Politics and its Discontents

Saturday, July 6, 2013

Some Low-Hanging Fruit

Or should I say pork? I have a bit of a busy morning, so I am taking the easy route for now by dedicating this photo to our 'friends' in the Red Chamber and their federal government enablers:

Friday, July 5, 2013

I Just Couldn't Resist This One

H/t Canadians Rallying to Unseat Stephen Harper

All Good Pets Deserve A Reward

Having owned a magnificent Landseer Newfoundland dog in the past (the most human pet I ever came into contact with), I am well-aware of the importance of rewarding good behaviour. For example, if you ask him/her to shake hands, you toss your pet a treat. Rolling over, 'speaking', etc. all call for positive reinforcement.

I awoke this morning wondering what would be a lovely gift for those pets in the Harper government who, throughout the last parliamentary session, spoke faithfully in their master's voice. While the list is long, and perhaps others will be the subject of future posts, I will highlight here only one of the many who merit the highest of accolades:

Kellie Leitch

This hippocratic oath-taker has, this year and since her election in 2011, given all to her party, even her medical integrity, refusing, as she did, to condemn the export of Canadian asbestos to developing nations despite its highly carcinogenic properties. She also walked and talked the party line over Harper cuts to refugee health care, describing the measures as 'fair and necessary.'

Perhaps Kellie's greatest achievement and irrefutable evidence of her fealty to her dark lord, Harper, is her ability to spin a variety of permutations on the very limited talking points (on average, two or three sentences) she is permitted whenever she appears on television to defend the indefensible. Her extolment of Mr. Harper is stellar, and I think you get the full measure of the lady within the first three minutes or so of this video, which may also suggest a cabinet post in her future for her unwavering loyalty:

Since it is not within my power to confer political reward to Ms Leitch, I offer this humble yet highly symbolic gift to her and others in her pack:

Apparently this particular choke chain comes in a variety of sizes, and is therefore suitable for widespread gifting, no matter what size pet vies for one in the Harper caucus.

Thursday, July 4, 2013

Is Trudeau's Poll Lead Such A Good Thing?

The latest polls show the Trudeau-led Liberals leading the Harper Conservatives 36% to 29%, with the NDP at 23%. Coincidentally, this petition from Forest EthicsEthics suggests it is not necessarily an occasion for celebration:

WHOSE SIDE IS JUSTIN ON, ANYWAY?

Liberal leader Justin Trudeau has been in office just a couple of short months and already he's making friends with folks on the wrong side of the tar sands issue. High-fiving Alberta Premier Alison Redford for spending billions to lobby for the tar sands industry and then slamming Prime Minister Harper for not doing enough to promote the Keystone XL pipeline... really? Really?!

Does Justin Trudeau stand behind Canada’s First Nations and Canadians from coast to coast who are saying no to pipelines and tankers, or does he stand behind Big Oil?

Send your message to Justin Trudeau using our handy email tool. Use the sample message or write your own. It's time we let Justin know we're watching his support for tar sands very closely.

Liberal leader Justin Trudeau’s only been on the job for a couple months – and already he’s getting off on the wrong foot by sounding like he’s showing support for the tar sands industry by promoting the Keystone KXL pipeline.

As Canadians, we must let him know that he is wading into waters that we don't support by high-fiving Alberta Premier Alison Redford for spending billions lobbying for the oil industry. In the same breath he slammed Prime Minister Harper for not doing enough to promote the Keystone XL pipeline. As if billions in oil subsidies and massive cuts to countless environmental regulations weren’t enough?!

“We Are Sleepwalking To Disaster . . " *

Many in the blogosphere are doing a stellar job covering the climate-change beat, including The Disaffected Lib, who has had several recent thought-provoking posts on the subject. So I really have nothing new or insightful to add, other than to draw your attention to a story covered in today's Star, written by its environment reporter, Raveena Aulakh.

Writing her story around a new report released by the United Nations’ World Meteorological Organization covering the world's climate from 2001-2010, Aulakh reports the following:

It was the warmest decade for both hemispheres.

There was a rapid decline in Arctic sea ice, and an accelerating loss of net mass from Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets.

Sea levels rose about 3 millimetres annually, twice the 20th-century rate.

Deaths from heatwaves increased dramatically to 136,000, compared with fewer than 6,000 deaths in the previous decade.

The average global temperature was 14.47 C, which is 0.21 degree warmer than 1991-2000.

Almost 94 per cent of countries logged their warmest 10 years on record.

Rising sea levels, acidification of oceans, and glacial melting at a rate far faster than had been anticipated in earlier models - it would seem that we have entered into a kind of recursive loop that will be very difficult, indeed, impossible to break, if all of our politicians continue to shy away from both the financial and political capital expenditures required, and we continue our personal complicity in that inaction.

My wife often opines that the human race is turning out to be a failed experiment. It is a perspective I have long resisted, but I am beginning to think she is correct. Our collective capacity to ignore the obvious and shy away from remediation, even while the world both burns and drowns, seems ample testament to our monumental failure as a species.