The pace has been hectic for the past few weeks, and shows little sign of changing any time soon.  I thought I'd better take the opportunity during a rare moment of down time to do a little writing.  Given the few minutes available, I won't go in-depth on one issue and instead will touch on just a few things currently on my mind...

.....watched an unexpectedly entertaining interview on the CBC (of all places) last night.  Great catfight between a wingnut spokesperson for a lesbian group who wants to use a certain Canadian city's annual Gay Pride parade as a means to protest the left's cause of the week, so-called  'Israel apartheid', and a gay man who sees right through the ruse.  Funny thing about many leaders in the gay community: they assume that because you are gay you are also a rabbid far-left socialist.  The number of gay libertarian/conservatives has always been underestimated.....overblown movie maker James Cameron is the latest celeb to speak out on the evil that is Alberta's oilsands, calling it a 'black eye' for Canada.  Another day, another rich Ava-tard using false information to slam the valuable oilsands in order to promote a project or agenda.  The impact to the environment is actually quite small compared to overall oil production. You'd think the King of the World would do a little research before opening his gob.  STFU and go make another cartoon, Jimmy.....speaking of bloated environmentalists, a thought: the Iceland volcano problem could be solved in a heartbeat - and he would forever be a Green martyr - if we air-dropped Al Gore into the cone.  Surely, either his fat head or his fat ass would plug the hole, no?.....attention whore Kate Gosselin has been booted from Dancing with the Stars.  I don't know what is worse: the fact that this poor excuse for a mother continues to get work, or the endless CNN and tabloid talking-heads supporting her and keeping her in the spotlight.  Does no one worry about the children?.....seen on a t-shirt a the mall: 'We used to have Ronald Reagan as president, Bob Hope and Johnny Cash.  Now we have Obama as president, no hope and no cash'.....need an accurate snapshot of the current administration?  Alleged actor Kal Penn of the 'Harold & Kumar' movie fame has a job at the White House's Office of Public Liaison. He is focusing on connecting President Barack Obama with the Asian-American and Pacific Islander communities.  In other news, Victoria Gotti was hired as Obama's liaison to the Italian community and Osama bin Laden has been pegged to fill the Israel liaison position.....when is Fox News finally going to be available in Canada without having to sign up for expensive digital service? What's good for CNN.....I can't wait until the new season of Rescue Me, but it's going to be hard to watch actor Daniel Sunjata after he revealed himself as a believer that 9/11 was an inside job.  I guess even famous actors can be sucked into conspiracy theories.....most anticipated concert tour of the year: U2.  They will be in my town a day before my 40th birthday.  If THAT'S not a hint I don't know what is.....

It is certainly no surprise that the expulsion of Tory Helena Guergis from the federal Conservative cabinet has given the national leftwing media entities much fodder to fill their pages and airtime.  Also not surprising is the 'double-standard' debate reigniting: if Guergis was a Liberal, would the media be giving her the TMZ treatment?

Make no mistake - I am not defending Helena Guergis or her equally pratfall-prone husband Rahim Jaffer for their actions, whether they have been made public or not.  When Prime Minister Stephen Harper flips from supporting you to giving you the boot, I have to believe the reasons are more than warrented.

What is shocking is what I saw on the cover of the Toronto Sun:

Garbage journalism at it's best. 

The political bias of the Toronto Sun is no surprise to anyone in Canada, but this goes beyond politcal opinion.

Would they have dared equate a female leftwing politican to a 'dog'?  Of course not.  Could you imagine the outcry from women's rights groups if a rightwing publication printed a picture of New Democrat Olivia Chow, calling her a dog?  The walls would be on fire over that.

The brass at the Toronto Sun have managed once again to lower the bar.  They have reached a new personal worst.

Simply classless.

When Hillary Clinton made her ‘Canada should stay in Afghanistan’ comments last month it shone a bright spotlight on the rock and the hard place Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper is in.

I should note: I have had to take some meds and have a little nap after realizing that I agreed with Hillary on something. Between that and finding one common-ground issue with Obama - Afghanistan - perhaps it’s time to call my therapist…

Leading a precarious second minority government, Harper has seen support for the role of our military in the war-torn nation fall steadily. Pressured by opposition parties and the public, the Conservative government made the flawed decision to announce the end of Canada’s military participation in 2011.

The work of our Armed Forces in Afghanistan - including taking the lead role in battling the Taliban and al-Qaeda when American focus was primarily on Iraq - has given our nation a sense of public pride for our military not felt in years.

Now that the U.S. is ending it’s time in Iraq (in such a way as to ensure mass chaos) and zeroing in on Afghanistan, the Canadian P.M. must feel stuck. Viewed as fairly pro-American (as all right-wingers are painted in Canada) and pro-War on Terror, Harper doesn’t want to lose his (final?) chance at achieving the first Conservative majority government since the Brian Mulroney 1980’s.

I would guess he would love nothing more than to keep Canadian troops front and center past the 2011 deadline. Harper understands the sacrifice the nation has made, and he also understands that the fight against terrorism can’t be won by gun alone.

But there is a vital military component the path to victory in Afghanistan, one that Canada has excelled in since our Joint Task Force 2 Special Forces Unit arrived right after 9/11, followed in 2002 by our first of many thousands of troops on the ground, a battle group from 3rd battalion PPCLI.

Canadian forces have focused on more than just fighting the Taliban. Our troops have worked tirelessly at the reconstruction side. Infrastructure of all kinds have been built - then destroyed - then rebuilt, sometimes over and over.

