Roger Ebert vs Bill O'Reilly

Roger wins!!!

Two thumbs up! I can hardly wait for the movie.

H/T Pharyngula

Yes, why don't we say the Pledge of Allegiance in Canadian schools?

"First we lost saying the Lord's Prayer in school, then the Pledge of Allegiance, and now the singing of O Canada..."

So complained the aunt of a student at the centre of the New Brunswick controversy over a primary school principal reducing the daily O Canada ritual to once a month and special occasions. I watched her say it on CBC National tonight.

Good grief, lady, what the fuck country do you think you're living in?
Canadian students don't stand up in class every morning and put their hands over their hearts and think up new and amusing ways to riff off "My friends are leeches ... in a bag ... "
New Brunswick is still in Canada, isn't it?

CBC National didn't tag the pledge gaffe in their otherwise sympathetic report into the savaging of Erik Millett, the school principal who tried to balance the conflicting demands of three sets of parents. He decided to change the playing of "O Canada" to once a month during assembly instead of piping it into every classroom every morning to avoid singling out the students whose parents objected to the anthem by pulling them out of class. Instead he had the student of the pro-anthem parents lead the school in singing it at assembly once a month.

That was back in 2007 and that should have been the end of it.

Instead Millet has been recently pilloried in the media for "banning the national anthem in school", a number of ill-informed Con MPs denounced him in the House of Commons, and he received death threats from local parents who took sides. Death threats.
After being inundated by emails criticizing the principal's decision, the local school superintendent ordered that the anthem be placed back in daily rotation.

Tonight on CBC Millett tearfully recounted how this witch hunt all began when the Con federal minister he ran against as a Green in the election slagged him about his anthem dilemma in a newspaper article.
Millett's now in therapy and doubts he will return to teaching.

Read that quote at the top again.
Then go and help Liberal Arts and Minds figure out how we can stop this kind of dangerous right wing jingoistic nonsense in Canada.

Cross-posted at Creekside

Rumours of the coalition

From Iggy’s debut speech as the Liberal leader yesterday :

"I am prepared to vote non-confidence in this government. And I am prepared to enter into a coalition government with our partners if that is what the Governor-General asks me to do. But I also made it clear to the caucus this morning that no party can have the confidence of the country if it decides to vote now against a budget it hasn't even read."

Kady live-blogging the same event :

"This is kind of interesting - we the media don’t seem to know what to make of this. It’s going to be tough to spin this into another “coalition is dead” story, but I bet we’ll manage to do it somehow. We’re professionals."

Heh. Good one, Kady. Shouldn't be too difficult really.
AsperNation, aka CanWest Global, owns most of our nation's papers and many radio and TV stations.
David Asper endorsed and campaigned for Harper during the 2006 election.
Derek Burney, chairman of CanWest, was Mulroney's chief of staff and head of Harper's transition team to power.

David Asper, chair of the National Post, from The Georgia Straight's review of Peter C. Newman's new book "Izzy: The Passionate Life and Turbulent Times of Izzy Asper, Canada’s Media Mogul" referring to their journalists:

"We own the papers. We have the right to have the papers print whatever the hell
we want them to say. And if people don’t like it, they can go to hell. They can
leave, get another job."

And what papers does AsperNation, aka CanWest Global own again? A partial list :
National Post
Calgary Herald
Edmonton Journal
The Gazette
Regina Leader-Post
Ottawa Citizen
The StarPhoenix
Times-Colonist
Windsor Star
Vancouver Sun
Vancouver Province
The Courier
The North Shore News
Canada.com

Where are you getting your news from?

Do I like Iggy? No, not much. Is he capable of outflanking Harper? Yes. Do I think he would dump the coalition in a heartbeat if he didn't need it? Yup. Is the coalition still viable? Yes. Will it be accompanied by ponies and rainbows? Nope.

This coalition idea is going to take time to appeal to a public whose understanding of our governing processes is gleaned from American TV shows and a corporate media not afraid to describe it as "treason", "junta", "separatist coalition", and "deal with the devil".
So don't be sending your rainbow ponies off into battle and then mourning their imaginary deaths.
Write a letter to your MP, sign a petition, call an openline show, talk to your neighbours.
Fight back. This is your coalition - not Iggy's and certainly not the Aspers'.
Fight for it.

Thwap's Schoolyard : What part of "majority rule" do you not get?

Expanded from Creekside

We, the undersigned citizens from C.R.A.P.,

have received our talking points from Con Party headquarters :

• On October 14, Canadians gave our Conservative government a fresh mandate ...
• the Opposition parties are interested only in power and entitlements ...
• They want to replace the elected government with a backroom deal ...
• Liberals want to seize power with only an endorsement from only the socialists and the separatists.

And via Elizabeth Thompson at The Gazette : a handy C.R.A.P. list of outraged opinions listed in bullet points plus the phone numbers of appropriate talk radio call-in shows.

Ye gods, I can hear them blowing their brains out in crayon on national radio from here.

Update from the PMO : "Use every tool at your disposal". Heh.
Same talking points for you, "All Conservative Members of Parliament" from Guy Giorno, Chief of Staff.
Cross-posted at Creekside