Bully Harper runs shrieking from the room, farting and pissing in terror

Stephen Harper passed a law mandating fixed election dates. His next scheduled election was 2009.

Stephen Harper violated his fixed-election law, deceitfully claiming that parliament was "dysfunctional" even though the Liberal Party, terrified of going to the polls had been letting him humiliate them on a weekly basis.

The real reason for his election call was to avoid going to the polls in the middle of what looks like the biggest recession in decades.

Having had no real reason to go to the electorate, and having nothing substantial to say, Harper was returned with another minority government.

Harper responds to the biggest financial crisis in decades by allowing his sub-normal intellect finance minister propose spending cuts, attacks on union and pay equity rights, and an attempt to knee-cap the opposition parties' for the next election by attacking their public financing.

[Idiot "conservatives" and other incoherent thinkers say that we should wait for the US-government to act first. The US government isn't acting because they're 50 days away from changing governments, not for any reason having to do with public policy.]

The opposition parties respond to this assault on their ability to afford election campaigns with rage.

Flaherty concedes this point and hopes his brain-dead spending cuts announcement will pass.

The opposition, sick of Harper's bullying, his immaturity, his partisan selfishness in the face of a grave international crisis, refuses to back down. Flaherty's moronic anti-stimulus package is a stinking piece of shit all on its own.

The opposition has a strong chance to get the Governor-General to turn power over to an NDP-Liberal coaliton with tacit support from the Bloc Quebecois.

Stephen Harper (who turns out to have feelings after all, when it's his own goose about to be cooked) appears before the Ottawa press corps and, on the verge of tears, announces that he's postponing the vote on his stupid economic statement and his psychopathic government for a week.

Harper returns to his office, cries s'more, masturbates dejectedly, cries, rolls around on the floor in convulsions, and then decides to prorogue parliament for at least a month.

His sycophantic fan-base of morons, fools and hypocrites cheers his latest stroke of tactical genius.

Stephen Harper, master chessman, day 2

Canadian Cynic has been having great sport documenting the dumbassitude of the Harpercon zombies, who portrayed every lurch and every lie of their hero's stumbling incompetence as sheer tactical genius, until it became evidently clear that Harper pushed too far, too stupidly, and they're all (Harper, Flaherty, the Blogging Tories) reduced to sheer raving lunacy, begging for "public opinion" to save them from their arrogant bumbling.

Two things:

Thanks for giving the opposition an entire week to hammer together the details of their coalition and their initial stimulus package Stevie. That was quite gracious of you.

The Toronto Sun newspaper headline this morning was "Worried Now?" I have to say, I really get a kick out of how these "conservative" morons never seem to comprehend that it's their parties and their policies that are the most destructive, stupid and inhuman, and how we should all "hold on to our wallets" when someone to the left of Herman Goerring takes power. Guess what Toronto Sun editors? You're complete fucking idiots, losers and ignoramuses and the vast majority don't give a shit what you have to say about anything.

Bullies Retreat in Pants-Wetting Panic

Harper and Flaherty forgot to read the memo: "'Conservatism' is a washed-up philosophy, believed only by criminals and their moronic chump followers." The memo went on to say: "Karl Rove's failed sleazy tricks have run out their usefulness. The Republican 'brand' is toxic and they've slaughtered the party for a generation."

Thinking it was still sometime in 2005, Harper and Flaherty reached into a slimy, fly beswarmed burlap bag of filth called "CPC strategy" and tried to use the economic crisis to declare war on democracy.

Their bluff was called and Harper and his idiot MPs couldn't retreat fast enough. Like the pathetic bullies in an after-school special.

Tory MPs seemed thunderstruck late Thursday by the possibility that their second term might come to a sudden end. As some of them piled onto a parliamentary shuttle bus, they were heard incredulously asking opposition MPs if they're serious about a coalition.

They're still the worst government for the crisis. Ditch 'em.

H/T to Alison in this morning's comments for the link.

Get Rid of Harper-Flaherty Imbeciles: Coalition Now!

Reading some more details about fat-head Flaherty's "economic statement" and I'm more convinced than ever that the Opposition must form a coalition and turf these imbeciles.

The Harper government is chopping spending and selling assets as part of a plan it acknowledges may not balance the books - but could trigger an early election.

Yes, Flaherty. Proving that you're just as stupid and incompetent as when you were allied to another repulsive excuse for a human being (Mike Harris in Ontario), you've decided that at the cusp of a major recession, during a crucial crisis of confidence in the economy, the thing to do is to have the federal government, one of the country's biggest employers, throw even more people out of work, take more cash out of the economy, and hope for better times.

