I'm not positive, but I'm pretty sure I saw Belinda Stronach and Tie Domi heading into the sales office of the Ritz Carlton at lunch today.

If one of them owns an Audi S8, then that was probably them.

Talk about one hell of a nice love shack!

People are up in arms over the government's decision to tax income trusts and I understand their point of view.

People overinvested in them based on the governments promise not to tax them and now they've been hurt by the reversal of that promise.

I don't in any way condone breaking election promises but in this particular case, I think that the government realized there was a serious storm brewing and needed to quickly put a halt to it.

I think that a better solution would have been to put an immediate halt on the creation of income trusts and to grandfather those that already exist, but I'm not the finance minister and have no idea whether that sort of action would even be legal.

The fact is, though, that the conversion of major corporations into income trusts was going to seriously hurt the country and that those most disadvantaged by it would be the lower classes. Critics are arguing that it's the elderly and the everyday Joes who are hurting because the income trusts in their portfolios have lost a lot of value.

I wonder if anyone has put into perspective what percentage of Canadians don't hold any income trusts in their portfolios and, frankly, how many don't HAVE a portfolio because they can't afford to own investments when they're too busy trying to pay their rents and feed their families.

Income trusts are good only for those who hold their units. Beyond those people, the country and its citizens are being short-changed by them and the government has realized this. They exist in a tax loophole that should never have been allowed in the first place the problem had finally reached critical mass with the likes of BCE and the big banks considering the conversion.

Reading about people who have lost hundreds of thousands of dollars isn't going to cause a family living at or below the poverty line to lose any sleep. These things weren't wiped out. They lost around a quarter of their value so for every hundred grand lost, the suffering masses likely have another 3 hundred grand sitting in the bank. While their quality of life may well suffer and their retirement may not be quite as comfortable, there is certainly no worry that they're going to end up on the street picking through trash cans for food.

This all ties back to my post a few days ago about greed. The people hurt most by this are those who are already doing well for themselves. The people hurt most by not making these changes are those who are not. It's those who will have to bear a greater share of the tax burden because investors are soaking up profits that are no longer being taxed by the government.

Now this all gets more complicated when you look at the income taxes paid on the distributions and what not, but at the end of the day, those can be sheltered by RSPs and other tax sheltering methods so the government in the end loses revenue.

That money has to come from somewhere and it's the working stiffs that will end up paying it out.

So all in all, Mr. Flaherty, I commend your actions. I commend you for having the courage to do what's right for the country rather than what's going to make the most money for the affluent.

I only hope that this doesn't hurt the government's chances for re-election. Hopefully they can follow this up with a tangeable tax break for ordinary Canadians so they can see the benefits of these changes.

Right now, the law says that you can put as many people as you want in your car so long as the driver isn't crowded and all available seatbelts are being used.

This makes sense. If there's a seatbelt there, you should use it so I don't have to pay to piece you back together after you're thrown out into oncoming traffic.

Sometimes, however, you need to fit an extra person in the vehicle and there just isn't a belt there. In that case, should the law force you to find some other form of transportation?

If you can only fit your family of 5 in your car, and your cousin comes to visit, do you have to leave him home when you go out to dinner?

If you're going to do a job and your truck only has 3 seatbelts in it, can you not take 4 people?

Over the weekend some people died because there were 10 of them in a minivan and not enough seatbelts. That's unfortunate, but does it mean the law should be changed to prevent this from ever happening again? Would those people be safe and sound right now if the laws were different?

It just leaves a bad taste in my mouth when laws are changed based on current stories in the media rather than based on actual statistics showing a real problem. It seems to me like political posturing when they could be doing something far more constructive with their time. I guess time will tell what comes out of this but I can only hope they're looking at all the consequences before just going ahead and making up new laws. A lot of people will be negatively impacted by what could amount to very little in the way of positive outcomes.

Homewrecker.

Homewrecker who was elected as a Conservative representative to govern. I sure hope her constituants think twice before casting their votes next time.

Of course, when her daddy is the boss, it's a tough call voting your conscience. Assuming those people have a conscience.

Asked bluntly about her sex life, Stronach responded: "Let's face it. I don't sit at home and knit on Friday nights."

Dirty, dirty, whore.

"Who will defend Lebanon in case of a new Israeli offensive?" he asked. "The Lebanese army and international troops are incapable of protecting Lebanon," he said, flanked by Lebanese and Hezbollah flags.

That's from Hezbollah leader Sheik Hassan Nasrallah. It just begs the question… would Lebanon need defending if Hezbollah didn't go around starting conflicts?

