Germany Celebrates Fall of the Wall
POLITICS - 20 years ago the Berlin Wall separating East and West Berlin was opened. Within a year Germany was reunited and has since gone on to become the world's 4th biggest economy behind the United States, Japan and China.
Ragnarok: The Time of Reckoning
ENVIRONMENT/RELIGION - According to Norse mythology the world will have a time of great reckoning and cataclysmic events, starting with the melting of Hel.
Hel (in Norse mythology) is a barren hostile wasteland of ice where only the dead live. It is essentially the Arctic. According to the myth of Ragnarok the North Pole / Hel will melt, the world will become flooded, and all the peoples of the earth will be forced to move farther inland. (In Christianity we tend to think of Hell as being an underworld place and describe it as hot instead, but in Norse myths Hel is an actual place and very cold instead.)
Hel (in Norse mythology) is a barren hostile wasteland of ice where only the dead live. It is essentially the Arctic. According to the myth of Ragnarok the North Pole / Hel will melt, the world will become flooded, and all the peoples of the earth will be forced to move farther inland. (In Christianity we tend to think of Hell as being an underworld place and describe it as hot instead, but in Norse myths Hel is an actual place and very cold instead.)
Lately a lot of people have been fussing about 2012 and the changing to the Mayan calendar, with some people thinking it signals the end of the world. It is NOT the end of the world. Its just a cyclic calendar. In comparison Ragnarok is a much more interesting prophecy and has direct ties to what is currently going on with global warming, climate change and rising sea levels.
Ford's Billion $ Profit
AUTOMOTIVES/POLITICS - The Ford Motor Company, the only one of the Big Three American automakers who did NOT receive a buyout from the United States government, has posted a billion dollar profit today.
What if Toronto got nuked?
CANADA - There is a little program online I stumbled upon called "Ground Zero" which allows you to do a search for a city or location and a Google map will pop up of that location. Then you select a nuclear weapon of some kind (they vary in sizes) and test what would happen if that particular city was hit by a nuke.
The Mini Minivan
AUTOMOTIVES - Its coming. Can you hear it? Its a bird, its a plane, nope! Its a clown car.Cue the circus music and watch as Mazda, Kia and other companies are planning to cash in on a new market for tiny minivans which are (in theory) more fuel efficient because of their smaller size but still allows drivers to carry 4-6 people.
But not necessarily their stuff.
Scientology Vs Gay Marriages
RELIGION/SEX - Its nothing new that organized religions tend to discourage or frown upon all things sexual. The Vatican for example is still trying to prevent their priests from marrying (although some manage to do so anyway) and they have been pretty successful in some parts of the world when it comes to discouraging condom use (much to the detriment of southern Africa which is now been ravaged by AIDS) and gay marriages...
So it comes really as no surprise theCult Church of Scientology which supports the banning of gay marriages.
For example Paul Haggis (the writer/director of the film Crash) recently quit the Church of Scientology after being an active member for 35 years. Why? Because the California chapter of the church supported Prop 8 in California, which effectively banned gay marriages in that state.
So it comes really as no surprise the
For example Paul Haggis (the writer/director of the film Crash) recently quit the Church of Scientology after being an active member for 35 years. Why? Because the California chapter of the church supported Prop 8 in California, which effectively banned gay marriages in that state.
Scientology has been exposed as a complete hoax. It was never intended to be taken seriously, but as Americans are wont to do they just love to defend their obsessions with religion.
According to recent news headlines:
According to recent news headlines:
* Scientology church leader David Miscavige routinely beats up his subordinates in order to keep them following his orders. He's basically a mini Mussolini.
* Scientology spokesman Tommy Davis walked out of an interview on the ABC programNightline when he was asked about Lord Xenu, the intergalactic tyrant that supposedly trapped alien spirits here on Earth.
* Celebrity John Travolta's son Jett died because of 'detoxification' treatments he was getting from the Church of Scientology instead of from a hospital.
* In June the St. Petersburg Times published a lengthy package of information about the inner workings of Scientology, their beliefs and how the church is run by a bunch of millionaire low-lifes leeching off the money of their "believers". The information was garnered from high-ranking members who have since left the church in disgust.
