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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

In Defence of Offenders

In the news today I see that sex offenders in Georgia and Florida have reputedly taken to living in tents.

The group of nine men were told to live in the woods in the southern state after they were unable to find housing far enough away from areas where children congregated, such as schools and playgrounds.

Georgian law bans the state's 16,000 sex offenders from living, working or loitering within 1,000ft of schools, churches, child-care facilities and other areas where children gather.

Yeah, that law makes sense. Just like the current fad of "outing" such offenders online, or posting their mug shots in the neighborhoods where they get released.

Look: A sex offender by definition is one who's been caught. Many, if not most, of the ones who do time can't be fully rehabilitated. They need watching, pure and simple. And they absolutely need access to the support systems everyone else has to ensure they're at the lowest possible risk of reoffending.

These guys probably aren't the problem! They're trying to comply with the conditions of laws that would be regarded as unfair if imposed on many other classes of offender.

What's needed isn't exclusion. What's needed is a way to ensure that these guys can return to the community in safety, or conversely where the risk of re-offence is unacceptably high, what's needed is a mechanism to keep them under direct and constant supervision.

And that's why the Stephen Harper Conservative Government of Canada™ pisses me off. They're trying to kick over one of the few frail anti-re-offence agencies that exist. Wish I could find the link to that, dammit ... It was right here a minute ago. They've apparently chopped funding to one of the few working sex-offender post-release counselling-and-treatment outfits. I'll keep looking.

But in any case, the Stephen Harper Conservative Government of Canada™ has an embarrassingly fluffy relationship with the desperately disfunctional US prison system.

The problem is the fundamental difference in perception. Canadians regard the purpose of prison as an attempt at rehabilitation. A machine which turns crooks into citizens (albeit at a very low rate).

US Republicans and the Stephen Harper Conservative Government of Canada™ (if that's not a redundancy) see prisons as a massive private machine where inmates=profit, and rehab and trying to open doors gives way to punishment and training the thugs to damn well stay in their place.

Nonethless, Public Safety caveman Peter van Loan asserts that such places will "return people to the community better able to live law-abiding lives." Despite the fact that it doesn't work. Hasn't worked in the US, and--surprise!--Hasn't worked here.

Note: Yes, I know the government said privatization isn't on the table. Let's consider this like adults, shall we?

Stephen Harper, alleged economist either mistook or lied outright when he claimed there wasn't a recession coming. Immediately after winning his second minority, he said strong measures had to be taken to blunt its impact.

Stephen Harper passed a law saying an election had to be held, was mandatory, this October. Last year he broke his own law (As a lawbreaker himself, doesn't he worry about being carted off to a US-style jail?).

So this government isn't known for what you'd call "frankness". Drop the "f" and you'd be about right. Their ideology calls for privatization of public functions, without regard to inconvieniences like "facts" or "reality."

You want to know where opposition to relaxing marijuana laws comes from in the US? Three guesses and the first two don't count. When prisoners=profit, sacrifices have to be made, eh? Sometimes human sacrifices.

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.

Safety Catch .22

There was only one catch and that was Catch-22, which specified that a concern for one's safety in the face of dangers that were real and immediate was the process of a rational mind. Orr was crazy and could be grounded. All he had to do was ask; and as soon as he did, he would no longer be crazy and would have to fly more missions. Orr would be crazy to fly more missions and sane if he didn't, but if he was sane he had to fly them. If he flew them he was crazy and didn't have to; but if he didn't want to he was sane and had to.

~From Joseph Heller's 1961 novel

Just today we receive the announcement that several idiots who filmed themselves illegally shooting flightless baby ducks from their truck and making humourous comments such as "Mama's dead, don't need that one anymore," have been caught.

I have avoided commenting at the various threads on the health club shooting beyond saying that the shooter (may his name be rapidly forgotten) was a zeta-male loser with a grudge and a gun. The part I'm avoiding is the obvious bit about the NRA's unofficial creed: "Guns don't kill people--People with guns kill people!"

The point is that it's fairly clear that many people who get themselves a gun are precisely the sort of people whom no-one would want to have one.

So I propose a simple policy: I call it "Safety Catch-.22"

Since the desire to have a gun often seems to indicate the unsuitability of the applicant, anyone who applies in their own name to own a firearm will be immediately disqualified from doing so.

However, in the interest of fairness and all other requirements met, a license may be granted to anyone who can persuade another person to apply in his or her name.

I mean, think about it. People who know multiple murderers often say "Yeah--he creeped me out." Do you think anyone who knew the gym shooter, or the Columbine kids, would have signed off on getting them guns?

A friend mentioned, by pure happenstance yesterday, that one of the Columbine shooters' "girlfriend" acquired one of the weapons they used. I'd just like to say, "Have a nice life you dopey troll," and to suggest that perhaps the person making the application in your name should have to be a total stranger to you.

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.

The Best Statement I've Yet Heard on Climate Change

"And the very same people who told you that weapons of mass destruction were real are telling you that climate change is not."

Indeed.

One should consider one's sources. They were wrong about the economy, about the Iraq misadventure, and about so many other things ... Why would anyone trust them on anything at all?

From this video, found on Pharyngula.

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.