So much stuff! - Week 140.5 - Dec 30 - Jan 8

This is just totally insane.  Chuck Strahl, while still acting in some sort of CSIS oversight role, has registered to lobby on behalf of the Northern Gateway pipeline.  This has so many layers of wrong.
1) He's a government employee.
2) He's a former cabinet minister (isn't he?)
3) His son is an MP
4) CSIS seems to be monitoring environmental groups on behalf of Energy Companies
I mean, bravo Enbridge, but what the fuck?

Stephen Harper has appointed a non-diplomat, super pro-Israel ambassador to Israel.  It sounds like she has knowledge and history in the area, but shouldn't a position like this be held by somebody with a bit more balance?

A Conservative MP seems to have acknowledged the existence of climate change and postulated on its contribution to extreme weather.  A clarifying statement will most likely be issued in a day or two.  In other news, Al Roker comes to the defence of the polar vortex.  It's not actually a fabrication of the left wing climate change zealots.

A Conservative MP attempted to bill taxpayers for his trip to New York to run in the marathon there.  But he's such a good guy he's not going to try to get that money now.  After people freaked out about it.

Senator Bob Ruciman wants to create some sort of magical "no protest" bubble around the Prime Minister.  Because how dare those guys sneak in and try to get the PM's attention when hard working businesspeople paid hundreds of dollars for that privilege!  Steve-O thinks the whole thing is hilarious.

Another train hauling crude oil blew up (in New Brunswick).  If I was more of a conspiracy theorist I would think Enbridge is paying rail companies to blow things up.  Speaking of which, Kitimat is planning on holding a plebiscite to see if there is support for a pipeline.  Not a terrible idea.  Judging by real estate shooting up by 25% there I can imagine what the results might be though.  Unfortunately, many people would sell their souls for a 25% jump in their property value.  As well, oil companies seem very aware that this stuff is explosive.  And the train that exploded in North Dakota was carrying the stuff.

Charlie Angus broke a minor campaign finance law.

Our good buddy Rob Anders is facing a nomination challenge in his home riding.  Again.

An amazing post on car manufacturing standards that is really a lesson in trade barriers.  Very interesting.

The government is delaying it's offshore tax evasion snitch program.

Proof that closing DFO libraries was done for nefarious purposes ("culling of materials") rather than to save costs?  That's what this memo suggests.  I love how this is buried in the "Technology" section of the Province...Harper cutting the budget and jobs in the DFO.  Of course, there's been pushback from the Conservatives...and now pushback on the pushback.  And mainstream news organizations are starting to pick this up.

The War on Piracy is working!  Pirate Bay uploads were up 50% in 2013.

An International survey shows that news of our terrible foreign policies hasn't trickled down yet to common folk across the world.

Seeing as a majority of Canadians didn't vote for the Conservatives, is this really surprising that the majority of Canadians think we're heading in the wrong direction?

France has passed a massive wealth tax on any earnings over a million Euros.  Of course, it will "destroy the economy".  Or at least French football.

A theory on the cause of the UK housing bubble: Policies created in the 80's to prevent building new public housing.

The always amazing Matt Taibbi just wrote the most on-the-nose comment about Tea Party America and, well, right wing politics in general:
"the "movement" was about always about rallying ordinary struggling Americans behind an idealized anti-tax/deregulatory agenda that, in an amazing coincidence, also favored the super-wealthy industrialists who happened to be backing groups like FreedomWorks."

It's Really Happening - Week 5 - May 30-June6

This really makes me angry. One of Stephen Harper's top campaign managers just made a speech claiming the Conservatives won the election because they spoke directly to the average Canadians and didn't pander to the "elites". Hey, I guess if it works for Sarah Palin... Why bother with all that policy and question-answering nonsense? He also blames Michael Ignatieff for not responding well to all of their attack ads. "His failure to define himself was his choice." So, roughly "Sure, I guess it's my fault that I shot you in the face, but you didn't do a very good job of going to the hospital to get it fixed."

