Go...

Somebody else has been tracking Harper's lies and recording them.

It's long past time to hold Harper to account for being terminally dishonest with the Canadian people.

Remember Justice Gomery?

He's the guy that wrote this report after the now notorious "sponsorship scandal".

For those asleep at the time, Stephen Harper got himself elected by promising to implement much of what Justice Gomery recommended (not all, granted, but a good deal of it).

Well, it seems that Gomery just became another thorn in Harper's side:

The overall goal was to reverse a growing trend — decades in the making — toward centralization of power in the hands of the prime minister and his inner circle, a situation that critics saw as an invitation to the abuse of power.

It was a goal that Mr. Harper appeared to share when he was in opposition, says Mr. Gomery. But since he took power “there's more concentration of power in the Prime Minister's Office than we've ever had before, which is quite remarkable in a minority government, but he's pulled it off.”

Mr. Gomery also points to the Tory failure to revamp the Access to Information Act to make it easier for journalists and other citizens to pry documentation from the bureaucracy.

“The government was saying at the time (of the report) that transparency was very important and that they wanted to improve transparency. In practice it's been an exact reverse.”

It's good to see Justice Gomery calling Harper's bunch out for their blatant hypocrisy since taking power. (and not doing what they claimed they were all about)

Secretive Stephen

Now Harper doesn't want to play "Dear Leader In Chief" any more. He wants the Military to do his dirty work for him - primarily so he can blame the bureaucrats when the political temperature gets too high.

“These are operational matters of the Canadian military,” Mr. Harper said as opposition MPs hammered the government for a second day in Question Period with accusations of excessive secrecy and mismanagement of the Afghan mission.

Of course, he was perfectly willing to brag about how we were turning detainees over to Afghan authorities for "justice". Then it became public knowledge just what that "justice" entailed.

The agreements with the Afghan government are political agreements - they don't just magically happen at some obscure level of the bureaucracy - the cabinet knows about them as they play across multiple government departments, and have the potential for some pretty serious consequences if mishandled.

The phrase "Operational Matters", like its equally mealy-mouthed sibling "Matters of National Security" is nothing more than an attempt to put up a political smokescreen. On a day by day basis, the disposition of captives is an operational matter. The policy around it is NOT - especially when even the US government is being more open about their handling of captives than our own is.

The government has been running about claiming that talking about such matters "puts troops in danger". Bull. The troops are already in danger - they are the foreign occupying force in another nation. Being secretive only gives space for rumours to grow and fester - here and in Afghanistan.

Once again, we learn a little more about how thin-skinned Harper really is, and how unwilling he is to own up to when he screwed up or a policy turned out to be truly wrong-headed.

We can guess just how forthcoming the DND will be about this matter - with the HarperCon$ having quite the track record for firing anyone they perceive to be a political liability, saying anything on record could be career-ending. (and yes, I think Linda Keen should sue this government's ass off - the treatment she has received at the hands of the Con$ is reprehensible)

This has been another installment in the "Truly Awful Government" file.

You Figure?

After a spate of reported fatalities involving the use of "Tasers", some went and tried to reproduce the phenomenon experimentally.

The team of doctors and scientists at the trauma centre in Chicago's Cook County hospital stunned 11 pigs with Taser guns in 2006, hitting their chests with 40-second jolts of electricity, pausing for 10 to 15 seconds, then hitting them for 40 more seconds.

When the jolts ended, every animal was left with heart rhythm problems, the researchers said. Two of the animals died from cardiac arrest, one three minutes after receiving a shock.

The findings call into question safety claims made by Taser International, the Arizona company that makes the stun guns, which are used by dozens of police departments across Canada.

According to Taser International's website, "independent medical and scientific experts have determined Taser devices to be among the safest use-of-force options available."

This doesn't come as any big surprise to me - we use several forms of electrical stimulation in medical circumstances to regulate the heart or to prod it into moving. It shouldn't be "news" that nailing the body with 50,000V (at near zero amperage) is going to have some kind of effects.

It has always struck me that saying the Taser is "safe" is misleading at best. Disrupting the body's nervous system has all sorts of interesting potential consequences.

As I said in an earlier post on the subject, the protocol around using Taser-like devices should be as stringent as that involved in the use of firearms. I can appreciate that there is a "time and place" for any tool, but recent months have shown us too many cases where the device has been used far too casually.

More Chalk River Fallout

Linda Keen testified today before the Natural Resources Committee. After the ridiculous amount of spin coming from both the PMO and minister Lunn, it was refreshing to hear someone speak out on the fundamental point behind all of this horsing about:

Ms. Keen said the risk of a nuclear accident without the backup system in place stood at one in a thousand –1,000 times higher than the international standard of one in a million, she said.
...
“Some have suggested that the chance of a nuclear accident was low and that the reactor was safe enough. Well, with respect, safe enough is simply not good enough,” said Ms. Keen, suggesting safety standards should be no different than those met by the Space Shuttle or a jumbo jet.

I've said this before, and I'll say it again - you do NOT play games with safety systems. EVER.

“Under the law, the commission did not have the authority to take the issue of isotopes into consideration,” Ms. Keen testified Tuesday, noting her mandate was solely to protect Canadians from a nuclear incident.

