By-election Monday; Plan to Fix Democracy

Well, the polls are closed in Victoria, Calgary, and Durham, ON so it’s time for some results. Since the voters of Durham were foolish enough to stick with Oda after her first waves of scandal until she burned out from too much $16 orange juice, they obviously stuck with the party of election fraud, and voted another Conservative drone into Harper’s harem. In Calgary, things were much more interesting, as the Liberals and Greens both have returns thus far as well over 30% and 24% respectively. The Greens last time got 10%, so this may signal that Chris Turner is awesome, or that Calgary isn’t as the Conservative ‘majority’ suggests it is.

What the results in Calgary also show is that the Liberals, Greens, and NDP are going to have to co-operate before the next general election in order to game the system as the Conservatives have. Why pretend the old traditions matter, when doing so ensures national defeat and disgrace? As Brandon explains, it’s not like Canada is a functioning democracy right now anyway. It can be again, with the right people in power, willing to fix our democratic institutions upon election.

Before you get indignant and say, “We can’t ‘game the system,” I have to remind you that Harper did with election fraud, statistically demonstrated, with audio recordings and reporting in the media of the resulting crimes. By comparison, co-operating to decide using votes which candidates party leaders will authorize to run in specific ridings, is not a crime. We actually expect our politicians to work together to make our country better, except now they have to do it outside of the House, and where the personal stakes are higher. Are they up to the task?

#YYCCentre By-election Pie Debate

The latest candidate debate in Calgary Centre riding had a twist, it was also a meat-pie contest. The winning pie, provided by the NDP candidate, was bison-tourtiere. The silliness didn’t stop there though, not when there’s a Sun TV, Wild Rose Party hack running as the pieholder for the Conservative Party. Joan Crockatt avoided many of the other debates, and it’s clear why when you hear her attempt to answer questions that take her off her PMO script.

First she suggested that MPs aren’t much good if they aren’t part of the governing party.

That a potential govt party MP wld suggest level of support you receive as a Cdn citizen abroad is tied to how your neighbours vote is foul.—
mark d. jarvis (@markdjarvis) November 25, 2012

When the candidates were asked how they perceived Canada’s declining reputation, Joan’s answer wasn’t inspiring. When questioned, she didn’t know who had awarded the PM the title she cited, since the organization is so credible and prestigious. An audience member shouted out to “Google it!”, and she obliged.

@saskboy CPC candidate has something of a point. Knowing the reputation of the org in question makes us look much worse. #yyccentre—
NaoshadPochkhanawala (@venividitweety) November 25, 2012

Meanwhile the Green candidate, Chris Turner offered impressive answers, and responded to the world reputation question by remarking how he’d been thanked overseas once for being Canadian and part of the country responsible for rescuing American diplomats in Iran. He was very touched by that thanks offered to our country, via him. Now he says our international reputation has taken a hit because we’re not part of the world’s conversation on climate change, don’t take it seriously, and don’t put real resources into addressing the problem like other countries want to.

Turner is my obvious favourite, although I could see any of the four that were on stage as representing their parties as I’d expect, in Ottawa if elected. The sad thing is, that’s not saying something positive about Joan, and nothing special about Harvey or the NDP candidate either.

P.S. I’d like to know where the other candidates were, and if they were not invited, that stinks. If they’ve backed off to avoid splitting the vote for progressives, I could sympathize with their thoughts. I think Turner has a real chance this time if Liberal support swings around partially, and if the Greens have reached enough disengaged voters and re-energized them. GOTV on election day will be extremely important, where the by-election turnout is bound to be low. I also bit my tongue earlier when I saw a SK NDPer tweet they’re going to Calgary to help… but not with the GPC or LPC campaigns that appear to be well out in front in the ABC vote race.

CBC Porn? #CBCporn

Sun News has a reputation for not being very accurate, in an attempt to excite their right wing base. They also employ professional liars. One story told by SUN involves CBC broadcasting porn, which isn’t what they do, obviously. This exaggeration was repeated by a CPC candidate in #YYCcentre on Saturday night, and prompted her mockery on Twitter, nation wide. It remains a Top Trend on Twitter, hours later as I write this.
(www.torontosun.com/2012/02/01/is-the-cbc-paying-for-porn) No, they are not. Anyone taking Sun News at face value deserves the figurative egg that ends up on their face.

