Of course they were

The Yes Men have admitted responsibility for the fake Environment Canada press release this morning setting impressive goals for carbon dioxide emission reduction. I only wish I had had time to predict this outcome on the blog this morning, because I certainly did to my wife at 7am. Oh, well.

The best part was when an official from the PMO described the hoax as "childish" in an e-mail to the media, and then proceeded to berate the wrong person for it.

Here's how the stunt wasn't childish at all: one PMO official showed exactly what he's made of, slandering a political opponent for no good reason. The Prime Minister loves to employ other bullies to match his own proclivities. The Yes Men like to expose groups and individuals for exactly what they are.

Here's another way it wasn't childish: the first story today was about Environment Canada's announcement that Canada would be taking a strong leadership position on CO2 reduction. The next story, a couple of hours later, is that the Canadian government had to make an announcement that they still suck on climate change.

Thanks, Yes Men! Screw over our government any old time!

Let's see those assholes in Strathcona County ban me from using this: Yes, that's a steering wheel laptop tray. That's totally going on my Christmas wish list. As a bonus, I'll get to test my vehicle's airbags, repeatedly.

(from Amazon, hat tip Wonkette)

Announcements, alt music Friday
So, in a week, I'll be marrying the future Mrs. RevMod.

My strongest impression of my stag evening tonight was this music. Though you won't be seeing an attractive brunette's breasts in accompaniment, as I did, enjoy!

Tory trouble

Dan thinks last night's Calgary-Glenmore by-election could be the first indication that the political map in Alberta is about to change.

Obama calls Kanye West a "Jackass"



Which is, you know, totally obviously true, so if Obama finds himself having to beg for forgiveness for this, I'm going to be a little pissed off.

I hope this is the only question that's raised during the press conference at the end of the meeting with the Prime Minister today, which of course it will be.

The best part of this story is the President's choice of word. He seems so young and cool, presidential-wise, but then he channels my favourite elderly curmudgeon:



The next time a bunch of birthers show up for a thinly-veiled racist protest, he should totally go out on the front step of the White House and tell those kids to get off his lawn.

Cover

It's beginning to become clear that neither the NDP nor the Conservatives are particularly interested in going to an election right now.

The Tories are still attempting to write a negative script about Micheal Ignatieff, because neither the one where he's a foreigner (born in Kenya, perhaps?) nor the one where he's in bed with"the socialists and the separatists" seems to be sticking. I think they'd like more time to try to brand him. (It's also worth nothing that even as a negative narrative stuck much more successfully to Dion, it still wasn't enough to get the CPC the majority they crave so badly.)

The NDP have more seats than ever, and many in the party have very long memories of what's happened to these sizable caucuses in the past - Canadians tire of minority governments and all but wipe the NDP out trying to create a majority. I'm not sure this history is likely to repeat, but the psychological scars remain. Further, Canadians don't seem too keen on a fall election, so for the NDP to prop up the government for a few months or even issue to issue leaves the party smelling like a rose. Finally, when Harper next goes down his inevitable path of power-hungry jackassery, Layton gets to be the hero who pulls the plug on the government.

So that's what the changes to EI are all about - the Conservatives have to offer Layton some cover to hide behind, and adding a few extra weeks of payments for the formerly long-term employed is just about the tiniest fig leaf of an excuse to vote with the government as I could imagine. But given how badly the NDP wants to find an excuse, it'll probably do.

Gaffe-o-Meter 2009?

So, rather than wait for an inevitable bit of Tory pushiness or stupidity, Micheal Ignatieff has announced that the Liberals will vote against whatever confidence measure happens to wander up. I suppose he avoids being seen as indecisive or unwilling to pull the trigger, the way Dion was, but this blanket "Let's have an election" declaration seems to be distasteful to a lot of Canadians who would just as soon not unless there's some pressing reason.

Nonetheless, strategic errors aren't gaffes, and I don't count pre-writ foolishness anyway. But I guess what I'm saying is I'm starting to think I need to prepare for the latest gaffe-o-meter contest, including reminding myself who won the last prediction and making an donation to the candidate of his or her choice.

More gaffe announcements to come.

Alt music Friday, alliteration edition

Bye Bye Bye. Boy band? Bollocks!

