Keep It Simple: Commit Math

Now, this has gotta sting, coming as it does from former senior advisor to Heil Harper, Keith Beardsley.

Fiscal responsibility has been the hallmark of the Harper government from day one. It's therefore quite interesting to see in year seven of his reign that the opposition is focused on trying to destroy the credibility the Tories have on that front. It's a good strategy on their part, enabled by some help from the government side.

He cites Scott Brison's jibe about each Economic Action Scam ad on Hockey Night in Canada representing the cost of the federal contribution to 32 summer student jobs.

Beardsley notes:

Simple stuff, but it resonates with Canadian families struggling to get their kids through university.

Yes, that resonates with Canadians with kids, but how about something that will resonate with all of us?

I did some math. One ad spot costs $95,000. The average yearly Old Age Supplement is a paltry $6,180.

Ergo, one EAScam ad = 15.3 yearly pensions.

In our ongoing quest to Divide the Right, it's time to bang the fiscal wastebin a little harder.

The other day I blogged about just two items: the mystery billions spent on consultants and the Economic Action Scam ads.

On Twitter, I asked my good friend Connie what her members think of such waste and unaccountability.

She obliged and started a thread at the Freaks with a link to my blogpost.

Embarrassing - hardcore leftists calling CPC on fiscal waste

by Connie Fournier » 05/ 09/ 13 11:23 am

With the CPC Convention coming up really soon, it's a good time for us to take an honest look at how the majority CPC government has been performing so far.

When the far, far left is calling the government on fiscal waste, I think we need to, at least, check it out.

What do y'all think?

It didn't get much response. But hey, I'm trying and Connie is willing.

Harper is fucked on the so-con file and he knows it as Chantal Hébert points out.

And as a commenter there observes, the base is finally getting it too.

For all these years Harper's worked on the theory the "base" of his party isn't too bright, and it's taken the base this long to figure it out - which pretty much speaks for itself.

Scott Brison is a smart feller. So is Keith Beardsley. Let's help them out. Commit more math!

ADDED: Here's another unit of measurement: $3,000 a day for CON media monitoring. Two days = 1 average OAS pension.

Why Do We Even Bother to Blog? Part 1

In a recent rant on the CONTempt Party government's compulsive spending of our money on pure propaganda, we gave a shout-out to Stephen Lautens for graphic help in the form of another of his wicked Demotivational Conservative Posters.

He graciously complied.




There. Says it all.

Propaganda: Haz We Had Enuff Yet?

This is what set off my rage-o-meter yesterday.

Canadians may be growing weary of - even hostile to - all those Economic Action Plan ads the Harper government has been pumping out for the last four years.

Eight polls the Finance Department commissioned between 2009 and 2012 suggest the TV, radio, print and Internet ads are starting to fizzle - and annoying some people.

. . .
The eight surveys, commissioned from four polling firms for almost $300,000, have asked the same core questions of random samples of 1,000 people contacted by telephone.

'Even hostile'? Everyone I know is thoroughly and MASSIVELY enraged by the ads and billboards and website badges and and and. . .

It is, quite simply, propaganda.

And clearly not very smart propaganda, because it is not working.

But, in a move that tells you everything you need to know about this truth- and evidence-averse gang of vandals, they're going to keep pouring our dough down that money-pit.

The Harper government continues to buy ad time for its Economic Action Plan, including for Super Bowl Sunday football just last month, when Human Resources and Skills Development bought a series of pre-game ads featuring the EAP logo. The coming 10-week ad campaign by the Finance Department, which launches Monday, will reprise last fall's version.

Today's rage-o-meter was set off by spending yet more dough on focus groups to tweak the CONjob tarsands propaganda.

Focus-group testing on what the Harper government calls its Responsible Resource Development campaign found the advertising to be light on facts but uplifting and patriotic, according to a government-commissioned study.

The fruits of that taxpayer-funded labour will again be on display this spring as a second wave of ads — designed to persuade Canadians of "the importance and impact of Canada's energy sector" — hits the air.

Natural Resources Canada has budgeted $9 million in the current 2012-13 fiscal year for ads that show a cross-section of resource industries in a job-friendly and environmentally sensitive light.

What? The oily companies we fund with corporate welfare can't afford their own fucking propaganda?

The ads repeat and repeat and repeat ad nauseum.

But mostly they are INSULTING.

Yes, fellow and sister citizens, they really do think we are that stupid.

For the full picture of how this government is pissing our money up the propaganda rope, look at this.

Surely this bullshit has far outstripped Adscam by now.

I'm not great at naming things, but this needs a catchy title. Suggestions? #CONprop?

Also. Paging Stephen Lautens for a suitable Demotivational Poster on Propaganda.