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c-440 help wanted, take two

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The War Resisters Support Campaign has distributed our entire first printing of 5,000 postcards . Hopefully we'll receive a large percentage of those back, signed. Now we have a fresh batch of 5,000 typo-free postcards ready to make their way around Canada. Can you take 30 cards, get them signed, and return them to us by March 31? 25 cards? 10 cards? Every single card counts. Many US war resisters in Canada are at risk for deportation back to the States, where they'll face court martial and prison time. Stephen Harper and Jason Kenney would rather kiss up to the US military than allow Canada to be a haven for people of conscience. This is a pretty easy way to get involved. Check out our postcard campaign , and if you want cards, email me: movetocanada at gmail.

iwd: fighting for women is fighting for us all

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Monday, March 8, is International Women's Day . It's a celebration of the power of women, and a reminder that the status of women, both globally and at home, is a battle that still needs fighting. I usually post a historic perspective on this day . This year, as I started to gather information, I realized that next year is the 100th anniversary of IWD ! In Toronto, IWD is a celebration of women's historic - and current - role in the fight for justice: for labour, peace, personal freedom and security. The march, rally and fair is today.

unredacted documents = the smoking gun

Stephen Harper, you can run (which you did), and you can hide (which you did), but not forever. Federal government documents on Afghan detainees suggest that Canadian officials intended some prisoners to be tortured in order to gather intelligence, according to a legal expert. If the allegation is true, such actions would constitute a war crime, said University of Ottawa law professor Amir Attaran, who has been digging deep into the issue and told CBC News he has seen uncensored versions of government documents released last year. "If these documents were released [in full], what they will show is that Canada partnered deliberately with the torturers in Afghanistan for the interrogation of detainees," he said. "There would be a question of rendition and a question of war crimes on the part of certain Canadian officials. That's what's in these documents, and that's why the government is covering up as hard as it can." I don't usually just regurgitate...

pogge: shorter opposition

Pogge: Shorter opposition parties . God I hate these spineless Liberals! If I wanted a one-party government, I would have stayed in the US fercrissakes.

"injurious" to whom? to the conservative party, of course

The federal government has asked a former Supreme Court of Canada judge to review whether there would be "injurious" effects if some Afghan detainee documents were made public. I have no doubt that releasing the documents would have injurious effects. On this Prime Minister Stephen Harper and I agree. The effects could be catastrophically injurious to the Conservative Party of Canada. Therefore: dissemble, impugn, mock, deny, cover, stall, prorogue, censor, obfuscate, obstruct, smear, refuse, redact, dismiss. Invoke "national security". Repeat as necessary.

rip al weisel, aka jon swift

I was so saddened to hear that a man many of us knew as the blogger "Jon Swift" has passed away. As a blogger, Jon Swift wrote a hilarious, dead-on, brilliantly satirical, fake conservative blog with the memorable tagline: I am a reasonable conservative who likes to write about politics and culture. Since the media is biased I get all my news from Fox News, Rush Limbaugh and Jay Leno monologues. As a person, he was warm, inclusive and unerringly compassionate. Jon Swift was well known for his " Blogroll Amnesty Day ," where, in response to some of the more famous blogs jettisoning unknowns from their link lists, Swift would add anyone and everyone to his. Each year, he would invite readers to submit their favourite post from their own blog, and would post a huge round-up of everyone's self-selected best-ofs. Years later, I still get traffic from those posts. Jon Swift's real name was Al Weisel. He truly will be missed. I offer my heartfelt condolences to hi...

advice needed on erroneous parking ticket

Last week I parked at what I thought was a Toronto Parking Authority "Green P" lot, but apparently is a lot operated by a private company called Imperial Parking , or Impark. The machine appeared to take my money (credit card payment) but did not print out a receipt. This had happened to me once before at the same lot, and I learned that I was supposed to call the phone number on the machine. I tried to do so, but couldn't get through. I left a note on my dashboard saying that the machine wasn't printing receipts. When I came back, I had a ticket. I called Impark the next day, and was told that, since I was already on record as having had a ticket cancelled, and at that time had been informed to call from the parking lot, they would not cancel the ticket. However, since I paid by credit card, when the payment showed up on my statement, I could fax the statement to them and they would accept it as proof of payment. I found this very annoying. Their machines don't w...