Saturday, September 25, 2010
Friday, August 20, 2010
Sunday, July 11, 2010
HUMOUR:
ONTARIO POLITICS:
Labels: Canadian politics, cartoons, Dalton McGuinty, government, humour, jokes, Ontario, Ontario politics
Thursday, June 03, 2010
HUMOUR:
ALL THE NEWS THE TORIES WANT YOU TO HEAR:
Labels: Canadian politics, cartoons, conservatives, government, humour, jokes, secrecy, Steven Harper
Monday, May 24, 2010
Friday, May 14, 2010
Sunday, May 03, 2009
CANADIAN POLITICS:
THE GREAT FEDERAL THIRST:
This one would almost be funny if it wasn't such an egregious example of government waste. All the blah, blah about plastic containers and the environment aside, the whole bottled water industry is notorious for being an incredible scam. Bottled water is generally no better than the average tap water. In a lot of cases (perhaps the majority) it actually is tap water, run out of the tap in one place and sold in another. Then there is the "bizarre factor". Molly has a vision of Sneaky Stevie doing an Uncle Scrooge imitation and swimming in his vault loaded with plastic bottles of water. Or maybe they just use the stuff to fill Stevie's swimming pool. In any case, here's the Story from the Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE).
$$$$$$$$$$$$
Feds spend millions on bottled water: report:
A report from the Polaris Institute and CUPE Nova Scotia shows the Canadian government is spending more than $7.2 million on bottled water.
A report from the Polaris Institute and CUPE Nova Scotia shows the Canadian government is spending more than $7.2 million on bottled water.
Bottled Watergate: Why is the Federal Government spending millions of tax dollars on bottled water? draws attention to the federal government’s growing dependence on bottled water.
After the report was released, the government itself revealed it had actually spent more than $10 million in the last three years and $15 million in the last five years.
Findings include:
**Since April 2006, the Government of Canada has spent more than $7,296,738 on 131 separate contracts to buy bottled water
**Seven federal departments in eight provinces have bottled water contracts
**The same amount of money could have been used to pay for 2,918 indoor or 584 outdoor water fountains
**The same amount of money could have been used to upgrade a water treatment plant in a First Nations community
“Bottled water may serve a purpose in situations where potable drinking water is not available, or in certain emergency situations, but it is not a substitute for the tap nor is it a long-term solution,” says Joe Cressy, Polaris Institute campaigns coordinator. “The solution is publicly-delivered tap water”.
“It is deeply troubling that the Canadian government is spending millions of dollars on bottled water,” says Danny Cavanagh, President of CUPE Nova Scotia. “Water fountains, accessible taps, water treatment plants – just think what the Government of Canada could do if it properly invested $7.2 million.”
**See also: the information NDP MP Bruce Hyer uncovered when he asked what the federal government spends on bottled water
Labels: bottled water, Canadian politics, CUPE, government, government waste, water
Saturday, January 17, 2009
CANADIAN POLITICS/AMERICAN POLITICS:
CONSERVATIVE STATISM:
The following is from the Public Values website, and it points out an important fact-so-called conservatives are hardly the shining knights of freedom from government that their rhetoric would imply. What they actually are champions of another form of government interference, and they are just as vigorous in its pursuit as left wingers are in theirs. Molly doesn't necessarily agree with the "it's inevitable so lay back and enjoy it and pick a different partner" implications of the following, but it's important to note just how statist conservatives are.
................................
Deregulation? No such thing.:
The only question is, who benefits from government intervention?
by Dean Baker, Boston Review
The extraordinary financial collapse of recent months has been commonly described as a testament to the failure of deregulation. The events are indeed testament to a failure — a failure of public policy. Blaming deregulation is misleading.
The only question is, who benefits from government intervention?
by Dean Baker, Boston Review
The extraordinary financial collapse of recent months has been commonly described as a testament to the failure of deregulation. The events are indeed testament to a failure — a failure of public policy. Blaming deregulation is misleading.
In general, political debates over regulation have been wrongly cast as disputes over the extent of regulation, with conservatives assumed to prefer less regulation, while liberals prefer more. In fact conservatives do not necessarily desire less regulation, nor do liberals necessarily desire more. Conservatives support regulatory structures that cause income to flow upward, while liberals support regulatory structures that promote equality. "Less" regulation does not imply greater inequality, nor is the reverse true.
Framing regulation debates in terms of more and less is not only inaccurate; it hugely biases the argument toward conservative positions by characterizing an extremely intrusive structure of, for example, patent and copyright rules, as the free market. In the realm of insurance and finance over the last two decades, calls for deregulation have been cover for rules tilted starkly toward corporate interests. And the recent change in bankruptcy law, hailed by conservatives, requires much greater government involvement in the economy.
