DeCloet: Stop hating Americans! Wah-wah!

Go ahead, read it. At least the first two pargagraphs.

Apparently, Canada's relative success in weathering this recession is nothing to be particularly happy about. It's some kind of accident that we did better than the Americans. And anybody who is proud of how our previous government reined in corporate greed, refused to participate in banking shenanigans and what not ... well, those people are just exercising their "latent anti-Americanism".

Or not.

A cure for that smugness lies in the Bank of Canada’s latest review of the financial system, and its warnings that Canadians are still spending money they don’t have. Some facts leap out.

Yes. That's what we need: a "cure" for our "smugness". Right on. 'Cause we all hate Americans, see, and we need to be taught that we're stupid, too!

So here's how it worked. The American government struck down decades-old (even century old) laws regulating banks. They let very wise, very wealthy people run roughshod over the economy and the poor people. Those people left the economy dry as a bone and left the taxpayer holding the bag.

The Canadian government didn't do that.

So then the United States got sick. Really, really sick. And it started to affect us.

So our government and the Bank of Canada, working in tandem, cranked our interest rates down to historic lows in order to stimulate the economy by making it cheap to borrow money.

And we borrowed. And we're in debt.

See?! We're just as dumb as the Americans! Take that you pinko, leftist whackjobs!

Yeah. Yeah.

The difference, in case you missed it, was that we were smart enough not to leave Conservatives in power for too long. We can see their greed. We can see what they're going to do us. Either they'll go directly for the money, or they'll try to take out the education and health care systems first. We notice, and we kick them out.

As long as we had the Liberals in, they marched us toward surplus and conservative (!) fiscal policies with a proper long term outlook. You put Conservatives in, as the Americans did year after year after year, and you get a financial mess.

That, in the end, is the difference. We're willing to take a long term view, tax our wealthy people, and make things work. The Americans took Reagan and two Bushes, let their economy spin downward out of control and instead believed what the liars were saying instead of what they were doing.

No, that's not "anti-Americanism". It's just what happened.

And it's journalists like Derek DeCloet, Americaphiles all, who refuse to see that there are characteristic differences between the populations. It's people like that who are hurting our country by spreading this myth that we're only being different for the sake of difference.

It's time people like that, people who truly hate what this country is about, get called out for what they are: anti-Canadians.

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Our Anti-Canadian Government

With Vic Toews at the front.

They've been secretly crafting a North American security agreement. Why is it done in secret? Why, because Canadians are too stupid, naive and anti-American for this sort of agreement to take place in the light of day.

[a leaked document] provides a rare insight into how the government regards Canadians: as a nation ignorant of the true scale of the security threat it faces and more concerned with privacy rights.

See that? You're too dumb to comprehend the horrid terrorist threats coming our way! You stupid left-wing whackos keep quoting these statistics that say 100 times as many people have died in car accidents as terrorists incidents. Stop doing that and learn to be afraid, dammit!

Is there some reason that Canadians should be worried about their privacy?

“Greater information sharing is part of the initiative. The safeguarding of privacy and sovereignty will be of concern for Canadians,” the document says.

See what your government thinks of you? You're worried about your privacy. Don't you realize that in order for shipping containers to be properly inspected at Canadian ports, the American government needs to have your biometric data, medical history and a bunch of other things they'll use against you. I mean, seriously, people: the guys who are going to interrogate you in Syria need that information to torture you effectively!

“The Canadian public may underestimate the security threat to Canada,” the communication plan says.

No, we don't underestimate it. The problem is that the government overestimates that threat. Here, you do the arithmetic if you want. It looks to me like about 350,000 people have died in traffic accidents since 9-11. That's a hundred times the number who have died from terrorism.

I think Canadians have a pretty shrewd idea how dangerous terrorism is. I think our government is exaggerating so it can get deeper in bed with the Americans.

So let's just get to the meat of this issue:

“Notwithstanding our significant investment to date, a perception exists in the U.S. that Canada has not focused enough on security,” the Public Safety document says.

That's right, puppy. You're a good dog, but not good enough. Now roll over and play dead for Uncle Sam. Uncle Sam wants to handle your immigration for you, so he can extradite refugees he doesn't like to someplace where torture is legal. He wants to see your records, examine your people, know what they're up to ...

And once he has all your records. Once he know exactly what you're doing every moment of every day, then maybe - just maybe - he'll let some of your trucks cross the border without a tonne of harassment.

Or not. Whatever. Terrorism, you know.

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McGuinty Just Wanted to Help the Police

In response to the Ombudsman's report that the use of a wartime act to police the G20 protests in Toronto was probably illegal and unconstitutional, our Premier had the following to say:

“We moved pretty quickly on this thing in order to help our police at the earliest possible opportunity,” he said. “We did not take the appropriate steps to communicate this to the public.”

No, Mr. McGuinty. You've got it all wrong.

The problem isn't that you "didn't take the appropriate steps to communicate ...". The problem is that you didn't take the appropriate steps at all.

Your job, in case you've forgotten, isn't to facilitate the police. Your job isn't to protect the people with riot gear, batons, guns and tasers.

Your job is to protect the freedom of the people. You were supposed to protect our rights. It wasn't that you communicated your unconstitutional law in a poor manner. It's that you invoked an unconstitutional law and interrupted the freedom of the people to speak their minds.

