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[Canada] Politics of the Democratic Friedmanite Republic of the Government of Harper

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Posts

  • Gnome-InterruptusGnome-Interruptus Registered User regular
    Nova_C wrote: »
    Azio wrote: »
    - No more gun registry. Fuck, they might as well obliterate the rest of the Firearms Act while they're at it.

    Azio, what the shit? Are you seriously suggesting that without the registry we may as well stop all gun control measures? Can you tell me what the registry accomplished? The RCMP say they 'use' it all the time. Considering the only use I've ever heard cited is checking to see if a home they're headed to has a registered firearm I'm doubtful it's actually a productive measure against the proliferation of firearms and the prevention of firearm related deaths.

    I'm fairly certain that the creation of the registry had no effect on violent crime or the rate at which cops get shot.

    The creation of the registry was a boon doggle, but getting rid of the registry will not bring any of those tax dollars back, it is what accounts like to call a sunk cost.

    The current registry runs fairly cost effectively for what its doing (from what I'm told). I see no benefit to removing it. The police also use the registry to look up people they have arrested and charged to see if they need to remove fire arms from a residence afterwards as well, not just when they are on their way. There have also been reports of using the registry to remove fire arms from the residences of the mentally ill when they have been hospitalized so that they do not have access when they first get released and their meds havent fully kicked in again yet.

    steam_sig.png
  • Nova_CNova_C Sniff Sniff Snorf Yellowknife, NTRegistered User regular
    Yeah, I'm honestly ambivalent towards the registry itself - it was Azio's knee-jerk reaction that removing it is going to somehow dismantle Canada's firearms act that I was really commenting on.

    Thanks for the other bits about the registry, though. Good info.

  • RobmanRobman Registered User regular
    Richy wrote: »
    Robman wrote: »
    Well chaps, that didn't take long

    http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/harpers-hard-line-on-arctic-softens-among-us-envoys-leaked-cables/article2019906/

    Harper's been quietly selling us out to the USA while grandstanding on military vessels

    http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/debate-is-on-as-thousands-protest-against-abortion-on-parliament-hill/article2020101/

    The Tory faithful are marching by the thousands on parliament hill, and the counter-protest was removed by the police.
    Honestly, neither of those articles are as alarming as you paint them to be.

    The first one simply says that Harper is more pragmatic in diplomatic talks than he is on the campaign trail. That's probably a good thing. The cables quoted show the US are concerned about Harper diverting Canadian military resources to the North away from "post-Afghanistan expeditionary missions", which sounds good to me, and mapping the undersea continental shelf to support Canadian claims. That actually sounds like the opposite of "selling us out".

    The second is an annual anti-choice protest that's been taking place on this date every year for decades; that it falls right after the election of a majority Conservative government this year is a bad coincidence. Calling them "Tory faithful" is a bit disingenuous given that they themselves are on record saying they have no faith in the Tories. And while I want to make clear that I am fully, 100% against the anti-choice agenda and this protest, it is not the police's job to take a political stance. Given a planned march for X, and a counter-protest against X (that kinda sounds like it was spontaneous?) leading to "argumentative confrontations", the cops have to maintain order and the counter-protest is the one that's in the wrong in this case.

    This is basically saying that there is no right to organize a mass-rebuttal. That's a counter-protest. You're saying "no dude you're wrong" right there and pushing your counter-offer in an attempt to sell you ideas instead. Information is a commodity in more ways then the obvious - people get sold ideas, restricting who can sell ideas is the worst kind of monopoly.

    As for calling them the Tory faithful, well, they're a lot like the Tea Party. They sure do make a lot of noise about their independence and gosh darn it don't they just keep voting Conservative. IIRC holding anti-abortion views is one of the strongest voting predictors, and you probably will have an easy time guessing which party they vote for!

  • RichyRichy Registered User regular
    Robman wrote: »
    Richy wrote: »
    And while I want to make clear that I am fully, 100% against the anti-choice agenda and this protest, it is not the police's job to take a political stance. Given a planned march for X, and a counter-protest against X (that kinda sounds like it was spontaneous?) leading to "argumentative confrontations", the cops have to maintain order and the counter-protest is the one that's in the wrong in this case.

