Harper ... Linking Him To Ford

In the last two weeks, we've heard a lot about - and from - Rob Ford.  He's been, to say the least, prominent in the headlines - shocking most of the time, belligerent the rest.

Of some consideration though is the dead silence coming from the PMO where Rob Ford is concerned.  Harper has been silent on the matter, and aside from allowing Peter Mackay to wander in front of a live microphone trying to link Rob Ford's antics with Justin Trudeau's stance on legalizing marijuana.

A signature aspect of Harper's government has been the "tough on crime" business.  Throw more people in jail for longer.  Less latitude for any kind of criminal behaviour.  Yet, here we have a Mayor whose ties to the CPC are no surprise who is admitting that he has committed multiple crimes while in office.  The silence from Ottawa is almost deafening.

Considering how Harper has thrown so many people under his political bus lately, one wonders just how come Rob Ford is getting the kid gloves treatment.

Oh wait ... Harper isn't going to throw someone under the bus when he perceives that there is still a partisan gain to be had.

Welcome to the hypocrisy of the far right's "tough on crime" agenda.  It's fine to be "tough on crime" until it is one of their own...then it becomes something different.

What Was That About "Not Re-Opening the Abortion Debate"?

Since 2006, Harper has repeatedly "refused" to open the abortion debate in Canada ... or at least so he claims.

But then again, there's the old saw about "actions speak louder than words".  Once again, the Harper Government has taken actions which very clearly articulate where they stand.  On Huffington Post, the headline reads "Tories Won't Fund Overseas Projects Allowing Abortion For War Rape, Child Brides"

International Development Minister Christian Paradis says the government will not fund overseas projects that allow war rape victims and child brides to obtain an abortion. 

...

But Paradis says the government's policy would follow the same logic as that behind Canada's $3-billion G8 funding commitment for maternal and child health — no money should go towards abortion services. 

That's a change from the department's previous statement that it does not monitor where each dollar goes when funding is provided to large multilateral aid organizations outside the G8 commitment envelope. 

If this doesn't get you wound up, it should.  Once again, we have the Harper Government talking out of both sides of its mouth.  On one side, they are working very hard not to talk about abortion publicly, but by way of policy fiat, they are moving quite clearly against women's rights - including self-determination, health care and so on.  Worse, they are doing it one the world stage, and to those who are inherently the most vulnerable.

There can be no mistaking Harper's policy here - this government is clearly hostile to women and women's rights.  He knows that were he to move in Canada to restrict abortion access further, the political storm he would face would be enough to sink his already plummeting political fortunes.

But, because this doesn't affect Canadians directly, the political calculation is that it won't be noticed.  Like several "private member's" bills and motions on controversial subjects, Harper has allowed them to move forward because it keeps the far-right base that formed the core of the Reform Party happily believing that he's on their side.

We've had a steady stream of anti-abortion private member's bills and motions before the House.  All of  them have been allowed to gain a certain amount of publicity and attention, and then are quietly defeated by a "free vote".  (In the case of the CPC, I would put money that those "free votes" are stage managed within an inch of their lives)

Further, Harper has been one of the most radical micro-managers we've ever seen occupy the PMO.  There is no chance that a back-bench MP gets to put forward a private member's bill without the approval of the PMO.

Private members' bills differ from government legislation in that they are supposed to be an expression of something the individual MP wants to champion. While it's not unusual for these bills to be amended – and often improved – at committee, it is unusual for MPs from the bill sponsor's own governing party to use their majority on the committee reviewing the legislation to make changes the MP who proposed the bill didn't originally intend, or support. 

Normally, if a government doesn't support a private member's bill, it encourages its MPs to vote it down before it reaches committee. However, it doesn't usually whip — or force — its caucus to vote a certain way on these kinds of bills. 

"The more popular feeling certainly at PMO and the whip's office is that caucus members should essentially be cheerleaders for the government and spread the government's message as opposed to being some sort of legislative check on executive power," Rathgeber said Thursday. "I don't accept their premise."

