The Early Summer Bittersweetness of Being

It's the beginning of the summer and my spirits are a bit higher than usual.

Anthony Pyor has finally responded to me after 10 years and seems to have gotten over what grievance he has with me. While it would be too much wishful thinking to hope that I can could chat with him like before, at least he's restarted his Wulf stories and I can enjoy some more of the fantasy erotic adventure you'll ever going to find online. It's at  and while it's definitely not to every taste, it is still a fun series of sexy stories with good humour and wild adventure that deserves a look for anyone who wants to learn how good original online erotic fiction can get.

Furthermore, this is the first week on CBC Radio One's summer schedule and that means a whole new batch of facsinating summer shows like Babel about language usage in Canada, The Invisible Hand about economics for the ordinary person, Metamorphosis: a biography version of the Late Show without the dying part, Fear Itself about the aspects and of course the international radio documentary showcase, Global Perspectives with this year's theme being "Old School, New School." For all, I know, this could be the last summer for such great shows, so I hope you might find them as interesting as I do.

Of mixed elements is that Obama's healthcare law survived the US Supreme Court and while he could have sold the whole thing much better and gone to Canadian style single payer coverage, this is still a feather in his cap to fight with for his re-election campaign. The bad news is that VIA is cutting back on passenger service, even in the busy Quebec-Ontario corridor, but at least I can still use it comfortably enough to still get to  Brantford for my parents or Toronto for whatever.  That frustrating part is that other nations are building up their passenger rail service like China and Europe and we are giving up on ours even when it makes so much economic and environmental sense to use the trains more with them being largely faster and energy efficient.


On the movie front, the upcoming movie, Ted, has a fresh status and a favourable critical consensus statement on Rotten Tomatoes and I couldn't be happier in that regard.  Unlike a dumb mashup premise like Abraham Lincoln, Vampire Killer, Ted feels more natural as a creative film fantasy concept that actually asks a really good story question: what would childhood magic be like if it continued straight into adulthood?  The fact the teddy bear being alive is no secret gives the whole story a fun new element that gives its coming of age theme that much more punch.  Just check out this trailer for an inspired if rather proudly rude film

While Magic Mike is looking promising, Ted will be the first film I want to see while Amazing Spider-Man looks like it has justified the character's movie reboot with style and intelligence this Monday at Rainbow at 8:00.

All in all, these are just small developments, but the positive one are interesting enough for this time of year.

A Change of Blogging Focus

I've been having trouble thinking up things to write about this blog and it seems my rigidity about it is proving part of the problem. 

Namely, my pattern of writing about politics on Tuesdays and generally what I like on Thursdays is getting in the way.  It's inhibiting my writing by pigeonholing my habits into a pattern that I don't feel comfortable and making it more a chore and that's certain to kill this blog again.

There's also the matter that I get really depressed with Harper's antics and I'd rather not dwell on them. As it is I'm already a member of both the  Federal and Provincial NDP and support the Council of Canadians, The Friends of Canadian Broadcasting, Fair Vote Canada and the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives.  Besides, with the number of people who read visit this thing, simply posting particular news stories I like on Facebook is a much more efficient way of sharing them. 

So, I'm changing my style and following the example of Mark Evanier's blog and just confine myself to more concise statements concerning politics before presenting links to writers more experienced and adept to say something really insightful whether it be Gwynne Dyer or the staff of The Toronto Star. Instead, I'll be focusing more on writing things that are actually enjoyable to write about like film, animation and comics.

I guess it's just a matter of dropping some pretensions and relaxing a bit and maybe this blog will actually be fun for a change.

Canadian Charter Birthday and Harper's Snub

Today is the 30th anniversary of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, a major advance in Canadian human rights which enabled the expansion of women's reproductive freedom, gay rights and other boons.

That makes it no surprise that Harper and his cronies want to ignore the occasion as much as they can. What else do you expect from a government that is so petty partisan to sneer at such a historical landmark in part because it was Pierre Trudeau's pride and joy.  Of course, the fact that it is a guard against the abuses of parliament with a majority government from in theory doing nearly whatever it wants is a factor as well. Now we have to hope that the courts will get a backbone to actually use the Charter to thwart the abuses Harper wants to commit in law. Given their misogyny, the fact that the Charter has the equivalent provisions of the failed US Equal Rights Amendment must really irritate Harper and the gang at least as much considering it makes it that much harder for them to push women around. The fact that they killed the Court Challenges program to impede the fight to make it work is no accident itself.

