Budget’s passed. Now the House is shut down for the summer. Yeeee-Haaaawww.

And not a moment too soon for the Rodo McDodo team.

There are burgers to be flipped on the Burgherville Barbeque circuit. And Burgherville babas to be kissed too.

Sure, the burghers will have questions. There’s the little matter of NSPi’s request for a 12.1% rate increase a couple of weeks after their Q1 report of $57.9m profit.

Eyebrows will cock over Rodo’s elimination of the 8% rebate on electricity. Jibes will made over the cabinet minister, the ice cream soda and the smashed-up government SUV. And Rodo will no doubt be asked to explain what he meant by “take the opportunity for transit.” Does he mean take the subway? In Amherst?

Then there will be questions of skyrocketing oil and food costs and what this will mean for our fair province. And then, of course, there’s the lingering bad taste left from the Ernie Fage affair and why Rodo didn’t stand up for Nova Scotia folk hero Bill Casey during negotiations with Stephen Harper.

Huh? Rodo? What does it mean?

But Rodo knows that in Burgherville there’s no glare of media, no scrums, no questions from the other side of the floor, no public record. In Burgherville, you can surround yourself with acolytes and sycophants who are thirsty for the juice in the trough.

You can just tell them that you won’t be putting up with it, damn it. You can speak up for Nova Scotians. You can tell the burghers what the burghers want to hear.

Then you can give them the quiet wink and nod. They know. Government patronage is the great silencer in Tartan Republic of Nova Scotia. (But, shhhhh! Don’t tell the tax payers of Ontario who are forking over their dosh in the name of equalization.)

Then you can get on with flipping burgers for the burghers of Burgherville.

Life’s good, eh Rodo?

Big Stephen took Poor Rodney’s boat and now Poor Rodney is asking Big Stephen to give it back.

Ah, Nova Scotia politics. What would we do for laughs without it.

This week Harper raided Nova Scotia’s Coast Guard to buy himself a few votes in Quebec. He plucked the Cap Perce from the Canadian Coast Guard College and sent it to a vote-rich constituency in Quebec. This is the third Coast Guard boat taken from Poor Rodney by Big Stephen.

And once again the Premier of Nova Scotia is reduced to begging: “I urge your government to reconsider these decisions and to commit to having a coast guard ship based at the coast guard college.”

Yeah, right Rodney. As if Big Stephen is going to listen to you and your little voter impoverished province.

“I did not have a heads-up, and I would have brought it up to the attention of the prime minister if I had.”

Mom! He took my boat when I wasn’t lookiinggggggggg!!!!! No fairrrrrrrr!!!!

This letter was not sent in the hope that Stephen will give Rodney back his boat. He won’t. And Poor Rodney knows it.

Rodney wrote the letter to make it look like he’s doing something.

“Why, if Stephen doesn’t give back my boat, I’ll …… I’ll…… I’ll write a letter and ask him to give it back.”

If Rodney had an iota of clout, he’d be putting a stop to these things long before they ever happened. But alas, they happen and happen often, and Rodney doesn’t find out until after the fact.

So Stephen wins and Nova Scotia loses. Again.

Thanks Rodney. It’s great having you on our side.