Monday, March 30, 2009

Harper Harper Harper Harper

Harper told the Financial Times today that Canada’s banks should capitalize on the relative strength of their balance sheets by acquiring assets in the US and other countries.

Harper’s logic is that because we had a regulated banking system, Canada is now the only country that is not nationalizing or partially nationalizing our banks and therefore we have the only remaining free enterprise based financial system. In a frequently recurring marketing theme about Canada the brand, Harper would like to see our five major banks take advantage of their comparative strength and expand into new markets and in his words build the brand – the country’s brand, their own brand.

Despite Harper’s somewhat questionable brand management skills and his natural economic inclination that crumbling markets present good buying opportunities, this is probably not the best time for our banks to start acquiring foreign assets, since no one knows what toxic assets are still on the books out there.

Anyway Harper then goes on to hypothesize that in the long run the current trend to nationalize financial institutions will not be effective and that a regulated, free enterprise system, like the one created in Canada is necessary.

All this would of course make sense if every country only had say five national banks that operated under government regulated exclusivity with no foreign competition and the ability to collusively set services, fees, credit card interest rates and the like with no government interference.

A made in Canada form of free enterprise where the profit of the banks is generated by a captive market with no options other than to pay unregulated government sanctioned usury.

As much as I am pissed at Harper running around taking credit for a regulated system, his party once opposed, I find all this clamoring about the strength of the Canadian banking system a bit much since it us, the Canadian consumer, that has been paying the bill every month.

I don’t think I can take a whole week of Harper interviews and I have the feeling that Europeans will also tire of them quickly.


JAWL

Sunday, March 29, 2009

Obey the police, they might have a Taser and kill you

The Quebec Public Security Minister announced this week that he is going to destroy five Tasers after they malfunctioned during testing, Fifty-two of the provinces 167 weapons were tested and with almost a ten percent failure rate during testing the minister is now going to test the rest.

Of course the minister does not know what was wrong with the weapons or what caused them to fail, which I would think is probably the most important point here.

Did the weapons that are supposed to restrain suspects by hitting them with a 50,000 volt electric charge, produce a smaller charge or higher charge. Possibly a lethal charge or none at all. Were the weapons dropped, left out in the rain or otherwise mishandled, Did the charge get stronger each time the gun is used. Are they now going to start testing them more often, annually, monthly, weekly or say each time they are discharged.

There seems to be more questions raised by the test results and certainly more actions required than simply destroying the defective guns, but at least he is not going to sell them on eBay.

Meanwhile in Edmonton, Alberta’s Medical Examiner declared that a 38 year old man that was tasered twice, died of a made up medical term, one that the Canadian Medical Society dismisses as a pop culture phenomenon.

Excited delirium is now frequently used to describe people who are tasered to death by the police, at least by medical examiners who either disagree with the Canadian Medical Society. It is also the main defense used by Taser International in its many law suits.

Suspects suffering from the fictional excited delirium, supposedly show signs, of paranoia, hallucinations, incoherent speech, shouting, incredible strength and sweating. Conditions quite similar to real medical conditions such as panic attacks, diabetes or head injuries and I guess being pissed off and wasted on any combination of drugs, or drink.

Which brings us back to the advice provided by Quebec Public Security Minister, who said that in order to avoid being Tasered a person needs only obey police officers.

I think the title of my post is a better warning.



JAWL

Friday, March 27, 2009

Harper Conservatives vision for the CBC



From Grit Girl

Sign and pass along the petition to "Save Canada's National Broadcaster" here.

H/t from Impolitical




JAWL

Government throws up another roadblock on stranded Canadian

Armed with his air plane ticket in hand, a ticket paid for by some above average Canadians, waiting for our government to issue special travel documents, so he can return home on April 3rd, Abousfian Abdelrazik is being threatened with another conservative roadblock.

Our Foreign Affairs Minister Lawrence Cannon, now wants Abdelrazik to get himself taken off the UN watch list. Cannon said Friday that Abdelrazik first needs to get his name removed from the terror list before he can travel home.

Abdelrazik’s Canadian lawyer said under UN laws, the country of nationality can bring its citizen home if they are on the blacklist. The fact he finds himself on this list doesn't mean that Canada can't bring him back.


The flight is scheduled for April 3rd and the airline needs 48 hours advance notice whether Abdelrazik will have his valid travel documents. Our government hasn't yet responded to a request for formal notification whether it plans to provide travel documents.

Here's the timeline on Abdelrazik's ordeal.

JAWL

We are starting to act like Americans

Remember back, say about six years ago, when the neocon cabal started taking over the Bush administration and just started making things up. We sat up here and kept saying what the hell is the matter with the Americans, why can’t they see what is happening to their country. It is so bloody obvious.

Read the news lately...
It does not matter that we hired him. This guy pisses us off, screw him up. Cut off his access to information. Cut his budget.

We don’t want this committee to get the facts out. It will hurt us. Stall it. Filibuster it. Stretch it out and refuse to testify.

Look we screwed up. Forget what we said about being open and fully cooperating. We are talking about torture here. Maybe war crimes. Keep stalling this inquiry.

This is our chance to gut the CBC. No advances. We have an excuse now. Do it.

The Jews are pissed at this ass hole, bar him from the country. The guys a loud mouth that nobody likes away. Look this goes beyond winning points. We are talking faith here.

