Parents for Choice in Education endorse fundagelical jackass

In a move that I’m sure SHOCKED the regulars of my blag, Parents for Choice in Education (my all time favourite buddies and lobby group) signal boosted a hate preacher who despises the humanity of anyone who is not a straight, cis, white man!

Thus, under the heading, “Self-seen czar of the school system is out to mould a new Alberta,” Mr. Byfield accuses Mr. Eggen of “incomprehensible arrogance” and suggests he was being secretive about not stating the names of the people directly involved in the government’s extensive curriculum reform consultation.

“The minister gave three answers in a row,” Mr. Byfield wrote of a public forum on the review, clearly aiming for the impression Mr. Eggen intended to obfuscate. “First, there are ‘three hundred individuals’ involved in this revision. He could hardly name them all, and anyway some of them might not want to be publicly identified with it. Second, about a minute later: Actually ‘thousands’ of people were involved in it. Third, a minute after that, ‘thirty-two thousand’ people were involved in the revision, says the minister.” (I have taken the liberty of correcting a small typographical error in the original.)

Mr. Eggen may well have said something like this for the simple reason, without the Byfield spin, the numbers reflect the facts. To wit: About 300 people serve on the Alberta Education’s curriculum review panels. Most are teachers, although a significant number come from First Nations and other jurisdictions that use Alberta curriculum. In addition, approximately 32,000 Albertans have filled out the government’s curriculum, survey.

As for Mr. Eggen’s concern about the privacy of the individuals involved, this seems entirely justified on two counts: First, naming them is probably illegal under the privacy legislation the NDP inherited from the Conservative dynasty that ran Alberta for more than four decades. Second, participants in such a review risk being assailed by the unsleeping army of cross-border alt-right trolls that serves the same cause as Mr. Byfield.

Yes, apparently an anti-facts hate group clearly needs the support of an anti-facts hate preacher.

Obviously.

-Shiv

6 dead in Quebec mosque mass shooting

Last night, two masked gunmen entered a Quebec mosque during evening prayers and opened fire, killing six.

Two men were arrested after six people were killed and eight were wounded in a shooting inside a mosque during evening prayers Sunday, in what Quebec’s premier described as a “murderous act directed at a specific community.”

Thirty-nine people escaped the Centre Culturel Islamique de Québec (Islamic cultural centre of Quebec) in the Sainte-Foy neighbourhood without injuries, according to Quebec provincial police Sgt. Christine Coulombe.

Coulombe said the people who died ranged in age from 35 to 70. Some of the wounded were in critical condition.

One of the men was arrested near l’île d’Orléans, five kilometres from downtown Quebec City, following a police chase of the SUV he was driving.

Police called special technicians to where the chase ended, because they believed explosives may have been inside the SUV. Radio-Canada, CBC’s French-language service, reported a gun was found inside the vehicle.

Police are investigating whether the two men attended Laval University, a source close to the investigation told Radio-Canada. A search is underway at a home in Sainte-Foy.

This same mosque was targeted during Ramadan with a delivery of a pig’s severed head the summer prior.

I’ll post updates after the local vigil tonight.

It’s unclear if there were two perpetrators or not. So far one has been arrested and charged, the other was named as a witness and not a suspect.

At least one Quebec mosque shooter is a white supremacist. And he has been charged with all six murders and five additional attempted murders. Still no clarification on the initial reports of two gunmen.

-Shiv

Public input on DAPL now open — send letters!

The Environment Impact Statement from the Dakota Access Pipeline is now receiving public comments.

A standard pipeline EIS proceeds as follows:

  • Notice of Intent (official announcement of the EIS) is issued.
  • Scoping Period (public input on which impacts and project alternatives should be studied).
  • Army Corps drafts EIS document.
  • Draft EIS is published, and the public is invited to comment (on whether the report is complete or which alternative is best).
  • EIS is modified based on public comment.
  • Final EIS is published (possibly with another comment period).
  • Army Corps decides whether or not to approve a permit for the pipeline crossing.

Though the EIS process itself cannot deny the pipeline, the environmental information gathered through the process can be used by the Army Corps to deny a permit if the project is “injurious to the public interest”—in other words, if the project’s impacts outweigh its benefits.

One problem with that is past EISs have only looked at environmental impacts to the immediate project site and surrounding area (in this case, the sliver of land that the Army Corps owns and Lake Oahe). On the other hand, the Army Corps will be weighing those spatially-limited impacts against the overall benefits of the project, such as jobs and tax revenue.

If this seems like an unequal comparison to you, now is your chance to speak up and say so.

The EIS Notice of Intent was published in the Federal Register on Jan. 18. During the 32-day scoping period that began simultaneously, the Army Corps is reaching out to the public for input on which environmental impacts should be studied within the EIS, and what the alternatives to Dakota Access’ “preferred route” should be. Unlike the second comment period, this first comment period is solely to decide what the scope of analysis should be.

