This is why we can't permit another abortion law in this country

Because when politicians get the chance, they will spend endless time passing more and more ridiculous and picayune anti-choice laws.
Like this one in Missouri last week:

requiring a woman to wait 72 hours from the time of her initial medical consultation to have an abortion (current law mandates a 24-hour waiting period)

Or these ones in Louisiana

HB 388... would promote back-alley abortions by forcing the closure of three of the state's five clinics as a consequence of requiring their physicians to have admitting privileges at a hospital within a 30-mile radius that has obstetrical-gynecological services....
• HB 1274: This bill, already passed unanimously by the Louisiana House, would mandate that a pregnant brain-dead woman be kept on life support until the fetus develops far enough to be viable.
• HB 1262 mandates that physicians or other qualified persons provide a pamphlet to women seeking abortions. The pamphlet cannot come from an abortion provider but it can come from someone who counsels women not to obtain abortions. It would list the "serious psychological impacts, including severe emotional distress and mental and behavioral health afflictions" that supposedly accompany abortions.
• HB 305 prohibits "Knowingly providing any materials of any kind to school personnel or any other person for viewing by or distribution to students at a public elementary or secondary school, or at a charter school that receives state funding, regardless of the topic or viewpoint of such materials, if the materials are created by or bear the identifying mark of an organization, individual, or any other entity, or of an affiliate of any such organization, individual, or entity, that performs elective abortion. ..." That's right. Even if the topic is how to cook a cherry pie, anybody affiliated with an abortion provider or using materials developed by an abortion provider cannot make a presentation of the contents at a public or charter school.

And then the pro-choice activists have to spend their lives fighting these idiotic laws in the courts, where they are almost invariably overturned.  We don't need this in Canada.
Our politicians in Canada already waste enough time with pointless political stunts that do nothing but harass people.
Canada doesn't need to spend its time talking about another abortion law.

Fun for the weekend

From io9 - This animated short is the best 10-second adventure you'll take today:

It's Jump-the-shark season on TV

As the season finales appear day by day, we see more and more TV shows that end by some lead character jumping the shark.
Remember how pissed off everyone was when the producers ended the first season of The Killing without actually solving the killing, which was the one reason anybody was watching the series?
That's nothing to how pissed off Castle fans are about not seeing the wedding they've been talking about and talking about ALL DAMN SEASON LONG!  The ridiculous Castle finale actually ended with one of those Is-Castle-Dead? burning car endings -- and with Becket, in her wedding dress, weeping on the side of the road.  Maybe Nathan Fillion's contract is up for renegotiation.
And I think contract negotiations are the only possible reason for that silly Chicago Fire finale -- virtually the entire cast dashed into a burning building which of course then immediately proceeded to explode. Whocouldanode?  I guess which characters stagger out next fall will depend on who signs contracts over the summer.
At least NCIS spared us another Is-Gibbs-Dead? / Is-Ducky-Dead? / Is-Ziva-Dead? ending, which wouldn't have worked very well anyway considering that Ralph Waite really is.
And while the Person Of Interest finale dispatched their Anonymous-clone Vigilance group in a predictable way, the dispersal of its cast in the final scene was as fascinating a way to end a season as I have ever seen.
And next season, these:

Blood, Toil, Tears and Sweat

It was May 13, 1940 that Winston Churchill made his first speech to the Commons as Prime Minister, the "Blood, Toil, Tears and Sweat" speech:
""

You ask what is our policy. I will say, it is to wage war with all our might, with all the strength that God can give us, to wage war against a monstrous tyranny never surpassed in the dark, lamentable catalogue of human crime. You ask what is our aim? I can answer in one word: Victory. Victory at all costs. Victory in spite of all terror. Victory however long and hard the road may be. For without victory there is no survival.  ..come then, let us go forward together with our united strength.

As Edward R. Murrow said, Churchill mobilized the English language and sent it into battle.

Great tweet of the day

But if you think an open debate about reasonable limits on abortion is the pro-life end goal, I've got a chocolate teapot to sell you

— Lauren DH (@roseneath_rd) May 10, 2014

Via @fernhilldammit

I am Canadianized!

In other parts of the continent, its called "uppity".
But I like calling it "Canadianized" -- asking for an employer to treat you like a fellow human being instead of an indentured servant.
Deny it all they like, but of course the advice given by a Saskatoon recruiting firm to a restaurant owner was intended to intimidate his temporary foreign workers from asking for better treatment from their employer:

According to the email, which was obtained by CBC's iTeam, the Saskatoon-based recruiter told Houston Pizza in Estevan, Sask., that some employers of temporary foreign workers find that over time, the workers "become 'Canadianized' and increase their demands on the employers.'"
"We believe a simple reminder to the workers will reverse the effects of the Canadian influence," it says. The 2011 email essentially suggested telling such "Canadianized" workers that if things don't work out, they could be sent home.
...Apparently, among the worker demands the company was referring to were requests for time off.
The email reminds the restaurant owners that "time off must meet the employer's schedule NOT the workers."