Idiot.

No, wait, ... I get it. In some sort of pathetic, plodding, oafish way, you imagine that the sight of the government balancing its books will fill the private sector movers n' shakers with confidence and fortitude, galvanizing them to ... what exactly? Make goods and services to sell to people who couldn't get credit from a paralyzed banking sector even if they weren't already maxed to the tits?

Idiot.

And then there's Harper-Flaherty's despicable attempt to turn this crisis into an excuse for partisan advantage:

"There will be no free ride for political parties," stated Finance Minister Jim Flaherty after handing down his restraint package that inflicted pain mostly on the public service and politicians.

"Free ride" indeed. Flaherty might be too dull to grasp this, but Harper knows damned well that public funds go to opposition parties so that they can do their job keeping tabs on the government, and financing studies into policies. We live in an advanced industrial society and crafting policies, informing constituents, and keeping an eye on corrupt, war-mongering, civil-rights shredding authoritarian monsters who are elected by idiots, takes money. Being the sort of war-mongering, etc., etc. monsters I'm talking about, the Harpercons would love to deprive the opposition of the money it takes to do their job.

I was depressed to think that because of the vagaries of our electoral system, Canada got stuck with the yahoos as our government, but after this blatant partisan display and the sheer stupidity of the rest of Flaherty's package, I'm angry. This is the aboslute worst government that Canada could possibly have in this serious crisis and it needs to be removed.

The time for an anti-Conservative coalition is NOW. Harper has shown he's too selfish, immature, too much of an asshole with too little respect for Canadian democracy, to enjoy power one day longer. And with Flaherty, Harper has also shown that he's too big an idiot to hold such an important position in such an important moment in Canada's history. Get rid of him. Get rid of them.

Znet: Today's World Crisis & Japan's Example

Good article from Andrew DeWit from Znet. Looks at the example of Japan's economic crisis in the 1990s (and mistakes made by Japanese authorities) and today's world crisis, created by reckless, self-absorbed, greedy Wall Street criminals:

So perhaps another negative lesson for America from Japan is that injecting even massive public funds is not in itself sufficient. The proper assessment of toxic assets via a close scrutiny of their value is clearly required, as is proposed by the FDIC (and appears about to become law). But perhaps more important even than that, there must be serious inquiry into management wrongdoing. Systemic failures require systemic solutions, lest the symptoms continue to fester and manifest themselves in periodic and perhaps increasingly large crises. In other words, if one is going to use the state, then its pecuniary as well as punitary arms need to be used with a comprehensiveness and intelligence that not only deals with the technical aspects of the crisis but also the natural political resistance to bailing out rich and irresponsible people whose actions contributed to the crisis. The latter clearly have to be made to pay, in the fiscal and legal senses of the term, lest the path to recovery be constricted by political fallout.

But to date, the American bailout and related policies are spectacular for their lack of transparency, accountability and consistency. As a result of various missteps and volte-faces, Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson's credibility is perhaps as low as that of the current President. At a September 23 Senate Banking Committee hearing, Paulson declared that "we need oversight...we need transparency," but he appears to have shifted his position considerably. ... Paulson's serial reversals of earlier positions are certainly rooted in the incredible flux of events. But his job is to craft pro-active policy and seek to stabilize markets rather than further roil the latter.

Malnutrition in Haiti

From commondreams.org: "Haitian Children Severely Malnourished"

This is directly the result of a series of hurricanes and tropical storms that have destroyed villages, crops and livestock. That these storms of increased frequency and savagery are the byproduct of global warming makes this another crime of our bloated industrial consumerist society.

But this is the desperately poor country that Canada's "leaders" both Liberal and Conservative claimed to care so much about that they toppled its government in cahoots with the USA and France and which they work so hard to destroy the Lavalas movement that represents the poor majority. They are working so hard to mutilate democracy in Haiti because they believe they know better what Haiti's place in the world should be than do the Haitians themselves. Supposedly, Canada's government and state apparatus and its NGOs care about the Haitians. That's why the Harpercons will give away billions in tax-cuts rather than spend the tens of millions needed to keep these people from starving.

I suspect my attempts at sarcasm are failing in the face of the stupidity and evil of Canada's actions in Haiti.

