Monday, April 24, 2006

Random News & Views Roundup

Well, it seems I've managed to offend right-wingers and left-wingers all in the same day. "Disturb the comfortable and comfort the disturbed", as they say. So, with no compelling burning desire to write about anything at length right now, I'll post one of my regular roundups of issues that have caught my attention.

- Good news for some of you, at least those in the Chicago area: Judge rules Web surfing at work OK. Darn activist judges!

- Let me say just one thing about the concerns over rising gas prices. Back during the 70s, when I "graduated" from the eighth grade (and yes, I did go on to high school and beyond from there), the inserts in my yearbook had a funky, flowery picture with the word "ecology". That was the word for environmental action back then. Back then when we were worried about gas prices, when people were waiting in long, long lines to fill up their cars, when small cars were thought to be a Good Thing, when we knew there was only so much of this planet and its resources to go around. Fast forward more than 30 years later and where are we now? Hmmm...

- Cowboys for Social Responsibility have the goods on an incredible story about Canada's Conservative government muzzling one of its scientists who wrote a novel about global warming. They actually forbade him to talk about it in public. Which part of the word "novel" don't they understand? Unbelievable.

- although it was first thought to be a possible al Quaeda strike, coming so soon after the last bin Laden tape was released, it appears that the bombing in Egypt that has killed and wounded so many victims was the work of a "local" group without international ties. Please take a moment of silence to remember these people. Another incredibly sad day...

- The Vatican is apparently reconsidering its ban on the use of condoms. It's about damn time.

- more Libs are jumping into the leadership race every day. I'm predicting that, by the time the convention rolls around, there will be approximately 236 candidates to choose from.

- I could not believe my eyes when I read this one: Harper's Conservative government has banned the media from covering the return of our dead soldiers. Someone on another blog had predicted this just the other day when we found out the damn Conservatives were refusing to fly the flags on Parliament hill at half-mast to honour the soldiers and now...it's actually happened.

CTV's chief political correspondent, Craig Oliver, said it appears the Conservative government is concerned that, with the mounting casualties in Afghanistan, the mission is losing the battle for public opinion.

"(The government) is afraid that Canadians, seeing the bodies, seeing the coffins, that the images are so strong it's turning people off on the mission," he said.

"This is very much in keeping with the decision by the George Bush White House to do the same thing in Washington, about the bodies of American servicemen coming back from Iraq."

Prime Minister Stephen Harper is not expected to travel to CFB Trenton to meet the coffins when they land in Canada. The Globe and Mail reports that O'Connor and Gen. Rick Hillier, Chief of the Defence Staff, will likely be there.


This is it, folks. We no longer need to speculate about the now confirmed fact that Stephen Harper is just Bush Lite and that, my friends, is something this blogger will not tolerate.

- one more thing: some "prominent Republicans" are calling for Rumsfeld to be sacrificed for the good of the party. Sacrifice: it's not just for lambs anymore.

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