Not your Blogging Tory news: Aug 8, 2007.

Once upon a time, PM Stephen Harper went to the mats with the U.S. to "get things done for Canadians," and he emerged from the fray with a softwood lumber "deal" and, lo, the slavering, obedient, neo-con, wingnut groupies and leg-humping poodles did celebrate with much blogging.

Today, however, 'twould appear that we're back where we started:

Does this mean we get our billion dollars back?

Troubling news on the softwood lumber front. You remember that fantastic deal Steve Harper got us by giving away over $1 billion in illegally collected tariffs to the Americans? Apparently, he did as good a job of “fixing” that one as he did ending the long, tired era of federal/provincial bickering:

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The United States asked for binding arbitration against Canada on Wednesday in the latest flare-up of a two-decade-long dispute over softwood lumber.

U.S. Trade Representative Susan Schwab said the United States "has no choice but to initiate arbitration proceedings to compel Canada to live up to its SLA (Softwood Lumber Agreement) obligations."

And the sheepish reaction of the aforementioned wingnut groupies and yappy poodles upon hearing this news? Ehhhhhhh ... not so vocal.

FREE SNARK AT NO EXTRA CHARGE: Stephen Taylor edition.

THE STUPID! IT BURNS! Appreciate, if you will, this gem from commenter "northwestern_lad" at Jeff's blog post:

Hmmmm... this is the pot calling the kettle black, as it was Liberal MP's, including Liberal MP's from forestry ridings who voted with the Conservatives to avoid a leaderless election. I guess that the deal didn't seem so bad then, right??? If it was so bad then, when didn't the Liberals vote with Opposition to defeat this deal??? That's right, Liberal self-interest.

Or maybe, northwestern_lad, my intellectually-stunted little wank, those Liberals voted for the deal because they actually believed Stephen Harper when he looked them in the eye and flat-out lied to them when he told them that that "deal" would finally, once and for all, resolve the softwood lumber dispute and we could all get on with our lives and not have to worry about it anymore.

Could that be it? Hmmmmmmmm?