Good lord. What a week. I mean, we've got earthquakes, civil wars, European economies falling apart and massive gun violence all over the place. But it seems like the biggest North American issues right now are a tasteless Oscar host and a bad Onion tweet. And the outrage! Oh, the outrage. As somebody, somewhere pointed out in some comment about one of the many outrage(!) articles, it's like the Liberal Fox & Friends, where everybody trips all over themselves to be the most outraged about the largest perceived slight.
And what's awesome is that people have mis-interpreted a big chunk of the incidents over which they are so outraged. This Tyee article offers an interesting opinion on the whole thing, but one commenter is outraged over the "Boobs" song and points at the actresses victimized by the song and the shamed reactions that they showed when the camera panned over their faces. I'm surprised he didn't pull out the latest buzzword and suggest they were bullied! And I get it, I guess. I mean, I thought their reactions were real for about 15 seconds when I was watching as well.
But then there's people that should know better. Joan Walsh, who seems to be leading the outrage brigade over at Salon points out the horrendous joke made about Jennifer Aniston being a stripper! The outrage! Only problem, it was actually a joke about Channing Tatum being a stripper. Oh well. Still outrageous!
That's not to say I'm completely condoning Seth McFarlane or suggesting that he's not sexist. But I don't think some of this criticism is as simple as it's made out to be. The boobs song was silly and outrageous, but wasn't that the point? Isn't there something kind of amazing about a gigantic meta-joke that all at once makes fun of:
- Ridiculously unnecessary boobs in film
- Oscar hosting
- Frozen faced, smiling reaction shots
- William Shatner
Was it sexist? Most definitely probably. But it was a joke operating on a level that I can't even comprehend. And it probably moved the awareness of sexism in Hollywood a whole hell of a lot further forward than all of the faux outrage. Outrage! On to politics.
Update - One of the key points people seem to be making is that some of the boobs Seth McFarlane talked about were shown in rape scenes and this makes it poor form to joke about. But isn't that a part of the point? We're showing rape in movies, yet we still sexualize it by showing actresses boobs? We're not even allowed to make a joke about a rape scene in a movie? Can we comment on it? Can we comment on it in a humourous fashion?
Some details have come to light about the arrest of "Senator" Brazeau. No biggie. He just spit in a woman's face, pushed her down some stairs and touched her in a sexual way. Over an argument about "aboriginal issues".
Jason Kenney is pushing forward the citizenship stripping bill, and has said that, if it were legal, he would strip the citizenship of any Canadian convicted of terrorism, not just dual citizens. This piece outlines why the whole thing is absurd and this case in Quebec shows how this could be abused. A protester is facing "terrorism" related charges for comments made on social media. So, in Jason Kenney's Canada, somebody making stupid threats on Facebook (and yes, carrying a Molitiv cocktail) would be set adrift on an ice flow as a non-Canadian. Yes this guy is an idiot and yes he is a criminal. But I don't think he should be thrown out of Canada.
Hey look. The Conservatives lowballed another military purchase. This time they're $1.43 Billion off on shipbuilding costs. They said it would cost $2.6 Billion. So only %50 more required. Getting closer guys!
The Conservatives have created "targets" for the number of EI frauds that investigators need to discover. They're not quotas though. Merely targets tied to their job performance. When questions in the House of Commons, Stephen Harper did his best to duck and weave. Sad thing is, this whole thing will probably cause him to score points with Canadians. Everybody thinks EI is a waste of money and everybody using it is a fraud. Until they lose their job and make use of it themselves. Even then, many people probably think this is okay but that everybody else using it is still a fraud.
Sick of Senators yet? Four of them are facing further probes (3 Cons, 1 Lib). This article highlights the ridiculous amount of money spend by Senators on travel, and creates an interesting theory that many of them could have saved a lot of money by taking the VIA rail train between Toronto and Ottawa. Which would have been free. But takes 4.5 hours, by the looks of it. So maybe not.
The CBC shows that the forms asking Senators to detail their primary residence isn't all that complicated. Many Conservative Senators seem to think it is. Are they slow? Or deceptive?
So Stephen Harper said "I have looked at the numbers" with respect to Pamela Wallin's expenses. But he didn't say that he had "personally reviewed" them. And now he's backtracking ever-so-slightly in his defense as it has come out that she actually paid back some of the money. No word on how much. But some.
The Supreme Court may strike down laws "limiting free speech" in the name of limiting "hate speech". Readers of the National Post seem pretty excited about this. I find it interesting that all these people hate the "heavy hand of government", even though their cherished "free speech" is a function of government controlled law and order. There's all this talk of "limiting government" but people still want all of the positive effects of said government. Interestingly...
CBC - "Top court strikes down part of Sask. human rights code"
NP - "Supreme court upholds Canada's hate speech laws"
Jesus Christ. This is really weird. A former Stephen Harper adviser (and current CBC contributor) is in a bit of trouble for suggesting that viewing child pornography is not harmful. He also talks about being on the mailing list for the "National Man-Boy Love Association". Talk about special interest groups!
An NDP MP bolted to the Bloc.
An interesting article on how US government regulations are killing certain categories of vehicles and having the opposite effect as intended - decreasing rather than increasing fuel efficiency.