“Independence in regulating nuclear facilities matters. It matters because nuclear reactors are in communities where Canadians live,” she said. “They need to know that the commission will make its decision based on what's right.”

Sadly for the HarperCon$, Ms. Keen is right, the legislation that binds the scope of the CNSC does not provide the commission with the authority to consider topics such as the implications of the shutdown itself.

Three days later, she said, Mr. Lunn called again and told her what action to take.

Mr. Lunn has denied telling the independent commission what to do, but Ms. Keen was adamant: “There is no doubt we were being told what to do and when to do it.”

Lunn's denials don't square with the letter that Keen sent to Mr. Lunn in December. Somehow, in light of the number of times the HarperCon$ have been caught in outright lies, I think Lunn's denials are past their useful shelf life.

Ms. Keen said Parliament is supreme and its decision was not easy but “one appropriately made by the elected representatives of Canadians.”

Which, I've said repeatedly that Bill C-38 was in fact appropriate under the circumstances. (even though I disagree with restarting the reactor without completing the safety work that the license required 17 months or more previously)

Pope Ratz - Time Should Go Backwards

I'm sure that if the current Pope had a "time machine" in some vault underneath the Vatican, he'd happily use it to dial humanity back in time a few centuries.

While I think Gwynne Dyer has an interesting perspective on this Pope and his philosophical stance, I find it increasingly difficult to grant any merit to the Pope's utterances when he makes statements like "Man is not the fruit of chance or a bundle of convergences, determinisms or physical and chemical reactions".

The Pope reiterated a plea, made in many speeches since his election in 2005, for mankind to be "respected as the centre of creation" and not relegated by more short-term interests.

Uh? By what unholy arrogance would we possibly grant ourselves status as "center of the universe"? Not only have such statements of faith been demonstrably false every time they are made, there is considerable evidence to the contrary with respect to man's place within the biosphere of our little world. While we might well be the dominant species in terms of affecting our environs, the consequences of our manipulations keeps showing up in all sorts of ways.

Given our unique ability to change our environment to suit our needs, it should come as little surprise that we hold an increased responsibility to conduct ourselves in a measured way.

Scientific investigation should be accompanied by "research into anthropology, philosophy and theology" to give insight into "man's own mystery, because no science can say who man is, where he comes from or where he is going", the Pope said.

Dear lord, who does this man think he is? While individual researchers may be deeply focused in their fields, it's not like they are unaware of other disciplines and their relevance. What few scientists do is try to mix theology with science, however. Usually because it results in getting swatted around for sloppy reasoning (at the very least).

I'm amazed at the blunt thickness that this pope continues to exhibit. His perspective on all matters harkens back to the era when the R/C church still held sway over the leaders of the world's major powers.

Pope Benedict XVI has done more to attempt to dismiss the relevance of science than any of his predecessors in my memory. His image of science in general is deeply flawed and largely based upon supposition rather than actual understanding of the tension that exists by nature between faith and the school of rational thought that permeates much of scientific endeavor these days.

While one might claim that matters of faith are about "Truth"(™), there is a significant difference between a spiritual "truth" and the kind of "truth" that scientific research seeks. Sadly, this Pope seems more interested in repeating the monumental errors of the Church in centuries past.

Of Credibility and Agendas

I've said for a very long time that Harper's agenda isn't what he says it is publicly. In fact, it's pretty clear that he'll go to great lengths not to say what he plans. But, as Evilscientist points out, when the media start discounting the truthiness of your statements, you've got a serious problem:

Some news organizations gave little prominence to her remarks because they simply assumed them to be untrue. But at least one newspaper quoted her in a front-page news story.

Actions speak louder than words any day. Harper's actions scream at us that what he says and what he does are two very, very different things. In today's Herald, we find this little gem on Harper's stance on the death penalty:

The difficulty for Harper is that he leads a party that counts on a core group of supporters for whom reinstating the death penalty remains an important goal.

Gerry Nicholls, former president of the National Citizens Coalition, a conservative think-tank, says Harper is deliberately using the issue of clemency to send a message to this conservative base, without ever intending to bring the death penalty back to Canada.

"The whole capital punishment issue is a strong appeal to the populist wing of the Conservative party - mostly old Reformers," says Nicholls.

"The Conservative government has let conservatives down in a lot of areas and has not acted in true conservative fashion. Many of Harper's policies seem very Liberal, and this is causing some discontent in party ranks.

Ah - the "base" is getting restless. They do not crave power beyond its ability to enable them to impose their agenda upon the rest of Canada.

McTeague says whether Harper is simply sending a message to a wing of his party, or whether he's actually testing the water for a return of the death penalty in Canada under a majority Conservative regime, the party's equivocation on the execution of Canadian citizens is now clear for all to see.

"The proverbial horse had bolted the barn," he says. "The Conservatives have now said they accept capital punishment in certain circumstances."

"It casts a very dark shadow on the Conservative party. And it's another headache Mr. Harper will have to deal with in 2008."

There's a point here for the opposition parties to play on - not only is Harper's government dishonest, its actions speak to an agenda unspoken. Harper and team have lied to Canadians repeatedly - in words and deed, and Canadians are paying for it!

To borrow from the Conservative campaign slogan last election - Canadians Deserve Better Than This.