After ACTA, the next logical step would be to start closing libraries

Go read it.

This is rather frightening. I openly admit to having downloaded copyrighted material, and it’s likely I’ll do it again. So, yeah. I guess that makes me a criminal. A thief. A con.

But you know what? The swag I’ve swiped is usally deleted after a day or so. And I might even buy it from a store… eventually, when I can actually afford the overpriced garbage, and even then only if it’s actually really worth buying.

To be completely honest, I view the internet as a resource, much as a library is to a community as a whole. And I can get much of what I desire from a library, also. I can borrow the same CDs, DVDs, and books from there, as easily as firing up eMule, and downloading it all from a fellow pirate from some distant point in the world. Except it’s 24/7.

Everything has its price? Well, yeah. But everything is free, eventually, too. Wait a day or two, and junk is priced at what it’s actually worth to people. Either priceless or worthless.

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The question is, once Harper signs this treaty (colour me skeptical that he won’t sign this to please his corporate American masters), am I really in danger of losing access to the internet? Am I and all my family really likely to lose access to the internet? I can’t think of one cousin who doesn’t get music from the net via extra-legal means. Not one.

My local ISP would certainly lose a hella lotta customers from this part of the woods. With the loss of the internet, what actual reason would there be to get cable TV? I don’t watch TV. Personally, I hate it. I only get it cause I get the internet. It would be no great loss to me to also return the cable box when my internet is cut.

But not being able to write like this? That’d be a wrench. It’d be a huge blow to my ego. Mais, c’est la vie. I’d have to do something else then to get my opinion out there.

POGGE has some thoughts, too. And Dr Dawg, as well.

Grocery store unions

I was speaking with a couple of friends about the union. One asked why I got so few hours even though I work for a union grocery store. I could surmise it was probably because I’m in a defeated union. The other chiped in that grocery store unions now are as weak as water, which is true considering current union contracts with the employers.

I do gotta mention working in a non-union place and a union place are far different despite any perceptions. Working for a non-union company is honestly mental. I get the feeling one of these days my mouth will get my ass fired for back-talking the boss (at the non-union company for which I work).

People working at these big box stores need to join unions if they ever want a chance at a decent life. My friends keep complaining that I shouldn’t be working at a grocery store anyway. That I should go out and get a university degree and get a respectable job. But you know, that ain’t entirely possible these days. I’m trapped here in near-poverty, working my ass off to keep even a pitance of savings so I might get a few presents for my little nephews and nieces at Christmas time. I’m glad I work for a union company too, as I won’t be so easily rid of there, but I have no idea what will happen wherever else I may be employed.

Something I’m trying to get at here is that these low-end jobs, these big box store jobs aren’t valued high enough. People as a whole don’t think they’re worth much. We need to change this idea around. We work hard, and give good value to any company. A good workforce is priceless to any company, but they, the bosses, don’t bother with these sort of thoughts. We need to start thinking highly of these jobs, that they’re worth working, and worth having. Continually thinking they’re worthless in comparison to a ‘professional’ job is self-defeating.

I don’t know of a world without big-box stores. Perhaps in fifty years, with the potential collapse of cheap overseas transport, we’ll return to a world without ‘em. But for now, with no prospects and little chance of escape from working poverty, we who work in the Wal-Marts, and the Zellers, and the Canadian Tires, and McDonalds, and so and so on need to start thinking union.

And those of us already in unions, but which are hurting from decades of defeat from hostile government and corporations, need to pick ourselves up, and forget about trying to deal nicely with our adversaries.

It’s our opportunity. It’s our hope.

The union.

It’s a good idea, Mister Byers

I like it, and I would support it, were it to come to fruition. However, it would involve placing a huge amount of trust into the Liberal Party, which has shown just earlier this year what happens when you place any amount of faith into it. It tears it into absolute shreds.

Proportional Representation would definitely have to be part of this deal. If it’s not there, there’s no point in making a deal. Plus, any promise from the Liberals on anything of importance during an election is foolhardy. Remember their staunch opposition to NAFTA? To the GST?

At the very least, it would be a good idea to approach the Libs on this. See if anything comes to life here.

I now have another blog

It’s a begging blog, created with the express purpose of helping me pay off my outstanding and defaulted student loan, and then perhaps getting me through university.

I’d have liked to use WordPress as the platform. However, it doesn’t allow custom HTML for a bum like me. Perhaps it is for the best, considering it caused me to act in a new manner, with a goal not simply for paying off me out of control student loan, but perhaps growing this dream I have of free university for all.

Anyway, if any of y’all can help me out, that’d be great. And I’m not talking about simply donating. Let’s somehow bring this dream into actual existence.

Fadden, get us all an umbrella please

Your spittle when you get into your ranting mode is threatening to drown us all. And please, wipe the drool from the side of your mouth (it makes you look a bit deranged).

Man, he must’ve really had to stop himself short saying he needed as many powers as Harper can grant him: “I need hammers, and thumbtacks, and screws, and all those damn liberal-socialist judges…. I want them GONE!”

He wants to be Canada’s Hoover. Well, he does suck a hell of a lot. But reading his words sure as hell is a fright when thinking of what he would do with expanded powers.