    This is basically saying that there is no right to organize a mass-rebuttal. That's a counter-protest. You're saying "no dude you're wrong" right there and pushing your counter-offer in an attempt to sell you ideas instead. Information is a commodity in more ways then the obvious - people get sold ideas, restricting who can sell ideas is the worst kind of monopoly.

    That is not at all what I'm saying. I'm saying everyone has the right to express their views in a safe and peaceful manner. And "safe and peaceful" covers both the way the expression is made and the reaction of people around them. The people have the right to express their views without fear of an aggressive confrontation erupting.

    The problem is not that a counter-protest was organized. From the article, it's that it was getting confrontational, which means the next step would have probably been violent. That's how it usually goes (see The Ender's post for an example).

    If the pro-choice side wants to express their views, they have the same right to do so as the anti-choice side, by scheduling and organizing a peaceful march on Parliament Hill. And if the anti-choice tries to mount a confrontational anti-protest, I expect them to be taken away by police as well.

    There's a difference between expressing your views and attacking people who are expressing views different from yours. In this example, the anti-choice side was doing the former, and the pro-choice side was doing the latter.

    RichyFlag.gifsig.gif
  • Disco11Disco11 Registered User regular
    Richy wrote: »
    Robman wrote: »
    Well chaps, that didn't take long

    http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/harpers-hard-line-on-arctic-softens-among-us-envoys-leaked-cables/article2019906/

    Harper's been quietly selling us out to the USA while grandstanding on military vessels

    http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/debate-is-on-as-thousands-protest-against-abortion-on-parliament-hill/article2020101/

    The Tory faithful are marching by the thousands on parliament hill, and the counter-protest was removed by the police.
    Honestly, neither of those articles are as alarming as you paint them to be.

    The first one simply says that Harper is more pragmatic in diplomatic talks than he is on the campaign trail. That's probably a good thing. The cables quoted show the US are concerned about Harper diverting Canadian military resources to the North away from "post-Afghanistan expeditionary missions", which sounds good to me, and mapping the undersea continental shelf to support Canadian claims. That actually sounds like the opposite of "selling us out".

    The second is an annual anti-choice protest that's been taking place on this date every year for decades; that it falls right after the election of a majority Conservative government this year is a bad coincidence. Calling them "Tory faithful" is a bit disingenuous given that they themselves are on record saying they have no faith in the Tories. And while I want to make clear that I am fully, 100% against the anti-choice agenda and this protest, it is not the police's job to take a political stance. Given a planned march for X, and a counter-protest against X (that kinda sounds like it was spontaneous?) leading to "argumentative confrontations", the cops have to maintain order and the counter-protest is the one that's in the wrong in this case.


    Whoa, whoa whoa!! Maybe some people here don't want none of your FACTS to get in the way of some more Tory bashing.


    gamertag: Canadianllama
  • Torso BoyTorso Boy Registered User
    Robman wrote: »
    No I think we should bring up the Abortion debate

    But we should really debate it. We should go over the arguments and lay bare how abortion laws target the poor - wealthy people can always skip town to Europe if they have an "inconvenience". We should note how many women in New Brunswick cannot get abortions because only a few hospitals offer the service, and traveling to them is outside the realm of economic possibility.

    We should also examine the lackluster social support we offer in this nation to young families, how charity-run food banks are being exhausted and how miserable the working poor are. We might let them see a doctor in a shitty, over-crowded clinic that charges a $20 administration fee per visit, but by god we're a pretty terrible nation to be poor in.

    EDIT Hell I know my friend's mom, who runs an ob/gyn clinic in a major city, would happily testify before parliament. She'd testify that she's given abortion to scared nuns, to angry religious mothers dragging their 16 year old daughters in, to worried young lawyers who don't want their careers to end before they've started... we need to put a fucking human face on abortions. As long as it's something "we won't bring up" and as long as we're content to let the fundamentalists frame the argument, the entire debate will be about bloody fetuses and quiet funding cuts.

