Worst post ever. Sorry. I've been away. A few things I noticed:
The fighter jet deal seems to have a few problems.
It's been raised that several Tory MP's may have a conflict of interest with any Wheat Board votes. Of course, everybody else is wrong.
Man. This really sucks.
Monday, October 31, 2011
Monday, October 17, 2011
The 1 % - Week 24 - Oct 12-17
Okay. Enough with the link roundups. This start this week with something fresh. There's been a lot of talk of income inequality in the US. The Top 1% has 40% of the wealth, etc. How does Canada fare.
There's no numbers here, but this graph shows we're not quite as bad as the US. That's not quite what I'm looking for (The Gini coefficient does seem to be the standard for how these things are judged), but I guess it makes sense that we're somewhere in the middle, well behind Denmark but ahead of the US. It does suggest that we're getting worse.
That Stat doesn't really cover things. There's no nice comparable to the top 1% headline grabber in the US. Digging deeper, here is the motherload. Let's got to page 73, table 8-1. Assume 25 million people in Canada and that each household is 5 people. That might not sound quite right, but the assumptions should balance out in the end. So, 5 million households and each quintile is approximately 1 million. Average household wage is $61,000. Multiply that out, and we have $305 Billion in wages earned by Canadians. Of that, the bottom 20% earns an average of $7,100 per year. Which isn't much. The top 20% earns an average of $156,300. Let's multiply that out:
Bottom 20% - $7.1 Billion total earnings - 2.3% of total income
Top 20% - 156.3 Billion total earnings - 51% of total income
So the top 20% of Canadians earns 51% of the money in Canada. Not sure about the top 1%. And not sure about total "wealth". This isn't quite as tidy as I'd hoped to make this, but the Globe and Mail doesn't seem to be able to put a nice little bow on this story either. Update - According to this link, the top 20% of Americans earn 60% of the income. Our bottom 20% is actually worse off than the US, who earn 3.5% of total income.
Guess who thinks the old Liberal Government did a great job of running Canada's finances? Tony Clement! It's funny what these guys will say when they don't think Canada is listnening. Maybe Paul Martin will run for Liberal leader again?
I'm not really a union backer. But I kind of agree that Canada Post workers got royally screwed and I think a lawsuit is a good idea.
John Baird...When you want to give the impression that you're in it for the little people, don't fly in to a country that you've just "liberated" with executives from oil & gas, pipeline and engineering firms. It suggests that your motives may have been suspect.
There's no numbers here, but this graph shows we're not quite as bad as the US. That's not quite what I'm looking for (The Gini coefficient does seem to be the standard for how these things are judged), but I guess it makes sense that we're somewhere in the middle, well behind Denmark but ahead of the US. It does suggest that we're getting worse.
That Stat doesn't really cover things. There's no nice comparable to the top 1% headline grabber in the US. Digging deeper, here is the motherload. Let's got to page 73, table 8-1. Assume 25 million people in Canada and that each household is 5 people. That might not sound quite right, but the assumptions should balance out in the end. So, 5 million households and each quintile is approximately 1 million. Average household wage is $61,000. Multiply that out, and we have $305 Billion in wages earned by Canadians. Of that, the bottom 20% earns an average of $7,100 per year. Which isn't much. The top 20% earns an average of $156,300. Let's multiply that out:
Bottom 20% - $7.1 Billion total earnings - 2.3% of total income
Top 20% - 156.3 Billion total earnings - 51% of total income
So the top 20% of Canadians earns 51% of the money in Canada. Not sure about the top 1%. And not sure about total "wealth". This isn't quite as tidy as I'd hoped to make this, but the Globe and Mail doesn't seem to be able to put a nice little bow on this story either. Update - According to this link, the top 20% of Americans earn 60% of the income. Our bottom 20% is actually worse off than the US, who earn 3.5% of total income.
Guess who thinks the old Liberal Government did a great job of running Canada's finances? Tony Clement! It's funny what these guys will say when they don't think Canada is listnening. Maybe Paul Martin will run for Liberal leader again?
I'm not really a union backer. But I kind of agree that Canada Post workers got royally screwed and I think a lawsuit is a good idea.
John Baird...When you want to give the impression that you're in it for the little people, don't fly in to a country that you've just "liberated" with executives from oil & gas, pipeline and engineering firms. It suggests that your motives may have been suspect.
