Terahertz

Stephen Harper is taking his fundamentalist ideology to a new level by cutting any support for family planning initiatives from the June G8 meeting. The reasoning is flawed, short-sighted and stupid:

Birth control doesn’t fit with saving lives.

On the surface this statement almost makes sense. But when you consider the indirect costs, health risks, and difficulties associated with birth and young children, especially in impoverished areas, you can probably see the need for some initiative.

Even George W. Bush supported birth control projects, albeit he preferred the flawed natural planning method and abstinence and banned money to organizations that provided any services surrounding abortions.

Harper claimed a few months ago that he cared about the women and children of the third world. He’s either a liar or has a really twisted vision of helping.

(h/t Melany)

That’s my naked right pinky finger. On most engineers (who are right-handed) you will typically find a piece of iron (actually stainless steel) that represents their obligation to engineering. I didn’t get mine because I refused, and still do, to sign the Obligation that would have required me to hypocritically betray my conscience while pledging to be honest. While I would still appreciate being offered the olive branch to be included in that ceremony, I’m growing even more ashamed of the people who were once my peers.

Today’s Facebook check brought an invite to the page “Engineers in favour of improving our faculty and supporting the ESS" which lists a statement by the University of Alberta’s Engineering Student Society’s Board of Directors, a body made of up of the democratically-elected presidents of each discipline plus the executive of the ESS.

The statement outlines how the Board has consulted with the faculty administrators and decided that the best when to ensure that the “world class facilities and faculty” are kept in place is to tax students.

Oh wait, they don’t use the word tax, they call it a “Market Modifier.”

Market modifier my ass, the ESS has just sold the average engineering student up shit creek without a paddle.

I’m glad my finger is naked, because I’m ashamed of these tools.

Currently the UofA administrators are pushing forward, almost without protest, a mandatory tax, sorry “Common Student Space, Sustainability and Security Fee,” of $570 per student per semester to recoup some of it’s $57 million deficit. This fee is on top of the market modifiers, so the ESS is proposing that engineering students ought to pay even more than the average student.

But don’t worry says the University and the ESS, some of these fees will go straight back into scholarships!

So to help the un-affordability that extra student taxes are creating, they offer to throw a few bucks back, at only a few students. But don’t worry, titles like “ESS President” look really good on scholarship applications, so our wonderful Board members may be able to get their funds back, plus a little of their peers.

But why is the UofA in such dire straights?

Having the highest paid administrators in Canada can’t have anything to do with it, I mean, combined they only take in $2.57 million. That’s not even counting how much the deans and their staff are bringing in. Their vision of making the UofA “top 20 by 2020” (whatever the fuck that means, remember how they never explained it) has come at the financial stability of the school and now they’re pinning the exorbitant costs on students.

Where’s the lobbying to Stelmach? Where’s the lobbying to Ottawa? These people are also in part to blame.

But instead, you have students being manipulated by these people trying to protect their overpaid jobs.

I thought it was bad enough that far too many engineers are creationists or anti-science climate change denialists. But this takes the stereotypical right-wing engineer to a far new level.

Notice how they even tilt the language, using the word “market” as though a degree is a mere product to be traded, not earned. Entitled shits. Universities used to be about higher learning and expanding your mind. If this is the future of engineering, move it back to technical school and leave university for the actual academic pursuits.

Market modifiers my ass. A tax is a tax, and this is only going to hurt the University of Alberta. Tuition only goes up, and letting them raise it will only screw students in the long run.

I’m glad I got out. I feel sorry for those who will no longer be able to get in.

This is unfortunate news.

Last month, Manitoba NDP MP Pat Martin blasted plans to spend $3 million of federal money on a Youth for Christ youth centre in his riding. His statements then were:

“I have no objection to faith-based organizations providing services. Sally Ann (the Salvation Army) and others have been doing a great job for years. But these people are evangelical fundamentalists," Martin said of Youth For Christ. "Offering much-needed sports opportunities is just their way of luring in young prospects."

