Excited Delirium

This story about how a woman was abused at Vancouver airport is revolting.

The security establishment that Stephen Harper has created is destroying the very fabric of respect and dignity in this country.

When “people” get away with this kind of barbaric treatment of regular citizens, what’s next?

Welcome to Stephen Harper’s Conada:  humiliating one person at a time to intimidate the rest of us.

Or … Dear Tony, Please Don’t Count Me In Your Numbers

There’s an insane level of noise happening with respect to the census and the Conservative plan to drop the mandatory aspect of the long-form.  There’s very little clarity.

As part of his defense, Tony Clement is suggesting that with the last census, several Canadians did not submit the long-form census on the grounds that they were concerned about their privacy.  This is only half true.

I am one of those Canadians, but allow me to explain myself.

I did not submit the long-form census because I was concerned about my privacy.  That’s a fabrication that’s being spread by the Conservatives because they don’t like statistics and the reality that they reveal (eg. lower crime rates or people dropping out of organized religion).

Unlike the Conservatives, I trust Statistics Canada with my personal information and also trust that it will be aggregated to show general trends and observations about our population, our needs as citizens and where investments should be made by our various levels of government, just to name a few ways in which we rely on this information.

That is a basic principle of statistics that I think Tony Clement and the rest of the Conservatives have failed miserably to understand:  statistics are about larger numbers, not individual details.  There are no privacy concerns if you trust the institution.

But let’s get to my personal choice to remain absent on the last census.  I refused to fill this document because the data is being stored and managed by a third-party called Lockheed-Martin.  Yes, that Lockheed-Martin.

In fact, in 2006, there was a substantial grassroots movement that tried to stop the Canadian government from outsourcing this critical data collection exercise to a company that manufactures weapons of mass destruction.  It was called CountMeOut and details can be found here.

What’s fascinating to me is that the Conservatives have successfully taken a public protest against the government and turned it into some kind of libertarian boogie monster pep rally that has all deep blue Conservatives getting their pitchforks blabbing about the ills of big government coming to take my family away.

What’s worse is that this campaign makes all protesters of the original long-form census hypocrites.

The point of all this: when Tony claims that thousands of Canadians are refusing to submit to the long-form census because they’re concerned about privacy, maybe he’d better check his stats.

Oh yeah … he doesn’t have any.  Or he soon won’t.

Welcome to Stephen Harper’s “Conada”, where lies are truth and truth is terror.

I have come to realize that the Conservative Regime is built on three platforms:

• Fear
• Fear and
• Fear

The Conservatives have nothing else of substance with their policy objectives and all Canadians will eventually feel the boot of fascism on their necks if we don’t get rid of this government.

In implementing these platforms, they have three essential budgets:

• Prisons and Incarceration, when it won’t be long before anyone that disagrees with the Cons will find themselves in jail
• Punishment and Reprimand (too many links to speak of related to G8/G20 spending waste or billions spent on privatizing security forces in Canada)
• Defense and Destruction

The latest announcement from our Minister of Defending Ridiculously Large Wastes of Canadian Taxpayer Dollars is towards an untendered contract to someone who’s likely very close to the Conservative fear machine.  And this interview on CBC is the biggest pile of bulls**t I’ve heard in a long time, using the rationale of ‘our neighbours are hyperspending on wasteful killing machines, so we simply have to hyperspend on even more useless killing machines’.

This stuff really pisses me off.

Where’s the ‘peace-loving, let’s move the world forward’ Canada that I grew up in?

Where are the ‘bake sales for bombers’ that companies like Lockheed Martin should have to worry about as opposed to corrupt back-room back-scratch deals that we’re seeing rolled out by the Cons?

… losers?

The word ‘loser’ seems a little harsh, but when you run in an election and you’re rejected by the people of Canada, what’s an appropriate word to use?  Unwanted?  Destined for something bigger?

A BCer in Toronto has compiled a spectacular list of the appointment of Conservative candidates that failed to get elected in past elections.

It’s hard not to be cynical about what’s happening in Canada when you have someone in charge who made such a massive issue out of accountability, transparency and the end of patronage appointments and yet flips the bird at all three on a constant and near daily basis.

The corruption and hypocrisy is pretty much absolute now.

When will we get a break from this madness?

When will Stephen Harper finally run out of people that the people of Canada didn’t want to run our country … to run our country anyways?

What a great read I had when I was pointed to Margaret Atwood’s article in response to the brutish violence that Canada and the world had to endure last week (source:  another Progressive Blogger, although I can’t remember who).

What astounds me about this article is that it was published in the Glob and Fail.  Are they trying to protect themselves, particularly given the backlash they keep getting every time the let Christie Belchforth open her mouth?

Atwood hints at some important questions, which I’ll reformulate here:

• Why didn’t the police forces arrest the few people who were actually destroying public property, including well-placed and abandoned police cars?  Did they not want to arrest their own kind?
• Who was calling the shots on the whole affair?
• To what extent was Stephen Harper involved with the decision making process?  The police were mostly provincial and municipal employees, but rumours are swirling that the operation was handled out of an office far from downtown Toronto.  Were Canadian politicians even remotely close to some of the decisions being made?
• Why are we spending so much money on incarceration and security?  Are they signs of things to come for all Canadians, even if they are law-abiding and simply disagreeing with Harper?

Ultimately, here’s my issue:  last week, Canadians lost the right to free assembly.

