firehawk12
Subete no aware
I'm sure they'll go into rotation sooner or later. Then again, I don't have TV any more so I can only guess. lol
Has anyone actually seen these on TV? When they dropped the Bob Rae attack ads, I couldn't turn the tv on without stumbling into those ads every five minutes, and yet here, haven't seen it outside of a clip on Power and Politics where they were discussing it.
Worked pretty well to destroy Iggy and Dion anyway.Whats always disgusted me is that they do these attack ads when there is no election to begin with. Besides the fact that they are attack ads.
What a waste of money.
Should be illegal for the government to make attack ads outside of campaign. But then they'd just pay others to do it.
You know, have the Conservatives done away with public funding to parties yet? At this point, they're still probably the only party that can afford to run ads whenever they want.I would take it a step further and have no official party allowed to do this outside of an election period. It lowers the political discourse for the country. BladeWorker, I only wish the public would ignore the ads altogether, or that the same people who end up discussing it on broadly available public forums (ie television and talk radio) would criticize such moves for the blatant garbage they are.
You know, have the Conservatives done away with public funding to parties yet? At this point, they're still probably the only party that can afford to run ads whenever they want.
I want to laugh at the future of the Liberal Party without the funding. Although, are there still donor limits? If those are uncapped, then we're basically back to pre-Chretrien rules and the Liberals can go back to having thousand dollar dinner parties and crap like that.It's being phased out. Should run dry in 2014.
Bob Rae was smart to leave a sinking ship then!Don't think the caps have changed.
I would take it a step further and have no official party allowed to do this outside of an election period. It lowers the political discourse for the country. BladeWorker, I only wish the public would ignore the ads altogether, or that the same people who end up discussing it on broadly available public forums (ie television and talk radio) would criticize such moves for the blatant garbage they are.
Why shouldn't a political party run ads about their policies - or what they think of others' policies - outside of a writ period? Are political parties just supposed to disappear between elections?
No, but I'd rather they spend their resources on participating in governing than the endless campaign. This kind of thing just leads to voter fatigue and raises the importance of private donations (because pre-writ is less regulated than post-writ).
Their record in the House should serve as sufficient campaign.
All that said, I'd be ok if political parties just disappeared altogether, writ drop or no. Or were severely weakened from their current iron-fist status.
Why shouldn't a political party run ads about their policies - or what they think of others' policies - outside of a writ period? Are political parties just supposed to disappear between elections?
Why shouldn't a political party run ads about their policies - or what they think of others' policies - outside of a writ period? Are political parties just supposed to disappear between elections?
As much as I despise attack ads that go after people instead of policy, I can't help but wonder what sort of world we live in when we start telling people what and when they can write about in the name of "elevating the public discourse". Stupid people vote. The franchise isn't dependent on your partisanship or an IQ test.
And that besides, the public is growing increasingly cynical - political strategists and ad managers have to walk a careful line with their attack ads, given that good ones work fast and with little ad buy, but bad ones sink you 10% (or worse) in the polls. As the electorate becomes evermore discriminating and cynical, the forces upon strategists to talk more about what resonates than what hurts them may actually prove to elevate the public discourse moreso than any regulation to censor what parties and their hacks are and aren't allowed to say outside of writ periods.
(Though, to be honest, I doubt that what resonates will do anything to elevate the public discourse whatsoever. Even so, I disagree that we ought make out-of-writ political ads illegal in the name of elevating the public discourse. That's cutting off your nose to spite your face.)
Is it a crime to have citizens informed? Not like people are watching CPAC all day.Because we have a democratic institution that allow them to say what they think and debate about it: the parliament.
Is it a crime to have citizens informed? Not like people are watching CPAC all day.
Okay, in this democracy we also have freedom of speech and freedom of the press. And insofar as these are rights subject only to the limits of slander, hate speech, fraud, and incitement to other criminal activity, we don't get to pick and choose who's allowed to buy ad space, or have their ads and strategy discussed, and who doesn't.
I may not like it, you may not like it, and it may not be a positive influence on public discourse, but it's a reality.
We don't have the right against being offended by a political party's ad buys. We don't have monopolies on what constitutes appropriate ideas and thoughts for public discourse. And, it's not up to any political party to say that something is OK for public discourse at certain times and not others.
As soon as we become the arbiters of what political ideas are appropriate for public airing and what are not, we become our own worst enemies.
Why shouldn't a political party run ads about their policies - or what they think of others' policies - outside of a writ period? Are political parties just supposed to disappear between elections?