We know this is a waste of money, but we want to look like we are doing something to combat the dirty oil image. Besides it is infrastructure spending right and can you think of a better place to spend it. The boss can't.
Sometimes I do not have the patience to read between the lines, finish a reporter’s thought, search for opposing articles, additional facts and then postulate an argument of why I think something is true or not true.

Sometimes it is just bloody obvious.



JAWL



PS: Still having a busy week at work, which is a good thing really, but not much time for posting. Besides I think I am starting to loose patience with my own posturing.

Wednesday, March 25, 2009

70 K for this


Which does not make a lot of sense since you are seeing it here for free.

The image shows a farmhouse sitting at the top of a rise while Broadway, then an unpaved track, runs below. This was the Upper West Side back in 1848. This recently discovered half-plate daguerreotype, which is believed to be the oldest image of NYC in existence is expected to sell for $50,000 to $70,000, next week.

However the most surprising discovery within the image was not discovered until after the image was digitized. If you zoom the image to maximum you can almost make out a male figure standing next to the farmhouse who resembles one of New York City’s earliest entertainers.



JAWL

Reference: Telegraph UK here.

Teleprompter versus no teleprompter



Letterman addresses the criticism of Obamas over use of the teleprompter.

JAWL :-)

Slow down on the rhetoric Mr Kenny

Responding to a United Nations report that showed a 30% increase in the number of people seeking refugee or asylum status in Canada, Jason Kenny wants to tighten up on the rules regarding immigrants seeking asylum.

Last year 35,000 immigrants applied for asylum in Canada, Approximately 44% of those applying were approved. The remaining 20,000 whose claims were rejected have the right to appeal and are then given temporary work visas. The appeal process can be extended for years.

Kenny believes that this is clearly an abuse of Canada's generosity and a violation of the integrity of our immigration system. He noted that the Immigration and Refugee Board rejects up to 90% of claims made by Mexicans and that would suggest wide scale and almost systematic abuse.

He has asked the immigration committee to begin a dialogue on ways we can reform the refugee system to make sure there is a fair process that complies with the principles of natural justice, but ensures that bogus claimants are shown the door, and quickly.


Kenny’s justification appears to be that the percentage increase for Canada is almost three times the average for 51 other Industrialized countries. The UN report also states that the United States saw a three per cent drop in the number of people asking for asylum in that country last year.

Meanwhile Amnesty International reports today that more than 300,000 people were detained by U.S. immigration officials last year. They include asylum seekers, torture survivors, victims of human trafficking, longtime legal permanent residents and parents of U.S. citizen children. That number is expected to grow to 400,000 this year.

In the US if you apply for asylum upon entry to the country you are immediately placed in a detention center. People detained at the border are not entitled to a review of their detention by an immigration judge.

However those who enter illegally and are then later apprehended inside the United States do have the right to appear before a judge and state their case.

Amnesty International estimates that there were about 12 million illegal immigrants living in the United States as of January 2007. That number has since increased.


Kenny should tread more softly here and consider our proximity to Mexico and Latin America and the increasing number of applicants coming from those countries before he starts claiming that our system is broken.

Adding more resources to handle an increasing number of appeals make sense. Placing more roadblocks for immigrants to make those appeals does not.

As demonstrated in the US, the alternative to providing legal redress for asylum seekers will be an increase in the number of illegal immigrants and that is much larger problem that the 20,000 who are now here on temporary work visas, waiting for their day in court.


JAWL

References: National Post on Kenny, Reuters on Amnesty International

Tuesday, March 24, 2009

Eventually you have to say no to a bully

On March 5th the Liberals posted a Just the Facts release about Harpers Record on Infrastructure spending. The release explained how the conservatives still had $3.9 billion unspent from their current budget and addressed Harpers new demand for fast approval for an additional $3 billion while providing no information of where the money would be spent.

The Liberals made a reasonable request that Canadians should know what Haper’s minority government was planning to do with an additional $3 billion. See Martha Hall Findlays questioning of Baird.

With billions of infrastructure dollars about to be spent, the main point here was to stop Harper from treating our tax dollars as his private campaign funds and use our money in a responsible manner in the regions of Canada that need the assistance, not just the areas that will gain the conservatives favor or votes. I believed, at the time, that the Liberals owned the high ground here.

The only way to force Harper to start acting in a responsible manner, where he actually reports to the majority of Canadians through our elected representatives in parliament is to say no to his threats.

Unfortunately the Liberals failed to do that today and agreed to support the fund.

And I'm having a hard time justifying that, but I am sure someone on ProBlogs will explain it to me.


JAWL

Monday, March 23, 2009

Galloway is coming to Canada on March 30th

Possibly sooner if the organizers of his four city tour are successful in getting an Ontario federal court to issue an injunction overturning the Citizenship and Immigration Canada's entry ban.

Either way, he is still coming. If the request for an injunction fails Galloway is planning to walk into Canada across the US border on March 30th and he is not planning to be alone.


A legal team, led by immigration and refugee lawyer Barbara Jackman, has assembled support of more than 50 organizations, including the Council of Canadians, Canadian Civil Liberties Union, Solidarity for Palestinian Human Rights, anti-war coalitions in Ottawa, Toronto and Montreal, several large labour unions and many community organizations.

Delegates from these groups along with Canadian MPs, lawyers and activists will be assembling at the border to escort and welcome Galloway as enters from the US.

