Artists who don't want to sue 12-year-olds

The Canadian Music Creators Coalition is an organization formed by singer-songwriters and recording artists from Canada who are concerned about the repeated legal action against file-sharing fans. Basically, they say that the music labels pursue legislation against file-sharing because they don’t understand or wish to accept what the digital age of music means, and they are unwilling to adapt to accommodate the new economy. Also, when a record company says they are doing it to protect their artists, that’s mostly a load of bull.
An article about its inception and who’s in it is here.
A discussion about file-sharing from the artists perspective is here.

Chinese Google

Perhaps you have heard that Google has opened up a new website called google.cn. This google search engine is for specific use in China. They've done this before in other countries, usually as a way to open up a local server to make Google run more efficiently (or something like that, I'm not an internet wizard). Unfortunately, to start this site they had to agree with the Chinese government to censor the search engine. There are plenty of bloggers who have tested this search engine, comparing what comes up with the regular Google and with the Chinese one, and shown that the censorship is obviously political in nature (ironically, you can google those bloggers and see for yourself. I wonder if those bloggers would show up on the Chinese site).

I do not advocate censorship, especially if it's the government trying to silence or hide dissenting opinion. However, it is worth reading this post on Google's own blog, outlining their reasons for allowing this to happen. They make good points, but I'm not entirely convinced that it's for the best. And not to sound all paranoid, but if their main site was having major difficulties in China, is it possible that the government had something to do with that?

Battling Cystic Fibrosis

Cystic Fibrosis (CF) is a hereditary disease that affects how the body’s cellular walls impede the transportation of salt. Although this sounds elementary, such an inhibition actually affects breathing, digestion, and mucus production. Forty years ago, most CF sufferers passed away before growing old enough to attend first grade; now the average life expectancy is over 30. I’m participating in a walk-a-thon on May 28th and plan on raising one million dollars. Yes, one million dollars! Please help me reach my goal (I’ve been taught to set the bar high). If you want to donate or you wish to participate, please let me know, or get in touch with the foundation itself (there’s a link there to the right).

How'd They Vote?

I have found the best Canadian political website ever. How’d They Vote? is devoted to the goal of complete political accountability. The site shows the statistics of each member of Parliament, the transcripts of debates they’ve been involved in, how they voted for each bill, and even if they were present for the vote. The full bills are available for viewing as well, because sometimes bills are voted down due to semantics instead of good intentions. And votes outlined in red signifies that the MP broke the party line, meaning you can see how much of a rebel your MP really is. Three Liberals told their party to screw off 25 times each! Guess which two MPs were in the top 10 for absences? Yep, Paul Martin and Stephen Harper (74 and 54, respectively). The Conservatives had two MPs (David Chatters and Darrel Stinson) who were absent for over 120 votes! Although to be fair, a couple of Conservatives battled cancer, so that was probably them.

My previous post was about Maurice Vellacott. According to this site, Maurice voted: FOR a bill to limit crossing the floor (switching parties); FOR bill C-28 (allowing the sale of agricultural items with over the legal limit of harmful substances if the Health Minister approves it); AGAINST same-sex marriage; AGAINST a bill to reduce student loan bankruptcy from 10 years to 2 years; FOR the increase of parliamentary salaries in accordance to private sector salaries; AGAINST a bill for loosening government red tape on not-for-profit organizations; AGAINST a bill recognizing self-government for the Tlicho in the Northwest Territories (this ties in nicely with my last post); AGAINST a bill giving greater protection to children from child pornography and stiffer sentences for pedophiles, plus new criminal codes regarding ‘voyeurism’; and AGAINST a bill giving protection to whistleblowers in the public sector (people who go public with wrong-doings and get fired because of it).

I think it’s safe to say that I have issues with some of these stances. This site is great, because now you can keep track of what your MP is actually doing.

One Vellacott of a Guy!

I’m kinda jumping on this subject a little late, considering Maurice Vellacott has already announced that he is resigning his proposed position of Chair of the Committee on Aboriginal Affairs, Northern Development, and Natural Resources. It seems to me that most of the hub-bub was over his remarks about the Chief Justice’s judgments, and not so much over his support of Saskatoon police officers who dumped Aboriginals on the outskirts of town. But the Aboriginal reaction against Vellacott is quite strong, as seen here in this CBC link.

Here is the bio that appears on his own website. He has served as a pastor and a landlord. I don’t see anything in this brief bio that indicates why he is qualified to be on the Committee on Aboriginal Affairs, Northern Development, and Natural Resources. His only possible qualification is that he was deputy critic for that Committee when the Tories were the Opposition. All this means to me is that he is well-versed in how the politics of that position work. But is he well-versed in the people and situations involved? Any jackass can critique a government policy, but it takes someone different to create effective policies. It doesn’t seem like a good idea to me to appoint to this position someone from a province that is becoming notorious for its racial segregation and prejudice, especially when he doesn’t have any real ‘hands-on’ experience (I couldn’t find any, let me know if any of you can).

In his statement of resignation, Vellacott cites partisan politics as the problem. He doesn’t even give the nod to how Aboriginals reacted to his appointment. What does that tell you about what kind of committee leader on Aboriginal issues Vellacott would have been?

Canadian Elite (Money-wise, Don't Know Their Personal Habits)

For no reason at all, I checked out Canada’s richest people. I wanted to see what businesses they operate. There really isn’t a reason for this post, other than to disseminate information. The rankings are based on Forbes magazine’s annual list. Kenneth Thomson is the richest man in Canada, and the 13th richest in the world. Here is a summary of what that company is all about.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomson_Corporation

Galen Weston is the second richest Canada, and supposedly Canada’s nearest thing to royalty. Read his bio here (including this interesting line: "Their six sisters received nothing.")
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galen_Weston

And apparently, his wife is Ontario’s lieutenant-governor. She also survived an IRA kidnapping attempt in 1983. Oh, the troubles of those crazy billionaires (I don’t mean to trivialize kidnapping, by the way).
http://www.cbc.ca/lifeandtimes/weston.html

At #3 is the Irving brothers, James, Arthur and John. Here’s a bio about their company, which has proven to be innovative in areas such as the environment, while also being severely criticized for their mismanagement of -- well, the environment.
http://en/wikipedia.org/wiki/Kenneth_Colin_Irving

War Crimes in Darfur (at the very least)

All over the news, word is spreading about the atrocities occurring in the Darfur region of the Sudan. Below I have posted a link to the BBC that is a good summary of what’s going on there.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/africa/3496731.stm

And if you want to help, here are some sites to look into:
http://www.darfurgenocide.org/
http://savedarfur.org/home

On Global news last night, they mentioned the conflict, but I was kind of annoyed by the newstory itself. The reporter said, (paraphrasing) "Thanks to George Clooney’s efforts, the world is learning about the genocide being conducted in Darfur." Clooney has gone out there and documented what’s going on, been on Oprah, etc, to spread the word. Kudos for Clooney, I respect what he’s doing. The news programs are missing the boat, though. Instead of "Genocide in Darfur", the stories seem to be "Clooney documents genocide in Darfur." The reporters credit Clooney with bringing the story out into the open; where the hell have the reporters been for the last few years? This didn’t start happening today. Why did it take Clooney to muck around Sudan before news programs started seriously reporting the issue? I’m sure Clooney’s glad the story is out, but he’s gotta annoyed with the spin.

(and how ironic is this? In my post about Darfur, I end up talking about Clooney. Frickin’ hell)