So the guys behind Ipsos Reid are projecting Conservative majorities for years to come? I know, I know, wait for the election. But even with all the Conservative gerrymandering and riding creation, Ekos via 308 has the Conservatives projected at 135 seats. Which is far from a majority. The yahoos potentially stay in power, but perhaps we could get some election reform?
I feel a bit for Helena Guergis. Here's my take on what happened. The Prime Minister insinuated a whole bunch of bad shit, threw her out of the caucus, and then had the RCMP investigate her. The allegations were all proven false. So she sued for having her life ruined and her name dragged through the mud. And now she has to pay over $100,000 in legal fees to the very people that she felt screwed her over? Ouch.
Theresa Spence is asking the UN to step in and fix Canada's aboriginal problems. I think the news here is that the only link to this that I can find is on the Chatham Daily News.
As an Engineer, I am awed by the improvised weaponry of the Syrian rebels. Simply amazing.
Oh man. This is disheartening. A York Police Officer is facing a disciplinary hearing, and perhaps dismissal, for not properly investigating racial slurs. Made against him. I'm not even kidding. We have cops that get caught driving drunk. That shoot people. That do all kinds of shit and keep their jobs. But this guy is perhaps going to get fired because some guy hurled racial slurs against him and he didn't do enough about it. Crazy.
The Real Estate Market is fine! No problems at all! We just don't want to let you know if that house, or any of these houses are in foreclosure. Says CMHC.
I'm sick and tired of all these lazy hippies complaining about the 1%. If they'd only get off their asses and do a bit of work, they could make it into the 1% as well. What? A rather large chunk of wealthy Britons got their money from government handouts when they were forced to give up their slaves? Oh.
The American Copyright Lobby has teamed up with (bullied?) the major US ISP's to create a system for...I don't even know how to describe this? A system for harassing people to stop pirating? Better than suing the shit out of them, I guess. How long before they want this in Canada?
This is just an amazingly awesome story about a kids hockey tournament in Turkmenistan and the politics behind it. And a kid that has 140 saves in one game.
Wow. Not one, but two Oscar related diatribes. I think one of the saddest things about being a Canadian is how excited people get when American pop culture references Canada, and how angry we get at perceived slights from Americans when it comes to Canada. People seem really pissed that Ben Affleck used creative licence with Argo. I actually found a similar sentiment on the NP after I wrote this. It's actually a pretty awesome little piece of writing.
Showing posts with label Theresa Spence. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Theresa Spence. Show all posts
Thursday, February 28, 2013
Monday, January 28, 2013
Rememberings - Week 91 - Jan 21-28
Our mid-week post covered the happenings of Monday to Wednesday.
Stephen Harper quietly named a new batch of Senators. Conservative fundraisers, relatives of former MP's and oil industry types...I've included a photo of Stephen Harper above, just in case you forgot what he looks like.
Details from the Ashley Smith inquest are seeping out and it is just a really sad catastrophe. For a long time I've wondered how guards could have just sat there and let it happen. But then you find out they were threatened with all kinds of bad things after previous incidents in which they intervened and it makes more "sense"...sense being relative in this case. Hopefully the people who created this situation are found accountable.
Some more information has come out about the sternly worded letters from Environment Canada. Apparently two of the letters were in response to oil spills. There were no public reports created about either of them and the public only found out about them when the story about the letters broke. And, well, one of the spills was approximately two barrels worth. And the other was approximately 3,000 barrels worth. And lasted for 36 hours. Wonder if they got the same letter?
A report from the Parliamentary Budget Officer highlights that "spending cuts" completed by the Conservatives haven't really done much of anything except with regards to front line services (i.e. they've cut the shit out of front line services). Lots of other things just keep going up and up. So. Essentially - "We're going to cut all the shit that we don't like in the name of 'cost savings' while spending like drunken sailors on stuff we like."
Remember a few months ago, when there was that story about the Canadian lady being jailed in Mexico for plotting to smuggle one of Gaddafi's sons in? And it just seemed so completely insane that it couldn't possibly be believable? Well, it kind of makes a bit of sense now as we find out details of the graft paid by SNC Lavelin. Although, why would you feel so indebted to some guy that you paid millions in bribes to? Unless you figured he would somehow make it back into power.
Oh ya. Nobody at all is going to learn how to take advantage of the Entrepreneur visa program. You're required to have venture capital funding in place before you can come? "Hello rich Canadian uncle. I would like to move to Canada. Can you provide me with $100,000 for my imaginary business? Thanks." Or "Hello Venture Capital firm in Canada. I would like to buy my way into the country. Can I front you $100,000 that you can then front to my 'business'? Great."
Well, the National Post finally gave a voice for a left wing editorial...about how disappointing it is that Thomas Mulcair isn't left wing enough.
Theresa Spence ended her hunger strike. And then promptly stepped in it by calling Brazeau a...just let me make sure I get this right...a "typical colonized indian asshole" on Twitter.
I saw this article on the Globe and Mail yesterday (don't go read it). I stopped reading. Apparently, not everybody else did. Boingboing has a nice response to how ridiculous it is to write off everybody as hackers and copyright thieves.