Harper Continues To Isolate Canada

With Harper and his band of geniuses running around the UN this, it's actually been kind of interesting.  As I pointed out back in May, Harper's foreign policy has served primarily to isolate Canada on the world stage, and continue the far-right narrative about the "irrelevance" of the United Nations.

Today, in what must be a first in history, Canada refused to sign a UN treaty which the US agreed to sign.  

Foreign Affairs Minister John Baird has said there is a potential link between signing on to the treaty and Canada's now-abolished long gun registry.

Baird's spokesman said earlier this week that the government is still doing consultations on whether the treaty would affect lawful recreational firearms owners in Canada.

"It is past time for Canada to get beyond spurious claims that the treaty will affect legal Canadian gun-owners and join the states that want to save lives by ending irresponsible arms transfers," Ken Epps of the group Project Ploughshares said in a statement.

For the Harper Government to take this stance really comes as no surprise.  First, they are trying to use it to play to the gun lobby in Canada, who they are clearly in bed with.  Second, it takes Canada further from the role of being an effective middle power at the UN.

"Every day, conventional arms are used to commit serious acts of violence against women and girls, including rape," Fox said in a statement.

 Meanwhile, at the UN, we find Harper trumpeting his spending on programs for Maternal Health.

Action trumps rhetoric, Prime Minister Stephen Harper told a United Nations panel on maternal and child health Wednesday as he outlined $203 million over five years to help mothers and babies in developing countries.

Well, let's consider Harper's actions for a minute.  As the Toronto Star points out, Harper's cuts in 2006 have hamstrung Canada's ability to ensure that we actually know where women stand in Canada.  In the realm of actions and words, Mr. Harper's own actions deserve to be held to scrutiny when he stands on the world stage and plays the "look how noble we are" card.

Helene Laverdiere, the NDP's international development critic, was quick to slam the government not only for re-announcing three-year-old funding, but for failing to include support for reproductive health. 

"Canada's Muskoka funding should have included funding for women to access sexual and reproductive health services, including emergency contraception and safe abortion," Laverdiere said in a statement.She also assailed the government for rejecting last week's call from the UN Human Rights Council for a comprehensive national review of violence against aboriginal women. 

"Under Harper, it's clear that Canada is not a real leader on women's health and women's rights."

Harper continues to play a very narrow, partisan game at all times.  One can only hope that Canadians are becoming aware of the game he is playing.

They Just Don't Get It, Do They?

They're actually serious: Should we have a sex tax?

Politicians are always talking about taxes. Some of them want to “soak” the rich; others want to raise “sin” taxes on alcohol and cigarettes. But I can think of one “consumer item” we’ll never see a tax on: sex. But maybe we should. Sex—the wrong kind of sex, that is—is driving up the cost of government.

Right ... so would someone show me where in scripture it says that the anointed priesthood have any business in our bedrooms?

Mike McManus, who also is the founder of Marriage Savers, has a few more ideas: States ought to create a marriage commissions to encourage marriage over co-habitation. State welfare offices, he says, ought to “provide information on the value of marriage in reducing poverty and increasing wealth, happiness, and longer lives.” And we ought to require public schools and publicly-funded family planning clinics to teach kids about the long-term benefits of rearing children within wedlock over co-habitation.

Uh huh. Yeah, sure. Let's talk about the wonders of enforced marriage, shall we? Starting with the delightful prospect of keeping dysfunctional and abusive relationships together "for the sake of the children". Or perhaps they'd like to explain how they are going solve the recurring problems that the grinding cycle of poverty creates in families? Being married doesn't solve poverty. Poverty was a huge problem for families, and it still is.

If I wanted to live in Atwood's Republic of Gilead, I'd go move to some crazy religious enclave. I don't, and frankly I don't want someone demanding that we live our lives according to their interpretation of scripture.