Meanwhile the organizers of the four shows say the sales of tickets have skyrocketed -- most of the venues are almost sold out. Additionally twelve more venues across the country have now booked to broadcast his first lecture to a public audience.

It would appear that Galloway has gained a lot more support since Meir Weinstein of the Jewish Defense League threatened to have our government investigate and monitor those of us who support Galloway in Canada.

My guess is Jackman will get the injunction, as it is probably the best way for Harper and Kenny to get out of this growing mess, but it would sure be more fun if she didn’t.


JAWL

Sunday, March 22, 2009

Calgary celebrates White Pride Day

Hundreds of angry anti-racist protesters were held back by Calgary police yesterday as they tried to scuffle with a small group of neo-nazis, racists who somehow think the colour of their skin, is worth celebrating. The nazis were celebrating white pride day.

The hundreds of angry anti-racists were celebrating the International Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination which has been observed annually on 21st of March, since 1960.
On March 21st 1960, South African police opened fire and killed 69 people at a peaceful demonstration in Sharpeville, South Africa, who were marching against the apartheid pass laws. The UN General Assembly proclaimed March 21st The International Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination and called on the international community to redouble its efforts to eliminate all forms of racial discrimination (resolution 2142 (XXI)).
You might of thought that the city of Calgary would have postponed issuing a parade permit to a small group of white racists celebrating WPD since their day of hate was only started in 2000 by a small group white Australian racists, while they were sitting around the barbie.

But hey, it is Calgary.

Edmonton on the other hand is continuing the anti-racist campaign through to next weekend.
The Northern Alberta Alliance on Race Relations will be holding a day-long workshop next weekend to explore racism-related issues. The workshop will help people understand what racism is, its causes, how it manifests, and solutions to eliminate it.
Maybe they can invite the mayor of Calgary and his municipal officials, who hand out parade permits.


JAWL

The slippery slope just got slippier



Watch the video read, POGGE here and Dr Dawg here.

JAWL

Saturday, March 21, 2009

One week from now is Earth Hour 2009



Earth Hour is Saturday, March 28th at 8:30 pm.

Last year more than 100,000 Canadians registered via the Internet for Earth Hour -- another 775,000 signalled participation via Facebook -- putting Canadians at the top of the list in global participation.

Sign up here, if you have no done so yet.

I wonder if our prime minister will decide to participate this year...





JAWL

Give us your articulate huddled masses


Speaking in Calgary yesterday Harpers Immigration Minister Jason Kenny announced that he believes that immigrants who can't speak English or French well enough should be denied citizenship.

This revelation came to Kenny after a trip to Delhi where he unexpectedly met with a woman who has lived in Canada for 15 years and has been a Canadian citizen for nearly 12 years, who could not conduct an interview with an immigration official in either of our official languages. The woman was applying to sponsor her spouse, whom I assume was also not fluent in English or French.

Kenny then went further in his interview with reporters, adding that immigrants and those who want to become new Canadians should speak a competent level of French or English.


Similarly to Flaherty who questioned bailing out the auto industry based on conversations he had with a passerby while walking down the street, Kenny too, seems to base his ministerial decisions on rare and infrequent outings amongst real Canadians.

Growing up in Toronto (North York which later became part of the GTA) I was used to meeting Canadians who could not speak English or French. Jane and Wilson was a growing Italian area back in those days and many of my friends parents could neither speak or write English. They were proud Canadians though, even more so than my immigrant English parents. When I started going to OCA downtown, I hung out with some Jewish, Ukrainians, whose parents also could not speak English or French, hard working people who generously fed me great meals, and were proud to live in Canada.

Where Flahertys ramblings are more the result his inherent need to ramble, Kenny’s narrow view of who should be allowed to come to Canada and or become a Canadian citizen probably stems more from his political ideology than his, I presume somewhat sheltered childhood, growing up in Saskatchewan.

It would appear that by the time Kenny was going to school in Saskatchewan, everyone spoke the same language. Maybe by then the original Ukrainian immigrants to Saskatchewan were fully integrated. However until 1919 Saskatchewan had bilingual schools where lessons were taught in both English and Ukrainian.

Ukrainian still ranks as the seventh most frequent language spoken at home by almost 150,000 Canadians. Of course if Jason Kenny and Harper’s conservatives had been in power back in the turn of the 20th century Saskatchewan would still be a wasteland, with larger black holes than Alberta, but probably no wheat since it also came from the Ukraine.


JAWL

Friday, March 20, 2009

Happy Spring Here Comes the Sun




George Harrison recalled that wrote Here Comes the Sun at the time when Apple was getting like school, where he had to go and be a businessman, Sign this and sign that. Anyway, it seems as if winter in England goes on forever, by the time spring comes you really deserve it. So one day I decided I was going to sag off Apple and I went over to Eric Clapton's house. The relief of not having to go see all those dopey accountants was wonderful, and I walked around the garden with one of Erics acoustic guitars and wrote Here Comes The Sun.

I heard the song on Q this morning when I was driving to work and thought it was a perfect song for the first day of spring.


JAWL

Canada stops Galloway from peeing on carpet




According the New York Times here, the British press are making a big deal of the banning George Galloway. This video is from the British Channel 4 where their reporter called Moores spokesperson Alykhan Velshi, who actually sounds more like one of the PMO operatives, to get further clarification.

