Calm Down — Corporate Amerikkka isn’t going to steal your precious Internet

Hill Times: Net Neutrality lobby draws some big guns:

Network neutrality advocates say that legislation should be introduced to ensure that internet users have equitable access to any web content they choose, from blogs to commercial sites to peer-to-peer file-sharing, without limitations imposed by internet service providers. Those in favour of network neutrality legislation say that, without it, internet service providers have the potential to “discriminate” against internet users by creating inequitable access and allowing corporate and commercial interests to dominate the web.
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The Canadian Press caused a stir this month when it reported on a set of Question Period responses prepared for Industry Minister Maxime Bernier (Beauce, Que.), which, dated Nov. 16, 2006, described the minister’s position on network neutrality. In response to a proposed question on the minister’s position, the notes say that public policy options must consider consumer protection, but that market forces should be used to the “greatest extent feasible” to shape the internet’s infrastructure.

The fuss over ‘net neutrality’ in the U.S. is starting to leak across the border. But people advocating for increased regulation in Canada are missing the point. In the U.S., it was a recent change in FCC policy that sparked this controversy. Specifically, in 2005, the FCC redefined DSL from a “telecommunication service” to an “information service” which meant it was no longer subject to regulation as a “common carrier.” This redefinition sparked concern that broadband providers would be able to charge higher prices for certain types of traffic.

In Canada, on the other hand, nothing has changed. The same regulatory framework has been in place for as long as the Web’s been around, and Rogers and Bell haven’t destroyed the Internet yet. So relax. As the Rogers spokesman put it:

“We aren’t blocking anyone’s packets and websites and we don’t have any intention of doing so… we don’t think the regulators should create a bunch of rules to prevent something that isn’t happening anyway, because you never know what the future will hold.”

Solid advice.   And it applies to more than just the Internet.

Big Brother will be Watching: United Kingdom’s ID Cards

The United Kingdom is planning on implementing a costly mandatory identification card,

Ministers plan to force all adults to travel miles at their own expense to fingerprint scanning units so their details can go onto an identity card database.

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Ministers claim the scheme, which will see the first cards issued in two years’ time, will cost £5.4 billion, although experts at the London School of Economics say the total bill could be £19.3 billion. Biometric passports, which hold similar personal details to ID cards, will be issued later this year. There will then be a two-year period during which people will be able to apply for a passport without also being forced to apply for an ID card.

Think that sounds scary? It gets worse,

Labour also wants all first-time applicants for a British passport to travel to the same 69 centres for interview, when they will be asked about things like previous addresses and bank accounts.

Now this begs the question, if a Canadian government attempted such a invasive measure in Canada, would the Charter protect us? If not, would Canadians accept a mandatory ID card in the name of security?

ThePolitic.com: Reactionary and Feminine Demonic Politics at its Finest!

Simon 3 times in one week:

And not just any old Tory blog. The monstrous uber right-wing homophobic succubus from Alberta…… the Politic.com The horror….the horror..

By the way, “succubus“:

A demon posing as a woman that visits men in the night, while they sleep, and then proceeds to have sexual intercourse, and/or violently attacks them in a sexual manner.

I don’t understand, either.

Arnold Vetoes Girly-Men

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California governor Arnold Schwarzenegger is warning lawmakers that if they pass another bill legalizing same-sex marriage he again will veto it.

When the Disadvantaged Collide

The greatest catfights ever seen by the world occur when horribly oppressed minorities come into conflict with one another. The gay lobby, for example, is typically shocked to find blacks unwilling to concede the point that the “struggle” for something as absurd as the right for two men to marry is actually equivalent to the old civil rights campaign against racial segregation. Hurt feelings all around. And the results tend not to be pretty:

Doesn’t that take the fried chicken leg? Once Klan bigots forced black men like him to walk on the other side of the street….or sit at the back of the bus…. lest they taint the “purity” of white women. And now they’re treating gays just like the Klan treated them. Huh?
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It’s time to face the facts…there are too many aggressive anti-gay bigots like Hardaway in the black community……if not in Canada certainly in the United States. And black culture has a dangerously ugly streak of homophobia in it. It stinks. And it’s…………. everywhere.
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Got it? Heal yourselves nigga bigots.Stop disgracing your own people.

And don’t fuck with us…

The Dysfunctional Garth Party

After defecting to the Liberals, Garth Turner claimed that there was more open and vibrant debate in the Liberal caucus than in the “Harper Caucus.” And, as a Conservative, I’m happy to say that the LPC is fulfilling all of Garth’s wildest hopes and dreams.

Let the “debate” continue!