It appalls me to no end to see these people on one hand crying and wringing their hands over "religious liberty", and on the other hand proposing to spend billions of taxpayer dollars trying to regulate human sexuality. There's so many things wrong with that picture it's not even funny.

This Happens Far Too Often

The old saying is "methinks he doth protest too much" ...

Such is the case with George Rekers, a prominent anti-gay activist who writes extensively for NARTH.

It seems that he was caught taking a vacation with a rentboy - allegedly to "carry his luggage".

It seems to me that there is a disproportionately high percentage of closet cases lurking amongst the most vocal opponents of GLBT people. It's way past time for society to quit teaching GLBT people to be ashamed of themselves, isn't it?

12 Letter Synonym For Two-Faced

According to Runesmith, the word would have to be "C o n s e r v a t i v e".

I can't believe how utterly hypocritical the HarperCon$ are.

That's Terrorism?

According to the wingnuts over at No Apologies, the mere threat of the GLBT community demonstrating against an anti-gay series of seminars is "terrorism".

No, I'm afraid that's just abusing the term. Stalking people and murdering them so that others will be intimidated out of legal practices like women's health care services, that's arguably terrorism of a sort. Anybody else remember Dr. Tiller's murder this year? Or Operation Rescue's various campaigns against abortion providers?

What's sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander. Look at the screaming, whining and bellyaching that comes out from the religious right wing whether it's about gay rights, marriage or abortion - the demonstrations are amazing, and when someone chooses to confront them using their own tactics it suddenly gets labelled "terrorism". There's a word for this - hypocrisy.

As for Mr. Lizotte, the man leading these sessions, he seems to be a francophone version of the usual anti-gay speakers. I would put even odds that I could find the same assertions that Mr. Lizotte makes on any of the usual anti-gay websites - with about as much real data to back them up.

In The Department of Not Getting It

We have the Catholic Church and Michael Coren.

First up is the following news brief from Zenit: Vatican Official Asks Security Group for Genuine Respect:

He pointed out that "incidents of hatred, discrimination, violence and intolerance against Christians and members of other religions continue to occur too frequently in the OSCE region and are symptomatic of the lack of peace in the world."

Monsignor Frontiero suggested that the OSCE's commitment to combat intolerance aims to promote genuine respect of "the differences among us."

The Holy See representative explained that "an absence of convictions is not synonymous with tolerance."

And, he contended, only skepticism and relativism remain if there is an absence of some "convincing notions of truth which require that we be tolerant with one who has a different idea of the truth of things."

On a first glance, there's not much to disagree with in Monsignor Frontiero's comments. Discrimination against someone on the basis of their faith is wrong, and should be challenged at every turn.

However, given the church hierarchy's involvement in firing someone for being transsexual, it starts to smell of hypocrisy to me.

Then we have Michael Coren's most recent contribution to the National Post in which he adopts a stance towards criticism of the Vatican that is very similar to the "support Israel at all costs" mentality we regularly see out of the hard right wing.

Today secularism is the ideology of fashion but Catholicbashing, the last acceptable prejudice in polite society, is the toxin the runs through the contemporary bloodstream of Western liberal society.

What Bishop Raymond Lahey is accused of doing is unspeakably awful, but an abuser no more represents the Church than a criminal politician represents democracy. But no, we are told, it's inherent to Catholicism because the Roman Catholics won't change with the times.

Right - I've heard this before - and explained why Coren is wrong.

But Coren goes even further down the rabbit hole of trying to justify the inaction of the Catholic Church towards the pedophiles in the priesthood:

On a clinically practical level, celibacy has nothing to do with sexual exploitation. The abuse rates inside the Catholic Church are almost precisely the same as those in other Christian denominations, non-Christian religions, education, public service and virtually all institutions.

That doesn't make it right, nor does it justify the Church actively protecting these predators by concealing them and moving them about - or just blatantly ignoring their activities.

The issue is not the presence of pedophiles in the priesthood, it is the rank hypocrisy of a church organization that seems to think that on one hand it can justify enabling these people while actively engaging in discrimination, persecution and marginalization of those they deem "immoral".