Tuesday, October 11, 2011
Dismissal of Criticism - Week 23 - Oct 3-11
Just for fun, I plugged "Harper Dismisses Criticism" (no quotations) into the old google machine. I got 1,960,000 results. That seems like a lot.
Update - Sorry...this is late, but it's my new favourite story of the week. Stephen Harper requested 14 tickets for the Jets home opener. They gave him 2.
I feel like any law is going to have weird, unintended consequences, no matter how noble it's intentions. So, I'm not a fan of latching on to the obscure losers in the Copyright sweepstakes. But...still...any law that gives blind people the shaft is probably not a great one.
Are there any consequences for this government? Was it Patton Oswald who said of George Bush "I'd be happy if he accepted the blame for a chewing gum wrapper on the White House lawn at this point."? Anyhow, Bob Dechert appears to walk away unscathed from his extra-marital dalliance with a foreign "journalist".
Stephen Harper annonces the demise of the per vote subsidy. Ya...this is sure to cut back on the number of elections. We'll see if they turn off the per-person limit as well. Let's crunch some numbers...this is a bit of a wanky analysis, but we'll use their research. From last year:
Conservatives - 17.4 Million Earned - 27.9 Million Subsidy - 45.3 Million Total
Liberals - 7 Million Earned - 14.3 Million Subsidy - 21.3 Million Total
NDP - 4.4 Million Earned - 9.5 Million Subsidy - 13.9 Million Total
If you look at the totals, Cons/Libs is about 2.12:1. Cons/NDP is 3.25/1. If you look at only the earned amount, Cons/Libs is about 2.48/1 and Cons/NDP is 3.95/1. So, the Conservatives have increased their advantage, but it's perhaps not as extreme as some may think. As well, the Conservatives had the most to gain with their increased vote numbers, and then probably the NDP. Either way, the Liberals were going to take a funding hit. It's actually probably not super bad news for them, as their competition is no longer getting a much larger cheque than they would have (their 14.3 Million subsidy would have been chopped while the Cons and NDP went up). Unfortunately, I don't expect them to stop there. After all, what's more democratic than letting anybody or any entity contribute as much money as they'd like?
I don't know what to think of this next one. A private member's bill suggests that unions should be subject to financial disclosure laws. Nobody seems to have a direct idea as to why this is bad, but it merely suggests the possibility of something bad that could potentially happen. So I'm going to give him a pass on this one.
Why don't we hear more about the Elections Canada case against the Conservatives? This less-than-mainstream publication points out that the trial is most likely to be delayed again.
The parties actually teamed up to make some headway on something! The Liberals suggested a national suicide prevention strategy and the Conservatives agreed.
Remember the 50-million-dollar Muskoka slush fund? Well, turns out Tony Clement was, for some reason, using his personal e-mail account to converse with the Mayor of Huntsville on exactly how he should be spending the money. We only know this because somebody was able to track down the messages through the Mayor's e-mails. And the Auditor General agrees that things don't really add up here.
Apparently the crazy new flag law wouldn't apply within Parliament Hill Offices. As there's a law that supercedes that law that prevents flags from flying within the offices. So, basically, the Parliamentary Precinct Standards would break the new flag though. This is an outrage! Why are the Parliamentary Precinct Standards so anti-Canadian?
Some crazy idiots want to know the details of the new Canada/US North American Security agreement. Ya...like it matters what the US plans on doing on Canadian soil to increas their security. Terrorism! Illegal immigrants! Isn't that enough information? Now, what exactly is "perimeter security"? I don't think they're talking about all of the people that sneak through the arctic. They're probably not too concerned about boats flooding the various coastlines. So I think they're probably talking about massive airport crackdowns. And the "carrot" is that cross-boarder traffic and waits will be reduced? Ya. Probably. And it's only a billion dollars. Peanuts, really.
Maybe Stephen Harper is on to something with his War of 1812 education project? It still seems a bit off to me, somehow. But Canadians knowing a bit more about their history isn't really a bad thing. I just don't really trust his reasons for doing this.
The Government expands its unwillingness to negotiate on RCMP deals out to Newfoundland and PEI. I don't think that expanding the number of Provinces pissed off about a situation is a great bargaining tactic.
