Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper is pushing the G20 to adopt deficit- and debt-cutting targets though governments can do so at their own speed, depending on their economies.
This sounds great, but most of the economies of the G20, especially the United States, is nowhere near in as good a shape as Canada's economy. People are hurting financially and economically — deficit and debt cuts can come later.
Harper also convinced the other countries to go against a proposed bank tax.
While the meetings are just leaders, the large corporations and mainstream mentality are hovering in the room while individuals screwed over in the economy are nowhere to be seen, except for the streets of Toronto.
It's one thing to have nothing go on in these meetings; it would be worse to have something happen that won't help the world's deep issues and problems. But we'll see what happens in the third and final day of the G20 summit in Toronto.
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The Associated Press is reporting that more than 500 demonstrators have been arrested in G20 protests in Canada's largest city.
There are the pictures of the riots, and the media places the emphasis on the riots themselves. Would be nice if they spent more time asking why people are protesting in the first place.
Especially since these protests have a new unique Canadian angle to them, asking people why they would risk arrest and their safety to be in that situation.
There is coverage of the excessive security involved, and we know the security is designed to keep the power leaders away from even the messages of the protesters. it's also bad enough that protesters are being arrested nowhere near the site of the G20.
People protest because they want the leaders to know how they feel. By shutting out even the messages from the leaders, protesters feel like they have to resort to more extreme measures.
If security really wants a reduced level of protests, let the leaders hear what the protesters have to say.
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The Blue Jays got some revenge of Day 2 of their "homestand" in Philadelphia, beating the Phillies 5-1.
Shawn Marcum, the new pitching ace for Toronto, went 6 innings, only giving up a solo HR to Ryan Howard, to get the win. Marcum is now 7-3. Roy Halladay, Toronto's previous ace, beat the Blue Jays on Friday to go 9-6 on the year.
The lumber came out for Toronto as they hit 3 home runs (HR) in the game, the 18th time this year the team has hit at least three HR in a game. John Buck, Aaron Hill, and Alex Gonzalez all went deep for Toronto. The Blue Jays led MLB with 114 HR.
MLB Network was scheduled to carry Saturday's game. Perhaps you saw it on the cable channel, but I sure didn't in Chicago. We got Detroit at Atlanta, which was not exciting. Would have been good to see how the MLB Network handled the G20 reaction.
Though since Comcast owns a minor share of the channel, and MLB Network gravitates to carrying Comcast sports channels, all we would have seen was Philadelphia's coverage. And the Phillies announcers likely weren't going to question a gift horse given to the Phillies of playing three extra "home" games.
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