NOTE TO SELF: Make a new religion called "The Church of Intelligent Design" and use it as a front for a website design / architecture / industrial design business so all the workers don't have to pay taxes.
( Nope. That's not me. I already have said I thought L. Ron Hubbard - science fiction writer of wild imagination, hilarity and no little whimsy - generated Scientology as a Spoof ! That's what he was reported to have said for years. But I'm prejudiced...I thought he was a Hoot ! )
Wednesday, June 10, 2009
"Out of the Depths, Have I Sought Even Deeper Depths, O Lord!": Stephen Harper's De Profundis, Part Two
No "Conservative" activist has provided higher multi-fuck-up value for dollar than Ottawa mayor and former temp-agency CEO Larry O'Brien. This man's plunge from the twin Everests of his massive ego and colossal managerial incapability has been painful to witness, especially as so much goodwill is owed someone who has advanced so far in life despite the handicap of looking like he's been indifferently cross-assembled from the physiognomic fragments of Lex Luthor, Daddy Warbucks, and Stalin's most brutish-looking Byelorussian NKVD Commissar.
Now, most of the major national media outlets that have been watching his bribery trial have assumed that O'Brien fully intended to prove himself not guilty of the Crown's charges. That is, after all, conventional. Sadly, things have not gone well for the mayor.
For weeks, the court has been treated to testimony placing O'Brien at the heart of the "Conservative" machine in Ottawa. In fact, he was recruited and groomed personally by John Reynolds, ex-CPC M.P., influential party bag-man and rain-maker, and trusted Stephen Harper confidante. Reynolds wanted O'Brien to run federally, but O'Brien decided to carry the CPC flag in the 2006 mayoralty race instead--selflessly--just to bring a little of the Harper magic to us socialist, Northern European Ottawan barbarians. According to testimony, the O'Brien network is a Who's Who of the CPC's Ottawa nomenklatura: Baird operatives, Poilievre aides--they're all there, brokering (allegedly) some sort of deal between O'Brien and Terry Kilrea, the potentially vote-splitting right-wing candidate whom O'Brien is accused of buying off with an appointment to the Parole Board.
On Monday, after watching witness after witness effectively corroborate Kilrea's damning version of events, O'Brien's defence team performed a stunning volte face; it asked the presiding judge to render a directed verdict, something normally brought down in order to dismiss a Crown case for lack of evidence but which would, in this case, dismiss the charges for not fitting into the relevant provisions of the Criminal Code. In effect, the defence is arguing that O'Brien's alleged offence is not covered by the law and is thus perfectly legal.
Specifically, the defence contends that the law is meant to criminalise only the act of promising a monetary reward for doing someone a political favour; the promise of a political reward, they argue, is lawful. Thus, it would have been corrupt of O'Brien to have tempted Kilrea with an envelope full of cash, but, since he sought to have Kilrea whore himself for a seat on the Parole Board, O'Brien's in the clear. Lost in this mincing quibbling, apparently, is the obvious fact that a lucrative Parole Board position is, collaterally, a monetary reward.
Ottawa scribe Randall Denley puts the situation in perspective quite lucidly, I think:
Stephen Harper's "Conservative" party has finally effected a profound reform of Canada's culture of governance, one entirely consistent with its tradition of grotesque political perversity. This party, that strode and swaggered across this country in strident presumed possession of a total monopoly of political integrity, that vowed to extinguish corruption and maintain the highest ethical standards of conduct, that made the "Accountability Act" the key element of its legislative agenda and the heart of the party's moral bona fides, has now outdone the merepassive betrayal of its ideals.
This party has requested, through its loyal Ottawa agent, that political bribery--the most egregious of all the forms of corruption that appal Canadians--be enshrined in Canadian case law as an acceptable, lawful practice. This precedent having been set, the "Conservative" Party will have succeeded in legally institutionalising the worst, most ignoble manifestation of the very corruption the eradication of which is ostensibly their raison d'etre.
