Be careful what you wish for

I've been working almost constantly for the last 40 years, and in that time I have paid tens of thousands of dollars into the Employment Insurance fund.
I have collected on these benefits for two stints of maternity leave and a few weeks of actual unemployment. But there is no way that I ever got back, or ever will get back, anything near what I have contributed into that fund, both directly from my salary and indirectly from my employers. All of us working stiffs have to keep paying into it, year after year after year, whether we use the benefits or not.
[For the last twenty years or so, mostly not -- which only increases my resentment, because I would much prefer that my involuntary contribution to the social compact at least be used to benefit jobless Canadians rather than just disappearing into the government's general revenues.]
But getting back to my point, so now Harper is promising to make self-employed people eligible for maternity leave benefits because this is what business people are asking for, Harper says.
I can understand their resentment -- its like driving around the mall on a cold winter's day and seeing the empty handicapped parking places and thinking gee wouldn't it be nice to park so close.
But you need to think this through, people.
Once you become "eligible" for EI benefits, you won't have a choice about whether to pay them or not and it won't matter whether you are young or old or male or female. A percentage of every dollar you earn will go into the EI fund and you'll just have to pay it, and maybe you'll have to pay the "employers" contribution as well -- and you'll keep paying and paying, now and forever, amen.

Dion trending up

As I understand it with daily tracking polls, its' not so much the numbers or the gap, its the trendline that's important. In this Canadian Press Harris/Decima poll, Harper is trending down while Dion is trending up.
And over at the Canoe blog, Paul Turenne has some questions about that gas price spike:

It is remarkably bad luck for the Liberals and their Green Shift that gas prices spiked the way they did across Canada last Friday,. . .
Anyway, who would benefit more than the Tories, and be hurt more than the Liberals, when Canadians are reminded right in the middle of a campaign just how much gas costs already? Price of crude goes down, price of gas jumps through the roof. Even with a hurricane, that's tough to explain. . . I'm just sayin' ...

Questions for Candidates

Dan Froomkin writes a piece titled Fact Checking Is So 20 Minutes Ago about the increasing conservative tendency not to care about facts. Its being dished higher and deeper in the States, but Canadian Cons are increasingly slinging the BS, too. So maybe we need to stop wringing our hands about refuting every lie every day, and instead expect the press to start "meta-fact-checking", as Froomkin suggests:

~ ...How reality-based is the candidate? Does he acknowledge unpleasant realities? Does he think he makes his own reality, and that asserting something that isn't true will sort of make it true? ...
~Does the candidate say things that the people covering him know he doesn't believe? For instance, is it obvious to everyone in the traveling press corps that he is repeating a line his speechwriters or pollsters have written for him, even though he knows full well it's not true.
~Is the candidate exposed to dissenting views - either in public or within his campaign? Does he encourage dissenting views? How hard does the campaign work to keep dissenters out of his way?
~Is the candidate ever willing to try to make his case in front of people who don't already agree with him? Is he willing to engage them? Does he tailor his speeches to specific audiences in order so that they will like what they hear? Or so that they will open their minds to views they may not initially share?
~How does he respond to people who don't share his views? Does he dismiss them? Does he try to persuade them? Does he listen?

I like this line, too

Andrew Potter, Ottawa Citizen national editor explains why the Conservative war room is so juvenile:

A friend of mine has a theory, that the left is made up of a coalition of socialists and social workers, while the right is made up of a coalition of economists and jerks.

Who got us into this mess anyway?

The Gazetteer is absolutely correct:

Stephen Harper turned a $12 billion dollar surplus into a deficit in the BEST of times.
And now that things are going sideways and he's telling us that, in these times of 'uncertainty', that he's the best man for the job?

Great line of the day

From Chet at Vanity Press:

At some point, this election will start to be about something.

But actually, of course, its about the future of the country -- no biggie!

Tories blow it again

So the Conservatives are using a photo of a California family in their most recent ad. I guess they couldn't be bothered to search for a Canadian family who supports them. Or they couldn't find one...

Bang Bang You're dead

Well, the RCMP taser report from June is finally out (another Friday afternoon document dump). My question is, why did it take the Access to Information Act to get the RCMP to release such a mildly-worded, even weasel-worded report?
Basically, the Globe story indicates that report appears to assign the blame for 20 deaths to "problems in the RCMP policy development process" -- rather than to police officers and a police culture which still sees tasers as a quick and easy way to control and punish civilians:

. . . the Mounties did not perform “due diligence” when they approved tasers for use earlier this decade . . .
“Many of the resulting problems in the RCMP policy-development process might have been avoided” had the force sought out impartial researchers to conduct studies “that could detect and take into account potential police and manufacturer biases,”. . .

Yeah, and I'm sure the RCMP would have listened to all those non-existent impartial researchers and their hypothetical studies, so actually this mess is all the researchers' fault, those bastards!

The time may have come when Canadian police services and their governing authorities “need to exercise their own final say in matters appropriate to training and usage.”
The report . . . suggests more attention be paid to factors that may affect risk of harm, including the subject's body weight, pregnancy, medical devices such as pacemakers, psychosis, ingestion of drugs and prolonged acute stress and exhaustion.

