Media frenzy

The media frenzy around where Mike Duffy really lives just shows the truth of the saying "be nice to the people you meet on the way up because you'll see them again on the way down."
He hasn't been particularly nice to Canadian journalism either before or during his Senate career:

In the 1990s, Duffy sued Frank magazine for defamation, referring to Duffy as the "Puffster". Duffy claimed that the magazine's satirical attacks against him cost him the Order of Canada. Frank settled out of court with Duffy.
In 2008, a panel of the Canadian Broadcast Standards Council ruled that Duffy had violated broadcasting codes and ethics during the 2008 federal election. The panel concluded that Duffy's decision to air 'false starts' of an interview with then-Liberal leader Stéphane Dion “was not fair, balanced, or even handed" and that during the same broadcast, Duffy “significantly misrepresented the view of one of the three members of his Panel...Liberal MP Geoff Regan.” ...
In March 2010 Duffy criticized the University of King's College and other journalism schools in Canada for teaching Noam Chomsky and critical thinking. He went on to say that journalism schools in Canada were churning out leftists who thought private enterprise was bad. The head of King's School of Journalism reacted with surprise to Duffy's criticism, saying that Manufacturing Consent was not part of the curriculum. She also said she would not apologize for teaching critical thinking to journalism students. A number of editorial comments were written in response to Duffy's criticism.

The press can hardly wait for the tar and feathering, because it just couldn't happen to a more deserving guy.

Saturday morning cartoon

The Box - Simon's Cat - YouTube: ""

Its the crash off-screen at the end that slays me.

Don't piss on me and tell me its raining

The latest robocall scandal is going to bite the Harper Cons in the ass, to coin a phrase.
They could have done a reasonably neutral poll to find out what Saskatchewan people actually thought of the urban ridings proposal.  This might have given them some valuable information about how widespread the desire for urban ridings actually is, information which they might have been able to use to build a case for rejecting the boundary changes.
But no.  The Harper Cons think they can create their own reality.  They got pushy and they got sneaky.   Result:  disaster.
Saskboy got one of the calls and reports on what the robo-voice said:

Last week I got a robocall from “Chase Research” and listened to it all, taking notes when I realized it was a Conservative push-poll and would cause a scandal....It referred to “drastic” changes to “traditional” riding boundaries and said the new way would pit “rural vs urban” against each other. After being negative about the situation, it asked for a yes or no option to the changes, or to have options repeated.

They embarrassed themselves and, now that the scandal has erupted, they have a poll that they cannot use. In fact, when Conservatives now start talking about how "the Saskatchewan people" want to keep the boundaries as they are, the press and the commission members can just laugh them out of the room.

...in question period, NDP MP Craig Scott, in a question, noted that no party with a "classic sense of ethics" would attempt to pressure a boundaries commission to reverse its proposals by using what he called "robocon propaganda." Surprisingly, it was Harper rather than one of his ministers who stood up to answer Scott’s question, perhaps an indication of how seriously the prime minister views the issue.
Harper replied, "There are actually parliamentary hearings into this. Obviously there is political input, although the final decision is independent,' meaning, perhaps, his office will not try to influence the Conservative MPs who dominate the committee.

Well, dream on about that. Still, thanks to their own clumsy hubris, the Harper Cons can no longer just quietly bury the redistribution report.

Hubris

More legal trouble for Mayor Rob Ford

“The audit revealed more than 100 apparent contraventions of the Municipal Elections Act, including the finding that Ford spent more than $40,000 above his legal spending limit. Additionally, the auditors found that Ford, in apparent contravention of election laws, accepted corporate donations, received a loan from Ford’s family company (Doug Ford Holding Inc.), and began spending money before the campaign was legally permitted.”

You can't make this stuff up.

Shorter

Charles Pierce describes the Republican performance at Chuck Hagel's nomination hearing:

A few great Pierce lines:

...This is the equivalent of a clown taking singing lessons from a goat.
... It was like watching Rent performed on the set of Show Boat.
...There is some criticism rising that Hagel was not properly prepared for his testimony. I'm not sure anybody could have been. How could anyone be properly prepared for Jim Inhofe and Ted Cruz in the same day? Those kind of mushrooms are still illegal.

#J28 photos

Ottawa:


Calgary:


Toronto:


Sault St. Marie:


Edmonton:


Calgary:


Winnipeg:


Texas:


Michigan:


New Mexico:


And see this video of Idle No More solidarity around the world.