As much as I despise attack ads that go after people instead of policy, I can't help but wonder what sort of world we live in when we start telling people what and when they can write about in the name of "elevating the public discourse". Stupid people vote. The franchise isn't dependent on your partisanship or an IQ test.
Cabinet Shuffle! Not nearly as widespread as speculated!
Can't say I'm surprised, but I'm a little underwhelmed.
Oh, also, that Etobicoke Centre kerfuffle is going to the Supreme Court next week.
Any bets on whether the SCC will uphold the Superior Court ruling and require a by-election in the riding?
It is not a hate commercial to know that Harper was part of the young facists of Canada, he was proud of it at the time...but no one remembers...
Yeah that's the closest I could find. What good would airing that mildly smelly laundry do? Is someone offended that he was a liberal when he was a teenager going to go vote Liberal or NDP because of it? Never mind that he left the Liberals over NEP, which is pretty much what every other liberal in Alberta did at the time anyways.
Canada's prime minister, Stephen Harper, faces a widening revolt by the country's leading scientists against sweeping cuts to government research labs and broadly pro-industry policies.
The scientists plan to march through Ottawa in white lab coats on Tuesday in the second big protest in a month against the Harper government's science and environmental agenda.
Harper is accused of pushing through a slew of policies weakening or abolishing environmental protections – with an aim of expanding development of natural resources such as the Alberta tar sands.
His government is also accused of jeopardising Canada's scientific reputation by shutting down the Experimental Lakes Area (ELA), a research station that produced critical evidence to help stop acid rain.
"In my view there are a lot of attempts in this country, and other countries too, to push through resource-based economies," said Prof John Smol, a freshwater lake biologist at Queen's University in Kingston, Ontario. "People working at ELA are constantly finding reasons why you can't just put a pipeline here, or an industry there, because there are going to be environmental costs."
Andrew Weaver, a climate scientist at the University of Victoria in British Columbia, was even more pointed. "It's not about saving money. It's about imposing ideology," he said. "What's happening here is that the government has an ideological agenda to develop the Canadian economy based on the extraction of oil out of the Alberta tar sands as quickly as possible and sell it as fast as it can, come hell and high water, and eliminate any barriers that stand in their way."
However, a spokeswoman for Gary Goodyear, the minister of state for science and technology, said the government remained committed to funding science. "Our government has made historic investments in science, technology and research to create jobs, grow our economy, and improve the quality of life for Canadians," she said.
But Canadian government officials also indirectly confirmed scientists' charges that Harper was far more interested in funding research with direct industry applications, than in funding pure science or environmental research.
"As a country we have been lagging behind our peer nations on applied research and commercialisation and our government is taking steps to correct that," the official said.
The official provided a list of new projects supported by the government. Among the largest was $105m for marketing forest products.
The showdown between the government and scientists was set late last month by the passage of a budget bill that weakened or abolished scores of environmental laws.
The government claims the cuts are intended to shift more resources towards monitoring development of the Alberta tar sands, the core of Harper's economic strategy.
Critics say the changes gut the country's strongest environmental law, the Canadian Fisheries Act, by easing earlier requirements on mining and other industries to protect fish habitat.
In addition, the C-38 budget bill cut dozens of jobs for government scientists, scrapped research projects, and pollution control programmes. It abolished the unit in charge of monitoring emissions from power plants, furnaces, boilers and other sources, for a net saving of about $600,000.
It cut funding entirely for two-well established bodies: the National Round Table on the Environment and the Economy, an advisory panel, and the Canadian Foundation for Climate and Atmospheric Science, which awards research grants. It also cut other research grant programmes.
The Harper government has clashed regularly with environmental groups over its strategy of developing the tar sands and shipping the oil to America and China.
Earlier this year, the natural resources minister, Joe Oliver, accused foreign radicals and "jet-setting celebrities" of trying to hijack the country, by opposing development of the tar sands.
The government has also directed the tax authorities to investigate the funding of environmental groups.
There were protests, too, when government scientists were banned from speaking to media without an official "minder", and when news of the cost-cutting proposals first trickled out.
More than 500 groups took their websites down for 24 hours last month in protest at the budget cuts, which they claim were an excuse to weaken environmental protections.
But the cuts that seem to have galvanised the protests on Tuesday was the government's decision to shut down the Experimental Lakes Area in March 2013.
