Willy Loman

All hail Princess Warrior Marg Delahunty! Mary Walsh has had enough with Harper’s charade and decided to have a sweater burning ceremony in Newfoundland last night. "How stunned does the prime minister think we are?" Walsh yelled out, as a bonfire crackled. "For God's sake, does he think that putting on a blue sweater-vest is going to make us think, 'Oh my goodness, what a kind-hearted, cosy, cute little PM,' and forget all about the fact of his soul-sucking, evil work of putting 14-year-olds in jail for the rest of his lives?" said Walsh, I’m moving to oil rich NL as soon as Ontario becomes a have not. I like these people.

At 1:24 pm Reuters reported that the White House claims that they have the votes required to pass the $700 billion bailout bill. At 2:36 pm Reuters reported that the bill failed to pass by 23 votes (228 against the bill, 205 for the bill). The vote ran as follows: Democratic votes - 140 yeas and 95 nays, Republican votes 65 yeas and 133 nays. This is the same House of Representatives and the same Republican representatives that overwhelmingly supported and voted to spend $600 billion on the Iraq war, and all with no oversight. And when voting on the revised 166 page bill with added oversight and additional provisions for the 5 million plus Americans who are about to loose their homes, they decided to draw their line in the sand. Apart from the fact that it looks good on Bush, who’s enhanced deregulation for deregulation sake and general negligence in everything, is partly responsible for this mess. The problem now is that the weakness in the US banking system has grown legs, becoming a...

As expertly pointed out here and here Gerry Ritz became the PMO’s appointed and unprepared dupe to act as the front man and now it seems the fall guy for the Listeria outbreak. But the points to remember are The Tories planned their deregulation schemes back in November but decided it would be best not to tell us. In March they implemented the new plan at Maple Leaf and other plants (we still don’t know how many others). The new Tory deregulation plan had the inspectors focus on processes used and reports prepared as opposed to doing actual tests on the cutting floor. A new plan that had the inspector at Maple Leaf be responsible for six other locations. The union released confidential documents in July exposing the changes to food inspection and the outbreak was discovered in August. Then we have learned that the safety inspections of other industries have also been deregulated. Although Gerry Ritz our Agriculture Minister might be totally inept, as most of Harpers minister’s are, i...

According to Frank Graves the president of EKOS Research, who studies such things there is a big difference between Canadians and Americans when it comes to the importance they place on ideologies, with regards to the political process, party affiliation, or political leaders in general. “Americans are much more ideological than Canadians. They tenaciously hold on to their ideological orientations and they are much more conservative, much more moral, with more religiosity and so forth.” "Canadian voters on the other hand can’t really define left or right, or in reality care. More and more of us apparently think of ourselves as non partisan and non ideological." To some extent I think Graves is right. Most of the people I communicate with on a daily basis (present company excluded) do not look at issues with a political vent or veil. Their reaction to the Listeria outbreak is to stop eating cold cuts, not get upset at Harper for deregulating food inspection. Arts funding cuts,...

Paul Newman, the Academy-Award winning superstar who personified cool as an activist, race car driver, popcorn impresario and the anti-hero of such films as Hud, Cool Hand Luke and The Color of Money, has died. He was 83. Here's a You Tube composite made in 2006 of some of his roles.

Finally got around to revisiting US sites today and found my way here to 23/6. This site is hilarious. Part of Huffington that I've been ignoring. I won't anymore. Here's a few examples. Sarah Palin drives her handlers nuts Charlie Gibson's Sarah Palin interview redux Sarah Palin's Daughter's Baby This is about as close as you can yet to going over the line. It seems sick until they do the mock interviews of Americans, then you get it. The one minute democratic convention Here they even take shots at the dems.

