And the horse you rode in on...and it's mother, too

I've been off work for a a couple of days due to an eye injury (scratched cornea, if you -like my employer - feel you must know) but I will be back in the news trenches tonight. Not because I am fully recovered - I am not - but because my employer has decided it requires a "doctor"s note" if I am going to take any more time off. 

When, and not "if', I get the name of the genius in "Human Resources'  (I am not a "resource" I am a human being) that has decided that I need the permission of my personal physician, homeroom teacher or mommy to come to work, we will have a "full and frank discussion" about who signed which contract that exchanges my labour and expertise for a salary. (Helpful hint for those in the "human resources" department - it was me that signed that contract, not my doctor, not my homeroom teacher and certainly not my mother - she's way smarter than that, and believe me when i tell you, you couldn't afford to hire her at half of what she would be worth).

The notion that I need provide some sort of proof that I have a reason not to come to work is insulting, patronizing, demeaning and just plain dumb.

My employer and I have a contract. I work, they pay. If my inability to work becomes an issue, then I would not expect to continue that contract. If however, I decide I am unable to work on a given day due to illness or injury, our contract says I still get paid up to a point. That point is considerably further away than three days. And more importantly, the decision is mine, not my doctor's or your lawyer's or my mother's or even your imaginary parent's or Conrad Fucking Black's. Mine. I own my own labour, you fuckers just rent it.

When I allow you to. 

I don't need to show you a note or a badge ("Badges? We don't got no badges...I don't got to show you no stinking' badges!") or a permission slip from my scoutmaster or the head prefect. I decide whether to sell you my labour today. You can decide if you want to pay for it or not, but you don't get to demand a note from my physician if I decide to withhold that labour for a couple of days, the decision about whether I will work is mine, and mine alone.

I get it, you have beans to count and beans need to counted. But I am not a bean and just because you pay me, it doesn't mean you own me or get to make decisions for me about whether I am able to work or not. You are entitled to notification that I can or cannot fulfill my previous agreed upon duties, but you don't get to ask me to supply a third opinion. 

if they gave out awards for sheer brass...

Then Lord Tubby would certainly get one, with crossed swords, oak leaf clusters and bar.
But they don't.
People who renounce their Canadian citizenship to accept foreign honours should automatically be stripped of the Order of Canada, as should people who disgrace the Order by being convicted of serious criminal offences.
They stripped Alan Eagleson of his Order of Canada and, despite his being a complete and total crook and slipperier than a greased weasel, he did actually make a contribution to the country and to the sport of hockey. Unlike Conrad Black, the Eagle at least has the enough shame to accept that he did not deserve the honour.
Unlike Eagleson who was instrumental in putting together the 1972 Canada-Russia series while lining his pockets, Conrad Black, has contributed zero to the nation. Anything he has done, he has done to line his own pockets and achieve his own ends.
At the very most, I suppose it could be argued that he did do Canada a small service by taking Barbarella Amiel off the dating circuit, but I hardly think that saving a handful of media executives and faux aristocrats from here tender ministrations hardly merits the Order of Canada.
If – and it is a big if – there has been a net benefit to the nation as a result of his actions, it has been purely accidental and more likely than not a result of his inability to figure a way to keep the cash in his own grasping, grubby paws.
The board of advisors to the Order of Canada does not owe Conrad Black a hearing, it owes him naught but the back of its collective hand.
Canada owes Conrad Black absolutely nothing and as a convicted felon and foreign citizen he should count himself extremely fortunate that we allow him to enter the country at all.

Though he did inspire a great song.
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Next from the CPC: senior citizens and ice floes, our new money-saving plan for Canada's elderly

I really don't think it is a stretch to say that only a conservative could come up with something this brazenly evil and stupid and then try to sell it as a way to save taxpayers' money. That it is a member of the Canadian senate proposing it just proves the point that conservatives don't do irony.

"Basically, every killer should (have) the right to his own rope in his cell. They can decide whether to live," Sen. Pierre-Hugues Boisvenu told reporters Wednesday.
A victims' rights advocate and now a senator, Boisvenu also says the death penalty should be considered in certain cases when there's no hope of rehabilitation.
He says limited use of capital punishment could save money.

