Blowing the Dust Off

Phew. Who the hell left this sandwich lying on the console?

Okay, so I was away for a while. I want to thank the staff and those husky damn interns at the Sunnyvale Home for the Particularly Stressed for the length of my stay, and a certain pathological psycologist (you know who you are, sweetie) for its abrupt end, and I'm sure the insurance will cover everything.

Lots going on in Canada right now. In particular there's the Olympics. Yet somehow they seem smaller and meaner than the 2000 gala. My country's neuroses seem to be on full display. Perhaps because everything feels like a little too little of most things (snow, actual tickets rather than fake ticket shops, the hopeless bloody Canada Pavillion pictured below) and far too much of others ("own the podium," Prime Ministerial photo-ops, those stupid-ass mascots and also the Canada Pavillion).



Parliament still isn't sitting. The Harpercons are relying on the Olympic spectacle to distract the masses, so it seems. Well hey, if you can't give them bread, give 'em circuses, I guess. O'course bread could be had had we not spent our bread money on tax cuts and Olympic circuses.

But still, whatever gets you through, eh?

Of the Olympics, I think the best thing is that due to the neurotic rah-rah "own the podium" propaganda push, we have at least learned the names of some of our athletes.

Me? Well I've been busy elsewhere. That is all ye know and all ye need know. I haven't forgotten my promise to address the silliness of global warming denialism, and I plan on making that my next effort.

Hope you've all been behaving while I was away.

Abominable Things From the Depths of the Net, #341

Once in a while we who haunt the interwebs run into something so vile, so wrong, so against the laws of gods and nature that we wish we could un-see it. Here, then, from the "cultural blog," "dog's breakfast," and unholy lair of the Forgotten Ones that is Nag on the Lake, is one of those things.

I urge you to hide children, lock doors, douse your monitor in holy water, and ideally blindfold yourself prior to watching. At least put on some goggles: They'll keep you from clawing your eyes out.



You can't unsee that, can you?

Constitutional Monarchy: The Stephen Harper Edition

I'm not even dully surprised at the grotesque wankery of Canada's Conservative Government.

We don't have "democracy" the way the rest of the world has it. Our head of state is the Queen of England, our Senate is appointed, not elected. At one time Mr. S. Harper made much of this, promising an elected one, which I personally don't want for reasons I've mentioned here before. He also has expressed a dislike for the monarchy.

A year ago, threatened by a move to establish a coalition government that would have represented the 60-odd-percent of Canadians who are currently shut out of Bushland North, Stephen Harper, demonstrating a quick-change in principles ummatched except in every other thing he's done, ran for the umbrella of the monarchy he previously deplored.

He asked the Governor-General to protect his failed government by shutting down, or "proroguing" Parliament for three months. And for no known reason she acceeded.

At the time, his excuse was that Parliament wasn't functioning. Which it wasn't, because he'd ordered his winged monkeys not to co-operate when working on Parliamentary committees.

This year, he ordered his people to do this again, especially in regard to the Afghan detainee investigation. He's in contempt of Parliament, and should be under indictment for such.

Now the news says that he's asking the GG to prorogue again.

The only thing worse, if she once again bends Canadian democracy over the table for him, will be the conservative wankersphere orgasming all over itself at Harper's "statesmanship."

Is it any wonder that half the electorate stayed home last election?

I hope the GG tells him to go ₤µ©λ himself with a rasp.

Pre-publication update: The CBC reports that the PMO is announcing proroguement has been achieved.

If there were a god I'd ask him/her/it to damn these lousy bastards to hell. As it is, I'm stopping just short of expressing a public wish for a competent assassin. Let me be clear: I don't actually want Harper assassinated. But I do think about wishing for it.

What democracy remained in this country just died.

Do You Think the National Post Could Use an Editor?

Canada's National Post, whose "Full Comment" section would make fine budgie-cage liner did it but exist in print, has been allowed by a bankruptcy court to shuffle under a different corporate umbrella and has thus survived the death of its parent.

Oddly, this has not improved the quality of its content, save that John Baglow has apparently decided he enjoys bear-baiting sufficiently to allow the NP to reuse his blog posts. I believe he feels this will promote discussion.

While I must admit the comments there are considably smarter than the NP average, I feel this is because the standard is improved by the presence of actual thinking commenters, not common elsewhere. Witness the savaging John Moore, the sole critical thinker writing in the NP until Baglow came along, receives on this post.

However, they've clearly cut back on actual editors and actual journalism. The wrong is tremendous and the irony could shoe a racetrack.

First, the Senate didn't "weaken" the bill. They affirmed the rights of individuals. I'm personally in favour of Bill C-6 because it'll trounce some of the woo-practitioners unless they can prove that their bark, roots, herbs, or magic can actually DO something. But I never wanted inspectors to be able to raid homes without a warrant.

Secondly, a paper that staunchly defends the Federal Government's right to evade torture accusations claims that reaffirming the need for a warrant "weakens" legislation. It is to laugh, hollowly.

Third: Here's the accompanying picture.



This, on the other hand, is Health Minister Leona Aglukkaq, an Inuk and one of the few Conservative Ministers I've had any respect at all for.

Clearly, all brown people DO in fact look alike to them.

We Shouldn't Use the Term "Skeptic" For Climate Change Denialists

When "moran" will do.

I've been at a loss to explain the lemming-like rush to claim that the famed CRU e-mails show that climate change is all some sort of sham. Often the claims dribble out of the mouths of the same people who claim that Obama doesn't have a birth certificate.