That's the unforgivable crime here.

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The Anti-Canadians don't want to live in Wonderland

That's what the rest of us want, apparently. We have an "Alice In Wonderland" view of politics and terrorism, according to the former head of CSIS.

Someone named "J.L. Granatstein", writing for the Ottawa Citizen, agrees.

It goes along with that "inferiority complex" myth that the Americans, along with Canadian journalists and right wing politicians, like to spread. Because, naturally, if you disagree with American policies, there must be something wrong with you. Maybe you have a small penis? Just sayin'.

Well, it's time to call bullshit. It's also time to call this attitude for what it is:

Anti-Canadianism.

The vast majority of Canadian people believe in a few core values: social medicine; the illegality of torture; international law; peace keeping.

Our elected leaders, a good chunk of our military brass and many of our journalist-pundits, have separate values. Stuff like private medicine, torture-but-keep-it-quiet, dumping on the United Nations, starving peace keeping forces until they fail to function.

They hate Canada. There's no other way to put it. They find themselves at the top of a power structure, elected by people they actually hate.

So they tell us that our values are unrealistic. They tell us our rules are just getting in the way. They deride our hope for the future as naive.

They really, truly, hate us.

If you read that Citizen article, you can see the hatred. Granatstein has to tell us how we aren't "pulling our own weight" and how that threatens our "sovereignty". What he means is that the U.S. will conquer us if we don't do what they want. And then he wonders what part of American policy we could legitimately oppose?

Granatstein is upset that Canadians will easily fall in to "paroxysms of moral outrage" while failing to finish the quote from which that phrase came - namely the interrogation after torture of a child soldier. Yeah, J.L, believe it or not we get pissed off when children are tortured - even if you hold on to them for eight years and torture them as adults.

We're so fucking naive that way.

Regarding Afghanistan, what he says with irony, I say with conviction*:

How much better if the money wasted on defence spending had gone for day care or better medicare.

This is typical of anti-Canadians. Never does he explain or justify what the United States government does. It's enough to assume that America is right and everyone else is naive, stupid or evil.

I'm not naive. I do aim for everyone on this planet to live in a kind of Wonderland. By that I mean: everyone has food to eat; everyone is free from violence; every child is safe and secure; no one in enslaved; everyone can vote for their leaders.

Will it happen in my lifetime, the whole world over? Will people all over this world dump the religions and other vile philosophies that lead them violently all over the globe?

Not likely. But it's still the goal, and it's quite opposite to where Granatstein's heroes would take us - and have been taking us for decades.

I'm reminded of Philip Pullman, from the very end of the his Northern Lights trilogy.

There is no kingdom of heaven. Never was. Never will be. The idea is dead. The only thing we can do is build the republic of heaven. And we have to do that right here, on Earth.

And we will not arrive at the republic of heaven on Earth via extrajudicial killings, secret torture, enslaving people across the globe and out of sight, stealing resources from other countries and forcing other kinds of misery in far off places.

Anyone who believes so is naive, stupid and evil, and it's time we started calling them out on it. It's also time that Canadians stood up, pointed fingers, and called out the people who don't represent our values.

* - sorry Cap'n, had to steal that line.

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Diplomacy and Secrecy

I watched a CBC interview, linked from Greenwald's salon blog.

About half way through that video, a former Canadian diplomat comes on for a interview in which he derides the latest Wikileak as bad for diplomacy. His argument, boiled down, is this:

1. The Indonesian gov't was carrying out horrible human rights abuses against the East Timorese
2. The East Timorese told the Canadian diplomat
3. The Canadian diplomat told the Canadian gov't
4. The Canadian gov't could use this information in negotiations with the torturing, human rights abusing Indonesian gov't.

His argument is basically that, should this path of the information (tortured -> diplomat -> gov't) be broken by a lack of secrecy, it would fall apart. Victims would no longer feel safe to complain. Diplomats like himself would be too scared to report.

Seems reasonable, doesn't it?

Except it's bullshit.

His argument boils down to the idea that I should trust Stephen Harper, Jean Chretien or Paul Martin - under cloak of secrecy - to solve human rights problems the world over.

Really? That's your best argument? That political leaders will do the right thing if we just cover our eyes and ignore them?

I have very little patience for that level of willful stupidity, especially as it comes from someone who ought to know better.

The best thing, Mr. Diplomat, is transparency. You know what stops wars? Seeing little girls burnt by napalm. Seeing helicopters pilots shooting up vans full of Iraqi children. Seeing East Timorese slaughtered and executed by the tens of thousands (which, you'll note was not prevented by our diplomatic cables).

Would I prefer to trust the Internet or the government?

I think you know the answer.

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Arguing About Hate Crime

Once it had been explained to me, I found it pretty simple.

When you single out a group of people as a target for hatred and violence, you assault a whole community (where "assault", legally speaking, includes "threatening"). So we made a law to make it clear that inciting hatred against a visible group of people is a crime.

So if you beat up a black guy or a brown guy or a gay guy, you're only guilty of "aggravated assault". That means, basically, "causing bodily harm".