The reporter questioned Velshi, about his quoted description of Galloway as an Infandous street-corner Cromwell and tried to get a better understanding of why the British, MP was being refused entry.

Velshi implied that Galloway has expressed sympathy for the Taliban murderers who are trying to kill Canadian and British soldiers in Afghanistan, although he did not mention any particular article or speech.

Velshi believes it is entirely appropriate for Canadian security agencies to say that if they have advanced notice that Mr Galloway is going to come to Canada to pee on our carpet, that we should deny him entry to the home.


Galloway for his part is planning to fight the ban and seems to have a good understanding of our current political situation.

He said his contact with Hamas was to provide aid, while noting that Tony Blair had met Hezbollah leaders earlier this week.

This is a very sad day for the Canada we have known and loved – a bastion of the freedoms that supporters of the occupation of Afghanistan claim to be defending. This has further vindicated the anti-war movements contention that unjust wars abroad will end up consuming the very liberties that make us who we are. He suspected the move was a rather desperate election ploy by a conservative government reaching the end of the line.

All right-thinking Canadians, whether they agree with me over the wisdom of sending troops to Afghanistan or not, will oppose this outrageous decision. For a Scotsman to be barred from Canada is like being told to stay away from the family home. This is not something I'm prepared to accept.


This is the kind of crap I have come to expect from our arrogant government, but it could get to be great fun, if Galloway can get back on this side of the Atlantic.


JAWL

h/t Impolitical and everybody else here, here

Satirists our unacknowledged legislators

Here is a light, humorous, uplifting and well written article from Heather Mallick about how we depend upon our modern day fix of satire, that is worth reading. I do not want to cut an paste it, but here is the beginning:

Our hygiene is ruled by spouses; our fashion sense by makers of baggy unflattering black garments that attract pet hair; our daily mission statement by doomed diet-crazed hope-mongers like Oprah; and our self-esteem by drive-by comments on Facebook from people we've never met.

But our authentic inner lives, our core, the thing that keeps us going during what one hopes is the worst decade of this century (but likely isn't), are fuelled by comedians.


Note to self: Read more Heather Mallick articles.


JAWL

Thursday, March 19, 2009

Undisclosed allegations, no charges, no trials, but maybe open borders

Our Public Safety Minister Peter Van Loan met with the new US Secretary of HomeLand Security yesterday and seemed quite pleased that they met with him and promised to meet with him again.

To overcome a view widely held by Americans, that the 911 terrorists entered the US from Canada and that Canada still has al-Qaeda sleeper cells, Van Loan took the opportunity, to explain to his counterparts that Ottawa has demonstrated great strides in countering Islamic extremism.

Meanwhile in Canada:

Mohammad Mahjoub one of five Muslim immigrants who are living under national security certificates as threats to public safety, voluntarily returned to jail Wednesday, after his spouse and his stepson told court they could no longer live under release conditions that were tearing their already fractured family apart.

The five who were imprisoned for well over five years with no charges, no trial and no way to defend themselves against secret and undisclosed evidence, were finally granted bail two years ago when the original Security Certificates were ruled unconstitutional by the Supreme Court.

However the stringent bail terms that include the CSIS “eyes-on” surveillance, far exceed anything you have ever seen in a television show. CSIS can enter their home at any time, all mail is previewed, copied and distributed, all phone calls recorded, no internet, all members of the family, friends, or acquaintances are under surveillance including their young children at school, Mahjoub can not be in the house alone, his wife or brother in law must always be present, CSIS even followed him into a closed hospital room, while his wife was having a miscarriage, and so on...

But back in Washington:

Mr. Van Loan proposed a pilot project to test pre-clearance for freight and commercial shipments heading to the US from Canada, which the Americans agreed to consider.

After all thanks to over $5 million a year in CSIS surveillance costs to cover these five Muslims, we have the terrorist threat under control in this country.

If you want to learn more about what our government(s) has done in our name, why there will be another supreme court challenge against the revised national security certificates and how this unjust law affects us all, watch this three part documentary Secret Canada here.


JAWL

Wednesday, March 18, 2009

Extreme Sheep LED Art



Don't know if I believe this one and I've been a bit sheepish to post it. I hate having the wool pulled over my eyes. Ewe that was baa..d.

JAWL

Tuesday, March 17, 2009

Danny Boy



Happy St Patty's Day

JAWL

News Flash Goodyear Correction

According to the Globe article here, Minister Goodyear has finally come out on the side of evolution.

Mr. Goodyear said he originally refused to answer the Globe question because it was irrelevant and his beliefs have nothing to do with government policy.

At the same time the Globe also reports that a spokesman for Prime Minister Stephen Harper stressed that creationism is not part of the federal science agenda.


Methinks that Mr. Goodyear got a call from the PMO.

Either way, good to know that it was just plain old conservative arrogance that prevented him from answering and not God.


Just trying to keep the posting accurate.


JAWL

Good Grief Goodyear



Our science minister Gary Goodyear is a creationist, but hey that doesn’t make him a bad choice, he has been there on the discovery stuff, right from the beginning, tweaking automobile engines when he took shop in high school.

Good grief, I don’t know which is worse, whether he refuses to confirm a belief in evolution or if he thinks his experiences in high school shop are relevant.

This makes perfect sense to me, in a sort Seinfeld like bizarro world, we have a creationist as a science minister, a minister for the environment whose purpose is to promote the energy sector, a defense minister that is looking for another job, an industry minister who just likes to hear himself speak and an infrastructure minister to plan photo opportunities. Oh and Jim Flaherty is still running finance.

