I've written about Kevin before. The young heroin addict I found shooting up on the door step of the Yaletown apartment I was renting, while taking a summer course in Vancouver.
How I felt like I was looking at somebody dying before my eyes. How he made me laugh when he promised to give up heroin and start a new life in Hawaii or Australia. If I gave him ten bucks or a few cigarettes.
How I stared in horror at the scars and abcesses running the length of both arms. How glad I was to hear later about this great clinic.
And how I hoped they had managed to save his life, and heal his addiction.
So naturally I thought of Kevin today when I heard the wonderful news.
I was so proud of our Supreme Court and the kind of Canadian values I want to preserve so badly.
The kind of values Stephen Harper and his Cons are trying to destroy. By putting their foul vengeful ideology before the lives of Canadians.
Mr Clement continues to insist that the science isn't clearly in favour of Insite. At the CMA meeting, he said: "Harm reduction, in a sense, takes many forms. To me, prevention is harm reduction. Treatment is harm reduction. Enforcement is harm reduction."
And bowing down before the crazy words of Great Ugly Leader, and his insane War on Drugs.
"This descent into nihilism... leads to silliness such as moral neutrality on the use of marijuana or harder drugs mixed with its random moral crusades on tobacco. It explains the lack of moral censure on personal foibles of all kinds, extenuating even criminal behaviour with moral outrage at bourgeois society, which is then tangentially blamed for deviant behaviour."
Can you believe that fascist gibberish? Who can be surprised that now that he has a majority he's trying to turn us into a prison state? When the madness was always there.
Oh well. One victory at a time.
Today was a good day to be a Canadian eh?
Here's to the poor suffering junkies of the Downtown Eastside, and the human war on drugs like heroin. Here's to more clinics like Insite all over Canada.
The fact that we will not be publishing this ad again represents a recognition on our part that publishing it in the first place was a mistake. The National Post would like to apologize unreservedly to anyone who was offended by it. We will be taking steps to ensure that in future our procedures for vetting the content of advertising will be strictly adhered to.
And I say good for them. I may not agree with just about everything the Post stands for, but I knew they were better than that.
And this is EXCELLENT.
The Post will also be donating the proceeds from the advertisement to an organization that promotes the rights of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgendered people.
Hey Bloater, homophobe, hog, BULLY...
Thanks a lot eh?
We can really use YOUR money.
The Lord works in mysterious ways.
Now shake your big booty you bigot bastard.
And sing along with me...
Gawd. I never get tired of that song. I wonder why?
Holy jumpin' Joan of Saskatchewan !!! I gotta give the Con wingnut Brad Trost some credit eh? Not only does he look FABULOUS in a dress. I hear he's declared a holy redneck jihad against Great Ugly Leader.
“The battle over the IPPF continues. Pro-Life politicians have been taught a lesson. The government only responds to Pro-Life issues and concerns when we take an aggressive stance. We will apply this lesson.”
Speaking to CBC's Evan Solomon, host of Power & Politics, Trost said the government should "take a position that's at least moderate, rather than the extreme left position that we're taking."
Look, I don't know whether bubbah Brad is an uber right-wing extremist, or mentally ill, or an idiot. Or all of the above.
But what I do know is that he is a real threat. And I wouldn't dismiss him as lightly as JJ does.
Because the fact is Stephen Harper and his Cons depend on their rabid zombie base to keep their war room dollars coming. They will depend on them even more when the subsidies to political parties are phased out.
And since Harper can't use the excuse of a minority government to keep them in line anymore, he will have to offer them more than just hope.
He will have to throw them some big juicy bones. And if not abortion, how about defunding the CBC? Like Trost demands on his website.
Because in that regard him and his Con zombies just got a big juicy down payment.
Heritage Minister James Moore wants to slash CBC’s budget by 10 per cent, The Huffington Post has learned.
Although a government decision is far from complete, Moore has discussed his wish to see the public broadcaster’s $1.1-billion allocation cut by ten per cent, sources said. Moore had earlier this summer suggested the CBC could face a cut of "at least 5 per cent."