I think these folks need a union!
Many years ago, I heard a drugstore owner complaining up and down when the minimum wage was raised, because he didn't want to pay his "girls" any more money because they were all such awful employees.   And I thought, No wonder nobody wants to work for you, you old misogynist, when you treat your staff only as a drain on your profits.
I had hoped that attitude was long gone in Canada, but I guess not.
Because it seems like some employers just cannot resist the impulse to act like dirtbags to their employees when they get the chance.  And the TFW Program has given them that chance.
Why can't these employers understand that we are proud of our country and we want it to treat well the people who come here to work?

Lost boys

Stephen Harper has lost Andrew Coyne:

It is one thing to savage a political opponent or beat up on a distinguished civil servant. But to accuse the nation’s highest judge of professional misconduct — for that is what was insinuated, if not quite alleged, an ethical breach serious enough to warrant her resignation — is so ill-considered, so destructive of both the court’s position and his own, that it leaves one wondering whether he is temperamentally suited to the job.

Umm, no, he never has been.
And now even Charles Adler is jumping ship:

PM fighting with Auditor General, Chief Justice SCC & now #PTSD vets.
If Justin was doing this #CPC would say he's in #OverHisHead

— Charles Adler (@charlesadler) May 6, 2014

Now the Harper PMO thinks it can get rid of McLaughlin?

You can see where this is heading.
The Harper Cons have rid themselves of dozens of principled civil servants over the last eight years.
Now they think they've found a way to trash the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court and get her to resign too:
Harper alleges Supreme Court Chief Justice broke key rule with phone call - The Globe and Mail

Prime Minister Stephen Harper has accused Supreme Court Chief Justice Beverley McLachlin of breaching a basic rule of her office, as a deepening conflict between the government and the country’s highest court breaks out into a public dispute.
The Prime Minister’s Office publicly asserted that the Chief Justice attempted to contact Mr. Harper about a court case, and said that he refused to take her phone call when Justice Minister Peter MacKay told him it would be “inappropriate.”

This smear tactic was refuted openly and strongly by McLaughlin's office:

...in an unusual move, McLachlin's office publicly replied to allegations she may have lobbied against Nadon's appointment.
A statement issued by the Supreme Court's executive legal officer, Owen Rees, explains McLachlin was consulted by the special parliamentary committee that was tasked with studying a short list of names drawn up by MacKay's office....
"The chief justice did not lobby the government against the appointment of Justice Nadon," Rees wrote. He said McLachlin or her office flagged a potential problem to both MacKay and the prime minster's chief of staff, Ray Novak, but "did not express any views on the merits of the issue."...
Françoise Boivin, the NDP's justice critic, said the government tends to trash people who are the bearers of bad news. "When they are stopped by the court, well, it is not them who is wrong, it's everybody else," she said.
MP Sean Casey, speaking for the Liberals, said the government attacks people who offer what he called "contrary" opinions. "That's the way these guys operate — when the only tool in your tool kit is a sledge hammer everything looks like a rock."

These guys also don't know when to shut up.

Update on our weather

Here comes the sun

What to do if you are attacked by a banana

Throwing a banana a Barcelona soccer player has a familiar ring, doesn't it.
He ate the banana, thus disarming his attacker!

Its snowing. Again.

Here's this morning's U of S webcam screenshot.
Will it never end?
Last Thursday, as I got my morning coffee, I saw a duck perched on the peak of the snow-covered roof of the house next door, turning around and obviously saying "What the f**k is this?  I come back here to build a nest and THIS is what I get?"
(Yes, I know I should have snapped a "duckie" on my celphone and posted it to my tens of twitter followers but I never thought of it, sorry.)
Anyway that day's snow went away later that day.
Now this morning its BAAACK!, heavier than ever -- the snow, not the duck.
I think the duck has likely given up in despair.