False ideological claims have circumscribed the public debate over regulation and blinded us to the wide range of choices we can make. Without these claims, what would guide regulatory policy? What kinds of choices would we have?
* * *
Patent and copyright protection are good examples of government policies obscured in the debate. They are forms of regulation, not elements of a "free market.". . .
To read further. . .
Dean Baker is Co-Director of the Center for Economic and Policy Policy Research and author of The Conservative Nanny State.
Links and sources Free Market Myth, by Dean Baker, Boston Review, January 2009
Labels: American politics, Canadian politics, conservatives, Dean Baker, government, liberals, Public Values, regulation., statism
Sunday, March 16, 2008
CHILE:
CHILE TODAY:
BY LARRY GAMBONE
The following is the second installment of Larry Gambone's writings(see the Porkupine Blog for the original and further installments) on his recent visit to Chile. The first installment was presented earlier on this blog, and it dealt with the present anarchist movement in Chile. This article deals with the general political situation in Chile, relating to the government and its main opposition.
Chile Today Part 2 The Social Neoliberals
Chile has been governed by a coalition of Christian Democrats (DC) and social democrats (Socialist Party and Popular Democrats) since the return to so-called democracy. Back in the days of the Unidad Popular, the DC was old style social democratic and the SP was more radical than the Communist Party. Today, all these parties are economically neo-liberal, lock stock and barrel, ironically (or perhaps not so ironically) adopting the underlying ideology of their old torturer and murderer, Augusto Pinochet.
Chile has been governed by a coalition of Christian Democrats (DC) and social democrats (Socialist Party and Popular Democrats) since the return to so-called democracy. Back in the days of the Unidad Popular, the DC was old style social democratic and the SP was more radical than the Communist Party. Today, all these parties are economically neo-liberal, lock stock and barrel, ironically (or perhaps not so ironically) adopting the underlying ideology of their old torturer and murderer, Augusto Pinochet.
When a socialist or social democratic party tosses aside its basic principles, it announces to the world that it is corrupted in spirit. Thus, it comes as no surprise when such a party becomes corrupted in practice. True to form the Concertacion, (the name given to the DC-SP-PD coalition) is now mired in scandal. The Alianza (the Pinochetista opposition coalition or Los Momios) is making hay out of this situation, an amusing situation where the corrupt are calling the corrupted to account!
The scandals relate directly to the neo-liberal methods adopted by the Concertacion. Rather than instituting a proper state or community-run system of education – like in Canada or Europe – they chose to funnel government money to private concerns. Naturally, along the way some officials also dipped their hands in this pig trough. Then there is the hideous mess that is Santiago transit. Pinocho had destroyed the previous public system, handing transit over to scores of private concerns, resulting in a kind of Wild West in the streets. Rather than rectifying this disaster by creating a public transit system – like every other large city in the world – the Concertacion shovelled money into the hands of 10 or so capitalist transit corporations, and the result, as one might expect, is chaos. (Remember, I am talking about a city with six million inhabitants, not some one horse town)
Then there is that favorite of brown shirts the world over – the crime problem. And it does exist – people get ripped off all the time by pick pockets, muggers and burglars. The mass media, if anything even more vile than our own, spare no effort in reminding the readers of this situation. But then what do you expect in a society without any social welfare and a great mass of unemployed and under-employed people, some of whom are still living in tin shacks on dried up river beds or beside highway overpasses? And even if you have a job, 75% of Chileans earn less than $420 a month in a land where most prices are about as high as in Canada. There is a lot of petty crime. Gee, I wonder why? The Alianza blame the Concertacion for being soft on crime and drag out the no brainer of harsher punishment.
There is an election coming and it is quite possible the Pinocho crowd may gain the upper hand. I look upon this with some trepidation, for as bad as the Concertacion is, they have refused to be a stooge for the US in relation to the growing popular movements in Ecuador, Venezuela and Bolivia. The Gringostate already has death squad and narcotrafficante-run Columbia as its stalking horse. I would hate to see Chile as part of this criminal endeavor.
Labels: Chile, government, Larry Gambone, Porkupine Blog
Sunday, September 16, 2007
THOUGHT FOR THE DAY:
GOVERNMENT...SELECT QUOTATIONS:
*Administration covers the surface of society with a network of small complicated rules, minute and uniform, through which the most original minds and the most energetic characters cannot penetrate to rise above the crowd. The will of man is not shattered, but softened,bent, guided;men are seldom restrained from acting,such a power does not destroy, but it prevents existence; it does not tyrannize, but it compresses, extinguishes and stupefies a people, till each nation is reduced to nother better than a flock of timid and industrious animals, of which government is the shepherd.
