The gang at DeSmog Blog are getting so good at what they do that they’re now able to take apart the gibberish spewed by the global warming deniers even before they spew it. Take that Fraser Drunkstitute.

Source.

More from Dawg’s Blawg.

The norms are explicitly confrontational, for one thing, the town council wagging a collective finger at people unlikely ever to settle there, caricaturing other cultures, demolishing stereotypical strawmen, gratuitously forbidding behaviour unlikely ever to occur. Those who applaud, like Brigitte Pellerin, (”A small town defends its local customs”) or the egregiously stupid writer of the hed in the National Post (”Herouxville wants immigrants that fit in with its citizens”) are missing something fundamental: this is not a defence of local culture at all, which is not remotely under threat. It’s a cartoonish attack on others. And such attacks resonate, unfortunately, with the ranks of les Québécois pure laine–not that other parts of Canada are by any means immune from that sort of nonsense.

Update: More from the Globe and Mail.

I’d also like to point out that the people in this village of idiots are acting exactly like Europeans. And we all know how unsuccessful most European countries have been when it comes to dealing with immigrant issues. Last year’s riots in France did not happen because of multiculturalism or letting the dominant French culture go undefended. They happened for quite the opposite reasons; a lack of multiculturalism and the efforts of narrow minded bigots to foolishly defend their culture by demanding all subscribe to it.

As well, many of the items on this village of idiots’ list are downright unCanadian. The complaint by Hasidic Jews to women excercising in front of a window that can be seen by the public for example, is not a subversion of Canadian values. Complaining–and doing so loudly I might add–about anything you don’t like in this country epitomizes Canadian values. As does fighting for your right to wear your religious symbols. Or to act (within the confines of the law) and dress the way you want without being ostracized or ridiculed by a narrow minded community.

The people of Herouxville are not defending Canadian values; they’re destroying them.

On your mark, get set, start ranting, blahggers.

Bloggers are living in a world where emotions may be real but everything else is make-believe, says a University of Calgary professor in a new book…

But Michael Keren, who has written “Blogosphere: The New Political Arena,” suggests individuals who bare their souls in blogs are isolated and lonely, living in a virtual reality instead of forming real relationships or helping to change the world.

“Bloggers think of themselves as rebels against mainstream society, but that rebellion is mostly confined to cyberspace, which makes blogging as melancholic and illusionary as Don Quixote tilting at windmills,” the author says.

It’s obvious he only reads conservative blahgs.

Update: If that’s not enough to get you ranting than maybe this will.

Michael Keren compares bloggers to terrorists…

It looks like the Conservatives might have a little copyright trouble on their hands.

Conservative attack ads fired at Liberal Leader Stephane Dion may end up sideswiping the ruling party after questions were raised about possible breach of copyright laws.

The television ads, which began airing Monday, use footage from last fall’s Liberal leadership debates to deliver the message that the new Grit leader is weak, indecisive and an environmental failure.

But that footage belongs to a consortium of TV networks which pooled their resources to provide live coverage of the debates. The Cable Public Affairs Channel provided the pool camera for each debate.

I’m not certain how this fits in with the staged political drama that has played out over the past week but I did find this bit interesting.

Geist said the use of such video clips in political ads would be entirely proper in the United States, which applies a broad “fair use doctrine” to its copyright laws. The fact that the Tory ads raise questions here highlights the shortcomings of Canadian law, he added.

And I can’t help but think that this is yet another strange coincidence.

Due to intense lobbying and debate over the wording of Canada’s next bill to amend the Copyright Act, the government may not be so close to introducing a bill as expected…
Rumours have spread that Industry Minister Maxime Bernier (Beauce, Que.) and Heritage Minister Bev Oda (Durham, Ont.) are considering the implementation of “fair use,” an American copyright principle that would have significant implications for publishers and universities because it would provide more rights for the research, copying and exchange of works.

