What a radical thought!

Is it too radical to believe that a majority of the US Supreme Court justices found Obamacare constitutional because it actually IS constitutional, not just because of a judicial dick-measuring contest?.
Nah, that would be too simple. What fun is that?

Things NOT to do

I just came across this list of things that make people look old so if I can just remember not to do these things I guess I'll be young forever:

1. Fumbling with payment at the register, especially counting out coins. Coins go into an overflowing jar on the bureau, and I don't want to hear any more about it.
2. Complaining about portion sizes.
3. Complaining about how prices have gone up, in a manner that implies I don't understand how inflation/money works.. . .
4. Voting against school/education taxes. . . .
5. Asking people to guess my age, and then gloating when the guesser tactfully subtracts ten years.
6. Complaining that current popular music isn't even music, or that songs/books/movies USED to be good/quality/art, but NOW are NOT. . . .
7. Explaining to frazzled, exhausted, verge-of-emotional-breakdown women with small children that this is the best time of their lives. . . .
8. Suggesting that things are getting worse and worse with every generation---starting with the one immediately following mine.
9. Complaining about how "weird" baby names are now; why don't people use NORMAL names like the names WE used for OUR babies?

I have to admit I've already done a few of these things.

Yes!

Now here's a website I can love - THE FUCKING WEATHER

Canthem

Via

Happy Canada Day or Dominion Day, as you will.

Heat wave

Tweeted today from the National Weather Service:


Climate change deniers have regarded every cold snap or blizzard over the last few years as a sign that global warming is a myth.
Well, what are they going to say now?  And summer just started.

Go Riders

The announcers started the game so sure that the Ti-Cats would stomp the yard.
They got less and less ebullient as the score got more and more lopsided -- 43-16!  Good on ya, boys.

Photo parade

Hooray, the US health care law was upheld! So here's some cheerful photos for today:


Pictures that will restore your faith in humanity


Pictures that will make you say awwwww


Awkward cat sleeping positions


Things your pets do while you're away

Didn't we used to have a press gallery?

In an article about the horrendous refugee bill under which doctors are supposed to refuse basic health care to any brown people the Harper Cons don't like, Jim Creskey writes:

. . . the personal hardship stories and legal fallout that will result from the law's various measures and the way they are put into practice are yet to reach the notice of Canadian public opinion.

Didn't we used to have a press gallery in Ottawa that was supposed to keep the public informed about things like this, so that they could develop an opinion?  Or are twitter wars keeping everyone too busy these days?

Great line of the day

POGGE describing another screw-up of the Harper Cons:

You don't get good government from people who think government is the problem. And the crew in charge at the moment are just the ones to keep proving that. Over and over.

Too many pets?

When you can't tell whether your child's finger was bitten off by your pitbull or your piranha, then maybe you have too many pets.

Here's another complete waste of time

Try this game -- Find Five.  It is appallingly addictive.

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.

Takes one to know one

I think we know who the complete and utter asshole actually is.

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.