We have some thirty years' worth of stolen e-mails. From that thirty-year sample, a handful of idiots have repeatedly hammered away at two or three messages, none of which mean what the denialists claim they do.



We have some fifty years' worth of research on climate change. It's real, it's happening, and there are extremely good reasons to be concerned. The impacts go from health to terrorism, and none of them are good.

The morans are throwing sand into the cogs of machinery that wasn't spinning along smoothly to begin with and providing a distraction, with the willing silence of the Canadian Government, that will help water down any agreement that the more civilized bits of the world might make at Copenhagen.

Hell, Canada's not even an industrial nation. Almost all our heavy industry, along with its pollutants and labour costs, has been offshored long ago. Yet we have some of the highest per-capita emission levels on the planet. Part of that, admittedly, is that we live in big houses in a cold climate and drive farther than anyone else on this continent.

We only produce two percent of global emissions. But that's a lot for a country containing about half-a-percent of the global population. And we can do better with a few simple changes.

Deniers scream that change costs money. Yet we're all too willing to pay for the privelege of polluting, so it seems. Ten years ago, gas was between fifty and seventy-five cents per litre. Now it's over a buck with the possible exception of Alberta (where low transportation costs almost make up for the incredible environmental scarring and other effects of the Tar Sands, if you squint your eyes just shut).

I've come to the conclusion that deniers stand for one thing: The right to fight change. They don't want to sacrifice their two cars and opt for public transport. They don't want to trade incandescent bulbs for fluorescent or LED. They don't want to switch from coal-burning electricity to hydro or wind. They simply don't want to.

They don't stand for science: The science, CRU emails included, clearly demonstrates the validity of the data and the conclusions therefrom. But morans refuse to accept this and instead stamp about, fingers in their ears, screaming "It's all a CONSPIRACY!" and "NO! NO! NO! NO!"

Do you remember the last time "I don' WANNA!" worked as an argument for anything?

Meanwhile, Arctic Sea ice is melting at a record rate (which Canada's New Greeneriffic Harper Conservative Government of Canada(tm) love because now we have an excuse to scrap with the Russians again), our snow-capped mountains are no damned good for skiing, and the lakes by my house haven't frozen to significant levels in decades.

It's real, it's happening, we're watching it happen. And thanks to denialism and political fear, we're not even attempting to do anything useful about it yet.

I'd like to believe Copenhagen will bring forth a real agreement with targets (not "intensity targets") and penalties for failing to acheive measurable successes. I'd like to believe that the Stephen Harper New Conservative Greenistic Government of Conservative Canada (tm) might actually try and live up to such an agreement, instead of letting it rot and then saying, "Well the Lib'ruls did it with Kyoto!"

But I'm skeptical.

Blowing It On Torture

My Conservative government. Is their fifteen minutes up yet?

Not, alas, judging by what passes for leadership among the Opposition parties these days. It's so pathetically bad that I'd vote for the Bloq Quebecois, if they ran a candidate in my riding.

The situation:
A senior diplomat causes an uproar by claiming that almost all detainees handed over by Canadian Forces in Afghanistan were, and continue to be, tortured.

The response as we might have wished it:

Harper could have had it made.

He could have said "Yes, word had reached us of people being tortured. That's why we stopped transferring prisoners to the Afghan prison system not once but at least twice."

He had plausible deniability in himself: "I never got the memos"--Which may even be true.

He could have blamed it on the "previous Liberal government"--An old fave (despite the fact that the "previous government" in this country is now his), and he might even have had a smidgen of justification.

The actual response:
The Conservative machine swings into full denial mode, lying about who knew what and when, producing the usual bullshit charges against the whistleblower, which fail to stick, and stonewalling any attempt at an inquiry before pretending it was their idea all along.

Harper claims the committee investigating Colvin's claims must allow his man Mulroney to testify. Headlines appear saying "Harper says witnesses must co-operate with investigation" or some such bullshit.

In fact, this isn't what Harper's saying. He's saying the committee has to accept Mulroney's testimony at face value without first getting a look at any of the documentary evidence.

Then he says the committee won't be allowed to see Colvin's correspondence (that is, they won't be allowed to read for themselves who was told what and when) because it's just now turned out to be classified.

Huh. Who'da thunk? I'm sure Harper's real busted up about it.

Way to clear the air on that one, Mr. Prime Minister.

Unfortunately it's unlikely that Michael Ignatieff will make much issue of this. He once wrote a thought piece that essentially asked what was wrong with torture. It was a rhetorical exercise, as far as I can tell.

But the Conservatives have already begun shrieking that the Liberal leader is on record as supporting the practice, as though that made their own underwear-staining enthusiasm for it any prettier.

Harper should be in the dock for contempt of Parliament. But then again, he should have been there at least a year ago.

Justice Delayed is Justice ₤µ©λed Over

Or maybe we should just call it "Ashcrofted."

A US court has struck down the lawsuit Arar vs. Ashcroft.

Arar, if we recall from the high and far-off times of about 2001, is the Canadian citizen detained without excuse in JFK International Airport and then flown with the outright connivance of the then-Liberal Canadian government and the active assistance of the Canadian Security and Intelligence Service (a Service which historically provides neither security nor intelligence) to Syria, where he was tortured.

When it turned out Arar was not in fact an Al-Qaeda operative, the Canadian government initially stonewalled before finally issuing a begrudging apology. Naturally, Arar sued and received a hefty sum of money as compensation for having his rights as a citizen denied.

