Stephen Harper and his fluffers
What an extraordinary amount of work it takes to keep Steve afloat.
(Think the flapping bald guy requested a copy he can show to his kids?)
But it obviously is a lot of work - getting election endorsements from 95%
of the nation's media owners; prorogation; contempt of parliament; election
fraud; polling fraud; muzzling backbenchers, gov. academics, and staff;
gutting and dismantling independent gov. departments and research - like
the ELA and StatsCan; lying about the costs of things he wants - like the
F-35; the EAP ads; creating a climate of fear in the civil service;
marginaliz... more »
CSEC spies on Canadians : watchdog report
While whistleblower Edward Snowden and Glenn Greenwald have published
reports about the USA's NSA and UK's GCHQ joint electronic surveillance of
Brits and Americans, we've been pretty much in the dark in Canada about our
own government's surveillance of us.
An annual report tabled two days ago from the independent watchdog
commissioner for Canada's electronic eavesdropping agency* Communications
Security Establishment Canada* elicited the following timid headlines
repeated throughout yesterday's press coverage.
Post Media : Canadians may be victims of illicit spying
NaPo : Canada’... more »
Surveillance theatre
Given the sheer pointlessness of :
1) destroying the Guardian copy of Snowden hard drive data after being
informed there were two other copies in existence elsewhere anyway, and
2) detaining Greenwald's partner Miranda for 9 hours under a terrorism
statute when they knew he isn't a terrorist
we are reliably inclined to view this as a clear intent to intimidate the
Guardian and Greenwald, as well as any other media with the audacity not to
equate journalism with terrorism.
But there may be another possibility.
In this Guardian article published earlier this month based on Edward
Sno... more »
If everything is under surveillance ...
A powerful two minutes with Jacob Appelbaum of Tor Project and Der Spiegel.
Mr. Appelbaum has been flagged and detained many times like Glenn
Greenwald's partner David Miranda was at Heathrow three days ago. An
American citizen, he no longer travels to the US.
Wall Street Journal, Aug 20 2013 :
"The NSA, in conjunction with telecommunications companies, has built a
system that can reach deep into the U.S. Internet backbone and cover 75% of
traffic in the country, including not only metadata but the content of
online communications."
The Guardian, Aug 1 2013
"The US government ha... more »
UK destroys The Guardian's "Snowden" hard drives
Just as we are absorbing yesterday's news that Glenn Greenwald's domestic
partner was detained at London's Heathrow Airport for 9 hours under
Schedule 7 of the UK's Terrorism Act while they asked him all about
Greenwald and whistleblower Edward Snowden ?!?! ... comes this column today
from the Guardian's Editor-in-Chief, Alan Rusbridge :
*David Miranda, schedule 7 and the danger that all reporters now face*
In it he describes how two months of visits from "senior government
officials" demanding he hand over the Edward Snowden material culminated in
an ultimatum a month ago :
"..ha... more »
These aren't the drones you're looking for
The RCAF has determined it doesn't require permission from civilian
authorities to fly its drones through domestic airspace, according to a
2011 briefing note obtained by David Pugliese. The US, Europe, and Israel
require civilian oversight but Canada does not.
Having leased some Heron drones for use in Afghanistan from Israel, the
world's largest drone manufacturer, the Cons want to purchase 18 UAVs for
$1.5-billion plus.
Here's a short vid inside the Heron plant in Israel from two weeks ago .
So we already have the tech to build Skynet, we just haven't told it not to
bother u... more »
SNC-Lavalinks in a small, small, small Con world.
Gwyn Morgan, chairman of SNC-Lavalin for six years til this past May,
portrayed the beleaguered company in his recent July G&M article as "the
victim of embezzlement by two trusted, long-time executives."
There are several long-time execs to choose from here so I'm not sure
exactly which two he is referring to. Morgan, you will recall, was Harper's
pick to head up his 2006 ethics and accountability commission.
Helping SNC-L out during this period of victimhood is the Harper
Government, who just extended them a defence contract worth $400 million
over up to ten years to provide Ca... more »
Rob Ford, Sopranos Edition - A timeline
2005. Scott MacIntyre , convicted drug trafficker and boyfriend of Rob
Ford's sister Kathy, is charged along with another guest with shooting
Kathy in the face and stealing the family Jag at one of the famous Ford
Family BBQs . Charges against MacIntyre are dropped.
2008 A reunited MacIntyre and Kathy are busted for stealing licence plates
and possession of B&E equipment. Kathy is convicted but charges against
MacIntyre are again dropped.
Jan 11 2012 MacIntyre enters Ford's home and yells : "You owe me money,
your sister owes me money. If I don’t get it, they will kill me," and "Yo... more »
REAL Women supports Russian "family values"
Harper campaigns to his cheering anti-gay base in Ottawa, April 2005 :
"Your beliefs, your values, our values, are the real Canadian values. And
you know my position. You know the position of the Conservative Party of
Canada. When elected Prime Minister at the next election, whenever that may
be, we'll bring in legislation that will define marriage as the union of
one man and one woman."
Well that was then, huh, Gwen?
Problem for you is Steve really really likes being PM. So he's cool with
you helping him get elected and in return you got to help give out some
medals and make the ... more »
News from Homelandia
There was a bit of a stink in the media a few days ago after US Senate
Intelligence Committee Chair Dianne Feinstein tabled this map "produced by
the NSA" purporting to show "the disruption of potential terrorist events
at home and abroad" due to its vacuuming up of phone call logs.
At issue is the designation "Homeland" which includes Canada, Mexico,
Central America, Cuba and Greenland.
Commenters were quick to point out that the NSA was in fact using a pretty
standard map of the seven continents here, but I notice that Europe,
Africa, and Asia got to keep their continental desig... more »
Wait. Police lawyers write up officers' notes for them?
From a partial transcript of Ontario Ombudsman and former Special
Investigation Unit Director Andre Marin's interview on CBC yesterday regarding
how systemic obstruction from the police will affect the Sammy Yatiminvestigation:
"The director of the SIU has written 82 times to the Chief of Toronto
Police, reporting issues of evidence tampering on the scene, failure to
notify the SIU of an incident, *one police lawye**r representing multiple
officers, police lawyers writing the notes for the officers *- you know the
police lawyer wasn't on scene."
Although Mr. Marin was talking about... more »
Ontario Ombudsman and former SIU Director on Sammy Yatim investigation
Yesterday on CBC Metro Morning, Ontario Ombudsman and former Director of
the Special Investigations Unit Andre Marin spoke about the SIU
investigation into the Toronto Police shooting death of 18 year old Sammy
Yatim on an empty streetcar and the systemic lack of police co-operation
with the SIU.