Good grief indeed.


JAWL


h/t Impolitical here

Monday, March 16, 2009

A brief theory on how the Fourth Estate is using me

I was reading an interesting article by Clay Shirky about how journalism will evolve with the death of newspapers. Apparently Shirky is a well known internet expert and it probably makes a great deal of sense to those that either follow him or know something about the internet.

Shirky’s conclusion is that there will be a new form of journalism replacing the news on printed page once everyone gets their head around the fact that the newspaper industries are no longer a viable model. The journalists and the delivery of news will be funded differently, through sponsorship, grants, or endowments and eventually a new form of journalism will emerge.

Unfortunately as it is for me with most technological hypotheses, they are over my head. It might be an age thing or possibly I just don’t give a shit until it happens. In any case I will probably be dead before then.

What I do pay attention to right now are the news web sites from the publishers and broadcasters. As a part time blogger I scan about 1,100 headlines a day from 66 subscriptions, reading or scanning through about 50 articles. Then sometimes with wit, humor, concern or as Red Tory once wrote in a post about the Blogging Right, five minutes of hate I parse the news article and place some partisan or personal spin on the story.

There is not much journalism going on around here. Just hopefully enlightening or entertaining, cut and paste, pass it on, plagiarism.

However I’m starting believe that is what the media writers want us to do, at least some of them.

Here’s an example from this afternoon.

This CBC article about Capital Punishment in Canada starts with a brief history of our laws regarding capital punishment, then quickly ends with the recent supreme court ruling (a news item from two weeks ago) that Harper and crew must try to repatriate Ronald Allen Smith who is sitting on death row in Texas. No big conclusion or call to action or condemnation of Harper, just facts.

Although the article never makes a point, the sole purpose of the CBC article seems to be to remind us that hey Harper hasn’t done anything about this yet, but unfortunately the readers are left to interpret this on their own, reading between the lines. Maybe that is all the new media writers can do in the world of corporately owned media, just list the facts.

However it just might be the optimist in me or possibly some throw back to the days when I believed that the Velvet Underground were talking to me personally, but I would like to think that the CBC, Globe or even Post writers sometimes want us to rip off their lines and make the point that they can no longer make in the main stream media. It is either that or they are just stenographers.

Anyway, JUST ANOTHER WILLY LOMAN is now a year old. JAWL did not get much traffic during the first couple of months. it was that technological thing. I couldn’t figure out how to work the feeds, but after that people starting showing up every now and then.

So a big thank you to the news writers, a happy anniversary to me and bigger thank you to you for dropping by.


JAWL

What James Moore does not understand

Apparently our new Heritage Minister James Moore, wanted to have a say in what Canadians should be viewing on the CBC.

The CBC which is suffering a similar decline in advertising revenue as the other national networks first tried to get it’s federal funding increased to cover the short fall. However the conservative government has declined to provide additional funds, and even recently announced a reduction in funds to the CBC radio division. So the board of the Crown Corporation is now in the final stages of putting together a business plan that will address the new realities.

Our Heritage Minister who has been quite frank about some of the programming changes the CBC has been making decided it was a good time to meet with the board and talk about the future. He was looking forward to the meeting where they would work together. We will work together, because the global economy is in a crisis, Mr. Moore said.

I assume that the CBC was as confused about what the global economy has to do with programing decisions as I am and they cancelled Moores meeting.

After reflection, the CBC board asked the minister to delay the meeting, to ensure that there is no perception of an attempt by Mr. Moore to influence the board's strategic planning. After all the crown corporation must preserve it’s arms-length relationship with the federal government.

The arm's length principle (ALP) is the condition or the fact that the parties to a transaction or in a relationship are independent and on an equal footing. It is invoked to avoid undue government influence over other bodies, such as the legal system, the press, or the arts.

Apparently something else that Mr Moore does not understand.



JAWL

Saturday, March 14, 2009

The dilemma of Stephen Harper

Can you imagine the irony that poor Stephen Harper must feel. He has become the prime minister of a northern European welfare state, in the worst sense of the term.

Despite his best efforts to ignore the impending recession, a recession apparently caused by American consumers, who forgetting their conservative values, tried to live beyond their means, he has now been forced to become the benevolent socialist leader, doling out government welfare to a growing number of Canadians who have failed to remain employed.

This is not what Stephen Harper signed up for and certainly not the role he thought he would be playing as the most conservative prime minister in our history.

However his week did not start out this way. On Tuesday Steve was optimistic about the downturn telling the Brampton Chamber of Commerce that we should set aside our Canadian modesty and start selling our strengths to the world. Canada will be one of the first countries to recover, he told us. I imagine that it was good for Steve to get out of the office.

Imagine sitting in parliament all day as a conservative, trying to force the so called socialist opposition parties to speed up approval of billions of stimulus dollars that will not only throw your budgets into deficit, but is intended to be spent in a way that opposes the very principles that you have built your whole political career upon, free enterprise, less government spending, reduced social welfare.

It was with little wonder that Steve would jump for the opportunity on Wednesday to speak before the Manning Centre for Building Democracy, a conservative think tank headed by Steve’s old political boss Preston Manning. It was an opportunity for Steve to get back to his roots, reaffirm his conservative beliefs, to be reborn, one could say, and just as importantly explain to this key base of supporters, who are somewhat disillusioned with his recent actions, his brand of conservatism, the three Fs, Freedom, Family and Faith.