However, Stephen Harper Conservative Government of Canada™ has demonstrated a total inability to learn from the experience.

The US government quite simply told Arar to ₤µ©λ off. Among the other shining features of this unpolishable turd of a Republican-positive decision was this little beauty, as described in Glenn Greenwald's piece:

Arar did not, for instance, have the names of the individuals who detained and abused him at JFK, which the majority said he must have. As Judge Sack in dissent said of that requirement: it "means government miscreants may avoid [] liability altogether through the simple expedient of wearing hoods while inflicting injury."

Ladies and gentlemen, your antiterrorist forces, 2010 model:



One of the most disappointing things about Barack Obama's presidency so far is the outright refusal to repeal the Bush acts that made the president and his minions untouchable in cases like domestic espionage and outsourced torture. You would think he might have a little sympathy.

Noble Words ≠ Nobel Deeds

Four brief words on the Obama Nobel:

What were they thinking?

More words on the topic:
I like Obama. If nothing else, the determination of the wingnuts to see Satan, Hitler, Stalin, and possibly COBRA Commander in his shadow makes for grimly amusing TV. I mean, where were they when their boy George was actually busy tearing up the country's vaunted Constitution? Mostly cheerleading.

But the sight of wingnut heads exploding like so many dandelion clocks at the news is accompanied by annoyance and disbelief. No-one seems to know why he received this award. He's still bombing in Iraq and Afghanistan, hasn't shut down his country's torture prisons, is still claiming that FISA is legal ...

One might be forced to accept the winger talking point that he received it for giving speeches.

Hell, he's up against the possibility of civil war in his own damn country if he doesn't figure out a way to disarm the disproportionately stupid citizens. Several people have called for armed insurrection, a poll was circulated on Facebook: "Should Obama be Killed," and redneck morons, almost inevitably white, male, and Christian, threaten to do to Obama precisely what Al-Qaeda would like to do. All without either a) being taken behind the woodshed for a little lecture on civil discourse and factuality or b) being taken to Gitmo for a little lecture on civil discourse, civil rights, and the nature of terrorism.

Okay, so he's not George the Lesser. But there are people far more deserving of a Nobel even for that.

If Obama has any brains he'll outright refuse the award saying: "Why not wait until I earn it?" He'll also put out some other candidates who may actually have done work that might lead incrementally to peace. How about recognition for the translators in Iraq or Afhanistan, perhaps? Those people literally put their lives at risk every single day.

And then the wingnut wurlitzer could no longer go on and on about how it's some sort of Nobel Affirmative Action.

And maybe a few of the people parading around at those teabagger parties will STFU and actually do something useful or helpful. Too much to hope for, I guess.

Harper Blue-Sweaters Arts Gala: Big Whoop

I won't repost the video. Harper plays and sings "With a Little Help From My Friends." A song written by people he would naturally consider a bunch of socialist hippie drug users.

The reaction from Tory supporters translates into "Isn't he the cutest thing?"

People dwelling in the real world interpret it thus: In an effort to make himself look like a better facsimile of a human, Harper somehow persuaded his wife Laureen to let him onto the stage with Yo-Yo Ma (whom the Largely Irrelevant Post writer John Ivison describes as "an up-and-coming cellist." Thankfully the Post may soon be closing, allowing Ivison to catch up on developments in classical music since the Renaissance).

Okay, fine. Whatever, Steve.

Mrs. Harper skipped the gala last year after her husband, placeholder Steve, claimed that

"I think when ordinary working people . . . see a gala of a bunch of people at a rich gala all subsidized by taxpayers claiming their subsidies aren't high enough . . . I'm not sure that's something that resonates..."

Of course, it's different when Conservatives don their tuxes for a night out.

He sure plays purty. He's a much better pianist than a PM. Maybe a career change is in order? I'm more than happy to help him on his way to his first album.

Stupid Liberal* Tricks

Premier Gordon Campbell and the BC Liberals* (who are conservatives) have just announced that, for some reason, they've lost $2 bn in revenue that they projected we'd have since June. Extrapolated to the end of the year, that suggests that their financial projections--the ones they fought the election on (you remember--the election which included the promise of no new taxes?)--are off by about $6 billion.

Or in short, Gordo is a lying ©µת+. An utter bastard. A worthless political skin stuffed with $#!7, piss, and corruption.

Anyone who was watching the election (that is to say, roughly 12% of the people who actually bothered showing up) knew that both the BC Liberals(wac) and the NDP were using maximum-rose coloured glasses for their projections. Carole James and the NDP missed their big chance to say "I told you so" by accepting the government's goddam lies figures wholesale. Which was convienient, as the NDP promised a bundle of goodies they couldn't pay for in the first place, PLUS they promised to do away with our carbon tax on gasoline.

But the cynicism of outright lying on the major points of one's platform is breathtaking.

I'm sick to death of this cynicism and corruption. Voters need to goddam well engage. From now on, anyone who complains about taxes with receive a withering "And who did YOU vote for?" from me.

Persons answering that they didn't vote, or meant to but missed the bus, or had a podiatrist appointment, or similar, will be beaten vigorously about the head and neck with a bottle filled with slips of paper on which shall be written all the campaign promises made and broken by the Campbell government.

It'll probably have to be a gallon bottle. Never mind--I'm going to have to drink at least that much to ignore how badly these @$$#013s are screwing this province.