Excerpted transcript :
CBC : The Chief of Police has said that he and his officers will cooperate
fully with the SIU. Yesterday Mike McCormick the head of the police union
said that his offices always cooperate and collaborate with the SIU.
Marin : The cooperation of the police with an S... more »
The Mounties always get their man ... off
Like the other three RCMP officers, Constable Bill Bentley stated Robert Dziekanski
"grabbed a stapler and came at members screaming."
Paul Pritchard's video showed Dziekanski was backed up against a table with
his hands up.
At his inquiry, Justice Braidwood called their nearly identical explanations
"shameful", "patently unbelievable", and "deliberate misrepresentations of
what happened for the purpose of justifying their actions".
Yesterday B.C. Supreme Court Justice Mark McEwan found Bentley not guilty
of perjury :
"It is quite possible that the Pritchard video did not capture... more »
Chris Hedges, socialism, and the NDP
Part 6 of a 7-part interview from the Real News Network with Chris Hedges,
author and activist following 15 years as a foreign correspondent with The
New York Times.
"To even call yourself a socialist in this country is to essentially remove
yourself from the acceptable parameters of public discourse."
Certainly the NDP agrees with that statement - its delegates having voted 960
to 188 three months ago to expunge the word "socialism" from their
constitution, presumably in the vain hope of dampening Steve's enthusiasm
for flinging it about come 2015.
Well, it's only a word, right?... more »
Royal Bank and iGATE : "Business as usual"
A LiveMint/Wall Street Journal article reported three weeks ago that
Royal
Bank of Canada (RBC), Bank of Nova Scotia, Bank of Montreal and CIBC
have
temporarily halted their hiring of workers from outsourcing firms
likeiGate, Tata Consultancy Services Ltd (TCS), and Infosys Ltd
, while they wait for the public backlash to blow over :
"The backlash against outsourcing jobs comes at a time when the
unemployment rate in Canada stands at 7.2% and remains above the levels
that were seen before the 2008 recession. The Canadian banking and
financial services (BFS) outsourcing market is es... more »
It's a small small small Con world
*Top Conservative party operative says she didn’t know of plan to cover
Duffy expense tab*, reads the headline.
Nor did she speak to Nigel Wright or Senator Gerstein about it apparently.
That top party op is Pierre Poilievre's ex, Jenni Byrne - Conservative
Party director of political operations, national Con campaign director
during the 2011 election, and Steve's once and perhaps future director of
issues management in the PMO.
But then when you read the article, it turns out to be the Con Party
spokesy Fred DeLorey answering all the reporter's questions on Byrne's
behalf by ema... more »
Greg Rickford, Minister of Science and Technology
2011 : MP Greg Rickford - centre - proudly announces funding for fish lab
at Experimental Lakes Area, calling it “Canada’s most innovative freshwater
research centre.” The 58-lake globally renowned research facility in his
Kenora riding was responsible for the research behind the Canada-US acid
rain treaty,
May 2012 : The DFO announces it is dumping ELA to save $2M per year, even
though it will cost $50M to shut it down.
After months of hiding from his constituents and outraged scientists, Rickford
emerged to explain:
"Our mandate has moved to a smaller-scale research that reflec... more »
Dr. Kellie Leitch, Minister of Labour
A look at what we can expect from our new Minister of Labour.
So how many of you made it all the way through to Leitch at the
Harper/Hudak/Ford TeaCon Trifecta BBQ?
.
Pierre Poilievre, Minister for Democratic Reform
Who really thinks Skippy's appointment to Democratic Reform is about
democratic reform? Ha!
Poilievre's appointment is about a coming battle over election reform and
robocalls. It's been sixteen months since the Cons promised to bring in a
bill addressing Mayrand's proposed reforms to prevent a repeat of last
election's robocon fiasco. The Cons have yet to consult Mayrand on it and
he's been making public noises about their obstruction of his election
fraud investigation as well.
Meanwhile the 2014 spring deadline past which reforms can't be implemented
in time for the next elect... more »
Bravo Zulu, Cpl. Kate
Leopard tank driver Cpl. Kate MacEachern broke a world record last year
walking over 500 kilometers from her post at CFB Gagetown in New Brunswick
to her hometown of Antigonish, N.S. to raise $20,000 for injured veterans. In
full battle dress with a 22 kilogram kit on her back, she did it on her
annual holidays.
DefMin Airshow MacKay was so impressed he walked the last kilometer with
her.
In June this year she asked for 20 extra days of unpaid leave in
addition to her 25 days of holiday time to make a... more »
NSA : At Microsoft, your privacy is our "team sport"
Feel free to drop by this Microsoft ad and give it a thumbs down.
"At Microsoft, your privacy is our priority."
Indeed. About that ...
*Guardian : How Microsoft handed the NSA access to encrypted messages*
• Secret files show scale of Silicon Valley co-operation on Prism
• Outlook.com encryption including Hotmail unlocked even before official
launch
• Skype worked to enable Prism collection of video calls
Microsoft has collaborated closely with US intelligence services to allow
users' communications to be intercepted, including helping the National
Security Agency to circumv... more »
Clue: It was the PMO in the Senate with a chequebook
Some prophetic words on corruption from the Angry Baird in 2006 ... (h/t
comments at The Tyee )
Now that the Cons' previous bullshit lines have been cleared out of the
way, to wit :
a) Duffy was being 'honorable' and "showed leadership" in deciding to pay
the money back all by himself because it was in his own words : "the right
thing to do", and
b) "the Royal Bank helped me ... Nigel played no role"
c) Wright was just 'helping out a friend' although Wright says they aren't
friends
d) "protecting taxpayers" from Duffy's debts - as if garnishing wages is
not the way this is ... more »
Cons pay manufacturers to move to China
From Blacklocks, via The Jurist, a tale of taxpayer-funded
government-facilitated corporate welfare off-shoring :
"Cabinet paid millions of dollars in grants to Canadian manufacturers
to move production and jobs overseas in the name of foreign aid.
Newly-released accounts show the program paid cash grants totalling
$3,852,927 to manufacturers to move production out of Canada, including
$450,000 paid to one applicant that told Fantino’s department it had to
“establish ourselves in Mexico so we can offer lower costs.” "
But most went to factories in China - automotive parts, rugs, ... more »
Hello? Budget Senate and Audit Rentals?
