Scrub-a-dub-dub that oily spot away!

Bwaha-ha-ha! Read Alison at Creekside: Steve & Dimitri do some ethical oiling of a government website.

Further amusement: Alison smacks down an Anonymous Tar Sands sycophant in the comments.

PKP's nefarious motive finally revealed.

Never underestimate the byzantine machinations of a Media Overlord, even a lesser one in the firmament of Media Maggots Magnates.

In this Macleans' item, which Gardner called "an indecently enjoyable read", all is revealed.

Though Pierre-Karl Péladeau may suck on the corporate welfare teat, he has devised a way to demonstrate to the world how MASSIVELY stupid, trashy and malevolent Ezra Levant and other assorted right-wing midiot™ nutjobs from Rest of Canada really are and how easy it was to corral them and put them on display.

He is after all his father's son, a man who supported the views of Adrien Arcand.

By the company they keep. . .

To counter the efforts of the anti-conservative, pro-labour group Working Families, a new astroturf grassroots organization has been formed, according to the Toronto Star.

So, who are they?

Tristan Emmanuel, campaign manager on the 2009 leadership bid of PC MPP Randy Hillier (Lanark-Frontenac-Lennox and Addington) and now People For A Better Ontario’s development manager, said the group is “small-c conservative” and has nothing to do with Hudak’s campaign.

“Absolutely not — that would be tantamount to blatant hypocrisy. That’s one of the concerns that we have with Working Families. We made a concerted effort to make sure that there is absolutely no linkage between the two of us on any level,” said Emmanuel, a long-time activist of conservative causes.

Hmmm. No connections, eh?

Warren Kinsella has list of Emmanuel's , er, accomplishments, which I don't think he'd mind my republishing here.

Toronto Sun, March 31, 2009 - MPP Randy Hillier officially joined the race for leader of the Ontario PC Party yesterday with a pledge to abolish the Ontario Human Rights Commission and outlaw mandatory union membership…Hillier’s spokesman is Tristan Emmanuel, a political and religious activist who has organized protests against same-sex marriage.

Toronto Star, May 15, 2009 - The federal Conservatives are crying foul against their provincial cousins in Ontario for alleged misuse of the national party’s membership list…The missive was sent to Andrew Boddington, Tristan Emmanuel, Mark Spiro and Paul Sutherland, senior campaign officials with candidates and MPPs Christine Elliott (Whitby-Oshawa), Randy Hillier (Lanark-Frontenac-Lennox and Addington), Tim Hudak (Niagara West-Glanbrook) and Frank Klees (Newmarket-Aurora), respectively.

Wikipedia – Emmanuel was a candidate for the socially conservative Family Coalition Party in the Lincoln electoral division in the 1995 Ontario provincial election. He was quoted as saying, “It’s time to have a principled party that understands there’s a higher power than the government, a power we believe is God.”

Wikipedia - Emmanuel ran against prominent federal politician Sheila Copps in a 1996 by-election as a candidate of the Christian Heritage Party of Canada. He argued that Canada’s Young Offenders Act should be abolished and corporal punishment reintroduced to schools, and was quoted as saying, “If an eleven-year-old murders someone, I think his life should be taken.”

Wikipedia - In April 2003, he organized a “Canadians for Bush” rally in Queenston Heights, Ontario, to support the American invasion of Iraq. The rally was attended by several prominent federal and provincial politicians, including Stockwell Day and provincial cabinet ministers Jim Flaherty and Tim Hudak.

Wikipedia – [The release quoted] excerpts from several of Emmanuel’s writings, asserting that he had described gay men as “sexual deviants” and Islam as “as far from peace, as hell is from heaven” in separate articles written in 2002.

Wikipedia – Emmanuel campaigned against the legal recognition of same-sex marriage in Canada in 2005, organizing several rallies across the country, including one outside Parliament Hill in Ottawa and another at Queen’s Park outside the Legislative Assembly of Ontario.

Wikipedia – In a 2005 interview with the Hamilton Spectator, Emmanuel described homosexuality as “a choice,” said that he regarded it as “the wrong choice, a bad choice,” and further argued that “the state shouldn’t sanction wrong choices.”

In short, he's a faaaar rightwing Christianist nutter.

Tristan Alexander Emmanuel is a Canadian political and religious activist. He is the founder and former president of the Equipping Christians for the Public-square Centre (ECP Centre), and is perhaps most notable for his opposition to same-sex marriage. He is now the president of Freedom Press Canada Inc., a niche publishing company that he founded in 2003.

Let's dig a little, shall we?

First, Freedom Press Canada. Small house obviously, but oh look who's on its list of authors: Gerry Nicholls, he of Ivory Tory fame.