Remember how big a deal Mo Farah was for the UK in these past Olympics? Well, apparently in the US, he gets questioned as a potential terrorist. At least they're equitable in their pour treatment of brown guys.
This Bloomberg interactive display on the worlds Billionaires is fascinating. Play around with it a bit. The "inherited" filter is quite interesting. Look at how those Waltons stack up one after another. And...only one Canadian billionaire. And he's not on Dragon's Den.
Nothing to do with Canada...but a State Legislator in New Mexico wants to outlaw abortion by rape victims as they will be "tampering with evidence". Cue the outrage from the "hateful" e-mails she is about to receive. She attempted to backpedal a few days later, but I'm not sure you can really step back from something like this.
Details from the Ashley Smith inquest are seeping out and it is just a really sad catastrophe. For a long time I've wondered how guards could have just sat there and let it happen. But then you find out they were threatened with all kinds of bad things after previous incidents in which they intervened and it makes more "sense"...sense being relative in this case. Hopefully the people who created this situation are found accountable.
Some more information has come out about the sternly worded letters from Environment Canada. Apparently two of the letters were in response to oil spills. There were no public reports created about either of them and the public only found out about them when the story about the letters broke. And, well, one of the spills was approximately two barrels worth. And the other was approximately 3,000 barrels worth. And lasted for 36 hours. Wonder if they got the same letter?
A report from the Parliamentary Budget Officer highlights that "spending cuts" completed by the Conservatives haven't really done much of anything except with regards to front line services (i.e. they've cut the shit out of front line services). Lots of other things just keep going up and up. So. Essentially - "We're going to cut all the shit that we don't like in the name of 'cost savings' while spending like drunken sailors on stuff we like."
Remember a few months ago, when there was that story about the Canadian lady being jailed in Mexico for plotting to smuggle one of Gaddafi's sons in? And it just seemed so completely insane that it couldn't possibly be believable? Well, it kind of makes a bit of sense now as we find out details of the graft paid by SNC Lavelin. Although, why would you feel so indebted to some guy that you paid millions in bribes to? Unless you figured he would somehow make it back into power.
Oh ya. Nobody at all is going to learn how to take advantage of the Entrepreneur visa program. You're required to have venture capital funding in place before you can come? "Hello rich Canadian uncle. I would like to move to Canada. Can you provide me with $100,000 for my imaginary business? Thanks." Or "Hello Venture Capital firm in Canada. I would like to buy my way into the country. Can I front you $100,000 that you can then front to my 'business'? Great."
Well, the National Post finally gave a voice for a left wing editorial...about how disappointing it is that Thomas Mulcair isn't left wing enough.
Theresa Spence ended her hunger strike. And then promptly stepped in it by calling Brazeau a...just let me make sure I get this right...a "typical colonized indian asshole" on Twitter.
I saw this article on the Globe and Mail yesterday (don't go read it). I stopped reading. Apparently, not everybody else did. Boingboing has a nice response to how ridiculous it is to write off everybody as hackers and copyright thieves.
Remember how big a deal Mo Farah was for the UK in these past Olympics? Well, apparently in the US, he gets questioned as a potential terrorist. At least they're equitable in their pour treatment of brown guys.
This Bloomberg interactive display on the worlds Billionaires is fascinating. Play around with it a bit. The "inherited" filter is quite interesting. Look at how those Waltons stack up one after another. And...only one Canadian billionaire. And he's not on Dragon's Den.
Nothing to do with Canada...but a State Legislator in New Mexico wants to outlaw abortion by rape victims as they will be "tampering with evidence". Cue the outrage from the "hateful" e-mails she is about to receive. She attempted to backpedal a few days later, but I'm not sure you can really step back from something like this.
Monday, January 14, 2013
The Week of Theresa Spence - Week 89 - Jan 7-14
It really has turned in to the week of Theresa Spence. You can question the timing and the way some things happened, but in my opinion, this woman has lost all of her credibility. I actually having a hard time making sense of what happened. First, she refused to allow any reporters into her camp. Next, she personally phoned up to Attawapiskat and forced the removal of a Global News crew. After that, she refused to attend the meeting with the Prime Minister because the Governor General was not going to also be in attendance. This is roughly the equivalent of cancelling your meeting with the CEO of McDonald's because Ronald McDonald can't make it as well. I don't get it.
In the end, I'm not even sure what happened. Some threatened to boycott the meeting (not sure if they did). The Governor General held his own meeting. John A. McDonald took some punishment. And Theresa Spence is still on her hunger strike. The Prime Minister did promise future meetings, so perhaps it was successful after all?
On a slightly smaller scale, but a Global News story showed Theresa Spence driving away in a giant white Hummer (confirmed here). What the hell? How do you drive away from a hunger strike related to environmental demands in a giant white Hummer? I know that this might sound like a joke, but could you honestly take the opinion, any opinion, of a Hummer driver seriously?
In other native news, I don't fully understand what this means, but it looks like a court decision has expanded the interpretation of "Indians" under the law. Their word, not mine.
So with all of this First Nations stuff going on this week, this is where it starts to get a bit fishy for me. A story comes out that one quarter of all First Nations are under financial investigation. Is this just a news organization digging in to an important and timely story? Or is it a well timed leak to chip away at an opponents credibility? Either way, it chips away at the First Nations position.
