Nothin’ To See Here #cdnpoli

John Gormley attempts to sing a lullaby; Mixes up the words.

[L]eave us alone to reconnect with life and keep the warmth coming. And get back to us when you’ve fired some Senators and Toronto is done.
[...]
advice is neatly summarized in Seven Things You Need to Stop Doing Every Day.

The don’ts include worrying about the wrong people instead of focusing on those in our lives who truly matter, and directing our attention and worry to the future instead of staying in the present and cherishing the time we have now.
[...]
The lines I hear back now include: “water off a duck’s back,” “this too shall pass” and “is this a hill to die on?”
[...]
Who can go wrong with [quotes], “Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle,” or “Those who do not know history are destined to repeat it.”

PostMedia attempts to sing along; Forgets the words.

The Conservative party is home to many decent folk, and good, hardworking MPs. But as an institution, with Harper at its head, it has obstructed, deceived, attacked, maligned and bullied, in ways and instances too numerous to mention here.

Jennifer Smith found one good, hard working Con MP, Chong, out of about 160 possible contenders. That could be a statistical error, but it’s good there is at least one. Doesn’t save Den Tandt’s point, as one doesn’t even make a pair let alone be “many”.

It seems Gormley is slightly concerned that Canadians are focusing a lot on political scandals involving Conservatives. Did he suggest we all take a chill pill during Adscam, and get outside and enjoy the Summer? Meanwhile, Den Tandt seems to want to qualify his comments about the Conservatives being deceptive bullies, by claiming many are actually good. He doesn’t name names because he’s covering his bases. As Gormley suggests, Den Tandt and the media will go on Summer vacation. The rest of us good, hard working Canadians will too, while we assume the people in charge of repairing government corruption will have things cleaned up by the time Fall rolls around. Wait, who are the people in a country responsible for repairing government corruption? Ask an Egyptian.

Gormley is right about it being possible to stress too much and too long about a subject, and a fresh look being useful. He’s also right about history repeating itself if you don’t know it. Unplugging is a good way to remain ignorant of history as it’s being created in the present.

Thinking Is Not Hard

Thinking is not hard to do, but some people treat it like others should do it for them. Clicking that link may be painful, as it has details of a state representative saying cyclists pollute worse than car drivers because they are exercising and breathing out more CO(2) in doing so. I guess the worst thing you could do is get in a car, go to the gym, and get on a stationary bike, eh?

Idiots are all around us, and sometimes they are elected as government representatives. Because this story casts cyclists in a negative light, I suppose you’ll be hearing about it on Gormley’s radio show later on. You can then expect the usual cast of zombie callers recounting the last time they were irritated by a cyclist on a street they owned.

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There’s nothing more polluting, in every sense of the word, than a Republican on a high horse.

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Yesterday I noted on Twitter that there are many easy changes someone can make in their weekly routine, to make a dent in how much climate change (air pollution) they directly and indirectly create. For instance, someone can cut meat out of one of their days in the week, to have at least a 1/7th impact immediately on their demand for meat. If the demand falls enough, fewer animals will need to be raised to make farmers the same amount of money. More importantly, meat requires much more water and energy input for the same amount of food energy plants can directly provide to humans.

Some (intentionally) hard of understanding trolls came by to mock the information. It’s hard not to laugh at someone who thinks its hard to point out a time when Saskatchewan has faced a water crisis. Although the title is worded in a clumsy way, Forbes helps explain why basing so much of the world’s food supply on meat, is a folly.

This information didn’t slow down the trolls though, who went on to suggest that I’m a damned dirty easterner, never grew up on a farm, and couldn’t have the faintest idea of what it takes to understand the food system. Besides all that, I apparently want all people to stop eating all meat, and starve. It’s hard to argue with iron-clad logic like that, eh?

Some of these comments come from people who earlier chided me for thinking of solutions to our oil dependence. When did conservatives start subscribing to pre-Copernicus thinking? There are centuries of tradition after that sort of anti-science, anti-discovery thinking to “conserve” with their defence of the status quo. There’s no need to be so anti-intellectual and anti-solution.