But if you repeatedly assault members of the same group over and over again in a way that intimidates others of that group, well, you're not just guilty of aggravated assault in each case, but of "assault" against the whole community. Y'know, seeing as they all have to worry about crazy ass bigots beating them up.

Not complicated.

Unless of course, you've got your blinders full on like these guys over at Christian Governance.

Then it's all about how those pansy-ass liberals are bent on keeping the poor, beleagured white male down. Oh, poor white males! How ever will they cope?!

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Erin Larson: Apologies in Advance

I wanted to make this apology in advance, on behalf of the biggest jackasses on my side of the gender divide. But I'm just a tad late.

I wanted to apologize for the sexual slurs that are about to come your way.

I used to think feminism had gone overboard, that some women had taken it too far, that the resultant vector was one of discrimination against men. I was wrong about that. I figured that our over a decade ago.

But I can tell you, young woman, that the jackasses will be out for you. I can't provide much beyond my encouragement and the villification of said jackasses, so I offer that and a piece of advice: spit in the eye of anyone who looks at you sideways.

Shields up. Armour on.

It begins:
"Wonder what she'd say if someone talked about her SEX LIFE.
Matter of fact, who would ever be the male friend of this abomination?"

Yeah. Great.

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Officer Bubbles vs. YouTube

Constable Adam Josephs: Officer "Bubbles".

Among all the evil that happened during the G20 protests and the ridiculous police crackdown - among all the illegal arrests, harassment, beatings and everything else - the thing we will most remember will be Constable Adam Josephs threatening to arrest a girl for blowing bubbles.

"If one of those bubbles lands on me, that's assault."

Indeeed.

And so the Internet community at large decided that Bubbles deserved mockery. They created animations featuring Adam Josephs arresting Santa Claus, a doctor, President Obama and others.

And the poor Constable, representative of a police force that let the Black Bloc wander around Toronto trashing the city so it could have an excuse to violently crack down on peaceful demonstrators, is charging defamation.

Up yours, buddy.

You've got the batons. You've got the guns. You've got the Tasers.

Apparently, the bunch of you even have the authority to intimidate, harass, beat and arrest people with complete impunity. You've got judges that set bail conditions like "no political expression" on people like Alex Hundert.

But us?

We've got Youtube.

And if you want to beat and harass people expressing their opinions?

We're going to ruin your lives and every memory anyone ever has of you.

Suck it up, Bubbles. It's a new world.

h/t to Rev. PaperBoy at Galloping Beaver

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Raiders of the Lost Ark = Pointless

Seriously. Think about it.

All Indy had to do was let that Belloq dude take the medallion. He would have found the ark, opened it, and killed himself and all the Nazis.

Then the good guys swoop in with the greatest of ease and make off with the conveniently self-sealed ark and toss it in that warehouse.

Instead, we have to kill a bunch of Nepalese, burn down a bar, kill a whole lot of Egyptians, drag Indy under a car, annoy a bunch of African boat guys, etc. etc.

And then what? Bad guy opens ark and everyone who looks at it dies.

Waste. Of. Time.

Maybe the guys who do the "How it should have ended" videos can do that next.

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Cannon fodder

Quite an uproar over the "cannon fodder" video.

It involves a fictional mother of a Canadian soldier lamenting that she might not have had children if she had known that they would be used as cannon fodder.

Lots of anger over that, including one nonfictional mother of a slain soldier who said, “Because they died in combat, [these women] have the nerve to describe them as cannon fodder.”

Nerve?

Yes, I suppose it takes nerve to break the veneer of patriotism that tells people that their children died a great and wonderful cause when in reality they're dying for no particularly good reason.

But if it's true that the war is pointless and wrong, and no one says anything, more children are going to die.

Seriously. If you want to convince the rest of us that you're right. If you want to convince us that the war in Afghanistan is worthwhile and winnable, then show us how you're going to win. Show us how you're already winning. Show us what you could possible hope to accomplish.

I see a lot of nothing. I see the schools we built being used for storing and shipping marijuana. I see our money ending up in villas in Dubai. I see the government we set up mistreating its women as badly as their enemies did.

That's not worth dying for.

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Canada will be a "pimp"

Canada will be taking the role of a pimp, according to one MP. That's because the courts have struck down anti-prostitution laws that, while not preventing prostitution, made it very dangerous.

Conservative MP Joy Smith:

“My goodness we would have the nation as the pimp and that’s wrong and we can’t afford that,”

Definition: pimp

a person, esp. a man, who solicits customers for a prostitute or a brothel, usually in return for a share of the earnings; pander; procurer.

I don't think the government would be responsible for soliciting customers for prostitutes, although they might do a good job with putting up signs. That seems to be their thing, lately.

The government would be responsible, however, for doing the same things that they are currently (supposed to be) doing for other workers: protecting their rights; keeping them safe from criminals; taxing them.

On the other hand, I can't expect much better than hyperbole from Conservatives. Their chief arguments in court seem to revolve around witnesses who pulled stuff out of their asses and the belief that prostitution was inherently "degrading and unhealthy".

It's a lot like being gay, I guess. I mean look at all those gay kids who get beat up and/or commit suicide. Must be an unhealthy lifestyle.

Well, Conservative super-right-wing christian freaks. You've had 2000 years to try to stamp out prostitution and all you've done is make women miserable. Maybe we'll try something different for a little while and see how it works out.

