When Harper did it again, I implored the GPC and the leader to seize the opportunity to show leadership on this issue vital to our democracy. And received no response. 

If you are concerned, you can make your voice heard, via the NDP’s motion:

Leadership on more than one issue: Limiting Prorogation

Good Morning Green. Sorry about not doing a blog since Sunday, Sleep in and rest days. I finally got this picture up so people could see who I am. Now I need to get it on my profile! I hope all had a good weekend.This morning I caught the tell end of something to do with Harper and Youtube, Could someone let me know what the story is Please and Thank-You.  Warmest Regards:   Sherry-Lynn

Sorry To not have wrote a blog for a couple of days now.

Itself, it was part of the larger CanWest vertically integrated media empire, including Global Television.  When CanWest moved to bankruptcy protection, Global TV was purchased by Shaw, creating another growing conglomerate.  The newspaper division is being sold separately, but the creditors are rejecting bids to allow the empire to be broken up and sold in pieces.  Of the 46 papers owned by CanWest LP are a number of dominant provincial dailies  — including all the major BC dailies – the Vancouver Sun, The Province and the Times Colonist, as well as the National Post, the Ottawa Citizen, the Calgary Herald, and the Montreal Gazette.

In Losing Confidence, I wrote about the threats to democracy in an increasingly small group of corporations controlling the news we hear and see and read.  From 1969 and the Senate Report chaired by Keith Davey which concluded “All transactions that increase concentration of ownership in the mass media are undesirable and contrary to the public interest unless shown to be otherwise,” to the 1981 Kent Commission which described the situation as “monstrous,” noting “too much power is put in too few hands, and it is power without accountability,”  Canadians have been warned that the situation is unhealthy.

And this was before the largest media grab in Canadian history.  In 1993, Conrad Black began to assemble his empire.

As the Kent Commission wrote “Freedom of the press is not a property right of owners. It is a right of the people. It is part of their right to free expression, inseparable from their right to inform themselves.”

Look at the chart attached.  We supposedly live in the “Information Age,” but this chart tells a different story.  Too few people own too many newspapers, and our once strong local press slides toward USA Today  — MacPapers – replacing local content with cookie cutter filler. We may be in an age where more factoids are dispersed on a 24-7 news cycle, but how much useable information is available? The truth is we live in age of celebrity gossip masquerading as journalism.  How else to explain our public news broadcaster, the CBC, leading its evening broadcast with the Tiger Woods saga? (over and over again).  CBC is also pressed by its funder (the government) to push ratings and schlock, while it lives in fear of political retribution if it bites the hand that feeds it. 

Loss of a free and independent media in Canada can be linked to loss of civic engagement and declining voter turn-out.   This is the most important story that never makes the pages of the newspapers.  How do we break up this unhealthy corporate concentration?  Now is the time — before the Asper empire is sold intact.   

Little wonder only one radio station (credit to CFAX) picked up on our release. Please regard this as a plea to Greens to help raise this issue any way you can.

Getting corporate concentrated media to cover the problem of media concentration

Something profound happened and the best ammo you could hope for came in while we slept

It is yours for the taking…..fish or cut bait

It is a gift

http://network.nationalpost.com/NP/blogs/fullcomment/archive/2010/03/16/chris-selley-the-day-michael-ignatieff-lost-the-youth-vote.aspx?CommentPosted=true#commentmessage

(comments included below)

“If I had to tell you as a parent or as someone who has spent his whole life working with young people, the last darn thing I want you to be doing is smoking marijuana,” the federal Liberal leader said.

“I want you to be out there digging a well, digging a ditch, getting a job, raising a family … doing stuff, instead of parking your life on the end of a marijuana cigarette.”

Read more: http://network.nationalpost.com/NP/blogs/fullcomment/archive/2010/03/16/chris-selley-the-day-michael-ignatieff-lost-the-youth-vote.aspx?CommentPosted=true#commentmessage#ixzz0iPeeGcWA 
The National Post is now on Facebook. Join our fan community today.

WELL GREENS ?

ARE YOU RELEVANT ?

Or are you just yellow ?

Cheers

Chris Selley: The day Michael Ignatieff lost the youth vote

MSNBC……… POLL

Is America ready to legalize marijuana?

Total of 9,076 votes 

98.2% Yes

8,913 votes

1.8%   No

163 votes

In California, marijuana stores legally exist to sell different varieties of pot to customers that need the drug for medical purposes. One shop, for example, pays the state some $300,000 in taxes and the federal government $500,000 in taxes. One problem: DEA could shut them down and arrest the people working and selling in the store. State and Federal laws are contradictory.

Is America ready to legalize pot, regulate it, tax it, control it the same way that alcohol is controlled by the Department of Alcohol, Tobacco, & Firearms or by the FDA? Harvard economist Jeffrey Miron and David Evans of the Drug Free America Foundation debated the benefits of America of legalizing marijuana for recreational as well as medical use on msnbc Monday. 

Msnbc’s David Shuster looks at whether or not America is ready… in a series of reports this week at 3 p.m. ET on msnbc.

See link for more and reactions…………

http://msnbc.newsvine.com/_question/2010/03/15/4021020-is-america-ready-to-legalize-marijuana-

MSNBC …. POLL … Is America ready to legalize marijuana?