Among thinking people, it's hard to accept the Church's "teachings" when the odor of corruption and hypocrisy wafts from the Vatican on a seemingly weekly basis.

As an aside, Mr. Coren might want to consider the fact that unlike a lot of faiths, the Catholic Church is also a political institution which regularly tries to inject itself into the political dialogue of the world - this is all the more offensive when their pronouncements on subjects are so often at odds with their own actions.

As an aside - my beef is not with the Catholic Faith per se, but rather the political structure and its denizens who claim to be the speakers and keepers of the faith - somewhere along the way in the last 2000 years, they lost sight of the real value the Church is capable of bringing to the world

Let's Talk About "Spiritual Toxic Waste", Shall We?

Since the Vatican seems to be so willing to bleat about the evils of humanism, it's time to consider the toxicity of the Vatican's own actions in history.

Canada's own history with the church is speckled and mixed - hardly filled with the acts of a Church that is universally, and always, good. Whether it is the Church's operation of Mount Cashel Orphanage, participation in the Indian Residental Schools, or the numerous and seemingly repeating scandals of pedophile priests being caught out time and again, it seems as though the church has a pretty good legacy of lecturing people on the evils of their sexuality, while quietly covering up their own indiscretions.

Talk to the survivors of sexual abuse, and ask them how toxic it has been in their lives. Talk to the survivors of the residential schools about how well that little exercise worked, or the horrors they lived through. It's some of the darkest parts of Canada's history which have the Catholic Church right smack in the middle of it all.

I think particularly appalling has been the fact that the Church hierarchy had active policies in place in the 1960s which basically concealed any of the clergy who were known to be up to no good by moving them around to other parishes ... often one step ahead of the law it seems. In the most recent case, the Church was fully aware of what was happening, and did nothing about it.

So, it is with some askance that I regard statements like this from the Vatican:

"For example," the cardinal explained, "equality of people no longer just means equal dignity and access to fundamental human rights; but also the irrelevance of the natural differences between men and women, the uniformity of all individuals, as though they were sexually undifferentiated, and therefore the equality of all sexual orientations and behavior: heterosexual, homosexual, bisexual, transsexual, polymorphous. Each individual has the right to freely practice -- and change, should they wish -- their choices in line with their drives, desires and preferences."

Goodness - the idea that we might treat people with respect and dignity - even when they are different from one another just seems so shockingly toxic compared to child abuse and actively facilitating it.

Really, coming from an organization that continues to advocate for the subjugation of women (preferably relegating them to the role of pregnant and barefoot in the kitchen under the current Pope it seems), enables pedophiles and shelters them from the law, and has participated actively in some of the most egregious moments in history, it's hard to take any of these utterances seriously. In fact, the first thought that springs to mind is "and just what is this Cardinal trying to hide?".

It has taken the better part of the last half century for Canada to begin confronting some of the darker chapters in its own short history. I can only imagine what is really going on behind closed doors in various African "missions" - no matter how noble their cause may sound - and in the silence of the moral shadows they cast, just how many innocent tears are being shed as a result of the "moral toxicity" of the church's own "Spiritual Toxic Waste".

Michael Coren: Hypocrite and Whiner

I see that Michael Coren is busy whining about the opening of the Queer Hall of Fame this past week.

Just like when I was a child and that longed-for present wasn't in Santa's sack, my hopes were dashed this week when I wasn't included on the list of the first inductees into Canada's Queer Hall of Fame. Pierre Trudeau, swimmer Mark Tewksbury and drag queen Robert Kaiser, known as Joan-E, were there but I was ignored. I can't say it doesn't hurt because it does.

Well, Michael, it might have something to do with your incessant whining about the evils of the GLBT in our society ... just sayin'.

It's not like you've done anything for GLBT people in Canada, Michael. In fact, I would hazard a guess that most GLBT people - and their allies - consider you to be someone worth remembering as a reminder of why the fight for equality must continue.

