Friday, June 22, 2012

Remember


Six years after the Harper Cons moved into government and they still don't seem to realize that governments are judged not on what they say but on what they do.
Apparently there's going to be a Conservative rally in Quebec this weekend and Harper is going to give a speech and so he has to figure out what he can talk about.
He's burned so many bridges in Quebec that he's been reduced to asking Brian Mulroney how the Cons can improve their image.
Mr. Mulroney still remains a respected political figure in the Quebec and probably knows it better than any current Conservative, while Mr. Harper can’t shake the stereotype of being a Western cowboy out of touch with la belle province.
Do ya think maybe that's because he IS a Western cowboy out of touch with la belle province?
Does Harper think his winning personality and enormous personal charm (/snark) will convince Quebecers to just forget all about the insults that the Harper Cons keep dishing out?
Here's David Climenhaga's list just from last fall:
The peculiar decision in mid-August to bring back the “Royal” prefix to describe the Canadian Navy and Air Force. No one in English Canada cared much about this any more – it was a fight lost by another generation. Yet it remains a powerful symbol of an unequal past in Quebec. It would seem this was done in the wake of a royal visit to please a few grumpy old vets and an even smaller number of nutty members of the tiny Monarchist League of Canada.
The decision to cut Quebec shipyards out of a $33-billion naval shipbuilding program. Much was made by the government of the “non partisan” nature of the civil-service-run bidding process – an oddity in itself given the contempt with which these Conservatives normally hold “bureaucrats.” But what are programs to build largely unneeded strategic naval vessels but domestic-make work arrangements that benefit various regions of the country? This is, after all, at the heart of the American political-economic model our Conservatives so much admire.
The bizarre decision at the end of October push to appoint a unilingual Auditor General when fluency in both official languages was right there in the job description. The chosen one, Michael Ferguson, said he was recruited by a corporate headhunter and that he never bothered to read the job description – some auditor! This despite the fact that the understanding that key public-service jobs will be held by people fluent in both languages is part of the historic compromise that has (barely) held the country together.
The similarly inexplicable appointment in mid-October of the unilingual Ontario judge Michael Moldaver to the Supreme Court of Canada. Justice Moldaver has promised to learn to speak French, a nice gesture, but not very meaningful under the circumstances.
The double slap of the Conservative plan to destroy the national shotgun and rifle registry, which is popular for good reason in Quebec – where the hideous Dec. 6, 1989 massacre of 14 young women at Montreal’s École Polytechnique prompted the drive to register these weapons – and the Harperites’ adamant refusal to share the data collected and paid for by Quebec taxpayers as well as the rest of us.
Don't the Harper Cons realize that Quebecers will remember these things?
They're pretty good at remembering.

Monday, June 18, 2012

Dumb

Of all of the dumb prosecutions we've seen over the last several years, from Martha Stewart to John Edwards, the attempt to demonize baseball players and cyclists as big-time criminal drug abusers has to rank as the dumbest.
At last Roger Clemens has been found not guilty on all counts, for the second time, joining Barry Bonds (mostly) and Lance Armstrong (hopefully).
Meanwhile, of course, professional football players just keep on getting a little stronger every day...  but shshsss!  Let's not talk about that.
Scott Lemieux sums it up
If only Clemens has tortured someone on behalf of the federal government or committed a massive bank fraud — he could have saved a lot of money in legal expenses…




Two-tier health care is here

The Harper Cons have taken the first steps toward dismantling medicare for everyone by classifying refugees as "second-tier" people who aren't going to get the same kind of health care everyone else can get.
And if they get away with it, what's to stop them from doing it again?
How about immigrants next, and then families of immigrants, because they haven't paid enough taxes yet. Then for people who are unemployed, because they're not paying enough taxes. Then for people who are employed, because they can buy their own health insurance. They'll always be able to find another "good" reason to cut people off medicare.
One thing we always have to remember is this: politicians HATE medicare -- they hate having to spend so much money without having any control over it, without being able to cut any ribbons or send out any press releases. They hate that Canadians take it for granted, and we aren't grateful to government anymore for it, we just complain about it to the politicians.

Saturday, June 16, 2012

An absolute crock

Deltro Electric: owner David Del Mastro denies he reimbursed anyone who donated to his cousin’s election campaign.
Twenty people connected to David Del Mastro, Dean's cousin, or to his electrical business in Mississauga, are such political activists that they each gave Dean Del Mastro a thousand dollars in the 2008 election campaign:
He said it was reasonable to believe that his employees volunteered to each give $1,000 to a candidate running for election in a riding three hours away.
“Why wouldn’t they?” he asked.
And if you believe that, I've got this bridge I could sell you...

