Question C-51? Well we're going to question your loyalty to Canada. What a fucking asshole. Laurie Hawn gets added to my list. Of Conservative assholes.
Joe Oliver, who had to resort to financial shenanigans to "balance the budget" this year, is already musing about more tax cuts.
The Alberta Oil Industry is asking for a carbon tax. A retail carbon tax? The cynic in me - which is most of me - thinks that there must be a catch. The Federal Government solution? Buy international carbon credits.
This guy raises an interesting point. Fixed election dates turn our campaigns into US style, drawn out affairs. Which sucks.
Thank goodness for all the new spying powers. We caught 10 young people trying to fly to join ISIS! What? Their parents turned them in? Oh.
What is going on with the debate debates? This is a good roundup. And, of course, the traditional debate will happen, with or without Harper.
Pipelines - Safe for everybody. Now leaking into the sea in Santa Barbara.
Here, a question is raised, but not answered. Who were the major donors to Stephen Harper's leadership campaigns?
It is a bit hard to feel sympathy for parents who can't bring their foreign nannies into Canada. Still, why are all the applications just being quietly denied?
The West Coast gets Coast Guard base closures. The East Coast gets new ones.
Even Conservatives think the victims of communism memorial is stupid.
This is why the new copyright rules and legislation are so stupid. GM is suggesting you don't own your new GM vehicle due to their copyright over the computer code contained within. Which is a bit like telling you that you don't own your own home because the alarm system is proprietary.
Reason enough to not vote for Harper. Jeb Bush wants him re-elected.
Taking a page from the RCMP, the FBI has decided to investigate opponents of the Keystone XL pipeline as "threats to National Security".
Another withdrawal from the Kinder Morgan NEB hearings. It's the wife of the first guy...but still. She had some great points on the radio this morning.
$21 Million to audit the Senate and a shitstorm about to be unleashed.
We're not too worried about what Saudi Arabia is up to on the human rights front.
Monday, May 25, 2015
Tuesday, May 19, 2015
Doing nothing on an International scale - Week 212 - May 11-19
The Guardian has an opinion about our recently announced greenhouse gas emissions targets. "Canada reneges on emissions targets as tar sands production takes its toll".
Oh oh. "Extremists" are opposed to the Oil Sands. You know they're "extremists" because they're opposed to the Oil Sands.
There is a new push from Government scientists to curb government meddling and muzzling of their affairs. You can get a real sense of what is going on from talking to retired scientists, no longer afraid of speaking out.
Shockingly, Pierre Poilievre doesn't think he's done anything wrong by using government funds to shoot propaganda videos in the run up to the election. The CBC digs into the overall Conservative ad scheme a bit more.
The Israel hate speech story is blowing up. The Intercept here. Claims that the original story was false. And support for the original story.
Another Stephen Harper loss in the Supreme Court. Omar Khadr should have served his sentence as a youth, not an adult offender.
The Senate is making news again. First, former Liberal Senators won't vote for C-51. Can they force meaningful change upon it? We will see. Next, Conservative Senators don't seem like they will allow the Reform Act through. This could get interesting. Lots of chances for people to jump up and down and complain about non elected politicians dictating policy. Even a chance for both sides to use it against the other, if we're lucky.
A report suggests we have no real plan for what we are doing with our fight against ISIS.
And you thought Alberta oil royalties were bad...Ontario collected a little over $200 in diamond royalties last year. The industry was probably outraged to pay even that much. Jobs!
The RCMP may have broken the law when they destroyed gun registry records. No worries though. The Cons just retroactively changed the law so it was legal.
Interesting. The Cons have decided to blow up the existing debate format and not accept the status quo. This seems to go together with the suggestion a few months ago that they were going to pursue more debates in an effort to beat up on Trudeau.
In public, the Military claims they will act on sexual misconduct. In practice, they are issuing orders to ignore key report recommendations they promised to follow.
The new Veterans Affairs minister thinks that medical marijuana has no place in PTSD treatment for soldiers. "No proof" he says. Of course, we haven't studied it, so there is "no proof" either way.
Tony Clement has gotten involved in the sick day fracas. Says they will negotiate...but claims they won't be able to touch the $900 Million in savings. Which seems like a difficult position for the unions.
The Cons are blocking an investigation into several NDP MP's being denied access to Parliament.
Oh oh. "Extremists" are opposed to the Oil Sands. You know they're "extremists" because they're opposed to the Oil Sands.
There is a new push from Government scientists to curb government meddling and muzzling of their affairs. You can get a real sense of what is going on from talking to retired scientists, no longer afraid of speaking out.