Across North America, the first Earth Day was mostly observed through “teach-ins.”  It was the brain child of Senator Gaylord Nelson and Denis Hayes.  The goal was awareness raising and education.  

Since that time, those threats have receded.  DDT has been banned.  Phosphates in detergents have been banned.  And the seven eastern provinces committed to reducing sulphur dioxide by 50% and the US met Canada’s standard and also committed to a 50% cut leading largely to removing the spectre of acidification of our lakes and rivers.

And from small beginnings Earth Day has emerged as an annual event.  Sometimes it has been lavish, with gala media star-studded concerts. Vanity Fair started doing Green themed magazines. Celebrity sizzle was added to the grassroots nature of Earth Day.

Here we are forty years after the first Earth Day. We can celebrate many victories, but the truth is, we have never faced such peril.  The climate crisis outweighs any other previous environmental threat.  In fact, it is such a large menace that the adjective “environmental” hardly applies.  It is a threat to our survival as a civilization.  Yet, governments fudge and delay.  The Harper government does not even grasp the science and certain elements of media proclaim there is no solid science.

We need to get back to the basics of the first Earth Day.  As the deadlines for Greenhouse Gas reduction loom, the date by which we should be 80-90% below 1990 levels is 2050.  Forty years from now.  So we are at an interesting time point.  We are exactly mid-way between the first Earth Day and the year by which we should essentially be a post-carbon society.

I hope that Greens across the country will organize or join in with Earth Day events organized as Teach-ins to educate about climate, green technologies, science, “how to talk to a climate denier” and other topics leading to a re-building of momentum toward the COP16 negotiations in Mexico.  

We have forty years of success to celebrate while we lay the groundwork so that our children can celebrate forty more years of success in 2050.

An invitation for Earth Day

Good Day Greens: Today is gonna be short and Sweet. I hope all have a great day, It’s Sunny here and just a Beautiful day. I’m off to watch Some twenty yr olds play Snowball(baseball with snow) tee hee hee! This should be alot of fun. Anyway It’s a good day to spend time with Friends n Family.  Have a GREAT DAY!!!!!! Warmest Regards….Sherry-Lynn

Just a HAPPY BLOG

Their rationale is that since Australia, New Zealand, and the European states violate their citizen’s right to privacy by conducting RBT, we should also do so in Canada!

The report suggests that relying on the judgement of police is a weakness in the current system of detecting drunk drivers.  However, if we cannot rely on the good judgement of police today, will we abandon jury trials tomorrow because we cannot rely on the good judgement of jurors?  What about the reliance on the good judgement of judges? 

In fact our entire legal system rests on good judgement of authorities plus Charter Rights – and that is a good thing.

Furthermore, their proposal does not meet the burden of proof that there is an overriding reason to violate our Charter right.  The annex of the report fails to present evidence that suggests that

(a) a system of random checks is more effective than a combination of other measures such as a lower threshold for blood alcohol level and more frequent RIDE checkpoints.

(b) random breath tests will be a deterrent to drunk drivers.  Higher fines for a first offence and stiffer penalties for subsequent offences would be more likely to provide an effective deterrent.  To quote an old saying, “an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure”.

A greater concern is the current trend in the Canadian Government to violate our right to protection from unreasonable search in the name of public safety.  First the airports, now our cars, what is next – our homes?

The “logic” that the innocent have nothing to fear from such searches rests on the presumption that there is never a miscarriage of justice by the authorities.  If we remove Charter protection, then we have only the good judgement of the authorities to rely on.  History tells us that by itself this is not enough. 

Just ask Maher Arar.

Random Breath Testing Violates Charter Rights

Good Morning Greens; I’m blogging today on  THE CONVENTION of the RIGHTS of the CHILD! This is a FYI blog. First this CONVENTION was adopted by the Canadian Government on November 20, 1959. I started my research on this, 3 years ago and I haven’t stopped since then. Then it was Adopted again by the General Assembly of the UNITED NATIONS on November 20, 1989. Since then there has been several Advocate groups who have tried to get our Government to step up and start realizing how important this 28 page booklet Named CONVENTION of the RIGHTS of the CHILD is and how Canadain Families need this Most IMPORTANT INFORMATION for there CHILDREN n there CHILDREN and so on!!!!!!! If there are people out there that would like to know more or need Information on this please contact me on here please. I look forward to the comments about this! With my Warmest Regards….Sherry-Lynn….PS  I hope all have a GREAT DAY….Love, Peace n GREEN

CONVENTION of the RIGHTS of the CHILD FYI

Good Day Greens: This week has been a very Good week for new insights and views. I LOVE being GREEN and Learning myself exactly what that means and learning each day to bring green into my life and all that intales, my home, my Relationships, even how I make choices and how I talk. I look forward to Membership growth and relationship to get STRONGER between Greens and us Canadians!!!!!! I hope all have a great weekend. Sunshine here in Wildrose Country. I always feel that spring just gets me hopping, lol,.   Have a great one!!!!!!    WARMEST REGUARDS:   Sherry-Lynn

A good Way to End the Week