This Just in: Stephen Harper is an Asshat

Just when I was sitting around lamenting that I can't participate in the American presidential election... it looks like Canadians could be subjected to another federal election of our very own sooner rather than later. The reason? Conservative Party leader Stephen Harper is an asshat.

You see, the last Canadian federal election (you know, the one we had about three months ago?) ended with the Liberal party in a minority government position. This basically means that if all the other parties got together in the House of Commons, they could vote down anything the Liberals tried to pass... including the upcoming Throne Speech which essentially lays out the government's plans for the fall session of the House. Now, if that were to happen, it means that the government is automatically deposed, and another federal election is called immediately. To repeat, Stephen Harper is an asshat.

Raw Like Sushi

I haven't had sushi in, like, five months because I have to drive four hours to Halifax to get it. Both of the grocery stores in downtown Fredericton sell over-priced bento, but the quality is sub-par at best. I'm seriously considering taking the train from Moncton to Halifax sometime in the next few weeks to get my fix.

Lucky for me, lawmakers in Nova Scotia aren't as misguided as their counterparts at the Ministry of Health in Toronto: as of September 1, it's illegal for Ontario restauranteaurs to serve fresh, raw fish to their customers -- it's gotta be frozen for a while first to kill rare but dangerous parisites (despite the fact that there has never been even one reported case in Ontario of someone getting sick from eating tainted sushi).

Good News... For Real This Time

Regular viewers of Destitute is the New Black! may remember the closure of the RMH call centre in Oromocto at the end of last month. Some 700 people were thrown out of work, in some cases whole families found themselves with no means of support (other than the traditional alternative).

Today, a Big Government Announcement brought word that a new centre will be opening at the former RMH site. The centre will hire its first staff this week and within a year, 600 jobs will be created. Which is awesome news for most of the laid off RMH telemarketers, not to mention the town of Oromocto. It's good news for me, too... not because I want to work at a fucking call centre, but because that makes the competition for shitty minimum wage mall jobs far less stiff. Hooray for corporate welfare!

Cross-posted at Destitute is the New Black!.

Queering the Deal

About an hour ago, Nova Scotia became the sixth Canadian province or territory to determine that banning same-sex marriage is unconstitutional. Nova Scotia is the first province in the Atlantic region to give the stamp of approval to gay marriage, but hopefully the neighbours will smarten up and follow suit sooner rather than later.

The Geeks Shall Inherit the Earth

75% of Portland-area Klingons are voting for John Kerry in the upcoming American Presidential election. However, the remaining 25% aren't Bush-supporters -- they're voting Satan (but that's really just splitting hairs if you ask me). These statistics were gathered as the result of an informal poll of eight Klingons awaiting the DVD release of the documentary Trekkies 2 at a PDX Tower Records location... and given what we've recently learned about the methodologies of various polling companies, this seems just as plausible as any stats you hear on CNN.

In conclusion, Hegh Daq Bush!

American Government Has No Plans to Reinstate the Draft... For Now

The man with whom I live in sin is an American citizen, and it tears me up inside... you have no idea. Nevertheless, I still get worried when I hear murmurings from the American government about reinstating a draft. Luckily, that's not gonna happen, according to the Selective Service System -- the US government agency in charge of keeping track of young men aged 18 to 25 (read: the Draft Board):

Notwithstanding recent stories in the news media and on the Internet, Selective Service is not getting ready to conduct a draft for the U.S. Armed Forces -- either with a special skills or regular draft. Rather, the Agency remains prepared to manage a draft if and when the President and the Congress so direct. This responsibility has been ongoing since 1980 and is nothing new. Further, both the President and the Secretary of Defense have stated on more than one occasion that there is no need for a draft for the War on Terrorism or any likely contingency, such as Iraq. Additionally, the Congress has not acted on any proposed legislation to reinstate a draft. Therefore, Selective Service continues to refine its plans to be prepared as is required by law, and to register young men who are ages 18 through 25.

Well, that certainly should put our minds at ease... provided, of course, that we're able to overlook the fact that right now there are two bills before both the American Senate and House of Representatives which aim at reinstating a military draft (Senate Bill No. 89 and House of Representatives Bill No. 163, respectively).

On a related note: thanks to the Smart Border Agreement, hauling ass up here to Canada isn't an option for those trying to avoid being forced into military service. My, how times have changed.

Here's some more bedtime reading for you: the abstract from a Pentagon memo regarding the reinstatement of a military draft (scheduled for June 2005), alegedly obtained by a member of the Whitehouse press corps.

