Dawg's Blawg

In the old days, it was Playboy under the mattress

Dr.Dawg@gmail.com (Dr.Dawg) — Sun, 08 Nov 2009 14:41:52 PST

Via News of the Restless.

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Annals of journamalism: the editor's cut

Dr.Dawg@gmail.com (Dr.Dawg) — Sun, 08 Nov 2009 14:35:55 PST

Via veteran journalist David Climenhaga, this cautionary tale about the slow death of print journalism: why a certain newspaper publisher might not be the best judge of the need for in-house copy editors.

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More RCMP dryrot

Dr.Dawg@gmail.com (Dr.Dawg) — Sun, 08 Nov 2009 08:46:25 PST

It had somehow escaped my notice, but RCMP Superintendent Mike Cabana--notorious for his involvement in the Maher Arar affair--subsequently received a promotion. He's now an RCMP assistant commissioner. That's how that discredited organization operates. This sort of thing gives you the measure of the man: Cabana remains unrepentant for his role in supplying American security officials with...

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Museum workers: from Civilization to War

Dr.Dawg@gmail.com (Dr.Dawg) — Sun, 08 Nov 2009 12:06:35 PST

Ottawa's workers at the Canadian Museum of Civilization and the War Museum have been on strike since September 21, with a 92% strike mandate from the membership. Wages (which lag behind those of other museum workers in the region) and contracting-out are in dispute. The union position is set out here, and it seems entirely reasonable to me: the workers want wage parity with other museum...

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"Harper Sales Tax" this Spring?

Dr.Dawg@gmail.com (Dr.Dawg) — Sun, 08 Nov 2009 05:52:04 PST

That's what the federal Liberal leader Michael Ignatieff is calling the Harmonized Sales Tax, at least for now--while fellow Liberal Dalton McGuinty is gung-ho to introduce it here in Ontario. But by the Spring, who knows? Ignatieff isn't a leader, he's a weather-vane, and business is blowing strongly on this one. Besides, John McCallum, his finance critic, has stated plainly that the Liberals...

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Ottawa life

Dr.Dawg@gmail.com (Dr.Dawg) — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 11:53:46 PST

My old neighbourhood is changing, and changing fast. A place where bungalows like mine are still common is slowly but surely yielding to development pressure. A large nearby greenspace by the Rideau River, it is rumoured, is slated for a subdivision called "One Thousand Doors" *wince*. And bungalows are being knocked down and replaced with triplices (I know, needlessly pedantic and probably...

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Another argument for Senate abolition

Dr.Dawg@gmail.com (Dr.Dawg) — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 11:23:50 PST

The insufferably smug, unethical and not-very-bright Mike Duffy, who, in three short months at the end of 2008, guzzled $44,000 in expenses. Beach the lot of 'em, I say, and flense the big ones. Reform? No. Shut the place down and give it to Kevin Page for an expanded office. I'm not a great friend of Peter Stoffer--he once had to apologize to me at the mic at an NDP convention for calling me a...

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Christian love

Dr.Dawg@gmail.com (Dr.Dawg) — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 07:52:26 PST

...an oxymoron. [H/t Enormous Thriving Plants] And if an unspeakable death from brain cancer won't kill the Kenyan bastard, how about gas? Our White House is being eaten away from within. We urgently need to throw a "tent" of public remonstration and outcry over that hallowed abode, to cause them to quake and hunker down inside. And then treat the invaders, the alien rodents, to massive voter...

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Margo Somerville smackdown

Dr.Dawg@gmail.com (Dr.Dawg) — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 07:29:43 PST

Old news, but I thought readers might be interested. The ruling of the Iowa District Court in Varnum v. O'Brien, affirmed unanimously by the Iowa Supreme Court earlier this year, held that a ban on same-sex marriage was unconstitutional. Counsel for Polk County, the defendant in the original lawsuit brought by six gay couples, called Margaret Somerville, the ethics guru from McGill University,...

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The definition of leadership

Dr.Dawg@gmail.com (Dr.Dawg) — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 05:36:50 PST

"I never intended to become a leader, just to give this group a voice." --Ioan Savu, factory worker, just before the "cleanest and purest moment" in his life: his address to the people of Timisoara.

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Another reason to abolish zoos

Dr.Dawg@gmail.com (Dr.Dawg) — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 05:08:33 PST

The headlines were real knee-slappers: "Fuzzy wuzzy was a bear, Fuzzy wuzzy had no hair..." [Globe and Mail print edition] "Mystery disease leaves bears baring all" "Who's taken my fur coat?" "Bears left without hair to spare" And the reality is that three sad, imprisoned animals, facing a German winter, have lost their fur. Reports differ as to whether stress was involved. Apparently such...

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Obama drops the hammer on the Internet

Dr.Dawg@gmail.com (Dr.Dawg) — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 12:03:27 PST

Cory Doctorow puts up another explosive post on Internet copyright issues. Pay close attention, peeps: The internet chapter of the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement, a secret copyright treaty whose text Obama's administration refused to disclose due to "national security" concerns, has leaked. It's bad. It says: That ISPs have to proactively police copyright on user-contributed material. This...

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A note on the gun registry

Dr.Dawg@gmail.com (Dr.Dawg) — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 12:52:47 PST

It'll never be missed, at least not by me. Does that make me a Tory redneck knuckledragger? I sure hope not. I had the same knee-jerk response to the registry as any other progressive when it was created. Gun control? Good. Who could oppose such a thing, except ignorant yahoos clutching their guns and religion? Then I had the chance to talk to some Yukoners who were anything but, one cold and...