Related posts: DESTROYING GOVERNMENT REGULATION IN THE BROADCAST INDUSTRY
THE SWIFTBOAT ADS COMETH: ACT 2
CONSERVATIVE ASSAULT ON BROADCAST STANDARDS CONTINUES

This is unbelievable.

Quebec village bans stoning of women, veils, and excision

The Quebec village of Hérouxville, 1300 inhabitants, has formally banned this week the stoning of women, face veils, female genital mutilation, or throwing acid at unveiled women’s faces, reports Montreal daily La Presse.

André Drouin, a municipal counselor in Hérouxville, told La Presse, a document detailing the bans and the cultural norms of the local population was adopted in light of the stormy debate over the “reasonable accomodation” of religious and cultural minorities that has been raging in Quebec media over the last few months and has principally focussed on Montreal’s small ultra-orthodox Jewish community.

The nature of the Hérouxville bans suggests however that local politicians had Quebec Muslims in mind

This kind of negative cultural stereotyping should not be tolerated in Canada and this jackass needs to be thrown out of office.

Right on cue Conservative Party mouthpiece Ezra Levant, who runs the openly racist Western Standard Blog, has joined the assault on broadcast standards in this country.

Most of Ezra’s columnpropaganda excercise is devoted to shrieking about liberal operatives–who are labelled as such only on the basis of donations to the Liberal Party–and the CBC working to oppress conservatives. But at the end he finally does his part to move the conservative agenda forward.

We know where this is going.

Patterson, the big Liberal donor, is getting ready to block Tory ads in the upcoming campaign. He knows thin-skinned Stephane Dion, the new Liberal leader, won’t grant permission to the Tories to use footage of him saying foolish things.

So he’s trying to set a new rule, a new precedent, to protect Dion.

This is exactly what I said last week’s bit of political theatre between the TVB and rightwing CRFA was intended to accomplish; act as a pre-emptive strike against any interference from the TVB to the Conservative Party’s ad campaigns and pave the way for future Swiftboat style attack ads.

Related posts: THE SWIFTBOAT ADS COMETH: ACT 2
DESTROYING GOVERNMENT REGULATION IN THE BROADCAST INDUSTRY

The Cost Of No Regulations
$400 million.

A sticky issue is one step closer to a resolution, with the announcement that the best way to clean up the notorious Sydney, N.S. tar ponds is to bury them…
Local residents and environmentalists were relieved to hear the $400 million, seven-year cleanup didn’t involve incineration of the sludge.

This is what happens when the free market is allowed to operate without government regulations. The taxpayer ends up paying a higher price in the end.

Wonder Woman For President
Although it’s still early in the campaign for the 2008 presidency, this look at the race is the best I’ve come across. You might have to read it twice to figure out exactly who is who.

Cons Still Hiding Environmental Reports
They still haven’t released them.

A spokesman for NAFTA’s environmental watchdog has blasted Canada for failing to release two reports that examine Ottawa’s alleged failure to enforce its own environmental laws…
Geoff Garver, a senior official at the NAFTA Commission for Environment Co-operation (CEC), which prepared the reports, says they should normally have been released within 60 days.

I don’t think the Conservatives have figured out what transparency actually means yet. Either that or it’s another one of those things that applies to everyone but them.

Lethal Catholics
Some of Mel Gibson’s friends.

Swept under the rug, at least in the mainstream media, was any mention of the Gibson family’s long and notorious history with a deeply anti-Semitic strain of Catholicism — a movement that’s now 100,000 members strong and making increasing inroads with white supremacists and other factions of the authoritarian right. Today, a new report from the SPLC finally pulls that rug all the way back, showing us the cobwebs tying Gibson’s intemperate outbursts to his deep commitment to radical traditionalist Catholicism — webs that Gibson has done his level best to keep hidden throughout his career.

I bet Kathy Shaidle would feel right at home with these people.

The second act of the ongoing conservative confidence game now sheds light on the specific purpose of last week’s manufactured controversy between the CFRA and the TVB. If you’ll recall, I finished my earlier post on it with this somber thought.

