No contest

Compare this guy


And this guy


No contest.

Popularity contest?

One of the Toronto police officers now being charged for excessive force during the Adam Nobody arrest at the G20 protests is described this way by his lawyer:

This kid has an exemplary record. He's a really good kid, and a good cop.

So is this what it's going to come down to? Is this case of police brutality going to be decided based on whether either Adam Nobody or the police who beat him up are the "good kids"?

Greg Weston does it again

After exposing the gazebo in the middle of nowhere G20 spending debacle, Greg Weston was fired-or-he-quit from Sun media AKA Fox News North.
But he keeps on finding out embarassing stuff about the Harper Cons and letting us know about it through CBC News-- his latest is the millions being spent on an agency that doesn't do anything: EI financing agency spends millions doing nothing:

A federal agency created by the Harper government with great political fanfare in 2008 is costing millions of dollars to achieve pretty much nothing.... the board has no rates to set, no surplus to invest, no contingency fund to manage, and little chance any of that will change in the near future.

The other question they don't seem to want us to ask is, what happened to the $54 billion EI surplus?

Sigh

The Harper Cons say its critical that Canada sell its oil to the States. And they're also saying its critical that Canada sell its oil to Asia.
No wonder the Harper Cons abandoned Kyoto -- our government won't be interested in energy conservation until Canada hasn't got anything more to sell.

The countdown begins

Responding to yesterday's firestorm, the Harper Cons are now saying all same-sex marriages performed in Canada are legal.
Oh, and it's all the Liberals fault.
And they're going to amend the law right away to make sure that gay couples are treated fairly by the courts.

So don't worry, be happy.
But as I commented on another blog, I am done with giving the Harper Cons the benefit of the doubt. I'll believe they'll actually amend the residency requirements law only when I see them bring it to the Commons and whip their caucus to support it.

And if they actually do bring in a piece of legislation to which their base is profoundly opposed, just because its the right thing for a government to do, maybe it would be a sign that the Harper Cons are starting to think of themselves as a government instead of a party.

Shamed before the world

Show of hands, please. How many people expect that the Harper Conservatives will actually do anything to reverse the ridiculous legal opinion from their Justice department about the validity of same-sex marriage?
How many expect they will dither around until the case gets to the Supreme Court in three or four years, so they can tell their base that "activist" judges are to blame for throwing out their ridiculous legal position?

Now, the melon-headed lawyer who provided the same-sex marriage opinion is the one who lost the argument on medical marijuana. But while we're waiting for the court to overturn his arguments again, the damage to Canada's international reputation is incalculable. The world is being told that Canada "Says Marriages of Foreign Gays Invalid"-- Chicago Tribune, Reuters, AFP, Australia, New Zealand, England -- and about half of these reports are also saying the government actually has "invalidated same-sex marriage" for non-Canadians. As Montreal Simon writes, this "has hurt and humiliated gay couples all over the world."

Hey, here's an idea...

Reading Ross K's list of stuff the Harper Cons are doing to "celebrate" the War of 1812 gives me an idea.
Maybe if the gay pride parades across the country promised an "1812" theme this year, the feds would give them money?

How about some rainbow flags mixed with the Union Jacks?

Commander Brock look-alike contests?

There's lots of costumes. We could have floats of "1812 drag", with feathers and plumes and medallions and fancy hats

1812 has lots of fireworks potential

And there's even a navy connection!

So what's not to like?

Oh lord won't you buy me a Mercedes Benz?

Looking at photos from the Detroit auto show made me think of this song:

and this one too:

and:

Amazing

First place in the National Geographic photo contest. The photographer writes:

Grand Prize Winner and Nature Winner - SPLASHING: This photo was taken when I was taking photos of other insects, as I normally did during macro photo hunting. I wasn’t actually aware of this dragonfly since I was occupied with other objects. When I was about to take a picture of it, it suddenly rained, but the lighting was just superb. I decided to take the shot regardless of the rain. The result caused me to be overjoyed, and I hope it pleases viewers. Batam, Riau Islands, Indonesia (Photo and caption by Shikhei Goh)

Concern trolls

The Harper Conservatives care so much about the Liberals that they are warning us how damaging it would be to elect Bob Rae as leader.
Bless their hearts.
Rae must be the choice that scares Harper the most.

More 2012

From Failblog: There’s not going to be an Apocalypse, now finish those TPS reports:

Priorities

You know what is truly stupid? In this story on how the feds replaced two artistically significant Canadian paintings with a routine portrait of the Queen just before Bill and Cathy Cambridge's visit last June, we find out just how the minister John Baird, the deputy minister, staff in the minister's office, and a batch of other bureaucrats at Foreign Affairs have been spending their time -- worrying about the appearance of the lobby of the Foreign Affairs building in Ottawa.

With about ten days' notice last June, bureaucrats were instructed by Foreign Affairs Minister John Baird's office to put up a portrait of the Queen in the lobby of the Lester B. Pearson building in downtown Ottawa.
. . . "There was a lot of discussion between the Minister and Deputy Minister on Friday, and despite other recommendations, they want to go with the idea in their message at the very end of this," said one facilities manager, referring to an email by Baird's adviser to "take the red portraits down."

Glad to see we have our priorities straight in Canada's "Harper Government".

And I'll bet they've also spent more than a few hours trying to figure out how they can change the building's name.

Great line of the day

From the commenters to Sarah's Please don’t throw me into the santorum:

Santorum could easily come from behind.

New links

Some new links over on the right -- I'm increasingly interested in longer reads, and so I collected a batch of sites that post lengthier and depthier articles.
Plus Charles Pierce now that the American election season is heating up.
And Mark Bittman for the recipies. I got his How to Cook Everything cookbook for Christmas and am enjoying it -- great pancakes.

Great line of the day

The Gazetteer on the results of the Iowa Caucus:

fully 75% of the Heartland's GOP have now officially bought their tickets to take a ride on the crazy train.