There are still issues concerning benefits that have nothing to do with the legacy of DADT and everything to do with DOMA, the so-called Defense of Marriage Act. For instance, because of DOMA, the surviving same-sex spouse of a service member is out of luck in receiving the same considerations a surviving straight spouse. You better believe there are plans in the works to right this wrong.
Somewhere in the Middle East a young soldier from the American Bible Belt who had to cover up his face on YouTube for so long...
Finally summoned up the courage to tell his dad he was gay...
Good for him. Good for his dad. Good for everybody who struggled so long and so hard to make this day a reality.
And a special thanks to the embattled black President who finally kept his freedom promise.
It's a giant step for equality. But until the day that all gay people are free finally arrives.
Figures released by the Defence Department indicate it cost $23,231.30 to fly the general to Toronto from Ottawa in January, 2009, to attend a Canadian Forces appreciation night at a Maple Leafs game.
Because I realize that attending a Leafs game is more punishment than pleasure, but for about $200 he could get a first class round trip on Via Rail, a Wi-Fi connection, a tasty meal, AND all the wine he could drink. Burp.
Besides if Bev Oda can curb her insatiable desire for a limo.
And replace it with a cheaper form of transportation...
Why can't the General?
And if the problem is it's not military enough, maybe he could give one of our new stealth snowmobiles a whirl.
Or how about this flying torpedo...
But of course what I really want to know is why are the limousine jet-set Cons defending the general so vigorously, when they claim we need to cut the deficit so aggressively?
Holy Conchella. Talk about bad timing. On the very day Obama was talking about creating jobs and raising taxes, there was Great Bobo Leader talking about lowering taxes, and creating criminals.
"At a time when hundreds of thousands of Canadians are looking for work and the economy is in the possibility at least of slipping into another recession, we found out today from the Conservatives that it's their so-called law and order agenda that's the top priority," the NDP's house leader Thomas Mulcair told reporters.
Why are Canadian governments, not exactly debt-free, being forced to spend more money on crime enforcement and incarceration while more pressing needs such as health care and education suffer? At a time when the federal government should be looking at smart spending, the Harper legislation on crime is a triumph of ideology over common sense.
Just dumb, dangerous, ideologues, who are leading this country to disaster.
That's the bad news. And the good news?
With teabaggers like that in power, and the economy heading south, it's going to be really easy to mobilize the REAL majority against them, put 100-thousand people in the streets, and stop them in their tracks..
I thought both the NDP and the Liberals looked good today, but people power is even better. So cheer up progressives, the present may look bleak, but out of the darkness will come a brighter future.
And the best part? When we finally drive them from power, they won't be back for a generation.
Hey Cons...enjoy it while you can.
Long live the thousand four year majority.
All hail Great Bobo Leader...
As for the rest of you...get ready to kick Con ass.
Far Enough Farm is a little hobby farm located on one of the Toronto Islands. Every year hundreds of thousands of people visit it.
Because admission is free, it's a great place for poor families to take their children to, and introduce them to a way of life.
And to animals they would otherwise never see.
Except on a supermarket shelf.
It's also used extensively by children with special needs, who like other kids, can pet the gentle animals, and get free rides on ponies.
But now Rob Ford's Moron Nation regime is considering shutting down the farm, even though it more than pays for itself. Because that crass, vulgar, millionaire couldn't give a damn about poor people.
And the saddest thing is that because many of the animals have spent all their lives there, and are old, finding a new home for them will be practically impossible.
So they will have to be destroyed...
Which is why some of us are desperately trying to save the farm.
Like so many other things that make this city livable.
And why this afternoon, when I kissed the old donkey on its nose, I repeated my blood oath.
If Rob Ford and his Moron Nation want a war, so help me.
His ghastly face stares out from newspaper boxes all over the city, like Big Bubbah. The message couldn't be clearer, or more urgent.
Rob Ford has declared war on us. Now we must declare war on him, and the City Council stooges who are helping him destroy Toronto.
On our divided council, the mayor can count on roughly 19 votes guided by the thumbs-up or thumbs-down gesture of his henchman, Giorgio Mammoliti. The battered left can reliably muster 15, which leaves 10 votes gently blowing in the wind, the so-called mushy middle who showed a willingness to climb on the Ford bandwagon when the band was still playing.
But maybe now, as the proof of the Fords’ big lies becomes apparent, those in the centre might choose a long-term political career over sinking with the rapidly discredited Ford ship of state.
