Happy July 4th‬‏

Toronto Pride

Mayor Ford missed a good party.

Happy Canada Day‬‏

Holiday road

Just in time for summer driving, hackers are changing the highway signs again in Kentucky and in Newfoundland.
Hope everyone is prepared for the zombie apocalypse!

Here we go again

The Conservatives act like its their own personal money and they can spend it however they like.
I'm not talking about what's in their pockets.
I'm talking about what came from our pockets -- our taxes.
It's NOT your money, Harper. It belongs to Canada.
And we want it spent the way the government's own rules say it should be spent.
Instead, we get the Harper Conservatives letting Tony Clement shovel $50 million into his own riding without any paper trail at all.
And then this same bunch of yahoos gleefully cut off grants to festivals and parades and arts organizations and all sorts of other community activities that the people of Canada support, just because Harper doesn't like them.
It happened to Toronto Pride, and pride activities across the country, and Montreal's Divers-Cité, and FrancoFolies de Montréal and now Toronto's Summerworks
And are we really going to hear, again, another raft of mealy-mouthed spin that the cut was just a coincidence and doesn't really reflect ideological hostility from the Prime Minister's Office?
Oh, please.

One year later

One man reports on how the G20 experience changed him:

The main change I’ve noticed in myself since the G20 is how much I hate cops now. Not only am I uncomfortable around them, as most people are—I hate them.
I didn’t feel this way before the G20. But now, this newfound hatred permeates every part of my existence: from walking down streets to browsing on Facebook and everywhere in between. I firmly believe that police functioned during the G20 as enemies of democracy, civil rights, and social justice, and that they function in similar ways, around the world and in Canada, every single day.

Hundreds of people rallied in Toronto to remember the G20 police riot and repeat the call for a public inquiry:


Toronto Star


Globe and Mail


City News -- and also see the video coverage of today's protest on this site.
The Torontoist provides this graphic of the G20 "numbers" today:



Videos from today's protests:

Be careful what you wish for

Hmmm ... in spite of the highly touted muscle of a Conservative majority government, maybe locking out the postal workers and then expecting them to be quickly legislated back to work wasn't such a great idea after all.
Back in the "bad old days" when those awful Liberals were the Opposition, chances are Harper would have quickly convinced several dozen liberal MPs to help him grease the passage of a business-friendly bill.
But legislative realities in Canada have obviously changed with the election of a unified 100-strong NDP opposition, which can and will sustain a filibuster over an issue of principle.

The Star Phoenix gets it

via

Its taken a long time, but the meaning of Canada's G20 tragedy finally seem to be sinking in.
Here's today's Star Phoenix editorial:

But as embarrassing as Vancouver was to the nation, what happened in Toronto is much more serious and frightening.
Although the internally prepared report by the Toronto police service, which was released late Thursday, owned up to errors, it is a long way from accepting responsibility for the mayhem that overtook Canada's largest city during the G-20 meeting last year.
It wasn't just the downtown businesses and the burned police cars that hurt Canada's reputation. It wasn't even that the police willfully pulled back during the worst of the riots, presumably so they could corral, 'kettle,' arrest and beat nonviolent demonstrators who were a safe distance away.
What hurt Canada the most that weekend a year ago is the blow that was dealt to our constitutionally protected rights to assembly and speech.

Yes. That's what we were complaining about a year ago.
Of course, the editorial goes on to blame "poorly trained police" who "lacked the fundamental understanding of Canada's tradition of human rights", so they still don't understand that this attitude emanated from the top, not the bottom.

Great line of the day

Orwell's Bastard discusses the Toronto police pity-party G20 report:

So Bill Blair's had some time to reflect on last summer's G20 clusterfuck, and good and loyal servant he is, he's graced us with a report. Among other things, he praises his officers for "facing danger and extreme provocation."
Indeed. Takes a special kind of guts to stand your ground in the face of a small woman blowing soap bubbles.

Emphasis mine.

Homophobe mayor

Marcus Gee rails against Rob Ford's decision to be the first Toronto mayor in 20 years to skip the gay pride parade:

Since becoming mayor, he has spurned every attempt by the gay community to reach out to him. He declined to come to a ceremony marking an international day opposing homophobia. He turned down many invitations from gay and lesbian groups to attend next week’s ceremonial flag raising for Pride Week, assigning city council’s Speaker to go in his place. It took him months even to do something as simple as sign the Pride Week proclamation.
Whether he means to or not, he has left the unfortunate and probably mistaken impression that he has a problem with gays and lesbians.

No, Marcus, it's not a mistake -- he DOES have a problem with gays and lesbians, like all homophobes do.

It's a cookbook!

The Conservatives are looking for a bureaucrat to lead the RCMP, not a policeman.
Because everybody knows how well respected bureaucrats are -- by the Harper government, by rank and file police officers, and by the Canadian public.
Its like watching Lloyd Bochner get on the spacecraft.

Milking it

Hmmm -- a low-key story in April about 17 Chinese cows with extra lysozyme enzymes in their milk has now morphed into a worldwide sensation about how a herd of 300 cloned cattle are producing near-human breast milk.
Is this a marvelous investment opportunity or what?

Two years?

In 2004, almost 5 million Canadians voted Liberal.
In 2011, only 2.7 million voted Liberal.
By the time Liberals finally choose a new leader in 2013, I wouldn't be surprised if there are at least another million Canadians can't remember who this party is or why they ever voted for them.
Why are they waiting so long? It seems because they're afraid of the Harper Conservatives:

They were persuaded [to wait] by former leader Stephane Dion, who reminded delegates of the hatchet jobs done on him and Ignatieff by relentless Tory attack ads. Liberals, he argued, must not choose a new leader until they've amassed the money and organization needed to fight back against the inevitable Tory onslaught . . . If Liberals choose a leader before undertaking any rebuilding, Dion said, "The leader will be without any protection facing the Conservatives."

And Dion also says:

"the only good news of this disastrous (election) result" is that Liberals have plenty of time to pull themselves back together.

How naive, to believe that Harper actually won't call another federal election until 2015.

Vancouver riot -- video game edition

The Tyee finds the most bizarre "coverage" of the Vancouver riot by the NMA News agency from Taiwan:

Great line of the day

New York State senator Roy MacDonald is one of the Republicans who is going to vote in support of gay marriage:

“You get to the point where you evolve in your life where everything isn't black and white, good and bad, and you try to do the right thing,” McDonald, 64, told reporters. “You might not like that. You might be very cynical about that. Well, fuck it, I don't care what you think. I'm trying to do the right thing.
“I'm tired of Republican-Democrat politics. They can take the job and shove it. I come from a blue-collar background. I'm trying to do the right thing, and that's where I'm going with this.”