-Alexis de Tocqueville in 'Democracy In America' (1835)
*Their question hit home, and I knew that I could never again raise my voice against the violence of the oppressed in the ghettos without having first spoken clearly to the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today- my own government.
-Martin Luther King Jr. Speech at Riverside Church in New York City (http://www.hartford-hwp.com/archives/45a/058.html )
*People should not be afraid of their government. Governments should be afraid of their people.
-V in 'V for Vendetta' (2006)
*Civil government, insofar as it is instituted for the security of property, is in reality instituted for the defense of the rich against the poor, of those who have some property against those who have none at all.
-Adam Smith
*Giving money and power to government is like giving whiskey and car keys to teenage boys.
-P.J. O'Rourke
*Government is a disease masquerading as its own cure.
-L. Neil Smith
*I heartily accept the motto "That government is best which governs least", and I should like to see it acted up to more rapidly and systematically. Carried out it finally amounts to this, which I also believe, :That government is best which governs not at all", and when men are prepared for it, that will be the kind of government which they will have.
-Henry David Thoreau
*It is just as difficult and dangerous to try and free a people which wants to remain servile as it is to enslave a people that wants to remain free.
-Machiavelli
*No government, of its own motion, will increase its own weakness, for that would mean to acquiesce in its own destruction...governments, whatever their pretensions otherwise, try to preserve themselves by holding the individual down...Government itself, indeed, may be reasonably defined as a conspiracy against him. Its one permanent aim, whatever its form, is to hobble him sufficiently to maintain itself.
-H.L Menchen
TO BE CONTINUED...
Labels: government, humour, quotations
Saturday, September 08, 2007
ANOTHER THOUGHT FOR THE DAY:
STILL MORE TAX TIPS FROM MOLLYMEW:
*Income tax should be more realistic by allowing the taxpayer to list the government as a dependent.
*Come to think of it these income tax forms leave little to the imagination and even less to the taxpayer.
*Making out your income tax form is something like a do-it-yourself mugging.
*A harp is a piano after taxes.
*A good mane is to be chosen over great riches. It's tax free...so far.
*Some people aren't in favour of public nudity, but after paying taxes they may have little choice.
*What this country needs is a SPCTT- The Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Taxpayers.
*A politician is a man who has never met a tax he didn't hike.
*Regardless of who wins the election they will have to raise taxes to pay for the damage.
*Unquestioningly there is progress everywhere. The average taxpayer now pays out as much in taxes as he formerly received in wages.
*Another American (and Canadian) invention is the permanent temporary tax.
*A man admitted that he lied on his income tax return-he listed himself as the head of his household.
*The average man now lives 31 years longer than he did in 1850. He has to in order to get his taxes paid.
Labels: government, humour
Monday, September 03, 2007
THOUGHTS FOR THE DAY:
MORE BOTTOM LINERS FROM THE WORLD OF GOVERNMENT:
*Parliament thinks it's a lot easier to trim the taxpayer than to trim taxes.
*It's strange how a person with no sense of humour can come up with funny answers on his/her tax form.
*I hate junk mail...and that includes the tax forms they send me.
*It is generally agreed that the income tax is the government's idea of instant poverty.
*About the time a man is cured of swearing another income tax is due.
*Loafing is the best way to beat the income tax.
*Nothing has done more to stimulate the writing of fiction than the itemized deduction section of the income tax forms.
*People who squawk about their income tax can be divided into two classes- men and women.
*Income taxes are not so bad and certainly could be worse. Suppose we had to pay on what we think we are worth.
*George Washington never told a lie. But he never had to file an income tax form.
*When making out your income tax form make sure you don't overlook the most expensive dependent- the government.
*Income tax is the fine you have to pay for thriving so fast.
*Income tax forms should be printed on Kleenex because so many of us have to pay through the nose.
Labels: government, humour
Thursday, August 23, 2007
THOUGHTS FOR THE DAY:
SOME RANDOM DEDUCTIBLE ITEMS:
*Capital Punishment: Ottawa comes up with a new tax.
*Canadians are now in a daze from intaxication.
*Children may be deductible, but they're still taxing.
*There is no child so bad that he/she can't be used as an income tax deduction.
*Parliament does some strang thing. It puts a high tax on liquer and then raises the other taxes that drive people to drink.
*One of the great blessings of living in a democracy is that we have complete control over how we pay our taxes...cash cheque or money order.
*A fool and his money are soon parted. The rest of us have to wait until income tax time.
*Our government really takes care of us. They give us free income tax forms.
*Everybody works for the government, either on the payroll or the tax roll.
*Nothing makes a person so modest about his income as filling out a tax form.
*The income tax forms have been simplified beyond all understanding.
Labels: government, humour, taxes
