Budget Details - Week 209 - April 20-27

I kind of love Joe Oliver.  He's just such an idiot, I think it's going to work out well for Canada in the next election.  Funding TFSA's will be a problem for Stephen Harper's granddaughter to solve.  Bloody hell.  Why is this not an attack ad yet?  Please tell me the NDP and Libs are both working this in to their attack ad strategy.

Oh the budget.  More and more details emerge on how the Cons cooked the numbers for their magical surplus.  GM share sales.  Robbing from EI.  A serious cut to the contingency.  Even with all their slashing, it was still not enough.  Can't wait until they vilify the unemployed for taking advantage of the now underfunded EI system.

Hidden in the budget - Copyright terms for sound recordings have been extended from 50 years to 70 years.  Because struggling artists are going to benefit from that extra 20 years of copyright that most likely will kick in after they're dead.  Big content lobbyists are happy though...as no more works will be "lost" to the public domain where everybody can use them.

Vice points out all the windfalls our spies and police are receiving with the new budget.

IMF policy suggests the government should be spending more to create jobs.

Rona Ambrose - Chief Reefer Madness cheerleader.  Marijuana is not a medicine and how dare you Vancouver!  Love it how she totally embraces the expertise of Health Canada when it suits her purposes.  And think of the childredn!

The Mike Duffy trial drags on.  Was Mike Duffy the facilitator for contact between Enbridge and the Prime Minister?  Or was it all Mike Duffy working on his own accord?

We always said we would act on climate change when the US did, and follow their policies.  Until they acted on climate change.  Now we're not going to follow their policies.

Omar Khadr will receive a bail hearing.  Cons are, of course, fighting it.  Why are they so scared of this kid?

More paid Conservative ads in the form of CRA letters?

Details on the ridiculous land sale by the BC Liberals.  $43 million under market value.

The details of the BC Lions rental contract with PAVCO have finally been released.  So, the Lions pay a pittance in rent.  PAVCO experiences a huge loss (which taxpayers pay for).  And the Lions receive a profit.  Weird how that works.

Some interesting history on Iraq and the rise of ISIS.  This guy feels a bit too Zero Dark Thirty, but whatever.

Oh.  Shit.  This is what a good blog looks like!  Graphics!  Analysis!  Fuck this guy.

Getting Busy - Week 2 - May 10-16

The Conservatives bring the heat in their second week.

First up, I think the headline "Tories Back off Campaign Pledge..." is a bit sensationalist, but I'm all for the piling on. I think a more appropriate headline would have been "Tories Don't Understand Basic Math or Economics" or "Tories Confuse Many, Selves with New Budget Statements". Regardless, is it still considered to be a campaign promise when nobody believed you in the first place?

Next, Harper proves himself to be "all style, no substance" with his harsh words about the Arctic. By "style" I mean "superfluous" or "non-functional", not, you know, stylish. Nobody would ever suggest that Stephen Harper had style. Perhaps "all bluster, no substance" would have been more appropriate.

This is carryover from the last Parliament, but the court case over supervised injection sites is finally upon us. This is a surprisingly progressive take from the Globe and Mail and I especially love the line describing it as a "bare-knuckle brawl between political ideology and evidence-based research". I mean, why let a few "facts" get in the way of some good, old-fashioned law-making?

And lastly....Junkets. Why do these stories always come out just after an election? It is kind of sad that US politicians get bought off for hundreds of thousands of dollars and all a Canadian can hope for is a trip to Disney World. And it's funny that Liberals actually went on the most trips. How is that possible? Shouldn't step #1 in junketing be "find a person in a position of influence"?