It's time those stooges learned a brutal lesson. Like the Con teabagger Tim Hudak did.
“I don’t think anyone wants an endorsement from Ford at this point,” said Nelson Wiseman, professor of politics at the University of Toronto. “Ford Nation has become a little rump about the size of Gadhafi’s remaining forces.”
And there's even MORE good news eh? Nobody is hurting the Con brand in battleground Ontario more than Hudak and Ford.
And since Stephen Harper also danced with the Fordzilla
The prime minister said his government had cleaned up the “left-wing mess federally” and said he hoped to “complete the hat trick” by turning Ontario blue come the Oct. 6 provincial election, a comment that elicited applause from the crowd.
He's also going to look like a stooge...
Golly. That IS a perfect hat trick. Now when we attack ONE of them, we attack them ALL.
Uh oh. It looks like the Con teabagger Tim Hoo Hoo Hudak has one more reason to look confidentworried deeply disturbed. After having been caught using ringers.
Ms. Raheb told the Windsor Star that her group was approached by Mr. Hudak’s campaign to appear at the news conference, but declined. The campaign then recruited other parents, whom they referred to Thursday as school council members and concerned grandparents.
“To have somebody do that behind our backs really presents the issue of how honest and how far they will go to implement what they're saying,” Ms. Raheb told the Windsor Star. “I mean how much can you trust them at this point now?”
Again.
The Conservatives have held several news conferences where they have used “real people” as the backdrop.
In Hamilton, nurses who were introduced as “emergency room” nurses were walked into an ultrasound lab to talk about flaws in the health-care system. Later on the bus, reporters found out the nurses didn’t actually work at the hospital but were brought in from the Niagara region for the event.
Gawd. This sordid scandal reminds me of that old Quebec saying: If my grandmother had wheels she'd be a bus.
As if gay kids aren't persecuted enough. As if they aren't insulted, hurt, killed, or driven to suicide just because of who they are, and who they love.
As if it wasn't hideous enough that in some Catholic schools in Ontario, gay kids aren't allowed to use the word "gay."
Or must hide their banned rainbow symbol in cup cakes...
Now some writers are being told to erase young gay characters from works of fiction.
Two American authors have revealed that they were told by a literary agent to "straighten" a gay character in their post-apocalyptic young adult novel if they wished to be represented.
Make them invisible, as if gay kids don't exist. As if they were too awful to write about.
"I work with teenagers, and some of them are gay. They never get to read fantasy novels where people like them are the heroes, and that's not right".
When you refuse to allow major characters in YA novels to be gay, you are telling gay teenagers that they are so utterly horrible that people like them can't even be allowed to exist in fiction."
Which is so profoundly evil, it reminds me of how the theocratic fascists in Iran try to make gays invisible, by claiming there aren't any in that country.
Even though they hang them...
So how have LGBT people in Iran reacted to those attempts to cower them, or make them invisible?
Answer: by setting up a wonderful Facebook page. And declaring we are EVERYWHERE.
We are queer, we are everywhere, we are fabulous, don't mess with us!
Which just happens to be the same message I would send to every homophobe on earth.
Screw off eh? Shove your bigotry up your fundamentalism.
We are here, we refuse to disappear. Despite your murderous efforts our love is still here.
OK. Let me get this straight eh? The Con smear machine that destroyed Ignatieff and Dion, goes after Brian Topp.
“Topp is a union boss and has deep union ties,” they say in a memo to MPs and party faithful. “How could Brian Topp speak on behalf of all Canadians, when he is so tied to big union special interests.”
As if being a union supporter was something to be ashamed of, instead of a badge of honour.
In Ontario, the racist Con teabagger Tim Hudak gets down on all fours and crawls through the gutter in a desperate attempt to boost his sagging ratings, by appealing to our basest instincts
Even though police say his Made in Amerika plan would make us all less safe.
OPP Commissioner Chris Lewis has warned making the registry public could lead to vigilante action by citizens against convicted sex offenders living in the community.
“I totally disagree with Mr. Hudak on this,” Lewis said recently in a television interview. “In the U.S. states where they do it, it doesn’t necessarily lend itself to greater adherence to the legislation. We have almost 100 per cent compliance rate in this province with our sexual offender registry because they’re not online.”
