All the sordid details here – in the Sun.

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Seen in this poorly-written Chronicle-Herald story: the Conservatives want to create a criminal offence prohibiting “the non-consensual distribution of intimate images.” That’s a good thing, and it’s long, long overdue. Rehtaeh Parsons’ Dad, who has worked tirelessly to push for this change (and more), deserves the Order of Canada for his efforts.

(Why is the story poorly-written, you ask? The snotty use of the word “alleges” – as in, “Her family alleges the 17-year-old was sexually assaulted at a party in November 2011 and then relentlessly bullied after a digital photo of the alleged assault was distributed.”

That allegation has been made by the police as well as the Crown, not just the family.  And that’s why two little creeps are facing criminal charges.)

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I don’t have one.  In fact, I don’t give a rat’s ass, and I plan to say so on Sun News in an hour or so.

The so-called “consumer focus” that everyone’s buzzing about, North of the Queensway, could not possibly be more irrelevant, as we are now hours away from the first-ever default by the United States of America.

The U.S. Treasury Department says a default would be catastrophic, and it would be – there and here.  Credit markets will freeze, interest rates will soar, (sluggish) economic growth will fully stop, and our close trading relationship with the U.S. will ensure we are thrown back into recession. A worse one than the last one.

Remember Lehmann Brothers in 2008? That single firm’s default commenced a downward spiral that led to a global recession.  So if the U.S. government defaults, the consequences will be a lot worse, wouldn’t you say?

Today’s Throne Speech is fiddling while Rome burns. It’s a joke.

Train your eyes South of the border. Washington’s the only capital that matters, today.

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Like someone promised I would be. I wonder what happened? I’d packed my toothbrush and everything.

Anyway, if Mr. Bourrie is successful in sending me to the slammer, I expect y’all to send me cards and letters, to help me pass the time in the big house.

Hell, you could send nice letters to Mr. Bourrie, too, while you’re at it.

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One of my great loves, for the past while, is Massachusetts/Virginia Fat Wreck Chords band Smoke Or Fire.  I love these guys, and I sometimes feel like no one else has heard of them.  Couldn’t sleep last night, and so ‘1968’ was playing on an endless loop in my head.  Here it is – plus Joe’s amazing lyrics – in the hope it gets a spot on your own internal turntable.

The tension in the air is swelling like a bubble about to break
Students have shut down universities and taken to the streets
The DNC has left Chicago burned and frayed

Cover your eyes
You think America’s recovered from the self-inflicted wounds it took in 1968?
Still Corretta led his people through the Memphis streets
In spite of the nightmare that was made out of a dream
[x2]

Young men sent overseas, their names are in a lottery that kills
There are social clashes, body counts, and rioting on TV screens
A bullet put another Kennedy to sleep

Cover your eyes
You think America’s recovered from the self-inflicted wounds it took in 1968?
Still Corretta led his people through the Memphis streets
In spite of the nightmare that was made out of a dream
[x2]

So why this disconnect in our youth after 40 years?
Peace, tried and failed, while the radio played “As my guitar gently weeps”
Where’s the rage in the young towards war and hatred based on race?
The CIA silenced “The people’s new messiah,” and now history repeats

Are we so blind to see this country hasn’t changed?

Cover your eyes
You think America’s recovered from the self-inflicted wounds it took in 1968?
Still Corretta led his people through the Memphis streets
In spite of the nightmare that was made out of a dream

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Here.

Media probes of Ford crack-smoking were ethical and responsible, says press tribunal. But you already knew that.

UPDATE: I’m never a fan of her approach – here, the “I-oppose-the-Press-Council-but-let-me-quote-the-Press-Council-to-you-because-they-did-something-I-like” – but the Star’s crown coddled columnist wrote something about all this that I found quite useful:

“Mayor Ford has no shortage of acolytes, ardent supporters who not only want to cover their own eyes to serious allegations but everyone else’s too. Deaf, dumb and blind on Ford is what they’d prefer — a mayor who counts druggies and bullies as close friends; was photographed outside a home described by neighbours as a crack house, in the arm-around company of three men, one of whom was subsequently shot dead, two who were arrested in the massive Project Traveller drugs and guns raids; told his inner circle, according to Star sources, that he knew where the video — the video he says doesn’t exist — might be found; has been caught appearing three-sheets-to-the-wind in public; and has been under surveillance by a police plane.”

