BEARDY McBEARDERSON

PART MAN, PART PIT BULL

So, Tom Mulcair is in charge of stuff now over at the NDP desk. I suffer from a fatal character flaw: I’m a pragmatist. To that end, I’m not sure it matters if Mulcair’s plan on bringing the centre to the party is indeed the opposite. I just want a clear alternative so that Canadians stop voting in the Conservatives out of poverty of choice. Harper is not just ineffective, he is actually anti-progress. His government undoes good things and good laws that already exist. The legislation it enacts (or at least attempts to enact) does not reflect reality. In their minds, the Conservatives are already governing the perfect society they apparently hope to create. Their social platform is a series of hard lines drawn in the sand; their legislation is not based on any real survey of what the population needs, but rather on fulfilling the central party dogma.

Will the omnibus crime bill lower the crime rate, lower the recidivism rate, help rehabilitate non-violent offenders before their prison education ruins them for life? It’s highly unlikely. But that’s okay, because these are the Conservatives, and Conservatives are Tough on Crime.

Or the debacle a few years back, when Tony Clement threatened to rescind InSite’s government exemption? Never mind how many overdoses InSite has prevented, how many users were saved from HIV and hep C infection, how many users accepted passage into heroin detox facilities…Tony Clement is a Conservative, and Conservatives are Tough on Drugs!

This is no way to govern; these fools have to go.

Is Mulcair too Liberal? Almost certainly. After spending more than a decade as a Liberal MNA, I have no illusions that he’s magically left-ified all of his deepset political ideas.

On the count of divisiveness, I’m inclined to count the suit for defamation as a strong strike against him; obviously he doesn’t know how to play nicely with the other children (although I really just want to know what he said). On top of that, I also think he’s spent too much time dealing with the peculiarities of Quebecois politics and risks alienating the West by having the gall to reside in Central Canada. (I have no hope for Alberta, but the CCF-CLC merger was born in Saskatchewan, so the lack of NDP seats there is rather embarrassing).

Finally, does he need a shave? Quite desperately.

But, most importantly, does he represent a viable alternative to the Conservative juggernaut? If that answer is yes, how could we disagree? With the real Liberals in disgrace, maybe the best chance this country has of unseating the fuck-ups we let in this time is to present a centre-leaning, aggressive, outspoken leader who has enough street cred with Quebec to prevent the separatists from blowing things sky-high and derailing an otherwise productive term.

Anyway, forget all of this, I don’t have much faith left in the executive branch. As far as I’m concerned, elections are a kind of placebo that exists solely to give people the illusion of choice. The real work of keeping the nation on the rails falls to the judicial arm, so consider me an amicus curiae, at least until I end up with my own defamation suit.

G&M EXPLODES WITH RIDICULOUS

DENSITY (EXCUSE ME WHILE I GEEK OUT)
Neat density-related facts I have discovered this month:
1) When diet and non-diet soft drinks are placed together in a bucket of ice-water for the purpose of keeping them cool, the sugar in the non-diet drinks increases their density enough that they sink, while diet drinks float near the top.
2) In my 50-pack of Halloween candy (thank you, November 1st!), a natural resettling of the candy bar contents moved most of the high-density, rice-crisp-based Mr. Big bars towards the top of the box, while the denser, nougat- or caramel-based Wunderbar and Caramilk bars moved towards the bottom.

NANOWRIMO
For those not in the know of quirky literary events, NaNoWriMo is an international event where participants strive to write a 50,000-word novel during the month of November. Naturally, once a thing is around long enough, people start being assholes about it.
NaNoWriMo has been accused of being everything from self-indulgent to an affront to real literature to a useless expenditure of time.
At its heart, NaNoWriMo is about doing something huge, something that people often say they'd like to do "some day", and saying, Why not today? Why not do something big and fun that scares you a little? It's about shaking off the chains of needing perfection right from the start, and finding the fun in a tough, but not insurmountable, challenge. Yes, maybe your final product shouldn't ever see the light of day, but it isn't about creating publishable material or degrading literature with one month's worth of low-quality output. It isn't really about the destination, about the 50,000 words at all. It's about doing something, doing anything, without being crippled by fear or perfectionism or even procrastination. NaNo doesn't make you a better writer, it makes you a better person. So to criticize NaNo for producing hastily-written, unpolished manuscripts is completely besides the point.