Bonus culture hits the public sector. Tony Clement offers up fat bonuses (well...promises not to take away fat bonuses) to public service heads that help him make his cuts. In similar budget cutting news, the government is expecting $200 in savings for every $1 spent on consultants. Which nails it for me that these guys don't know what they're doing. Have you ever worked with consultants? I have no question that they'll come up with $200 in expected savings. Unfortunately I expect that $200 will turn into a cup of coffee and a donut once reality hits.
Stephen Harper continues his rhetoric against the evelist of evils...The Canadian Wheat Board. Indeed, the train "barreling down a prairie track" is going to stop for no-one, so you're better to "get on it than lie on the tracks." Wait...is this about wheat or about trains?
Finally, this outlines some of the money spent in the last year to influence American decision makers on the Keystone pipeline. This Government doesn't mind spending money or helping people out. It just needs to be about oil.
Update - Sorry...this is late, but it's my new favourite story of the week. Stephen Harper requested 14 tickets for the Jets home opener. They gave him 2.
I feel like any law is going to have weird, unintended consequences, no matter how noble it's intentions. So, I'm not a fan of latching on to the obscure losers in the Copyright sweepstakes. But...still...any law that gives blind people the shaft is probably not a great one.
Are there any consequences for this government? Was it Patton Oswald who said of George Bush "I'd be happy if he accepted the blame for a chewing gum wrapper on the White House lawn at this point."? Anyhow, Bob Dechert appears to walk away unscathed from his extra-marital dalliance with a foreign "journalist".
Stephen Harper annonces the demise of the per vote subsidy. Ya...this is sure to cut back on the number of elections. We'll see if they turn off the per-person limit as well. Let's crunch some numbers...this is a bit of a wanky analysis, but we'll use their research. From last year:
Conservatives - 17.4 Million Earned - 27.9 Million Subsidy - 45.3 Million Total
Liberals - 7 Million Earned - 14.3 Million Subsidy - 21.3 Million Total
NDP - 4.4 Million Earned - 9.5 Million Subsidy - 13.9 Million Total
If you look at the totals, Cons/Libs is about 2.12:1. Cons/NDP is 3.25/1. If you look at only the earned amount, Cons/Libs is about 2.48/1 and Cons/NDP is 3.95/1. So, the Conservatives have increased their advantage, but it's perhaps not as extreme as some may think. As well, the Conservatives had the most to gain with their increased vote numbers, and then probably the NDP. Either way, the Liberals were going to take a funding hit. It's actually probably not super bad news for them, as their competition is no longer getting a much larger cheque than they would have (their 14.3 Million subsidy would have been chopped while the Cons and NDP went up). Unfortunately, I don't expect them to stop there. After all, what's more democratic than letting anybody or any entity contribute as much money as they'd like?
I don't know what to think of this next one. A private member's bill suggests that unions should be subject to financial disclosure laws. Nobody seems to have a direct idea as to why this is bad, but it merely suggests the possibility of something bad that could potentially happen. So I'm going to give him a pass on this one.
Why don't we hear more about the Elections Canada case against the Conservatives? This less-than-mainstream publication points out that the trial is most likely to be delayed again.
The parties actually teamed up to make some headway on something! The Liberals suggested a national suicide prevention strategy and the Conservatives agreed.
Remember the 50-million-dollar Muskoka slush fund? Well, turns out Tony Clement was, for some reason, using his personal e-mail account to converse with the Mayor of Huntsville on exactly how he should be spending the money. We only know this because somebody was able to track down the messages through the Mayor's e-mails. And the Auditor General agrees that things don't really add up here.
Apparently the crazy new flag law wouldn't apply within Parliament Hill Offices. As there's a law that supercedes that law that prevents flags from flying within the offices. So, basically, the Parliamentary Precinct Standards would break the new flag though. This is an outrage! Why are the Parliamentary Precinct Standards so anti-Canadian?
Some crazy idiots want to know the details of the new Canada/US North American Security agreement. Ya...like it matters what the US plans on doing on Canadian soil to increas their security. Terrorism! Illegal immigrants! Isn't that enough information? Now, what exactly is "perimeter security"? I don't think they're talking about all of the people that sneak through the arctic. They're probably not too concerned about boats flooding the various coastlines. So I think they're probably talking about massive airport crackdowns. And the "carrot" is that cross-boarder traffic and waits will be reduced? Ya. Probably. And it's only a billion dollars. Peanuts, really.
