And by “throw in the towel” I’m referring to the F-35 possibly-stealthy fighter bomb truck. We’re finally seeing through the malarkey that Harper, MacKay and that dumb-assed ex-cop have been spinning about this aircraft defending Canada’s northern frontier. We know it’s for anything but that job. Well, not anything exactly.
Continue readingA BCer in Toronto: This is an opportunity to reset the fighter jet procurement process
After several years of ignoring opposition warnings about the price, suitability and lack of competitive tender around the F-35 program, the Harper Conservatives are now finally beginning to admit what we’ve all known all along: this purchase isn’t set in stone, the F-35 program has issues, and this may not
Continue readingOpenMedia.ca: Media Advisory: Bell to Acquire Astral Media in Already-Concentrated Market; OpenMedia.ca Available for Comment
openmedia_logo.jpg WHO: Steve Anderson, Executive Director, OpenMedia.ca Lindsey Pinto, Communications Manager, OpenMedia.ca WHAT: Bell has announced that it will soon be in control of Astral Media, and the cellphone, Internet, land-line services, radio stations, and television holdings that come with it. Concentration in Canada’s communications industry is extremely high by
Continue readingEthical Oil: the Puppet Rap
Kathryn Marshall has been kept under wraps since her infamous meltdown on Power & Politics. Sure she’s popped up on the typical wingnut welfare orgs like FrumPost and most likely Sun Media but as far as the non-state broadcasting orgs, not much. Marshall may have been put on ice but
Continue readingPolitics and its Discontents: Patrick Brazeau – Now Why Does that Name Ring A Bell?
I don’t know whether the 37-year-old is the youngest to be rewarded by the Harper regime with a Senate seat, but a Google search led me to this 2009 posting about his, ahem, ‘creative’ fiscal practices. Recommend this Post
Continue readingArt Threat: Thomas Waugh flirts with fantasy while fucking reality – An analysis of Out/Lines and Lust Unearthed
[Forward: When I saw that Arsenal Pulp Press had these two books on hand I immediately thought of Tyler. A thoughtful writer, Tyler had the pleasure of meeting Thomas Waugh last summer, and I knew he’d have an interesting perspective on both Out/Lines and Lust Unearthed. He certainly delivered. The
Continue readingthe woodshed: OMFG! SPACE NAZIS ON THE MOON!
Tweet The Rev. Paperboy Feed
Continue readingViews from the lake - eh?: Thoughts on Anonymous
“RCMP”, “serious threats”, “anonymous attacks” When those words are reported time and time again with respect to the security of a certain member of parliament, one begins to think the worst, that at the very least the member and/or his family are at risk of serious physical harm necessitating a
Continue readingViews from the lake - eh?: Thoughts on Anonymous
“RCMP”, “serious threats”, “anonymous attacks” When those words are reported time and time again with respect to the security of a certain member of parliament, one begins to think the worst, that at the very least the member and/or his family are at risk of serious physical harm necessitating a
Continue readingViews from the lake - eh?: Thoughts on Anonymous
“RCMP”, “serious threats”, “anonymous attacks”
When those words are reported time and time again with respect to the security of a certain member of parliament, one begins to think the worst, that at the very least the member and/or his family are at risk of serious physical harm necessitating a full and comprehensive police response.
But you’d be wrong.
What we are talking about here (if it isn’t already obvious) is the Anonymous video campaign threatening to out a few skeletons from Mr. Toew’s personal (and, if Anonymous is to be believed, very full) closet.
To be clear, any attempt to coerce a particular behaviour based on a threat to release damaging information about an individual is illegal; it is otherwise known as blackmail and warrants an investigation. However, this isn’t really about that at all. It is about a minister of the crown trying to avoid being embarrassed by the release of publically-available information that would shed some light on questionable decisions he’s made and actions he’s taken in his private life. The involvement of the RCMP, the tabling of this issue at the House and Procedural Affairs Committee (which threatened to call Anonymous to testify – good luck with that), the Sun Media coverage damning everyone in sight except Vic Toews, is all in response to the potential embarrassment of Vic Toews at the hands of an anonymous video maker.
