Did I Hear That Right?

Donna Cadman says that emissaries from the Stephen Harper Con-Job Party tried to bribe her late husband, then-MP Chuck Cadman to vote their way on a crucial vote.

Ms. Cadman will be running as the CPC candidate in her late husband's riding. She will be running for the party that tried to bribe a sitting MP so that she can pass his anti-crime bills.

Um, ... er, ... yeah, well.

Wedding Bells

For Michael Kremplasky and Monica Goodling!!!

Kremplasky is apparently a co-founder of moronic right-wing conglomeration of disgusting pseudo-humans, whatever, ... anyway, it's called "Red State" (and I have no intention of linking to that piece of shit), while Goodling was the bible-college lawyer airhead hired by the contemptible Alberto Gonzales to rid the US Justice Department of any shreds of professionalism.

That's all we're up against folks!

These slavering morons on right-wing blogs that we make fun of all the time, ... they're the intellectual counterparts of the actual power-holders, ... similarly mentally-challenged fuckwads themselves. [Hi Stockwell Day!!!]

We have a system that rewards this sort of filth, and we must change that system.

Cockburn on John McCain

I must say, I had to chuckle at the introduction to Alexander Cockburn's editorial about John McCain:

Until last week John McCain's political handlers had been complacently sketching out their basic strategy: to portray Obama as a mere novice in statecraft, devoid of those powers of mature wisdom and sober judgment with which the seasoned McCain is so richly endowed.

The problem here for McCain is that he's a dunderhead in statecraft, devoid of self control, capricious in moral standards and an imbecile in his lack of political judgment.

Yeah, except for that, McCain's the One!

If I'm Doing Anything Today It's ...

... reading and participating in a discussion on EnMasse.

Obama versus Bob Dole John McCain

So, it's looking like it'll be Obama green-lighting Israel's next invasion of Lebanon or atrocities in the Occupied Territories, overseeing the permanent bases in Iraq, and ramming a dying neo-liberalism down the throats of US Americans (during a recession! AWESOME!!!), instead of Hillary.

How interesting. The first black president versus the first woman president. That's something.

But, for many people, it's also meaningless, both in a good way and in a bad way. Good: Many people are above making such factors determinants in their voting, which signals maturity. Bad: Both candidates are clueless, neo-liberal imperialists.

Anyway, it looks like the Repug candidate is John McCain. Who has, since bush II's winning the Repug nomination back in 2000, has gradually abandoned whatever principles and consistencies he ever had, in order to carry the torch of the party with the president who fell below the 20 percent level in approval! (Hoot-man!!)

Dead man walking. What an ugly, stupid, election it's going to be.

"I'm not alone!!!"

That must be the explanation behind the volubility of the typical Blogging Tory. For most of their existences, their dismal stupidity and brutish cruelty has made them social outcasts.

In the past, they were forced to blurt out their idiotic political beliefs in public places, hoping to find a kindred spirit, rather than another stranger muttering non-committals and trying to escape, but now, with the internet, they realize that there's thousands of similarly deranged humans out there and they post and post their calls for genocide, criminal wars, self-destructive economic policies, mass sterilization, and pathetic closet-case psychoses, secure in the knowledge that another lonely soul will find them and celebrate with them in their mutual inhumanity.

Ah, Rosie, .... you fucking moron ...

Pogge and Scott have both blogged on this, but I was so appalled that I thought that I'd give it a whirl ...

Rosie DiManno, the columnist/circus freak inexplicably given a regular column by the Toronto Star (perhaps to capture that all-important slavering facist moron demographic and avoid the "stigma" of being a purely "liberal" paper) has barfed-up another monstrosity of a column.

"We can't impose values on Afghans"

Now then. Let's stop right there. As Jim Bobby comments on Scott's blog;

… and another thing. As I understand it, our mission is to help create a stable, democratic society that operates on the rule of law. That’s why we went. That’s why we’re there.

But Afghanistan never had a democratic government before, stable or otherwise. Isn’t the entire mission based on imposing western values on a rogue state? How can we be there to create a democracy and say, at the same, time that we cannot justify imposing our values?

So, Rosie's column, which will only continue to get more embarrassing and nauseating, is a stupid waste of time FROM THE VERY BEGINNING. The whole point of "the mission" (tm) is about imposing Western values, ... so fuck you and the horse you rode in on Rosie!

DiManno's column is such a vile piece of garbage that it deserves a thorough thrashing.

It starts off with the world-weary journalist delivering some harsh reality to us over-sensitive pinko Canadian weenies:

Afghanistan will not fast-forward from the 12th century to the 21st century in the blink of an eye and certainly not according to the agenda of Canadian sensibilities.

Remember now; this is the whole gist (supposedly) of NATO's "mission." So don't go lecturing the decent people who oppose torture Rosie. Spare your contempt for Paul Martin, Stephen Harper, Tony Blair, .... and fools such as yourself.

If you want to see an Afghan beaten by a stick – or otherwise abused, by our standards – just walk out into the street in Kandahar city.

Whoa! That's deep! Actually, Rosie, you idiot; being beaten by a stick is abuse by anyone's standards. Just ask the people being beaten. Dimwit.

Their long history is soaked in violence. They have barely emerged from three decades of civil war

Ah! Such an inscrutable people! So addicted to violence. Oh, Rosie, ... one thing, you forgot to mention that much of the violence was the result of Soviet and American meddling. Kind of important.

...and are coping, as best they can, with a pitiless insurgency that targets the indigenous population even more than foreign troops, preying especially on women, children, teachers, aid workers and civil servants.

Oh Rosie? You forgot something else again. You forgot to mention that NATO has been killing more Afghans than the Taliban/insurgency. Oh yeah, you forgot yet another thing! The Karzai government's police force is also a pitiless scourge. As are the warlords collaborating with Karzai. This stuff is important and I wonder why you neglected to include it in your report. No I don't. I know you're a hack propagandist.

I have met Governor Asadullah Khalid many times,...

Hunh? Who? Whatever are you talking about? Who is this Khalid fellow Rosie?

been in the palace where it is alleged that the young minister

Young is he? Is he good-looking too? What is it that this fine young fellow is alleged to have done?

was directly involved in the torture of detainees held in private cells.

Yikes!! Now, the word "young" conjures up a young, virile fellow who will tirelessly beat his victims! Rosie, seriously, why'd you say he was young? How the fuck was it at all relevant? At least the prisoners got to enjoy private cells. Those beatings in the semi-private cells are the worst, ... there's all this macho pressure not to crack in front of one's cell mates.

Those allegations now dwindle down to one accuser,

What happened? We kill all the others?

transferred last year to the National Directorate of Security prison, an agency far more suspect in the mistreatment of detainees.

This is where Rosie gets all confused, tossing around her mindless contempt too freely. Now she's just gone and created the impression that the whole fucking edifice of justice in Karzai's and NATO's Afghanistan is rotten. She was attempting to pour scorn on the Canadian softies who oppose torture, but being utterly clueless and overwhelmed by her experience with irrelevancies ... ["I'm in the country where things happen! Hundreds of miles away! I can't see these things that happen. But I talk to the people involved! Politicians lie straight to my face! I don't have to get the lies second-hand like you do, when you read my columns! I was in the room where the beatings are alleged to have taken place! When I was there, ... there were no beatings! I think Governor Khalid is H-O-T!!!"] ... that she ends up giving the fraud of the whole Afghanistan nation-building project away.

