Friday Afternoon Kitty!

Special Siamese cat edition. Siamese being the cats that never shut up.

Loud!



Louder!



Also loud!



Cute!



Also cute!



Road trip!



Um, okay... that's annoying...



But that's cute. Come on, just pick the poor guy up!



Please, please, pick him up!




There. All better. Just needed attention.

Six In The Morning

1 JEAN BELIVEAU HOSPITALIZED The legendary and beloved Montreal Canadians superhero has had a serious stroke. The Montreal Gazette has the story here.

2 LAYTON PROMISES PROROGUE ACTION, HARPER WARNS CUTS ARE COMING Read about it here and here. as for the cuts, Stephen Harper's government recklessly slashed taxes and that's hurt the public sectors ability to do anything. (Globe And Mail)

3 INTERESTED IN THE U.S. HEALTH CARE WARS AND THE MASSACHUSETTS ELECTION FALLOUT? I thought this piece in Salon had an interesting perspective. Salon also has a decent article on Obama's sudden big bank smackdown; you can read that here. And since I seem to be on a Salon kick this morning, here's a link to a bunch of Glenn Greenwald blog posts. Greenwald's a fantastic writer on American issues and definitely worth your time.

4 FIRST NATION TIRED OF POLICE PROBLEMS The Moosimin First Nation needs better support from the RCMP, say its leaders. (CBC)

5 PAT FIACCO INVITES MASS OF MAYORS TO REGINA Yup, great idea. Looking forward to this. (Leader-Post)

6 ROB VANSTONE LIKES THE NEW RIDER GM Form your own opinions accordingly. (Leader-Post)

Pick of the Day: Colin James

So, a busy night on the music scene. There's not one, not two, but three relatively high-profile gigs happening tonight. First off, local funk-rock favourites the nancy ray-guns are playing O'Hanlon's Pub. They'll be backed up by the Winnipeg band The Perms.

Then at the Casino, you've got former '60s sensation Chubby Checker who popularized the dance craze known as The Twist with his cover of Hank Ballard's r & b hit of the same name. People sure were wacky back then, weren't they? "C'mon baby, let's do the twist." Still, Chubby Checker is 68, and he's still bringing it, despite his much documented apparently virtually life-long battle battle with the bulge.

Finally, we have Colin James at Conexus Arts Centre. Blues, rock, big band, the Regina-born James draws on a lot of different influences. And the CAC is the perfect venue for him. Here's video of him performing his 1988 hit "Voodoo Thing".

If your taste in art runs more to visual than auditory, the MacKenzie Art Gallery is hosting an opening and artist talk for Joan Scaglione's installation of of cedar boats Ribs of Sky, Ribs of Stone tonight at 7:30 p.m.

YOU WANTED THE BEST AND YOU GOT IT!

The hottest band in the world ... KISS!

Edit: So, Whitworth wants context. Forget it. Just appreciate the beauty, the majesty, the awesomeness ...

Belgium Beer Badness

So, proposed layoffs have sparked full-on employee blockades at various Anheuser-Busch InBev plants and, well, to make a long story short, beer stockpiles are critically low. (Reuters/Time)

Silly, silly, silly employees. So unreasonable. So what if brewer Anheuser-Busch InBev wants to cut 800 jobs after posting a $1.5 billion third-quarter profit? That's capitalism, sweetheart. It's not supposed to have a responsibility to the real, human kind of people.

Now let's share a band-together-and-hate-unions moment--it's the Saskatchewan way! Right? We support union-bashing legislation here, remember? Good, just checking.

Wicked, wicked unions! They're trying to take your beer away!

How Bad Are The Conservatives?

Murray Dobbin dredges the public record for Conservative fanaticism and pulls forth the festering, lunatic beliefs of Stockwell Day:

Where would Day be on the prorogation issue? In 1995 he mused publicly about canceling the fall sitting of the legislature because "The longer we're in here, the temptation is too great to come up with more laws and more regulation." Back when he was running the Bentley school, Day claimed that democratic governments "...represent the ultimate deification of man, which is the very essence of humanism and totally alien to God's word."

