CathiefromCanada

The centre isn't holding

2012-02-01T00:46:00.001-06:00

Rough beasts, start slouching. I'm starting to think a few things are starting to fall apart for the Harper Cons.
After telling middle-aged Walmart cashiers that MPs are going to force them to stand behind their registers until they're 67, they won't cut their own lavish pensions.
After releasing a batch of embarrassing info about CBC salaries, they won't reveal how many of Harper's staff are also being highly paid.
After Harper perished the thought that he would introduce any anti-abortion legislation, he's losing control of the Conservative backbenchers.

And the courts are slapping down their cruel ideology.

Stay tuned.

Told ya so

2012-01-30T05:55:00.000-06:00

I've been considering what to say about Harper's throne speech in Switzerland and the words "told ya so" kept coming to mind -- this type of incompetent, half-baked, mean-spirited governing is exactly what we lefties all knew would happen as soon as Harper got his majority.
Ken Gray sums up The Conservative Death Wish:

So generations of Canadians have been promised pensions under certain conditions and now the ground is being taken out from under them by Harper. Pension reform is just unnecessary yet Harper is not proceeding on logic, but ideology. First Harper caps federal health payments, now he wants to reform promised pensions. The large senior boomer demographic is unlikely to approve.
That allows an opportunity for the Grits and the NDP. “Would you rather have your pensions and health care or a bunch of new fighter jets?”

Here we go again:

From The Bolt via Kinsella

Saturday cartoon (Oscar edition)

2012-01-28T14:19:00.000-06:00

I'm out of it today with a cold, but this is the NFB Oscar-nominated short "Wild Life" about a remittance man in the Canadian old west, with the sound done by Twisted Pair of Regina:

Get a grip

2012-01-26T23:50:00.000-06:00

I know local radio news always wants to create some excitement, but every time I turned on the radio today I kept hearing about "gunfire in a fifth grade class" and "diamond heist in Saskatoon" .
Well, not so much.

The gunfire turned out to be just an accidental discharge of a gun in a backpack which an 11-year-old kid brought to school for show and tell and it turned out to be loaded. A little scary, yes, but it was just an accident and nobody was hurt.
And the big diamond heist was one (1) ring stolen from a jewelry store.

Slow news day, I guess.

Best lecture ever

2012-01-26T23:36:00.000-06:00

I work at a university and so I keep hearing about how dull it is when faculty just lecture all the time.
Well, here's an account of the least dull lecture of all time.
Thanks, Dr. Grumpy.

The oddest website in the world

2012-01-24T00:00:00.000-06:00

Is NobodyHere
Go. Explore. Click anywhere, on anything, and see where it takes you.

No contest

2012-01-21T23:47:00.000-06:00

Compare this guy

And this guy

No contest.

Popularity contest?

2012-01-20T12:45:00.001-06:00

One of the Toronto police officers now being charged for excessive force during the Adam Nobody arrest at the G20 protests is described this way by his lawyer:

This kid has an exemplary record. He's a really good kid, and a good cop.

So is this what it's going to come down to? Is this case of police brutality going to be decided based on whether either Adam Nobody or the police who beat him up are the "good kids"?

Greg Weston does it again

2012-01-19T12:18:00.000-06:00

After exposing the gazebo in the middle of nowhere G20 spending debacle, Greg Weston was fired-or-he-quit from Sun media AKA Fox News North.
But he keeps on finding out embarassing stuff about the Harper Cons and letting us know about it through CBC News-- his latest is the millions being spent on an agency that doesn't do anything: EI financing agency spends millions doing nothing:

A federal agency created by the Harper government with great political fanfare in 2008 is costing millions of dollars to achieve pretty much nothing.... the board has no rates to set, no surplus to invest, no contingency fund to manage, and little chance any of that will change in the near future.

The other question they don't seem to want us to ask is, what happened to the $54 billion EI surplus?

Sigh

2012-01-17T23:56:00.000-06:00

The Harper Cons say its critical that Canada sell its oil to the States. And they're also saying its critical that Canada sell its oil to Asia.
No wonder the Harper Cons abandoned Kyoto -- our government won't be interested in energy conservation until Canada hasn't got anything more to sell.

The countdown begins

2012-01-14T00:11:00.000-06:00

Responding to yesterday's firestorm, the Harper Cons are now saying all same-sex marriages performed in Canada are legal.
Oh, and it's all the Liberals fault.
And they're going to amend the law right away to make sure that gay couples are treated fairly by the courts.

So don't worry, be happy.
But as I commented on another blog, I am done with giving the Harper Cons the benefit of the doubt. I'll believe they'll actually amend the residency requirements law only when I see them bring it to the Commons and whip their caucus to support it.

And if they actually do bring in a piece of legislation to which their base is profoundly opposed, just because its the right thing for a government to do, maybe it would be a sign that the Harper Cons are starting to think of themselves as a government instead of a party.

Shamed before the world

2012-01-13T00:26:00.000-06:00

Show of hands, please. How many people expect that the Harper Conservatives will actually do anything to reverse the ridiculous legal opinion from their Justice department about the validity of same-sex marriage?
How many expect they will dither around until the case gets to the Supreme Court in three or four years, so they can tell their base that "activist" judges are to blame for throwing out their ridiculous legal position?

Now, the melon-headed lawyer who provided the same-sex marriage opinion is the one who lost the argument on medical marijuana. But while we're waiting for the court to overturn his arguments again, the damage to Canada's international reputation is incalculable. The world is being told that Canada "Says Marriages of Foreign Gays Invalid"-- Chicago Tribune, Reuters, AFP, Australia, New Zealand, England -- and about half of these reports are also saying the government actually has "invalidated same-sex marriage" for non-Canadians. As Montreal Simon writes, this "has hurt and humiliated gay couples all over the world."

Hey, here's an idea...

