Don't Mess with the Internet - Week 43 - Feb 20-27

This week, we'll start with a nice photo of Steve-O.

Can't you just see Vic Toews...sitting in his office, shaking his head, shaking a little bit.  "With us....against us...I thought....".  And then Anonymous is threatening him and everybody knows that he cheated on his wife.  Who knew politics was so hard?  Life in a dictatorsh...majority.  Hey, the police think it's a good idea!  Must be okay.  Never announce support for an Internet spying bill a week after a dozen of your officers are caught viewing porn.

The Bob Dechert affair...either CSIS is so on the ball that they knew about it and it became their own little CSIS joke.  Or, they're clueless.  Oh boy, watch my counter go up with "CSIS" and "clueless" so close to one another!

Have you ever seen a map of pipeline locations across North America?  They're really everywhere.  Short of an earthquake, other natural disaster or some crazy dude attempting to blow them up, they're probably fairly safe.  My two biggest problems with these latest pipeline proposals are:

A) After raping our own land for tar sands, we're going to ship an unfinished product somewhere else to be turned into a high value good.

B) We're going to turn our coast into a supertanker superhighway.

Unfortunately, it looks like all the tanker traffic has been given the go ahead.

More on dirty tricks from Steve-O and his buddies in the last election.  And more on the robo-calls.

Tough on crime gained one supporter (some Quebec Justice Minster) and one detractor (an American who says he helped write America's mandatory sentencing laws.  The Quebec Justice Minister suggests that criminals should have to liquidate their assets to pay for their own incarceration.  The American says "I played a major role in writing the mandatory minimum drug sentencing laws which later turned out to not only be ineffective in reducing drug use, but which directly contributed to the disastrous over incarceration problem in this country".  Hmmm....who should we listen to?  Stupid "experts", muddying the waters again with their informed opinions and "facts".

As I was saying last week...The oil sands are now justified.  Because one science person said so.

This is about Americaland, but it's a pretty good simplification about what is going on in the world right now.  It touches on the hands off approach to the economic recovery in Europe vs. Government intervention in North America.

Dealing with Absolutes - Week 42 - Feb 13-20

It's a busy week.  Angry John Baird gets our photo of the week.  I've been waiting a while to see this guy again.

One thing I've learned in life is a healthy respect for absolutes.  Right or wrong.  Black or white.  Ham or cheese.  There are no middle grounds in anything and anybody that thinks so is delusional.  It's a digital world, people need to accept that.  That's why I think this new statement about either being for child pornography is great.  I mean, what bad things could come from the government having complete visibility of everything that we do on our computers?  I mean...this certainly couldn't have anything to do with all of these new copyright laws.  That's child pornographer talk.

Righteous indignation is awesome when somebody else has done something and you have no proof.  Kind of overshadows your own dirty tricks...push polling ridings to make them think their recently voted in MP is going to quit comes to mind.  I kind of hope the NDP is behind Vikileaks.  I would respect their nefariousnous.

And, apparently, the police and government have been working pretty hard to fabricate justification for this law, as none appears to be readily apparent. And...and...apparently they want to not just give access to police, but to government appointed inspectors as well.

Oh, it gets better.  Apparently Vic Toews was surprised when the CBC asked him about the provision that "any" police officer could ask for data from an ISP.   "This is the first time that I'm hearing this somehow extends ordinary police emergency powers."  So, who exactly drafted this bill?

Now, as I trolled through comments on a variety of stories on the above, I came across the oddest rumour...It's just so strange...but appears to be all over the place.

Some specifics around the environmental/animal rights groups targeted as "extremists" by the Harper Government.  The list includes Greenpeace and PETA.

More bad news on fighter jets.  It seems pretty silly to stick with this program.  It's like when you pre-order your Benz 4 years ahead of time and they keep jacking up the price and deleting options.  I hate it when that happens.

A study just came out claiming the oil sands aren't as bad as coal.  I've got a problem with this study.  They took the total reserves of different types of fuel and projected what the effect would be if they were burned in their entirety.  In essence, if we burn all of our coal, we're in big trouble.  If we burn all of our tar sands sourced oil, it's not a big deal.  But there's got to be a lot more coal throughout the world than tar sands, no?  This study doesn't help us understand the difference between heating out house (for example) with one over the other.  It just seems a bit confusing to me and I see this as Stephen Harper's get out of jail free card on the oil sands.

You know what I'm really sick of?  All these well educated foreign doctors, lawyers, engineers, etc. that come to Canada and take all of our cab driving jobs.  And security guard jobs.  Somebody needs to put a stop to that sort of thing.  Some of them even claim that somebody is trying to kill them back home, which most likely is nonsense.

A study just came out claiming the oil sands aren't as bad as coal.  I've got a scientific problem with this study.  They took the total reserves of different types of fuel and projected what the effect would be if they were burned in their entirety.  In essence, if we burn all of our coal, we're in big trouble.  If we burn all of our tar sands sourced oil, it's not a big deal.  But there's got to be a lot more coal throughout the world than tar sands, no?  This study doesn't help us understand the difference between heating out house (for example) with one over the other.  It just seems a bit confusing to me and I see this as Stephen Harper's get out of jail free card on the oil sands.