Just a few weeks ago it was five per cent, then Trost began riling up the base, and now it's TEN. Or one hundred million dollars. Four years of that and the CBC will be lying face down in a pool of blood. Along with many other Canadian institutions that we love, but they hate so much.
Yup. Some Canadians are sleepwalking to disaster with their eyes wide open. But I'm not one of them.
I know the Con zombies are on the march. Looking for blood.
Harper will be forced to feed them, and his own demons.
Uh oh. Mayday. Mayday. It seems that Peter Dumbo MacKay is more of a frequent flyer on Air Taxpayer than even I thought.
Peter MacKay has racked up nearly $3 million worth of flights on the government's Challenger jets since assuming the role of defence minister in 2007, documents obtained by CTV News reveal.
And the worst part? When his office was asked about it YESTERDAY, this is what one of his flunkeys said:
"In approximately 50 per cent of the total challenger flights minister MacKay has taken, he has taken these flights to attend the repatriation of fallen military personnel," spokesman Jay Paxton told CTV News in an email.
When in fact:
Documents show that out of 35 flights, only nine were for repatriation ceremonies. In fact, many of the flights were for press conferences and political announcements.
And the best news? When Stephen Harper was asked about this airborne scandal TODAY, he also lied.
He invoked fallen soldiers in defending his minister, saying half of Mr. MacKay’s flights were to attend repatriation ceremonies where the remains of dead troopers were returned to Canada.
“Half of those flights are for repatriation ceremonies so that he can meet the families of those who have lost their loved ones in the service of this country. He goes there to show that we understand their sacrifice, we share their pain and we care about them,” the Prime Minister said.
The latest problems emerged when the ethics commissioner Mary Dawson said it looked fishy that MacKay took a private vacation at the Burnt Rattle fishing camp, which is reportedly partly owned by the chairman of a Crown corporation that runs passenger and commercial ferries between Newfoundland and Nova Scotia.
Oh no. Poor Dumbo. First he lost the PC party, then he lost Belinda, then he lost Afghanistan, then he lost his credibility, then he lost his ethics.
And now he'll probably lose his job, or be grounded, for making Great Ugly Leader look like an IDIOT.
Because I can only imagine the ghastly scene in the PMO tonight. Great Ugly in a rage, rolling on the floor, biting the carpet, and screaming: "I know I'm now the Dictator of Canada but didn't ANYONE read yesterday's press clippings !!#&#!
In fact, I understand the atmosphere has become so unbearable, that Harper's kittens... the ones he keeps in a drawer in his office for use during photo-ops... have heard how easy it is to rent an executive jet.
And they're desperately trying to escape...
Before Darth Harper force feeds them MacKay's liver.
Seriously eh? We always knew they were incompetent, ridiculous, dangerous, and definitely fishy.
As you know I hate bullies of all stripes. From Stephen Harper and his thug Cons, to those who bully children for being different or gentle, to those who beat helpless old people in senior's homes.
So you can imagine how I feel about those who bullied and assaulted a disabled boy and drove him to suicide.
“He was never the same after the mugging,” said Mitchell’s father, Craig Wilson, who found his son’s lifeless body on Sept. 6 — a plastic bag tied around the young boy’s head — when he went to wake him up for what would have been his first day of Grade 6. “Ultimately it shattered his life.”
Or how I felt when I read what his grandmother had to say today.
“He said to me, ‘Mimi, my biggest issue is that I can’t protect myself, and if a man cannot protect himself, then he is not a man,’” recalled Ms. Wilson.
I wondered why a gentle child would have to become violent to live in a place like Canada. And then I discovered this.
Among the other findings, 45 per cent of all the Canadian youths in this survey agreed with the statement that “to be a man, you need to be tough.” That compared to 13 per cent in the U.K. and 26 per cent in Rwanda.
And it explained so much. Why we have bullies in our parliament, so many goons on our hockey rinks, and why we don't take bullying seriously enough.
