Okay, We're Back

This seems like as good a time as any revisit Mr. Bunk Strutts' comments from back about the last ice age. Sure, we both have better things to do, but ...

Well actually at this precise moment, I don't. And as I'm leaving town for a while, I figured I should get a post up. Plus I'd been looking into this for a while.

Because recently the Daily Mail made a total ₤µ©λup of an interview with a climate scientist from the University of East Anglia Climate Research Unit, renown in song and story for the "Climategate" emails, which proved only that science isn't for sissies.

The Mail piece has been thoroughly dealt with, though in by no means as loud or obnoxious a fashion as it ought to have been, by better writers than my noble self.

But I wanted to return to Bunk's comment, because a challenge to one's ideas that one cannot immediately answer should be researched. I'm sorry it's taken so long. And it'll take longer.

Before proceeding, let me say that I want to try and keep this discussion as civil as possible. I don't intend to insult Mr. Strutts for holding a view he considers reasonable.

Our mutual acquiantance Raincoaster says that were we to meet, we'd probably argue late into the night over pitchers of beer. We might even agree on what brand of beer to order.

So let's get to part one.

Bunk visited my post about the tepid Copenhagen Conference on climate change and left a long comment.

It raised a number of points, some of which were correct in their facts but incorrect on the interpretation. And what is the internet after all but an extension of the great search for meaning, eh?

For clarity, I'm enclosing Bunk's statements in blockquotes and italic font.

I'm sure I won't change Bunk's mind on this. In order to do that he and I would first have to agree on a credible set of sources, and I doubt we can agree on that point.

But I feel that I should know why I believe what I believe, and at least have a nodding acquaintance with what the science says. Which is why this is such a long post.

Bunk opens up thusly:
The premise of manmade global warming (AGW) is a false alarmist myth designed to create public hysteria for the purposes of taxation, both locally and globally.

Then who's behind this myth? That taxation theory's certainly not supported in my country, where the science minister thinks belief in evolution is a religious position and the PM called AGW a "socialist plot."

On the other hand, a number of authorities one could hardly describe as left-wing loonies are taking the position that AGW is real.

But more importantly, the position has nothing to do with taxation. If alternatives to carbon taxation were found (such as Kyoto's carbon credit system) the position would not change: "It ain't happening, and wouldn't matter if it were."

For example, carbon pricing is a free-market solution that's rejected by the same people who claim the free market has all the answers.

The premise that a [1-to-2]*-degree Celsius increase in average global temperatures over a century is a catastrophic danger is false.

[*Edited from "1/2" to clarify what I think Bunk means. Any error is the fault of my interpretation.]

In fact the main thrust of anti-warming efforts is to hold warming down to something around two degrees in order to forestall worse warming and worse cocomittant effects. But don't take my word for it: Read the Times.

We're also not talking about a century. We're already past the first degree. The question is whether we can keep it to two, probably within the next fifty years.

The premise that a relatively small percentage of sentient animals (humans) can significantly affect long-term global temperature variations is absurd.
Did we cause acid rain? L.A.'s horrible smog? Fewer than 500 million humans created those effects. In the case of L.A. they're still trying to fix them. A cross-border agreement helped stop acid rain.

Why is it so inconceivable that we could effect change on a global level? After all, we really aren't a "relatively small percentage of sentient animals." There are eight billion-plus of us, all of us burning fuels at increasing rates to make our economies do what they do.

The premise that human-generated CO2 is the culprit ignores the fact that water vapor is the major uncontrollable greenhouse gas by a factor of tens of thousands.
Right, except possibly for the "uncontrollable bit." As CO2 warms the atmosphere, more water evaporates, and more water vapour increases the warming effect. So adding more CO2 increases the rate at which the world is warming. But we could slow the rate at which CO2 is being added to the atmosphere by reducing the other crap, along with the CO2, we put into it.