This bunch of Conservatives are deluded and delusional. They cling to medieval religious beliefs, are mean spirited and anti-democracy and are utterly unfit to govern. They must be turfed. (Rabble)

Death Race 2010

In the last nine days there's been ten pedestrian fatalities in the greater Toronto area. (Toronto Star)

Six In The Morning

1 OBAMA CLOBBERS WALL STREET WITH NEW RULES Huh. Sounds like someone's a little bitchy about yesterday's bullshit in Massachusetts. Good. It's about time. (Guardian)

2 SATAN DEADLOCKED WITH CYNICISM The Liberals, the party of moral cancer, are just about tied in the polls with Stephen Harper's Conservatives, the party of ultimate evil. Hooray? (CBC)

3 REST IN PEACE Canadian writer Paul Quarrington has died of lung cancer at the age of 56. His famous book was Whale Music, about a fictional rock and roller. (Globe And Mail)

4 NEW GM FOR THE RIDERS? Are we really hiring someone from...Winnipeg? Ewww. (Regular readers will recall I'm a recovered Winnipegger.)

5 THE MIDDLE-CLASS TERRORIST SITCH Haroon Siddiqui lays it out. Shorty version: understand the problem, engage the Muslim community, don't live in the fantasy world that says Western foreign policy and Islamic anger aren't connected. Good read, go read it. (Toronto Star)

6 AUSCHWITZ SIGN RETURNED It's in rough shape, but it's back. (Kraow Post)

Pick of the Day: Woodrow Lloyd Lecture

Transforming Power: New Paths to Social and Political Change. Pretty provocative title, eh? Because obviously new paths are needed if progressives hope to regain ground lost to the reactionary right in recent decades and begin to push forward again. I mean, let's face it, the last 30 or so years have been pretty bleak. Stephen Harper as head of the National Citizen's Coalition, I can live with. But Stephen Harper as prime minister of a majority Conservative government in Ottawa, no thanks.

This man, and his ideological counterparts elsewhere in Canada and around the world, must be stopped. But how? Sure, there's been the occasional victory. But there's been way more setbacks. Outgunned as it is financially, the Left needs to be as smart and focussed with its resources as it can to defeat the Radical Right.

Speaking at this lecture, which is named after former Saskatchewan premier and long-time NDP cabinet stalwart Woodrow Lloyd, is Judy Rebick. Currently the CAW Sam Gindin Chair in Social Justice and Democracy at Ryerson University, Rebick has roots in social activism dating back to the '70s, and is a co-founder of the activist website rabble.ca.

Further to her talk tonight, which is at Campion College's Riffel Auditorium at the University of Regina at 7:30 p.m., here's one last tidbit to chew on from the press release: "Globalization and mass communication technology are revolutionizing our understanding of power and producing profound new ideas about social and political life."

You want an example? You're reading it. A year and a half ago, prairie dog didn't have a blog. Now we do. As many individuals and organizations have discovered, maintaining a good blog is hard work. We've done an okay job, I think, and it offers us another outlet to be critically engaged with all the debates and struggles that are currently going on. But it was only a few months ago, if you can believe it, that we joined Facebook. And Twitter too. And we're still developing a website. What other paths to reach people are out there? Stuff like that is probably part of what Rebick will talk about.

And if you're looking for a place to chat after and have a wobbly pop, Chad Kichula & the Bystanders are at McNally's Tavern. Ironic, eh? "The Bystanders" part of the band's name, I mean.

Haiti Fundraiser

It seems that conditions in Haiti are destined to get worse before they get better. This morning, there was a 6.1 aftershock that further rattled survivors and caused additional damage to the country's infrastructure. Across Canada, a variety of fundraisers are being held to provide disaster relief. Regina is no exception. Next Tuesday (Jan. 26) at Alfredo's on Eastgate from 11 a.m.-9 p.m., says owner Reza Shirazi, burgers will be sold for $5 each with all proceeds going to the Red Cross to help the people of Haiti. Also, here's a link to a page CBC has set up to help Canadians donate to relief efforts in Haiti.