Shockingly, Pierre Poilievre doesn't think he's done anything wrong by using government funds to shoot propaganda videos in the run up to the election. The CBC digs into the overall Conservative ad scheme a bit more.
The Israel hate speech story is blowing up. The Intercept here. Claims that the original story was false. And support for the original story.
Another Stephen Harper loss in the Supreme Court. Omar Khadr should have served his sentence as a youth, not an adult offender.
The Senate is making news again. First, former Liberal Senators won't vote for C-51. Can they force meaningful change upon it? We will see. Next, Conservative Senators don't seem like they will allow the Reform Act through. This could get interesting. Lots of chances for people to jump up and down and complain about non elected politicians dictating policy. Even a chance for both sides to use it against the other, if we're lucky.
A report suggests we have no real plan for what we are doing with our fight against ISIS.
And you thought Alberta oil royalties were bad...Ontario collected a little over $200 in diamond royalties last year. The industry was probably outraged to pay even that much. Jobs!
The RCMP may have broken the law when they destroyed gun registry records. No worries though. The Cons just retroactively changed the law so it was legal.
Interesting. The Cons have decided to blow up the existing debate format and not accept the status quo. This seems to go together with the suggestion a few months ago that they were going to pursue more debates in an effort to beat up on Trudeau.
In public, the Military claims they will act on sexual misconduct. In practice, they are issuing orders to ignore key report recommendations they promised to follow.
The new Veterans Affairs minister thinks that medical marijuana has no place in PTSD treatment for soldiers. "No proof" he says. Of course, we haven't studied it, so there is "no proof" either way.
Tony Clement has gotten involved in the sick day fracas. Says they will negotiate...but claims they won't be able to touch the $900 Million in savings. Which seems like a difficult position for the unions.
The Cons are blocking an investigation into several NDP MP's being denied access to Parliament.
Monday, May 11, 2015
Alberta - Week 211 - May 4-11
It is interesting to see the fear and fear-mongering for Conservative Canada in the wake of the NDP victory in Alberta (and before). The gist of much of it seems to be "poor stupid Alberta have just ruined their lives." This feels horribly condescending. Especially coming from the idiots (or close buddies) that ran things into the ground in the first place. And spare me the "you can't blame the PC for low oil prices" nonsense.
But I also kind of get it. Anytime "somebody else" wins an election, it seems like it is time to point out that less than 50% of the people have decided who gets to govern and now we're going to have to sit through their reign of terror. Well, 40.6% of Albertans have decided this is what they want. We should show them some respect. But it is a bit unfair that they get the total say in what happens. But only 43.97% decided the election before that one and I doubt these vocal assholes had much of a problem with that.
Part of me wants to say "they haven't even done anything yet, why don't we let them do their thing?" But if the shoe was on the other foot, I might not be so supportive.
So what I've learned is that we have a system that pretty much guarantees a majority of the people are going to pissed off with the outcome of an election. Which is totally fucked up. And we should probably work on changing that. It seems to be consensus thinking that the NDP is only getting one term. Hopefully one of the things they accomplish is electoral reform of some kind.
The Harper Government is proposing using hate laws to charge anybody advocating boycotts of Israel. Because when it comes to Israel, there is only one opinion.
How is it possible for politicians to get caught in blatant lies and nobody gives a shit? The Cons claimed that the military had reviewed the videos containing soldiers faces and signed off on them. That didn't happen. and then another video shows up a few days later.
Another $100 million not spent on programs by the Cons. No biggie though. Just money for the disabled, for literacy and for youth unemployment.
Yikes. Gretzky is a Harper fan. Another strike on Wayne.
A CBC article on the Cons robbing EI to fund their "balanced" budget.
The Cons call in Poilievre to trash Trudeau's tax plan. Which is a sure sign that there's no substance to their argument.
This kid is scary! Glad they prevented us from hearing from him for so long. “I hope there won’t be this terrorism nonsense. I’m not going to get involved in suspicious activities.” More scary words and photos of Omar Khadr. His lawyer might be on to something.
The PMO stepped in and tried to have the Mike Duffy audit changed. They don't seem to understand what the term "audit" means.
The Conservatives easy gun law is set to pass. You'll remember that some firearms groups pulled out of testifying against C-51 around the time they Cons agreed to pass this.
Why do these guys struggle so much with business cards? Another batch of Harper Government business cards don't meet requirements.
The story of a Global spiking a story about the Koch brothers, that reporter getting fired, and now the background on the story that caused it. Refining Canadian oil has made them a lot of money. Why can't we build our own refineries?
Britain is slowly realizing the the F-35 might not be something they should be interested in, either. Where are we with this, anyhow?