And should PMS be successful in this campaign to rid the industry of any standards, there’s little doubt our airwaves would then begin to fill up with Swiftboat type attack ads from third party advertisers that are currently prevented from being aired by the regulations the TVB enforces. This is undoubtably the final goal conservatives are seeking and for the good of our nation it cannot be allowed to happen.

It didn’t take long for the Conservatives to begin the next phase of their plan to accomplish this goal.

The Conservative party intends to run TV attack ads against new Liberal leader Stephane Dion, CTV News has learned.

Multiculturalism Minister Jason Kenney will hold a briefing tomorrow in Ottawa to unveil the ads that mock Dion’s leadership abilities and his environmental record, sources say.

Advertisements by political parties outside of an election campaign are exceedingly rare in this country. So rare in fact that even seasoned political journalists have difficulty providing past examples.

I passed the question on to Mr. Fife, and he provided this response:

“I assume this has happened before but, if so, it has been pretty rare. Usually political ads run just before an election and of course during the election period.”

In order to air these ads, the Conservatives needed to pave the way for them to happen by first eliminating several obstacles that stood in their way. The first of which was to deal with any obstruction from the TVB and this was accomplished last week by the CFRA and the conservative PR machine.

Since these ads air outside of an election, they are deemed as issue and opinion advertising according to the guidelines of the TVB and must meet several criteria including this.

The advertising must not appear to be intentionally deceptive, erroneous or misleading.

Until the ads are actually released for public viewing it’s not possible to say whether or not they meet this criteria. But attack ads seldom do, therefore last week’s assault on the TVB was to soften them up and turn public opinion against them. Which is something the CFRA/conservative alliance did quite successfully as the manufactured controversy generated condemnation against the TVB from all corners of the political spectrum.

The other objective this manufactured controversy clearly sought to achieve can be identified from the second of Stephen Taylor’s posts on the subject. In it he points to the efforts by the Liberal party during the 2006 election campaign to have a Conservative advertisement pulled from the air because it violated copyright laws. This effort was successful according to Taylor.

Telecaster (TVB) initially approved the ad for distribution, however, the Liberals complained and the ad was subsequently pulled.

Which brings us back to the recent announcement of the Conservative’s upcoming ad campaign and this information about the nature of these ads from CTV.

One of the ads is a clip from the Liberal leadership campaign.

Since these new advertisements could be challenged by the Liberals on the same grounds, the Conservatives needed to pre-emptively block such a move. And they needed to do so in a public manner in order to get public opinion on their side.

In order to generate that kind of public approval from all corners of the political spectrum, the Conservatives used the Canadian Renewable Fuels Association (CFRA). With the environment currently on most people’s minds, this generated sympathy from the left to what was sold as an attempt to get the truth out about renewable fuels to the public.

There was another reason the CFRA was used for this purpose however. As I pointed out in my last post, the CFRA is a corporate astroturf organization that represents clients such as Monsanto. But it’s also a loyal rightwing astroturf organization. Conservative blogger Stephen Taylor admits that the Executive Director of the CFRA, Kory Teneycke is a friend of his. But that’s just the tip of the rightwing iceberg. Another person involved in this bit of political drama was Phil von Finckenstein.

Who is Phil von Finckenstein? He’s a public relations consultant who in addition to working with the CFRA also works with the Fraser Institute; a well known rightwing astroturf organization. Oh, and he was also Conservative MP Stockwell Day’s Director of Communications during the Alliance phase of the party.

Mr. von Finckenstein was formerly Director of Communications for the Leader of the Opposition and the Canadian Alliance. He also served as the Senior Media Officer for Preston Manning, MP, and distinguished himself in senior positions in two federal election campaigns.