Climate Change Explained

By Bob McDonald, Quirks & Quarks

The end of the Kyoto Protocol, and our inability to do something about rising carbon emissions, is like arguing over rising water in the bilge of a boat, rather than fixing the leak.

@JohnKleinRegina Thanks (blush)—
Quirks & Quarks (@CBCQuirks) January 10, 2013

High School Isn’t What It Used To Be

Imagine the embarrassment of being a teenager again, except now your source of torment is not limited to forced school interaction with ruthless bullies, but now occurs at home and around the WWW too.

Sexual attitudes need to quickly change, and treatment of bullies needs to radically evolve if we’re to save kids like Amanda Todd from social torture and early deaths.

ADDED:

Two years ago a child at King George School committed suicide due to #bullying, from what I hear the kids are at it again #PrairieSouth—
Robert Thomas (@Rhino_Bob) January 09, 2013

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

Small Time Video

Gormley was critical of the bad language in Gunderson’s videos. I don’t care for foul language in most music either, but at least Gormley has a valid excuse for acting like a crotchety old man; I don’t know what my problem is.

I do love Dirty Spaceman, however.

And I wish UMG would screw off and accept a parody that uses some of their video, but has different lyrics and music is not copyright infringement. It’s 2012, not the stone age. Oh, wait, scratch that, C-11 is passing.

Don’t let Gotye kick your monkey, or anywhere near your goat. He’s a Wookie snatcher, and he’ll eat your pie.

RoboCop speaks out about RoboCon

Don’t worry everyone, MP RoboCop is on the job!

Fantino, the former Toronto police chief who is Tory MP for Vaughan, said he, too, is trying to get answers after his name turned up in court documents
[...]
“From my personal experience over 40 years of law enforcement I think it’s totally unethical, totally inappropriate…”

Yeah! Go find who conspired to prevent opposition party voters from going to polls, using criminal robodialed messages.
Oh, wait. He finished his sentence with, “and it’s more like a smear campaign.” Ouch.

I guess we can’t count on RoboCop to save us from Pierre Poutine, the RoboCon. :-(

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Some journalists are not being kind with their pens:

Stephen Lautens ‏ @stephenlautens

Talk about foreshadowing: Sen Finley says any wrongdoing will be isolated incidents by local volunteers

That’s the Senator Finley convicted of Election Act violations within the last year, for the 2006 In and Out fraud. Why, oh why does Coyne say the Conservatives lack credibility when they deny any involvement or responsibility?

==

And now a word from RoboRadioHost:

John Gormley Live ‏ @JohnGormleyLive

THIS is what a lot of conservatives are feeling down about today: fxn.ws/wzHCPg

Oh, I understand. I’d be down too if my governing party, who rode to power on a wave of “sweep out Liberal corruption” was implicated in a more serious corruption scandal. Wait, what’s the link go to?
“Andrew Breitbart dead at 43″
Oh. Well, that’s sad too, I guess.

Breitbart became embroiled in a controversy of his own, though, for his reporting on a web video of Agriculture Department employee Shirley Sherrod. The edited video appeared to show Sherrod making a racist comment, but the full tape later put the remark in context and made clear that Sherrod was actually talking about bridging racial differences. Sherrod was fired after the edited video surfaced, and later filed suit against Breitbart.

Breitbart, though, went on to report on one of the biggest congressional scandals of 2011 — the tweets sent by Weiner to young women he met online. The former New York congressman, who is married, adamantly denied the reports at first, before admitting to them in a tearful press conference and resigning.

One of Breitbart’s most memorable moments came when he commandeered the podium before Weiner’s final New York conference, holding court with reporters and demanding an apology from Weiner — while Weiner waited to attend his own press conference.

Ah. I can see why they are upset. Seems like a great guy. That is Fox News’ perspective, too.

