"It's Stressful"

That's what "Conservative" Agricultural Minister Gerry Ritz pleaded as his excuse for his inappropriate attempts at humour regarding listeriosis deaths.

Note to shitheads: Only victims and overworked helpers are allowed to employ "gallows humour." Would Ritz have been understanding if a doctor who'd botched an operation and killed a loved one tried to make jokes about it to "relieve the tension"? Of course not. Nor should Canadians be understanding about how "stressful" it is to be the government that removed regulations and inspections in meat-packing that helped produce a deadly crisis.

This is pretty extraordinary actually. However nasty or incompetent they've been, past Canadian governments don't tend to joke about the people they've killed or might have failed. Liberals didn't make jokes during the tainted blood scandal. I can't think of a political movement so full of nincompoops as this one.

They're actually imploding on the campaign trail ain't they? Here's an aide to Northern Quebec MP Lawrence Cannon telling representatives of a Northern Aboriginal reserve that the MP will visit them if they're sober and they behave, followed (apparently) by comments about incest.

This follows their communications director Ryan Sparrow's suspension for responding to criticisms from the father of a slain soldier, of Harper's arbitrary 2011 cut-off date for "the mission" (tm) in Afghanistan, as being null and void because the father is a Liberal.

It's not pretty is it? When ruthless, floundering capitalism unites with the last gasp of social values that are 50 years out of date. This is the sort of vermin that KKKate McMillan would vote for. What else could we really expect?