The CPC has become the most avidly concupiscent carrier of the venereal disease that has been chancering our body politic for decades. The "Conservative" pretence to be anything else but the defalcating exploiters and enablers of what is worst about our society is the most offensive and least convincing piece of political quackery to be inflicted upon this country in living memory. This earnest appeal on behalf of the élite's right to scoff at the natural law, by the way, comes right on the heels of the CPC's attempt to force judges to impose harsh prison time on people caught growing a quantity of marijuana carrying an intoxicating effect roughly equal to that of a bottle of wine. Bribe an ideological co-militant to slime into City Hall, and walk away with the prize; grow some grass, and go to jail. That's "justice" in Stephen Harper's Canada.
In order to rinse out the bitter taste this case leaves in my mouth, I read this pieceabout Alex Munter, the young, bright and capable man whose mayoral aspirations were crushed by the demagogic smears of the smiling CPC simian who now begs us to shrug away his flippant debasement of normative civic standards. I read that Munter is not bitter; he seeks no vengeance; he is happy doing productive, necessary work with at-risk youth.
I reflect that, in Stephen Harper's Canada, it seems to be the doom of the good, the honest, and the virtuous to lose, and the fate of the scum to rise to the top. If legally codifying that civic dysfunction is not a crime against humanity, I don't know what is.
Now, most of the major national media outlets that have been watching his bribery trial have assumed that O'Brien fully intended to prove himself not guilty of the Crown's charges. That is, after all, conventional. Sadly, things have not gone well for the mayor.
For weeks, the court has been treated to testimony placing O'Brien at the heart of the "Conservative" machine in Ottawa. In fact, he was recruited and groomed personally by John Reynolds, ex-CPC M.P., influential party bag-man and rain-maker, and trusted Stephen Harper confidante. Reynolds wanted O'Brien to run federally, but O'Brien decided to carry the CPC flag in the 2006 mayoralty race instead--selflessly--just to bring a little of the Harper magic to us socialist, Northern European Ottawan barbarians. According to testimony, the O'Brien network is a Who's Who of the CPC's Ottawa nomenklatura: Baird operatives, Poilievre aides--they're all there, brokering (allegedly) some sort of deal between O'Brien and Terry Kilrea, the potentially vote-splitting right-wing candidate whom O'Brien is accused of buying off with an appointment to the Parole Board.
On Monday, after watching witness after witness effectively corroborate Kilrea's damning version of events, O'Brien's defence team performed a stunning volte face; it asked the presiding judge to render a directed verdict, something normally brought down in order to dismiss a Crown case for lack of evidence but which would, in this case, dismiss the charges for not fitting into the relevant provisions of the Criminal Code. In effect, the defence is arguing that O'Brien's alleged offence is not covered by the law and is thus perfectly legal.
Specifically, the defence contends that the law is meant to criminalise only the act of promising a monetary reward for doing someone a political favour; the promise of a political reward, they argue, is lawful. Thus, it would have been corrupt of O'Brien to have tempted Kilrea with an envelope full of cash, but, since he sought to have Kilrea whore himself for a seat on the Parole Board, O'Brien's in the clear. Lost in this mincing quibbling, apparently, is the obvious fact that a lucrative Parole Board position is, collaterally, a monetary reward.
Ottawa scribe Randall Denley puts the situation in perspective quite lucidly, I think:
According to the defence, offering someone a federal job as an inducement to drop out of a mayoral race is legally acceptable behaviour. The Crown contends that it's not, despite politicians' history of using Senate and cabinet appointments to politically benefit the party in power...If [the judge] determines that there is nothing illegal about what O'Brien is alleged to have done, he is putting a judicial stamp of approval on conduct that stinks...The political culture of senior levels of government has played a dominant role in what is actually a municipal issue...The defence is relying on Canadians' deep cynicism about the honesty of politicians...In the world described in court, unethical behaviour and even stuff that is technically illegal is the everyday fare of what is rather grandly referred to as "political discourse"...Our standards of political behaviour are certainly low. If his defence is successful, O'Brien will have done his bit to help move the bar even lower.
