Creekside: Harper’s Big Live Late Pretaped Youtube Debut

So y’all recall the hype … Steve! Live and interactive and unrehearsed! It’s your interview with Steve! Ask him your questions and vote ‘em up on youtube! Steve will have no idea beforehand what wild questions will be thrown at him. Pick a card, any card… . So we all troop over to Kady’s at CBC at the appointed hour to enjoy a little live blogging of this daring and unlikely foray into new media and we stare at a black screen for oh, an hour or so, waiting. Steve appears to have prorogued youtube. . Eventually word comes down from the google gods –... Click Here

unrepentant old hippie: Are Canadians more conservative?

This little item caught my eye on Friday and interested me primarily because some of the usual suspects interpreted it as a sign that reproductive liberty is about to take a hit. According to a recent poll released by the conservative “Manning Centre” (just for fun, let’s imagine it was commissioned by some totally apolitical institution, and for even more fun, let’s imagine we’ve seen the questions and crosstabs and we’re happy), more Canadians who identify as “politically centrist” are down with conservative ideals: A survey by Allan Gregg of Harris-Decima... Click Here

Written on the Body: Orange Prize Longlist could probably beat up Canada Reads

Seriously guys, this is a bad ass list. Other long lists see this list coming and cross to the other side of the street. Some highlights: Barbara Kingsolver The Lacuna Andrea Levy The Long Song Hilary Mantel Wolf Hall (yes, I know she’s a questionable character but this was a really really long and also good book) **Sarah Waters The Little Stranger** I have left subtle clues indicating which one I want to win. Read More From Written on the Body Click Here →

unrepentant old hippie: Harper speaks

Haha, that reminds me of my old posts about George W:  “Georgie Speaks”, though Harper’s speechitude is less amusing.  So here he is, 40 minutes of answering the top softball questions from concerned Canadians (in English and en francais). Sort of in this order, he answers questions about the deficit, foreign aid, senate reform, Afghanistan detainee documents (11:15), climate change, the seal hunt (19:00), mandatory minimum sentences (25:30), some other miscellaneous bullshit, and finally, the most popular question of all, the pot question (35:40).   Sorry fetus fetishists,... Click Here

Creekside: MPs move to block extradition of Prince of Pot

Yesterday in the House of Commons, an MP from each of the Cons, the NDP, and the Libs stood up in succession to present petitions signed by 12,000 Canadians asking Justice Minister Rob Nicholson not to sign extradition papers that would deport Marc Emery to the US to serve a five-year sentence for selling marijuana seeds online. Emery was busted in 2005 by Canadian police acting on behalf of the U.S. DEA. Scott Reid, CPC : “Marc Emery’s activities, the ones for which he is being extradited, involve selling viable marijuana seeds over the Internet. It is worth noting that these activities... Click Here

Antigone Magazine: The Preliminary UNCSW 54 Post-Mortem

I will probably write more than just one post-mortem on the 54th Commission of the Status of Women for me. I’m writing while staying up too late in Calgary, waiting impatiently to be home with my kids, and have stayed up to that point that I’m scared that if I go to sleep that I will miss my plane. I didn’t actually get to see Senator Clinton. I had referred to her in my tweets, facebook and blog as “Hillary” and some other tweeple sent out a message to people blogging and tweeting the CSW asking that we refer to the Senator by her proper title. The Feminist communication... Click Here

the regina mom: Budget 2010: Still Leaving Women Behind

This came my way via the PAR-L email list.  Huge thanks to Kathleen Lahey for this work.  It puts a light on the inherently sexist economic system in which women exist, a system Stephen Harper is determined to prop up, regardless how much it hurts women and their children. Kathleen Lahey Mar. 5, 2010 The big picture: Women are half the population in Canada and nearly half the official labour force – but still do 62% of all unpaid work, and receive only 40% of after-tax incomes. This Budget: The government claims that it is providing one last $19 billion ‘stimulus’ package this year,... Click Here

Creekside: Dear Frank

In your last go round with whitewashing government complicity in torture, it took you 16 months to determine that even though : 1)CSIS and the RCMP “mistakenly” advised Egyptian and Syrian authorities that Canadian citizens Ahmad El Maati and Abdullah Almalki were “associated with Al Qaeda” and an “imminent threat to public security” and a “confessed terrorist” and that El Maati was “involved in a plan to commit a terrorist act in Canada”, resulting in 2)El Maati being subjected to “electric shock to his hands, back and genitals,... Click Here

unrepentant old hippie: Only 24 years too late

This is what’s called “a little late off the mark”, but I guess it’s a start: Pope Benedict XVI’s former diocese says it has suspended a priest convicted in 1986 of sexually abusing minors and accepted the resignation of his superior. The Archdiocese of Munich and Freising said Monday it had suspended a priest identified only as Rev. H. after having found that he had violated the condition that he not work with youth. The archdiocese said they had no complaints of more offences by the priest. Right… the fact that nobody else has come forward to complain... Click Here