Khalid is as thoughtful and soft-spoken an Afghan male as you will ever meet.

Two things: Lots of monsters can have side-interests and quiet voices. Stop slavering over this guy and do your fucking job! Secondly, ... what's up with the "an Afghan male as you will ever meet" qualifier? Some sort of Western chauvinism about how Afghan males can't approach Western males for thoughtfulness and etc.?

citizens regard him with affection and respect, as a principled official

Yeah, well, ... that's what Rosie DiManno types anyway.

I don't know if Khalid beat and electrically prodded this prisoner, as claimed. He forcefully denied those reports in a weekend interview with Stephanie Levitz of The Canadian Press. But Afghans lie as effortlessly as they breathe. In this culture, dramatic prevarication is considered an admirable skill. Survival often relies on scheming. Minus any tangible evidence, I would believe Khalid over the testament of a prisoner pouring bile into the ears of Canadian diplomats.

What a breathtakingly stupid paragraph. It's full of so much nauseating drivel and uselessness. How much does TorStar pay this idiot to produce this stupidity year after fucking year? So only now do we hear what this Khalid guy is said to have done. This young, thoughtful, soft-spoken (for an Afghan male anyway), principled governor, whose citizens regard him with affection and respect, is alleged to have beaten someone and taken a cattle-prod to them.

Well, all-righty then. Now we now what the subject of the goddamned article is anyway. Say Rosie, ... let me go out on a limb here, ... are you trying to paint the picture in such a way for your readers to doubt Khalid's guilt? Is that what the use of all those positive adjectives was for? Are you really that clumsy and obvious?

He forcefully denied it did he? Well, that should have gone without saying.

"But Afghans lie as effortlessly as they breath." You don't say Rosie! You know, right now I'm reading Edward Said's Orientalism. It's full of criticisms for the imperialist, racist drivel you just spewed for us there. Now, Rosie, I know you attempted to qualify your arrogant utterance by making idiotic references to the history and politics of the place, but your statement remains what it is: an arrogant, racist, stupid shitty thing to say. Westerners lie as effortlessly as we breath as well for that matter. Take yourself for instance: While you want to believe the garbage you write each and everyday, your resorting to crude and blatant propaganda and spin shows that you know you're lying. What's up with that?

In the absence of any evidence, you'll believe Khalid over his accuser? Fine. Presumption of innocence and all that. But Rosie, ... Rosie, Rosie, Rosie, ... we're not asking you to investigate the matter for us and arrive at an official decision of innocent or guilty. We're asking you to report the facts. Reporters are supposed to "smell a story," ... they're supposed to dig up scandals. Reporters aren't supposed to answer the phone, hear some leads about official corruption, presume the politicians are innocent and not bother investigating anything. And we certainly don't need you to write brainless babbling about how we MUST believe the hot, dreamy (for an Afghan) accused over the unidentified accuser "pouring bile" into people's ears [ewww!] just because you've got a boner for someone. Seriously Rosie, who the fuck are you that we should take your opinion seriously? A racist, know-nothing warmonger, that's all you are.

I mean, especially that given the fact that torture is rampant in Afghanistan (simply reading between the lines of your own stupid columns indicates this), why do we have to take it as a given that Khalid is innocent and his accuser is lying?

Afghanistan is a sovereign nation. We cannot impose our values, our Charter of Rights and our international covenants on them.

Well, regarding imposing our Charter of Rights on them, ... duh! But Afghanistan's sovereignty is an open question. It appears to be powerless to advise the NATO forces blowing up villages at will. It's sovereignty only appears to be operative when we want to wash our hands of the problem of torture. Regarding international covenants, ... I'm afraid they do have to live up to such things, if they want to be a part of the community of nations.

But it just occurs to me; evidently according to the "Responsibility to Protect," the former imperialist nations have decided that their now the "good guys" and they have to go around saving the inhabitants of "failed states" that not only cannot look after the basic needs of their peoples, but which are actually detrimental to the well-being of their peoples. So, what happens when the "good guys" create and prop-up their own "failed state"? Nothing evidently. Not a goddamned thing.

Canadians are there as a primary NATO element, in support of a United Nations mandate, at the invitation of a Kabul government

Blah, blah, blah. How is this relevant to accusations of torture and Canadian complicity in war-crimes? How is it at all relevant?

If that government falls in the next election – Afghans infuriated by corruption and incompetence – that will be their choice. But it won't be because some suspected Taliban detainees have been maybe tortured.

Right. Khalid's presumed innocence is front and center. But all the detainees are no doubt evil, fanatical Taliban, champing at the bit to kill women and Westerners and have wet-dreams about pre-adolescent boys playing soccer in the nude. Who lie about being tortured. And, anyway, this sovereign people can try to get rid of Karzai in the next election. It's their choice. Unless it isn't. In which case, Karzai will stay, either via electoral fraud or by brute force. And anyone who protests is a Taliban lying about torture again. And, anyway, Afghans might be infuriated by incompetence and corruption, but not by themselves or their loved ones getting tortured. Rosie knows. She's there. She has a keen insight into these lying, sadistic people's psyches.

That plays only to a Canadian audience and nowhere as much as the headlines would suggest.

Oh contraire Rosie! I beg to differ! The vast majority of Canadians are appalled at the thought of complicity in torture. The nazis and morons who comprise your fan base and send you letters of encouragement are only a tiny, diseased part of the body politic and are in no way representative of decent, ordinary people.

It is profoundly naïve and inexcusably paternalistic, however, to pretend that Canada can reinvent Afghan culture by exporting our precious ethics when that country is still very much under siege.

Naive and paternalistic to assume we could transform the country and export our values? Then once again you dimwit, if that's the case we shouldn't have gone over there in the first place! And our ethics can't be that precious since according to Rosie, Canadians don't care about them, and Rosie believes you can abandon them the minute things become difficult.

Further, the whole detainee scandal would never have arisen had not Ottawa winced at the optics of handing over prisoners to U.S. authorities.

Thanks Rosie. If I ever had any doubts that you were a brainless, thuggish ignoramus who doesn't deserve to be taken seriously for even a second, you managed to remove them with that one. The Americans are convicted torturers you dunce. link, link, link.

Right there, you display yourself as a talentless, worthless, contemptible hack.

As I said on pogge, Rosie ought not to talk about "our precious ethics" and values She's exhibited time and time again that she doesn't share the values of the majority of Canadians. She shares the non-values of the Blogging Tories. If somebody else was paying her meal ticket, she'd be a willing holocaust denier.

Need proof? What about her defence of the US marine cold-bloodedly killing a wounded Iraqi insurgent? Rosie can find all the compassion and understanding in the world for that criminal act (as could I), but you won't ever find Rosie DiMoron extending that same courtesy to the victims of Western imperialism. DiMoron's bloodlust and callousness is the product of Western civilization, therefore it isn't bloodlust and callousness: It's all an understandable response to the "terrorism" of our inhuman, official enemies. The difference between Rosie and a normal human being is that while an ordinary person might see how shooting a wounded enemy could happen in the stress and dislocation of war time, that act remains a war crime. And therefore, it must receive an investigation and a penalty. And, furthermore, a normal human being would be capable of grasping that the people on the other side of our conflicts have their own emotional baggage, and their acts of brutality can be explained much the same way.

What about her constant cheer-leading for Israel's violations of international law and human rights?

