Music video laments Canada's political right turn.
by thewildcellist
"If Obama is a socialist, then Canada must be Communist."
Jan 232013
Jan 222013
With no market for hate and right-wing drivel, Sun News comes cap in hand for public subsidy
by David Climenhaga
Sun News Network, that fearless foe of state subsidies for the CBC, wants you, Dear Television Viewer, to directly subsidize it to the tune of $18 million a year.
Have no doubt, that’s just the beginning, but it would nicely cover losses the company says now amount to a modest $17 million a year – hardly a corporate killer, one would think, but apparently enough to get Sun News queuing up at the public trough.
It turns out, as others have discovered before them (Ted Byfield, c’mon down!) that there’s not much of a market in Canada for the kind of market fundamentalist pap Sun News peddles – at least when consumers have the choice not to pay for it.
There’s even less of a market, by the sound of it, for the filthy language and outright hate-mongering indulged in by some of the network’s so-called commentators.
Given the opportunity to choose to watch Sun TV, viewers run away in droves. And who can blame them with boring drivel like Ezra Levant’s regular venomous rants about the Roma, Idle No More protesters, Hispanic business executives, environmentalists and anyone else who provokes his ill-managed anger to fill the seemingly interminable 24-hour broadcast day?
Now the so-called news channel, which disseminates anything but news, has gone with its grubby cap in hand to one of Mr. Levant’s targets, the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission, to beg for the right to inject its poison directly into almost every Canadian home because it desperately needs the wholesale revenue that would then automatically flow back into its coffers….
Jan 212013
A look at health privatization's movers and shakers.
from the Vancouver Observer
The Vancouver Observer reported on a recent conference on health care privatization held at The Fraser Institute in Vancouver, during which Dr. Brian Day's speech, The Madness of Medicare, was resoundingly applauded, and muses on a future in which Day and his fellow private for-profit health care proponents may increase their existing share of the market. The Fraser Institute and other right-wing think-tanks are playing a significant role in this potential future, as prolific producers of analyses and reports with an agenda–an agenda which seems to resonate with the Harper government.
Jan 212013
$45 million spent on lies and dirty tricks killed California's law requiring GMO food be labelled.
from the Organic Consumers Association
Please sign the pledge below to let the following companies know you're joining the boycott. These companies make billions of dollars selling organic and "natural" brands, yet they spent millions to defeat Prop 37, CA Right to Know's ballot initiative to label genetically modified food. Click the hyperlinks to contact specific brands.
• PepsiCo (Donated $2.5M): Naked Juice, Tostito’s, Tropicana, Loóza, Izze, Sabra, Smartfood, Stacy's, Mother's and Near East
• Kraft, recently became Mondelez (Donated $2M): Boca Burgers and Back to Nature
• Safeway (Member of Grocery Manufacturers Association, which donated $2M):“O” Organics
• Coca-Cola (Donated $1.7M): Honest Tea, Odwalla
• General Mills (Donated $1.2M): Muir Glen, Cascadian Farm, Larabar
• Con-Agra (Donated $1.2M): Orville Redenbacher’s Organic, Hunt’s Organic, Lightlife, Alexia
• Kellogg’s (Donated $791k): Kashi, Bear Naked, Morningstar Farms, Gardenburger
• Smucker’s (Donated $555k ): R.W. Knudsen, Santa Cruz Organic
• Unilever (Donated $467k): Ben & Jerry’s
• Dean Foods (Donated $254k): Horizon, Silk, White Wave
Download your wallet-sized boycott guide.
Download a poster-sized boycott guide.
Learn more about the boycott
Request free, printed copies of the boycott guide
Click here for a comprehensive list of all the brands owned by corporations that donated to the No on 37 campaign.
Go to Organic Consumers Association to sign and send this letter:
Subject: I'm joining the Right to Know boycott! Label GMOs!