The fact [is] that global temperatures are always in flux due to thousands of variables, as they have been since the creation of this planet.
So natural factors like sunlight, cloud cover, and vegetable rot can apparently change the climate, but not gigatons of carbon emissions?

There is no possible way to determine what the ideal global temperature should be, as that is merely a philosophical argument, i.e., do you favor plants or animals? Reptiles or mammals? Algae or bacteria?
My philosophical position is that judging by the lessons of history, we're better off trying to not screw things up any further.

We have some idea of the potential effects of a warmer climate, and aside from less snowblowing (which would be offset by an increase in lawn mowing), they don't sound good.

But most life on this ball of mud is interconnected anyway, and we mess with other species at our peril.

So the ideal global temperature, to me, would be something in the range of the past couple of thousand years, during which humankind has lived and thrived.

This concludes part one. It'll be at least a week before I can post a second part. Thanks for reading, if you got this far.

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?

Happy New Year

Well the 00s were, to quote Garry Trudeau on the 70s, "a kidney stone of a decade." I'm glad they're gone, and I hope that the 10s will be better.

I was going to tot up some of the best-and-worst of the decade, but I'm sure it's been covered by better people, and who wants to hear me go off on Bush the Lesser again? Personally, I don't.

What I really want is to wish you and yours every good thing this next year and decade.

What I really want of the next year, and the decade to come, is that it be better.

Goodnight, and good luck to us in 2010.

This Is News? #94

Caribou Barbie has blackened her running mate's name.

Uh, didn't she do that pretty much as soon she joined the campaign? Not that he wasn't making a fine job of it on his own, but he needed someone to ensure that there was something in his platform for crazy, gun-loving, Bible-thumping, white people who weren't male, too.

A Wee Prediction About Copenhagen

The world will agree to a "framework" at Copenhagen. Maybe even sign an actual deal.

It will not be binding, with real penalties for failure to reduce emissions

It won't adress consumer-level pollution

It will be based on cap-and-trade, but will be watered down, with incentive-destroying loopholes for many nations

Here's Canada's loophole: The Conservative unnatural governing party claims it wants to penalize "polluters." To that end they have advanced cap-and-trade, to be imposed on industry rather than their fickle taxpaying electorate.

There are two problems with that:
First, if those financial penalties are imposed on companies, the cost of goods and services will simply rise by that much, plus a bit extra to reflect the cost of administering the new penalties, if any (whether the Conservatives are willing to slap on penalties with teeth remains to be seen, and I wouldn't hold your breath). In other words, the cash still comes out of the consumer's pocket.

Secondly: As I mentioned below, we're not an industrial nation anymore. Companies in Canada account for about half the pollution we emit. The other half is mostly from our cars.

There's a simple, market-based solution for this. However, it's not a Conservative-friendly solution. It's taxes.

Yes, taxes. Those things Harper's now considering re-raising as we slither along the economic trench in the wake of his economic stewardship (which has heretofore been comparable to the stewardship of Joseph Hazelwood on the Exxon Valdez).

It's simple: You tax crap that pollutes, and use the revenue to reduce the price of things that don't. Tax gasoline, pass the savings on to hydro or wind power. Tax heating oil, reduce the taxes on home heating gas. Increase incentives to buy energy-efficient appliances, drive cleaner cars, and build green buildings, decrease the incentives to buy SUVs, hang onto antique toasters, and live in poorly-insulated boxes.

But our Conservative government can't go that route. Look at how they demonized Stephane Dion's "tax-on-everything."

There's another solution of course: Elect someone else. Which I'm afraid is what we have to do ... if we can find someone else to vote for. Because the Opposition Liberals aren't making any noise about it, and the Bloc Quebecois doesn't care.

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.

Gift For That Hard-to-Buy-For Raincoaster On Your List

I personally won't be buying this. I mean, the Raincoaster I know isn't exactly hard to buy for. A bottle of gin, or cheap wine left over from last night's party with the ciggie butts seived out, or indeed the mouthwash you thought was such a bargain in the five-litre bottle, that's the sort of thing the type of Raincoaster we get around here usually appreciates.