THIS IS NOT HOW LIBEL WORKS
Ontario PC caucus leader Tim Hudak accused a Liberal minister of tweeting statements that were both libelous and unworthy of a cabinet minister, and demanded a public apology or the minister's resignation. First of all, judging by the list of words and phrases that are banned from further use in the House of Commons, I don't see how this particular statement is somehow "beneath the role of a cabinet minister". Secondly, I distinctly remember learning in Grade 11 Law that the one group of people who could not accuse others of libel were elected politicians. This is a pretty neat amendment when you consider that it prevents us from going to jail for criticizing the government's policies or calling the prime minister a buckethead. So, no matter how offended Hudak may have felt by being lumped in with Harper and Rob Ford in the "trifecta of republican-style, right wing ignorance and bigotry", he has no recourse to call anything libelous, no matter from which side of the House it emanates.

BREAKING INTERNATIONAL LAW IS TOTALLY JOKES, GUYS
The lawyer representing an Asian youth who disguised himself as an elderly white man in order to board a flight from Hong Kong to Canada called the Canadian Border Services Agency "negligent" for releasing photos of his client in and out of the mask, and demanded a media publication ban on the photos in order to protect his client's privacy. Privacy? If you want privacy, how about next time you don't violate international law by impersonating someone else on a flight to Vancouver! Anyway, I wouldn't worry too much about a Globe reader recognizing him - the majority of the people who read this newspaper undoubtedly think all Asians look the same.

PEDOPHILES
Amazon.com is being slammed by the public for allowing a self-published e-book geared towards helping pedophiles stay within the law to be available through its website. At first glance, this seems like a no-brainer - a how-to guide for pedophiles doesn't belong on the market. But look a little deeper, and again, we butt up against the issue of harm reduction vs. standing on principle. Yes, the rape and molestation of children is abhorrent. But it continues to this day despite legislation against it. This book seems not to be so much focused on how to evade police, but on safe forms of release for people whose sexual preference falls on minors - i.e. forms that do not actually involve the touching or molestation of a child! We have a choice - continue to stick to the principle that pedophilia is wrong, or accept that, despite its wrongness, pedophilia continues to exist, and that a book that helps pedophiles find other ways of handling their feelings without actually harming children might be a worthwhile product. There is such a thing as dangerous information...but this isn't it.

THE NEWS

RUSSIAN BOMBERS FLY NEAR CANADA AND DO ABSOLUTELY NOTHING
On Wednesday, two Russian bombers flew into the "buffer zone" off the coast of Labrador ("up North" for those of you who are non-Canadian or simply have the same poor grasp of geography I have). In response, the Canadian military dispatched two fighter jets to shadow the Russian planes. After awhile, the Russians flew away.

Let's break this down:

1) The Conservatives have labelled this situation a "crisis", even though this apparently happens twelve to eighteen times a year.

2) The Conservatives immediately turned this situation into a political ploy to prove that Canada needs the new F-35 fighter jets they've ordered.

3) The Minister of Defence, Peter MacKay, immediately denied that the Conservatives were turning the situation (aka "crisis") into a political ploy to get new jets.

4) Peter MacKay also said this about the implication of political shoehorning: "I find it astounding there could be any suggestion that we would manufacture Russians approaching our airspace." Um, nobody suggested that, MacKay. We were only saying you guys are using an incident to bootstrap your new fighter jet program, not that you'd invented the Russians' arrival. Suspicious much?
This kind of reminds me of 30 Rock:
"Jenna, security called..."
"That's ridiculous! Why would I steal a file from HR?"
"What? Security called to tell us that our old friend Claire is downstairs."
"Oh. Right."