2012-01-12T00:49:00.000-06:00

Reading Ross K's list of stuff the Harper Cons are doing to "celebrate" the War of 1812 gives me an idea.
Maybe if the gay pride parades across the country promised an "1812" theme this year, the feds would give them money?

How about some rainbow flags mixed with the Union Jacks?

Commander Brock look-alike contests?

There's lots of costumes. We could have floats of "1812 drag", with feathers and plumes and medallions and fancy hats

1812 has lots of fireworks potential

And there's even a navy connection!

So what's not to like?

Oh lord won't you buy me a Mercedes Benz?

2012-01-10T22:56:00.000-06:00

Looking at photos from the Detroit auto show made me think of this song:

and this one too:

and:

Amazing

2012-01-10T00:16:00.003-06:00

First place in the National Geographic photo contest. The photographer writes:

Grand Prize Winner and Nature Winner - SPLASHING: This photo was taken when I was taking photos of other insects, as I normally did during macro photo hunting. I wasn’t actually aware of this dragonfly since I was occupied with other objects. When I was about to take a picture of it, it suddenly rained, but the lighting was just superb. I decided to take the shot regardless of the rain. The result caused me to be overjoyed, and I hope it pleases viewers. Batam, Riau Islands, Indonesia (Photo and caption by Shikhei Goh)

Concern trolls

2012-01-09T11:41:00.000-06:00

The Harper Conservatives care so much about the Liberals that they are warning us how damaging it would be to elect Bob Rae as leader.
Bless their hearts.
Rae must be the choice that scares Harper the most.

More 2012

2012-01-07T23:06:00.000-06:00

From Failblog: There’s not going to be an Apocalypse, now finish those TPS reports:

Priorities

2012-01-07T15:52:00.000-06:00

You know what is truly stupid? In this story on how the feds replaced two artistically significant Canadian paintings with a routine portrait of the Queen just before Bill and Cathy Cambridge's visit last June, we find out just how the minister John Baird, the deputy minister, staff in the minister's office, and a batch of other bureaucrats at Foreign Affairs have been spending their time -- worrying about the appearance of the lobby of the Foreign Affairs building in Ottawa.

With about ten days' notice last June, bureaucrats were instructed by Foreign Affairs Minister John Baird's office to put up a portrait of the Queen in the lobby of the Lester B. Pearson building in downtown Ottawa.
. . . "There was a lot of discussion between the Minister and Deputy Minister on Friday, and despite other recommendations, they want to go with the idea in their message at the very end of this," said one facilities manager, referring to an email by Baird's adviser to "take the red portraits down."

Glad to see we have our priorities straight in Canada's "Harper Government".

And I'll bet they've also spent more than a few hours trying to figure out how they can change the building's name.

Great line of the day

2012-01-06T22:42:00.000-06:00

From the commenters to Sarah's Please don’t throw me into the santorum:

Santorum could easily come from behind.

New links

2012-01-06T00:13:00.000-06:00

Some new links over on the right -- I'm increasingly interested in longer reads, and so I collected a batch of sites that post lengthier and depthier articles.
Plus Charles Pierce now that the American election season is heating up.
And Mark Bittman for the recipies. I got his How to Cook Everything cookbook for Christmas and am enjoying it -- great pancakes.

Great line of the day

2012-01-04T10:02:00.000-06:00

The Gazetteer on the results of the Iowa Caucus:

fully 75% of the Heartland's GOP have now officially bought their tickets to take a ride on the crazy train.

2012 redux

2012-01-03T00:01:00.000-06:00

xkcd noticed the Mayan connection as well:

The most popular song in the world

2012-01-01T01:55:00.000-06:00

30 million views and counting.

A great song in any language, but the mixture of English and Tamil shows something about where our worldwide culture is going and how quickly we are getting there.

2012 at last

2012-01-01T01:07:00.000-06:00

And I'm so not looking forward to this.

No, its not 2012 itself that's the problem -- it's all this Mayan calendar stuff that we'll be hearing about all year long, until next Dec. 22.

Minimizing the horror

2011-12-31T15:58:00.000-06:00

Remember how the right-wing had to mock and demonize the 9/11 widows to try to cover the Bush-Cheney malfeasance that lead to 9/11?
Now that the Harper Cons have dismantled the gun registry, will we see their supporters give the Montreal Massacre the same treatment? Fern Hill writes:

Despite what Kady O'Malley tweeted yesterday, I do think [Chris Jones] deserves to be known forever as 'That Guy Who Heartlessly Mocked The Montreal Massacre In A Sports Column'.Or at least as a prime example of 'Wot? Me Worry?'
(Predictably, the comments on the Globe story are full of 'honest mistake, get over it, lefty wimps', etc.)

What could possibly go wrong?

2011-12-30T09:34:00.000-06:00

Another news story in the "What could possibly go wrong?" category -- WHO "deeply concerned" by mutated birdflu research:

The World Health Organization issued a stern warning on Friday to scientists who have engineered a highly pathogenic form of the deadly H5N1 bird flu virus, saying their work carries significant risks and must be tightly controlled.
The United Nations health body said it was "deeply concerned about the potential negative consequences" of work by two leading flu research teams who this month said they had found ways to make H5N1 into a easily transmissable form capable of causing lethal human pandemics.

Shorter

2011-12-27T14:41:00.000-06:00

Shorter Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission:

Hearings? We don't need no stinking hearings! Uranium is MUCH safer than liquid chlorine -- what could possibly go wrong?

Happy belated Festivus

2011-12-24T12:51:00.001-06:00

Christmas, Calvin-style

2011-12-22T22:50:00.000-06:00

(h/t)

And we're back

2011-12-22T06:50:00.001-06:00

Good trip, great to be home.

And we're off!

