Revealed: The Real Unofficial Campaign Song of the Conservative Party

The Telegraph would have us believe that huddled away in their subterranean election HQ, in between passing furry koalas, the Tories had One World by Queen on repeat.  They had it almost right.  In fact, the song in question was of course, the far superior cover-version, Geburt einer Nation by Laibach:

It just makes so much sense now, doesn't it ?  Unconfirmed reports suggest that another popular track on the playlist was one 'Tomorrow Belongs to Me' from some old musical.

The Cars: Don't Cha Stop

Belle & Sebastian: Dog on Wheels

Memories of black-and-white imaginings for me, I'm afraid.

(Yet) A(nother) Message from the Government of Canada

OTTAWA – Employment Minister Pierre Poilievre is making no apologies for using taxpayer dollars to produce videos of himself promoting the universal child care benefit.

Opposition MPs call them “vanity videos” that mark a new low for a government that has a penchant for producing partisan advertising on the public dime.

But Poilievre says he’s simply informing Canadians about the newly enriched and expanded child benefit.

And he says he’ll continue to work “aggressively” to promote the benefit despite the uproar, even coyly addressing his critics by tweeting out “the video everyone’s been talking about” Friday.

And indeed, why would he ?  Using the resources of the state for continuous political propaganda is perfectly normal behaviour in a one-party dictatorshipparliamentary democracy, as is using bribery to try to maintain one's position of power.

BB King: There Must Be a Better World Somewhere

Nicola Doesn't Owe You Shit, Mister 37%

And anyway, respect is earned.  If you ever had any claim to it, you lost it many times over in the last days of the election.  And when/if the union collapses, it will justly or not be primarily your name attached to the episode in the history-books.

Arcade Fire: Sprawl II

Yes, I am aware this is the third track I've featured from the same album (to the exclusion of any other of their material).

I don't care.

Humanity Sucks Part MMMMDLXXII

The Australian government is undertaking frantic diplomatic efforts to avoid the Great Barrier Reef being listed as “in danger” by the UN, amid rising international concern over the opening up of a vast region in the state of Queensland for gigantic new coal mines.

A draft decision on the reef’s status is expected to be delivered by the end of this month ahead of a meeting of Unesco’s world heritage committee in Bonn, Germany in June. Unesco has already expressed its concern over erosion of the reef, which has lost 50% of its coral cover over the past 30 years.

It has emerged that Australian ministers and diplomats have visited 19 countries that provide committee members, including Portugal, Japan and Jamaica, in recent months in a desperate lobbying effort to avert an internationally embarrassing blacklisting for the ailing reef.

An “in danger” listing for the huge marine ecosystem, the world’s largest living entity, would prove highly problematic to mining companies attempting to open a massive fossil fuel frontier in Queensland’s Galilee basin, an area of underground coal the size of Britain.

Critics insist the Galilee basin projects would devastate global attempts to stay within a carbon ‘budget’ to avoid runaway climate change.

Good grief.  Are we really so stupid a species as we seem determined to prove at every opportunity ?  When the coral (and all the other multitudinous life it supports) is gone, it is gone.  The coal is going nowhere.

Sonic Youth: Bull in the Heather

With the always-awesome Kathleen Hanna.