Tuesday, February 11, 2014

It's called class

Twitter image of Canadian coach Justin Wadsworth fixing Russian Anton Gafarovski.

Eight years ago Canadian cross country skier Sarah Renner won a silver medal because a Norwegian coach threw her a pole during the race.  And, as it turned out, Norway came fourth in that race.

Today, Canadian coach Justin Wadsworth ran onto the course with a spare ski to help a Russian skier finish the cross country course in front of the Russian fans.

Sometimes the Olympics really are.

Friday, February 07, 2014

Flying colours

This one is funny


This one, not so much


Both demonstrate that the worldwide anger at Russia for their homophobia isn't dying down and won't be going away.
Canadian cities are flying rainbow flags throughout the Olympics to demonstrate their support.  (Rob Ford, of course, continues down the wrong side of history but he's not really the mayor anymore so nobody cares what he thinks.)
Here is Montreal:
Toronto Mayor Rob Ford doesn't want rainbow flag flown at city hall during Olympics

Edmonton:
Flip, flop, fly: Rainbow flag flies at Edmonton City Hall and Calgary follows suit

At AthleteAlly, the athletes are gathering support for the Principle 6 campaign.



AT&T is speaking out, and urging other companies to do likewise.
And Google has declared its colours:

Olympic Charter: Today's Google Doodle make a big statement about gay rights and the Sochi Games.

I think its another sign of the times that the Globe and Mail is covering this not as a political/social issue but in the business pages.

Monday, February 03, 2014

Consultation? We don't do no stinkin' consultation!

“The chief electoral officer has not been consulted, and we heard the minister’s comments,” said spokesman John Enright.
“There’s been no consultation on the contents of the bill.”
OF COURSE the Harper Cons didn't consult with the chief electoral officer about their new Elections bill!
These guys never consult with anybody about anything.  Don't bother them with the facts, whatever they think is right and that's that.
So why would anyone believe they had actually discussed their plans to change election laws with the office that is supposed to implement them? That's something the Liberals did, and there's no way the Harper Cons will ever do things the Liberal way!
Ralph Goodale says:
“It’s ominous … given their track record with Elections Canada, which has been confrontational right from Day 1, and then resentful. It now may have moved to vindictive,” said Goodale.
“It’s significant that they’ve prepared this [bill] without any serious discussion with anyone at Elections Canada. I think everyone would be well advised to read the fine print with a great deal of care.”
Goodale recited just some of the fractious Conservative history with the elections watchdog and said parliamentarians “all need to be very alert.”
“This could in effect be the gutting of Elections Canada.”
Yes, I expect it will be.  Trevor Purdy's got it right:

Great line of the day

Charles Pierce on the startling discovery by American corporations that without a middle class, there are not going to be any middle-class businesses anymore:

This may be the first country to die of the incredibly obvious.
And I guess nobody remembers anymore that unions are good for the economy?

Best Superbowl commercials

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Sunday, February 02, 2014

Why we say the prairies are beautiful

This video that I found on Bad Astronomy was shot in South Dakota, Wyoming and Utah, by videographer Randy Halverson. It shows why we call ourselves big sky country.


Saturday, February 01, 2014

Today in cute



Rolling Stone has an article about The Puppy Bowl:
This Sunday, millions of Americans will gather around their televisions to watch their favorite athletes compete in a thrilling contest of physical will, fearless playmaking and instinctive grace. A bunch of other people will be watching the Super Bowl.
And here's the link to last year's PB videos.

Friday, January 31, 2014

The snow advantage



A town in New Mexico has been buried in tumbleweeds, to the extent that
some people can't even get out of their houses.
It had never occurred to me before that snow has one advantage -- snow will eventually melt.
Tumbleweeds, not so much.

No matter how cynical I get, I just can't keep up

When the NDP proposed their e-petition idea, I'm sure they were thinking how nice it would be if Canadians could petition the Commons to debate things like denying health care to refugees, and smearing environmentalists, and closing veterans affairs offices.

But when I read that the NDP scores surprise win on e-petitions thanks to Tory MPs I thought, how odd that eight Con MPs would vote with the NDP on anything.

Then I noticed that these particular Con MPs also voted in favour of the Wordworth motion two years ago -- Con MPs have tried again and again and again to get the abortion question opened up, but Harper, to his credit, won't do it.

So is it too cynical of me to think that the Con MPs supported the NDP just to force the Commons to debate abortion?

Thursday, January 30, 2014

Do NOT mess around with our drive home!