2011-12-14T11:06:00.000-06:00

We're travelling until next Wednesday (Dec. 21) so I'm not sure how much blogging I will be able to do. In the meantime, enjoy these:
Creepy Christmas Carols for a Less Cheerful Holiday
When 5 cents is too high a price: 26 destructive fictional therapists
The challenge of English pronunciation and other grammatical fritinancy (ht Nancy Nall)
And don't miss this response to the homophobic Troy mayor -- Jack Layton was so right, wasn't he -- love is better than anger, hope is better than fear.

See you next week.

Have they no shame?

2011-12-13T22:25:00.000-06:00

Apparently not.
Do whatever you like, Conservatives. Andy's got your back.

"Whose fake park? Our fake park"

2011-12-11T09:07:00.000-06:00

No, this is not actually an Onion story, even though the AV Club is on the Onion website: Real Occupy Wall Street occupies Law And Order's fake Occupy Wall Street

Bending reality even further, this real occupation of Law And Order’s fake occupation was quickly answered by real cops who shut down the fake Zuccotti Park, rescinding the crew’s film permit and forcing them to disassemble their fake camp—including their fake NYPD barricades—and then disperse alongside the real protesters. There were no arrests made, but everyone involved was immediately imprisoned inside a surreal, existential hall of mirrors.

Halleluia Chorus two ways

2011-12-08T13:58:00.001-06:00

Quinhagak school 5th grade class in Alaska:

Port Orchard school does the Silent Monks

The least surprising ruling in the history of jurisprudence

2011-12-07T22:12:00.000-06:00

Of course the federal court ruled that Gerry Ritz broke the law. The 1998 law says the people who own the Wheat Board, the farmers, have to be consulted before the government can dismantle it. The Harper Cons couldn't be bothered.

[CWB chair Allen] Oberg said farmers should have the final say over changes to their grain marketing agency.
"As farmers, we pay for the CWB, we run it and we should decide what happens to it. We are pleased the court has agreed that the minister acted in violation of laws created in 1998 to empower farmers and give them a direct say in any changes contemplated to the CWB’s marketing mandate. In light of this ruling, the government should stop steamrolling over farmers’ democratic rights.
"The minister now needs to do the right thing, obey the law and hold a vote — as he should have done from the beginning."

Fat chance.
As Brian Keith playing Teddy Roosevelt said, Why spoil the beauty of the thing with legality?

The CBC headline about this story shows that the media spinners are hard at work: Tories to reform wheat board despite court ruling -- well, you can call it "reforming" if you want, but what they're actually doing is abolishing the Wheat Board.

Ritz says the court ruling "will have no effect on continuing to move forward for freedom for western Canadian farmers." Yes, the freedom to wave goodbye to hundreds of millions of dollars.

Just when you thought it was safe to come out from under your desk

2011-12-07T21:39:00.000-06:00

Via Balloon Juice:

Gingrich to Republican Jewish Coalition crowd: “I will ask John Bolton to be the Secretary of State.”

Shorter

2011-12-07T21:33:00.000-06:00

Shorter Con Tony Hillyer:

The true victim here is, of course, me.

He made shooting gestures at the Opposition when the Harper Conservatives voted to dismantle the gun registry, and then it's all OUR fault for finding this offensive.

As Montreal Simon says:

Gawd. I suppose we should be grateful that he didn't take his dick out and wave it like a flag eh?

Backfire

2011-12-07T12:01:00.000-06:00

That loud noise you hear is another heavy-handed, shoot-the-messenger reaction from the Harper Conservatives blowing up in their face -- chiefs from across the country are standing with Theresa Spense and against John Duncan on the Attawapiskat housing crisis:

Chiefs from across Canada, who are meeting in Ottawa this week, stood one after the other to condemn Aboriginal Affairs Minister John Duncan for sending a third party into Attawapiskat to manage its finances after Chief Theresa Spence issued a cry for help.
Ms. Spence said she was “in shock” when the minister and his Conservative government opted to attack the accountability of Attawapiskat’s financial reporting at a time when her people are in desperate need of shelter.
“It’s very unprofessional and very rude of him to put us in third-party [management] while we are in crisis,” she told reporters. “As we speak today, the people in Attawapiskat – and it’s not just only Attawapiskat but other first nations – are living in tent frames and sheds.”
The chiefs voted unanimously in favour of a motion that calls for, among other things, first nations to stand behind Attawapiskat and its leadership and for the membership of the Assembly of First Nations to ask the United Nations to monitor Canada's actions.

Harper isn't getting very far with his blame-deflection strategy -- even the National Post is publicizing the real story.

The Tyee puts the spending issue into the larger context and points out the profound hypocrisy of the Harper Conservatives:

First Nations inmates... make up 17 per cent of the prison population though First Nations are just 2.7 per cent of the Canadian population. In effect, our prisons are just another First Nations housing program, and a very expensive one.

"Grief industry"

2011-12-05T22:23:00.000-06:00

Isn't it a shame to see so many people all across Canada exploiting the Montreal Massacre for their own selfish ends -- thank goodness we have Canadian Sports Shooting Association's Tony Bernardo to point out how terribly political these awful people really are.

Not like the sports shooters, who only have our best interests at heart.

Of course, not everyone agrees -- Ecole Polytechnique survivor Heidi Rathjen says:

“Who are they to talk about public safety? Collecting guns does not make you a safety expert, any more than smoking makes one a public health expert.”

Some examples of municipalities and universities across the country who are obviously exploiting the Ecole Polytechnique victims:

Ecole Polytechnique itself.

Vancouver:Marker of Change -- known sochulists there, of course.

McMaster University Engineering building: outrageous! Don't they get government funds?

Montreal: Nef pour quatorze reines -- well, what would you expect?

Even Minto Park, Ottawa -- why, its within a few blocks of the Parliament Buildings!

