Just what the heck is going in these two neighbouring countries of ours?
I woke up this morning and read a Matt Yglesias tweet:
All-male House GOP leadership gets all-male witness panel to agree that all-male Catholic hierarchy should set contraceptives policy.
WTF
Has the Republican Party in the USA taken leave of all of its senses?
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As if that wasn't bad enough, the Republican Party of Canada is trying to outdo them. (Strictly speaking they are the Conservative Party of Canada but what's in a name when the correct ideology is all that matters?)
Three weeks ago, Prince PM Stephen went to Davos, Switzerland. There, to the assembly of luminaries gathered, he expounded on the sorry state of Canada's national pension plan. Alas, he had not bothered to mention this ahead of time in Canada. And, quite predictable, he pissed off a lot of older Canadians. I thought that the one thing every good Republican knew is that you do not piss off the senior vote.
Then, this past week his Justice Minister introduced a piece of legislation into Parliament. Innocuously called the "Lawful Access" Bill, it is quite simply a most outrageous attack on civil liberties in Canada.
The bill would give the government unfettered warrantless access to one's personal information and require internet service providers to maintain records of the communications that all of its clients send and receive on the internet. Agencies of government could ask for this information - and receive it - without obtaining a warrant.
David Akin, a reporter for the right wing Sun newspaper group writes:
...the government’s so-called “lawful access” legislation, is bad, that, “there is no excuse for this kind of intrusion on the privacy rights of Canadians and certainly not one from a government that says it champions the idea that the federal government ought to respect individual liberties and rights.”
As far as the Justice Minister was concerned, you were either with him or against him. Or, as he so quaintly put it to an Opposition MP in the House of Commons, no less:
he could either stand with the government or “with the child pornographers” prowling online.
Talk about sh*t and fans!
The internet-loving Canadian public have not taken kindly, it would appear, to being lumped “with the child pornographers”
And today, the rather holier-than-thou Justice minister has had the rather sordid details of his extramarital affair, illegitimate child (as they would say in olden times), and divorce sent forth over the twitterverse. All of the details were in the public record but may not have been as widely known as they are now. If he wants to now all about us, he should be prepared that we should know all about him.
Liberal MP Justin Trudeau rather mischievously tweeted:
Just to reiterate my condemnation of @vikileaks30 (that's @vikileaks30) for being meanies towards the always nice and reasonable @ToewsVic.
LOL.
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Finally, just for a change of pace, as it were, (the former) Matthew Rush had a bad start to his day:
I typed something into Google on my phone then held it to my ear. The worst part is I held it there waiting for someone to talk.
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As Captain Boyle says in Sean O'Casey's "Juno and the Paycock":
"Th' whole worl's in a terrible state o' chassis"
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