But if you know a fussier one, you could get them their very own copy of Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters it's from those respectable people who brought you the disturbing and apparently soon-to-be-miniseries Pride and Prejudice and Zombies :

Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters expands the original text of the beloved Jane Austen novel with all-new scenes of giant lobsters, rampaging octopi, two-headed sea serpents, and other biological monstrosities.

"Biological monstrosities? Perhaps Raincoaster has even been written in?

As with all the best book marketing efforts these days, this one comes with a video:


I suspect that I will like the book better. I almost always do.

A Few Tweaks

I've been away a lot lately. Scrabbling for work, mostly.

Let's see, what's been happening. Well I've been spending a lot of time reading about the so-called "Climate-gate" scandal, and I've concluded that a handful of emails, even if they contained a plot that would make Dan Brown wet his shorts, don't in fact change thirty or fifty years of science, backed by the actual data.

There's a lot more. But for some good reading on the subjects, I'd try Deltoid and DeSmogBlog. This is a debate where style has heretofore trumped science, and those two are trying hard to counter that.

What else ... Oh yes, I've been sort of outed. I left a rude comment over at Canadian Cynic and one of the subjects took the two minutes it took to Google me. He says my name is Ted, and I'm willing to take his word on that. But I knew, and was warned by no less an intertubes big gun than Raincoaster, that no-one's really anonymous on the 'net. So it isn't as though I hadn't expected this to happen at some point.

It'll be interesting to see whether the idea of having a name linked to this blog is likely to change the way I express myself. I hope not. Metro's the little bit of me that I keep locked away when someone's saying something that makes me want to grab their lapels, haul them up to my nose and scream "Are you ₤µ©λing NUTS!?"

Such as when a pleasant, white-haired old lady tells me that Barack Obama is the devil, and means it ... So instead I smile and nod, and when I get home I write it down and try to dissect it.

Anyway ... As you can see, I've updated the blogroll a bit to more accurately reflect where I've been spending my time. If the links look a little left-ish, well I'm hoping to find some reasonable writing from the other side of the spectrum. But it's often a matter of luck. For example, there's today's smart, sensible piece:

At Dr. Dawg's Blawg, I stumbled across a link to this. I linked to Little Green Footballs once, and only once, way back in the prehistory of the ol' Metroblog. I didn't hang about because teh crazy seemed infectious. I forget how I got there, but the Nazi site Stormfront was involved. And no I'm not linking there.

But now I find this post "Why I Parted Ways With the Right, and it so well traces my own retreat from Conservatism that I had to clip a few choice bits off and post them here:

...
4. Support for anti-science bad craziness (see: creationism, climate change denialism, Sarah Palin, Michele Bachmann, James Inhofe, etc.)

5. Support for homophobic bigotry (see: Sarah Palin, Dobson, the entire religious right, etc.)

6. Support for anti-government lunacy (see: tea parties, militias, Fox News, Glenn Beck, etc.)

7. Support for conspiracy theories and hate speech (see: Alex Jones, Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, Birthers, creationists, climate deniers, etc.)
...

There's more. I reccomend reading that piece.

Partly as a result of hanging around at places that define the extremes of the argument, I'd been very dispirited and bitter lately about the quality of ideas out there. So it's nice to see that sometimes reason does, in fact, prevail.

Meantime, I'm pleased to meet you.
Now you know my name.

Play me off, Mick and Keith!

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.

It's a Great, Great Day

I don't do Twitter. Seriously, d'you think I ever had anything to say in 140 characters or fewer?

However, I might just join now. Gene Ray, self-billed as "Wisest Human" and originator of TIMECUBE is on Twitter. So I noticed on Pharyngula.

