Canada's Cards of Patriotism

You've got to love how the Harper Conservatives got elected by bitching about big government, and yet are acting more and more like Big Brother all the time. Yes, even more than when they tried to censor our movies for secret reasons, started censoring the press, fired people for disagreeing with them, trying to steal a ballot box, and spying on/arresting/assaulting people for protesting Dear Leader.

Some of the latest stupidity is that they're trying to enshrine in our laws, the right to fly a Canadian flag... um, is this really needed? Can someone honestly show me an example of a person being ordered to not fly the Maple Leaf? No, it doesn't count if someone's flying it upside down. Of course, this doesn't stop G20 commandant turned Conservative puppet Julian Fantino from insisting that it's a freedom being threatened by those pesky pinkos that the far-right sees in their bowls of soup.

But the reason this is especially dumb, is that Foreign Affairs Pitbull John Baird -- I'm not kidding, this guy looks like he has rabies, doesn't he? -- recently got caught ordering gold-embossed business cards, that don't mention Canada at all. I'll repeat that: a minister from the very nationalistic Canadian government, has a business card that has no reference to the country that he works for. I'll remind you, this is from the same government that refers to itself as either the Harper Government or the Conservative government, and very rarely as the Canadian government.

So nevermind that this is also the government suddenly obsessed with making us look and sound like we're still a British colony, now the government that accuses everyone else of being unpatriotic pork-barrellers, is itself unpatriotic and pork-barelling. Then again, there could be another reason that the CRAP government wants to take us back to pre-Confederation times: that was roughly the last time that any Conservative cabinet was good for the economy. Enough said.

Airport Security (again)

We all know by now that, in the wake of the failed airline bombing on Christmas Day, the American and Canadian governments are once again playing "Security Theatre" (ie. pretending to take the issue very seriously, by creating rules that do nothing to address the actual problem). I'll admit that I have a bit of self-interest in this annoyance, given that my parents and I each have trips planned in the next two months, but please bear with me on this.

U.S. Senator Joe Lieberman (known in some Democratic circles as "The Turncoat"), is calling for more of those enhanced body scanners to be used in American airports -- claiming that that would have stopped the Christmas Day incident. There's just a tiny problem with that, Joe: that flight originated in The Netherlands! Unless you plan on twisting the arms of foreign powers -- again -- to do your bidding, then security measures at home aren't going to mean very much.

Additional pissing up a rope comes in the rule that passengers will no longer be allowed to walk around the cabin, during the last hour of a flight.

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...What difference is that supposed to make?

Let me break down the problem here, on two paths. First of all, we are -- by definition -- talking about criminals. If they're willing to break laws about mass murder, what exactly makes you think that they'll give a shit about when you're allowed to stand up inside a plane?

Second of all, since the general idea of a terrorist attack is simply to kill a lot of people in the most shocking and unexpected way possible, has it ever occurred to the government that a bomber could simply rig his/her device during that time that you ARE allowed to move around?

Now look, terrorists are generally very good at adapting to setbacks anyway, so I'm skeptical about how much difference any security measure will really make, but the chest-thumpers could at least try to come up with stuff that makes even basic sense.

Epic Security Fail!

Air travel has been a fairly routine part of our lives for about fifty years, so we all know about the extensive security we see at airports, and certainly after 9/11 and numerous bombings we're aware of the risks that make us need the security. There's just one problem: it isn't there as much as we might think. This is yet another thing in a long list of complaints I've made that might get me on a watchlist some day, but apparently some Canadian airports are about as secure as a screen door on a submarine.

Recently, Transport Minister John Baird and Liberal Senator Colin Kenny went undercover through the country's busiest airport, Pearson International in Toronto. They were monitored from a distance by police officers, as they repeatedly went through restricted areas, including the tarmac and within reach of several aircraft. So suffice it to say, if someone wanted to put a bomb on a plane in Toronto, it would evidently not be very hard. To make matters worse, the same sort of thing is known or suspected to take place at several other airports across North America alone.

This has already royally pissed off a lot of people, and with good reason. Travellers and taxpayers pay through the nose for security measures at these airports, and we put up with tedious things like undoing belt buckles and taking off our shoes in certain areas because we're led to believe it will help prevent another terrorist attack. But the whole thing is kind of pointless, if no one working at the airport can be bothered to lock a goddamn door.

Naturally, the Greater Toronto Airport Authority, which runs security at Pearson, is not only denying that there's a security leak, but is punishing the on-site police officers who monitored the operation. Excuse me fellas, but that's not reassuring the public, that's covering your asses. The cops involved were doing their jobs, as well as answering to a higher government authority than you -- so your punishing them is called "retaliation" in legal and labour circles, good luck getting out of that one. Also, if a couple of guys in ballcaps and jackets -- with no ID -- can just waltz up to an airplane with no questions asked, you don't need to be a genius to know that that's a security breach. Enough said.