Lies, Damn Lies, and Poll Results

I don't know about you, but when I read statistics like these, I get downright nervous... and who the fuck are these "likely voters" the pollsters keep referring to anyway?

"Likely voter"-related skewing aside, it turns out that I need not worry as much as I have been when I hear that Bush is leading in the polls. Know why? Because pollsters don't ask cell phone users. There are some 169 million cell phones in the United States. That's a lot of people who aren't being asked who they're voting for. More specifically, that's a lot of people under 30 not being asked the Big Question... dare I say, more than enough to swing the results away from The Dark Side?



That's what I thought.

Not Too Tough to Die

Johnny Ramone, original guitarist for the seminal punk band The Ramones, died on Wednesday of prostate cancer. He was 55.

Pink Slips A-Plenty!

Nackawick, New Brunswick is a small town about 65km west of where I live. It's home to the world's largest axe. Seriously, you can't make that kind of stuff up:



However, as of yesterday, Nackawick is also home to 400 laid off pulp mill workers. Another way to put it is to say that nearly half the town's population is now out of work. And they're understandably pissed.

So pissed, in fact, that as I type this the workers are illegally occupying the plant and ain't goin' nowhere until they get answers from the owners (New York-based Parsons & Whittemore, a company who posted revenues of over a billion dollars US in 2002) as to why the mill was closed without warning. And good on them, I say. Cue Rage Against the Machine's "Take the Power Back"...

Cross-posted at Destitute is the New Black!

One more reason to move to Vancouver

My friend Tanya moved to Vancouver for school not long ago. I'm really jealous, and not just because it has a first rate public transit system and those pretty mountains to look at. It's also the most pot-friendly town this side of the Atlantic. Sure, the cops bust Da Kine Smoke and Beverage Shop once in a while, but it's not enough to stop them from selling pot on a menu like they do in Amsterdam.

Not that I smoke much pot anymore. Unlike when I was in high school, nowadays it seems to make me either really paranoid or just puts me to sleep. Not much fun at a party if you ask me, so I tend to avoid it. Besides, why go to all the trouble of showing up on the doorstep of a shifty friend of a friend of a friend who may or may not have pot to sell when there's two liquor stores within a 10 minute walk of my house? Then again, if there was a shop in my town that sold special brownies, I'd be all up in that.

One more reason NOT to move to Alberta

Every time I talk to my mom, she tells me that I need to get the fuck out of the maritimes (my words, not hers). "You could stay with one of your cousins in Toronto while you look for work, or go to Calgary. I heard there's lots of jobs out there that they can't fill". My argument against the move to Calgary (besides the housing shortage that dwarfs even Fredericton's) is that Alberta has a bizarre habit of spawning nearly all of Canada's most conservative politicians... Preston Manning, Stockwell Day, Deborah Grey, Stephen Harper... they all came from oil-producin', beef-eatin' Alberta. Plus, the guy running the place likes to get drunk and yell at homeless people. It's the Texas of Canada. I'd be afraid of getting lynched, really.

I wasn't aware, however, that Alberta is also home to the lowest minimum wage in Canada at a dismal $5.90/hr. Damn, I thought for sure that it would be one of the Atlantic Provinces, what with our culture of defeatism and the poverty and what not.

Let's do some math: If you work full time for minimum wage in Alberta (and let's just assume that you're lucky enough to work at a job where you get 40 hours each and every week), you would make $236 each and every week. That's before taxes, of course. So probably closer to $200 a week, which works out to $10,400 a year. Yeah, that's reasonable. It beats the heck out of living on welfare I suppose, but if you've got a kid or two, or (like me) have an obscene amount of student debt to pay off, it's just. not. enough.

Mimimum wage is supposed to increase accordingly based on inflation rates. One of the factors that economists use to calculate inflation is the retail costs of certain things, like food, gasoline, and cigarettes. I've always thought that a fair minimum wage is equal to the price of one pack of brand-name cigarettes. Of course, by this standard, the minimum wage in New Brunswick should be hovering around $10/hr, and that would be downright crazy.

Hey Buddy...

It seems that the Province of New Brunswick can, indeed, spare a dime. You see, the minimum wage in NB will be increasing from $6.20 to $6.30 on January 1, 2005. Kick ass, now I can buy that newspaper I've been saving for. Or I could... if I had a job at all.

Cross-posted at "Destitute is the New Black!".

Introductions

Eventually (sooner rather than later, really) this will be a news and current events blog, mainly because I have determined that there aren't nearly enough of those.