I noticed in a google search for this post that Rosie is described by the loathsome crypto-fascist website "little green footballs" as "one of the Toronto Star's few sane columnists." Hah! How's that for damning praise? She also gets favourable mentions at KKKate MacMillan's smalldeadbraincells.

When that's the sort of vermin that makes up your fan-base, maybe you oughta take a long look in the mirror and, ... oh never mind. If you're as foul as Rosie DiManno is, to already attract the applause of these goons, you're too far gone for any introspection to help you. Why TorStar embarrasses itself with this entirely needless garbage is beyond me.

Rosie DiManno, Stupid Liberals, and etc., ...

Those are the things that I've got on the back burner. But for now, ... same old shit, ... links to other people's stuff. Including porn. (Or "pron" as trog69 n' the kids say these days.)

I'll Post Something of Substance Tomorrow

But today, ... too busy. So here's an old "Dodo - The Kid From Outer Space" episode.

What Did I Read Today?

The latest Harpers is pretty good. An article by Ken Silverstein about how members of the US Congress dip into their re-election campaign funds (supported by lobbyists, natch) for all sorts of perks, year round, year in, year out.

I'd thought that the constant fund-raising that one hears about in Washington was about the expenses of television-based advertising and so-on, but Silverstein connects the fact that thanks to gerrymandering, 90 percent of incumbents, Republican or Democrat, get re-elected.

One Republican Congressman from Florida spent $18,000 a month on hotels, restaurants, and other recreation, and charged it all to his "campaign" expenses.

It is a good thing to subscribe to good magazines.

Ah, I've been busy.

Ah Hell, Why Not?

Canadian Cynic pointed to a bit of mindless conservative garbage from some stupid fuckwit.

If'n you don't want to click the link, suffice to say the garbage was a photoshopped image of "Gollum" from LOTR movies with Jack Layton's face attached, accompanied by the words of wisdom:

"Never argue with a progressive. They pull you down to their level then beat you with experience."

Typical. The very definition of an "ad hominem attack." [Once again, for the slow: It's "ad hominem" if all you've got are insults that are beside the point. If you've demonstrated that the person is an idiot, then you're justified in so doing.]

Just for kicks, I typed a sarcastic "whoo-ray" to the mindless piece of drivel:

Wow! Brilliant argumentation! You really know how to find your opponent's weakness and then "go for it"!

My sarcasm evidently went right over the blogger's head:

Ummm ... if you haven't figured it out ... I have very little respect for "progressives" ... period ... if for no other reason that only a completely supercilious and arrogant person would wear the title, "progressive". And, last I checked, the post presents no arguement ... just states a fact.

So, I was forced to edumacate the person:

"Ummm ... if you haven't figured it out ... I have very little respect for "progressives" ... period"

Yeah, like anyone gives a sh_t.

"if for no other reason that only a completely supercilious and arrogant person would wear the title, 'progressive'."

Actually, (moron) people who use that term only mean that they're forward thinking. By now, there's enough history to have a sense of what that means. Pro-minority rights, Pro-opening up the political system to everyone, Pro-environment, etc., etc., ... as opposed to "regressive" imbeciles who want to return us to any sort of theocracy, who believe that women, minorities, youth, must "know their place," etc., etc.

"And, last I checked, the post presents no arguement"

Duh, rillee? Actually, that was obvious. I was being sarcastic. Too subtle for you I guess.Yes. No argument. That's par for the course for your sort.

"just states a fact."

In your dreams pal.

And that brought me two replies from some dimwit with the pseudonym "Nomennouvum" the deconstruction of which will be the point of today's post. A "debate" if you will.

"Anonymous" above this post can only be Thwap. [tis true! i hadn't bothered to attach my moniker that time around!] Note the use of profanity, the childish name-calling ("moron" is a personal favorite epithet of Thwap), and the unintentional tautology to counter conservative complaints that leftists consider themselves "progressive" ("Well, we're progressive because we believe progressive things, which 'regressives' don't." As if conservatives don't believe in democracy and freedom for all, but want to establish a mullahcracy in the West, take away rights for minorities and women, and want to destroy the environment.) No. Only Thwap can be that dumb and un-self-aware.

A-A-A-N-N-N-N-D-D-D .....

Thwap,

Who is supporting the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, which have served to establish nascent democracies in those states that have never known it? Who is freeing whole populations of women
from Islamist (i.e, "theocratic," Thwapy) oppression? Who supports the rights of Dutch citizens not to live under the threat of dangerous fatwas issued by bloodthirsty Islamic leaders? What administration in the US appointed the first black man, and then the first black woman, as Secretary of State? Who is fighting to prevent the expansion of influence of theocratic Iran is the Middle East (and maybe beyond, if they acquire WMDs), in the face of constant criticism by their political opponents? Who supports whole-hardily the tiny state of Israel, a country made up largely of Jews, a minority surrounded by those who wish to push her into the sea? Who is constantly on alert for "progressive," multi-cultural, and Islamist-sympathizing assaults on the inalienable right to free speech? Who is consistently criticizing anti-Semitism whenever it rears its ugly head (nowadays, it seems principally to come from the UN)? Who is leading the way in calling attention to the hideous facts of honor killing, forced marriage, and genital mutilation in the West?

I'll give you a hint, Thwap: the answer ain't the self-styled "progressive" community.

Now, who are the regressives?

So, let's go through this ejaculation of gibberish, shall we?

"Note the use of profanity, the childish name-calling"

Oooh! PROFANITY!!! Whatever. "Childish name-calling," ... this from a blog where the guy sticks Layton's face on Gollum, ... I'm supposed to muster up some sort of dignified, eloquent response? Fuck you. Moron.

"("moron" is a personal favorite epithet of Thwap)"

Well gee-willikers! Why the fuck shouldn't it be? You moron! You're all a bunch of fucking morons, ... that's why novenerumerusnrsum, that's why.

"and the unintentional tautology to counter conservative complaints that leftists consider themselves "progressive" ('Well, we're progressive because we believe progressive things, which "regressives" don't.' "

As I said, there's enough history for us to know what progressives stood for in the late-20th century. Peace, women's rights, sexual freedom, civil rights for minorities, environmentalism, economic justice and anti-imperialism, to name a few. This is documented fact fuck-face, so suck it up.

That's why we call ourselves progressive. It was earlier described as "supercilious and arrogant" to do so, so the point needed to be clarified.

Ah! But what's this??

"As if conservatives don't believe in democracy and freedom for all, but want to establish a mullahcracy in the West, take away rights for minorities and women, and want to destroy the environment.) "

Truth be told, "conservative" is such a debased word that I can't begin to debate with you what "you" (a self-described conservative) believes in. If Stephen Harper, Ezra Levant, Mike Harris, or George W. Bush have anything to say on the matter, it's some sort of stupid thuggery when in government, accompanied by blatant theft and corruption, all defended with the lamest sort of intellecutal flatulence.

To the degree that Harper wants to impose his regressive views about women's role in society, he's a regressive. To the extent that "conservatives" and neo-liberal whatthefucks want to lock people up without charges and torture them indefinitely (which, please note, is the opposite of "freedom for all"), to that extent they're regressive. To the extent that Christian fundamentalists want to impose their idiotic morals and their homophobic garbage on us, and to the extent that these whackjobs call themselves "conservative," to that extent are they regressive, as opposed to pro-fucking-gressive.

But let's see ....

"Who is supporting the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq"

It's amazing, the unintentional hilarity that ensues whenever one of these imbeciles actually tries to defend their beliefs, isn't it? Yeah, those crimes against humanity are really "progressive"!! Un-fucking-believa-bull!!