The now defunct Equipping Christians for the Public Square Centre has tossed its torch to:

NoApologies.ca website to be managed by Tim Bloedow and ChristianGovernance

Legal Advocacy and Defence efforts to continue with other organizations, including at Christian Legal Fellowship

Education and awareness directed through the Association for Reformed Political Action

More connections! It was at ARPA's website that DJ! found the information on Tim Hudak's 2009 abortion stance. (He would defund abortion, he said.)

And it was the head of ARPA who wrote about that flap in The Star, basically saying that anyone interested in Hudak's position on abortion is immature, graceless, and engaged in sensationalist 'gotcha' politics.

Altogether a nice gang of dinosaurs who'd drag Ontario back to the 19th century.

And this is the company that Tim Hudak keeps.

DJ! thought Ontario voters should know this.

ADDED: gritchik has more. And WEIRDER. Emmanuel is not just a RWNJ Christianist, but an egomaniac to boot.

ADDED: Check them out yourself. People for a Better Ontario.

ADDED: It seems there's some doubt about whether Tristan Emmanuel is his real name. Hmmm.

Priorities/priorities: Mandosian ramblings on electoral politics

Like my co-bloggers, I happen to believe that electoral politics still matters---if only to stave off evil rather than promote good. Consider Hudak.

One of the bigger complaints of the leftish end of those who still interest themselves in electoral politics is that far too large a swath of the public votes for people who really, truly don't have their best interests in mind. Why do so many working class Americans vote so faithfully for people who openly want them to eat pet food* in their old age, if they are so lucky as to be able to afford it? Why do they continue to do so when it is becoming increasingly obvious that the proportion of human pet-food-eaters is going up even now? (Why do Mississauga immigrant communities vote for the people who want to oppose/reduce immigration for family reunification?)

There are two possible explanations:

1. The classic lefty "false consciousness"/propaganda sort of explanation: people are fed lies by corporate media that cause them to identify with the elite and support causes that they believe are in their rational interest but actually are not.
   
2. The alternative by elimination: many people are consciously voting against their own "rational" interest, because they don't conceive of their interests in the same way. "Sticking it" to their neighbours takes priority over some discounted future in which they may be eating out of Fluffy's bowl.
   

It's probably a bit of both, but needless to say, I nowadays lean towards #2 as being more of a factor than column #1. Lefties spend a lot of (justified) electrons condemning mainstream economics for attempting to deploy ideas based on a ridiculous economic homunculus model to actual policy. But for all that, they seem to believe just as well in an a priori dichotomy between "rational" and "irrational" interests. But there's nothing "irrational" about starving yourself to starve your neighbour. In fact, if you're convinced your neighbour will die first...

Unlocking the reasons for why voters vote is something that the right has spent a lot of time and effort on, and the left hardly at all, even taking into account the disparity of resources between the ends of the political spectrum. It may or may not be too late for electoral politics to fix the world to any degree; I don't know. But I don't think it was really tried.

*I'm aware that it's not necessarily cheaper...but it is a standard trope so *shrug*.

#toiletbunker events confirmed.

Here's a rough translation of an item published in Le Devoir.

Diplomatic incident in Brasilia?
Lisa-Marie Gervais Canada August 11, 2011
Although denied by the Canadian Embassy, ​​information circulating about the diplomatic incident caused on Monday by Prime Minister Stephen Harper during his visit to Brazil, are not mere rumours. A journalist respected in political circles, the Brazilian columnist Eliane Cantanhede Brazilian, who revealed the alleged blunders of Mr. Harper sticks to the story. "I confirmed the information from my sources on site," she told Le Devoir, in a telephone interview from Brasília.

The facts are described in an article co-authored with her colleague Natuza Nery in Folha de São Paulo, the most influential newspaper in the country; Stephen Harper appears to be a rude person shamelessly violating protocol. "That's inelegant of him. People found it arrogant and crude," said Ms. Cantanhede.

The reported incidents have occurred in two stages. First, the Prime Minister would have insisted to speak to Canadian journalists at the presidential palace (Planalto), against tradition that has Heads of State visitors usually addressing the press from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (Itamaraty). "Giving Interviews in the Planalto Palace, it is never done. All who come to visit, even Obama, speak to reporters from the Itamaraty, "said the journalist.

Official toast, before or after?

As the Brazilian authorities have refused him this privilege, Mr. Harper, upset, would have insisted to reverse part of the protocol, which is the official toast. The latter can be given before or after the meal, but the President of Brazil, Dilma Roussef, had wished to take place later. Canadian Prime Minister "demanded" it be done before and then he "locked himself in the private bathroom of foreign minister, Antonio Patriota," the article said.

"Taken off course, Brazilian diplomats did not know if they were to follow the expressed wishes of the President or give in to the capricious demands of the Canadian visitor," it said. Harper's whims eventually prevailed.