Reacharound For The Top #CBCporn—
Sol Chrom (@sol_chrom) November 18, 2012

Danger Babe #CBCporn—
Saskboy K. (@saskboy) November 18, 2012

The Tits Estate #CBCporn—
Christopher Bird (@mightygodking) November 18, 2012

Mosaic 2012 #WHYQR

I had an excellent evening out in Regina with my wife, family, and friends. I met some Ward 1 residents too along the way, including Joe and his wife. Joe’s writing a book about Regina, and it may be available by the end of this year. He also had very interesting comments about municipal politics here, including an idea (not acted on 30 years ago) to do away with the Ward numbers, and focus on geographical names with more meaning instead. Hillsdale, Douglas Park, and Whitmore Park would have meaning to more local people than “Ward 1″. I would have talked longer, but had other pavilions to get to, and the six year old we were babysitting didn’t want to wait to see more. I just realized, looking at Joe’s business card, that I saw his car on the way into the Irish pavilion, because I noticed the Rider plate with his name and mistakenly thought it was a phonetic attempt to match a radio station name.

At the Greek pavilion I also got to talk with education-Tweeter-extraordinaire Alec, who may be pitching an idea I gave him, on the radio next week.

So far I’ve been to Hellenic (Greece), Kyiv (Ukraine; try the borscht), Irish, Scottish, Korean (lit my mouth on fire with some kim-chi), Philippines, and Hungary. I’d like to catch them all, but won’t have time, so the short list for Saturday is Chile, Caribbean, Francophone, and First Nations. Hopefully I squeak in a few more than that.

I heard that people were evacuated from the German Club around 9:30pm due to some electrical problem that was soon resolved. The party ended up in the street, and in the tent instead.

At Hungary, I got to talk with Ralph Goodale a little bit as crowd control kicked in to hold up the line we were waiting in. He congratulated me on entering municipal politics, and gave me some pointers. Which reminds me, Joe spoke highly of Mayor Nenshi’s social media campaign, and recommended I follow it. I explained that as a blogger, I have years of “dirt” people can readily dig up and take out of context, at the push of a button, so not all of Nenshi’s methods of message control are open to me. Although, he’s certainly a legend in municipal politics and social media circles. I sure hope I have a shred of his social-savvy.

That Annoying Twitter Access

I’ve seldom seen a journalist whine so much about politicians who are too accessible to the public. Look no further, you can find them in the Calgary Herald. Mayor Nenshi has even replied to a tweet from me, and I don’t even live in Calgary, so obviously he must be wasting time. Right, right? Ugh.

Heralds were originally messengers of kings. Now that kings can tweet directly/instantly to their followers, there is less of a role (or a different one) for Calgary Heralds to play.

ABMarkTaylor Mark Taylor
So @nenshi goes around media to reach taxpayers & media loses its narrative. Yep, they aren’t happy about it either.

Klassen, instead of explaining her new role as BS filter and tweet analyzer, takes it upon herself to chide people for participating directly in democracy in any way above voting every 3 years. The BS filter turned into the BS distributor, instead. This only further buries the obsolete Herald as they bemoan the glory days when they could control what the public heard kings say.

==

Using Twitter today, I also had a direct democracy disagreement with a Sask Party supporter who does not understand how Occupy Wall Street is a pro-democracy movement, how it relates to the Arab Spring, or what the point of it even is. Despite denying knowing what the movement is for, he’s certain it’s not pro-democracy. Then he says that because the protesters don’t face a grave threat to their life, they are not standing up to tyranny.

Blaise Boehmer

@saskboy well, in Egypt they are protesting the very real threat of tyranny. OWS: not sure what they’re about.

Oh really? Even if you ignore the US Davis pepper spraying of peacefully sitting protesters, or the G20 sitting protesters who were rushed by violent police in Toronto, while the protesters sang O Canada, can you really say they don’t put a lot on the line by participating in political protests when many of their neighbours are wilfully blind to the reasons for democratic protest?

Do we honour veterans less for serving their country if they never saw combat? It’s not the violence we are supposed to admire, it’s their resolve to deliver a better, fairer, freer world to people they don’t even know. You can’t say OWS isn’t in the same cateogry, especially while you deny that you know what category OWS falls under.

