Junk mail

Various journalists are blaming the postal workers for the mail backlog -- they're forgetting that it was Canada Post management that decided to lock out its workers for two weeks in June and settle the dispute by legislation rather than negotiation.
Now, we've had a week of mostly junk mail, while Canada Post apparently still struggles to set priorities:

The Canadian Union of Postal Workers claimed Wednesday that its members were being forced to deliver out-of-date flyers rather than bills and cheques, "setting themselves up to be blamed by an angry public."
"The CUPW is concerned that decisions made by Canada Post senior management to first lock out and then delay delivery will be blamed on postal workers," wrote the union in the mid-week release.
"Canada Post is prioritizing junk mail over cheques," said Alain Duguay, CUPW president of the Montreal local, adding that he has seen passports collecting dust that date back to early June. "I'm really wondering if there's a collusion to privatize."

We've had four or five bills delivered this week, plus a batch of junk mail -- but my father-in-law hasn't received his Father's Day cards yet.

This is the way "The World" ends

Not with a bang but a whimper.
The Telegraph reports that the phone hacking scandal which has destroyed Britain's 168-year-old News of the World newspaper all began with Prince William straining a tendon in his knee:

In November 2005, Clive Goodman, the paper's royal editor, wrote a brief story revealing that Prince William had strained a tendon in his knee and sought medical advice. A week later, he revealed that the prince had borrowed some broadcasting equipment from his friend Tom Bradby, an ITV journalist.
The stories baffled Royal officials, since so few people knew about them. In a conversation between Bradby and the prince, the two established that the information could only have come from voicemails they had left one another.

Apparently there are now 4,000 people who have been informed that their voicemails were hacked. What I wonder is, how easy is it to hack into someone's voicemail account? Is it happening here, too?
UPDATE: And now Prime Minister David Cameron is getting dragged into it.
DOUBLE UPDATE: I guess hacking into someone's phone is pretty easy.

Panic

Its just in fun until someone loses an eye. Then its a sport.
The Republican wingnuts in Congress are turning the US debt ceiling fight into a sport and the Village is starting to panic at the prospect.
David Brooks is horrified at Republicans cheering the prospect of defaulting on the US debt:

If the debt ceiling talks fail, independents voters will see that Democrats were willing to compromise but Republicans were not. If responsible Republicans don’t take control, independents will conclude that Republican fanaticism caused this default. They will conclude that Republicans are not fit to govern.
And they will be right.

Richard Cohen is calling republicans "a cult" and Megan McCardle says the sky is falling. Even David Frum says Republicans need to smarten up, though of course its all Obama's fault really.

Organ donors-in-waiting

In the story about this year's Darwin Award Winner in New York state, we also find out that Michigan is trying to become the go-to state for people in need of organ transplants.

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.