You don’t get to do that in front of the cameras, not as a politician. You can only vent your frustrations behind closed doors and away from reality.

In front of his core base of supporters Steve espoused that his tax cuts protected Canada despite the parliamentary report that showed they caused the deficit.

He claimed that Canada did not have a mortgage crisis, despite his government bringing in the zero down 40 year mortgages, which resulted in the $75 billion government guarantee of risky assets.

He freely attacked the opposition Liberal party claiming they had a secret agenda to raise the taxes of those of us making over $250,000 a year. An agenda I assume that that the Liberals must only speak about behind their closed doors. Who knew.

Unfortunately, and regardless of any personal reaffirmation he might of felt, you know the sharing of drinks and banter with seemingly like minded folk, not all in attendance believed, understood or supported his message. 

Some attendees thought he not only failed to build bridges back to his base, he burnt them down or as one attendee was quoted, If you want to vote for a centrist party, you can vote for the Liberal Party of Canada. They're very good at that.

Definitely not the result that Steve intended. However if you talk like a socialist and walk like a socialist, to this group of libertarians you are a centrist and although that is what Steve is trying to become it must have been disappointing to realize that his heart felt conservative values were no longer recognized.

With little time to recover from the rebuke by some of his once solid base of supporters (I am sure there were conversations overheard by strategically placed PMO operatives) things suddenly got worse for the prime minister on Friday, with the release of the unemployment numbers. There are now 1.4 million unemployed Canadians taking advantage of his extended social welfare programs, with its five extra weeks of coverage.

Steve a once proud conservative, libertarian, started his political career by standing before a group of American neoconservatives and jokingly stated that they, the Americans should not feel particularly sorry for the unemployed in Canada, of which we had over a million-and-a-half at the time, that they the unemployed don't feel bad about it themselves, as long as they're receiving generous social assistance and unemployment insurance.

After such a week, it was with little wonder that when Steve and his human resources minister, spent yesterday, announcing job retraining programs, earmarking another $2 billion dollars to support the newly unemployed, he felt compelled to throw in a caveat that would somewhat satisfy his inherent beliefs and demonstrate to his now somewhat disillusioned base that there will be no free rides in his new vision of socially conservative Canada.

Any former workers that are fortunate enough to be long tenured, in other words receive a severance package equal to the number of years they worked for their employer, will have to use part of their severance pay for retraining if they want to receive employment insurance benefits.

Regardless that these former workers cannot claim or collect EI benefits until the severance period is over and regardless that they may or may not need to be retrained, these newly unemployed will have to fork over a portion of their severance, just to cover themselves in case the severance runs out, before they get a job.

In his last event on Friday, our prime minister, who has spent much of the week trying to redefine his center, has informed Canadians that there will be no free rides for the unemployed under his stewardship and I would assume, psychologically satisfied his own need to move that center he has been searching for, further to the right, into more familiar territory.

It must truly be a dilemma to be a socially focussed, conservative prime minister.



JAWL

Thursday, March 12, 2009

Tar Sands did not create two headed fish

As erroneously reported here, the two-mouthed fish caught downstream from the Alberta oil sands last summer is not an unusual phenomenon in dead Goldeye.

Joe Nelson, a professor emeritus in the biological sciences department, said his examination determined that what was thought to be an extra jaw was in fact the tongue. Ligament contraction after death pulled the tongue out and down, he said. Nelson, who added he has no reason to believe the fish was deformed in any way. The specimen is now part of the university's permanent research collection.

It is good to know that the provincial government is on top of these things.

Unfortunately they have not been so forthcoming and to some degree as concerned about water monitoring here, and here, or monitoring the air here and here.

But good to know about the fish.


Just trying to keep my postings correct.


JAWL

Monday, March 9, 2009

The New Canadian Media funding, it will scare you




Starting in April, to receive funding from our government, New Media must be delivered to the public by a television set.

Oh it can still be on a web site, or a CDROM, or included in mixed marketing with a product launch or appear on YouTube, but it must also appear on television.

The fund will favour projects produced in high definition and will require applicants to make their projects available on at least two distribution platforms, one of which must be television.

In typical conservative oxymoron logic the Minister of Heritage, James Moore stated that the merging of Canada New Media Fund with the Canadian Television Fund will support Canadian content in the new era of consumer choice, emerging technology, and is an investment in Canada's future.

The whole purpose of investing in New Media is to develop new means of mass communication, interactive media, new sensory media, new ways to learn, communicate and inform. The whole purpose of our government investing in new media was to develop new made in Canada technologies and new Canadian content.

Of course Moore delivered his announcement from the set of the CTV crime show Flashpoint, which has been picked up by CBS in the US. Flashpoint is about a Toronto SWAT team that every week has some reason to kill or not kill a terrorist, bank robber, kidnapper or the like. A well produced American styled cop show with plenty of fire power that is intended to both entertain and keep us terrified about leaving the house.

Unfortunately the only thing uniquely Canadian about the show, are the street names, shots of the CN Tower and I guess the odd eh (Americans think that is cute). My presumption here is that FlashPoint would be eligible for funding in April since full episodes are available on CTV.ca.