Its for these two reasons (loyalty to conservatism and their ability to generate sympathy from progressives) that the CFRA was chosen (I’d bet that even though they’ve now received approval to air their ads that they never do) to set the stage for what was to come. And the Conservatives wasted no time getting to the second act; which is but a preview of things to come. The era of the Swiftboat attack ads is at hand and the Conservative party along with rightwing astroturf organizations are aiming to capitalize on their monetary advantage to bombard Canadians with year round lies and smears. Which is why they’re working to remove any obstacles, such as the TVB and its regulations, that stand in their path. Year round Swiftboat style attack ads have had a destructive impact on the political discourse in the United States and this effort by the Conservatives to introduce them into Canadian politics must be resisted at every step.

There is one other bit of information that has surfaced. If the name Phil von Finckenstein left you scratching your head wondering why the name sounds familiar, it’s because another von Finckenstein was in the news last week. Konrad von Finckenstein was appointed to the CRTC. I’m not sure if the two are related or what, if any connection there is between these events. But it’s a strange coincidence that two von Finckensteins were involved in news related to the telecommunications industry in the same week.

What is Holocaust Memorial Day?

Holocaust Memorial Day is about commemorating all of the communities who suffered as a result of the Holocaust and Nazi persecution, and demonstrating that the Holocaust is relevant to everyone in the UK today. The day provides a focus – through the national and local events and activities – for people to think about the continuing repercussions of the Holocaust and more recent genocides on our society.

The central focus for Holocaust Memorial Day remains the Holocaust, but it is also an opportunity to reflect on more recent atrocities that raise similar issues. The tragedies of Rwanda, Kosovo and other terrible events in the world show that there are still many lessons to be learnt, both in international and individual terms.

Too lazy to blahg, so here’s the latest poll from Leger Marketing.

As always, do not operate heavy machinery for 24 hours after ingesting the latest polling results.

An Indianman walks into Tim Horton’s with a shotgun in one hand pulling a male buffalo with the other.

He says to the waiter, “Want coffee.”

The waiter says, “Sure chiefpal, coming right up.” He gets the Indianman a tall mug of coffee.

He drinks the coffee down in one gulp, turns and blasts the buffalo with the shotgun, causing parts of the animal to splatter everywhere, then just walks out.

The next morning the Indianman returns. He has his shotgun in one hand another male buffalo with the other. He walks up to the counter and says to the waiter, “Want coffee.”

The waiter says, “Whoa, TontoBuddy! We’re still cleaning up your mess from yesterday. What was all that about, anyway?”

The Indianman smiles and proudly says, “Training for an upper management position in Canadian Government: Come in, drink coffee, shoot the bull, leave mess for others to clean up, and disappear for rest of day.

Now it’s a good joke.

Via Creekside, I see that an odious little turd said this at the Herzliya Conference earlier this week.

Opposition head Benjamin Netanyahu addressed the Iranian nuclear threat extensively in his speech at the conference…
“I call on the world that did not stop the Holocaust to stop investing in Iran to prevent genocide,” he said, recommending garnering international support to bring Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to trial for genocide.

Is this really the type of garbage Israelis are being fed these days; that the world did nothing to stop the Holocaust? Do they not know the price many countries paid doing just that?

And what “genocide” did Ahmadinejad commit?

Is this man on crack or is this indicative of what Israelis think?

Ontario’s Liberal Finance Minister Greg Sorbara was recently peddling the foolish nonsense that 66,000 jobs would be lost in Ontario if the minimum wage was raised to $10/hour.

Utter hogwash. There is no evidence to support this boogeyman and opponents of raising the minimum wage have only made themselves look foolish every time they’ve trotted it out over the past half century or more.

At least there’s good news on the NDP’s campaign to insure working Ontarians are paid a living wage. Conservative leader John Tory accepts that Ontario’s minimum wage is too low and supports a review process.

Ontario needs to adjust its minimum wage and needs a better process to decide how much it should be, Progressive Conservative Leader John Tory said today.
“The status quo is not viable,” he told member of the Registered Nurses’ Association of Ontario today.