Maybe Stephen Harper is on to something with his War of 1812 education project? It still seems a bit off to me, somehow. But Canadians knowing a bit more about their history isn't really a bad thing. I just don't really trust his reasons for doing this.
The Government expands its unwillingness to negotiate on RCMP deals out to Newfoundland and PEI. I don't think that expanding the number of Provinces pissed off about a situation is a great bargaining tactic.
Bonus culture hits the public sector. Tony Clement offers up fat bonuses (well...promises not to take away fat bonuses) to public service heads that help him make his cuts. In similar budget cutting news, the government is expecting $200 in savings for every $1 spent on consultants. Which nails it for me that these guys don't know what they're doing. Have you ever worked with consultants? I have no question that they'll come up with $200 in expected savings. Unfortunately I expect that $200 will turn into a cup of coffee and a donut once reality hits.
Stephen Harper continues his rhetoric against the evelist of evils...The Canadian Wheat Board. Indeed, the train "barreling down a prairie track" is going to stop for no-one, so you're better to "get on it than lie on the tracks." Wait...is this about wheat or about trains?
Finally, this outlines some of the money spent in the last year to influence American decision makers on the Keystone pipeline. This Government doesn't mind spending money or helping people out. It just needs to be about oil.
Monday, October 3, 2011
Flexing the Muscles - Week 22 - Sept 26 - Oct 3
What an awesome way to set the tone for your new government. Limit debate on your cornerstone piece of legislation to two days. Way to suggest that you're eager to work with the other parties in Parliament. Other ways Stephen Harper could suggest that he's eager to create a great working Government:
- Limit opposition party members to two appetizers at the next inter-Parliament mixer
- Limit visiters interaction with his kitten to two quick pats on the head
- Allow two questions from the media at each campaign stop during the next election campaign
Tough on Crime? Tougher on the budget. Just one of the Omnibus crime bills is going to end up costing a few billion dollars over the next five years. The original estimate was a whole lot less. And a BC Supreme Court Judge has suggested that the new legislation will become a "strain on the bench."
Things get worse for Peter MacKay. He was the guest of a man recently named head of a crown corporation. Which is pretty cozy. And even worser...3 million worth of flights in the last 4 years? Yikes. Our buddy Steve comes to his defense...but his numbers don't really add up.
The Conservatives have lost their battle to close the Insite Safe Injection Site. Which is pretty awesome.
Here's an interesting editorial pointing out some of the fallacies of "ethical oil". I knew that tar sands require a crazy amount of energy to extract the oil (approximately 1/5 of the energy extracted is required for production), but this is the first I've heard that it requires crazy amounts of oil to extract the oil.
Another Conservative law to fix something that isn't a problem. Some car-dealership-owning-Conservative-MP is proposing a private members bill that would prevent people from preventing other people from displaying the Canadian flag. By giving them jail time. Says the article "It is not clear how he came up with the bill and what his motivation for it is." I guess he has personal experience with the scourge of flag-flying-prevention sweeping the nation. Shouldn't there be some mechanism within the Conservative party to prevent rookie MP's from embarrassing themselves like this?
Speaking of backbench MP's speaking out when they shouldn't...one of them is rankled about some funding going to an organization that provides abortions. And another one.
Well. Here it is. Copyright legislation has been tabled. Exactly as it was before. This will make it illegal for you to jailbreak your iPhone. This is legislation that was dictated to the Canadian government by an American industry lobby. This legislation is a result of the Canadian Government asking the US Government to produce more public pressure so that they could justify it to Canadians. I don't think it's a great idea.
Here's a lesson in media bias. From the Globe - "RCMP won't pull out of BC if Province signs on to new deal" From the Vancouver Sun - "Feds threaten to withdraw BC RCMP services if as contract talks break down" Sounds like good faith bargaining to me.
And NDP MP points out that we're about to sell nuclear assets for $15 Million...after pumping $183 Million into them. Six months ago.
Stephen Harper has decided that a war that our country didn't even fight is worth a lot of celebration. I don't really get it. Yes, it shaped our nation. So did glaciers and smallpox.
