Rose's Place

Since the candidates are starting to declare themselves, it's time to make some predictions about the Liberal leadership race.The Liberals were very proud to have the largest percentage of women of any of the parties among their candidates in this last election.How many women do you think will run for the leadership? How many will actually be on the ballot when the convention rolls around? How many will make it past the first ballot?And, while we're at it, how many non-white people will run? How many will actually be on the ballot?Any guesses? … [Read more...]

Poor John McCain: stood up by Joe the Plumber!Maybe JTP was busy in the studio, cutting his new country music record.Or maybe not -- maybe JTP's been chosen to be Sarah Palin's new running mate and they're off campaigning somewhere else -- without John. Hey, it wouldn't be much weirder than anything else that's happened in McCain's bizarre campaign. … [Read more...]

Arrgghh!USians, whatever you do on Tuesday, don't forget to VOTE!!! (via ellroon) … [Read more...]

Here comes the kitchen sink! BAHAHAHAHAHAHA!"Granted, it's probably (okay, certainly) not true. But if that crazy person who runs Atlas Shrugged is right and Barack Obama really is the son of Malcolm X, that would make my day. Honestly, who wouldn't give Malcolm props for that one? And think there's anyway we can fit Tupac into the bloodline? Or maybe Obama actually is Tupac? You know that whole shooting was some bullshit, right? Incidentally, I see no reason to stop with Malcolm. History is full of great Xs for Barack Obama to be related to. Professor X, which would explain why millions of white … [Read more...]

Behold the fabulous fabulousity of Harper's new gay cabinet! … [Read more...]

Freak out! Sensing that his undue influence on government is about to come to an apocalyptic end in short order, James Dobson of Focus on the Family has been feverishly firing out frighteningly hysterical missives that predict the Horrors to come should Barack Obama win the US election five (5) days from now. "An Obama Nation is an Abomination!" Some of Dobson's dire predictions include:"Terrorist strikes on four American cities. Russia rolling into Eastern Europe. Israel hit by a nuclear bomb. Gay marriage in every state. The end of the Boy Scouts. All are plausible scenarios if Democrat Barack … [Read more...]

This is one of the most irritating sites I've surfed onto lately, so naturally I had to share it. It's an anti-drug campaign from the Oslo Department of Health in Norway, and it's supposed to simulate what certain drugs feel like. (Or what your computer would feel like if it was on drugs, ha.) I won't say how realistic it is on the usual grounds of possible incrimination etc. Go ahead, try it.(via adfreak) … [Read more...]

Remember these controversial bus shelter and outdoor poster ads from Manhattan Mini-Storage?:Here's their latest one:The hands! That's perfect. Little details like that are what makes a good ad great.(via feministing) … [Read more...]

Haloscan seems to have gone nuts again, with difficulty posting comments, comments disappearing, etc. Bear with it, it'll straighten itself out in due course. … [Read more...]

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Remember how some folks had their panties in such a painful twist over Stephane Dion's use of the apparently unusable phrase "Never Again"?If that got them so torqued up, they must REALLY be choked about this:Hello?? HELLO!!?? … [Read more...]

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I'm trying to decide what's most wrong with this National Post column.Is it the complete failure to understand the Canadian political system? The Tories may have "increased their majority" last week, but they did so with only 38% of the popular vote, which kind of undermines the argument here.Or is it the utterly unexamined assumption that Canadian Conservatives, Nicholas Sarkozy, and the American Republicans all occupy a similar place on the political spectrum? (For the record, Canada's "right wing" is nowhere near as far right as the American Republican party, no matter how much we like to call … [Read more...]

I'm not completely sure what Dave Brown's point is in this recent column. I'm not sure he knows, either, except that the world's gone to hell in a handbasket and it's somehow all those awful feminists' fault. His profile proudly describes him as a 'contrarian,' which, at least in this case, can be defined as "curmudgeon who thinks the world really was exactly like Leave it to Beaver".At the top of their list of things a man must do was the protection issue. It used to be an obligation of the strong to protect the weak.This is the basic argument of the article. In "the good old days", men were strong … [Read more...]

Strategic voting is a factor in any election, and it's certainly been part of the Canadian election discourse for as long as I can remember. But it seems to much more front and centre this election than ever before. Partly, I suspect, that's due to our having had a couple of minority governments in a row -- with an election that feels perilously close, people are much more worried about ensuring the success of their preferred party or preventing a hated party from getting a majority than they are when the outcome seems inevitable. Partly, too, I suspect it's a spillover from the proportional representation … [Read more...]

The format actually worked suprisingly well -- no one was allowed to dominate the conversation, but there was still the opportunity for a few back-and-forth moments between the leaders. About as much as you could expect with five of them sitting around the table. (The table itself gave the whole thing quite an informal feel, which is -- different.)Anyone who says Stéphane Dion isn't charismatic or a good speaker has obviously never hear him in his native language. He's downright eloquent when he gets goingStephen Harper's clearly been practicing that "softer tone" he was using. He sounded like … [Read more...]