Great line of the day

2011-12-03T11:20:00.000-06:00

Dr. Dawg creates The Pantsafire Chronicles to document the continual Con lying about gazebos, chandeliers, false rumours, fishing trips:

...when the weather turns colder, the poor folks in Attawapiskat can always stand next to the Conservative cabinet.

The nightmare before Christmas

2011-12-02T09:46:00.000-06:00

Another dispatch from the front of the War on Christmas: An Ontario school is replacing their Christmas concert and of course some parents are flipping out.
Be careful what you wish for, people.
As a parent who endured 10 consecutive Christmas concerts -- and I only had two children -- I am cheering.
As I remember it, the schools had to go through conniptions to try to get even a few parents to actually stick around until the end of the concert -- if they started with the kindergarten and went up, then most of the audience would just disappear by Grade 6, leaving the senior classes singing magnificently to an empty house. But if they started with the Grade 8s and went down, the littler kids were exhausted by the wait. The grandparents kept getting in everyone's way to video the event. Meanwhile, the smaller sibs running all over, and the babies crying, were a terror through the whole evening.
All in all, the whole experience was the nightmare before Christmas. I felt particularly sorry for anyone who had kids spread through several grades or -- even worse -- the divorced parents or grandparents who had to attend concerts in two or three different schools. The horror!

Smashy smashy

2011-11-30T00:33:00.000-06:00

As disappointed as I was to find out that some of the leading G20 protest leaders I had defended for the last year actually did endorse the juvenile and pointless Black Bloc "smashy smashy" that undermined the credibility of the whole G20 protest movement, I still can also understand why people remain suspicious about whether police leadership endorsed the G20 police riot too.

Tweet tweet tweet

2011-11-27T22:40:00.000-06:00

This is hilarious.
During a school visit by the Kansas governor Sam Brownback, a teenager in the audience, Emma Sullivan, tweeted to her 65 followers that said governor "sucked" and "#heblowsalot".
With typical Republican over-reach, a member of the governor's staff called the school principal. He then called Emma and demanded she apologize to the governor.
Then her sister called the media.
So now, everyone in Kansas and across the United States knows about Emma Sullivan and her tweet -- the story is being covered by Associated Press and it's become a "free speech" issue in the States.
Yes, I think we can conclude that Brownback actually DOES blow a lot.

Shorter

2011-11-27T22:25:00.000-06:00

Shorter Globe and Mail:

I'm shocked, SHOCKED, that the NDP are advertising between elections! Why, that's just like what the Conservatives have done for the last five years! How unseemly!

Its never too early to start your Christmas shopping

2011-11-25T23:58:00.000-06:00

From Dr. Grumpy's Gift Guide

Sigh

2011-11-22T22:06:00.000-06:00

Ottawa Citizen columnist Dan Gardner describes the politics of ruthlessness:

Each time the tone seems to have reached bottom, down it goes again. When the House of Commons marked Remembrance Day, each party stood to say a few words honouring the dead, but MPs from the Green Party and the Bloc Québécois needed unanimous consent to speak because they are not officially recognized in the House of Commons. They didn’t get it because some Conservative MP, or MPs, objected. The next day, with the support of the NDP, they tried again. Again the Conservatives blocked them.
Blocked them. From saying a few words in honour of the dead. Why? Who knows? The Conservatives never bothered to explain this shameful deed.

Just another day in paradise.

Didn't somebody once say something about reaping what you sow?

End of the beginning?

2011-11-22T00:27:00.000-06:00

With the gradual dismantling of Occupy camps in Canada, I think we are witnessing something end. But it is not over -- it is evolving.
As Star columnist Catherine Porter says:

You can't evict a conversation.

The thousands of Canadians who focused their energy and ideas through Occupy are not going to just disappear and go home. Montreal Simon says:

In a cold dark land of the walking dead, they are living life like it should be lived.

Their joy in the community they have created is palpable:

That was then and this is now

2011-11-20T22:16:00.000-06:00

I was thinking this morning about what Canada was like on November 20, 2005.
Paul Martin was Prime Minister. He had negotiated a national day-care program and the Kelowna Accord. With 12 straight years in power, the federal Liberals had implemented progressive legislation like gay marriage and banning corporate political donations, progressive programs like the Court Challenges program and financial support for Gay Pride parades. It looked like we might decriminalize marijuana. Canada supported the Kyoto protocol. We had a firearms registry. We had the Canadian Wheat Board.

Gone, all gone. And we keep on going backwards. Next on the Harper Cons chopping block, I expect, will be the Canada Pension Plan. They'd dismantle Medicare if they could.

This is what we've lost:

“For [Stephen] Harper, a national daycare plan bordered on being a socialist scheme, a phrase he had once used to describe the Kyoto Protocol on climate change. For [Paul] Martin, whose plan would have transferred to the provinces $5 billion over five years, the national program was what Canadianism was all about. "Think about it this way," [Martin] said. "What if, decades ago, Tommy Douglas and my father and Lester Pearson had considered the idea of medicare and then said, 'Forget it! Let's just give people twenty-five dollars a week.' You want a fundamental difference between Mr. Harper and myself? Well, this is it.”

Please God, give Canada another progressive government and we promise not to piss it away this time.

Eff#ctive

2011-11-18T10:30:00.000-06:00

While the media pearl-clutches over Pat Martin's "eat my shorts" comments, nobody else really cares. And all the publicity actually made Canadians aware of how the Harper Cons are trying to ram through their agenda. The exposure just might get the Cons to back off a bit.
And for all the talk about how the election gave Harper Cons a mandate to do whatever they like, remember what happened to the last guy who boasted about how everybody loved his mandate?

"I shouldn't have showered with those kids"

2011-11-14T23:59:00.001-06:00

As Gawker says about this quote from the Sandusky interview:

Jerry, that is never not true.

Now other victims are coming forward.
Also, read Charles Pierce.