Creekside: Breaking News – Some Bullshit Happening Somewhere

Totally useless up-to-the-minute coverage of some meaningless bullshit story that will keep you jacked up and tranquillized at the same time. “I’m just some fucking guy …” Ta rah to The Onion . Read More From Creekside Click Here →

unrepentant old hippie: Happy Pi Day

Pie for everyone!  It’s Pi Day: Pi, Greek letter (), is the symbol for the ratio of the circumference of a circle to its diameter. Pi Day is celebrated by math enthusiasts around the world on March 14th. Pi = 3.1415926535… With the use of computers, Pi has been calculated to over 1 trillion digits past the decimal. Pi is an irrational and transcendental number meaning it will continue infinitely without repeating. The symbol for pi was first used in 1706 by William Jones, but was popular after it was adopted by the Swiss mathematician Leonhard Euler in 1737. Even Teh GOogles are... Click Here

unrepentant old hippie: Can anyone even doubt it?

It’s like the Great George Carlin said:  Pre-born you’re fine;  pre-school, you’re fucked: Two Republican members of Kentucky’s House are attaching antiabortion-rights amendments to several unrelated bills that are awaiting a chamber vote, a move that is threatening to derail changes related to children’s Medicaid coverage, among other things, the Lexington Herald-Leader reports. The amendments — sponsored by Reps. David Floyd and Tim Moore — would require abortion providers to conduct an ultrasound and show the woman the image. The amendments... Click Here

unrepentant old hippie: Don’t forget

Yahoo yahoo yahoo woohoo woot!  My favourite day of the year. Read More From unrepentant old hippie Click Here →

unrepentant old hippie: One step forward

…two steps back, you’re doing the Ratzi Rhumba! Just when it looked like they might finally be getting into that “consenting adults” thing, along comes one more in a gathering dung heap of Catholic church child sex abuse scandals — and this one travels a long and perverse road that ends on the doorstep of Pope Sieggy himself: Pope Benedict XVI was directly implicated in a deepening Catholic Church sex abuse scandal for the first time late yesterday following disclosures that he unwittingly approved the transfer a priest who forced an 11-year-old boy to... Click Here

Creekside: Laurie Hawn’s “gold standard”

On CBC radio’s The House this morning, Laurie Hawn, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of National Defence and the lead government MP on the Special Committee on the Canadian Mission in Afghanistan, said that his government had fixed the faulty Afghan detainee agreement they had inherited from the Liberals and then made the following statement about the current treatment of Afghan detainees : “Our detainee arrangement is the new gold standard. Taliban prisoners are treated like gold.” Well so much for the U.S. State Department’s 2009 report on Afghan human rights then... Click Here

Antigone Magazine: “You must do the thing you think you cannot do”

What are your dreams for women? Antigone Magazine C/O WILLA Box 61 – 6138 SUB Blvd Vancouver, BC Canada V6T 1Z1 OR antigonemagazine(at)hotmail.com Filed under: Dreams for women Read More From Antigone Magazine Click Here →

Politics'n'Poetry: Canadian Nuke Company Connected to Kazakh Investigation

Oops!  A nuker lost his job as head honcho at Kazatomprom, a state-owned nuke company in Kazakhstan.  And there’s a Canuckian connection: Dzhakishev went on trial in January, charged with stealing 99.8 million tenge (about $679,000) during the opening of the Kazatomprom’s representative office in Vienna. He was ousted as head of the company [...] Read More From Politics'n'Poetry Click Here →

Antigone Magazine: Some Leaders are Born Women, Generosity Edition

I think that aside from just being born as leaders, there are a number of feminists who are also born with an incredible generosity of spirit. I could tell you countless stories of the support and help and mentorship that I have received from fabulous feminist women that has made such a difference in my life and the work that I do. One great story is a recent one. When I announced my book project on a national feminist listserv (Par-L for those who are curious), the generosity of the replies that I got truly humbled and touched me! Within a couple of hours, the President of the Canadian YWCA had... Click Here

unrepentant old hippie: Fun with Harper’s YouTube channel

Someone’s about ready to spring a leak: Oh yeah? I’m always amazed to encounter people who have drunk so deeply of the Authoritarian Koolaid that they think the “will of the public” should have any bearing whatsoever on personal decisions and rights.  Does the phrase “tyranny of the majority” mean anything to these halfwits?  But I digress.  On to Stephen Harper’s Youtube channel, enter “abortion” in the search field and let the Mighty Gizoogle do its magic.  Shazzam!  Eight(8) feverish questions, including: Really Harpoonie, why doesn’t... Click Here

Creekside: BC Greenwash and Wear

Environmental activist Tzeporah Berman of Forest Ethics presents BC Premier Gordon Campbell with a “green award” at the Copenhagen climate conference in December 2009. The previous month Campbell hired Berman on to his “Green Energy Advisory Task Force”. Last May Berman actively supported Campbell’s re-election citing his “environmental leadership”. This is the same Gordon Campbell who supports the Grizzly bear hunt and open-cage fish farms, the Gateway Pacific and twin Enbridge pipelines running from the Alberta tar sands to Kitimat, the proposed revoking... Click Here

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