Of course, the National Post keeps publishing anti-Idle No More/Attawapiskat stories. All of a sudden, they've become real champions for the public good. They're even complimenting the CBC now. That's the problem with popular movements. With so much going on there is always, always, always somebody involved that is doing something wrong. By harping on one point, critics can take the whole movement down. And the most amazingly awesome thing about the National Post writing a story about a CBC story? All of the commenters talking about how great it is that the National Post has finally spoken the truth, gotten the word out and avoided censorship by the "left wing" media.
On to other stuff. A government funded study came out that was able to isolate the "natural pollution" of the oil sands and proved that lakes and rivers in the vicinity of all of this development are in far worse shape than when development started. 23 times worse, actually. Of course, both the Government and the Oil Sands industry don't feel like this is worth any kind of action.
Hey. France solved the World. Way to go guys. You figured out how to bring Muslims and Catholics together. Hatred of the gays!
Disabled veterans have reached a settlement with the government over reduced pensions. Isn't that awesome? MP's with gilded pensions can decide to claw back the pensions of disabled veterans.
Way to go guys. The Federal Government lost a hard drive with the personal information of a half a million people who obtained student loans.
I'm really jealous of the idea that this blog came up with. She picks one ridiculously overpriced Vancouver property and then compares it to the lavish mansions that could be purchased for the same price elsewhere. The best of lists her favourites for the year (make sure you click through on each one). I think this one is mine.
This article points out something that seems really obvious - We're leaving a tonne of money on the table by not processing our own crude. And as we continue to ramp up production we make things worse by increasing supply and driving the cost down. If we're going to ruin the planet, why not slow things down a bit, build our own refineries and pave the path to environmental destruction with fat stacks of cash? I do not buy the argument that we don't have the money required to build our own refineries. These companies can come up with billions and billions to pull the stuff out of the ground but they're too poor to refine it?
Some documents showed up that suggested Jason Kenney either didn't know what he was talking about or was outright dishonest when he talked about refugee health care cuts. Not sure which is the better option.
I don't pretend to know much about Haiti. Or what would be best for them. But this is a pretty depressing take on what is going on there. And when Don Cherry comes out against something, man, you'd better hope you're on the other side of that argument. I wonder what would happen if Don Cherry and Donald Trump got together? Man, I'm going to tweet that.
I was excited when I saw this article on McLean's titled "99 stupid things the government did with your money" (part I here). But it's kind of a stupid article. Cherry-picking ridiculous sounding expenses with no context doesn't necessarily tell the whole story. They really lost me at #4. Honestly, your #4 waste of taxpayer money is paying Roberto Luongo $160,000 for an endorsement deal?
This Salon article points out that "conflict free" diamonds might be a bit of a myth.
This is a pretty great snippet of what is going on in the US right now. In response to the ever-present "I run a small business and I balance my books. American needs to balance its books" argument:
But let us try to take Walden’s small business analogy seriously. Suppose the problem is that we’re a business whose expenses are outstripping our income. We propose some measures to correct it — say, cutting expenses when possible and also working some longer hours. But we have a business partner who listens to a lot of Rush Limbaugh and has some different ideas. He says increasing revenue by working longer hours — even a single longer minute when we have customers waiting in line at closing time — is totally off the table. He says the answer is to cut our employees’ pay and ban them from taking bathroom breaks. And he also informs us that, unless we approve the savings ideas he wants, with none of the savings ideas we want, he’ll refuse to pay vendors who have already delivered things to us, thereby ruining our credit rating forever.
Speaking of the US, everybody seems to be all about comparing Obama to Hitler right now as Obama talks about gun control. This article pretty thoroughly debunks the notion that Hitler limited access to guns as he seized power. I'm sure this will immediately put an end to that silly argument.
I'm sick of all of this gateway drug bullshit. Yes, I would imagine that a really large number of cocaine/heroine/meth addicts got their start on pot. But I'd also imagine that before they smoked pot, they drank alcohol. As well, I'd imagine that a huge percentage of pot smokers don't go on to become cocaine/heroine/meth addicts. So fuck off with your gateway drug theory.
Apparently many American weatherpeople don't believe in global warming.
I thought this train of thought would take me further. It didn't. But I put a lot of work into it so I'm going to include it here at the bottom of my post. We have a long history of putting people in power with small amounts of support. I honestly believe that until we get a system where we have a better representation of how we actually voted, there is going to be problems. So, I started looking around to see how many MP's narrowly skated to victory. The first thing I learned is that it's difficult to find a nicely summarized presentation of the information. Wikipedia had a bit, but it was incomplete. Elections Canada was very difficult to navigate. Finally, I found this guy that did some analysis of the Elections Canada data (Unfortunately, he charges to download his information so I wasn't able to really analyze it). I started by looking at percentages. There's a very large number of MP's that were elected with less than 40% of the vote. In a multi party system, that's not all that surprising. So I started looking more closely at MP's with less than 33.3% of the vote. To me, anybody in power with the support of less than 1/3 of their constituents is a bit suspect. I was hoping that somebody had gotten elected with less than 30% of the vote, but it wasn't to be. But I found a winner. Daniel Petit, a Conservative MP from Quebec was elected with only 30.3% of the vote in his riding. Hooray for vote splitting. Then, I looked at vote totals. In some of the ridings with large populations, there are MP's with votes in the 30-40,000 range. I ignored some of the weird outliers (Territories, Labrador) with population difficulties and I found that there are two MP's in office with fewer than 10,000 votes. Both were Liberals. Kevin Lamoureaux from Manitoba had only 9,097 votes and Sean Casey from New Brunswick had only 7,292 votes.