Let me get this straight, Harper is going to cut off exports of bitumen from the tar sands to countries that have lower standards for greenhouse gas emissions than Canada. Even when considering the fact that the majority of developed nations have higher standards than Canada, he really is not prohibiting any country from buying Alberta's oil. Transporting bitumen over long distances is a difficult process that requires substantial infrastructure, so right now such exports are confined to the U.S. Countries like China would still be able to buy crude oil that had been transformed within Canada, like they are doing now. Well thank you Mr. Harper for instituting a new imaginary trade embargo to imaginary countries. It goes nicely with your imaginary plan to reduce tar sands greenhouse gas emissions that are actually allowed to increase under your plan as the tar sands production expands. Oh and thank you Globe and Mail for so unwittingly reproducing this bullshit .

Some Wilburys for my fellow progressives. Relax it's Friday night.  

According to this Star article Harper has received threats against his life. For this reason he only makes announcements before small, hand-picked groups and addresses political rallies where every person in the audience has to register with officials from the local Conservative party organization. "Certainly, my security situation changed radically once I became Prime Minister," he told reporters at a event, surrounded by young people wearing light blue Conservative T-shirts. Looking a bit uncomfortable, he said: "Unfortunately, we live in an era where the Prime Minister of Canada faces strong security threats. I'm not informed about all of them. "Obviously, there's always been potential security threats to people in high office. But when we're dealing in an era of global terrorism and these kinds of things, there are a disturbing number of threats to the country and specifically to whoever occupies the office of prime minister. This is unfortunate but...

Conservative Lee Richardson who was actually born in North Battleford Saskatchewan was in his riding in Calgary Centre today, when he decided to explain who the criminals really are. "Look at who's committing these crimes ... They're not the kid that grew up next door," Richardson told the Calgary newsmagazine Fast Forward Weekly. "Particularly in big cities, we've got people that have grown up in a different culture," he said. "And they don't have the same background in terms of the stable communities we had 20, 30 years ago in our cities and don't have the same respect for authority or people's person or property. CBC here. " Well very few us would of the had the same experiences that Richardson had back in the 80’s in North Battleford or where ever he was dancing disco in those days. And as for Calgary, shit I feel like I’m entering the US, every time I go there. All said though I wouldn’t really want to call him a racist, he jus...

It has taken the press two years and three weeks into the campaign to finally notice that Harper might have Bush like tendencies.  The Star, has finally decided to comment about the controlled access used at Harper's rallies. Harper's rallies are off-limits for any member of the public who just shows up. Nobody gets in unless they have been pre-registered by the local riding association. Even local media are asked to sign up in advance. Anyone wanting to attend an event featuring Harper has to have his or her name vetted by the RCMP, said a source at Conservative campaign headquarters, who would only talk on background yesterday. He said this rule applies even outside the campaign period, so no one – even a staffer not scheduled to be there – can show up unannounced at a Harper speech and expect to be let in. And the same rules apply to access to high profile, local candidates. When reporters tried to speak to Cadman this week, Harper's staff ordered the RCMP to block journ...

On Monday Statistic Canada sort of released their monthly report on Investment in New Housing Construction for the month of July. The only problem with the report is that there are no statistics listed or even a summary of the findings. Typically with most of the Stats Can reports I’ve looked at in the last six months you at least get a summary, usually a couple charts and you can then drill down through the data. But not this month, at least not for housing starts. All you can do is review the definitions and a list of sources used and then send away for the report. At the time, I thought that this was somewhat strange considering the whole purpose of Statics Canada is providing statistics and interpretive summaries and that is what you usually get. Then today Merrill Lynch Canada came out with a report warning that Canada could be headed to a housing and mortgage meltdown, similar to the US. CBC here . Household net borrowing in Canada amounted to 6.3 per cent of disposable income i...

