January 2012
41 posts
10 tags
@Goldsbie and @NickKouvalis talk #transit, but...
Haven’t decided whether to keep using Storify or move to Posterous’s embeddable tweets. In the meantime … [View the story “@Goldsbie and @NickKouvalis talk transit, but where’s @KarenStintz?” on Storify] Related posts: @NickKouvalis tweets about transit, politics and @TTCchair @KarenStintz | #TOpoli In defence of the public sphere | #TOpoli #TeamFord ...
13 tags
@NickKouvalis tweets about transit, politics and...
You remember him, don’t you? Ran a successful campaign for Rob Ford, now the principal at Campaign Research. [View the story “@NickKouvalis on subways vs. everything else, unions, and @KarenStintz | #TTC” on Storify] Related posts: @dmrider cuts through the #TeamFord spin | #TOpoli #TObudget In defence of the public sphere | #TOpoli #TeamFord @GraphicMatt dismantles...
The Sixth Estate » The Slow and Steady Growth of... →
The analogy of the frog in the pot of water, slowly brought to a boil, seems apt here.
Related posts:
Democracy is very messy
Whistleblower’s Open Letter to Canadians | #tarsands #ethicaloilbullshit #authoritarianism
Democratic governance and that troublesome ‘deserve’ thing | #TOpoli #cdnpoli
1 tag
UPDATED - PMO InfoAlerteBot After Dark: "Foreign... →
The toxic Harper effect, in all its splendour. No room for honest disagreement, just reducing everything to black and white and a with-us-or-against-us worldview. We’ve all seen how well that’s worked out.
Add an unhealthy element of demonization, misdirection, manufactured xenophobia, and hypocrisy, and you’ve got the Harper communication strategy in its putrescent essence.
...
Ford: a #TOpoli film | via @chaicube @neville_park...
I rather like this.
(link)
2 tags
“… it’s a failure of the “logic” or theory of the...”
– Melissa Goldstein’s Facebook
Related posts:
Let’s stop fetishizing “The Market” | #cdnpoli #TOpoli #classwarfare #austerity
Foreign influences on Harper government revealed! - Dawg’s Blawg (Blog) | #tarsands #astroturf @EthicalOil
Austerity’s Targets « Framed In Canada | #cdnpoli...
1 tag
“The mysterious SocProf, who writes The Global Sociology Blog, offered a nice...”
– Income Inequality is Bad for Society. Really Bad. » Sociological Images
“Democracy is very messy. In fact on paper it doesn’t even make a heck of a lot...”
– Rick Mercer, “Prime Minister Dad” (via nowaitninjas)
22 tags
Let's stop fetishizing "The Market" | #cdnpoli...
Comrades, this is our moment. Tonight we smash capitalism!
(The code word is Dzhugashvili.)
OK, cheap laugh. Sorry, but how could I not? Bemoaning the debasement of public discourse isn’t doing much good on its own, so might as well get the easy laughs while I can.
Anyway, to business. Two marvellous contributions to the conversation recently from Alex Himelfarb and Trish Hennessy; if...
4 tags
Whistleblower's Open Letter to Canadians |... →
Whistleblower’s Open Letter to Canadians
]]> Res ipsa loquitur.
8 tags
» Photoshop du jour: A dream jam session News of... →
With love from @BinaBecker.
Hola, companera.
5 tags
Foreign influences on Harper government revealed!...
Sometimes playing the nativist card can get you trumped. Harper ministers honking on about “foreign influences” stalling the construction of environmentally destructive pipelines (while they ignore foreign oil lobbyists and Sinopec) must be a little red-faced today. A Canadian Press journo, Steve Rennie, has found that several of those same “foreign interests” decried by the Harper...
6 tags
@dmrider cuts through the #TeamFord spin | #TOpoli...
[View the story “@dmrider sums it up in three tweets | #TOpoli #TObudget” on Storify] Yeah, I think that pretty well sums it up. Oh, and … @metromorning Spin, Denzil! Spin! #TOpoli— Sol Chrom (@sol_chrom) January 18, 2012 Related posts: City Council Scorecard: The night Rob Ford lost big « Ford For Toronto | #TOpoli Democratic governance and that troublesome...
6 tags
City Council Scorecard: The night Rob Ford lost...
via fordfortoronto.mattelliott.ca Can’t really improve on @GraphicMatt’s work here. In his words: Council has now shown a willingness to ignore and overturn key mayoral directives. The question going forward isn’t whether Rob Ford will be a good mayor or a bad mayor, but whether Rob Ford will be relevant at all to the important day-to-day decisions that matter in Toronto. ...
1 tag
8 tags
We will not allow foreigners to interfere ... |...
Bahrain is us and we are Bahrain, we are the Arabs of the Arabian peninsula, and we should not and will not allow any foreigners interfere in our Arabian Peninsula.
— Arabnews.com, Editorial: Helping Bahrain, March 15, 2011 (reader comment)
_____________
We are within the laws passed by this Parliament, an elected Parliament, and we are not going to be belittled by any person who is on the...
6 tags
10 reasons the U.S. is no longer the land of the...
An authoritarian nation is defined not just by the use of authoritarian powers, but by the ability to use them. If a president can take away your freedom or your life on his own authority, all rights become little more than a discretionary grant subject to executive will.
