April Reign

Speak your mind even if your voice shakes

Politics

schadenfreude*

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*Pleasure derived from the misfortunes of others.

Story speaks for itself…wonder how this will impact their thoughts on fair use…

OTTAWA — Conservative attack ads fired at Liberal Leader Stephane Dion may end up sideswiping the ruling party after questions were raised about possible breach of copyright laws.

The television ads, which began airing Monday, use footage from last fall’s Liberal leadership debates to deliver the message that the new Grit leader is weak, indecisive and an environmental failure. But that footage belongs to a consortium of TV networks which pooled their resources to provide live coverage of the debates. The Cable Public Affairs Channel provided the pool camera for each debate.

The networks are now looking into how the Conservatives obtained the debate footage for their ads.

Smile you’re on Deadbeat Camera

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The Ontario government has decided to post your picture and personal information if you don’t pay up on your child support.

the website will include names, physical descriptions, last known addresses and occupations.

While I am unsympathetic to those who can and simply refuse to pay child support, there can be legitimate reasons why support payments have fallen behind. And we all know that the government is famous for mistakes.

They do apparently rely on the permission of the person owed the money, however, many people involved in these situations are quite adversarial and so might consider the smack at a former spouse before all else.

I think we are becoming far too comfortable with the idea of stealing peoples privacy “for the greater good”.

Cameras everywhere, more and more stringent ID requirements, less privacy and fewer civil rights.

These are easy targets, of course, who doesn’t want parents to fulfil their obligations? But if we do not protect the rights of those who we may feel do not deserve them, we set up easy inroads to take away the rights of those that we feel do.

We may agree that it is easier to prosecute if a crime has been captured on video. But do we agree that all our movements should be recorded?

Where does the line between defence and offence blur?

Blog for Choice Day

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Today is the 34th anniversary of Roe v Wade.

While this is predominately a celebration for American women, I believe that women worldwide can share in the celebration.

In the words of Virginia Woolf, “As a woman I have no country. As a woman my country is the whole world.”

The topic this year is a simple one, “why I am pro-choice.”

I am pro – choice because I believe children have a right to know they were wanted. That they weren’t born because of some imagined obligation to church or to god or because some law ruled their mother had to carry them to term.

I am pro – choice because I do not believe that my daughters have less right to decide their futures than my sons.

The simple answer is I am pro choice because I could not be anything else.

I have written to this subject before here, here,and here
to name a few.

I would say to sum up those posts that abortion is a woman’s right. A human right.

A society which would seek to suppress human rights is neither democratic nor just.

And human rights are not up for discussion or debate, they just inherently are.

technorati tags: Blog for Choice

I always thought the future would be a lot more fun

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Yesterday over on Canada’s Debate I took the “Which science-fiction writer are you?” test.

My result,

John Brunner

His best known works are dystopias — vivid realizations of the futures we want to avoid.

So in keeping with that I present the following possible dystopic futures. [Read more…] about I always thought the future would be a lot more fun

The Children’s Health and Nutrition Initiative

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OTTAWA – The Children’s Health and Nutrition Initiative – a proposal to make safe and healthy food available to all of Canada’s children – will help working families address real concerns relating to childhood obesity and malnutrition.

NDP children’s advocate Olivia Chow (Trinity Spadina) says the initiative calls for universal nutritious food programs to make breakfasts, snacks or lunches available to any child in Canada under the age of 18, in venues deemed most appropriate by each local community. This initiative will mean that no Canadian child will go to school hungry.

The initiative was unveiled today in Ottawa by a group of concerned Canadians led by Chow, Dr. Robert Cushman, former Medical Officer of Health for the City of Ottawa, and Ulla Knowles, a parent and Student Nutrition Facilitator at FoodShare Toronto.

Providing children with nutritious food has a long history.

Today most countries provide for at least one good meal per day. There has been some success here with school breakfast programs but they depend heavily on support from corporations who are not likely to be providing fruits and cheese and other foods children may not have access to at home.

[Read more…] about The Children’s Health and Nutrition Initiative

Is Canada a soveriegn country?

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It’s getting hard to tell.

First we turned from peace keepers to war mongers.

Then

An American policy has forced Montreal’s Bell Helicopter to ban 24 employees from working on a U.S. military contract because of their nationalities.

and now


The Royal Bank has refused to open American dollar accounts for people of certain nationalities since April 2006, Radio-Canada reported Monday.

Canadian citizens with dual citizenship in Iran, Iraq, Cuba, Sudan, North Korea or Myanmar are affected.

The bank didn’t agree to an interview with Radio-Canada, but did confirm the report.

The Royal Bank is conforming with U.S. Treasury Department laws.

Conforming with US Treasury laws???

Holy crap did I sleep through the invasion? Are we now the Northern Division of the States?