Stephen Harper's "Conservative" party has finally effected a profound reform of Canada's culture of governance, one entirely consistent with its tradition of grotesque political perversity. This party, that strode and swaggered across this country in strident presumed possession of a total monopoly of political integrity, that vowed to extinguish corruption and maintain the highest ethical standards of conduct, that made the "Accountability Act" the key element of its legislative agenda and the heart of the party's moral bona fides, has now outdone the merepassive betrayal of its ideals.
This party has requested, through its loyal Ottawa agent, that political bribery--the most egregious of all the forms of corruption that appal Canadians--be enshrined in Canadian case law as an acceptable, lawful practice. This precedent having been set, the "Conservative" Party will have succeeded in legally institutionalising the worst, most ignoble manifestation of the very corruption the eradication of which is ostensibly their raison d'etre.
The CPC has become the most avidly concupiscent carrier of the venereal disease that has been chancering our body politic for decades. The "Conservative" pretence to be anything else but the defalcating exploiters and enablers of what is worst about our society is the most offensive and least convincing piece of political quackery to be inflicted upon this country in living memory. This earnest appeal on behalf of the élite's right to scoff at the natural law, by the way, comes right on the heels of the CPC's attempt to force judges to impose harsh prison time on people caught growing a quantity of marijuana carrying an intoxicating effect roughly equal to that of a bottle of wine. Bribe an ideological co-militant to slime into City Hall, and walk away with the prize; grow some grass, and go to jail. That's "justice" in Stephen Harper's Canada.
In order to rinse out the bitter taste this case leaves in my mouth, I read this pieceabout Alex Munter, the young, bright and capable man whose mayoral aspirations were crushed by the demagogic smears of the smiling CPC simian who now begs us to shrug away his flippant debasement of normative civic standards. I read that Munter is not bitter; he seeks no vengeance; he is happy doing productive, necessary work with at-risk youth.
I reflect that, in Stephen Harper's Canada, it seems to be the doom of the good, the honest, and the virtuous to lose, and the fate of the scum to rise to the top. If legally codifying that civic dysfunction is not a crime against humanity, I don't know what is.
Posted by Sir Francis at 2:13 PM 13 comments 
Links to this post
Links to this postWednesday, June 17, 2009
"When Hacks Attack!": Part One
I think it is now safe to say that the CPC's "Just Visiting" anti-Ignatieff ad campaign has become the most obsessively scrutinised shitzkrieg* ever mounted by a Dominion party in our history. Launched over a month ago, it haunts us still. It has certainly surpassed the P.C. Party's "Is This a Prime Minister" anti-Chrétien sally in '93 as an object of pundit-driven fascination as to its motivation, generation, and effect on voter intention.
The consensus seems to be that it is vile and unprecedented. That it is vile is arguable. That it is unprecedented is even more arguable. If it is unprecedented, it is only so in its timing and in its authorship.
For one may be surprised (and disappointed) to see such a thing occur outside of an election, and one cannot help but be surprised to see the battle-axe of populist class war taken out of the hands of the NDP, its traditional wielder, by the political helots of our affluent continentalist élite, but one cannot be surprised by the campaign's abject meanness, for, as I've been strangely delighted to discover (or re-discover, really), corrosive vitriol on the Canadian hustings is a venerable part of our electoral heritage that an aberrant three generations of relative civility have served to wipe from Canada's collective memory. We Canadians have nothing as famous and widely quoted as the Lincoln-Douglas debates to remind us that we were political beings before the invention of the refrigerator. If we did, we would realise that the rank partisan vindictiveness of the last four years has been not a cultural departure for Canadians as much as a recrudescence.
As part of my summer reading program, I've been delving into S.F. Wise's God's Peculiar People, a collection of essays concerning the political culture of pre-rebellion Upper Canada, specifically its surprising degree of chauvinistic messianism (something we naturally tend to think of as being inherently anti-Canadian). I suppose we should all be grateful that Canada's early 19th-century historical record is dominated by the contest between reformers and Tories, for the accounts of their murderously bitter reciprocal rhetorical eviscerations can be a joy to read and serve as some of the most genuinely compelling sparks of real life amid a record that is often (ignorantly) accused of being soporifically dry.
