The Gas Cylinders Are Empty ... for now

At least we're getting to the point where the wealthy psychopaths who run so many of our corporations can be justified in their complaints that "class warfare" is actually happening.

Some workers at a French Nortel plant, laid off and presuming - based on historical evidence - that the corporation will screw them out of their severance and pensions, have threatened to blow up the company's buildings.

Workers ... have threatened to blow up their factory unless they secure decent layoff terms, but gas cylinders placed around the plant were empty.

Now we're talking about class warfare.

Sad but true, this may be the only way to get through to the selfish, economist types who are at the top of this pyramid. It's clear from the way that they have taken money from workers' pensions and from the way they timed layoffs and layoff payments to occur after bankruptcy was declared (so as to make layoff victims "unsecured creditors") that these people do not care, and can't be made to care, about the lives they are ruining.

When you're a sociopath, that's the way you act. And when you're a sociopath, you make an excellent corporate master. It's practically part of the job description.

It's also obvious that various levels of government will do nothing to pull these people up short.

I suppose they just expect laid off, victimized employees to quietly sell their houses in the night, go on welfare and eventually starve to death.

I'm sure that will work out, especially when they see all the executives sailing around on the new yachts they're buying with their bonuses.

The gas cans are empty ... for now. Don't expect them to stay that way. You can't do this to that many people without expecting some of them to get very, very angry.

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Stevie, My Sympathy is Limited

It's right about at that threshold I felt for the Enron employees who kept investing in their company's stock while it was going down, throwing more and more of their pensions in before the whole thing crashed.

Dave has written an excellent article saying that the issue should be dropped, that it's a distraction from bigger issues and that the Catholic Church has no business getting all moral with people. I mostly agree.

No, I'm not going to go after Harper for breaking some stupid religious rule. As far as the catholics are concerned, he was damned either way. Non-catholics aren't christians, according to the catholic church, so they have no business eating the cracker. Discarding is also unacceptable.

But I don't care.

What gets me is that the guy who is riding a frothing wave of Religious Nutbars (mostly protestant) is now going to invoke the wrath of a separate sect of frothing Religious Nutbars.

I can't pretend that I have any sympathy.

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Just Say No To Diamonds

Would it be that hard to create a North American and European campaign against diamonds?

I don't mean the "blood diamonds" - just the ones that are acquired via slavery, beatings, civil war and other kinds of murder.

I mean that there should be a campaign against all diamonds.

The author of the Kimberley Process for certifying diamonds has resigned in the face of the fact that the people who should have been regulating the Kimberley process have simply failed to do so.

The United States apparently soaks up about half of the world's diamonds as a result of a concerted campaign in the 1930s, paid for by the diamond industry, to create an expectation among young women that diamonds are essential to a marriage proposal.

Maybe the money spent on the Kimberley process was spent incorrectly.

Wouldn't it have been more efficient to spend that same money on television, billboard and radio ads teaching everyone to be horrified at the presence of diamonds?

Take that guy in the fancy suit, down on his knee, offering a diamond ring and put him against a backdrop of blood and murder and slain children. How many times do you have to show that ad before nary a soul wants to be involved with diamonds at all?

You're probably saying, "what about the legitimate diamond miners?". To that I can only say that 'legitimate' is a funny word for a bunch of people running a worldwide monopoly and price-fixing scheme. Don't believe me? Take that heirloom engagement ring left behind in an inheritance and actually try to sell it. Don't just have it appraised. Actually try to sell it. You'll get about ten cents on the dollar.

The whole thing is a lie.

The whole thing is a scam.

If you want my opinion, the money that went in to the Kimberley Process could have been better spent on anti-diamond marketing.

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It's a Sad, Sad Day

One of Ottawa's most venerable institutions has been cited for a liquor license violation and had its license suspended for five days.

It used to be that this city stood for something. It used to represent a standard of morals and ethics that exceeded the norms, that symbolized all that this country ever was and ever could be.

A place where women dance on a stage, remove their clothing and squirm around on customers' laps was a place we could trust. It was a place with a code of honour and a certain heightened level of classiness.

But no more.

" ... an Ontario liquor inspector ... discovered an apparently drunk person in the BareFax."

It's a sad, sad day, ladies and gentlemen, when a institution like this, a backbone of the Byward Market, only blocks away from our federal Parliament, performs like this. Whom can we trust if we can't trust a strip joint to make sure everyone under their charge is sober? What kind of nanny state would we be?