Of course, I do have complaints about the Charter.  The Notwithstanding Clause, which enables Parliament to arbitrarily override court decision for five years at a time is completely unacceptable as if the Parliament is above the law, or at least the official interpretation of it. Even if that clause has become political poison, it is no excuse to have it still available for any government to use. The fact that it has no provisions for protecting things of basic humanity like the social safety for the most vulnerable in our country is an equal sticking point.

There is also the fact that people have perverted its interpretation as a means to attack public health care in Quebec because it is having problems with wait times, just as how the US Supreme Court used their constitution's 14th amendment to create that legal person concept called the business corporation and unleashed those psychotics on the the world. Watch the film, The Corporation, to see a full explanation of that.

But still, this is a moment to commemorate the Charter to some degree, if only to understand that on the whole, it is something special that Trudeau gave to Canada, if imperfect in nature.

Victims of Flaherty's Federal Budget

Now with Jim Flaherty's fiscal vandalism more coming fully to light with his Federal Budget, the casualties of what has made Canada have a better sense of humanity are being cut away by these blind ideologues.

• The Community Access Program, which enables the poor to have better access to the internet and its online resources. So, Harper wants to try to silence the disadvantaged while local organizations and libraries have to pick up the slack as best they can.
• Rights and Democracy: A decades old organization found by Brian Mulroney to promote human rights and democratic institutions around the world.  Considering how it dared to give some honest criticism about Israeli policies when Harper and the gang are slavishly deferring to that country's every whim, it was rather inevitable considering they don't respect democracy in Canada as it is.
• National Council on Welfare: What do you expect from a government that doesn't care one bit about the fate of the poor and disadvantaged with their "out of sight, out of mind" mentality, it's not like they were paying attention to anything they had to say for years away.  
•  Katimavik: A youth program devoted to helping young Canadians work on social projects around the country and learn about different cultures, the environment and leadership. Just the fact that it was created under Pierre Trudeau with his idealism already painted a big target on it. Besides, we're talking about a government that sneers at the basic point of real community in favour "every bastard for himself," so why not sabotage a well established program to promote a greater humanity?

The worst part is that this just the big stuff that we really hear about, what the more subtle cuts that threaten people in more subtle ways.  I can't name real specifics, but that is the point considering what we don't know.

Instead we have these bunch of greedy fanatics slavering to buy overpriced jet fighters other countries are dropping like a hot potato and lying about the price tag for them while they splurge on building prisons for a Law and Order agenda in a time when crime has been going down for years.

We've seen their priorities and now we have a rough ride even we must gather our forces while we harry Harper for the election years away

The Federal Budget and the CBC

Well, the threat that was the Federal Budget and the Harper rampage has begun on a relatively subtle note.

On top of killing well established institutions like the National Council on Welfare because the Tories don't care to know anything about the poor anyway beyond where to jail them and cutting Environment Canada's because they want to know even less about that, the CBC is another obvious target with a 10% slash to their budget.

Of course it should come as a surprise to no one considering the network usually cares about the underprivileged and the abuses of the corporate world that hacks like Sun TV would rather ignore with faked news events about other stuff.  At least the BBC has their license fee structure to keep them funded without the government being able to directly attack them fiscally;  it's obviously decades too late for the CBC to setup the equivalent. In fact, at least one Tory MP wanted the cut to be 30%, and I bet Harper made sure that story spread in the name of political good cop/bad cop.

Now all we can do is decide if we really want to have a public broadcaster even as it has to cut back on its regional programming, focus on sport and entertainment to make a buck, close down Radio 2 or (ugh) put ads on CBC Radio 1.

If you want to help keep this national voice then check The Friends of Canadian Broadcasting and while you're at it: check out the kind of CBC TV programming we might see far less of in the future: 

Decision, Decisions: NDP Leadership

After all these months after we lost Jack Layton, with the NDP struggling with Nycole Turmel being overshadowed Bob Rae in the Liberal party, this weekend is the make or break occasion to get a new leader to take charge and lead my party into a position to harry Harper and take him and his cronies on in 2015. So, the NDP Leadership convention this weekend.