In one essay, Wise describes an 1834 by-election in Kingston, in which Tory community pillar Christopher Hagerman, expecting to walk into the seat unopposed, ended up being challenged by a quickly drafted Reform candidate from Toronto, one William O'Grady, suspended priest and editor of radical newspaper theCanadian Correspondent. The phrase, "Send in the clowns," doesn't even begin to approximate an adequate invocation for the circus that ensued.
The reform-minded defrocked preacher was apparently no media darling in the heart of Loyalist country. The Tory Coburg Star warned its readers:
O'Grady retaliated against this press persecution with a suitable though perhaps not focus-group-refined performance. He addressed a meeting, and, "holding a copy of the [Tory] Kingston Chronicle in his hand, [excoriated] 'this mean, low, pitiful and grovelling rag,' run by a Yankee editor who is 'an infamous liar and a despicable miscreant'". Goodness me. I think we've just found the patron saint of the blogosphere.
Anyways, once the campaign began in earnest, things really got ugly. At a public debate, O'Grady expounded upon his anti-Tory agenda in defiant and apocalyptic terms:
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
* Shitzkrieg: a neologistic portmanteau Dred Toryism, composed of a truncated form of "bullshit" (i.e. "nonsense", "gibberish") and "krieg" (i.e. "assault"); it denotes any political "communications" campaign designed to flood the media with trivia as a way of distracting the public’s attention from issues that matter.
The consensus seems to be that it is vile and unprecedented. That it is vile is arguable. That it is unprecedented is even more arguable. If it is unprecedented, it is only so in its timing and in its authorship.
For one may be surprised (and disappointed) to see such a thing occur outside of an election, and one cannot help but be surprised to see the battle-axe of populist class war taken out of the hands of the NDP, its traditional wielder, by the political helots of our affluent continentalist élite, but one cannot be surprised by the campaign's abject meanness, for, as I've been strangely delighted to discover (or re-discover, really), corrosive vitriol on the Canadian hustings is a venerable part of our electoral heritage that an aberrant three generations of relative civility have served to wipe from Canada's collective memory. We Canadians have nothing as famous and widely quoted as the Lincoln-Douglas debates to remind us that we were political beings before the invention of the refrigerator. If we did, we would realise that the rank partisan vindictiveness of the last four years has been not a cultural departure for Canadians as much as a recrudescence.
As part of my summer reading program, I've been delving into S.F. Wise's God's Peculiar People, a collection of essays concerning the political culture of pre-rebellion Upper Canada, specifically its surprising degree of chauvinistic messianism (something we naturally tend to think of as being inherently anti-Canadian). I suppose we should all be grateful that Canada's early 19th-century historical record is dominated by the contest between reformers and Tories, for the accounts of their murderously bitter reciprocal rhetorical eviscerations can be a joy to read and serve as some of the most genuinely compelling sparks of real life amid a record that is often (ignorantly) accused of being soporifically dry.
In one essay, Wise describes an 1834 by-election in Kingston, in which Tory community pillar Christopher Hagerman, expecting to walk into the seat unopposed, ended up being challenged by a quickly drafted Reform candidate from Toronto, one William O'Grady, suspended priest and editor of radical newspaper theCanadian Correspondent. The phrase, "Send in the clowns," doesn't even begin to approximate an adequate invocation for the circus that ensued.
The reform-minded defrocked preacher was apparently no media darling in the heart of Loyalist country. The Tory Coburg Star warned its readers:
"O'Grady, of the Correspondent, has been skulking about here for the last two or three days, by way, we suppose, of trying his sophistry among the Catholics; but it's a no go. The 'Gentleman in Black' can neither hide his tail nor his hoof".And CPC acolytes whine about "media bias". Talk to me when the Globe and Mailequates Harper with Satan, guys.
O'Grady retaliated against this press persecution with a suitable though perhaps not focus-group-refined performance. He addressed a meeting, and, "holding a copy of the [Tory] Kingston Chronicle in his hand, [excoriated] 'this mean, low, pitiful and grovelling rag,' run by a Yankee editor who is 'an infamous liar and a despicable miscreant'". Goodness me. I think we've just found the patron saint of the blogosphere.