To frame this properly, one needs to consider that Ray's been around pretty much as long as the internet has had the capacity for pixellated graphics and eye-searing, effect-smeared fonts, and has developed a following of people bemused and amazed by the foaming bat$#17 lunacy he spews.

In some of the places I hang out on the 'net, teh crazy is measured on a scale of 0.0 to 1.0 Timecubes.

A selection of his tweets:

To worship a religious/academic defied Queer(God) as your progenitor, equates to spitting puke in your Mom and Dad's face - a beastly act.

Actually, infants and children do this all the time, dude.

You would be wiser if unschooled then be taught ONEness stupidity to worship Evil of ONEism, contradicted by Opposite Creation.

To quote Opus from the Bloom County strips: "And would I have monkeys pick my nose for me?"

THIS APPEARS TO CONTAIN ORANGE SHERBET WHICH IS NOT PART OF THE TIME CUBE

Sure, 'cos the TIME CUBE is all about Ben and Jerry's Chunky Monkey.

But unfortunately it's not all fun and games. Here's why I'm not linking to him:

Academic retards teaches worship of queer jew god, equates to adults eating their children.

SUN power will not allow any Black Skin power to rule over its Light Domain.

Queers killed my lil Brother. A Queer God induces AIDS.

WARNING TO EDUCATED STUPID, Black Skin equates imprisonment, white race had nothing to do making negros black.

It's a good lesson in why we can't afford to laugh at teh crazy, but also can't afford not to. And yes, perhaps it's mean to laugh at someone so clearly exhibiting the symptoms of mental illness.

My consolation is that a) he probably won't notice and b) he probably won't care if he does. I'm utterly certain he's used to it by now.

Bad Thoughts on Religion

Catholic Metroboy: "Jesus died for your sins."

Atheist Metroman: "So what?"

CM: "So what? So what? I mean, the guy, right, the guy actually experienced an agonizing death in return for which your sins were forgiven."

AM: "But why'd he have to die?"

CM: "So that your sins were forgiven."

AM: "Who said they needed forgiving?"

CM: "God."

AM: "Okay, so lemme get this straight: The all-powerful Lord of the universe invents sin, gets mad at us for doing it, and then essentially sacrifices himself to himself to square the books?"

CM: "Well ... Yeah ... You're trivializing His agony on the cross, you know. Would YOU want to experience that?"

AM: "Sure. Why not?"

CM: "You would?"

AM: "Look, according to your philosphy, Jesus = God, right?"

CM: "Yes."

AM: "They're the same guy?"

CM: "Well, pretty much, yeah. It's a bit mystic."

AM: "So Jesus is immortal and omipotent and omniscient?"

CM: "He'd have to be."

AM: "Could have gotten down off the cross and showed everyone a thing or two at any time, right?"

CM: "But he wasn't using his powers."

AM: "Well he did use prophecy, right, seeing into the future?"

CM: "Okay, so ..."

AM: "So he's been alive since the beginning of everything ... billions of years ..."

CM: "Well, okay."

AM: "So to sum up: God pops down to earth for a quick thirty-year holiday whereupon he spends a few hours dying in agony to appease himself, after which he goes back to being immortal."

CM: "Uh ... If you put it that way ..."

AM: "Moreover, he knows he'll be up and around within a few days."

CM: "I really ..."

AM: "So Jesus had a long weekend for my sins?"

CM: "Well ... "

AM: "The dude spends, let's say eight hours dying in agony ..."

CM: "Uh ..."

AM:"I mean, eight hours out of six thousand years ... that's about 1/6,570,000th of his life, right?"

CM: "Well, yes, but I don't think ..."

AM:"And then he goes back to being alive ... If I were offered immortality in return for being crucified for one-six-millionth of my life*, I'd take that deal."

CM: "Uh ... You got any Aspirin? I think I'm developing a headache."

