural cycles but never in the earth’s history has there been a rise in a short period (say, 100 years) as we’re seeing right now. Maybe it’s I Love Lucy reruns or Major League Baseball games that cause global warming, but it’s definitely something man-made and the “natural” warming and cooling periods arguments doesn’t jive with that.
NorthWesternWinds
Links to his wife’s incredible self-righteous post about abortion. It’s a long post and very passionate so it’s probably worth reading, even if it’s completely off-base. I don’t have enough time to get into a full fledged abortion debate now but will likely come back to it later if by some miracle there are some slow weeks in the bold and aggressive Martin legislative agenda.
SpinKiller
In a site called “spin killer”, we ironically see articles defending the war in Iraq and William Watson lashing out at Canada in this beauty of a paragraph:
“The Canadian way.” It almost makes you want to throw up. The Canadian way, indeed. Never miss an opportunity for self-praise. Never pass up a chance to raise our own fragile self-esteem. Never fail to remind the world what wonderful people we are.
Blue Cicada
Calls Watson’s aforementioned prose “inspired”. I hope I missed the sarcasm and he wasn’t serious. If anything Canadians are extremely insecure and there has been huge criticism of our speed to and amount of aid to the Tsunami relief. I’m no fan of Martin’s, but I think he’s handled this situation fairly well so far.