Anything happen while I was goofing off?

Gee, where have we seen this before?

On Wednesday night in Calgary, Justice Minister Vic Toews insisted all questions be screened in advance during a town hall discussion on the government’s get-tough-on-crime bill.

Oh right. I wonder when the loyalty oaths will make their appearance.

If nobody cares about the feud between Prime Minister Harper and the Parliamentary Press Gallery like conseratives are claiming, then why is everyone–and I mean everyone–talking about it?

For those who don’t think gun control works the stats prove them wrong. Consider this chart of the long gun homicide rate versus the hand gun homicide rate.

Click graph to enlarge.

New regulations were introduced in 1995 and since that time the long gun homicide rate decreased by half while the handgun homicide rate remained unchanged. The reason for this is simply because there weren’t any new regulations pertaining to hand guns introduced at the same time.

So why do I attribute this decline to the 1995 regulations? For the simple reason that historical gun homicide rates show that previously introduced regulations have also had the same noticeable impact on firearm homicide rates in the past. Examine the graph below.

Click graph to enlarge.

As you can see, the rate of long gun homicides decreased by half over the 20 year period between the mid 70s and mid 90s while the handgun homicide rate remained unchanged. The reason for this decline in the long gun homicide rate was due to the introduction of the Firearms Acquisition Certificate in 1977. This was the first long gun control measure introduced in Canada and it too had a noticeable impact. And once again you’ll notice the hand gun homicide remained unchanged during that time because no significant new regulations were introduced.

There is a direct correlation between the long gun homicide rate in Canada and the various types of gun control measures that have been implemented in the past 3 decades. And it’s clear the regulations introduced in 1995 had their own significant impact as evidenced by the doubled rate of decrease in the long gun homicide rate. Clearly this demonstrates these gun control measures aren’t wasted efforts despite the empty protests of critics who would have you believe otherwise.

Susan Kadis, the Liberal MP for Thornhill, has introduced a private member’s bill that would lower the legal blood alcohol level from .08% to .05%.

This cat thinks the media is biased against it. Discuss.

The ranks of the Blogging Tories are looking mighty thin these days. I just took a quick tour of their blogroll and about half the listed members haven’t posted in more than a month. And the steady stream of rightwing bloggers throwing in the towel is turning into a torrent. M.K. Braaten, A North American Patriot and King’s Perspective have all officially quit in the past day and a half.

Meanwhile, the left half of the blogosphere continues to grow.

The Parliamentary Press Gallery walked out on Harper’s latest press conference.

The parliamentary press gallery launched its latest salvo Tuesday in an ongoing cold war with the Harper government over media access and procedures for reporting on federal politics.

Prior to the start of a news conference in which Prime Minister Stephen Harper announced that Canada would contribute $40 million in humanitarian and military assistance to the war-torn Sudanese region of Darfur, members of the press gallery simultaneously got up and left, moments before the prime minister arrived in the room, in an act of defiance against new news conference rules imposed against the media.

This is a fight Harper can’t win. Kudos to the PPG for standing up for our democracy by fighting against state interference of the press.

Now Magazine has a good article on the Cons’ stealth efforts to undermine public healthcare despite their pledge to protect and strengthen it.

Somena Media has a good roundup of the ugly action taking place in Caledonia.

Far And Wide has a good post up that puts tomorrow’s renewable fuels strategy announcement by the Conservatives in perspective.

An emailer has alerted me to the archive.org site and its wayback machine where you can search for earlier versions of a webpage.

By using this, I’ve located another page on the Government of Canada site pertaining to climate change that has been deleted by the Conservatives. If you follow some of the links on that page it will lead you to other deleted pages like this one.

While some of the deletions are just to eliminate pages that are no longer relevant, some clearly are not and it might be worth the time to run any GOC sites you look at through the wayback machine to see if the Conservatives are deleting important information they don’t want the public to see.

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BC Blogs: A joint venture from I Didn’t Get Where I Am Today and My Blahg. You can join here.

Hey rightwing fundies, have a little salt for those wounds.

EXCLUSIVE: Da Vinci Code Is 2nd Biggest Opening Weekend Of All Time Worldwide With $224 Million; No. 1 International Opening Weekend with $147 Mil; $77 Mil U.S. Opening Weekend; Sony Execs Attribute Huge Success To Younger Moviegoers Globally

I’m probably gonna go to hell now but it’s worth it.

It occurs to me that nobody in the leftwing blogosphere is really paying regular attention to all the wisdom being delivered unto us from Canada’s professional wingnuts. Since nature abhors a vacumn(1), My Blahg is introducing a new weekly feature to do just that. So here’s this week’s Bobblehead Report relayed to you in the form of interpretive dance. Okay, I don’t even know what the hell interpretive dance is, so I’ll just go with the ever popular shorter format.

Shorter Rondi Adamson: Harper is making the right move by giving up and doing nothing about global warming. Any lesser action would only have demonstrated he’s not seriously committed to tackling the issue.

Shorter Link Byfield: Harper is making the right move by giving up and doing nothing about the appointments commission. Any lesser action would only have demonstrated he’s not seriously committed to tackling the issue.

Shorter Paul Jackson: Reality be damned. George W. in `08!

Shorter Michael Coren: I say the DaVinci Code is not just a work of fiction because if I said otherwise I’d only look like a real wanker when I shriek about it like this.

Shorter Rory Leishman: Thank God Canada’s foreign policy is no longer one of apologizing for terrorism and is returning to apologizing for state terrorism like it should be.