Obama calls out racism without trashing the racists

Obama is truly one of the greatests Presidents the United States has ever had.
Racism is such a deep part of the American character and experience, I have sometimes despaired that it will ever be eradicated.  It has dominated America's civic life for the last two centuries -- where Americans live, how they school their children, how they organize their health care and welfare systems, how they design their cities, how they vote, their political parties -- to the point that racism has become one of the most basic distinctions between American society and Canadian society.
But if there is any one person who can lead America toward a better future, it is Barak Obama.
Here he is talking about LA Clippers owner Donald Sterling.  While calling Sterling's comments "incredibly offensive racist statements", he also provided, in just a few words, a perspective for Americans to adopt toward this controversy:

Obama cast the comments through a broader prism of racism in America, adding that “we constantly have to be on guard on racial attitudes that divide us rather than embracing our diversity as a strength.”
“The United States continues to wrestle with the legacy of race and slavery and segregation, that’s still there, the vestiges of discrimination,” Obama said during a news conference in Malaysia, where he was travelling.
“We’ve made enormous strides, but you’re going to continue to see this percolate up every so often,” he added. “And I think that we just have to be clear and steady in denouncing it, teaching our children differently, but also remaining hopeful that part of why statements like this stand out some much is because there has been this shift in how we view ourselves.”

Its more than "vestiges" of course, as Obama knows very well. This description acknowledges the reality of racism while also marginalizing it, assuring America that the better angels of their nature will prevail, that the future will be better than the past.  That's what leadership looks like.

John Betts is not going to like Jason Kenney anymore

Kenney calls upon fast-food employers to raise wages, employ more Canadians:

Federal Employment Minister Jason Kenney called a new moratorium on the fast-food industry's use of the temporary foreign worker program a "wake-up call" to employers that they should be taking a long, hard look across the country for Canadians to fill vacant jobs.

I wonder if MacDonalds CEO John Betts still thinks that Kenney "knows his stuff from a business person’s perspective."  

What Kenney is telling employers is, smarten up!

Because I'm afraid that one of the "perspectives" that employers unfortunately like about Temporary Foreign Workers is that they have no life here in Canada.

They have no kids taking hockey lessons, no daycare centre to get to before it closes, no spouse doing shift-work, no parents to drive to doctor appointments, no mortgage to pay, no lawn to mow, no "take your child to work" day.  So the TFWs can work bizarre split shifts, they can come into work at a moment's notice, they're willing to work whatever overtime they can get, and they don't worry about whether their job has any kind of future.  

Canadian employees, on the other hand -- and immigrants, too -- have a life outside of work.  They quite reasonably expect their workplace will recognize this, and will occasionally accommodate its demands. They expect their employer to respect their families, and their communities. They say "no" to oddball shifts and excessive overtime.

Every now and then they even leave work to vote!

CFIB president Dan Kelley thinks Canadians don't have a work ethic.  But what we do have is a life!

Immigrants, too, are trying to have careers here, wanting to bring their families with them and grow with their communities.  In making it more difficult for immigrants to come here, the Harper Cons have let down Canada.  More TFWs, nice people that they are, are not a substitute for citizens or prospective citizens who want to build their lives here.

Good help is easy to find, if you pay for it

The whining from Canadian restaurants over the TFW cancellation is both offensive and insulting to Canada.

Any restaurant anywhere in the country that has to close down because it cannot find enough local teenagers or university students or unemployed people willing to work for them just isn't offering high enough pay.

That's basically the problem, isn't it? The restaurateurs don't want to have to pay a living wage to their staff, they'd rather use desperate immigrants who will work cheap and not demand better.

I'll bet more than one of these upstanding citizens has also been pulling the same kind of scam as this Tim Horton franchisee was accused of doing -- charging back to the employees the costs of their work permits and LPO surveys.  I'll bet he didn't think of doing this all by himself;  I'll bet this is common practice in the Canadian restaurant industry.

Because, you know, this industry is made up of those poor, poor corporations that are being so unfairly persecuted by everybody except the Minister, Jason Kenney, who apparently understands how important it is for Canada that restaurants can hire fry cooks cheap so that they can continue to sell burgers for $1.99.

As CBC dryly notes in its story about the infamous MacDonald's conference call:

At no point during the recording does the CEO mention hiring Canadians instead of temporary foreign workers or go over the rules of the federal Temporary Foreign Worker Program.

It's not about racism, nor is it about the workers themselves.

Its about the Canadian restaurant companies who are screwing them.  And us.

Great line of the day

University of Montreal professor Paul Daly on the Supreme Court decision that the Harper Cons cannot unilaterally change the Senate:

Constitutional change is “difficult . . . and why shouldn’t it be difficult?” he added. “These are the fundamental institutions of Canadian democracy. It’s not because some people in the Senate are not up to scratch that sweeping change is necessary and it’s not because the politicians of the day don’t have an appetite for constitutional negotiation that we should make it easier. Maybe we should elect politicians who are more willing to go to the constitutional table.”

Emphasis mine.

CTV News tonight described Harper as having focused on Senate reform since he was first elected Prime Minister.  No, he hasn't done anything at all to reform the Senate.  He has talked about it endlessly since he became PM.  But the only thing he has actually done is to appoint the most cynically partisan group of intellectual lightweights ever called Senators.