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Well, the Wingnuterer chose to salute Master Steve right to  the nutz, in only a way the wingnuterer, hisself knows how. When that’s done. I say it could not be complete without the 21 flush salute! Honestly, I can’t think of anything more fitting to do this Totalitarian’s Birth Anniversary! …
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Kevin Newman will be leaving his post as  Global National anchor at the end of August. And, no, he apparently no plans to join Tony Parsons on CBC and/or CHEK News …at least not yet!  And if you can’t help but wonder if Tony, after leaving BCTV and surfacing at CHEK and then joining CBC local [...] …
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I've had a busy week and didn't really think about what I was going to do for this evening's episode until just a few minutes ago. So I decided to do a retrospective of sorts. Here's three vids that came to mind when I tried to think of performances I've posted on previous Friday nights that I've particularly enjoyed. Get warmed up with Roy Rogers and Norton Buffalo. This is an instrumental by Robben Ford. I could easily have put this up in last week's set of road songs. I like driving to this one. And this is Clapton live at Hyde Park with a full band. Have a good weekend. …
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One of the key criticisms of the Oxburgh inquiry was that it ignored three key papers written by people at CRU, but these papers are only being considered key because they were not investigated. Had they been looked at, other papers would have been declared key. The Oxburgh report considered some but not all CRU papers. The papers were chosen in consultation with the Royal Society as a representative sample of work done by CRU. Lord Oxburgh never set out to examine every single written word that came out of CRU as it was not necessary in order for the inquiry to determine if scientific …
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This is excruciatingly funny, but I'm confused by this part:Judge: [Temporary Resident Permits] are given at the discretion of the Minister, who had already indicated that Mr Galloway wouldn't receive one.CIC Lawyer: Yes, but he could have shown up at the border--Judge: --and run the risk of indefinite detention. That's not much of an option, is it?CIC Lawyer: I admit that these are not very palatable options, but--"Run the risk of indefinite detention?" How exactly would that work? If you're declared inadmissible, then they don't let you in. So how could they refuse you entrance to Canada, …
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THE BBC SITE has a distressing article about the Irish financial debacle as it applies to home ownership, and the information is grim:There are 621 ghost estates across Ireland now, a legacy of those hopeful years. One in five Irish homes is unoccupied. If the country immediately used them to house every person on the social housing list, there would still be hundreds of thousands left over."Everyone took the property drug at the same time", he says, "everyone was up at the same time, everyone was buzzing. "Now we are all in the middle of this huge comedown. And people are looking around and …
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Time for a music video. Here is the single "Stone in My Hand" off of the Everlast LP "Love, War and the Ghost of Whitey Ford" (2008) featuring Billy Gibbons on slide guitar. Enjoy this powerful song!P.S. Since there were google ads in the embedded clip from youtube, I put up a version from vimeo. …
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As far as I can tell, the Canadian government is the only one in the G8 that wants to make a point of omitting access to abortion from women's reproductive health programs we're funding as part of our foreign aid, even in jurisdictions where abortion is safe and legal. I would argue that this represents a change in policy for Canada. And when it's a change that's being introduced by a government with the support of less than 40% of the population, one with a conservative base to pander to, and one that has hedged and mumbled and stonewalled for weeks before finally announcing that, in fact, …
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..and they laughed and laughed and laughed. Now it’s our turn. …
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What the hey is going on south of the border?  Land of the Free?  Maybe not so much:  Arizona’s racist new anti-illegal immigrant law seems to be catching on. The law MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow dubbed the “Papers Please” law would allow cops to detain anyone they have “reasonable suspicion” might be an illegal immigrant.  “Reasonable suspicion” being relative to the officer’s mood and thuggishness, I suppose.  The law is so draconian that even legal immigrants could face jail time if they’re detained and found not to be carrying Their …
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Frank Graves! Yep, indeedy, let the games begin!  It seems that the Harpercon cheerleaders in the corporate media as well as the blogging romper roomies are all in emergency mode over Frank Graves still, in spite of more important issues plaguing the Harpercons and Brother Steve.  It seems that they’re making  this out to be a Harper v Graves pre election campaign mantra. Never mind an Iggy, or a Jack or a Gilles. I wonder if they think Frank Graves will be on the ballot for the CBC party? With the intelligence and lack there of of quite a few of this band, especially the …
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Daphne Eviatar of Human Rights Watch is interviewed as she leaves the courtroom on Day 1 of Obama's first big pretrial for a military commission into the possible terrorist actions of a 15 year old. Terrible sound, I know, but well worth it for her explanation of how after Khadr has been tortured to confess at Bagram, the "clean team" comes in and tries to elicit the same 'confessions' under friendlier conditions so that the new clean confessions will be admissable in court. A word about Khadr's confessions under torture. According to Eviator, CIA FBI agent Robert Fuller elicited from Khadr …
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Amusingly, the same people who think this is howlingly funny and can't stop giggling over someone else's years of cruel imprisonment ... are the same ones for whom life is sometimes just terribly, terribly traumatic:That would, of course, be Blogging Tory "Neo Conservative", taking a break from celebrating the regular beatings, stabbings and violent deaths of other peoples' children to whine piteously when his little sociopath gets a case of the sniffles. …
