SICK and ATTITUDE

At the end of the afternoon CBC Politics broadcast on September 15, 2004, host Don Newman said jokingly that the motto for Canada is: “Canada, the greatest country to be sick.”

Background

It was the last day of the hugely important – for PM Paul Martin’s political career anyways - first minister’s conference on health care. Earlier, Newfoundland and Labrador premier Danny Williams had criticized that this federal government had an attitude problem.

On Wednesday morning, Newfoundland and Labrador Premier Danny Williams called the process a farce, and said "the prime minister needs a change in attitude." (CBC)

Log-jammed, the meeting moved to closed doors and Paul Martin thus broke his promise of openness and transparency. Under pressure, he handed $40 billions to the provinces with virtually no condition attached.

Nuts

There are two nuts in this note.

1. The first nut, sick, was extremely hot. Just an hour before, I posted this blog.

Wednesday, September 15, 2004

"If I get elected, I promise I will make you sick."

David Letterman, September 6, 2004.

posted by Jim Yu at 1:22 PM

2. The second nut, attitude, has its origin in my first release on December 12, 2003. It is the heart of my story – racism and bigotry.

“... Most other comments put the root problem of the proposed legislation squarely on [the government’s] attitude in creating two classes of citizens.”

Comments

In August, I said that watching David Letterman’s show made me sick. The above quote from his show on September 6 simply suggested that not only did Letterman’s show read my blog, it also responded to it. For other nuts-cracking stuff by David Letterman, read this part of my report.

Recently, NDP leader Jack Layton also publicly used the word “attitude” on Paul Martin just before he went into negotiation with him in a Toronto hotel, which resulted the NDP Budget that saved the minority Liberal government.

I don’t blame either Williams or Layton for their taking advantage of Martin’s situation. After all, how could this country possibly be strong when “the king” has no clothes?

DRUNK

Background

I am now convinced that the Mulroneyites, just like the Liberals and their friends and sycophants in mainstream media (MSM), do not like a bit of my fasting and protesting in my seeking justice for Cecilia Zhang.

Three interactions with the Mulroneyites left me with that impression.

On January 29, I had a telephone conversation with Mr. Earl McRae, who had been referred to me by Mr. Pat MacAdam. In discussing our schedule for the following week, I told him that I planed to resume fasting again as the Parliament was to resume sitting the following Monday.

After hearing about my plan, Mr. McRae sounded a little surprised and did not speak for a brief second, although he did not object. It was the first time I sensed that they did not like me fasting.

The other two incidents involved Mr. Pat MacAdam himself.

On March 11, I announced on my blog that “I have stopped fasting”. Within half an hour, Mr. MacAdam called me back, saying that he would like to meet me. Note that:

1. Over the course of my interactions with him, Mr. MacAdam had promised to meet me a couple of times before finally meeting me on March 17. In other words, he was hesitant to meet me. – I believe that this particular commitment to a meeting was prompted by my announcement of resuming regular consumption, thus signaling the end of the protest.
2. I had long puzzled as to how the journalists read my blog without actually visiting it. His calling me back literally within minutes of my posting suggested cooperation by a third party. (I need to know who!)

The final incident occurred during our meeting on March 17. The first question he asked me, after brief introduction to each other, was: “Why did you come to Ottawa?” Of course, I told him that I came here to protest.

“To protest?!” He shot back, sounding very unpleased. I believe this question set the tone for the whole meeting.

The original nut

It is then not difficult to conclude that the Mulroneyites must have been quite displeased with my throwing my flyers into the House of Common from the Visitor’s Gallery on December 14, 2004, an incident I described here.

I believe Mr. MacAdam expressed his displeasure in his December 26 column, entitled “Juggling a career and the bottle”. The message appeared to be: If I wanted to work for Warren Buffett, I should not have committed such a “drunken” act.

Indeed, during our meeting on March 17, Mr. MacAdam also asked me, quite casually, whether there were people drunk or on drugs in the homeless shelter where I was staying.

It was such an obvious question. Even if he had never been to a homeless shelter before, he could observe some of the people there as we were sitting in his car which was parked just outside the shelter.

Pundit inbreeding 1

Margaret Wente seized this journalist nut and made fun out of it on both Mr. MacAdam and me in her January 8 column, entitled “When technology grabs you by the throat”. – Note that in early January, Mr. MacAdam was still seen as someone who was on my side.

“The other evening, I was downloading all my favourite Leonard Cohen songs onto my laptop so that I could load them up into my new iPod. I was wondering how many versions of Famous Blue Raincoat I wanted in there when I splashed a tiny drop of white wine onto the keyboard. In an instant, my entire new music library disappeared. Some alarming white lines flashed across the screen, then it went dark. My $2,500 computer was dead as a doornail.

If you have a laptop, I have some advice. Never, never, never, never, never download Leonard Cohen with a glass of white wine in your hand.”