That paragraph is a neat and tidy summary of the disgrace that is la famille Ford. If I get involved in the next mayoralty – and that’s only if my hoped-for candidate runs – I will do my utmost to ensure that every single voting Torontonian knows the above paragraph like the back of their proverbial hand. I want the hulking, shambling mass that is Rob Ford to slouch back to the rock under which he lives in Etobicoke every night, and cry like a baby – weeping, destroyed – in front of his thug-brother. I want him humiliated, because that’s what he’s done to this city.

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Always late to the party, I just spotted these: me, Davey Snot and Lala onstage with the Palma Violets at the Grove Fest in August.  Pix by Atsuko Kobasigawa.  Cool.

We look like a “Christian rock” band to you?

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Right now, lawyers are crowding into a Toronto courtroom for a fairly extraordinary hearing.  They are there to gain access to a nearly-500-page police ITO (Information To Obtain) that led to a search warrant.  The ITO apparently contains the name “Rob Ford” more than 100 times.

You may have heard of Rob Ford.  He’s the Mayor of Toronto, and his personal driver apparently used drugs to get back Ford’s cell phone:

“According to police documents obtained by the Toronto Sun, Lisi was allegedly offering to swap a pound of marijuana [Ed. – With a “street value” of $3,000+.] for the return of an associate’s cellphone. That associate is Mayor Rob Ford, a source told the Toronto Sun.

“(Lisi) has close ties to the Mayor and the question is what else is in the search warrant materials that sheds any light or any connection the Mayor may have to this guy who has been charged?” MacKinnon said.

What will be the outcome of the hearing, and discussions with the Crown? We shall see.  But my prediction is that Ford’s involvement with criminals will occupy a lot of folks in a lot of newsrooms this week.

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Poking through the electoral entrails, looking for the federal angle, editorialists and opinion-opiners always assign far too much importance to (a) byelections, and (b) provincial elections.

It’s ill-advised, because (a) byelections are lousy predictors of future general-election voter behaviour, and (b) in Canada, federal and provincial political parties generally share only their names.

There is, for instance, absolutely no connection — zero, zippo, zilch — between federal and provincial Liberals and Conservatives.

Alison Redford and Stephen Harper? Christy Clark and Justin Trudeau? They are, respectively, Conservatives and Liberals who have nothing in common, with the possible exception of mutual disdain.

There is one political party, however, that is the same party federally and provincially: The New Democrats. In Ottawa, and in places like Nova Scotia, they are one big, happy social democratic family.

Well, sort of. Last week, of course, the NDP’s first government east of Ontario had its keester kicked, hard. New Democrat Premier Darrell Dexter, once a shining star in the federal NDP firmament, saw his majority government reduced to ignominious third-party status in the Nova Scotia legislature. And he lost his own seat.

There are all sorts of reasons why the Liberal’s sober, solid Stephen McNeil won big. Dexter said he wouldn’t raise taxes, for example, and he did. He said he had a budgetary surplus when, by most accounts, he didn’t. And he gifted the Irvings — one of the country’s richest families — with $300 million in Nova Scotia tax dollars, in addition to a multi-billion dollar federal ship-building contract.

All of those things hurt. But by my reckoning, there was something else that hurt the Nova Scotia NDP, too. And that was that their federal leader was Thomas Mulcair, and not Jack Layton.

Jack Layton possessed the rarest of political assets: He was much-liked and, in some cases, actually adored.

He was a genial, easy-going guy. And he was federal leader when Dexter was elected in 2009. Everywhere Jack went in that year, he cast a warm orange glow over New Democratic fortunes.

His successor, however, could not be more different. Angry Tom, Mulcair is called, because he is. Humourless, pitiless, bloodless: With his patrician beard, and his irritated disposition, Mulcair has unmade all of Layton’s good works.

The NDP could not have picked a leader more unlike Jack Layton if they tried (and they did).

Mulcair did not go anywhere near the Nova Scotia election campaign. Justin Trudeau did, however, and provincial Liberals say he helped them win plenty of seats.

The likeable Conservative leader, Jamie Baillie, trumpeted his connections to Stephen Harper everywhere he went, and he wasn’t punished for doing so — he, in fact, will now be leader of the Opposition in Nova Scotia’s legislature.

It isn’t hard to feel some sympathy for Darrell Dexter. He tried to be a businesslike New Democrat, in the Roy Romanow mould. For his trouble, he alienated his own base, and he never achieved the trust of the Halifax-centred business community.

On election night, as he surveyed the wreckage that was his party, Dexter deserved condolences, not contempt.

Thomas Mulcair? Well, New Democrats picked him, and they shouldn’t have. Soon enough, they are going to rue their choice, both (a) federally, and (b) provincially.

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