Dissent Being Silenced?

Sorry for my tardiness with what I’m writing about today, but with so much attention directed at Iran — concerning their freedom and “democracy” — these days, I can’t help but comment on both. And how they, most recently, relate to Canadian citizens.

It was late last week when I first heard about Internet Service Providers must help police and intelligence officers to intercept online communications and get personal information about subscribers, under new bills introduced Thursday. And I’ve only heard it mentioned once, in this article, since. Flash backs of The U.S. Patriot Act are pretty hard to ignore.

I’ve heard the argument prior to, and briefly since, this story broke. If you’re not doing anything wrong, why care, right?

Well, I fear, it’s not quite that simple. In being a fan of Will Potters work, over at Green Is The New Red, I’ve learned to be sensitive to any preliminary steps that could possibly threaten our rights here in Canada. This stinks of the Domestic Spying Program debacle in the U.S.. I say debacle, for three reasons. It’s illegal. I’m not so sure it has done anything but trample rights of American citizens. Plus unjustly persecuted certain demographics.

Anyway, my Canadian brethren, get in line. It’s our turn…

Continue reading Dissent Being Silenced?

Ridiculously Loved and Sorely Missed

A photograph of Freddy

I’ve been thinking about this post for near about a week. And I’ve been trying to write it for, what must be, a few of days, now. The more I think and write about how I feel, the more forced and insincere, I think, it seems. So I’m just going to write and hope I get down all I want to say…

My dearest friend, Freddy, passed away last Thursday morning, June 11th, 2009. Just as quickly as he came into my life, he was gone…

Continue reading Ridiculously Loved and Sorely Missed

Why Can’t We?

Sadly, this was inevitable. UK Police Face ‘Waterboard’ Claim;

“[O]fficers had allegedly used brutal techniques, including forcing suspects’ heads into buckets of water to induce the sensation of being drowned…”

And, as inevitable as this was, I’ll assume the next step, after the rampant use of torture by the US, being this, was unavoidable. If they can do it, why can’t we?

Yet To Disappoint

It’s been some time  since Barack Obama gave his speech, in Cairo, calling for a “‘New Beginning’ Between US and Muslims Worldwide,” and, honestly, I haven’t payed much attention to his rhetoric or felt the need to crack off concerning it. That is, of course, until now.

In my inbox, this morning, fresh from Znet, was Bill Blum‘s piece Team Obama/Cult Obama;

“But since others have been pointing out these [Obama’s] lies very well I’d like to try something else in dealing with the problem — the problem of well-educated people, as well as the not so well-educated, being so moved by a career politician saying “all the right things” to give food for hope to billions starving for it, and swallowing it all as if they had been born yesterday.  I’d like to take them back to another charismatic figure, Adolf Hitler, speaking to the German people two years and four months after becoming Chancellor, addressing a Germany still reeling with humiliation from its being The Defeated Nation in the World War, with huge losses of its young men, still being punished by the world for its militarism, suffering mass unemployment and other effects of the great depression. […] Imagine how it fed the hungry German people…”

Good ‘ol Billy has yet to disappoint. And this is everything but an exception to that rule. As always very interesting reading…