Unbelievable

2011-11-14T09:53:00.000-06:00

Another I Know You Are But What Am I moment from our Harper Conservatives -- Tories accuse opposition of hindering agenda:

Mr. Van Loan notes that at the same time as the NDP and Liberals accuse him of shutting down debate with time allocation and closure motions, they are trying to stop any of his bills going forward.

I'm shocked, SHOCKED, that the Opposition would actually oppose what the government is trying to do!

Great line of the day

2011-11-11T10:13:00.000-06:00

Joe Scalzi gets to the heart of the Penn State scandal:

...one of the great stories of science fiction is “The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas,” which was written by Ursula K. LeGuin. The story posits a fantastic utopian city, where everything is beautiful, with one catch: In order for all this comfort and beauty to exist, one child must be kept in filth and misery. Every citizen of Omelas, when they come of age, is told about that one blameless child being put through hell. And they have a choice: Accept that is the price for their perfect lives in Omelas, or walk away from that paradise, into uncertainty and possibly chaos.
At Pennsylvania State University, a grown man found a blameless child being put through hell. Other grown men learned of it. Each of them had to make their choice, and decide, fundamentally, whether the continuation of their utopia — or at very least the illusion of their utopia — was worth the pain and suffering of that one child. Through their actions, and their inactions, we know the choice they made.

Emphasis mine. H/T Nancy Nall.

Wreck of the Edmumd Fitzgerald

2011-11-11T00:11:00.000-06:00

And Dr Grumpy has a few interesting facts about the wreck.

Stupid is as stupid does

2011-11-09T22:48:00.000-06:00

Wasn't Rick Perry talking a couple of weeks ago about skipping more debates?
Shoulda oughta done it.

The least of these

2011-11-07T00:31:00.000-06:00

Montreal Simon has a wonderful post about the Occupy movement and the challenge of dealing with homelessness:

I can't imagine an Occupy movement that wouldn't welcome the homeless and the marginalized, because how can you build a kinder, gentler, world, if you reject our poorest, most vulnerable citizens? City officials may use them against us, but how can we not embrace them?
I have been moved by the respectful, patient way the other occupiers have treated them. And by the sight of all those most humble of Canadians, speaking to a crowd and telling others how THEY feel, for the first time in their lives.

My friends who spent several nights at Occupy Saskatoon said that one of its most remarkable aspects was how, for the first time, the homeless people at the camp were able to participate in serious and productive conversations about politics and society and the economy. But as Simon says, its takes an enormous amount of energy to deal with these social problems

I can't help wonder whether whether people are becoming too concerned with occupying a physical space, rather than occupying the world of ideas. ... But what do I know eh? I have to admit that this wonderful baby movement has made me unusually humble.

Can I have an Amen, brother!

Disco can save lives! Who knew?

2011-11-06T01:52:00.000-06:00

Physician comedian Ken Jeong's CPR video

You can't always get what you want

2011-11-04T23:59:00.000-06:00

Conservatives find out they can't use a private members bill to backdoor a retroactive tax on union members unless Parliament approves it first.
Of course, they might still get Parliament to approve it -- after all, the Harper Conservatives do have the endorsement of almost four in ten Canadians, AKA the most massive and overwhelming mandate EVAH!

But at least they would have to admit up front that imposing gratuitous mandatory financial reporting requirements on labour unions is the kind of ideological claptrap that might well result in thousands of people getting charged hundreds of dollars in retroactive taxes.

Great line of the day

2011-10-31T12:49:00.000-06:00

Gene Weingarten writes about online journalism and how it makes its money with goofy cat pictures:

“Who, What, When, Where and Why” has now been overtaken by “Huh?”

Would it be wrong to speculate?

2011-10-29T22:18:00.000-06:00

Stephen Maher asks why nobody seems to be covering a possible influence-peddling scandal with connections to Harper and the PMO.
Well, perhaps it's because even in his own story, he doesn't get to the point about speculating on possible PMO influence-peddling until paragraph 13. There's all sorts of other juicy stuff in the story, too, about vacations on yachts, jobs with connected construction companies, Revenue Canada officials fired after tax evasion prosecutions, and so on. The PM and his PMO have some 'splainin to do, I think.
And with all the trashing of the CBC that we are hearing from the Harper Conservatives lately, it makes me speculate about what explosive and scandalous news stories Radio Canada just might be working on these days...

Halloween lights

2011-10-29T01:07:00.000-06:00

Halloween is the only kids holiday, and in general I think adults should stay out of it and let the kids do it.
But this light show is worth watching.

Ridiculous

2011-10-26T22:39:00.000-06:00

Sorry, but regardless of what some professors say and what Quebecor thinks, Toronto mayor Rob Ford looked ridiculous running away from Mary Walsh.

Occupy the wind

2011-10-25T23:23:00.000-06:00

From Occupy Saskatoon

Prediction

2011-10-22T16:59:00.000-06:00

If the NDP select Brian Topp as their new leader, they will regret it.

This man may be a nice guy and a comfortable supporter of the party status quo who won't challenge or confront other NDP leaders. But he is simply not ready to be the Leader of the Opposition.
Here's his latest blistering attack against Conservatives:

"I think their fiscal policies are feckless. And it is time to say so."

Wow. A real Elmer Fudd moment.
Harper and the Cons will eat him alive.

Doesn't anybody here know how to play this game?

2011-10-22T13:57:00.000-06:00

Sorry for the lack of posts -- I had some surgery last week to take an old plate off my fibula, and have been recovering since.
I'm still following the news though -- has anyone noticed how politicians don't seem to understand the meaning of the language they are using anymore?

First there was Herman Cain calling himself "pro-life" because he supports personal choice in abortion? Huh?
Then Lisa Raitt seems to think "the economy" should be considered an "essential service" under the labour code -- she might as well just outlaw strikes completely and make it easier for everyone to understand the new power dynamics.
And the Conservatives seem to have confused an election with a wheat board plebiscite.

