But will he listen?

So Conservative MPs are now supposed to tell Stephen Harper when he is wrong -- only in committees, of course, because the Conservative caucus knows their political career is toast if they object publicly to anything at all.
But when Harper is told that he is being stupid, will he listen?
I doubt it. He never has before.
(HT Alison)

Simple answers

POGGE reminds us that when the Harper Conservatives were elected in 2006, the Employment Insurance fund was estimated to have a huge surplus, something like $57 billion. Now they're talking about raising EI premiums because when the Harper Conservatives set up the Canada Employment Insurance Financing Board two years ago they only gave them $2 billion to start with.
So POGGE asks a very logical question which doesn't seem to have occurred to anyone else: What happened to the other $55 billion?
Easy. They spent it.
This has been another edition of simple answers to not-stupid questions.

God called; he wants his church back

Wingnuts, con men and crazy people keep on declaring themselves as "religious leaders" and the US media just blandly accepts them at face value.
Self-ordained "pastor"Terry Jones and his fascist congregation have about as much religious credibility as Jake and Elwood:

Existential pondering

Overboard :

Babblefish

So the new rug in the Oval Office has a quote on it from Martin Luther King that he got from someone else.
It must be Obama's fault!
The American media love stories like this -- everybody can babble on about it without having to do any boring, time-consuming research.

Truth or truthiness?

If Kory Teneycke's op ed against Margaret Atwood is an example of the level of journalistic rigour and commitment to truth and accuracy that we can expect in his new network, we're in trouble.
Here's the way Kory put it, compared to reality:
Kory:

Avaaz, an American special interest group funded by U.S. billionaire George Soros . . . Avaaz (“voice” in Persian) . . . ignorant U.S. fringe group

Reality: Contrary to the "Persian" implication, Avaaz is not an Iranian front organization. Nor is "American". Nor is it a "fringe group". Here's what Avaaz is actually all about:

Avaaz.org is a new global online advocacy community that brings people-powered politics to global decision-making.
Avaaz—meaning "voice" in several European, Middle Eastern and Asian languages—was launched in January 2007 with a simple democratic mission: organize citizens everywhere to help close the gap between the world we have and the world most people want.
In 3 years, Avaaz has grown to 5.5 million members from every country on earth, becoming the largest global web movement in history.
The Economist writes of Avaaz' power to "give world leaders a deafening wake-up call"; the Indian Express heralds "the biggest web campaigner across the world, rooting for crucial global issues.” and Suddeutsche Zeitung calls Avaaz "a transnational community that is more democratic, and could be more e ffective than the United Nations.” Run by a virtual team on 3 continents, Avaaz operates in 14 languages.
. . . Former UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown says Avaaz "has driven forward the idealism of the world." Al Gore says "Avaaz is inspiring… it has already made a significant difference.” Zainab Bangura, the foreign minister of Sierra Leone, describes Avaaz as "an ally, and a rallying place, for disadvantaged people everywhere to help create real change.” . . .
Avaaz.org was co-founded by Res Publica, a global civic advocacy group, and Moveon.org, an online community that has pioneered internet advocacy in the United States.

It can also be noted that the Conservatives were pissed off with Avaaz in 2008, when they launched a campaign in October to stop a Harper majority government.
Kory:

Atwood is not the only A-list “celebrity” that has signed. Dwight Shroot (from The Office), Boba Fett (of Star Wars), Snuffaluffagus (Sesame Street) and Homer Simpson are also signatories. Clearly the CRTC should take note of such distinguished individuals lending their name to this smear job.

Reality: Kady O'Malley Sept 3, 2010:

I can't speak for the CRTC, but that line made me take note, for one very simple reason: the petition itself isn't actually online, which means it's not possible to view the names of any of the signatories.
. . . Avaaz executive director Ricken Patel...told me that, although they still hadn't identified the source, they have "tracked all of the suspect names to a single IP address," and that it appears that "a good number of the journalists who were fraudulently added were from the same source that added the Snuffluphagus" -- which would, of course, be the very same correspondent who tipped off Tenecyke to the fake names in time for him to include them in his column today.
"What's really concerning for us is that this fraud occurred last night, right as he must have been writing his op-ed, so he appears to have almost instantaneous knowledge of the fraud being committed -- before we did or anyone else. How is that possible? And, given that this is potentially criminal investigation, will he disclose that relationship to his source? ..."

Kory:

This is not the first time Atwood has put her political agenda ahead of principles and patriotism. In the 2008 election campaign she was asked if she would vote for the separatist Bloc Quebecois if she lived in Quebec, she said: “Yes. Absolutely. What is the alternative?”

Reality: Globe and Mail Oct. 3, 2008:

Ms. Atwood, who described her support for Mr. Duceppe as “ironic” given his pledge to build a sovereign Quebec, said he has a better grasp of the economy than the Conservative Leader. Although she lives in Toronto and has voted for every political party from the Conservatives to the Greens in previous elections, Ms. Atwood is encouraging Canadians to vote for the candidate in their riding who can stop a Conservative from winning. “I'm here because Mr. Duceppe understands the contribution that culture makes to our economy. He understands $84-billion, and he understands 1.1 million jobs,” she said.