In Toronto, the crass Con Rob Ford prepares to wage war on the sick, the poor, and the young. Even though the only gravy is in his head and his cavernous bowels, and his proposals would turn a livable city into a sinister jungle.
Fewer medical calls from fire fighters. A smaller police force. Reduced TTC service. Death of the “Hardship Fund” that provides medical services for the city’s poor.
And with all this going on some Liberals are more concerned about THIS?
Oh boy. How petty partisan can they be? Why are so many Liberals attacking the NDP instead of the Cons? Why aren't they healing their own wounds? How broken must be their party.
For the record, I march to the sound of my own drum.
And I don't consider this message to be an exclusively NDP thing...
Don't let them tell you it can't be done.
I consider it a message of hope for ALL progressives, in a very dark time in our country's history.
Oh sure. Maybe I and all the others who were moved and encouraged by that message are too idealistic for a cynical and tired Canada that is rotting from the head down.
But don't underestimate us, for we did hear the message, and it did move us so much.
We wrote many of our own...
The rain may have washed them away. But this too is our message: Nobody, but NOBODY will stop us from keeping that promise. Or make us forget Jack that easily.
We WILL unite the best of us to eventually defeat the Cons.
And in the meantime, when it comes to politics in this country, and that goes for all progressive parties.
Three years ago, after the suicide of a popular actress who had been bullied via the Internet, South Korea introduced a radical policy aimed at stamping out online hate. It required contributors to Web portals and other popular sites to use their real names, rather than pseudonyms.
Last month, after a huge security breach, the government said it would abandon the system. Hackers stole 35 million Internet users’ national identification numbers, which they had been required to supply when registering on Web sites to verify their identities.
As I said in my first post, I understand where everybody is coming from. But there are legal means to unmask those who commit crimes on the internet.
And since the danger to the marginalized and legitimate dissidents is so great, I suggest we need a good discussion before we throw out the baby with bath water.
And until then I'm okay with this:
The real world is often messy, chaotic and anonymous. The Internet is mostly better that way, too.
As I watched a storm sweeping in over Toronto this evening, I couldn't help thinking about how Rob Ford is planning to turn the city I have come to love into a dirtier, uglier, place.
It turns out that municipal fat includes new affordable housing initiatives, subsidized child-care spaces, a hardship fund helping low-income people with crushing medical needs, Community Environment Days, current levels of street cleaning, current levels of snow plowing, and a Christmas Bureau that partners with donors (including the Star’s Santa Claus Fund) to distribute holiday gifts to poor children.
I couldn't help thinking how this crass, vulgar, millionaire is going after the most vulnerable.
Every resident is likely feel some impact, but the heaviest blow is poised to fall on those who depend on city services the most: children, the sick, the destitute, those in need of shelter, and the working poor.
In a city full of poor and homeless people...
And of course how he lied about EVERYTHING.
And then I couldn't help thinking about how easily he fooled the mouth breathing cretins of the so-called Ford Nation. Because if this city is turned into an urban jungle, they must be held accountable for voting for the porky teabagger.
How I wondered could anyone with an I.Q. higher than a house plant believe his ridiculous promises? But sadly the answer is obvious. They're ignorant. They're greedy. Like a lot of Canadians they want good services, but they don't want to pay for them.
So Ford, like all Cons, promised them what they wanted. Because Cons will say anything to get elected, he's so ignorant he doesn't know what he's doing. And they believed him because they're too dumb to know better.
And he played what they wanted to hear...
And now we're ALL screwed. MOOOOOOOOOO.
The administration has already signaled that Torontonians will also confront soaring user fees for 2012, and likely a significant tax hike. In other words, residents can expect to shell out more money to get a lot less service. That’s the price of Ford’s mismanagement. That’s the cost of believing in non-existent gravy.
Oh boy. That's enough to depress even me eh? And make me regret the dark day I decided to move to this city, the place my friends in Montreal called Hogtown.
But then something awesome happened.
The storm clouds suddenly cleared.
And the sky turned orange...
You know...the colour of hope. And Toronto never looked more beautiful, or more worth fighting for.
Now is not the time to despair or give up. Now is the time to take to the streets by the thousands, let Ford know what we think of him, and do all we can to derail his reactionary agenda. First we'll take him on, and then we'll take on the Harper Cons. Because we need the practice, and enough is ENOUGH.
The depressed left can stop feeling sorry for itself and actually do something about it. The Moron Nation can go screw themselves chew their cuds.