Fringe time and Alt Music Friday, all in one post!

May I recommend a show, having seen none at all yet this year? This is my third year of carrying a frequent fringer pass, and it's the Be Arthurs' third year of performing. I first saw them in 2007, performing as buskers between venues. Last year, they were promoted to free stage status. This year, they're putting on Reunion Tour, a "play" which I gather from their materials is a thin skeleton upon which to hang their musical stylings.

Ah, yes, their musical stylings - the Be Arthurs are Edmonton's premier ukulele cover band. Really, it can't be described - it needs to be seen.

And yet, if I rob a bank, I'd go to jail

Investment bank Goldman Sachs has posted a record profit, and will be paying out record bonuses to staff. A lot of the profit seems to be coming from acting as intermediaries selling government bonds issued by the United States Treasury in order to raise the funds required to pay for the bailout of investment banks.

Karma has its work cut out for it.

Why I don't like Harper even a little

"Nobody wants to see the opposition coalition we had at the end of last year," Harper said. "I think everybody in the public recognized the dangers that presents to the country."

Know what's more dangerous? The Prime Minister publicly and repeatedly pissing on Canadian Parliamentary tradition for his own political advantage. By all means, convince the public to disrespect the institutions that has helped our national government work for a century and a half.

Stephen Harper is a republican, in the purest sense of the word.

Economic stimulus

I hear an election costs the government three hundred million dollars. That's a lot of jobs (as opposed to the Tory economic stimulus, which discusses spending a lot of money but doesn't actually spend or do anything). Go for it, Iggy!

By the by, I can't think of a better fight to cause an election than EI benefit expansion. There is no better way of stimulating the economy than putting money in the hands of people who need to immediately spend it. Again I say, go for it, Iggy! I promise to find a nice picture of you for the Gaffeometer.

Alt Music Friday

I stop by here once in a while. Yeah, not often enough.

Meet Edmonton's new Poet Laureate:



I think the city is just trying to squeeze free concerts out of local musicians. We'll know this for certain if Edmonton's next Poets Laureate are the members of Shout Out Out Out Out.

Geek PSA

If you haven't been watching Dollhouse, why not?

If you have, I highly recommend two very interesting essays about the themes being explored, that can be found here and here.

And again, if you haven't, why not? You totally, totally should.

Slow down

Seriously, Canada, be cool. First with the mix tape, now with this weird starry-eyed stalking? (Oh, please, CBC, do not change the photo at the top of that story, because OMG!!!!1!) Canada, he's the head of state of a rival nation - if he starts to realize we have a huge crush on him, he's going to exploit that, and soon we'll be doing his homework and staying in Afghanistan until 2017.

Then again, he does seem more interested in protecting the rights of Canadians than certain Prime Ministers I could mention. But still.

Alt Music Friday

One of the first blogs ever to link me was published under the title "My City is Still Breathing", but it was years later before I first heard the Weakerthans song the title was lifted from. Since then, I've grown very fond of the band. How can you not love lyrics with this much curling talk?

Party before country

Micheal Ignatieff, yesterday:

I decided to permit [the Newfoundland and Labrador Liberal MPs] in the budget vote tonight a one-time vote of protest to signal their displeasure and my displeasure at these unilateral actions which, in my view, weaken our federation, cause strains in our federation at a time when Canadians should be pulling together.

And then the part that wasn't in the papers:

However, the rest of the Liberal party will vote for the budget, because weakening the federation might be a bad thing, but even worse would be weakening the Liberal party through leading a coalition government, or forcing an election. Expect to see this caucus find other creative ways of expressing our unhappiness with this government that don't involve actually doing anything about it over the next several months.

Or was that part just subtext?

Alt Music Friday

After last week's more challenging and arty Final Fantasy, here's some straight-up rock and roll - Toronto's Tokyo Police Club. Perhaps hearts broken by Ignatieff's acquiescence this week can tessellate into a real opposition.

Games

So the Prime Minister decided to release a budget that the Liberals can mostly accept? A budget that doesn't contain the sorts of poison pills the Fiscal Update did? If only.