In the end, I'm not even sure what happened. Some threatened to boycott the meeting (not sure if they did). The Governor General held his own meeting. John A. McDonald took some punishment. And Theresa Spence is still on her hunger strike. The Prime Minister did promise future meetings, so perhaps it was successful after all?
On a slightly smaller scale, but a Global News story showed Theresa Spence driving away in a giant white Hummer (confirmed here). What the hell? How do you drive away from a hunger strike related to environmental demands in a giant white Hummer? I know that this might sound like a joke, but could you honestly take the opinion, any opinion, of a Hummer driver seriously?
In other native news, I don't fully understand what this means, but it looks like a court decision has expanded the interpretation of "Indians" under the law. Their word, not mine.
So with all of this First Nations stuff going on this week, this is where it starts to get a bit fishy for me. A story comes out that one quarter of all First Nations are under financial investigation. Is this just a news organization digging in to an important and timely story? Or is it a well timed leak to chip away at an opponents credibility? Either way, it chips away at the First Nations position.
Of course, the National Post keeps publishing anti-Idle No More/Attawapiskat stories. All of a sudden, they've become real champions for the public good. They're even complimenting the CBC now. That's the problem with popular movements. With so much going on there is always, always, always somebody involved that is doing something wrong. By harping on one point, critics can take the whole movement down. And the most amazingly awesome thing about the National Post writing a story about a CBC story? All of the commenters talking about how great it is that the National Post has finally spoken the truth, gotten the word out and avoided censorship by the "left wing" media.
On to other stuff. A government funded study came out that was able to isolate the "natural pollution" of the oil sands and proved that lakes and rivers in the vicinity of all of this development are in far worse shape than when development started. 23 times worse, actually. Of course, both the Government and the Oil Sands industry don't feel like this is worth any kind of action.
Hey. France solved the World. Way to go guys. You figured out how to bring Muslims and Catholics together. Hatred of the gays!
Disabled veterans have reached a settlement with the government over reduced pensions. Isn't that awesome? MP's with gilded pensions can decide to claw back the pensions of disabled veterans.
Way to go guys. The Federal Government lost a hard drive with the personal information of a half a million people who obtained student loans.
I'm really jealous of the idea that this blog came up with. She picks one ridiculously overpriced Vancouver property and then compares it to the lavish mansions that could be purchased for the same price elsewhere. The best of lists her favourites for the year (make sure you click through on each one). I think this one is mine.
This article points out something that seems really obvious - We're leaving a tonne of money on the table by not processing our own crude. And as we continue to ramp up production we make things worse by increasing supply and driving the cost down. If we're going to ruin the planet, why not slow things down a bit, build our own refineries and pave the path to environmental destruction with fat stacks of cash? I do not buy the argument that we don't have the money required to build our own refineries. These companies can come up with billions and billions to pull the stuff out of the ground but they're too poor to refine it?
Some documents showed up that suggested Jason Kenney either didn't know what he was talking about or was outright dishonest when he talked about refugee health care cuts. Not sure which is the better option.
I don't pretend to know much about Haiti. Or what would be best for them. But this is a pretty depressing take on what is going on there. And when Don Cherry comes out against something, man, you'd better hope you're on the other side of that argument. I wonder what would happen if Don Cherry and Donald Trump got together? Man, I'm going to tweet that.
I was excited when I saw this article on McLean's titled "99 stupid things the government did with your money" (part I here). But it's kind of a stupid article. Cherry-picking ridiculous sounding expenses with no context doesn't necessarily tell the whole story. They really lost me at #4. Honestly, your #4 waste of taxpayer money is paying Roberto Luongo $160,000 for an endorsement deal?
This Salon article points out that "conflict free" diamonds might be a bit of a myth.
This is a pretty great snippet of what is going on in the US right now. In response to the ever-present "I run a small business and I balance my books. American needs to balance its books" argument:
But let us try to take Walden’s small business analogy seriously. Suppose the problem is that we’re a business whose expenses are outstripping our income. We propose some measures to correct it — say, cutting expenses when possible and also working some longer hours. But we have a business partner who listens to a lot of Rush Limbaugh and has some different ideas. He says increasing revenue by working longer hours — even a single longer minute when we have customers waiting in line at closing time — is totally off the table. He says the answer is to cut our employees’ pay and ban them from taking bathroom breaks. And he also informs us that, unless we approve the savings ideas he wants, with none of the savings ideas we want, he’ll refuse to pay vendors who have already delivered things to us, thereby ruining our credit rating forever.
