Stock markets fell Friday after Greece’s crucial international bailout was put on hold by its partners in the 17-nation eurozone, a day after it seemed that the country’s tortuous journey to pacifying its creditors had reached a conclusion.

Greek Prime Minister Lucas Papademos and heads of the three parties backing his government agreed to deep private sector wage cuts, civil service layoffs, and significant reductions in health, social security and military spending.

Investors breathed a sigh of relief that the agreement would allow Greece to get a €130 billion ($173 billion) bailout package and avoid a bankruptcy next month that could send shockwaves around the financial markets.

Shhh! Don’t say Greek default

“Don’t mention the war,” John Cleese whispers in the famous Fawlty Towers episode, when he had to serve German guests at his creaky hotel.

But of course the more he tried to avoid the subject, the more impossible it became to ignore.

It’s the same with “Greek default.” (Shhhhhhhh!) But just because the phrase is unspoken does not mean default is not coming.

Nathan Cullen and Peggy Nash struggle for the NDP’s soul

There’s a great family drama going on just beneath the surface of those nearly unwatchable NDP leadership debates. Watchable TV isn’t everything.

We owe it to Nathan Cullen. He’s the brat who insists on bringing up what everyone else at the table is determined, with gritted teeth, not to mention. It involves the fate of the nation. Good for naughty Nathan.

For three elections now, the split between Liberal and NDP voters has let Stephen Harper govern, turning Canada slowly in his direction. The two parties aren’t the same but they take about 60 per cent of the vote and reflect a broad if mild social-democratic consensus among citizens. If we had proportional representation the two would easily have more seats than the Harper Conservatives and would likely form coalitions that agree on matters like the national child-care program that died with the Harper win of 2004 or the defunct Kelowna accord that made a serious response on aboriginal issues. But with our stupid first-past-the-post form of voting, Harper looks assured of future victories, too.

NDP Fall Behind Liberals In Quebec, According To New Forum Research Poll

For the first time since the 2011 federal election the New Democrats have fallen into second place in Quebec, according to a new poll by Forum Research.

The poll, reported Friday by The National Post, puts NDP support at 25 per cent in the province, down four points since Forum’s last poll conducted on January 13, and down significantly from the 43 per cent of the vote the party captured in Quebec in the last election.

The Liberals have gained seven points since last month and now lead with 28 per cent in the province, while the Conservatives stand at 24 per cent and the Bloc Québécois at 20 per cent.

Tax court pulls back curtain shielding life inside B.C. polygamous community

For more than 20 years, Winston Blackmore has been a thorn in the side of successive British Columbia governments, practising polygamy in plain sight – or at least in the scenic community known as Bountiful – even as officials fretted over what to do about him and his followers. When a landmark court reference turned the spotlight on polygamy last year, Mr. Blackmore, who has become the face of the practice in B.C., lost a bid to have the governments of Canada and B.C. pick up his legal costs and declined to participate. The case went on without him. This year, however, Mr. Blackmore has testified under oath – in the Tax Court of Canada, where he’s been questioned about his many wives and children and other details of his life in Bountiful.

Protesters Crash Apple Stores, Demand Apple ‘Manufacture Different’

Today at Apple Stores around the globe, users gathered to deliver a petition calling for Apple to make its next iPhone model “ethical.” The petition’s more than 250,000 signees want Apple to respond to allegations of worker abuse in its Chinese factories, and dedicate itself to developing ethical products in the future.

“I love my Apple, but I would love Apple a lot more if I knew my products were being made ethically,” Charlotte Hill, Change.org’s communication manager, told Wired. Hill delivered the petition to employees at the San Francisco flagship Apple Store. “Our entire Change.org operates off of Apple’s products,” Hill said.

Police caught as agent provocateurs/Black Bloc in montebello

Nathan Cullen speech at Occupy Edmonton

Right to Work the law in Indiana

Conservative MP wants more independence in Parliament

Charlie Angus Backs Paul Dewar for Leader

A Quebec lawyer and TV personality has caused shock and outrage among literary types after accusing a Canadian author of terrorism and another of lying in her book, during an appearance on the popular CBC literary contest Canada Reads.

“Carmen Aguirre is a bloody terrorist. How we let her into Canada, I don’t understand,” said Anne-France Goldwater about the Vancouver-based author of the memoir Something Fierce.

Ms. Goldwater, described by Canada Reads as “Quebec’s Judge Judy,” was speaking Monday during the first round of the contest, which airs on CBC Radio One and CBC’s documentary channel, and features Canadian celebrities defending Canadian books in a Survivor-like contest, where one book is voted off each day.