Around 2020, when the Port of Churchill has collapsed and nobody is growing Durham wheat anymore and farm income has dropped, we'll be hearing people wonder why they ever thought it was such a good idea to get rid of the Wheat Board.

Petty and pointless

2011-10-18T00:15:00.001-06:00

How petty and mean are Canadian politics getting these days?
The NDP accused Conservative labour minister Lisa Raitt and her chief of staff of getting free upgrades on Air Canada flights when she was deciding whether to stop the flight attendant strike -- and now the Cons and Air Canada management in turn leak the supposedly scandalous news that Olivia Chow also maybe got an upgrade to fly from Toronto to Ottawa for Jack Layton's lying in state before his funeral.
Olivia Chow was a grieving widow at the time and had no role in deciding whether or not to prevent the Air Canada strike but other than that, completely the same of course.

#OccupySaskatoon photos

2011-10-15T14:40:00.001-06:00

I couldn't attend due to some surgery on Thursday, but these are from a Saskatoon attendee, Jay Hall's Twitter account - he says, This is what democracy looks like:

Choosing your side

2011-10-14T08:45:00.000-06:00

I wrote several years ago that we usually don't get to choose our battles, we only get to choose our side.
Now that the Occupy movement is spreading, and crackdowns are increasingly likely, Montreal Simon says its time to decide. He quotes Truthdig's Chris Hedges:

There are no excuses left. Either you join the revolt taking place on Wall Street and in the financial districts of other cities across the country or you stand on the wrong side of history. Either you obstruct, in the only form left to us, which is civil disobedience, the plundering by the criminal class on Wall Street and accelerated destruction of the ecosystem that sustains the human species, or become the passive enabler of a monstrous evil. Either you taste, feel and smell the intoxication of freedom and revolt or sink into the miasma of despair and apathy. Either you are a rebel or a slave.

I have a right to live without hate

2011-10-13T23:45:00.000-06:00

The Ottawa Citizen says:

"The arguments of homophobes are easy enough to demolish in the open, using facts and sense. There's no need to drive such arguments underground. Expose them to the light and they wither."

A noble sentiment, but not true.

The "arguments of homophobes" have been blasted across North America for at least 60 of the last 75 years; they"withered" when civil laws against hate speech gave people enough leverage to shut up the most egregious hate-mongers.

Think whatever you like, but why should I have to see and read and cringe and confront any homophobic, anti-Semitic, sexist or racist crap shoved into my mailbox, or handed to me on the street, or broadcast on radio or TV or the Internet?

I don't need it, our society doesn't need it.

People have a right to live without hate.

The Village has spoken

2011-10-13T23:07:00.000-06:00

Ron Paul: Eyebrowgate, Or Just Kill Me Now:

"we can’t have a man in the White House who wears fake eyebrows, and poor ones at that"

Romney the dog-sh*tterer will win the Republican nomination by a hair, I guess.

What's that smell?

2011-10-12T22:32:00.000-06:00

Everything Rupert Murdoch touches turns into sh*t:

the [Wall Street] Journal had been channelling money through European companies in order to secretly buy thousands of copies of its own paper at a knock-down rate, misleading readers and advertisers about the Journal's true circulation.
The bizarre scheme included a formal, written contract in which the Journal persuaded one company to co-operate by agreeing to publish articles that promoted its activities . . . the scam was promoted by Andrew Langhoff, the European managing director of the Journal's parent company, Dow Jones and Co, which was bought by Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation in July 2007 . . . Senior executives in New York, including Murdoch's right-hand man, Les Hinton, were alerted to the problems last year by an internal whistleblower and apparently chose to take no action. The whistleblower was then made redundant.

Lese-majeste

2011-10-10T22:53:00.000-06:00

The Globe and Mail reports on the implications of the Insite decision :

The Insite ruling forged a new means to strike down laws if there is scientific or statistical evidence showing that a regulation worsened the danger that an individual or group faces.

It's not so outrageous, really -- in democratic theory, we elect our government because we don't want arbitrary, stupid, ideological laws and, if such laws are passed, then we have courts to strike them down.
But the tone of this article, framed with the right-wing "activist judges"epithet, makes it clear that the Harper government is simply furious. The Canadian Supreme Court dared to tell Harper that his laws should not be "arbitrary" or "grossly disproportionate" -- how dare they!

Wonders of science

2011-10-10T01:04:00.000-06:00

Purina in Austria has made a dog-food commercial for dogs.
And it appears to work:

Oh how I wish he'd go away

2011-10-08T16:01:00.000-06:00

Don Cherry used to be interesting because he knew a lot about hockey. But in the last few years the game has moved beyond him. He can't keep up anymore.
And aren't we all getting sick and tired of listening to his "you kids get off my lawn" rants? He had an opportunity to demonstrate some real leadership in Canada toward reducing needless violence in hockey, and he blew it.
Go. Away. We. Are. Trying. To. Watch. The. Game.

This is why people are so mad

2011-10-08T15:30:00.000-06:00

from #Occupy Rochester

Ballad of Gordon

2011-10-07T21:53:00.000-06:00

RossK is writing a series of posts called Here's to the State of the Golden Era, summing up the legacy of Gordon Campbell.

Makes me embarrassed to be a Liberal.

Creepy

2011-10-07T02:01:00.000-06:00

Twitters about Christy Clark's v-neck, jokes about Elizabeth Warren's appearance, comparing Rathika Sitsabaiesan's cleavage photos, amazement that Alberta conservatives would elect a female leader -- did I wake up in 1970 by mistake?

Never give up, never surrender

2011-10-07T00:05:00.000-06:00

Against all odds, facing terrible polls just a few weeks ago, Ontario Liberals win!