Kory:

Sun TV News is not, nor has it ever, asked for “mandatory carriage” by cable or satellite companies.We are simply asking for the channel to be “offered” by the distributors. . . . It does not mean it is a part of the basic cable or satellite package, nor does it dictate what (if any) package it would be a part of.

Reality: Marketing magazine Sept. 3

In an application made public this week, the Quebec media conglomerate is asking the federal regulator to grant it a Category 2 specialty license for its proposed Sun TV News service. In a twist, however, it is asking the federal regulator to grant it “mandatory access” to Canadian BDUs for a maximum of three years.
Quebecor’s previous application for a Category 1 service–in which it would have been granted mandatory carriage by BDUs–was denied in July.

If Sun TV gets its license, will we be spending the next decade writing corrective blog posts like this one?
UPDATE: POGGE is on it. And 900ftJesus. And Alison is all over it and flags Avaaz's response. Don't miss Linda McQuaig at Rabble (h/t Cliff)

G20 agendas

In response to an Ottawa Sun editorial about the hundreds of unnecessary arrests at the G20 protests, Communications, Energy and Paperworkers Union president Dave Coles writes a letter to the editor

I was there and tried to help diffuse the tension caused by police behaving violently but, of course, there were other agendas at play -- like trying to justify the $2-billion security price tag. And like arresting journalists to try to prevent them from doing their jobs, which would expose that fact.

The Toronto police are finally admitting that mistakes were made -- even though they are now blaming the Queen and Spadina ketteling on a mysterious group of 60 Black Bloc anarchists that nobody ever mentioned before, who were apparently "armed" and were "apprehended heading to the area."
So I guess it was all the Black Bloc's fault again! Quel suprise!
And one more observation -- remember how the Iraq War cheerleaders tried to deflect blame for the Iraq War by proclaiming it was actually the Democrats fault for not stopping it, rather than Bush's fault for starting it? Well, now we're starting to hear about how the police riot at the G20 was really all the Liberal's fault for not objecting to it.

CW

I think Conventional Wisdom is swinging against the Harper Conservatives. A summer marked by a thousand needless arrests, tanking poll numbers, stupid press conferences, arbitrary firings and PMO office resignations has forced even John Ibbitson to raise a mild question about Prime Minister Sweater's managerial brilliance.
And Harper shouldn't be waiting for Kory Teneycke to cover his back -- Kory has got some credibility problems of his own to deal with.

Catch 22 for MS victims

Shorter Canadian Institutes of Health Research:

We won't do any research into whether liberation therapy is an effective treatment for multiple sclerosis, unless we already know that liberation therapy is an effective treatment for multiple sclerosis.

So do we want the gun registry or not?

In the end, nobody is going to remember exactly how Harper dismantled the gun registry, only whether he did it in spite of having a minority government.
If the registry is dismantled, that the Tories abused the Private Members Bill to trick the NDP into abandoning their rural members will be portrayed by the media as an example of Harper's masterful parliamentary finesse.
In retrospect, the bill should not have made it through second reading last fall. But by promoting the mantra about how private members bills are "free" votes -- as though that is some kind of inviolate rule --Harper got just enough Liberal and NDP support.
Yes, usually PMBs are free votes, because PMBs are not supposed to be used to implement government policy. But in this case, dismantling the registry is definitely a Tory policy.
So Michael Ignatieff basically had to decide whether the Liberals wanted a gun registry in Canada or not. As the Liberal leader, he had to take the pressure off his MPs by taking the heat himself, and whipping the Liberal vote to support the registry.
Its a decision Jack Layton should be making.

Telling me I've got to beware

There sure seems to be a lot of news lately about how Threatened we are by Tamil "terrorists" by Russian jets and now by "homegrown terrorists" -- is this all just another Lucy and the football moment for the media? Or is there something weird underway?

Shorter

Shorter Glenn Beck's "Restoration of Honor" rally:

The South shall rise again

UPDATE: Steve Benen argues that the Beckapalooza rally wasn't actually ABOUT anything. He has a point. But just as the message of the Iraq War was, get those Iraqis away from our oil, the message of the rally was, get that black man out of our White House.

The rules have changed

Back in the day, if a natural resource company started screwing around, a government would just expropriate the company, or at least would threaten to do so..
So if BHP Billiton started screwing around with Saskatchewan potash mines -- like, shutting down mines because they were playing hardball on royalties or some other corporate game -- could the Saskatchewan government just expropriate the mines?
Not really, not anymore -- NAFTA would be angry. And we wouldn't like NAFTA when its angry...

Dog-gone

The owners must have set up the camera because they couldn't figure out how this puppy could keep getting out of the crate:



Also too


UPDATE: And here's the one I was looking for:

Not ready for prime time

I'm not sure really how much we need to worry about the QMI news agency and Fox News North problem -- judging by the content of CNEWS lately, their stories will be about one step up from the National Enquirer.
Today's 12 front page stories include these seven gems:

Russian spy goes public with sexy shoot
Sea monster or big fish in BC lake?
Sex offender busted babysitting
Home invasion horror for Toronto family
Australian lizards on verge of evolutionary leap
Road rage gets British man 9 years
Victim says couple 'like the Bernardos'

Check them out if you want, but I cannot be bothered to post a CNEWS link on my blogroll anymore.