Canadian Jewish Vote Leaning Conservative

Liberals can no longer depend on the Jewish vote. Seems like that's getting to be a thing of the past. Jews are now turning to the Conservatives mainly because of the pro-Israel stand that PM Harper and the Conservative government have taken.

Where have all of Canada's Jewish Liberals gone?

"The Conservatives have connected with some Jewish voters, especially those for whom Israel is of prime importance," McGill University political scientist Harold Waller said. "With Israel under unprecedented international pressure, voters who are sensitive to this issue may well choose to reward the Conservatives."

Already, the Conservative overtures have gained some high-profile converts within the Jewish elite. Heather Reisman, a veteran Liberal powerbroker, and Ariella Cotler, wife of prominent Liberal parliamentarian and Jewish communal activist Irwin Cotler, both have swung over to Harper. "(bet there's some friction at that house)

Christmas Eve Miracle

There are Christmas miracles like this one in Colorado. A double miracle for this family, both Mom and baby doing well.

'Hand of God' Seen in Christmas Eve Revival of Mother, Baby

DENVER — Mike Hermanstorfer was clutching his pregnant wife's hand when her life slipped away in a Colorado hospital on Christmas Eve, and then he cradled his newborn son's limp body seconds after a medical team delivered the baby by Cesarean section.

Minutes later he saw his son come to life in his arms under the feverish attention of doctors, and soon he learned his wife had inexplicably come back to life.

"My legs went out from underneath me," Hermanstorfer said Tuesday. "I had everything in the world taken from me, and in an hour and a half I had everything given to me."

Hermanstorfer's wife, Tracy, went into cardiac arrest and stopped breathing during labor on Thursday, said Dr. Stephanie Martin, a maternal fetal medicine specialist at Memorial Hospital in Colorado Springs, where the Hermanstorfers had gone for the birth of their son.

"She had no signs of life. No heartbeat, no blood pressure, she wasn't breathing," said Martin, who had rushed to Hermanstorfer's room to help. "The baby was, it was basically limp, with a very slow heart rate."

After their miraculous recovery, both mother and the baby, named Coltyn, appear healthy with no signs of problems, Martin said.

She said she cannot explain the mother's cardiac arrest or the recovery.

"We did a thorough evaluation and can't find anything that explains why this happened," she said.

Mike Hermanstorfer credits "the hand of God."

"We are both believers ... but this right here, even a nonbeliever — you explain to me how this happened. There is no other explanation," he said.

Asked about divine intervention, Martin said, "Wherever I can get the help, I'll take it."

Tracy Hermanstorfer, 33, was getting prepped for childbirth at the hospital Thursday morning and her 37-year-old husband was by her side when she began to feel sleepy and laid back in her bed.

"She literally stopped breathing and her heart stopped," her husband said. Pandemonium erupted as doctors and nurses tried to revive her with chest compressions and a breathing tube, but nothing worked.

"I was holding her hand when we realized she was gone," Hermanstorfer said. "My entire life just rolled out."

Doctors told him, "We're going to take your son out now. We have been unable to revive her and we're going to take your son out," he recalled.

After the Cesarean section, some of the team rushed his wife to the operating room while the others attended to Coltyn.

"They hand him to me, he's absolutely lifeless," Hermanstorfer said. The doctors went to work on Coltyn as Hermanstorfer held him, and soon he began to breath.

"His life began in my hands," Hermanstorfer said. "That's a feeling like none other. Life actually began in the palm of my hands."

Martin said Tracy Hermanstorfer's pulse returned even before she was wheeled out of the room and into surgery. She estimates Hermanstorfer had no heartbeat for about four minutes.

Hermanstorfer remembers getting sleepy and closing her eyes in her hospital bed, then awakening in the intensive care unit.

Friends have asked if she saw a light or had other experiences described by others who have survived near-death experiences, but she didn't.

"I just felt like I was asleep," she said.

When doctors told her what happened, "I'm like, 'Holy cow, was it that bad? Wow."'

The Hermanstorfers returned Monday to their home in Security, just outside Colorado Springs about 65 miles south of Denver.

Both Mike and Tracy Hermanstorfer worry that she might have a recurrence. Martin said she can't offer the Hermanstorfers much advice because she doesn't know what caused the original problem.

On Tuesday, the couple celebrated a delayed Christmas with their 3-year-old son Kanyen and Tracy Hermanstorfer's 11-year-old son, Austin, from her previous marriage.

She plans to tell Coltyn about his birth when he's old enough to understand.

"I'll tell him everything ... that he's my miracle baby. That he had a tough time coming into this world, that he's my miracle baby and he's still here with us," she said.

She said Austin is worried and confused but the experience is improving his already-close relationship with Mike Hermanstorfer, his stepfather.

Kanyen doesn't understand much except that doctors had to work on his mom in the hospital, she said. His reaction was, "OK, we got the baby, let's go home now."

God really is alive and still performs miracles!