Now just replace "Jenna" with "Pete" and "Claire" with "political pandering" and "steal a file" with "invent some Russians", and you've got a good summary of Canadian politics. Did I mention that the Russians didn't actually do anything while they were flying around near our airspace? Yup, this is what passes for a crisis around here.

VIC TOEWS THINKS HE IS STILL THE JUSTICE MINISTER. WHICH HE IS NOT.
Apparently, the greatest miscarriage of justice that has EVER occurred in this country has nothing to do with Karla Homolka's release from prison, or the dozens of innocent men and women who were wrongly convicted, or the fact that Romeo Phillion is like ninety years old and still has to go through another trial to prove his innocence. No, according to Vic Toews, the former Justice Minister who is now in charge of Public Safety but seems blissfully unaware of this fact, believes that the "biggest mistake in criminal law...ever made" is that time back in 1983 when the word "rape" was changed to "sexual assault".

Okay, the reason that was changed in the first place is because "sexual assault" covers more crimes than "rape". "Rape" is a narrow word with a narrow definition. "Sexual assault" acknowledges that there are more illegal intrusions that can be made on a person's body besides forced penetrative intercourse. Vic Toews apparently was not satisfied with this arrangement, so he told a Senate committee that they needed to bring the word "rape" back. The Senate promptly ignored him (and, one can only hope, reminded him of his cabinet position). Go back to stop signs, Toews. "Rape" died with disco.

Bill 44

Oh, God love Alberta. Alberta, like my sister and her country music, "brings the hick" to this place.

So, after staying up, like, WAY past their bedtime, the members of the Alberta legislature voted in, by a wide majority, Bill 44. Its mandate? To require teachers to notify parents, in writing, of upcoming lessons that will involve information about sex, sexual orientation, or religion. Then, if parents feel the content is objectionable, they are free to withdraw their children from that lesson.

...What the hell?

And, as a real kicker, this was all done under the auspices of the provincial charter of Human Rights. As in, parents have a human right to pull their kid from school. What kind of human right is that?

It was the Conservatives (big shocker right there) who pushed the bill through, so, naturally, it's the right-wing Christians who are largely its backer. They're afraid of controversy, of new information diluting their children's beliefs; their solution is to remove controversy from the curriculum by ensuring their precious children never have to hear anything that might shake the foundations of what "universal truths" mommy and daddy have already sown in their fertile young minds.

This is ridiculous, and I say that as a Christian. Christians have never been shy about controversy. The man we follow and call Saviour was nailed to a cross! Our whole religion is founded on controversy, so what's with the sudden revolt against it?

Some parents are happy about the bill for reasons other than their religious beliefs. They believe it is their responsibility to teach kids about sex, morality, etc. Frankly, they're wrong:
Teachers are held accountable for what they say. They follow a series of guiding principles, created by the Board, detailing what is and is not appropriate to say. If they do say something inappropriate, they say it to twenty-five sets of little ears, and you can bet some of those kids go home and yell, "Mom, guess what the teacher said today!" That's why teachers who want to keep their jobs can't say things like, "Jewish people are bad" or "Gays should burn in hell" or "All Christians are right-wing nutjobs". Parents, on the other hand, have no such check or balance in place against them. They may say even, fair-minded things to their kids anyway, but for the sake of children whose parents might tell them things I can't even say in a public forum, let's leave some of the teaching of these touchy subjects to a civil servant who won't be instructing their children on picketing funerals or denying the Holocaust.

Ignorance--it's the gift that keeps on giving!

The British National Party

Because I'm hopelessly nerdy and possibly English, I receive The Guardian in my feed reader (as opposed to, you know, any newspapers from the country in which I actually reside). I was listening to a Guardian podcast a few days ago, and heard that the British National Party, the far-far-far-right federal party, had captured a significant number of seats in some former Labour strongholds. Naturally, I decided to check out their website, and WOW am I glad I did.

