Jets & Guns - Week 14 - Aug 2-8

So Canada finally got it's shit together and decided the Conservatives aren't so great. Unfortunately, it comes in a poll some 3+ years removed from the next election. Interesting that the Liberals fare better when they have no real leader.

This story goes all over the place: Tory Arts Funding, the Ford Brothers, Stephen Harper, Margaret Atwood, Library Funding. I think the key piece for me is that Stephen Harper is buddies with the Ford brothers. Hopefully people remember that when Toronto blows up in their (the Ford Brothers) faces. I really need to start reading more Margaret Atwood. Oh, the Harper Government response to Margaret Atwood? It's all your fault and we're outraged!

The cops gave David Eby a ticket for riding his bicycle without a bell. I hope he becomes Mayor.

Back to the HST, it scares me a bit that Pollsters are essentially saying that the whole process is too crazy for them to even attempt a poll.

I apologize. More copyright. I just can't help myself. A great interview in the Georgia Straight with Cory Doctorow from Boingboing. He breaks down many of the shortcomings of the inevitable Copyright reforms that are coming. The ones that have been in past bills. The ones that will be in future bills. The basic premise - Canada's copyright reforms are composed to help the massive content companies - record labels, tv stations, movie studios, etc. They will do almost nothing to help artists or consumers and will most likely harm both of those groups. I don't know about you, but I don't think government policy should be created to help the giant, evil middle-men that screwed consumers and artists for so long.

I really enjoyed this headling on Gizmodo: The Pentagon Spends More Money Fixing Rusty Old Shit than Canada Spends on Its entire Military. I'm actually suprised we spend that much.

A good Huffington Post link (written by?) about the perils of the new Canadian fighter jet contract. It also points out that there are numerous technical problems that have grounded existing F-35's. I've read a bit about this over the past few months, but I thought most of the problems were with with the new F-22's (30 hours of maintenance for every hour of flying? Yikes.). Incidentally, I found this link while trying to figure out the difference between an F-22 (air superiority) and an F-35 (multi-role combat) and it scares me a bit. Doesn't it feel like information you shouldn't know?

Vote for Change

Awesome. As I drove in to work today, Christy Clark has affixed "Vote for Change Today" decals to all of her campaign signs. It seems a bit delusional. You know. Seeing as her party has been in power for the last 10 years or so.



I have to admit that I haven't paid very much attention to this by-election. I knew I'd be casting my anybody-but-Christy-Clark vote and I didn't think too much about it. But David Eby is actually kind of awesome. I hope he wins.


And what will Christy Clark do if she loses this by-election? I would imagine that she'll probably construct some sort of sun-blotting structure to prevent the citizens of Point Grey from ever experiencing happiness again.

Update - May 12
Congratulations to David Eby. A job well done. It didn't really shut the Liberals up at all, but we're still proud of him.

Updated Update - May 13
What the hell, Christy Clark? You can't just announce the day after you're elected that you might leave the riding. I think that "I will stay in the riding longer than the 6 months required of me" counts as an implicit campaign promise.