…

Send your public comments by Feb. 20 to:

Mr. Gib Owen
[email protected]

Subject Line: “NOI Comments, Dakota Access Pipeline Crossing”

Sample Comment:

Mr. Owen,

Thank you for the opportunity to comment on the Dakota Access pipeline crossing. I have grave concerns that the scope ignores key impacts that the Army Corps’ approval would cause, and that the “no-action” alternative, as proposed in the environmental assessment, does not constitute a realistic alternative.

The EA’s no-action alternative assumes that, if the pipeline is not built, the oil will be transported by truck or rail instead. This argument is flawed, however. The EA itself points out on page 5 that truck transportation is not realistic, and goes on to state that rail transportation would require massive infrastructure investments, far larger than any currently existing in the United States. For these reasons, the no-action alternative should assume that the oil is not extracted, as there will be no realistic way to transport it to the intended markets.

Additionally, the Council on Environmental Quality has directed federal agencies to evaluate projects’ direct and indirect, long- and short-term, and broad-scale greenhouse gas and climate change impacts through the EIS process. Approving this crossing would complete the project, allowing a flow of oil that, when all is accounted for, would have the same annual CO2 emissions as 29 coal-fired power plants. These emissions would have a significant impact on air quality, water quality, human health, and wildlife, and would not occur if this pipeline crossing was denied. Please evaluate these impacts as part of your review, in accordance with the guidance provided by CEQ.

Finally, I support your decision to include a thorough analysis of the effects of an oil spill on Lake Oahe and the people of Standing Rock. Even the strictest precautions today will wear with age, as we have seen with other projects where poor maintenance led to disastrous results. The impacts of a spill on the local population and environment cannot be discounted—a spill 30 years from now would be just as impactful as a spill on day one, and should be treated as a near-certainty in the requestor’s preferred alternative.

Thank you again, and I look forward to your inclusion of the project’s full impacts, as well as a no-action alternative that takes into account the infeasibility of other forms of oil transportation.

Read more here. And please consider contributing public comments on the nature of the project.

-Shiv

Alberta announces new Ministries of Children’s & Social Services

The NDP has announced the formation of two new ministries–the Ministy of Children’s Services, and the Ministry of Community & Social Services.

“All children deserve to be safe, secure and happy. We want to support our most vulnerable children and ensure they never go to bed hungry or scared. Today’s announcement means we will have more resources and more attention dedicated to taking care of our children and our communities. Minister Larivee will provide thoughtful, compassionate leadership as she works to fix our child intervention system. Minister Sabir will continue with the very capable leadership he provides to his ministry, which has been suitably renamed “Community and Social Services.” I welcome Shaye Anderson to the cabinet table, I know his ample community engagement experience and enthusiasm for rural Alberta will ensure his success as he navigates his new role.”

Rachel Notley, Premier

This is following accusations from the Wildrose–not entirely unfair in their nature, for once–that the state of our child welfare system was pretty abysmal.

It seems Rachel Notley is undoing Klein’s legacy.

-Shiv

It’s the future: Non-browning apples

Today I learned about polyphenol oxidase, an enzyme apparently responsible for the browning of lettuce and apples upon exposure to oxygen.

Then I learned about a set of Golden Delicious apples that have been genetically modified to reduce their production of polyphenol oxidase, allowing them to go three weeks in exposure without browning–an industry standard previously met with additives.

Carter reduced the enzyme polyphenol oxidase to prevent browning when apples are sliced, bitten or bruised. The apples match the industry norm of not browning for three weeks after slicing but without using flavor-altering, chemical additives that the rest of the fresh-sliced apple industry uses.

Golden Delicious, Granny Smith and Fuji varieties have been approved by the USDA and Canada. An Arctic Gala could be approved in 2018. Only Goldens and Granny Smiths have been planted long enough to produce fruit in commercial quantities by next fall.

Read about the summary here or the full post here.

It’s the future! Do me next!

-Shiv

Julie Bindel is not a woman

Content Warning: Virulent TERFy trans-antagonism

I imagine I would be rightly discredited if I spent my entire career honing in on Julie Bindel and publishing defamatory essays justifying my frankly bizarre obsession with whether or not Bindel counts as “a woman.” Yet antagonizing trans folk is still so politically palatable that you can do exactly that and still achieve success. On no other topic can I imagine it is possible to have columns on both The otherwise-queer-friendly Guardian and the misogynistic half-fake conservative rag The Daily Mail.

Yes, that’s right, an essay comparing trans women to serial killers and rapists was published on The Guardian, a supposedly progressive news site. Somehow Bindel has mastered the art of making transphobia look simultaneously progressive and reactionary. It’s Schrodinger’s Bigotry, if you will.

Nonetheless, there are vast tracts of Bindel’s career dedicated to obfuscation and false equivalency. In her wake virtually no productive conversation on trans issues will prevail, because she kicks up enough dust that all you can do is cough. And the Working Class Movement Library in Salford, UK, decided this was who they wanted to represent their “LGBT” History month.

