Warren Kinsella on the new Liberal Party signs:

The winning-est political party in the history of Western democracy: now virtually invisible. Gone. Vanished.

Make any sense to you? Me neither.

It's hilarious that the Liberal strategists are pushing "Team Martin" instead of the Liberal Party of Canada. At least they've admitted that it's Team Martin in power now. Let's have a federal election soon, so this team can be booted out on its ass. It just keeps getting better for the Conservative Party of Canada.

Perhaps it's just the way the media has represented Sheila Fraser's recent reports, but I'm not sure what this story about security spending has to do with auditing. Don't get me wrong -- I think the Auditor General is important and I want to know when public money is being wasted. I'm just confused.

The Auditor General's web site makes things clearer for me:

New legislation, the 1977 Auditor General Act, clarified and expanded the Auditor General's responsibilities. In addition to looking at the accuracy of financial statements, the Auditor General was given a broader mandate to examine how well the government managed its affairs. The new Act maintained the important principle that the Auditor General does not comment on policy choices but does examine how those policies are implemented.

I guess I'll have to read the report itself [PDF] to see if that's what Sheila Fraser is doing.

Just saw Richard Clarke on the Daily Show. He was really good. His book, Against All Enemies: Inside the White House's War on Terror, is now on my wish list (aka birthday list).

When hyperbole trumps reality:

And of course it's also the name of the granddaddy of all reality TV shows. Everyone, alas, survives on Survivor. The easy lesson to take from this is that when everyone is a survivor, no one is. If we keep stretching words beyond their fixed denotations, turn them into the lexical equivalent of Prozac, use them as self-esteem pep pills, then we nullify their power when justly applied.

"When Alberta retires its debt, it will be the first province to do so."

The Globe And Mail printed an interesting article on its front page today:

The memo warned that if the government were to obtain top dollar for its stock, "we increase the risk that factors outside our control, like an adverse regulatory decision, could lead to underperformance, and seriously compromise the company's success after privatization. If that happens, all of us . . . are going to be remembered for delivering a flawed [initial public offering], not for delivering an extra few hundred million to the treasury."

I'm tiring of all this bullshit with public money. At least we have the FOI Act and the press to find out these things.