Have these events been misunderstood? Eliane Cantanhede, who was not there, says her sources are reliable. Someone present confided in her colleague Natuza Nery, who was nearby. "She told me about it and I then confirmed the information with advisors and diplomats present," she maintains.

Illustration from Montreal Simon.

ADDED by fh: Read some comments from Brazilians here. His behaviour did ^NOT go over well. To say the least.

ADDED by fh: Alison is on it.

Another bright flame snuffed out ...

The photograph of Wendy Babcock was taken at a fundraiser that friends, lovers, members of her chosen family and assorted admirers and supporters organized on her behalf.

Babcock, an Osgoode Hall student entering her third year, took the most unusual path imaginable to arrive at law school. She left home at a young age and, by 15, was a sex worker in Toronto — stopping in 2003 after the violent death of a colleague. She then turned to advocacy on behalf of sex workers, worked in harm reduction at Street Health and testified as part of veteran lawyer Alan Young's challenge of Canada's prostitution laws. Babcock attended George Brown before being accepted at Osgoode — one of only ten students in her year who did not hold a university degree.

She was found dead on Tuesday in an apparent suicide.

Babcock’s death is a tragedy on so many levels. [...]the example she set for marginalized people in general and teenage sex workers in particular was beyond inspiring, but she will not be around to witness the long-lasting impact of her accomplishments.

But this news is also a tragic blow to the Toronto legal community, which badly needs the experience and perspective of people like Babcock. From all indications, she was poised to be a formidable voice for people who are too often voiceless — in the justice system as well as the mainstream media.

From here.

More about Wendy's activism.

Ivory Tory

In a dumbass column any neocon hack could write -- and has been writing for decades -- Gerry Nicholls commits a delicious tpyo.

Question 3 in 'Take the Cultural Elitist Test' is, or was:

- Do you live or work in an Ivory Tory, completely isolated from any sense of reality?

Good thing I took a screen-shot.



Checked back a while later and it had been changed.

- Do you live or work in an Ivory Tower, completely isolated from any sense of reality?

But really, when you think about it, who is more completely isolated from any sense of reality than an Ivory Tory?

This may well be Freudian slip Typo of the Month.

Psst, Twitterverse: Ya think we can get #IvoryTory to trend?

ADDED: Yay! I figured out how to get a cached page. (OK, I know, not difficult, but I am TechnoDolt.)

Wisconsin Recall and Mike Harris Jr.

DJ!, like all good democracy lovers, has taken an interest in Wisconsin.

Yesterday, six recall elections were held. There haven't been many successful such political moves in the US.

Democrats needed to beat three ReThuglican incumbents to regain the majority and help thwart Scott Walker's Koch-funded corporate feudalist agenda.

Hopes were high. Democrats worked their asses off.

In the end, Dems won just two seats.

Rather than feel crestfallen, Alternet says:

Last night's recall elections were the Republicans' to lose. And they lost two seats, while Democrats lost nothing.

Not only did they lose nothing, they've gained some important push-back momentum.

But, on the other hand, the big money came out too.

If, as some pundits declared, last night's recall elections for Wisconsin state Senate offer a preview of what the 2012 presidential elections will look like, we can look forward to millions of dollars of uncertain provenance spent on sneering TV ads to arrive at a result to be determined by a few thousand votes counted by an unreliable official, under inevitable accusations of vote tampering.

Have a look at what Corporate Murka is prepared to spend to destroy democracy.

Mike McCabe has never seen anything like it.

He runs the Wisconsin Democracy Campaign, a nonpartisan group tracking the flow of money in Badger State politics—though, presently, "torrent" may be the best way to describe the state's campaign finance environment. In the run-up to next week's recall elections targeting six Republican state senators, outside advocacy groups have flooded Wisconsin with millions in campaign spending. McCabe estimates that nearly $31 million has been spent on the recalls in about four months' time. It's a staggering sum considering $3.75 million was spent on the entire slate of state races in 2010. Recall spending "is totally off the charts," he says. "This is so out of whack from everything we've ever seen."

Catch that? Nearly ten times as much as for a regular statewide election.

Both sides were spending. But.

While the spending is more or less even, here's the big difference between the two sides: The left-leaning groups usually disclose their donors, while the right-leaning groups mostly don't. For McCabe, the geyser of dark money is the big story of the recalls. He says two-thirds of the recall spending derives from undisclosed sources, and he blames the Supreme Court's Citizens United decision for allowing so much anonymous spending.

I hope USians are waking up.

Next week, Sconnies get to do it again. Two Democrat incumbents are facing recall votes of their own.

And in October, Ontarians will have a chance to stand up against the corporations. We've run this vid before, but we like it.