That is some weapons-grade dumb. Leaving aside the myriad practical problems entailed in giving prisoners ready access to a means of killing, the moral implications and contradictions here are stunning.
Given that Senator Boisvenu is paid $132,300 in taxpayers' dollars plus expenses and office budget and free travel for being a political testicle cosy and yes-man to the party leader  the staggering workload and burden of responsibility that senators take on, I'm frankly amazed he could take his mouth off the public teat long enough to comment.
I know we coddle convicts by giving them three trays of hospital/high school cafeteria food a day, a cot, a warm place to shit, basic medical care and unlimited opportunities to be gang raped, stabbed or beaten by younger stronger inmates and even guards, all while giving up any privacy and personal freedom and being locked away from the rest of the world. White collar thieves like Bruce Carson and Conrad Black aside, for most people a prison sentence of any length means a lifetime of marginal existence and poverty. Institutionalization is a difficult mindset to leave behind. Prison changes people and having done time makes finding a job of any kind a lot more difficult, never mind finding a good job. Ex-cons are about the last group it is still okay to discriminate against.  Most people in prison are there for good reasons, but the idea that we don't treat them badly enough is pretty popular on the right. Maybe in addition to encouraging them to commit suicide so there will be enough money for MP and Senate pensions, we could introduce mandatory daily electrical shocks delivered via heavy iron collars and tattoo the prisoners crimes on their foreheads as an added deterrent just to make sure we are being tough on crime.
At the same times, we make things so very, very hard for Senators. Did  you know that if  they miss two consecutive sessions of parliament that they could lose their seat? They need to show up roughly twice a year until they are 75 to keep collecting a salary. That is pretty arduous - just imagine if you had to sit next to Mike Duffy for a few hours twice a year for a paltry $2500 a week. Mind you, senators can't  just show up any day they want, the Senate only sits about 70 days a year. Sounds hellish, doesn't it?  Of course, on the plus side, when they retire or resign at whatever age, Senators get a nice fat pension, no matter what.  Admittedly, many of the members - who are all free to collect other salaries and pensions while serving in the Senate - work a little harder than just showing up a few times a year, but they are under no obligation to do so. If none of them showed up for work 364 days a year and simply raised a hand to vote through a list of the government's legislation annually, I doubt if anyone would notice the difference.
Prisons cost the taxpayer about $3 billion a year in 2005/2006, with most of that money being paid out in salaries to guards and other corrections staff, and costs for feeding and clothing inmates, money that also goes back into the economy. Prisoners often work at prison workshops, producing goods for the government like licence plates.
Including the costs of maintaining the facilities, paying staff and all other expenses, it cost an average of $259.05 per day to incarcerate a federal prisoner in 2004/2005, none of which is paid to the prisoner. That is what it costs to keep a criminal off the streets.
In addition to the cost of running the senate, paying senate staff, maintaining the facilities, paying senate pensions and senators travel and expenses, senators are paid $363.46 per day, or if we calculate on the basis of working days for a five day week/ 50 week year it comes to $529.20 per working day. If we assume a busy senate year in which they sit for 90 days, that would be $1,470 per day. All of which goes into the pockets of someone who is only required to show up to work twice a year to keep the gravy train running. That is what it costs to keep 105 political water carriers in the regal style to which they have become accustomed and to provide parliament with sober second thought.
If we are so keen on saving money, maybe we should give each senator a length of rope.

Addendum: Yes, I do realize that Senator Boisvenu's daughter was abducted, raped and murdered in 2007. Personal revenge is not a good basis for public policy.

Update: The answer to the question "Who watches SUN-TV News?"  - the missing information of course is how many messages did he get saying he was a bloodthirsty jackass?


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Pompous and wrong as always

 Shorter Conrad Black: A gentleman such as oneself is apt to miss the comforts of the fairer sex when unjustly incarcerated by one's inferiors and one's good lady wife declines to pay a conjugal visit citing the discomforts of the unfashionable accomodations of the Bastille's prefabricated structure reserved for such assignations. In such circumstances, one's earthly desires must be satiated in the mind's eye as it soars over these dingy walls on the wings of imagination. An indispensible aid in just such periods of need are the images gracing the covers of  the very latest volumes by those mischevious coquettes of conservatism, Ann  Coulter and Laura Ingraham. Lo, as my co-incarcerated brethern in the yard might brutishly put it: Verily, would I tap tap that!

Sure, he may have been thrown out of the House of Lords for his various crimes, just as he was thrown out of Upper Canada College for stealing exams as a boy, but Lord Tubby of Fleet Street continues to demonstrate that as King of the Douchebags, he is still one of the world's true aristocrats.

And you know how I feel about aristocrats...

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Taking over the asylum - an announcement

So, you've finally had it with TV News and big media empire newspapers that exist mainly to satisfy the egos of rich plutocrats and give car dealers and real estate salesmen a place to hawk their wares.
Talk radio either puts you to sleep ("Sure, it's January Canada and your yard has two feet of snow in it, but we're going to spend the next four hours with our gardening expert, taking your calls - hello Gordie from Kapuskasing, you're on the air!") or makes you wonder what the hell is wrong with some people ("Welcome to the red, white, and blue patriot hour , I'm your host -  the greatest living American - Lush Bimbo! Liebrals are stooooopid! Hurrah for Freedom! Eeeek, dusky islamomarxianarchists! I am NOT a racist, now let me tell you some "jokes" about Obama, fried chicken and watermelon!  Blar-har-har! Let's take America back! Fluoridation is a homosexual plot to take America off the gold standard again and make us all have abortions and speak French! Buy my "book"! Hurrah for anyone in uniform, even the UPS guys! USA! USA!").
You are pretty much fed up with most of the editorial page gang of mealy mouthed equivocators, gasbags, faux curmudgeons, half-bright contrarians and the publisher's schoolchums telling you that "both sides do it, sure there's a problem but it's too complicated to fix and ooooh! look shiny object! Shiny Object!!!"

Yeah, I know what you mean. And I work in that industry.

There is an antidote to the inane and insane. Think of it as Our Media Not Theirs.

Look over on the sidebar, under the radio. What, you may ask, is that doohickey? What the heck is Virtually Speaking?

That doohickey is the your ticket out of the commentary ghetto of mass media bloviations.

