Catpaw - diary of an angry cat

First you have to soften up the neighbourhood with 2 weeks worth of dumptrucks and bobcats roaring around the land starting at 6:30 am until sometime around 3pm. Make sure you include Saturdays so patience is really tested.

Then wait until 2:30am.

You have to light up the area with enough klieg lights to make it feel like it’s high noon.

Have:

1 man on the jackhammer.

1 man on the wheel barrow.

1 man on the compressor for the drill. He has to lean against the equipment and watch.

6 men standing around watching the man on the jackhammer work.

I’ve been watching the workers - lord knows it’s so noisy, (even with the doors and windows closed) it is impossible to sleep. 6 of them have been wandering around the landfill, kicking clods of dirt around, smoking and just watching.

A couple of mornings they even started by 6am. Now I have to endure the noise all night. I am running out of patience to make it through the day without loosing my cool. This non stop noise-a-thon is really wearing me down. We’ve been told this will go on until Christmas. But noone said the construction work would go on in the wee hours of the morning. Buggered up, f#cking city hall.

Lest any of us get too complacent or arrogant about our democracy here in Canada, listen to this cautionary tale.

Just north of where I live, in Toronto there has been an outbreak of violent vandalism of the likes I don’t think we have ever seen. Specific political party supporters are being targeted by someone in a campaign of hate and terror.

For non-Canadians here’s a quick lesson before I go on. We have 3 main political parties: the Conservatives, the Liberals and the New Democrats (NDP). The Green party is now making some impressive inroads on the political scene so we really have 4 main parties to choose from. Conservatives have traditionally been right of centre in their views, the Liberals left of centre, the NDP and Greens further left of centre. Throw in a few independent candidates and you have a pretty lively political scene up here in the frozen north.

The Liberal supporters in the St. Paul’s voting district have woken up to find graffiti spray painted on their garages and homes, cars have been keyed, and more disturbing their brake lines, phone and cable  have been cut. All the victims have had Liberal support signs on their lawn.There were 26 reported incidents.

Do the words appalled, horrified and frightened come to mind? How about furious and angry? This is the work of some lone sick b@stard who is taking pleasure in scaring people. To cut a brake line is a deliberate attempt to hurt or kill someone. This is premeditated. It is also an act of electoral tampering. Whoever it is will get caught and should face more than vandalism charges. I like the idea of attempted murder charges, perhaps the police can find something about tampering with telecommunications lines and election tampering.

Of course all parties are condemning this action. No right minded person would ever sanction this action. This is the action of one or two creepy individuals with their own axes to grind. It may turn out the Liberal signs simply provided the person an easy target and has nothing to do with the election here in Canada. Somehow, I don’t think so. There was a spat of vandalism during a by-election in Guelph and Willowdale during the summer, again aimed at the Liberals.

Our right to vote and support whatever party we damned well please is sacred. No one is going to tell me how to vote, nor are they going to scare me enough to stop me. There is no power strong enough to stop me from supporting my candidate of choice. For the record - I’m a Liberal with leanings towards the Green Party. Although I strongly believe in the right to privacy in your choices, face it, anyone reading this blog for any length of time must have figured I’m not a Conservative (ya think??) so there wasn’t much choice. Criticise me all you want for my choice, it is still MY CHOICE! Don’t like it - TOUGH! Go vote on election day.

So how are the people reacting? One person said “I think we should get a bigger sign”. With the exception of a few people, all are opting to put their signs back up, and some actually getting bigger signs. Liberal leader Stéphane Dion stated (and seriously, this applies to all our leaders, not a one of them will disagree with this statement)

[W]e will not be intimidated by that … It’s something we cannot accept in Canada.

The BBC’s News Quiz show runs the Hallelujah chorus when they start to talk about Sarah Palin - that says it all, doesn’t it. This woman is a gift from the humour gods, isn’t she?

Guess what? She’s been at it again. Evidently either Mexico or Canada has moved location. Well, one of us had to so Afghanistan could move beside the US. In a speech for a party fund raising Palin made the following comment:

They are also building schools for the Afghan children so that there is hope and opportunity in our neighboring country of Afghanistan.

Wait a moment and let me check out my window… hmmm … nooo… I don’t see Afghanistan from my window. Nope… can’t see Russia either … must be Mexico that was moved.

If this were a one shot blunder, I wouldn’t care, but she just doesn’t let up.

If Palin keeps this up I may have to rename my blog Diary of a Giggling Cat, or the All Sarah Comedy Blog.

If I wasn’t biased about Sarah Palin after the debate last week (which I was), I sure am now. Get a load of this wiff of the McCarthyism that she spouted off on Saturday:

Our opponent … is someone who sees America, it seems, as being so imperfect, imperfect enough, that he’s palling around with terrorists who would target their own country

What sparked this attack? Evidently Obama served on a charity board, and crossed paths with Bill Ayres a former member of the Weathermen. The Weathermen were a violent, radical antiwar group during the Vietnam War.

Let’s put this into perspective.

Bill Ayers was a founding member of the Weathermen. He participated in violent actions against the US government, so yes, he was a terrorist in the ’60s. He was arrested and released due to improper surveillance and other legal improprieties done by the authorities.  Bill Ayres is now a University Professor at the University of Illinois and is still an activist for social justice.

Barak Obama was born in 1961, which means he was a child during the heyday of the Weathermen activities. He had nothing to do with the group, nor was he involved as a member of the group. I hardly think the Weathermen would entrust their activities to the hands of a 9 year old. He met Ayers on a number of occasions in the 1990’s during meetings for school reforms. Nothing wrong nor illegal about this. But evidently this makes Obama a terrorist in the eyes of the unintelligensia of the Republican party. Come on Palin, Obama and Ayers were discussing PUBLIC SCHOOL REFORM 20 years after the Weathermen days. I hardly think this makes Obama a terrorist.

Can Sarah Palin’s handlers come up with a more tenuous connection? This was a pathetic and dangerous use of McCarthy rhetoric. Is this what Sarah Palin stands for? More bullying? More mud slinging? More demagoguery? I hope the American public has had enough of this type of fear mongering. Instead of addressing any real issues or answering questions, Palin and her ilk would rather indulge in character assassination.

Oh and once more this is an open plea to her team. For the love of the English language, BUY THE DAMNED WOMAN A DICTIONARY and THESAURUS. She used the phrase “aint’ right” 6 times on Saturday night. I’m going to start a Palin Cliched Phrase Bingo Game soon. The winner will get a voodoo doll.  She is supposed to be an educated person, why does she use such hokey, horrible phrases? Is this to con us into believing she is one of the little people? You know, the common folk. To me, this is just patronising and horribly insulting. Most people don’t speak like her. They have a bit more pride than that.

Give me a day or two and I’ll have the Bingo game ready.