Bye-Bye, Becky Jane*

Of course, there's no backing down.

An auction of cattle raised on a Kingston, Ont., prison farm that many people have been trying to prevent is scheduled to take place in Waterloo Tuesday in spite of major protests over the last two days.

Three hundred dairy cows are up for sale at the Ontario Livestock Exchange. They're from a prison farm that for more than 100 years was part of Frontenac Institution.

Farming isn't relevant, they say. Hear that, Con-supporting farmers? Your life and life's work aren't relevant to these bozos.

So, what is relevant?

Who the hell knows?

Corrections officials haven't yet announced a program to replace the farms.

And how's this for gratuitous shittiness?

[Spokesthingy] said, for inmates who worked on the farm, one of their first jobs will be to tear down the buildings they worked in.

Isn't that this ReformaTory government in a nutshell? They are tearing down the country we live in.

Go read the comments at the CBC link. This is changing some people's minds and stiffening the resolve of others.

BONUS: Have a look at photos of the hippie/liberal/socialist protesters that Connie posted. Here's what she said about them:

There were a couple of things that struck me about those photos. First of all, the crowd looks like a bunch of our grandparents and family members. They are normal looking Canadians...the Tim Horton's crowd. If I was Stephen Harper, I would be worried about making these people mad.

Secondly, they had a hundred cops there, and a bus to take away the people they arrested. I fear for my country.

* My Uncle Jim named all his cows Becky Jane. What a kidder, Uncle Jim.

The Simplest, Best Example

At the various anti-ReformaTory Facebook pages/groups, people are talking about annual visits with the fambly and being energized by what the oft-vaunted 'ordinary' Canadians are saying. They're saying that the census idiocy is senseless, the G8/G20 spending is shameless, the G20 police state is shameful. And so on. Ordinary Canadians are starting to geddit.

In the depth of summer yet.

I think this is the clearest and simplest example of how the ReformaTories operate.

The federal prison farm system is not broke. It has a lot of evidence-based research supporting it. It is cost-effective. It is humane.

Therefore, in teeny ReformaTory brains, it is SOSHALIST STATIST EVUL and must be destroyed. (Not to mention the cows.)

Even the faaar right (for the wrong reasons of course) supports the prison farm system.

And oooo, looky here. My close personal Facebook friend has posted a link to the poll.

ASIDE (well, mostly): A commenter at the CBC link said something like: 'Gee, that's great the PM showed up for the photo-op. How'd you convince him to wear the sign?'

Can Left and Right Work Together?

Well, I dunno if this will amount to anything, but it's fun. I'm hoping to prove JJ wrong when she says she despairs of the human condition because we can't seem to work together.

I was visiting the Dark Side earlier today and saw this thread about the protest supporting the prison farms that Stevie Peevie wants to axe. It included this link.

Hundreds of farmers, local residents and prison-rights advocates who want the Conservative government to keep Canada's prison farms open set up a blockade to the regional headquarters of the Correctional Services of Canada in Kingston, Ont., on Friday morning.

About 250 people showed up for the three-hour protest, which started at around 6 a.m. along the busy street. Campaigners said they want the government to reconsider its decision to close the farms, which are being phased out by the end of this fiscal year.

"We see the farm as an effective rehabilitation and job-training program that also provides food for the prison system," said Dianne Dowling, a member of the Save Our Prison Farms committee and local representative from the National Farmers Union.

The prison service currently operates six farms — each located in Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba, New Brunswick, and two in Ontario.

About 300 prisoners work at the farms, operating machinery, taking care of animals and growing food for prisons.

The farms, which the prison service has operated since the 1880s, cost about $4 million annually. The government has said the money will be used to provide more relevant employment skills to rehabilitate prisoners in contemporary trades.

Several of the commenters at the Dark Side support the prison farms. For the wrong reasons of course, but nonetheless. . .

So I sent a message to my close personal Facebook friend, Connie Fournier, owner of the Dark Side, to tell her that there was another issue we could maybe work together on. In addition to the G20 insanity. I included a link to a Facebook group supporting the prison farms.

She sent a message back saying she found it creepy that we were agreeing on so much. She also said that she'd joined the group and posted the info at FD. And indeed, she did.

Anyway, I joined a facebook group to save the prison farms. It looks like Stephen Harper has managed to find yet another issue that I can agree with the lefties about. He's a uniter, for sure!

If we can't divide the Right, maybe we can work with them.