Category: Other

It all looked so promising to the folks at the Public Service Alliance of Canada,

OTTAWA, April 11, 2013 /CNW/ – As part of the ongoing “Harper Hates Me” campaign, designed to draw attention to the dangerous impact of Conservative cuts to public services, the Public Service Alliance of Canada, National Capital Region (PSAC-NCR) today released an interactive web app allowing Canadians to poke fun at our notoriously aloof Prime Minister.
 
“We believe the Prime Minister should be more accessible to his constituents,” said Larry Rousseau, PSAC’s Regional Executive Vice President for the National Capital Region. “To that end, we are offering Canadians this web 2.0 tool. Now, it will be easier than ever to reach Stephen Harper and let him know what you think of his cuts.”
 
Canadians who visit the site www.Harper-says.ca will be able to write their own caption and add it to one of the photos from Stephen Harper’s Flickr account. They can then share it directly with the Prime Minister, and their friends, over Twitter and other social networks. Visitors will be able to get creative, and tell the world what they imagine Harper is thinking.

What could go wrong? Less than 24 hours later,

The Public Service Alliance of Canada is apologizing for offensive comments posted on its interactive website urging Canadians to write their own captions for photos of Prime Minister Stephen Harper.
Some of the captions written by users of the ‘Harper Says’ website were racist, while others attacked the prime minister’s family members.
 
The Public Service Alliance of Canada apologized for the site late Thursday afternoon.

This all allows the National Citizens Coalition to pose an important question to the members of PSAC who might be ashamed of their union leadership and how it wastes their dues on political campaigns… wouldn’t you like to be able to be able to withhold these dues so that unions are forced to meet the needs of their membership?

My friend Amanda Achtman in Alberta brought some friends together to assemble this creative video that describes the frustration of many Albertans have with the Natural Governing Party of Alberta, the Alberta Progressive Conservatives.

The song riffs on Gotye’s hit from last summer, Somebody That I Used To Know and the video was produced by Olivier Ballou through donations from young Alberta conservatives.

Lyrics:

Now and then I think of when we were together
Like when you said you felt so happy you could try
Told myself that you were right for me
Felt progressive in your company
But that was then and after 40 years I still remember

But you didn’t have to cut me off
Make out like it never happened and that we were nothing
And I don’t even need you now
But you treat me like a stranger and that feels so rough
No you didn’t have to stoop so low
Have your friends collect your perks and then start to slumber
I guess that I don’t need that though
Now you’re just some party that I used to know

Now you’re just some party that I used to know
Now you’re just some party that I used to know

Today, Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg launched his political action committee called FWD.us to rally tech business leaders to reform American immigration law.

Zuckerberg is joined by executives at Dropbox, Paypal, Airbnb, Netflix, LinkedIn and Yahoo. These tech leaders believe the United States is failing to address its innovation gap by allowing the immigration system to languish. Indeed, the United States is a magnet for the type of highly skilled workers needed by Silicon Valley. FWD.us is lobbying the US government to both secure the country’s borders and to streamline the process for admitting skilled workers for the tech sector.

On traditional immigration challenges, FWD.us is also looking to the government to provide a pathway to citizenship initiative for giving status to illegal immigrants.

The FWD.us website is built on the NationBuilder platform and integrates Facebook API tools for tracking and communitizing its supporters.

What do you think of the initiative? Is this a logical move for the US tech sector? Should Zuckerberg be getting more or less involved in politics?