Oh.  Ya.  Another study about downloading.  Bittorrent?  Not so bad.

Way to stir up trouble with a headline, Globe and Mail.  A Catholic couple sued the Province for teaching a mandatory course that taught students about the multitude of religions out there...as this somehow infringed on their religious right to believe that their beliefs are the only ones out there.  Somehow "Mandatory religion course doesn't infringe on freedoms" sounds a bit more scandalous.

Gun Registry legislation is done.

A member of the Harper Government wants to change the way Parliament is filmed on Friday's because there are lots of people missing and it looks bad.  There's no comment necessary for this one.

Apparently, you can bring your baby to work if you're an MP.

Under the Rug - Week 41 - Feb 6-13

Is Canada going to SOPA up?  Well, they shut down debate on the issue.  But it doesn't matter because there has been "widespread consultation".  Widespread consultation that suggests the bill is flawed and will therefore be ignored (the consultation, that is), but consultation nonetheless.

Way to go Canada!  Winning the war on terror!  This Quebec Muslim man was arrested for sending a text to his workmates that they should "blow away" the competition at an upcoming trade show.  Not surprisingly, reddit has already created this meme.

There's a new strategy for getting pipelines approved - call opponents terrorists!  Money quote “I find it offensive that there is a list that puts people trying to protect the environment on the same list as white supremacists”.

In Canada, we don't torture people.  Unless it's really necessary.

Some Quebec MP's have decided not to accept their Queen's Jubilee medals.  I think the story should be about why the other 302 are given one in the first place.

In Canada, we don't torture people.  Unless it's really necessary.


No more talking about the long gun registry.  What do you guys think Parliament is for, anyhow?  This isn't even the first shutdown of debate THIS WEEK!  See ite  m 1.

Alberta starts laying the groundwork for succession as the 1% Province.  They're just so fabulously wealthy they want assurances that other Provinces aren't wasting their charity.  How nice of them!


And Stephen Harper spends some time in China.  Basically promising them everything that they want.  Don't worry though.  He used the phrase "human rights" in a speech.  Showing them who the boss is.

Harper's office racks up travel costs.  Some of them paying $6,000+ for flights to London.  There's also some $10-15,000 multi-leg airfares.  Somebody should tell them that there are websites for this sort of thing.

Online Arguments - Week 40 - Jan 30-Feb 6

John Baird gets the photo this week.  Way to go, man!

I'm sure everybody heard about this, but Jason Kenney's office decided to send some staff members to pose as recent immigrants when they couldn't find enough real immigrants to go along with their Sun News photo op/story.  The surprising thing?  They actually apologized.  I dig their disguises as well, with three of them wearing the same T-shirt.

Sticking with the Ministers doing weird and stupid things theme, last week I think it was, somebody at the Globe and Mail wrote an article that our good buddy John Baird didn't like.  I would imagine this probably happens quite frequently.  And I can only think that it's good government policy to not respond to every story that angers you.  But our good buddy John Baird decided to write a column in response.  Which seems kind of crazy.  If the guy is as out to lunch as John Baird claims, then why respond?  It seems crazy.  Like if Obama suddenly decided to cave in and provide everybody with even more proof of his birth certificate.  You're just feeding the lunacy.  What?  He did?  Oh, and then John Baird invokes Godwin's Law and brings Hitler in to the argument.

Nunavut has decided that Tough On Crime is kind of a dumb thing that will cost a lot of money.  When a place that experiences 24-hour darkness and that uses frozen rivers as major highways thinks that something is a bad idea, you should probably listen.

Stupid experts.  What do these "economists" know about the economy anyhow?  Now is the perfect time to cut funding to everything and anything.  There's no election to win.

After that, Boingboing points to an article that shows that the entertainment industry has experienced some pretty okay years recently.  Even growing while the rest of the economy was in recession.  Could constantly asking for more and more and more finally prove to be a poor strategy as even the mouth breather catch on to the fact that some of this stuff is crazy?  Wait, now, these same companies are pushing for SOPA style additions to Canada's copyright legislation...because it worked out so well in the US.

More Copyright.  Tom the Dancing Bug uses God Man to take on Copyright.  Pretty good stuff.

The F-35 has a few more problems.  It doesn't sound like anything serious, but it's feeling a bit Unsafe at Any Speed.

Stephen Harper has shown his hand for how he plans on dealing with the Senate.  Appoint idiots until everybody agrees that the Senate is a bad idea.  This guy suggests that we encourage convicted murderers to hang themselves.  Not surprisingly, a shocking number of people agree with him.  Which, of course, justifies the point of view.  Everybody knows that a 600 person mob legitimizes any behaviour.

And finally...How dare you point out the fact that we're threatening to do something that people won't like.  This is all your fault, Liberals and NDP.  Not ours for threatening to change pensions.