==

Bonus PD coverage for those who haven’t read enough political scandal for a day:

I WOULD HAVE NEVER IMAGINED THE DAY WHEN CONRAD BLACK OWNED THAT RAG The National Post, in particular, and Postmedia in general has been beating The Globe and Mail like a rented mule when it comes to coverage of the RoboCall scandal. And The Toronto Star has been doing some good work on coverage as well. Guess the Bellmedia empire is wanting to go down with the Cons’ ship.

Improve Your Mood

Biking to work improves your mood. It also gives you a better perspective on life, and helps you get enough daily exercise to avoid some of life’s more terrible ailments. You could also skateboard to work, since the mood improving properties are directly attributable to physical activity, and travel at a more human pace.

If you wondered why certain radio jockeys are so cranky (about cyclists) all of the time, it’s because they aren’t biking to work and are missing out on the benefits they begrudge their neighbours for taking.

Instead of the Green Party Leader John Gormley who:

…introduced a “Bike Scheme” in January 2009 which promoted cycling to work by offering tax incentives to employees and employers who purchased bicycles and switched to cycling. The scheme is part of a strategy to double the number of journeys made by bike by 2020, and also includes a multi-million euro cycle-path upgrade plan.[14]

We’re subjected to fear and grouchiness:

Biking in the winter. Is this safe? Should bikes be allowed on our roads in the winter?

Is it safe… to let people exercise and be happy while going to work the way they want? The whole effin’ system might collapse if tax payers are allowed to use roads using human powered vehicles!

==

I’ve cycled in every month so far in 2012. I’ve gone about 15km on 5 round trips to the south end of the city from home. All of the times I was out, it was warmer than 0 degrees C. at least one direction of the trip. Only twice was my destination work (the rest of the time I’ve walked, and left work by bus or car a couple times each).

==

Rick Hansen, the Man in Motion, was at the University of Regina and I stopped by to see his presentation. Here’s a clip:

Chantal Hebert – liveblog at UofRegina

Intro by Mitch D.
Then Rick Kleer
Last time she was here was 2004 when Martin won PM.

Journalists drank Regina out of white wine.

She broke a rib and got to cover an election from the ground, where most voters are anyway, giving her a better perspective.
Our new tools have built better silos. Sharing isn’t routine.
Background info from the govt is treated as FYEO (For Your Eyes Only).

140 char delivery is not delivering enough details to people. 30 seconds means 12 in radio. She’s had to edit some people down a bit so they sound effective, and to save her 8 seconds.

Rene Levesque was explaining a policy in detail once she recalls, and politicians don’t do that often anymore.

Layton didn’t produce a lot of memorable quotes prior to his deathbed letter filled with them.

Form response from government gives us “cones of silence”. A human can’t make themselves give detail-free form responses five or six times, but computers give us boring responses that people tune out.

She’s talking about media tech during Meech Lake. The TV was the best place to learn about a national debate. There was no great advantage to being in Manitoba or Newfoundland with only the politicians meeting there.

Ignatieff speaking at a rally in Quebec, talked about Harper barring attendees from his rallies. Some man told Hebert he wanted to hear about something the audience there cared about.
Twitter as a window into what people are interested in, is a distorted mirror.
“People on Twitter are junkies”.

People need to take to the streets still to finish the change started in cyberspace, like in Egypt for instance.

Not totally kidding, couldn’t use “prorogation” in news because it was too long.

Long form census scandal in July was surprising.

Nenshi in Calgary started at 1% in the polls. (Phone corrected Calgary to Calgarygrit – I must be a blogger.)

“Disconnected chattering class” is part of the problem.

Questions start. It’s unlikely that I will ask one this year.

Hebert likes a spin free environment. Know when they are going on holiday and ask them things when they have nothing going on. Know what they sound like when they are telling the truth. Each MP thinks what they are doing is in the public good.

Most politicians sound smarter when they are not in politics anymore. Party line is often a problem.

Twitter used to bounce stories off of it.

Election night publication law.
Elections Can may sue a lot of ordinary people. Voting isn’t like First Communion. BC might want to undo the damage done by voters in the East.