    As long as we're content to let people challenge the right for free, accessible abortions without answer we are basically condoning their behaviour with our inaction.

    Well...exactly. This is why the abortion debate can't be brought up now: it's a pro-life government. If a private member's bill pops up, Harper's options are to allow a free vote which can easily have a bad policy outcome, whip the vote against and risk alienating a lot of his base, or whip the vote in favour and risk a significant number of swing voters, which will also have a bad policy outcome. The only options I think are plausible are the ones with bad policy outcomes.

    So in the sense that additional pressure would make Harper sweat and maybe even do irreparable damage to him, I'd like the issue to come up. But at the same time, any action taken by this administration is likely to make the situation even worse. Rock and a hard place.

    Rent wrote: »
    So that's what having no idea what you are talking about looks like
  • Gnome-InterruptusGnome-Interruptus Registered User regular
    So I just saw a photo of the SCOC on CBC.ca and wow, it looks like some sort of Santa Claus convention.

    http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/story/2011/05/13/scoc-resignations-051311.html

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  • TubularLuggageTubularLuggage Registered User regular
    Just a note for the OP; the Greens didn't get 10% of the popular vote, they received less than 4%.

  • Gnome-InterruptusGnome-Interruptus Registered User regular
    I think the Greens got 10% back in '08 or '04, I forget which. People were voting much more strategically with ABC this time though.

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  • RobmanRobman Registered User regular
    As an aside to the Federal business of the day

    http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/will-metallica-strike-discordant-note-for-halifax-mayor/article2020198/

    Keep being awesome, Halifax.

    The promoter in question, managed to sell a grand total of 8000 tickets for the Black Eyed Peas.

    Yep, a platinum band, 8000 tickets.

    He's also arranged this concert such that no merch is sold. Yes, one of the most famous bands in the world is having a huge concert and there's no merch.

    Is this promoter a wizard or a sorcelator? How the fuck does he keep getting to organize AAA acts when he's a demonstrated cash sinkhole? Someone in Halifax is getting loaded off this guy's antics.

  • Grid SystemGrid System Registered User
    So I just saw a photo of the SCOC on CBC.ca and wow, it looks like some sort of Santa Claus convention.

    http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/story/2011/05/13/scoc-resignations-051311.html

    It'll be interesting to see who replaces Justices Binnie and Charron.

  • SilexSilex Registered User regular
    The U.S. is not phased by Harper's "tough talk" on Arctic sovereignty and increasing Canada's role internationally.
    One cable drafted by U.S. diplomats in Ottawa portrays Mr. Harper as dismissing the need for a military response to Russia over the Arctic. It includes an account from a Canadian official of a January, 2010, meeting between Mr. Harper and NATO Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen in which the PM said NATO has no role in the Arctic.

    “According to PM Harper, Canada has a good working relationship with Russia with respect to the Arctic, and a NATO presence could backfire by exacerbating tensions,” the cable states.

    “He commented that there is no likelihood of Arctic states going to war, but that some non-Arctic members favoured a NATO role in the Arctic because it would afford them influence in an area where ‘they don’t belong.’ ”

    That contradicts the Conservatives’ frequent calls for more military tools to defend the Arctic, sometimes accompanied by bellicose rhetoric.

    Last July, Defence Minister Peter MacKay claimed Canadian CF-18s repelled Cold War-era Russian bombers flying near Canadian airspace, and the Conservatives quickly sent their MPs “talking points” that said the incident showed Canada needs new F-35 stealth fighters. In February, 2009, Mr. Harper rebuked Russia publicly for “incursions.” And a month later, then foreign affairs minister Lawrence Cannon responded to Russia’s military operations in its own Arctic territory with a warning: “Canada will not be bullied.”

    ...


    Another 2010 cable described some of the Harper government’s early “frosty rhetoric” aimed at the U.S. over the Arctic, but added “thus far, the government’s ardour for the ‘North’ has translated only into a modest array of actions that have an impact on American and other foreign interests …” Mr. Harper’s tone was less pointed in private, the memo says.