So if the Conservatives accept that “the status quo is not viable”, why then don’t the Liberals–who often sell themselves as progressive–accept it as well?

Related: A Living Wage for Ontario
Downside of the Boom
$10 A step towards wealth redistribution, not THE step.
The Economics and Politics of the Minimum Wage Increase

I never thought I’d live to see the day when a conservative like Stephen Taylor would claim that the free market can’t regulate itself and needs a government watchdog to do it. But I have and he has.

Should a non-partisan parliamentary body be assigned to provide oversight into potential partisan abuses of Telecaster’s unique position? The free market allows competition of ideas, of product and even of partisanship. However, when an effective monopolistic cabal has editorial control over election and advocacy advertising and its suitability for viewing on every private television network, potential abuses are bound to arise.

For those of you who haven’t followed this story, here’s a brief overview. The astroturf organization, the CFRA–who represents clients such as Monsanto–sent in a couple of television advertisements for approval from the Television Bureau of Canada. The TVB’s job is to insure that all advertisements meet industry regulations. The CFRA’s ads didn’t and they were told how to correct them in order to have them aired on television.

This controversy of course is nothing more than the usual nonsense cooked up by conservatives–Kory Teneycke, the director of the CFRA is a “pal” of conservative blogger Stephen Taylor–who don’t feel the regulations that apply to everyone else should apply to them as well. Needless to say this has made TVB’s Jim Patterson public enemy number one and Taylor is now shrieking that it’s a liberal conspiracy to oppress conservatives.

Now that you’re caught up, back to Taylor’s call for more government intrusion in our media. While I think in theory it’s a laudable goal–after all, the free market has a dismal track record when it comes to regulating itself–in reality it isn’t because of PMS‘ efforts to undermine government regulation in the entire broadcast industry.

Which brings us to another another battle currently being waged involving Shaw Cable–run by an Albertan; most likely a conservative Albertan–to undermine the Canadian Television Fund. The CTF is funded by Canada’s cable companies and it in turn funds independent production companies in this country; they fund for example, the company that produces Trailer Park Boys. Shaw Cable is withholding these funds in an effort to elimate the CTF.

And PMS is doing everything in his power to help them out as Antonia Zerbisias points out.

Shaw’s timing is exquisitely awful. That’s because the CTF is up for renewal this spring. The Harper government can continue it – or not.

The CRTC, which established the fund, is in no position to squawk. It is without a chairperson and has a number of commission positions up for grabs.

CBC, which schedules many of the documentaries that the CTF subsidizes, is also without a chairperson and has a lame duck president in Robert Rabinovitch.

Even Telefilm lacks a chairperson and is short of board members. The National Film Board has no commissioner.

All of these are federal appointments. But Heritage Minister Bev Oda is silent.

Despite the fact that PMS made more than a hundred appointments alone last December, he’s chosen to leave the very industry regulators that are now under attack leaderless. This of course, has not been done by accident but is part of an orchestrated campaign to eliminate any form of government oversight and regulatory power over the broadcast media in Canada.

If the role the Television of Canada Bureau plays were to be taken up by the government, it too would become a target for destruction along with the very regulations it enforces. And should PMS be successful in this campaign to rid the industry of any standards, there’s little doubt our airwaves would then begin to fill up with Swiftboat type attack ads from third party advertisers that are currently prevented from being aired by the regulations the TVB enforces. This is undoubtably the final goal conservatives are seeking and for the good of our nation it cannot be allowed to happen.

Update: More from NDP MP Charlie Angus on the campaign to eliminate the Canadian Television Fund.

Since all the kewl kidz are reflecting on PMS‘ first year anniversay, I thought I’d join in too by rubbing salt in the wounds of his supporters.

A year after the federal Conservatives won power promising to abolish the gun registry, the program is still running - and any hope of killing it before the next election appears to be fading.

Ha ha! And by the way, about that cost.

