He's Living In The Past

For quite some time, I have suspected that Putin was living in the past - quite specifically, the Cold War. His "State of the Nation" speech today confirmed that.  

Most news outlets are pointing out two major features of the speech:  

1.  Putin blaming "The West" for the war in Ukraine

2.  The suspension of Russia's participation in the "New START" nuclear arms treaty.

There are other dimensions to his speech, a lot of it being pretty much classic, old school propaganda tropes. Playing to the notion of "Russia the Great", and boasting about the regions of Ukraine that Russia annexed (but doesn't really control at this point).  

For those of us who grew up during the Cold War, this is all old hat. Not a single part of this pattern of propaganda is surprising - it's all happened before with different Soviet leaders at one time or another.

The "Free Alberta Strategy"

 I'll forgive people elsewhere in Canada who might be wondering what the hell is going on in Alberta. A little over a year ago, we were treated to the spectacle of a bunch of Alberta MPs and other luminaries signing the Buffalo Declaration, and today, we get "The Free Alberta Strategy". 

For all that there's some genuflection in the direction of keeping Alberta part of Canada, the reality is that this is still the same old separatist garbage that I first encountered in Junior High when the Constitution was being repatriated. 

I won't waste your time with the deceitfully written complaints about how being part of Canada is such an unfair burden on Alberta. We've all seen it before, and it's the same old whining nonsense that has more to do with winding up the rubes than it does with any real and legitimate issues.  

What is somewhat unique about this document is a series of legislative initiatives that they propose.

So, Just Who Is The Terrorist Here?

In 2014 in Canada, we have had several incidents involving people attacking various institutions and symbols of government.

Consider the following list:

January:  "GG"  Plans an attack on a Veteran's Affairs office in Calgary

June:  Justin Bourque shoots 3 RCMP Officers in New Brunswick

October:  Martin Rouleau hits and kills a member of the Canadian Armed Forces

October:  Zehaf-Bebeau shoots an unarmed military guard at the War Memorial in Ottawa

The two in October has been deemed "terrorist actions", the first two have never been called that.

Who	Gun	Explosives	Target
GG	Yes	Yes	Veteran's Affairs Office
Justin Bourque	Yes	No	RCMP Officers
Martin Rousseau	No	No	Canadian Forces Member
Michael Zehaf-Bebeau	Yes	No	Canadian Forces Member & Parliament

Looking the surface of these, I don't see a whole lot of difference between these various events.

The first two involved people who were upset with the government for various reasons, as did the last two.  The last two have been dubbed "terrorists".  What's the difference?  Oh, well, allegedly the last two were "converts to Islam" and had been "radicalized".

All four involve a great deal of anger with the government, and arguably 3 of the four involved ideological differences with the government.  The case of GG seems to be more of a case of frustration with Veterans' Affairs, although given the current government's "Veterans as Photo-ops" approach to Veterans' Affairs, one could argue that there is a causal connection.

In the story around GG at the very least we are talking about PTSD and Depression (both significant mental illness conditions requiring treatment).  Michael Zehaf-Bebeau is known to have sought help for significant mental health issues unsuccessfully.  We don't know enough about Martin Rousseau, although there are hints in the story of possible depression and the act itself seems to be more one of opportunity rather than anything planned.  Justin Bourque is a little harder to pin down on this front, and I don't think there's enough evidence to be certain about his mental health.

Objectively, three of the four cases reflect people struggling with potentially serious mental health issues that were largely untreated.

So, why are the cases of Martin Rousseau and Michael Zehaf-Bebeau dubbed "terrorism"?  Frankly, it's nothing more than an arbitrary connection of these people's religious affiliation.  Both men had converted to Islam somewhere along the way in their lives.  This is not a crime.  In Canada, the Charter of Rights and Freedoms guarantees that each of us has the right to follow whatever religion (or lack thereof) that we choose.

There had been much talk in the news about "radicalized" youth travelling to Syria to fight with ISIS in the months prior to the October events.  The events of this past October got dubbed "terrorism" because a couple of people who were arguably dealing with untreated mental illness happened to be converts to Islam. 

I'm not saying that there are not violent factions within Islam.  There unquestionably are.  However, mere association with Islam should not be seen as an affiliation with terrorism.  The individual acts of two men, both apparently suffering from serious mental health problems, should not be considered "terrorism" on the basis of their choice of religion.  Even if they had posted violent threats online, we have to consider those in the full context of their lives.

The use of the label "Terrorist" has become one of political expediency.  We need to be much more judicious in applying such labels.  As a public, we need to be even more skeptical of the motives of a government that uses that language about people who are now dead and cannot be objectively examined.

Kim Sung Harper

Wow ... just wow.  I never would have believed it if I hadn't seen it.  I still can't quite believe that it's being done in Canada, to Canadians ... at our expense.

It seems that Harper has found a use for the money that he is "saving" by shutting down research libraries across Canada and research funding:  His Very Own Propaganda Show.

On Thursday, Prime Minister Stephen Harper announced the launch of a new video series promising to keep Canadians “in the know” with a weekly ration of edited government updates to trumpet Tory achievements. 

With “The Maple Leaf Forever” playing in the background, the first episode of “24 Seven” features a highlight reel of the prime minister’s travels from Vancouver to Inuvik and the appointment of Canada’s new ambassador to Israel. 

Noticeably absent from the week's play-by-play is acknowledgement of the prime minister's run-in with climate change activists, crowds of protesters, and fresh criticism over claims the government is destroying Department of Fisheries and Oceans research.

Hmmm...the only governments that need to do that kind of propaganda are little tin-pot totalitarians.  Like North Korea's Kim Sung Un.

Harper is essentially trying to campaign for the next election at taxpayer's expense, and he's trying to avoid answering tough questions that Canadians rightly deserve answers to by trying to be the media himself.

Of "Porn Filters" and Agendas

Remember July this year, when Joy Smith stood up in Canada's Parliament and suggested we should follow the UK's example and implement a "porn filter"?

Well, Cameron's filter is about to go live, and as one might have expected, it's blocking a heck of a lot more than just "adult content" websites:

Included in O2's "parental control blocklist" are such hotbeds of hardcore porn as Slashdot, EFF, Linux Today, Blogspot, No Starch Press, OpenBSD, FreeBSD, and, of course,Boing Boing. 