    “That the PM’s public stance on the Arctic may not reflect his private, perhaps more pragmatic, priorities, however, was evident in the fact that during several hours together with Ambassador Jacobson on January 7 and 8, which featured long and wide-ranging conversations, the PM did not once mention the Arctic,” the cable states.

    ...

    Stephen Harper liked to say early in his tenure that his government was bringing Canada back to the world stage with a more muscular military, using the slogan: “Canada is back.”

    U.S. diplomats have their doubts.

    The U.S. embassy sent a skeptical assessment home to Washington in a 2010 cable entitled “Canada is back – or is it?”

    The cable reports that Mr. Harper’s big plans, first articulated in the 2006 campaign, for transforming the Canadian Forces to increase Canada’s influence on world affairs are likely to fall short because of budget constraints, and that Canada’s role in the world will likely be diminished because Ottawa will focus the Forces closer to home.

    The Canada First Defence Strategy, released in 2008, led to some increases in military capability, the U.S. diplomats reported to Washington. But they said the Forces were “severely stretched,” and the strategy, based on 20 years of increasing military budgets, was likely to be unsustainable.

    “PM Harper has set an assertive course for Canadian foreign policy, declaring that ‘Canada is back’ on the world scene. However, his ambitions for Canada may exceed his grasp …” the cable said.

    So in the end, it may seem like this was all a ploy to drum up public support for the purchase of the F-35 fighter jets.

    http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/harpers-tough-talk-on-the-arctic-less-stern-in-private/article2020615/page2/

  • shrykeshryke Registered User regular
    Richy wrote: »
    Robman wrote: »
    Well chaps, that didn't take long

    http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/harpers-hard-line-on-arctic-softens-among-us-envoys-leaked-cables/article2019906/

    Harper's been quietly selling us out to the USA while grandstanding on military vessels

    http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/debate-is-on-as-thousands-protest-against-abortion-on-parliament-hill/article2020101/

    The Tory faithful are marching by the thousands on parliament hill, and the counter-protest was removed by the police.
    Honestly, neither of those articles are as alarming as you paint them to be.

    The first one simply says that Harper is more pragmatic in diplomatic talks than he is on the campaign trail. That's probably a good thing. The cables quoted show the US are concerned about Harper diverting Canadian military resources to the North away from "post-Afghanistan expeditionary missions", which sounds good to me, and mapping the undersea continental shelf to support Canadian claims. That actually sounds like the opposite of "selling us out".

    The second is an annual anti-choice protest that's been taking place on this date every year for decades; that it falls right after the election of a majority Conservative government this year is a bad coincidence. Calling them "Tory faithful" is a bit disingenuous given that they themselves are on record saying they have no faith in the Tories. And while I want to make clear that I am fully, 100% against the anti-choice agenda and this protest, it is not the police's job to take a political stance. Given a planned march for X, and a counter-protest against X (that kinda sounds like it was spontaneous?) leading to "argumentative confrontations", the cops have to maintain order and the counter-protest is the one that's in the wrong in this case.

    Limed for truth here.

    The Conservatives are certainly more likely than other parties to touch the abortion issue because they draw support from social conservatives, BUT the unofficial "pro-life" (sticking to the "pro" labels each side uses to describe themselves) caucus in the House has drawn its members from every single party. During the last parliament, you could find Conservatives, Liberals, New Democrats and Bloc Quebecois members among them. Perhaps more than any issue in Canada, it is one where knowing the mind of your local MP is much more important than the policies of the party, because no party is going to come out as "pro-life" in the way Republicans do in the U.S. The real danger to abortion rights in Canada will come from issues that are put to a free vote, and the results will be different than a lot of people might suspect.

    No, the real danger is and always has been a Conservative government using the power of the PM's office to quietly fuck over women's rights behind the scenes, with no vote at all.

    You know, like exactly what's been happening.

