Calling all Canadian bloggers! And those interested in Reproductive rights .
Harper and his merry bunch'o'neocons are not going to have so much success criminalizing abortion in Canada through the usual means.
So of course they are going to try to get that one foot in the back door...
A campaign is being launched today, by Birthpangsand Breadnroses, two hotbeds of hairy legged feminazi's.....( we love saying that BTW. Its so....stereotypical and so untrue!)This CALLOUT is going to all the member blogs and other pro-choice, progressive bloggers.
As with a lot of things, the birth of something good, can evolve from something not so good.
There was a kerfuffle a while back in the great white north Canadian Blogosphere, to do with blog awards of all things.
When a feminist category was very politely suggested at an annual awards fest, it turned into a flame war. (I won't rehash it here. But we now know who our friends are, and who our friends aren't. I suppose it was that tumble under da'bus that we were thrown under that really edjumacated us.)
My blogging partner and I were really disgusted by the whole row, so we said:
Hey! Why not do it ourselves? Surely, we CAN do it better? we can make it FUN! And highlight some great feminist blogs! We decided to make our awards saucy and snarky, and a Celebration!
And that was the birth of The Canadian F word blog awards.
But since we aren't the type to just have a navel gazing session and we truly believe in Activism, we also decided to make it into a fund raiser for a Canadian group called W.I.S.E. (Wellbeing thru Inclusion Socially and Economically.)
FOX news always comes up with the doozies. Now, I didn't say they had to be real (as in, factual or accurate) doozies.
From the brilliant! minds at FOX news. Ahem.
The hosts of Fox & Friends are all worked up over a claim in the British press that al Qaeda may be recruiting Caucasian members to infiltrate Western societies.
"Have you heard about this new thing going on in Great Britain," asked host Gretchen Carlson, "[where] Al Qaeda [is] rooting up all these Britons, essentially, 1400 strong, apparently, in a new, what's being called a new 'White al Qaeda Army.' Tougher to detect, potentially ...
Im betting that many of you already know what a bunch of Republican wannabes we have in Canada as our minority government in our parliamentary system?
Many canucks have been posting here off and on for the last two years with some stories that sound most Un-Canadian. Now theres one that scares the pants off thinking Canadians.....(not the RWA crowd. They look "glowingly" forward to unregulated nuclear plants)
And since the center of this storm is not all that far from the border?There may be some concern for the US as well.
This has to do with the debate raging in Canada at the moment, after the death ofMr Robert Dziekanski. There are many questions and odd things happening with the so called "experts". You be the judge. It seems to be a very real problem in the US right now too. I will not use the name of the company in this diary...for my own reasons.....pale
I have read a few articles with quotes by a Dr Deborah Mash. That is one of the "experts" that the Big Scary Stun Gun company sends the media to talk to. I guess depending on where and what has happened with one of those mysterious deaths following the use of a stun gun.
They have been labeled as ‘In custody deaths" usually.
And this has come up many times, "excited delirium".
"Excited delirium" is not recognized by any medical organization. It has no category, it started appearing about the same time the stun guns did.
But Dr Mash has said that "excited delirium" was identified much earlier. And she has given full credit to, one Dr Luther V Bell.
I was just looking through the news reports of the death of 16 year old Aqsa Parvez. Her death is sending waves through a lot of communities in Canada. Muslim, Christian, secular.
Handcuffed and wearing a prison-orange jumpsuit, he mumbled the single word "yes" when asked if he understood a court order not to communicate with his son, Waqas Parvez.
The two men were charged after Aqsa Parvez, 16, was found critically injured Monday morning in the family’s Mississauga home. She died in hospital late Monday night.
The reactions are mostly horror. The form they take can be disturbing. THEY SHOULD ALL ACT like CANADIANS! some spew. With the largest population of immigrants in 75 years, from many countries, "Canadian" is hard to pin down. If they mean white and Christian? That is not the face and the soul of Canada. Some may need some education on cultural awareness.
The Video that was taken at the Vancouver Airport, of the taser death of Mr Dziekanski has been released to the public today. I said a couple weeks ago that I had no desire to see it, and I mostly haven't changed my mind on that score. Its been posted in three parts, and I watched the first two. I will not watch the third, where he dies. The second part is bad enough.
It took some doing to get the video back. When Mr Pritchard agreed to let the police view the video and take it as evidence, the police promised to return it within 48 hours and quickly reneged on that promise.
In fact there were some rumours that it would be for an indefinite period of a year. If ever?
It seems there were reasons that the Police didn't want it released. The rationale of CYA? (cover your ass)
Heres the link. Its in three parts, they are listed in the right sidebar. The second is extremely graphic, I haven't seen the third as I said. I have no desire to see a man die. Be cautious, and be warned.
How media savvy are you? Can you identify a fake story from a real story?
We have come up with a quiz to test your media savvy, grab a pencil and a peice of paper! Write the numbers one to five on your sheet, and there will be scoring instructions at the bottom. Good luck!
It's happening here too. The Canadian corporate media have introduced the meme that waterboarding and torture are OK! They used a Canadian pundit that has been on FOX, and was on CNN as recently as last week. This is a great example of how close The Republican franchises are. (h/t to Mattbastard)
The Man With No Point, (who always has an excellent point) posted a journal today and a diary here at Dkos about an editorial that appeared in today'sToronto Sun.