Today, I saw this editorial, which starts: 'It’s no surprise that Mike Harris Jr. — excuse us, make that Tim Hudak —'.

I like that. Think I'll steal it.

To know him is to . . . laugh at him

If you're not on Twitter you may have missed this bit of fun. Someone posted a machine translation of an incident involving PMShithead and the president of Brazil.

And a bathroom.

Canadian Prime Minister goes to the bathroom and back with only requirement met

The Prime Minister of Canada, Stephen Harper, has caused constraints in Brazilian diplomacy on Monday, demanding a change in the ceremony and only go to the salon for lunch with the President after Rousseff met.

The speeches and toasts are common in this type of event can be both before and after lunch. Dilma prefers it that later, but Harper made sure they were done before the guests start eating at the meeting yesterday.

He had already angered aides and diplomats at the presidential palace, telling reporters that Canadians speak there, breaking the rule that such interviews always occur in the Foreign Ministry.

As the Brazilian side denied the request, Harper has reached the Foreign Ministry, for lunch, showing bad temper and demanding the reversal of the freebies. Then locked himself in a private Minister Antonio Patriota, while waiting for an answer.

Stunned, Brazilian diplomats did not know what to do if you meet a desire of the Brazilian President or surrendered to the whim of the Canadian visitors.

Only when we have confirmed that he would be met is that Harper went to Brasilia room where the banquet took place, with palm heart salad, guinea hen and "pineapple delight". Toasts are made with wines.

A less amusing but not substantially different translation is provided here.

Yes. Our PM actually had a snit and locked himself in a bathroom. While on a state visit.

So, the officials were obviously pissed, but what did the 73 commenters on the story have to say?

Here at DJ! we live to serve, so we ran some likely looking comments -- for example, with 'infantilidade' in them (which means about what you'd expect) -- through the translator.

Here's a sampling:

But that arrogant foreigner, desinteligente. In the other house elegance recommends that one should submit to the host. Come so far to shame here, the hope is to forget the path that does not return soon. And if you do, it is with a position of ruler of the 1st world. You know that song poor, the Naiara Azevedo; ecomendar it would be for her a song response to this bumbler.

I DO NOT KNOW WHY THIS Greasy satisfy the request, should have given the toilet DISCHARGE AND HAVE LET HIM DOWN TO THE PLACE.

Here in Brazil things are kids do not want to take medicine when they lock themselves in the bathroom.

He left the bathroom after it was taken care of? But what is it? The illustration of the Brazilian populace to know: This is cag ... ing and walking to Brazil, literally ahahhahahahahahah

Should it be with diarrhea and invented this excuse to relieve themselves.

Someone in government had to have taken a more energetic attitude in this case. Should take the pink bunny doll, and put him jolhos in maize.

But just what was missing was this ... Our president has even muitaaaa patience, I would put to wash dishes. Now let the fresh man!

The next one is gonna leave, er, a mark.

Hahaha ... It is not the first time that this guy runs to the bathroom in meeting offices. In April 2009 he appeared in a photo go because G20 was in the bathroom. This news came on the BBC and The Telegraph ...

The next commenter has taken the measure of the man.

Lets get this straight: the visitor arrives at the host and gently before being subjected to the customs of the recipient well, require its rules in the most awkward possible. Therefore, these facts lead me to suppose that the Prime Minister of Canada, Mr. Stephen Harper, besides acting as a spoiled brat, is a tremendous rude, arrogant, rude and their attitude, therefore, should shame the great people of Canada. Would have done a favor if you had not come. Get out of here.

As does this one:

THAT'S WHAT MAKES A PRESIDENT VISITS CHOOSING NOT DILMA. MARKING LUNCH WITH AMATEUR WORLD THAT THINK FIRST. PAPER Kid A LACK OF RESPECT TO THE WOMAN IS A NATION. On the other hand is very weak CEREMONIAL WHY SHOULD HAVE NEVER MET AN APPLICATION whim, HE WANTED TO SHOW POWER. FAILED The ceremonial.

And some good advice for presidential hosts and parents everywhere:

They should have left him there and followed with other affairs of state.

And now, my fave.

Spoiled ... fresh in the Portuguese right. I know not, but the world is in the hands of people at this level. Or is this a nerd or the arrogance of Obama. Now, let's see, what did we come to Canada? Salmon, tuna, train ... my! In fact, he is the face of MAD, remember?

This is how our PMShithead appears to Brazilians.



Gratifying, isn't it?

ADDED: The MSM is on it!

ADDED: More MSM. Everybody loves a bathroom story.

ADDED: Even the Washington Post loves a bathroom story!

UPDATE: At last look (couple of hours ago), there were more than 330 comments at the original Portuguese story. When time allows, I'll run some more through the translating machine.