Anyways, once the campaign began in earnest, things really got ugly. At a public debate, O'Grady expounded upon his anti-Tory agenda in defiant and apocalyptic terms:
"It is a glorious thing to commence in this hot-bed of toryism the battle of reform...and though the Reformers may not, for the present, be able to slay the Goliath, is it not a glorious thing, that on examining the materials of the pedestal on which [Hagerman] stands and discovering their rottenness...we may anticipate the not far distant day...when public opinion will dash the proud Colossus in the dust?"Note to Ignatieff: that, my loving patriot, is how to tell a guy you're going to mess with him until you're done.
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* Shitzkrieg: a neologistic portmanteau Dred Toryism, composed of a truncated form of "bullshit" (i.e. "nonsense", "gibberish") and "krieg" (i.e. "assault"); it denotes any political "communications" campaign designed to flood the media with trivia as a way of distracting the public’s attention from issues that matter.
Posted by Sir Francis at 12:03 PM 26 comments Links to this post
Links to this postTuesday, October 6, 2009
When Hacks Attack, Part Two: Sheer Hack Attack!
As a public service, I hereby append below an internal memorandum allegedly sent by "Conservative" Party brass to "Conservative" riding presidents.
I prefer not to divulge how it came into my possession, and I can’t reliably vouch for its authenticity. I’m rather dubious, frankly: Harperoids have come to be (wisely) leery of leaving paper trails. In any case, it certainly seems genuine. It is most likely the first draft of a memo that was ultimately edited into respectability by one of the party's half-dozen grown-ups, in case it got leaked. Enjoy!
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Dear Riding Association Presidents:
In order to keep ourselves and our camp-following sycophants dunked in the vast plankton-rich trough of federal emoluments, our party has striven to fine-tune its electoral mechanism to the kind of exacting standard that you--the faceless, toadying party functionary--demand and deserve.
We have ruthlessly cut costs. We have performed efficiencies in key process elements. For instance, we’ve realised how unnecessary it is to run homo sapienscandidates in Alberta and Saskatchewan. Accordingly, after careful feedback and focus-group analyses, our party has hypothesised that the carcasses of dead squirrels stuffed with sawdust and impaled on wooden kebabs painted in party colours can hold CPC ridings with pluralities at par with or even greater than current levels. Running low-maintenance road-kill in safe SaskAlberta ridings will allow us to move resources to more challenging ridings.
The short questionnaire you see before you is part of our new, dynamic election-readiness tool-kit. It is designed to help you identify God-fearing CPC-friendly voters among the molten, unsentient mass of fundamentally lazy and bolshevist quasi-Talibs with which Canada is ridden.
We suggest you urge as many of your heathen riding mates as possible to complete the brief survey; then, carefully analyse their responses. Waste no further time and effort on those who score high: they’re ours. Naturally, most will score low. After adding their names to our official “Enemies of Stephen Harper and Therefore Possibly Al-Qaeda Sleeper Agents” master-list, spend some time with them in respectful, constructive dialogue (a cattle-prod is included in your package for this purpose). At the bottom of the survey, you’ll find a legend detailing what the results mean and offering tips on how to proceed with your evangelism.
Good luck, and good hunting!
------------------------------------------------------------------------
1. The word "liberal" makes me think of:
a) Someone who espouses what has arguably been the most potent political tradition in the post-Enlightenment West [1 point];
b) A naive, tax-grabbing statist [3 points];
c) A bilingual ballet enthusiast who thinks he's better than me [5 points].
2. The word "feminist" means:
a) Someone committed to the legal and social equality of women [1 point];
b) A radical who seeks to overthrow Western patriarchy [3 points];
c) A fat ugly dyke on the rag [5 points].
3. The word “France” refers to:
a) A great European nation that has been crucial to the development of Western civilisation and that established the foundations of Canada’s European heritage [1 point];
b) One of the senior members of the European Union [3 points];
d) A nation of over-scented queers in perpetual search of someone to surrender to [5 points].
4. "A Mare Usque Ad Mare" means:
a) "From Sea to Sea" [1 point];
b) Something I need to Google [3 points];
c) Some faggy Latin shit [5 points].