In The Hands Of God - Newsboys

Ed Has His Head Stuck In The Sand

Premier Ed Stelmach has his head stuck in the sand at the rising fortunes of the new
upstart Wildrose Alliance Party. The Wildrose Alliance is now ahead of Eddy's PCs
in the polls. He's just shrugging it off. But that's just fine with me. That means if he keeps doing this we could very well see a Premier Danielle Smith and a Wildrose Alliance government with some real conservative policies.

Ed could just end up in the opposition benches at this rate or back to the farm. Shuffling the cabinet (deck chairs) is not going to help. The only thing that will help is take the word conservative in Progressive Conservatives and put that to practice and forget the word progressive, maybe even dump it.

For too long, they have been putting the word progressive to practice way too much. Even in the last term of Ralph Klein, he was too progressive. That party is not recognizable as conservative anymore in anyway shape or form.

The polls indicate support is not going to the lefty Swan's Liberals or Mason's NDs, they are turning to the only true conservative party in the province.

I have voted PC in the past but next election I'm afraid I'm going to have to go WAP.

Ed, Danielle is going to give you a run for the money come next election campaign in a couple of years. She and the party will be very well funded and organized by then.

I will be doing my best to help her. Good luck Ed, you're going to need it!

You've Come Along Way, Conservatives

Don Martin in an interesting piece talks about how far the Conservatives have come since 2000. From the time when Stockwell Day became the leader of the Alliance, to the merger that united the Alliance with the Progressive Conservatives, to today where we have a Conservative government with Stephen Harper as PM.

The merger is the best thing that has happened to Canada in the last few years. Kudos to Stephen Harper and Peter Mackay for making it happen. Peter Mackay in my opinion has not been given enough credit for what he did. He gave up his leadership in the PCs and was called a Judas by former leadership rival in what he called a betrayal. Mr. Mackay would have betrayed Canada IMHO had he not gone forward with Stephen Harper to renunite the Conservative family.

This is the part I liked best in the piece that sums up the last decade nicely.

"For a party whose decade began with the mocking smirk of the Liberal political establishment at Mr. Day’s jet-ski stunt, the merger gave the Conservatives the keys to power — and the last laugh."

The last ten years have been good for Conservatives. The best is yet to come I believe.

Thank-you, Stephen Harper and Peter Mackay for uniting the right. The country is better off for it.

I shudder the thought of what would have been had the merger not have happened.

Fair and Balanced and Just the Facts Please

In today's Chronicle Herald, Dan Leger laments how bad 2009 was a bad year for the MSM, libel chill, advertising taking a nosedive, newspapers in North America folding blah,blah, blah......

He also laments the PM, celebrities, sports teams are going over they, the journalism elite heads to get message out. He especially hones in on PM Harper.

But there are other attacks on journalism of which few citizens are even aware. And they are insidious.

Professional sports teams, actors, musicians and others are now trying to wrest control and copyright from the news media on everything from concerts to cricket matches. A worldwide trend is emerging in which sports and entertainment promoters try to control what is portrayed, how it’s distributed and who owns it.

At music, entertainment and sports events, photographers are being presented with written demands for prior approval of their pictures and for ownership of those photographs. Many news agencies are simply boycotting public events rather than sign away their rights.

And that means people might not see coverage of the rock show they attended or the hockey game they cheered. But it’s not just greedy promoters who are trying to manipulate the media in ways never attempted before. It’s happening in politics, too. Too frequently, the prime minister’s official media corps is covering events from which conventional journalists are excluded. A full-fledged media machine is growing in the prime minister’s office, paid for by the taxpayer and designed to burnish Stephen Harper’s image.

Prime ministers have always had photographers. But now, independent journalists are prevented from covering stories in the public interest. This is something new and worrisome for those who value our basic freedoms.

Well duh... he can't trust "you know it alls" to report honestly without some sort of smear.

In the comments section at the end of the piece, a commenter hits the nail on the head.

"thecaper wrote:
I must disagree with the comments of our esteemed editor. If reporters and, especially editors, would just report the story and not try to couch the news in certain ways to match their biases, then it would have been a good year. I challenge all editors and reporters to self-identify their political affiliations so that we can properly judge their "stories" on their merit. "

Amen to that. That's why the public is increasingly getting turned off and resorting to alternative news sources. Your credibility is shot.
You guys blew it last summer on Wafergate, bodybags, H1N1, etc,etc. We aren't buying what you are selling anymore.
Climate-gate the biggest story in ages. Where were you? You have been asleep at the switch. The biggest story in years. Instead what do you pathetic journalists focus on, the overblown story about Afghan prisoners that the general public doesn't care about and Tiger Woods.
If it weren't for the blogs, radio guys like Dave Rutherford, Charles Adler, Roy Green we would be totally oblivious to the issue. Although, I must say Lorrie Goldstein from the Sun Chain and some in the National Post did a pretty good job making the public aware. Heck a person even had to go international media like Russia Today for info. Pathetic!

So MSM, wake up, give us the public what we are looking for, fair and balanced and just the facts. Not some spinned and manipulated garbage to drive an agenda.

Like this: Then the lie was exposed.

2010 could be a better year for you, just stop the spin and the bias. You might be suprised, you might get some of us back.