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Oops: AM640 ‘s Lou Schizas calls Andrea Horwath a ‘whore’ | canada.com o.canada.com/2013/06/12/and… via @natnewswatch—
Lorrie Goldstein (@sunlorrie) June 13, 2013

@mistervermin @natnewswatch Exactly.—
Lorrie Goldstein (@sunlorrie) June 13, 2013

h/t Justin Stayshyn

AM640 On-Air Personality on ONDP Leader: “I think whore is the operative syllable there” (UPDATED)

Via Lucile Barker of the Canuckistan Pink(o) Fringe:

Schizas: Just to get back to our previous quick quotes on Andrea Horwath. I think whore is the operative syllable there. 

Oakley: Well, well let’s not take it that far

Schizas: What do you mean? She was bought.

Oakley: (in agreement) Alright, bought and paid for. Alright, it’s pejorative

Schizas: Alright, Sorry, I’ll take the hit.

Oakley: That’s alright.

Schizas: I’ll take the hit.

As Justin Stayshyn (h/t transcript) rightly notes, “Lou Schizas works for AM640 so this isn’t just some random guy calling Andrea a whore.”

Update: More details (& audio) from this newswire:

The exchange took place [this AM] on the The John Oakley Show during a panel with Buzz Hargrove and Catherine Swift, who apparently did not call Schizas out on his comment after Oakley’s soft chiding.

Schizas is a business correspondent and joins Oakley for his a “Happy Capitalism” segment.

We’ve left a message with the station for comment and awaiting their reply.

While that newswire awaits a response, feel free to contact the CBSC and CRTC if the spirit moves you.

Update 2: Official ONDP response:

June 12, 2013

Open Letter from Taras Natyshak, NDP MPP for Essex, to AM640

Essex – Taras Natyshak, NDP MPP for Essex, sent the following open letter to AM640, in response to unacceptable comments made by a guest on the John Oakely Show today.
AM640
Corus Quay
25 Dockside Drive
Toronto, Ontario
M5A 0B5

During the John Oakley Show today Lou Schizas crossed the line when he called Ontario NDP Leader Andrea Horwath a name that I won’t repeat. 

We can disagree on political points. We can have heated debates and we at the NDP don’t shy away from a fight. 

But let’s not forget respect. 

Taras Natyshak
MPP Essex

Down and Out in Harperconia

Sweet tit-humping Christ I’m tired.

Tired of the chronic lack of accountability in Ottawa. Of a parliamentary press corps that been for far too long too prissy and timid to rightly ferret and call out endless examples Conservative corruption with tenacious vigour (see also: libel chill).

Tired of national apathy and cynicism understandably bred by a seemingly never ending barrage of brazen disregard for the collective values that have defined Canada for the past 40 plus years on the part of the Harpercons.

Tired of our national transition from innovator to regressive resource-based economy. Tired of corporatist Lysenkoism, capitalist force-projection masquerading as international development, and –especially — acts of self-interested international climate treaty sabotage to keep the tar sands safe.

And boy am I goddamn fucking exhausted at the prospect of having to subsidize this bright new CO2-saturated Tory blue future by having to slave the rest of my life in low-wage purgatory (Freedom 75, baby!) because the (quote) “entitlements” that allowed prior generations to achieve wealth and a general level of security are now somehow simultaneously unsustainable and morally suspect (because communism or something).

Ideologues who piss on the very concept of data-driven policy making and demonize those who commit sociology have no business redefining Canada to suit their self-destructive political nihilism. The next two years are (and no this isn’t hyperbole and it’s goddamn time Canadians stopped perpetually stifling ourselves for fear of seeming unhinged because the Tories already blew all the doors off this motherfucker ages ago) without a doubt pivotal to what Canada will look like for the next 20+ years. So much damage has been done that we are going to not only have to prepare for electoral change, but also for a long-term struggle to reshape an amorphous future.