For the record, I was a gentle child who was forced to become violent, or take martial arts, in order to survive. And although I did get a measure of revenge, what I can never forgive the bullies for is forcing me to be someone I was not.
Because boys should not be forced to conform to such narrow old-fashioned gender roles. And neither should girls.
The report, released Thursday by the development agency Plan International, found 31 per cent of Canadian boys aged 12 to 17 believe a woman’s most important role is feeding her family and taking care of the home.
They should just be who they are.
Which just happens to be the same message another gentle boy left behind before some anti-gay bullies drove him to suicide.
A YouTube message to his hero Lady Gaga, which one of her so-called little monsters, covered with pictures, and turned into a humble tribute...
And at a concert three days ago in Las Vegas, Lady Gaga added her own...
As if his foul crime bill wasn't bad enough, an insane attempt to turn our Canadian justice system into a carbon copy of the one that has failed so badly in the United States. Even as the crime rate goes down.
As if it wasn't a brutish attempt to harness the politics of fear, turn us into a prison state, and shove Old Testament justice down our strangled throats.
The additional dozens of proposed laws will have similar extraordinary cumulative effects upon the budget. Why, then, is the government determined to stay the course? It appears to be acting solely upon belief and ideology — the discredited notion that more incarceration in nastier conditions will solve the crime problem. Additionally, there is an Old-Testament vindictiveness in the approach which even victims of violent crime do not always support.
Now Stephen Harper and his Con gang are trying to rush it through Parliament, so we can't debate the costs, or the effects it will have on our justice system.
Passing the legislation within 100 sitting days was a Conservative campaign promise and Justice Minister Rob Nicholson says he intends to deliver - sensibilities be damned.
Ramming a controversial omnibus bill through Parliament even though Harper once had this to say about such tactics.
We can agree with some of the measures but oppose others. How do we express our views and the views of our constituents when the matters are so diverse? Dividing the bill into several components would allow members to represent views of their constituents on each of the different components in the bill.
But that was then, and now is now. Now he has a majority and he thinks he can do whatever he likes. Even turn Canada into Amerika. With wars, prisons, guns, God, fear, and flags.
Three months before he died the great James Travers warned us about the man and his politics of fear.
Fear is always a powerful political force. In times as nervous as these it becomes the next best thing to a doomsday weapon.
What Travers didn't live to see is the ugly, frightening, spectacle of a Prime Minister with a majority using Parliament like a door mat, and fear to RULE. And thank goodness for small consolations, because that great Canadian would have been so disappointed, and so horrified.
But his message remains as alive for me, as it was back then, before The Great Darkness descended upon us like some fascist apparition out of the anus of Teabagger Amerika. And started choking the life out of this country.
And for me that message is, never was there a Prime Minister so low. Never was there one so DANGEROUS.
And I'm sure now that we are living the nightmare, the great James would have approved of this message:
However long and hard the struggle, we will unite, we will organize, we will defend our democratic values. We will stop the madness.
I don't think I've ever been so ashamed to be a Canadian as the day I saw this video of CSIS agents interrogating Omar Khadr.
The sound of Omar sobbing "help me...help me" in that ghastly gulag, when he finally realized that those Canadians weren't there to help him, practically froze the blood in my veins.
A shame only made worse by the knowledge that most Canadians didn't give a damn. Because they hate his crazy family eh? Even though he WAS a child soldier.
So I'm glad that two Montreal film makers have made a documentary out of it...
What we see is a blurry, black-streaked box, the faces of Mr. Khadr’s Canadian interrogators hidden behind cartoonish smudges. This gives them a disturbingly jaunty look as they fiddle with an asthmatic air-conditioner and proffer cartons of fast food, their fake bonhomie soon descending into psychological cruelty.
In the film’s most powerful section, Mr. Khadr (now 25 and serving an eight-year sentence after a 2010 plea deal) begs for protection and cries out for his mother while the observers join him on screen, watching his torment as if they were members of a celestial jury.
What they are really doing, however, is bearing silent witness to the repudiation of due process and the basic indecency of treating a legal minor as an adult enemy.