The framers lived under autocratic rule and understood this danger better than we do. James Madison famously warned that...
16 tags
#EthicalOilBullshit, the Sierra Club, and...
Wow. Just … wow. I’ve seen talking dolls with those pull-strings on their backs respond more creatively than this. Where did she get the idea that evading a straightforward question and repeating talking points over and over again was the same thing as debating?
I never thought I’d see anyone make Ezra look good. Why hasn’t Sun Noise hired her yet?
Secondly:
…...
1 tag
Emma Pullman | Cozy Ties: Astroturf 'Ethical Oil'... →
From one of the most essential cut-through-the-bullshit sites in Canada.
H/t James McKee / @TallPolitical
2 tags
15 tags
Democratic governance and that troublesome...
Earlier this week, my good friend @cityslikr shlepped out to Scarborough to take in a public meeting about the city budget. He wrote it up for Torontoist; you can read about it here.
In brief, his account suggests that Scarborough residents are feeling screwed. Again. They voted for Rob Ford because they thought, finally, that they’d get a mayor who would stop coddling the downtown...
Sorry, World. We fucked up. →
Isn’t it great? We’re in Bush league territory now.
2 tags
“For 2012, could we kiss off the term “boondoggle?” Permanently?”
– Stupid fucking word.
29 tags
In defence of the public sphere | #TOpoli...
There’s been some kerfuffle in the cybersphere about “radical conservatives” over the past couple of days, specifically in the context of Toronto politics, the city budget discussions, and the overall philosophy apparently motivating Team Ford. (Caveat: that’s assuming that you can call whatever’s behind their approach a “philosophy” at all. I’m...
5 tags
Monday morning Sheppard subway guffaw from...
Selley: Nothing will force the mayor into a retreat on the Sheppard subway. He will insist on its viability and impending ground breaking until the day he leaves office, and thereafter he will claim that it exists even though it does not. He will fill his leisure hours driving up and down Sheppard Avenue, making train noises to himself.
via news.nationalpost.com
Question for the panelists:...
15 tags
Unethical oil and its Canadian friends | The...
Partnerships with Myanmar and Sudan… links to Burmese heroin traffickers… With this cast of characters partnering in the development of the Northern Gateway, you’d think Ethical Oil would be at the front of the line condemning the pipeline.
That is if you think Ethical Oil’s real purpose is to oppose unethical oil.
If, on the other hand, its real purpose is to front for Enbridge with ...
“What’s the deal with all these GIFs on Tumblr?”
– Sunday morning crankypants
8 tags
Colton Orr talks about reinventing his game | #nhl...
Colton Orr says he has two main goals in mind as he exchanges his Toronto Maple Leafs jersey for a Toronto Marlies one. The first is to get himself in game shape after spending much of the season in the pressbox as a healthy scratch. The second is to change his game, mainly because it apparently is no longer in vogue in the National Hockey League. “The game’s evolving and changing, so you...
7 tags
Austerity’s Targets « Framed In Canada | #cdnpoli...
As the post-recession politics of austerity tattoo a bull’s eye onto the backs of workers in Canada and elsewhere, Iceland stands out as a refreshing alternative.
Iceland was the first country to feel the effects of the Great Recession of 2008. Its banks owed nearly six times Iceland’s GDP in the Fall of 2008, threatening to bring the entire Icelandic economy down with it.
The people of...
3 tags
5 tags
Robert Reich: The Decline of the Public Good →
robertreich:
Meryl Streep’s eery reincarnation of Margaret Thatcher in “The Iron Lady” brings to mind Thatcher’s most famous quip, “there is no such thing as ‘society.’” None of the dwindling herd of Republican candidates has quoted her yet but they might as well considering their unremitting bashing of…
4 tags
One of those ignore-the-idiot-or-engage dilemmas |... →
Apparently the little putz wants everyone to know about his boorish behaviour. This is Sun Media’s idea of contributing to the national conversation. This is how desperate and pathetic he and they are.
Hence the dilemma. Isn’t more attention just validating him? Wouldn’t leaving him in obscurity be better?
(Where’s George Soros when you need him?)
Related posts:
Ignore...
4 tags
Rick Santorum: 'I don’t want to make black... →
motherjones:
Said to a mostly white Iowa audience. Interestingly, white welfare recipients outnumber black recipients slightly nationwide…and nine-to-one in Iowa. Which makes you wonder: Why’s Rick bothering to single out African Americans on the dole? Hm.
To this I can only add this.
3 tags
The Donald On The Texas Ballot? | NBC 5... →
Supporters of Donald Trump have reportedly filed the necessary paperwork that would land the New York real estate tycoon on the Texas primary ballot this spring …
… thus obliterating any lingering differences between the U.S. electoral process and really bad reality TV.
23 tags
Ignore the trolls, or engage? Mudwrestling with...
Every now and then you want to pause and re-evaluate. Is this working? What am I trying to do here? Is this the best way to go about it? Is it producing the results I want? Now seems as good a time as any. Last night on FB, I offered this: Aspiration for 2012: win back the words, reclaim the public sphere, raise the tone of civic discourse, make citizenship something to which we can all...