Once upon a time, a bunch of people who went through what you are going through now, decided that since it would be very bad form and probably illegal to actually fill the Meet the Press studio from floor to ceiling with real horse manure during a broadcast, no matter how good it might feel,  and so they really wanted an alternative. They wanted a talk show, just like the ones on the TV networks, but with smart, funny, interesting people willing to express an actual opinion and take part in a discussion about ideas instead of meat puppets burping up sound bites at each other. Where would they find these smart, funny, interesting people? It was a puzzlement. Then, one day, a couple of smart, funny, interesting people were doing what they usually did - reading blogs - and it dawned on them that there were lots of other smart, funny, interesting people reading and writing blogs and doing journalism on the internet or even in traditional media outside the Washington Beltway Village and hey, wouldn't it be great if you could get a few of them together to be smart, funny and interesting in real time instead of having them type everything and crosspost and link and html the life out of the discussion. Besides which, most bloggers are attention whores who will do anything if they think it means people will listen to them always willing to work for free for a good cause.
And thus Virtually Speaking was born.
A live audience in the Second Life cartoon universe sits and watches the aforementioned smart, funny, interesting people talk to each other over the Internet, while chatting among themselves and sending in questions. Other people listen to the show broadcast live over the Internet on Blogtalk Radio and some of them call in with questions or comments on the telephone. Still more people download the recorded shows as podcasts or listen to them on the Virtually Speaking webpage. And it doesn't cost anything and Rupert Murdoch, Conrad Black, Pierre Karl Peladeau and Richard Melon Scaife don't make a single cent off of it.

And those smart, funny, interesting people - just who are they anyways? Well, a partial list would include:

• • Adam Lambert
  • Alan Boyle
  • Alison Pugh
  • Andrew Hoppin
  • Andrew Maynard
  • Anthony Romero
  • Brandon Friedman
  • Bruce Schneier
  • Chris Mooney
  • Dan Froomkin
  • Darcy Burner
  • Dave Niewert
  • Dave Pollard
  • David Brin
  • David Harris
  • David Sirota
  • David Waldman/KagroX
  • Dean Baker
  • Delia Lake
  • Dorion Sagan
  • Eric Boehlert
  • Eve Pell
  • George Lakoff
  • Glenn Greenwald
  • Glenn W Smith
  • Gloria Feldt
  • Greg Dworkin/DemFromCT
  • Greg Mitchell
  • Ian Welsh
  • Ilona Meagher
  • James Fallows
  • James Poterba
  • Janine Benyus
  • Jason Starr
  • Jay Rosen
  • Jeff Sharlet
  • Jeffrey Feldman
  • Jeffrey Kaye
  • Jessica Valenti
  • John Dean
  • Jon Henke
  • Jon Henke
  • Josh Knauer
  • Joshua Rubenstein
  • Juan Cole
  • Justin Krebs
  • Karen Tumulty
  • Katie Halper
  • Katie Halper
  • Lev Grossman
  • Lynn Harris
  • Lynn Margulis
  • Maegan Carberry
  • Margo Baldwin
  • Marion Nestle
  • Markos Moulitsas
  • Marshall Thompson
  • Marty Klein
  • Mason Tvert
  • Matt Stoller
  • Matthew Rothschild
  • Max Blumenthal
  • Max Blumenthal
  • Mike Connery
  • Mike Lux
  • Ned Lamont
  • Olivier Knox
  • PZ Myers
  • Rick Perlstein
  • Riki Ott
  • Sam Seder
  • Shelby Knox
  • Spocko
  • Stirling Newberry
  • Terry Bisson
  • Tim Wu
  • Tom Boellstorff
  • Will Bunch

and of course the regular Sunday panel of bloggers, which includes in various combinations:

• Avedon Carol
• Chris Kendrick
• Cliff Schecter
• Culture of Truth
• David Dayen
• Digby
• Eve Gittelson/nyceve
• Joan McCarter
• Marcy Wheeler
• Stuart Zechmanhttp://kevinswoodshed.blogspot.com/2009/02/i-am-radical-marxist-lennonist-radio.html
• Susie Madrak
• Watertiger

And it was good. Everybody had fun, issues were discussed and snark was shared. The Second Life thing is admittedly a bit geeky, but so what? As some of you may know, my secret shame is that I am one of "those people" who spend perfectly good free time I could be spending shopping, golfing,  reading Ayn Rand, or hammering roofing nails into my forehead hanging out with a bunch of weirdos from around the world in cartoon form in my little virtual tree fort, known to the hip comrades and cool cadres of the Second Life Marxist-Lennonist Party as the Red Zeppelin.

In fact, the Red Zeppelin has been the official home of the post shop wrap party on Sundays for the better part of a year now, which means that list of smart, funny, interesting people sometimes even come by and hang out after the show and see what the cartooniverse is all about. I play music, blather a tiny bit and then we all go catch a movie off YouTube and generally make a night of it. We have fun and I've made lots of friends -- but I digress.

Why am I carrying on so about Virtually Speaking? I mean, sure, it's a great, free, progressive forum where smart people talk about important stuff in insightful ways and all, but so what, right? They are mostly Americans, talking about American politics, which, while it is my favorite spectator sport and has a huge influence on us over here on the mouse's side of the bed, doesn't have the same immediate influence on our lives as our own politics has. We muddle along with the CBC and Globe and Mail and Power & Politics and The House and our own little corner of the blogosphere and we do okay, right?
But, as with Wayne Gretzky, William Shatner, socialized medicine and the Quebec Nordique, those demon Yankees  couldn't just let us have anything nice for ourselves without taking it and getting their filthy paws all over it. Eventually, the brain trust at Virtually Speaking turned its collective gaze northward and decided that Canadians are really just liberal-ish Americans or something and maybe they could learn something from a country that was a lot like theirs, but with government health care and a lot fewer handguns. And so they decided they needed a Canadian edition in the burgeoning line up of Virtually Speaking shows.

Remember those smart, funny, interesting people? Well, I guess they ran out of them. Everyone always said I had a great face for radio, so they've asked me to host a show.

To which I could only respond "Vive la revolution de sirop d'erable!" which confused them considerably since they want the show done in "American, not whatever they speak in Europe"

The first episode of Virtually Speaking Sundays:Maple Syrup Edition will be Feb. 20. Stay tuned for further details.

