|
|
By John Klein, on February 6, 2013, at 2:38 am There’s a bit of hand wringing going on around Facebook amongst typically the anti-Harper crowd. Normally I’d join in, because it’s worth wringing hands over practically everything our Prime Minister has going wrong in our country. One thing he’s managed to not get wrong, is ending the penny. It’s a relic, and I’m very much for preserving history, but I don’t need to carry historical currency in my pockets when it is worth only a fraction of what a penny was worth when I was a kid in the 1980s.
Why shouldn’t you worry about retailers making at most a
. . . → Read More: Saskboy’s Abandoned Stuff: Don’t Care About Penny Salami Slicing
By Greg Fingas, on February 5, 2013, at 6:30 pm Shorter Fred DeLorey:
Silly media, wasting its time asking whether we Cons were polling over gerrymandering Saskatchewan riding boundaries. That would involve caring about respondents’ opinions. The word you’re looking for is “propagandizing”.
By Greg Fingas, on February 2, 2013, at 10:45 am Assorted content for your weekend reading.
- Ray Grigg explains how Idle No More and other decentralized social movements may make for a crucial counterweight to the Harper Cons and their command-and-control philosophy: Systems are always bigger and more complex than the individuals who try to control them. So political systems, like ecological ones, can be influenced and guided for a while by the stringent and obsessive management of details, but the intricate convolutions within their countless interacting parts eventually expose the futility of such effort. This is now becoming apparent in the present Conservative government in Canada under the
. . . → Read More: Accidental Deliberations: Saturday Morning Links
By Greg Fingas, on January 26, 2013, at 10:52 am Assorted content for your weekend reading.
- Susan Delacourt comments on the role of robocalls in turning citizens away from politics – though it’s worth pointing out that the Cons may well see that as a desirable result to capitalize on a modest base of support: What may need more testing, however, is how robocalls work as a tool to suppress votes. Sure, they don’t make people any more likely to turn out at the polls, or vote for a particular party.
But they may just be annoying enough to turn people off politics or voting — and, from all
. . . → Read More: Accidental Deliberations: Saturday Morning Links
By John Klein, on January 14, 2013, at 11:52 pm Elections Canada may be allowing the Conservative Party to set the glacial pace of the criminal investigation across Canada into illegal election robocalls that misdirected and harassed electors. May be? Who are we kidding. It’s well past 600 days since the crime that calls into question the right of the Conservatives to represent our country, and Elections Canada investigators are moving so slowly that newspapers are announcing their next move before they bring suspects in for questioning.
The full audio of a clip previously available in a CBC story, is posted in the latest from the Citizen.
The message captured
. . . → Read More: Saskboy’s Abandoned Stuff: ConCalls: Another Poutine Style Recording in #RoboCon
By John Klein, on January 8, 2013, at 8:49 pm Two people today questioned my point that Canadian elections are growing unfair, and so produce questionable results. This lack of a clear, and legitimate winner of elections erodes peace and democracy. How do I know elections in Canada are moving in the direction of becoming unfair, and unable to produce stable, legitimate governments? The list is sadly long. Here’s a short version of it:
To refresh your memory, the Conservatives in 2006 overspent by more than $1.3M, and paid a $52,000 fine (years later) once they attained power by cheating with an “accounting dispute“.
Several Conservative
. . . → Read More: Saskboy’s Abandoned Stuff: ConCalls: Are Canadian Elections Unfair Now? #RoboCon
By John Klein, on December 31, 2012, at 8:21 am @saskboy @afixedaddress The people affected by this, the general public, don't make the decisions. These trains are not full of politicians.— Nikki Eaton (@n_eato) December 31, 2012
When Canadians are so far off track, even when they are literally on tracks waiting for a train blockade to clear, we need #IdleNoMore to shake people out of their stupor. Things are not well in Canada. Our electoral system isn’t just out of date and producing unrepresentative results, it’s also been screwed with by government-supporting criminals in hundreds of ridings. Omnibus bills, the sort not seen for a
. . . → Read More: Saskboy’s Abandoned Stuff: Do You Wonder Why Roadblocks Required?
By John Klein, on December 24, 2012, at 10:36 am I’ll be around, but justice will be working on its homework, and set to deliver their assignment about 600 days late. Marks may be deducted for lack of punctuality. The criminally guilty get a second Christmas on the wrong side of jail cell bars.