Politicians get away with it most of the time.

I'm not talking about corruption, just the usual stupid stuff.

Though journalists often try to call out rank incompetence -- and us bloggers are frothing at the mouth about politics -- people usually aren't really paying enough attention.  What comes from Washington or Ottawa or Regina or city hall is just more yada-yada-yada and they're busy with their own lives and not really paying attention.

But DO NOT screw up our drive home!

There is nothing that infuriates us more.  Recent examples? Well, Chris Christie's political career is apparently over because of the traffic jams on a bridge last September. And in Atlanta, "snowpocolypse" has the mayor and the governor under fire for stranding people overnight in cars and school buses.

It's such a shock to them when everyone actually starts paying attention.

Tuesday, January 28, 2014

Harper's words slither when they pass



Trudeau was asking questions today about why the Harper Cons spent $2.5 million on advertising for JobScam, the job program that never existed.  Harper's response sounded pretty spacey:
..the Liberal leader had simply refused to acknowledge one important element of the Canada Job Grant: the basic notion’s ability to cheer people up.
“Mr. Speaker, I noted that the Canada Job Grant was in fact very well received by those in the marketplace,” Mr. Harper enthused, “by people who want to upgrade their skills, want to receive more training, want to gain jobs and, by pluralism, want to create jobs.”  . . . a bit like the film industry deciding to promote movies that have not yet been financed or cast.
As Dave writes:
Well, that just makes you all squishy thinking about all those happy people dreaming about the imaginary jobs they're going to get when the Harper government finally gets off their collective asses and actually negotiates a deal with the people who will be providing the access to training. Someday. Maybe. Would you like a sparkle pony with that elephant turd pie?
And Montreal Simon continues
Canadians were GRATEFUL to pay millions of their hard earned tax dollars to make it look like he was creating jobs when he wasn't?
Huh?
... OMG. Has the mad emperor no trappings of decency?
Or has our mad Moses lost his marbles?
No, actually, I think he's just listening a little too much to the Beatles lately.  He and the rest of the Harper Cons make about this much sense...
Words are flowing out like
endless rain into a paper cup
They slither while they pass
They slip away across the universe
...
Thoughts meander like a
restless wind inside a letter box
They tumble blindly as
they make their way across the universe


Monday, January 27, 2014

Good faith bargaining

I don't know the details of this particular case, but I am very glad to see a court slap down a public service negotiator for not bargaining in good faith:

... the government representatives were pre-occupied by another strategy,” Justice Griffin wrote. “Their strategy was to put such pressure on the union that it would provoke a strike by the union. The government representative thought this would give government the opportunity to gain political support for imposing legislation on the union.”

...The government’s team, led by former president and CEO of the Public Sector Employers’ Council Paul Straszak ...thought all that was needed to make the legislation constitutional was consultation – a conclusion condemned by Justice Griffin as incorrect.
“A party cannot say it is consulting if it starts from the position that its mind is made up no matter what the other side presents by way of evidence or concerns,” she said.
Yes, exactly!

I've been in and out of unions now for more than 40 years.  The people who do the bargaining on behalf of the public are never doing taxpayers any favours when they play political games and subvert bargaining processes.  There's been entirely too much of this type of thing in public sector bargaining in Canada, particularly over the last decade.  I'm glad the courts are sending a message to cut it out.

And speaking of unions, here is a chart from Unifor --via Larry Hubich -- which compares unionization to poverty rates.

It is not in the least surprising to me that the poverty rate in a country plummets when more of its employees are protected by unions.

Unionization and poverty

The union makes us strong.

If you work in an office

Here is a conference call in real life:

Sunday, January 26, 2014

Things I hate*

Well, Saskboy, I tried.
Saskboy had a post about my town of Saskatoon, so of course I tried to leave a comment. Then his website wouldn't accept my login or maybe I didn't have an account or maybe I wasn't using the right password for that particular account or something, I don't know...
So, after three attempts, I gave up -- it wasn't that important a comment anyway, so sorry, Saskboy!
There are a number of great websites I can never comment on because of problems like this -- POGGE is another one that I have tried and failed several times to comment on, often enough that I don't even try anymore.
I guess it's all the fault of spam, isn't it. In the good old days, we were all just one big happy family and everyone could just comment anywhere we liked. And then too many spammers started leaving irrelevant sales pitches in comments sections of blogs, and the blogs fought back by requiring log-ins, and mystery word squiggles, and so much for "community" ....

*First in what I expect will be a series, considering how crotchety I am getting.