A more complete investigation is here.

None of the sites listed above are exactly hotbeds of porn.  In fact, more worrisome is that in the list of "blocked sites" are civil liberties groups like the Electronic Freedom Foundation (EFF), and a stack of open source technology sites.

I smell an agenda at work here.  This isn't controlling access to pornography.  This is an attempt to control access to information and technologies that enable people to sidestep the government's surveillance programs, and access to information that could cause people to challenge the government.

The only governments that engage in this kind of activity are the totalitarian regimes that feel they have to control their citizens and fear access to information.

Now... Ms. Smith, would you care to explain to Canadians how this is a "good thing"?

[28/12/13 Update]
Someone has already built a Browser Extension to Chrome that bypasses the UK Porn Block.
[/Update]

Speech From The Throne

As expected, yesterday's Speech From The Throne was a mixed bag of feel good items and attempts to set political traps for future governments.

As expected Harper starts off by trying to brag about his economic record:

• Last year’s deficit was less than forecast. Our Government will balance the budget by 2015. 

  §  And it will go further. Our Government will enshrine in law its successful and prudent approach. Our Government will introduce balanced-budget legislation. It will require balanced budgets during normal economic times, and concrete timelines for returning to balance in the event of an economic crisis.
  
  §  Our Government has already set an ambitious debt-to-GDP target of 25 per cent by 2021. And it will reduce that ratio to pre-recession levels by 2017. 

• 
  

Oh ... the deficit was smaller than anticipated?  For those who had forgotten, Harper came to power in 2006 with the Federal Government in a budget surplus position (we were paying debt off in 2006).  By 2008, he had already spent Canada into a deficit position ... and that was before the financial crisis happened!  For Harper to claim a "reduced deficit" as some kind of an achievement is damning himself with faint praise.  

Remember Harper Muzzling Scientists? He's Doing It To Veterans Too

Under the Harper Government, we have been fed enormous amounts of propaganda pablum in the name of "Support the War in Afghanistan Troops".  The "highway of heroes" when our troops were being returned in pine boxes on a weekly basis; goodness knows how many photo-ops of Harper and Mackay on the tarmac in Afghanistan, and Harper wearing partial uniforms at various times.

You would think that the troops are some kind of privileged class under Harper.  Not so much, it seems.  In fact, if you manage to get yourself injured in the line of duty, the big old roll of duct tape gets dragged out and put across your mouth.

The Canadian Forces is requiring physically and mentally wounded soldiers to sign a form acknowledging they won’t criticize senior officers or discourage others in uniform with their comments on social media sites such as Facebook and Twitter. 

The form, given to military personnel who are transferred to the Joint Personnel Support Unit, was sent to the Citizen by military members upset with what they see as a threat to their right to speak out about the failure of the Department of National Defence and Canadian Forces to take care of the wounded.

Now, at first, you might think that this is little more than the usual private industry policies that basically state that criticizing your employer publicly can get you fired.  I have more than a few problems with those policies too - but there is a reasonable level of non-disclosure in the workplace.  I certainly wouldn't want trade secrets being revealed in public media, unless of course the "trade secret" is in fact a violation of the law.

This goes several steps further, and begins to sound a lot like the controls that Harper has used to suppress Canadian scientists who might say things that are in conflict with his political dogma.

The JPSU “policy on proper comments on social media” repeats well-known military directions not to post secret information on websites and other forums. It also tells military personnel not to make disparaging comments about senior officers or fellow personnel. 

But military personnel in JPSU are also told not to “write anything that might discourage others or make them dissatisfied with their conditions or their employment.” 

In addition, those in JPSU were told not to disclose “your views on any military subject.”The form, introduced in March, notes military personnel in JPSU will be held responsible for not only the content they post on social media outlets but also the content of their friends which they have “tagged” on various sites. 

Wait a second.  So, if a member of the JPSU (any injured veteran still enlisted, I presume) posts something, they can get disciplined?  But, worse, if someone they know posts something, the service member can be held accountable for that?  Excuse me?  In principle, that means that this blog could be used against any active members of the armed forces that I may be associated with.   This policy, like the "duty of loyalty to the elected government" letter sent to Parks Canada staff last year, is a gross abuse of legitimate rights.

Of course, what Harper wants us to do is revere his propagandized notion of the military, and not look too closely behind the curtain at how the troops are treated when they get home minus a limb or suffering from PTSD.

The Next Phase Of Harper's Attack On Informed Policy

Canadians have spent the time since 2006 watching their government move from informed policy making into the realm of sloppy, ideologically driven policy making.

Whether that is the cancelling of the long form census, or the closure of the Experimental Lakes Area facility, Harper has led Canada from being one of the most respected countries in terms of making fact-based policy to being the country leading the race to the intellectual bottom by cutting research funding consistently.

Statistics Canada says the federal government is expected to spend less on science and technology in the coming year.

The federal agency says spending for the 2013-14 fiscal year is expected to decrease 3.3 per cent from the previous period, to $10.5 billion. ...

Statistics Canada says spending on science and technology has been steadily decreasing since 2009-10. 

Statistics Canada says spending on science and technology has been steadily decreasing since 2009-10, and the Harperites are insisting that science research must be focused on commercial results.  A short-sighted view of research that ignores the value of fundamental research which often produces longer term gains, and one that means that research that is apt to be critical of industry (e.g. Tar sands environmental impact research comes to mind) is unlikely to happen at all because it is not "readily commercializable".

There are good reasons why research institutions like universities should be at arms length from both the governments and businesses that fund them.  In the last twenty years, we have watched businesses in particular cozy up to universities - sponsoring buildings and making large "donations with strings attached" contributions and so on.  The result has been an unprecedented amount of control over day to day activities in the universities achieved at the cost of academic freedom.  

While this is touted as "a great way forward", it undermines the principle that research should be objective and detached from the interests which may be funding it.  Instead, the results of that research end up as part of the corporate patent portfolio, and there is good reason to suspect that results that are "inconvenient" are suppressed.

Given the Harperite propensity for propaganda games (such as the "Economic Action Plan" advertisements), one can imagine that scientific results that are inconvenient to this government's ideology are being suppressed, and the funding for that research is mysteriously drying up.