I know, I know...but by the time they figure it out it will be too late. I figure the first episode will be about whether to ban the polar bear hunt in Toronto.






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"Please your honour, have pity on a poor orphan"

One of the advantages of being a conservative seems to be a willingness to engage in the most shameless of behaviours without the faintest scintilla of embarrassment or self-consciousness.


Exhibit A

"The whole concept of prison should be terminated, except for violent criminals and chronic non-violent recidivists, and replaced by closely supervised pro bono or subsistence-paid work by bonded convicts in the fields of their specialty. Swindlers and embezzlers, hackers and sleazy telemarketers are capable people and they should serve their sentences by contributing honest work to government-insured employers."

Imagine my amazement, Conrad "the sweetheart of cell block C" Black now thinks prisons are terrible places and that people convicted of fraud should not be incarcerated. How very, very convenient. I betcha Ted Bundy was opposed to capital punishment, too. Surprisingly, other than the aforementioned free ride for non-violent crimes, I mostly agree with Black's piece in the National Toast - somebody mark the day on calendar and check whether there is some kind of strange planetary alignment.


This, from the preceding paragraph, made me laugh out loud:

"The Canada I remember and look forward to returning to ..."

Oh, Lord Tubby of Fleet, how very droll of you -- how soon we forget.

Exhibit B

TORONTO, June 2 /CNW/ - Maclean's magazine in association with the Historica-Dominion Institute, L'actualité and Presenting Sponsor TD, celebrated the fourth annual Parliamentarians of the Year awards this evening on Parliament Hill in Ottawa. Attended by members of Parliament, some of the country's most prominent journalists and other Canadians of note, the event honours Canada's top MPs, as voted by their peers in the House of Commons.

Almost 70 per cent of all members of Parliament from across all parties voted for this year's Parliamentarians of the Year. Winners and runners-up cross all political lines as well.

The award winners will be featured in a special issue of Maclean's hitting newsstands tomorrow, Thursday, June 3, and in L'actualité, on newsstands Friday, June 4. Full award results, photos, runners-up and methodology can also be found at macleans.ca/parliamentarians.

Parliamentarian of the Year

This year's Parliamentarian of the Year is the Hon. John Baird (Conservative), minister of transport, infrastructure and communities and MP for Ottawa West-Nepean. Mr. Baird was elected in 2006 and re-elected in 2008, the same year he was sworn in as minister of transport, infrastructure and communities.

Seriously. That would be this John Baird.  Yeah, this one, this stonewalling obstructionist douchbag. I can only guess that this award is a reaction to the snark shortage resulting from this. I won't even get into the matter of CTV getting Tom Flangan -Stephen Harper's former chief of staff - to come on and "analyze" Baird's behavior with a series of false equivalencies and outright apologetics. I'll just say that Walter Cronkite would not have invited Pat Buchanan or G. Gordon Liddy onto his newscast to analyze the Watergate hearings.

My Canada does not include war criminals

In light of this, I think that it is undeniable that there must be a fully public, non-partisan inquest, preferrably by a provincial coroner or similar authority that is more than arm's length away from the federal government.

From the CBC:

Federal government documents on Afghan detainees suggest that Canadian officials intended some prisoners to be tortured in order to gather intelligence, according to a legal expert.

If the allegation is true, such actions would constitute a war crime, said University of Ottawa law professor Amir Attaran, who has been digging deep into the issue and told CBC News he has seen uncensored versions of government documents released last year.

If the allegation that Afghan prisoners were purposely sent to be tortured turns out to be true, I  want people sent to jail.
And by jail I don't mean country club Conrad Black minimum security jail, either. I want to see them walking the yard at Millhaven. And by people I mean every single person in the chain of command that approved or did not act to stop this - right up to the Cabinet level, including the Prime Minister. If it happened under the Liberals and Paul Martin knew about it, fine, jail his retired ass, too.
This is not about politics or the party currently in power. This about Canada upholding basic human rights. We may have gotten a lot of things related to human rights wrong in the past - from residential schools to head taxes to incarcerating the Japanese during World War Two - whichever party is in power, but we have never tolerated outright evil like this.
This must be investigated, fully and completely and in the full light of day, with nothing redacted or left unexamined to "protect operational security" or any other bullshit reason the people involved want to try to cite to save their asses. My Canada does not include torture.

Update: the Mound of Sound has more here, here and here

"National Toast" or "So Long and Thanks for all the Fishwrap"

It looks like curtains for the Canada's most right wing national rag. As much as I bleed ink and hate the thought of another newspaper closing down, I will not shed a tear for the National Post - I only hope the courts refuse to allow the Aspers to tie this anchor around the collective neck of their other newspapers, which like most other papers have enough financial trouble to deal with already.
The National Post was started by Conrad Black to attack the governing Liberals after Prime Minister Jean Chretien refused to grant Connie a waver and let him become a British aristocrat while remaining a Canadian citizen. The soon-to-be Lord Tubby of Fleet Prisoner No. 90210 Lord Black of Cross Harbour decided that this would not do - mere law was not going this plucky underdog billionaire from achieving the British peerage that every Canadian boy dreams about. Deciding the Globe and Mail was not sufficiently conservative or at his beck and call, Tubby threw some money around, hired the cream of the conservative pundit and columnist crop, and set up the National Post.
It has never made money, nor has it impressed anyone with its editorial brilliance.
Despite the occasional presence of some bright lights, the National Post has been a rag from day one, the print equivalent of the FOX TV news, but without the constant stripper stories or teabag rallies.
Eventually Black gave up, renounced his Canadian citizenship and bought took his seat in the House of Lords and sold the money-burning Reform-Tory organ to the Asper family, long-time Liberal party supporters who under heir-to-the-throne David Asper seem to have converted to the Likud-Republican neoconservatism embraced by movement conservatives in the United States and Canada. The acquistion of the National Post and the former Southam chain from Black, along with their purchase of several specialty TV channels, seems to have been the beginning of the end for the Asper family's CanWest media empire.
Which, given the extent to which the Asper clan seems to like to interfere with editorial policy at their media properties, is just fine by me.
When a news organ with pretentions to respectability starts giving editorial space to hateful, chuckleheaded boobs like Kathy Shaide and "Raphel Alexander" -- well, its time to take Old Yeller out behind the barn and do the decent thing.