G&M : "The Conservative Party of Canada initially planned to repay Senator
Mike Duffy’s improperly-claimed expenses from their taxpayer-subsidized war
chest but balked after learning the debt owed was nearly three times
higher."
Apparently $32,000 in taxpayer and donor war chest funds to whitewash the
audit and shut Duffy up was an ok deal, but $90,000 - not.
Thank goodness for Nigel Wright and his cheque - stepping up just in time
to save the Senate the embarrassment of clawing back Duffy's wages like
they are doing with Brazeau's.
.
Noon update : Upon closer reading of RCMP Corp... more »
Fakers and Cons
Still adding to the list of Con fakery below, if you have more suggestions.
.
Fakers
Fake F-35 mock up cockpit from Lockheed Martin for DefMin Peter Airshow
MacKay to hold $47,000 presser in to announce purchase of 65 Lockheed
Martin stealth fighters in 2010.
Tony Gazebo and Rona Ambrose attending.
Fake citizenship ceremony in which half of the participants were actually Citizenship
and Immigration Canada staff passed off as new Canadians on Sun News Network
Fake lake, the $57,000 part of a $1.9 million display for the 2010 G8/20
summit, concerning which I asked some more questions earlier today.
Fake G8 border infrastructure slush fund that splashed $50M ar... more »
Did Canada spy on journos at the Toronto G8/20 summit?
Image from leaked UK Government Communications Headquarters briefing slide
featuring the logos of Canadian, US, and UK signals intelligence spying
agencies.
Ten days ago The Guardian published GCHQ briefing slides, courtesy of
former NSA contractor turned whistleblower Edward Snowden, revealing :
Foreign politicians and officials who took part in two G20 summit meetings
in London in 2009 had their computers monitored and their phone calls
intercepted on the instructions of their British government hosts,
according to documents seen by the Guardian. This included:
• Setting up int... more »
The Hitchhiker's Guide to Democracy
“It comes from a very ancient democracy, you see..."
"You mean, it comes from a world of lizards?"
"No," said Ford, who by this time was a little more rational and coherent
than he had been, having finally had the coffee forced down him, "nothing
so simple. Nothing anything like so straightforward. On its world, the
people are people. The leaders are lizards. The people hate the lizards and
the lizards rule the people."
"Odd," said Arthur, "I thought you said it was a democracy."
"I did," said Ford. "It is."
"So," said Arthur, hoping he wasn't sounding ridiculously obtuse, "why
don't p... more »
Patrick Brown, come on down!
When PMO communications officer Erica Meekes sent The Barrie Advance
details and materials on a 2007 money-losing charity speaking gig Justin
Trudeau did at Georgian College* before he was an MP,* she asked Advance
editor Lori Martin to attribute her slag to an anonymous "source" rather
than to the PMO.
Meekes further advised contacting Patrick Brown, “the local MP for Georgian
College,” for comment, and Brown subsequently provided some suitably
partisan disparaging comments about Trudeau.
Trying to remember where you've heard Patrick Brown's name before?
Here he is between Flahert... more »
Steve and Barry have a little chat
Really excellent background from The Tyee on the outing of the numpty
non-issue of charity speaker gig fees that the Cons used to waste the last
week of the House of Commons before summer recess.
Tyee Bonus : Spot the Lickspittle
And as Dammit Janet asks : Why did no other media outlet but that one tiny
paper, the Barrie Advance, realize that the real story here was the PMO
sending out partisan trumped-up *anonymous* leaks on the taxpayers' dime?
.
DILBIT : "Every plant and tree died"
9.5 million litres of industrial waste water, the 10th largest spill of its
kind in Alberta in nearly 40 years.
Houston-based Apache Corp, with a project based on Haisla reserve lands in
the Douglas Channel, also wants to export LNG from the eastern Rockies to
China via an expansion of its Pacific Trail Pipeline.
.
Harper's Parade of Perps with Perks #6
Bunch up everyone to make room for Steve's latest Perp with Perks, Saulie
Zajdel.
Arrested today and facing five counts of corruption, breach of trust, and
fraud from 2006 to 2011 in the anti-corruption sweep that also bagged the
mayor of Montreal, Zajdel is better known to us as the guy who was put on
the public payroll as a "cultural liaison" by Heritage Min James Moore for
an alleged $60G's to act as the Cons' shadow pretend MP in Irving Cotler's
riding after he lost to him in the 2011 election.
Here's Steve campaigning for Zajdel three days before Election Day.
Here's Nick... more »
From Creekside to Cyveillance to PRISM-ID
Creekside is a really tiny insignificant Canadian blog, as I'm sure both of
you know. I rarely venture into covering anything about the US unless it
has a direct and immediate bearing on Canadian interests and hasn't been
mentioned anywhere else. Consequently I don't get much US traffic unless I
happen to blog something like State Dept. hires TransCanada consultant to
approve Keystone pipeline, and it goes up some magical link chain via Think
Progress to the New York Times.
Then I get a wee spike in US traffic, some of which consists of the
downloading of hundreds of pages over th... more »
PRISM : Everyone is a foreigner somewhere
Image from Prism/US
Overview PowerPoint slide
While DefMin Airshow MacKay prevaricates in the House about the extent to
which Canada is complicit in the NSA 'foreigner' surveillance program PRISM
outed by whistleblower Edward Snowden, former NSA and other foreign
government officials are more forthcoming :
Guardian : NSA 'offers intelligence to British counterparts to skirt UK law'
The US National Security Agency circumvents UK law by offering, rather than
being asked for, intelligence from global websites to their British
counterparts... more »
The Whistleblower vs Watership Down Syndrome
So that's what a real hero sounds like.
We don't talk much about freedom vs security up here in Canada, do we?
Sure we were taken aback when a 2009 RCMP mission statement colour-coded
its surveillance subjects in advance of the G8/20 summit, warning of :
"notions/expectations regarding the environment, animal rights, First
nations' resource-based grievances, gender/racial equality, and
distribution of wealth etc."
... following which the Harper Government™ spent nearly $1-billion
deploying 19,000 security personnel to make the largest mass arrest of
1,100 peaceful protesters in Ca... more »
Harper's Parade of Perps with Perks - Part 5
Updated : h/t Canadian Cynic
Welcome Con MPs Devinder Shory, James Bezan, Shelly Glover, and update!
House Speaker Andrew Scheer to the growing family scandal of Steve's Parade
of Perps with Perks.