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Transport Canada = Medieval Theologians

Canada has an addiction to rule making. Thus spake Joseph Brean, National Post libertarian dude.

That's right. Our penchant for making rules to prevent future disasters based on statistics about past disasters? That's basically the nanny state.

Aren't we crazy.

I can't imagine what Brean would have to say about Transport Canada. Bunch of stuck up, pretentious nerds pouring over every airline crash to determine the cause and try to prevent future crashes.

Assholes, those guys.

"We cannot just accept that this was a death. We've got to give that death meaning, and the way to give it meaning is to pass a law."

So the right idea is what? Shrug our shoulder and say, "shit happens"? Brilliant.

He called it a throwback to medieval times, a belief that nothing happens without somebody causing it, that every natural phenomenon has a moral aspect. Modern safety regulations, like witchcraft or divine retribution, are based on a faulty premise about who is responsible for stuff happening, and what can be done about it. Like religion, they are an effort to bring meaning to a cruel and random universe.

Right. We're the religious ones for trying to find rational causes for everything.

And you, Mr. Brean, are the rational one for just saying, "shit happens" and hoping it doesn't happen again.

To be perfectly honest, his opinion sounds the most medieval: hey man, sometimes god just does you in. It's not your place to ask why.

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Catholics Oppose Gay Marriage

Big news there, I suppose.

They have a website though, now.

Their points, in order.

Natural marriage is the foundation of a civilised society.

My tendency here is to simply add the suffix [citation needed] to the text. The foundation of our society, last I checked, was freedom. Freedom of the speech, freedom of the press, freedom of assembly ... that sort of thing. The Taliban have marriage. The Vikings had marriage. Soviet Russia had marriage. Marriage - whether forced, voluntary or some combination thereof - has been around for a long time and I don't know of any correlation between its prevalence and level of civilization a society has.

Same-sex unions, as pseudo-marriages, involve gravely sinful acts that are never defensible, and the very assimilation to marriage damages marriage itself.

We're just going to ignore that "pseudo-marriage" phrase, as you're assuming your conclusion here. (i.e. see above, [citation needed]). Gravely sinful acts? I direct you to read your bible for all of the other "gravely sinful" acts. Like eating lobster, crab, oysters or clams. Or weaving two kinds of fabric together. Or sewing two different crops in the same field. Or accidentally seeing your father naked or your wife while she's menstruating.

Also, I think you're using the word "assimilation" incorrectly. Good try, though. Big words can sometimes be impressive.

The law is a great teacher, and it encourages or discourages behaviour.

True that. You're 1 for 3, quite respectable in major league baseball. The law should serve as a guideline for ethics by, for example, demonstrating that everyone has equal rights and that one group of people can't force their morality on another unwilling group.

Government-backed same sex civil unions would encourage and normalise homosexual behaviour, and it would harm natural marriage, children, adults, and homosexuals themselves.

That's a lot of claiming you're doing there.

Yes, it would normalize homosexual behaviour. Why is that bad? What we've seen, with celibate priests for instance, is that making sex forbidden can cause some pretty harsh overreactions and perversions. I'd rather have gay people feel normal, not just for those reasons, but because there's really no reason for people who engage in consensual sex to feel bad about it.

Also, I'm living in Canada. We've had Evil, Gay Sex Marriages for years now and there's no evidence that it's destroyed or harmed Holy, Opposite Sex Marriages. Perhaps you could provide evidence.

And yes, the adopted kids of gay people turn out just fine.

The law should promote behaviours that are beneficial and prohibit (or at least not endorse) those that are destructive.

Did you read the link above? The study is pretty clear: "...the vast majority of studies show that children living with two mothers and children living with a mother and father have the same levels and qualities of social competence."

You'll have to explain how the Evil, Gay Scourge is destructive.

Therefore, the law should promote natural marriage, and it should provide no option for government-backed same-sex marriage or civil unions.

Therefore, nothing. None of your points above were accurate depictions of reality. Therefore, your conclusion is unsupported.

Meanwhile, take off that shirt. I believe you're wearing a shirt made of two types of fabric woven together and - while your god is explicitly in favour of bigotry and brutal punishments in that vein - he really doesn't like clothing made of two fabrics woven together.

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Liberals Flunk Economics

Or so Zogby would have you believe.

They did a poll where they made statements about "basic economic" issues and saw that the left-leaning people got the answers wrong.

Now, you're probably expecting these basic statements to be something very clear and non-controversial. Something like "Inflation is the gradual increase in the price of goods" and such.

No such luck. Let's go over the statements and correct answers.

"Restrictions on housing development make housing less affordable"
According to the WSJ, smart people would agree. Dumb people, on the left, disagree.
I guess that depends on the restrictions. Restrictions requiring developers to make a certain portion of their buildings as accessible to low-income earners would make housing more affordable, wouldn't it?

Mandatory licensing of professional services increases the prices of those services (unenlightened answer: disagree)
Unenlightened? Whatever. Yes, services are more expensive because we license engineers and plumbers and what not. You could also have unlicensed people work in your house and end up having to pay for most of your jobs to be done twice. Then add in the cost of the damages to your house done by the first guy. Depends on what you count.