Shorter Robert Marshall: I’m proof that once you start shrieking hysterically about something it’s just not possible to stop.

Shorter Douglas Fisher: I said - Peace! Huh! Good God y’all. What is it good for? Absolutely nothing.

(1) It’s true. I turned on my vacumn the other day and both nature and my 1-1/2 year old Shih-Tzu, Bilbo, ran away and cowered behind the couch. Then after I turned the vacumn off Bilbo started barking at it while nature buffeted it with gale force winds and hail.

As I noted in a previous post, the new Conservative government has begun purging information relating to global warming from the Government of Canada website. They haven’t gotten to all of it yet, but there’s a noticeable difference between the pages they have updated and the ones they haven’t.

For example, examine the site on climate change. The main page has been updated (scroll to the bottom of the page to where it says “Last Updated”) since the con takeover and you’ll notice that even though it’s a site about climate change there is no mention of global warming on it. This change can be seen in all the pages on the climate change site. Any that have been updated since the con takeover make no mention of either global warming or Kyoto.

As for the evidence that this is indeed a purge, check out the difference in the “How Will Climate Change Affect Us?” page before the con takeover (thanks to archive.org) and after the con takeover.

The differences are subtle, but what you’ll notice is that this line has been eliminated from the updated version.

Read more about how climate change affects us all (PDF, 432 KB).

Now check out the two links in that line. The first one leads to a 404 page since it’s been deleted. Luckily however, the pdf version still exists and it leads to a 2 page report on Canada and the Kyoto Protocol.

Another difference you’ll also see is that a portion of the left sidebar links under the “Taking Action” section is missing from the updated version and some of those links on the older cached version now lead to 404 pages since the pages have been deleted.

It’s exactly as I’ve stated, the new Conservative government is methodically purging references to global warming and Kyoto from the Government of Canada website. And in doing so is also deleting information on these two related subjects.

That’s just the tip of the iceberg however. While conducting various google searches I came across a number of links to the Environment Canada website from outside sources and more than a few of them led to pages like this. This is further evidence of the purge of info on global warming and Kyoto from Government of Canada websites.

This needs public attention and the Conservatives need to be stopped from conducting this purge of information they don’t agree with from the Government of Canada website that belongs to Canadians, not the Conservative Party.

I wonder what all the rightwing human rights advocates–who were quick to condemn Iran on the bogus National Disgrace story–have to say about this?

Israel has declared war on family life and, by extension, on its very ethical foundations. The Supreme Court’s decision to uphold the provisional law denying spouses of Israel’s Arab citizens the right to reside in the country comes on the heels of the coalition agreements that preclude any change in the prohibition on non-religious unions.

Israel has become the only country in the democratic world where not all those who marry can live in its territory and where many of those who live in its territory cannot marry.

As usual, the silence from the right when it comes to Israel’s mistreatment of its Arab citizens is deafening. Counterpunch has more.

Deadline Hollywood Daily is reporting that the much maligned DaVinci Code raked in $30 million on opening day in the US pacing it for an $80 million weekend opening. That’s really going to drive the rightwing fundies bonkers.

Team Canada lost today by a score of 5-4 to Sweden in the semi-final of the IIHF world hockey championship. Hmm, this marks the second consecutive loss for Canada on the international hockey circuit since the Conservatives came to power.

This National Disgrace story about Iran requiring people of minority religions to wear color coded badges keeps getting curiouser and curiouser. First the updates on who else is covering it. Antonia Zerbisias has a post up on her blog as does David Akin and Hossein Derakhshan of Editor:Myself. John Goddard of the Star has a story on it too.

As for the Disgrace, rather than issue a clear retraction of what has now been proven to be a false story they’ve taken the route of spinning this as a story that is simply in dispute. And some of the right whingers continue to peddle it as factual.

Now here’s the interesting question about all of this. Was the timing of this story and PM Harper’s quick response to it related to this notice that appeared on the International Trade Canada site just a day or two before the Post ran the story?

Effective immediately, we will limit our encounters with Iranian officials to the Kazemi case, Iran’s human rights record and Iran’s nuclear non-proliferation performance. No visits or exchanges by Iranian officials to Canada will be permitted, nor will Canadian officials engage with Iran, except relating to these issues. Canada will not block the initiatives of private Canadian companies to trade with their Iranian counterparts. However, we will continue to apply strict export controls on sensitive goods and we will continue to advise business people about the political environment to consider when doing business with Iran. Furthermore, any existing programs of cooperation between Canadian government agencies and their Iranian counterparts will be halted. This state of relations will persist until Iran has taken steps to launch a credible and independent investigation and judicial process into the Kazemi case. We have not decided to recall our Ambassador, nor to shut down Embassy services. We believe there continues to be a need for professional-level dialogue regarding the serious existing difficulties in our relationship.

I can’t find an official government press release about this move nor can I find any reference to it by the media. Which makes me wonder if the Conservatives were planning a late Friday announcement on this foreign policy shift toward Iran using the Disgrace story as cover for its justification but the swift debunking of the story deepsixed their announcement. As I said, this story keeps getting curiouser and curiouser.

Update: Via Sinister Thoughts I see that Whiskey Bar has a rather interesting take on this debacle and Accidental Deliberations poses some interesting questions. HarperBizarro and Crawl Across The Ocean also weigh in on the Disgrace’s big blunder and Pogge catches the Toronto Sun peddling nonsense in defence of this false story.

Update II: Juan Cole has further debunked the story and Antonia has more on the Post’s big blunder. Yikes! What an utter embarrassment this is becoming for the National Disgrace.