Speaking of the US, everybody seems to be all about comparing Obama to Hitler right now as Obama talks about gun control. This article pretty thoroughly debunks the notion that Hitler limited access to guns as he seized power. I'm sure this will immediately put an end to that silly argument.
I'm sick of all of this gateway drug bullshit. Yes, I would imagine that a really large number of cocaine/heroine/meth addicts got their start on pot. But I'd also imagine that before they smoked pot, they drank alcohol. As well, I'd imagine that a huge percentage of pot smokers don't go on to become cocaine/heroine/meth addicts. So fuck off with your gateway drug theory.
Apparently many American weatherpeople don't believe in global warming.
I thought this train of thought would take me further. It didn't. But I put a lot of work into it so I'm going to include it here at the bottom of my post. We have a long history of putting people in power with small amounts of support. I honestly believe that until we get a system where we have a better representation of how we actually voted, there is going to be problems. So, I started looking around to see how many MP's narrowly skated to victory. The first thing I learned is that it's difficult to find a nicely summarized presentation of the information. Wikipedia had a bit, but it was incomplete. Elections Canada was very difficult to navigate. Finally, I found this guy that did some analysis of the Elections Canada data (Unfortunately, he charges to download his information so I wasn't able to really analyze it). I started by looking at percentages. There's a very large number of MP's that were elected with less than 40% of the vote. In a multi party system, that's not all that surprising. So I started looking more closely at MP's with less than 33.3% of the vote. To me, anybody in power with the support of less than 1/3 of their constituents is a bit suspect. I was hoping that somebody had gotten elected with less than 30% of the vote, but it wasn't to be. But I found a winner. Daniel Petit, a Conservative MP from Quebec was elected with only 30.3% of the vote in his riding. Hooray for vote splitting. Then, I looked at vote totals. In some of the ridings with large populations, there are MP's with votes in the 30-40,000 range. I ignored some of the weird outliers (Territories, Labrador) with population difficulties and I found that there are two MP's in office with fewer than 10,000 votes. Both were Liberals. Kevin Lamoureaux from Manitoba had only 9,097 votes and Sean Casey from New Brunswick had only 7,292 votes.
Wednesday, January 2, 2013
2012 Best Of - Week 87 - Dec 25-Jan 1
The whole purpose of this blog is for me to be able to track all of the crazy shit that the Conservatives are going to do over their 4 year term. As I look back over the past year...Gawd...I'm just overwhelmed by how much crazy shit they've done. It's too much for me. I think that in order to understand how crazy this year was, we need to look at some of the stories that I had to gloss over as I made my list. Allowing two major Canadian oil companies to be purchased by foreign state controlled enterprises? Didn't make it. Allowing a northern British Columbia mine to ship in all of its employees from China at a discounted rate? Didn't make it. Closing down a groundbreaking freshwater research station (perhaps because of some troublesome research into the oil sands)? Didn't make it. Stripping a layer of environmental protection from our lakes and rivers? Didn't make it. What about their continual re-introduction of anti-abortion laws? Their no questions asked support of Israel? Looking back, things are way, way worse than I thought.
Lessons in short-sightedness
After years of a ridiculous pro-asbestos position that was mocked by the rest of the world, the asbestos mine responsible for this ridiculous stance closed down. And somehow the Conservatives are trying to blame the Parti Quebecois for this reckless swerve towards acceptability.
The War on Terror reaches new levels of awesome
A Muslim man in Quebec sent a text message to some work colleagues encouraging them to "blow away the competition" at a trade show. He was arrested on suspicion of terrorism. Reddit agrees that this is awesome.
Government cuts lead to a pretty good idea for a comedy sketch
Did you know that Canada is surrounded on three sides by oceans? I don't think the Conservatives do. Coast Guard and other naval safety cuts seem to be a favourite of theirs. In addition to closing the Coast Guard base in the largest port in Canada, they also seem to be struggling to provide effective services in the places that remain open. This poor Newfoundland fisherman had his emergency medical call transferred to a non-English speaking doctor in Italy when he phoned in for help.
Model citizens
Have you heard about these Queen's Jubilee medals? Ya, there's something like 60,000 of them being awarded and it sounds like it is largely at the discretion of individual MP's. One Saskatchewan MP has decided that a pair of ladies who have continually been arrested for anti-abortion related harassment. He's praised them as "heroines of humanity". Surprisingly, he's a Conservative.
Limits to democracy
It's actually hard to keep track on the amount of times that the Conservatives limited debate, jammed through mountains of legislation via Omnibus Bills and just kind of messed with democracy by preventing people from asking question. These are only three examples of a worrisome trend.
War on Crime
Look at that graph above. See how there has been a steady decline in the crime rate since the early 90's? See how we're basically at levels not seen since the 70's? Ya, me too. But even with all of that, the Conservatives decided to jam through a whole bunch of "Tough on Crime" laws (like mandatory sentencing) even though a whole bunch of people told them that it's a bad idea...And then, they actually have the balls to take all the credit for the last 20 years of dropping crime rates...even though there was a dramatic spike in homicide rates this year.
Not only that, they've decided to:
- Cut prison inmate reform programs - because what we really need is convicts getting out of prison with no real world skills or training
- Close a few prisons even though before their new mandatory minimum sentences can have an affect there are already overcrowding problems...honestly...double bunking!