The problem for me is that I don't know who I want to go with and a lot is riding on this weekend. For instance, I want the party to keep to Tommy Douglas' ideals and principles, but that won't mean as much if we don't win power. So, I'm in a delicate balance of ideals and pragmatism that would determine the fate of this nation I don't want to mess my contribution up.

The problem is that I have not been able to see or listen to any of the debates and I haven't heard all of the interviews of the candidates on CBC Radio One, not that Thomas Muclair actually bothered to give one. So, I'm down to a few basic things I know about each of them, coloured by my prejudices and personal stands I cannot compromise.

So, I all I can do is list the candidates and give my feelings

• Thomas Muclair: He is the front runner and he is a established NDP veteran in Quebec and we need to keep our seats there if we are going to win.  However, his proposal to push the NDP to the center feels a violation what the party was created to be, the voice of the Left in this country and screams of Tony Blair's betrayal of the Labour Party in the UK that ultimately led him to be a toady to George W. Bush for his Iraq War based on lies. Yet, the Toronto Star, my favourite newspaper endorses him and they make a good argument of why we need him, even if Ed Broadbeat has made his potential job harder. At the same time, the fact that he refused interviews for CBC's The Current or The House is a black mark that says a lot of things about his attitudes and his openness.
• Brian Topp: He is the mastermind who enabled Jack to take Quebec, was endorsed by Ed Broadbent and he has the strongest commitment to electoral reform to bring in proportional representation. On the other hand, he is not a sitting MP and that is a major factor that will hamper his effectiveness in the House.
• Nathan Cullen: He stands out for his idea of cooperating the Liberals to some degree to help defeat the Tories.  There is a lot to be said about that, but I am wary of the threat such moves would lead to some kind of coalition to the point of the Liberals absorbing the NDP and killing Tommy's dream once and for all. Still, Harper has gotten this far by divide and conquer and we have to take action to stop that.
• Paul Dewar: I like his ideals, but his weakness in speaking French would make putting him in charge a perceived slap in the face of the Quebec wing and we cannot afford that.
• Peggy Nash: Just that interview on the House in which she refused to seriously entertain the possibility of reversing the Tory and Liberal corporate tax cuts kills my support.  Jack pulled some real victories fighting those stupid tax policies that have eviscerated our public services and I will not have that stance thrown away, pure and simple.
• Martin Singh: Some of his policies sound sensible enough, but the fact that he pushing his supporters to have Muclair as their #2 choice undercuts his credibility for his independence in my eyes.
• Niki Ashton : She is a very articulate woman who has a real fire that represents the NDP's new strength and has a good understanding of where the party has to go, but she is relatively new at this and I think she needs more time under her belt to be a serious candidate for the the next leadership race.

So, all I have is essentially some half-heard facts and more gut feelings which I doubt are pure and admirable by any stretch, but I'm down to a few days to decide and I hope I can make a good call for myself.

More Harperite perversion plans for Canadian science

With the blind ideological wrecking ball role the Harperites are determined to play, it's easy to forget that their rampage extends to more than just their asinine law and order agenda or their threats to the CBC among other things.

Now, I have learned that they want to change the operational mandate of the National Research Council of Canada, the main government body that supports scientific research in this country; you might know it for their 1 PM time signal on CBC Radio.  Now, they want to orient the organization for more business oriented for applied sciences as a kind of a "concierge" service.

As much as Minister of State for Science and Technology Gary Goodyear claims this will not mean cutting back on pure "blue skies" research, can we really believe this from a government that has been accused of muzzling scientists and arbitrarily shutting down important research centers like that arctic atmospheric research centre?  I say of course not, this largely just their forcible molding another important government institution to serve their political ends and avoid any "inconvenient truths."

After all, the NRC could easily be forced to turn down environmental research under such a mandate as being economically detrimental. With big business increasingly unwilling to do applied research on their own money on the scale of the photocopier Xerox when it founded PARC (Palo Alto Research Center), which made major advances in computer technology, the NRC could essentially be forced to be corporate welfare instead.


Just another example of Harper perverting our institutions for their own ends instead.