But, most immediately, every vote counts, more than ever.

So keep watching this space; as they say, change begins at home.

Concert of the Day

You Am I, live at The Annandale Hotel,Sydney, November 10 2011:

The War Comes Home (Redux)

ICYMI: Regarding the previously open question, “what does the Harper government’s door-to-door EI Stasi unit want to know?”

Not too too much, just, y’know, everything:

Investigators with the Integrity Services Branch were provided with a 23-page manual, dated October 2012, outlining investigative techniques intended to be used in a pilot project starting in November and winding up at the end of March.

The document makes it clear the Service Canada employees are to leave no stone unturned in their inquiries, even in the absence of evidence that selected EI recipients had done anything wrong. The document suggests investigators check addresses, bank accounts, medical documents and even the physical appearance of claimants.

[...]

Investigators are told to seek out the claimants’ former employer, and to select a sample of five prospective employers the EI recipient says he or she sought out for work opportunities. A check is to be made that the claimant really did make a job request, and employers are to be asked whether the claimant said the job was not suitable and if so, what reasons were given.

One section says the address a former employer lists for the EI recipient is to be verified, and if there is “indication of (a) manipulated residential address, the integrity investigator may … obtain from the financial institution a record of all deposits, locations and withdrawals.”

[...]

Another section suggests a claimant’s photo should be verified, or their name checked on utility bills or lease agreements that presumably must be handed over. An employer can be asked to describe the “physical characteristics” of the person who worked for them to see whether the description matches the EI claimant.

In some cases, the investigative techniques seem to delve into the far corners EI claimants’ lives.

For claimants who are collecting maternity benefits that are part of the EI system, investigators are told to verify:

• The child’s identity and parentage.
• In some cases, “the maternal relationship to the claimant.”
• Proof of the child’s birth, a date that can be compared to the “maternity window.”

[...]

NDP Opposition House Leader Nathan Cullen said Friday, “It seems somewhat hypocritical that they treat people who’ve lost their jobs as criminals, yet people in the Senate who may be committing fraud, they take a pinkie-swear and say that’s good enough. That they’re going door to door in a witch hunt manner after people on employment insurance, who sign a declaration every week and have to report every week what they’re doing — meanwhile, senators are milking Canadians for tens and hundreds of thousands of dollars.”

What, no drawing blood — no stool samples? Pssh. Silly Opposition Cassandras — way to blow an “opportunity to know that this system is intact” WAY out of proportion..

Related: I’m old I remember when CBC (sorry — I mean, OUR STATE BROADCASTER!!1) used to investigate entirely unsupported claims like $334M “suspected” fraud cases, instead of blithely repeating them without question in a superficial, he-said-she-said play-by-play. Because everyone knows Tories would never, ever lie with brazen disregard about entitlement [sic] fraud running rampant [sic] in order to reap the political benefits of targeting (what they consider to be) a marginal class.

Never.

Chuck Hagel: Damaged Goods?

The Week perfectly summarizes the GOP’s rationale behind the great Chuck Hagel freakout:

Hagel, a former GOP senator, won by the narrowest margin of any defense secretary since the job was created in 1947, raising concerns even among his supporters that he would emerge as a wounded leader as he takes over a Pentagon facing deep budget cuts scheduled to take effect on Friday. “He has had to renounce every contrarian view that endeared him to the president in the first place,” one Republican senate aide said.

Related: Speaking of damaged goods, Dave Weigel looks at how Rand Paul’s point position on the Chuck Hagel filibuster has soured Paul’s standing with daddy’s influential paleo-libertarian constituency (who kinda sorta like Hagel).

France 24: Digital pollution? Data centers, planned obsolescence, recycling materials (VIDEO)

High-tech = high consumption. France 24′s Environment explores the environmental impact of contemporary digital culture, from energy consumption at data centres to ‘planned obsolescence’ and efforts to recycle dead hardware. Check it out after the jump: