The blogosphere is a buzz about the Harper Government's decision to purchase F-35 fighter jets from Lockheed-Martin. Now there's talk about the sole sourcing of the contract, the fact that we've been on this train for a few years now and even talk if we need new fighter jets in the first place.

With the cost of the G8/G20 summit heading well north of $1.1 billion, including a nearly $2 million temporary artificial lake, this is turning into the world's most expensive photo op.

One wonders if Harper will bother to show up.

Instead of trying to shout down Coulter, we should be giving her national air time. Why you might ask? Well, if her comments were given a national airing, along with all the Harper Tory flapping seals cheering her on, the damage to the Conservative brand outside of Alberta would be impressive.

... anonymous Conbot war room commentators who think that our forces don't have to follow the Geneva conventions when it comes to the Taliban better get on over to Esprit de Corps Magazine and correct them on this. After all, they're just a bunch of retired soldiers and what do they know?

Tired of neo-cons claiming you're not a "real Canadian" because you don't "support the troops" just like they do? Think that if our government sends our young men and women into harm's way that they should have the best equipment that money can buy, but that we really should think twice about sending them? Think that questioning the motives of the government has nothing to do with your patriotism and in fact shows that you are a true patriot? Think that politicians hiding behind our troops is wrong? Do I have the graphic for you.

t would seem that, in Canada at least, Google has violated #6 of its principles. By having their CFO be the "interviewer" for Harper's exercise in PR and then not offering equal time to the opposition, it is very clear that Google has cast their lot with the Harper Tories.

1. Deny, deny, deny
2. Spin, spin, spin
3. Delay, delay, delay
4. Prorogue parliament
5. Blame the Liberals

A couple of weeks ago I posted a poll here at Evilness on how the families of those executed in error by the state should be compensated for having their loved ones murdered by the state. Now not a lot of votes have come in, but those that have have been, well, scary. People are actually voting for the "Nothing, the bastard was probably guilty of something." option. Now I can only assume that these are Conservative types which says something to the mindset of the average Conservative.

One would hope that the retraction of the Wakefield et al. (1998) by the medical journal The Lancet would stop the antivax movement in its tracks, given that Wakefield (1998) is the basis of the whole vaccine-causes-autism woo. It won't, of course, since the antivax community is dogmatically set in its ways in the manner of a religious fanatic. No amount of evidence from sources that used actual epidemiological studies (Taylor et al 1999, DeStefano & Chen 1999, DeStefano & Chen 2000, Gillberg & Heijbel 1998, Peltola et al 1998) will dissuade them from their firmly held belief. The danger in this lies in the fact that these people will continue to attempt to force their views on an unsuspecting public. There are two large dangers in this apart from the basic attack on science that I've discussed before.

In the sidebar from the homepage here at castle Evil (evilscientist.ca) there's a new poll on the death penalty, namely what should be done as a consequence of wrongly executing an innocent person.