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Harper wants Canada to go on airstrikes on Iraq. That’s right. Canada. The nice ones, the peace keepers, the polite people, the bastion of warm-gooey-joy-joy feelings, the “we’re awesome because we can solve problems without bombing people” great white north. He wants us conducting air strikes. We have to tell him ‘No.’
Elizabeth May of the Green Party spoke against the airstrikes (video below) and I think she did a good job. There’s a big part of me that wishes she didn’t tread so softly, that she went for the jugular and tore them a new one. That said, I recognize that her overly tactful and diplomatic manor probably has a much better chance of being considered than the enraged reaming I figure Harper needs. In any event, May has one seat while Harper has a majority government. We citizens need to help out on this one.
I have drafted a template letter anyone is free to copy, paste, edit, amend, and send to their MP. Please share it, send it in, or even write your own. Spread the word. Say ‘No’ to airstrikes.
Dear [your MP’s name] ,
My name is [your name] and I am a resident of [your riding], a voice you are supposed to represent. I cannot express strongly enough how much I am against Mr. Harper’s proposal to join in the airstrikes in Iraq against ISIS. My opposition to the airstrikes can be summarized in three points:
1) It’s un-Canadian. We are, first and foremost, peace keepers and have a history of peace keeping and are supposed to be the good, nice country. Nice people don’t go on airstrikes.
2) It’s ineffective. The U.S has been running airstrikes against the region for who knows how long and terrorism persists. It doesn’t work.
3) However much we might hurt terrorist organizations with airstrikes (again, history shows it won’t be much) we will hurt innocent civilians much more.
For the good of the people of the world and for the integrity of our nation I ask you to do all you can to convince Mr. Harper that this is the wrong course of action and, at the very least, vote against joining in the airstrikes.
Sincerely,
[your name]
[your address]
[your phone number]
The NDP seeing the traction that the fifteen dollar minimum wage is getting in the US has made it part of their platform.
“NDP Leader Tom Mulcair says he will put the idea of a $15 an hour minimum wage to a vote in Parliament when it resumes next week.
“Household debt in Canada is skyrocketing right now, families are having more and more trouble getting by. The good middle class jobs that people used to be able to rely on just aren’t there any more,” Mulcair said, speaking in Vancouver on Saturday.”
It is time to start distributing the profits a little more equally here in Canada, and raising the minimum wage is great place to start.
Creating a sonic landscape on a highway using grooves and ridges that cause your tires to resonate at a certain pitch; who would have thought to do that?
Recognizable? Yes.
In tune? Sadly, no, but other than enforcing a strict “play speed” there is no way to get around this problem of modulation. We want to try this in Canada to apparently.
“MacDonald has taken his proposal to Whistler council, which has referred the plan to staff for consideration. He has also spoken with officials in B.C.’s highways ministry. MacDonald is also preparing his own feasibility study to convince lawmakers that a musical highway would make the Sea-to-Sky sing. MacDonald believes Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9 (sometimes referred to as Ode to Joy) would be the ideal piece of music for the Sea-to-Sky Highway. He wants the musical stretch of highway to begin at the entrance to Whistler, near Function Junction. For those people who know Whistler, there’s the Symphony Bowl, the Flute Ridge, the High Note Trail,” says MacDonald.
“I’m going to call it the r’Ode to Joy.”
I’m guessing it would be an ‘attraction’ of sorts, but the awesomeness of hearing an out of tune Ode to Joy played by your car tires escapes me for the most part. Also consider the local residents…
Because Magic, taught as fact, in the curriculum is AWESOME!
Further breaking news: The Edmonton Public School Board will also remove Soylent Green Recipe Book from the Foods curriculum.
How does feculence like this happen in my school system?
“An Edmonton teen and her mother have filed a complaint with the Human Rights Commission over a high school sex education class delivered by a religious-based group. Last year, Emily Dawson, 18, took part in a two-day class delivered as part of the Career and Life Management course at McNally High School. The teenager says she was shocked by what she heard.
