Author: Stephen Taylor

I added a new feature to Blogging Tories this weekend called “Blogging Tories Television” or BT-TV.

It is perhaps the most interesting (and fun) feature that I’ve implemented into the site so far. You can go to Blogging Tories now and watch various videos from Stephen Harper’s acceptance speech to John MacCallum’s attempt to justify David Dingwall’s severance.

The best news of all is that anyone can participate and the bandwidth is free! Google, in their march to take over the Internet, has provided free, flash video based hosting of any virtually any video that you’d like to upload (there are community standards of course). Google then converts your video (from avi, wmv, mpg, mov etc) to a flash video file and then provides a plug-in to put on your website.

However, at Blogging Tories, we’ve taken this a few steps further. If you’ve made a video that you’d like to include in Blogging Tories, email the Google Video URL to me and I’ll put it into the Blogging Tories Television “channel changer” that I’ve integrated into the site.

Some Blogging Tories have already gotten into the video production game including BBS, ProudtobeCanadian, PomoChristian, Brent Colbert, Conservative Life and MP-elect Mike Wallace.

It’s easier than you think. For example, I use:
Windows Movie Maker (comes with XP)
Google Video Uploader

another Blogging Tories original…

During the election, there was much talk of the Liberal war room mole and the leaks which came out from the Liberal war room which were easily picked up by Conservative strategists and the media. Granted, the mole did exist and leaked key policy announcements to the press one day early and leaked the entire Liberal platform to the Western Standard. However, there was another source of Liberal leaks that provided a lot of material to the Conservative campaign.

First let’s take a look at a satellite image of downtown Ottawa.

The Conservative war room was located in the Burnside building at 151 Slater st. and the Liberal war room was located just around the corner on Metcalfe. Yes, just around the corner (about 200m according to Google Earth).

On the corner of Metcalfe and Slater is a Starbucks which was often frequented by Liberal war room staffers in need of some java and by their Conservative counterparts who liked to sit around and “read” the newspaper (while eavesdropping on the competition). Granted, it was a good place for bloggers to pick up some tips too.

I’m going to take a shot at predicting PM-elect Stephen Harper’s cabinet. The following is partly an indication of what I think should happen and partly what I believe will happen.

*Prime Minister – Stephen Harper
*Deputy PM – Lawrence Cannon
Justice and Emergency Preparedness – Peter MacKay
*Foreign Affairs – Monte Solberg
*Defence – Gordon O’Connor
Transport – James Moore
Finance – Jim Flaherty
Revenue – Garth Turner
Intergovernmental Affairs – Rona Ambrose
Environment – Bob Mills
Indian Affairs – Jim Prentice
International Trade – Maxime Bernier
*Fisheries – Loyola Hearn
*Leader of the Government (HoC) – Jay Hill
Health – Tony Clement
Heritage – Bev Oda
*Veterens Affairs – Laurie Hawn
Leader of the Government (Senate) – Hugh Segal Marjorie Lebreton
Agriculture – Gerry Ritz
President of the Treasury Board – Jason Kenney
*Minister of the Econ. Development Agency of Canada for the Regions of Quebec and Minister responsible for the Francophonie – Josee Verner
ACOA – Gerald Keddy
Human Resources – John Baird
Attorney General – Vic Toews
Industry – Rob Nicholson
Democratic Reform – Scott Reid
Sport – Gary Goodyear
Internal Trade – Christian Paradis
North American relations – Stockwell Day
*Immigration – Diane Ablonczy

Speaker – Chuck Strahl

(*) Indicates my most confident predictions.

Agree/Disagree? Do you have any additions (I’ve skipped a few ministries) Put your suggestions/corrections in the comments.