Harperite Allergy for the Truth

With the election call fraud scandal heating up with 31000 complaints to Elections Canada, it seems that all the Conservatives are flailing about trying to avoid being implicated when if they had cooperated like decent people, they might have been able to deflect more suspicion against them. Just blaming Elections Canada for this is just the most ridiculous of the Tory excuses they are to spew even as others in the same party are trying to do the damage control of looking like idiots.

But what do we expect from these vandals, they have a phobia for the real facts no matter how well researched and reasonable they are.  They already abolished the long form census, have been muzzling scientists to the point where the world renowned Nature Magazine is on to them and our most advanced and northern most atmospheric research center is set to shuttered without explanation or excuse from the Federal Government.

With the latest reports about global warming evidence and ozone depletion in the Arctic, the last one is completely inexcusable to the point of being insane, but is completely normal for Harper and his cronies.  They don't want truth, they just want a perpetual fog to cover their tracks and likely their own minds.  Their whole mishandling of our online communications infrastructure development is further proof of their incompetence and inability to see the need to keep our nation from becoming a "Hewer of Wood and Drawer of Water" again as our manufacturing sector suffers and our technology industries get beat up and sold off.

And the worst part is this is just the tip of the iceberg if you want to include their "Get tough on crime" agenda in a time when crime rates are falling or committing to buying jet fighters other nations have decided to not to get after all.

All this makes me want to get more audiobooks from Audible.com and retreat into hearing more people who actually can make a living being articulate and rational.

Robocall and More Human Election Cheating

Just when you think Harper has driven this country into an impermeable depth of political sleaze, we get more proof that has done it again in at least providing the attitude that is making this current election telephone expose possible.

Now CBC Radio's The Current has an interview today with a call center interview who was forced to make these kind of calls (the audio file will available later on their website), and reports of specific Conservative party supplied scripts for live callers on top of the robocalls are coming to light. All the Conservatives are doing is trying to belittle the whole accusations, saying to take them and any proof to Elections Canada, have one Tory claim to have faced the same voter suppression scam in his election to confuse the matter and throw one junior employee out as a scapegoat.

And yet, Chantal Hébert of the Toronto Star does have a good point that for a voter suppression scam, this one was wasn't efficiently systematic at all.  For instance, some the of the ridings affected were safe Tory ones like Wellington-Halton Hills and Simcoe-Grey whose Conservative candidates won by wide margins. It stands to reason that if there was a nationwide effort to make this scheme work, there would be a more focused effort to hit the vulnerable ridings. 

At the same time, such a pattern would be a big smoking gun that would be a killer scoop for any news bureau and a political howitzer for the Opposition that could conceivably cause the house to fall. So, the whole situation could be either a lot of cheaters acting on their own for this kind of scam, "encouraged" or otherwise, or a really subtle coordinated scheme more concerned with deniability than effectiveness. Either way, Elections Canada has a lot of check out and there should be a public inquiry about this before more people are turned off by elections more than they are now.

By contrast, Bob Rae apologizing for the Vikileaks employee he tossed out was a class act, even if that activist didn't do anything illegal; court records are public for anyone to see.  It's certain better behaviour than Toews ever has.

Good Online Privacy News

Well, it appears that  Bill C-30, the so-called "Protecting Children from Internet Predators Act" has been dealt a big setback and a bigger headache for Vic Toews who was forced to publicly admit that he was not aware of the specific provisions of it. Between that and his simplistic statements which is rousing even Conservatives against, things are looking up for this privacy invasion to be forced into something more reasonable. At least the online protest has made its point and the poster of the Viki Leaks at least had the sense to take it down with that.

The problem is now the police chiefs are trying to support it now. When cops say that the public has no need to fear them, that's when I get concerned of what they truly want. I had no problem of them supporting the long gun registry considering that is little different from checking automotive license records, both are reasonable measures for those are possessing potentially dangerous objects of those who knowingly gain such objects.

Spying into other people's online activity is another entirely as there is no direct harm without proactive activity like hacking or viruses.  As Rick Mercer says, I don't mind police investigating when necessary, but they should justify it to get a warrant first.

At least, this political dust might help the Conservatives keep to their public statement to not copy SOPA, at least exactly, here.

Canadian copyright and some suggestion of political sanity

While we have Don Drummond proposing his evisceration of Ontario's public service, we seem to have a glimmer of good news for once from Harper's cronies.

