Stupid theories of the week.

I notice that more and more blogs are not allowing comments. While i can understand the motivation, it is a little frustrating when one cannot comment on fellow bloggers' (a liberty, i know) stupidity. So I will have to put it in here, in list form to make me feel better:
      1. The liberals and Bloc are tanking, the NDP are taking up the slack. It's all good. The problem i have is with those who are now trying to explain how the liberals are losing because, well, there is no place for them anymore. They have become irrelevant, they have no platform, etc. etc. I am, admittedly no expert on party policies, but even i can tell you there is a world of difference between the liberals and the conservatives, and an even bigger planet's worth between the libs and the NDP. Read their platforms, listen to their statements and play back their actions over the last 10 years. If you still don't see where the liberals fit in, stop blogging about it. you are just too damn dumb.
      2. I read today (again) some little tirade about welfare abuse by polygamists. Are people stupid or just ignorant? Is it really a polygamy issue? There are a lot of polygamist relationships out there, secular ones too. The parties in such relationships are entitled to welfare, in all its splendorous incarnations because they have no other means of support which are legally recognized. This is not an outrage, nor is there any reason to start pulling ones forelock over the fact that many of these unrecognized 3rd parties collect welfare by not declaring that they actually can and do receive financial support from their husband. True, its welfare fraud. However, it is also true that as crimes go, welfare fraud has got to be second only to speeding when it comes to offenses we tend to wink at. For example, as a landlord (for more than 20 years) i can attest that more than 75 percent of my tenants who collected welfare did so while living with a working partner. Had i reported them, what would have happened? How would it have been proved? If found guilty, how would the offender have been punished? Does the expression "blood from a stone" mean anything to you? 
   If you are worried about polygamist welfare fraud, then lift the law against polygamy, institute a system of taxation and inheritance for such marriages and thus remove welfare from the equation, just like we do with regular marriage. It is just plain stupid to pretend that polygamy is the problem here.
      3. Is it our very nature as canucks that we can't admit when one of our own does a good job? I should say : when one of our POLITICIANS does a good job (we go out of our way to praise our artists or writers regardless of actual merit).  Stephen Harper has led the country with a minority. He did so through a global financial crisis. He is still well regarded as a leader (see the polls on that one). However, the consensus in the press seems to be that he has only prospered in the absence of any real opposition. Sigh. Perhaps that's not stupidity, but it is a hell of a lot of cynicism.