Because I couldn't say it better than that. Or this.
Watching this documentary, we are compelled to consider who we are as a people if our Constitution fails to protect those who, ostensibly, seek to destroy us. Cycling through outrage and then grief, as Omar Khadr abandons his expectations for justice, viewers of every political stripe will understand that the rule of law is the last thing we should ever abandon.
And I only hope it wins an Oscar. So the whole world will see what Stephen Harper's Cons have done to the rule of law, and what kind of a country Canada has become.
Human rights experts want to know why a mentally ill Canadian citizen sat in a secretive U.S. detention facility in Afghanistan for eight months without a consular visit, and more than 18 months behind bars in total.
OK. So today probably isn't the best day to defend the CBC. Not when I went to watch Question Period this afternoon, and discovered that their noisy news network was covering the trial of Michael Jackson's doctor instead.
Gawd. Where's the propofol, or the so-called milk of amnesia, when you need it eh?
The Conservatives are calling on some of the CBC's harshest critics and competitors to testify about the broadcaster at a parliamentary hearing on access to information.
Some of the witnesses requested by the Tories include Sun Television/Sun Media pundits Ezra Levant and Brian Lilley, and the president of their parent company Quebecor, Pierre Karl Peladeau. Quebecor's television networks compete directly with the CBC for viewers in Quebec.
Because is this a hearing or a LYNCHING? And since when is anybody who works for Fox News North considered a journalist? I mean I know if you give a monkey a typewriter, and enough time, it can theoretically write the complete works of William Shakespeare. But I bet the Sun monkeys couldn't.
On the other hand, I do see the bright side eh?
Lezra should look FABULOUS...
And so totally ridiculous, Dean Del Mastro will have to turn up in a tutu if he wants to be noticed.
You know...why IS his organization in bed with separatists and former FLQ terrorists? Why IS a private company getting OUR hard earned tax dollars? Allo police?
And as for Pierre Karl Peladeau, he might finally be forced to answer the most embarrassing question of all: Did Quebecor really create a network for the sole purpose of destroying another?
So it can have total control of the Quebec media, or even MORE than it has now.
Hmmm....I think I change my mind eh? This could be the most entertaining lynching EVAH.
And who knows who could end up looking REALLY bad? Apart from the McCarthyite Cons.
Hey Del Mastro !!!! Fetch me a pizza...or a poll. After you put on you tutu.
On a beautiful early fall day like this one it's hard to believe that bad things can happen in Canada.
But when I see what the Cons are doing to our country, trying to turn us into a prison state, or leading us to financial disaster in the name of their foul ideology.
There are so many things wrong with our national picture these days, from empty swagger to lost compassion to a tragically eroded sense of international diplomacy, that it is no longer even recognizable. It is a picture that now looks not only mean, but stupid.
The tragedy here is that a good country is being steadily turned into a bad joke. And that is nuttiness at its most disturbing.
As I've said before I don't really want to discuss the NDP leadership race until all the candidates have declared, and I've heard what they have to say.
But since Brian Topp seems to be leaving the impression that The Force is with him because he's smart, which he is, and ...um...a good backroom boy.
Even though he's not elected, there's no guarantee he will be elected, and he's to put it politely, charismatically challenged. Zzzzzzzzzz.
And since Dr Dawg is touting Paul Dewar because he is a nice guy.
In an earlier post I noted Paul’s disarming debating skills—as in this video, wherein he easily bests Conservative pitbull John Baird, but with infectious good humour, not angry confrontation.
That’s the sort of thing that makes older Canadians wish they had a fine, well-mannered son like that. Paul’s style hearkens back to the civility that Canadians used to take for granted, inside the House of Commons and in everyday life.
Even though he's not bilingual. And we've all seen how nice guys fare with the Cons:
Hey Baird !!! Stop chewing on Dion's tongue, or hogging his liver, and pass me his private parts !!!!
I thought I could and probably should contribute a small measure of reality.