What Constitutional Right will we lose next?

Demand and hold an inquiry, but make sure we’re asking the right questions and we’re not just pissing away more taxpayer dollars.  We need to find out why our government no longer believes in the Canadian Constitution because one right denied is the equivalent of ALL rights denied.

Germany has always been known as a leader with wind and solar power collection – two of several options for renewable energies.

However, according to Germany’s Federal Environment Agency, there is a distinct possibility that Germany will have completely quit it’s reliance on carbon-based energy by the year 2050.

Here are some of details to consider:

• “A complete conversion to renewable energy by 2050 is possible from a technical and ecological point of view,” Jochen Flasbarth, president of the Federal Environment Agency, told reporters earlier this week.
• The transition would also create new jobs and increase exports of renewable energy technologies.
• The country already employs some 300,000 in the renewable energy sector and is the world’s leader in installed photovoltaic capacity and second largest generator of wind power after the US.
• Currently around 40% of Germany’s greenhouse gas emissions come from electricity generation, particularly coal-fired plants, but the Government has committed to cutting emissions 40% on 1990 levels by 2020 and 80-85% by 2050.
• Meanwhile, the German authorities have finally agreed a two-step plan to reduce feed-in tariffs by 3% later this year.
• The German Federal Network Agency says that 714 MW of solar capacity was installed in Q1 of this year, a ten-fold increase on last year. The change to the feed-in tariff is expected to calm the market but not lead to a collapse, according to media reports.

Going one step further, I started to browse the German Environment Agency web site and found that most of the articles are those that would make head-in-the-sand Conservatives and environment-deniers shriek:

• “Germany met its Kyoto Protocol Climate Protection Obligations in 2008″
• “Unecological subsidies cost 48 billion Euros in tax revenues every year”
• “How to reduce Germany’s CO2 emissions by 40%”
• “CO2 capture and storage is only an interim solution” (and not a real one, Steve)
• “Climate protection fuels employment”

All of this goes to show that ‘necessity really IS the mother of invention’.  Germany’s not known for its natural energy resources – except for coal – so they’ve got to take care of themselves some other way.  And because Canada is sitting on the world’s biggest cess pool of crap some people call ‘oil’, we don’t bother investing in technology and energy supplies that might actually be sustainable.

Despite how distressing the situation is (and how much it makes me want to move to Germany), I can’t help but laugh at the image of Merkel and Harper in a literal wrestling match and exchanging fisticuffs every time they get together for a little $1.2 billion party.  But then, I suppose Merkel’s probably thinking ahead with ideas like “we’ll be selling these trolls everything they need over the next 50 years and we’ll pretty much own Canada”.

This is a great piece by Catherine Porter of the Toronto Star.

Enjoy the day, spread peaceful messages and whatever you do, please don’t break stuff (or throw rocks).

It makes the rest of us look bad!

No offense intended to our finest officers in the country, most of whom seem to be in Toronto at the moment, but news comes out that someone has fired an array of shots and they don’t catch him?

Really?

We’ve just blown more than $1.2 billion (and climbing) on ’security’ and Yosemite Sam just walks away?

WTF?

THIS IS OUT OF CONTROL.  It seems like someone has just stolen $1.2 billion from Canadian taxpayers, so I suggest a full audit of who’s getting the money.

Libby Davies got ‘punk’d’ the other day when she was approached by a blogger and she made comments about the Israeli occupation of Palestine.  She made a mistake in stating that the occupation began in 1948 (which it effectively did) instead of 1967 and has been the longest occupation in human kind (which it really hasn’t when you look at the history of Rome or other ancient cultures).

Anyways, while some people have lead themselves to think she made a mistake, it’s certainly not one that validates a resignation from this exceptional and committed Parliamentarian.

Regardless of how the actual date is interpreted, she has since apologized in a number of fora, but calls still come from the Con back benches for her to abort her seat.

This, despite the fact that at least 9 civilians and humanitarians were murdered in open seas by Israeli pirates and no one has the stones to stand up to them.  The only thing that might happen is an investigation by the Israelis concerning the event.  What better way to cover your ass than to get permission to report and judge your own crimes?

In this entire situation, how many Conservatives are being asked to resign because they’re supporting murderers?

NONE.

So … what’s this REALLY all about?

Timing.

All this has happened just a few days before the launch of the G8 / G20 summits.

The timing couldn’t have been better, as Libby Davies was one of the most active protesters at the 2010 Vancouver Olympics and she will likely move forward and legitimize a number of protests against the authoritarian and ridiculous activities associated with the most wasteful and unproductive meetings on the planet.

The timing is perfect because it’s an intentional effort to smear someone who will be extremely vocal – and visible – against the Cons over the next two weeks.

Meanwhile, rumours swirl that even people within the NDP caucus are demanding an explanation and possibly a reprimand from Jacko.  Don’t do it Layton.  It’ll destroy any street cred you’ve got left (and you don’t have much).

Support her.  Applaud her.  She deserves it.

The Star had a feature on the weekend showing the history of oil spills around the world.  They took a slight more sinister approach by suggesting that these are oil spills we haven’t heard of.

Have we?

I have to admit, most were news to me.

However, by the time BP has finally got their act together, my guess is that the estimate for oil leaked into the Gulf of Mexicoil will be 200-250 million gallons, making it the second largest ever.