The lesson is, never give up, never surrender.

Shoot the messenger

2011-10-06T23:50:00.000-06:00

CBC reports that Conservative MPs are deciding not to investigate all the recent Auditor-General reports about government mismanagement and malfeasance.
Well, I guess that explains why the Cons are trying to abolish the CBC, doesn't it.
And NDP MP Guy Caron wonders what will happen to all the auditor general reports still to come over the next four years.
Well, I would guess they're trying to figure out a way to avoid making auditor-general reports public, so we won't even know they exist.
Problem solved.

The grapes of wrath

2011-10-05T23:11:00.000-06:00

...and in the eyes of the hungry there is a growing wrath. In the souls of the people the grapes of wrath are filling and growing heavy, growing heavy for the vintage. . .(Steinbeck)

One of the reasons I love reading John Cole is that when he's wrong, he doesn't hesitate to say so:

So yeah, I’m looking back at my snide post where I called the vanguard of this “trustafarians,” and once again, I feel like an idiot. This may still fizzle out without any real change, but right now, it seems to be building, and the reason it is is because a small group of people went out there and publicly voiced their displeasure with the shit I’ve been sitting on my fat ass writing dyspeptic posts about for the last year, but not really doing a god damned thing to enact change. Yeah, it was some jackasses with a drum circle, and no, they didn’t have a point by point plan or coherent media strategy like some anal retentive douchebags like me were demanding. But they went out there and did something, and it seems to be working. Let’s hope it keeps growing.

And read Charlie Pierce's description of who is at OWS now and why they're there.

There are limits

2011-10-05T22:13:00.000-06:00

As enjoyable as it is to watch the media ferret out scandals about egotistical ministers jetting around on military planes to attend lobster dinners, I think we've maxed out this story line when we start harping about using a military jet to transport an injured pilot back to Canada.

Let them eat cake

2011-10-03T22:44:00.000-06:00

Montreal Simon writes about the champagne drinkers on the balcony watching the #OccupyWallSt protests below:

Whatever else these protests are achieving, they are drawing a line between THEM and US.
Today the fat cats laugh.
Tomorrow they'll be sorry...

But I don't think the balcony people are quite as sanguine as they are pretending to be. They don't exactly know what to do, but they can read the signs, too.

We're mad as hell and we're not going to take it anymore

2011-10-01T22:21:00.000-06:00

I've heard people complain that they don't know what the #OccupyWallStreet protest is trying to achieve. But that's the beauty of it -- this is a protest without a goal, so we can all invest in it our own agendas. And that's why its growing, and spreading. Here's a short history of #OccupyWallStreet and who's involved:

There are liberals and conservatives and libertarians and tea party adherents in the crowd. One person described the crowd as not politically “left and right,” but “up and down,” all victimized by corruption in our political and economic systems.

Who could disagree with that?

Oh, dear

2011-09-30T23:28:00.000-06:00

Sounds like Stephen Harper had another terrible, horrible, no-good, very bad week.

Sunday morning cartoons

2011-09-25T13:19:00.000-06:00

From the Giving Up Smoking group at Daily Kos, some Far Sides including two I had never seen before:

Cargo cult conservatives

2011-09-24T01:04:00.001-06:00

John Cole thinks conservatives have become cargo cults:

How do you have a sensible policy debate with people who reject basic facts? It’s like trying to debate members of a cargo cult- the modern GOP carry the crosses but have no idea what it means to be christian. They talk about free markets, but have no understanding of economics. Just say deregulate and tax cuts a lot, and MAGIC WILL HAPPEN. Evolution? LIES! Climate change? LIES! Modern Medicine and vaccines? LIES! KEEP GOVERNMENT OUT OF MY MEDICARE! That scooter just magically showed up from the scooter store, like a coca cola bottle from heaven!
The cargo cult analogy is closer than many of us are comfortable admitting, and our media has decided to just cover their eyes and pretend that it’s just two sides of the same coin. It’s crazy.

UPDATE: And I notice Rick Perry is proving the adage that it's better to be thought a fool than to open your mouth and remove all doubt.

Pfffft!

2011-09-21T21:53:00.000-06:00

Hubris already? Colour me unsurprised!
MacKay:

Defence Minister Peter MacKay used one of only three search-and-rescue helicopters available in Newfoundland to transport him from a vacation spot last year, CTV News has learned.

Dechert

In an apparent attempt to dodge reporters, Dechert on Wednesday arrived for the daily question period through a loading dock entrance at the back of the Centre Block. He was dropped off by someone driving a minivan.

Flaherty:

Parliament Hill was buzzing Tuesday over news that Ottawa hired management consulting firm Deloitte Inc. to advise the cabinet and senior officials on how to erase the federal deficit by 2014-15. The Aug. 15 contract is worth up to $19.8-million. Because it only runs until March 31, its cost works out to about $90,000 a day.

The session is three whole days old.
And here's the guy they all once thought would do such a great job on setting a Conservative agenda for Toronto:

Mayor Rob Ford has talked the talk on the need for budget cuts. He declined to walk the walk when he had the opportunity on Tuesday morning.
In a significant concession to public opposition and to queasy council allies, Ford voted at the end of a 20-hour executive committee meeting to reject some proposed cuts and to put off decisions on almost all of the others to the 2012 budget process, which begins in November and ends in mid-January.

So after a lot of people went through a lot of misery, in the end Ford deflated like a pricked balloon.

Margo Martindale wins an Emmy

2011-09-18T23:51:00.000-06:00

For her brilliant role on a brilliant show Justified:

Exceptionalism

2011-09-17T16:42:00.001-06:00

Sometimes I find if very hard to understand Americans.