Current Reading

Because I'm too busy to think of anything for a daily post. These books are cool though. So are the reviews that I linked to:

I'm reading James Laxer's The Undeclared War: class conflict in the age of cyber capitalism, it's from 1998, but I got it 2nd-hand maybe five years ago and always meant to get to it. So I'm getting to it. link

Laxer sums it up best when he states that: capitalism works best for a small minority of the world's people, condemns hundreds of millions to exploitation and a stunted existence, and leaves billions, particularly in the Third World, in a state of poverty or near poverty. And yet, the hoary idea persists that the pursuit of profit, regardless of the people who are in the way, is the best means to meet the needs of the human race and to broaden its potential for the future.

I finished Stanley Aronowitz's False Promises:The Shaping of American Working Class Consciousness from 1974 (which I decided to read as an historical document) and it was pretty damned good. link

Aronowitz traces the historical development of the American working class from post-Civil War times and shows why radical movements have failed to overcome the forces that tend to divde groups of workers from one another. The rise of labor unions is analyzed, as well as their decline as a force for social change. Aronowitz’s new introduction situates the book in the context of developments in current scholarship and the epilogue discusses the effects of recent economic and political changes in the American labor movement.

Bush Hatred

It's always easy to toss off some remarks about US politics, because everything there is in such broad brushstrokes. My thoughts on the famous snubbing of bush II at the G-20 photo-op, are that most of those politicians are assholes, thieves, thugs, and/or killers and hypocrites, just like bush II. I'm sure that they don't really like each other (or themselves)* that much either. And there's nothing extraordinary about policy differences. Nobody, but nobody on that stage probably feels that it is always and everywhere forbidden to resort to arms when confronted. So I really don't think they're mad at bush II for the invasion of Iraq or anything else.** But that just means that bush II must've been a particularly obnoxious presence on the international stage. He must've swaggered and insulted and told bad jokes until they just couldn't take it anymore.

*Obviously self-hatred can co-exist with self-adulation.
**Unless bush II's extreme disregard for international law and his imbecility on global warming really did offend their sensitivities and values?

The Financial Crisis

More bad news for the financial markets apparently:

World stock markets tumbled Thursday, with benchmarks in Tokyo and Seoul losing almost seven per cent each, after recession fears sent Wall Street plunging and Japan suffered its biggest drop in exports in seven years.

The slide in Asian and European shares extended a global sell-off that accelerated overnight amid lowered projections for U.S. economic activity next year from the Federal Reserve and worries over the fate of America's Big Three automakers, which are pleading for emergency loans from Washington.

This seems to be the bitter fruit of decades of gouging workers and destroying democratically imposed regulations on the part of capitalism trying to rectify the crisis of profitability that's been around since the 1970s.

So far we've had trillions of dollars of citizens' money thrown at the banks and now industry. A strange state of affairs. Let's allow the banks to continue to loan money to over-extended consumers who are simultaneously losing their jobs. Now, industry can re-tool on the public dime, stop making cars that nobody wants and start making cars that people do want but can no longer afford.

We need to redirect wealth back to the masses and we need a new political-economy that is cooperative, not competitive.

"De-Radicalizing" Kadhr

It's hard to know what to say about this: "'Deradicalizing' part of proposed Omar Khadr rehab"

So, crazy Kadhr was raised with a head full of religious mumbo-jumbo, and a murderous attitude against the West (backed, of course, by some genuine grievances).

Therefore, the beefy stooges who have held Kadhr on mind-bogglingly stupid "war crimes" charges for over five years, in inhuman conditions, ... these pigs who have murdered hundreds of thousands either through immense ignorance or for lust for oil, who have tortured, poisoned, destroyed, now presume that they can "rehabilitate" Kadhr, teach him not to be an "extremist," or a "radical."

Says one idiot:

"Then you can turn the discussion around on them and put the Qur'an out on the table and then say, 'Well, look. Where in the Qur'an you find that it's OK to kill Christians and Jews?'" said Thomas Quiggin, Islamic radicalization expert and former Canadian intelligence officer.

Yes, and where are the asterisks in the Ten Commandments, especially the one "Thou Shalt Not Kill"?

If anyone is creating "radical extremists" it's these filthy monsters.

I'm Glad I Didn't Waste My Time ...

... reading right-wing blogs, or Canadian government websites, touting all the fantastic accomplishments we've made in Afghanistan.

I'm busy enough as it is, so I tend to focus on the people who've almost always been right (and when wrong, at least had their hearts in the right place).

Because, if I'd been reading pro-war stuff, I'd have been having useless debates with myself and others since 2001. And here it is, 2008, and Afghanistan is still a mess.