Not terribly surprising from this government, but disastrous from the point of view of anyone who understands the value of objective research in the formulation of public policy.  Like their Tea Party brethren south of the 49th, the Harperites have their heads firmly embedded in the sand when it comes to facts.

July 1 BC Terrorists Arrested In Canada

On Canada Day, the RCMP arrested two people in Surrey BC on charges of "home grown terrorist conspiracy".

At first blush, I didn't think much of it beyond being "another nut job was stupid enough to get caught".  More or less, the story seemed to be of very little interest beyond being yet another example of ineptitude being crossed with a reasonably diligent investigation by our country's police force.

But then yesterday, we started getting stories about "how he became a terrorist", along with the media being allowed in to photograph the basement suite that the pair shared.

At this point, I started to get very suspicious.  First of all, it is very unusual for the media to be allowed in to photograph a crime scene - even after the police have done their initial pass through.  While speculative pieces about high profile criminals do show up in the media after a major event such as an arrest, I started to think that something was fishy about it.

The first part that got my attention was the revelation that the RCMP had been following this pair for an extended period of time.  

Police said the investigation has been ongoing since February but at no time was the public safety at risk and that the devices were “under RCMP control.”

The accused are Canadian-born, police said, and said they had no contact with international terrorist organizations but were “inspired by Al-Qaeda.”

Two things about this seem more than a little suspect, in my view.  First is the timing of the arrests.  It's quite clear that the RCMP knew full well what was happening, and further were allowing the plot to proceed forward while they allegedly were undermining the effectiveness of the explosive devices being created.  The second point is the fact that this gets publicized on Canada Day, and shortly afterwards, reporters are getting access to the accused's residence.

Arguably, the first point suggests strongly not only that the RCMP had plenty of opportunity to shut things down earlier than they did but also that they may have in fact been encouraging this pair to continue with their plans.  I'm no expert in the law as it applies to police investigations of this nature, but this does not seem entirely above board.  I wouldn't be at all surprised if part of the defence strategy is to claim that the RCMP engaged in entrapment of some form.

The sudden access to the rental suite shortly after the police have been through the property seems fishy as well.  Splashing a bunch of pictures around the internet showing an apartment full of the detritus of people's private lives ... after the police have been through the place ... seems not only sensationalist, but it also violates the fundamental tenet of assuming the accused is innocent until proven guilty.

Instead, it appears that the media has already convicted them even though their stories carefully use the language of "accused".

We already know that the Harper Government has been playing a propaganda game with Canadians on a number of fronts, including criminal justice and terrorism.  This entire story strikes me as having been timed quite specifically to scare Canadians so that they will be more receptive to legislation such as Toews' "Spy on Everybody" bill earlier.  While Bill C-30 is officially dead, it is no secret that the Conservatives want to introduce it in a different form sooner or later (likely buried in the midst of another omnibus bill where it cannot be fully debated).

The Attack On Science Continues

Scientists in Canada have rightly complained about the Harper Government's politicization of the communication of research results, whether that is stripping funding from the the Experimental Lakes Area or sending "minders" to accompany scientists attending conferences.

Well, the degree of politicization goes further.  It seems that when a lab found a virus in farmed salmon, they found themselves stripped of their reference lab status.

Kibenge is not alone in finding positive test results for ISAv in BC salmon.  Several other labs have reported the virus.
 

• Dr. Kristi Miller reports finding ISAv in farmed salmon on the west coast of Vancouver Island, Cohen exhibit 2053, and sockeye, Cohen Exhibit 2060
• Dr. Are Nylund reports positive ISAv test results
• Dr. Kyle Garver, Cohen Exhibit 2043, 2056
• Dr. Sonja Saksida -, BC Centre for Aquatic Health Services, reported ISA PCR positives to the CFIA in the farm Chinook salmon from Creative Salmon, Cohen Exhibit 2055.
• A 2004 draft paper coauthored by Drs. Molly and Fred Kibenge and Drs. Simon Jones and Garth Traxler (DFO) reporting 115 ISA virus positive results. These results demonstrate up to 99.7 per cent identity to an ISAv isolate from Norway. Sequence was produced. Positive samples included farmed Atlantic, wild salmon from Alaskan waters, throughout BC and Cultus Lake sockeye, Cohen Exhibit 2045, (See video – “DFO scientist suppresses positive ISA virus test results”)

Interesting, when the CFIA makes the following rather elliptical claim:

What exactly did Kibenge do wrong? Neither OIE nor CFIA will say exactly why they removed Kibenge’s OIE status, but they do make reference to non-repeatable results, which means the lab the CFIA is using isn’t getting the same results as Kibenge.
Do not seek and you shall not find
Nearly every lab that doesn’t have direct ties with either the government or salmon industry seems to be able to find at least segments of the virus. Meanwhile, every lab that has a vested interest in not finding the virus can’t seem to detect it.
It’s easy to not find this virus if you don’t want to. Here is why: If a virus is imported to a new country, it doesn’t stay the same for long. Influenza viruses like ISAv are known for their rapid mutations, which is precisely what makes them so dangerous.

If you use a PCR test that only reports an exact match as a “positive” you could easily miss the virus, since even a slight change will make it “invisible” to a probe that is looking for an exact sequence. Kibenge's lab was using a technique that was reading the sequences of the virus, rather than just using a probe that only reports an exact match of a very specific sequence. This is how Kibenge was able to pick up on viral sequences that contained slight variations of the virus, as well as fragments.

Hmmm...so you find different results than the government wants, and you suddenly find yourself stripped of credentials?  To paraphrase Shakespeare, something is rotten in Ottawa.

Think I am exaggerating?  Take a look at this e-mail from the CFIA:

This entire case is a clear example of the kind of politicization that the Harper Conservatives have been engaging in on all fronts.  They are enabling a large scale propaganda campaign to an extent which Canadians have never experienced before, and is drawn from some of the most oppressive regimes that this planet has ever seen.

If they are willing to politicize on this scale, it isn't hard to imagine that recent changes to passports in Canada represent something nefarious.

... oh yes ... Happy Canada Day

On Omnibus Bills and Budgets

For the last several years, the Harper Government has been pushing through the bulk of its legislative agenda as part of the legislation associated with what we would traditionally call a "Budget Implementation Bill".  (I would note that Harper doesn't call them "budgets" any more, preferring the more jingoistic moniker "Economic Action Plan" as part of his government's propaganda campaigns.