Devinder Shory, Calgary Northeast, accused of providing legal work that
supported allegedly fraudulent mortgages - in his case at least five
straw-buyer cases of more than $3.7 million:
Promised a payment of up to $8,000, hundreds of straw buyers, mostly new
immigrants, allowed their names to be used to obtain falsely inflated
mortgages on over 200 properties. When the straw buyers c... more »
Steve and the multinational man of mystery
I do hope someone is securing the rights to make a Made In Canada thriller
about Stephen Harper's spy watchdog and his various business associates.
I'm referring of course to the Honorable Dr. Arthur Porter, "His
Excellency, Ambassador Plenipotentiary, Republic of Sierra Leone" and also "Member,
Queen’s Privy Council for Canada” for life.
Really, this cast of characters has everything - spies, dictators,
terrorists, Russians, drug cartels, arms dealers, diamond mines, bribery,
money laundering.
Here's a storyboard to get you started ...
2008 : Dr. Arthur Porter is appointed to... more »
Election fraud falling through the crack(s)
Stephen Lautens : "Robocall" Judgement - A Victory For the Conservative
Party?
Susan Delacourt : Where is Conservative outrage over 'robocalls' scandal?
POGGE : Campaign Capers: Judge Mosley rules and the results stand
Saskboy : ConCalls : Conclusions You Can Confirm Using CIMS Computer
Trapped in a Whirlpool : It's the fraud, stupid
Dammit Janet : One of These Things is NOT Like the Others
.
Rob and Steve in happier times
The fishing buddies at a Ford family BBQ in 2011. Steve gives thanks for
the Ford Conservative political dynasty, thanks Rob for his endorsement in
helping get Steve elected, and makes a plug for a Harper/Hudak/Ford hat
trick government for Canada.
The Guardian did a nice piece on it yesterday.
h/t West End Bob for Guardian link
.
Harper vs. Harper ... vs. Mulcair
Yes, about that ...
It's peculiar that Harper keeps insisting he first heard about his chief of
staff Nigel Wright's $90,000 payment to Duffy on May 15 following
"speculation in the media", given that CTV's Robert Fife had contacted the
PMO the previous day to confirm it and the PMO responded.
And you gotta love Steve taking credit for it coming out to the public here.
Asked whether he had spoken with his former press secretary now Senator
Carolyn Stewart Olsen, seen at top shielding Steve from reporters and who
successfully moved to whitewash the report on Duffy, Steve replie... more »
The human rights fly in the CETA ointment
I'm sure Liberal Senator Joan Fraser was speaking for all of us when she
expressed her displeasure at the idea that Europe seeks to link the
Canada-EU trade deal to human rights.
Referring to the Strategic Partnership Agreement, CETA's parallel political
companion, Senator Rivers explained :
The SPA would enshrine "our common commitment to human rights, to certain
common values and to non-proliferation of nuclear weapons," Liberal Senator
Joan Fraser said in the Senate on April 18.
However, "the problem is that in the European formula they want to include
a clause that would make... more »
Harper's Parade of Perps with Perks - Part 4
Please welcome Senators David Tkachuk, Marjory LeBreton and Carolyn Stewart
Olsen to the growing family scandal of Steve's Parade of Perps with Perks.
Click to enjoy.
While Steve is still going with the lone topgun chief of staff on the Duffy
knoll with the chequebook story from his temporary hideout in South
America, his perps at home are busy fucking that up for him.
We were most relieved to hear from Senator Tkachuk that even though he was
soliciting advice from the Prime Minister's Office on how to do his audit
of Duffy, and Nigel Wright was calling him up wanting to know "W... more »
Steve, the Accountability Guy
That was Stand Up Comedy for Canada from Mr. Accountability Guy, Stephen
Harper, in 2006.
Yesterday Steve never mentioned the under-the-table Perrin/Wright/Duffy
hush money cheque, nor the cheque issuer or recipient in his speech about
it to his caucus. But just a little over 100 words into his 1000 word
speech, Steve did spare a moment to mention Adscam and his pissy mood about
what he did not mention, before blowing off the whole unmentionable thing
as a "distraction" and winding up with "Let's get back to work".
Today, however, from the distance of some 6000 kms away in Peru, ... more »
Harper's Parade of Perps with Perks - Part 3
Please welcome Nigel Wright, Steve's chief of staff on loan from Onex Corp
and the latest member of Harper's Parade of Perps with Perks, for secretly
cutting Mike Duffy a $90,000 personal cheque to paper over the senate
investigation and Deloitte audit into Mike Duffy's creative housing expense
claims and reports he billed the Senate for travel while campaigning for
the Cons .
Duffy isn't co-operating with the investigations now he has the cash but
that didn't stop House leader Peter Van Loan from praising him for his
"leadership" in returning money that didn't belong to him.
Duf... more »
Christy Clark and the Manning Centre for Building Conservatives
In March 2012, Christy Clark gave the opening remarks to the Ottawa Manning
Centre Networking Conference, the yearly "conservative family reunion".
She was introduced by her then chief of staff, former senior Harper
advisor, Enbridge lobbyist, and Alberta 'firewall manifesto' signatory Ken
Boessenkool, who was her very first campaign manager back in 2010.
"We have a duty to Canada" to easy the flow of products to Asia, she told
her audience at the Manning Centre [a year ago]. "We support pipelines in
British Columbia."
BC Conservative leader John Cummins was not invited.
Mannin... more »
Shorter Green-supporter Christy Clark
Shorter Christie snorter : 'Hey leftie enviros! If you're not gonna vote
for 2nd-place me directly, please at least split the vote by voting for the
3rd place Green instead, promoted right here at the top of my full page ad
in the Times Colonist and paid for by "Today's BC Liberal Party".'
Gotta love that "Today's BC Liberals".
Nothing at all to do with Gordon Campbell's "Yesterday's Liberals"
presumably, from whom Christie inherited her unelected premiership.
Hat tip to RossK for Ian Bailey's pic of the Liberals' Times Colonist ad,
to CBC for the May 9th Ipsos Reid poll, and ... more »
DILBIT : Propaganda
*More money for government ads in budget supplement*
More DILBIT.
.
Justin Trudeau : Do the Math
Thursday May 16 international launch of 42 minute doc Do the Math: The
Movie,
"the story of the rising movement to change the terrifying math of the
climate crisis and fight the fossil fuel industry."
In Vancouver it's showing at Langara and four other venues. To find one
near you, look here.
Meanwhile Justin Trudeau tours western Canada giving pressers criticizing
Harper for not doing enough to promote Keystone XL. I get the strategy.
Don't give Steve anything to hit and eventually when Steve implodes, the
oil industry will have a really popular hopey changey corporate guy in
... more »
Cons : "Well you didn't ask us."