Lastly, Steve probably shouldn't go meddling in Provincial politics as a new poll suggests that his talk of a "Tory Trifecta" scared the hell out of people.
- Limit opposition party members to two appetizers at the next inter-Parliament mixer
- Limit visiters interaction with his kitten to two quick pats on the head
- Allow two questions from the media at each campaign stop during the next election campaign
Tough on Crime? Tougher on the budget. Just one of the Omnibus crime bills is going to end up costing a few billion dollars over the next five years. The original estimate was a whole lot less. And a BC Supreme Court Judge has suggested that the new legislation will become a "strain on the bench."
Things get worse for Peter MacKay. He was the guest of a man recently named head of a crown corporation. Which is pretty cozy. And even worser...3 million worth of flights in the last 4 years? Yikes. Our buddy Steve comes to his defense...but his numbers don't really add up.
The Conservatives have lost their battle to close the Insite Safe Injection Site. Which is pretty awesome.
Here's an interesting editorial pointing out some of the fallacies of "ethical oil". I knew that tar sands require a crazy amount of energy to extract the oil (approximately 1/5 of the energy extracted is required for production), but this is the first I've heard that it requires crazy amounts of oil to extract the oil.
Another Conservative law to fix something that isn't a problem. Some car-dealership-owning-Conservative-MP is proposing a private members bill that would prevent people from preventing other people from displaying the Canadian flag. By giving them jail time. Says the article "It is not clear how he came up with the bill and what his motivation for it is." I guess he has personal experience with the scourge of flag-flying-prevention sweeping the nation. Shouldn't there be some mechanism within the Conservative party to prevent rookie MP's from embarrassing themselves like this?
Speaking of backbench MP's speaking out when they shouldn't...one of them is rankled about some funding going to an organization that provides abortions. And another one.
Well. Here it is. Copyright legislation has been tabled. Exactly as it was before. This will make it illegal for you to jailbreak your iPhone. This is legislation that was dictated to the Canadian government by an American industry lobby. This legislation is a result of the Canadian Government asking the US Government to produce more public pressure so that they could justify it to Canadians. I don't think it's a great idea.
Here's a lesson in media bias. From the Globe - "RCMP won't pull out of BC if Province signs on to new deal" From the Vancouver Sun - "Feds threaten to withdraw BC RCMP services if as contract talks break down" Sounds like good faith bargaining to me.
And NDP MP points out that we're about to sell nuclear assets for $15 Million...after pumping $183 Million into them. Six months ago.
Stephen Harper has decided that a war that our country didn't even fight is worth a lot of celebration. I don't really get it. Yes, it shaped our nation. So did glaciers and smallpox.
Lastly, Steve probably shouldn't go meddling in Provincial politics as a new poll suggests that his talk of a "Tory Trifecta" scared the hell out of people.
Monday, September 26, 2011
Laying Waste - Week 21 - Sept 19-26
It's the first week back in Parliament and Stephen Harper isn't even there. He is busy in New York trying to prove that he is relevant on the international stage with his comments on Palestine. He even earned a thank-you from Israel.
He also took some time to talk about the Keystone pipeline, and explained that it should be a "no brainer" for the US to approve it. He's right. Why wouldn't the US want a pipeline that magically gets filled with our raw, un-processed oil products? Why would we agree to do this for them? This is crazy, for so many reasons. "Ethical Oil" and all that. On a similar note, the Saudis are getting a little bit tired about the whole thing and the Canadian Government proves that they're nothing more than an industry mouthpiece.
First on the agenda, the Omnibus Crime Bill. Stats Canada just revealed that our crime rates are the lowest that they've been since the 1970's. Sounds like a good time to announce sweeping "fixes". There's a good editorial here.
As well, the Tories have announced a $20-Million dollar contract (or $90,000 a day,as the Globe puts it) to "save money". They didn't really follow standard government tendering protocols either. Sometimes you have to spend money to save money...so I won't be too critical.
The former Chief Statistician comes out swinging over the decision to scrap the mandatory long form census. Pssh. Experts. What do they know? I mean...this guy probably only spent years in school and his entire career working on statistics and demographics, determining the best way to formulate a coherent picture of the make-up of our country so that we can best design government policy. Why would his opinion matter? More here and here.