Moore, stated that the government expects to dole out $310 million over the next two years and with the new rules the main recipients will be Globemedia and Canwest, the two national broadcasters that have been big supporters of the conservative party, with timely biassed reporting. As an added bonus for the conservative CBC bashers…

The change will also remove funding for CBC/Radio-Canada, however, the public broadcaster will be allowed to compete for in-house production cash that it was previously excluded from.

For those interested in the old Canadian New Media, you should probably take a gander here, or here, or here, or here and spend sometime here while you still can.


JAWL

Sunday, March 8, 2009

For the lack of an answer to a simple question...



...the Harper government is threatening to force the country into general election. Of course it is not just a simple question being posed by Martha Hall Findlay is above video. She is asking the bombastic Baird whether, or not the Harper government is going to participate in a parliamentary democracy or continue to act as presidential autocracy.

Findlay does a good of job of pushing Baird to admit that the government only wants to reveal stimulus spending at public photo opportunities where they can take full credit.


JAWL

Saturday, March 7, 2009

Making us a somebody

Apparently our government is politicking hard to raise our countries stature on the world stage. According to this Globe article by Doug Saunders whose articles I think I will start following from now on, our government has two international campaigns underway.

Harper wants Canada to be elected to a seat on the UN Security Council again, starting in January 2011 when the current terms for the non-permanent members ends. If successful this would be our seventh two year term with the last one ending on December 31st 2000.

Unfortunately, similar to the 62% of Canadians who voted in the last election, the international community is also questioning the motives of our prime minister.

The problem in this case (Canada’s attempt to garner UN votes) is not the method, but the nature of Canada's ambition. In the past, this country has sought and won seats on the Security Council as a means to something: an approach to peacekeeping, a nuclear-arms-control drive, a post-Cold War reconciliation.

This time, many international observers feel that the tail is wagging the dog. It looks to many as if Canada is using its few actions in the world — our big sacrifice in Kandahar, our outspoken commitment to the prosecution of Sudanese leaders — as pretexts for our aspiration to prominence in international institutions. Beyond that goal, our foreign policy seems to be one-dimensional and withdrawn.


A similar reaction is being felt to our governments other campaign to have our defense minister Peter MacKay appointed as the next Secretary-General of NATO, this coming July. MacKay has been on tour in Europe and unfortunately as least to some has been flaunting Canada’s sacrifice in Afghanistan. Many Europeans found McKay’s message that if Afghanistan goes sour, it will spell the end of NATO as we know it, somewhat distasteful.

If the old Vietnam motto was "We had to destroy the village in order to save it." Canada's Afghanistan motto appears to be "We had to destroy the village in order to save the sprawling campus of one-storey buildings on the outskirts of Brussels." one paper wrote.

It would appear that the same confrontational approach our conservative government tries to get away with in our parliament will not be accepted by the majority of European politicians either. Sadly we are turning into the other arrogant North America nation.

Of course one could blame this solely on the arrogance of our prime minister, but I am starting to believe that Harper truly has an inferiority complex when it comes to Canada. From his earliest days at NCC he has seemed embarrassed about Canada’s historic reputation on the world stage.

Being a nation known for peacekeeping, a country that spent more on the social safety net, than military expenditures, a country that tried to bridge the conflicts of the cold war ignoring the rhetoric of our largest trading partner, a country of rational, polite, people (well except for hockey) who were quietly respected around the world were not characteristics that Harper found appealing.

Instead Steve wants the world to know that we are a major oil producing country, that unlike the rest of the world our financial regulations have protected our economy and that because of the sacrifices our military has made in Afghanistan, our first military action since Korea, the rest of the world should follow our leadership in environment, finances, and I assume now international relations. We are a somebody.

However not a somebody that I like, but maybe, I am deceiving myself and the old Canada is gone. Being a closeted utopian liberal I believe we should quietly take the high road on major international issues while we focussed on the providing both the means for internal prosperity and socialized support mechanisms for those of us who needed it. A country run by a government that could understand both sides of an issue and then act in the most principled manner. A country run by a government where every decision is not based on a preset ideology, press releases or a popularity poll for the next election and the continuation of political power.

Unfortunately, I don't see this type of leadership with the new Liberal party either, at least not yet, and to some extent I don't really understand why. Right now the Liberals would still get my vote, after all I live in the 905, but the ABC argument is truly getting as old as maybe my vision of Canada is.



JAWL

Friday, March 6, 2009

David Gilmour turns 63



David Gilmour the last lead guitarist of Pink Floyd turns 63 today. If you are a Floyd fan you know all the stories about Gilmour taking Syd Barrett’s spot. Gilmour leaving because of Roger Waters’ domination of the band. Floyd truly was two bands.

Although there are plenty of Pink Floyd videos on YouTube to choose from, I went with their last performance together from Live 8 in 2005 with two songs that Gilmour and Waters collaborated on. The first, Wish You Were Here was the only Floyd song where the lyrics were written first, which is probably because the theme of the song and album of the same name was about Syd Barrett and his breakdown.



If I have a favorite Floyd song it is Comfortably Numb. It is one of only two songs on the Wall that were not solely credited to Waters. Gilmour had already started his solo career by this time, for which he had written the music. Waters wrote the lyrics supposedly about being injected with tranquillizers to treat hepatitis prior to playing a show in Philadelphia.

Right... Just a little pin prick... was about hepatitis. Just like the mix of Hey Jude was about Julian and his mom.