"which have served to establish nascent democracies in those states that have never known it?"

Sadly, no. We manipulated Afghanistan's loya jirga and imposed Karzai upon them. After that, well, what else is there to say? And don't dislocate your shoulder patting yourself on the back, because it was the USA that helped put Saddam Hussein into power and assisted him in wiping-out his political enemies. Governments installed via electoral fraud tend not to bring genuine democracy to client states. If you had half-a-brain, you'd know that.

"Who is freeing whole populations of women from Islamist (i.e, 'theocratic,' Thwapy) oppression?"

You really don't have a fucking clue, do you?

"Who supports the rights of Dutch citizens not to live under the threat of dangerous fatwas issued by bloodthirsty Islamic leaders? "

Yeah, because progressives hate people intolerant of other people's cultures, .... and the Dutch. What the fuck are you yammering about here you idiot? That "progressives" support dangerous, bloodthirsty fatwas? Fuck-off with your fatwas!

"What administration in the US appointed the first black man, and then the first black woman, as Secretary of State?"

Good God! You're as stupid as Condoleeza Rice! (Who said she joined the Repugs because they were the party of Lincoln, ... years after Nixon and the Repugs adopted the "Southern Strategy" of picking up the white racist Southern vote after Johnson and the Democrats brought in the Civil Rights Act and integration.) The Repugs are the party that systematically tries to deny black voters their democratic rights. The word you're straining for is "tokenism." That's when you provide some noteworthy exceptions that are supposed to stand for wholesale acceptance. It fools gullible people, but not most people.

"Who is fighting to prevent the expansion of influence of theocratic Iran is the Middle East (and maybe beyond, if they acquire WMDs), in the face of constant criticism by their political opponents?"

After destroying Iranian democracy in the coup against Mossadeq, installing the brutal, corrupt Shah, ... the US has no claim to bewail the fundamentalist regime that managed to gain power. The ham-handed bush II administration has given Iran a Shia ally in Iraq, and has strengthened the bonds between Iran and Baathist Syria. You're completely wrong on so many levels that my typing fingers will be worn to bony stumps accounting for all your errors. Spare me your drivel (disproven by the USA's own intelligence agencies) about terrifying weapons. After your explosion of credibility on this subject in Iraq, you presume to be taken seriously about Iranian WMDs? It beggars belief!!

"Who supports whole-hardily the tiny state of Israel, a country made up largely of Jews, a minority surrounded by those who wish to push her into the sea? "

Tiny, nuclear-powered Israel? The racist state that is EXPANDING by building ILLEGAL "settlements" in the occupied territories? The one that invaded Lebanon twice under false pretences both times, killing thousands of innocent civilians? The country that massacres and starves the Palestinians? That nuclear-powered tiny little country? You can forget your stereotypes about the nature of opposition to ISRAEL's policies. They don't fly here.

"Who is constantly on alert for "progressive," multi-cultural, and Islamist-sympathizing assaults on the inalienable right to free speech?"

That'd be me chump. True, there's dissent on the Left. Some people see the Human Rights Commissions as defences against systemic bigotry and hate-speech and what-not. But there's also people who stand on the side of free speech. The debate is a lot more sophisticated than you're capable of grasping, what with your loathsome and groundless self-righteousness.

And, ... I'm tired. Work to do.

Okay; where were we?

Ah yes! Celebrating the "inalienable right to free speech." Which, in "Conservative Land" means championing (not accepting, not resigning oneself to do it) the free speech rights of a bigoted newspaper editor who inflames Muslim sensibilities during a time when they're under widespread military attacks, when their homelands are being invaded in a "Crusade," ... yes, you champion the defense of this guys right to tweak the noses of a targeted people, ... even though this same bigoted doofus had refused to print cartoons that mocked Christianity.

Either that Fleming Rose shit, or you're all heroes for wannabe tough-guy Mark Steyn's eugenic yammerings. But if somebody wants to critique the Afghanistan mission, it's been my experience that your side jump up and down like frightened baboons, shrieking that criticism "hurts the troops" and how can people attack the troops in war-time and blah, blah, blah. If someone wants to put on a play about Rachel Corrie, somehow you "conservatives," you "champions of free speech" can't muster any enthusiasm to defend them when they're pressured to shut down. So, really, spare me your chest-thumping self-congratulations on your devotion to free speech fuckwad. Just spare me.

"Who is consistently criticizing anti-Semitism whenever it rears its ugly head?"

I'm not sure where you're going with this one champ. Is this when you try to shut people up for condemning atrocities committed by the Israeli state? Is that your position? That when Israel bombs an entire country killing thousands, because an anti-Israel militia group in the south of that country captured some Israeli soldiers to force a prisoner exchange, it can't be criticized because Israel is a Jewish state?

Seriously. Go straight to hell.

"(nowadays, it seems principally to come from the UN)"

The UN is an institution that is, by default, comprised of countries that had formerly parts of European empires. It's no surprise then, that the majority of nations at the UN are imposed to an expansionist, European-based civilization in their midst, enforcing racist, inhuman policies on the natives. Anti-Semitism isn't the whole story here, and any honest human being would be able to account for that.

"Who is leading the way in calling attention to the hideous facts of honor killing, forced marriage, and genital mutilation in the West?"

Ah, fuck-off with your bullshit. Why don't you go and check out what all the lefty feminist harpies have been saying about these issues for years? Why don't you open your eyes to what the brave, heroic women of RAWA have been saying for years, with only the lefties giving them a forum?

It's amazing, the gibberish that spins around in your empty craniums. Don't you think it odd that the secular, atheist, faggot-loving left is so allegedly infatuated with Islamic fundamentalism? Does it strike you as inexplicable?

That's because it is you dimwit!!

It's not the case, as you so ignorantly maintain, that leftists are merely blind to the dangers of "Islamo-fascism" because of our naive multi-culturalism and our debilitating cultural relativism. If you'd bother to take your head out of your stinky ass, and actually engage with the left, rather than posting stupid photo-shopped images and genuine ad hominems and then shooting loads of spunk into each others' mouths, you'd clue the fuck in.

The danger isn't this Islamo-fascist conspiracy dreamed up by right-wing hacks. The danger is a terrorist response to Western imperialism. The danger is a backlash against racist arrogance. The depths of insanity of this whole "Islamo-fascist" humbug is unfathomable.

And with that, ... I'm truly done for this post for the day.

The Three NAFTA Partners

Pursuant to my linked essay from yesterday about the damage done to Mexican society by NAFTA, about how 30,000,000 Mexican peasants are being driven into poverty, how 12,000,000 more of them have been forced to leave their homes and families behind to find work in the USA and Canada, I've also noticed these two stories from "digby" and "Glenn Greenwald."

To sum up: In yesterday's post it's described how in Mexico, a corporate "free trade" deal has brought hardship to perhaps 42,000,000 Mexicans, and their electoral mobilization behind the anti-NAFTA candidate came to naught due to electoral fraud on the part of the elites.

In Greenwald's story, the fraudulent, corrupt, Democratic leadership has orchestrated the demolition of the strategy of the majority of their colleagues (who were elected by and enjoy the support of the majority of voters and citizens in their country) to prevent US telecom companies from getting retroactive immunity for allowing the anti-democratic bush II regime to spy on American citizens.