Government waste doesn't count when it's your government doing the waste. Apparently Peter Mackay used a search-and-rescue helicopter to fly home from a vacation at a remote fishing lodge. But it's okay, because he was participating in a "search-and-rescue" demonstration. A demonstration put together at the last minute. At his request. But he cut his vacation short because of it. Oh...And a Challenger jet flight home on the same day. I think Peter McKay is one of the better Conservatives out there...although it's kind of his fault we had the merger, isn't it?...it sounds like he had some support from military brass based on this link. But it's still kind of stupid.
The Conservatives start to get serious on their talk about reducing/eliminating funding for the CBC. I love that they go on Sun News to talk about it.
And speaking of dismantling...I don't really understand what the wheat board does. I can wrap my head around the basics of why it might be desirable. I can't for the life of me decide why somebody would put energy into getting rid of it.
He also took some time to talk about the Keystone pipeline, and explained that it should be a "no brainer" for the US to approve it. He's right. Why wouldn't the US want a pipeline that magically gets filled with our raw, un-processed oil products? Why would we agree to do this for them? This is crazy, for so many reasons. "Ethical Oil" and all that. On a similar note, the Saudis are getting a little bit tired about the whole thing and the Canadian Government proves that they're nothing more than an industry mouthpiece.
First on the agenda, the Omnibus Crime Bill. Stats Canada just revealed that our crime rates are the lowest that they've been since the 1970's. Sounds like a good time to announce sweeping "fixes". There's a good editorial here.
As well, the Tories have announced a $20-Million dollar contract (or $90,000 a day,as the Globe puts it) to "save money". They didn't really follow standard government tendering protocols either. Sometimes you have to spend money to save money...so I won't be too critical.
The former Chief Statistician comes out swinging over the decision to scrap the mandatory long form census. Pssh. Experts. What do they know? I mean...this guy probably only spent years in school and his entire career working on statistics and demographics, determining the best way to formulate a coherent picture of the make-up of our country so that we can best design government policy. Why would his opinion matter? More here and here.
Government waste doesn't count when it's your government doing the waste. Apparently Peter Mackay used a search-and-rescue helicopter to fly home from a vacation at a remote fishing lodge. But it's okay, because he was participating in a "search-and-rescue" demonstration. A demonstration put together at the last minute. At his request. But he cut his vacation short because of it. Oh...And a Challenger jet flight home on the same day. I think Peter McKay is one of the better Conservatives out there...although it's kind of his fault we had the merger, isn't it?...it sounds like he had some support from military brass based on this link. But it's still kind of stupid.
The Conservatives start to get serious on their talk about reducing/eliminating funding for the CBC. I love that they go on Sun News to talk about it.
And speaking of dismantling...I don't really understand what the wheat board does. I can wrap my head around the basics of why it might be desirable. I can't for the life of me decide why somebody would put energy into getting rid of it.
Monday, September 19, 2011
The Final Quiet Week - Week 20 - Sept 12-19
It's kind of sad that it has taken this long for the Conservatives to "get down to business". Week 21 will probably be a busy one.
Why is it always the Conservative politicians involved in sex scandals? (well, not always) And haven't they learned...never lie. You'll just get found out. Oh well. Harper, Baird and their buddy deserve what they get. It's kind of ironic that one of Harper's only redeeming qualities (unflinching loyalty) could prove to cause him the most trouble. China seems to be reading from the Stephen Harper playbook as well: Get angry at everybody else and deny that you've done anything wrong. And then take your ball (person) home with you.
This is fairly direct evidence that "tough on crime" isn't that great of an idea. And all you people upset that we haven't followed the UK's lead and immediately imprisoned all riot participants? All those new prisoners has overwhelmed prisons and are leading to increased gang violence. "Who cares if a bunch of prisoners beat up on each other?" Well, they do have to leave prison at some point. Your petty riot criminal is now a gang member with a taste for blood. Like the seal on Arrested Development.
Just after September 11th is the perfect time to renew big brotheresque "anti-terror" laws and announce that, this time, they won't be going away. There will be no sunset clauses in our next batch of police state laws.
It seems like the short form census participation was good. But no word on the long form yet. The short form is still mandatory, right?
