I am eternally fascinated

at the variety of stuff on the web. Each time I feel that the human race is headed for ruin I look at items like:

Yeti Sports. I'm personally very fond of the Seal Bounce

A site which is truly a pointless waste of time

Republicans with a sense of humour (well up until about round six)--who knew?

Just as an aside--the last item there makes reference to John Kerry "attacking the president during time of war". First off, is there anything particularly wrong with that? I mean, debates still happened on the floor of the House of Commons during WWII, Korea, and Gulf War I.

But more importantly, the idea that "We're at war so it's no longer okay to engage in free debate" (no matter if you served on the ground while your opponent paid his way into the Air National Guard but forgot to show up [At least actual draft dodgers had some principle]) is dangerous.

Especially it is so if the current oligarch of the nation has declared a war on terror which is unlikely to end in his lifetime. If this absurd idea is allowed to propagate, the current sovereign is untouchable even in his dumbest moments, no matter what he does.

We desperately want an indication that what we would consider saner heads are out there somewhere. A "war on terror" has no fixed target and creates an artificial and complacent attitude towards ignoring established international laws to which it is signatory and toward the suppression of basic freedoms, even for its own citizens. Erosion of free speech by public pressure to "support the president until this thing is over" is both dull and frightening.

Blind and jingoistic patriotism is one of the things that cause the rest of the world to sometimes glance askance at the US. The stereotypical "Hell-yeah!" cowboy-hat-with-aloha-shirt-wearing horror of a tourist, with his demands for cold beer ("I said cold, boy! You speak-a any English? What the hell do Bahamians speak anyway?) would be incomplete without an oversized plastic flag to wave.


But we need to be very careful--especially those of us living in God's country.

I spent four glorious months in God's other country, and was in many instances deeply ashamed at the conduct of my fellow tourists. The behaviour I saw on the part of the flag-wavin'-est of them was as bad as the worst sort of crap we blame American tourists for here.

And yet those same people would have taken a great deal of time and energy to explain to you that Canada's somehow better than the US. Myself, I suspect we're usually not all that different. Perhaps as different as Australia is from Britain (and yes, i know some people have views on that), and at our worst and our best it's difficult to tell one from the other.

I strongly feel that the way we do things up here is in fact vastly superior--but part of that is especially the part where we don't go around slagging other people just because we don't like the policies of their government. We wouldn't crap on someone from Zimbabwe for what that fat clown Mugabe is doing to a formerly pretty place--why generalize about Americans? (no matter that it's occasionaly fun to slander almost any nation).

My point is that if we truly intend to be equitable, we must treat one another equitably.

Although certain people don't get half the kicking around they deserve.

And when the world shudders on its foundation at the thought of another four years, or of Mr. Kim's determination to continue his "civillian" nuclear plan, I visit sites like this.

Oh, you just gotta see this!