Smugness is abundant in her column over Mr. MacAdam’s criticism of me. Note that in this instance, computer has the same meaning as work or career for me because last summer, I posted this blog:

A cute lyrical message

Here is a cute lyrical message my friends sent me via Internet circa 2001, after I was robbed online and lost my last job as a trader. -- I had wanted to share it with you over the long weekend, but did not want to be accused of being insensitive.

“A bus station is where a bus stops.

A train station is where a train stops.

On my desk, I have a workstation.

What more can I say…”

This lyric was sent to me by the defendant (or its associate) named in my lawsuit. They essentially told me that they had robbed me online and took away my last job.

Pundit inbreeding 2

In his campaign against Judge Gomery, Chretienite Warren Kinsella wrote this on his blog on February 4, 2005:

“To say that Gomery Pyle is spending taxpayer money like a drunken sailor would be to sully the reputation of drunken sailors everywhere.” (Kinsella, February 4, 2005)

The structure of this sentence was an imitation of my earlier statement about Canadian MSM: “To say Canadian journalism -- which is essentially liberal journalism -- is a sewer is an insult to sewage.” He labeled Judge Gomery a drunk because I was criticized by Mr. MacAdam as a drunk. And as I said before, I was drawn into the center of a vast imagined conspiracy headed by Mr. Mulroney and included Norman Spector, James Travers, Bernard Roy, Greg Weston, etc.

LAUGH

Origin

I usually write no more than one (short) blog a day. The origin of this nut appears to come from my two blog entries in early February.

From my blog on February 1:

A Gmail account. With 1GB file space! Holy cow, that's almost like another hard drive for my laptop.

Don't laugh.

Also, from my February 2 blog:

Since I posted my last wordy document, reading newspapers has been making me laugh too much. -- How did I laugh? Oh, mon, I just wish you were there. -- We are definitely making progress.

Anyway. Here is something for you to laugh about.

Nuts-cracking

February 3: William Watson (National Post)

The Swiss Navy used to be a joke, as oxymoronic as, say, Saskatchewan becoming a maritime province. Well, you can stop laughing. (Opening paragraph)

May 31: William Watson (National Post)

If it were still the economy, stupid, Canadian governments would be laughing all the way to the ballot box.

CLEAR

The original nut came from my March 5 blog:

Saturday in March

A good day. For me, anyways.

CXR came back and my lungs are clear.

That's a sign of relief, isn't it?

I was just being lazy by copying the conclusion of my Chest X-ray report. It should not have become a nut for anybody to crack.

March 11: Gerry Nicholls (National Post)

"Steer clear of Liberal Lite" (Title of the column)

"An ancient Chinese proverb says: "Conservatives who copy Liberals lose election."

OK, that's not really an ancient Chinese proverb. I made it up. But it's still good guidance for all those Conservative delegates who will descend on Montreal next week for their party's first-ever policy convention." (Opening paragraphes)

April 9: Andrew Coyne (National Post)

"Thanks to Jean Brault, a great many things have become clearer. It is now clear, for example --assuming his testimony is to be believed -- that we have been governed for more than a decade by a criminal organization....

Some other points of clarity:..."

Gerry Nicholls

Gerry Nicholls is vice-president of the National Citizens Coalition.

March 11, 2005

"Steer clear of Liberal Lite" (Title of the column, National Post)

"An ancient Chinese proverb says: "Conservatives who copy Liberals lose election."

OK, that's not really an ancient Chinese proverb. I made it up. But it's still good guidance for all those Conservative delegates who will descend on Montreal next week for their party's first-ever policy convention."

William Watson

William Watson is a columnist for various CanWest newspapers including National Post and Ottawa Citizen.


February 6, 2005

“Well, you can stop laughing.”


March 24, 2005

"Ottawa attacks racism. Racism needn't worry" (Title of the column)

"[R]acism is a hard problem. We at the National Post are actually against racism. We want people judged, not by the colour of their skin, not even by the content of their character, character being so hard to judge, but by the calibre of their contribution. Do the public good by meeting consumer demands and we want you to prosper, no matter what your colour, creed or origin. Sit on your entitlements and we're not so sympathetic."

David Asper

April 4, 2005

"A crack in the Adscam dam?" (title of the column)


April 11, 2005

"The jury is still out" (Title of the column)

"Jean Brault's testimony to the Gomery inquiry sure hit with a thud, didn't it? If his allegations are true, there is no question we are witnessing one of the great scandals in our nation's history." (Opening paragraph)

"In order for Mrs. Milgaard to have been correct, virtually every material witness in her son's trial had to have lied. I wondered how that could be possible. Everyone?"

Greg Weston

February 6, 2005

“Dirty little secrets” (Subtitle)

“In the room will be more than two dozen of the counrty's highest-priced lawyers, representing everyone from Alfonso Gagliano to the Conservative Party, all of them on the public tap and most itching for a crack at the former Liberal leader.”

