Find the Pony

Federal Vote Compass

For those Canadians who will be voting on May 2nd (including me, for the first time!) this is a handy tool to understand different party positions and how they match up with your own positions on (what some political scientists believe to be) the most important or relevant issues in Canada at the moment.

8:57 pm • 27 March 2011 • 4 notes

Rick Perry Is Trying To Make Climate Denial A Faith-Based Issue | ThinkProgress

greaterthanlapsed:

Presidential candidate Gov. Rick Perry (R-TX) is presenting his denial of climate science as rooted in his same faith that evolution is a hoax. Perry’s response to the greenhouse-powered drought in Texas has been to issue an official prayer for rain, while spurning man’s responsibility. On the campaign trail, he portrays the climate science as a “secular carbon cult” working against his infallible faith.

Is this guy for real? I keep hoping that one of these days, one of the GOP candidates will reveal themselves as a satire candidate. Because they continue to become more ridiculous each election cycle.

(Source: existentialcrisisfactory)

11:21 pm • 23 August 2011 • 4 notes

“
There is nothing unusual about Governor Rick Perry. Uneducated fools can be found in every country and every period of history, and they are not unknown in high office. What is unusual about today’s Republican party (I disavow the ridiculous ‘GOP’ nickname, because the party of Lincoln and Theodore Roosevelt has lately forfeited all claim to be considered ‘grand’) is this: In any other party and in any other country, an individual may occasionally rise to the top in spite of being an uneducated ignoramus. In today’s Republican Party ‘in spite of’ is not the phrase we need. Ignorance and lack of education are positive qualifications, bordering on obligatory. Intellect, knowledge and linguistic mastery are mistrusted by Republican voters, who, when choosing a president, would apparently prefer someone like themselves over someone actually qualified for the job.

Any other organization — a big corporation, say, or a university, or a learned society - -when seeking a new leader, will go to immense trouble over the choice. The CVs of candidates and their portfolios of relevant experience are meticulously scrutinized, their publications are read by a learned committee, references are taken up and scrupulously discussed, the candidates are subjected to rigorous interviews and vetting procedures. Mistakes are still made, but not through lack of serious effort.

The population of the United States is more than 300 million and it includes some of the best and brightest that the human species has to offer, probably more so than any other country in the world. There is surely something wrong with a system for choosing a leader when, given a pool of such talent and a process that occupies more than a year and consumes billions of dollars, what rises to the top of the heap is George W Bush. Or when the likes of Rick Perry or Michele Bachmann or Sarah Palin can be mentioned as even remote possibilities.
”

— Attention Governor Perry: Evolution is a fact - Richard Dawkins

(via existentialcrisisfactory)

11:03 pm • 25 August 2011 • 4 notes

todaysdocument:

August 28, 1963 - The March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom

These are images of the march from the Washington Monument to the Lincoln Memorial.

2:26 pm • 28 August 2011 • 1,122 notes

Re: Harper says Islamicization biggest security threat to Canada

11:50 pm • 6 September 2011 • 3 notes

meowsense:

runfromtheherd:

sofapizza:

republican debate factoids via conan.

Carpet matches the drapes - I just can’t.

Newt Gingrich is still in this thing?

Pet peeve: Facts.

<3

(via stfueverything)

12:25 pm • 10 September 2011 • 24,567 notes

I always feel like I have to remain silent about 9/11 because I wasn’t there. I didn’t lose anyone personally. I can’t understand someone’s grief. I’m not an American citizen. I didn’t experience the feeling that my country was under attack. Only once, after the London bombings in 7/7/7 did I fear for my country, and it was brief and irrational.

But I know the feelings of fear and hate, and they never accomplish anything positive. If you give into fear and hatred, you begin to lose yourself and lose sight of the values that inspired this reaction. And as I watch American politics (and recently, even Canadian politics) evolve in the past ten years, it seems to me that we’ve allowed the terrorists to accomplish their goal.

The root of the word terrorist is terror. Terror is exactly what they meant to inspire. Continuing to live in terror is like letting the towers fall over and over again. Hatred allows us to become terrorists against our fellow citizens. It quiets us as we let politicians enact legislation that curtails our civil liberties and freedoms, silences our objections when allegations of torture emerge from our prisons. Losing thousands of lives on this day is not the only horrible legacy of September 11th. We’ve allowed it to jeopardize the system of democracy and spirit of freedom in North America. People talk about remembering 9/11 on this day, but it seems to me that it was never forgotten. Of course we should remember the loved ones we lost, and the heroic actions of the men and women who risked their lives, going above and beyond their duty. But remembering the hate and fear that was felt seems to be a way of extending the repercussions of fear and hatred for another ten years.

(via fyeahpoliscipanda)

1:23 pm • 11 September 2011 • 1,825 notes