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...with national security materials, why should we trust this guy?Let the Harper stonewalling continue. Support our troops! …
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Juxtaposition of the day: From here: Parliament, power grids, and nuclear facilities were the intended targets in an attack that Fahim Ahmad hoped Canada would never recover from, the Crown said as it laid out its case against three men arrested almost four years ago… The Crown intends to call up to 11 witnesses, most of whom will be police officers, and play for the jury about 70 wiretap conversations. In one of those, Ahmad is heard saying the kind of attack he was planning has “never been done before,” Jaffe said. “They’re probably expecting what happened in …
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Dr. Dawg has a link-rich post that brings us up to date on Omar Khadr and the kangaroo court that's supposed to pass for justice. Barack Obama had promised to be the one to sweep away this legacy of the Bush regime, to restore America's honour and dignity and make it, once again, a nation ruled by law. Barack Obama is a fraud. Stephen Harper has taken the position that it's unnecessary to intervene in Khadr's case because the United States is a democracy and Khadr will receive fair treatment there. Stephen Harper has always been a fraud. …
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As Omar Khadr's "trial" is nearly underway (pre-"trial" hearings are going on at the moment), his judge, Col. Patrick Parrish, is once again in the news.Khadr is blind in one eye and has shrapnel in both. He has been suffering grievously of late, but no qualified medical assistance has been available to him in Gitmo. Parrish casually dismissed defence objections to his having to wear goggles while being transported to the court in a windowless van, and threatened to run the proceedings in Khadr's absence. Yesterday afternoon, Khadr was in court, in obvious physical pain.Nearly two years ago, …
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So does the Chief of Defence Staff. H/T James …
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and now a post of great social and political import In [a] stunning display of  the fact that some people really need to get a life,  your tweets are being watched for proper grammatical syntax. A small but vocal subculture has emerged on Twitter of grammar and taste vigilantes who spend their time policing people’s tweets. They build their own algorithms to sniff out tweets with typos or flawed grammar, or written in ALLCAPS, and then send scolding notes to the offenders. They see themselves as guardians of a new behaviour code: Twetiquette. “It would be kind of …
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Well, that’s what the headline should say. Instead, we’re choosing to call this man’s paying $100,000 for a 13 year old girl “marriage”. Did I mention he’s 49? Ahmad Sani Yerima, former governor of the state of Zamfara, is responsible for the introduction of Sharia law into the state. Though he denies that the girl is 13, he also refuses to disclose her actual age, claiming: “I consider all those complaining about this issue as detractors, because since 1999… many people have been waging different kind of wars against me,” he told the …
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Deceptively Called “Protecting Israel’s Security” by Edward S. Herman in Z Magazine, May 2010 With Israel, the West is actively engaged in supporting a state that violates the Fourth Geneva Convention on a daily and multiyear basis, ignores International Court (and international community) opinion on matters like the wall, continuously takes land and water from Palestinians and gives it to Jewish settlers, and freely attacks across borders in wars and assassination programs. – via Media Lens …
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I own a car. For the sake of argument, let's imagine that I don't take terrifically good care of it. Maybe I should wash it more often. Change the oil more frequently. Touch up those growing rust spots, that sort of thing. Sure, that would be nice, but in the end, it's my car -- I own it and, ultimately, I am the final voice of authority when it comes to what is to be done to it and with it. With me so far?One day my car is stolen. I report it to the authorities and, in short order, they locate it and tell me where to come get it from the thief's property. I show up and, sure enough, …
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One of Canada's top fighting men puts a serious crease in Stephen Harper's trousers:Top general OK with releasing Afghan papersThe chief of Canada's defence staff says he's not opposed to the release of hundreds of pages of government documents related to Afghan detainee transfers."I'm very proud of what our men and women do. We're not perfect," Gen. Walter Natynczyk told CBC News on Thursday. "But when our men and women do the right things, we're proud. When they don't do the right things, we take action, as is happening with regard to various trials ongoing right now."By way of response, …
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In three ... two ... one ... …
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Dear Honourable Elected Leaders, Representatives and Public Officials I am writing to you as the father of a 14 year old son with severe Autistic Disorder and profound developmental delays, and within 48 hours of the deaths of severely autistic 22 year old Benjamin McLatchie, and his father Daniel McLatchie, in nearby Gray, Maine. The Maine state medical examiner’s office has ruled the case a murder-suicide, the father having shot and killed his son and himself. Reports describe the father as a caring stay at home father who despaired for his son’s future, in a state with …
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CANADIAN LABOUR- WINNIPEG:THE WINNIPEG WOBBLY ISSUE #4:Our local branch of the syndicalist Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) union here in Winnipeg is as active as ever. Speaking of May Day (see last post) the IWW has brought out a special May Day edition of the Winnipeg Wobbly. Check it out, especially for the announcements of events here in this burg surrounding the month long May Works (May Day on steroids ????). Here's the announcement from the Winnipeg Wobbly Blog.WAWAWAWAWAWAWAWAWinnipeg Wobbly #4: May Day SpecialCheck out the new special May Day edition of our newsletter, the …