  • darkphoenix22darkphoenix22 Registered User
    -- Deleted --

    darkphoenix22 on
  • RichyRichy Registered User regular
    Torso Boy wrote: »
    Well...exactly. This is why the abortion debate can't be brought up now: it's a pro-life government. If a private member's bill pops up, Harper's options are to allow a free vote which can easily have a bad policy outcome, whip the vote against and risk alienating a lot of his base, or whip the vote in favour and risk a significant number of swing voters, which will also have a bad policy outcome. The only options I think are plausible are the ones with bad policy outcomes.

    So in the sense that additional pressure would make Harper sweat and maybe even do irreparable damage to him, I'd like the issue to come up. But at the same time, any action taken by this administration is likely to make the situation even worse. Rock and a hard place.
    You know, that makes me think that a clear, black-and-white, "let's ban abortions" bill put to a vote would be a great thing. It would force Harper to actually take a stand and alienate either the moderates or the fundies in his party. I kinda wish one of his backbenchers would do that now (well, four years from now).

    RichyFlag.gifsig.gif
  • PhyphorPhyphor Registered User regular
    Some useful utilities in light of Harper's new Internet Surveillance Law:

    HTTPS Everywhere (Firefox): http://www.eff.org/https-everywhere

    KB SSL Enforcer (Chrome): https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/flcpelgcagfhfoegekianiofphddckof


    My Internet Privacy Platform: https://www.pirateparty.ca/forum/index.php?topic=898.0
    1. Mandating the use of https on every Canadian hosted website using freely availiable certificates provided by an arms length crown corporation (this same crown corporation could provide the keys for the Open DRM as well).

    2. Banning the use of behavioral advertising on all Canadian hosted websites.

    3. Promoting the use of the Tor network and proposing that the government provide free Tor relays (at arms length) to help spread democracy and freedom in the developing world.

    4. Promoting the use of Firefox add-ons like HTTPS-Everywhere (https://www.eff.org/https-everywhere) and Beef Taco (http://jmhobbs.github.com/beef-taco/) to protect Canadian privacy.

    You're proposing that the government that wants to do internet surveillance also do this? I don't think that's going to happen.

    From a technical perspective, mandating SSL use wouldn't even be feasible, even if there's enough CPU to actually do it, as setting up a connection isn't cheap.

  • AzioAzio Registered User regular
    Nova_C wrote: »
    Azio, what the shit? Are you seriously suggesting that without the registry we may as well stop all gun control measures?
    I'm saying with a majority the tories can do whatever they want. There are CPC MPs who oppose all gun control and think the entire Act should be repealed, not just the registry. If someone tables a PMB and enough of them get on board it could very well happen.

    Probably won't but it's a distinct possibility. Calm down.

  • saggiosaggio Registered User
    Azio wrote: »
    Nova_C wrote: »
    Azio, what the shit? Are you seriously suggesting that without the registry we may as well stop all gun control measures?
    I'm saying with a majority the tories can do whatever they want. There are CPC MPs who oppose all gun control and think the entire Act should be repealed, not just the registry. If someone tables a PMB and enough of them get on board it could very well happen.

    Probably won't but it's a distinct possibility. Calm down.

    I think you are overplaying your hand, here.


  • AzioAzio Registered User regular
    I'm sorry if I came off as alarmist fear mongering. I don't think it's all that likely. It's useless to speculate what the agenda will be, whether the crazy wing of the party will step up their demands, and how the PMO will react. I'm just saying it could happen.

  • TubularLuggageTubularLuggage Registered User regular
    Robman wrote: »
    As an aside to the Federal business of the day

    http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/will-metallica-strike-discordant-note-for-halifax-mayor/article2020198/

    Keep being awesome, Halifax.

    The promoter in question, managed to sell a grand total of 8000 tickets for the Black Eyed Peas.

    Yep, a platinum band, 8000 tickets.

    He's also arranged this concert such that no merch is sold. Yes, one of the most famous bands in the world is having a huge concert and there's no merch.