5. The Fathers of Confederation are:
a) The men who knitted together the main elements of Canada's geo-political fabric [1 point];
b) A group of colonial pragmatists desperate to escape the Act of Union's legislative straightjacket [3 points];
c) A bunch of hacks too stupid to sue for admission to the U.S.A [5 points].
6. My favourite political philosopher is:
a) George Grant [1 point];
b) Thomas Paine [3 points];
c) Larry the Cable Guy [5 points].
7. The "War on Terror" is:
a) A misguided and potentially catastrophic U.S.-led militarisation of what is really a development issue [1 point];
b) A noble but poorly executed effort at nation-building [3 points];
c) The inspiration for some of my favourite fridge magnets [5 points].
8. G.W. Bush's words, "You're either for us or against us" were:
a) An unstatesmanlike burst of arrogance unhelpful to the building of an effective post-9/11 Western alliance [1 point];
b) An unfortunate but understandable lapse in judgment [3 points];
c) Redundant. Of course I was going to be for him: he was my President [5 points].
9. Stephen Harper's assertion that Canada is a second-tier socialist backwater was:
a) Boorish and unpatriotic [1 point];
b) Wrong, but fair comment [3 points];
c) So cool that I made my girlfriend scrawl Harper's words onto her left thigh, right next to her tattoo of Merle Haggard [5 points].
10. Canada's consistent record of maintaining a higher standard of livingthan America's is:
a) Proof of the preferability of Canadian society [1 point];
b) Interesting but irrelevant [3 points];
c) Typical Canadian America-bashing [5 points].
Results:
35-50: Yeehah! This subject is a member of our natural constituency. In fact, he's probably Kathy Shaidle. Only a lobotomy could make him more devoutly committed to our cause. He needs no further proselytising. Move on.
20-35: This subject is in the ballpark, but he’s still far too much of a typical defeatist, can’t-do Canadian. Administer a copy of Atlas Shrugged immediately. Have him re-take the survey within two weeks. Who knows? By that time, he may have suffered an IQ-suppressing head injury and become more open to persuasion.
10-20: Any further effort on this far-left terrorist would be wasted. Make sure to send his name to party headquarters so that we may issue a security certificate and arrange for his indefinite detention.
I prefer not to divulge how it came into my possession, and I can’t reliably vouch for its authenticity. I’m rather dubious, frankly: Harperoids have come to be (wisely) leery of leaving paper trails. In any case, it certainly seems genuine. It is most likely the first draft of a memo that was ultimately edited into respectability by one of the party's half-dozen grown-ups, in case it got leaked. Enjoy!
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Dear Riding Association Presidents:
In order to keep ourselves and our camp-following sycophants dunked in the vast plankton-rich trough of federal emoluments, our party has striven to fine-tune its electoral mechanism to the kind of exacting standard that you--the faceless, toadying party functionary--demand and deserve.
We have ruthlessly cut costs. We have performed efficiencies in key process elements. For instance, we’ve realised how unnecessary it is to run homo sapienscandidates in Alberta and Saskatchewan. Accordingly, after careful feedback and focus-group analyses, our party has hypothesised that the carcasses of dead squirrels stuffed with sawdust and impaled on wooden kebabs painted in party colours can hold CPC ridings with pluralities at par with or even greater than current levels. Running low-maintenance road-kill in safe SaskAlberta ridings will allow us to move resources to more challenging ridings.
The short questionnaire you see before you is part of our new, dynamic election-readiness tool-kit. It is designed to help you identify God-fearing CPC-friendly voters among the molten, unsentient mass of fundamentally lazy and bolshevist quasi-Talibs with which Canada is ridden.
We suggest you urge as many of your heathen riding mates as possible to complete the brief survey; then, carefully analyse their responses. Waste no further time and effort on those who score high: they’re ours. Naturally, most will score low. After adding their names to our official “Enemies of Stephen Harper and Therefore Possibly Al-Qaeda Sleeper Agents” master-list, spend some time with them in respectful, constructive dialogue (a cattle-prod is included in your package for this purpose). At the bottom of the survey, you’ll find a legend detailing what the results mean and offering tips on how to proceed with your evangelism.