Wednesday, June 13, 2012

It's actually a class war

DougJ at Baloon Juice says the fighting about politics is actually about class:
I used to think that the purpose of neoconservatism was to give some intellectual cover to the right, and that it gained power in the United States because the right gained power. I think I was wrong. Neoconservatism is attractive to elites because it flatters them and tells them they are superior. It’s the perfect ideology for an overclass filled with mediocre minds, fat wallets, and delicate fee-fees.
I also used to think “both sides do it” was just a way of empowering the right and trashing the left. Now, I think it’s just an easy way for the establishment to dismiss all criticism of itself. Hand out a double technical and everyone will have to shut up for a while.

Monday, June 11, 2012

The list keeps getting longer



There's going to be a whole lot of stuff to revoke once the New Democrat Liberal party gets elected -- now we can add this "Canada doesn't want any wretched refuse" immigration bill to the list.

Sunday, June 10, 2012

A national embarrassment

Demonstrators clash with police at the corner of University Avenue and College Street, near Queen's Park as the G20 summit begins in Toronto, Saturday, June 26, 2010.  (Brett Gundlock/ National Post)
The Harper Cons think the role of the police is to protect their delicate fee-fees?
Along with terrorism and organized crime, “embarrassment to the Canadian government” was considered one of the threats facing security forces at the G8 and G20 summit meetings in Ontario 2010, according to newly released military records.
It was the way police acted that turned out to be the national embarrassment.
That, and the millions the Cons wasted.

Saturday, June 09, 2012

Fist pump

Yes! Female pilot tosses passenger off flight for making sexist remarks:
A Brazilian airline says one of its female pilots tossed a passenger off a flight because he was making sexist comments about women flying planes.
Trip Airlines says in a Tuesday statement the pilot ejected the man before takeoff as he made loud, sexist comments upon learning the pilot was a woman. . . .
Trip says it won't tolerate disparaging remarks made about any of the 1,400 women working for the airline.

Tuesday, June 05, 2012

Tough

Novak Djokovic (Photo: Mike Hewitt/Getty Images)
Ever since we got a flatscreen, I have enjoyed watching tennis because I can finally see the ball.
What a game it was tonight at the French Open. If you ever want to really understand the phrase "when the going gets tough, the tough get going" it was on display in this amazing match between Djokovic and Tsonga.
Tsonga was the crowd favorite and he almost won - four times in the fourth set he was at match point. But Djokovic kept battling back and when Tsonga couldn't finish it then, everybody knew the fifth set would belong to Djokovic.

Monday, June 04, 2012

Going to the dark side

In spirit, I am in solidarity with the website blackout -- but I don't know how to change my website colours, and if I did figure it out, then I likely wouldn't know how to change them back, so consider this to be my way of joining the protest against the omnibus budget bill:




Thursday, May 31, 2012

Outrage fatigue

Ever since the grotesque budget bill came down, we've been going through the Stages of Outrage -- denial, anger, bargaining, depression, acceptance.
Every time I read another story about the Harper Con's budget bill -- AKA The End Of Canada As We Know It -- I get more and more upset about what they think they're doing, what gives them the right, how dare they...
Well, I guess they think they were elected to dismantle everything that any of the Conservative voters ever complained about, and they're going to do it just as fast as they can, as far under the radar as they can get, without consulting anyone or even telling anyone what they're doing, and they think they have the right because 40 per cent of Canadians voted for them.  So they're changing Old Age Security and employment Insurance, breaking federal unions, silencing agencies and charities that say or do things they don't like, throwing out 300,000 immigration applications, and emasculating environmental assessment, while also giving government ministers (read: the Prime Minister's Office) the authority to do all sorts of things in secret that used to be done openly, like decide whether charities can issue tax receipts, or determine who gets to enter the country.
The latest news is that the budget bill also abolishes the requirement that federal contractors pay "fair wages" -- ie, equivalent to what unionized trades would receive.  So we can also wave goodbye to the construction trade unions.
I have reached Outrage Fatigue zombie level six.
The good news is, our parliamentarians are getting more polite -- now that's real progress, isn't it?

Monday, May 28, 2012

Collective bullying

I don't know why any unionized, federally-regulated employer would bother to negotiate in good faith with their unions anymore -- if anybody goes on strike, the Harper Conservatives just legislate them back to work, to "protect the economy."  Well, somehow the economy managed to survive before these guys came along.  Now, not so much...



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