Gay people have a right to be gay. Just as Muslim or Jewish people, sports fans or Star Trek devotees or anybody else have a perfect right to be exactly who they are and what they want to be. But their first and most important loyalty should not be to their sexuality, religion or hobby but to their citizenship. This was the case at one time in our history but no longer.

Huh? What the heck is this? Loyalty to Canada - and to being Canadian has exactly zero correlation to wanting to be an equal participant in Canadian society, and before Canadian law. To infer that agitating for equality is somehow disloyal is beyond insulting - it also reflects upon how little Mr. Coren understands of Canadian identity.

Irony 101: The PFOX Edition

At first glance, PFOX almost looks like they are an advocacy group seeking to help ex-Gays and to end whatever discrimination they face.

Certainly, when one finds articles like Court Rules Sexual Orientation Laws Include Former Homosexuals, it is easy to assume that as a group PFOX is honestly working on behalf of the common interests of their membership.

Then we find them republishing FRC's Exhortation to fight against ENDA. Now, this casts their mission somewhat into question, doesn't it? On one hand, they are willing to go to court to get a ruling that says that anti-discrimination laws which cover gays must also be read to cover ex-gays. On the other hand, they object actively to a piece of Federal legislation which would similarly protect their membership from being treated unfairly in the workplace.

I think it tells a great deal about their intellectual honesty ... and what their real agenda is.

If That's Your Criteria, You've Already Failed Stephen

‘God's verdict' outranks history's, PM says

“Honestly, I'm not into politics to play to the microphones and the cameras,” he said. “I'm there to ensure that the government acts responsibly, protects the population and meets its needs. I can take the criticism – it comes with the job – but my main preoccupation is not my personal image, but rather the country's higher interests.”

So, tell me ... how is strandig Canadians abroad in Canada's higher interests? Or perhaps, you'd like to explain to me how dragging Canada's political discourse lower than it has ever been is in our "higher interests"? Or how a bunch of partisan patronage is in Canada's higher interests?

Harper is several kinds of hypocrite - if he is awaiting "God's judgment" on his record, I can't imagine any Christian god is going to look too kindly on much of his record in government.

So ... Where's The Outrage From CPoC Supporters?

It was only a few months ago that the HarperCon$ were running about telling us about the evils of an "illegitimate coalition" government.

Now, we find a Conservative/NDP/Bloc coalition forming up.

So, CPoC supporters, which is it? Are you going to express your outrage at a possible Conservative/NDP/Bloc coalition, or are you going to admit to gross hypocrisy?

More Harper Hypocrisy

Earlier this week, we found out that Canadian troops in Afghanistan are backing a regime that is moving, quite explicitly, to subjugate women instead of treating them as equal partners.

It used to be a mission to give a future to little girls. Now the government is scrambling to explain why Canadian troops are fighting for an Afghanistan that legalizes rape within marriage.

The new Afghan law, apparently approved by President Hamid Karzai, led Western diplomats in Kabul to call an emergency meeting and hammer out a concerted response, pressuring the Karzai administration to back down.

Canadian officials insisted that Mr. Karzai still has some "wiggle room" before the law is implemented, and waited impatiently for the President's first public comments on the law.

The Conservative government expressed outrage, and opposition politicians said Canadian soldiers did not fight and die for an Afghanistan that would pass such a law.

Anyone else remember all the right wingers in this country bragging about how our troops were "over there liberating people"?

But that isn't the hypocrisy at all. Only the completely clueless would believe that little lie.

No. The hypocrisy is in the actions of the Harper government themselves. Think back to 2006. Remember the spending cuts they did back then? Kind of focused on Women's and minority programs, didn't they? Then there is Harper's personal support for Bill C-484, which would essentially strip a woman of the right to control her reproductive destiny and Bill C-537, the so-called "medical practitioner's conscience" act - another piece of moralizing garbage legislation which fundamentally affects women disproportionately.

