Happy Canada day! Hope everyone is going to be able to celebrate!

And Happy Anniversary to TNA.

Fundraising and US politics...

Billions and Billions of dollars, its a fucking industry now.
Advisers, advisers for their advisers, and then the support staff and general hangers on.
Everyone wants a peice of that pie.

How many people make a living, a  very good one off of fundraising for politicians?

How many average Americans send in money they can ill afford, in the hopes that it will make a difference in their lives when the next election comes?

Im not saying which life, if you noticed. It could be the next one if the current state of affairs is any indication.

Joe Comuzzi has crossed the floor.
Its no big surprise, and I think he will fit in much better on the conservative side of parliament, as hes sided against Canadians in quite a few debates and votes in the house in the last few years.

He voted no on Same Sex marriage for instance.

He voted yes on the Softwood Lumber agreement that the Conservatives capitulated to.

He also Pledged to support King Harper the Conservative budget.

July 1st is coming up, and we all know what that means?

TNA has been up for a year!...Oh, and its Canada Day too.

I was thinking it would be kind of fun for everyone to nominate their favorite Diary from this year (self nominations are perfectly cool in this instance)

Best series?
Funniest snark?

Pick up to three maybe?

And then everyone can peruse them and we can hold a later vote, maybe through a poll.

A Canadian UN worker Bert Tatham, who has been in the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan working with the Citizens of that country to help them get away from the Opium crops, and to find an alternate means to support their families has been abandoned by his own country.

For countless Afghan farmers, it is also an economic necessity. Without the proceeds of opium gleaned from their annual poppy crop, they would starve.

The Western response has been contradictory. Sometimes, U.S. and allied troops turn a blind eye - particularly if friendly warlords control the crops. Sometimes, they make enemies of local farmers by destroying their poppy fields.

Tatham was engaged in the far more useful task of encouraging Afghans to grow something else. It was a risky, slow and frustrating job that involved travelling throughout the dangerous south.

Well, we all knew it was coming.

The Canadian No fly list.

These lists have been under enormous debate in the US the last few years, the usual incompetence of the Bush Admin shines through in so many areas. But this one in particular.......

Edward Allen's parents say there is no way their son's a terrorist. He doesn't own a gun and has no allegiance to a foreign government. On top of that, he's only four years old.

And by all accounts, Edward is a typical four-year-old child.

Boy, 4, has name show up on TSA watch list

Well, not only has the rest of the world realized that the Neocons are in power in Canada, but it looks like Canadians are finally realizing it too...All those campaign promises were, promises in the dark...Made to keep us in the dark at any rate.....

"Canada is part of a group of countries where citizens have a sense that services have lagged in the past few years," said the report by international consulting firm Accenture. "We have praised all of these countries in the past ... yet somehow they have let service flag in the eyes of citizens."

The annual report, which compares levels of satisfaction with the services provided by governments in 22 industrial countries, found that more Canadians feel services provided by their national government have not improved, or have deteriorated.

Harper government loses Canada's gold-medal standing for providing services to citizens

Todays post is brought to you by the letter B

Crossposted at the Big Orange

This just gets more and more entertaining. As P2P said in the comments: So Sue Me

This week Bill Casey was turfed from the Conservative caucus, his crime: Supporting the constituents that voted him in.

Whipping and flipping

McKay promised that MP's would be allowed to vote as they feel they should. "no whipping flipping, hiring or firing"

Unless we say so.

Of course it isnt really unexpected, the Harper Conservatives have flip flopped, back tracked, and broken so many promises that I really think they should all be contortionists with a travelling circus. (Some would argue that they already are)

Hey kids. Been a while eh?

The Harper Index

A new site has been online for several weeks and I wanted to bring it to everyones attention...

HarperIndex.ca is product of the Golden Lake Institute, a new non-profit institution with incorporation and charitable status pending. It is managed by the online newsmagazine Straight Goods and produced by a collaborative partnership that was founded by Straight Goods and the National Union of Public and General Employees (NUPGE or National).

If you are reading this message on June 6 or 7th, you have probably accessed this site by the url thenextagenda.scoophost.com.

We are stuck in the middle of a screwup between our registrar and the registrar for Canadian domain names.

Due to that cock up the domain name has been suspended until further notice.

If you have friends who have stopped you on the street and asked you if you know what happened to The Next Agenda, please pass this temporary addy along.

When I'm dancing close to her
"Blinding me with science - science!"
I can smell the chemicals
"Blinding me with science - science!"
"Science!"
"Science!"

The Conservatives are constantly denying things like.....Science and data.

They can't even program a Fax machine if one beleives their story....

In our current installment of The Kindergarten Red neck-Government Jamboree:

A senior Conservative senator says the dysfunctional upper chamber should be "blown up" because the large Liberal majority, acting too often as judge and jury, has brought the Senate to an all-time low as a political body.

"This is an incestuous place which should be blown up," an exasperated Terry Stratton, who acts as whip for senators on the government side of the red chamber, said in a telephone interview from Winnipeg.

Well, the BC MLA's are at it again. They are attempting to give themselves a full 29% raise. 54% for Campbell...

The B.C. Liberal government's caucus has decided to accept a major increase in politicians' salaries, ranging from a 29-per-cent hike for MLAs to more than a 50-per-cent jump for Premier Gordon Campbell.

The decision, which would hike an MLA's salary to $98,000 and more if they carry out extra services, puts the New Democratic Party Opposition and the B.C. Liberal government on a collision course.

Liberal caucus approves MLA pay hikes

I always think that the way to gauge how a society is doing, is to look at how we treat the helpless and the handicapped, how we take care of our children, and finally; how we treat our pets.

Last Friday, the Ontario SPCA found a German shepherd-Rottweiler puppy named "AK" whimpering on a Windsor, Ont. balcony with its ears cut off.

According to a report in The Globe and Mail an anonymous phone call led investigators to the balcony of an apartment building where the dog was crying and pawing at his ears.

Ontario plans to review animal cruelty law