The Angus Reid Public Opinion poll released Friday shows that 28 per cent of Canadians would cast a ballot for the NDP if Mulcair (Outremont) were leader, with 52 per cent of Quebecers saying the same.
Twenty-five per cent of Canadians would vote for the NDP if it was led by veteran party strategist Brian Topp, with only 31 per cent of Quebecers on board.
Oh sure, I know it's only an online poll. But this too I know: Thomas Mulcair may have his flaws, but he is the best Parliamentary fighter I have ever seen... in both official languages.
I have seen him disembowl one Parti Quebecois cabinet minister after the other in the National Assembly, and serve him or her up steaming hot, with apples in their mouths. So who knows what tasty dish he could make of Stephen Harper and his Cons? Or what fine wine he might serve with that hog stew? Mmmmm...YUMMY.
Although I do know that if there is the slightest perception that the gangbang against Mulcair is an anti-Quebec thing, or that English Canadians are preparing to turn their backs on Quebecers again. NDP support in that province will be back where it once was, quicker than you can say Jack or Tabarnac.
The way I see it, since none of the progressive parties can do ANYTHING to stop the Cons from implementing their reactionary policies. Or as we say in Canadian, do fuck all about it eh?
The mission of any progressive leader, NDP or Liberal, man or woman, is to DESTROY the Cons up until the moment we can flush their soggy remains down the toilet.
Together.
Anything else is just a delusion. Anti-Quebec feeling is already poisoning this country, it should not cloud our judgement.
The NDP doesn't need another saint. It already has one.
I always knew that Stephen Harper would eventually turn this country into a prison state, as sinister as the man himself.
I always knew that his American-style plan to jail even more Canadians flew in the face of reason.
“We’re not governing on the basis of the latest statistics,” federal Justice Minister Rob Nicholson said this week. “We’re governing on the basis of what’s right to better protect victims and law-abiding Canadians.”
Think about that statement. Statistics are facts compiled by people who are expert in compiling them, such as those who work for Statistics Canada. And the facts are clear: Crime rates are going down.
Yet, in the face of this factual/statistical evidence, the Harper government acts as if crime is going up.
But if all that is deeply disturbing and incredibly scary, this is simply madness.
“This is, to my knowledge, the largest expansion since the 1930s,” said Matthew Yeager, a penology expert and criminology professor at the University of Western Ontario in London, Ont. “This huge building campaign represents the Americanization of Canadian corrections.”
“Any time you spend billions of dollars to build American-style fortresses, you are making a statement about where you think we should be spending our correctional dollars,” Prof. Yeager said. “We’re putting all our marbles in the American model.”
An American model that has failed so catastrophically, state governments all over the U.S. are desperately trying to undo the damage caused by draconian sentencing policies.
They don't work, they turn prisons into schools for criminals, they brutalize societies, and they bankrupt governments.
So why is Stephen Harper doing it? Part of the reason is, as Simpson says, the need to satisfy his rabid bloodthirsty base. Another reason I believe is because he just can't help being vindictive. It's in his genes.
But I also can't help noting that the last time we built so many prisons was during the Dirty Thirties, when misery gripped the land, poor people suffered without a safety net, and revolution was in the air.
Stephen Harper knows that his reactionary teabagger policies will produce the same result, so if he can't find the invisible criminals, he will fill his jails with trade unionists or demonstrators. And if provinces are forced to choose between funding prisons or medicare so much the better.
Because this isn't a plan to fight crime, it's a plan to dismantle Canada and turn it into Amerika.
This is truly frightening.
Even scarier is Mr. Nicholson’s assurance that “this is not the end; this is just the beginning of our efforts.” He promises that “we’ll introduce other legislation as well.”
And the message couldn't be clearer. Unless we put our petty partisanship aside, unless we unite, organize, and take our struggle to the streets by the THOUSANDS.
We will wake up one day, in a jail cell, in a country we don't recognize...
I have never understood why the Cons hate the CBC so much. Why the grotesque teabaggers at Fox News North spend so much time hissing and spitting at it.
Or why senior Con operatives use CBC hate to whip up their rabid supporters, and squeeze their wallets or their smelly piggy banks.