A Ms Marsden posts that she thinks torture is just A-OK.
A few weeks ago a man was tasered at the Vancouver airport here in Canada, and passed away as a result.
This story has gotten bigger and hasn't gone away as i am sure the Royal Canadian Mounted Police would like it to. So many different accounts and conflicts, mostly with the RCMP version.
The footage taken on a cell phone by a Paul Pritchard, is (maybe) going to be released by the RCMP in the next couple of days. He is going through with his court appearance to ensure that they follow through with their promise.
I don't want to see the film, personally. Although I am sure the press is almost gnawing through their straps in anticipation.
The "free market" Utopia is a myth. Here on the left, we are painfully aware of that eh?
Now, Im not a communist, but I am a firm believer in social justice and the idea that we are all in the same boat. I am also of the firm belief that humanity tops corporatism in all things. I guess I think a mixed market is better.
The free market myth goes thus: Let the market decide. Prices, wages, and regulations from safety to workers rights. Remove government intervention and hand over the reigns to the Corporate Lords.
We see at all those endless commercials about child Poverty, with all those photographs of babies with huge sad eyes and most people feel bad.
Are we kind of smug though? I mean, that kind of stuff happens in Africa, and South America?
That's one of the things I can still never understand, is why so many kids worldwide live in poverty. I know that in third world countries there are many myriad reasons. Not excuses! But drought, earthquakes and other natural disasters play a part. Things are only going to get worse, and not better with our man-made climate crisis which is already happening. Then there's war, governments that spend more on arms and bombs than food for their citizens....
But whats our excuse? I mean, seriously?
I'm Canadian. But before you say, "oh not another one of those smug gits from Canada" I'm ashamed of my own country as well. Deeply ashamed.
Remember back when the Bush administration started their phony war? How they were going to save all those "wimmen and chiluns" from the EVIL that was Saddam Hussein? Recall how they planned to spread democracy across the land, to make sure there were pop tarts in every cupboard, and Western Style freedoms (Malwart shoppers?)
"Iraq is free of rape rooms and torture chambers."—President Bush, remarks to 2003 Republican National Committee Presidential Gala, Oct. 8, 2003
A UN report issued last week, tells another story of course; the stories not included in General Betrayus' report.
A new report is due out this December. I am sure it will be a stoic and sobering occasion. A funerary occasion of sorts.....
The reportwill be a summary of the destruction of the Archaeological sites in Iraq. There are at least 10,000 sites, and since the Occupation of Iraq began there has been systematic looting and Destruction.
Even Domestic dogs can become vicious when they travel in a pack.
When domestic dogs attack domestic animals, they may injure or kill several, but they seldom consume their victims. Rather, they leave the impression that they were involved in vicious play rather than an attempt to obtain food. The most diagnostic characteristic of injuries caused by dogs is usually the slashing and biting of prey animals over much of their bodies.
In the past couple days I have oft thought of this. When mention of the RW attack in the US on the Frost family comes up.
Stephen Harper is sending out Holiday Cards! Happy Holidays!
Oh. only to Canadians with a Jewish background....
On the surface you say, oh, he's going after the Jewish Canadian vote. But then you have to ask yourself, (that's if you aren't inclined to open wide and swallow like many Conservatives do) How would he KNOW that someone is from a Jewish Family?
There's the last names, of course. But in this day and age that really doesn't mean much. My last name is now English, but it started out as German. Marriages between faith's etc change names around. I have known many people with English sounding names that are Jewish, and vice versa. I'm sure anyone reading this gets my point.
We have been hearing about the War on Drugs (TM) a lot lately in the Canadian news. The US style approach. The punishment, incarceration, marginalization, machine like, approach.
Drugs is bad. Let's spend billions to lock them all up, and not even really touch the actual problems. Attack the symptom, not the cause.
My personal theory is that all that punitive action fills someones coffers. Its a bizness, like the Iraq occupation for oil and Halliburton's bottom line. The RW looks for any kind of war, it's a money maker.
Back before that last election where 36% voted for the Harper Conservatives, we almost decriminalized pot in Canada. The Bush Admin whined and squealed and threatened to shut their borders. The Harpercons made sure that proposed legislation disappeared quickly.
(This is compiled from two short posts I have made on my own blog in just the last week, and more has been added.)
Its a hot topic in the US leftie blogosphere.
Unless you have been living in a cave, you know that Moveon.org put an ad up asking the question; Is general Petraeus, betraying us?
Fair question. The General's numbers that support the surge in the Occupation of Iraq, are cooked. Baked. flambes. Poached. Petraeus has been called "an ass-kissing little chickenshit" in the past, by his military superiors.
In sharp contrast to the lionisation of Gen. David Petraeus by members of the U.S. Congress during his testimony this week, Petraeus's superior, Admiral William Fallon, chief of the Central Command (CENTCOM), derided Petraeus as a sycophant during their first meeting in Baghdad last March, according to Pentagon sources familiar with reports of the meeting.
Fallon told Petraeus that he considered him to be "an ass-kissing little chickenshit" and added, "I hate people like that", the sources say. That remark reportedly came after Petraeus began the meeting by making remarks that Fallon interpreted as trying to ingratiate himself with a superior.
