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The cost of health care around the world Boing Boing.

Apparently people aren’t very happy with Obama. They elected some Rebuplican nut in a typically very Democrat state, or so I’ve heard. I think Dr. Dawg summed it up pretty well:

We have minority governments in Canada that govern like majorities. Obama had–and still has–a legislature with a rock-solid majority of Democrats in both houses, but he’s governed as though his party were in the minority.

…

Obama was sent an ultimatum by the electors in one of the most liberal states in the union. It wasn’t: please compromise more. It wasn’t: don’t forget to track down all the nuances before you make the slightest move.

We wanted accessible healthcare, they said. You handed the legislative process over to a gaggle of conservatives, and ended up with two patchwork bills that promise a windfall for insurance companies.

We wanted an end to ceaseless war that drains our resources and kills our young men and women, they said. It’s not stopping terrorism. But you sent a whack more troops off to Afghanistan instead–clutching the Nobel Peace Prize as you did so.

We wanted no more torture and extra-Constitutional measures and atrocities, if only because our country is getting a black eye over them. But Guantanamo is still there, a year after you took office. Prisoners may have been murdered there, and the cover-up is happening on your watch. The Blackwater killers in Iraq got off after your Justice Department threw the case. And you have embraced the same notion of Executive privilege that shielded your predecessor from Constitutional restraints.

We wanted a recovering economy and appropriate punishment for the Wall Street malefactors who did our country infinitely more harm than the terrorists. Instead, 2009 was the Year of the Bonus for the very people that got us into the recession in the first place. Bonuses that we effectively paid for ourselves with bailout money.

We wanted change. We got the same old, same old, same old, same old.

Yes, we’re pissed off enough to put a homophobic Cosmo nudie with a taste for waterboarding into the Senate. Did that get your attention?

I think Obama lost his lustre quite a while back. Will he actually do something after this warning shot? Knowing politicians – hell no.

Well, here’s a great demonstration video (very cool!) via Respectful Insolence:

So here’s a bit of an interesting rant by Clay Shirky on gender differences in assertiveness:

And it looks to me like women in general, and the women whose educations I am responsible for in particular, are often lousy at those kinds of behaviors, even when the situation calls for it. They aren’t just bad at behaving like arrogant self-aggrandizing jerks. They are bad at behaving like self-promoting narcissists, anti-social obsessives, or pompous blowhards, even a little bit, even temporarily, even when it would be in their best interests to do so. Whatever bad things you can say about those behaviors, you can’t say they are underrepresented among people who have changed the world.

Now this is asking women to behave more like men, but so what? We ask people to cross gender lines all the time. We’re in the middle of a generations-long project to encourage men to be better listeners and more sensitive partners, to take more account of others’ feelings and to let out our own feelings more. Similarly, I see colleges spending time and effort teaching women strategies for self-defense, including direct physical aggression. I sometimes wonder what would happen, though, if my college spent as much effort teaching women self-advancement as self-defense.

The comments are very interesting (at least the first few I have read – I’ll have to go back when I am not so pressed for time). danah boyd posts some on her own blog:

Growing up, I loved to debate. With anyone. My debating tone used to drive my mother batty because she thought I was yelling at her. Exasperated, I would often bark back that I was simply debating. Over the years, I realized that my debating tone is one of such confidence that people believe me to be stating facts, not opinions. My mother interpreted it as yelling; my classmates interpreted it as arrogance. I also began to realize that it was the same tone as that of my male peers. I never apologized for my opinions, never deflated them with “I may be wrong but I think…” I asserted. Confidently. And loudly.

Why am I telling you this? Clay Shirky’s “A Rant About Women” has provoked all sorts of conversations in the blogosphere and on Twitter. And Tom Coates rightfully pointed out that one interpretation of Shirky is the problematic encouragement of self-promotion and lies. While a lot has been said on this topic, I feel the need to speak up and say more. Because, as I said, I’m loud.

This is a great list of events & articles showing the Conservative’s anti-democratic moves. A very small excerpt:

CONTEMPT FOR ACCOUNTABILITY
Ottawa moves to block detainee-transfer hearings [2008]
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/world/article722656.ece

Redactions hamper Afghan detainee probe [2009]
Unreadable documents make meaningful inquiry ‘almost impossible’ and reflect government efforts to keep record a secret
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/redactions-hamper-afghan-detainee-probe/article1383375/

Ottawa won’t release Afghan documents
Harper government says it will not comply with Opposition motion passed by Parliament, setting stage for legal battle
http://www.thestar.com/news/canada/afghanmission/article/737634–ottawa-won-t-release-afghan-documents

Tories to ignore vote on releasing prisoner reports
http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/story/CTVNews/20091211/afghanistan_motion_091211/20091211?hub=TopStoriesV2

Parliament in showdown with Harper government over Afghan documents
http://www.cbc.ca/cp/national/091211/n1211113A.html

Tories refuse to release uncensored documents on Afghan detainees
http://www.montrealgazette.com/Tories+refuse+release+uncensored+documents+Afghan+detainees/2330193/story.html

Tories force shutdown of hearing on torture [2009]
Opposition blasts boycott as whistleblower readies rebuttal to Ottawa today
http://www.thestar.com/news/canada/afghanmission/article/739427

(via Dawg’s Blog)

Via Dawg’s Blog, I heard of this episode of abuse by rent-a-cops:

Scott and Diane Robinson are livid with the Walmart store in Barrhaven and think apologies to their daughter Sydney and a friend, both 14, are in order for holding them for six hours over an unfounded shoplifting allegation.Police didn’t lay charges or even speak to the girls, according to Diane Robinson. She says once police finally arrived at the Walmart at the Barrhaven Market Place, they stayed fewer than three minutes. Diane says an officer talked briefly to store security and then to her to explain what the store was alleging. She says the officer left it at that before leaving.

An apology? How about a wrongful imprisonment suit? [Local cache of informative legal note: False Imprisonment]

Scary commentary from Dawg’s Blog:

Under Harper we have seen what I have referred to before as a veritable war on watchdogs. Blatant political interference in the workings of supposedly independent agencies–the CNSC, the SSHRCC, Elections Canada–is almost the order of the day. High-handed ministers of the Crown, acting more like princelings than representatives, have been actively involved in exiling Canadian citizens and more recently defaming and scapegoating an upstanding public employee and the respected charitable organization KAIROS-Canada.

Democracy in this country, always a stitched-together affair, is under increasingly serious threat, all hyperbole aside. As I have noted recently, this downward slide did not begin with the Conservatives: Pierre “Just watch me” Trudeau set the tone, and Jean Chrétien centralized all meaningful power in the PMO, ruling the country with an iron fist and the odd burst of pepper-spray.

But Harper has taken this trend through a quantum leap in four short years. His contempt for democratic process is never far below the surface. And now, once again, Parliament–Canada’s supreme elected body–is about to be flicked away like a mosquito.

We’re watching political accountability and responsible government melt away before our unbelieving eyes. As one commentator noted not long ago, “The Prime Minister is now in such command that he can get away with pretty much anything. And he is lauded for his conquests.”

Well, with increasing police powers & stories of their excesses circulating more and more in the media, being aware of the rights you do have when dealing with them is important. The Flex Your Rights video “BUSTED” (US-centric, but UK / Canadian law is similar enough that it’s worthwhile watching) has always been an excellent source for this. Now via BoingBoing, I learn that they’re putting out a new video – 10 Rules for Dealing with the Police. Not out yet – will post something again when it is released!