If I'd been reading pro-war shit, I'd have been wasting precious minutes hearing from Rick Hillier, Stephen Harper, KKKate McMillan, etc., about how the Taliban is in its "last throes" for the past several years, when the fact that we're still there and insurgency is growing, kinda puts that delusion to rest. The fact that the fighting continues and the insurgency grows makes me trust this guy more than the previously mentioned imbeciles.

I'm glad that I don't have the time of day for absolute fucking morons. It saves so much time.

Stephen Harper - Psychopath

Actually, right off the top, there's probably a lot of psychopaths in politics. Paul Martin's consistent ability to wax eloquently about values and principles that he had no intentions of honouring was certainly evidence of some sort of twisted, cynical moral calculus. But Stephen Harper projects the embodiment of the psychopath's inner emptiness, the absolute absence of human feeling that allows the psychopath to go from one selfish goal to the next.

In this post, where Harper's reaction to seeing a young person being carried off stage after fainting during one of his speeches is that there is no reaction. He sips his water during a pause in his speech and turns to see what the commotion is. Seeing what it is, he doesn't even raise his eyebrows, but quickly goes back to his water, it's got nothing to do with him evidently.

In that situation, Harper's coldness is laughable. But the point is that he functions this way at all times, and it's not funny. You can imagine the same blank stare as Harper is faced with an honourable public servant trying to do his job, as in the case of Peter Tinsley, Chairman of the Military Police Complaints Commission (MPCC) investigating the Canadian Forces' turning over of prisoners to torturers in Afghanistan. Tinsley is trying to determine if Canada is complicit in war crimes, in the hopes of doing something to correct this problem. Stephen Harper has no moral centre, and for him, the war in Afghanistan is popular with his drooling bloodthirsty base, so war crimes or no, this investigation is inconvenient and must be obstructed. "Canadian values" (whatever they really are, "values" in general being alien to Harper) can be crapped upon and flushed away.

A last example is Harper's vile response to CF personells' complaints about individuals among our Afghan allies (their soldiers, police and interpreters working for the CF) raping children. At first, CF brass tried to ignore these complaints, but they've persisted and some CF soldiers are in need of counselling due to the trauma of witnessing a child being raped and later seeing the child lying dead with his intestines hanging out. Harper's response? To cynically launch an inquiry into this affair (which reflects badly on the state that we're constructing, fighting and dying for) and giving it TWO YEARS to investigate and report, by which time, Harper's out-of-his-fat-ass 2011 deadline will have arrived and presumably Afghanistan's corrupt, unpopular warlord establishment can continue to rape children with impunity.

This is beyond sickening. These are the political fruits of late-capitalist political culture. There are far fewer capitalists than there are workers. To get worker/voters to support an elitist political movement that is antipathetic to their own self-interest, you first target the fucking stupidest people among the electorate and toss them red-meat like war, homophobia, racism and police brutality against minorities, get them all excited, and they'll not notice that their pockets are being picked.

We need a political culture that stands up to stupidity. We'll never be free of these imbeciles, but we should stop kow-towing to them, we should stop pretending that they're people whose opinions should be respected. Human garbage like Harper is what human garbage like the Blogging Tories vote for. Two-thirds of the electorate is at least redeemable and that demographic should be targetted with the waverers shamed into rejecting even considering throwing in their lot with the yammering jack-asses on the far-right.

TGIF

seriously.

Finished "Dark Days"

I finished reading the book Dark Days: the Story of Four Canadians Tortured in the Name of Fighting Terror last night.

I must say that the RCMP and CSIS come out of it looking like knuckle-dragging imbeciles. Perhaps that's unfair. Perhaps there's awesome, mind-blowing stuff that these guys have that will show that they weren't complete idiots who told foreign governments that four (and there's more) Canadians were terrorist masterminds, based on nothing but racial profiling and a desire to make up for their past blunders.

But, if Maher Arar, Abdullah Almalki, Ahmad El-Maati and Muayyed Nurredin had to pay through torture while they were innocent, then our "super-cops" ought to be able to live with insults from the internet for their seemingly massive incompetence.

I'd like to say more, but I'm swamped.

Good Essay on the Clinton Economy

And since the US economy is important for Canada's and the world's economy, it's an important read as well. (From TPM Cafe): "The High Priests of the Bubble Economy" by Dean Baker ...