By definition, an omnibus bill is one that affects multiple pieces of legislation when fully enacted.  Most budget bills are a form of omnibus bill because they end up not only authorizing the overall expenditure of money by the government, but also make a myriad of adjustments to various laws related to the budget.  For example, the 2007 budget implementation legislation changed multiple acts - the Income Tax Act, the Excise Tax Act, Tax Back Guarantee Act, and others.  This is fairly typical.  In the case of budget implementation bills, they usually do affect multiple pieces of legislation and it makes sense to deal with them as part of a larger whole rather than bombarding parliament with a ton of smaller bills which deal with the individual changes to each act.

In 2009, the Harper Government introduced the term "Economic Action Plan" as a subtitle for their budget that year.  This is something of a turning point in Harper's approach to the entire process of parliamentary budgets and how they are communicated to Canadians.  The moniker of "Economic Action Plan" was used to label the projects associated with the economic downturn that had begun in 2008.

Since then, even though the spending related to economic stimulus is long since expired, Harper has continued to use the "Economic Action Plan" moniker as part of the ongoing propaganda campaign that he has been running to prop up his government.

The 2012 Budget Implementation legislation ( Bill C-38 ) took the concept of "omnibus" legislation to a new level, containing far more than legislation required to implement a budget, and instead making massive changes to implement more of Harper's policy agenda.

In particular, it gutted the existing body of legislation related to managing Canada's environment and implemented an entirely new regime:

Division 1 of Part 3 enacts the Canadian Environmental Assessment Act, 2012, which establishes a new federal environmental assessment regime. Assessments are conducted in relation to projects, designated by regulations or by the Minister of the Environment, to determine whether they are likely to cause significant adverse environmental effects that fall within the legislative authority of Parliament, or that are directly linked or necessarily incidental to a federal authority’s exercise of a power or performance of a duty or function that is required for the carrying out of the project.

Other writers have commented at length on the flaws and problems with this legislation.  I will only add that I am appalled by the degree to which the legislation moves decision making powers into the political sphere by enabling the "Governor in Council" to make key decisions, without accountability to either Parliament or process.  Traditionally, the ability of the government to make decisions via the "Governor in Council" mechanism has been limited to making decisions related to the essential expenditure of funds at times when Parliament is not sitting.  (e.g. to respond to an emergency of some kind)

Division 2 of Part 3 amends the National Energy Board Act to allow the Governor in Council to make the decision about the issuance of certificates for major pipelines.

This is part of a change of direction that places a great deal of power in the hands of the Cabinet, and in particular the Privy Council ultimately.

Harper has spent millions of dollars on his propaganda campaign to convince us that the "economic action plan" is a "good thing".

In 2005-06, Ottawa spent $41.3 million on advertising, a number the government has roughly doubled in every year since Stephen Harper took office in January 2006.

The Conservatives — who rode to power in part due to the Liberal sponsorship scandal and government advertising corruption — spent more than half a billion dollars, $548.6 million, on advertising through their first six years in office.

In 2010-11, Ottawa’s ad budget was $83.3 million, including almost $23 million on the Economic Action Plan. That was well down from 2009-10, when $136.3-million in total advertising included $53.2 million on the action plan.

Think about it.  While the government needs to communicate with the public, a steady doubling of expenditure is hardly a prudent use of taxpayer dollars, especially from a party which continues to insist that it is "a sound financial manager" for Canadians.

These are not supposed to be political ads. They feature no Conservative politicians. Still, they hardly feel like public-service spots. They aim to set a mood, rather than convey practical information. And get ready for more of the same on other key Tory themes. Under fire from the Opposition NDP for planning to gradually raise the eligibility age for Old Age Security to 67 from 65, starting in 2023, the government has budgeted $8 million for OAS ads. With Harper’s image as an economic leader tied so closely to streamlining approval of natural-resource projects, his government has $5 million earmarked for ads to promote that thrust. “The problem with this kind of advertising,” says Queen’s University politics professor Jonathan Rose, “is that it serves no public policy purpose.” 

Clearly, this is no longer about informing the public.  It is part of a planned propaganda campaign designed to keep Harper in power.

There are really two things going on in parallel here.

The first is the use of omnibus legislation in Parliament to overwhelm the legislative process and ensure that policy based on ideology is not adequately discussed in the House of Commons.  Everything that is said in the House is recorded in the Hansard and there is a clear written record of what every member has said.  When the legislation is so massive that it cannot be effectively analyzed, much less debated in the time limited fashion that Harper has brought in by invoking time limits on debate for his larger bills, it makes it far easier to ram through legislation which would otherwise be stopped by the howls of public protest even if the governing party has a majority.  (as happened with Vic Toews' "spy on everybody" act a year or so ago, which was allowed to quietly die on the backburner after citizens raised a fuss over it)  Along with other tactics such as the "manual on how to disrupt parliament" from 2006, we need to recognize that Harper is attacking the very underpinnings of our democratic institutions.

The second part of things is a propaganda campaign the likes of which Canadians have never experienced before.  Harper has reached into the toolkit used by just about every authoritarian or totalitarian regime in the last hundred years or so and pulled out the classic propaganda tools.  He is spending millions of taxpayer dollars not to inform Canadians of what the government is doing, but rather to misinform and misdirect us.  Although the EAP ads may not be overtly partisan, there is a myriad of subtle ways that it is.  The choice of colours for example, closely reflects the governing party's logo colours, carefully chosen wording, and the use of phrases like "The Harper Government" on press releases from Government Agencies are all means of reinforcing the association between these ads, government programs and the political party led by Harper.

In short, Canadian taxpayers are paying for Conservative party advertising.  These aren't campaign ads per se, but rather part of the ongoing "always in campaign mode" approach to governing that Harper adopted from the Bush II era Republicans.

We should bear in mind that Harper is unique in Canadian history.  Never before have we had a person in the PMO who is so strongly authoritarian in his approach to governance.  It is more important now than ever before to carefully evaluate everything that we see from this government and its allies and ensure that we corroborate from multiple sources.

More Cult Of The Harper

Now the Harperites are spending taxpayer dollars on partisan propaganda:

The massive TV and radio buy is shared among three federal departments for slick ads that began airing Jan. 11 and wrap up by March 31. The ads have been hitting some of Canada's priciest advertising real estate: the Super Bowl, the Oscars, and Hockey Night in Canada.