"Indeed, the former PM is expected to sing his tiresome old refrain at every possible opportunity -- namely, that throwing $250 million of federal taz dollars at Quebec for everything from fishing derbies to golf balls is what convinced the (apparently brain-dead) citizens of that province to abandon separatism and embrace Confederation."

“If Chretien's testmony portrays a PM who was left in the dark during the sponsorship diasco, Martin will likely sound like a finance minister in a coma.”

"As Gomery himself put it during his controversial pre-Christmas interview: 'The juicy stuff is yet to come.'"


April 5, 2005

"Election isn’t the only way out" (Title of the column)

“Unless Paul Martin and Stephen Harper has a sudden urge to commit political suicide, or someone has pictures that include a goat, there will be no call to the polls anytime soon.”


April 12, 2005

“This will no doubt bring welcome relief and warming reassurance to Canadian taxpayers everywhere, especially those on the wrong medication.”


April 13, 2005

"Election call no sure bet" (Title of the column)

"The theory seems to be that the explosive revelations of Liberal kickbacks and corruption have handed the Conservatives a golden electoral opportunity they would be nuts to pass up."


April 28, 2005

“If current public opinion polls hold until election day, the former millionaire shipping magnate with dreams of running the country is also headed for the sizable heap of nice guys who finished last in politics.”


May 1, 2005

“Call it an electile dysfunction on a national scale …”


See May 31 Post: The politics of erectile dysfunction (Colby Cosh)


May 20, 2005

"A depressing time on the hill" (Title of the column)


June 7, 2005

"It isn't easy being Gurmant Grewal" (Title of the column)

“Grewal's assignment to the Conservative sick list yesterday apparently came after consultation with his political physician, Stephen Harper.”

John Ivison

October 9, 2004

"No wonder Stephen Harper doesn't want to be Prime Minister." (Last paragraph)


January 11, 2005

"If we assume that Russo [the reporter] did not simply imagine the exchange with the American Ambassador, it appears that Cellucci believes a deal is imminent and that Canada will sign on. The alternative interpretation is that Cellucci is trying to put pressure on Martin with a political plan so cunning you could cover it with fur and call it a fox."


January 15, 2005

“As for the Prime Minister, he has proven once again that his time spent learning at the feet of Jean Chretien was not entirely wasted. Despite assurances that his government would introduce Olympian standards of ethical behaviour, Martin clung loyally to his minister, insisting she showed "the greatest transparency," long after many on his own side believed there was enough evidence to cut her loose.”


February 8, 2005

“The Conservatives piled on like a bunch of school ground bullies.”

"The Prime Minister attempted to defend the indefensible before effecting a strategic retreat and …”

“…. The government must be hoping against fervent hope that the opposition rekindles its love affair with the Gomery inquiry.”

See Don Martin on the same day


March 24, 2005

"Martin offered an awkward wave before turning tail and …. It must have been like this on the Long March, although Mao was probably more relenting than Martin."


April 6, 2005

"Stephen Harper looked yesterday like he was having as much fun as it's possible to have in politics while keeping your clothes on."


April 14, 2005


April 19, 2005
Nut-cracker


May 4, 2005

"The willy, er, wily politician" (Title of the column)

Don Martin

January 25, 2005

That's Paul Martin in a nutshell, all right. But Harper surely knows Martin's going to do a nutshell-defining number on him over same-sex marriage.


February 6, 2005

"Super-natural meets super-rich" (Title of the column)

“The economies of, ahem, scale saved taxpayer $200,000 per year in operating expenses….”


February 8, 2005


March 4, 2005

"The nation will … ballistic missile defence… well… who the hell cares all of a sudden?"


May 26, 2005

“Ontario is cold-shouldering his charismatically challenged personality…”

CBC Politics with Don Newman

All quotes approximate becasue CBC Politics pulled off its archived broadcasts, which used to go back months, if not years.


September 15, 2004

At the end of the afternoon broadcast, host Don Newman said jokingly that the motto for Canada is: “Canada, the greatest country to be sick.”


October 1, 2004

A straight-faced guest Susan Delacourt said: “I think the Liberals are a little delusional here.”


January 11, 2005

Guest Tom Axworthy tried also to crack the delusional-imaginary nut, using, creatively, the phrase "hard-headedness". But apparently he was not very good at nut-cracking because he could not keep a straight face. He was even uneasier on January 25, the day after I posted my second long blog entry on my experience with MSM.


March 3, 2005

Guest Scott Reid: "We are talking about people's livelihood here."

BTW, Scott Reid is very good at keeping a straight face.


During Liberal crisis of April-May

Don Newman: "Chinese curse".


Many an occasions

Don Newman or his guests: "Chinese water turture".


November 4, 2005

Newman:"That's a Chinese curse?"
All pundits laugh.


Note: More may be added later.