AM: "Not only that, but why'd he have to die in the first place? He makes the damn rules, couldn't he have just given himself a good spanking or something? And how the hell is anyone supposed to learn a lesson from an apocryphal tale six thousand years old? Couldn't he have left us at least a videocassette? Or perhaps he could have engraved it into a diamond the size of a mountain or something? Or created letters of fire a hundred feet high, visible from every place at once? Written it on the moon ... Instead he relies on semi-literate nomadic desert kids to scribble it down on goatskins and parchment. Make a lot of sense, doesn't it?"

And the wrangle, unevenly, continues.

*It'd work out to about 0.06 of an hour, which is three minutes and thirty-six seconds.

LOL of th' Day

xkcd is teh ossum.

Matt Taibbi: Now Known as "Dances With Nuts"

From an article entitled "Jesus Made Me Puke":

By the end of the weekend I realized how quaint was the mere suggestion that Christians of this type should learn to "be rational" or "set aside your religion" about such things as the Iraq War or other policy matters. Once you've made a journey like this — once you've gone this far — you are beyond suggestible. It's not merely the informational indoctrination, the constant belittling of homosexuals and atheists and Muslims and pacifists, etc., that's the issue. It's that once you've gotten to this place, you've left behind the mental process that a person would need to form an independent opinion about such things. You make this journey precisely to experience the ecstasy of beating to the same big gristly heart with a roomful of like-minded folks. Once you reach that place with them, you're thinking with muscles, not neurons.

Another Threat to Marriage

Doubtless the right wingers will want to campaign against this one as well.

Pathetic.

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.

Harper Conservative Government (TM) Supports Criminals!

Remember that I told you a while back that the Harper Conservative Government(TM) was cutting funding for a program to keep sex offenders from becoming re-offenders? And remember how I couldn't find the link?

Yeah, well it turns out that the Harper Conservative Government(TM) did an about-face and re-funded the program, and their spokespeople are busily claiming that "no decision had been made." As usual their declaration flies in the face of the evidence.

I smell an election. The Harpercons (were they stupid enough to believe their own polls) are near 40%, suggesting majority territory, and they're going to do their "tough on crime" show--Which is actually performed to the tune of "Taking Care of Business"--to shore up support.

The object is not to actually be tough on crime (particularly when your own party may be vulnerable, or your ministers). Instead, the object is to do the dance, and then when someone says your're dancing too frenetically, and in the wrong direction, to point at the critic and scream "Soft on crime! Sooooft on Criiiiiiime!"

That said, I think it's good they got their heads out of their collectives for long enough to straighten this out. 'Cause society needs support for offenders, sex or no, and Conservatives are famously stingy with their support.

Hahahahaha! QOTMFD!

Overheard around town:

Teen girl:
"Well if God wanted us to fly, he would have given us wings."

Teen boy:
"So wait ... God wants me to masturbate?"

TG Look of incredulous disgust spreading over her face:
"What?"

TB:
"Well otherwise why'd he make my arms long enough to reach my dick?"

Quote of the Day #349

And it's from "E!" network, fer FSM's sake--The gut-spilling, wrenching void of celebrity goss and toss.

"The truth, no matter how uncomfortable, is never too much information."

It's the last sentence of a surprisingly deep blog post that must have been handed out to E!'s headline writers without notification that this was a genuine piece of thoughtful opinion.

The headline is "Mackenzie Phillips Is Not Oversharing!" The headline is a damn-near-slight to a woman who seems to be determined to unburden herself publicly of some of the most asocial revelations anyone could put themselves through. Money quote:

We don't want to hear it. Any of it.

And that might be the ickiest thing of all.

My feeling when a semi-celeb comes out with revelations like this is that you do need to look for the motive. But while Phillips has been doing the talk-show circuit, she could have done that by simply asserting that Papa John had beaten her, or something less ... icky.

Obesity Epidemic Hitting Close to Home (Renos)

From my Canadian Tire flier, which arrived as usual with the Friday paper:

Toilet seats 20% off: Wide selection.

Have a good weekend.