In response to NDP questions on Monday regarding the missing $3.1 billion
in public security and anti-terrorism spending and why even the words "public
security and anti-terrorism" hadn't shown up in nine years of public
accounts, Tony Gazebo of the Treasury Board blamed the opposition for not
guessing the right question :
“If NDP caucus members from the years from 2001 to 2009 did not ask the
right questions then that is their problem, not the problem on this side of
the House.”
In February, Public SafetyMin Vic Toews used the same tactic. When
questioned as to how the Cons manage... more »
The Tax Free Tour - tax havens and outsourcing
A doc about the stateless offshore world of tax havens.
Why does Apple only pay 1.9% tax?
The Big Four : Price Waterhouse Coopers, Deloitte, Ernst & Young, KPMG
Former KPMG man : "They are the constant feature of every tax haven.
Without one of those firms, or maybe all of those firms being present, you
really will not have a tax haven."
He describes how the Big Four as he calls them are hired by governments to
guide financial rules that benefit the Big Four.
So remember back in Sept 2011 when Steve gave Deloitte a $20-million
contract to advise federal cabinet and senior officia... more »
The invisible hand of the market outsourcing
CBC Go Public's Kathy Tomlinson on The Current :
"A single mom, an experienced IT worker, couldn't find work for seven
months. She heard one of the Indian firms had a project going at one of the
banks here so she asked the manager who she knew who was here from India to
hire her to oversee it. He said he'd think about it. Then she says he
called back to say he would give her the job if she would agree to kickback
$8 an hour from her salary to him - a cash commission, he called it. She
took the deal because she says she'd rather pay him to work than not have
the job."
So Canadians ... more »
$3.1-billion : Now is the time to commit accounting
*The Sixth Estate : Who is the Auditor General Protecting on $3 Billion
Boondoggle?*
*
*Auditor General Michael Ferguson on As It Happens yesterday :
"... or maybe in fact it was spent on things other than the public, uh, the
anti-terrorism-type initiatives. Now there was also the ability for
government, for departments, to get approval to re-allocate some of the
funding so that could have been part of the story as well."
So $3.1-billion, nearly 25% of the Public Security and Anti-Terrorism
Initiative, was perhaps re-allocated and spent on "things other than the
anti-terrorism ini... more »
Vic Toews : To serve and protect the Con agenda
So after the office of Public Safety Minister Vic Toews tacked a few
additional "terrorism" charges onto Omar Khadr's Canadian file that were not
in his original conviction by the discredited Guantánamo Bay military
tribunal (h/t Cathie from Canada):
Ottawa’s file on Omar Khadr contains faulty information based on a memo
prepared by a senior policy analyst for Public Safety Minister Vic Toews
... Among other things, the government alleges the late terrorist
mastermind Osama bin Laden was an accomplice of a 15-year-old Khadr, and
that the Canadian citizen killed two Afghan militia m... more »
DILBIT does Neanderthal
CBC : Top U.S. climate expert calls Conservatives 'Neanderthal'
Former NASA scientist James Hansen fires back at Natural Resources Minister
Joe Oliver
Foreign special interests and their deep pocket puppets
Previous DILBIT toons
.
The root causes of not committing sociology
"This is not a time to commit sociology," said Stephen Harper, asked when *
is* the right time to study the root causes of acts of terrorism like those
by the alleged Trainspotter Two.
"The root causes of terrorism is terrorists", said Pierre Poilievre three
times on CBC Power and Politics yesterday.
Politics and its Discontents has clips up of both Steve and Poilieve's
statements.
Neither statement has anything to do with terrorism at all of course; they
were just manufacturing an attack on Justin Trudeau's "root causes"
response to a terrorism question in his interview with Peter ... more »
The Preston Manning Centre for Building Buildings
Covert cell phone video catches a Calgary developer homebuilder referring
to buying the campaigns of development-friendly local candidates. In his
speech to 150 Calgary industry nobs in November, his remarks about Preston
Manning, who also attended and spoke at the meeting, appear at the 1:54
mark:
"... keeping in mind, in order to bring Preston on board, 11 of us put up
100 thousand - so $1.1-million. So it's not like we haven't put up our
money you know, and we are also going to be there to put up it again and
yet we're also supporting the candidates."
Hey, those Manning Centr... more »
The Combating Terrorism Act vs Justin Trudeau
On Thursday, three days *after* the Boston Marathon bombings, the Cons
still had scheduled an opposition day for Monday - a day on which the
opposition parties set the day's agenda. But then on Friday, an hour after
learning that Justin Trudeau would spend it introducing his Backbenchers'
Spring motion, Government House Leader Peter Van Loan suddenly announced
that opp day was cancelled due to the vital national importance of debating
the Combating Terrorism Act on Monday instead ... because of the Boston
Marathon bombing.
Sure, whatever.
Notable that the S-7 Combating Terrorism Act... more »
Backbenchers Spring officially over
Two weeks ago the Backbenchers Spring was full of hope as Langley Con MP
Mark Warawa and his five brave Con backbenchers rose up to defend the very
soul of democracy, and incidentally, Wawawa's right to independent
Steve-free abortion speech in the House of Commons in the form of Motion
408.
Sadly it was not to be. Yesterday ...
Wawawa will drop bid for vote on sex-selective abortion :
*"Over that last couple of weeks, I seriously considered my options and how
best to move this issue forward.**I've decided to continue working on the
sex selection, gendercide issue by speaking at ... more »
CORE-outsourcing/Amanda Lang/iGATE - on the milk carton
On Saturday I posted a screencap of CBC's 'senior business correspondent' Amanda
Lang as keynote speaker at the upcoming CORE-Outsourcing's 8th Annual
Conference* : Fast Forward - What's Next for Outsourcing?*.
CORE displayed Lang's bio above the logos of their 'Corporate Sponsors' -
which unhappily included iGATE. My link to that page subsequently went
down over the weekend:
"Oops! The page you are looking for cannot be found."
This seemed most unlikely for an "annual global conference" about to open
in 6 days so I fixed it. It went down again. Go ahead - try it yourself. I... more »
Penashue's Extortion Action Plan
Peter Penashue's Extortion Action! Plan!
concept via Canadian Cynic
Former Minister of Intergovernmental Affairs Peter Penashue ran for office
in 2011 under the campaign slogan "Peter for All". Winning that election by
just 79 votes, he resigned his Labrador seat last month over an ongoing Elections
Canada investigation that found his campaign overspent and accepted illegal
donations.
