Vice-Admiral Paul Maddison, Canada’s top navy guy, has remarked that Canada will begin the process of vetting new submarine purchases in three or four years. This raises anew questions about the purpose of Canada maintaining a submarine fleet. After passing through much of the nineties without submarine capabilities, Prime Minister
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Scott's DiaTribes: Robo-con thoughts.
That’s what we’re naming this alleged electoral fraud scheme – at least on Twitter, apparently. My thoughts on this are as follows: – Is Harper or high ranking members of the PMO involved? I don’t know, but the fact this is the party who has done never-before seen attack-ads in
Continue readingwmtc: ndp’s pat martin on harperco’s election fraud
Just in case you haven’t watched this yet, please do. I have only one quibble. I doubt anything made Richard Nixon blush!
Continue readingwmtc: harper as nixonian: a robocall rogues gallery
I’ve never liked the comparison of control freak Stephen Harper to figurehead Resident George W. Bush. I understand where it comes from, of course, but if Canada is becoming the United States, as progressive Canadians love to say, then it’s the United States of 20, 25 years ago. My comrade
Continue reading350 or bust: Cap & Trade Benefits Big Polluters And Even Bigger Banks
In order to address the challenge of climate change, pricing carbon pollution is necessary. Capping carbon pollution and creating a carbon market has been proposed as a method of doing this. However, it turns out that “Cap & Trade”, as it’s called, will benefit the Wall Street whizzes who brought
Continue readingthe woodshed: More surprising news!
A Liberal party staffer has admitted to being behind the @Vikileaks30 campaign on Twitter. As observed at the time, apparently it is okay for Vic Toews to push a bill he hasn’t read that would allow warrentless access to Canadians’ internet usage and history, but repeating already published information about
Continue readingThe Equivocator: Micah Goldberg: How bad was this week for the Conservative Government?
It was bad. It was really bad. It was the worst week the Conservatives have had since they became a Majority Government. Bill C-30, the “Protecting Children from Internet Predators Act” allows the Government and Canadian authorities to track the digital footprint of Canadian citizens without a warrant in situations
Continue readingthe woodshed: Calling you
A little required reading for your Monday and the resumption of Parliament: More and more reports coming out about fraudulent telephone campaigns by the Conservative Party of Canada to undermine democracy and steal the election This campaign voter suppression robocall kerfuffel isn’t a scandal that is just popping up now,
Continue reading350 or bust: Spoil: The Great Bear Rainforest Under Threat From Enbridge Pipeline
My weekend in Winnipeg ended with an evening at the Park Theatre listening to Nathan Cullen, an NDP Member of Parliament who is running for the leadership of his party. He and the other leadership candidates were in Winnipeg for an afternoon debate. Mr. Cullen painted a vivid picture of
Continue readingCanadian Soapbox: Canadians don’t care about the ‘Robocall’ scam….
When is a scandal not a scandal? When nobody gives a rip. Sorry for the trailer park answer to that question, but I’m thinking some conservatives might read this…and well, I like to pander. If I tossed in a word like dichotomy their eyes would glaze over and their heads would tilt
Continue readingwmtc: robogate: vote suppression must be investigated, by-elections must be held
What will be done about RoboGate? Has Stephen Harper’s well-documented pattern of giving democracy the finger finally gone too far? Thanks to an excellent election post-mortem by Matt Peters and Ryan Boldt on rabble.ca last year, we know that the Conservative Party won by a very narrow margin in dozens
Continue readingSong of the Watermelon: Andrew Weaver on the Tar Sands
Last week, world-renowned University of Victoria climate scientist Andrew Weaver, lead author of several IPCC reports, shocked friends and enemies alike by publishing an article in Nature Climate Change in which he makes an unexpected claim. He and co-author Neil Swart (a UVIC PhD student) find that Alberta’s Athabasca tar
Continue readingScott's DiaTribes: Bill C-30, Section 34: Where are all the Conservative libertarians on this?
Scary stuff found in Section 34 of Bill C-30, courtesy of Terry Mileski of CBC: Section 33 tells us that, ‘The Minister may designate persons or classes of persons as inspectors for the purposes of the administration and enforcement of this Act.’..Section 34 spells out the sweeping powers of these
Continue readingThe Equivocator: Canadian Foreign Policy: Nuance Matters
This video (from April, 2011 before the election) was brought to my attention today. Some thoughts: We should not forget, nor should we let Canadians forget that Stephen Harper lost a seat on the United Nations Security Council, for the first time ever. With the situation in Syria and the
Continue readingeaves.ca: Media Watch: The Globe and Mail’s Shifting Headline
Earlier today the Globe and Mail had one of these truly terrible “balanced” articles about the proposed federal crime bill. The headline screamed: Quebec expert backs Tory crime bill amid U.S. warning on sentencing. (Image below) So who was this expert you might ask? A university professor with years of
Continue readingScott's DiaTribes: When you’ve lost the National Post..
Actually, it’s not quite the National Post, despite some saying that. It’s actually one of their op-eds calling for the resignation. Still, I think that’s the first call I’ve seen for it, and the major surprise is it didn’t come first from the Star or even one of their writers:
Continue readingThe Equivocator: Grant Gordon: The Real New Progressive Politics
These videos are both fantastic for similar reasons. They both show how positive and energetic Mr. Grodon is and how he is the progressive voice that Toronto-Danforth needs in Ottawa. I had the pleasure of spending two days canvassing for Mr. Gordon. The first thing I noticed was that the
Continue reading350 or bust: Climate Scientists To Heartland Institute: Refrain From Misleading Attacks, Engage In Civil Debate
Seven leading climatologists victimized by the Climategate email theft in 2009 have published this letter in the Guardian in response to DeSmogBlog’s revelation last week of confidential Heartland Institute documents: As scientists who have had their emails stolen, posted online and grossly misrepresented, we can appreciate the difficulties the Heartland
Continue readingwmtc: dr. dawg on vikileaks
In case you haven’t done so already, you’ll want to read Dr. Dawg on the Vic Toews phony scandal, internet surveillance, and the mind-boggling hypocrisy of the both the Conservatives and the mainstream media: On hypocrisy, politicians and the media. I’m not even going to quote from it, because you’ve
Continue reading350 or bust: Heartland Institute Funded By Fossil Fuel Interests To Work Against Public Interest
Sometimes a picture is worth a thousand words. Here’s one that gives some background about so-called “think tanks” and their anti-science, climate change denial agenda. These guys cut their teeth on denying/suppressing/ridiculing the science demonstrating that cigarette smoking caused cancer (see Fake Science, Fakexperts, Funny Finances, Free of Tax) and
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