Weekly Highlights from our Conservative Overlords

Weekly Highlights from our Conservative Overlords

Monday, January 27, 2014

Mandatory Exploding Israeli Train Taxes - Week 143 - Jan 20-27

Stephen Harper has fully, truly, completely gone off the deep end with his Israel policy.  He has officially stated, in front of the Knesset, that Canada will never criticize Israel in public.  Full stop.  No ifs, ands, buts.  The hardliner, crazy faction within Israel will thing this gives them the right to do whatever they want, if they have support like this.  An Arab-Israeli Member of the Knesset explains exactly why Stephen Harper is a short-sighted buffoon.  You know you're doing it wrong when Sarah Palin is on your side.

Another judge has decided that mandatory minimum sentencing doesn't work.  "Cruel and unusual", even.

Even more library insanity, this time with Health Canada.  This story outlines terrible service from the 3rd Party delivery team, rogue unsanctioned libraries and government employees seeking information from industry and universities, all because the Conservatives are breaking the government library system.  As well, the Canada Centre for Inland Waters has been losing scientists and facing cuts.

This Tyee article outlines the type of abuse temporary foreign workers face when they come to Canada.  Insane fees to recruiting companies.  Excessive living allowances.  Etc.  Seems like it should be pretty easy for government to prevent this - don't grant permits to any person or company found guilty of infractions.

This is how it should work.  Government should have independent scientists and Engineers who determine the best, safest way to do things and they then require it from Industry.  Hell, Industry should pay the government for those scientists and engineers to do their oversight.  Anyhow, the Transportation Safety Board has recommendations for how to haul oil by rail.  We'll see what happens now.  Because even though these are TSB recommendations, apparently it's not even a done deal on the TSB's side as the Minister has to think about it.

The Globe has a story about ad spending, pointing out that the "Economic Action Plan" ended a few years ago.

The National Post tells the story of Conservative MP Mark Adler scrambling to get closer to the PM for a photo op in Israel.  Of course he insists that it was all just a really funny joke on his part.

A breakdown of how delusional and dishonest the Conservatives can be.  They raked the NDP over the coals for proposing an "iPod tax", and then introduced one themselves...while insisting it doesn't exist.


Holy shit!  I actually agree with part of what Rob Anders said!  I agree that "rape" has a more devastating connotation than "sexual assault", and it can make the crime sound less devestating.  But perhaps that change in language will further stigmatize victims?  That's the only negative I can see.  I'm open to hearing the other side of the argument here.

This does not paint a very pretty picture of Afghanistan and Canada's role in it.

When push comes to shove, Chuck Strahl does the right thing...and quits the crappy government job to become a high paid lobbyist.  Of course, being the good Conservative that he is he didn't do anything wrong and it's all your fault.


More great copyright news.  The Canadian RIAA, or whatever the hell they're calling themselves, want Internet surveillance and control in the name of fighting piracy.  Which sounds pretty awesome.  Especially when you consider stories such as this one, where a movie theater phones the MPAA who then phones ICE who then comes down to the movie theater and forcefully detains somebody watching a movie wearing Google Glass.  Two separate stories, yes.  But this is where we are heading when we create laws and use publically funded law enforcement to support an industry (that just sort of makes shit up about things).

What an interesting country.  The National Post doesn't really seem to have a problem with bigoted comments or stories.  Except when it's bigoted French Canadians.  It feels a bit bad to pile on a couple of narrow-minded fools speaking at the hearings on the Quebec Charter of Values, but here we go.  I'm actually surprised that these people managed to leave their hometown, let alone travel to predominantly muslim countries.

If you thought the National Post comments section was bad, wowzas!  Sun News is like a Conservative infomercial.  I wish I could be that passionate about a politician.  I guess that's half the problem though, isn't it?  Left wingers know things are bad but don't have a pole to rally around.  Righties seem to love bending over backwards to cheerlead their dear leader.

The richest 85 humans on the planet own more than the poorest 50% combined.

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