- Decided that convicts earning between $10 and $69 every two weeks are living high on the hog and they're going to charge them more in rent money
- Created a law whereby it's illegal to riot in a mask...even though it's already illegal to riot in a mask. Great prioritization, guys!
- Supported a bill to outlaw gang recruiting...ya...that's really going to put the brakes on gang activity
Enbridge and their Magic Pipeline
I actually can't believe that there is still a chance that this Northern Gateway pipeline might get built. There is just so much wrong with this whole story, I don't know of any other way to tackle it but point form.
1. The Federal Government has suggested that opponents to the Pipeline are terrorists
2. They've also cut so many research positions over the last few years that there probably aren't enough people remaining to adequately research the effects of this pipeline
3. Enbridge created a promotional video that has a map that conveniently ignores all of the nautical hazards that will be faced by the hundreds of tankers steaming towards Kitimat
4. Their clean-up plan submitted to the government is for crude oil, not bitumen
5. While all this was going on, one of their pipelines in Wisconsin started leaking...and they didn't do a particularly good job in responding to it
6. A report came out that crucified the Enbridge response to a 2010 pipeline leak in Michigan...I don't think governments generally throw around terms like "Keystone Cops" lightly
7. After the above mentioned Michigan oil spill, Enbridge executives gave themselves some hefty bonuses
8. They've created a limited liability partnership that will, you guessed it, limit their liability in the event of an oil spill
9. And while all this was going on...while Alberta was screaming at BC for being selfish about not allowing a pipeline...leak after leak after leak after leak popped up across Alberta.
10. Is it a surprise though, seeing as people connected to big oil have had upwards of 2733 meetings with public officials over the last 4 years?
Honestly. How are we still talking about this pipeline?
Robo-Calls
What is the worst thing about this Conservative government? The fact that they might not even be legitimate. The robo-call scandal continues to roll along. Even worse is the Conservative response to the whole thing. They demanded that Liberals release all records of "all calls made on their behalf" during the last election, but refuse to release their own records because, obviously, there's no possible chance they have done anything wrong themselves. That didn't work, so once the cases finally made it to court, they attempted to shirk responsibility through a series of loopholes, smoke and mirrors. First, they claim the cases were filed too late. Then, they suggest the complainants should be ignored as they are made by "professional agitators" and the bills are paid by people with a "political bias". Last, even though a pollster dug up information suggesting that there was voter suppression (they actually tried to have this evidence thrown out), they claimed that everything is okay because even if there were robo-calls, they didn't actually have an effect.
The next section I'm going to call the 2012 Conservative All-Star Team. With guys like this, how can they possibly get re-elected?
Vic Toews
Where do you start with Vic Toews? He's accomplished so much in a one year period, it's difficult to know what to talk about. First, his fingerprints are all over the "tough on crime" section above. But I think his crowning achievement for the year really was his internet snooping bill. First, he suggested that if you didn't support his bill then you were "with the child pornographers." Then, he freaked the hell out when somebody (well, a Liberal staffer) started posting (completely, 100% true) information about his messy, messy divorce (the babysitter? really?). At this point, Anonymous started threatening him and, despite his bluster, he actually admitted that he was powerless to stop them and temporarily threw in the towel on the whole thing. Until he saw an opportunity to use the horrific Luka Magnotta murders for political gains and then reintroduced an even worse internet surveillance bill. To heap further awful onto an already giant pile of crap, when a journalist asked a pointed question about a particularly over-the-top portion of the bill he became surprised and confused; It was almost as if he had no actual idea about the contents of the very bill he was championing. (This is a bit of an aside, but I'd like to point out that while the Conservatives are all about using the forces of Government to eavesdrop on citizens, they don't believe that Canadians deserve any government help or protection from identity theft or other cyber-security matters. That would be government over-reach) I know you're thinking. At this point, an ordinary man would sit back and be happy with his accomplishments. But not Vic Toews. He was just getting started. He was the point man for Canada refusing to bring convicts back home via prison transfers. He actively worked against bringing Omar Khadr home and then made a series of crazy statements once he finally did make it back to Canada. And he allowed the RCMP and Canadian Border Agency to use information obtained from torture. Nice job, Vic!
Jason Kenney
Jason Kenney didn't have enough actual immigrants for his press conference. So he decided to have some of his staff dress up as as "immigrants" to celebrate their "citizenship reaffirmation". As well, his department decided that the way to deal with the crazy backlogs of applications was just to ignore all applications made before 2008.
Rob Anders
"Sleepy Time" Rob has been caught sleeping several times on the job. I know, I know, we've all dozed off for a few minutes at work. But, I bet your little nappy time didn't come in the middle of a Parliamentary Question Period or during a presentation from a group supporting homeless veterans. Of course, it all would have been alright if he had apologized. But no, he doubled down and called the homeless veterans support group a bunch of "NDP hacks." He did eventually apologize. And then later in the year, he claimed that Jack Layton's death was Thomas Mulcair's fault. And yes, that is a screen capture of one of his Parliament naps.