A deregulated US financial sector issued high risk mortgages that perpetuated a US housing bubble which increased housing starts and the price of real estate. As the price of real estate went up the financial institutions expanded their high risk investment into commercial financing ventures. The mortgage and financing portfolios were then sold by brokers to other financial institutions, including foreign institutions along with assurance policies to counter any losses. Then the bubble broke. For the last six months, US, Canadian and other foreign governments have responded by propping up the financial sectors in their perspective countries by injecting money into stocks, bonds and guarantees. With the pending defaults, the US government moved in and has either bought or allowed the disposal of the leading perpetrators of the schemes and is now proposing to clean up the balance sheets of the their remaining financial institutions that hold these over financed properties in their books....

In a news release the Ontario Provincial Police reported that it took an undisclosed number of officers all weekend to seize 40,000 plants, which they valued at $40 million, growing between rows of corn. There was no mention of how much time was spent counting the plants and with no arrests in the case, I personally find it a bit pretentious for the OPP or the CBC here to call this Canada’s largest marijuana bust.

In December 2006 the Supreme Court reported on the Youth Criminal Justice Act and determined that the existing act has been successful in rehabilitating youths that have been charged with violent crimes. The report went further suggesting that the act should be expanded with even more focus on rehabilitation. In the latest Statics Canada Report for 2007 youth crimes have actually decreased by 1.5%. Leading experts on youth justice such as Nick Bala of Queens University advise that “studies have shown that deterrence – stiffer sentences to send others a message that they should not commit the same crime – does not work for youth.” “It would be nice if it did, but it doesn't,” he said. “That's a rationally-based theory that ignores the fact that young people have bad judgment and are not thinking rationally. They're not thinking about getting caught.” Which is why our Supreme Court in May of this year struck down Harper’s first pass at resetting the age limits, ruling that “y...

Harper’s finance minister Jim Flaherty was on CTV yesterday, to discuss the $700 billion take over of the over valued assets by the US federal reserve. In a statement that sends shivers down the spine of anyone that lived in Ontario during Flaherty's reign as provincial finance minister. He doesn't expect the type of crisis that battered the American financial sector to occur in Canada and that the government has taken steps to make sure the country's financial sector will not end up in a precarious situation like that of the United States. CNEWS here . That’s usually the first sign that anything can go wrong. First off he doesn’t know what effect the US federal take over and expected “fire sale” type, disposal of the up to $700 billion of over valued assets will have on Canadian institutions (banks, mutual funds, insurance companies) that may or may not own a piece of those assets. No one knows yet. Secondly, what steps did the Tories take. If sitting back and crossing th...

The Liberals have decided to attack Layton over his alleged deal with Marc Emery and his BC Marijuana Party. It appears quite clear through the work and financial support Mr. Emery gave to the NDP, he believes he has lived up his end of this agreement. However, when asked about this deal in Edmonton, yesterday, Mr. Layton denied there was ever a deal. The questions that Mr. Layton still needs to answer are: Why did Mr. Emery raise money and work so hard for so long for the NDP? And what was he promised in return? Liberal Press Release here Talk about shooting yourself in the foot. This is the most ridiculous political move I’ve seen in years. You are foolishly inserting marijuana decriminalization into the election from position of weakness. It was the Liberal Party that has twice proposed to decriminalize marijuana possession and it is the Liberal party that has twice failed to do so. It raises the question of where do you stand on decriminalization now. Focus, on the enemy here. Let ...

If you live in the city, Harper’s party is going to be tough on crime, if you live in rural Canada, he’s going to abolish the long gun registry. The Conservatives have quietly sent out brochures to specific rural ridings across the country promising that the gun registry will be dumped. CNEWS "We're scrapping it" says a brochure sent by Gord Brown, Conservative MP for Leeds-Grenville, a largely rural Ontario riding between Kingston and Ottawa. "This Conservative government is scrapping the useless Liberal long-gun registry. We are taking real action to crack down on gun crime. We will not harass law-abiding hunters and farmers," it reads. Even though Stockwell Day, Harper’s Safety Minister has continued to extend the amnesty on new long gun registration and waived renewal fees for rifle and shotgun owners, our police forces across the country actually use the gun registry everyday. Despite the amnesties, the registry is still very much being used by police force...