Update: Well, the court has ruled that the National Post can take the rest of the former Southam chain of newspapers down with it. This is a shame because some of them, such as the Montreal Gazette, were actually doing okay compared to the rest of the industry. On the bright side, there could be some decent newspapers for sale at fire-sale-on-boxing-day prices for anyone crazy enough to want to take a chance on the newspaper business these days. Otherwise we may as well pucker up and kiss goodbye the Ottawa Citizen, Montreal Gazette, Calgary Herald, Saskatoon Star-Phoenix, Edmonton Journal, Regina Leader-Post, Vancouver Province, Vancouver Sun, Victoria Times-Colonist and the Windsor Star. Which pretty much leaves the country with country with a bunch more cities that just won't have a real daily newspaper anymore.

Three hots and a cot --Not!

Apparently feeding prisoners is become too expensive for some prison systems in the U.S., so they've decided to cut back a bit, by dropping lunch from the program.

Georgia now only feeds inmates lunch on the four days a week that they work. The state prison system switched to ten hour work days four days a week as a money saving move. Here is the menu for no-lunch Fridays Since this is the menu released by the prison system I think its safe to assume that this is as good as the menu gets for inmates. (parenthetical comments are mine)

Breakfast:

• Scrambled eggs (probably safe to assume these would be powdered eggs)
  
• Grits
  
• Corn Muffins
  
• Bran cereal
  
• Pineapple beverage ( the linked article notes that many states are cutting back on fresh fruit to save money. In Alabama inmates get an apple or an orange once a week.)
  
• Margarine (this is a menu item? Is ketchup a vegetable again?)
  
• Coffee
  
• Milk (as noted in the linked article, may states are cutting back on milk to save money. In Alabama inmates get three servings a week, in Tennessee they have gone from twice a day to once a day)
  

Dinner:

• Chicken and biscuits (I'm betting on a drumstick and a thigh and no more than two bicuits - and I notice there is no margarine for the biscuits on the menu. Update - via email I learn that chicken and biscuits is more likely a chicken stew with dumplings and chunks of processed "chicken-like" meat product - a h/t to the best book page editor I know)
  
• Turnip greens
  
• Tossed salad (I'd have thought this came later in the privacy of one's cell, not right there in the dining hall)
  
• Vinegar and oil dressing
  
• Mashed potatoes (again, I have no doubt these are the powdered type)
  
• Spice cake
  
• Iced tea
  

Portions are supposedly larger on days when only two meals are served.

Now, I'm not saying that inmates should eat like kings or anything, but there should be some sort of minimum standard. In the Georgia State Prison system male inmates get 2,800 calories a day and female inmates get 2,300, but I suspect most of those calories come from powdered mashed potatoes and the like.

Still, it sounds better than some of the country lock-ups:

Federal Judge Arrests Ala. Sheriff Over Jail Food
DECATUR, Ala. (AP) ― A federal judge ordered an Alabama sheriff locked up in his own jail Wednesday after holding him in contempt for failing to adequately feed inmates while profiting from the skimpy meals. U.S. District Judge U.W. Clemon had court security arrest Morgan County Sheriff Greg Bartlett at the end of a hearing that produced dramatic testimony from skinny prisoners about paper-thin bologna and cold grits.

Bartlett had no comment as he was led from the courtroom. His attorney, Donald Rhead, said he believes the sheriff will be kept away from other inmates and hopes he will be quickly eleased.The sheriff, who showed no emotion when his arrest was ordered, had testified that he legally pocketed about $212,000 over three years with surplus meal money but denied that inmates were improperly fed.

Sheriffs in 55 of Alabama's 67 counties operate under the system allowing them to make money operating their jail kitchens. The law pays sheriffs $1.75 a day for each prisoner they house and lets the elected officers pocket any profit they can generate.

(snip, snip, snip)

The law doesn't require the money to be spent at the jail or within the department; sheriffs can keep it as personal income. They historically have provided little information about profits, so the hearing offered a rare look into a practice that dates back to the Depression.
At the hearing, 10 prisoners told Clemon meals are so small that they're forced to buy snacks from a for-profit store the jailers operate. Most of the inmates appeared thin, with baggy jail coveralls hanging off their frames.Some testified they spent hundreds of dollars a month at the store, which Bartlett said generates profits used for training and equipment.
Inmates told of getting half an egg, a spoonful of oatmeal and one piece of toast most days at their 3 a.m. daily breakfast. Lunch is usually a handful of chips and two sandwiches with barely enough peanut butter to taste..

From the CNN version of the story:

However, Clemon wrote in court documents that a typical breakfast for county inmates was a serving of grits or unsweetened oatmeal; half an egg or less, sometimes cold; a slice of white bread; and unsweetened tea or a beverage such as Kool-Aid.
Lunch was either two peanut butter or bologna sandwiches, "with a small amount of peanut butter or an exceedingly thin" slice of bologna between two slices of white bread; a small bag of corn chips; and flavored water or unsweetened tea.
A typical dinner was two hot dogs or meat patties; a slice of bread; and mixed vegetables or baked beans, the judge wrote. At times, when chicken was served, it was undercooked and pink, Clemon said. Salt, pepper, sugar or other condiments were not provided; they must be purchased by inmates at the jail store.
Inmates never receive milk, Clemon said, and receive fruit only three or four times a year.