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INTERNATIONAL LABOUR:IRANIAN MAY DAY STATEMENT: The following statement of workers' organizations in Iran is a translation published at the Facebook group 'Support Workers' Councils in Iran'. Workers' councils are one method of both workers' struggle against the state and other bosses in 'revolutionary times' and also one method whereby people have tried to organize production outside of the system of management direction. In Iran today some of the most repressed segments of society are those workers who are struggling for their rights in the face of the clerical regime's unwavering …
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Debate on the Canada-Colombia FTA resumed at the International Trade Committee today with the Chair stating he wasn't going to allow a whole lot of witnesses to testify just so they could put it on their resume. Very classy, Mr. Chair.Today's first witness today was Yessika Hoyos Morales, lawyer, Colombian human rights activist, and the daughter of a murdered trade unionist.Paramilitaries are still in place in 293 Colombian municipalities, she said, and the Office of the Public Prosecutor, as of Sept 2009, has been carrying out investigations into 2,077 executions of people killed by the …
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It's crazy spring snow storm time in Alberta. The wind is finally starting to die down and the rain and snow have passed. Lost my internets connection Wednesday afternoon which almost forced me to actually do housework - almost. Lost power for a while off and on but everything seems to be up and running now. Trying to catch up on a variety of happenings. I did manage to watch Nazim Gillani's testimony on Wednesday. It looks like Rahim Jaffer has a lot more explaining to do - as do officials in seven government departments now (that we know of). It looks like speaker Milliken's ruling about …
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It's crazy spring snow storm time in Alberta. The wind is finally starting to die down and the rain and snow have passed. Lost my internets connection Wednesday afternoon which almost forced me to actually do housework - almost. Lost power for a while off and on but everything seems to be up and running now. Trying to catch up on a variety of happenings. I did manage to watch Nazim Gillani's testimony on Wednesday. It looks like Rahim Jaffer has a lot more explaining to do - as do officials in seven government departments now (that we know of). It looks like speaker Milliken's ruling about …
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When you're feeling your oats and want to wave your dick around (all emphasis tail-waggingly added):Jindal calls stimulus 'irresponsible' in GOP responseWed February 25, 2009(CNN) -- Tapped by the Republican party to deliver the GOP's response to President Barack Obama's congressional address Tuesday night, Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal took on the massive stimulus package and big government -- and pledged that his party would regain the nation's trust...Jindal has been a vocal critic of the stimulus package, highlighting what he considers waste at a White House meeting with governors on Monday …
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“[T]here are great dangers ahead for the Palestinians, who will continue to suffer terribly at the hands of the Israelis for some years to come. But it does look like the Palestinians will eventually get their own state, mainly because Israel seems bent on self-destruction.” – John Mearsheimer …
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In a near-unanimous vote in the lower house yesterday, the Belgian parliament voted in favour of a ban on face veils, and any other item of clothing that conceals the identity of a person, being worn in public places. Though the law must still go through the Senate, the law is expected to pass within a month or two, which will make it the first of its kind in Europe. The vote saw 134 parliamentarians voting in favour, with two abstentions. The law may seem unnecessary and even deliberately targeting, as apparently only 30 women in all of Belgium’s 500,000 or so Muslim population wear …
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Sometimes, it's enough to see Conservative MP Angry McPointy in his natural environment:I'm guessing he's a power top. But that's just a hunch. …
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I know religious fundamentalists lie.  Everyone in their right mind knows this.  They have to lie in order to manhandle the world they see into the shape of myths so ancient and ignorant that they predate our realization the earth is not flat. But there’s a small part of me – the part that believes human nature is basically good – that wants to believe they are not lying on purpose.  I want to believe they are the hapless victims of an incredible but sincere cognitive affliction preventing them from accepting things that are obviously true, like evolution, and forcing them …
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BaracX! …
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Bashing economists is commonplace within the environmental movement, and while some of the criticisms are justified, they need to to put into proper context. The fact is that a large majority of economists agree that we need to cut our greenhouse gas emissions and that placing a price on carbon (be it via a carbon tax or cap-and-trade system) is the best way to do it. Economists and environmentalists are on the same page, and bashing economists without explicitly sating this context only serves to further the denier talking point that any mitigation action will kill the economy, and that …
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BRAD FRASER has a Facebook Wall picture he'd like to share with you, and of which he says:Ladies and gentleman, I give you the true image of our current government. Featuring Stephen Harper as Jed, Jason Kenney as Miss Jane, Ramir Jaffer as Mr Drysdale, Vic Toews as Granny, John Baird as Jethro and Helena Guergis as Ellie May. Conceived by me and put together by the brilliant DC Hillier. Please distribute this image far and wide. Let it become the photo that defines Harper's Hillbillies.John Baird as Jethro? Sure, now we have Jethro Baird. Works for me. …
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