The Globe and Mail has just completed a study of arts funding that challenges Harper’s claim that his government has increased funding to the arts in Canada. In excruciating detail the Globe went over federal funding and budgets from April 2004 thru March 2009 that reveal two key facts in his deception. Overall spending in reality declined under the conservatives. Due to the timing of accounting entries when the government switched from Martin’s Liberals to Harper’s conservatives actual expenditures made by the Liberal government were entered into the conservative balances. Although Harper can factually claim increased spending during his first partial year in office, it was actually Liberal expenditures that make up the increase. Secondly and more importantly the report details where the conservatives have provided funds and how Harper’s defines the arts in Canada. Heritage Canada is divided into two main areas. The first (SO1) supports Canadians in expressing their cultural experienc...

On Wednesday, Environment Minister John Baird unveiled a $1.9 billion extension of three homelessness and housing initiatives in his Ottawa West-Nepean riding. The three programs: the federal Affordable Housing Initiative, the Homelessness Partnering Strategy, and the Residential Rehabilitation Assistance were all due to expire in March 2009. These programs were not part of the $19 billion pre-election spending spree that Harper went on prior to his election call and contrary to claims by the prime minister they were not listed in the 2008 budget. Instead they were approved by a special Harper cabinet committee at a meeting just days before the election was called. The fact that Baird who is in charge of the environment was chosen to announce the spending at a youth housing project in his riding means that his polling numbers must be weak. Way to go Nepean (I lived and worked there for seven years) and while you’re at it get rid of that little pissant Pierre Poilievre too. You remember...

On August 30th Agriculture Minister Gary Ritz had a conference call with scientists, communications advisers, and senior public servants to discuss the mounting death toll of the Listeria outbreak, the trends in the spread of the disease and how to frame the government's message. He started the call by asking “Are there were any more more bombs out there?” referring to any more politically damaging news, as in more people dying, I would assume. He then went on to express his concerns about the political dangers of the crisis, saying. "This is like a death by a thousand cuts. Or should I say cold cuts." Then when told about a new death in Prince Edward Island, he said: "Please tell me it's [Liberal MP] Wayne Easter." The Harper government secretly implemented changes to the food inspection rules, in March at the Maple Leaf plant. Those changes no longer required nor allowed time for the meat inspectors to do physical tests for Listeria on the cutting blades o...

Amnesty International has reported that yesterday, Canadian Foreign Affairs again failed to issue the promised travel documents for Abousfian Abdelrazik. Thus preventing him from boarding the flight that would finally return this stranded Canadian citizen. In case you are getting the stories of Canadians stranded by the Harper Government mixed up, Abousfian Abdelrazik is the Canadian citizen that has been stranded in the Sudan since 2003. In brief Abdelrazik, came to Canada in 1990. He became a Canadian citizen in 1995, got married and had a daughter. He knew Amed Ressam, the Canadian immigrant that got caught trying to cross the US border with explosives, back in 1999 (known as the New Years Eve bomber) and voluntarily testified at the Ressam’s trial in the US. However upon his return to Canada CSIS put him under constant surveillance. In 2003 he returned to the Sudan to visit his mother who is sick and while there CSIS labels him as a known associate of al-quaeda and he is arrested b...

Harper was in London yesterday toting all that he has done for Ontario manufacturing and telling us how his government prudently managed the economy through the recessive threats of the US meltdown. "The hard-working people of this region want to know this government is on their side," he told about 1,000 enthusiastic supporters at the London Convention Centre. "And between now and Oct. 14, they will choose between the certainty a Conservative government provides and the risk represented by the Liberals, Green Party and the NDP." Harper said. "My own belief is if we were going to have some kind of crash or recession, we probably would have had it by now a year into the (financial) crisis." In reality his government has sat on the sidelines during his stewardship as Canadian manufacturing has been decimated by the combination of a rising Canadian dollar that has decreased revenues and lowered exports of our manufactured goods and services and the high cost ...