Bev Oda
Every time I see the above photo of Bev Oda, I'm actually a little bit sad that she left politics. Poor Bev had a problem with her expense account. It all came to a head when it was found she'd racked up crazy bills living it up in London during a conference on the immunization of children in poor countries. She moved from one luxury hotel to another, charged thousands to have a car and driver at her beck-and-call and then washed it all down with a $16 glass of Orange Juice.
Patrick Brazeau
Doesn't that guy look like a Senator? As well, he has an atrocious record of attending Senate sittings (you know...his job). He's absent about 25% of the time. And when somebody pointed it out and asked some questions, he called her a bitch. He also may be fraudulently claiming a living allowance. I will give him credit for his charity boxing match with Justin Trudeau...and his excessive pre-match bragging made it even funnier when he lost.
Lessons in short-sightedness
After years of a ridiculous pro-asbestos position that was mocked by the rest of the world, the asbestos mine responsible for this ridiculous stance closed down. And somehow the Conservatives are trying to blame the Parti Quebecois for this reckless swerve towards acceptability.
The War on Terror reaches new levels of awesome
A Muslim man in Quebec sent a text message to some work colleagues encouraging them to "blow away the competition" at a trade show. He was arrested on suspicion of terrorism. Reddit agrees that this is awesome.
Government cuts lead to a pretty good idea for a comedy sketch
Did you know that Canada is surrounded on three sides by oceans? I don't think the Conservatives do. Coast Guard and other naval safety cuts seem to be a favourite of theirs. In addition to closing the Coast Guard base in the largest port in Canada, they also seem to be struggling to provide effective services in the places that remain open. This poor Newfoundland fisherman had his emergency medical call transferred to a non-English speaking doctor in Italy when he phoned in for help.
Model citizens
Have you heard about these Queen's Jubilee medals? Ya, there's something like 60,000 of them being awarded and it sounds like it is largely at the discretion of individual MP's. One Saskatchewan MP has decided that a pair of ladies who have continually been arrested for anti-abortion related harassment. He's praised them as "heroines of humanity". Surprisingly, he's a Conservative.
Limits to democracy
It's actually hard to keep track on the amount of times that the Conservatives limited debate, jammed through mountains of legislation via Omnibus Bills and just kind of messed with democracy by preventing people from asking question. These are only three examples of a worrisome trend.
War on Crime
Not only that, they've decided to:
- Cut prison inmate reform programs - because what we really need is convicts getting out of prison with no real world skills or training
- Close a few prisons even though before their new mandatory minimum sentences can have an affect there are already overcrowding problems...honestly...double bunking!
- Decided that convicts earning between $10 and $69 every two weeks are living high on the hog and they're going to charge them more in rent money
- Created a law whereby it's illegal to riot in a mask...even though it's already illegal to riot in a mask. Great prioritization, guys!
- Supported a bill to outlaw gang recruiting...ya...that's really going to put the brakes on gang activity
Enbridge and their Magic Pipeline
I actually can't believe that there is still a chance that this Northern Gateway pipeline might get built. There is just so much wrong with this whole story, I don't know of any other way to tackle it but point form.
1. The Federal Government has suggested that opponents to the Pipeline are terrorists
2. They've also cut so many research positions over the last few years that there probably aren't enough people remaining to adequately research the effects of this pipeline
3. Enbridge created a promotional video that has a map that conveniently ignores all of the nautical hazards that will be faced by the hundreds of tankers steaming towards Kitimat
4. Their clean-up plan submitted to the government is for crude oil, not bitumen
5. While all this was going on, one of their pipelines in Wisconsin started leaking...and they didn't do a particularly good job in responding to it
6. A report came out that crucified the Enbridge response to a 2010 pipeline leak in Michigan...I don't think governments generally throw around terms like "Keystone Cops" lightly
7. After the above mentioned Michigan oil spill, Enbridge executives gave themselves some hefty bonuses
8. They've created a limited liability partnership that will, you guessed it, limit their liability in the event of an oil spill
9. And while all this was going on...while Alberta was screaming at BC for being selfish about not allowing a pipeline...leak after leak after leak after leak popped up across Alberta.
10. Is it a surprise though, seeing as people connected to big oil have had upwards of 2733 meetings with public officials over the last 4 years?
Honestly. How are we still talking about this pipeline?
Robo-Calls
What is the worst thing about this Conservative government? The fact that they might not even be legitimate. The robo-call scandal continues to roll along. Even worse is the Conservative response to the whole thing. They demanded that Liberals release all records of "all calls made on their behalf" during the last election, but refuse to release their own records because, obviously, there's no possible chance they have done anything wrong themselves. That didn't work, so once the cases finally made it to court, they attempted to shirk responsibility through a series of loopholes, smoke and mirrors. First, they claim the cases were filed too late. Then, they suggest the complainants should be ignored as they are made by "professional agitators" and the bills are paid by people with a "political bias". Last, even though a pollster dug up information suggesting that there was voter suppression (they actually tried to have this evidence thrown out), they claimed that everything is okay because even if there were robo-calls, they didn't actually have an effect.
The next section I'm going to call the 2012 Conservative All-Star Team. With guys like this, how can they possibly get re-elected?
Vic Toews
Jason Kenney
Rob Anders
Bev Oda
Patrick Brazeau
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