Talking About Orange Juice - Week 52 - Apr 23-30

Let's start with Bev Oda.

What exactly does the "International Co-Operation Minister" do?  I had originally heard that she was in London for a "Child Poverty" conference when she racked up all her luxury bills.  But no.  The irony was too delicious.  It was simply a conference on "immunization of children in poor countries".  Which is almost worse.  Not just poor kids, but poor kids that will eventually have autism (zing!).  I think this scandal needs a flashier name...once that references the $16 glass of orange juice.

The Conservatives have decided that arguing about the future isn't in their best interest.  They've decided to reach back to World War II, from before the NDP existed, to create their latest attack against said NDP.  Yes, the Conservatives have come down hard on the NDP for having a leader of their precursor party who was a pacifist and didn't want to go to war with Hitler.  And if it wasn't bad enough that they're reaching back 70+ years to come up with new political attacks, they've also decided that they're going to stretch the facts on what they are talking about.  Yes, this is leadership.  And perhaps it is starting to show.

Once again, the Conservatives are leading the way on making government small, keeping out of the way in a pursuit of freedom, as they work feverishly to keep a no brothels law on the books.

That Stephen Harper is a crafty one.  By allowing a backbench MP to continue his anti-abortion crusade he does two things:
1) Proves that he's not a tyrant. (because if he was then he certainly wouldn't allow something like this)
2) Keeps the abortion debate going without getting his hands dirty.
Oh wait.  He's come out against it.

And independent analysis of the robo-call scandal suggests that there is absolutely no way there wasn't some official support to what was going on.  The receivers of the robo-calls were overwhelmingly people who identified to pollsters as Liberals and NDP.  There aren't many people that would have that information.

Oh dear.  The Fisheries Act is up for a de-fanging next.  Indeed, why worry about all of those non-"vital" waterways.

What happens in all of these "committees" in the House of Commons?  Here, we hear about the Conservatives attempts to delay testimony from the Auditor General on the Fighter Jet debacle.  No names are given.  It's all very weird.  And now there are suggestions that even though they knew it was a debacle a year or so back (or longer), they still kept charging ahead.


What is the Conservative fascination with selling off Crown Corporations?

This Isn't Racist - Week 51 - April 16-23

Omar Khadr.  Good lord, can't we just bring this guy home?  Any time you go to prison looking like this:

And come out looking like this:

It feels like maybe something hasn't quite gone correctly.  This is a physical representation of prison actually turning somebody into a scary individual.  And is it just me, or do these artists renderings make him look a bit like Lebron James?

Hey.  Surprise, surprise.  The industries that are supposed to be governed by environmental regulations are happy that some of them are going away.  And, the coal industry managed to push back and get another set of regulations postponed.  Because keeping the coal industry happy sounds like something a forward thinking government should be concerned about.

Good news everybody.  The Wildrose Party in Alberta doesn't believe in "human created climate change".  That should help things out moving forward.

Hey!  Vic Toews!  Vic Toews tells us that everything is okay, we shouldn't be worried about prisons closing.  In Vic's own words “In fact, given that the influx of new prisoners originally predicted even by my own department is not materializing, I am announcing that our government will be closing two prisons.” You mean that legislation that passed a month ago?  Yes, that is surprising that populations haven't exploded since then.

The Conservatives decided that they're not interested in hearing from any Liberal or NDP selected witnesses in discussions about the Fighter Jet debacle.  Yes, we should quickly get right to the bottom of this by only hearing from who the Conservatives want us to hear from.

Stupid scientists at it again with their "data", "facts" and "informed decision making".  This time they want to hold off on fishing in the arctic until some more "studies" and "research" can be completed.  Crazy gang of idiots.

Tough on Crime, Drugs and Fidel - Week 50 - April 9-16

You know who else isn't a fan of Stephen Harper?  Fidel Castro.  I feel pretty good about that.

And speaking of Fidel, well, he's not just good for crazy rantings about North American leaders.  No, he's also capable (still!) of inspiring insane reactions from said leaders.  Obama and Harper have decided that Cuba shouldn't be included in a summit between Western Hemisphere countries.  They've also decided that, never mind the thousands and thousands of people dieing in all of those "other" countries, Canada and the US know best and the War on Drugs needs to continue so that white kids won't smoke weed.  Even though we can admit that the current approach doesn't work.

That evil CBC, don't they know that they're ruining corporate business models?  A bunch of late-to-the-party companies have decided that the CBC shouldn't offer up music for free online (unlike on the radio)  Apparently "The only music that you can hear for free is when the birds sing" says the completely unbiased CEO of "Stingray" (whatever the hell that is).  And Stephen Harper thought the only reason to hate the CBC was because of a non right-wing bias.

Speaking of government cuts, the Conservatives have also announced cuts to prison inmate reform programs.  Apparently we've spent too much money throwing people in to prison, we don't have any left to help them get out.

I'm not saying that the recent Conservative complaints about non-Robo-calls is disingenuous.  It just feels a bit hard to believe that they're just coming to light.  Like they're jealous about not getting their own robo-calls.  Is it possible that these are just the Conservatives phoning themselves and they got a bit confused about their call logs?