Both stories make mention of the Sheriff bragging about how he tried to offer the inmates some variety in their diet. He split the $1,000 cost of a truck load of corn dogs with another country sheriff and the inmates were apparently fed corn dogs morning, noon and night until they had eaten their way through the tractor-trailer load. If a parent fed a child like this to save money to spend on themselves, it would be considered neglect.
And lets not even get started on privately run prisons.
I bet Conrad Black is eating a lot better than this.

Posts I never thought I'd write: Michael Ignatieff is my homeboy

The CBC has an excellent letter from an expat grad student in England about the Conservative Party of Canada's attacks on Michael Ignatieff for being a) a successful intellectual and b) living outside the country for many years before returning to enter politics. By all means read the letter, then have a quick scan of the comments and ask yourself why anyone with a top notch education and contacts abroad would want to return to a country that is so full of ignorant, provincial knuckledraggers. The woman is obviously a patriot, just don't tell her about the Blogging Tories and Small Dead Animals and she might still come back one day.

What I really want to talk about are the idiotic attack ads by the CPC, which attack Ignatieff on everything except substance. He must really scare them. And he should.

A quick look at Michael Ignatieff's bio shows him to be an academic and public intellectual of the highest caliber who has held posts at the most prestigious institutions in the English-speaking world. That those institutions happen to be located outside Alberta and mostly outside of Canada is hardly his fault, as in show business and sports, you go where the work is. Yes, one can be a highly respected public intellectual on the world stage while living in Canada, but there are only so many jobs for such people.

Crapping on Ignatieff for spending his career at Oxford, Cambridge and Harvard instead of the University of British Columbia is like criticizing Phil Esposito for spending his hockey career with the Bruins and Rangers instead of staying with the Sault Greyhounds, or slamming Dan Ackroyd and John Candy for not sticking with Second City in Toronto.

One of the commenters on the CBC site criticized the author of the letter, described as a Rhodes scholar and Ph.D candidate at Oxford, calling her "a snob" and claiming the author "thinks she's better than us." As a Rhodes scholar, she is certainly demonstrably smarter then the cementheaded commenter. She is certainly more open minded, almost certainly more well-travelled, better-read and more cosmopolitan, and probably has "qualities of truthfulness, courage, devotion to duty, sympathy for and protection of the weak, kindliness, unselfishness and fellowship; exhibition of moral force of character and of instincts to lead and to take an interest in one’s contemporaries," but then to the audience of resentful, embittered, small minded, petty bourgeois, know-nothings that the Conservative attack ads are pandering to, none of those things are desirable.

I'm not a big fan of Ignatieff and his running for office in 2006 with his eyes firmly on the Liberal Party leadership was unquestionably a bit opportunistic. So was Stephen Harper's channelling of western Canadian resentment in helping form the Reform Party. So was his departure for the National Citizens Coalition when it became evident that Preston Manning wasn't going to turn the party over to him. While Ignatieff at least got himself elected to parliament before seeking the Liberal leadership in 2006, Harper decided to try for the leadership of the Canadian Alliance Party when Stockwell "Doris" Day looked weak in 2002 and after an ugly campaign won the leadership. Then he pushed Ezra Levant out of the way to run for Preston Manning old seat in Calgary.

Ignatieff is criticized for considering a return to Harvard is his bid for election in 2006 didn't work out. He got elected and stayed in the House, despite losing in his first campaign for party leader, and was re-elected again in 2008. If he had not won a seat in parliament in 2006, Ignatieff would have continued on at the University of Toronto for a least another year as visiting professor and senior fellow at the Munk Centre for International Studies. After that, he might have run for parliament again, or he might have returned to his career as a scholar, living wherever the work took him as he pleased.

Harper, on the other hand, has a history of quitting when things don't go his way. He quit the Liberal party because he didn't like the National Energy Program (He was working in Alberta for Imperial Oil at the time). He quit the Progressive Conservatives a few years later after going to work for a Mulroney government backbencher because they didn't end the NEP fast enough to suit him. He quit the Reform Party when he couldn't get Preston Manning to step aside as leader and let him run things along more Straussian ideological lines. He quit the National Citizen Coalition a little less than four years later when he saw a chance to grab the leadership of the Canadian Alliance party after using the NCC to undermine Stockwell Day for a year. Once leader of the Alliance party, he devoted all his energy to co-opting and absorbing the Progressive Conservative Party to try to present a united right wing front.

If he fails to win a majority government next time around, will he quit Canadian politics? If some conservative think tank down south like the Heritage Foundation offers him some primo wingnut welfare job to push economic integration or some other neo-con pie in the sky, do you think he'll hang around Calgary scanning the want ads? I'm sure with his hard won Masters degree, Liberty University could find a job for him teaching remedial English or something, but he's not really qualified to do much else. Aside from the mail room at Imperial Oil nearly 30 years ago, he's never really done anything outside of politics and think tank work.