In this light, the government's "outrage" over Afghanistan's law suddenly seems just a trifle contrived.

The Peter On Sexual Identity

It's a sad statement when wingnuts like Peter LaBarbera are among the more articulate of their peers.

Today, we have him pontificating on sexual identity.

We disagree on the morality of homosexual acts — plain and simple. I’m a sinner in need of God’s grace, but redefining my sins as part of my “proud” identity would be wrong. That’s how we view the “gay” movement.

This is pretty standard anti-gay rhetoric. In short, LaBarbera is trying to recap the usual "love the sinner, hate the sin" line - and is setting himself up to reveal the innate hypocrisy of his position - which we will come to in a moment.

I’ve known and interviewed too many FORMER “gays” like Charlene Cothran and Yvette Schneider to believe that homosexuality is some fixed, innate identity.

More standardized tripe. But here is also where his argument begins to fall apart. What LaBarbera fails to recognize here is the very distinct likelihood that those who are "successful" ex-gays (e.g. manage to live an apparently heterosexual life) are bisexual.

What LaBarbera is ignoring is that while a handful of GLBT people do manage to live as heterosexuals, the vast majority do not. There is very little evidence that suggests that the ex-gay concept applies to any but a small subset.

As for how your (new) “rights” affect me and those who agree with me, there is ample and growing evidence now that “gay rights” and historic American religious/moral freedoms cannot co-exist. Look at the case of the Christian photographer in New Mexico, who did not want to shoot a [lesbian couples’] wedding and was sued — and lost her case (it’s now on appeal). What about HER right to live by her beliefs? What about the right of an Orthodox Jewish small businessman NOT to subsidize homosexual employees’ relationships if he believes those relationships are based on (an egregious) sin?

The first of these cases falls into the same basic category of law as the case of Scott Brockie in Canada. Once you make an agreement to provide services to somebody, revoking that based on the fact that the client is associated with the GLBT movement is discrimination - pure and simple.

The second case quickly degenerates into an anti-tax argument. Taxes, like all matters relating to money in general, has no moral underpinnings. Money is devoid of either morals or ethics. My tax dollars go to a lot of things I disagree with - that doesn't give me any right to refuse to pay taxes. Period. That principle has been consistent in both Canada and the United States.

I always do interviews with the gay press. If a truly feared or hated homosexuals, I couldn’t do my job as I feel called to do: responding to the many PRO-GLBT [gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender] groups.

Yeah. Sure. What a condescending piece of garbage that is. That's no better than usual bigot's line "some of my best friends are ...". The fact, is that Mr. LaBarbera is working day and night to delegate an entire population to second class status based entirely upon your moralizing, which utterly disrespects the freedom of religion as it applies to the population as a whole.

Right Wing Hypocrisy 101

With the Rethuglicans desperate to rebuild their suddenly crumbling base in the United States, they seem to be desperately dragging out anything they can ... in this case, it's been Dick Cheney.

An October 23, 2001, memo from Justice Department lawyers John C. Yoo and Robert J. Delahunty said, "First Amendment speech and press rights may also be subordinated to the overriding need to wage war successfully."

Former Vice PresidentCheney also believes, according to these same memos, that the federal government can send troops to burst into the homes of American citizens without a search warrant, despite the Fourth Amendment's protection against such unreasonable searches. He believes that the federal government has the right to arrest an American citizen on American soil and hold him in prison without charges. He believes that the federal government can listen in on your phone conversations without a court order.

Now, think about this for a minute, and reflect on the Conservatives in Canada trying to resurrect unnecessary laws that give the government unprecedented police-state powers in peacetime.

"I worry a lot," he told King, "that they're using the current set of economic difficulties to try to justify a massive expansion in the government, and much more authority for the government over the private sector. I don't think that's good. I don't think that's going to solve the problem."