The prison watchdog is being replaced. He's doing too good a job.
Rail Safety improvements are great. The long timeline for them isn't.
Funny. The Cons have claimed $900 million in savings due to improvements in sick leave...but haven't really told us where that money comes from as they haven't proposed a new plan.
Peter Penashue's agent will be charged. I will have to do some research into the history of MP's and hangers on getting charged with election fraud. This has to be a record with this government. Thank goodness we gave them the power to strip the ability of Elections Canada to hold them accountable.
Liberal MP blamed for Dementia strategy bill not passing. What about the 140 that voted against it?
Researchers have found evidence of fracking chemicals leaking through into groundwater. Can't wait for the companies with billions at stake to point out that the researchers are biased due to making thousands of dollars for research grants.
Christy Clark is in bed with some bad dudes on LNG.
Some more background on the recent copyright extension. The "loss" for consumers that the industry threatened? Cheaper public domain recordings. Can't have that.
But I also kind of get it. Anytime "somebody else" wins an election, it seems like it is time to point out that less than 50% of the people have decided who gets to govern and now we're going to have to sit through their reign of terror. Well, 40.6% of Albertans have decided this is what they want. We should show them some respect. But it is a bit unfair that they get the total say in what happens. But only 43.97% decided the election before that one and I doubt these vocal assholes had much of a problem with that.
Part of me wants to say "they haven't even done anything yet, why don't we let them do their thing?" But if the shoe was on the other foot, I might not be so supportive.
So what I've learned is that we have a system that pretty much guarantees a majority of the people are going to pissed off with the outcome of an election. Which is totally fucked up. And we should probably work on changing that. It seems to be consensus thinking that the NDP is only getting one term. Hopefully one of the things they accomplish is electoral reform of some kind.
The Harper Government is proposing using hate laws to charge anybody advocating boycotts of Israel. Because when it comes to Israel, there is only one opinion.
How is it possible for politicians to get caught in blatant lies and nobody gives a shit? The Cons claimed that the military had reviewed the videos containing soldiers faces and signed off on them. That didn't happen. and then another video shows up a few days later.
Another $100 million not spent on programs by the Cons. No biggie though. Just money for the disabled, for literacy and for youth unemployment.
Yikes. Gretzky is a Harper fan. Another strike on Wayne.
A CBC article on the Cons robbing EI to fund their "balanced" budget.
The Cons call in Poilievre to trash Trudeau's tax plan. Which is a sure sign that there's no substance to their argument.
This kid is scary! Glad they prevented us from hearing from him for so long. “I hope there won’t be this terrorism nonsense. I’m not going to get involved in suspicious activities.” More scary words and photos of Omar Khadr. His lawyer might be on to something.
The PMO stepped in and tried to have the Mike Duffy audit changed. They don't seem to understand what the term "audit" means.
The Conservatives easy gun law is set to pass. You'll remember that some firearms groups pulled out of testifying against C-51 around the time they Cons agreed to pass this.
Why do these guys struggle so much with business cards? Another batch of Harper Government business cards don't meet requirements.
The story of a Global spiking a story about the Koch brothers, that reporter getting fired, and now the background on the story that caused it. Refining Canadian oil has made them a lot of money. Why can't we build our own refineries?
Britain is slowly realizing the the F-35 might not be something they should be interested in, either. Where are we with this, anyhow?
The prison watchdog is being replaced. He's doing too good a job.
Rail Safety improvements are great. The long timeline for them isn't.
Funny. The Cons have claimed $900 million in savings due to improvements in sick leave...but haven't really told us where that money comes from as they haven't proposed a new plan.
Peter Penashue's agent will be charged. I will have to do some research into the history of MP's and hangers on getting charged with election fraud. This has to be a record with this government. Thank goodness we gave them the power to strip the ability of Elections Canada to hold them accountable.
Liberal MP blamed for Dementia strategy bill not passing. What about the 140 that voted against it?
Researchers have found evidence of fracking chemicals leaking through into groundwater. Can't wait for the companies with billions at stake to point out that the researchers are biased due to making thousands of dollars for research grants.
Christy Clark is in bed with some bad dudes on LNG.
Some more background on the recent copyright extension. The "loss" for consumers that the industry threatened? Cheaper public domain recordings. Can't have that.
Monday, May 4, 2015
Alberta - Week 210 - April 21-May 4
Article about political trolls brings out reams of political trolls.
You know who else is worried about Canada's ability to respond to oil spills? The US Government. But what do those guys know? The Tyee has a nice follow up story on how we're not going to get answers on the Vancouver oil spill.