    Is this promoter a wizard or a sorcelator? How the fuck does he keep getting to organize AAA acts when he's a demonstrated cash sinkhole? Someone in Halifax is getting loaded off this guy's antics.

    To be fair, a lot of people in the HRM are pretty pissed off about this whole thing, and there's a good chance that the mayor will be voted out in the next election.
    I think the Greens got 10% back in '08 or '04, I forget which. People were voting much more strategically with ABC this time though.
    The ABC movement was pretty big in '08 as well. The Greens got 6.78% in '08, which is their highest percentage to date. This time around, they gained their lowest vote count and vote percentage since 2000, and yet they won a seat.

  • darkphoenix22darkphoenix22 Registered User
    -- Deleted --

    darkphoenix22 on
  • Edith_Bagot-DixEdith_Bagot-Dix Registered User regular
    shryke wrote: »
    Richy wrote: »
    Robman wrote: »
    Well chaps, that didn't take long

    http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/harpers-hard-line-on-arctic-softens-among-us-envoys-leaked-cables/article2019906/

    Harper's been quietly selling us out to the USA while grandstanding on military vessels

    http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/debate-is-on-as-thousands-protest-against-abortion-on-parliament-hill/article2020101/

    The Tory faithful are marching by the thousands on parliament hill, and the counter-protest was removed by the police.
    Honestly, neither of those articles are as alarming as you paint them to be.

    The first one simply says that Harper is more pragmatic in diplomatic talks than he is on the campaign trail. That's probably a good thing. The cables quoted show the US are concerned about Harper diverting Canadian military resources to the North away from "post-Afghanistan expeditionary missions", which sounds good to me, and mapping the undersea continental shelf to support Canadian claims. That actually sounds like the opposite of "selling us out".

    The second is an annual anti-choice protest that's been taking place on this date every year for decades; that it falls right after the election of a majority Conservative government this year is a bad coincidence. Calling them "Tory faithful" is a bit disingenuous given that they themselves are on record saying they have no faith in the Tories. And while I want to make clear that I am fully, 100% against the anti-choice agenda and this protest, it is not the police's job to take a political stance. Given a planned march for X, and a counter-protest against X (that kinda sounds like it was spontaneous?) leading to "argumentative confrontations", the cops have to maintain order and the counter-protest is the one that's in the wrong in this case.

    Limed for truth here.

    The Conservatives are certainly more likely than other parties to touch the abortion issue because they draw support from social conservatives, BUT the unofficial "pro-life" (sticking to the "pro" labels each side uses to describe themselves) caucus in the House has drawn its members from every single party. During the last parliament, you could find Conservatives, Liberals, New Democrats and Bloc Quebecois members among them. Perhaps more than any issue in Canada, it is one where knowing the mind of your local MP is much more important than the policies of the party, because no party is going to come out as "pro-life" in the way Republicans do in the U.S. The real danger to abortion rights in Canada will come from issues that are put to a free vote, and the results will be different than a lot of people might suspect.

    No, the real danger is and always has been a Conservative government using the power of the PM's office to quietly fuck over women's rights behind the scenes, with no vote at all.

    You know, like exactly what's been happening.

    I wouldn't disagree that this is what has been happening, but I think you are missing the point of what I'm saying. The PM and cabinet enjoy substantial ability to dick around due to the absence of abortion legislation, but they will always ultimately fall short of the objective of preventing the procedure. It might be difficult to the point of impracticality in certain circumstances, but that isn't the same as the procedure being illegal.

    If it was put to a free vote and passed (which I contend is more likely than some people think because there are pro-life politicians in every party), they could actually criminalize abortion, if they can craft the legislation in such a way that it doesn't contravene the Charter.

    steam_sig.png

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  • shrykeshryke Registered User regular
    shryke wrote: »
    Richy wrote: »
    Robman wrote: »
    Well chaps, that didn't take long

    http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/harpers-hard-line-on-arctic-softens-among-us-envoys-leaked-cables/article2019906/

    Harper's been quietly selling us out to the USA while grandstanding on military vessels

    http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/debate-is-on-as-thousands-protest-against-abortion-on-parliament-hill/article2020101/

    The Tory faithful are marching by the thousands on parliament hill, and the counter-protest was removed by the police.
    Honestly, neither of those articles are as alarming as you paint them to be.