Apparently, they have come to realize that there is no political hay to be made copying the (hopefully) aborted Stop Online Piracy Act bill in Canada, at least as is.  So, for now, they taking the stance that they will be taking a softer tone on online copyright.

After all, they are publicly wavering a bit on the online snooping bill (now facetiously called Bill C-30 "Protecting Children from Internet Predators Act") they want and they could push that as a part of their myopic "law and order" agenda that could work relatively subtly in the background. While I have some misgivings about airing Public Safety Minister Vic Toew's personal dirt in protest of this bill, the fact that his yammering of such childish absolutes as "You either with us or the child pornographers," deserved some kind of answer.  After all, he is implying in that statement that every privacy commission in the country is in support of that kind of crime.

By contrast, there is no way that a copy of SOPA could be overlooked by the Canadian online public if they are suddenly and arbitrarily denied access to YouTube, Wikipedia and Facebook because of copyright violation accusations. Furthermore, the business community would be complaining of the telecommunications and technology industries being put at a severe disadvantage for innovation compared to the Americans, which means businesses like Research In Motion could find themselves in even greater difficulty with foreign competitors. Those kind of changes would cut across all the demographics nowadays and alienate everyone while making the Harperites look like whimps for bowing to foreign pressure so blatantly. That is a combination that even a majority government as arrogant as Harper's would fear.

So, while I am still going to be wary with the upcoming copyright reform, at least now there is some basis for some hope that they will not ape the American copyright hysteria and cripple the internet.

Until, check out Openmedia.ca's efforts to keep the pressure on for some online sanity in our country.

Budget Headaches and Hypocrisies To Come

It looks like we have a day before Don Drummond makes his report about the slash job he wants the Ontario government to do to deal with its deficit.

What makes this galling that a job that important has been delegated to one man who did this behind closed doors like a one man fiscal star chamber. For a task this significant, it should have been in a government committee where all the parties could have been able to weigh in on this matter.  Now that the Liberals are in a  minority position, that fact should have been a no-brainer, but instead McGuinty and company are imitating Harper's repellent methods instead.

Even worse, tax increases for the rich are apparently off the table in Drummond's report and the poor, disadvantaged and the voiceless will be bearing more of the burden.  That is simply neither fair nor just by any rational stretch of the moral imagination, even if a freeze on corporate tax cuts is also in the apparent offing as well.

Part of the moves proposed that is especially galling to remove the provincially supported employment areas from public libraries in favour of stand alone centers.  The logic of this is unfathomable as this would inhibit job seekers from using the logical municipal public resource that is intended for all the public and is placed appropriately to facilitate that. Now the provincial government are going to kill jobs from the libraries by removing this essential service and make it that much more difficult for the jobless to use it elsewhere.

Combine that with Harper's own slashing budget to come and London City Council's unconscionable obsession with a tax freeze they would loot the affordable housing fund and scapegoat the vital London-Middlesex Health Unit, this is going to be a bitter year for the livability of Canada on all levels.

Just seeing how much more Sandy White has betrayed her former ideals supporting this vandalism and then being so petty to try to get a blogger in trouble with his employer for speaking his mind is beyond the pale.  The fact that I was a sucker to work on her campaign in her first successful election is galling enough is terrible to contemplate.

London Riots and Uglier Public Reactions

Seeing the whole ugliness of the London riots, I can't help but see a much more sickening reaction to it by too much of the mass media and authorities.

For instance, reading about British PM David Cameron's tirade saying that the expansion of human rights as being a cause of the social disturbances is truly disturbing in and of itself.  Now, he is taking in this as a pretext to attack the basic laws to designed to further those rights and twist them for his own ends, with a sop to social services to cover

Likewise, it seems that too much of the media can only focus on the looting and various crimes incurred while paying only lip service to the police shooting that sparked the protests that admittedly gotten out of hand.  As usual, my favourite paper, The Toronto Star at least has some articles explaining the larger problems that sparked this violence, such as the widening gap of the rich and poor.

Otherwise, it seems that wiser heads need to fight to get their voices heard with fury and give real perspective to these incidents like this man did on BBC TV:

I just hope others like in London, Ontario itself can realize that properly supported public libraries and similar public services for the underprivileged to make them feel some hope and connection to society can do more to prevent these incidents than any amount of police intimidation or simplistic political gamesmanship can ever do.