Overall, the standard of living is higher today than it was 30 years ago (unenlightened answer: disagree).
This depends very much on exactly where your numbers come from and which segment of society you mean. Are we talking wage disparity? Access to health care? Longevity? The inflation accounted income for the lowest quintile of Americans has dropped since a peak in the early 1970s. Rich people are doing fine, though.

3) Rent control leads to housing shortages (unenlightened answer: disagree).
Again, it depends on the "rent control" in question. Done properly, it's merely a way of keeping your landlord from holding you hostage in your own home, gouging against the expense of moving. Done improperly, it can cause shortages because no one wants to rent out houses anymore.

4) A company with the largest market share is a monopoly (unenlightened answer: agree).
If this was the statement, not paraphrased, then I agree that the answer is no. A company has to have all, or nearly all, of the market share to be a monopoly.

Third World workers working for American companies overseas are being exploited (unenlightened answer: agree).
The "unenlightened" would agree? Who are the fucking idiots who don't think third world workers are being exploited? Are the union leaders being assassinated in Colombia not enough of a hint? Or the sports shoe sweatshops? What world is Zogby living in that doesn't have exploited third world workers?

Free trade leads to unemployment (unenlightened answer: agree).
Actually, yes it does. When NAFTA came to my home town, it shut down two steel plants, a Union Carbide and a bunch of other plants. Those people became unemployed. Even in the Libertarian Faery Dust version of things, free trade causes unemployment, but the Faery Dust comes and retrains the 50-year-old steel worker as an IT consultant.
Yes. Free Trade also causes employment - in Mexico and other such places. But don't pretend it doesn't cause unemployment, at the very least in the immediate sense.
That kind of pretense is simply unenlightened.

Minimum wage laws raise unemployment (unenlightened answer: disagree).
Minimum wage causes unemployment, does it? I'd like to see them prove it. What it does, in my considered opinion, is distribute income away from multi-billion dollar corporations toward their employees. This creates local expenditures (local goods) rather than remote ones (yacht, villas and the like).

After going through this list, I'm going to have to argue that the guys at Zogby are a bunch of right-wing, wealthy, ideologically-locked jackasses too full of their own pomposity and arrogance to evaluate anyone else. Their conclusion is that, basically, anyone who disagrees with their biases (the same biases that have led the United States in to its current financial disaster) must be stupid.

Best of luck, assholes.

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Mike Harris's Honorary Hypocrisy

Nippissing University, presumably out of some masochism or ignorance, has decided that Mike Harris is deserving of an honorary degree.

Mike Harris.

Remember him? I do. He's the guy who wanted to "create a crisis in the education system." Why? To improve it? No, that was the lie his government told on the outside. The real reason, as has been recorded, was to "get government out of the education business."

That's why I assume the people at Nippissing are a bunch of masochists. Why would a public institution grant a degree to a man who wanted to destroy education.

The teachers are upset. In fact, they're so upset that they're considering the idea of refusing to give seats to student teachers from Nippissing.

The loyal Harris followers - specifically the people who hate public education and would prefer that the poor suffer in ignorance - will be quick to jump on this as if it were the teachers' fault. They'll tell us that the teachers are "using students" in their fight again. That's what they did when Mike Harris unilaterally took away teachers' retirement benefits, so I imagine it will happen again.

But frankly, I support the teachers. You know what? If you choose to go to Nippissing, after it honours a man who tried to destroy public education in Ontario, then you shouldn't come crawling to Ontario's public school teachers for apprenticeship. Go find a private school. Otherwise it's SOCIALISM! (ZOMG!)

Those teachers. They have a long memory. It's surprising how long people can be bitter at you when you use taxpayer money to attack them with lying, deceptive televisions ads.

The only real problem is that teachers are far too polite. They won't actually go through with it. The other problem is that they're really ineffective at public campaigns vilifying people. That was really Mike Harris's forte.

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What's With All Those Pregnant Christian Teens?

Ever wondered why we have so many pregnant Christian teens?

Wonder no more.

You see, "Sexual relationships, while enacted privately, are public property." That's why birth control is so very, very bad. If people use birth control, the rest of us have no way of monitoring their behaviour and measuring their sinfulness.

How do you know if two married people are keeping their marital vows? (by the way, for you non-religious folk, you should know that Christians are required to have lots of sex). Why, it's the babies! The babies prove they're doing it right!

And how do you know if unmarried teens are being sinful, dirty miscreants? Why, it's the babies!

See how clear everything is when you outlaw contraception? The babies tell you everything. That's why contraception is bad. It lets you keep your sexuality to yourself, almost as if it were your own private business and not a responsibility of all of society.

Hm.

I suppose I should have stopped at "However, I salute their stupidity."

That was probably a red flag right there.

But if you're wondering why we have pregnant teenagers, look no further than that mentality. It's the mentality that birth control is a worse sin - by way of being premeditated premarital sex - than having a baby you can't possibly raise properly. You see, sex without birth control could just mean you got carried away. But sex with birth control means you planned it, you evil bastard.

Makes me glad to be an atheist. It means I don't have to rationalize stupidity like this. It also means Christians have no business invading my privacy to judge how I live my life.