He went on to quip: "Would the federal government be so willing to give them $3 million if they were called Youth for Allah?"

But now, with Winnipeg city council voting in favour of the project, Martin is pledging his support.

While I think this move came from a desire to see any sort of facility built for youth in his riding, it’s disappointing it has to come from a group that actively proselytizes and recruits youths for “faith journeys.”

Mayor Sam Katz had even more concerning comments:

"A lot of citizens do not believe we should be funding any faith-based organizations. Little do they realize, it happens every day," said Katz, who called Martin’s statements about Youth for Christ "unfortunate."

So a lot of people aren’t being listened to by our elected officials.

Democracy fail.

My only final question, why doesn’t Conservative MP Vic Toews use the word Conservative anywhere on his website? Ashamed much?

Recent levels of conservative articles in SFU’s student newspaper The Peak prompted me to submit an article which got published today. While this isn’t my best writing (a few awkward sentences survived the editor), I am planning to write a bit more frequently for the weekly paper, so hopefully it improves.

It’s also worth noting that my story was one of the highlights listed on the front page.

My article, appearing on page four is reprinted here:

Conservatives are eroding Canadian values

Stephen Harper hates Canada, or at least he has indicated as much. He and his brand of Reform Party theo-cons have every intention of tearing down the institutions that make our country great.

The most recent evidence of this is Immigration Minister Jason Kenney’s personal interventions to remove references to homosexual rights from Canada’s latest immigration brochures. Rather than have new immigrants know that Canada was among the first countries in the world to extend the right of marriage to same-sex couples, the Conservatives would rather paint a picture of Canada as they want to see it. Similarly, the brochure also omits any reference to health care and feminism, and plays up our history of armed conflict while downplaying our role as world peacekeepers.

Yet these Conservatives’ pasts haunts them. In 2003, as a member of the neoconservative group, Civitas, Harper stated that to achieve the goal of a conservative social policy, the Conservatives must win over immigrants and make “incremental” movements to the right, knowing full well that an abrupt change of course toward their true goals would scare most Canadians.

So after six years as leader of a minority government, we have watched Harper make deep cuts to our federal income streams. Lowered income from the GST, as well as corporate and personal income taxes has put the country in a deficit, to which the only available answer for the neoconservative is an attack on the foundations of our modern Canadian society – the welfare state.

In a similar vein, to reform our society, we have witnessed massive cuts and legislation changes to cripple several decades of progress fought for by this nation’s feminists. Status of Women Canada is a shell of its former self, and, after the 2009 budget, it is now harder for women to achieve equal pay for equal work.

Even our democratic systems suffer as our prime minister is in contempt of the will of Parliament, and thereby the will of the majority of Canadians, who are demanding documents that will confirm the claims of whistleblower Richard Colvin or clear the names of our soldiers. Rather than provide these documents, Harper again dishonestly shut the door on democracy and hid behind claims that the opposition hates our troops. If Harper truly cared about our troops he would present the documents that clear their names of what must be wrongful accusations. At least, they must be wrongful as that is what the government keeps saying.

But we don’t have to look as far as Ottawa to see the anti-progressives at work. Mirroring tactics that were used by Ontario campus conservative groups to destroy their Public Interest Research Groups; campus conservatives here have taken up a crusade against SFPIRG under the banners of “democracy” and “accountability.” The argument is that SFPIRG needs improvement, and few would disagree, yet the claim that they are arbitrarily appointing people to their board is absurd. Have these conservatives attempted to join SFPIRG and reform the group from the inside?

As was pointed out, if there are too few candidates for the board, acclamations are granted to those few who step forward to actually do the work. Otherwise you have shit disturbers who lobby the SFSS and student body to destroy a group that they have the ability to opt-out of.

But it is too easy to write these actions off as a grand right-wing conspiracy. Rather, we have a minority subset of society that hates the institutions we have fought for in this country, and is working incrementally at various levels to take away many of the things we take for granted.