I’m not going to try and appeal to Bindel or her supporters–their “feminism” is little more than a gangrenous limb that refuses to fall off. Nor is this post meant to be a direct response to Bindel’s work–a quick search for “criticisms of Julie Bindel” produces hundreds of posts responding to Bindel’s nonsense.

Instead, I’m going to issue a very straightforward question for the WCML:

Do you have the integrity to be honest and rename your event the AFAB, Lesbian Separatist, Cisgender Supremacist History month? Because not even lesbian separatists want anything to do with Bindel’s particularly virulent strain of bile-spewing done in the name of “feminism.” Certainly bi folk and trans folk–you know, the “B” and “T” in your initialism–do not in general support their own defamation through bigoted talking piece Julie Bindel. So why on Earth is Bindel your “LGBT” speaker if she represents a highly specific, extremely hostile iteration of lesbian separatism that aggressively alienates the other letters?

Oh, right. “Freeze peach.” Just not for the B and T, apparently.

I’m starting to feel at this point that the only argument anti-rights advocates can muster on this topic is that it isn’t literally illegal for them to state their position. Somehow it doesn’t occur to anyone that this is the flimsiest, saddest defence one can imagine for a position. But Julie Bindel will carry on doing the patriarchy’s work and calling it feminism, and there’ll be no shortage of venues simply handwaving away criticism as “sensitivity.” More dust, less talk, and a lot of trans people struggling to cope with the stress knowing that the wrong conservative crusader could pick up these ideas and try to legislate us out of existence.

-Shiv

 

Jason Kenney is literally just making shit up this time

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Progressive Conservative leadership hopeful Jason “I don’t get caught up in the details” Kenney went to Twitter to express outrage about the provincial government’s tax plan and how it was ruining the economy because it made taxation high.

The problem with Kenney’s claim? Well, one of those pesky details he can’t be bothered with is that the New Democratic Party have a tax scheme that is still lower for all tax sectors than the Progressive Conservative posterboy Ralph Klein’s.

One wonders how taxes are “ruining” the performance of the Province which still has the lowest taxation rate in the country, even taking into account our new carbon tax.

Oh, and that “ruined economy”? Still the strongest in the country.

Can’t let pesky facts get in the way of our sabre-rattling, though. Governments don’t need details! And neither do pundits! That’s why all the papers say the province will fall apart, any second now!

-Shiv

Alberta political roundup

Trinity Christian, the private school that was caught cooking its books by the NDP, have had an administrator appointed to manage their finances while the RCMP conducts its investigation concerning allegations of fraud.

Professional douchebag Fred Henry, a Bishop in Calgary infamous for typical Roman Catholic Church douchebaggery, has resigned from his post. He accused the NDP of breathing “pure secularism” …and meant it as a bad thing.

Progressive Conservative supporters continue to cite the NDP’s progressive income taxation and vice taxation as primary reasons to oppose the NDP. Except both policies were also on the PC agenda. Oops.

The Progressive Conservatives have announced no findings of wrongdoing within their own party following the allegations of harassment by former moderate leadership candidate Sandra Jansen. Never mind that they investigated themselves. Move along folks, nothing to see here.

Brian Jean still has no idea how he’s going to “Unite the Right,” but it’ll be good, he pinky-swears.

-Shiv

Only in Canada: “Albertan takes Zamboni through Tim Hortons drive-thru”

Shit Albertans do:

Many Canadians have faced this predicament: “should I stop for Tim Hortons on my way home from work?” Sometimes, the quick warm-up is all you need to start the rest of your day.

But when most people consider the detour to Tim Hortons, they aren’t driving a Zamboni.

Jesse Myshak was at work in his shop in Stony Plain on Tuesday with his new ice-surfacing machine, which he bought to flood his rink in his backyard. He was working on it in the shop, and it was ready to be put to work at home.

There was only one problem — home was a couple kilometres away.

Luckily, there was a solution. “I figured I’d just drive it home,” Myshak told CBC News. After deciding to make the trek, the ball started rolling. “Guys at work were kind of laughing after I was driving home, [they said] to drive through Timmies and get a coffee,” Myshak said.

And that’s exactly what he did.

Myshak, on top of the uncovered Zamboni, moved at the speed of a crawl down the streets of Stony Plain, much to the delight of passersby. But the level of Canadiana increased tenfold when he crept his way into the Tim Hortons drive-thru.

“People started running out of the Tim Hortons,” he said, adding they were taking photos and videos of his unusual method of transportation.

He ordered a hot chocolate, and when he inched his way to the window, the Canadiana level went off the charts. “The lady in front of me actually bought the hot chocolate for me,” Myshak said. “The staff told me it was the most Canadian thing they’ve ever seen, so they all had a good chuckle.”

And, the cherry on top — the Zamboni was perfect height to receive his hot chocolate out the window.

Canuckistan.

-Shiv