Breaking: PCes uphold promise for transparent Government

Baird accuses budget watchdog of overstepping bounds

Their hypocrisy reached new levels of disrespect for the Canadian citizenry, making zero attempt to even bother disguising their contempt for the people that voted for them on a platform of increased transparency and government accountability.  Their belief that they are the rightful heirs to totalitarianism is revealed in unembarrassed honesty, and their transparent lying about their commitment to transparency paradoxically fulfills their promise to be transparent, and who the fuck said anything about accountability, that’s a different ball game that has nothing to do with transparency. They insist that they are being completely objective, and report that their word that they are behaving responsibly passes their rigorous standards of ethical conduct, and they are being accountable to themselves more than ever.

Criticism sends ‘strong message’

The government has criticized Page in the past, including for his estimated cost of the F-35 fighter jets. A report by Auditor General Michael Ferguson last April supported Page’s estimates rather than the government’s. Earlier this year, Finance Minister Jim Flaherty criticized Page for his assessment of Old Age Security being sustainable following changes to health-care funding.

Speaking after question period, Mulcair said Baird’s criticism looked pre-planned.

“He had his document in front of him, he was reading. This is something sent in by the Prime Minister’s Office, so it’s a warning that Kevin Page has made the ultimate mistake. He doesn’t tell the Conservatives what they want to hear. And he actually wants to be able to say the truth to the Canadian population,” Mulcair said.

“Right now the Conservatives are sending another strong message. You’re not allowed to disagree with them and, by the way, even if you have a mandate under the law to give information to parliamentarians and to the Canadian public, you can be starved of that information, even if it’s a clear infraction of the law.”

See? They aren’t trying to hide that fact whatsoever.

The Incivility Gender Gap | Marriage 3.0 | Big Think

The Incivility Gender Gap | Marriage 3.0 | Big Think.

Most interesting. There is lots of discussion around these matters lately regarding incivility on the internet and society in general:

Sixty-three percent “believe we have a major civility problem in America,” and 81% believe “incivility in our government is harming America’s future.”

Another blow to the boys club:

Incivility thrives when social life is niched and anonymous. Online comments sections are the most depressing and extreme example of America’s collective hair-trigger temper (it’s as if the nation is suffering from a wicked, mood-destroying hangover that drives them to lash out). In the most basic sense, incivility is a social practice exercised against people whom we do not know, understand, care about, regard, or respect. These people simply aren’t accorded the same rich humanity—they don’t seem as “real” to us—as those who live in our particular niche, or share our ever more sequestered, cabalistic worldview.

The smaller the community, the harder it is to be uncivil. Perhaps for these reasons, the study finds that rural Americans are judged the least uncivil, and urbanites the most.

The most striking finding to me is an apparent incivility gender gap. This year, the researchers wanted to get a more fine-grained perspective on perceptions of incivility by various demographic factors. They asked respondents who they considered to be uncivil, by sex, party affiliation, and so on.

The results, KRC research says, are “fairly stark.” In the case of sex differences, the results are tremendously so: 67% of people judged men to be more uncivil than women. Only 33% thought women were more uncivil.

Men and women in the survey were also “in agreement” about these positions, so it’s not that men find women uncivil and vice versa.

Are women the repository for civility today, or its ambassadors?

Your stunted opinion, slimebag?