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Sex Education in Ontario

Saw this one in the paper today:

Schools Shouldn't Teach Sexual Orientation

Here's the exciting stuff:

In its Facts about Youth pamphlet, the U.S. pediatricians college states that most students (more than 85 per cent) with same-sex attractions will ultimately adopt a heterosexual orientation if not otherwise encouraged.

It further states that "declaring and validating a student's same-sex attraction during the adolescent years is premature and may be personally harmful."

Wow! I didn't know that "validating" same-sex attraction was harmful. What a weird thing to say. The only way you would say something like that is if, well, you thought homosexuality was harmful.

Say. Who are the "U.S. pediatricians college" anyway? That sounds very official. Let's check them out.

The writer is actually talking about the "American College of Pediatricians". That sounds like a real group, doesn't it? Let see what other things they write ... oh, good god ...

Abstinence only is a good idea
How to make gay kids straight
Gays shouldn't be allowed to adopt

You can read the rest of their "Position Papers" if you want. It's a basic list of the right wing's wishing-makes-it-so version of scientific studies.

Even the 85% number they quote - the one L.M. Small quoted - refers to a 1992 study that showed that 26% of 12 year old boys weren't sure about their sexual orientation. Yet only 2-3% of them turn out gay later! If only we could have bombarded those last 2-3% with how evil it is to be gay, think how much better everything would be! No more of teh gayness!

Yes, well.

I didn't find any fault with the actual sex education curriculum that the government was planning on implementing. The earlier that you can teach kids the words "penis" and "vagina", the better off we'll all be. But apparently, if you're a religious nutcase, all it takes is a word in their ears and they'll turn in to crack whores.

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And in Arizona? Fascists.

I hate to go straight to Hitler, but there's just nowhere else to go.

The Arizona state legislature has declared that police can demand to see documents from anyone that might be an illegal immigrant. If you don't have your proof of citizenship or a proper visa? You go to jail.

Look, jackasses.

If you don't like being compared to the world's most notorious fascists, maybe you shouldn't make laws that allow you to round up different looking people, demand their papers, and throw them all in jail.

Just saying.

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Meanwhile in Oklahoma: Assholes

They made a law that women undergoing an abortion must have an ultrasound - possibly an invasive vaginal one - before having the abortion. During the procedure, the person doing the ultrasound is required to describe the fetus out loud.

If that doesn't make it clear - if it wasn't already clear - that anti-abortion advocates are a bunch of assholes out to torment and torture pregnant women, I don't know what could possibly make it clear.

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Gun Toting Hypocrites

So everyone has seen that video? You know the one? Where the reporters from Reuters are walking around an otherwise empty street somewhere in Iraq and the the American helicopter pilot reports that they have weapons?



That one. You see, there are actually some spots in that video where it actually looks like a couple of the guys are carrying weapons. Surprise! In one of the most unstable places on the planet, people carry around weapons for their own protections. They might even hire bodyguards to protect them.

Not that they fired at any Americans or anything. No. They did nothing aggressive at all besides point a camera at the helicopter. In fact, they're walking around the streets quite casually, as if taking a tour.

But, decry the knee jerk pro-Americans, they had weapons! They had weapons! Look at 2:45 (or 3:02 or 3:15 or whatever, I don't care). That guy by the utility pole! That's an AK! That's an RPG! Those people all deserved to die! They were carrying weapons! Those reporters even deserved to die for hanging around with people with weapons!

Hm.

Let's think about this a moment. They were carrying weapons and therefore they deserve to die? Really?

Really really?

Because I seem to remember - and this seems to come from the same knee jerk pro America crowd - statements about weapons. Where was it now ... where was it ... Oh, here it is:

* Second Amendment – Militia (United States), Sovereign state, Right to keep and bear arms.
A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.

Fucking hypocrites.

h/t to the PZ and thanks Wiki.

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Idiocy? Banning Religion.

It's just the stupidest thing you could possibly do. You can't get rid of a religion or a culture by banning it. You'd think that people in Quebec would realize that all that does is drive it underground, romanticize it and make it stronger.

But the Quebec government is going to ban the niqab on government premises. It's the worst possible thing.

First of all, the women who wear these things are supposedly the victims of the a male-dominated religion. Let's just grant that for the sake of argument. So what are you doing to these victims? You're forcing them to choose between government services and the wraths of their evil husbands. Brilliant!

Second, it's a cultural thing. These women are acclimatized to feel naked if they don't cover their faces. I can't speak on their behalves directly, but it might just be like walking around topless for them. Do you know what the cure is for that feeling? Education. It may in fact be the case that certain women will never, despite everything our society offers, get used to the idea of baring their faces in public. So what? I doubt their daughters will feel the same.

What is logically necessary?

If a woman wants a government service that requires identification, she must be able to prove her identity. That's it. If that means showing your face, temporarily, then that's what they'll have to do.

Women who want a credit for a course involving public speaking must be willing to engage in public speaking. Otherwise they don't get the credit.

But to tell a woman to drop her culture and walk around naked (from her point of view) is simply ridiculous. I don't care how frightened you are of Muslims or brown people or people with funny accents, you don't get to run their lives like that. It's just not how we do things here.

I'll be perfectly honest. As an atheist, I feel that pretty much every religion is a curse on the human race. The subject of enlightening people is always a matter of concern. But this isn't the way. This just won't work and we should know better than to try.