The Globe story indicates only one place where the report apparently took a real stand:

The report slams use of the term “excited delirium,” which is used by police officers to describe combative, resistant suspects. It says the supposed condition is not a recognized medical diagnosis, and is merely an excuse to justify firing the 50,000-volt charge.

But in the end, it appears the report just wimped out:

The report urges the federal government to set national standards for taser use by all police forces across the country.

Yeah, I'm sure Stockwell Day got right on this -- he's had the report since June, I guess, so where are those standards?
There is, however, one enduring image that this news story about the report provides:

In some cases, RCMP officers don't have access to tasers loaded with simulation cartridges, meaning members must resort to scenarios in which one yells “bang, bang” and another feigns being hit, the report says.

So RCMP officers were shouting "bang, bang" at each other?
Did any of them shout "bang, bang, you're dead"?

Of course she didn't say Canadians were stupid

Chet at Vanity Press provides a pretty good analysis of what Elizabeth May said -- and of course she didn't say that Canadians were stupid people.
The controversy, however, IS pretty stupid. Its exactly the kind of made-up "dispute" that the media love, because they don't have to do any actual research or reporting, just play a video over and over and talk, talk, talk. What fun.
Pretty soon, if we don't demand better, our political discourse will be at the same juvenile gotcha level as the States -- and that WOULD be stupid, wouldn't it?

Dion charismatic

Woman at Mile 0 reports on Dion’s Victoria Townhall:

It was amazing to see his entire speech in person and listen to the important questions and responses from the crowd. He was charismatic, quick on his feet and totally at ease even during the open Q & A period. I just can’t believe how much his speaking has improved since the last time I saw him address a large crowd.

This is great to hear about.
The Times-Colonist story about this event was pretty good, too. Here's their photo of Dion with local candidates Briony Penn and Keith Martin:

Scandalpedia

Hey, this is great -- a handy reference guide to Conservative screw-ups.

Pit bull debate

My sister and I have argued about the pit bull ban for years. She says its unfair to target a particular breed of dog when it is irresponsible, immature, or macho owners who are to blame. I say that's true, but governments have to do something to protect people, and banning the dogs also, in effect, bans this type of owner. I'm still not sure which of us is right on this one.

Who is this "Obama"? Anybody?

You know, when I check out the progressive blogs to find out what's going on, I can read all about what awful thing McCain did today, and I read all about some stupid thing Palin said today.
I am sick to death of reading about those two.
What I want to find out about is what Obama did today. And these posts are around but they're very hard to find.
Lambert has noticed this too.

Flailing around

For someone trying to present a blue-sweater image of calm and confident leadership, Stephen Harper is swinging a little wild.
He announces, out of the blue, that Canada is leaving Afghanistan -- a reversal of eight years of knee-jerk support which will be seen by the military and by the Conservative base as a betrayal. (Not surprisingly, the Conservatives look like they are now trying to withdraw the withdrawal.)
Then he flips out over the screw-up of one of his most loyal staffers (remember this? And this? And this?) And I ask again, how many incompetents have the Conservatives hired this time?
Well, obviously there are a few others, because somebody advised him to hide behind Jack Layton on the Elizabeth May issue, apparently not anticipating how frail a reed that would turn out to be.
Then he tries to float the argument that the Green Shift will provoke Quebec separatism.
Then he thinks he's going to stimulate the economy by cutting diesel taxes, even though this won't actually make much difference. Oh, and WWII veterans benefits are going to be reinstated. Big wow -- I guess that wraps up the 90-year-old vote.
And its only been six days since the election was called. Is there any kind of a plan here?
As some conservative blogger apparently said: "Dear Tory war room: you guys still want Harper to win, right?"

911 stories

At Firedoglake, Julia asks Where were you?

I went to the Citicorp Center, where there's a blood bank, and stood on line for seven hours waiting to give blood. There were hundreds of us. . . . After a while we started telling each other dumb jokes, mostly about tourists. A reporter from a major metropolitan newspaper chided us for not taking it Seriously enough. When the wind was right, all you could smell was burnt rubber. I was actually pretty grateful for that.
There was a lot of smoke.

I was jogging south on the East River path, about 62nd Street when the first plane hit. I saw an enormous plume of brown smoke blowing across the river farther south. Then scores of screaing sirens, all headed south.

The Chicago Tribune put out a special run for everybody in the neighborhoods we delivered too, I think even noncustomers got one. None of the drivers had got any sleep the donnut shop made money that night on coffee, and then we delivered the regular paper and the special one.

several of my co-workers were in NYC on 911 for the kick off of a new project…… they were trapped in the city for days…… they pooled their money, bought a used car and drove out……

I was acquainted via internet group with a woman who worked on the 97th floor, and she was still on the bus from NJ when it happened. She IM’d someone in the group that she was fine . . . My friend had moved to Alexandria, VA. Her grown children were on a plane and she was at Dulles to pick them up, when she got word that WTC and the Pentagon had been hit. Her kids landed minutes later. A doc/officer from our town was in the Pentagon but he went to the gift shop first so he was spared. He started the triage.