Civics, Humour, Space, and Water

I’m going to assume that Calgary’s Civic Camp is a success, because they have an awesome mayor who nobody expected to win.

==

Things could be worse. These disasters will make you smile.

==
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/videos/dawn/20110915/vesta20110915-640.swf

Embedded video from
NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory California Institute of Technology

Vesta is a minor planet in our solar system, and you can look at it as no humans have seen before this year.

==

Several presentations at the UofR make a point of offering their guest speakers tap water. The Design Regina forum last night had bottles of Coke brand water under each guest’s chair.

It’s Not Easy To Make Time for Media

Coaching football is important, but you think the kids could understand a 10 minute break for their coach to be on As It Happens. You can hear the rude Ford here, and also the swearing in of Calgary’s new mayor later in the program.

Chicken Council

City Council on Monday can decide if they want to continue to “protect” Regina from live chickens, or if they want to join the 21st century. Here’s a submission I’ll present to council on Monday at 5:30PM at City Hall. I hope to see you there too.

Presentation to City Council
September 20, 2010
Submitted by email

The City of Regina is currently “protecting” citizens from chickens. Louder birds and more dangerous dogs are allowed in the city under the current animal bylaw, but chickens and other reasonable small
pets/livestock are not. Please change that, by amending the sections of the bylaw that prevents people from keeping a reasonable number of small animals for pets or personal-use livestock.

The report presented to the committee recommending no changes to this bylaw, omits important information. Calgary’s anti-chicken bylaw is currently being reviewed, and may even be overturned in a human rights appeal. Continuing to oppose citizens open to backyard chicken coops, leaves the city liable to face legal challenges, while dropping the bylaw does not endanger the public, and expands
citizens options to locally raised food, and/or animal companionship.

Please refer to the following newspaper articles from Winnipeg:

http://www.winnipegfreepress.com/business/suburban-henhouses-may-prove-hard-to-block-80494782.html

http://www.winnipegfreepress.com/opinion/editorials/cooping-chickens-in-backyards-91683349.html

http://www.un.org/en/documents/udhr/index.shtml#a25

It’s not enough that Regina have a thriving Farmers Market with local and/or organic food in some seasons; citizens have a human right to raise chickens on their property. There are bylaws already in place if those animals are mistreated or disruptive to neighbours. Chickens work in New York, why not the city of Agribition?!

Also of interest is this photo from the University of Regina archives.

Chickens wandering loose in the city? Imagine that? And the world didn’t fall apart because of it. You
know we also have many other birds wandering loose, including ducks, geese, and pigeons, and people
somehow survive or even enjoy them being around.

Sincerely,
[Saskboy]

Cutting Grass Waste

There are more environmentally friendly things you can be doing for your city than cutting grass. It’s not bad work if you can get it, if you don’t mind a suntan, smog, and possible hearing loss (should you forget ear protection). And yes, a 2 day training session that has nothing to do with working in parks, is a big waste of city money. I just don’t understand the length of this article in the Calgary Herald. I can’t be accused of brevity either, but a paper has an editor, in theory.

Jeremy Klaszus @klaszus
#yyc parks worker tells her story, recalling ‘astounding’ level of waste at city orientation. Kudos to writer. http://bit.ly/c3fYkh #yycvote, via TweetDeck

I’d like cities to simply redesign their parks so they better suit their local habitat. Not every park has a plentiful irrigation source, or should us it excessively if it does. If you water the grass more, you have to pay to cut it more. There are parks in Regina designed to be unsustainable so that they provide employment and pollution opportunities instead of saving human and natural resources.

One old gas powered lawn mower running for an hour emits as much pollution as driving 650 miles in a 1992 model automobile

Calgarian Chicken Keeper Conquers City

Victory tastes like chicken.

Paul Hughes of Calgary had been charged with unlawfully keeping livestock (chickens) in his residential neighbourhood. The city prosecutor has since backed off (chicken maybe?), after Hughes and others promised to mount a convincing defence in court around a human’s basic right to food. That should teach Calgary to go around half cocked.

Regina’s untested anti-chicken (and livestock) law, will no doubt fall to the same fate one day.