Shame

So. How did a guy who won his House of Commons seat by a measly 28 votes in 2006 wallop his competition by nearly 11,000 votes two years later?

Simple corruption.

The NDP is accusing federal Conservative cabinet minister Tony Clement of using a controversial, $50-million G8 legacy fund to buy re-election, prompting a heated denial from the government.

Municipal documents obtained by the New Democrats show Clement met with local mayors and councillors in the midst of the 2008 election campaign. They discussed how to identify projects that could be eligible for the legacy funding.

Twelve days after that meeting, a local news outlet reported that Clement had posted video endorsements from "local townspeople, mayors and council members" on his campaign website.

Somebody needs to investigate. In particular, this bit:

The auditor general has also criticized the government for shutting bureaucrats out of the process and for maintaining no paper trail to explain how or why the projects were selected.

However, hundreds of pages of municipal documents obtained by the NDP through provincial freedom of information legislation, show that federal bureaucrats did in fact participate in local meetings about the legacy fund -- including the one held during the 2008 campaign.

The documents also show that municipal officials were told to direct all questions and send funding applications to Clement's constituency office, not the government.

Shame on the people of Muskoka who sold their vote for a bunch of crappers. But the bureaucrats who sold their integrity should be fired and prosecuted.

As for Tony Slush, I'll keep my opinions on his just punishment to myself.

For now.

Image source. The blogger said presciently back in April this year:

Sweet for Tony Clement and the Conservative Party. They’ll probably get re-elected in Clement’s riding given all the tax money which has been spent there.

ADDED: Alison does the math.

C*A*N*C*E*R brought to you by the Contempt Party

This excellent graphic was produced by pale at A Creative Revolution.

In solidarity with Michaela Keyserlingk. This is her website.

ADDED by fh: Alison is on it.

What to do with a Girl like Maria Magdalene*

Mother Jones magazine has delved into the lucrative American Christian-run 'corrective' organizations turning life into Hell on Earth for American youths, with emphasis on rendering girls into Stepford zombies, but not ignoring the rending psychological and physical damage done to boys as well.

Incompletely obedient youth touted as criminality to their parents becomes an excuse parlayed into unregulated imprisonment, punishment and torturous indoctrination into a certain interpretation of authority made sancrosanct by a veneer of religion.

I've often wondered how many broken inner children, grown and with children of their own to break, are the invisible mainstays of organizations wanting to move regional theocratic control into imperial state authority over everyone. For every survivor who continues to dissent, how many are silent and obedient, needing to identify with the abuser or fall apart more completely than they are if consciously having to face the idea this wasn't done to save their spirits, but to callously exploit them as resources?

Fewer than historically indoctrinated by state-run theocracies. That's the sad thing. Compared to pre-separation of state and church, this is improvement. The despots running these hellholes have to hide it now, however thinly in some locales. They have to demand anti-regulation. They have to close down and move. They have to make excuses and dismiss survivors and the damage done. They long for the return of theocratic glory days where all of that *work* lying about it won't be needed. Because they know what's really at stake here. Their comfort and bank accounts, the rest be damned. Literally.

I expect this is where someone makes the "No True Christian" jazz hands argument to make it all go away.

*Where the Hills aren't Alive, so much as they Have Eyes.

Slowly, I Turn

Just because I can.

PSA: USians in Canada! Uncle Sam Wants Your Dough! - UPDATED

I wish I'd paid more attention to this back in June. I heard about it tonight on CBC radio and freaked.

A tax crackdown by the United States has sent more than one million Americans and green-card holders living in Canada scrambling to figure out how to comply.

The move is part of a push by the U.S. Internal Revenue Service (IRS) to make sure U.S. taxpayers are paying what they owe on foreign accounts. Unlike most countries, the U.S. requires its citizens to file annual tax returns based on their worldwide income, regardless of where they live.

I've filed taxes in the US only during the couple of years I lived there. I was under the very common mistaken impression that Canada and the US had some kinda reciprocal deal, shuffling tax dough back and forth.

Well, they may well do, but I've missed filing more than 30 years.

Then, next problemo, new crackdown. The US considers my savings 'offshore accounts' on the order of Bernie Madoff's Cayman Islands holdings (if he has any).

Starting in 2013, the IRS will require financial institutions outside the United States to disclose all accounts held by current and former U.S. citizens and green-card holders. They will likely have to file years of U.S. tax returns and detailed annual account disclosure.

Finance Minister Jim Flaherty said Friday that Canada is not a tax haven and that the U.S. Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act will place an onerous burden on Canadian financial institutions.