Some polls besides Ekos clearly show that fraud calls happened across the country. As EC released warnings about the calls, reports for the calls may have dropped, as potential complainants would possibly be aware that EC was working on the investigation. Their trust may have been misplaced, as the story surged into the spotlight
. . . → Read More: Saskboy’s Abandoned Stuff: ConCalls: I’ll Be Gone For Christmas
By calgarygrit, on December 22, 2012, at 5:14 pm Every December, I like to name a “Person of the Year” – the individual who left their mark on Canadian politics over the past year. The only rules are that the PM is too obvious a choice, and that lame picks (“You!”) are strictly verboten. The Person of the Year doesn’t need to be someone who used the force for the powers of good, or someone I like – just someone who made a difference. Below is a list of recent choices:
2011: Jack Layton 2010: Rob Ford and Naheed Nenshi2009: Jim Flaherty2008: Stephane Dion2007:
. . . → Read More: Calgary Grit: 2012 Woman of the Year
By John Klein, on December 17, 2012, at 8:59 pm The judge in the Council of Canadians’ challenge to 6 Conservative MPs election victories on May 2, 2011, will rule in the coming year he’s indicated. It may be April or later until we have a bilingual ruling on the most important court case in the land. I expect appeals no matter which way, meaning it will then go to the Supreme Court of Canada, where the resulting by-elections will be further delayed. This means the earliest we can hope for a small token of justice if criminal charges don’t materialize before then (they won’t, sadly), may be 2014! Gag
. . . → Read More: Saskboy’s Abandoned Stuff: ConCalls: Waiting for Day 666 #RoboCon
By Greg Fingas, on December 15, 2012, at 9:28 am Miscellaneous material for your weekend reading.
- Susan Delacourt writes that laughable conspiracy theories look to be the Cons’ stock in trade as they fight against any accountability for electoral fraud: (I)t may be true that Ford has left-wing opponents on council and that the Council of Canadians, which has launched the legal challenge on so-called robocalls, would prefer that Harper had not win the last election.
But these are not illegal views in this country — at least not yet. Demonization of your adversaries is a spin tactic, not a legal defence.
Besides, Hamilton knows that the concern over
. . . → Read More: Accidental Deliberations: Saturday Morning Links
By John Klein, on December 14, 2012, at 4:15 pm Arthur Hamilton is the Conservatives’ Lawyer in Federal Court today. May 2, 2011 was election day, and it was 592 days ago. There was an Elections Canada investigation underway immediately after, despite the agency being aware of complaints 3 days prior to the election. Hamilton is possibly the lawyer who EC contacted before election day in their complaints to the Conservatives about the volume of misleading, harassing, and computer-dialed phonecalls voters were reporting to them in the run up to election day.
.@stphnmaher Considering #cdnpoli has waited about ~590 days for criminal charges, not realistic to wait for conclusion
. . . → Read More: Saskboy’s Abandoned Stuff: ConCalls: Timely #RoboCon
By John Klein, on December 13, 2012, at 5:55 pm How do you show that a crime of statistics, like election fraud robocalls, is effective? Several ways. The Conservatives who benefited from the crime want ordinary citizens to come up with protected phone records that show victims were robocalled, play recorded examples of the crime, provide names of people who didn’t vote because they were misled, and once you fill all of those requirements, you have to prove you didn’t ever donate to a Liberal, or do a silly dance.
The Shaw ITO has a technician who confirms that multiple identical off-hours calls were received by complainants' phone
. . . → Read More: Saskboy’s Abandoned Stuff: ConCalls: A Proof is a Proof #RoboCon
By John Klein, on December 12, 2012, at 1:40 pm No new information in this post, just something I found ironic and amusing.
On Feb 21, 2011[sic; 2012] I queried and accessed “freeproxyserver.ca” from my home computer. I did this from my home computer as my Elections Canada computer firewall blocked access under “Category: Proxy Avoidance”.
I just noticed the obvious date error, after chuckling at the content filter (not “firewall”) problem posed to the investigator.
The EC investigator used his home computer because his work computer wouldn’t let him investigate the proxy service he uncovered both Prescott and Poutine used. It’s still unexplained why Prescott’s account would
. . . → Read More: Saskboy’s Abandoned Stuff: ConCalls: Proxy Investigation #RoboCon
By John Klein, on December 11, 2012, at 3:37 pm The Council of Canadians was fending off deflecting notions by the Conservatives’ lawyer Arthur Hamilton in Federal Court, that they stand to gain money from defending democratic rights of Canadian citizens to have a fair election.
You can look at the live-tweets of Postmedia and Ottawa Citizen reporters Maher and McGregor.
Shrybman says Parliament instructed (via Act) these cases should proceed without delay. So not all Ts crossed, Is dotted.— Laura Payton (@laura_payton) December 11, 2012
Meanwhile, in the House:
Grassroots Petition Presses For Robocall Scandal Inquiry bit.ly/W3spC5 #gpc #cdnpoli— Elizabeth May MP (@ElizabethMay) December 11, 2012
By Greg Fingas, on December 11, 2012, at 8:57 am This and that for your Tuesday reading.