So it was a bit of a surprise when he was back on the campaign trail last
week bragging to his constituents that he held up a Newfoundland project
for six months in or... more »
Boycott the Royal Bank ... and Amanda Lang - Part 4
"Information technology workers displaced in Canada are being replaced not
by cheap Indian workers but by better ones."
So says CBC's Amanda Lang, senior business correspondent for CBC News and* *good
cop to Kevin O'Leary's bad cop on the Lang and O'Leary Exchange, in
yesterday's Globe and Mail.
She wonders if Canadians have returned to 1990 or perhaps to "campaign
trail rhetoric in America" - so aghast is she that people are angry about
the Royal Bank in-and-outsourcing of Canadian jobs to iGATE in India.
In her rousing paeon to globalization and "the natural forces of
capit... more »
Boycott the Royal Bank - Part 3
RBC executives told managers: “You can only hire a Canadian if you can show
that iGATE can’t supply the worker for you,”
... a current RBC manager told CBC's Kathy Tomlinson.
This only confirms what Marjorie Mong, VP, head of Application Services at
RBC, said back in 2008 :
Originally, RBC viewed iGATE “as an added resource,” says Mong. Now the
bank is pushing iGATE “to go out and earn the business from project
managers.” The supplier has set up delivery managers for every RBC
executive platform “to establish a relationship and get more business.”
Also Jason Trussell, vice pres... more »
Boycott the Royal Bank - Part 2
Shorter Gord Nixon : Look, they're not *your* jobs, they're *our* jobs, and
if we choose to move *our* jobs offshore to another company without you
because it's cheaper, that's just business. Besides, only one of the 13
dudes we brought in to RBC came under iGATE's temporary foreign worker
application - the rest of them are house guests.
About that one iGATE dude :G&M :
The federal government is investigating Royal Bank of Canada’s move to
outsource technology jobs and reviewing paperwork submitted by its
contractor to bring in temporary foreign workers. The probe centres on what... more »
Boycott the Royal Bank of Canada
Royal Bank of Canada Chief Human Resources Officer Zabeen Hirji explains
here that *technically *it's not RBC that has hired temporary foreign
workers to replace RBC employees. No, rather it's that RBC has hired Indian
offshore outsourcing company iGATE to do their own hiring as part of RBC's
plan to transition RBC IT jobs overseas to India.
What about government reaction that this is unacceptable?
Oh, says Hirji, we were already in conversation with relevant government
departments last week and besides everybody is outsourcing overseas now.
Indeed.
At left we see iGATE receivin... more »
DILBIT featuring Oily the Splot
Yes it's a mashup rip from Dilbert.
You remember Oily the Splot, right? Korncob Kory Teneycke's little critter.
Oh crap. Reuters reports "a discharge of 700 barrels of crude oil from a
16-inch pipeline due to unknown reasons in Harris county, Texas" two days
ago.
How come we're getting this news from *Bangalore*?
Ok, one more ...
.
Bad week for tarsands astroturf
*"British Columbians for International Prosperity* is an independent group *of
concerned citizens *looking to promote practical resource development,
international trade expansion, manufacturing development, and other
initiatives bringing prosperity to British Columbia, Canada, and our Global
partners."
Dear retired oil execs*: Don't run astroturf ads under the rubric
"independent group of concerned citizens" unless you feel like disclosing
who those other concerned citizens are and who made and paid for the glitzy
ad you just shot in my back yard.
Also, about your claim that Ca... more »
Abortion and the robot revolt
How heartwarming it was to watch five brave Con backbenchers rise up to
defend Langley Con MP Mark Warawa's right to independent Steve-free
abortion speech in the House of Commons. After years of having to recite
member statements on whatever idiotic repetitive talking points the
30-somethings in the PMO assigned to them every day, this week the robots
are revolting.
Con MP Brent Rathgeber : *I would submit that if the House does not
jealously protect the rights of members to bring forward matters of concern
to their constituents and if it does not strictly enforce those rules, the ... more »
Economic Action Panda Rental
Pandas are the new Con mascot.
Apparently pandas are short-sighted, ill- tempered, and not well-adapted to
the world, but have nonetheless achieved a 40% increase in population over
the last 20 years.
Perfect.
.
Rebranding Canada as Harper Canada
Harper Canada ...
On a gc.ca website, no less. This is presumably what the HarperCons call
our country amongst themselves - Stephen Joseph Canada being just a tad too
informal I guess.
h/t David Akin
Update* *: Glen McGregor counts 449 press releases using "Harper
Government" from crown or government departments from Sept 21 to Dec 11
2012. That's 8 per day, as Glen says - twice that number if you include the
French version.
Upperdate : Toronto Star, March 3, *2012 : **Tories rebrand ‘Government of
Canada’ as ‘Harper Government’*
*"*A directive that went out to public servants s... more »
Penashue's political dodgeball
I thought Con MP Pierre Poilievre held the dodgeball record for giving the
same identical non-answer seven times to seven different questions put to
him by a single reporter in November 2012, but three months earlier
now-former Labrador Con MP and cabinet minister Peter Penashue had already
swallowed the ballgag whole at eight identical non-answers to eight
different questions from a reporter about his election spending violations.
Eight "working closely with Elections Canada"s in just over 2 minutes.
If this government were any more transparent, they'd be completely
invisible but... more »
Harper's Parade of Perps with Perks
Time to update Harper's Parade of Perps again, says Canadian Cynic.
Ok then ... let's add three more to make it an even ten Parade of Perps
with Perks.
New entrant below the still unidentified Mr RoboCon is Saskatchewan Senator
Pamela Wallin, seen here in 2000 advertizing her stint as host of Who
Wants to Buy a Millionaire? in New York where she owns an apartment.
Senator Wallin is not currently being investigated for clocking $321,027 in
"other" senate travel expenses because she does visit her Saskatchewan
residence even she holds an Ontario residency health card just... more »
Manning conference : Big Brother's big data
The Cons opposed collecting data for the long gun registry and the Canada
long form census as "too intrusive" - and also muzzled Canadian federal
scientists to keep any of* their *data from leaking out - but on Saturday
they eagerly attended a conference to hear 'big data' proponents discuss
how to collect more data about you in order to win elections.
*Canada ‘light years’ behind U.S. on data mining in election campaigns,
time to catch up, say experts *
Innovations in big data have started a “revolution” in the way political
parties target voters and win election campaigns ...