Why wouldn't they take this man's death seriously? Do they really believe that "you can just go to the emergency room" to get healthcare? Are they so terribly afraid of giving something "free" to supposedly "undeserving" people -- blacks, latinos, poor people -- that they won't set up their own health care system so it can care for their own citizens?
I hear a lot of chat about American exceptionalism -- well, I certainly hope so. I hope this callous attitude is not the norm among civilized nations.

They should be ashamed of themselves.

UPDATE: From Roy:

Forget the Gettysburg Address, forget even "Tear down this wall"; the progress of the modern Republican Party is the progress from "You lie!" to "Let him die!

Your lying eyes

2011-09-15T22:16:00.001-06:00

Alison has posted a brilliant ~~Colbert Report~~ video about the 9/ll conspiracy theory.
Basically, we have always been at war with East Asia.

Update: corrected -- thanks, Purple, I hadn't read Alison's reference correctly.

Shooting themselves in the foot?

2011-09-12T23:28:00.000-06:00

If the NDP pick Brian Topp for their new leader, a man who has never run for public office, are they shooting themselves in the foot?
Well... yesterday he compared himself to Brian Mulroney.
Yes, that will be a winning message, won't it.

Perspective. Now you have it

2011-09-10T01:25:00.003-06:00

Twenty-one-million years ago, a star exploded, turned spectacular, and faded out. And we are now watching it go.

Sorry

2011-09-09T22:54:00.000-06:00

Echo seems to be eating my comments tonight -- hopefully it will fix itself by tomorrow.

911 stories

2011-09-09T13:57:00.000-06:00

I dreaded the media approach to the tenth anniversary of 9/11 because in 2001 it took me weeks to stop seeing the towers fall every time I closed my eyes.
And I am now getting increasingly snitty about how we mis-remember that day -- I read about "seeing the first tower hit" when there was actually no real-time coverage at all of that terrible moment -- videos of the first hit were accidental, and were not found and broadcast until hours or days later. Even the TV coverage I saw of the second hit was from across the river, so it wasn't very clear at first what had happened.
And I am also now getting increasingly worried about how our politicians continue to use the attack as an excuse to abuse our civil rights and drive a religious wedge between east and west.
But, in spite of all that, there are some amazing stories now being told about courage, fortitude and sacrifice on that day:
F-16 pilot was ready to give her life on Sept. 11

The story behind the Falling Man photo

The hated, the hater and 9/11

Mexican firefighter ran into the twin towers

World Trade Centre survivor emerged from wrecked tower, but never left it behind

9/11 Remembered

and 9/11 rescue dogs

They're baaaaak!

2011-09-04T20:36:00.000-06:00

27-7 in the Labour Day Classic. Good on ya, boys.

Great line of the day

2011-09-04T12:47:00.001-06:00

Its a beautiful fall day here today, and my husband described it this way:

It lets us know that God hasn't forgotten us just yet.

Unprecedented?

2011-09-03T23:43:00.000-06:00

The Toronto Police Board has taken the "unprecedented" step of refusing to promote nine officers who had removed their name tags during the G20 protests in June of 2010.
Well, arresting and jailing a thousand Canadians without cause was unprecedented, too.
Tit for tat.

Go here for the photos from the G20 Justice website showing Toronto police without name badges.

How refreshing!

2011-09-01T22:59:00.000-06:00

Stephen Harper's new spokesperson Angelo Persichilli has vowed to treat Quebeckers with "utmost respect".
Well, that will be a nice change from his former approach, and I'm sure Quebecers will deeply appreciate it.

Looking for leadership

2011-08-30T17:06:00.002-06:00

With both parties looking for leaders, Liberals and NDP have an historic opportunity right now to choose individuals who will cooperate for the good of the country, either informally or formally.
Will they see this opportunity? Will they take it?
I'm not optimistic -- the NDP are likely still feeling their oats as the Official Opposition ; they will want to see whether they can find another 40 or 50 seats on their own at the next election. And I doubt that the Liberals have realized that Quebec is not likely to return to their fold, even though Layton is gone. So maybe we'll have to wait until they both lose ground in 2016.

By that time, Harper will have fired another several dozen outstanding civil servants, dismantled another batch of important government programs, trashed more of Canada's reputation abroad and thrown many of Canada's "liberal" traditions into the dustbin.
But stay tuned...

We hear you now

2011-08-27T00:18:00.002-06:00

Jackman Chiu

As well as his profoundly inspirational legacy, Jack Layton's death also served another purpose this week -- one I think he would have approved of.
His passing was such big news that newspaper columnists, bloggers, and broadcast pundits across the country all just had to write SOMETHING about their reaction to his death and their analysis of the nationwide grief it provoked.

And all this off-the-cuff pontificating gave us a rare opportunity to find out just what our media pundits are really made of -- profound and eloquent, or shallow and mean-spirited?

Some rose to the challenge; others painfully flubbed it, and their failure will not be forgotten.
Basically, most of our newspapers and broadcast pundits -- even here and here -- reacted thoughtfully to the death of Jack Layton, showing respect to his legacy and to the grief felt by hundreds of thousands of Canadian.

But some came up painfully short -- they just couldn't resist taking cheap shots, playing political games, jeering at our grief, feeling sorry for themselves and trying to trash Layton's legacy. In other words, acting like jerks.

H/T Dawg and Alison

UPDATE: Ezra Levant also shows his true colours.

It's officially fall

2011-08-26T00:13:00.000-06:00

Dr. Grumpy has posted his annual nightmare at Staples post:

When Mrs. Grumpy was wondering when she'd have time to get the school supplies, I volunteered. I figured "How hard can it be? Hell, it's just some pencils and a bottle of glue". DUMBASS!!! . . .
An African street bazaar is an orderly affair compared to this! Deranged parents running on caffeine! Kids running amok! Store clerks running for their lives! And all the crazed parents are trying to read off a list, push a cart, yell at kids, text, and scream into a cell phone at the same time.