“Basically shaming the girls and making them gatekeepers and meanwhile making it sound like the boys had no impulse control,” she said.
The Edmonton Public School Board used the Pregnancy Care Centre to conduct the course. The centre is affiliated with Care-Net, an American based anti-abortion movement. Both groups focus on advocating abstinence from sex.
How many other little “whoopsies” does the EPSB have up its sleeve? The NRA about the value of gun control and firearm safety? Exxon on Environmental Stewardship?
What the crap?
First, lets establish what our Experts in Christian Misogyny are advocating. From Care.net –
“Care Net promotes and supports sexual abstinence until marriage among youth through its LifeWise Program. LifeWise services are available free of charge to churches, schools, and any youth-serving organizations. Care Net will also partner with parents to provide neighborhood programs in homes or at Care Net’s facility on the east side of Madison.
Care Net works to end abortion, not primarily through political action but by building a culture where every woman receives all the support she needs to welcome her child and create her own success story. By empowering women and men to make courageous, life-affirming choices, Care Net and our affiliate pregnancy centers end abortions every single day.”
Well, isn’t this just a “Grade-A” glistening block of bullshit on display. They also run Pregnancy centres to hoodwink traumatized women and baffle them with religious bullshit and obstruct them while they attempt to obtain a legal medical procedure.
What a charming bunch of folks, god bless their hearts, we are dealing with here.
So, let’s take a look at the facts of the matter just to show exactly how full of shit our christian care.net friends are and the poisonous message they brought into the Edmonton public school system.
From:
The Failure of Abstinence-only Education: minors have a right to honest talk about sex. – Published in: Sexuality and the Law Symposium, Columbia Journal of Gender and Law Vol. 15, No. 1, pp. 12-62, 2006.
“Abstinence-only sex education is anything but educational. At best, it deprives students of the knowledge necessary to manage their own sexual health. At worst, it is dangerous to minors and to the public health. As the Waxman Report concluded, “[s]erious and pervasive problems with the accuracy of abstinence-only curricula may help explain why these programs have not been shown to protect adolescents from sexually transmitted diseases and why youth who pledge abstinence are significantly less likely to make informed choices about precautions when they do have sex.”18 In a society that purports to value children, the state should foster healthy, informed minors who are equipped to manage their sexual health responsibly. At the very least, the state should not encourage or support educators and programs in misleading children and promoting false, dangerous, and potentially injurious practices.”
~~~~
“In light of the potential health risks associated with these curricula, abstinence-only education cannot be justified as intending to serve any significant state interest. While the government may have an interest in encouraging abstinence in unmarried youth, its current policy is being pursued at the expense both of truth and public health. Importantly, there is no evidence that providing comprehensive sex education promotes increased sexual behavior or dilutes the message that abstinence is a preferable choice, as proponents assert.250 Furthermore, the government’s singular focus on abstinence represents an educational policy that is inconsistent with the democratic educational objective of preparing adolescents to make responsible, informed choices.”
More on efficacy of Abstinence only versus comprehensive sex education.
“Using figures from 1995-2000, Advocates for Youth (www.advocatesforyouth.org) reports that the HIV rate for Americans 15-24 is five times that of German youth of the age. The U.S. teen syphilis rate is six times higher than the Dutch; the chlamydia rate is 20 times that of French teens; and our teen gonorrhea rate is a whopping 74 times higher than the Dutch.
European programs that provide uncensored sex education and promote condom use are the reasons for this success. Contrary to what one might expect, European youth have fewer sex partners than Americans do and begin sex slightly later than Americans. What is alarming, however, is that America has the largest percentage of girls who have sex by age 15.
The U.S. also has the highest teen birth rate among 28 developed countries. According to a UNICEF study, less than 10 per 100,000 teenage girls in Korea, Japan, Switzerland, the Netherlands, and Sweden gave birth in 2001, whereas 52 American teens per 100,000 did.”