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Coulter: Confusing Dissent and Censorship

So the bile-spewing Ann Coulter arrived in Ottawa yesterday and got so frightened by people who were legally disagreeing with her that she ran away and is filing a human rights complaint.

There's nothing in what I've read that suggests anyone threatened violence. Okay, nothing except a quote from Ezra Levant that protesters were "swarming", whatever that means. Since there's no sign that the police arrested anyone, as they are wont to do at the least provocation, I'm going to ignore Ezra and wait for a less biased report.

Here's how it works, Ann. I know that, in your Fox News Bubble, you don't often encounter disagreement. You, O'Reilly, Hannity and Beck spew all the hatred and nonsense you want and nobody talks back. Canada isn't that big on protesting either, really, but we're a little better than the sheep you're used to.

Here in Canada, we have free speech. So you're permitted to come here and, as you did, tell a Muslim girl to "Take a camel" because "Muslims shouldn't be allowed on planes". Ignorant, but you can say it. You weren't arrested, were you? No, didn't think so.

But here's the thing. Free speech isn't just for you. It's also for all of the people who disagree with you. Get it? People are allowed to disagree with you. They're allowed to hold up signs and chant nasty things about you. They're allowed to be quite loud and vocal in disagreeing with you. That's part of free speech. It's called dissent.

I know. I know. You're not used to it. That circle jerk thing you have going inside Fox just reinforces your notion that nobody ever thinks you're wrong. But you came to Canada and were shocked to find people loudly disagreeing with you.

Oh noes!

So you and Ezra decided, instead of facing a disagreeable crowd who would shout down your ignorance and laugh at your stupidity, to make a big deal out of filing a human rights complaint. Good luck with that. When I see protesters arrested for threatening violence, you might have a case.

Until then, I'm going to just assume you're another cowardly, right wing blowhard.

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He said what?

"Canada condemns Israeli settlement expansion"

Did we really say that? Did a Conservative really condemn Israel for anything? I didn't think that was possible. The last time anything like it happened, it was very accidental. Peter McKay said that Canada would continue to work with whatever government the Palestinians elected. Because, you know, that's democracy for you. Peter McKay was swiftly corrected and reminded of the Harper government's staunch pro-Israel stance.

But then, did "Canada", in the person of Foreign Affairs Minister Lawrence Cannon, really "condemn" Israel?

Hm.

The article quotes the words “regret” and “concern”, but I don't see any language that would actually bend me to think that "condemnation" was the order of the day.

Still, why would the Tories do this? Makes me wonder.

Ah, wait.

The Obama administration immediately criticized the settlements in the toughest language possible — it issued its condemnation on the plan, in contrast to the softer language in Cannon's statement last week.

Ah. America Lite it is, then, huh? At least the Conservatives are consistent.

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Child Saved From Catholic Education

That's what I would have titled this article, which 9news in Denver chose to label: "Gay couple's child denied re-enrollment at Catholic school".

I mean, seriously, why would you want your kid to be raised in a school where they would teach him that his loving parents are terrible sinners who deserve to burn in hell if they don't repent from their love for each other?

No. The hazards of being raised Catholic are numerous and awful. It makes me happy to hear that one more child has been saved the misery.

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Blaming The Troops Again

I guess the Prime Minister is hoping that we've forgotten all of his earlier evasions and excuses.

“He shut it down to avoid legitimate questions about the Afghan detainee scandal,” Mr. Ignatieff charged as he asked that the Prime Minister release non-redacted documents the opposition says are essential to the story.

No. The Prime Minister said thousands of documents have already been released and show the Canadian Forces have conducted themselves honourably.

There he goes again. Second verse, same as the first. Stephen Harper wants to shuffle the blame off his own shoulders on to those of the soldiers who were the unwitting recipients of illegal orders.

Every time we go through this, he and his ministers keep acting as if the question is a matter of the behaviour of the soldiers. It's not. It's about the behaviour of the goverment - Harper's government - in giving orders to the soldiers.

It was the government that told the soldiers that the Afghan authorities were moral.

It was the government that told the soldiers to hand over prisoners to the Afghan authorities.

It is the government that should be punished.

Stop blaming the troops, Mr. Harper.

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Was It Rape?

What are you? Insane?

Of course it was rape. What kind of a stupid question is that?

Assuming the events went down as chronicled (the usual disclaimer), there's no other name for it.

In summary: a woman excuses herself from a party and goes to sleep in the bed of her sometimes-lover. The lover's identical twin sneaks in to the room and has sex with her. Something seems wrong. Some subtle cue throws her off. She turns on the light and realizes what happened.

And someone has to ask, "Did the mistaken identity negate her consent?"

Of course it did. Imagine this instead. A man and a woman are having consensual sex like they have on the Discovery Channel. While the woman is facing away, the man pulls out and a second man - hidden until this moment - slips in and penetrates her.

Is that rape? Damn right it is.

The analogy is coherent and obvious. She generally consented to sex with her lover. Drunk people can have sex without it being considered rape when they have such an arrangement. Drunk people with no such prior arrangement don't have that luxury. She consented to sex with her lover and was fine with him slipping in to the room. She did not consent to sex with his brother.