Shock! Horror! Tory MP suggests there are costs associated with action on climate change

Tory MP links action on climate change to suicide:

Opposition MPs and environmentalists are baffled and outraged by warnings from a Conservatives [sic] MP that aggressive action to fight climate change and air pollution could lead to an increase in domestic violence and suicides.

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“With short-term transition toward medium- and long-term targets, there’s potential for a lot of dislocation, which is a term for some very painful costs along the way: job loss, anxiety, depression, bankruptcy, domestic violence, costs to employment insurance or retraining, loss of charitable dollars in communities for people who used to have high paying jobs but don’t anymore and the social services that are funded by those, and in rare instances, suicide,” said [Jeff] Watson, the [Conservative] MP for the Windsor, Ont. riding of Essex .

So is there a connection between unemployment and suicide? Yes.

Is there a connection between unemployment and domestic abuse? Yes.

So what’s the problem?

Watson’s comments drew an immediate reaction from expert witnesses and environmentalists appearing at the parliamentary committee who accused him of fear mongering.

“No one’s talking about closing down the automotive industry in Canada. No one is talking about creating unemployment,” said Dr. Norman King, an epidemiologist at the urban environment and health department at Montreal’s public health agency.

Ok. But just because you’re not talking about it, doesn’t mean that it won’t happen. Meeting Kyoto targets would impose tremendous costs on industry. As much as you want to cross your fingers and really, really wish it were otherwise, CEOs of major industrial emitters aren’t going to deduct those costs from their own paycheques. They’re going to fire people.

NDP environment critic Nathan Cullen said Watson should retract his comments, because they are damaging the government’s credibility on reducing air pollution and greenhouse gas emissions linked to climate change.

Because nothing screams climate-change-denier like an unwillingness to destroy thousands and thousands of jobs.

“It’s intellectually dishonest to connect what we do about our environmental obligations to people hurting themselves, or their children or wives,” Cullen said in an interview.

What’s intellectually dishonest, Mr. Cullen, is pretending that there are no costs associated with “what we do about our environmental obligations.” It’s intellectually dishonest to pretend that we live in a happy-fun, ice-cream-and-puppies world, where, if you’re pure of heart, you can reduce emissions, and create jobs, and end racism and cure AIDs and get the girl, all in a day’s work, through the magic of government.

Links between unemployment and suicide and domestic abuse have been empirically demonstrated. There’s nothing dishonest about reminding Canadians that those are some of the costs of reducing greenhouse gas emissions. Indeed, it’s dishonest to pretend otherwise.

Stephane Dion: The Walking Pinata

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I think I’m going to have to stop watching Question Period….or maybe even tune out of day to day coverage of Canadian politics. It’s just getting too ugly. I am no supporter of Stephane Dion and the Liberal Party. But I hate bullying of any kind. And the Wacky Professor is starting to look like a walking pinata…..two wacks away from getting his stuffing knocked out.

It’s brutal…..it’s like dog fighting…I can’t even watch it. Somebody call the SPCA. As the ReformCon assault continues….and Quebecers laugh at him. The poor know-it-all nerd can’t even defend himself.

And keep in mind that this was written before Dion’s most recent mis-steps.

Pick and Choose Bylaws - The Calgary Smoking Ban

Max Mitchell, a guest blogger over at wernerpatels.com, sheds some light on the stupidity of the smoking bylaws passed by Calgary city council,

I think it’s ridiculous how mentally clouded we have become in Calgary. The only continuing debate about the smoking bylaw now regards which establishments should be given the omnipotent nod from city council for an exemption. Sensibly enough, Shisha Bars have been given the O.K. to continue to allow smoking (on the basis that their entire clientele patronize the place to smoke), but why is the question still not being asked: why is there a ban in the first place?

Flaherty to Banks - Bank Fees are my Business!

Someone better sit Flaherty down and give him a lesson on principled conservative positions. A Conservative government (or any government for that matter) shouldn’t be running around telling business how to conduct their affairs,

OTTAWA - Jim Flaherty, the Finance Minister, has asked for a “direct” answer from the CEOs of the country’s biggest banks regardintheir g ATM fee regime.

A direct answer should be, “mind your own business.” How much banks charge for services isn’t the business of government.

“The banking association said they would be continuing doing business as they do,” Mr. Flaherty told reporters after the committee meeting. “I told the bank [CEOs] that I want them to have another look at it.”

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Mr. Flaherty said the goal from this ATM fee exercise is to ensure Canadians benefit from “competition and choice” from the country’s financial services sector. “I am pleased that –after looking into the issue — that I have found there is substantial competition given the network that some of the credit unions have put together.”

If Flaherty is pleased that there is “substantial competition” due to a large network of credit unions, why is he spouting off on this issue?

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