As well, we have the Conservatives dropping hints of new things to come out of their next policy convention. We'll have the Omar Kadhr Rule, whereby you'll lose your citizenship if you're accused of high treason. How will that work? Seems like a bit of a catch-22 if the government that you hope will support you in your defense walks away before you can formulate a defense. As well, rumblings about explicit rejection of euthanasia and a "severe crackdown" on prostitution, in order to "declare that human beings are not objects to be enslaved, bought and sold." Ya, forcing prostitution further underground is going to dramatically improve things for those that are enslaved. And why are the religious right so concerned about somebody ending their own pain and suffering?

Moving along, Chuck Strahl pen's a ridiculous piece of tripe posing as "advice to my son, the new MP". I guess the Globe and Mail is hard up for content. Let's read between the lines:
"you made a decision to run for office" - I retired after getting my full pension so that you could have an easy seat while the getting was good
"charted a course" - did exactly what I did
"worked hard" - avoided debates and towed the party line
"and got yourself elected" - because even a coat rack could have gotten itself elected as the Conservative candidate in this riding
And that's just the first sentence!


Building on that, the Conservatives are going to start adding seats in the areas where they are strongest. I'm all for distribution of Parliament seats based on where the population actually is, but I'd like to think that it is more scientific than this. As the article points out, there is already an automatic redistribution initiated by the census. So why is this required? Why would you make this announcement before seeing the results of the census? How can you make these decisions without having the most up-to-date information? It's pure speculation at this point. At least this explains the decision to scrap the mandatory long form census. Why bother if you're not going to use the information? On a side note, we completed our census form a few weeks back. I was kind of hoping to volunteer to fill out the long form census, as a form of protest. But we couldn't figure out a way to do that. I guess the only way to non-mandatorily participate is if you are non-mandatorily selected to voluntarily fill it out.

In support of last week, here's a link to a great Tyee article talking about Stephen Harper's international policy shortcomings. It touches on some points raised last week, but summarizes things far more coherently than I ever could.

Lastly, the Throne Speech happened. There were no real surprises...but most of those probably won't come out for a year or two. Say goodbye to the long-gun registry, vote subsidies and Canadian Wheat Board Monopolies (not sure if that is good or bad). Say hello to longer prison terms and harsher punishment, as well as "shared border security" with the US, Alright Canada! Way to pave your own way!

Worst of all...and honestly, this is one of my biggest problems with the Conservative Government...Copyright Reform. US Copyright Reform is a failure. We are letting the same companies that pushed that crap on the US write our legislation. Internet "piracy" has caused problems for many dinosaur entertainment companies. But look at the explosion in concert revenues. Look at the explosion in independent music. Past bills have ignored feedback from artists groups and consumers and focussed on a bunch of near-criminal music companies that robbed us for years and years. I fear that with a majority there will be no consultation. It could be grim. Three strikes? Criminalization of digital lock breaking? Who knows. It won't be good. And it really won't stop anything.

And the (lady) cojones on that page that held up the "Stop Harper" sign...impressive indeed.

Election Wrap-up - Oh dear...

Honestly, on election day, I did not think it was a possibility that the Conservatives would receive a majority government. I laughed at all the stupid polls. I imagined that somehow a previously ignored lost demographic (young people, either too poor to own a landline or too lazy or smart to answer it at 7PM on a weeknight) flooding polling stations in droves, ousting the Conservatives in the most unexpected election in Canadian History.

That didn't happen.

Looking back over the last few years, this seven year run of minority governments seems like the best decision Canadian voters have ever made. Why would anybody want to hand everything over to one party to do whatever they please? It seems crazy. What’s not to love about minorities?

But here we are. We now face four years in which the Conservatives can do whatever they please. We soon will not recognize this country. We’ve taken our first step onto a slippery cliff face. In four years time, after we've tumbled into the abyss, we’re not going to remember what this country looked like and we won’t have perspective on what we lost.