You know, I’m going to go out on a limb here, and suggest that the CSIS is irrelevant for actual crime fighting. It’s an agency designed for suppression and intimidation. The day it’s gone is the day we’re all safer from paranoid fools like Fadden.

According to some, climate change is a fraud

BBC NEWS | Asia-Pacific | Australia coastal living at risk.

For those who live in reality, however, there are going to be whole-scale changes in lives and business. Failing to act now for such is preparing to watch homes all along the coast be washed away in waves and storms in years to come.

I can’t call out to the Conservatives to take action, as they’re knuckle-dragging flat-earth climate change deniers, and the Liberals are in complete disarray and are simply uninterested in anything other than regaining power.

I can only call out to Jack Layton to please start speaking of the grave consequences of our failing to prepare for the oncoming global climate change. You’re the only reasonable nation-wide leader who is in any position to speak to all Canadians on what is happening, and what is likely to happen.

What are we to face in the coming days?

The situation now is as bad as the Conservatives stalling on the H1N1 response. Nobody knows what’s going on, and whatever is happening is getting lost in a bureaucratic nightmare. Rumors are spreading faster than the actual information, and there’s a panic in the air over it, including with the people we’re supposed to trust on this: our doctors and nurses. It’s a fright to think about, knowing that vaccines are likely to run out due to demand, and there being a huge refrain from many others afraid of getting the vaccine itself.

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I can hazard some guesses as to local consequences of climate change.

Greater forest fires. They are increasing in frequency and size. With drier earth, and less moisture, fires will begin tearing through our forests with terrifying speed, and for a longer season, too. Towns and cities that have built too close to the forests are at risk of being wiped off the map completely.

Wild food stocks collapse. We’ve witnessed salmon stocks collapse. There are others which aren’t immediately noticeable as well. Foods that Europeans don’t know about but provide a source for animals of all sorts are disappearing at an alarming rate with no one to stem the loss. With foods disappearing, animals will begin changing habits, and wild animals will begin to wander in closer to human habitat. Animals not known for aggressive behavior will begin attacking.

Fiercer storms will begin to disrupt usually temperate climate, and already unstable climates will become chaotic. I can imagine formerly green lands becoming deserts within a generation.

There are so many variables that are occurring now that it’s difficult to list any without overlapping overs. Glaciers in the mountains that are tens of thousands of years old are disappearing, and with them, an annual source of fresh water. The loss of water leads to drier earth. Drier earth is at risk to forest fire, and also loss of food, which is loss of habitat, and so and so on.

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A major problem with climate change deniers thinking is that it’s not thinking at all. It’s the repetition of slogans and propaganda from major carbon-based industries such as oil and coal, poisoning the public resource known as simple discussion.

Actually thinking about climate change for five minutes provides a great amount of instruction for an individual, but there are so many who can’t or won’t take the time.

People need to know that things are changing, and they aren’t ever going to be the same, barring some miracle from the USA green initiative, which is ever more and more seemingly unlikely, given their failure to tackle their financial woes, which is likely to handcuff any innovation for decades and generations to come.

No, we cannot hope for any miracle anymore. Climate change is accelerating, and there’s now no easily reversing it.

People have to be taught that things are going to change drastically within their own lifetimes, and it’s going to get rough. But with some forethought and preparation, there would be no need to fear.

But no one is speaking nationally about all this. It’s complete silence from the government.

What is happening? What preparations can we all make? What sacrifices are we willing to make?

Jack, you need to be asking these questions of all people, throughout Canada. There’s no one else.

The Globe and Mail plays a poor storyline?

Did Jack Layton know? – The Globe and Mail.

My answer, probably not.

And if he did, then bravo. We need more action like this to stir up that old cranky place called Parliament Hill. Fact is, politics isn’t just played in pre-approved arenas. Protest is politics.

It’s news/opinion/rumor-mongering pieces like this that get my blood pumping. Not really with anger, nor even with disgust. It’s a kind of gross interest, like looking at a snot-rag when you’ve just blown into it.

Note that ‘MPs felt intimidated’, which leaves me a bit incredulous, and even cynically entertained. I wanna know, which wimps couldn’t handle being yelled at? What losers almost peed their pants after being heckled by a crowd of people armed with slogans and chants?

Boycotting the Canadian Blog Awards, too

Dawg’s Blawg: Boycott the Canadian Blog Awards.

What he said.

Another step toward a prison state

The Con’s single-minded drive to institute an industrial prison complex onto Canada has taken a major step today: Ottawa will expand prisons to suit tough crime laws – The Globe and Mail.

Completely supported by the Libs, and at times with participation from the Dips, we are witness to a sad day in Canadian political legal battles.

After having invented a number of new crimes, the Cons have created a crime wave without enough new prisons to house us all who would inadvertently cross the boundary of lawfully acceptable and criminal.

It is our loss, today, those of who live in reality, with the knowledge that prisons as an industry are no answer to society’s woes.

Well, neither are you, McKay

The Canadian Press: Canadian military officials deny Taliban insurgents were paid for peace.

“I strongly suspect that this is more Taliban propaganda. Of course, they’re not bound by rules of engagement or simple things such as truth.”