“T... more »
Media : Chavez failed to build gigantic skyscrapers
Many vile and stupid editorials have been written about Venezuelan
president Hugo Chávez following his death on March 5 from cancer, but none
of them are quite as honest as this one from business writers at Associated
Press* :*
*
*Little Reaction In Oil Market To Chavez Death
"Chavez invested Venezuela's oil wealth into social programs including
state-run food markets, cash benefits for poor families, free health
clinics and education programs. But those gains were meager compared with
the spectacular construction projects that oil riches spurred in glittering
Middle Eastern citie... more »
Harper's parade of perps
Notable how many of Steve's patronage peeps are grifters, conmen, or
alleged perps .
Starting from the left ... picture updated to include Pierre Poutine and
the robocon network [h/t Beijing York in comments] - no charges and no
arrests, 21 months and counting...
Dr. Arthur Porter, "His Excellency, Ambassador Plenipotentiary, Republic of
Sierra Leone", also Harper-appointed chair of CSIS watchdog SIRC and lead
investigator into CSIS' treatment of Abdelrazik. Money once paid to former
Israeli arms trafficker to sell infrastructure deals to Sierra Leone, and
now subject... more »
RoboCon : Michael Sona and Sun News Network
Former Guelph Con Party communications director Michael Sona relates how he
was sitting in his Hill office on Feb. 23 2012 when he was shocked to hear
Sun News reporter Brian Lilley fingering him on air for the Guelph
robocalls election fraud. Sona :
"I contacted a few people at [Con] headquarters and I just said I wanna
know what's going on. Like why am I being thrown out here because *Sun News
is you know kind of an alternate method of getting press releases and other
stories out from the party, right? I mean everyone knows that, right? It's
just a standard comm's tactic. An... more »
A word from our new Ambassador of Religious Freedom
"Religion, artificially divorced from the public sphere, makes for an
impoverished politics at best, and a benighted political class at worst."
Our new Ambassador of Religious Freedom, Andrew P. W. Bennett, 2 years a
dean of Augustine College, is passionate about returning religious
discourse to public life.
Our "official secular religion", he argues two years ago here, "violates
freedom of religious expression."
Huh.
In April 2011, ImmMin Jason Kenney announced that Canada's religious
freedom office "would be modeled after the Office of International
Religious Freedom within t... more »
RoboCon : RMG and the US Right to Life Committee
--- updated below ---
In August 2004, three telemarketing companies - RMG (Responsive Marketing
Group), Xentel DM, and Univision Marketing Group - jointly petitioned the
Governor General to have not-for-profit organizations and their fundraisers
exempted from certain CRTC regulations they felt were unfair to the success
of their trade. Citing the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms,
"freedom of expression", and the "moral rights of authors" over their
copyrighted telephone scripts, they objected to :
"the requirement that tele-canvassing service providers identify
themselves, t... more »
Ratz abandoning ship
.
Sixth Estate celebrates Pope Benedict XVI’s tenure.
I hadn't realized Bennie had annointed two Canadians to sainthood for
performing miracles - one of which involved a cure consisting of prayer and
antibiotics. Heh. Go.
DAMMIT JANET! does the Best of Bennie.
.
RoboCon : Do you have a cat?
30 seconds of Red Dwarf nicely illustrates the Cons' 'evolving' versions of
their no-we-didn't-ok-then-yes-alright-we-did shenanigans this week after they
were cornered with evidence they were behind the RackNine push-poll
robocalls to Saskatchewans to foment opposition to proposed new riding
boundaries.
Seems despite what Steve says about 75% public support for his version of
"Saskatchewan values", submissions to the Federal Electoral Boundaries
Commission up to that point "almost unanimously voiced *opposition* to the
continued use of hybrid urban-rural districts in Saskatchewa... more »
Sun News Exposed
" Sun News has been a strong voice supporting pro-life, pro-family and
limited government ideals. This is what my show, Byline, has been about
from the beginning," wrote Sun News host Brian Lilley to select supporters.
"We are asking friends to help us out by signing our petition which will
tell the CRTC that Sun News is a valued service that all Canadians should
have access to."
Or rather : Canadians will be forced to pay for if they successfully petition
the government to force 'free market' companies into doing business with
Sun News.
So who answered the call?
Well, as alrea... more »
Paging Snuffleupagus to the SunNews white courtesy petition
The last time Sun News needed help with an online petition, Snuffleupagus
and Homer Simpson were there to help, mysteriously adding their names to
80,000 others on a "Stop Fox News North" Avaaz petition in 2010, along
with a number of real people like Kady and Stephen Maher who didn't sign it.
Sun News mastermind, Kornkob ethanol lobbyist, and Steve's former director
of communications Kory Teneycke 'discovered' the fraudulent names and wrote
it up in his Sun News column on Sept 3 2010 in a bid to discredit the
petition .... only to get busted by Kady who pointed out the names on ... more »
Christy Clark's Big Fat Tarsands Fundraisers
Our national media seems pretty exercised about Alberta tarsands bigwigs
and political insiders throwing a fundraiser in Calgary for our unelected
Premier Christy Clark's Liberals to slag off on the NDP :
CBC : Albertans hold fundraiser for BC Liberals
G&M : Clark defends out-of-province fundraising for B.C. Liberal candidate
FPost : Alberta powerbrokers throw lifeline to B.C. premier as threat of
tougher pipeline fight from NDP looms
Sun : B.C. Liberals tap Calgary crowd for election funds
Edmonton Journal : Alberta Tories helping to raise cash for beleaguered
B.C. Liberals
They do ... more »
RoboConstructions: Del Mastro and the GeoVote
Dean Del Mastro and his $21,000 personal cheque to Frank Hall at Holinshed
Research Group for voter ID/GOTV services are back in the news tonight as McMaher
reports the RCMP are investigating Steve's hapless parliamentary
secretary/RoboCon pointman for his various 2008 election campaign financing
irregularities and their apparent ham-fisted cover-up.
The details were extensively covered back in June, including
Holinshed's lapsed Feb 2 2010 lawsuit against Del Mastro for non-payment of
use of their CIMS-like interactive voter-tracking system called GeoVote, and
the six fig... more »
RoboCon: RMG/Xentel/iMarketing Solutions revisited
Earlier this year the Cons' principal voter contact company Responsive
Marketing Group came under heavy media scrutiny for
- its role as a partner in the Cons' CIMS data collection on Canadian
voters used by 97 Con candidate campaigns in the last election,
- allegations made by at least one former RMG call centre employee that
their scripts were directing voters to the wrong polling stations,
- aggressive fundraising tactics for the Cons with pensioners, and
- its merger with Xentel.
