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.

Flying High - Week 97 - March 4-11

The F-35?  Great plane.  It won't fly at night though.  And you might suffer an "increased risk of being shot down".  It won't fly through clouds either.

Nanos suggests the Conservatives support is dwindling.

In other poll news, the National Post conducted a doozie about immigration.  It's hard to know what it all means, as what exactly does "limits" to immigration mean?  Sure brought the racists out of the woodwork in the comments section though.

Compared to the official remarks from the US, it actually sounds like our statement on Hugo Chavez wasn't too bad.

In the last 10 years, there has been a huge spike in the aboriginal prison population.  Jesus.  Aboriginals account for:
- 25% of all males in prison
- 1/3 of all females in prison
- Up to 65% of the total prison population in some Western Canadian prisons


Sooooo....the richest Province in Canada has no money?  They keep pulling oil out of the ground but there is no revenue in it?  So why keep pulling it out of the ground?  I know, I know.  Jobs.  So, we essentially have a subsidized oil industy in Alberta now then, right (charging them next to nothing to profit off of pulling our oil out of the ground)?  I mean...the government isn't making the money that they should off of the extraction of the oil.  Sounds like a subsidy to me.  But the government (and government employees) in Alberta are lazy bloodsuckers.  And the oil patch workers are hard working "wealth creators".

Stephen Harper likes to bring along his own personal gun lobbyist to international arms control discussions.


The Feds are going to pay a shipbuilder $288 million to design out next batch of Northern Patrol Boats.  Two things.  First, no actual boats are included for the 288 million.  Second, the shipyard doesn't actually have the design capability, so they are subcontracting to a European design firm.  Seems a bit fishy.

A former journalist and Harper PR flunky has been appointed as a "Citizenship Judge".  I don't know what that is.  He doesn't sound qualified though.  I love it when people retire from jobs to "take it easy" and then take government appointments.  "Don't worry.  This job is eeeeeeeaaaaaaasssssssyyyyyyyy."

What a Week - Week 70 - Aug 27 - Sept 4

We'll start with a quote from the lady that will head up the next Quebec succession movement: “More than ever the Stephen Harper government is reminding Quebeckers that Canada was not their country,”

Hey!  Vic Toews doesn't have a monopoly on creepy.  You've undoubtedly heard of Maygan Sensenberger?  The 23-year-old wife of 69-year-old Liberal Senator Rod Zimmer?  Apparently they had some sort of altercation on an airplane.  Here's their photo:

Oh man.  Real Estate.  First, the Vancouver Sun had this article.  They changed the headline after I posted my comment, but the initial headline said "Vancouver home prices continue to rise..."  Yet, nowhere in the article does it say that housing prices in Vancouver have risen.  It says that the percentage of income required to own a home has risen by 2.2 percent to 91.0 percent (which is obscene and a dramatic indicator that this is unsustainable)...but this does not support the claim that house prices have risen.  A totally bogus and deceptive headline.  And then you look at this graph...and it shows you just how clueless these writers are.  Throw this StatsCan page into the mix with median household incomes....boy.  Let's buy some Vancouver Real Estate!

Hey look everybody!  Alberta, with all their oil money and Conservative principles...they're looking at a massive deficit.  Of course, the comment trolls are claiming that they're not Conservative enough and that's the problem!  I thought everybody in Alberta was a hard working taxpayer supporting the rest of Canada?  Why do they even need social programs?

Imagine that you had this business...you could borrow as much money as you wanted for super cheap.  And then you could turn around and lend it out for a larger rate, guaranteed.  So the more money you lent out, the more money you brought in.  And you could release all kinds of reports and self-serving "research" that encouraged people to borrow more-and-more from you because things can't possibly go down.  Yes, you might be able to make gobs and gobs of money as well.  Of course, anybody that points out that the banks seem to be making an awful lot of money off the backs of Canadians is just "jealous".

Rob Ford is just the gift that keeps on giving.  In light of the reading while driving and the conflict of interest trial (and that's just in the last two weeks!) you'd think that Stephen Harper would keep his distance from this guy.  But no.  They're going on a fishing trip.  I can just see this guy getting thrown out of his Mayor's job, and then named as a Senator or Ambassador a few days later.  And then, his awesome niece makes an amazing twitter comment about women preventing sexual assault by not dressing "like a whore".  Yes.  The woman below, who plays in the lingerie football league, said you shouldn't "dress like a whore" in order to not get raped.

Just another independent government adviser for Stephen Harper.  His Chief of Staff has maybe used his position to improve his financial standing with Barrick Gold.

The new Chief of Defence Staff?  An ex-fighter pilot in favour of the F-35.  May as well double down, I guess.

Jack Layton's funeral cost a bit of money.

So we have a Senator that is legally incompetent....I realize that we need to respect her dignity, but come on...

Am I mistaken, or did the guy who is supposed to "clean up the RCMP" just have a bunch of on-duty cops do some ceremonial shit at his wedding...and he didn't know they were on duty?