And that, in and of itself, is worth a few observations.
First of all one would think the Anonymous videos were being watched by millions of Canadians, bringing Vic Toews and the Conservative government into broad disrepute (not that they need any help with that). The reality is that none of the videos have exceeded a few thousand hits, and the majority of those have probably been by media types and Vic Toews’ own personal staff trying to find out what the fuss was all about. Canadians are simply not watching Anonymous in any numbers.
Second, if you have so much potentially damaging information in your background that some think it could be used as leverage to control your behaviour in Parliament, then you probably shouldn’t be in Parliament in the first place. Further to that, this over-excited response seems inconsistent with Vic Toews’ thick skin, so some might wonder if there really are career-ending details out there that have been oh so carefully hidden from public view until now.
And lastly, to badly mix a couple of metaphors, public life is like living in a fishbowl, so if you can’t stand the heat, get out of the kitchen.
Continue readingRecreating Eden: Halal and Running around Like a Chicken with Its Head Cut off
A mini-controversy is brewing in Quebec over the fact that a number of chicken processing plants are now killing poultry in a way that conforms with Muslim strictures of halal meat. This involves cutting the birds’ throats, and the abbatoirs which do it say there is nothing in the method
Continue readingFar and Wide: NDP Leadership Race Goes "Liberal"
It really is quite astounding, that someone with as much political experience as Ed Broadbent would so openly and fundamentally attack the candidate who is the consensus favourite to assume the NDP leadership. I would categorize his comments as reckless, but perhaps worse outright dangerous, leaving much potential for lasting
Continue readingPolitics, Re-Spun: Why I’m Voting for Nathan Cullen
Nathan Cullen has my vote. Let me begin by saying that we are at an historical moment in Canadian history. We are being besieged by an increasingly draconian corporatist, neo-conservative and neoliberal Conservative Party government which is far worse than Mulroney’s free trade corporatist “Progressive” Conservatives from a generation ago. This government is an
Continue readingThe deification of Andrew Breitbart: BREITBART IS HERE!
In the movie Game Change, John McCain’s post-defeat words to Sarah Palin go something like this, “don’t get co-opted by Limbaugh and the other extremists. You’ll destroy the party.” True to form, Sarah Palin had done exactly the opposite of everything about which she was schooled by McCain and his
Continue readingelementalpresent: “Twelve Going on Thirty” OR “Is the Globe and Mail the Worst Newspaper Yet?”
What do I have in common with a 12-year-old? Other than being alive, right now, in the same world, I’d like to wager ‘not a whole lot.’ Yet psychologist Jean Twenge is working on the assumption that we share a generation, and for the Globe and Mail, it just might
Continue readingEconomics for Dummies: The scariest poet in Britain?
Funny, he doesn’t look so intimidating to me: But then again, I’m not a corporate tax dodger.
Continue readingPeace, order and good government, eh?: Friday morning Robocon blogging
I had fully intended to do a recap of the week’s news regarding the investigation into the possibility of vote suppression in last year’s federal election and yesterday afternoon I began to draft something. Yesterday evening I saw the news and gutted the first few paragraphs of the draft. Since
Continue readingPolitics and its Discontents: F-35 Lies From The Department of National Defence
Much to my surprise, the National Post has been doing a good job lately in covering Conservative misdeeds. While the Canadian taxpayer has been subjected to so many falsehoods and a great deal of subterfuge about the true cost of the F-35 jets over the past year-and-a half, The Post’s
Continue readingOpenMedia.ca: BCE to pay $3.38 billion for Astral Media 56 mins ago by Etan Vlessing
Columnist says that phone giant BCE has agreed to pay $3.38 billion for Astral Media to strengthen the telecom group’s content presence in Quebec against rival Quebecor Media.
Continue readingThe Sir Robert Bond Papers: The Looking Glass News #nlpoli
“The Lower Churchill hydro project has passed the environmental review process,” CBC news tells us, and as a result the project has cleared “… another hurdle to the Labrador power generation plant becoming a reality. VOCM used the same word in its headline. Hurdle. It means an obstacle, a hindrance
Continue reading