And yet, it isn't even April 1st...

...not that I didn't do a doubletake, just to make sure.

Apparently, the U.S. military, buying into every possible stereotype about sexuality, consided building a gay bomb. Yes, that's right. The idea is that the bomb would go off, spraying a chemical on soldiers, who would then start snogging each other on the field. And voila, no more fighting.

The Ohio Air Force lab proposed that a bomb be developed that contained a chemical that would cause enemy soliders to become gay, and to have their units break down because all their soldiers became irresistably attractive to one another," Hammond said after reviwing the documents.

Although, it's almost a shame it doesn't actually work like that. I can think of a few U.S. government officials I'd like to spray the compound on.

More than this, what is there to say really? It's so indescribably moronic, that it has to speak for itself.

The notion was that a chemical that would probably be pleasant in the human body in low quantities could be identified, and by virtue of either breathing or having their skin exposed to this chemical, the notion was that soliders would become gay," explained Hammond.

Collective Bargaining now part of Charter rights

Now this, it must be said, is huge. Union leaders are indescribably happy, and on the one hand, you can't blame them.

"This is a huge victory for both health care and health-care workers because the Supreme Court of Canada said that Bill 29 violates the freedom of association protections in the charter, which cover the right to free collective bargaining," said HEU president Judy Darcy.

"In particular, the Supreme Court said that the denial of the right to negotiate around the issue of contracting out in health care was unconstitutional," she said.

On the face of it, I agree. You can't just set aside an agreement like the Campbell Liberals did. But there are two other considerations.

1. We're big supporters of public health care in these parts. But there are certainly issues of sustainability to consider. Sometimes contract workers are going to be able deliver services more cheaply. I'm not interested in the whole system going down the tubes over union intransigence.


2. It is no stretch to imagine right-wing governments "opting-out" of said charter right. Sure, they have to redo it every five years. But I like the fact that there is serious political cost to doing this now. Familiarity, it must be said, breeds contempt.

Personally, it seems past obvious to me that union interests are not 100% synonymous with progressive ideals. *shrug* It's more that we dislike the same people. And I say this as a member of two different unions. Plus, reality has to enter into this somewhere. We're already haemorrhaging manufacturing jobs. Does this make Canada any more of an attractive locale? Surely, some jobs are better than regressing entirely to hewers of wood and drawers of water.

Meanwhile, on the other side of the pond...

...the Conservatives kick Bill Casey out of caucus for voting against the budget. Liberals and NDP have a field day in parliament about it, especially considering Peter Mackey promised not three weeks before that "We will not throw a member out of caucus for voting his conscience. There will be no whipping, flipping, hiring or firing on budget votes as we saw with the Liberal government.” Predictably, the blogsphere is losing their collective minds about it. How amusing!

Don't get me wrong. I get why the Conservatives did this. That's the story in a parliamentary system-- you vote against your own party in a confidence vote and you should expect nothing less. Casey has been around long enough to know this. I mention it more because of a quote in the Star article I linked to-- ""They don't stand a chance in the world," Liberal Senator George Baker from Newfoundland told reporters, speaking about the Conservatives' prospective fortunes in Atlantic Canada."

Again, I pray for the day. You have to think the Cons weren't too smart about this, for all that it fits perfectly with parliamentary procedure. If they'd just swallowed it (The budget passed that particular vote by 158-108) its a dead issue. But now, everyone is talking about the broken resource promise again, the Tories look like scoundrels, and Casey looks like a hero. Now I don't think he's much of a hero-- I mean, he was in the party for 18 years, back to the Mulroney days. Plus, he's probably figured that Cons are, indeed going to get creamed in Nova Scotia (NDP/Liberal split, with perhaps Elizabeth May sneaking past-- I mean, look how chipper she is "the Conservatives will see first hand in the next election the public backlash against the government's decision to renege on the accord.")), and is positioning himself to run as a Liberal in the next election-- something, I note, Dion has already said will be just fine by him. Nor do I forget the results in Newfoundland (100% Liberal) and Saskatchewan (NDP are the big winners here). So yeah, not looking so good for Harper these days. Yay!

As an aside, I listened to part of CBC's The Current this morning before I crawled out of bed, and they had Val Meredith (ex-Alliance type), Copps and a prof named Keith Brownsey. Copps was her usual inarticulate self, but Brownsey just made mincemeat out of Meredith. It was an utter joy to listen to him eviscerate her (note: requires Realplayer) when she told the audience that the American Congressional system was superior to the Canadian system. Not that I don't get frustrated with party discipline myself on occasion, but the Alliance always tends to be knee-jerk about this worship-America stuff, as if the Yanks don't have problems of their own with every Congressman appending riders to bills to support their pet causes. If Meredith loves them so much, she can bloody well move to Montana.

Go Sir Bob!

I don't usually comment about foreign policy on here (ok, who am I trying to fool? "Usual" doesn't exactly describe my interaction with this blog), but this morning, I caught a CBC piece on the G8 meetings in Germany, featuring anti-poverty activist Bob Geldof. Earlier this week, Geldof criticized Canada for failing to meet foreign aid targets in Africa. I can't link to his comments, but I thought he was both powerful and politically astute in his comments. In a five minute interview, he spent about 40% of it praising Canada as an amazing place. But then he announced he was confused at how "weird" the Canadians were being, by refusing to allow concrete numbers to be put into the G8's statements on aid. "What's happened over there?" he wanted to know. "The Canadians are behaving very differently than the ones I knew so well."

Of course, he's not stupid. He knows that these are mean ol' Conservatives not nice Liberals. This is why it's politically astute-- because Canadians know this is a different bunch of guys as well. And here we have this internationally known figure, criticizing their politics, and siggesting that 'it's not really us' over there. They're weird. (And as an aside, the article I linked to explains exactly why they don't want concrete numbers that show the changes in aid over the year in any document).

Well Sir Bob, I agree. They are weird. They've got troubles at home (see above) and troubles on the road. Mayhap they will be put out of their misery sooner rather than later.

Post Script

Despite several denials by Harper, Bono and Geldof specifically targeted the Conservative leader at the end of the week.

I said some years ago that the world needs more Canadas, and I meant it," Bono said. "I can't believe that this Canada has become a laggard. I think he's [Harper's] out of sync with the people."

"A man called Stephen Harper came to Heiligendamm," added Geldof. "But Canada stayed home."

Harper's trying to put a brave face on it true. As I laid out above, Geldof accussed Harper of trying to block specific numbers being inserted in draft agreements. "The allegations are false," said our fearless leader yesterday. To which Knight-errant Geldof (He is "Sir Bob" after all) Geldof called Harper a liar.

"I don't care what [Harper] says — I saw in the papers they denied this — they actively blocked other governments putting real figures on the communique," said Geldof, who didn't explain how he got that information.

I dunno who is or isn't lying, but I applaud the two for their devotion to the cause, not the mention the embarassment caused the Conservatives. I may buy a Boomtown Rats CD in celebration.