Set aside the, umm, irony of a guy who is alive, thank God, because of government-provided health care opposing health care for taxpaying Americans. And set aside the hypocrisy of the Bush-Cheney Medicare prescription drug entitlement, the greatest expansion of the federal role in health care since President Lyndon B. Johnson.

Focus instead on Cheney's alarmist rhetoric: "a massive expansion in the government", "much more authority for the government." Cheney is comfortable with a government that has the authority to torture, imprison, censor and kill. Just not a government that has the capacity and compassion to write a health insurance policy or take on Big Oil.

There's a second irony here - and it falls forth from Cheney's own mouth. In "worrying about" an expansion of government under Obama, Cheney fails quite utterly to admit that under Bush II (and Cheney), the government expanded dramatically - in ways that invade people's privacy and fundamental rights such as due process before the law far more negatively than anything that the Obama administration has proposed. Cheney has repeatedly denied many people access to the courts, has invaded their privacy and tortured others. Under Bush II, more happened to expand the reach of law enforcement and the military - aspects of government intrusion into private lives that we really should be worried about.

Consider that Canada's Con$ are pouring money into the military like there's no tomorrow, and want to resurrect laws that expired for good reason. These people take their cues from Bush II/Cheney ...

So ... Where Are The Free Speech Advocates?

I'm finding it quite suspicious how silent the so-called advocates of 'Free Speech' are being over Ottawa Transit's decision not to allow Bus advertisements with atheist themes to be be run.

After the hue and cry over Campus Pro Life in Calgary, or perhaps Ezra LeRant's ongoing screeching, one might think that some of these people might speak out about this - which is really little different than what they've been complaining about in many respects.

Of course, if they were being honest with us, they'd admit that they really aren't about 'free speech' - they're about 'freedom of their speech', without regard to anybody else. This is the very crux of the matter that I have addressed in numerous articles on this blog - freedom of speech has limits and boundaries.

Lawrence Martin Summarizes Harper...

Quite nicely here:

If the Harper boys don't get their own way, they stamp their feet and start bawling at bad treatment from others and make big-time threats - forgetting all the while what they had put down in their own playbook.

If it were elementary school, the teacher would tell them to go stand in the corner.

Other than that, Martin makes more or less the same points and observations that I and others have already made about the past week's events - primarily that the HarperCon$ are the authors of the problems in the first place.

Well, Since The HarperCon$ Are Slashing At Culture...

Before we go taking Michael Coren's latest rant too seriously, we need to chat a little about Stephen Harper's war on culture that he has been quietly waging by slashing government programs.

Of course, this makes the religious right wing pleased as punch - after all, they'd like to think that they are the only arbiters of 'correct culture' that should have a voice.

But, then one has to start thinking about the Churches they hold so dear. They have a unique status in Canada that is at least as costly to taxpayers as the various culture programs the government has had in the past - they are tax-exempt.

If Mr. Harper is so interested in 'culture by economic success', then perhaps he'd like to treat the other cultural industry in Canada by the same rules? (Of course, I know this is never going to happen on PMSH's watch - that would require actual principles, integrity and logical consistency - something he keeps demonstrating significant deficits in)

H/T: The Galloping Beaver, Canadian Cynic.

Do These People Ever Look In The Mirror?!?

George Bush opens his mouth on the Russian/Georgian conflict, and promptly demonstrates a complete lack of self awareness:

In Washington, President Bush on Friday chided Russia for Cold War-style behavior, saying, "Bullying and intimidation are not acceptable ways to conduct foreign policy in the 21st century."

Bush said the United States stands "with the people of Georgia and their democratically elected government." He said the country's sovereignty and territorial integrity "must be respected."

"We will not cast them aside," he said.

Bush said Russia's invasion of Georgia in recent days has "damaged its credibility."

Funny, I wonder just what Bush thinks the difference between Iraq and Georgia is? (Or perhaps he'd like to consider his actions in Iraq and more recent posturing towards Iran?)

How these people can look themselves in the mirror every morning is beyond me.