Tim Harper: Ottawa outsources the attack on the middle class

As it hauls its billions in profits south of the border, Caterpillar executives should make a detour and stop in Ottawa to drop off the money they owe Canadian taxpayers.

Failing that, the Conservative government should be waiting for them at the border demanding the tax break and handout cash looted from the federal treasury.

But since both scenarios are highly fanciful, it is time for an end to the scattershot, no-strings-attached tax breaks being tossed from Stephen Harper’s government to large multinationals that are using it to drive down the standard of living in this country.

CSIS may use intelligence derived from torture, Toews says

The federal government has directed Canada’s spy agency to use information that may have been extracted through torture in cases where public safety is at stake.

The order represents a reversal of policy for the Conservative government, which once insisted the Canadian Security Intelligence Service would discard information if there was any inkling it might be tainted.

Public Safety Minister Vic Toews has quietly told CSIS the government now expects the spy service to “make the protection of life and property its overriding priority.”

NDP leadership bid shows Cullen not afraid to take risks

Nathan Cullen has a prediction about the future of politics in this country, and for someone trying to get elected leader of a political party – the Official Opposition no less – it may sound a bit odd.

“I think the party system is actually sometimes a throwback, it gets in the way of progress,” Cullen said in an interview. It can lead to impasses in Parliament and an unwillingness to listen and, according to the 39-year-old NDP leadership contender, that’s “not how the world actually works.”

“Politics somehow thinks it’s special, and it’s not. We should reflect Canadian values and I think it’s a Canadian value to cooperate,” said the MP for B.C.’s Skeena-Bulkley Valley.

Iran: War Drums Beating

Retired Republican House and Senate staffer Mike Lofgren spoke with Truthout in Washington, DC, this fall. Lofgren’s first commentary for Truthout, “Goodbye to All That: Reflections of a GOP Operative Who Left the Cult,” went viral, drawing over 1.2 million page views.

For most of my three-decade career handling national security budgets in Congress, Iran was two or three years away from obtaining a nuclear weapon. The idea of an Islamic bomb exerts a peculiar fascination on American political culture and shines a searchlight on how the gross dysfunctionality of American politics emerges synergistically from the individual dysfunctions of its component parts: the military-industrial complex; oil addiction; the power of foreign-based lobbies; the apocalyptic fixation on the holy land by millions of fundamentalist Americans; US elected officials’ neurotic need to show toughness, especially in an election year. The rational calculus of nuclear deterrence, which had guided US policy during the cold war, and which the US government still applies to plainly despotic and bellicose nuclear states like North Korea, has gone out the window with respect to Iran.

Coalition of tech, rights groups demand u-turn in copyright debate

Should Congress mandate the disconnection of American citizens from the global communications infrastructure just because they download or link to copyrighted media?

A coalition of 70 groups, comprised of tech companies, human rights organizations, entrepreneurs and activists are saying no, banding together this week to amplify their voices with an open letter to lawmakers published Monday.

Coordinated by technology advocacy group Public Knowledge, the letter demands that Congress bring to an end its efforts to reform copyright laws through the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and the Protect Intellectual Property Act (PIPA).

Victim urges penalties for bishops who don’t tackle sex abuse

An Irish victim of clerical abuse said Tuesday that Catholic Church guidelines on how to root out pedophile priests and protect children needed to be backed up by penalties for bishops who fail to implement them.

Speaking at a major conference in Rome on the sex abuse crisis, Marie Collins said rules without sanctions were too easily ignored and cases were often swept under the carpet, allowing pedophiles to carry on molesting children.

“I would hope that internally there could be some ecclesiastical penalty for a bishop who may not follow the guidelines,” the 65-year-old campaigner for abuse survivors told reporters during the conference.

Opposition R. Adio on facebook

The education and co-ordination of the resistance movement continues as Mike Cook and Tony Loeffen take a whirlwind trip through this week’s issues.

Intrepid pundits, Mike Cook and Tony Loeffen reflect on how we got to this point, where Harper will be leading us next, and bat around some ideas about what needs to happen to avoid a similar blunder in the next election.

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The North American Homeland Security Perimeter: A Threat to Canada’s National Sovereignty

House Of Commons Seat Redistribution: Tories Squash Input From Provinces And Senate To Pass Legislation At Breakneck Speed

Walkom: Why the Harper funding diktat endangers medicare

Millions planned for Parliament Hill barriers, documents show

Christian group joins MP’s call for abortion debate

A Review of the Christian Missionary Alliance “Statement of Faith”