New Media and Politics - Easy To Be Complacent

 

On a slow-news Thursday in Canada, you might be inclined to skip the headlines and let it all slide. After all you're busy. There's a weekend to plan for... hell, there's a whole summer to plan for! Surely you take can a couple of days off from paying attention and let things take care of themselves.

 

Sadly, that's seemingly never how it goes anymore. There's hardly a day where they don't try and sneak something past. Today, Canadian politicians were talking about a continuing role in Afghanistan for Canada past the 2011 pull-out date. Here I was absolutely positive I had read Canada's forces were getting out in 2011, no matter what. Having already made our contributions to the NATO effort, and in spite of what the Americans want us to do.

 

Our PM, busy visiting 10 Downing Street today, took the time to take a shot at the opposition saying that "losers don't get to form coalitions." Seems a bit shrill considering it's all speculation at this point, and in light of polls showing Tory support hovering at a whopping 31.7 %!

 

Here in Montreal our constabulary once again breaks the public trust and raids compassion clubs. It's terribly important that medical marijuana doesn't fall into the wrong hands. Good thing no one was playing dice or they could have ended up dead.

In Canada's north, Arctic sea ice on pace to reach record low levels this year. Another sign of anthropogenic climate change can be found in this Science Daily article on ocean acidification. Maybe it's time to talk about sustainability and some of the tough choices we need to make. Too bad it couldn't get done at Copenhagen back in December.