We were already swirling around the bowl before Gordo's Commandos gave the chain an extra yank. Here's to the next decade of defecit spending as we try to cover the shortcomings of another uselss pack of "greed-is-great" mongrels.


*The BC Liberals--Because when you behave like a pack of federal Conservatives, it's just a name, and means no more than their promises.

Conservatism: The View's Great With Your Head Up Your Collective

I'm honestly wondering whether Conservatism isn't merely a political viewpoint, but a psychotic disconnect.

Case in point: Our own Prime Minister, Stephen Harper, is blaming Canada for the recent imposition of visa requirements on Mexicans, which you may recall was a summer surprise from his government.

That is, asked to explain his government's actions, Harper goes for the "It's not my fault--The country I'm trying to rule over just likes brown people too much!" defence. No surprise there, really.

Gutless, brainless, unconscionable ... And speaking of that:

I'm still glad I don't live in the United States. Because apparently Republicans have no idea what the term "discourse" means.

Invited to have a town-hall debate on health care reform, they respond with a) death threats, b) invitations to bring guns to said meetings and be violent, oh, and c) faking their own beatings. More on the Passion of Kenneth Gladney here.

The distortion and lying by shills for the Repugnicans reached its peak with Sarah "Moose Head" Palin's nutty claim that under the Obama proposal some sort of bureaucratic health board would pronounce on the fitness of her offspring to live

The America I know and love is not one in which my parents or my baby with Down Syndrome will have to stand in front of Obama's "death panel" so his bureaucrats can decide, based on a subjective judgment of their "level of productivity in society," whether they are worthy of health care. Such a system is downright evil.

Well I can understand why Palin would be worried about a panel with the power of life or death judging the usefulness to society of the mentally deficient. But even if such a panel were convened, they'd surely have enough humanity to spare her: culling mental defectives in the Palin family would likely leave no-one to care for poor Trig, who has Down Syndrome.

Your Republican Party: Fighting for the rights of the common folk to remain ignorant, fearful, exploited, and ill. Huzzah!

--And god damn them to hell.

In my own province, the BC "Liberals"--who are Conservatives (It'd take too long to explain--Here's the Wikipedia) are mulling over cutting some six thousand surgeries in Vancouver, and also closing a third of Vancouver emergency rooms during the Olympics.

The reason is that the Liberal government told the health authority to suck it up and refused to even negotiate funding a $200 million shortfall in budget because all spare money is earmarked for the Olympics--which is also why we're getting a "Harmonized Sales Tax"--which isn't a tax grab, apparently, but purely co-incidentally adds taxes to items previously spared them.

What's most disturbing about this non-tax-grab is the cynicism behind it. The Campbell Liberals campaigned specifically on a promise of "no new taxes" after adding a 2¢ "carbon" tax on every litre of gas. Note: I support the gas tax. Consumer-level carbon taxes are pretty much the only way to make significant change. However instead of the money going to green initiatives, the goverment plugs it into general revenue to bolster their abysmal budget figures.

Bear in mind that all health changes instituted in the past fifteen years have been from the BC Liberal Conservative party. So if the health authority is scrod--and I believe it is--the people to blame are fairly easy to spot.

You may remember the Olympics--the ones that are some 100% or something over budget and climbing? Turns out that the BC Liberals based part of that budget on the willingness of employers to pay their employees to work at the Olympics instead of, well, at work--Like, y'know, at their businesses.

For some reason that doesn't seem to be working out. So the BC government is going to second its own employees--that is, civil servants from the force that the first Campbell government slashed to its barely-functional bones--to do the Olympic jobs instead of, y'know, providing government services.

Oh, and that's on top of the massive incentive program already offered to BC government employees who volunteer at the Olympics--they actually get paid to take paid leave.

The Olympic security budget is $900 mil, up from an estimate of $180 million--I think they assumed Superman would be available, so the shortfall is understandable. But Superman is likely to be covering for the cops who are also being drafted into the Olympics' service. Courts will be all-but-closed for most of February in BC.

Conservatives just don't connect with reality anymore. They've earned their tme in the wilderness and should just go away and let the adults handle things until therapists find a cure.

Law With Tongues of Flame ... But No Teeth

As I sit here with the smoke of a local forest fire in my nostrils, I notice this from CTV:

Despite B.C. fire turmoil, people still taking risks

Updated Thu. Aug. 6 2009 1:51 PM ET

The Canadian Press

VANCOUVER -- Despite international attention to B.C.'s burning forests, some people are still lighting camp fires and discarding cigarettes in the woods.

Forests Minister Pat Bell had first-hand experience last weekend when he had to tell some Shuswap campers to put out a campfire they were burning in the woods.

Bell says if he had a ticket book, not only would the group have received a $345 fine, but an administrative penalty as well.

The minister says there is zero tolerance for fire in the woods and already more than 50 tickets have been issued to people breaking the rules.

Bell says fire activity in the province is at the highest level seen in his lifetime, with more than 2,300 started this season, 800 more than at the same time in the horrible fire season of 2003.

About 400 aircraft and 4,000 people are working on the fires which have cost the government more than double the original budget at $135 million.

Oooooh a $345 fine! I'm friggin' trembling.
Let's compare that with the damage from forest fires in BC this summer: Roughly $200 million in insurance claims alone, to say nothing of the cost of fighting the fires.

Wow--$345 in return for possibly contributing to millions in annual damages. Who the hell are we kidding?

Let's see what Australia does, shall we?

