Sarah Palin: Vikaren--the substitute (president)

Republican vice-presidential candidate, Sarah Palin, reminds me of the substitute teacher in the Danish movie, Vikaren (The Substitute). The substitute teacher in the movie can appear both nice and evil at the same time.

YouTube clips in Danish only:





Based on the YouTube clips, I hope to see Vikaren in Canada either at the theatre or on television. At the same time, I hope I won't see Sarah Palin as the vikar president. Excuse me if my Dansk ain't LEGOOD.

Islamists, er-r-r, Catholists find frog art blasphemous

Museum defies pope over crucified frog

By Philip Pullella

ROME (Reuters) - An Italian museum Thursday defied Pope Benedict and refused to remove a modern art sculpture portraying a crucified green frog holding a beer mug and an egg that the Vatican had condemned as blasphemous.

Read more.

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I'm all for frog speech everywhere!

My 2008 Canadian federal election seat prediction

Conservatives - 143 seats
Liberals - 68 seats
NDP - 41 seats
Bloc - 56 seats
Green - 0 seats
Other - 0 seats

I think the Conservatives will focus their campaign on families who live in rural and suburban Canada. They will also maintain their focus on western Canada. This will be a narrowcasting campaign where they will ignore half of the Canadian voters and spend their campaign resources on select voters. For example, the environment may be an important issue to many Canadian voters, but not to people voting Conservative. Income and sales taxes may be more important.

The Liberals may have a good environmental Green Shift tax plan. However, they will be spending much of their energy trying to explain it to voters rather than attack Conservative promises and past policies. A few voters may switch to the NDP and Greens. The Liberals may lose some seats to the Conservatives and NDP because of a loss of a few voters.

The NDP will have that confusing task of whom to attack: Harper or Dion. The NDP may gain a few seats, not because of great NDP campaigning, but because of poor campaigning by the Liberals.

The Bloc Québécois will maintain their seats in Quebec.

The Greens will gain votes from Liberals in safe Liberal urban ridings. However, these votes won't translate into seats for them. The Greens may even get more votes than either the NDP or Bloc. Unfortunately for the Greens, these votes won't become seats. The Green vote will still be spread through Canada.

Harper and the Governor-General: he and his cabinet could resign from her government

I just figured out that Prime Minister Stephen Harper can get around asking Michaelle Jean, Governor-General of Canada, to dissolve parliament before the so-called fixed election date. Harper can inform her that he and his cabinet will be resigning from her government. Theoretically, it will be up to her to decide if she should ask Stéphane Dion if his party can form a governing coalition with the NDP and Bloc Québécois. Or she can dissolve parliament and announce an election date. Informally, I think the governor-general will seek the advice of Stephen Harper and announce an election date of his choosing.

In essence, Harper will not be asking for an early election. He'll just be announcing that he and the cabinet will be resigning from the government.

"Speedo Launches Sustainable Product Packaging," huh?

You gotta love this headline: Speedo Launches Sustainable Product Packaging. (G-rated website)

It sure beats Viagra!

1968-1969: Two men in Prague remember the Russians. Why Georgia, Ukraine, Moldova, Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia are against Russia

In the photo, one can see a small memorial on display in Wenceslas Square in Prague. This memorial is in honour of two men, Jan Palach and Jan Zajíc, who commited suicide in 1969 to oppose the Soviet (Russian) occupation and repression of their former Czechoslovakia. While this particular memorial is small, it is powerful enough to remind anyone why the peoples from Estonia to Georgia appreciate their hard earned freedom. They do not wish to lose their freedom under present or future Russian occupation and repression.

For further reading: Toronto Sun: The death of Prague Spring by Peter Worthington (August 21, 2008). The link is good for about one week.

Is er iemand in Nederland weten deze mensen?

Google Translation from English:

Ik voel me vreemd te vragen of iemand kent die mensen uit Nederland. Ik ontmoette hen in Jabonec nad Nisou in de Tsjechische Republiek. Ik heb geprobeerd e-mail te sturen ze deze foto van vorig jaar, maar ik had geen geluk te versturen.