Hopefully, this five-day suspension will teach the Barefax its lesson and, reproached, it will rejoin the community in a healthy, respectable and moral manner.

Until then, I suppose this should be considered an opportunity. Table dances are 3 for the price of 2 until the license comes back and it's a good opportunity for devout Baptists, Muslims, Mormons and others opposed to alcohol to go see some strippers.

Silver lining through the clouds, people. Chin up, we'll get through this blight on our city's reputation.

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I've Always Been Cynical About Politicians

But sometimes their cynicism overwhelms mine, which just means I have to kick mine up a notch.

Cynicism: An attitude of scornful or jaded negativity, especially a general distrust of the integrity or professed motives of others.

I know that politicians want power. But somehow, like those ridiculous Survivor participants who are surprised when they are betrayed, I am still taken aback when I find out how manipulative a politician can get.

Harken back, ye readers, to the age of Listeriosis. It happened under the Conservatives, a result of their own deregulatory practices. People were getting sick. Some were dying. Minister Gerry Ritz made a joke about the announcements of death as being "death by a thousand cuts" to his and his party's reputation.

A lot was made of his next dark joke, "Or should I say cold cuts." But that's not what matters. We've all made dark jokes at one time or another. What matters is that his party's policies were killing people, that he was in charge of fixing the crisis and that he was more concerned about his reputation.

Yeah. Poor guy. All those dead people were just murder to his reelection chances.

And now we see Minister Raitt. This isotope shortage will mean human lives endangered. Cancers and other diseases will go undiagnosed. People could die.

And, like Gerry Ritz, she's more concerned about political points. Sure, I saw her apology (dissected here). She's had cancer in her family. So have I. So has everyone, I bet.

Somehow, I'm sympathetic. I've had to wait in emergency rooms. I recoil at the misery this will bring to my fellow humans.

Somehow, her first instinct isn't sympathy. Is there a spot on that tape where she demonstrates human distress at the situation? Some kind of, "My God, Bones, what have we done?"? I doubt it, but I'm willing to be corrected.

I'm willing to bet that she's just so far gone in to the "rough and tumble" of the this new politics she touts that she's lost entirely.

I know I'm being very cynical, but whose fault is that?

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That's your Democracy Dying

And it's whimpering away, quietly in the night.

Minister Raitt, quoting leading bankers at a meeting of Council of Chief Executives:

“They did it at the Canadian Council of (Chief) Executives, there was three presidents of major banks who stood up in the room — and this is not from cabinet so I can talk about it — stood up and said, ‘Ignatieff, don’t you even think about bringing us to an election,’”

Is this a real quote? Is it even close to accurate? Is it paraphrasing a more subtle, veiled message?

John McCallum, Liberal finance critic, had this to say of the quote:

“That’s absolutely ridiculous. Can you imagine a bank president standing up in a room like that with more than 100 people in the room and saying something like that? It makes no sense.”

Yes, John, I can believe it.

I have no trouble at all believing that very wealthy people are indeed in control of our economy and our country.

There is nothing the least bit incredible about that.

And the fact that both Harper and Ignatieff are enslaved to their election funds is no surprise either.

Look what happened to Stephane Dion. He wasn't part of the business elite. He wasn't anointed by the wealthy. He received no funding and his bid for power ended.

We know who you people are. We know what you're up to. It's nice to have you out in the open, though. Thanks for that.

h/t Galloping Beaver

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The Liberal Mafia vs. the Conservative Punks

When the mafia comes to your town, it's organized crime. They hit you up for protection money, do you a favour, you owe them a favour. Sure, it's crime and it's bad, there's no question. But there's also no question that it's organized.

And so it was with the Liberals and their Sponsorship Scandal. The Scandal was a well organized scam within the silliness of the Sponsorship program. Money was syphoned away. Kickbacks were attained. The government and the people were ripped off, but you had a sense that the thing had been carefully planned.

When a bunch of illiterate teenage punks comes in to your town, they like to swarm old people, mug children, beat up old ladies, set things on fire and generally vandalize your life for kicks.

That's how the Conservatives are. One of them leaves secret documents at his girlfriend's house. The other ones leaves other documents at a broadcast studio and then, infantile, the whole things gets blamed on an underling. Then they start selling off silver that doesn't even belong to Canada but to Buckingham Palace.

I get the vague impression that our government is being run by a bunch of juvenile jackasses slowly vandalizing our country. Given the choice, I'll take the previous criminals and their well organized, quiet, respectful thievery.

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