Why Canada is now the United States

Our conservative government has tabled legislation that is aimed at stopping child pornography.  Part of this law would require ISPs to cache information that could later be called upon by police (in some cases without a warrant) to track online activity with the intent of stopping child pornography.

This raised some issues with privacy.  In defending the bill Vic Toews (Safety Minister) told a liberal MP that you are either with the government or with child pornographers. 

My friends we have officially become the United States.   One may remember after 9/11 that any attempt to question whether the new regime was a good thing was met with the refrain - "your either with us or with the terrorists". Now I think that child pornographers are probably more reviled than terrorists by most people so maybe Canada is in fact now worse than the United States. 

I want to take a moment to think about what is going on here for a minute.  We are going to ask Internet Service Providers to cache all of our online activity (including financial information, bill payments, private communications) so that if necessary the police can view it.  Am I the only one who sees a big glaring problem with that?  Rogers can't get my cable bill right two months in a row - but they are going to keep my information secure?  What about hackers?  Seems like a little problem to me.

Also, what about just respecting my privacy.  All I hear from people defending this is that child pornography is bad and if I don;t have anything to fear why would I object to the information being kept.  This is the stupidest argument I have ever heard.  Guess who else makes that argument - police states.  The point is not that I have to justify why I deserve privacy.  The norm is privacy.  In order to get a warrant there is a requirement on the police to justify why they need to disrupt this norm.  To put it another way - why have any requirements for warrants, or due process or even curtains.  You have nothing to hide right?

Have we forgotten the G20? 

By making it a binary choice between giving up right to privacy and "siding with the child pornographers" the conservative government has made it so that law abiding citizens have to take sides in a fictional debate.

Itis exactly what George Bush did during his term. 

The real consequences of global warming.

I was watching the Superbowl on Sunday and one of the highlights for me besides the game and the food is the commercials.  Even in Canada we get new commercials. 

Although I don't get to see the one where Clint Eastwood's tells America that the current economic crisis is halftime and they need to rally in the second half.  If the current economic crisis is halftime, isn't it likely that by the end of the game (which I can only assume is the Rapture) the other team (who I can only assume are the terrorists/bankers) have ended any doubt and have turned a large halftime lead into a bone-crushing victory.  God may want you on that floor, but real life miracle comebacks are few and far between.

That said we did get a new commercial for a car.  The commercial features a polar bear walking through the streets until it comes upon a man and rears up.... only to give him a big hug.  Because (you see) he is driving an electric car.  Electric cars are good for the environment and thus the polar bears love you if you drive one. 

This seems somewhat unrealistic to me.

I think we should all think about this from the polar bear's point of view.  First off, these annoying humans are heating the planet leaving me and my friends trapped on rapidly shrinking ice floes.  Then they get all up in our business and are always filming promo ads/documentaries.  Then they co-op our identity to sell cars (with the vast majority of the models that are sold adding to the fact that the ice floes are melting).

If I am a polar bear, I am not hugging anyone.

Instead, I am mauling the shit out of every human I see.  That commercial would have been so much better if the polar bear rose up and proceeded to eat the car driver.  Then the words "Brought to you by Polar Bears - we will kill you. P.S. we drink Pepsi."

I think we are on the verge of animals restoring order to the world. We all need to be vigilant.  The signs are there.

Last year, a whale took out its trainer at sea world: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oyZqq_1hXus.  The sheriff says no indication of foul play.  The whale is LITERALLY a killer whale.  The cops really need to get there act together on this.  I for one am constantly watching my back for the ever present threat of a whale jumping out and squashing me.

If the whales no longer want to jump through hoops and the police won't protect us, we need to take matters into our own hands.

I for one will be watching the squirrels in my neighbourhood very carefully.  They are clearly the masterminds of the coming revolution.

Only Wu can prevent racism.

I am now finished American Horror Story season 1, Louie Season 2 and It’s Always Sunny In Philly, Season 7. 

Quick hits:

American Horror Story:  It is so cheesy, but so good.  I literally tried to explain what it was about to my wife’s best friend and my description of the plot was like something out of an 8 year old’s mouth.  There’s this house and its haunted.  There are ghosts, but you don’t know what the ghosts are at the beginning.  There’s this maid who is a ghost, but they don’t know she’s a ghost and she looks both young and old.  Oh and there’s other dead people too and they can’t leave the house and there’s this thing with babies and Satan and the black Dalia and murals and gazebos and cheating... It was agreed it was more fun to have me try and explain it then to actually watch it.  I kept on saying it was all very clear when you were watching.  In retrospect it probably wasn’t.  But it was good scary fun.

Louie Season 2:  This is my new favorite show.  Louie C.K. basically said to FX give me way less than other people get for a show.  But – here’s the caveat... I get to give you the show and you don’t get to change anything.  The result is a very personal show that when it works is amazing.  It reminds very much of Woody Allen at times in that it is very surreal.  Plus the stand up is awesome in the show.  This show is a can’t miss. 

AWSIP7: Solid.  Never fails to make me laugh.  I appreciated that Mac actually gained 50-60 pounds just so his character could gain “mass”.  That is commitment. 

Now I am back to Deadwood Season 2 which I abandoned mid watch to watch these.  Something about Deadwood is making hard for me to finish.  It is good, but it is uninteresting.  Except for Wu.  He is the best.  Wu is literally the head Asian in an old west town on the lawless frontier sometime in the past (the fact that I can’t even give you a decade shows you that I am not your phone a friend when it comes to history).

Wu works as a butcher of pigs and has a relationship with the saloon owner (Al Sweringer) where he literally serves as the disposal outlet for the dead bodies that pile up at the saloon.  They are fed to Wu’s pigs.  The awesome thing about Wu is he actively tries to communicate with Sweringer about what is going on in the camp when he learns information about what people are planning.  The only English words he knows are Sweringer, Wu and Cocksucker.  The scenes between the two are hilarious because both earnestly try to communicate but often there are misunderstandings.

One such misunderstanding has to do with Sweringer trying to understand why there are suddenly other Asians in the camp (they are working for a rival saloon owner).  Wu knows they are there, but can’t communicate it to Sweringer very well.  Sweringer wants to understand what “juice” the Asian has (i.e. what backing he has).  Wu thinks he means Jews and hijinks ensue.   The scene might be one of the more offensive scenes on TV as it simultaneously offends both Asians, Jews and I guess women (as I think one of the people being eaten by the pigs is a whore who was killed for no reason).   That being said this was America circa I don’t know (see above).  I imagine that this level of racism is probably historically accurate. 

It does remind me of my interactions with my some of my wife’s family.   My wife’s grandparents consists of me smiling waving and them saying Tiiiiiiiiiiim and nodding.  Evidently my name sounds like “wealthy” which is good luck and the totality of our communication.  I sometimes broaden our communication by naming dim sum items in Chinese.  

I sometimes wish that I had a need to communicate with them like Wu and Sweringer have because then we would get to know each other better. 

I would also learn whether the barbecued pork they bring for dinner comes from man-eating pigs.

Maybe ignorance is bliss.