Stockboy’s Fish Market

by matttbastard

red-herring-web.jpg

Canadians want answers; instead, our Public Safety Minister offers logical fallacies:

Public Safety Minister Stockwell Day says he wishes Canadians were as outraged over impaired driving deaths as they are over the death of a Polish immigrant shot with a Taser by police.

[…]

The minister told a crowd in the B.C. Interior on Saturday [ie, the day of the funeral-mb] that Dziekanski’s death was “tragic.”

“Quite rightly, the whole nation is aghast…. One person was killed who didn’t have to be killed,” said Day, MP for Okanagan-Coquihalla.

But he says drunk-driving accidents also claim the lives of fathers, mothers, brothers, sisters and other loved ones, “and where’s the shock and horror?”

Chet Scofield (h/t) explains how Stockboy is, in essence, concern-trolling the public conversation regarding the killing of Robert Dziekanski:

Red herrings can derail discussions very quickly if you’re not careful. But in this case, Day is not only trying to confuse the issue. He’s also attempting to create the illusion of holding the moral high ground. By invoking a different, unrelated, serious societal problem and accusing Canadians of not caring about it, Day is essentially trying to shame his listeners into shutting up: how dare you talk about problem A when you aren’t even mentioning problem B? You must be very bad people.

Once again, I defer to Greg Weston’s by-now rhetorical (if not requisite) question: “Why is Stockwell Day still in charge of the Mounties?”

Related: More from Leftdog on how Stockboy is “comparing apples to snowmobiles” with his ridiculous and intellectually offensive statements.

Recommend this post at Progressive Bloggers

Petition: “No to Police Brutality- No to tasers- RIP Robert Dziekanski” UPDATE 11.24: Petition Is Back Up, No Signatures Lost

by matttbastard

Update 11.24: Received word that the petition is back up at www.defendrobert.com Please feel free to sign if you haven’t done so already. All signatures have been preserved from the original site.

Update 11.22: Just received the following from the group that originally started the petition:

[T]he petition is down, apparently the domain that was hosting it received thousands of calls regarding it and they had enough.

[…]

In any case, we have the progress coded, and as soon as my friend is able to get a domain, it will be right back up—[no] signatures lost…so that’s a good thing.

Update 11.20: link appears to be broken atm (h/t opit). Will update once it’s been restored [edit 11.24: updated with new URL].

Please take a moment to sign the Petition (CLICK HERE, LINK CORRECTED 11.24)


Your names on this petition will be included with a letter to the Prime Minisiter along to his hundreds of MP’s demanding an end to the use of tasers and demand answers to our questions.

It is our duty as citizens of this nation to ask Canadian Government to act now with an immediate moratorium on taser use by enforcement agencies in Canada.

[…]

We are shocked and appalled the way RCMP officers attacked and killed Mr. Robert Dziekanski on October 14 2007 in Vancouver airport.

We need answers from our Government!!!

Is it a standard procedure for RCMP (fully loaded with other restraining devices and bullet proof vests) to surround and attack citizens with a taser without obvious threat ?

Is it a standard procedure for RCMP to create misleading public announcements as to what happened ?

Is it a standard procedure for RCMP personnel not to provide basic CPR to a helpless dying individual ?

How are citizens of this nation with emotional distress or panic attacks currently protected from being tasered ?

Canadian citizens are in danger now, it is clearly evident that enforcement agencies are now using deadly taser devices as a convenience tool and are breaking the rules of law.

We should not wait until enquiries and probes get completed with recommendations by various agencies, including RCMP.

It is our duty as citizens of this nation to ask Canadian Government to act now with an immediate moratorium on taser use by enforcement agencies in Canada.
———–
Please visit Facebook group http://uwo.facebook.com/group.php?gid=17541660393
for further information along with discussion forum.

h/t Beijing York

Recommend this post at Progressive Bloggers

Domestic rabble

by boomgate

Things have started to get ridiculously steamy Down Under. So what do I do when the weather reaches 37 Celsius? (Please don’t ask me what that is in non-metric)

Naturally, I do some baking. Today I made a batch of passionfruit buttercake cupcakes, topped with passionfruit frosting. They be pretty good, maybe a little dry. I’m really enjoying seeing the summer fruits come into season.

And now for some food porn