Even so, for real solutions, that can only be a start...

Seeing the economic turmoil because of the Tea Party nutcases' moronic obstinacy in the US Congress, the whole tempest over Nycole Turmel as interim leader of the NDP is even more petty and repellent here.

After all, was one of the insiders of Brian Mulroney's federal cabinet before the Meech Lake Accord debacle and how is Steven Harper's former vow to put a "firewall around Alberta" any different in trying to divide the country than any of the antics the PQ has ever done in Quebec? 

As Claude Denis points out in today's Toronto Star's article about Turmel and the NDP, the PQ and BQ have dominated the leftwing Quebec for decades.  Therefore, if you are of a progressive orientation in that province, you pretty much have to align with them to some degree to have a real chance to achieve your political goals.

What the federal NDP has done is co-opt many of the supporters of the BQ and redirected them to a leftwing party with a clear federalist priority, their reckless Clarity Act stand notwithstanding.  Instead of being praised for that, the media just mindlessly follows Steven Harper's self-serving wedge issue manipulation and refuses to see the bigger picture as when it sneered at the NDP's young new MPs when it should have been a moment of celebration of Canada's political renewal.

Really, when the world economy is being battered by a few fanatic American rightwing Congressional hardasses who are greedy, blind and immature to accept the need for a functioning nation state depends on compromise, Nycole Turmel's rise should be seen as the bridge building opportunity for our country while the US is schisming needlessly.

US debt and infectious frustrations

Well, the odds say that the USA will not be going into default, but it also means that the Tea Party Republican fanatics in the US Congress have gotten their way in an infuriating game of political chicken. Now, there will be a horrific slashjob of government services because of a deficit that was resolved during Bill Clinton's administration.  What changed was that George W. Bush undid that fiscal prudence with his Iraq invasion he justified with WMD lies and then was idiotic to push for tax cuts for the rich during a time of war.

I also fault President Obama in this considering that people like Bill Clinton were calling on him to invoke the 14th Amendment of the US Constitution  to nullify the whole debt ceiling and preempt this artificial immediate crisis.  It seems like this guy is so determined to be a conciliator that he refuses to see that his opponents are out for his political blood.  For instance, he had the perfect opportunity to bypass Congress to get rid of the US Military's intolerable Don't Ask Don't Tell by simply conceding to the courts' ruling against it, yet he still had the Attorney General continue to fight to keep it.

Now, the US government is going to get eviscerated against the US public's opinions because too many of the privileged in the USA are too greedy and immature to accept that taxes are the price of civilization. I shudder at what inspiration Stephen Harper might take from this debacle and inflict on Canada.  After all, when someone like him is so determined to "get tough on crime" when crime rates are going down, he clearly has no use for reality.

Life without Jack

Sorry, I missed a post last Thursday, but I write my blog at the library and walking home at noon on the hottest day of the year was too intimidating a thing to do.

It's the day after the leader of my party, Jack Layton, announced that he's taking a leave of absence due to health issues.  To experience this, hopefully temporary loss, is a disheartening development. Yet, all non-partisan well wishing is nicely Canadian in a world where a Norwegian imitates Mark LePine as a murdering lunatic who is but an extreme example of a larger malignancy while US President Obama has to play rhetorical chicken against rightoid ideological  nutcases in the US Congress to prevent a worldwide economic body blow.

At the same time, at least Jack is doing this at the beginning of a very long 4-5 years of Federal Tory majority.  That way, my NDP will have time to adjust and regroup while all the new MPs have their opportunity to come up to speed fully with all the experience they need.  Certainly, Ms. Nycole Turmel has the organizational experience to help protest the wrecking rampage to come with a practiced rhetoric. She's going to need all of that kind of skill against a bunch of ideological hardcases who don't like to be inconvenienced with the facts.

As it is, she seems better than Ontario NDP leader, Andrea Horwath, who appears to be promising slightly less than the moon for the upcoming provincial election, albeit with a more rational platform than that Harrisite Tim Hudak.  To be honest, for all complaints about Dalton McGuinty, at least his current promises seem more reasonable at least in concept and I've had few complaints about his performance compared to the horrors of Mike Harris.  Sure, the HST is pain and all the tax cuts are self-evidently destructive in the long run for Ontario as a caring community, but there is at least a glimmer of responsibility and vision as with the green energy initiatives.

Ultimately, I likely will be volunteering for the NDP in the upcoming campaign yet again, but it will be harder if Jack isn't able to return to public life soon.

A Western Space Grounding

As of now, Shuttle Atlantis has disengaged from the International Space Station and is preparing for re-entry and landing.  With that, NASA's space shuttle program comes to an end after 30 years, which also means the end of manned US space missions for the foreseeable future.  Now, the Russian space program is going to have to carry the whole load to maintain the ISS and it seems like big Western space dreams are grounded for now.

The hard part about this is that I've read the arguments against the usefulness of manned space flights and they have some merits.  For instance, the Shuttle program was supposed to be a low cost delivery system get people into space and that has never been the case with massive cost overruns with a vehicle that was an economy design compromise from the beginning. After all, wouldn't it have made more sense for the Shuttle to be able to have powered atmospheric flight when coming down, instead of being the super expensive glider it is on the return trip? 

Even worse, when NASA tried to maintain the kind of schedule to justify the program in the 1980s, that led to a bureaucratic mentality that led them to ignore safety problems that led to the Challenger explosion. The whole age and the fragility of the vehicles that led to the destruction of the Columbia because its heat shield tiles were damaged; obviously if a space vehicle requires a life-or-death EVA examination of its integrity on every trip, then it is simply not acceptable. What I do fault NASA for is that they should have been working on a successor vehicle for the Shuttles decades ago and thus have a viable replacement ready to go.  As much as I am aware about budgetary realities, the tragedy of not acting on that kind of basic foresight is obvious. I just wish the secondary benefits of NASA's operation like new inventions like teflon being just the most obvious could be played up more to see how space exploration can be worth it in other and more subtle ways.

Furthermore, I've read that even the ISS is not that useful as a scientific research complex.  The sheer constant vibrations the thing makes with its essential systems apparently is a major pain for astronomical observations and other experiments.  On the other hand, the use of remote probes like Pathfinder and Opportunity have gotten great results in exploration with far more economy to say nothing about the Hubble Telescope's spectacular visuals (albeit at least after the shuttle mission to fix its lens defects). 

The problem is that manned missions are inspiring and in the long run necessary for the future of the human species, but it would be easier to think that way if there can be some definite short term advantage to having human crews while we're at it.  For instance, if there had something valuable on the Moon like some precious and/or useful mineral that would be worth going there regularly, then we'd obviously have a Moon base there by now. That said, the old premise from Space: 1999 of using it as a nuclear waste dump would seem broadly logical before economic and safety realities (which does NOT include the dumps exploding and deorbiting the satellite) come to mind.

I just hope that China might be able to embarrass the US to take their own space program seriously such as a successful manned moon mission for instance.  I certainly don't have much faith that the proposed private sector space operations will come to anything since they obviously can't indulge in the grand visions that NASA had in its glory years. As it, any new US moon mission has the problem that the vehicles were built with contracted aerospace companies, many of which are long gone. This has led to the jawdropping fact that NASA simply does not have the complete schematics of their own vehicles, such as the Saturn V Rocket so it would have to practically start from scratch as far as equipment goes.  I shake my head at such lack of vision to that can lead an organization of such smart people to come to that situation.

So here we are, effectively grounded from outer space on this hemisphere of a planet, waiting for someone to dream the dreams of the Final Frontier and to push to reach for a destiny that is still there for us to take.

Well, Canada Post is back in operation again thanks to the government blunt instrument known as Back to Work legislation.

Let me get this straight, the Canadian Union of Postal Workers pulls a labor action and tries to do it this time with a delicate touch with rotating strikes in an effort to make their point without inconveniencing the citizenry too much and it's Canada Post is portrayed as the victim here even after they killed all service in a lockout, leaving the union to be punished for all this?