To counter this, I am going to do my very best to create a weekly record of Harper's wonderful progress. In four years time, when your son has to spend the next 10 years in jail for smoking a joint, your daughter has to pay the veterinarian down the street to give her an abortion, and you have to go through an RCMP background check to get connected to the Internet, you’re going to have this wonderful resource to look back on all the awesome things that have happened.

“Expect the best, prepare for the worst” is how the saying goes. Best case, a kindler, gentler Stephen Harper emerges and this website fizzles out in 6 months time. Worst case, after Fox News Canada moves in to the vacated CBC building downtown, after a mutant sub-species of oil resistant Canadian Geese emerge from a hole in Northern Alberta, and after New and Improved Public Health Care (a private company) rejects your claim for knee surgery based on pre-existing conditions (ummm...you checked the box here where it says you used it to walk)…well…worst case we’ll have had four years to get our shit together to not completely screw things up again. Thanks a lot, Ontario.

This is the first posting of what will hopefully be a limited-run website. We’ll have years to talk about crazy policy decisions, so today we’re going to focus on the “best” of the election campaign. Here goes:

Conservative Election Campaign Roundup

Helena Guergis – Look at what this guy does to his friends! At first, this appeared to be a gift from heaven in Conservative embarrassment (Hookers! Cocaine! Nipples!). But then, in a patented Stephen Harper create-your-own-lemons-and-then-deny-that-lemons-exist-and-then-use-the-lemons-for-your-own-political-gain move, it turns out that there weren’t any hookers and/or blow, that somehow, amazingly, the driving force behind the whole sordid affair and leak seemed to be Harper himself, who then he refused to discuss the whole thing or even say the name “Guergis”. And nobody cared. Remarkable.

Chuck Strahl’s Son – In Chilliwack, you could dress a street lamp up as your Conservative Candidate and it would get elected. So, in a less than above-board process, Chuck Strahl gift-wrapped the replacement nomination for his son, handing him a spot in the House of Commons. Even the Conservatives thought something was fishy, which is really saying something. To top it all off, he then ducked an all-candidates meetings and skipped out on a few interviews. Why jeopardize a sure thing by actually talking? Probably knocked a good 2-3 points off the pitiful 57.2% of the vote he received. Way to hold him accountable, Chilliwack-Fraser Canyon.

Facebookgate – I know that everybody knows all about this, but in four years time nobody is going to believe that this was possible and we're all going to chalk it up to a fault in our collective memories. Or this is just the first step in government mandated Facebook updates and the creation of the new Facebook Monitoring Ministry. Either way, we're going to want some sort of un-tainted memory. To re-cap, a girl was thrown out of a Stephen Harper rally for posting a picture of herself with Michael Ignatieff. I can’t even keep pace with my friend’s steady stream of baby photos but Stephen Harper has a team large enough to sort through the Facebook sites of all the people attending his rallies?

Wai Young/Ujjal Dosanjh – At first, I thought this whole thing might just be stirring the pot for the sake of pot stirring. But the more I think about it, the more awesome it seems. First up, you should have things together enough such that you don’t have suspected terrorists attending your campaign events. Hello! Bill Ayers, people! Has America taught us nothing? But if you do have suspected terrorists attending your events, at least have the decency to put some sort of consistency in to your explanation/question dodging. But why bother coming up with a coherent or fact based answer when the whole thing is going to result in a backlash against your opponent and an election victory?! Amazing.

But in a turn of awesomeness, Ujjal is being sued by said accused terrorist and is happily going to take the whole thing to court in an effort to get some sort of truth into the public record. Ya, sounds like exactly the sort of courageous and principled action we want to avoid in Parliament, right South Vancouver?

Harper Question Dodging – And really, the whole thing in a nutshell…Stephen Harper refuses to take questions from the media. Sorry. Refuses to take more than five questions. But come to think of it, five questions is a lot in one day. For somebody that wants to be Prime Minister.