Human Resources and Social Development Canada has budgeted $14.5 million on three separate advertisements over nine weeks. The Canada Revenue agency is shelling out $6.5 million over 11 weeks, and Finance would only say its $5 million campaign runs during February and March.

All the ads link to the Economic Action Plan website which has drawn the ire of critics across the political spectrum for its partisan tenor.

The current run of television ads is also coming under fire, in particular a Finance department spot that features actors singing the praises of the Harper government's 2009 budget plan.

Uh huh ... so, we're paying how much for "The Harper Government" to tell us the wonders of the "Economic inAction Plan" ... on some of the most expensive advertising real estate in the country? Worse still, they're spending more on this propagand campaign than a major corporation will spend in an entire year of advertising in Canada:

Alan Middleton, marketing professor at York University's Schulich School of Business, called the dollars involved "huge."

"A major advertiser like Procter and Gamble wouldn't spend that within a year in Canada, it's that big," he said.

Annualized to about $100 million for a full year, "not even McDonald's and Tim Hortons spend anywhere near that."

More outstanding fiscal management on the part of "The Harper Government" ...

As SunMedia Mutates

... into being the official mouth organ of the Stephen Harper party, we find their editorial pages repeating the talking points out of the Stephen Harper Ministry of Truthiness.

Consider Michael Dent-Andt's defense of Bev Oda:

Harper knows this. He also knows, because he’s been around the block, that in the grand scheme Oda’s transgression was not so terrible. She was clumsy, not dishonest. That’s likely why he’s still protecting her.

Why just clumsy? Here’s where it gets interesting. For Oda is indeed being accused of lying to Parliament.

When she appeared before a Parliamentary committee in December, the International Cooperation minister insisted she had no idea who’d scrawled the word “Not” on her bureaucrats’ written recommendation to approve a $7-million grant to Kairos, a church-based, foreign aid group. Rejecting the grant reflected her own position and that was that, Oda said then. It didn’t matter who wrote the “Not.”

How utterly juvenile - a Minister of the Crown trying to evade responsibility for orders she later admits she gave by "not knowing" which member of her staff added the "Not" to those documents.

The cold, hard fact here is that she gave the order to amend the document in question, and whether she did the amendment by her own hand or not is irrelevant. She made the decision and then tried to avoid being held responsible for it - by playing silly little semantic games.

Ms. Oda no doubt acted based on party policy - and therefore likely as not on the instructions given to her by the Prime Minister's office. (As there is little doubt that nothing happens in the current government without the PMO's approval)

Or perhaps you'd like to consider Eric Duhame's stunningly stupid article trying to deflect attention away from the direct influence that Harper is allowing certain religious groups:

Unfortunately, as often happens with the Crown corporation, it betrays a leftist bias and demonizes the political right.

Last week, Enquete journalist Brigitte Bureau tried to scare us with her report about the privileged access some evangelical Christians might have to Ottawa’s inner circle of power.

Opposition to abortion and gay marriage are presented as proof of the progress made by some obscure religious leaders. The report implies a Conservative majority would recriminalize the first and abolish the second, but it does not mention that a strong contingent of Conservative MPs are clearly opposed to going back to both issues.

The fact is that we already know that there is a significant number of TheoCon$ in Harper's caucus (and arguably Harper among them). Harper's already shown that he will ram whatever he thinks he can through by bullying the opposition - and that's with a minority. Give him a majority, and there's good reason to suspect that he will do everything in his power to slam Canada's society back a good century or more.

The fact that he has allowed his backbenchers to promulgate legislation that is clearly aimed at subjects like abortion is a telling statement all by itself, especially in a world where the PMO exercises absolute control over everything that is said and done by members of the government caucus.

Neither Nadeau nor Radio-Canada mentioned, however, that last Sept. 4 the Bloc MP received the 2010 El-Hidaya plaque of appreciation from the Montreal Muslim Community Center, a centre described by Canadian Muslim author Tarek Fatah as “a hotbed of pro-Hezbollah activities in Montreal.” Hezbollah is classified as a terrorist organization by Canada.

Given his participation in a rally under the Hezbollah flag in August 2006, it is not surprising to see Bloc Leader Gilles Duceppe come back to that Radio-Canada story during his General Council last weekend while his party was officially reopening the door to a coalition with the Liberals and the NDP.

Ah yes, the standard CPoC tactic of deflecting attention away from the original point by trying to make someone else look as bad or worse. Nice try, boys.

It flabbergasts me to see how ready Bloc MPs — and to an even greater extent federal Liberals — are to denounce people of Christian faith in the Conservative party and use them to scare those of us who do not believe in God by telling us how they do not share our values and have a social conservative agenda, while at the same time they are caving in to the most radical elements of the Islamists in the name of political correctness, Trudeau’s multiculturalism or — less openly — a few thousand Muslim votes.

The real threat to the equality of women, gay rights and our fundamental Western values might not be the ones the publicly funded CBC is presenting us.

Oh yes, it's all about the muslims - of course, how silly of me. I won't even begin to address the underlying bigotry of that tactic.

Let's talk more bluntly about the matter. The issue that the Enquête show was really addressing was that of allowing any one religion have undue influence on the government of our nation. (and after suffering through the Duplessis years, Quebec has more reason than most to be edgy about any religion dominating politics)

I'm sure that in the coming months we can expect more of this kind of nonsense out of Sun Media publications, especially as they are clearly well on the road to becoming Stephen Harper's private propaganda source.

Could They Be Any More Blatant?

This business about Terrorism arrests (cue doomsday music) reeks of politics.

In the last little while, we've had the HarperCon$ prattling on about the "Russian threat", now terrorism has reared its ugly head? Hmmm...smells rotten to me.

It starts to really stink when we get the oh-so-wise Vic Toews urging people to spy on their neighbors.

Public Safety Minister Vic Toews’s pitch Thursday comes shortly after Mounties charged three Canadian citizens of South Asian heritage in connection with an alleged domestic terror plot.

He urged “all freedom-loving Canadians” to “be vigilant” against terrorist threats.

But the minister later singled out assistance from ethnic communities as key.

Asked to define what he meant by vigilant, Mr. Toews cited the example of Canadian Somalis, disclosing that this community – which is overwhelmingly Muslim – had recently brought suspicions regarding extremists to authorities.