    The first one simply says that Harper is more pragmatic in diplomatic talks than he is on the campaign trail. That's probably a good thing. The cables quoted show the US are concerned about Harper diverting Canadian military resources to the North away from "post-Afghanistan expeditionary missions", which sounds good to me, and mapping the undersea continental shelf to support Canadian claims. That actually sounds like the opposite of "selling us out".

    The second is an annual anti-choice protest that's been taking place on this date every year for decades; that it falls right after the election of a majority Conservative government this year is a bad coincidence. Calling them "Tory faithful" is a bit disingenuous given that they themselves are on record saying they have no faith in the Tories. And while I want to make clear that I am fully, 100% against the anti-choice agenda and this protest, it is not the police's job to take a political stance. Given a planned march for X, and a counter-protest against X (that kinda sounds like it was spontaneous?) leading to "argumentative confrontations", the cops have to maintain order and the counter-protest is the one that's in the wrong in this case.

    Limed for truth here.

    The Conservatives are certainly more likely than other parties to touch the abortion issue because they draw support from social conservatives, BUT the unofficial "pro-life" (sticking to the "pro" labels each side uses to describe themselves) caucus in the House has drawn its members from every single party. During the last parliament, you could find Conservatives, Liberals, New Democrats and Bloc Quebecois members among them. Perhaps more than any issue in Canada, it is one where knowing the mind of your local MP is much more important than the policies of the party, because no party is going to come out as "pro-life" in the way Republicans do in the U.S. The real danger to abortion rights in Canada will come from issues that are put to a free vote, and the results will be different than a lot of people might suspect.

    No, the real danger is and always has been a Conservative government using the power of the PM's office to quietly fuck over women's rights behind the scenes, with no vote at all.

    You know, like exactly what's been happening.

    I wouldn't disagree that this is what has been happening, but I think you are missing the point of what I'm saying. The PM and cabinet enjoy substantial ability to dick around due to the absence of abortion legislation, but they will always ultimately fall short of the objective of preventing the procedure. It might be difficult to the point of impracticality in certain circumstances, but that isn't the same as the procedure being illegal.

    If it was put to a free vote and passed (which I contend is more likely than some people think because there are pro-life politicians in every party), they could actually criminalize abortion, if they can craft the legislation in such a way that it doesn't contravene the Charter.

    You are compleletly missing the point though. The biggest threat to abortion rights has always been the feasibility of getting one, not the legality of it. Banning it altoghter might not even stand up legally.

    But you don't need to go that far or act tha boldly. You can easily destroy the practical ability to get an abortion without ever putting it to a vote. And that is and always has been the danger to abortion and women's rights in general. It happens quietly, behind the scenes where the public isn't watching.

    When you can't reasonibly get an abortion when you need one, it's legality is irrelevant. An up and down vote in the House of Commons is a red hearing.

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  • PhyphorPhyphor Registered User regular
    Phyphor wrote: »
    From a technical perspective, mandating SSL use wouldn't even be feasible, even if there's enough CPU to actually do it, as setting up a connection isn't cheap.

    <tech>
    Many of the new Intel CPUs support hardware accelerated AES encryption and decryption (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AES_instruction_set), although the performance penalty of HTTPS is only dramatic on enterprise websites on the server side. You can actually patch/configure OpenSSL to support this hardware acceleration.

    http://software.intel.com/en-us/articles/boosting-openssl-aes-encryption-with-intel-ipp/
    http://software.intel.com/en-us/forums/showthread.php?t=81149
    http://www.listware.net/201006/openssl-dev/123366-re-getting-openssl-to-use-special-intel-aes-hardware-on-westmere.html

    It looks like Ubuntu Lucid and Maverick, as well as CentOS/RedHat 6, include the patch for AES-NI out of box, though you may have to still configure it (use the last link above). Debian doesn't include the patch but you should be able to easily recompile the Ubuntu Lucid .deb for Debian Squeeze as they use the same version of OpenSSL (or just copy the /debian/patches/aesni.patch file from Ubuntu Lucid package sources to the Debian Squeeze package sources).

    https://launchpad.net/ubuntu/lucid/+source/openssl/0.9.8k-7ubuntu8
    </tech>

    Having a better Internet backbone would also greatly reduce the effects of any overhead introduced by HTTPS.