How far we've come -- really: disgracefully tumbled -- from the days of the Church Committee, which aggressively uncovered surveillance abuses and then drafted legislation to outlaw them and prevent them from ever occurring again. It is, of course, precisely those post-Watergate laws which the Bush administration and their telecom conspirators purposely violated, and for which they are about to receive permanent, lawless protection.
...
Analogously, in 1973, The Washington Post won the Pulitzer Prize for its work in uncovering the Watergate abuses, and that led to what would have been the imminent bipartisan impeachment of the President until he was forced to resign in disgrace. By stark and depressing contrast, in 2006, Jim Risen, Eric Lichtblau and the NYT won Pulitzer Prizes for their work in uncovering illegal spying on Americans at the highest levels of the Government, and that led to bipartisan legislation to legalize the illegal spying programs and provide full-scale retroactive amnesty for the lawbreakers. That's the difference between a country operating under the rule of law and one that is governed bylawlessness and lawbreaking license for the politically powerful and well-connected.

In digby's story, we hear of the absolute immunity from any prosecution enjoyed by US corporations in the illegal occupation of Iraq. Not even the employees of these privileged corporations have any means of redress when their human rights are violated, because the entire "business" environment has been made-to-order to ensure unaccountability and therefore, maximum profits.

Corporate power is the thread tying all of this together. We know they can get the government to grant them amnesty for breaking the law. And in this case, they hire their own arbitrator to conduct sham hearings looking into malfeasance by their own employees.

In Mexico, elections are stolen, journalists are murdered, people are impoverished. In the United States, elections are stolen, international law is inoperative, all laws against corporate plunder and rape and murder are inoperative. Citizens are spied on, harassed, and in some cases (more and more we'll see) they are arrested without cause, held without charges, and tortured without humanity.

What of Canada? We are spied on to the degree that we fall into the prey of the US telecom companies' webs, and to the degree that our own less-financed government spies can manage it and to the degree that they allow US authoritarian goons to have access to us. But we haven't yet got to the point where a Canadian Jose Padilla has been created. Our electoral process is still robustly immune to fraud at the provincial and federal levels. Our executive branch has a lot of power with little institutional "checks and balances" but we've seen how utterly useless those constitutional provisions can be.

At this point, Canada is the most democratic of the "three amigos," and that should actually be a cause for concern, not for celebration. But nevertheless, it is the case, and we Canadians must do what we can, both in spreading the truth and keeping each other up-to-date here in cyber-space, but also in the three-dimensional world, to stop and push-back, and ultimately destroy, the sick, inhuman criminal system being imposed upon us.

All peaceful avenues must be pursued. All defences against corporate criminals must be utilized. Revolutions don't happen until people make them happen.

It goes without saying, and I'm sure this will offend the "moderates" on the Canadian blogosphere, that we have to destroy the political influence of the scum-bags called the "Blogging Tories." Make no mistake about it; those ugly-minded cretins might be no more than laughable, contemptible buffoons right now, but if they were in Mexico, they'd be enforcing the dispossession of the peasantry, committing atrocities to retain mass acqueisence to their corporate pay-masters, justifying all their rapes, thefts, murders, with some sickeningly stupid yammering about "Christianity," "capitalism" and other rot. In the US, they're the doughy shlubs firing honest federal prosecutors, writing up bogus "intelligence" reports about impoverished countries terrifying weaponry, ethnically cleansing New Orleans, and (the more physically fit among them) terrorizing and killing for (and being exploited by) Blackwater.

All of this under the mantle of "conservatism" or "America" or "democracy," and, again "Christianity," or whatever it is that passes for intellectual and moral principles within their monkey-brains.

An Important Essay

It's by one Ronnie Cummins, entitled:

Corporate Globalization

Standing at the End of the Road

Hunh. Howboutdat! It reproduced the text format exactly. I wonder if it'll translate over when I publish? Who the fuck cares? Here's the link.

If you read the whole (fairly short) thing, you'll get the significance and importance of this excerpt:

In July 2006 Mexicans launched an impressive though ultimately abortive ballot box revolution, turning out in droves for the anti-NAFTA presidential candidate, Manuel Lopez Obrador, from the left-of-center PRD (Party of Democratic Revolution). Although Obrador won the popular vote, according to reliable exit polls and election experts, in a U.S.-style electronic vote theft, the elections were stolen, and Felipe Calderon, a pro-NAFTA corporatist was installed as President. As a Mexican activist friend reminds me today, we are at the end of the road for polite protest. Nothing short of a second Mexican (and American) revolution will save us.

Indeed.

This Can't Continue ...

I don't have any delusions that my blog is going to become a Canadian institution. It's primarily an incentive for me to write something. But I have so little free time that my posts have been a series of daily useless blurbs or links for too long.

I'm not wrapping it up at the moment. But I'm recognizing the sheer silliness of it if it continues unchanged.

Here's a link to a story from the Tyee.

Drugs: Any Suggestions?

Is there a drug out there that gives you a bit of a boost, but doesn't get your heart going at an alarming rate? That gives you a bit of ambition and self-confidence without making you a delusional megalomaniac?

I've got a lot of work to do, both mental and physical, ... and I don't even have what it takes to type a semi-meaningful daily post to this h'yar blog.

Ah well. I've plans to do something in the 3-d world. But you'll never know about 'em!

There's that 30% number again!

Recently, I read that bush II's support level has risen to 29% again. After all this criminality and disaster, roughly 30 % of US Americans are stupid enough to continue to support him.

So, I'm almost finished Richard Overy's Why the Allies Won, about the various factors producing the Allied victory in World War II, and on one page I read this:

Postwar findings suggested that by the end of 1944 almost three-quarters of Germans wanted to give up the war at once. The proportion willing to fight to the end, 29 per cent, may not all have been Nazis, but the figure was close to Hitler's share of the vote in the last free elections, in November 1932.

Nazi Germany was not the manifestation of some psychic sickness of the German people. It was a product of historical circumstance, something that any culture is prey to. And all societies have people who are stupider than the average. Such morons have their own political movements. It's up to a people to ensure that their political system deters such groups from becoming leaders, rather than pitied subjects.

Post for the day ...

From the BBC: The USA has issued a new manual that puts as much emphasis into winning "hearts and minds" as it does on force.

the US army had learned from its experiences since 2001 that stabilising countries and winning over locals required more than just military skills.

Knowledge of foreign languages and local cultures are also important, he said.

The US army might win every battle it fought, he said, without achieving its real goal - winning the peace.

This is ridiculous on two levels: First, the term "hearts and minds" is infamous from its cynical, incompetent deluded application in Vietnam. The US military didn't just find out yesterday that not treating people like shit is important. This is 10 years too late even if it were sincere, which it isn't. And that leads to the second point; the way establishment media feels compelled to report even the most imbecilic pronouncements with a straight face, as long as they come from traditional power sources.

Australian Blogger Added

Because.

USA Blogger Added

I can't help myself. A Tiny Revolution is consistently bang-on about the uselessness of demanding media and political "reform" without addressing the underlying power relationships that make the US (and Canadian) media political systems so atrocious.

So I'm adding one US blog to my blog-roll.

A Brief History of US Labo[u]r: 1980-2008

Short and sickening:

This "selling out" of future employees was an extremely tough call for the unions, a trade-off they agonized over. To their credit, many locals refused to go along, even though they were under enormous pressure to do so. For those who did agree, as soon as management had that two-tier wage provision under their belt (and despite assurances that it wouldn't happen), they began cutting into the very medical and pension benefits the union had sold its soul to preserve. It was ugly.