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Dalton McGuinty's death panels

Dr.Dawg@gmail.com (Dr.Dawg) — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 07:50:35 PST

I blogged back in 2006 about the way the Ontario government condemns sick people to death. (The drug I mentioned at the time, Velcade, approved in all other provinces and territories to treat multiple myeloma, has still not been approved for use in Ontario.) Only public outcry, it seems, can divert these assassins from their chosen path. Extreme language? Consider the following recent examples...

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CJC-Quebec submission to HUAC North

Dr.Dawg@gmail.com (Dr.Dawg) — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 15:48:59 PST

It gets still worse. While the CJC submission noted in my last post was relatively guarded in its language, its Quebec counterpart has thrown all caution to the winds in its submission of August 31. Some quotations from the brief, with my comments: Anti-Zionism is thus used as a means to mask antisemitism, without assuming its stigma. Automatic, onesided condemnation of Israel’s...

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The CJC's submission to HUAC North

Dr.Dawg@gmail.com (Dr.Dawg) — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 09:17:29 PST

The Canadian Jewish Congress submitted its recommendations to HUAC North on August 20. Its report blends examples of genuine anti-Semitism and criticism of Israel in a long preamble to a series of recommendations, using specious logic (the Nazis boycotted Jews, some call for boycotting Israel, therefore...) and strategically vague concepts ("anti-Semitism," "the new anti-Semitism") to underpin...

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House Un-Canadian Activities Committee launched

Dr.Dawg@gmail.com (Dr.Dawg) — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 07:20:15 PST

Antisemitism represents a break from Canadian values, which promote the rights of all individuals to practice their religion, educate themselves, and express themselves with security and freedom. --CPCCA With a flourish of trumpets, the portentously-named All-Party Canadian Parliamentary Coalition to Combat Antisemitism has begun its hearings. And by no coincidence an op-ed piece appeared in...

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Monday blahs

Dr.Dawg@gmail.com (Dr.Dawg) — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 07:25:04 PST

Some days are hardly worth greeting. I was never an unqualified Obamaniac, as past posts of mine indicate. Indeed, I've remained sceptical from the beginning. But the President's sudden collapse on the Middle East, now giving unqualified US support to Binyamin Netanyahu's aggressive program of annexation settlement of Palestinian land, while demanding that the Palestinians return to the peace...

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Promoting Islamofashion

Dr.Dawg@gmail.com (Dr.Dawg) — Sun, 01 Nov 2009 06:35:03 PST

In which Kathy Shaidle learns the perils of monetization.

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Come on, Mr. Fadden

Dr.Dawg@gmail.com (Dr.Dawg) — Sat, 31 Oct 2009 15:44:38 PDT

There's a new sheriff in town. Fake leftist Terry Glavin ("Transmontanus") cites this dinosaur with respect--quite in keeping with his role as the policeman's friend. But he does capture the money-quote from the just-appointed boss of CSIS, Richard B. Fadden: Why then, I ask, are those accused of terrorist offences often portrayed in media as quasi-folk heroes, despite the harsh statements of...

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The ambiguous dexterity of Adrian MacNair

Dr.Dawg@gmail.com (Dr.Dawg) — Sun, 01 Nov 2009 07:00:58 PST

Adrian Raphael Alexander MacNair, as many will know by now, has posted a retraction and an apology for calling me an "admitted supporter of the Taliban." One can quibble with the wording--it uses the passive voice, so that he doesn't make it plain that the libelous comment was his (comments don't simply "appear," Adrian). Of more consequence, two posts of his just previous to the apology undercut...

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Free speech follies: Maclean's smartens up

Dr.Dawg@gmail.com (Dr.Dawg) — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 15:44:30 PDT

Well, well, well. In this week's Maclean's magazine (no link on-line as yet): EDITOR'S NOTE: In the Sept. 21 article "The CHRC tells itself to shape up" (National), we reported that Human Rights Commission staff hacked into the email account of a private citizen to post racist comments on a website. Maclean's is satisfied that there is no evidence to suggest that either Richard Warman or...

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Give peace a chance

Dr.Dawg@gmail.com (Dr.Dawg) — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 14:25:35 PDT

...and show some support for Jon Stewart, who dared host a couple of Middle East peace activists, one Palestinian, one Israeli.* His program, The Daily Show, is now under sustained attack. Nothing but unequivocal support for Israeli foreign policy, it seems, is to be permitted. The interviews, and further information, can be found at the link. Please take a moment to send the letter...

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Notice re libel action

Dr.Dawg@gmail.com (Dr.Dawg) — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 07:52:49 PDT

As many of you are aware, I am pursuing legal proceedings for defamation against Adrian MacNair, a.k.a. Raphael of Unambiguously Ambidextrous, and also an occasional National Post guest columnist. Although we have both retained lawyers who are discussing the matter, Mr. MacNair has inexplicably began publicizing our confidential discussions on his blog under the guise of seeking funds from his...

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Plus ça change...

Dr.Dawg@gmail.com (Dr.Dawg) — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 11:19:44 PDT

Why the Tories must never get a majority. The latest disgusting behaviour by the Harper frat-pack (to use blogger Impolitical's felicitous phrase) reminds me of an incident in 1988 in the Ontario legislature*, when decent folks were suffering the excesses of the Mike Harris regime. And I suspect that some of the same players might have been involved. On December 3, 1998, widows, dying workers...

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