SOPA, PIPA, ACTA, C11 and all the other letters and numbers they can throw at us be damned! The Net’s Not Gonna Change

To paraphrase Micheal Corleone’s only noteable line in Godfather III: “Just when we thought we were out, they pull us back in!” I had to paraphrase it because I wouldn’t dare embed the YouTube clip these days and am even a little skittish about a direct quote from such a heavily copyrighted film. Yes, we all know that SOPA and PIPA got shelved in the US, thanks in large part to sites like Wikipedia going dark for a day and showing everyone just what a heavily censored and regulated internet might be like. But that doesn’t mean they’re done for good…

From Ottawa With Love: A Radio-Friendly NDP Leadership Debate

Since the Kennedy-Nixon debates of the 60s, politics have been almost all about what the candidates look like, and how they hold themselves on camera. Sure, what they have to say…

Some people never change: Tremblay evicts Occupy Montreal

You know when you dislike someone and then they go and do something really cool and you start thinking that maybe you’ve misjudged them? Inevitably, they go back to their old ways and you realize that nope, you were right about them all along and you kick yourself for doubting your preconceptions. That’s exactly how I feel right now about Montreal Mayor Gerald Tremblay and I doubt I’m the only one. For weeks, Tremblay kept a drastically different tone than the mayors of other major cities with an occupied public space. Following the 1am commando-style raid…

The Arab Spring meets fall in New York, but you won’t find #OccupyWallStreet on TV

BREAKING NEWS: New York City is under occupation and has been for a few days. You’d think that would be breaking news, wouldn’t you? Even if it’s not the whole city, just the financial quarter. And even if it’s not an invading army, but people upset with the way their own country is running things (in this case, the economy). After all, domestic upheaval in Egypt and people occupying a public square in Bahrain was headline news all around the world just a few months ago, wasn’t it? Come to think of it, the lack of media coverage of the Occupy Wall Street protest is just like the Arab Spring. State controlled media completely blocked the protesters’ side of the story…

Remember 9/11 but don’t forget the rest

Ten years ago I was working the night shift in a call centre. I had been up kind of late the night before and a phone call before 9am was not what I wanted, but it’s what I got. My initial reaction to news of a plane hitting the World Trade Center was blunt: “Yeah right, Jerry, I’m trying to sleep.” But he insisted that he wasn’t joking and that I turn on the TV…But he insisted that he wasn’t joking and that I turn on the TV. After a bit of groaning, I left my bed that I had only reached a few hours prior, went into the living room…

I want my TV for free, just like it used to be

We all know those people. The kind that proudly don’t own a TV, don’t need one and don’t want one. I know people like that and I sympathize. I agree that TV can be an intrusive presence and a real conversation stopper, not to mention it’s a medium dominated by corporate advertising which I despise.

Still, I never counted myself among those ranks because there is something mind-numbingly pleasing about watching a good show, even a cop show. Yes, this anti-authoritarian, anti-corporate activist likes him some CSI.

We also all know people who feel that owning a TV is…

Let’s play the CPCCA game, you only have to give up your freedom of speech

Well, the freedom to speak out, protest and criticize injustice just got a whole lot more complicated in Canada. The Canadian Parliamentary Commission to Combat Antisemitism released its report and to the surprise of almost no one, it opted to pretty much redefine criticism of Israel as anti-Semitic, instead of proposing ways to deal with real instances of antisemitism…

Putting the few before the many: why Harper hates the arts…

“The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few.” Spock, Star Trek II. But when the few control everyone’s cash, their needs seem to predominate. Unfortunately that’s what’s happening in Canada these days, at least when it comes to arts funding. Two recent stories, the Sun News interview with Margie Gillis and what happened to SummerWorks, paint a pretty bleak picture of what might be on the horizon in the next four years of a Harper majority…

Our human right to public space: How the UN doesn’t go far enough on the Internet

Access to the Internet is a human right. At least that’s how the UN sees it. I see it that way, too, but I don’t think the UN goes far enough. The UN report, which deems cutting people off from the Internet to be a violation of their human rights and of international law, seems to be mostly concerned with stopping dictators from blacking out the Web in times of civil unrest (think Egypt and Syria) and preventing countries from…

Tales from the Fringe border, or Why can’t we all just work together?

The Infringement is a festival dedicated to using art to challenge oppressive structures, and having fun while doing it. It was designed to capture the spirit of the original Fringe, lost when the festival started charging artists several hundred dollars to perform and…

Rapture regrets and accomplishments

If you’re reading this, you’re a godless heathen who has been left behind. I’m either at the top of Mount Royal with enough provisions to last me a few days or out looting. After all, I did say I’d attend post-raputure looting on Facebook and we all know to say one is “attending” something on Facebook is a sacred trust. Yes, the rapture happened yesterday at 6pm eastern, according to various people online and some guy who already predicted it would happen once before and that’s good enough evidence for me to write this post in advance and head to the hills. While I’m sure the next seven years of planetary destruction…

It was the perfect storm until the shit hit the fan: 2011 Canadian Election Results

By all accounts, this looked like it was going to be an election that would really change the political map in Canada, and it was. It looked like some political careers would be over, and a slew of new MPs would come to Ottawa. That happened too. It looked like an unstoppable wave would sweep through Quebec, then head west and not stop until we had a new Prime Minister with a new vision for a better Canada, and that’s exactly what happened – at least, the first part happened, then something went wrong, really wrong…

You Have Nothing to Fear But What I Tell You to Fear: New Candidate Enters the Election Race!

In case you haven’t heard or seen the signs up, there’s an election coming up in Canada May 2nd. A bunch of my colleagues here on the site will be covering it and offering their opinions over the next few weeks. Makes sense that I do the same, right? That’s what I thought. Until I saw this ad via Facebook. (loose translation: the Liberals and the Bloc are leaving the door open to illegal immigrants, fortunately we have Stephen Harper and the Conservatives) I guess you could say that it really inspired me. So simple. So basic. So to the point…

Crime at the Anti-Police Brutality March…and it’s not what you think

I’d like to report a crime. It happened during the Anti-Police Brutality March in Montreal last Tuesday. I’m not talking about breaking windows or anything so violent. Instead I’m talking about a crime that is a dire insult to the people of this city. The crime is littering. In particular, horseshit. Horseshit left on the ground in the brand-spanking new Quartier des Spectacles…

Let’s all do some Charlie Sheen and talk about five news stories you may have overlooked

Okay, I give up. I’ll do it. I’ll drink the same Kool-Aid that the rest of the media seems to have swallowed and write about Charlie Sheen. I’ll pretend for a minute that the actor’s self-sparked saga is more important than anything else going on right now and drink. Actually, forget the over-used…

BREAKING NEWS: Stephen Harper admits he is a cyborg sent here to kill us all!

In what some are describing as the most brazen move of his political career, Prime Minister Stephen Harper admitted in a Parliament Hill news conference earlier this evening that he is, in fact, a cyborg from another planet sent to earth many years ago to get on the airwaves and slowly bore the populace to death.

“I felt that I had to come clean,” Harper told the stunned Ottawa press corps, “I mean, after all, transparency in government is…