Go away for a few days and the world goes crazy. The pope quits?
Brazeau is facing charges? Stephen Harper's stupid hockey book is coming out? Okay. I guess those are the only major
things, but still, it seems a bit shocking. Incidentally, where does the Prime Minister of the country find time to write a book? Imagine if Obama released a book on basketball in the next few months?
It's interesting about Brazeau. The Conservatives seem to have no
problem when he is accused of fraud (ya, I'm calling cheating on your
Senate housing expenses fraud) or does a major sexist freak-out on a
journalist. But they're tripping all over themselves to kick him out of
their party when he is accused of assault? This Tyee article nicely puts what I've been thinking in to words: Harper really knows how to cut and run.
There are some interesting nuggets contained in this story about Brazeau
getting suspended from the Senate. The other Senators seem pretty pissed that
they have to deal with him.
The Conservatives have edited out criticism by the Parliamentary Budget
Officer and the Auditor General in a report on the F-35 fiasco.
Remember the Saskatchewan Robo-Calls thing last week. Turns out it is in no way the fault of the Conservatives. It was done by their employee. Who they hired. And who reports to them. But it's her fault. Not theirs.
I tried to post a link about how the Conservatives are funneling funding to aid organizations with religious ties, but I couldn't find a link. Well, they finally got caught funding a really terrible one with horrendous anti-gay beliefs. And somehow claim that it doesn't matter.
Amazing how opinion polls are a Conservatives best friend when they align with their specific plans. But is Mali really "another
Afghanistan"? I guess it could be, in the sense that it could drag on
for years and people could get killed. But the reasons for going into
Afghanistan vs. the reasons for going in to Mali seem worlds apart.
The Federal Government claims that they have killed their internet snooping bill and promise that they won't bring it back. Didn't they
already kill this thing once? Why should we now believe their promises?
What bothers me about the Conservative "tough-on-crime" agenda is that
it's just tremendously easy politics with no real benefit. It is tough
to argue against the stance that criminally insane killers spend more time in custody.
But there are two things wrong with this. Number one, we're talking
about an incredibly small handful of cases here. Why do we spend so
much time worrying about this shit? (answer - easy politics) Number
two, if we would perhaps spend some time worrying about support systems
for the mentally ill, perhaps we wouldn't have to worry so much about
this stuff as the crimes wouldn't happen in the first place.
Rona Ambrose suggests that Canadian Companies should get more involved with defense procurement/manufacturing. Okay. After witnessing British Columbia
attempt to create a fast ferry manufacturing industry I'm going to
suggest that this is perhaps a bad idea.
HD Mining reached out to the Union to end the foreign workers dispute.
To me, it reads like "give us everything that we want and then we can
start negotiating". I just can't agree more with the union. Canadian
Resources should be used (well, they say to create Canadian Jobs) for
the good of the country. If the country isn't benefiting to the maximum
possible extent, then what the fuck are we digging this stuff up for in
the first place? Why is it a race to dig shit out of the ground? It's
not going anywhere.
Did you know that there is a native polar bear hunt and that they're allowed to sell the hides on the international market? Man. That seems a bit fucked up. We're also apparently responsible for dwindling wolverine numbers in the USA.
So not just the Conservatives are making questionable decisions on
Queen's Jubilee medals. The NDP awarded one to a guy facing firearms charges. And they're standing by it.
(Since I wrote this, the Cons clarified that they only want to banish people with multiple citizenships. But I think this still stands. It's still war on brown people.) So, we're going to strip the citizenship of Canadians who commit "acts of war against Canadians" or "terrorism". On the surface, I guess this
sounds fine. This would justify the Canadian government doing nothing
in cases like Omar Khadr. But here's my thought. Once you're a
Canadian, you're a Canadian. Good or bad, you're a Canadian. There's
lots of Canadians that do really stupid shit. They remain Canadian.
So, we're going to strip the citizenship of somebody who, what?
Donates money to the wrong people? Does something that the US doesn't
agree with? What about somebody who blows up a Canadian pipeline? Are
they a "terrorist"? Are they no longer Canadian? Oh. Wait. They're
probably white so no problem.
And now CSIS is talking about "domestic terrorism". Is it just a
coincidence that the Cons are talking about revoking the citizenship of
"terrorists"?
Certain Copyright focussed Organizations are lobbying for the ability to install monitoring software on your computer to track their interests.
That's right. Not only do you not really want you to own the stuff
that they sell you (by holding on to a piece of it with their crazy,
crazy requirements), they want to be able to tap in to the computer that
you (thought you) own(ed) to make sure you aren't doing anything that
upsets them. Fuck these guys. Honestly. The companies associated with
these associations need to be punished. I'm sick and tired of
companies making obscene demands that will impact my life.
This doesn't really compute with me. We're drastically cutting our
military budget. We're forcing senior officers out (that can't be
cheap). And we're spending tonnes and tonnes of money purchasing new
equipment. This doesn't add up.
So apparently the LAPD is just shooting random people on their manhunt for a cop killer. You don't hear about that much in the news.
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