War on Expensive Cheese - Week 129 - Oct 14-21

So a train derailed and then exploded.  Again.  I guess we couldn't even get that barn door closed after the first horse left.  We're still talking about it in the throne speech.

The Globe rounds up the throne speech.  More "tough on crime" and a highway to the arctic.

Great news everybody!  The Conservatives are on our side!  Un-bundled cable TV!  Cheaper cell phone plans!  They're saving the world and all about the "middle class"!  In additional "Stephen Harper Saves the World by Making Things Marginally Cheaper" news, now they're going to tackle the US/Canadian price gap.  Slashing tariffs?  No, no.  Nothing like that.  After all, it's all the fault of suppliers.  Good luck on that one, buddy.

I feel like somebody is trying really hard to make us think the EU trade deal is nothing more than an easier way for us to buy cheese and send more pigs and cows to Europe.  Perhaps there is more to it than that?  This guy suggests that they're coming to steal our water, and points out the always lovely "Corporations can sue the Canadian government if they pass harmful (economically harmful, that is) environmental legislation".  Call me crazy, but if I'm running a country, I don't sign anything that allows people to sue us if we decide to better protect our environment.

This sounds like a reality show.  Come up with a great business idea, win permanent residency in Canada!

I had no idea the Federal Information Commissioner was such a radical.  She must be, because she's suggesting that our government is doing bad things with access to information.

Edward Snowden points out that people that suggest that China or Russia have stolen his files seem to be full of shit.

I have no idea who Darrell Dexter is.  But I wish I lived in Nova Scotia, just so I could have not voted for him.  Always classy when you blame voters for "not understanding" when you lose.

Liberal MP's have started posting their expenses.  People have started questioning every single thing.  Why do people become so irrational when talking about politicians expenses?  They have a job that requires lots of travel.  That will cost money.

The Senate is hoping to suspend Pamela Wallin and Mike Duffy.

Some protests in New Brunswick have erupted over fracking of shale gas.

Unfortunately, when you're a blowhard, people will work to tear you down.  As Rob Ford mobilizes to fire a sleeping City worker, a photo is dug up of him sleeping while on the job as a City worker.  I'm sure his situation is totally different.

This is just the coolest thing I've heard in a while.  For anybody who doesn't know Greg Gillis/Girl Talk, he's awesome.  He's a musical genius that justifies the mash-up craze of a few years ago.  And...a study was just released that tracked sales of songs that he sampled both before and after he released an album in 2010...and...sales went up after his album came out!  So much for the has been musicians suing the shit out of samplers.

This is great.  A journalist followed up with several people that Sean Hannity interviewed about "Obamacare being a disaster" and pointed out the holes in their theory.  Of course, absolutely not one single person that watched the Sean Hannity piece will read this debunking.

Buried in Laura Dzendri story...Police used an undercover operation to illicit a confession from a murderer.  Would be interested in hearing the details of that.

There's some definite legalese here...but the MPAA seems to be arguing that a judge shouldn't consider actual damages to their bottom line in awarding them a judgement, just the imaginary ones that they made up.