"Election Reform" - Week 144.5 - Feb 3-4

You know what?  Fuck these guys.  This is some real 1984 bullshit.  "Let's take something that we do all the time and people hate (cheat at elections), change the rules in our favour and trumpet it as a really great thing."  Fuck these guys.

I actually wrote this morning that the bill seemed positive, but the details needed to be understood before judgement could be passed.  Well, like 8 hours later I think we can determine that this bill sucks.

1) More money pumped into elections - The Conservatives would be able to spend all sorts of money on "fundraising" and it wouldn't count towards campaign expenses.  Bullshit.
2) Even more money pumped into elections - Not a huge deal, but the personal contribution will be raised by $300.  Corporate and Union contributions still need to be hidden as multiple donations from wealthy industrialists relatives.
3) Elections Canada can no longer advertise in order to "Get out the vote" - What the fuck?  Can you be more transparent about your intentions to suppress the vote?
4) Voter ID requirements - This is a huge deal in the US as poor people of ethnic persuasion (i.e. Democrats) tend to have less in the way of ID.  There is never, ever, ever voter fraud in Canada in the form of people voting when they shouldn't or pretending to be somebody else, so why bother?
5) Elections Canada powers are weakened - Investigations in to voter fraud are removed from Elections Canada and placed with a department that reports to the PMO.  Hmmm...Nothing sketchy about that.

And...the imbeciles talked about how they consulted with Elections Canada before making all of these decisions...only to be directly contradicted by Elections Canada.  Maybe they were talking about the Israeli Chief Electoral Officer?

This is a big bag of shit.  And it's only Tuesday.

In other terrible news.

Hey assholes!  Make up your minds!  "We didn't spy on Canadians wifi.  But if we did it wasn't an operation and we didn't use the information.  And if we did use the information, it wasn't in the way you thought we did."

Garth Turner points out that TD Bank just released a report where, under the most positive conditions, Canadian real estate is only 10% over-valued.  Worst case?  Well, maybe 20%.  Or 30%  Or 60%.  That's not a news story though.  CBC uses the best case numbers and I'm sure Global is still pumping "great time to buy" stories.

A study has linked birth defects to natural gas extraction.  I'm sure somebody in the Christy Clark government is upset that nobody mentioned all of the great jobs those babies will have when they grow up!

An awesome little article on how the Conservatives are crushing the spirit of twitter, one sanitized tweet at a time.

I love this.  In essence, "When we provide a clear cut choice for people, with one of those choices not accurately capturing what our opponent actually said, they overwhelmingly choose our view on the matter."  These guys are so out of touch on marijuana.

Corrections Canada just doesn't even bother responding to recommendations made by it's watchdog.

Haven't heard a whole lot about the F-35 lately.  This is a pretty in depth article from Vanity Fair.  What I take away from it is that you'd have to be a total imbecile to buy into the project at this point and time.

A Conservative Senator has quit the Senate.  Fed up of the doings of other Senators?  Or afraid of what's potentially coming?

Mac Harb and Patrick Brazeau are going to be formally charged.  Interesting to hear the Conservatives talk about Brazeau/Duffy/Wallin.  They deny any responsibility and stick to their "former-Conservative Senator" rhetoric.  Won't these people take accountability for appointing these assholes in the first place?  Yep.

20 Years later, the notes from Chretien's first cabinet meeting outline cuts to cabinet excess, more than anything else.

Hard to read this story and not wonder how we've created such a diabolically awful set of circumstances whereby:
1) Canadians don't get jobs.
2) Foreigners get paid less (if they're lucky) for the same work.
3) Some foreigners get swindled out of their savings by companies preying on their dreams.
As if the Canadian government can't do anything about this.  As if.

Mexico.  No fan of Canada.

"Why can't they contribute their fair share?"  According to Salon, the poorest 50% of America possesses 1.1% of the countries wealth (who's the 1% now).  What's most shocking, is that the poorest Americans own less, percentage wise, than the poorest in just about any other location on the planet.  The poorest in China have 9.6%!?  How is that possible?  But make the bums pay their "fair share".  Because chipping away 20-30% of 1.1% of the wealth is going to have a huuuuuuuuge impact, no?

A commentary on Real Estate bubbles?  The 1%?  Who knows.  But some of London's most expensive Real Estate sits rotting and empty.

A Slate article on the strange practice of Conservative politicians raffling off AR-15's in the USofA.  Maybe a "Free Healthcare for life" raffle to counter this?  The scariest thing is the in depth, crazed analysis of technical gun features and semantics that these stories always dredge up.