Looks like, depending on how you interpret it, you could go to jail for up to fourteen years in some states. Good damn idea! Here's New South Wales' rules for lighting fires under a ban:

Penalty for offences

For lighting or causing a fire during a Total Fire Ban
Up to $5,000 fine and / or up to 5 years in jail
Higher penalties can apply in certain circumstances.

Now there's a fine fine!

Makes $345 look pretty arbitrary and weak, doesn't it? Why couldn't it have been $567? Or 8,910? Or 212,223?

Personally, I want ramming a car off the road to be covered under self-defence when the idiot in said car is seen to have jettisoned a ciggie butt. And although I'm a big fan of gun control, I feel that shooting someone who ditches a butt improperly in a forest fire zone should be reduced to a misdemeanor. Call it "unsafe discharge of a firearm" or something.

I'm really a big law-and-order guy. Ask me about my plan for traffic control through random sniping sometime.

My Dear Suite101.com

Hi Guys:

Since your email came from "noreply@suite101.com" (an address I've learned is morally equivalent to "go₤µ¢λyourself@suite101.com") I can't write back to you, but of course the World Wide Web is indeed wide, and so I've decided to post a reply to your reply to my "application" to write for you.

In short: Go ₤µ¢λ yourselves.

Does that seem rude? Do I sound less-than-impressed by your considered and thoughtful response from "noreply@suite101.com"? Well let me try to put this in terms you genii (reach for your dictionaries--one genius, two genii) can understand:

If you were arrested, would you prefer that the charge sheet state:

"You are being charged with committing malicious parking in a handicapped zone"

--that being the sort of thing I suspect you do for kicks.

-or would you rather it read thusly:

"You are being charged with one of the following possible offences:
1) Mopery and dopery on the spaceways
2) Extreme flatulence in a public conveyance
3) Malicious parking in a handicapped zone
4) Knowingly and with malice aforethought bringing out photos of your children to show the unfortunate clerk while the lineup gets longer behind you at the grocery.
5) Keeping a number of cats exceeding the number of rooms in your home."

Me neither, so let me enlighten you as to your approach when dismissing someone who actually took a fair bit of time to adapt and edit some work your readers might have enjoyed while I was applying to write for you.

Rejection from employment, if presented as a form letter, should never imply that a human ever looked at the submitted samples. It's obvious no-one with eyeballs (or any other kind) has seen what I submitted.

In that case, why provide the following advisory?

Your application to be a Contributing Writer to Suite101.com has been declined for ONE of the following reasons:

* your areas of expertise and samples did not reflect the search interests of our Web audience;
* your educational and employment experience did not suggest authoritative expertise re the subject areas you wish to cover;
* the tone of your samples was better suited to a site either more or less formal than our own;
* your writing sample may have had serious errors in language use, structure, grammar, spelling, or punctuation;
* your writing suggested a first-person, experiential, or opinion-based approach to material rather than an objective journalistic style that quoted verifiable sources.

Due to volume of applicants and limited editorial staff and time we are not able to field inquiries requesting more specific reasons for declining this application.

To quote a sergeant I once worked for, "Why couldn't you just have told me to ₤µ¢λ off?"

If anyone had truly read the samples I sent, then you wouldn't need this broadsheet multiple-choice approach. You'd have been able to say "We're sorry, but we're really not looking for that sort of material." Or "Your work is far too classy for a $#17-ass pack of grammatical illiterates such as ourselves," or even "We're sorry, but you spell like a Brit, and we cater to the Alabama trailer-park demographic. They don't understand the word 'neighbour.'"

Instead, you ran my samples through some sort of filter designed to mine the money-making stuff. So if my spelling didn't suit, or my turn of phrase was maybe a tad over-elaborate, it wasn't going to get through. If I didn't submit samples on the topics you failed to specify you need covered, then it wasn't going to get through. If, in other words, any thought, reading comprehension, or intellect was required to make sense of my prose, that wasn't going to do it for Suite101.com.

However, I'd like to thank you for the laugh I got when I spotted the following at the bottom of your form letter:

You are welcome to reapply at a later date should your credentials and samples change. We wish you the best with your writing career and thank you for considering Suite as a publishing platform

Let me make a slight grammatical correction for the sake of clarity, albeit from a "first-person, experiential, or opinion-based approach to material rather than an objective journalistic style that quoted verifiable sources":

"₤µ¢λ off."

Now perhaps we understand each other a bit better.

Oh,I can handle rejection alright. But form-letter rejection trying to pretend anyone with authority, or even a human, saw my work gets right on my nuts, in case you genii hadn't guessed.

More Conservative Economic Genius

Not content with having deliberately and with malicious, venial, stupidity aforethought spiked the Canadian nuclear medicine industry, increased wait times four-fold or so, and bankrupted the country unto at least 2014, my Conservative government decided to announce yet another delightful "What-the-₤µ©λ-are-you-playing-at-you-@$$#013s?" moment this week.

Because once you've done such a wonderful number on the economy already, why not top the $#17 sundae with a rancid cherry and kneecap the tourist industry?

Tourism is a huge part of Canada's economy. People like to come and see things like pristine lakes, airy mountains, and green trees, often because many of these people come from places where such are in short supply, often due to a history of short-sighted, near-criminal, cripplingly stupid and often conservative governments; Like ours.

So during a recession, when the industry has already taken a number of kicks to the collective crotch (new US passport requirements, "staycations", et al.), the smart thing to do is:

A) Demote a minister who funded a gay pride parade for $400K (in complete accordance with her mandate and economic sense) which contributes million$ to the Greater Toronto Area.

