Meeting Iggy

I think this is great

Picturing Africa

From Calabar Boy via Balloon Juice, here is a map showing the true size of Africa:

Right wing vs wingnut

Here's a new dividing line in Canada between the "right wing" and the "wing nut":
Canada's right wing, though they generally support the Harper Conservatives, also know that, first, it was important for Canada to get a seat on the UN Security Council, and second, it was Harper's own fault that Canada didn't get it -- for example, this commentary in the Calgary Herald, this Star Phoenix editorial, this Economist story.
Canada's wingnuts, on the other hand, are sticking out their tongues at the UN and crying "Nyaah nyaah! We're better than you are and we never wanted to be in your crummy Security Council anyway so there!"
UPDATE: Link updated.

Alex Hundert update

This is a sad day for Canadian justice. G20 protester Alex Hundert declines bail because he refuses to shut up about his political beliefs:

According to a release by his allies, if he were to have accepted bail yesterday, Hundert would have been faced with "additional conditions of non association with Harsha Walia, Dan Kellar, AW@L, SOAR, NOII, no planning/participating/planning public meetings or marches, and no expressing political views including in the media, amongst others."
But regardless of his ongoing incarceration, Hundert insists that his supporters need to continue organizing, and not focus on his plight.
"Too much attention has been paid to a small number of cases of repression, particularly my own, when people need to be focused on and fighting back against broader patterns of oppression that flow from the racist capitalist system propagated by the G20 states, their corporations, their militaries, and their police," he told an ally in a phone call from jail on October 11.

Rabble reporter Krystalline Kraus has more.
UPDATE on the update:
POGGE makes a very important point about the bail condition that would have prevented Hundert from speaking to the media:

That's real censorship. That's the state, in this case the province of Ontario, forbidding someone from publicly expressing political opinion. It doesn't sound like it's any particular opinion that concerns them. It's obviously not hate speech that they're worried about because they wouldn't have to include that in bail conditions. This is the state telling a citizen who hasn't yet been found guilty of a crime that his views are already regarded as illegitimate before he's even expressed them.

Great line of the day

Disaffected Lib, the Mound of Sound, writes about how a dictatorial Harper cut MacKay, Ritz and Van Loan out of the UAE negotiations:

There's a man with some serious emotional problems. Cutting your defence minister, agricultural minister and international trade minister out of negotiations with an Arab country that, for nine years, has allowed you to use their territory for a vital forward base? Captain Queeg to the bridge. Captain Queeg to the bridge.

Emphasis mine.

Freeway blogging for Alex Hundert

Activists hung a banner on a Toronto highway to protest the continued detention of Alex Hundert and there were protests scheduled across the country in support of Canada's scariest criminal mastermind™.
You know, this isn't going to stop. We're going to keep on covering the story of the G20 police riot as the puffed-up legal cases against the protesters collapse and the inquiries pick up steam.
Toronto authorities are dropping more charges daily -- remember those Quebec students who were hauled out of the U of T gym on that Sunday morning and marched to jail in their pajamas? Those charges were all quietly dropped last Friday.

Photo ops with Sergeant Preston?

Tell me the Harper Cons didn't actually think that United Nations diplomats would vote for a Canadian seat on the Security Council if they got a photo op with Sergeant Preston?

In the final days of Tuesday's bid, Canada wined and dined diplomats, offering them gifts of Canadian beer and maple syrup.
Canada even had a Mountie in red serge as a prop flown in so the 192 foreign diplomats who were casting ballots could get a photo with him.

I'm just, like, totally surprised the UN didn't think Canada would be a serious contributor.

The Map

xkcd's map of online communities is brilliant and fascinating. Be sure to embiggen it (on the source page) to see the details.

In jail for Thanksgiving

Canada's scariest criminal mastermind™ Alex Hundert will be spending Thanksgiving in jail.
Because he went to a meeting.
The conclusion we are supposed to draw, I guess, is that speaking at meetings can be dangerous.

And by the way, why is a Justice of the Peace making such an important bail decision, rather than a judge?

John Lennon

I miss the music he never got the chance to write.

A bail hearing lasting a week?

G20 protester Alex Hundert's bail hearing apparently might last for a week.
Well, would we expect anything less of the crown prosecutor for Canada's scariest criminal mastermind™ ?

The Rulez are now in effect

Dave asks is just one complaint a reason to change government policy?
Yes, depending on who the "one" is.

Bail hearing for G20 protester Alex Hundert

Canada's scariest criminal mastermind Alex Hundert -- shown here washing dishes -- is finally starting a three-day bail hearing tomorrow in Scarborough.
Krystalline Kraus reports:

He has been behind bars since September 17th for an alleged breach of his existing bail condition to not participate in any public demonstration. The police and Crown have made the preposterous claim that Alex's two public speaking events on university campuses in Kitchener and Toronto are public demonstrations. The Crown is also seeking to revoke Alex's bail entirely and keep him behind bars until trial.

If you want to find out a little more about Alex Hundert, read this.

My new favorite song

The new rulez

Balbulican summarizes:

In Harper's Neues Kanada, you can now be barred by the diktat of a Federal Minister from speaking to an organization you've been invited to address - not because of something you've said, and not because of something your employer said, but because of something that someone who once worked with your employer said six years ago.

So I guess the rule is that we're all got to watch what everybody we are associated with has ever said at all times.
Or else we can just do everything Charles McVety wants -- yeah, that's a lot easier. Why make our own decisions when McVety can make them for us.
H/T Dave