{"id":1914,"date":"2008-09-14T19:05:00","date_gmt":"2008-09-14T23:05:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.calgarygrit.ca\/?p=1914"},"modified":"2008-09-14T19:05:00","modified_gmt":"2008-09-14T23:05:00","slug":"week-1-in-review-gone-to-the-birds","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.calgarygrit.ca\/?p=1914","title":{"rendered":"Week 1 in Review: Gone to the Birds"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/3.bp.blogspot.com\/_L6NW1UySEKs\/SM02cZGqRVI\/AAAAAAAAAi4\/XHDPB1bhzi0\/s1600-h\/Election2.JPG\"><img decoding=\"async\" id=\"BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5245909002359555410\" style=\"DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; CURSOR: hand; TEXT-ALIGN: center\" alt=\"\" src=\"http:\/\/3.bp.blogspot.com\/_L6NW1UySEKs\/SM02cZGqRVI\/AAAAAAAAAi4\/XHDPB1bhzi0\/s320\/Election2.JPG\" border=\"0\" \/><\/a><br \/><strong>On the Net:<\/strong> The most attention was on the now-dismembered <a href=\"http:\/\/www.notaleader.ca\/\"><span class=\"blsp-spelling-error\" id=\"SPELLING_ERROR_0\">notaleader<\/span>.ca<\/a>, for obvious reasons, but the Liberals also launched <a href=\"http:\/\/www.promisebreakers.ca\/\"><span class=\"blsp-spelling-error\" id=\"SPELLING_ERROR_1\">promisebreakers<\/span>.ca<\/a> and <a href=\"http:\/\/www.scandalpedia.ca\/\"><span class=\"blsp-spelling-error\" id=\"SPELLING_ERROR_2\">scandalpedia<\/span>.ca<\/a>. On a more positive note, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.thisisdion.ca\/\">ThisIsDion <\/a>was also launched.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Quote of the Week:<\/strong> Stephen Harper &#8211; &#8220;<a href=\"http:\/\/calgarygrit.blogspot.com\/2008\/09\/awful-mental-images.html\"><em>Do you like handcuffs<\/em><\/a><em>?&#8221;<\/em><\/p>\n<p><strong><a href=\"http:\/\/1.bp.blogspot.com\/_L6NW1UySEKs\/SM2KZypqDDI\/AAAAAAAAAjA\/UAFzzpyL43k\/s1600-h\/buddythepuffin.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" id=\"BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5246001316654353458\" style=\"FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; CURSOR: hand\" alt=\"\" src=\"http:\/\/1.bp.blogspot.com\/_L6NW1UySEKs\/SM2KZypqDDI\/AAAAAAAAAjA\/UAFzzpyL43k\/s320\/buddythepuffin.jpg\" border=\"0\" \/><\/a>Guess Who&#8217;s Back? Ed&#8217;s Back! <\/strong>Jack Layton dropped his first &#8220;Ed <span class=\"blsp-spelling-error\" id=\"SPELLING_ERROR_3\">Broadbent<\/span>&#8221; reference of the campaign earlier this week, in reference to the puffin poop. It&#8217;s like <a href=\"http:\/\/calgarygrit.blogspot.com\/2005\/12\/week-in-review-3.html\">2006 all over again<\/a>!<\/p>\n<p><strong>Guess Who&#8217;s Back? Rick&#8217;s Back! <\/strong>Rick Mercer <a href=\"http:\/\/www.theglobeandmail.com\/servlet\/story\/RTGAM.20080906.wrick06\/BNStory\/politics\">compares the Canadian and US elections<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Stock Market:<\/strong> The <a href=\"http:\/\/esm.ubc.ca\/CA08\/index.php\"><span class=\"blsp-spelling-error\" id=\"SPELLING_ERROR_4\">UBC<\/span> stock market<\/a> has the Tories leading the Liberals 37.5% to 28.5%, with the <span class=\"blsp-spelling-error\" id=\"SPELLING_ERROR_5\">NDP<\/span> (17.7%), Bloc (8.6%), and Greens (8.8%) all trailing.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Poll Projections:<\/strong> I&#8217;ll be doing detailed updates of my <a href=\"http:\/\/calgarygrit.blogspot.com\/2008\/09\/seat-projections.html\">seat projection<\/a> Thursday or Friday of every week. However, given the barrage of polls out there, I&#8217;ll be releasing less detailed Sunday updates as well. And, adding in the last three days of polling, the Tories are now projected to win 144.5 seats, the Liberals 92.5, the Bloc 42.3, and the NDP 27.8. Oh, and if you&#8217;re interested, the Conservatives wind up a majority government on 4 out of the 1000 simulations.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Plane Names:<\/strong> The <span class=\"blsp-spelling-error\" id=\"SPELLING_ERROR_6\">NDP<\/span> plane has been christened &#8220;Kitchen-Air&#8221;, the Liberal plane has been dubbed &#8220;Profess-Air&#8221;, while the Tory plane has been cleverly named &#8220;Sweater Vest Jet&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Policy Corner:<\/strong> Economist Stephen Gordon on the <a href=\"http:\/\/blog.macleans.ca\/2008\/09\/09\/take-that-global-warming\/\">Tories&#8217; <span class=\"blsp-spelling-corrected\" id=\"SPELLING_ERROR_7\">diesel<\/span> tax cut <\/a>&#8211; &#8220;<em>I\u2019m running out of synonyms for stupid.<\/em>&#8220;<\/p>\n<p><strong><u>Conservative Week in Review<\/u><\/strong><br \/>Battle Cry: &#8220;<em>Two and a half more years! Two and half more years<\/em>!&#8221;<br \/>Grade: C+<br \/>Yeah, it was a bad week for the Tory <em>war room.