The Proletariat Congress

With many ways of ‘improving’ the lives of Ontarians, the provincial Liberals have decided to pass a legislation that would appease the Tories and NDP, who want a law that protects children. A law that bans the smoking of cigarettes in vehicles where children passengers are under the tender age of 16. A meaningful and symbolic move, nothing more.

This legislation should it go on the books would be entirely unenforceable, especially in an era where the windows of vehicles are now tinted and people no longer dispose of cigarette butts in the cars’ ashtray, yet another thing of a not too distant past. And how so easy it is to dispose of the incriminating evidence. Smell alone means nothing. Cigarette smoke is notorious for clinging to fabric, the odour hanging in the air for long periods. Proving that the smoke is fresh is futile, as the driver or other of-age adult passengers could have been smoking before the young passenger got into the vehicle.

And the fine, if someone is actually caught, though it is unlikely, is a mere $200, and that is Canadian. If this is a crime, why is the amount so low? It’s more of a cash grab than a crime. It’s the government merely pretending it gives a damn, because at the end of the day the only thing politicians truly give a damn about is votes and as long as appearances are maintained, nothing else matters.

What’s more, if the police start pulling over people at random, there will be an incredible amount of public outrage at the blatant invasion of privacy by the nanny state in the pursuit of the elusive few who flout the law. After all, if someone isn’t speeding and they are following the basic laws of the street, there is no legal justification for pulling them over.

Even if a programme similar to RIDE is implemented, it’s easy to dispose of the incriminating evidence. Unlike alcohol, cigarettes do not intoxicate the user and hence, it’s legal to drive while smoking. Even if there are spot checks, smell alone is not grounds for charging someone because there is no way of proving when the smell got into the fabric of the car’s upholstery or into the person’s clothing.

And how will age be determined? A sight test will fail no doubt and not all people upon turning 16 years old immediately go out and get a license. There are no mandatory ID cards and not all people look their age at this point. Some people will look older, and some will look younger, much younger than they actually are.

What of court appeals? How will it go down? Will the officer take names of all the people in the car? There are too many problems with a piece of legislation like this. It provides too many ways for a person to get caught up on a law design to placate a few without thinking of the overall repercussions that will be incurred from the existence of a law such as this.

Ontario to ban smoking in cars with kids

Today I was asked by my father who is out of town to go check on his plants and water them, as well as pick up any mail that would be on the floor. Two of the pieces of mail on the floor caught my eye. Both were propaganda leaflets from the Conservative Party, attempting to brainwash the voting public into buying their line.

The first one challenged voters to pick whether or not they wanted to keep the ‘Child Tax Benefit‘. The two options were yes, represented by Harper and no, represented by Dion, who had voted against it in the first place. What this little piece of paper fails to inform you of is that this Child Tax “Benefit” that Harper is pimping out really doesn’t cover the true cost of child care and that in created this “benefit”, he scraped the federal childcare programme, which despite its flaws helped more people than this paltry hand out would. Mere peanuts and we’re expected to jump for joy because the government is pretending it understands what it means to make ends meet every week and the burden of sacrifice in order to put hot food on the table.

The child tax benefit is a mere $1200 per annum, which barely covers one month of child care in any Canadian city. It does nothing for those who need it, and those who can afford it, it’s just peanuts for those citizens anyway. It is nothing more than an insult to the tax paying public.

The second leaflet was more general, targeting Dion’s poverty elimination programme, which would involve spending and raising taxes. Again, the public was presented with options, either accept the tax and/or debt or neither if they go with Harper. The thing is however, that in order to reduce poverty, there needs to be money spent. Money needs to be raised to reduce the total deficit that may be acquired during this campaign to raise Canadians above the national poverty line.

The federal government is touting a 10 billion, yes, that’s BILLION, dollar surplus in this year’s budget; 10 billion going towards the federal debt, with Flaherty saying that the government needs to spend less. And the public… we get just peanuts. Of course, what the government isn’t telling the people is that it inherited this carefully managed surplus from the Liberals; that this budget is a product of the Chretien era, when Paul Martin was Minister of Finance.

The budget, being touted as prudent does nothing to aid the crumbling infrastructure of Canadian cities nor to alleviates the crippling poverty that has some Canadians struggling to survive. Nothing for child care.

The two flyers in question do nothing to shake my immense hatred of the Harper administration and its pandering to the Bush administration and it’s failing war on terror, as well as other failed policies. It merely reaffirms what I have always believed.

And “Hon” (nothing honourable though) Peter van Loan, MP (c/o CRG Government Caucus Services, 131 Queen Street Suite 8-02, House of Commons, Ottawa ON, K1A 0A6)… it’s obvious you are in line with the party on the environment because your little flyers are nothing more than a waste of paper and yet more garbage to add to our ever growing landfills. Of course, there are some environmentally minded Canadians out there who will merely toss this tripe into their black boxes or use it to line their bird cages…

This entry is a guest article written by Brian Damage of demodulated blog.