Granted, postal service usage is on the serious decline for at least a decade and CUPW is definitely not in a strong bargaining position considering the industry's long term prospects.  After all, the internet is a game changer so obvious that even mentioning it now feels redundant from the first syllable I put down on this matter. Furthermore, the argument that the strike is going to likely accelerate postal service's usage decline has merit as online methods become ever more dominate.  That said, if we want to make that transition as smooth as possible, we are going to have to do a major online connection initiative on the scale of South Korea's efforts, with twenty times the total land mass.  To say that would be expensive would the most obvious of understatements, unless WI-FI connection can gain the equivalent range of terrestrial radio broadcasts.  Until then, there are still rural areas, small businesses and people who want items shipped with a reasonable price with some appropriate patience which need a public postal service.

However, such hard realities do not excuse the Canadian government from blatantly interfering with specific bargaining terms and arbitration methods in the back to work order.  Doing this is the mark of an outrageous arrogance of Stephen Harper more fitting of a dictator.  Given that such tightfisted control of his cabinet is exactly his style of governing, it seems obvious that he now is giving his best shot to apply it to every element of the Canadian government.  Furthermore, big businesses will be emboldened  to really shaft workers with a reasonable shot of getting the same partiality from Harper with an appeal for the "greater good" of the economy while the corporate heads give themselves the mega-salaries they hardly deserve outside of their own minds.

As much as the New Democratic Party of Canada tried to do its best with its filibuster to delay this measure, it became a futile gesture when Canada Post and CUPW walked away from bargaining to try to head off the imposed settlement.  Still, it was at least a symbolic move that had to be made and it's more backbone on the left than I have seen in some time to fight for the working class. That's enough for me to say I am proud to be among their number for the rough times ahead.

Just as I suspected, Joe Fontana has put this city in a situation where he would likely have to contemplate selling off the marquee public jewels of the city like Museum London, the Covent Garden Market, the London Convention Centre etc., or admit that his tax freeze policy is impractical.

The city simply mustn't do some glorified garage sale for quick cash.  While an argument can be made for privatizing the public golf courses (an issue which I fully admit my sports indifference), this move would impoverish the city in a more profound way that would hurt long after the money is exhausted.  For instance, Museum London is supposed to be this public resource to celebrate London's arts and history and privatizing the institution would kill that public mandate. 

Fontana is certainly not getting the thousands of jobs he said he would get to compensate for the revenue lost, Bell Canada's arbitrary move of relocating over 100 to Toronto this month makes that obvious.  Even the big train locomotive manufacturer plant is getting under pressure against the company's American plants with the Canadian Dollar being $1.02 to the USD.

Being a former MP for the Federal Liberal Party of Canada, ie. the Party of Slightly Idealized Political Expediency, I would hope that Fontana will simply be able to face reality and recognize his tax freeze is not going to work in the long run.  In lieu of that forlorn hope, I just hope that more City Councillors will realize that same truth and protect what is best for this city.

I was just listening to The Current on CBC Radio One, I just had a dramatic reminder of the threat of the pending Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) that has been neogiated in secret by Canada and numerous countries around the world.

Imagine an international treaty that essentially mandates ISPs to spy on your online activities to detect anything that could be simply alleged to be a copyright infringement, and distribute their finding internationally for any complaining copyright owner while you don't have a legal recourse to defend yourself. Furthermore, this treaty proposes that any electronic device such as your laptop, MP3 player etc. can be searched at will at any international border for infringing material by customs personnel, coming or going.

Worst of all, this treaty threatens our sovereignty as it practically mandates tougher copyright law and public opinion while opposition can simply be overruled on the matter because of an international treaty that was deliberately kept secret from the public in the first place. As much as Harper and his cronies are certainly cheerleaders to continue this intellectual property assault on the public good, this means they can be made capable of passing draconian and unfair legislation with the old excuse "We have no choice." This is called policy laundering and it's a fundamental attack on the basic tenet of democracy for the public to have open access and a say on our own legislative process. Furthermore, the treaty has backdoor clauses that can allow it to be modified to be even more draconian, and we the public will have little that the powers that be would consider worthy to contribute in such matters.

If there is any other reason you need to be suspicious of this treaty, it's very secrecy is enough of a red flag. For instance, The University of Ottawa's Canadian Internet Policy and Public Interest Clinic filed an access to information request but received only a document stating the title of the agreement and everything else was blacked out. That alone is damning about the risks of ACTA if they have to hide its content that completely.

You're free to read up about this yourself. I just thought I should to remember and act on the advice that it's always the quiet activities that can be the most dangerous.