A Conservative fundraising letter described as “very, very important” to the government’s legislative plans dangles the prospect of CBC spending cuts in a bid to raise money from party supporters.
It's so weird, so creepy, so batshit crazy, so deeply disturbing.
I mean why would they threaten and attack a great Canadian institution that can't properly defend itself? Who are these supporters? And why do they hate Canada so much?
And sadIy I can only conclude that the reason Cons do what they do, is because they are such ghastly bullies.
What else could explain why they terrorize the civil service, or demonize their opponents? Or why they hate women so much they would deny them health services.
What else could explain why they want to put even more Canadians in in jail, or punish them for smoking marijuana? Even as the crime rate is going down.
And of course, who could ever forget or forgive what they did to poor old Rémy Beauregard?
For years I have tried to understand what makes so many Cons such horrible bullies. Is it nature or nurturing? But all I can conclude is that they are just twisted people, who enjoy inflicting pain on others. Just like their weirdo leader does.
Which is a depressing thought. So depressing that sometimes when I think of what we're going to have to do to make our country clean again, I feel like giving up. Or smoking a joint to try to forget I'm living in Con Canada eh?
But that never lasts long. Because then I read things, or see things like the following anti-bullying video that will be played at a University of Michigan football game this weekend, and I feel a lot better.
Because it's really quite simple...
We are not just better than them, we are MORE than them.
So huddle up everybody. If we unite, if we organize, if we take to the streets and let them know what we think of their ghastly bully games.
The other night I wrote about the tragic story of Jamey Rodemeyer, the 14-year-old boy from Buffalo, New York, who was bullied to death for being gay.
So I'm glad to see that the bullies may be held accountable.
Police are looking to bring criminal charges against three or more teens following the suicide of a 14-year-old who had been bullied for being gay.
At least three teens are said to be of particular interest to police and may be charged with hate crimes, harassment or cyber-harassment following the tragic death.
Because bullying is a hate crime. And I don't believe bullies can ever be punished enough.
It's such a sad story. So tragic in so many ways. And one of the things that moves me the most was how Jamey thanked Lady Gaga before he killed himself, for giving him the strength to endure, until he couldn't anymore.
On Saturday night he posted a lyric from Lady Gaga's song The Queen on his Facebook page which said: 'Don't forget me when I come crying to heaven's door.'
On 1.30am on Sunday morning, he left two final messages on one of his blogs saying he was looking forward to seeing his great grandmother, who recently died, and one as a tribute to Lady Gaga, thanking her.
Golly. I went down to the farm this afternoon to check with my financial advisers, after hearing about this horrible meltdown.
But when I got there I discovered little Jimbo Flaherty had beaten me to it. Because he's DESPERATE for any kind of advice. And who can blame him eh?
He didn't see it coming, he doesn't know what he's doing. And now he's reduced to jumping up and down and screaming like a tiny banshee.
"As you can see, the markets are reacting," Flaherty said, alluding to Thursday's plunge on global stock and commodity markets. "There's a need for an exercise of political will -- a political decision making in Europe."
Can you believe it? Trying to blame the Europeans for HIS mistakes. Because let's be clear. The Europeans have all of us fastening our seatbelts wondering which country is going to hit the ground first. And what's going to hit us a souvlaki or a pizza pie.
But little Jimbo's fatal error was putting all our eggs in one basket. He turned us into a nation of hewers of rocks and drawers of oil. He allowed the red hot market for commodities to destroy our manufacturing industries. Instead of using the stimulus money to diversify our economy, and create new green jobs, him and his Con gang used it to build gazebos, and BUY votes.
And he forgot what even my feathered advisers know. When it comes to commodities, what goes up, ALWAYS comes down...
(click to enlarge)
And now we're ALL screwed.
Oh boy. If I wasn't so scared of being poor, and never being able to afford a fancy iPad, I'd be really worried about Jimbo. I fear he's blowing so much hot air out of his tiny pie hole he might just EXPLODE.