B) Introduce new, more stringent travel requirements such as, oh I dunno, how 'bout a visa requirment for Czechs and Mexicans? Preferably without prior notice, so that no-one can prepare for the new rules.

If you're an idiot, and a Conservative Party Minister (but I repeat myself), you do both.

The article says that Mexico was the number-one refugee claimant nation. But if Mr. Harper hadn't chosen to allow staffing levels to fall through attrition, or at least had hired replacement workers on a one-for-one basis, at Citizenship and Immigration Canada, the backlog wouldn't have been a problem.

Besides, the Cons ₤µ©λed over ALL immigrants a year or two back by rewriting the rules so that if your claim simply doesn't make it off the pile, you have to go to the foot of the queue and start again.

(Unless you're a doctor. Then we'll poach you from some third-world hellhole that desperately needs you, and put you to work in the grossly understaffed world of public transportation at minimum wage, but hey--You'll be living in the greatest ... Well, the secon- ... Um ... Hang on a mo' ... the, ah yes, seventeeth greatest country in the world!)

The changes also made it possible to jump the queue. Whatever the faults of the old system, it was at least fair. But of course "fairness" is one of those words the Conservative party has to grab a dictionary on hearing, along with "compassion" and "empathy".

There is really nothing more to say than "When the hell are you going to pull the ₤µ©λing trigger Mr. Ignatieff? Would tomorrow work for you? 'Cos I'm busy today, but I could spare the time to vote these turkeys off while I wait for my local hospital to scrounge up some isotopes so I can rejoin the wait list for a test or two.

We are living under the single stupidest, single worst, uniquely damaging government of Canada in the history of the country. Only Mulroney could ever have claimed to have ₤µ©λed us over more and worse. And he was a Conservative too.

Co-incidence? I think not.

I hate these clowns and their bankrupt pathalogy of an ideology more every day. I hope Harper ends his days in a refrigerator box. Or possibly as a 230-lb Native inmate's prison bitch.

Is there one thing, a single thing, ANYthing, they've managed to do right?

Note for Conservative Party members and other humour-challenged persons. I don't REALLY want Harper to end his days in an appliance box, nor as a big-ass prison inmate's girlfriend (unless he wants to be--Prison can apparently do that to some guys, and I think there's a good chance he and Muldoon might end up there). A simple slow fade into the ignominy he deserves and the designation of "Worst. PM. Thus. Far" will suffice (I'd say "Worst. PM. Evar", but the unfortunate possibility that another Conservative government might get in before he dies still exists, however remote).

This is what Liberals and other thinking types call "hyperbole". Do feel free to look it up, won't you?

Does that Budget Report Come With Assless Chaps?

Conservatives are well known for a sort of voyeuristic prurience when it comes to sex. Now it turns out that this is their economic policy too:

For example, it's well known that while decrying sex and all things sexually positive, the "family values" types tend to enjoy their lesiure time at adultery, borderline pederasty, prostitution, anonymous gay encounters, and similar purportedly lib'rul pursuits. While especially true in the US, there is much such in Canada as well. Then they like to pretend it just ain't so.

In Canada, with regard to the economy, the Conservative Government is behaving exactly like a 17-year-old boy with a purity ring* trying to talk his likewise be-ringed girlfriend into a little back-door action.

Canada to Young Stephen Harper:
"I don't know ... I mean, it looks like it might be uncomfortable."

Young Stephen Harper to Canada:
"Oh come on, honey ... It's really not that big. In fact it doesn't even exist."

Canda:
"You're wrong--I can see it, and it looks scary."

SH: "What ... This ol' thing? Naw, it's just a little bump. You'll even enjoy it."

C: "But I'm afraid it's going to hurt!"

SH: "Well it might hurt, just a little, going in. But you'll enjoy it--it's a wonderful opportunity. Hell, in 2012 it'll be nothing but fantastic."

C: "Look, we need a little lubrication at least."

SH: "No we don't!"

C: "Are you nuts? Look at the size of that thing. It's big enough to wreck General Motors!"

SH: "Oh, okay, if you insist. Crybaby."

C: "OW! Sweet Jesus! It's big, really big, and it hurts! You never told me it'd be this bad."

SH: "Well, uh ... I didn't know. Yeah, that's it ..."

Office of the Parliamentary Budget Officer: "Um, Master Harper ... You knew. You clearly knew. But you've been lying about it for at least a year. Sorry, sir, it's my job to call bullshit on you."

SH: Uh, okay. I lied then, but I wasn't really lying ... and if I was it was Ignatieff's fault, or the Previous Liberal Government's ...

Und so weiter.



Note:
*A purity ring is a ring, often inscribed with the name "Jesus" which is supposed to indicate a comittment to chastity until marriage. In fact, at least fifty percent of such "pledged" virgins fall by the wayside, possibly not including the ones who get married out of desperation and divorce later, and particularly not including the ones who eat/blow each other and have anal sex to "preserve" their virginity. As Dan Savage says: "I've been prserving the $#17 out of my boyfriend's virginity for 14 years now!"

In fact, as I see it, purity rings should be a reliable indicator of a teenage girl who's into Saddlebacking. Which is why Christian Conservatives love them, I guess.

Update: I tried to find the video, but it's "Restricted for people in your region". One comedian commented on the topic of a 16-year-old who wanted to wear her virginity bling in school:
"I say if she wants to wear a ring that signifies that she's not having sex--Let her get married like everyone else!"