While Ignatieff was working outside of Canada, he made no secret of his Canadian-ness and we as a nation were happy to call him one of our own. He may have referred to Britain as his "adopted nation" a few times in the 20+ years he lived there or used the rhetorical flourish of "We Americans" when writing for an American audience, but unlike Conrad Black, Wayne Gretzky, Michael J. Fox and Pamela Anderson he never became an American or British citizen. He has been a Canadian all along. More importantly, he has not publically badmouthed his country to foreign audiences, (which as we know from conservatives' descriptions of Bill Clinton organizing anti-war protests in England while he was a student there during the Vietnam War is high treason or something) unlike Stephen Harper, who had this to say to a U.S. think tank less than a year after leaving parliament the first time:

"Canada is a Northern European welfare state in the worst sense of the term, and very proud of it"

"If you're like all Americans, you know almost nothing except for your own country. Which makes you probably knowledgeable about one more country than most Canadians"

As I said, I'm not a big fan of Ignatieff, mostly for his original positions on the Iraq War and torture and for yanking the rug out from under the idea of an NDP-Liberal coalition government. He is a bit conservative for my tastes, but I think he'd make a much better prime minister than any of the other options on offer.

His job history and personal story are nothing if not enviable and his time abroad is a feature, not a bug. Ignatieff has done more than simply teach at the world's finest universities. He has been a broadcaster, a filmmaker, a journalist, a writer of non-fiction and fiction alike and travelled the world. Unlike Stephen Harper, who's last real job was in the Imperial Oil mailroom and who didn't even have a passport until he entered the House of Commons. Harper graduated high school in 1978 and went work for Conservative MP Jim Hawkes in 1985 and has been out of the job market ever since.

Before entering electoral politics, Ignatieff wrote prize-winning books on human rights and foreign policy, delivered the Massey Lectures and had a novel short-listed for the Booker Prize. Stephen Harper has supposedly been working on a book on hockey for longer than anyone can remember and wears sweater vests to try to make us think he's human.

Only the complete "morans" who make up the current electoral base of modern conservatism would consider being well-educated, widely-travelled and highly accomplished bad things. They get the leaders they deserve.

And as for the notion that spending time, even a long time, outside the country make one any less Canadian --I've been living in Japan for dozen years and, like Ignatieff, the place I miss most is Algonquin Park. If you think I'm somehow less Canadian because of where I live (and I'd move back tomorrow if the right job opportunity presented itself, but you go where the work is) or who I married or because I eat sushi more often than poutine these days, you are just plain wrong and can kiss my fat, maple-syrup loving, multicultural ass. I may be less engaged than I once was in the daily cut and thrust of Canadian politics, but I'd venture to guess that I still pay more attention than most in the Great White North. That must be true, because you sure as hell wouldn't catch me voting for Stephen Harper.

Denied!

A little music for our special friend His Lordship Conrad, Baron Black of Crossharbour

I love the smell of justice in the morning, it smell like...schadenfreude.

New Fish
Let's hope his lardship looks good in stripes. Ex-Canadian and media baron Conrad "Lord Tubby" Black has been sentenced to six and a half years in a low security Florida prison, proving that no one is above the law. Of course, it is the minimum possible sentence he could have received and he will be serving it in a low security prison, where he is more likely to get tennis elbow than be shanked in the yard, so William Zanzinger Conrad Black is being dealt with in the way we have come to expect from the justice system in "class free" America. Thank Jebus he didn't do anything really bad like get a consensual drunken blow job from a fellow teenager or get caught with drugs while brown.
No confirmation yet on when Lady Barbarella Amiel is buying him cartons of cigarettes or soap on a rope for Christmas.

Regrets, he's had a few
I missed this one last week as I was busy blowing out birthday candles before the kitchen caught fire, but apparently Conrad Black regrets giving up his Canadian citizenship.

Black, who might have faced a lighter sentence if he'd been tried in Canada, admitted to Men's Vogue that he wished he hadn't surrendered his Canadian citizenship -- after a public battle of wills with former prime minister Jean Chretien -- to take up a seat in the House of Lords.
"I do regret giving up my Canadian citizenship," he said, "but I always said I would
take it back."

Well, boo-frickin'-hoo yer lordship, I guess the House of Lords kind of regrets it too. I mean, really, when you get turfed from the Conservative side of the House of Lords for being an arrogant, autocratic robber baron and crook maybe its time to rein in the hubris just a smidgen. As for your Canadian citizenship, which you happily tossed aside to become a titled foreign aristocrat, you might be willing to "take it back" but I don't see the line forming to sign the petition to make you an offer.

Black is to be sentenced on Nov. 30. for obstruction of justice and three counts of mail fraud. He faces a maximum of 35 years in federal prison. Start chilling the champagne.

More Schadenfreudilliousness!
Early predictions had His Nibs Conrad Black, Lord Tubby of Fleet Street, being hit with a sentence of not more than three years, despite his conviction on three counts of fraud and one of obstruction of justice. The maximum sentence would be five years for each fraud conviction and 20 years for trying to destroy the evidence stored at his company's Toronto headquarters. A tidy 35 years if he get the maximum and since it's U.S. federal time, Tubby would have to serve 85% of it thanks to decades of conservatives "getting tough on crime and ending our revolving-door prison system."
Word now is that instead of the earlier predicted 1 to 3 years, he could be looking at 10-20 years in the crowbar hotel. How's that Canadian citizenship you renounced looking to you now Lord Pork Chop of New Fish? How you enjoy the creamed chipped beef and lima beans -- remember, if you give them your dessert they may not shank you in the exercise yard just for shits and giggles.
The long story in the Globe and Mail on the plucky-little-billionaire-who-could's effort to show a stiff upper lip and convince the Canadian power elite of his blamelessness ends on a paragraph that is music to my ears:

Prosecutors estimate that even using the $3-million figure, he faces 15 to 20 years in prison. One source familiar with the case had this to say when asked about how much time he can expect: "There is no way Black is going to get less than 10 years."