Not Good with Numbers - Week 49 - April 2-9

Peter McKay gets the photo this week, for ratcheting up the stupidity level.  See a few posts below.

If there is one thing that we've learned in the last few years, it's that corporations know how to do things.  Nothing can be accomplished better than a group of office slaves working towards maximizing profits at the expense of everything else.  Why not give them the responsibility of determining who can and cannot enter the country?  I'm sure there's absolutely no chance that this could fail or be abused.

I initially missed the irony of this story.  But Vic Toews, the killer of privacy, is requesting that we respect his as he gets his carcass hauled off to the hospital.  And he's probably going to bring his bill back from the dead.


The Fighter Jets are becoming a bit of a shitstorm, as the Auditor General has formally pointed out that the whole process is "stupid and crazy".  Okay, perhaps that's not an actual quote.  More of a paraphrase.  Why does it take the auditor general to change their course of action after years and years of everybody telling them that this is wrong?  And according to Peter McKay, it's all just "accounting".  They knew that it would cost this much, they just chose not to tell us.  But it's all above board.  Just a 40% accounting interpretation.

Great.  There's more polar bears than people expected so obviously Global Warming is a farce and we shouldn't worry about it.

Perhaps I need to create a new label - Why Democracy Does Not Work.  I'm not sure who to blame for this, but apparently the NDP has decided to just talk for several days during budget discussions.  The Liberals are angry because they don't get to share the spotlight.  And the Conservatives are probably happy because they get to point out that the other parties look stupid.  This is an actual paragraph in the story.   

By his own estimation. Mr. Julian talked non-stop for the better part of 14 hours over the course of four days. His voice had started to wear thin and he was forced to drink repeated sips of water just to keep going.

Initially, I chalked this story up to the NDP being kind of stupid and wasting time.  But then I started thinking...what else are they supposed to do?  They have absolutely no other mechanism to make any sort of impact on this legislation, or on anything, really.  Which is kind of scary.

The Norther Gateway Pipeline Environmental Review process has started.  And the panel shut things down for a day because there were some children outside and they got scared.  And they're not going to move the schedule.  They're just going to ignore that period of time and pretend it never happened.  It got me thinking...who are the review board?  First, there's Ms. Sheila Leggett, who seems to be a professional energy review board member.  Then, Mr. Kenneth Batemen, who also seems to be a professional energy review board member as well as a lawyer for energy companies.  Then, Mr. Hans Matthews, a geologist and aboriginal rights type dude.  Okay...maybe this isn't actually a completely terrible group of people.

Remember a few years ago when the Conservatives sold off some of our really expensive diplomatic properties as they were deemed "lavish and extravegent"?  Well, now we're going to stick our diplomats way out in the suburbs as their rental places are costing too much

And speaking of cuts, goodbye CBC!  Who needs a non-corporate run source of news and entertainment anyhow?

This is a great headline for a story.  Misleading, but great.  Baird pulls plug on Rights and Democracy.  I finally understand why newspapers capitalize headlines the way that they do.

Justin Trudeau beat up some long-haired guy.

Fighter jets.  Becoming a problem.  Auditor general.  Rejigging.  Doesn't really say anything.

The Budget - Week 48 - Mar 26-Apr2

Suddenly it all makes sense.  In the international version of an elementary school playground, Peter McKay claims that we won't be allowed to participate in wars if we aren't flying the same airplanes as the rest of our allies.  I remember saying the same thing to my mom about a pair of Nike high tops.  Look at him down there...all serious about needing his new fighter jets.

As well, the Globe finally catches on and publishes an article pointing out that these might not be the right planes for Canada...unless we really are intent on fighting a war against China.

So.  On to the Budget.  First up, we're going to create jobs by cutting jobs.  19,200 jobs, to be precise.  It is unclear on how this is going to help employment numbers.

Also in the budget, threats against charities that "engage in political activities".  Why can't these charities be like all of the good Conservative charities and only speak out against non-political things?  Like abortion and gay marriage.

The war on information continues as well, as many of the systems created to provide information to help the government govern are facing cuts.  Who needs statistics when you have the word of god to tell you what is right?

Other things contained in the budget:  the retirement age is raised to 67 and the environmental review process will be bludgeoned.  As a young Canadian, I must say that I wholeheartedly approve of these measures to make things better for the next generation.  Working longer in a hotter and more industrialized nation sounds like a small slice of heaven.

The Conservatives are starting to change their tune on robo-calls.  Now, as Elections Canada ratchets up its investigation, the Conservatives are talking about the minimal impact they must have had.

I can just see the rest of the MP's huddling in the back of the classroom, snickering at Vic Toews and his warning that Anonymous is a "threat to us all."  Not when nobody else plans on taking on the Internet, Vic.  I kind of almost agree with him though, but I think Vic needs to put things in perspective.  The Internet learning about Vics shady divorce isn't exactly bad enough to serve as a call to arms.