For the record, this is not what I mean by Democracy in the Workplace.

But in many cases these ad hoc committees were free-for-alls, with management offering rewards to the weakest, most pliant workers on the floor as payment for supporting company initiatives. This was "democracy" in its least attractive form. Ironically, when it came time for some really serious decision-making to be done, even these company stooges were brushed aside, particularly when their suggestions conflicted with management's master plan.

I mean real, genuine democracy, brought about by a transfer of power.

Sooper Busy

I've been meaning to listen to this song and see if it's suitable for my own "dirty old town" of Hamilton, Ontario. Let's see:

A More Polite Way of Saying It

I gave a brief overview of the forces behind "Reaganism" and all the subsequent "conservative" bullshit in the USA and the Western democracies in general in my post "Us versus Them."

The election of Ronald Reagan in 1980 is a convenient signpost for the movement represented by the goons of our present times. The significance of Ronald Reagan is that he represented a conscious decision to embrace fantasy over reality, to celebrate ignorance over inconvenient reality, to use simplistic slogans over nuanced deliberations, and to engage in naked agression over the pretence of diplomacy. Reagan was not so much different from Jimmy Carter insofar as the outcomes were pretty much the same (see El Salvador for instance), but in the inane justifications, and the abusrd evidence he and his handlers would use as arguments for his destructive policies.

Ronald Reagan was an actor, and a simple-minded individual as well. He was therefore perfect in acting the role of a heroic American president, in a simple-minded fantasy just perfect for all the simpletons who had been mourning their lost privileges and shattered delusions since the 1960s.

Here's a more polite version. With some unfortunate praise for the Democratic Party:

It took 40 years because, as standard histories have it, Democrats imploded in the late 1960s by supposedly taking liberalism too far. In a sense the standard histories are right. America’s essentially conservative sensibilities turned reactionary as blacks got too free, women too equal, students too questioning and war protesters too effective. To the white male minority that had had its way since the founding of the Republic, the majority of the population wasn’t supposed to take its rights so literally. Hence law-and-order-Nixon’s victory in 1968 (before lawless-and-delusional-Nixon’s unraveling in 1974). Hence the “Reagan Revolution” of 1980, that dyslexic homage to 1890s America and the re-flowering of capitalism without a human face.

...

The Republican ascendancy was fill-in-the-blanks opportunism. Conservatism since 1980 has been an era of reaction and regression — a dismantling of the American experiment as an ideal of egalitarian opportunity for most, of positive freedoms from want and insecurity for most, and a re-branding of America into the land of the opportunist, the selfish, the Gordon Gekko-admiring greedster. There is a void this time, not only of leadership but of humanity.

It's called "Hypocracy"! .. er, ... "Hypocrasy," ...

... um, "Hipocracy"? ... Hypocrisy .... HYPOCRISY!!!

Sorry, little joke there. For mine owne amusement.

Speaking of hypocrisy, and speaking of human jokes, "Darcy," over at "Dust My Broom" banned me, for using bad language. Meanwhile, one of his fellow mouth-breathing shit-stain eaters, a pompous semi-literate ass who calls hisself: "WL Mackenzie Redux" threatened to punch me in the mouth and called me an asshole. Yet it was I who was banned.

What follows is an in-depth look at the tsunami of idiotic statements that one will experience through even a brief visit to the right-wing shit0sphere. A long, leisurely swimming in stupidity. An extended tour version of one of CC's reports.

What was I doing at "Dust My Broom" anyway? Well, that's a funny story in itself. "Dust My Broom" (DMB) is a far-right blog that I'd been to, regretfully, a few times, following the occasional link from a critical fellow leftie, read the either vile or simply stupid entry and left.

One day, looking at my site meter, I noticed someone had visited the schoolyard via "DMB," and so, intrigued, I followed up the link. Imagine my surprise to find myself being slagged by banned commentor "wayne." Wayne (banned for cheering on the political harrassment of CODE PINK members) had been kissing my ass lately, trying to ingratiate himself with me to allow him to post here again:

I was reading another blog at the time, and typed what I did out of anger. Sorry, childish of me. If you kick me off it is not cencorship, it is your blog, your turf.

...

I get so frustrated with the left that I turn to Coulter and Savage. I know that everything they say is not true, but it makes me feel that we struck back idiot to idiot. Which is not a very mature response. But, neither is Bush bashing. You have very well written posts, I am better at speaking than typing, so bear with me. CC has eaten me alive, and you have hit me over the head as well. So I would like to start again.

Either "wayne" was being manipulative and deceitful with his pleading and compliments, or he's genuinely gotten angry and disgusted with me, because on "Dust My Broom," posting as "L. Wayne Mathison" referred to my posts as "crap":


http://thwapschoolyard.blogspot.com/2007/12/gary-mchale-gets-bruised.html

Quote from above blogger:"Cue the closeted racists to appear and start denouncing First Nations violence, roused from their blissful sleep, where they were not dreaming about over one-hundred

years of broken treaties and "two-tier justice" against the First Nations."

Read more of his crap if you would like.

Following that with:

I've been banned from his blog for pointing out what I thought of his progressiveness.

Being a man passionately devoted to the truth, I could not resist interjecting that he was being dishonest.

No "wayne," you got banned for plainly supporting totalitarianism and applauding the harrassment of decent, moral human beings opposing the most massive crimes of the past fifty years. And you got banned because this fascism and stupidity is apparently an ingrained part of your personality and you therefore have nothing positive to offer here.
This happened once before. And Wayne tried to ingratiate himself with me then, like he was doing above.

I was reading another blog at the time, and typed what I did out of anger. Sorry, childish of me. If you kick me off it is not cencorship, it is your blog, your turf. ...

I get so frustrated with the left that I turn to Coulter and Savage. I know that everything they say is not true, but it makes me feel that we struck back idiot to idiot. Which is not a very mature response. But, neither is Bush bashing. You have very well written posts, I am better at speaking than typing, so bear with me. CC has eaten me alive, and you have hit me over the head as well. So I would like to start again.

If that reads familiar, that's because it is. Wayne recycled an older apology to me to make up for infuriating me about the harassment of CODE PINK. Bah!

Anyhooo, ... I found that someone had come to my blog via "Dust My Broom" and I went over there and checked it out and found "wayne's" contemptuous remarks in the comments section on a blog entry written by one "Lisa" about Gary McHale's recent woes in Caledonia. After responding to "wayne's" statements about me, I wrote a few words about the subect of the post:

As for all the rest of it, this isn't that hard to figure out.

There are lots of land claims.

There were lots of shady deals, abuses of process, and outright theft of First Nations' land.

The last time you racist morons got your way was at Ipperwash, remember that? When the Indians moved in and occupied lands that had been taken from them 50 years earlier and decades of peaceful petitioning to get it back did nothing for them. A racist moron named "Mike Harris" listened to you types and forced the OPP to clear the "fucking Indians out of the park." And an unarmed man, trying to get back his people's stolen lands was killed.

Now, despite having put a land claim on the area around Douglas Creek, the province allowed a non-First Nations to erect a housing development there, which will render any decision in the case null. To prevent the creation of "facts on the ground" some of the Six Nations community moved in. And the very next day, instead of waiting to hear the merits of both cases, the knee-jerk racist drooling morons who are always wrong about everything (Hi Wayne!) are once again calling for the cops or army to "get the fucking Indians out of the park."