This seems crazy...but Alberta might be finally realizing that they are getting screwed on oil royalties. It might not be enough to dangle a few high paying jobs to gain the privilege of extracting all that oil owned by the people. This article also points out that BC should do some soul searching on timber revenue as well.
Digging further...this article speculates that a huge mistake has been made and the Alberta government refuses to admit it. But why else would oil revenues have gone down after the promise was made to raise them?
It seems like the Harper government is concerned about what is happening in Alberta as well. Rona Ambrose speaks out against the "risky experiment " of voting for a party they don't agree with. Surprisingly, Alberta businessmen don't like it either. Man. I don't know much about Alberta, but I know they're not fans of being told what to do.
The Harper Government claims that the USA will freak out if we release Omar Khadr on bail. It's actually their main argument. The US Government suggests they'd actually be okay with it.
Hey. It worked for George Bush. Stephen Harper made a surprise visit to Iraq.
I think it would be a stretch to claim that income splitting was a Conservative conspiracy to put $2000 back into their own pockets every year, but it is interesting to see how many more Conservative MP's benefit compared to the opposition parties.
Beautiful. The Conservatives "typical" family that they trot out to show how awesome their budget is has an income that puts them in the top 15% of families. As well, since last year, their income distribution has changed dramatically, allowing them to take advantage of all of those great income splitting changes.
The Auditor General does not think the Government is doing a very good job of tracking the impact of tax credits.
This article speculates that people are reaching the breaking point with government advertisements. It doesn't provide any proof or insight though. And more!
A Liberal ad targeting Conservative government ad spending. Put this on the TV!
The Canadian soldiers who were victims of friendly fire by Kurdish troops have been vindicated as not responsible.
Michael Geist digs into the source of the unexpected copyright extension: lots and lots of meetings between lobbyists and the government...that we're not allowed to hear the details of. Would be interesting to correlate this access with donations.
The Sierra Club is being investigated by Revenue Canada.
The Military is chastised for their caveman-like, institutionalized sexual harassment.
Dean Del Mastro proves, once again, that he's a guy that just doesn't get it. Ya...he broke the law...but it didn't change anything so why is everybody so mad?
The Cons won't tell us what Mike Duffy talked to Enbridge about.
You know who else is worried about Canada's ability to respond to oil spills? The US Government. But what do those guys know? The Tyee has a nice follow up story on how we're not going to get answers on the Vancouver oil spill.
This seems crazy...but Alberta might be finally realizing that they are getting screwed on oil royalties. It might not be enough to dangle a few high paying jobs to gain the privilege of extracting all that oil owned by the people. This article also points out that BC should do some soul searching on timber revenue as well.
Digging further...this article speculates that a huge mistake has been made and the Alberta government refuses to admit it. But why else would oil revenues have gone down after the promise was made to raise them?
It seems like the Harper government is concerned about what is happening in Alberta as well. Rona Ambrose speaks out against the "risky experiment " of voting for a party they don't agree with. Surprisingly, Alberta businessmen don't like it either. Man. I don't know much about Alberta, but I know they're not fans of being told what to do.
The Harper Government claims that the USA will freak out if we release Omar Khadr on bail. It's actually their main argument. The US Government suggests they'd actually be okay with it.
Hey. It worked for George Bush. Stephen Harper made a surprise visit to Iraq.
I think it would be a stretch to claim that income splitting was a Conservative conspiracy to put $2000 back into their own pockets every year, but it is interesting to see how many more Conservative MP's benefit compared to the opposition parties.
Beautiful. The Conservatives "typical" family that they trot out to show how awesome their budget is has an income that puts them in the top 15% of families. As well, since last year, their income distribution has changed dramatically, allowing them to take advantage of all of those great income splitting changes.
The Auditor General does not think the Government is doing a very good job of tracking the impact of tax credits.
This article speculates that people are reaching the breaking point with government advertisements. It doesn't provide any proof or insight though. And more!
A Liberal ad targeting Conservative government ad spending. Put this on the TV!
The Canadian soldiers who were victims of friendly fire by Kurdish troops have been vindicated as not responsible.
Michael Geist digs into the source of the unexpected copyright extension: lots and lots of meetings between lobbyists and the government...that we're not allowed to hear the details of. Would be interesting to correlate this access with donations.
The Sierra Club is being investigated by Revenue Canada.
The Military is chastised for their caveman-like, institutionalized sexual harassment.
Dean Del Mastro proves, once again, that he's a guy that just doesn't get it. Ya...he broke the law...but it didn't change anything so why is everybody so mad?
The Cons won't tell us what Mike Duffy talked to Enbridge about.
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