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What’s in a name? Can a few proper nouns summarize the essence of a human being? If a man is only as good as his name does that man have the sole rights to its selective usage? Not according to the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers who is the world’s regulating body for internet domain names.

Let’s back up that tractor a bit first. (beep beep beep)

Blogger and native Edmontonian Dave Cournoyer, aka Daveberta, is a vocal member of Canada’s Liberal party and a staunch opponent of the provincial Progressive Conservative party of which reigning Alberta Premier Ed Stelmach is a member. Dave recently registered the publicly and freely available domain name “edstelmach.ca” for fourteen bucks and pointed it to his blog. Shortly thereafter, with nary a warning shot, Dave was contacted by the Stelmach’s lawyers who demanded he desist in pointing this domain name to his blog and that he surrender the domain to the Premier at once, else the coyotes of litigation would git to howlin’.

Cournoyer, unswayed by these empty threats, merely pointed the domain to the Wikipedia article on Harry Strom, a former Alberta Premier who was criticized similarly to Stelmach as a good old farm boy whose reputation dwindled for being oblivious to the needs of the province’s flourishing urban centres. Threatening this indebted University of Alberta student due to his misunderstanding of the workings of the internet certainly bolsters such comparison.

Does Stelmach have the authority to unleash his stampede of thoroughbred lawyers on this poor kid in his jurisdiction? Well sure he does – it’s his got-dang right as a western Canadian. But that’s as far as he’ll mosey along, ah reckon.

The US Copyright Office, who regulates the ICANN, has this to say on the matter of copyright…

… on domain names:

“Copyright law does not protect domain names. The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), a nonprofit organization that has assumed the responsibility for domain name system management, administers the assignation of domain names through accredited registers.”

… and on proper names:

“Names are not protected by copyright law.” and “Copyright does not protect names, titles, slogans, or short phrases.”

That’s right, it’s first come first serve in the Wild Wild Web. (otherwise translated for Stelmach’s benefit as “them dubyas”)

It seems that unless the very Right (if not Honourable) Premier might have to prove that he is either the world’s one and only Ed Stelmach, the supposely infringing use of his name detracts from his brand, the domain name disingenuously cuts his profits by impersonating his brand and thereby tricking customers, or that his name is the entirety of a catchy corporate slogan. (might I recommend, like George Costanza before him, the “by Mennen” tune?)

Ed Stelmach may as well hitch up and git along. Daveberta is making a stand and won’t be ponying up any time soon.

For more information on this topic I’ve blogged previously (here and here) about corporate bullying for domain names.

“Yeee haw, lit’s wrangle up this internet sumbitch!” – not actually said by Ed Stelmach

People are easily offended with the most harmless comments these days. Politicians often find themselves walking on egg shells in an attempt to soothe the most fragile egos. They find themselves unable to speak their minds without someone crying foul.

Consider this statement from Premier Dalton McGuinty on the subject of faith-based school funding:

If you want the kind of Ontario where we invite children of different faiths to leave the publicly funded system and become sequestered and segregated in their own private schools, then they should vote for Mr. Tory. If they think it’s important that we continue to bring our kids together, so that they grow together and learn from one another, then you should vote for me.

He is advocating that the public system doesn’t discriminate and brings students of different faiths and cultures together for a common purpose: to learn in an academic environment that prizes knowledge and achievement over petty differences. The system has students put those differences aside to work together towards a common goal of achieving academic/practical knowledge. In the process, they even learn something about another religion or culture they might not have known if they were in a school that was for a single faith.

So, what’s the problem?

According to the United Jewish Appeal and the Canadian Jewish Congress the comments were ‘hurtful’ and ‘offensive’ because the faith-based schools teach about tolerance and acceptance. But how can we have tolerance and acceptance when we are segregated along religious lines?

This doesn’t fit into the modern frame of secular Canadian society in which we need to spend more time coming together to learn that our differences should be celebrated. Religion is a divisive subject and as a nation we don’t need anything else to divide us up. We have plenty to keep up divided and feuding.

There is nothing offensive about what Premier McGuinty has says. It’s brutally honest and some people cannot take that level of honesty and prefer to live in their rose-coloured glass world; in their protective bubble.

But the religious groups expressing offence have demanded an apology and have offered flimsey excuses.

UJA Federation of Greater Toronto chair David Engel has come out saying:

The remark is deeply offensive to our community and all faith communities. We just want him to take back the comment that was offensive to our schools. Our schools teach respect for all members of Ontario society – not the opposite – and we encourage our students to strengthen the society around us through their volunteer work and their careers.

You can teach respect just as you can lead a horse to water. You cannot force someone to respect anyone else just as you cannot force a horse to drink. People learn respect when they are around others who are different.

You can give students the skills they need to do their jobs but you cannot teach respect; you cannot force anyone to learn respect; they learn it through personal experience.

Apologize, Jewish groups tell McGuinty