Obama to Bomb Canada?

Lose Your Head!

Here’s the latest delirious scare-mongering from Glenn Beck.

It’s difficult at the best of times to follow Beck’s logical train of thought (because it tends to travel down winding tunnels of paranoia) but what he seems to be suggesting on today’s program is that the Obama administration (which he now routinely contends is run by Communists), might use the recent incidents of pipeline sabotage in northern Canada as an excuse to nationalize the oil companies. “Oh they’ll say they didn’t want to seize control of the oil companies, but we had to,” Beck imagined government officials as saying afterwards.

Some bloggers (“in their basements”) have gone so far as read this as Beck claiming that Obama is actually going to bomb the Canadian oil pipelines to nationalize the oil and gas industries. I didn’t draw that inference from what he said, but even so, it still sounds quite far-fetched.

Then & Now: FEDEV & FEDNOR

Then:

“We have in this country a federal government that increasingly is engaged in trying to determine which business, which regions, which industries will succeed, which will not through a whole range of economic development, regional development corporate subsidization programs.” — Stephen Harper

Now:

I suppose Harper should be given credit for his “evolving” view of Canada’s economy and the role government plays in it. Doesn’t seem terribly “conservative” though, does it?

Harper’s “Flood of Patronage”

Not that I subscribe to the “liberal media bias” trope that Conservatives are always moaning on about, but it has to be admitted that this story from The Canadian Press about the Harper government’s latest round of appointments to various boards, quasi-judicial tribunals and quangos seems rather skewed:

Weeks before Stephen Harper named some of his closest Tory friends to the Senate, his cabinet quietly approved a flood of appointments to federal boards that also rewarded party faithful.

At least 20 of the 111 appointments made Aug. 4 went to identifiable federal and provincial Conservative donors and supporters.

Since when is 18% (or put another way, one in five), a “flood”?

That said, if Harper cared anything for the accountability and transparency he earnestly promised when first elected, he should restore the Public Appointments Commission that was abruptly disbanded in 2006 when, quite ironically, he couldn’t get his hand-picked appointee, former EnCana Corp. CEO Gwyn Morgan, approved to chair the review board.

Is Minotaur Goring Detainees Torture?

ONN’s In The Know panelists discuss the closing of the controversial detainee labyrinth and debate whether the Minotaur’s brutal interrogation techniques yielded valuable intelligence.

Meanwhile, over at ABC News…

Controlling the Senate

Does anyone on planet Earth (aside from these two guys) really give a toss whether the Conservatives may eventually regain control of the Senate?

Oh the audacity of these Liberals. They think the Senate should do everything humanly possible to thwart the will of the people & block Tory gov’t legislation, but it’s supposed to bow down in feal [sic] submission & rummber [sic] stamp everything a Liberal gov’t would do. The nerve of these people.

Yawn. One presumes that Mikey would be just pleased as punch if a Conservative majority in the Senate routinely thwarted the “will of the people” (whatever that means in this country) and blocked legislation sponsored by the Liberals in parliament. Whatever. Personally, I welcome the prospect of a Conservative controlled Senate. It would be great sport.

Stop Socialist Fire Departments!

Mike McIntee punks some of his radio listeners with a proposal to privatize local fire departments.

Decline & Falling: Part III

“So far and no further!”

Interesting juxtaposition between colonial racial policies with respect to the treatment of indigenous peoples in Australia, Canada and Rhodesia.

Good thing that such institutionalized racism has been completely eradicated here in the Great White North!

Hyperscore™

ForaTV: “Composer and inventor Tod Machover argues that musical notation is nothing more than a way of remembering what you did so that you can do it again. He ties that to a piece of software he created called Hyperscore, which allows children to write sophisticated music using basic lines and color.”

Very cool. Complete video here. Download the software at hyperscore.com.

TMOH: Pissing on Kennedy’s Grave

I guess it would have been just too much to expect El Rushbo to park his venomous bile for the day…

Bonus: Job hunting tips for liberals!

Small Dead Nutsacks Update: Dare if you can to read through the comments and behold the class act that is the extreme right-wing of this country.

Commercializing Truth

“Truth is, we get the truth we want.”

Fora TV: “Australian barrister Julian Burnside outlines content-related constraints on the media industry. He emphasizes the role of profit as a manipulator of content, claiming sports, sex, and political misconduct as the three most lucrative story topics for media sources.”

Complete video here.