And Gary McFuckhead has been bleating about "two-tier justice" for over a year and he's still incapable of recognizing the utter hypocrisy of his complaint.

Do the impossible people, ... grow a fucking brain.

My angry words prompted the following from a Canadian wingnut regular; the pompously nicknamed WL Mackenzie Redux:

Hey Thwap: another mouth breathing revisionist needle dick...HALDEMAN TRACT SN NEVER HAD A F'ING TREATY!!!...THEIR PROTEST IS FOR COMPENSATION FOR LAND THEY CEDED THAT WAS NEVER DEEDED TO THEM!!!! THE FEDS WALKED AWAY BECAUSE THE CLAIMS ARE NOT SUPPORTABLE IN COURT!!!

Read some history that hasn't been strained through the racist revionism of SN reserve fanticism. As a matter of fact break the stereotype of all you rectionary "regressive" pinheada and just READ period...g'head surprise me.

As for 2 tiered law enforcement, there is no excuse for politically motivated violence and certainly politically motivated law breaking is totally unjustified in this nation...if you believe that violence is justified by having to put up with years of political belligerance, then I won't get convicted for putting my fist in your lying commie yap.

Before you shoot you pismire mouth off accusing people here of "racism" you should know there a lot of status natives here that do not agree with FN extortion, violence or crime.

Empty headed Asshole! (Emphasis added)

My response to WL Pompous Ass's tirade

Did you just physically threaten me? How precious! By the way, WL Pompous Ass Redux, ... I've encountered your own mouth-breathing error-filled rants before, on KKKate's SDA. You have zero credibility, and so your stupid, sputtering claims about what the documents say, and what the federal government is doing, are meaningless to me. Supposedly, I shouldn't get my info from decent websites, but from hate-filled stews of racist filth such as imbeciles like you inhabit? Thanks, but I'll pass. I've grown accustomed to being in the right.

You see, you simpleton, according to your own "logic," if the feds' simply "walking away" from the Natives' claim is PROOF that the Natives' claim is bankrupt, then the fact that the OPP is blaming McHale is PROOF that he's guilty. According to you, the government is never wrong. The fact that the feds have fucked the First Nations over for over a century doesn't register with you. Because you're racist. I know you don't like to hear that, what with racism being frowned upon and all, but that's what you are. Always willing to side against the First Nations. Now then, I'll advise you once again to grow a fucking brain. Lay off on the public, printed physical threats or this blog owner will have to ban you or something. Perhaps you could shut the fuck up as well, since you have neither the facts, nor sanity in your corner.

If I remember correctly, a contributor to the "Dust My Broom" blog is an Aboriginal Canadian who recently had a meltdown in response to a particularly gross display of anti-Aboriginal racism among his compatriots on the idiot side of the political spectrum. I assume that everything has settled down now, and he's back to normal, trashing other targets with them.
I suppose that he'd say that the thinking behind his actions is "complex" or something, and someone like me wouldn't understand them. If so, he'd be right about one thing. I wouldn't understand them. But not because they're "complex," but because they'd be mind-bogglingly incoherent. Sort of like the thinking that went behind this statement from his co-blogger "Darcey" when he banned me:

Nice 'progressive' language dude. Your [sic] banned.

Now, these people are shit-heads obviously, who in a better world would merit only mild pity and concern, but as I've pointed out several times, they're influential shit-heads, the shock-troops n' cannon fodder of the right-wing hate machine. And it's good to discredit them from time to time (when they aren't doing that to themselves).

Let's parse this little tid-bit (and the subsequent diseased ramblings that followed it) shall we?

First off, I'll ignore the incorrect use of "your" instead of "you're," since it's possible that was merely typo. Let's just try to follow what "Darcy" intended with his statement.

Nice 'progressive' language

What are we to make of this? By "progressive" what are we given to understand? I'm not really using "progressive" language? Is that it? What is that supposed to mean? Is he saying: "You think you're being so progressive, but you really aren't"? Something along the lines of the right-wing whine about how we "progressives" claim to be tolerant, but we're actually the most intolerant group of people (usually because we don't like some example of their religiously-induced bigotry and hatred) around? "Progressive" hypocrisy stems from the fact that the values "progressives" claim to embody are good, and that we think that we're good, but we're really only groundlessly self-righteous, and it's SURPRISE, SURPRISE (!) really the "conservatives" who are progressive.

So, he's criticizing me for using language unbefitting of the term "progressive." That's the only way it makes sense to me. I'd be interested in hearing other interpretations. Because, given the fact that WL Pompous Ass Redux called me a needle-dicked asshole who he would like to punch in the mouth, "Darcy's" criticism of only my unprogressive language becomes even less comprehensible. Is he trying to say that only right-wingers get to curse (and threaten) because they're by definition coarse and rude? So, only "progressives" have to actually be "progressive," and you can slam them when they are not, while "conservatives" really are just crude, boorish oafs and there's nothing to be said about it? That my crudity and rudity ... ;) ... is out of character and shameful?

If the above reasoning sounds tortured and convoluted, please bear in mind that I'm trying to reconcile the contradictions in "Darcy's" incoherent statement.

That served as the inspiration for the title of this post. Darcey's hypocrisy with regards to banishing me for my not 'progressive' language, chastising me for my not 'progressive' language, and allowing WL Pompous Ass to remain, after his belligerent, threatening tirade. But there's more. Witless clod "Shere Khan" wrote:

Curious lot these 'progressives'. Seems they are completely incapable of meaningfull dialogue without hurtling racial epithets and denigrating those they are debating. Mating call of the loser, I guess. Seen it too many times to be anything else.

What "racial epithets"? Seriously? I mean, sure, I tossed quite a few insults at them, but nowhere did I call them "crackers" or "white-trash" or "goyim" or anything of that nature. My complaints were with their stupidity, not with their ethnicities (unknown). Note also, that the idiot also refers to me as a "progressive," using the scare-quotes to mark that I'm not really "progressive." ("They call themselves 'progressive' when they're really hate-filled assholes. Which isn't 'progressive.' We don't reclaim the term, because we're proudly hate-filled assholes.") I note also that the sensitive Mr./Ms. Kahn has nothing to say regarding his comrade-in-shit's threats of violence towards me. Again, clueless about the extent of their gargantuan hypocrisy. It's interesting though, isn't it? Mr./Ms. Kahn affects a reasonable tone of voice and uses it to condemn a "progressive" as unreasonable, only the whole tragedy of the affair is that the content of Kahn's thoughts is pure garbage through-and-through.

Then, WL Pompous Ass Redux gets to pile-on, especially after the nasty lefty was banned:

Not good enough Darcy...time to file a complaint with this foaming misanthrope's Blog provider and IP for coming here and spewing slander and hatred.

The asswipe types in ALL-CAPS, threatens to punch me in the mouth and has the nerve to call me a "foaming misanthrope" and now wants to blather about going to the authorities about me spewing hatred??

The needle dick misanthrope sez:"According to you, the government is never wrong." Heh..like I said, you never read anything you claim to (or at least have any level of comprehensive consiousness) to come up with that lie...I think I have been the most consistant cynic of government posting on the Canadian net...but no one really expected a turnip-IQed puerile bolshi with repressed sexual frustrions and Teurettes to actually render a honest literacy accounting...or assimilate reality and come to rational conclusions. As always we have another example of how Left wing fanatics are just sociopaths with a political excuse. Stick a fork in this one and fling it at the hog trough...it's over done...one contact with reality and it's tiny primative brain flames out.