In March RMG put out a press release protesting the unfairness of being
smeared b... more »
Give a RoboCon barcode this Christmas
Are you tired of shlepping around the mall looking for a gift that will top
that asteroid you had named after her last year?
This Christmas give that very special someone in your life the gift
everyone across Canada is talking about ...
their own unique barcode in the Cons' CIMS data playbook.
Adopt a frowny/duh/smiley face just for her when you answer questions about
Israel or the gun registry.
The CIMS Vote-O-Matic. It slices, it dices, it makes juliennefantino fries.
Operators are standing by.
.
RoboCon : Poutine made easy
Text : Glen McGregor and Stephen Maher
Presentation : Robert Cross
Ottawa Citizen
This excellent interactive visual has been around for a while but with 6
other ridings in court this week challenging election fraud, perhaps we
could use a refresher on just how devious was the trail of deception from
the diabolical Mr Poutine in Guelph. [h/t Toe at Bread 'n Roses]
Not mentioned in it is how undetermined staffers from the Con election
campaign in Guelph came to share a Racknine browser session with Mr.
Poutine at 2am on Election Day.
McMaher's liveblog of the day's proceedings here.... more »
RoboCon lawyers : It's all about Steve and money
... argued Con lawyer Arthur Hamilton today as he attempted to have the robo/live
fraud calls case thrown out of Federal Court before it even begins.
Eight voters in 6 ridings, backed by the Council of Canadians, are asking
the judge to overturn the election results in their ridings.
Shorter Arthur :
1) Council of Canadians doesn't like Steve.
2) The applicants' lawyer Steve Shrybman doesn't like Steve.
Therefore ... um ... I'm losing the legal argument here ...
Oh here we go : Pogge : You're only allowed to challenge an election result
if you voted for the winner.
Back in Septembe... more »
RoboConduct Unbecoming : To Canada from North Dakota
3 days before polls opened in the last federal election, Elections Canada
officials were using the word "scam" to describe election irregularities,
making this statement from the EC commish throwing in the towel two weeks
after the election even before any investigation is begun all the more
astonishing :
Commissioner of Canada Elections May 16, 2011
"There was no conduct reported that would bring into question the integrity
of the election result overall or the result in a particular riding.
Although misconduct was reported in several ridings, there is no complaint
that it affec... more »
Poodling up on the world stage
I rather take exception to Glenn Greenwald's characterization of Canada in
yesterday's Guardian as the US's "new rightwing poodle to the north".
Sure, we joined the U.S., Israel, and 7 other nations to oppose upgrading
the UN observer status of the Palestinian Authority from "entity" to
"non-member state".
And yes, we stood on an even smaller world stage this week with the US,
Israel, Marshall Islands, Micronesia and Palau in voting against UN
inspection of Israel's nuclear program - 174 to 6.
But hey, when Israel announced it would "punish" the Palestinians for the
UN vote by... more »
RoboConch! We're not in Guelph anymore, Robo
In August Elections Canada updated the total number of misleading phone
call complaints in the last federal election to 1,394 complaints, alleging
specific instances from people in 234 of Canada’s 308 federal ridings
Now we get some concrete evidence. Elections Canada obtained phone records
from Shaw and Videotron to verify complaints in 56 separate ridings across Ontario,
BC, Alberta, Manitoba, and Quebec. They were released to lawyers in Federal
Court yesterday.
1,043 complaints are from voters who say they were directed to a wrong
polling station by callers, 625 of them from liv... more »
Steve : "Who wants pie?"
Another massive majority win for the Canadian Non-voting Party in
by-elections this week.
"We were a bit worried that election fraud, selling Canadian resources off
to China, and turning the Canadian government into an branch office of the
tar sands would galvanize non-Con voters," explained
a Non-voting spokesnobody, "but it turns out that feeling powerless and
disenfranchised is still a winning combination for us."
Good thing they only use their awesome power for good, huh?
Alice crunches the numbers.
.
RoboConjob Disclaimer : No voters were harmed in the making of this election fraud
McMaher and CBC's Terry Milewski report on this week's release of internal
emails between an alarmed Elections Canada and a stonewalling Con Party
lawyer Arthur Hamilton.
Turns out EC officials' were reporting on a robocall "scam" in a "dozen
ridings" across "at least 6 provinces", starting *three days before the
last election.*
Four months later Chief Electoral Officer Marc Mayrand was still publicly
referring to them as "crank calls".
Milewski :
"Ever since the scandal broke, the Conservative line has been it was just a
rogue operation in one riding, in Guelph of course, and tha... more »
RoboConundrums
Despite yesterday's somewhat dampening headline : *Pierre Poutine robocalls
trail goes cold in Saskatchewan*, the main story here is not that Elections
Canada's Al Mathews was unable to secure phone records from a
proxy server company in Saskatchewan a whole freakin year after the
fraudulent election calls were made.
No, the main story is :
Why did someone in the Guelph Con campaign - who would normally call
RackNine to set up legit campaign robocalls directly via their Rogers IP- feel
the need to use a proxy server to hide their ID at all?
Why did Guelph and Poutine both use the pr... more »
Baird enters the Iran got nukes! office pool
*Baird says Iran could build nuclear bomb within months* screams the CBC
headline over Evan Solomon interviewing John Baird under a giant picture of
visiting Israel PM Shimon Peres.
Fans of the Iran got nukes! cry wolf sweepstakes will recall both Peres and
Netanyahu predicted in 1992 that Iran would have nuclear warheads by
1999, 1992 also being the year a former Mossad official advised "Iran has
to be identified as Enemy No.1"
"Remember," said former IDF Chief of Strategic Planning Shlomo Brom in 2004 (page
167):
"the Iranians are always five to seven years from the bomb. Time pas... more »
RoboCon : A history lesson
Four years ago CBC's Keith Boag did this piece on voter data-gathering and
microtargeting, including a look at the Cons' CIMS database and cameos from
Michael Geist and Con-turned-Lib MP Garth Turner.
Much more interesting now, isn't it?
.
RoboCon : Cross-border election shopping
A Republican operative convicted of perpetrating election phone fraud for
the Republican National Committee told interviewer Stephen Maher that "fraudulent
calls in the last Canadian election are likely an American import" and a
"fairly sophisticated operation".
Allen Raymond wrote a book about his stint as a GOP dirty trickster called *How
to Rig an Election* in which he explains the use of tactics like phone
jamming political opponents - hey, did Elections Canada ever investigate
the over 10,000 phone jamming calls used to disrupt the NDP's online
leadership vote this year ? - as... more »
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