On the Great Infestation

Sigh. My house is not my own anymore. In a more enlightened society, Mme might be accused of harbouring a nuisance.

Some beasts are useful: The sturdy shetland pony, the sheepdog, the goat. Mankind has built a relationship of mutual trust and reliance with these.

Then, there's the sort that lounges about on your couch for hours on end before slouching off for a hurried six-hour nap, whilst scratching your furniture to splinters and doing abominable things in various dark corners, all the while gleefully consuming food in quantities to make Roman orgy-goers cry "Oi--steady on, mate!"

Such beasts shed hair like an over-forty rock band, and leave unspeakable trails of spittle trailing across the floor, to say nothing of the partially-digested items trailing in its wake. When not regurgitating your food, said creature is rubbing up against you demanding more of it, not to mention more of your valuable gin and beer.

Yes, having the damn thing in the house is something of a trial. But Mme Metro and I are happy to do it as respite care. This allows her regular attendants the chance they need to recover following the repeated hydrophobia shots, deworming, and delousing they must be put through from extended contact.

The cats are fine, and looking pretty healthy, by comparison.

I had a recent picture, but was reluctant to post it, for the health of the Avid Fans' brains. Let's just say I know just how this little dog feels:


see more dog and puppy pictures

They Have Become What They Refused to Deny

In the wake of two murders comitted by right-wing whackjobs over the past two weeks, the response from Conservatives has been to say "Well, they weren't really Conservatives." They also weren't true Scotsmen.

Some folks made so bold as to describe the man who attacked the Holocaust Museum in Washington as "left-wing," deliberately and with malice aforethought confusing National Socialism with Socialism. The confusion is easy to understand: First, both are equally evil in the eyes of conservatives; Second, the people making said accusations are sadly stupid.

But conservatives will not long be able to continue using their own version of the "lone gunman" theory. Because these actions don't take place in a vacuum. Between the silent dog whistles of talk radio and the plain old silence of Conservative leaders, the right wing has been complicit, if not actively conniving, in acts of murder.

Don't believe me? Take a look at Paul Krugman's column here. Not enough for you that a Nobel-winning economist can connect the dots? Then look at this op-ed from Frank Rich.

But we've all seen this stuff before. Any one of us has found Conservative blogs, articles, and the like which, while frowning down their noses at the violence and mayhem that the politics of the right seem to inspire, don't quite manage to disavow any of it.

Case in point, Bill O'Reilly--one of the globe's nastier denizens--who categorically continues to deny any responsibility for enabling the murder of Dr. Tiller. This despite carrying on a bully pulpit campaign against Tiller and his practice: providing late-term abortions (which are always medically necessary on the fewer-than-three-percent-of-all-abortions occasions when they are required).

But they're all like this. In the face of the most vituperative accusations against US president Obama, every level of Republican leadership has remained silent. The most any of them has ever said boils down to "Well I don't agree with what he did but you have to admit he had a point ..."

And in their refusal to deny, and their enthusiasm for, these things, they come to own them.

The shocking thing is that not even the most-highly placed of Conservative leaders seem to be making the fiery disavowals that should be made to separate the so-called "lone whackos" from "mainstream conservatives." And why? Because there is so little difference.

This is why I no longer describe myself as a conservative. Because when I hear that word I no longer know whether the person using it to refer to themselves means "I support free trade" or "I passively condone murder."

And in such circumstances it's certainly best to be clear.

My Conservative Government at Work

This one's long. But it's important. I've tried not to go postal down here, and tried to keep my arguments germane.

Lately my government, which had no mandate to make the sweeping and destructive changes it has already wrought in my little country, has been chatting up privatization, with serious words like "scrutiny" and "public funds."

They're strapped for cash, their financial incompetence is on full display, and they really need some scapegoats. So they have declared that privatization is the solution. It'd put some desperately needed billions back in "the taxpayer's" (read: the government's) pocket.

Atomic Energy of Canada is first on the chopping block. Last year Harper made headlines by firing Canada's nuclear safety watchdog for proposing to shut down Chalk River nuke plant for maintenance. His excuse was that such a shutdown wasn't necessary, and would deprive Canadians of vital supplies of medical isotopes.

This week Chalk River developed problems and had to be shut down. Nothing was mentioned by Mr. Harper or his stooges about a shortage of isotope supply, other than that we should expect one.

But the Harperites DID begin making rumbling noises about how inefficient government-run companies (Crown corporations) are, and mused about privatizing AECL.

It must be a great temptation. They're staring down $50 billion of debt the voters aren't likely to forgive them for. They'll never win a majority now unless someone gets pics of Michael Ignatieff actually sodomizing a Canada goose (and even then it's probably a coin toss).

So why not add a few billion to the balance sheet by flogging some Crown land, some Crown corporations?--Hell, maybe even some Crown Royal.

There's just one problem. Well, a couple. Three actually. Well I can think of four:

1) Crown Corporations often occupy a niche that private industry either didn't want or shouldn't be allowed to have. For example, private companies retailing isotopes provided by Atomic Energy of Canada have doubled or tripled their prices in repsonse to the shutdown. The AECL factory price hasn't changed.

Imagine what'd happen if a private-for-profit outfit got hold of the main supply of medical isotopes for the world.

2) It's quite hard to flog the non-profiting bits of Crown corps. Sure you can bitch about all the public money you're putting in, but does that make it much more attractive to private investment? So you're either selling only the good bits, or a resource--something irreplaceable that private firms want their hands on in the worst way.