At least he will be able to get Lady Barbarella that handcrafted vanity licence plate she's always wanted.

Sweet, sweet schadenfreude
Karma's a bitch, ain't it your Lordship? Conrad Black has been convicted on three counts of mail fraud and one of obstruction of justice -- he's has appealed of course, but when the sentence is handed down in November Lord Black of Crossharbour is said to be looking a one to three years, though under the law he could get as many as 25 years. It couldn't happen to a nicer guy. Maybe we should all chip in and get him a present, you know, like a video , or something else he can really use:




Must read addendum!Dr. Dawg lays it all out in terms that even his Lordship would appreciate

Added bonus! The BBC reports that Lord Tubby could end up on the dole. How likely is it that Barbarella Amiel is already shopping for husband number five or at least a new sugar daddy? At her age, I guess that would be a new sugar great-granddaddy.
And if that isn't enough, Himself has been turfed out of the British Conservative Party and could lose his peerage.

"Shut up and stop trying to censor me!"

Censorship and free speech seems to be a slippery concept for some people. Bill O'Rielly's schtick is yelling at guests he disagrees with to shut up and having their microphones cut off, but when Media Matters reruns his racist hateful facist crapola and criticizes him for it, he accuses them of trying to censor him, calls them the worst people in the world, yadda, yadda, yadda.

I'm all for letting anyone say anything they want, but if the nazis want to march, they better be ready to be met by a massive countermarch. If Wingnuts want to talk trash on the radio they better be ready to be universally mocked.

I also believe that media outlets using the public airwaves have a responsibililty to present opposing views and give equal time in a fair way.

CC over at Canadian Cynic has been going around and around with a two of a group of total jackasses over his policy of removing people from his blogroll if they also blogroll the aforementioned jackasses. Which I think is reasonable -- If someone on my blogroll started blogrolling Stormfront or Free Republic (no way in hell am I linking to either one here, if you need to look at them, go find'em yourself) I'd drop them like a bad habit.

You have the right to post whatever you want on your blog, but I have the right to criticize you for it on my blog and even to come and criticize you for it on your blog comments. But once I've made my point in the comments, if I continue to be a boring pain in the ass, it is no longer valid criticism -- its trolling and i deserve whatever I get, whether it is countertrolls on my blog, being banned from your comments, being told to shut up and get lost etc etc.

I wouldn't deny racist fuckwits like RightGirl and Kathie Shaidle the right to say whatever hateful idiotic dumbass thing they want on their blogs, but they need to expect that they will be made turned into social pariahs, universally mocked and despised for it. Free speech has consequences, you are responsible for what you say, so if you say something stupid, expect an earful for it.

That is not censorship. Censorship is when the government comes along and makes you shut down your blog, or bans you from having a computer/printing press/radio station, or makes it illegal to mention certain things or talk to certain people. Media organizations self-censor every day. That's why you won't see the headline "President fucks up again" in the New York Times.

In Japan, as in Canada, there is no official government censorship. The government often doesn't release embarrassing information, even when requested, but more influential on media self-censorship is the chilling effect of the violent right wing extremists. Their intimidation, combined with a lack of testicular fortitude on the part of the media and a do-nothing attitude on the part of a sometimes sympathetic police force mean you will never see a Japanese newspaper write negative things about the imperial family, conservative politicians or the right-wing extremists. People have gotten killed for it and the mainstream media here is unwilling to take the chance. So there is no examination of the "Nanjing Massacre Incident" or the sexual enslavement of tens of thousands of women by the Japanese Military the possibly forcible recruitment of some women to serve as comfort women, most of whom volunteered

In North America the chill comes from fear of losing business. I have some personal experience with this: I was once fired from a small newspaper for publishing stories about a local politician and businessman who was also a major advertiser. (I sued the publisher, we settled and no, I won't elaborate.) This was not censorship, this was just cowardice on the part of the publisher.

Big companies that own media outlets don't like to see stories critical of them or their favorite politicians. Izzy Asper centralized editorial control of their papers at one point. Conrad Black simply cut half the editorial staff at his papers (thus scaring the hell out of the other half and making them afraid to offend the boss) as a 'money-saving measure' .It doesn't have to be heavy handed. Often it is simply a publisher or editor worrying about pissing the owner.

At one place I worked, the owner was well-known to be a tory, the local MP was a tory and a buffoon, but we shied away from reporting on his buffoonery because we knew it would lead us to grief with our boss, not for any specific act, but we knew how unpleasant she could make things for us.

Big media outlets know that if they self-censor too much, they cease to be interesting. If they slant the news too much, they lose credibility. Fox News has had a good run, but unless they start pandering to the left when the political pendulum swings the other way, or actually try to become a neutral news organization, they will be out of business. Democrats refusing to be interviewed and businesses refusing to advertise will hasten that process. Wingnuttery still abounds there, but as the conservative movement totters toward smoking ruin, their days are number. You can already see some of their pundits trying to distance themselves from Bush.

Bloggers refusing to link to, blogroll or read idiots will hasten the departure of the idiots from blogtopia or at least marginalize them and grind away the veneer of respectability some of them have acquired. Eventually that means if they want to have a conservative blogger on TV it won't be Canada's Lowest Common Denominatrix (nicknamed by Pretty Shaved Ape at Canadian Cynic) or the Bush worshipping dingbats from Powerline.

So let us rejoice in the chaotic nature of the blogosphere and speak our minds while remembering that in doing so we have a responsibility not to make stuff up, spread lies or generally behave like assholes. And we have a duty to fight irresponsible hate-mongering stupidity wherever it is on the political spectrum.