It is important to separate Clinton-era mythology from the real economic record. In the mythology, Clinton's decision to raise taxes and cut spending led to an investment boom. This boom led to a surge in productivity growth. Soaring productivity growth led to the low unemployment of the late 1990s and wage gains for workers at all points along the wage distribution.

At the end of the administration, there was a huge surplus, and we set target dates for paying off the national debt. The moral of the myth is that all good things came from deficit reduction.

The reality was quite different.

Kinda puts it all into perspective. And since I'm posting links about Clinton, Jonathan Schwarz deals with a myth that Clinton started out governing from the left, but that reality forced him to become a sensible "centrist." Didn't happen.

You see, Bill Clinton began his presidency by giving into his wild-eyed leftist instincts. But the wise American people rejected his class warfare! They punished him and the Democrats by giving control of congress to Republicans in the 1994 midterm elections. So Clinton sobered up and governed from the center. Obama better not repeat Clinton's mistakes by giving into the left! The End.

In reality, of course, Clinton knuckled under to the center right—much of which was located within the Democratic party—from the very beginning. Following their advice, he went all out to pass NAFTA, then failed to pass universal health care. People who'd been desperate in 1992 saw no economic improvement by 1994. And with the low 45% voter turnout in the midterms, the Democrats lost control of Congress (mostly via the defeat of center right Democrats).

Have a super day.

Remembrance Day

"Lest we forget."

I have no problem respecting the memory of Canadian men who were sacrificed as soldiers in wars from 1914 to the present day.

I'm not so sure that Canadian freedoms were truly threatened in World War I. Obviously, Prussian militarism would have become a much stronger political force had the Germans won that war, but aside from a radical rearrangement of the balance of power in Europe, British imperial strength would not have been greatly affected. Democracy would surely have been diminished as an international force.

Aside from all that though, there's the reality of the horrible conditions that soldiers in that war were forced to endure, living and dying in squalor and terror. When Canadian soldiers did fight in that conflict they displayed noteworthy valour as even non-Canadian historical sources attest.

A Nazi victory in World War II would have been terrifying for the world however. A fanatical, nakedly racist, war-worshipping sect would have control of all of Europe and much of Asia, including all of its resources. To the soldiers who died to contain this monstrosity we owe undiluted gratitude. Canadian soldiers here also displayed heroism; in Italy, on D-Day, and in Holland. For the political masters in the West who aided and abetted the right-wing freak-show of Hitlerism, we owe undiluted contempt.

Korea was a political cluster-fuck from the beginning. The South was ruled by an authoritarian madman and a cabal of collaborators with the Japanese Occupation. The North was ruled by another authoritarian, though perhaps, one who might have had more credit with a larger proportion of the Korean people. Evidently, Canadian soldiers again proved themselves as brave and worthy soldiers in that conflict as well. (I say "evidently" as I've not read or heard of much about that conflict.)

At the present day, Canadian soldiers are fighting and dying in Afghanistan. You can search this blog for my opinions on that conflict AND about Canadian soldiers fighting in it. For those soldiers who honestly believe that they are doing good for the people of Afghanistan (and perhaps their responsibilities include defending a school where girls are getting the first educations that female Afghans have received in over a decade, or perhaps they're fighting genuine Taliban fanatics massacring innocent farmers who are merely cooperating with whatever force happens to be the power at the time) I can only say that I respect their opinions, but the wider picture to me appears to be one of US geo-political, imperialist strategy and overall arrogant indifference. To those Canadian soldiers traumatized by having witnessed the rape of children by our noble warlord allies, my sincerest regrets for what Liberal and Conservative governments have subjected you to. To those Canadian soldiers and their families who have suffered death or grave injuries, my deepest respect.

I would also like to mention one soldier, who, if not forgotten, his death did not receive the proper official response from the Harper government: Maj. Paeta Hess-von Kruedener was killed by an Israeli bomb during that country's illegal invasion of Lebanon. As a UN observer of the Israel-Lebanon border Hess-von Kruedener was in the thick of the fighting and his post had radioed Israeli forces several times warning them that their bombs were falling near them. These warnings were disregarded and Hess-von Kruedener and three other UN observers were killed. In response to this outrage, Harper could only make excuses for Israel and stupidly ask what the UN observers were doing there, observing, in the first place.

Finally, when we remember the war dead on Remembrance Day, we are also supposed to remember how terrible war is. The original Remembrance Day was not meant to reflect upon Canadian youth sacrificing their lives for foolish causes, but over time, a sense of the stupidity of war and the stupidity of the (mainly) old men who start them, has also taken root, and we are supposed to remember so that we do not lightly enter into destructive conflicts in the future.