“Unfortunately, U.S. tax law does little to distinguish between U.S. citizens living on sandy beaches in Caribbean tax havens and those living in a relatively high-tax country like Canada,” said Warren Dueck, a certified public accountant and chartered accountant with W.L. Dueck & Co. in Richmond, B.C.

The IRS has issued a limited amnesty for U.S. citizens, residents and green-card holders to report their foreign bank accounts. Under the Offshore Voluntary Disclosure Initiative, which ends on Aug. 31, penalties are reduced to a range of zero to 25 per cent of the balance of all non-U.S. financial accounts and assets in 2010.

So. I've gotta figure out what to do and do it in the next two weeks or face losing one-quarter of my life savings.

I guess I'll be eating cat food a little earlier than I expected.

For the masochists among you, here's the IRS Tax Guide for US Citizens and Resident Aliens Abroad.

UPDATE: I consulted with an expert in USian tax madness. Things are not so dire. First, because I'm a nice Canadian -- not a Bay Street fraudster or drug lord -- the penalty would be only 5% if I get in under the amnesty. Plus accountant fees. Situations will vary, so people should consult their own tax expert to decide what to do. Consult cost $100 and was well worth it.

Women Don't Trust Hudak

Not surprisingly, women don't trust Hudak.

Ontario Progressive Conservative Leader Tim Hudak faces an uphill battle to win the trust of female voters in the upcoming election campaign.

In a new poll by Nanos Research, just under one in four voters describe Mr. Hudak as the most trustworthy leader. Among women, the numbers are even lower, with just one in five choosing him.

Well, there is still that outstanding matter of defunding abortion.

A commenter at the Globe -- if not writing with tongue planted in cheek -- seems to have heard the dog-whistle.

Jesus-Is-Lord

I agree completely with Mr. Hudak's position on abortion. It is not for the woman to decide, a woman with child is not emotionally capable of making such an important decision. If the government must prohibit abortions then so be it! Mr. Hudak is completely correct in his assessment of the role that the Ontario government must play in stopping the butchery of unborn children. Every child is a wonderful gift from God and that child has equal rights with the mother! The Holy Bible teaches us that abortion under any circumstances is murder! Murder!

"Truly children are a gift from the Lord; the fruit of the womb is a reward" (Psalm 127:3)

Our Lord gives women the gift of childbirth and no one can take that away. Mr. Hudak is only being a good Christian by protecting women from abortion.

I will vote Conservative to save the unborn!

Yes, indeedy. Look at the company he keeps. Read Niles on Christian Dominionists.


Image source.

Not a rocket scientist, this guy ...

just simply a common variety domestic terrorist.

Quebec police are investigating after a small-town mayor reportedly dumped a gigantic boulder onto the lawn of his ex-wife.

The mayor of St-Theodore-d'Acton, east of Montreal, told a local newspaper he left her a rock of about 20 tons as a birthday present. [...]

Police tell The Canadian Press that their suspect has refused to remove the boulder.

From here, thanks to Julie Lalonde's tweet.

It's quite the elaborate joke, innit? The message: I could have *accidentally* squashed you like a bug while you were sleeping.

Violence against women and children is domestic terrorism. "Honour killings" are the product of patriarchal beliefs, not only religious doctrine.

Restoring *morality* to Britain - PM's double standard.

David Cameron has promised to “restore a sense of morality” to Britain [...] announcing stronger police powers to ensure that offenders are caught and made to pay for their crimes.

From here.

Ooooh. Let's have some fun with the perorations emanating from that self-righteous, pompous dickhead, shall we? It's just a matter of changing the focus from alleged criminals (awaiting charges) to a different alleged criminal, still at large in spite of mountains of evidence and one dead - how convenient, that! - whistleblower and witness.

Addressing MPs recalled from their summer break, the Prime Minister cast News Corp's repeated illegal phone hacking incidents as a “deep moral failure”, and laid much of the blame at the door of *captains of industry* whose staff took part in illicit activies.

Managers and employees alike must be made to take greater responsibility for their actions, Mr Cameron said. “This is a time for the country to pull together,” he said. “We will restore a sense of stronger sense of morality and responsibility – in every town, in every street and in every estate.”

Rejecting claims that greed fuelled the law-breaking, Mr Cameron said the root causes of this criminality were cultural, not economic. “This is not about greed, this is about culture.” He also said that illegal phone hacking must be seen as nothing less than ordinary crime. “Employees were told to engage in these criminal activities and to corrupt police officials; it wasn't about freedom of the press, it was about unchecked thuggery,” he said.

Turning to the deeper causes of these events, Mr Cameron said that abusive exploitation of workers and poor corporate management had played significant role. “In too many cases, the owners of these corporations don’t care what their managers do, as long as profits grow and their competitors are destroyed," he said.

“The potential consequences of neglect and immorality on this scale have been clear for too long, without enough action being taken.” Conservative MPs are demanding tough punishments for offenders, and Mr Cameron insisted that severe penalties will be imposed.

“These people were all volunteers. They didn’t have to do what they did. They will suffer the consequences,” he said. Addressing offenders directly, he said: “We will track you down, we will find you, we will charge you, we will punish you. You will pay for what you have done.”

Yes! More robust policing! Oh. Wait.

In the interim however, how about cutting off Rupert Murdoch's News Corp generous subsidies aka *Corporate Welfare*, which he enjoys thanks to an intricate scheme of deferred tax payments, off-shore holdings and exploitation of elaborate legal loopholes generously available to corporations but not to ordinary citizens?

In the spirit of Cameron's words, when he backed a call Friday to withdraw welfare benefits from rioters ...

People who flout the letter of the law and abuse their own readers should no longer be allowed to benefit from *Corporate Welfare* - reflecting the tough line [Cameron] has taken over weeks of revelations that News Corp managers and employers broke laws. "Obviously, that will mean they'll have to finance themselves in the private sector - and that will be tougher for them, but they should have thought of that before they started breaking laws," he said.

"If you are a corporation receiving benefits, you're getting a break from the taxes ordinary people have to pay and with that should come some responsibility," Cameron told BBC television.

"For too long we've taken a too-soft attitude towards corporations that loot and pillage in the name of commerce. If you do that you should lose your right to the sort of advantages that the public has been subsidizing."

What do Christian Dominionists Want? The "Key Largo"* Philosophy

To meander up on Beijing York's earlier rhetorical question....

I expect this has been pointed out already, but I was googling around to see who the other fellow in the highlighted article was. I came across this local news informative piece on the principals of PFBO

In the Chatham piece, Mr. Emmanuel is positioned not as a pearl-clutching Christian, but as a material boy. He and his fellow concerned Ontarianian, Robert McAllister, flog non-union contractors' services to companies. Note their mercantile positions.

In other words, more than being Christian, (although the article has them eerily echoing the same 'concerns' as CLAC-Christian Labour Association of Canada )(For 'concerns' about CLAC see here and here) they're Cheap Labour Conservatives, pining for the fjords of plentiful, undemanding workers over which they shall have dominion alright. That said, I defer to that extremely useful piece by conceptual guerilla, "How to Defeat the Right in Three Minutes".

I'm also tossing in a Salon** article about the layers of the Tea Party support and this piece by a former insider of the Christian Reconstructionist movement. Canada, like the Northern US states, has seen its share of Secessionist migration in post-Civil War generations. It contains the population of less than many American states. Millions of undisclosed dollars were just pumped into Wisconsin's recall races where union busting is being show trialed.

I had a catfriend. We were lifetime buds, but he wasn't stupid. For a time, he discovered if he wanted to keep lounging in a spot I deemed he had to move from, he could wail as I lifted him so it sounded like I was breaking every bone in his body and driving the splinters into his vital organs. I fell for it a couple of times and I'd let go like he was on fire. He gave it away by curling contentedly up again. When I ignored his tormented agonies thereafter and he couldn't convince anyone around us either, he gave it up as a bad job.

As soon as there is high profile media investigation into the practical gains for power and control made by concerned Dominionists/Reconstructionists, I hear caterwauling tantrums about victimized a/ Christianity and b/conservatives. All too often the investigation is dropped. Handy that. Who would ever use religion as a cover for despotic, selfish activities?


*Key Largo

Frank McCloud: He knows what he wants. Don't you, Rocco?
Johnny Rocco: Sure.
James Temple: What's that?
Frank McCloud: Tell him, Rocco.
Johnny Rocco: Well, I want uh ...
Frank McCloud: He wants more, don't you, Rocco?
Johnny Rocco: Yeah. That's it. More. That's right! I want more!
James Temple: Will you ever get enough?
Frank McCloud: Will you, Rocco?
Johnny Rocco: Well, I never have. No, I guess I won't. You, do you know what you want?
Frank McCloud: Yes, I had hopes once, but I gave them up.
Johnny Rocco: Hopes for what?
Frank McCloud: A world in which there's no place for Johnny Rocco.

**h/t pandagon