Day of Action #J28

Idle No More is rallying worldwide on Monday

...jingle dancers across the country have been invited by organizers to dance on Parliament Hill following a rally on Victoria Island.
In Vancouver, hundreds of protesters plan to march to the Aboriginal Affairs and Northern Development Building, according to the event’s Facebook page. In Calgary, more than 300 people have RSVP’d for a peace march that will converge in “the biggest Round Dance the downtown core has ever seen!”
In Regina, Sask., 287 people had registered on Facebook to attend an evening of music and speeches. And in Winnipeg, more than 2,000 had registered to take place in a flash mob round dance.
Dozens of rallies are planned for cities across Ontario – including nearly 400 people expected to gather in downtown Toronto – and the Maritimes, according to Facebook.
Just over 250 people had RSVP’d for an Idle No More rally in Montreal, and another hundred people RSVP’d for a sunrise ceremony that then plans to organize transportation to the rally in Ottawa.
In Melbourne, Australia, 61 people were registered for a Haka flash mob in support of Idle No More. In Malmo, Sweden, 115 people said they were attending a rally in support of Idle No More. That rally was set to include dancing and drumming, according to the group’s Facebook page.
And events have been planned in a number of cities across the United States, including New York City, Washington and Las Vegas.

Here's the facebook list of J28 events -- Saskatoon's event is beginning at 11 am (Common Cause) and at noon to 4:30 (Idle No More) at Station 20 West.

Shorter

Shorter Globe and Mail:

Next time I need a job, I hope Sun News remembers that I supported their "mandatory carriage" campaign.

Le Blog

Jean-Paul Sartre's Blog at the New Yorker:

Wednesday, 22 July, 1959: 10:50 A.M.
This morning over breakfast S. asked me why I looked so glum.
“Because,” I said, “everything that exists is born for no reason, carries on living through weakness, and dies by accident.”
“Jesus,” S. said. “Aren’t you ever off the clock?”

(h/t)

Whine and jeez

I used to like Phil Mickelson until he started whining about how awful it is that he is going to have to pay more taxes on an income of merely $40 million a year. As Tbogg notes, Mickelson got his start playing on a city-owned golf course.  But now he's rich so he complains about paying the taxes that would help out other kids.  I'll bet his sponsors were none too pleased with his threats to quit playing -- now he says he's not going to insult us again by talking about how tough it is to be Phil Mickelson.
Cry me a river, Phil.

I just looked around and he's gone

1968 was the year I was finishing high school.  Martin Luther King Jr and Bobby Kennedy were assassinated. There were violent riots at the Democratic Convention, Prague Spring ended in disaster, Nixon was the US president, and my cousin had to go to Vietnam.
But 1968 was also the year that Pierre Trudeau got elected.  And Apollo 8 took the Earthrise photo that December.  From that perspective, it seemed we might survive.
I sometimes wonder what kind of president Bobby Kennedy would have made.

Comics

Non Sequitur

#Ottawapiskat

The newest hashtag is #Ottawapiskat -- SilentNoMore at Daily Kos explains:

Reacting to the outrageous hypocrisy of the Harper government, the artist Aaron Paquette created the brilliant twitter hashtag #Ottawapiskat, eliding Attawapiskat with Ottawa (derived from the Algonquin adawe, to trade.) Margaret Atwood and Naomi Klein quickly gave the hashtag legs

Here's some of the tweets:








And more:

The Chief in #Ottawapiskat is the 4 th highest paid gov't leader in the world. He makes US$296,400 compared to $42,000 for average person
— judyrebick (@judyrebick) January 16, 2013

In #Ottawapiskat if Chief Harper dsn't like the questions, he closes up t band office 4 months at a time #proroguer #idlenomore
— 350orBust (@350orbust1) January 15, 2013

They act like they're running the place, but they were elected by less than a majority of voters, and many didn't vote at all #Ottawapiskat
— Cathie from Canada (@CathieCanada) January 17, 2013

They ram through new laws that nobody reads or understands, to let them do whatever they want #Ottawapiskat
— Cathie from Canada (@CathieCanada) January 17, 2013

Star-Phoenix gets it right

Refusing to join the knee-jerk triviality displayed elsewhere, the editorial writers at the Saskatoon Star-Phoenix understand the bigger picture: Serious talks just beginning:

Over the last generation, more First Nations members - particularly women - have been getting educated and are now connected through social media.
They may not have a cohesive message but, like the rest of us, they know what's right and what doesn't work. The Ottawa meetings and activities this week indicate that we have only just begun the process of trying to bridge that gap.

And historian Jim Miller also explains why meeting with that nice old man in a suit is so important for First Nations:

The Crown is the symbol of their relationship to the rest of society as First Nations conceive it to be. They insist on the eternal nature of the treaties they made, and choose not to recognize that the rest of Canada has evolved a different relationship to the Queen.

Wake up and smell the magnolias

Dawg recognizes the ugly truth that Idle No More is revealing about Canadians:

We’re a racist, settler country, and it’s high time we stood up and faced that fact, and dealt with it. How anyone can read the comments threads appended to online media stories about Chief Spence and Idle No More and not smell the magnolias is beyond me. And the dreary parade of white finger-waving pundits in the national media is part of the problem. They give respectable cover to the shrieking bigots in our midst.

Sixth Estate, and Simon, and Dawg are doing yeoman's work in exposing the inadequate, embarrassing, blame-the-victim response of the national press to Theresa Spence and Idle No More.  As Mr Sinister tweets:

Having looked at both the government and native positions, the media has decided who the real victims are here....It's the media #idlenomore
— Mrsinister (@mrsinisterlefty) January 11, 2013