Alas, when the final page is written on our Afghanistan adventure, it will be seen that yet again, too many Canadians allowed themselves to be deluded by the pseudo-humanitarian claims of politicians (politicians they would otherwise not trust as far as they could throw them) and by fantasies of military glory and killing "detestable murderers and scum-bags" and Canadian soldiers and innocent civilians have paid the price.

Credit Crunch

Credit companies are tightening up everywhere. Even companies that don't have a lot of delinquent accounts are lowering credit limits. For example, Canadian Tire says that it doesn't want its credit cards to be used as last resorts by people who've maxed-out their other sources of credit.

Two things:

1. Rising consumer debt has been caused, to a great degree, by the need to maintain consumption levels in the face of stagnant or shrinking wages and decreased job security. While some Canadians have been frivolous, it seems the vast majority of us are just making the mortgage, buying the groceries, maintaining the car and the work wardrobe and etc. Whatever one thinks of Canadians' spending habits, bear in mind that without this "living beyond our means" the economy would have probably been in a recession long ago.

2. Canada's financial sector isn't in as catastrophic shape as the U.S.A.'s financial system, and this seems to be due to greater regulation here.

1. is worse than 2. and that appears to be the area where "free market capitalism" has had greater sway, subjecting workers' incomes to the "market" where power and politics have as much to do with the capitalists' victory as anything else. Where things aren't as bad appears to be where rational regulation has been used. Go figure.

USA and Saudi Arabia and the dollarization of international oil

I was reading an article by Anthony Black in the new "Mayday Magazine" wherein I learned a new fact! The dollarization of the international oil market wasn't a natural thing (what i'd thought) but an agreement between Saudi Arabia and the USA in 1973.

This article says a tiny bit about that. Probably some other stuff too. Didn't read the whole thing. Gotta work.

We're at war ... with failure!!!

Is that a gripping enough post title?

The excuse for it is that I think the same explosion of activity that governments can get to when there's a war on ought to be mobilized to deal with the fact that our present economic course is unsustainable and there's no "Plan B."

It's going to take a major effort to transform a world full of 6.5 billion people to raise living standards and lower resource consumption. Modern science and technology will play a big part, but they need to be harnessed by democracy, not profit.

They're shutting down the steel mills ...

In my home town.

Lack of demand they say. People ain't buying houses n' cars the way they used to. 'Course, all that home-buying n' [why'm I talkin' like Jim-Bobby? That's his shtick!] car buying was often done on credit in recent years.

Also, our consumption levels are unsustainable. To think that we're supposed to be models for China and India to emulate, it's ridiculous.

But what should we be doing as a society? Where will the jobs be?

What I do know is that we don't have any viable politicial parties up for doing anything more than tinkering with a system that is killing us.

First Wednesday in November

Well, the classy, non-psychotic guy won. Great.

[conspiracy theory]The American ruling class has been engaging in naked brutality and theft because their's is a dying empire and there's no more time for the luxuries of compromise and generosity. Plus, their right-wing counterattack has been much more easy and more successful than they'd imagined it would be when they started in 1980. However, after two stolen terms for bush II, they realize that they shouldn't push their luck. They also realize that they have to give the sensible majority of their subjects a reason to care about politics again. So they pick the charismatic representative of the oppressed minority and then even cynical US-leftists can think it's an important moment. They buy it hook, line and sinker. But then it's back to business as usual. The Repugs will make out all right. They've got that $700 billion and then some to spend as they see fit.[/conspiracy theory]

But I don't think the US ruling elite is that smart. For one thing, a lot of the storm troops of the repug administration were bible-college law school grads who fit right in on the idiot right-wing blogosphere.

It really just is the case that Barack Obama is an African-American who has managed to play the game so well that he won the Democratic nomination and then went on to defeat the candidate from the party that screwed the country over for 8 long years.

In other news, Ontario has become a have-not province. D'you suppose all the lefties who said that manufacturing jobs were important and that they'd be threatened by free trade will get an apology from the assholes at places like the C. D. Howe Institute? (Answer: Of course not!)

It's 19 degrees Celcius on November 5th. In all honesty, I really can't enjoy the weather all that much when I realize that it's all a part of global warming.

Election Fever!

I hope Obama wins. But then he'll inherit a lovely mess and he's ideologically bankrupt.

Disband the RCMP?

Discussed here.

I'm starting to think we should.