I think it's about time Dumbo MacKay picked him up and took him on a little vacation training mission.
Holy Flying Ravioli God. Now we know why those fancy jets are going to cost so much. They have to have two seats instead of just one. One for the pilot and the other for the cabinet minister or the general. And a baggage compartment big enough for golf clubs and fishing rods.
Gawd. Who knew the Cons could be so incompetent and so corrupt so soon? Who knew so many Canadians could be so stoopid as to vote for them?
And will they please identify themselves, by tattoing a big scarlet "D" for dumb on their cro-magnon foreheads? So we can shun them, try to prevent them from reproducing, or throw goose eggs at them in the streets.
Or better still...how about we line them up? Get a humungous skipping rope.
And see if they can beat these jumping doggies...
Golly. They're so dumb I bet they could. And wouldn't that be great eh? Then Stephen Harper and Jimbo Flaherty could puff out their chests, and strut around like geese squawking "We're number one !!!" And for once they wouldn't be WRONG.
Yup. Con times are hard times. And these are going to be brutal. But there is some good news.
We can use the coming recession to unite the left and destroy the Con brand. Grind them down and humiliate them.And when the next election finally arrives, or they're forced to resign, they'll be gone for a GENERATION.
Hey. The way I see it, if it takes a brutal recession, or a meteorite hit, or the sight of hundreds of thousands of people marching in the streets, if it helps drive those incompetent, ideological maniacs from power.
Well so much for Mother Harper, the friend of women and children. He will fund Planned Parenthood. But only in countries where abortion is illegal.
International Co-operation Minister Bev Oda has decided to approve a proposal by the International Planned Parenthood Federation to provide sex education and contraception in five developing countries. The funding is worth $6 million over three years for Planned Parenthood to work in Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Mali, Sudan and Tanzania, where abortions are illegal except in cases where the mother's life is at risk.
So if you are a poor woman who doesn't live in one of those countries, you're out of luck. And so are your other children because they'll have even less to eat.
And why is this happening? Blame it on his bubbah base, and Harper's Bachelor Club.
His new Chief of Staff Nigel Wright, and the reactionary Catholic cabal.
Wright was managing director of Onex Corporation before coming to Ottawa. His business background and the svelte figure he cuts in a tailored suit have led many observers to assume he’s an old-style Bay Street Tory with no particular interest in social matters. Big mistake. “He’s an Anglo-Catholic,” one former Hill staffer notes. “There’s a certain cabal in our government of Vatican II rejectionist Catholics,” which includes, but isn’t limited to, Kenney and much of his own ministerial staff.
“Let’s put it this way,” the former staffer said. “Nigel is not going to pick up the phone and berate a minister for being too right-wing. That will never happen.”
Theocratic conspiracy? What theocratic conspiracy?
Didn't the song say we're making plans for Nigel? Not the other way around.
Nice of the MSM to warn us FOUR months after the election. Does anybody seriously think they won't introduce a "backbencher's bill" to "regulate" abortion? And one to bring back the death penalty.
Hey. You get what you don't vote for. Never were Canadians so stupid.
I'm proud to say I've never believed anything little Jimbo Flaherty, the one-time King of the Mole Hill, had to say about ANYTHING. But his recent behaviour leaves me wondering whether he's gone completely batty.
The stock market is tanking. The dollar is diving. Food prices are soaring. The IMF has just downgraded the Canadian economy.
So what is the nasty little Con gnome doing? Stubbornly insisting that slashing the deficit, lowering corporate taxes, and killing jobs is the best way to save the economy. While paying some fat cats $90,000 a day to draw up a list of those who must be thrown into the street.
The Finance Minister went on to quote some of the IMF’s more flattering adjectives, but then Bob Rae was up noting that the same report had suggested this country had some flexibility to deal with economic malaise. And now Mr. Flaherty was growling and snarling about Mr. Rae’s handling of the Ontario government in the early 1990s.
“What we would not do is run the Government of Canada like the member opposite ran the government of Ontario,” Mr. Flaherty declared. “He ran the province of Ontario into massive debt and deficits from which that province is still trying to recover.”