- John Cameron highlights the importance of liberal arts education – as well as the fact that only a few people (who happen to nicely coincide with the Wall government’s base) stand to benefit from a citizenry with less of a tendency toward critical thinking: But anyone who can think critically – a liberal arts value, ironically enough – can see that there’s way more to this issue than simply a matter of that right-wing bugaboo, the Bloated Bureaucratic Salary. There’s issues of university transparency (Why is the public and university community dealing
. . . → Read More: Accidental Deliberations: Tuesday Morning Links
By CuriosityCat, on December 10, 2012, at 8:44 pm Steven Shrybman
The court case dealing with possible voter suppression in 8 ridings during the May 2011 federal election is starting to fascinating. Right off the bat, the Conservative Party lawyer has tried to nullify the role of the Council of Canadians by claiming that there was a whiff of champerty in the air: Hamilton said the group went out and actively solicited for applicants to file the challenges.
The council he said, decided, “This fits our narrative of sinking the Harper agenda so let’s go find some applicants and we’ll get the ball rolling.” Hamilton cited the . . . → Read More: CuriosityCat: Robocon: Conservative Party lawyer raises champerty
By Greg Fingas, on December 10, 2012, at 10:00 am Miscellaneous material for your Monday reading.
- Paul Krugman discusses two theories behind the ever-growing divergence between soaring profits and stagnant wages. But it’s particularly important to note that neither of them calls for “free money for rich people” as a rational response: Why is this happening? As best as I can tell, there are two plausible explanations, both of which could be true to some extent. One is that technology has taken a turn that places labor at a disadvantage; the other is that we’re looking at the effects of a sharp increase in monopoly power. Think of these
. . . → Read More: Accidental Deliberations: Monday Morning Links
By John Klein, on December 7, 2012, at 11:31 pm The Conservatives have had a (deservedly) rough week, and it’s about to get more rough next week. The Council of Canadians’ court challenge is Monday. The Prime Minister closed out the final news cycle hour this week by actually taking questions from the press, (which has hardly ever happened before). The Conservatives procedural pushed a public petition calling for a Royal Commission inquiry into Robocalls, to next week. Will they prorogue first?
.@impolitical Yeah, this from a PM who had a convicted fraud, Bruce Carson, advising him on oil matters. @pmoharper #cdnpoli #nexen— Saskboy
. . . → Read More: Saskboy’s Abandoned Stuff: ConCalls: Week of Hell #RoboCon
By John Klein, on December 4, 2012, at 7:36 am I don’t normally link to Sun, or Kinsella, but it’s worth taking a look this time, I promise. While researching the cut brake lines that Elections Canada never found a culprit for, I stumbled across Kinsella’s 2011 correct prediction … . . . → Read More: Saskboy’s Abandoned Stuff: ConCalls: Kinsella in 2011 guessed #RoboCon
By John Klein, on December 4, 2012, at 4:10 am A Conservative on Twitter months ago claimed to have made phone calls on behalf of Elections Canada. @MrAnthonyDewar That was me and 1,000s of others hired by EC to update voter lists-we manned a phone bank and DID phone voters— Marie Ellis (@writestuffpr) March 28, 2012 TJD @MrTonyDew: @writestuffpr I remember a certain tweeter saying [...] . . . → Read More: Saskboy’s Abandoned Stuff: ConCalls: This is Elections Canada
By John Klein, on December 3, 2012, at 1:16 pm There’ve been several Canadian media organizations investigating the RoboCon election fraud scandal linked to the Conservative Party. In February, Postmedia broke the story by tying the many localized reports of misleading phonecalls together by unleashing details of the mysterious Pierre Poutine alias. At that time they also reported there were emails from Elections Canada staff [...] . . . → Read More: Saskboy’s Abandoned Stuff: ConCalls: CBC vs. Postmedia vs. Elections Canada #RoboCon
By John Klein, on December 3, 2012, at 12:21 am My guess is that Rex Murphy and Terry Milewski don’t agree very often, but they were both right about the [il]legitimacy of the Conservative Harper Government, nine months ago. Rex only slips in thinking Elections Canada had a “steely gaze”. Oops. Lots of oopses. Can we now see why Stephen Harper and Dean Del Mastro [...] . . . → Read More: Saskboy’s Abandoned Stuff: ConCalls: Rex and Terry and CBC
By CuriosityCat, on December 2, 2012, at 11:57 pm Huh?Consider these two statements by Allan Matthews, an Investigator in the Office of the Commissioner of Canada Elections:And this one:What does the second one mean?Must all participants in a single web session be aware of the other participants? And … . . . → Read More: CuriosityCat: Robocon: A Puzzle
By John Klein, on December 2, 2012, at 2:50 pm Page 70 “the Court has acknowledged the utmost public importance of these proceedings, and has held that: “…. the applications raise serious issues about the integrity of the democratic process in Canada and identify practices that if proven, point to a campaign of activities that would seek to deny eligible voters their right to vote [...] . . . → Read More: Saskboy’s Abandoned Stuff: Concalls: What’s At Stake? #RoboCon
|
|