Most of my future articles will be on skepticism / atheism / Humanism, and I’m hoping to have something to submit most weeks (I may post here even if it ends up on the digital floor of the Peak).

One of the most frequent questions when I was being interviewed about the convocation change at the University of Alberta was what I thought about the anthem and whether I wanted it changed. I mostly answered neutrally since I wanted to keep the focus on the topic at hand.

But now, after a prorogation no one ordered, and a throne speech that was bound to disappoint, Prime Minister Harper dropped this in my lap:

Our Government will also ask Parliament to examine the original gender-neutral English wording of the national anthem.

As Northern BC Dipper points out, that amounts to changing the line “True patriot love in all thy sons command” to potentially “true patriot love thou dost in us command” although I’ve also used the line (and heard others recommend) “in all of us command.”

It is worth noting that that same 1908 version that Harper seems to want to go to is also religiously neutral, that is secular.

With the Vancouver Olympics just ending with Canada’s record 14 official playings of the anthem (and how many countless spontaneous ones), I opted to change “God keep our land” to “We’ll keep our land.” Alternatively another “O Canada” was used in place of “God keep our land.”

The current version only came into being officially with the 1980 National Anthem Act, and with a government that’s willing to look at changes (albeit removing religious references is likely not on their radar), it may be the perfect time for Canadian secularists to act.

I think there’s a couple key things to think about while CTV shows Harper at every Olympic event they see him at:

1. This a good reminder that the NDP gave their free Olympic tickets back to VANOC because they didn’t believe they were entitled to something average Canadians were having a difficult time getting their hands on any. Meanwhile Harper and the Conservatives had no problem reaping the perks (even he donates our tax dollars back to the Olympics).
2. Seeing Harper at the Games should be a good reminder that he’s not at work right now.
3. In Harper’s interview with CTV he stated his support of Canadian athletes, but that support apparently doesn’t extend to include the Own The Podium program that most of our athletes have been crediting to our record setting medal count.

A neocon tool who uses SFUs student newspaper, The Peak, to spout his views alerted me (and the 5 other readers of the Peak) that populist Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez is blaming the Haitian earthquake on a secret US weapon test before they turn the weapon on Iran.

Not feeling like I can trust Van Maren’s fact-checking ability, I ran a source check to see how many news articles “chavez earthquake” returns. A mere 700 if you were wondering. And most of those are because Chavez is a president of a nearby country.

But what about “chavez earthquake weapon”? Now you only get 70 hits, with such great sources as “World Press Review,” “NowPublic,” and FOXNews.

Ah, FOXNews, what a reputable source. They of course jump on the chance to blast a socialist leader as a crazy wackaloon and state the following:

The United States apparently possesses an "earthquake weapon" that set off the catastrophic quake in Haiti and killed 200,000 innocents. Don’t believe it’s true? Just ask Hugo Chavez. [emphasis theirs]

They claim the story originated on “the Venezuelan strongman’s state mouthpiece ViVe TV” (does that make FOXNews the Republican party’s mouthpiece?) but was taken down recently. They try linking to the Google cached pages which aren’t all too damning.

The only other source for this story seems to be a YouTube channel called “RussiaToday” which has this video:

This is supposedly the YouTube arm of the Russian state run RT TV station. They quote Spanish Newspaper ABC, and you can find the translated article here. It quotes the Venezuelan TV station as well.

These claims fly on the heels of the substantiated reports that Chavez claimed that the US was “taking [military] advantage of the tragedy” and moving to occupy Haiti.

Here’s the facts:

• Chavez distrusts the USA and claimed they were invading Haiti
• FOXNews is not known for portraying Chavez (or any other socialists) in a positive light
• Someone (either ViVe TV or RT or FOXNews) published a story claiming the Haitian earthquake was caused by a secret US weapon test
• That story no longer exists (or never did) as a primary source
• People will believe most of the crap they read if it fits their agenda

Could Chavez had said crazy things? Probably. While I am more of a socialist than the average North American, I’m not going to march behind everything a socialist leader says (as blindly following generally ends badly), and I don’t think the USA is trying to invade Haiti (it makes no strategic sense, do they need more sweatshops in Haiti?).