Harper was astute enough to realize he couldn't use the budget to attack his Parliamentary opponents, the way he tried in November. But that didn't keep him from attacking opponents outside of Parliament. Just ask Danny Williams. Or the public service unions. (Hat tip to pogge for the latter link.)

It's this Harper that needs to be defeated - it's this Harper who doesn't deserve the confidence of the House. But the Liberal party will put political expediency above the national good, and will continue to play ball with this megalomaniacal small-time Machiavelli.

Hope Ignatieff finds a pair one day soon.

It stopped being about the budget two months ago

Let's review where we are, shall we?

Before the Governor-General reads the throne speech today, she's going to be swearing in 18 new senators - appointments that should not have been made, or should have been refused by the Governor-General, until the Prime Minister proved he had the confidence of the House.

The reason we don't know if he has the confidence of the House is because the Governor-General let him suspend parliament in the face of losing a vote, just like they do in your more civilized Banana Republics. But the opposition might have changed their mind since then, since the Liberals helped with the second stage of any Banana Republic-style centralization of power - they had the Leader of the Opposition disappeared.

And let's not forget where this started - when the government felt a world-wide financial crisis was excellent cover to de-fund the opposition parties.

Suspending Parliament was arrogant. In Canada, the Prime Minister serves at the pleasure of Parliament, not the other way around. Continuing to act like Prime Minister without proving that confidence, particularly with the Senate appointments, moves into the territory of hubris. Now the Prime Minister is playing another game of chicken with the new Liberal leader, "playing games with budget leaks" as Mr. Ignatieff himself put it. This looks like an early sign of the government governing exactly the way they did before the last election: pushing the Liberals into a corner again and again just to watch the creative ways the Liberals could fold their cards, again and again.

The budget might just provide Mr. Ignatieff with a fig leaf's worth of cover to back down from defeating this government, and I feel certain that if it does, Iggy's going to take it. But Harper has spent nearly every day since the last election making a mockery of our fundamental democratic institutions. He attacked the opposition as anti-democratic, and possibly even seditious, even as his behavior suggested a lack of understanding, or a lack of respect, for Canadian parliamentary tradition. His government came very close to defeat, his career very nearly ended, and instead of using the eight weeks since to show any sort of contrition for that behavior, he's once again engaged in brinkmanship with the Liberal Party. I hope, for the sake of Canada's parliamentary democracy, that Mr. Ignatieff is willing to take a stand, to help escort this usurper from 24 Sussex Drive.

I suggested at the suspension of Parliament that Mr. Harper should have done his party a favour and stepped aside. Time's up. It's no longer about the budget. Really, it never was.

Alt music Friday

Time to modernize the blog a little. I've noticed around the webtubes that people like myself, with no particular talent of our own to speak of, have been filling the occasional blog post simply with talented others. With no Parliament sitting yet ("Coalition if necessary, but not necessarily a coalition"? Hope Iggy finds a pair before the budget), and nothing but rainbows and unicorns and puffy clouds coming from our southern neighbours (Even David Brooks reported favourably from the conservative columnist dinner last week: "[Obama] very considerately asked me what vintage of wine I wanted my water turned into."), I've got to fill this page with something, and what could be better than that talented young fella Owen Pallett, aka Final Fantasy? I mean, who samples loops of violin? Here he is, live in Halifax:

The long nightmare is almost over

In a couple of hours, Barack Obama will be President of the United States. He has recieved enormous goodwill from around the world, including from here in Canada - I'd suggest the goodwill toward the United States is nearly as high as it was on September 12, 2001. Whatever else historians will note about Bush 43, the way he used unilateralism (on climate change, on SDI, primarily on Iraq) to screw away that goodwill will be long remembered.

I'm looking forward to seeing if Obama has learned that lesson.

A rhetorical question

Why does the American media require Jon Stewart to point out that Israel is not blamelessly defending herself in the current conflict? Why is he the one to point out the siege Gazans live under, that might make them angry and desperate enough to fire rockets (albeit rockets that can't be aimed and are unlikely to do any damage to people or property)? Why has the American media been perfectly happy to swallow the propaganda of the Israeli government whole, the same way they swallowed the American propaganda leading to the invasion and occupation of Iraq? Don't these people learn anything?

So, I suppose that's several rhetorical questions.