When in fact Rae was just trying to mitigate the effects of a brutal recession. And the guy who did the real damage to Ontario was Jimbo himself.
When as a member of Mike Harris' thug government he tried to kill government, just like Stephen Harper is trying to do, and ended up creating more poor and homeless people than that province had ever seen since the Dirty Thirties...
So many homeless people that Jimbo wanted to JAIL them.
Sound familiar?
Why do you think they are building all those prisons when the crime rate is going down? Answer: because the Cons know they are going to create so many poor people, there won't be enough shelters to hold them.
Oh boy. I wish I could jail all those cretins who voted for the Cons because they thought they were good money managers. The drooling brain damaged IDIOTS.
So what can we do about it? Take to the streets by the THOUSANDS and let those Cons know that we're not going to take their ideological nonsense. Before the price of food goes up so much, we're too weak to march eh?
Which is no doubt what the Cons are counting on. While they stuff their fat faces with caviar.
In the meantime, if you need a temporary boost, and you want to see the world like Batty Flaherty.
May I suggest you try looking at it like he does...
Or better still call Batman.
Because with these criminally incompetent Cons in power.
Jamey Rodemeyer was a 14-year-old boy who lived in Buffalo, New York. He was relentlessly bullied because he was gay. He cried out for help online for months.
On Sept. 8, he wrote: "No one in my school cares about preventing suicide, while you're the ones calling me [gay slur] and tearing me down."
On Saturday night, he posted a lyric from Lady Gaga's song "The Queen" on his Facebook page: "Don't forget me when I come crying to heaven's door."
Then around 1:30 a.m. Sunday, Jamey posted two final messages to his main public Tumblr blog. One said he really wanted to see his great-grandmother, who had recently died, and one offered thanks to Lady Gaga.
The ugliest part? His blog was full of anti-gay comments from his class mates urging him to kill himself.
JAMIE IS STUPID, GAY, FAT AND UGLY. HE MUST DIE !
I wouldn't care if you died. No one would. So just do it. It would make everyone WAY more happier !
The saddest part? About four months ago he posted a YouTube video telling other kids not to give up.
Promising them it does get better...
But it didn't get better for him.
And you can be sure it won't get better for many Canadian kids in a country where bullying is a national scandal.
As one of the few bloggers who writes regularly about bullying, I don't know why more Canadians don't understand that if you want to build a kinder, gentler world, you have to start with the children.
He blubbered, he bubbahed, he pouted, and then he surrendered.
In a significant concession to public opposition and to queasy council allies, Ford voted at the end of a 20-hour executive committee meeting to reject some proposed cuts and to put off decisions on almost all of the others to the 2012 budget process, which begins in November and ends in mid-January.
The votes call into question Ford’s ability to usher a hawkish fiscal agenda through council. They suggest that even some of the mayor’s loyalists have not yet mustered the fortitude to put their jobs on the line by endorsing cuts in the face of widespread disapproval from their constituents.
Chalk up one for PEOPLE POWER.
A few months ago he looked unbeatable, now he just looks pathetic.
The meeting ended on a humorous note. Ford finished his last speech by saying, “On that note, thank you very much, and goodnight everybody.” He had to be reminded that the committee had not yet voted.
All hail the leader of the Moron Nation !!!!!!!!
The bad news? The battle isn't over yet.
The good news? For the time being it looks like the old donkey and his friends will get to live out their days at the Far Enough Farm...
So I won't have to adopt him.
However if any petting zoo wants to adopt this Gluteus Maximus...
As long as they promise to feed him it enough gravy, they can have it for FREE.
The serious lesson? Ford would not have backed down if hundreds and hundreds of people hadn't turned up at City Hall. Or put pressure on him in other ways. Progressive parties are now empty vessels and will not be in a position to change ANYTHING for at least four years. Only people power can.
Now imagine what we might be able to do to the Harper Cons if Canadians across the country take to the streets. Or 100-thousand people gather on Parliament Hill.
