Weekly Highlights from our Conservative Overlords

Weekly Highlights from our Conservative Overlords

Monday, June 25, 2012

The Groove - Week 60 - June 18-25

Man.  60 weeks.  Can you believe that?  Maybe we will make it through all of this after all?
And how do we celebrate 60 weeks?  By passing the dreaded Copyright law.  I guess it could have been worse.  But how is this going to work?  Are companies just going to arbitrarily be able to send people a letter demanding $5000 for infringement?  Will there be a new government copyright enforcement agency set up.

So let's get this straight.  A few years ago, Jim Flaherty decides to loosen up mortgage requirements, delaying a US style housing correction for another day.  And now, just as the markets are starting to pull back, he decides that it is time to tighten up mortgage requirements in order to "cool down" the market.  This should be interesting.

More pipelines are leaking in Alberta.  It's almost like these companies have no idea what they're doing and all of their assurances that pipelines are "100% safe" are bullshit.  The cherry on top is that this one belongs to Enbridge.

I'm going to admit that I don't know a whole lot about this.  But I read Mulcair's statement and I can't help but feel like there isn't really anything wrong here with what he has said.  He's suggested that the Golden Temple "incident" is regrettable and should probably be investigated.  He hasn't said anything to suggest that events that came out of that (Air India bombing, etc.) is justified.

Stephen Harper has decided to praise a senior Mountie who was recently disciplined for bullying his employees.  Or in Stephen Harper's language, "strong-leadershipping his employees".  Another article points out that the budget for his security has doubled in the last 6 years.

Stupid experts, getting in the way of things again.  This time, ex-Directors of Fisheries are suggesting that closing a freshwater research facility is a bad idea.  Well.  They obviously have a vested interest in this and a can't be believed.  Somehow.

The Conservatives are angry at the Parliamentary Budget Officer for asking too many questions.

I'm not sure what this means.  But I don't think it is good.  The guy who appears to be heading up the Robo-Calls inquiry has quit.

This actually seems like pretty good news, in a really sad sort of way.  Stephen Harper's attempt to divide the country seem to be playing nicely with Thomas Mulcair's attempts to divide the country.  The result?  Regional support for the various parties gets a bit more entrenched.  Imagine what's going to happen when Stephen Harper realizes he doesn't need to keep anybody else besides Alberta and Saskatchewan happy?

Amazingly, in the never-apologize-for-anything world of the Conservatives, Jason Kenney actually apologized for calling the Deputy Premiere of Alberta a "complete and utter asshole".  Of course, it took several days and a whole bunch of people calling him out on it.  And after refusing to apologize several times.  So.  Really, I'm not sure if you could describe this as a "genuine apology".

Apparently our dairy and chicken farmer tariffs are keeping us out of a new Pacific Free Trade agreement.  Honestly, do we need more free trade agreements?  Why do we have chicken and dairy tariffs?

The UN has pointed out that the new law putting restrictions on freedom of assembly in Quebec kind of suck.  Of course, it's the UN pointing this out, so the right wing has to get all up in arms about this.  And basically their defense seems to be "Things are worse in Syria, so this should be okay."  Which reminds me of car ads, where they're all like "Better fuel mileage than the Chevrolet Cavalier.   Higher resale than a Ford Escort."  So...essentially this car could be 2nd worst in a whole bunch of areas is what you're telling me... Canada.  Better than the worst thing out there.

This is awesome, this Canada Revenue Agency kickback scandal.  First, I can't believe how stupid these guys would be.  Next, it's kind of awesome that it's coming to a head under the all seeing eye of Stephen Harper.

Margaret Wente claims that young people should join the Tea Party.  The holes in this argument are astonishing.  My favourite hole though, is the fact that there is no Tea Party in Canada.  And check out the comments.  One poster writes a rather long and well informed and documented piece about how the recession wasn't caused by excessive government spending on social programs and that cutting them probably isn't going to get us out of that hole.  And then people make fun of him for being stupid.  Which is pretty much the entire Internet in a nutshell.

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