The RCMP, which took over administration of the gun control program last year, has estimated that the saving from abolishing registration of long guns would be just under $3 million a year.

That figure belies the Tory claim of continued waste and inefficiency, said Wendy Cukier, head of the Coalition for Gun Control.

That it does Wendy, but when it comes to reality conservatives just aren’t that enthusiastic about it.

It’s truly astounding that a story about a French politician (Results 1 - 100 of about 166 related articles) who merely expressed an opinion on Quebec sovereignty gets more attention from the media–and even a response from the Prime Minister–than the story about Canadian citizens (Results 1 - 72 of 72) being forced to obey American laws on Canadian soil did.

It’s no wonder most Canadians are ignorant of the creeping control being exerted over Canada’s policies and citizens by the United States. The few politicians who speak out about it are largely ignored and the subject is rarely broached outside of alternative media sources. Instead Canadians are treated to a circus sideshow in order to distract them from the ever growing presence of Uncle Sam on our sovereign soil.

The issue of Quebec separatism will no longer be a concern to Canadians if the media continues to turn a blind eye to the Liberals and Conservatives handing over Canada’s sovereignty to Washington. Because at the rate they’re doing it, in a couple more decades it will be America’s problem to deal with Quebeckers who seek to become a separate nation from the USA.

Number Five: (Now Dion has the rest of the Liberal caucus in on the action.)

Liberals say they’re unlikely to support the coming federal budget, putting the onus squarely on the NDP to prop up or topple Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s minority Conservative government.

This new Liberal position even comes with a sidedish of historical revisionism from Ralph Goodale.

“He (Layton) has lusted all these many months for the role of balance of power. He now has it and he’s finding himself in the role of propping up a government that is doing all the things that Jack Layton says he’s totally opposed to,” said Goodale.

It’s funny how Goodale believes Layton and the NDP have been “propping up” this Conservative government when they were the only party to vote against every motion or piece of legislation that was deemed a confidence matter last year.

As for Jack Layton holding the balance of power, don’t you worry your pretty little head over it Ralph. Jack has demonstrated that he’s more than capable of making the big decisions when called upon to do so. Just ask this guy.

See this post for the Liberal Party’s previous positions on the upcoming Conservative budget.

Today’s press release from the PMO on Harper’s schedule contains this at the bottom of it.

Note: Media are asked to bring valid employment identification for accreditation.

So does the one for January 11.

Note: Media are asked to bring valid employment identification for accreditation.

But none of the others, as far as I can tell, do.

Anyone know what’s up with that or care to propose a kooky konspiracy theory about it?

So lets count the number of positions Stephane Dion has on the upcoming Conservative Budget.

Number One:

Mr. Dion says he will not support Mr. Harper’s spring budget and will help topple the government with the Bloc.

Number Two:

Liberal Leader Stephane Dion said he has no plans to bring down the government over the 2007 Conservative budget expected sometime in the New Year

Number Three:

Dion said Monday he doesn’t want a snap election, but added he won’t support the next Conservative budget if it’s not in the best interests of Canadians.

Number Four:

Liberal Leader Stéphane Dion says his party is open to supporting the upcoming Conservative budget if it doesn’t “compromise” Liberal values

Number Five: Oops, I’m getting ahead of myself and the flip flopping Frenchman.

So lets open the floor up to speculation. How many different positions will Stephane Dion finally have by the time the Conservatives introduce their next budget?

Will it 7: One for every day of the week?
Will it be 13: One for every province and territory?
Will it be 15,000,000: One for every eligible voter?

What do you think?

Well I see the right whingers are going gaga over the two newest variations of The Eternal Jew that have been directed at the left over the past few years.

The first is Dinesh D’Souza’s hate filled tome that claims the left is responsible for 9/11 and the second is Nick Cohen’s odious bit of propaganda that claims the left just can’t stop loving their dictators.

Now here’s what I want to know. Is there any valid reason why these two pricks should not be beaten up?