“I think it’s that kind of vigilance that is absolutely necessary in order to deal with these kinds of problems,” Mr. Toews said.

Uh huh. I don't know about you, but this smells to me. Not only is it designed to stir up fear among Canadians in general, it deliberately makes "Others" out of visible minorities. If this doesn't scare you, it should. The last time we saw government propaganda of this nature, it was in WW II era - and it was used to justify some amazingly horrific acts on the part of both citizens and governments in North America; and it's well documented just how the Nazis used that same technique.

The "Why We Shouldn't Leave Afghanistan" Propaganda

In the last few days, there has been an upswing in media reporting on the consequences of western powers leaving Afghanistan before the country is stable. Perhaps we should be appropriately skeptical and wonder aloud if "stable" is a code phrase for having a nominally friendly puppet government in control?

Up first is Time Magazine talking about the horrors of what the Taliban does to women ... it's not pretty by any means. Cutting someone's nose and ears off for leaving a bad marriage is certainly abusive in the extreme - and it is particularly shocking to someone with a westernized sensibility about the world.

Then, as if to reinforce the issue of female subjugation, we get a little article about a mosque in Iran offering "temporary marriages". In western cultures we called these brothels in the not so distant past.

I'm not going to spend a great deal of time indulging my sense of outrage over the mistreatment of women in Iran, or Afghanistan, come to that. I think that these countries are all a good couple of hundred years behind the times when it comes to how they treat half of their population.

The real question that is in my mind is whether the "West" has any moral or ethical justification for attempting to intervene in Afghanistan?

The current war of occupation in Afghanistan has its roots in America's reaction to the events of 9/11/01. Ostensibly, the purpose was to go after Osama bin Laden and his allies within the Taliban-led government. While the Taliban government was overthrown, there hasn't been a great deal of success with hunting down bin Laden. (Not that this comes as any great surprise)

At this point in time, what we have appears to be a barely functional government in Kabul whose influence doesn't extend beyond that city. The rest of the country is being overtaken - province by province it seems - by a growing Taliban insurgency that is becoming more emboldened as times goes by. (An insurgency that seems to be fuelled by resources and advice from a supposed ally in the "War on Terror", I might add...)

While there is certainly an emotional case to be made for continued presence in Afghanistan, is there a reasonable moral or ethical case to be made for continuing an occupation that started a decade ago?

Morally, there's a certain obligation to "put things back together" after the invasion which toppled the Taliban government. However, anyone who thinks that the current situation in Afghanistan is a "rebuilding" exercise is fooling themselves. At best, this is buying time for a shattered Afghanistan military to be rebuilt. Anything that is done while western troops continue to "enforce the peace" at gunpoint is going to be seen with suspicion by the Afghan people - and rightly so.

Ethically, I just can't justify long term military control being exercised over a foreign country. At best it comes out as a power grab; at worst it's an attempt to impose our values on people whose context and experience have led them to different places. It seems the height of hubris and arrogance to think that once NATO troops leave Afghanistan that the situation will be substantively different than happened after the Soviets left. (and, if one looks through history, military occupations of that region aren't exactly sources of long term change in the society)

It might sound harsh, but I think Afghanistan will have to sort itself out. I do not see any reason to believe that continued intervention there will have any positive effects ... at least not within the next two or three generations ... and I don't think we can afford to occupy that country for multiple generations.

As The Sun Paper Chain Becomes The Ministry of Propaganda

Today's lead headline on the Calgary Sun reads Canadian jets repel Russian bombers, and provides us with an overly dramatic scenario of Canada's armed forces "repelling" Russian aircraft from the Arctic.

Except, that these are routine patrols which the Russians have conducted for years - as The Galloping Beaver points out, the Russians also notify the neighboring countries of their activity.

In other words, the ministry of propaganda is out once again to sow the seeds of fear in the population - and they'll do anything they can to fabricate an adversary. Since Canadians are tiring of the Afghanistan mess, the HarperCon$ have decided to try and resurrect the old soviet menace meme. (I'll give you idiots a hint - the soviet menace isn't exactly a viable threat these days either!)

Lies, Damned Lies and Lousy Research

I'm a little late coming to this story - others have covered it before me, mostly because I haven't had time to give it the analysis it so richly deserves.

Entitled Legalizing Deception: Why “Gender Identity” Should Not be Added to Anti-discrimination Legislation, this article from Catholic Exchange comes as no real surprise, given the utterances from Pope Ratzinger.

However, this article is sufficiently awful as to deserve being examined in some detail. Superficially, it almost appears to have been researched fairly well and only on closer inspection do the problems with the foundations become apparent.

Such legislation is designed to give legal protections to those who reject the sex they were born with and want to be publicly accepted as the other sex -– the so-called ‘transsexuals,’ ‘transgendered,’ ‘gender queer,’ transvestites, and others. Such persons deceive themselves, deceive others, and are being deceived by mental health professionals and surgeons. The public is being deceived by the media and activists into believing that so-called ‘transsexuals’ were born with biological problems that are remedied by surgery and that it is possible to change your sex.

As an opening thesis, this sets the tone for the rest of the argument - essentially it is the often used claim that the transsexual is "deceiving" others. It also takes a gratuitous swipe at the treatment professionals that assist transpeople with the challenges that they face.

Let's see what else they have to say, shall we?

One lie leads to another. A clearly male person presents himself in public as a woman. He has had surgery and hormone treatments to perfect his impersonation and he demands that we pretend this makes him a woman. He wants us to use female pronouns when speaking of him and to allow him to use the ladies’ restroom. He also wants to change his birth certificate and driver’s license. While some persons who present as the other sex are obviously not the sex they pretend to be, others are able to deceive their sexual partners without informing them of their true sexual identity.

Persons who present themselves in public as the other sex say they need such protections because they are afraid of violence. This fear is real. When someone is deceived — particularly in such a personal matter has the sex of an intimate partner or potential spouse — anger is an understandable reaction. Violent acts can never be condoned, but if such legislation is passed those who have been deceived will be denied any legal recourse and the deceivers will be portrayed as victims.