But at the same time, FOXNews isn’t the bastion of unbiased press, hell there’s a whole freakin’ Wikipedia Page on FOXNews Controversies.

So perhaps this is one of those mystical reporting times when the truth actually does lie somewhere in the middle, with Chavez a bit crazy, and FOXNews a bit loose with their journalistic integrity.

While I might get trashed on ProgBlogs as a neo-Con troll for being contrarian, let me elaborate my thoughts on the future of the CAPP protests.

Over 200,000 people joined the Canadians Against Proroguing Parliament Facebook group in the past few weeks, impressing everyone (except those who cannot be impressed by their opponents), and somewhere on the order of 25,000 people turned up to protests yesterday morning (which I reluctantly admit slipped my mind when I slept in after a late-night on Friday).

NDP and Liberal partisans want to see this as a win for the left and for progressive causes. A reaction to Stephen Harper and all his evils over the past 4 years.

And it would be really great if we could see it entirely as that.

But when you listen to many of the quotes coming from the non-partisans in the crowd, you hear lots of “get back to work” and even on CBCs Test The Nation, the politician team was faced with similar heckles.

This leads me to feel that while their is a strong anti-Conservative element to the protests, much more of it comes from the (smart) framing by the organizers as though all politicians are getting a 3-month holiday or vacation.

Which is of course somewhat false, as every politician does have a lot of work to do outside of parliament.

I think it bears a little comparison to last years protests over the coalition (of which there were sizable pro- and con- positions, however both sides were pretty heavily partisan), in that from the average person or Conservatives point of view, politicians were being slimely and trying to change the election (I know that’s just the Con lie, but it did work). Meanwhile, on the coalition side, we saw Harper being slimely, and we didn’t like it. All-in-all, Canadians I think get really pissed when their apathy is taken for granted. We seem to want our politicians to make very slow, minor changes and to not really stir the pot. Treat our democracy like crap, and we get mad.

So we’ll have to see how this “movement” transforms between now and the March resuming of parliament. Will it translate into anything beyond a bunch of people pissed at Harper granting a paid vacation that we all wish we could take, or will it actually culminate in some real changes?

Will this result in democratic reforms on the powers of the executive as the NDP is proposing, some form proportional representation, as Ignatieff is almost now hinting at, another election that could see the end of Harper the PM (or yet another Harper minority, which might result in the same angst from within) or just more of the same partisan brinkmanship that has defined the past decade of Canadian politics?

Only time will tell.

The two new members of the Wildrose Alliance won’t resign their seats and run in byelections under their new banner because apparently democracy costs too much. So much for accountability.

NDP Leader Brian Mason is calling the Wildrose Alliance’s two newest members to take their decision to cross the floor back to voters.

…

Anderson and Forsyth said Monday they do not plan to resign their seats because byelections would be too expensive.

I think we officially need to change our Social Studies curricula to start instructing students on how democracy doesn’t exist in Canada.

Rumours swirling around Ottawa suggest the Conservative government is thinking of shutting down Parliament until after the Olympics, killing some of its own bills but also ending the discussion of Afghan detainees that is nibbling away at Tory popularity.

Remember a year ago when Harper avoided losing his job by locking the doors on parliament? Of note this time is this point:

But opposition members of the Special Committee on the Canadian Mission in Afghanistan have asked to hold special meetings before the session resumes. Among other high-profile witnesses, they want Defence Minister Peter MacKay and his predecessor, Gordon O’Connor, to return for more interrogation about what they knew of the torture allegations. The committee could not sit during prorogation. [emphasis added]

This is all still rumour speculation, but it’s still a bitter irony that the party that won on accountability could close down government, again, to avoid having to answer to the House of Commons.

Contempt of Parliament? More like contempt of democracy.