Whitney Houston dies

What a shock, she was only 48.



Other great songs.

S**t Saskatchewanians Say

From Thread Saskatoon

Great line of the day

John Cole writing about the stupidity of Catholic bishops in the States flipping out over women's health insurance:

I am so sick and tired of fighting stupid petty battles because of your damned religion. I am sick of getting bogged down in these stupid arguments. I am sick of you using your religion as a way to divide people. I’m sick of you using your religion to get in the way of other people’s lifestyle and healthcare choices. I am sick of you using your religion as an excuse to bomb people. I’m sick of your religion getting in the way of policy making. I’m sick of you using your religion to stifle scientific progress. I really am. Do whatever the hell you want in your home and in your church, but just get out of my face with whatever horseshit you believe, be it anything from judaism to catholicism to mormonism to islam to jehovah’s witnesses to the church of the flying spaghetti monster.
Whatever the voodoo that you do is, keep it your damned self. I am officially sick of your crap.

Does anyone remember when John Kennedy had to promise not to let his religion affect his decisions as president? And much more recently, Jean Chretien and Paul Martin had to remind Canadian bishops that they weren't elected as Catholic leaders.

Torture

In the history of the world there has probably never been a nation that didn't sometimes intentionally torture prisoners and secretly use the information so obtained, however unreliable.
But at least we used to be ashamed of it.
Not any more.

Boo-hoo

My response to Karen Handel's self-serving letter of resignation is

Cry me a freaking river, Karen!

Talking the talk

In one of the least surprising decisions in the history of Canadian jurisprudence, the Sask Party's essential services law from 2007 has finally been struck down by the courts as unconstitutional.

So now, all of a sudden, the Wall government actually wants to talk to unions:

The minister added that he is willing to meet with the province's labour groups to discuss ways to improve the essential services legislation.
"What we'd like do with organized labour is sit down and work with them and see what types of things can be resolved," Morgan said.

They couldn't have cared less about talking to labour before they passed the bill in the first place -- described as "the most sweeping and heavy-handed essential services legislation in Canadian history." Better late than never, I suppose.

The ones I liked the best

Dozing in front of the TV

Only a few thousand Canadians are watching Sun News on any given day -- I never have myself. But I guess back on Oct. 19, that "miniscule" number included Jennifer Ditchburn, and wasn't that just too bad for Sun News:

Ms. Ditchburn, who’s been reporting on the Hill for 15 years, said she saw the original Sun News broadcast of the oath and that it struck her as “interesting.” She decided to make an access to information request about it the same week.”
“I was just sort of fishing to see if there was anything interesting that would come up and something did,” she said.

The whole press gallery will be watching Sun News now, thus doubling their viewership. Win-win!

Deja vu

We know the fight is coming again.
We know they're not going to stop until they get what they want -- and what they want is a new abortion law in Canada.
But what they don't seem to realize is this: we have watched the Democrats in the US go along with the erosion of abortion rights for the last 20 years. We have seen them appease and give an inch and pander and knuckle under and go along with stupid laws like requiring ultrasounds and waiting periods and counselling and notifications. And all this going along to get along hasn't satisfied the pro-lifers one bit -- they have demonized Planned Parenthood and are targeting contraception and Gardisil treatments.
Could this happen in Canada? Maybe. The Harper Cons are doing whatever they can to quietly mollify their own pro-life base. But I do believe that Canadians realize that any law that gets the state involved again with abortion decisions -- even a supposedly-reasonable limited-impact law that just deals with a tiny number of cases like so-called "late-term" or "partial birth" abortions, nothing to see here just move along -- is the thin edge of the wedge. We are not apologetic or shame-faced about believing in a woman's right to choose.

Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more...

Sweetest video ever

"

A red letter day

Circle February 3 on the calendar.
A Virginia Republican listened to a woman's personal abortion story and actually agreed it was her choice to make, not his.:

“I don’t feel like I have the ability to make a decision as difficult as the one that young woman made,” said Republican Sen. Harry Blevins of Chesapeake, whose abstention resulted in the GOP-backed bill dying on a 7-7 party-line vote.

Font rant

Just for fun, here's Mike Lacher's I’m Comic Sans, Asshole.:

You think I’m a malformed, pathetic excuse for a font. Well think again, nerdhole, because I’m Comic Sans, and I’m the best thing to happen to typography since Johannes fucking Gutenberg.

The centre isn't holding

Rough beasts, start slouching. I'm starting to think a few things are starting to fall apart for the Harper Cons.
After telling middle-aged Walmart cashiers that MPs are going to force them to stand behind their registers until they're 67, they won't cut their own lavish pensions.
After releasing a batch of embarrassing info about CBC salaries, they won't reveal how many of Harper's staff are also being highly paid.
After Harper perished the thought that he would introduce any anti-abortion legislation, he's losing control of the Conservative backbenchers.

And the courts are slapping down their cruel ideology.

Stay tuned.

Told ya so

I've been considering what to say about Harper's throne speech in Switzerland and the words "told ya so" kept coming to mind -- this type of incompetent, half-baked, mean-spirited governing is exactly what we lefties all knew would happen as soon as Harper got his majority.
Ken Gray sums up The Conservative Death Wish:

So generations of Canadians have been promised pensions under certain conditions and now the ground is being taken out from under them by Harper. Pension reform is just unnecessary yet Harper is not proceeding on logic, but ideology. First Harper caps federal health payments, now he wants to reform promised pensions. The large senior boomer demographic is unlikely to approve.
That allows an opportunity for the Grits and the NDP. “Would you rather have your pensions and health care or a bunch of new fighter jets?”

Here we go again:

From The Bolt via Kinsella

Saturday cartoon (Oscar edition)

I'm out of it today with a cold, but this is the NFB Oscar-nominated short "Wild Life" about a remittance man in the Canadian old west, with the sound done by Twisted Pair of Regina: