Tag: politics

Democracy Quote Of The Day

Hal Duncan speaking about the Stone of Scone: Personally, I think it should be ground up into dust and every single Scot given a piece of it as a sort of democratic fuck-you to mediaeval feudalism. The French had the right idea when it comes to inbred, porphyria-ridden, overblown celebrities. If you want tradition then bring back ritual regicide, I… Read more →

For the record

I received this response to my “Canadian DMCA” letter from my local MP today: Dear Mr. McLaren: Thank you for taking the time to share your concerns about the new copyright legislation introduced by the Conservative government yesterday in the House of Commons. I certainly share many of your concerns and assure you they will be raised during discussions in… Read more →

And she’s still not conceding

Well, it’s about damn time. Now, let’s see if she will actually concede tomorrow, or if the DNC has to send someone over with a stake, a bag of garlic, and a shovel to put this thing in the ground. Now we’re going to see an interesting race though: if Obama doesn’t completely obliterate McCain, that’s going to tell us… Read more →

Canadians: Once More Unto the DMCA breach

By this point you know the drill. You might be interested in following up with one of the linked organizations, though. ——————————————— ORC News | June 3, 2008 | Issue 1.3 ——————————————— Write to your MP about the new copyright bill: http://www.onlinerights.ca/get_active/copyright_for_canadians/ Dear Online Rights Canada Supporter, We understand that the government will imminently introduce legislation to amend the Copyright… Read more →

Putting My Own House In Order

Or rather, bitching about my own country’s politicians for a change. It seems like I can’t turn around lately without seeing another story that just embarrasses me as a Canadian. The classic example, which I’ve talked about here before, is the Tories’ continuing attempt to force a DCMA-style law down our throats. After getting his ass more or less handed… Read more →

Hemmingway said some true things too

We are turning into a nation of whimpering slaves to Fear—fear of war, fear of poverty, fear of random terrorism, fear of getting down-sized or fired because of the plunging economy, fear of getting evicted for bad debts or suddenly getting locked up in a military detention camp on vague charges of being a Terrorist sympathizer. —Hunter S. Thompson Read more →

One Damned Thing Over And Over

(This entire post pinched from Andrew Wheeler’s always entertaining blog. I don’t normally do that, but it’s too good, and a link won’t do.) A great power sets its sights on a smaller, strange, and faraway land — an easy target, or so it would seem. Led first by a father and then, a decade later, by his son, this… Read more →

Same As It Ever Was

I helped make Mexico safe for American oil interests in 1914. I helped make Haiti and Cuba a decent place for the National City Bank boys. I helped in the raping of half a dozen Central American republics for the benefits of Wall Street. I helped purify Nicaragua for the international banking house of Brown Brothers in 1909-1912. I brought… Read more →

Arizona: We don’t get irony here

Measure backs ‘American values’ in state schools Arizona schools whose courses “denigrate American values and the teachings of Western civilization” could lose state funding under the terms of legislation approved Wednesday by a House panel. SB1108 also would bar teaching practices that “overtly encourage dissent” from those values, including democracy, capitalism, pluralism and religious tolerance. Schools would have to surrender… Read more →

Constant Subtle Reinforcement

A while back my wife passed me a PDF copy of an academic paper entitled “Polite, well-dressed and on time: secondary school conduct codes and the production of docile citizens” by Brock University researcher Rebecca Raby. The citation shows the paper as having originally been published in The Canadian Review of Sociology and Anthropology; Feb 2005. Rather than link you… Read more →

Watts on Earth Hour

Some of my cynical thoughts on “Earth Hour” tonight are echoed, and then turned up to 11 by Canadian hard SF author, Peter Watts. Hundreds, maybe thousands of Torontonians will celebrate the event by climbing into their SUVs and driving out to Downsview Park, there to light candles in the darkness. The Eaton’s Center up at Yonge and Dundas is… Read more →

This stuff is deadly and it is spreading

You are about to hear Oklahoma State Rep. Sally Kern (sallykern@okhouse.gov) speaking when she thought that only 50 highly-targeted people were listening. Every time I start feeling good about humanity, something like this comes along to remind me that we’re basically ten minutes away from hitting each other with sticks. How can people this hateful still manage to exist in… Read more →

Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 2.5 Canada
This work by Chris McLaren is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 2.5 Canada.