Speak your mind even if your voice shakes
File this under horrors I wish I’d never seen. Where the hell did Colin Mochrie come from? How badly does he need money?
However, without further ado..oh and you will wish there had been more ado believe me. Take special note of the remarks about Patrick Fitzgerald.
MC Rove
Here’s Jon Stewarts’ take
(this is as direct a link as I can find.)
Press release from the Liberal website;
March 23, 2007
Kennedy, Bains, and Alghabra serve columnist Kay, publisher and John Doe sourceToronto, ON — Former Liberal leadership contestant Gerard Kennedy; Navdeep Bains, MP for Mississauga – Brampton South; and Omar Alghabra, MP for Mississauga – Erindale, served the National Post, columnist Jonathan Kay and related persons with notices of libel over statements that the three politicians were involved in deals to exchange votes in return for changes to national security policy.
Included as a defendant in one of the notices is John Doe, representing the anonymous source cited by Mr. Kay in his column published in the National Post February 27th, 2007.
“Mr. Kay has suggested criminal conduct on the part of Mr. Kennedy. This suggestion is false and defamatory. The situation is particularly aggravated by the fact that Mr. Kay’s article is based on the information of a source whose identity, motives and credibility have been concealed. We look forward to exposing Mr. Kay’s anonymous source so that Mr. Kennedy may be fully vindicated,” said Mr. Howard Winkler of Aird and Berlis, LLP, lawyer for Mr. Kennedy.
The conversations involving Mr. Bains related as fact in the column never took place, according to the notice prepared by Julian Porter, lawyer for Mr. Bains.
“In his notice of libel, Alghabra denies his political and policy decisions are driven by his ethnicity and that he knew of and condoned the vilification of Bob Rae and Arlene Perly Rae, at the Liberal leadership convention,” stated Cliff Lax, counsel for Mr. Alghabra.
“We have enormous respect for the role of the media,” says Kennedy, “but these are equally very serious and completely false statements that if left alone would mislead the public and distort public debate.”
The service of a libel notice is the first step in a defamation suit.
-30-
There is also a story regarding this in today’s Globe and Mail.
And here is a little background on the smear on Bains
It is absolutely right and appropriate that these types of smear jobs be acted against. It represents the absolute lowest in both politics and journalism.
One would expect that a serious journalist would have too much respect for their name and their profession to be bothered with such indulgences.
One would also expect that anyone serious about politics knows there are sufficient idealogical debates to made within political spheres, and real gaffes with which to leverage advantage. Innuendo and baseless rumour mongering is the modus operandi of those who have nothing else with which to make argument.
A selection of things found round the interweb this week.
From http://www.joe-ks.com/archives_apr2001/OldFolkMouse.jpg
I had this aggregator set up before but the software sucked so I had to take it down.
Found better software and have revived it.
If you are a Canadian and a feminist and would like your blog to be included in this aggregator please contact me either here through comments or through the contact form on the site.
Rose’s Place
Today is Back Up Your Birth Control Day in America. This action is to draw attention to these facts among others;
– Most teenagers in the U.S. don’t have access to EC over-the-counter (but they do in areas of Alaska, California, Vermont, Hawaii, Washington, Maine, New Hampshire and New Mexico)
– Despite the over-the-counter status, low-income and immigrant women still have issues of access to emergency contraception
– More than 60% of voters say they do not know about EC or any product that has been proven effective in preventing pregnancy when used within days after unprotected sex
You can read Biting Beavers’ story of trying to get EC here
or this story
The conservative politics of the Bush administration forced me to have an abortion I didn’t want. Well, not literally, but let me explain.
I am a 42-year-old happily married mother of two elementary-schoolers. My husband and I both work, and like many couples, we’re starved for time together. One Thursday evening this past March, we managed to snag some rare couple time and, in a sudden rush of passion, I failed to insert my diaphragm.
The next morning, after getting my kids off to school, I called my ob/gyn to get a prescription for Plan B, the emergency contraceptive pill that can prevent a pregnancy — but only if taken within 72 hours of intercourse. As we’re both in our forties, my husband and I had considered our family complete, and we weren’t planning to have another child, which is why, as a rule, we use contraception. I wanted to make sure that our momentary lapse didn’t result in a pregnancy.
The receptionist, however, informed me that my doctor did not prescribe Plan B. No reason given. Neither did my internist. The midwifery practice I had used could prescribe it, but not over the phone, and there were no more open appointments for the day. The weekend — and the end of the 72-hour window — was approaching.
Or read the empathy and understanding for a rape victim
To add insult to injury, here’s what Dr. Joe Kearns, former medical director of Good Samaritan Hospital in Lebanon, had to say:
“People drive to Reading to buy jeans. Even if that were the case, that you had to drive to Reading to get this [prescription], to me that does not rise to a compulsion that you have to pass laws that [doctors] have to do something.”
I am struggling to understand how a woman–who has just been raped!–would find a trip to Reading to get a prescription for emergency contraception (EC) similar to a road trip she might take with her girlfriends to buy a new pair of jeans.
Although legally women in Canada are allowed to buy EC OTC there are many instances of pharmacies not carrying it or pharmacists exercising “freedom of conscience”.
And our current fundamentalist friendly government who have already shown themselves ready to turn back the clock with cuts to SWC and removal of equality from the mandate, would be only too happy to partner with these same groups to deny women reproductive choice.
The law, in its majestic equality, forbids the rich as well as the poor to sleep under bridges, to beg in the streets, and to steal bread.
Anatole France
The 8th Circuit US Court of Appeals ruled yesterday that Union Pacific Railroad’s exclusion of birth control from its health plan does not constitute discrimination against women under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act. In a 2-1 ruling, the majority wrote that “Union Pacific’s health plans do not cover any contraception used by women such as birth control, sponges, diaphragms, intrauterine devices or tubal ligations or any contraception used by men such as condoms and vasectomies… Therefore, the coverage provided to women is not less favorable than that provided to men.”
The court obviously believes the exclusions to be far as it prevents both women and men equally from obtaining through their healthcare plan medications that would keep them from becoming pregnant.
Though just as the rich are unlikely to be found sleeping under bridges, men are unlikely to be found looking like this 
There was at least one sensible judge who opined:
Because men cannot become pregnant, it makes sense that the health care plan does not cover pregnancy prevention for men. Therefore, Judge Bye found that while the policy might be “officially gender neutral,” it is still discriminatory
To further the discriminatory nature of this ruling medications such as Rogaine and Viagra are covered.
Of course we all know preventing baldness is far more important that preventing pregnancy.
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