Good luck, and good hunting!
------------------------------------------------------------------------
1. The word "liberal" makes me think of:
a) Someone who espouses what has arguably been the most potent political tradition in the post-Enlightenment West [1 point];
b) A naive, tax-grabbing statist [3 points];
c) A bilingual ballet enthusiast who thinks he's better than me [5 points].
2. The word "feminist" means:
a) Someone committed to the legal and social equality of women [1 point];
b) A radical who seeks to overthrow Western patriarchy [3 points];
c) A fat ugly dyke on the rag [5 points].
3. The word “France” refers to:
a) A great European nation that has been crucial to the development of Western civilisation and that established the foundations of Canada’s European heritage [1 point];
b) One of the senior members of the European Union [3 points];
d) A nation of over-scented queers in perpetual search of someone to surrender to [5 points].
4. "A Mare Usque Ad Mare" means:
a) "From Sea to Sea" [1 point];
b) Something I need to Google [3 points];
c) Some faggy Latin shit [5 points].
5. The Fathers of Confederation are:
a) The men who knitted together the main elements of Canada's geo-political fabric [1 point];
b) A group of colonial pragmatists desperate to escape the Act of Union's legislative straightjacket [3 points];
c) A bunch of hacks too stupid to sue for admission to the U.S.A [5 points].
6. My favourite political philosopher is:
a) George Grant [1 point];
b) Thomas Paine [3 points];
c) Larry the Cable Guy [5 points].
7. The "War on Terror" is:
a) A misguided and potentially catastrophic U.S.-led militarisation of what is really a development issue [1 point];
b) A noble but poorly executed effort at nation-building [3 points];
c) The inspiration for some of my favourite fridge magnets [5 points].
8. G.W. Bush's words, "You're either for us or against us" were:
a) An unstatesmanlike burst of arrogance unhelpful to the building of an effective post-9/11 Western alliance [1 point];
b) An unfortunate but understandable lapse in judgment [3 points];
c) Redundant. Of course I was going to be for him: he was my President [5 points].
9. Stephen Harper's assertion that Canada is a second-tier socialist backwater was:
a) Boorish and unpatriotic [1 point];
b) Wrong, but fair comment [3 points];
c) So cool that I made my girlfriend scrawl Harper's words onto her left thigh, right next to her tattoo of Merle Haggard [5 points].
10. Canada's consistent record of maintaining a higher standard of livingthan America's is:
a) Proof of the preferability of Canadian society [1 point];
b) Interesting but irrelevant [3 points];
c) Typical Canadian America-bashing [5 points].
Results:
35-50: Yeehah! This subject is a member of our natural constituency. In fact, he's probably Kathy Shaidle. Only a lobotomy could make him more devoutly committed to our cause. He needs no further proselytising. Move on.
20-35: This subject is in the ballpark, but he’s still far too much of a typical defeatist, can’t-do Canadian. Administer a copy of Atlas Shrugged immediately. Have him re-take the survey within two weeks. Who knows? By that time, he may have suffered an IQ-suppressing head injury and become more open to persuasion.
10-20: Any further effort on this far-left terrorist would be wasted. Make sure to send his name to party headquarters so that we may issue a security certificate and arrange for his indefinite detention.
Posted by Sir Francis at 12:05 AM 48 comments Links to this post
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( Sounds like the old material was growing stale. )
Five Best Antivirus Applications
Watchdog: New York State Regulation of Natural Gas Wells Has Been “Woefully Insufficient for Decades.”
The New York-based Toxics Targeting went through the Department of Environmental Conservation’s own database of hazardous substances spills over the past thirty years. They found 270 cases documenting fires, explosions, wastewater spills, well contamination and ecological damage related to gas drilling. Many of the cases remain unresolved. The findings are contrary to repeated government assurances that existing natural gas well regulations are sufficient to safeguard the environment and public health. The state is considering allowing for gas drilling in the Marcellus Shale watershed, the source of drinking water for 15 million people, including nine million New Yorkers.
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