Anyway the strength of Gilmour's voice impressed me in the Live 8 performance. I expected his guitar to be great, but his vocals were impressive for an old man. Happy Birthday.




JAWL

Alberta MP ducks the point at tar sands hearing



Conservative MP Brian Jean, whom I presume also represents Syncrude at the hearing, as well as the residents of Fort McMurray, was testifying in Ottawa yesterday about how many birds are killed around the world each year.

According to Jean 500,000 are killed by cats, 200,000 by Toronto skyscrapers and he thinks it is unfair that because 500 birds are killed in 10 years at the oil sands, the companies are on the front page of every newspaper in North America and many in Europe.

I think you are missing the point Mr. Jean.

Ignoring the fact that the 500 ducks died within minutes of landing in the tailing pond and that the tailing pond was big enough for a flock of 500 ducks to land in, it is the rampant, uncontrolled, destruction and pollution of the land, air and water that most concerned North Americans are focussing on.


JAWL

Thursday, March 5, 2009

The prophecies of Harper the economist



This week, in one day, Hamilton, Ontario lost as many jobs as Alberta is forecasting to loose province wide, as the oil province heads towards it’s first deficit in fifteen years

I wonder if it is too late to take Harpers election advice about moving the country’s unemployed west. Alberta would then have 30,000 unemployed. In hindsight I sort of understand Harper’s logic, we could keep moving the unemployed back and forth across the country, from one province to the next.

To save costs, we could house the unemployed steelworkers and their families on trains and keep them moving to next available job market. Of course it might get overcrowded if we included the autoworkers and their families, but if we could just hold off for at least a month, the weather will improve and some of them to ride on top of the freight cars.

Ironically, Harper's prophetic warnings from last November in Peru might come true. Who knew...




JAWL

The breakfast song



From Tupelo, Mississippi we have two southern baptist, breakfasters, who I guess are planning to meet the maker by eating very big breakfasts. Stick around until he starts into the cereal brand names. :)

JAWL

Wednesday, March 4, 2009

To his scattered body gone


Have you ever wondered what a conversation would be like between Mark Twain, Sir Richard Burton, Alice from Alice in Wonderland, Tom Mix, maybe Jesus and say Hermann Goring. Well, so did Philip Jose Farmer.

In fact Farmer decided to bring every person who ever lived on earth from the beginning of time back to life and drop them on the bank of great river. A sort of rebirth where every adult started out healthy, the same age, nude and hairless.

That is roughly the beginning of To Your Scattered Bodies Go, the first book of Farmer’s five part Riverworld Series. Scattered was one of the first science fiction books I read as I switched back and forth between Farmer’s Riverworld and Frank Herbert’s Dune series. You have time on your hands when you own a book store.

Where Herbert concentrated on the psychological interaction between conflicting societies, with eloquent descriptions of his desert world, Farmer’s style was more like a pulp fiction writer with an interest in history. The writing in Riverworld might have been more crude, but what an idea.

Philip Jose Farmer wrote over seventy novels, won six Hugos, one Nebula, plus many other awards and passed away last week at the age of 91.



JAWL

Monday, March 2, 2009

Moving our drugs laws back 30 years

I thought it was interesting that on the same week that the CBC reported, about the conservatives reintroducing their legislation aimed at drug traffickers and organized crime by proposing mandatory jail sentences for serious drug offences.

The NY Times reported that there is an aggressive effort under way in New york State to finally dismantle what remains of the stringent 1970s-era drug laws, which imposed stiff mandatory sentences as a way to combat the heroin epidemic then gripping New York City. The governor will be introducing laws, reinstating the judges discretion in sentencing,

As the Canadian crime rate continues to decline, with 2006 the latest year for which there is statistics, being the lowest crime rate in twenty-five years, the conservatives are also proposing to double the maximum sentences from 7 to 14 years for serious offences including possession of Class II drugs such as marijuana.

The conservatives are basically moving us back to the early days of the US war on drugs, which has since filled their prisons and given them the largest prison population in the world. Today one in every thirty one American adults, is in jail, on probation or on parole.

As the mainstream media continues to sensationalize each act of violence to pump up their ratings and scare the hell out of suburbia, the opposition parties are afraid to look like they are not tough on crime. Somebody had better start doing their job here, checking the numbers and questioning the logic or there is going to be a lot of us in jail.

In Canada and for the purposes of this proposed legislation, a criminal organization as defined in section 467.1(1) of the Canadian Criminal Code as a group of three or more people whose purpose is to commit serious offences for material benefit.

Note to the wise, two is a party three is hard time.



JAWL

Sunday, March 1, 2009

A delusional government or a nation of fools

According to this Canadian Press article we are being asked to believe that the same conservative government that could not foresee the coming of the largest recession since 1929, a government that did not start working on an economic plan until they were forced to by the opposition parties, somehow had the foresight to start searching for spurious, material about Ignatieff three years ago.

Two unidentified conservative spokespeople claim that there will be three themes to their attacks: that Ignatieff is an out-of-touch elitist; that he flip-flops (they will cite his shifting positions on a carbon tax, on coalition with the other opposition parties, and on Israelis bombing of Lebanon); and that he's a fair-weather Canadian. Their reason to start these attacks now: We poll better on offense.

The conservatives are delusional if they think that this attack ad strategy will be successful, this time around.

If it ever did succeed, we would truly be the fools, that they must believe we are.


JAWL