The opening paragraph of this attack piece from the National Post is intentionally misleading and is nothing more than an extension of the Tory attacks ads. From the article: The leading economic organization of the industrialized world is being advised to condemn attempts by countries to impose carbon tariffs on certain imported goods -- an initiative that the Liberal party advocates in its key election-campaign policy, the Green Shift plan. But when you read the article it is actually about 36 ( well oiled ) business associations from around the world that are working on a draft for a report that is fearful of the possible protectionism that US government might impose when they move to an expected combination of carbon taxes and or cap and trade, The argument used by these organizations is that as a country moves forward to impose carbon restraints upon it’s own industries it will be obligated to both protect and even the playing field by introducing tariffs on imported goods produc...

There is a lot of press about and a few polls illustrating that Dion is considered to be a weak leader by a large number of Canadians. There are three reasons for this: The conservative attack ads. Brilliantly the Tories started attacking Dion right after the hard fought Liberal leadership race with it's surprising result. Dion in winning the leadership was probably the third or even fourth choice amongst the pundits and the party membership. By attacking his leadership abilities early, before he had the opportunity to actually start leading created doubt and has continued to work brilliantly. Dion is not leading in this campaign Although Dion appears to be more intelligent, honest and sincere than Harper, he also seems to suffer from pride, vanity and single mindedness (actually the same traits that appear to be admired in Harper).  Dion or his Liberal strategists seem to be determined to have Dion single handedly take on Harper and prove that he is a strong leader and that the T...

In federal elections I usually end up placing, what I guess you could call a protest vote. In the past I have voted for the Rhinoceros Party (not the year that Zappa ran), some obscure independent a couple of times. Went for the Communist Party of Canada, once. It was a tough choice that year as the Marxist-Leninist Party also had a candidate, in my riding, basically splitting the ultra socialist vote. In 2006, similarly to Kevin Newman of Global TV, my vote went to a Green candidate with a sign on the lawn and all. However this year my riding of 160,000 only has two candidates running, so my vote might actually count. One candidate is a 50 year old white guy, born nearby. He’s a senior partner in a fair size international law firm working on US, European and Canadian deals. He actually looks like me a bit, taking away the hair, and adding ten years and about 40 lbs. Politically, this is his third try for the riding. He has been a stalwart party member actually managing another candida...

Yesterday, in remembering the 911 attacks, our Prime Minister “warned of the dangers of doing nothing”. "If we sit back and allow our fellow human beings to descend into a situation of brutality and anarchy and ignorance, this will come back to haunt us," he said. Here’s what Harper said in the House of Commons in March 2003 in support of the American invasion of Iraq. "It is inherently dangerous to allow a country such as Iraq to retain weapons of mass destruction, particularly in light of its past aggressive behavior.  If the world community fails to disarm Iraq, we fear that other rogue states will be encouraged to believe that they too can have these most deadly of weapons to systematically defy international resolutions and that the world will do nothing to stop them." If Stephen Harper had been the leader of a majority government in 2003, Canada would have been a full participant in the invasion of Iraq and as culpable as the Bush administration is for the bru...

Apparently our evangelical prime minister is a big fan of Rosh Hashanah. For the second year in a row the conservatives, well actually Steve, his wife and the two kids, who are featured on the card are sending out Jewish New Year cards to complete strangers. However one Jewish person in Montreal was upset, since she doesn't vote conservative and isn't a member of any Jewish organizations. She is a little concerned about the privacy issue, that she is on some unknown government database that is sorted by ethnicity or I assume religion. Meanwhile Karla Kaminsky, another Montrealer wasn’t upset at all when she received her New Year’s card last week, but then she isn’t Jewish. Apparently the conservatives send out Xmas cards and Chinese New Year cards also. Canada’s Privacy Commissioner has investigated and determined that the lists do not break any privacy rules, but will be presenting some recommendations later in the year. There was no mention of happy Ramadan cards for the mus...