More on the failure of Abstinence Only Education – Here, Here, Here, here… Let us conclude then that our dear Christian Misogynists are the engineers of the fail-train; happily throwing more coal into the fire as they move full speed ahead and with Jesus and Ignorance at their side, they are unstoppable.
We should get back to Kelly and Emily and their experience with these professional dispensers of mendacity.
Kathy Dawson says she tried to pull her daughter Emily out of the class for the second day. But she says the school informed her that Emily had to take the class in order to pass her course. So she joined her daughter in the classroom. A single mother, Dawson said she was shocked what students were told about families like hers.
“Well, that our children are prone to depression, suicide, juvenile delinquency,” she said.
The remarks also surprised her daughter. “It’s not something that you hear every day where you’re getting bashed for being in a single-parent home.”
Kathy Dawson was also upset the class appeared to focus on values instead of science.”
See. Seeeeeeeeee?!? This is what happens when you let this sort of religious malevolent altiloquence into the secular classroom. Shaming single parent families, fuck-ya god hates you – and lets not forget about the eternally burning homosexuals…
“I have a friend that is a lesbian and she was asking what would happen if she didn’t want to stay abstinent and then the educator said, ‘We’re not here to talk about that,’” Dawson said.
Yes, telling young children that they’ll burn seems a little out of place in Canada (and the norm for secular societies), so we’ll just ignore your question instead. The nice people at Care Net are so full of love, tolerance, and compassion.
Full marks to Kathy Dawson for taking action to get these people out of the school system.
The Alberta Human Rights Commission has now accepted the Dawsons’ complaint.
“I’m training up my kids to respect science and demand science in their education,” Kathy Dawson said. “So this is a long haul, and I’m fully prepared to take it all the way.”
This is pretty much a slam dunk. Is religious bunk allowed in the classroom? Yes/No If the answer is yes, then the leaders of secular school board will have some explaining to do.
The EPSB took action –
the EPSB wrote that it had a registered nurse observe one of the presentations unannounced and found the information “met our standards and expectations on every level” but that it would still look for new presenters for the next year.
“Having said that, we’ve heard a lot of concerns expressed from the public over the last several days about guest speakers invited to present on the topic of sexual health education,” the board wrote.
“We are asking our schools in the fall to use different presenters so that we can continue this conversation, and focus on meeting the needs of students and parents.”
Well the school board doesn’t have its head entirely up its ass. Woo!
[Source]
[Source]
Did you think Canada was all about the fun? Nope, nope, nope! Learning first, then fireworks and beer. :)
“The enactment of the British North America Act, 1867 (today called the Constitution Act, 1867), which confederated Canada, was celebrated on July 1, 1867, with the ringing of the bells at the Cathedral Church of St. James in Toronto and “bonfires, fireworks and illuminations, excursions, military displays and musical and other entertainments”, as described in contemporary accounts.[35] On June 20 of the following year, Governor General the Viscount Monck issued a royal proclamation asking for Canadians to celebrate the anniversary of Confederation,[36] However, the holiday was not established statutorily until May 15, 1879,[37] when it was designated as Dominion Day, in reference to the designation of the country as a Dominion in the British North America Act.[38] The holiday was initially not dominant in the national calendar; any celebrations were mounted by local communities and the governor general hosted a party at Rideau Hall.[35] No official celebrations were therefore held until 1917 and then none again for a further decade—the golden and diamond anniversaries of Confederation, respectively.[22]
In 1946, Philéas Côté, a Quebec member of the House of Commons, introduced a private member’s bill to rename Dominion Day as Canada Day.[39] His bill was passed quickly by the House of Commons but was stalled by the Senate, which returned the bill to the Commons with the recommendation that the holiday be renamed The National Holiday of Canada, an amendment that effectively killed the bill.[40]
Beginning in 1958, the Canadian government began to orchestrate Dominion Day celebrations. That year, then Prime Minister John Diefenbaker requested that Secretary of State Ellen Fairclough put together appropriate events, with a budget of $14,000. Parliament was traditionally in session on July 1, but Fairclough persuaded Diefenbaker and the rest of the federal Cabinet to attend.[35] Official celebrations thereafter consisted usually of Trooping the Colour ceremonies on Parliament Hill in the afternoon and evening, followed by a mass band concert and fireworks display, though Fairclough, who became Minister of Citizenship and Immigration, later expanded the bills to include performing folk and ethnic groups and the day became more casual and family oriented.[35] Canada’s centennial in 1967 is often seen as an important milestone in the history of Canadian patriotism and in Canada’s maturing as a distinct, independent country, after which Dominion Day became more popular with average Canadians. Into the late 1960s, nationally televised, multi-cultural concerts held in Ottawa were added and the fête became known as Festival Canada. After 1980, the Canadian government began to promote celebrating Dominion Day beyond the national capital, giving grants and aid to cities across the country to help fund local activities.