What can you say? Really? For the record, it's "its" when it's possessive. What else is there to say? A lot it turns out: Mr. WL Pompous Ass, and all and sundry, follow me very closely - When someone says "By your logic ..." what they're going to go on to do is not quote you verbatim. They're going to tell you what your words logically justify. This should have been very simple. WL PA Redux said that the federal government has walked away from negotiating this land claim because its groundless. Note that it's the government's walking away from the talks that is the supposed evidence for the idiot's case. It's a circular argument. I take that to mean that he's referring to the actions of a historically duplicitous government as an authority to your own argument about the groundlessness of the Aboriginal land claim. Which means he is using the government's actions as a justification for his own position. Which means that he must believe that a government's decisions are always and everywhere correct, since he's using their actions as an authority to buttress his own position.

Which is exactly what I said he was doing.

And, as I said, that logic is the same as my pointing to the OPP's arresting and charging McHale as all the proof that's needed to say that McHale is guilty.

I have a mental image in my head of WL Pompous Ass Redux. I picture some bitter, wiry, ugly old man; someone who was never popular with anyone, who had no male friends and certainly no female friends. I also see this individual shitting his pants in fear after typing out that threat to me, worried that "thwap" might find him through the intertubes and make him pay for that outburst. Even after "Darcey" banned the big, bad "progressive" he suffered from lingering fear, so he compensated by continuing to trash me, ... perhaps in the intertubes a banning makes one unable to subsequently locate one's opponents?

You can relax Mr. Pompous Ass Redux, ... I'm a lover not a fighter.

But Mr. Pompous Ass Redux; in the first place, the government hasn't walked away from the Six Nations land claim. It's still being processed. The government is delaying and stalling, as all Canadian governments do when it comes to land claims, but the claim hasn't been decided yet. So, in that regard, you're as enormously ignorant of the facts at hand and you don't really deserve to be listened to.

Ah, but listen we shall. Here in isolation, are the numerous gems from his final reply to me:

I think I have been the most consistant cynic of government posting on the Canadian net

Like I said, pompous ass.

a turnip-IQed puerile bolshi with repressed sexual frustrions and Teurettes

"Bolshi" ? What the fuck is this? This is where I get the image of a bitter old man. The Cold War ended almost twenty years ago! This is the sort of right-wing caricature that they always used to mock in those 1970s sitcoms! You know, the ones who annoyed everyone and who seemed to live alone masturbating to their Richard Nixon poster? And speaking of sexual problems, what the hell are "repressed sexual frustrations"? (I'm sexually frustrated, but I repress it by having a lot of sex?) I do believe that Mr. Pompous Ass Redux is tripping over himself in his panicked rage, and is grabbing wildly from his own experiences and sufferings (he's a repressed, sexually frustrated individual) as convenient material to attempt to insult others, hence his mangled typing fingers as he hurriedly blurts out: "frustrions." (Come to think of it, that might be the source for his repeated use of the insult "needle-dick.") Oh, and by the way, Mr. Pompous Dimwit Reflux, it's "Tourettes."

Stick a fork in this one and fling it at the hog trough...it's over done...one contact with reality and it's tiny primative brain flames out.

My brain flamed out? (I'll confess to spelling "primitive" as "primative" from time to time.) From contact with your run-on all-caps yammerings? From Mr./Ms. Kahn's meaningless scorn? You've forgotten Mr. Pompous Ass Redux: I got banned! It's like he's imagining he's fighting someone, and in his excitement forgets that his real opponent left. (This is where the cowardly, frail old man image comes from.)

It's a little unnerving, the amount of stupidity that you can wring out of even a brief encounter with the dark side. Their original premises, their "arguments," their derision, their attempts at humour, ... all of it, ... everything that they type, .... it's all completely useless shit. Every thought in their heads, useless shit. It would take a trailer-park supervisor named Leahy to do justice to the intensity of the shittiness of their brains. And from this core of shit comes the ideas of the right-wing as a political movement. Shallow, thoughtless people, who might otherwise pass for normal human beings, when they want a tax cut, they'll tap-in to this political movement based on shit, and they'll thoughtlessly and lazily adopt the other planks in their "conservative" party's platform, never realizing the fetid source of all of these destructive, stupid ideas. But this is where it comes from. This hard core of concentrated disease and hate.

War Crimes Charges?

I suppose when all is said and done that if we're going to state, repeatedly and correctly, that turning over prisoners to torturers is aiding and abetting war crimes, then we're going to have to ensure that we do everything in our power to see that justice is done.

Personally, I think that the politicians who put our soldiers in the situation where they had no choice but to hand over their prisoners to the Karzai government or the Americans are the ones who should face the charges.

I'm wondering if any of the right-wingers who bewail the breakdown of the "rule of law" in Caledonia will assist us in pursuing this far greater example of criminality?

We have to start with a parliamentary enquiry looking into what crimes were committed and who is responsible. If that fails to happen then I believe we turn to the International Criminal Court.

Harris Scum at it Again

Via pogge, we hear that Jim Flaherty, incompetent former finance minister to corrupt moron premier Mike Harris, has been found to have broken Treasury Board rules for awarding contracts. From the Toronto Star:

Finance Minister Jim Flaherty has broken federal rules by handing a former Mike Harris speechwriter an untendered contract worth more than $120,000, the Toronto Star has learned.

The $122,430 contract to Hugh MacPhie, who worked in the former Ontario Conservative premier's office, violated Treasury Board guidelines requiring multiple bids for contracts over $25,000.

To which pogge adds: " Further along in the story you'll find that the contract was for two months work."

Link, link, link ....

This is the way this particular sort of fuck-up operates. Conservative politicians are generally as thick-headed as their blogging fanboys. As such, they realize that they can't make their money honestly, and so they enter politics, spewing the sort of simplistic crap that our present political-economic system is based on (that's why I oppose our present political-economic system don'tcha know) and then they ride that gravy-train for all they're worth.

Oh yeah, and the gutless hypocrisy, ... that's your typical "conservative" as well.

I'm working on a couple of extended essays. One is a long, leisurely swim in the fetid stupidity that is a right-wing blog. The other is going to address the reasons for my hostility towards Liberal Party supporters. Essentially it's because they're worse than useless and they only serve to confuse our political culture.

Ahem. Back to other kinds of work.

Another Survey Finds One Million Dead in Iraq

Iraq Conflict Has Killed A Million Iraqis: Survey

The margin of error in the survey, conducted in August and September 2007, was 1.7 percent, giving a range of deaths of 946,258 to 1.12 million.

ORB originally found that 1.2 million people had died, but decided to go back and conduct more research in rural areas to make the survey as comprehensive as possible and then came up with the revised figure.

The research covered 15 of Iraq’s 18 provinces. Those that not covered included two of Iraq’s more volatile regions — Kerbala and Anbar — and the northern province of Arbil, where local authorities refused them a permit to work.

What did Stalin say? "One death is a tragedy. A million deaths is a statistic." Except, as in Stalin's own case, ... and the people of the United States who have within them the power to end this conflict if they only wake-up and destroy the corrupt political system that produced this,* .... when you've killed those million people, it's a crime against humanity.

(This of course would include compelling that bottom-30 percent of the population that continues to support the criminal bush II regime to shut-the-fuck-up, now and forever, on all matters political.)

... sorry, but a million deaths is a big deal to me. Sometimes I feel a little extremist.