To be honest, it's probably one of the best-designed party websites I've ever seen, British or Canadian. From the nav bar to the very clear platform policies, there is no mistaking who the party is or what they stand for. The problem is, what they stand for is, well, primarily the protection and preservation of "Britain's indigenous people" - aka, whites.

Then, of course, there's the push to bring back corporal punishment for "petty criminals and vandals". Really? Their solution to rising violence and civil mutiny is spankings, or a couple turns with the Strap?

Next, they turn to defence: apparently, the same nation who entered World War I in defense of Belgium, following Germany's broken promise not to invade the neutral country, now has much more important things to do than participate in "meddling ‘peace-keeping’ missions".

And did you know white Britons are "second-class citizens" in England? So who exactly constitutes the first class, then? Frankly, I can't think of any country where white people are treated as second-class citizens. White people the world over are treated to their own affirmative action or "positive discrimination" every day. That's why the average white still makes more money, lives in a better neighbourhood, has more education, and is better represented in the government than the average individual belonging to any other ethnic category.

I find it particularly interesting that the BNP refer several times in their policies to the removal of "politically correct" language and double-speak from schools, the workplace, and law enforcement. It seems to me that a political party based entirely on a thinly-veiled platform of xenophobia would, by necessity, have to use that kind of language to defend themselves.

But hey, we're talking about the fascists here, and we know what a history of good planning and political integrity the fascist movement has always maintained.

Oh, and check this out. I laughed.
For a very long time.

I was watching some videos on YouTube and came across one of a live version of "I kissed a girl" by Katy Perry at the European VMAs. There were all kinds of comments below it like "Katy can't sing live!" or "She sounds like a man!" or "WTF? Bad singing!" Listen, if you thought Katy Perry's song was famous because she had a good voice, you completely missed the point of the video. Katy's voice sounds weird on her CD, never mind live, but that's not at all why she was so popular this summer.

Also. While we're talking about kissing girls and YouTube, I came across some "Yes on Prop 8" videos that I kind of thought were hilarious.
According to one video's comments, "98% of all homosexuals in prison admitted to being attracted to children". What? Does anyone actually believe these kinds of figures? 98% of all CHILD MOLESTERS in prison admitted to being attracted to children--that I would believe. I mean, that's what got them put in jail in the first place. But homosexuals? I don't think so.

My favourite part, I think, is the underlying assumption is that child molestation only happens between men and young boys. That's ridiculous. There are hundreds of convicted felons in jail right now because they were men with a preference for little girls. Since when is a man liking young girls suddenly gay? Is homosexuality the new catch-all for any sexual behaviour that lies outside the interactions between one man and one woman?

More YouTube hilarity:
A comment on a video of someone painting the Mona Lisa using MS Paint:
"ur the living picasso! or who ever painted the original".
Uh, can anyone say WE NEED MORE ART EDUCATION IN OUR PUBLIC SCHOOLS?

Dear Tony Clement:

This may have escaped your notice, Sir, but you are not, in fact, a doctor. So shut up--about the safe injection site in particular, but shutting up about everything would be an appreciated bonus.

We are talking about people here, bro. Now, I'm sure you don't consider drug addicts as people. You think of them as a problem that you have to solve. And if you can solve the problem while pushing your party's agenda, so much the better, right? Wrong.

I don't care what you personally think about the safe-injection site--in fact, I'm not so sure you can think. I care what you are professionally and publicly thinking about the safe-injection site. You think to yourself, "My party believes in a War on Drugs", and you use these suffering people as your pawns. You think because you are a card-carrying Conservative that you have to react to every health-related situation with a knee-jerk response full of Conservative values. This may make you a great politician. Unfortunately, it also makes you a terrible human being.

I won't even discuss the things you say to deride the safe-injection site, because I find them laughably stupid and illogical. But I am sick of seeing you in my paper, running off at the mouth in various locations across the globe, saying the same thing.

This is a serious issue, bud, not just a press conference to show off how much you know about your party's platform. So do everyone a favour--grab a nice big piece of duct tape, and stick 'er right over your mouth. See now, isn't that better?