"It's a culmination of all of the cuts to government science and environment," said Diane Orihel, a PhD candidate at the University of Alberta, leading the campaign to save the labs. "The ELA is one small little morsel in a much broader problem." But she added: "We are starting to see momentum."
Since the decision first trickled out – as a government leak – the Harper government has faced widening criticism in Canadian media.
Scientists say the closure, due in March 2013, would rob researchers of a rare chance to conduct science on a real-life scale – not just in a laboratory flask, said Smol.
Over the years, it has provided critical evidence on the causes of acid rain, and the effects on fish and their habitats of dumping fertilisers, detergents, or mercury.
"Any water quality problem we have on the planet, the research started out there," Smol said. "I think we need that information to get solid policy to deal with our environmental problems."
The government argues it can no longer afford the research station, which costs about $2m a year to run.
Critics dismiss that argument, pointing to the Harper government's promotion of the Alberta tar sands and its opposition to the Kyoto protocol agreements on climate change.
"The Harper government is the most environmentally hostile one we have ever had in Canada. Harper pulled Canada out of the Kyoto protocol, gutted the Fisheries Act (our strongest freshwater protection law), and hollowed out our environmental assessment legislation, making it easier for extractive industries to get licences to exploit," said Maude Barlow, a former UN advisor on water and chair of the Council of Canadians. "It is heartlessly shutting down a programme that costs very little to run given the incredible benefits it brings, in order to silence the voices who speak for water."
Making news in the UK for all the wrong reasons.
Canada's PM Stephen Harper faces revolt by scientists
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2012/jul/09/canada-stephen-harper-revolt-scientists?CMP=twt_gu
Man fuck this anti-science government.
Isn't this more along the lines of being anti-"environmental"-science? If they want to develop the tar sands, then let them develop the tar sands.
Isn't this more along the lines of being anti-"environmental"-science? If they want to develop the tar sands, then let them develop the tar sands.
Seriously? This is like the equivalent of saying "Hey screw the naysayers, let's build that nuclear plant on the fault line, who gives a shit."
They've already stated they'll close programs and organizations that they ideologically don't agree with, so the blanket 'science' isn't incorrect.
While you're at it, you might as well equate this to people dumping radioactive waste in pristine lakes and taking hunting spears and impaling barney the dinosaur, the teletubbies and dora the explorer.
We're talking about tar sands and not nuclear energy.
Im ok with this. Time to put your efforts into something else scientists.Canada's PM Stephen Harper faces revolt by scientists
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2012/jul/09/canada-stephen-harper-revolt-scientists?CMP=twt_gu
Man fuck this anti-science government.
But Canadian government officials also indirectly confirmed scientists' charges that Harper was far more interested in funding research with direct industry applications, than in funding pure science or environmental research.
"As a country we have been lagging behind our peer nations on applied research and commercialisation and our government is taking steps to correct that," the official said.
You miss the point. It's not about nuclear energy or whatever. It's about ignoring any actual empirical evidence of possible environmental damage or sustainability in lieu of just propping up the resource industry.
Oil, coal and natural gas are dirty, anything you drill or mine, it's going to funk up the environment a bit, I think people know that. HUMAN BEINGS are dirty motherfuckers, our existence in itself endangers the goddamn planet, WE'RE not sustainable, at some point you can either decide to off yourself or just say "fuck it, let's start hunting dolphins".
What the fuck? So we should just exploit everything until we kill ourselves? Fuck our children and all our future generations eh? It's not as if there aren't alternative cleaner solutions.
Do you support nuclear energy?
Maybe that's what the scientists should focus on, developing methods of extracting fossil fuels cleanly and effectively to help Albertans make use of their natural resources.
Lets use up the cheaper alternative first.What the fuck? So we should just exploit everything until we kill ourselves? Fuck our children and all our future generations eh? It's not as if there aren't alternative cleaner solutions.
Lets use up the cheaper alternative first.
We can do that, but we can also do that safely. How are we supposed to know possible effects on the environment if we don't even perform any studies? Nevermind not letting scientists speak negatively against these projects at all.
We are doing that already. We've been drilling for how long? More than a century?
Oil, coal and natural gas are dirty, anything you drill or mine, it's going to funk up the environment a bit, I think people know that. HUMAN BEINGS are dirty motherfuckers, our existence in itself endangers the goddamn planet, we're constantly multiplying, we dump our shit everywhere, WE'RE not sustainable, at some point you can either decide to off yourself for the sake of mother nature or just say "fuck it, let's start hunting dolphins".