Via a helpful reader, one of the most disturbing things I’ve seen this week: I don’t know Joe Couto, and I’m sure he’s a perfectly decent guy in real life, but this is on behalf of the Ontario Association of Chiefs of Police. How many ways do you want this
Continue readingRed Tory v.3.0.3: Conservative Double-Standard?
Why, I’m shocked, simply shocked, I tell you, to discover that Conservatives would employ a flagrant double-standard when it comes to the matter of… well, anything. Of course, in this particular instance the root of the problem is that the Conservatives’ original objection to not having ministerial staffers testify before
Continue readingCity Council is Supreme | politics | via @Torontoist and @hamutaldotan | #TOpoli
… we are optimistic. We have a government that is working. It is making decisions based on evidence, and it is defending those decisions over time. It is a government that has set a direction on the most fraught and most important policy file we have. It is a government
Continue readingOpenMedia.ca: Stand with us
Highlight Image: Highlight Link: http://openmedia.ca/standwithus
Continue readingMorton's Musings: The dog that didn’t bark
Interesting: Conservatives didn't declare payments made to robocalls company, can't explain why http://natpo.st/xpSNln "OTTAWA — Elections Canada investigators probing the robocalls scandal are interviewing workers on the Conservative campaign in Guelph, Ont., and trying to determine why payments made to an Edmonton voice-broadcasting company were not declared in financial reports
Continue readingMorton's Musings: I have known a vast quantity of nonsense talked about bad men not looking you in the face. Don’t trust that conventional idea. Dishonesty will stare honesty out of countenance, any day in the week, if there is anything to be got by it.
Charles Dickens"Hunted Down" (1859)
Continue readingEnvironmental Law Alert Blog: Lessons from the world’s top Environmental Law Conference
Tuesday, March 6, 2012 The Public Interest Environmental Law Conference held each year in Eugene Oregon is, perhaps, the Mecca of environmental lawyers. It brings together literally thousands of lawyers, law students, community activists, and others to discuss whether and how the law can be used to protect the environment.
Continue readingStaffroom Confidential: What is this strike about? A moving letter from a Saanich teacher
I would like to thank you, Mr. Abbott. My wife and I have just had an excellent discussion with our daughters about power, and about the importance of checks and balances in a society. Sophie and Rachel are 12 and 10. They were very confused about why the government was
Continue readingMontreal Simon: Stephen Harper and the Con Robots
Well there he was in Question Period, looking and sounding like a robot, refusing to say why his Cons are refusing to cooperate with Elections Canada. Repeating the same answer over and over again. “Mr. Speaker, I gave clear answers regarding the activities of the Conservative party of Canada,” he
Continue readingEnvironmental Law Alert Blog: Caribou, Coal Mining and the world’s First Twitter Moot Court
Tuesday, March 6, 2012 Many were scratching their heads when they heard that West Coast was running the “World’s First-ever Twitter Moot.” Say what? What’s that, and how does it relate to the environment? Just what are you trying to accomplish? But for an hour or so on February 21st
Continue readingImpolitical: Final word: Tories lose in-and-out all around
The Conservative party and the Conservative fund were fined and pleaded guilty to exceeding the national party spending limits in late 2011. Today, there is news that the Conservatives are withdrawing their civil appeal to the Supreme Court of Canada: “Tories ditch ‘in-and-out’ case at Supreme Court.” This means that
Continue readingThe Wingnuterer: I was out, finished! and I took an arrow to the knee
I had given up on blogging and then I dabbled with it for a bit, off an on. The reasons for leaving are complicated,… various events in the blogosphere sour my taste for it,… certain events in my life just made me loose interest in the task,… And then, when
Continue readingOccupy Ottawa: #Robocall Movies: Canadian Political Humor Par Excellence
Canadian politics in the age of Stephen Harper and the Conservative majority government are depressing, to say the least. Luckily our political satire still kicks ass. Inspired by the unraveling Robo-calls scandal, a sample: [View …Read More
Continue readingThe Disaffected Lib: No Accidental Tyrant
Stephen Harper is despotic by design. That much is apparent in an excerpt from a letter Harper wrote in 2001 while head of the National Citizens Coalition, known as the “jackasses letter.” Harper used the epithet to castigate bureaucrats of Elections Canada whom he ridiculed as “out of control.” In
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Tuesday Afternoon Links
This and that for your Tuesday reading. – In the latest on Robocon, John Ivison rightly notes that the scandal figures to give many Canadians a long-overdue first look at the Cons’ computerized voter information. Meanwhile, Glen McGregor and Stephen Maher note that the Cons’ spending in last year’s election
Continue readingThe Disaffected Lib: The F-35’s Lowered Expectations
Now it’s not only way over-budget, way overdue but the Pentagon is having to lower its performance requirements so it won’t have to call the F-35 a complete turkey. If the plane can’t achieve its specified combat radius, change the specifications. If it can’t land within the specified runway length,
Continue readingPolitics and its Discontents: Stephen Harper’s Pathological Hatred
While I stand by my comments about The Globe and Mail in my last post, the paper does have one real asset in the person of Lawrence Martin. Unlike other Globe employees who seem strangely constrained ideologically, Lawrence is consistently robust in his criticism of the Harper regime. Today’s column
Continue readingBlunt Objects: Today in the Realm of Useless Ideas
A merger of the Manitoba Liberals and Greens! What? Though its been ruled out, I feel the need to comment. A merger of the Manitoba Liberal Party and the Green Party of Manitoba, which together combined for 10.05% of the vote in 2011’s provincial election, and would have gained zero
Continue readingQP: Show us yours first
It’s sometimes amazing what a bit of adult supervision can do for question period – but I’m not sure that today was really that day. Harper may have been back in the House, and as a result the surreal and non-reality-based rhetoric was toned down slightly (not that it stopped
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