Hmm…

Now to answer his question… wouldn't the Lebanese army defend Lebanon if such defense were needed? As I understand it, they weren't involved in this ordeal because Israel wasn't attacking with the intent to hurt Lebanon but, rather, with the intent to hurt Hezbollah who was using Lebanon as their playground. So really, if Lebanon was in need of defense, it was against Hezbollah making them a target. Seems to me that Israel was actually helping them out in this regard. I don't recall hearing anything about the Lebanese army going in and stopping Hezbollah from keeping the conflict raging.

Maybe that just didn't make the news… but I doubt it.

So now that I'm a millionaire, who would like to help run my campaign?

NotWeasel for Prime Minister.

Or… rather… NotWeasel for… umm… member of parliament? Stupid political system.

Our lottery here has ballooned up to $42 million. That's a lot of money and I fully intend to win it.

For all my concerns about the complete incompetancy of our government, a big chunk of change like that would go a long way toward getting me into office where I can make a go at setting things straight.

I have to wonder though. Is there anyone in office right now who went in wanting to make possitive changes to this country? Is anyone concerned with stopping the misappropriation of taxpayer's money?

If so, what happened? Is the system so corrupt that even those with good intentions end up buried within the beaurocracy and reduced to ineffectual mouthpieces, held off to the side for their lack of political affiliation? Is there really anything that can be done to prevent the eventual slide into a complete collapse of government?

God willing, we'll all get a chance to find out.

A tax on people bad a math, eh? I suppose it's to the benefit of my unrealistic ambitions that I couldn't count apples with an abacus if my life depended on it.

I add a caveat here… if this Liliane chick is an employee of our embassy in Lebanon or some such thing then she may have a point. I make these comments under the assumption that she is a vacationing Canadian like so many others we're hearing about on the news.

EDIT: I've just confirmed that she is, in fact, on vacation and thus, trying to blame our government for her own lack of planning.

From the Ottawa Citizen:

Ms. El-Helou travelled to her native country for a family vacation, but found herself trapped when the bombings started last week.

After getting flown back to Canada on Prime Minister Stephen Harper's private plane, Liliane El-Helou had this to say:

She said that officials told her that they were not ready for that kind of an emergency. “Excuse me, if you are in Switzerland, a country that is not at war, an evacuation plan is the last thing you do for your employees,” she said. “But when you are in the Middle East, a volcano area where war could begin any time, you have to train your staff.”

Well then! Excuse our government for not being your babysitter when YOU choose to go to a country that you yourself know that war could begin at any time!

I commend our government for putting their best efforts into evacuating people and I think those people should be HAPPY for it. If you choose to go to one of the potentially violent hotspots of the world, I think that YOU should have an exit plan in place for when bombs start dropping around you. It's not OUR responsibility!!!

Our government should and does help out where it can, but it is not obliged to SAVE YOUR STUPID ASS nor is it at FAULT when you don't like the way the rescue effort has gone.

Beating down the Palestinians is one thing. I feel for the innocent civilians getting caught up in the whole thing, but their militants ARE randomly firing rockets into Israeli towns so I understand the retaliation.

But Lebanon? Is Israel getting ready for another all-out war with a neighbouring sovereign nation?

WTF were the Lebanese thinking, kidnapping Israeli soldiers?

Will this once again rally together all the surrounding Arab nations for a massive conflict?

Will this send our gas prices through the roof?

Israel's got nukes, so they can't be taken down. The Arabs know this. So what then are they trying to accomplish?? Armageddon??

Let's all pray this gets smoothed over quickly before it gets entirely out of control.

The big story in the news today is the fact that Israel has pretty much pummelled the shit out of Gaza.

I'm just wondering if there's a single Palestinian out there that didn't see this coming.

Consider this alternate scenario.

What if we Canadians were to go ahead and elect the Al-Qaida in Canada party into power. Our neighbours to the south probably wouldn't be too pleased. If our Prime Minister were to then shout "Death to America" from the rafters at every opportunity and then fire a few rockets at Detroit and Buffalo now and then, you can be damned sure the Americans would turn around and take notice.

Surely they'd be a bit miffed and they'd probably stop buying shit from us and sending us shiny new cars.

Then, after all that, if we were to go and abduct a few Americans and start making demands, I think it would be a safe bet that they'd bomb the snow right off us and we'd all be trying to re-build out igloos from radioactive mud.

With that in mind, I don't think I'll be voting for Al-Quaida should they decide to run for office here. It just doesn't seem like the smart thing to do.

Seriously. WTF. Do they actually want to build a proper nation down there or are they just out to cause trouble and martyr themselves???