I refuse to purchase any of my favorite brands owned by parent companies that contributed to the $46 million that helped defeat Prop 37, the California Right to Know GMO Labeling initiative
If any of these brands want to regain my trust and get off the nationwide boycott list, they will have to do two things:
- Speak out publicly in favor of state efforts to label genetically engineered food.
- Contribute as much money to Label-It Washington's Initiative 522 campaign as their brand's parent corporation donated to the No on 37 campaign in California.
I will also call these brands' customer hotlines, and post messages to their facebook pages, demanding that they support my right to know, or lose me permanently as a customer.
These companies make billions of dollars selling organic and "natural" brands, yet they spent millions to defeat Prop 37. Here's a list of the 10 companies I am boycotting, and their organic and "natural" brands:
• PepsiCo (Donated $2.5M): Naked Juice, Tostito’s Organic, Tropicana Organic
• Kraft (Donated $2M): Boca Burgers and Back to Nature
• Safeway (Member of Grocery Manufacturers Association, which donated $2M):“O” Organics
• Coca-Cola (Donated $1.7M): Honest Tea, Odwalla
• General Mills (Donated $1.2M): Muir Glen, Cascadian Farm, Larabar
• Con-Agra (Donated $1.2M): Orville Redenbacher’s Organic, Hunt’s Organic, Lightlife, Alexia
• Kellogg’s (Donated $791k): Kashi, Bear Naked, Morningstar Farms, Gardenburger
• Smucker’s (Donated $555k ): R.W. Knudsen, Santa Cruz Organic
• Unilever (Donated $467k): Ben & Jerry’s
• Dean Foods (Donated $254k): Horizon, Silk, White Wave
Jan 212013
In honour of Gun Appreciation Day, home videos show people's gun accidents.
from HuffPost Comedy
Showing off weapons for the camera turns to chagrin.
Jan 202013
When my car lost connection with the road, I lost connection with my physical self.
by Bill Dunphy
For one, dreamy, moment I was airborne — actually flying — as the car finished its slewing skid across the black ice, hit the dry pavement sideways, stuttered, and then leaped into the air.
Flying.
It’s a bit like when you were a kid and the sidewalks ice over. On your way to school you’d take these long sweeping steps, gliding and sliding across the barely visible but always treacherous ice, knowing it would end suddenly and your boots would catch on the cement and send you flying. But if you had it timed right, you’d turn that sudden stuttering step into a running leap, launching yourself onto the next strip of slippery ice.
And off you flew…
Jan 192013
Having watched the sheep dog work, bunny rabbit decides to try.
from Gardsbacken
Rabbit herds sheep.
Jan 172013
US aid conditional on Salvadoran enabling P3 legislation.
by Eric Draitser
As much of Latin America braces itself for the possibility of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez's death, observers around the world would do well to note the stark contrasts that exist within the region. On the one hand, there are the ALBA (Bolivarian Alliance for the Americas) countries, united by Chavez in their rejection of US imperialism and neoliberal capitalism. On the other hand, there are those countries which are still very much living under the hegemony of the United States. In El Salvador, this means subservience to Washington and international investors who seek nothing less than total control of that nation's economic destiny. This attempt at economic monopolization can be summed up with one word: privatization. It is precisely this strategy with all the union-busting, wage gouging, and propaganda disinformation that it entails, that is rearing its ugly head in El Salvador.
Jan 172013
Banff and Radium Hot Springs up for grabs as well.
from the Hinton Parklander
Parks Canada is in the process of handing over operations at Miette Hot Springs near Jasper, Alberta to a private company by as early as May this year. Plans proceed for management of Banff Upper Hot Springs in southern Alberta and Radium Hot Springs in BC's Kootenay National Park to be handed over to private operators as well, according to the Hinton Parklander.
Jan 172013
Ontario Liberals devote $8.4 million to for-profit research.
from the Canadian Federation of Students
Graduate students are disappointed with a decision by the Liberal government to spend $8.4 million to fund private-sector internships through the Mitacs Accelerate program. The funding announced today will go to a program that funds applied research almost exclusively in the private, for-profit sector to address "business research challenges."