Why is it always the Conservative politicians involved in sex scandals? (well, not always) And haven't they learned...never lie. You'll just get found out. Oh well. Harper, Baird and their buddy deserve what they get. It's kind of ironic that one of Harper's only redeeming qualities (unflinching loyalty) could prove to cause him the most trouble. China seems to be reading from the Stephen Harper playbook as well: Get angry at everybody else and deny that you've done anything wrong. And then take your ball (person) home with you.
This is fairly direct evidence that "tough on crime" isn't that great of an idea. And all you people upset that we haven't followed the UK's lead and immediately imprisoned all riot participants? All those new prisoners has overwhelmed prisons and are leading to increased gang violence. "Who cares if a bunch of prisoners beat up on each other?" Well, they do have to leave prison at some point. Your petty riot criminal is now a gang member with a taste for blood. Like the seal on Arrested Development.
Just after September 11th is the perfect time to renew big brotheresque "anti-terror" laws and announce that, this time, they won't be going away. There will be no sunset clauses in our next batch of police state laws.
It seems like the short form census participation was good. But no word on the long form yet. The short form is still mandatory, right?
Monday, September 12, 2011
Islamicism - Comin' to get us all - Week 19 - Sept 6-12
Oh Stephen. "The major threat to Canada is still islamicism"? Is that even a word? According to this, I have a 1 in 650,000 chance of being killed by a terrorist attack (while travelling...which must dramatically increase the odds). I have a 1 in 56,000 chance of being struck by lightning. Doesn't that make lightning the major threat to Canada? Add in forest fires caused by lighting...geez...this lighting stuff sounds pretty bad.
Sticking with the terror theme, September 11th has cost Canada approximately $92 Billion (the US is at $1.1 Trillion). And counting. Which is a crazy amount of money. As a Slate article said (or something along these lines) "there's no question that we aren't safer...but at what cost?" I guess it's easier to slam the barn door shut and tell everybody they're going to die if they don't nail a few boards up on the outside as well. Wouldn't we be better off if we spent even a portion of this money on other things?
Since I wrote the above, Slate has taken it a step further. There's tonnes of questions raised by this article, but the basic point is that the cost/benefit ratio of terrorism security spending is a joke. And we'd save far more lives if we spent that money someplace else. As the headline says, "How many terrorism plots would we have to foil to jusity our current spending on homeland security? 1,667 Time Square-Style Attacks Every Year." It actually goes on to suggest that blindly spending this money is immoral.
And what better time than on the 10 year anniversary of a terrorist attack that didn't happen in this country to announce that you're planning on introducing legislation that will allow you to imprison people without a warrant and imprison people if they don't testify in your secret trial?
The Harper Government rears it's ugly head again. This article claims to cite a directive issued by the Privy Council Office to start using the label "The Harper Government". Unfortunately, it's no smoking gun, but a reference to an unseen "directive". Hopefully some direct proof comes out at some point.
Apparently we're re-hanging portraits of the Queen in our embassies. Which is just bizarre. We're going to hang Charles goofy mug all over the place when he takes over? And their justification for doing so (other nations hang a portrait of their "Head of State")...this is a pretty awesome takedown, showing that other Commonwealth nations do no such thing.
And here we go. The first vow to re-introduce Copyright Legislation...exactly as it was worded before (and couldn't get passed). This will make it an offense to remove digital locks on devices and media that you "own". Want to transfer all of your kindle books to another device?Well, you'd have to break the Amazon DRM and that would be illegal. iTunes albums? If it's one of the small number that aren't DRM'd, you're fine. Otherwise...illegal. Oh, you want to jailbreak your iPhone that you paid hundreds and hundreds of dollars for because you don't like the way Apple forces you to run things? No sir. That would be super illegal. But why attempt to work with people and hear their opinions when you don't really have to?
And more copyright, more Wikileaks. Wikileaks cables indicate what we suspected all along, Canada is in the pocket of the US when it comes to copyright legislation and cares a lot more about what the US Government thinks than about what Canadians think. Tony Clement urges the US to add us to a piracy watch list, and then the piracy watch list is ussed to justify copyright reform? That's just scandalous.
Lastly, the Conservatives get to work dismissing concerns as "Ridiculous". The problem? One of their MP's used his official parliamentary e-mail address to tell an employee of the official Chinese State Media that she "looks so cute" with her "cheeks puffed." John Baird thinks you're an idiot if you have a problem with this.
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