The absence of Canadian troops will be noticed. Imperative work that has begun will not be finished. We will be leaving before the job is done.

To the terrorists, we will have been defeated. They may even feel embolden to attack us on our own soil.

So there is Stephen Harper’s quandary: keep to the 2011 deadline - and live the next year fighting an enemy who knows you are running away - and be safe in his job, or do what is fundamentally right - and put his neck on the line and his political future in jeopardy - by abandoning the defective ‘war with a time limit' concept and renewing our commitment to NATO and to the War on Terror.

Perhaps his answer is in the words of Winston Churchill:

“It's not enough that we do our best; sometimes we have to do what's required.”

One of the more interesting aspects of getting older is you learn your beliefs are more fluid than you imagined. For many reasons, you sometimes question the ideas and philosophies that you had formed in an earlier era.

A famous misquote (with unlimited variations) attributed to Churchill describes this: If you are 20 and not a socialist you don’t have a heart, if you are 35 and not a conservative you don’t have a brain.

I have been on the political right from day one. From the early discussions around the dinner table when I was a kid through the attempted leftwing indoctrination of the public school system (which was bad enough then - now it’s outright blatant), and into my adulthood I have always nested within the classification of a socially moderate fiscal conservative.

Truly, the epitome of a ‘progressive conservative’.

To my surprise, I have realized that, at least on one issue, my position has changed.

During the provincial election campaign in the spring of 1989, I recall a conversation I had with former P.C. star Jim Dinning during a door-knocking afternoon. Prompted by a previous chat with a resident, I asked the party line on abortion.

“That is between a woman, her partner, her doctor, and her God.”

For years, I believed that this was the right position for a modern conservative to take. Wonderfully on the fence. The perfect libertarian stance.

After all, that’s where I stood on other social issues. Hands-off, but better: this one was ‘not my problem.’

And that’s where it stayed until last week when I heard someone else throw out that line in response to the abortion question.

Unexpectedly, my reaction thought was ‘what a cop-out.’

I have come to realize that is exactly what that is. A duck. An avoidance of taking a side.

With age and experience, I have taken a side.

My position is not determined by religious beliefs. On the contrary, it is because no one can be completely sure what awaits us after the end - if anything -that contributed to the shift.

We might only have one shot at living. To eliminate that opportunity for selfish, non-threatening reasons is inexcusable.

It's one thing if the well-being of the mother is at risk, but to use abortion as birth control is wrong.

Whether life begins or not at conception is not the point. The point is, at the very least, the process of beginning life begins at conception.

To abort that process is to abort life itself.

Society as blurred the issue.  They have created a false debate.  By definition, most everyone is 'pro-life' and 'pro-choice', aren't they?

I am safe in the knowledge that my libertarianism remains solid on social issues. What I have come to learn is that abortion is not a social issue.

It’s a matter of life and death.

I choose life.

Quebecers must thank God for the internet. Thanks to the virtual world of instantaneous communications, they can get their whining and crying out to the rest of us much faster than before.

In the old days, the ever-disgruntled in la Belle province had to rely on entities such as the leftist Globe & Mail or the ever-eager C.B.C. as vehicles to dictate their terms to the rest of Canada. Now, they can almost rapid-fire their bitching online.

Case in point, today’s announcement by the Conservative government that they will introduce legislation that will increase the number of seats in Parliament by thirty. I have grave concerns any time a government looks to get bigger, but that’s for another time.

Looking at the breakdown, Ontario will get 18 more seats, British Columbia will increase by seven, Alberta by five.

Given the boom to the population of Western Canada over the past 10-15 years through international immigration and migration from other parts of the country, the rise of M.P.s in the West is understandable, especially in the case of Alberta.

The province has grown significantly, and Calgary has become the new power center of the nation. Sorry Toronto, but it’s true.

I can’t for the life of me find a non-political reason for the huge hike in Ontario M.P.’s. Again, that’s for another time.

What stood out right from the moment Minister of Democratic Reform Steven Fletcher made the announcement was the absence of something: Quebec.

And boy, did they notice.

No change for in the number of M.P.s meant instant complaining from the predominantly French province. We are being ignored! What about our interests? Unfair! Unfair!

Yawn.

Never one to miss an opportunity to exploit a situation that could be even remotely damaging to Stephen Harper and his Tories, the C.B.C. hit the ground running, suggesting that Harper ‘maybe has given up on trying to make inroads…’ in la province de bébés.

To be fair, you may forgive the C.B.C. for assuming a federal government would have ‘kissing Quebec’s ass’ as a priority given the habit of previous administrations.

Quebecers are already filling the airwaves with claims that ‘the balance of power’ is in danger. One question: Balance of power between who?

I’ve heard this line forever and it has never made sense. Either Quebec is an equal part of Canada - equal to the provinces, not to the entire nation - or they are not part of the country at all.

Many Canadians feel Quebec holds too much power for one province as it is, and have said so time and again.

The rejection of agreements by Canadians which would have officially made Quebec part of Canada by having their signature on the Constitution at a cost of disproportionate power being placed in their hands, such as a veto over federal law, is proof.

Some Quebecers will always demand special treatment for the simple reason that they feel that they deserve it just for being French or Quebecois or whatever.

The truth that Quebecers cannot accept is that if they are to be part of this nation, they are to be no more important than any other province, ‘distinct society’ or no ‘distinct society’.

Equality or you can go on your own.

Anything different would be un-Canadian.