Municipal election lacks entertainment, except Toronto might object. She has a low interest in municipal politics these days.

Coverage of Ford is interesting in part because the cities are bigger than they once were, and many people vote for a mayor, as opposed for an MPP.

The nonConservative voters don’t have an easy way to win now that the Conservative party is united.

The Liberals and NDP are struggling for the same voters. Bruce Anderson argues the Liberals may come back as the spare wheel of Canadian politics. Minority govt is likely.
NDP and Liberals fight for the voters that Harper doesn’t want.

“We vote, and you don’t” is why govt talks about old age pensions instead of childcare.

Dan B. asks a question and starts out by mentioning that he isn’t a journalist. “Good” she said. (Too much competition in a field makes it harder to stay in a job anyway.)
Need healthy debate for healthy politics.
She votes as a citizen. Does a doctor like cancer more than cardiac arrest?
Vote as a parent to show your kids it is important.

ADDED:
Toward the end of the questions, someone wondered why OWS gets less coverage than he feels it deserves. She said OWS has unclear objectives, and doesn’t see the value in occupying public space. I found that odd, since earlier she praised youth in Egypt for taking their protest into the real world off of MySpace and Twitter. She thinks the ballot box is the way to make change happen, but also knows that her generation is more likely to continue to win, since it votes.

Another questioner was also disappointed by the answer they got regarding electoral reform. Hebert said voters and politicians don’t bring it up, so journalists shouldn’t. She neglected to mention that every political party uses methods other than FPTP to elect their party leader and/or executive. She did say that there is no voter appetite for PR or electoral reform. She thinks PR would work well federally though.

Radical Good Sense

The “Fight for Canada”, did not happen in 1812, since Canada did not exist as a nation for decades later in 1867. The Department of “Canadian Heritage” ought to be ashamed of its atrocious rewriting and dumbing down of Canadian history by calling the War of 1812 a fight for Canada. Who wants to bet that the winning Canada Day “1812: Fight for Canada” entry will have a Canadian flag on it, even though that flag didn’t come into being until 1965? Where historical accuracy loses to artistic license, that art becomes propaganda.

==

The not-so Honourable Minister of Natural Resources has kicked up Harper’s attack on environmentalism. Fortunately there are some real journalists out there still to hold his feet to the pyre he’s hoping to toss us onto.

Creekside’s Alison has the hilarious transcript of our Minister acting like a jackass on air, being caught with the plain truth. If non-Canadians with money for the oil patch want to spread money around for political purposes, it’s fine, but if non-Canadians want to spend money with the idea of protecting humans from pollution, then they are radicals.

The Globe dug up a few of those local Canadian “radicals” who probably voted Conservative last election.

Mr. Oliver was quite forceful, warning that such groups “threaten to hijack our regulatory system to achieve their radical ideological agenda.

There could not be a more hilarious case of an old pot calling a (stainless steel) kettle black. Oliver described the Conservative party’s corruption of our democracy to make radical ideological changes on their well known “secret” agenda (ending: CWB, gun registry, Insite, all without logic or facts to back up their position soundly).

==

What I find amazing in this article is that an NDP leadership candidate is proposing something I proposed the NDP, Liberals, and Greens try before the next general election: joint nomination meetings for key disputed ridings. If only 30 of these are successful, that should give the Conservatives some measure of defeat in the 2015 election.

Note that the article headline would also be true if there were at least 15 ethical Conservatives left willing to put their country before their party, and vote as independents, apart from the Conservative caucus. Sadly “ethical” and “Conservative” do not belong in the same sentence anymore I fear.

I can’t find my original article with my idea when I first pitched it, but it may be prior or perhaps after this comment toward the end of the comment thread. It could have been after 2011′s election I brought it up, or maybe only on Facebook for some reason.

Basically the Liberals, NDP, and Greens would agree to run only one candidate, the most successful party at organizing the largest nominating group would run the respective candidate. That way each party gets a chance to run their candidate, and the vote splitting falls away long enough for election reform to pass.