    Yes, I'm aware of the AES extensions, however that's only a noticable change when sending large files, which would normally be handled by a fast path (sendfile()), now has to be read into temp buffers first. But, that's not the big problem.

    The real cost of SSL is in establishment. For fun I just reloaded this page and noticed that 17 independent connections were initiated, 9 of which were to the PA servers (the rest I suppose are sigs/avatars). That would be 17 D-H key exchanges, with the much, much slower asymmetric encryption operations that need to be done to establish a link. For even more fun, the asymmetric operations are (even more) vulnerable to the same timing attacks that were one of the driving forces behind the AES extensions so libraries generally don't speed those up beyond a point as it can leak key bits if done wrong.

    Also, the backbone literally has nothing to do with SSL, the byte overhead of SSL is practically nothing, aside from a few extra bytes in headers or whatever and some control packets, fractions of a percent. The entire cost falls directly on the processors on the server.

    Now, your Tor suggestion... Tor involves indirect routing and effectively acts as a load multiplier - every packet you send out follows many more links than it otherwise would as it bounces around the network to mask the source. That would need a better backbone.

    Anyway, the technical stuff is beside the point; you can't realistically mandate that all websites are hosted using SSL. How would you enforce it? Where's the line? What defines a Canadian website? I don't have SSL configured on my webserver on the PC next to my desk at home, are you going to try to fine me or something?

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  • EgoEgo Registered User regular
    Or we could just, say, not have the government spy on our internet.

    Erik
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  • EgoEgo Registered User regular
    Right, whereas telling the kid to make a complex anti-cookie-stealing mechanism to stop said kid from stealing them works out super well.

    Erik
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  • EgoEgo Registered User regular
    :|

    This is not about how easy or hard it is.

    This is about how you think you're going to get the government that announced plans for warrantless internet surveillance to make internet surveillance impossible.

    You know the Cons won, right?

    Erik
  • PhyphorPhyphor Registered User regular
    Yes, it's certainly possible to change websites so that the overhead is quite small. But, this isn't a trivial task, in many cases often involving a change to how the underlying framework your site is built on that you may or may not have the expertise to modify. If you're Google, sure you can throw a few dedicated developers at it and get them to optimize it down, hell the devs would likely do that themselves for a challenge when they're bored. If you don't have the expertise to do it, you're screwed and have to buy a new server if the load gets too big

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  • PhyphorPhyphor Registered User regular
    Also, you know what. The government-owned CA (and seriously, a crown corp isn't going to resist the executive, even normal companies probably might not) can just issue duplicate certificates for every site to the government, then the government (after nationalizing the infrastructure for extra control!) does a MITM attack with the duplicate certs on every connection and bam there's no security left.

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  • EgoEgo Registered User regular
    OK,
    1. Mandating the use of https on every Canadian hosted website using freely availiable certificates provided by an arms length crown corporation (this same crown corporation could provide the keys for the Open DRM as well).

    2. Banning the use of behavioral advertising on all Canadian hosted websites.

    3. Promoting the use of the Tor network and proposing that the government provide free Tor relays (at arms length) to help spread democracy and freedom in the developing world.

    4. Promoting the use of Firefox add-ons like HTTPS-Everywhere (https://www.eff.org/https-everywhere) and Beef Taco (http://jmhobbs.github.com/beef-taco/) to protect Canadian privacy.

    Does not read like a private movement. Forgive me for thinking that when you're mandating, banning, and creating crown corporations, you're talking about the government. Oh, and I forgot 'the government providing free Tor relays.'

    Erik
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