If one were to blithely accept the thesis that transsexuals are "deceptive", this tautology makes sense. However, that is precisely the kind of reasoning that the defense in the Angie Zapata case tried. This "blame the victim" logic is wrong - no matter the circumstances. It has been tried repeatedly over the years, whether we are talking about rape, gay bashing or trans bashing.

However, the author is just warming his audience up at this point, before delving into his attempt to render transsexualism irrelevant or invalid as a condition. To do this, he turns to a particularly debatable bit of hypothesis:

Some males are autogynephiles, who began in adolescence to engage in paraphilic transvestite fetishism. A paraphilia is a sexual attraction to something other than another person. In this case a man is sexually aroused by to the image of himself as a woman.

The whole notion of autogynephilia is the invention of Anne Lawrence and Ray Blanchard. I know that Anne Lawrence self-identifies as autogynephilic, and she has written extensively about the concept. Many in the transsexual community disagree strongly with the very notion of autogynephilia - especially as a broad diagnostic notion.

My own thoughts on the idea have undergone some changes recently. I don't accept the idea as describing all transsexuals - it may describe a subset of those who seek transition and surgery, but I doubt that it describes very many. However, as a conversation I had a couple of weeks ago revealed, the notion of autogynephilia should not be used to exclude someone from access to surgery, since the post-surgical results for these people is generally positive. In other words, even if a transsexual is autogynephilic, that is far from fully describing the situation that individual is dealing with. (This conversation was with someone in the research/treatment community, and he had some very interesting things to say)

Those who are obsessed with the idea of being the other sex often resist therapy. They refuse to look at the psychological reasons for their desires. Some mental health professionals, frustrated by their inability to treat this disorder and concerned about their clients’ obvious dysphoria, are willing to go along with this deception. They give in to their clients’ demands and recommend a surgical solution to what they as therapists know is a mental health problem. They deceive their clients into believing that a “sex change” is possible.

The “sex change” surgeons know they can’t change a persons’ sex, they can only create a non-functional appearance of the other sex, but they also know they will be well paid for their skill and so go along with the deception.

These paragraphs grossly malign the treatment professionals who work with transsexuals. It characterizes them as "giving up" or worse being in it "just for the money". This is a gross misrepresentation of a group of professionals who came up with the WPATH Standards of Care, which are so carefully structured to ensure that the right steps are being taken.

Transsexuals are not typically resistant to therapy, but transsexualism in general doesn't respond to the therapy techniques used for other conditions such as OCD. There's decades worth of evidence for this. One cannot even call it an obsession and be correct in understanding what is going on.

This is not atypical when someone writes about transsexualism without actually understanding the condition itself, or worse, has a political agenda firmly rooted in perpetuating ignorance.

Lawrence also points out that when autogynephiles are not accepted as the sex they want to be they can be vulnerable to narcissistic rage, which is defined as the “disproportionate, compulsive pursuit of revenge that seeks to obliterate both the offense and the offender.”[6] ...
If you want to understand the full potential of such wrath, consider the case of John Michael Bailey, whose book The Man who would be Queen provoked retaliation from a small group of persons who didn’t like being labeled autogynephiles. They used the Internet to make outrageous accusations against Bailey, attacking his children, trying to turn colleagues against him, and to have him fired from his job.[8]

Ummm...no. Attempting to connect two, dramatically unrelated topics in this kind of manner is beyond irresponsible.

First of all, Bailey was castigated for publishing a book based on arguably awful research.

The broad base of the transgender community is rightly upset by that book, and seriously question both the validity of Bailey's work as well has his motives. Far too many people who have read Bailey's book have concluded that it doesn't describe their experience of being transsexual to accept it as being even remotely descriptive of the condition overall.

Lawrence applies the following clinical description of narcissistic rage to Bailey’s opponents:

…need for revenge, for righting a wrong, for undoing a hurt by whatever means, and deeply anchored, unrelenting compulsion in the pursuit of all these aims… There is utter disregard for reasonable limitations and a boundless wish to redress an injury and to obtain revenge… The fanaticism of the need for revenge and the unending compulsion of having to square the account after an offense…The narcissistically injured… cannot rest until he has blotted out [the]… offender who dared to oppose him, to disagree with him.

Even if only a small number of autogynephiles are prone to narcissistic revenge, they could cause incredible harm to anyone who speaks the truth. They would see injury everywhere, file complaints, and institute lawsuits.

Has Anne Lawrence interviewed even a reasonable number of the people outraged by Bailey's book? That isn't a clinical description, it's conjecture. In this, I respect Ms. Lawrence's choice to defend someone whose work she respects. However, I do not think that it is even remotely reasonable to make such projections without actually doing some kind of sensible study of the people you are attempting to describe.

The laws adding “gender identity” to anti-discrimination legislation would allow men and women with serious psychological disorders, some of whom are prone to narcissistic rage and revenge to use the law to persecute business owners who are attempting to protect the privacy of customers in restrooms and locker rooms.

Oh yes, the "freak in the locker room/washroom" argument. This is nothing more than a sadly inadequate attempt to excuse discrimination and bigotry. While Ms. Lawrence has connected Narcissistic Rage to non-passing autogynephiles, I think that such a connection is at best debatable. I would like to see some population studies to investigate such claims. For now, I think it's important to note that the diagnostic criteria for Gender Identity Disorder make it quite clear that such a diagnosis should only be made in the absence of other significant disorders.

Further, most transsexuals are considerably better able to cope with adverse situations after transition than before. Also, the article is attempting to falsely characterize transsexuals as unstable and suffering from serious mental illnesses beyond their gender identity issues. Again, this is rarely the case, and the diagnostic criteria in the DSM IV TR safeguard against such situations.

And it gets worse. In some places, at age 11 these children who think they are the other sex are given puberty-blocking hormones so that secondary sexual characteristics do not appear. Then they are given hormones proper to the other sex, so that at age 18 they can be surgically mutilated. In other words, the entire educational, psychological, and medical establishment is conspiring to see that these children never receive proper treatment. There is no research on the long-term effects of these hormone treatments on developing the bodies and brain. Do we really believe that 11-year-old children have the judgment necessary to decide to permanently surrender their sexual identity and reproductive potential?

Worse? Obviously the author has no idea that the Endocrine Society has drafted treatment guidelines for transsexual persons - based quite strongly on the WPATH Standards of Care I referenced earlier.