Maple Leaf Foods believes that the listeria contamination was caused by accumulation of bacteria deep within the meat-slicing equipment. It wasn't until two meat slicers, were disassembled that areas were found deep within the machine where listeria bacteria may have accumulated and "avoided our rigorous sanitization procedures," Mr. McCain said. "Certainly the disassembly that took place here would be outside the scope of anybody's normal, routine consideration for sanitization," Mr. McCain said. However the machine's manufacturer insists its product was not to blame. "There has never been a serious food safety issue associated with any of the S-180 slicers - including the machines at the Maple Leaf facility, which have been in production for more than 11 years," Mr. Sandberg said in an e-mailed statement. Basically Maple Leaf is claiming that they did all their required cleaning and that the cause was really a design flaw. Of course prior to ...

Ed Stelmach, the Premier of Alberta came out yesterday to let us know what the oil industry is looking for in this election. "If there's ever a time we need a strong majority, it's now. Many of the investors around the world are looking for some stability and predictability in policy and we won't get that unless we have a majority government." The many investors in this case is good old Rex Tillerson, Chairman and CEO of Exxon who is holding back his decision on the starting date for the Kearl Tar Sands project until the new year. In case you forgot the Kearl project is the next expansion of the Tar Sands. In this case replacing the existing boreal forests with a $8 billion open-pit, mining operation, with trailing ponds expected to be the size of 20,000 football fields. The majority Ed is referring to is obviously a conservative one, but he did have some advice for the Tories about just trying to get by on negative attack ads. He suggested that attack ads aren...

While the new conservative ads feature the soft spoken Harper farting out puppy dogs and kittens, the real Tories showed up on Election Day One at their new multi-million dollar campaign headquarters in Ottawa. Their idea is to hold early 6 am news conferences from their new command center where they can set the daily news agenda for the media's election coverage. So they bring out two of their most arrogant attack dogs, Jason Kenny and Lawrence Cannon who summon the press corps to release their "latest in a long series of ads attacking Liberal Leader Stéphane Dion". Except no one bites, as in free media sound bites of the ads (of course Global National might). Kenny did get to throw in some more of his outright lies, I mean the guy just makes this shit up. Their tag line for the day is that the Liberals will reverse popular policies. The Liberals will raise the GST, take back the $100 a month child care (which actually covers about a day and half of daycare if you could ...

As a progressive reader you already knew this, you read it here and all over other progressive blogs. However other Canadians, your friends, your co-workers or your relatives are not aware of the simple fact that the Tories implemented their deregulation of food inspection back in March at the Maple Leaf plant. The CFIA inspectors no longer were allowed to run Listeria tests on the cutting blades used in the Maple Leaf plant. They only verified the company's paperwork outlining the processes. That's the principle of Harper's deregulation and he secretly (withholding the changes from the public and parliament) broke the food inspection system in March and by August we had the first death. What can you do to stop Harper? Tell everyone the truth about Harper's "deregulation for deregulation's sake" ideology. If they want proof send them here to this Gazette article from yesterday where the president of the Public Service Alliance of Canada's Agriculture ...

My MacBook blew up, it will be 3 days to get fixed if I'm lucky! Haven't been able to get posted on Progressive Bloggers for a week because my feed somehow isn't getting through. And now I'm on the road for three days. Going to spend the next four days, removing the wool from my eyes. I saw one of Harper's ads last night. Leadership, my ass. The sketch above is Aldous Huxley just before his death at age 69. He was a humanist and pacifist, but was also latterly interested in spiritual subjects such as parapsychology and philosophical mysticism. He was also well known for advocating and taking hallucinogens and is considered by many to be the "spiritual father" of the hippie movement. He travelled back and forth between the UK, Canada and southern California with a brief case full of acid in the late 50's and early 60's spreading the word. Oh and he wrote numerous articles, books of poetry and philosophy and 11 novels including Brave New World.