<\/em> There&#8217;s no denying that. But the Conservative <a href=\"http:\/\/canadianpress.google.com\/article\/ALeqM5jQRIGorjtguiYcIm45SsKNzyRzsg\">ad campaign<\/a> appears to be working and Harper himself has looked cool, <span class=\"blsp-spelling-corrected\" id=\"SPELLING_ERROR_8\">collected<\/span>, and downright <span class=\"blsp-spelling-error\" id=\"SPELLING_ERROR_9\">un<\/span>-scary. Plus he dealt well with the gaffes which is something he hasn&#8217;t always handled well in past campaigns. And despite the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.thestar.com\/article\/495690\">failure of the 6 a.m. press sessions<\/a>, they&#8217;ve controlled the agenda and gotten their message out.<\/p>\n<p><strong><u>Liberal Week in Review<\/u><\/strong><br \/>Battle Cry: &#8220;<em>Introducing Canadians to <span class=\"blsp-spelling-error\" id=\"SPELLING_ERROR_10\">Stephane<\/span> Dion&#8230;only 21 short months after he was elected leader!&#8221;<\/em><br \/>Grade: C+<br \/>Dion, at the least, met expectations this week and avoided any major mishaps. However, with the Tories gaffe-prone and <span class=\"blsp-spelling-corrected\" id=\"SPELLING_ERROR_11\">failing<\/span> to put any real policies in the window, the door was open for the Liberals to set the agenda and, for a wide range of reasons, they <span class=\"blsp-spelling-corrected\" id=\"SPELLING_ERROR_12\">failed<\/span> to get their message out. Just look at the attention Harper&#8217;s diesel fuel cut got compared to Dion&#8217;s promise to <a href=\"http:\/\/www.ctv.ca\/servlet\/ArticleNews\/story\/CTVNews\/20080907\/election2008_childcare_080909\/20080909?s_name=election2008\">double the child tax benefit<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p><strong><u><span class=\"blsp-spelling-error\" id=\"SPELLING_ERROR_13\">NDP<\/span> Week in Review<\/u><\/strong><br \/>Battle Cry: &#8220;<em>I will follow Stephen Harper to the gates of&#8230;Calgary!&#8221;<\/em><br \/>Grade: B<br \/>Jack says he&#8217;s running to be Prime Minister but, in reality, he&#8217;s attacking Harper so that he looks like the stronger opposition leader. And, so far, he hasn&#8217;t done a bad job of that. The goal of the <span class=\"blsp-spelling-error\" id=\"SPELLING_ERROR_14\">NDP<\/span> in any campaign is always to stay relevant and he&#8217;s managed to grab headlines with populist policies.<\/p>\n<p><strong><u>Bloc Quebecois Week in Review<\/u><\/strong><br \/>Battle Cry: &#8220;<em>We are so screwed&#8221;<\/em><br \/>Grade: D<br \/>The Bloc has limped out of the gate, with former separatists questioning the very <em><span class=\"blsp-spelling-error\" id=\"SPELLING_ERROR_15\">raison<\/span> <span class=\"blsp-spelling-error\" id=\"SPELLING_ERROR_16\">d&#8217;etre<\/span> <\/em>of the party. And, you have to wonder, what issue does the Bloc have to rally behind anymore? Will they actually propose anything this campaign that hasn&#8217;t been proposed by someone else? I have my doubts.<\/p>\n<p>And, yeah, the Greens are probably the winners of the week. However, Conservatives everywhere have threatened to boycott my blog if the Greens get their own &#8220;week in review&#8221; recap so I will not elaborate on their performance at all.<\/p>\n<p><strong>In Case You Missed It<\/strong><br \/><a href=\"http:\/\/calgarygrit.blogspot.com\/2008\/09\/fly-away-little-sparrow.html\">Fly Away, Little Sparrow<\/a><br \/><a href=\"http:\/\/calgarygrit.blogspot.com\/2008\/09\/not-leader-russian-invasion-edition.html\">Not a Leader: Russian Invasion Edition<\/a><br \/><a href=\"http:\/\/calgarygrit.blogspot.com\/2008\/09\/great-election-headlines.html\">Puffin Poop<\/a><br \/><a href=\"http:\/\/calgarygrit.blogspot.com\/2008\/09\/league-of-below-average-prime-ministers.html\">The League of Below Average Prime Ministers Endorses the Green Shift<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>On the Net: The most attention was on the now-dismembered notaleader.ca, for obvious reasons, but the Liberals also launched promisebreakers.ca and scandalpedia.ca. On a more positive note, ThisIsDion was also launched. Quote of the Week: Stephen Harper &#8211; &#8220;Do you like handcuffs?&#8221; Guess Who&#8217;s Back? Ed&#8217;s Back! Jack Layton dropped his first &#8220;Ed Broadbent&#8221; reference [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1914","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.calgarygrit.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1914","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.calgarygrit.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.calgarygrit.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.calgarygrit.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.calgarygrit.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1914"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.calgarygrit.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1914\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.calgarygrit.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1914"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.calgarygrit.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1914"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.calgarygrit.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1914"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}