... and yes, an 11 year old in the early stages of puberty (Tanner Stage 1 or Stage 2), may well have more than enough awareness of their inner gender being at odds with their body. Far too many transsexuals report awareness of something being awry long before any social gender awareness would have started to develop to ignore. While not all youth who experience cross-gender identity become transsexuals as adults, the interesting thing about the puberty stalling drugs is that once they are taken out of the picture, puberty can proceed normally (if a few years late, perhaps)

The interesting counter point is that even though a smaller fraction of childhood GID patients go on to pursue GRS as adults, the author has failed to note that by far the majority used to end up living as gay males. (At least in Dr. Richard Green's study). What would happen with these individuals if they had the option to transition during their formative teenage years? We do not know yet, but I suspect that we will find out in the years to come.

Sadly, the author of the column at Catholic Exchange appears to have gone out to find literature to support his preconceived notions about transsexuals, rather than bothering to educate himself about the topic as a whole. In doing so, his article rests almost entirely upon the heavily disputed works of Bailey, Blanchard and Lawrence.

To be perfectly honest, I would like to think that Anne Lawrence would be horrified to find her work being used in such a ham-handed manner to justify denying transsexuals protection from discrimination.

The HarperCon Propaganda Machine

In the world of politics, propaganda is nothing new. The way the Conservatives go about it adds a new dimension to the picture that Canadians should be wary about.

Now we find the HarperCon$ using public resources to buff their personal images on sources such as Wikipedia. Now, I don't have a problem with adding information or even putting in a legitimate counterpoint to criticism points on Wikipedia pages - deleting anything that's even remotely critical and replacing it with glowing praise smacks of the same kind of self-congratulatory propaganda that totalitarians around the world like to revel in.

Coming just ahead of an expected re-introduction of "Canadian DMCA" (legislation which would be a disaster if it ever gets passed) changes to copyright law, this is an interesting development. To me it suggests that the HarperCon$ are worried about this piece of odious crap - so worried that they will do anything they can to squelch controversy and discussion.

Perhaps in a move that tells us still more about the utter lack of honesty in the HarperCon government, we also find Flaherty talking about providing welfare to GM after GM announced that they would close a major truck plant in Ontario. Wasn't this the party that has argued so loudly in the past about the supremacy of the market? But then, the HarperCon$ are the same idiots whose "green car" subsidy applies to full size pickup trucks, but not to a Honda Fit with an Automatic transmission.

The National Post Is Becoming Wingnut Central

With the National Post now publishing Ezra Levant, it would seem that the degree of lunatic stupidity at the paper has increased dramatically.

This week's exhibit in the Not Getting It category is George Jonas.

Mr. Jonas is working himself into a lather over Human Rights Commissions, and like certain other journalists I have trashed before, such as Ezra Levant and Nigel Hannaford, however he achieves a new level of asinine stupidity with the following assertion:

Human rights laws and tribunals are based on the notion that being hired, promoted, serviced and esteemed is a human right. It isn’t. Being hired, promoted, serviced and esteemed is a human ambition. It’s a justifiable ambition, but still just an ambition.

Wrong. Just plain wrong. Statements like this come out of the world of shallow thinking and jingoism.

To illustrate: A Canadian Jew who won’t hire a Canadian German or Muslim is a fool. There’s only one fool worse: a “human rights” commissar who would force him.

Where individuals exercise lawful choices, human rights are protected. People’s motives are their own business. Most people aren’t morons. When left to their own devices in a free society, most will select whom to hire, promote, service, or esteem on the basis of enlightened self-interest, not prejudice.

There's a problem here, and Mr. Jonas is trying very hard not to mention it - it's called discrimination. Human Rights laws are built quite specifically to work against the kind of conscious, systemic discrimination that he's referencing indirectly.

I don't care if someone won't hire a given person. However, I do care if the reason that they won't is because of some pithy reason such as their ancestry or as Chris Kempling did, discriminate by denying service to someone BASED his moral objections to their sexual identity.

I do not necessarily think that all human rights complaints are necessarily valid, but I do believe that there is a concept of due process that is applicable. The Human Rights Commissions provide an entry point into that due process in much the same way that law enforcement agencies such as the police provide when a criminal matter needs to be addressed.

As for the National Post itself, they should be ashamed (along with the rest of the CanWest chain) for repeatedly publishing such amazingly stupid columns that keep repeating the same idiotic talking points. It merely serves to demonstrate that they are becoming a mouthpiece for wingnut propaganda machines, rather than acting as legitimate journalists should.

The Propaganda Machine Gears Up

In response to Denis Coderre's unapproved trip to Afghanistan, we find that Harper has mobilized his troops and sent ministers Oda and Bernier to Afghanistan to do damage control:

Foreign Affairs Minister Maxime Bernier contradicted all publicly available assessments of security in southern Afghanistan Sunday with a bold claim that insurgent attacks have decreased in Kandahar, leaving the province more secure for humanitarian work.

"The territory is more secure now today, here in Kandahar than it was a year ago," Mr. Bernier said. "Look just a year ago what happened, there were many attacks, and the attacks have diminished."

Okay, so a newly minted Foreign Affairs minister comes out and says something that blatantly contradicts the available evidence and analysis.

Meanwhile, more thoughtful analysis of the situation done by the UN tells us:

"The security situation in Afghanistan is assessed by most analysts as having deteriorated at a constant rate through 2007," said a paper by the UN Department of Safety and Security in August. That report showed violent incidents increased almost 25 per cent this year, although the authors noted that the figure may be conservative.

... and, just to make the point even more glaring:

Kandahar was among only three provinces listed in the United Nations report as places where the security situation has fallen into its worst category — "Extreme Risk/Hostile Environment" — across most of the province. This rating causes less accessibility to UN programs, the report notes.

These statistics fit with those collected by other analysts. The respected security firm Vigilant Strategic Services Afghanistan found that Kandahar suffered more anti-government attacks than any other province, in a tally of incidents from the beginning of the year to Sept. 30.

So...not only is Kandahar - where Canadian troops are working - descending into the pit of chaos, we also note that Canada's Minister of Foreign Affairs is contradicting every serious analysis of the situation.

Who are you going to believe - a minister who was obviously sent over to minimize whatever damage Coderre might do to Harper's lying BS on Afghanistan, or the world's analysts who seem to be amazingly unified in their analysis of the situation.