3) Finally this. These aren't corporations. They're Crown Corporations. There are times when divestiture of public assets makes some sense. But we've already done that--We had two prior recessions in the past thirty years. During those recessions, and ever since, we've cut public service jobs, "trimmed fat" and reduced public corporate investment to record lows.

Moreover, they're mostly irreplaceable resources: If the Harperites flog AECl there's no getting it back. We can't just build another $30-bn reactor and set up shop anew. For one thing the Oppostion Conservatives (you surely don't believe they'll be in government, do you?) will scream blue murder at the "unfair" competition by the state enterprise ... or at the tax dollars spent on it, either way they win.

And the stuff that isn't resource is even less suitable for privatization. Now we know Harper hates the CBC. It does a decent job of reporting and is noteably unbiased. But of course, since Harper's world doesn't correspond to reality he loathes it the way he loathes the taste of an overcooked baby. He much prefers FOX, as we know.

But it's not an "asset"--It's our heritage.

4) Finally: it's not his to sell!

No government has the automatic right to sell publicly-owned property in the first place--They are there to manage it. Such management might well require selling it off, eventually, but not at fire-sale prices for the expediency of trying to tuck in your own financial shirt-tail.

This isn't a selloff to improve the efficiency of government or industry, or protect the public purse. Its purpose is twofold: One, to pour more money into the government balance sheet so that their performance doesn't look so damn pitiful, and two, to see if they can sell their free-market-uber-alles ideology while doing it.

Harper doesn't have a majority, doesn't have a mandate, and has not the right to sell any of these assets.

Oh, and um, speaking of assets ... 'Cause those Conservatives must have missed it, being so concerned for taxpayer dollars and all ... Do you think the Canadian government did serious studies into GM's performance before pouring $7.1 bn taxpayer bucks in "loans" into it?

I guess that's different--GM's a private company, and it's all free-markety and presumably efficient and profity and $#17 like that.

Pull the trigger, Mr. Ignatieff. I'd hold my nose and vote for you to chase this dangerous loser and his crack brained coterie of misanthropic, uncharitable, vicious dogs out of my country's highest offices.

Will Somebody Please Put a Fork in Cheney and Let Him Know He's Overdone?

Unable to lie quiet, Cheney seems to have found a second wind, with which to try and explain away the grotesque, capering, misdeeds of the Bush calamity of an administration. From today's "Say What" sampler over at Doonesbury we have this justification for Bush's inaction on "terroristic" threats prior to Semptember 11th, 2001:

"You know, Dick Clarke. Dick Clarke, who was the head of the counterterrorism program in the run-up to 9/11. He obviously missed it."
-- Dick Cheney, on Richard Clarke

"Bin Ladin Public Profile May Presage Attack" (5/3/01)

"Bin Ladin's Networks' Plans Advancing" (5/26/01)

"Bin Ladin Attacks May Be Imminent" (6/23/01)

"Bin Ladin and Associates Making Near-Term Threats" (6/25/01)

"Bin Ladin Planning High-Profile Attacks" (6/30/01)

"Planning for Bin Ladin Attacks Continues, Despite Delays" (7/02/01)

-- subject lines of Richard Clarke emails to Bush Administration prior to 9/11/01

Unfortunately, I think we're due for rather a lot of this crap until either someone buries his head across running water from his body, or until someone shuts off the liquid helium pump that powers his circulatory system.

It's over, Dick. The bad guys have been consigned to the rubbish bin of history and a lucrative career on the rubber-chicken circuit (instead of Gitmo, alas, where they properly should be held until a fair trial can be arranged) and the good guys have to try and pick up the pieces. All you're doing is offering lame-ass excuses for failing to close the barn door before the horse bolted, and trying to justify your horrifying criminal actions afterward.

Shut up and lie the hell down.

Or, if I may quote someone whose name escapes me:

"Go fuck yourself."

Okay, Lemme Put to You a Hypothetical Situation:

You're the elected leader of a large western democratic monarchy. Going into an election last year you said there was no economic crisis. Then you said there was, but it wasn't necessary to do anything about it. Then, having yielded ideology to reality at the insistence of the opposition you said you would have to do something about it for the good of the workin' folk. Then you bailed out international megacorps. Then you said "By the way, there's gonna be a defecit. About $30 bn worth".

So here's where we stand: Having gone from record surplus projections to (optimistic but still abysmal, and vice versa) defecit projections in four statements, this week you say "Actually, er ... It's going to be a wee bit bigger than we thought ... Um ... How does, oh, FIFTY billion dollars sound?"

Faced with calls for the resignation of your obviously grossly incompetent Minister of Finance, staring down the debt hole you gouged in our economy in the service of "Conservative" ideology, and wishing you hadn't completely spent up the surplus $30 billion you were gifted by your Liberal predecessors you:

A) Issue a mea culpa, and like any good CEO, tender your resignation. After all, your ideology claims government should behave like a business.
B) Ask for a vote of confidence in the house and accept the possibility of an election.
C) Take quick, decisive action by firing your finance minister and recognizing that your no-brakes free-market ideology is a failure.
D) Threaten to show old videos of the Opposition leader.

Guess which one our Dear Leader, Steve Harper, picked?

May I suggest that Canada add $300 million to the defecit? That's what it costs to hold an election. And whatever it costs it'll be cheaper to put someone else in power.

The Conservative Party of Canada: Making bad ideas even worse, lying about it, and wondering why the voters don't seem engaged.