Some Canadians were, by the early 1980s, informally referring to the holiday as Canada Day.[n 4] However, this practice did cause some controversy:[46] Numerous politicians, journalists, and authors, such as Robertson Davies,[47] decried the change at the time and some continue to maintain that it was illegitimate and an unnecessary break with tradition.[41] Proponents argued that the name Dominion Day was a holdover from the colonial era, an argument given some impetus by the patriation of the Canadian Constitution in 1982, and others asserted that an alternative was needed as the term does not translate well into French.[41] Conversely, these arguments were disputed by those who claimed Dominion was widely misunderstood and conservatively inclined commenters saw the change as part of a much larger attempt by Liberals to “re-brand” or re-define Canadian history.[41][47][48] Columnist Andrew Cohen called Canada Day a term of “crushing banality” and criticized it as “a renunciation of the past [and] a misreading of history, laden with political correctness and historical ignorance”.[49]
The holiday was officially renamed as a result of a private member’s bill that, on July 9, 1982, two years after receiving first reading in the House of Commons,[35] there received third reading when only twelve Members of Parliament were present. (This was actually eight members less than a quorum, but, according to parliamentary rules, the quorum is enforceable only at the start of a sitting or when a member calls attention to it.[50]) The bill was passed by the House in five minutes, without debate,[46] which inspired “grumblings about the underhandedness of the process”.[35] It met with stronger resistance in the Senate—some Senators objected to the change of name; Ernest Manning, who argued that the rationale for the change was based on a misperception of the name, and George McIlraith, who did not agree with the manner in which the bill had been passed and urged the government to proceed in a more “dignified way”—but finally passed.[41] With the granting of Royal Assent, the name was officially changed to Canada Day on October 27, 1982.
As the anniversary of Confederation, Dominion Day, and later Canada Day, was the date set for a number of important events, such as the first national radio network hookup by the Canadian National Railway (1927); the inauguration of the CBC’s cross-country television broadcast, with Governor General Vincent Massey’s Dominion Day speech from Parliament Hill (1958);[35] the flooding of the Saint Lawrence Seaway (1958); the first colour television transmission in Canada (1966); the inauguration of the Order of Canada (1967); and the establishment of “O Canada” as the country’s national anthem (1980). Other events fell on the same day coincidentally, such as the first day of the Battle of the Somme in 1916—shortly after which Newfoundland recognized July 1 as Memorial Day to commemorate the Newfoundland Regiment’s heavy losses during the battle[51][52]—and the enactment of the Chinese Immigration Act in 1923—leading Chinese-Canadians to refer to July 1 as Humiliation Day and boycott Dominion Day celebrations until the act was repealed in 1947.[53]”
[Source:Wikipedia]
What the hell is this? Am I living in the US or something?
This story broke on on CBC radio June 27th, and listening to what happened I filled this news tid-bit safely under the “smart people doing stupid things” category. The tale of this doctor’s mixed up medical ethos stuck in my brain though and managed to annoy me enough inspire a blog post on the topic.
“A Calgary doctor is being criticized by patients for refusing to prescribe birth control at a walk-in clinic. When Dr. Chantal Barry is on shift a sign at the WestGlen Medical Centre informs patients that the doctor on duty does not prescribe birth control pills.”
Whut? Naw, lets append that to, “What the ever living frak is Dr. Chantal Barry thinking/smoking?”
“The Alberta College of Physicians and Surgeons has a policy that states doctors are not required to provide care that violates their moral or religious beliefs. However, physicians are expected to refer patients for care in a timely manner.”
Okay, a stupid policy if I ever heard one, but at least it has the proviso that patients that you happen to neglect because of your particular voodoo should be referred to another doctor that is less reality challenged then yourself. In this situation though, being a clinic with only one doctor on duty per shift, that particular option doesn’t exist.
Pam Krause, head of the Calgary Sexual Health Centre, said she is shocked to hear about a doctor at a walk-in clinic refusing routine medical care.
“Easy access to birth control works,” she said. “It prevents pregnancy and it prevents other social problems down the road, and it should be easily accessible in a city like Calgary from a family physician.”
The solution, Dear Doctor Barry , is keep your ‘morality’ hung discreetly under that MD in evidence based fucking medicine and do your damn job.
Oh Canada! Producer of so much oil and making strides to export it to other countries just had its first jump in gasoline prices. One question to contemplate is that rather than exporting oil to other countries wouldn’t it be nice to stabilize the domestic market supply and give Canadian consumers a break at the pumps? Wouldn’t a steady rate of return and a Canadian public that doesn’t hate your guts be a good thing?
“Sorry Canada-friends!”, says the Oil Industry there are bottom lines to fatten up – the door to fuck-right-off is on your left please use it at our convenience, plebs!
Oh, and the usual excuses about market instability. I really enjoy paying for market jitters and financial speculation.
“McTeague blamed jitters and excessive financial speculation over instability in the Middle East for “distorting” fuel prices.
Meanwhile, he noted, actual supply for crude has never been better.
I love the fresh pungent smell of oligarchy in the morning.
“Laura Lau, a senior vice-president portfolio manager with the Brompton Group specializing in natural resources, said the markups are a direct reflection of international headlines. The risk premium for oil has soared, even though the unrest hasn’t stopped crude from flowing.
“We could see some relief, but it depends on what happens in Iraq,” Lau said. “If it escalates, we’ll probably see it go up. If it’s resolved or the intensity comes down, we could see oil and gasoline prices come down.”
She noted that no shortages have been reported so far, although oil companies in the region have begun to withdraw nonessential staff following the violent siege of northern Iraq’s Baiji refinery by Sunni militants.
“So could oil production be reduced? Yes,” Lau said. “But right now, it’s more the threat of it than the actual reality.“
This just in, lone Donkey in Iraq pisses on Pipeline – Corrosion could destroy Iraq Oil forever! Oil Barons in North America: Raise the prices, call it “market-forces” and let’s get to work acquiring that 5th yatcht, STAT!!!
Comments on the CBC article nail the BS surrounding the gas gouging:
“These price hikes are pure BS. Only 6% of the oil used in the North America comes from Iraq. The 2 biggest sources are 28% Canada and 16%Saudi Arabia. Then we have Mexico and Venezuela at 11% each with 27% coming from various sources. So to say the price of fuel is rising (in North America) because of a conflict in Iraq is a lie.”
Of course if it is a profitable lie for the right people then it isn’t really a lie then, is it?
Bonus Round!
Profitability above all!
Graph (1) above: as experience has shown, Americans love a good fairy tale. In the case of U.S. involvement in Iraq we have been fed a long series of substantially unrelated rationales from political ‘liberation’ (1990-1991) to WMDs (weapons of mass destruction) and democratization (2003 – 2006) and now on to ‘re-stabilization.’ Left unstated are economic interests like oil company profits, munitions sales and contracts for rebuilding what the U.S. has destroyed. Graph (1) illustrates the relation of oil prices to oil company profits. Wars against oil-rich nations raise the price of oil to the benefit of international oil companies. What do one million dead and four million displaced human beings matter when profits are to be ‘made?’ Source: Reuters.
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