There was a question? Seriously?

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Freedom vs Money

The Canadian people, via a majority vote of their Parliament, demanded that the government release all data on the torture of Afghan detainees.

The government, in clear violation of our democracy, ignored this demand. It ignored the will of the people.

That's not a democracy. That's a dictatorship.

On the rare occasions where the Canadian people actually get a government to vote the way they want it to vote, how is it that the guy at the top can simply refuse to comply? How is it that he can then go and shut down the government to avoid more questions?

That's a dictatorship.

But Liberal MP Derek Lee wants to draw a line. He's raising what's called a "point of privilege"; a declaration that a government minister has violated the will of the people and is in contempt of Parliament.

They in fact are in contempt.

But he says that he doesn't want this point of privilege to get in the way of the budget, even though it should if parliamentary procedure is followed.

Mr. Lee., let's break this down. The Harper government doesn't want to deal with parliament. It wants to ignore it. It wants to be free to send people to other countries to have them tortured. It wants to send Afghans off to be tortured. It wants to strand torture victims and child soldiers in other countries. It wants to do a lot of illegal and immoral things.

Mostly it wants to ignore Parliament to get its agenda pushed through. If all those confidence attachments to trivial legislation didn't clue you in, I don't know what will.

The point here is that there is no point continuing with this Parliament if the Harper government continues to treat it with such contempt. There's no use presenting a budget, a throne speech or any other piece of legislation if Harper and his cronies are simply going to ignore the actual legislation and do whatever they please anyway.

The budget isn't that important.

Our freedom is.

Run your point of privilege.

Run it over everything else and get our nation back.

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Patient Rights Coalition

Somebody dropped off a pamphlet that looked liked a copy of this webpage in the lunch room at work yesterday.

Apparently someone feels that acupuncture actually has some utility and wants it to be covered by provincial health insurance in Ontario.

From the web page:

Acupuncture is one of the best professions for improving health.

Qualified meridian-based acupuncture (commonly referred to as TCM-based acupuncture) can cure over 50% of the ailments or diseases that cannot be cured or controlled from a Western medical viewpoint. It is the best health care profession to prevent or treat early stage cancers, colitis, Crohn’s disease, depression, diabetes (Type I and Type II), IBS, infertility, Lyme disease, lymphoma, Meniere’s disease, migraines, multiple sclerosis, osteoporosis, Rheumatoid arthritis, skin lupus, etc. Age-related conditions such as Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s disease can even be helped.

I can't help but want to adjust this a little, based on my frequent visits to wikipedia:

It is the best health care profession to prevent or treat early stage cancers^{[citation needed]}, colitis^{[citation needed]}, Crohn’s disease^{[citation needed]}, depression^{[citation needed]}, diabetes (Type I and Type II)^{[citation needed]}, IBS^{[citation needed]}, infertility^{[citation needed]}, Lyme disease^{[citation needed]}, lymphoma^{[citation needed]}, Meniere’s disease^{[citation needed]}, migraines^{[citation needed]}, multiple sclerosis^{[citation needed]}, osteoporosis^{[citation needed]}, Rheumatoid arthritis^{[citation needed]}, skin lupus^{[citation needed]}, etc.

But that's just me and I'm very cynical.

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Happy News: Homeopathy Doesn't Work

Surprise, surprise.

The U.K. House of Commons has figured it out.

77. There has been enough testing of homeopathy and plenty of evidence showing that it is not efficacious. Competition for research funding is fierce and we cannot see how further research on the efficacy of homeopathy is justified in the face of competing priorities.

Thank you and good night.

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The Most Juvenile of Governments

Honestly.

It's as if our government is run by five-year-olds. I could see a five year old saying something like this. "Mommy. I didn't break the vase. I just told my little brother to break it."

Oh, I get it kiddo. It's not your fault because you didn't physically break the vase yourself. Totally makes sense.

The Harper Government (for so they call themselves) wants the same kind of immunity.

"The plaintiff [Abdelrazik] alleges that the Defendant [the government] requested the Government of Sudan to imprison the plaintiff without legal grounds and shared information with the Government of Sudan to facilitate his continued imprisonment. He does not allege that the defendant directly imprisoned the plaintiff. In the absence of that material fact, there is no cause of action for false imprisonment."

That's right. Apparently the Harper Government can't be charged for the results of things they ask other people to do for them.

What a clever legal precedent. I'm sure various mafia bosses and other gang leaders will be greatly pleased to know that they are not responsible for things they ask other people to do. Another thing? Corporations can dump all the pollution they want in to rivers ... as long as they outsource it.

Brilliant, brilliant, legal precedent.

Grow up, you idiots. I know it's tough, but part of maturity is accepting the consequences of your actions. If you sent the man off to be tortured, you have to own up to it.

Otherwise, we're just going to think you're a bunch of immature cowards.

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Canada != Israel

(that symbol means "does not equal")

Just putting that out there. Some people seem to have forgotten. Like Junior Foreign Minister Peter Kent, for example.

He says he's just paraphrasing what Prime Minister Stephen Harper has said, and I honestly believe him.

I just don't agree with him.

Whereas Israel is a country in the middle east, currently in a grossly unbalanced war with a population whose land it is occupying, Canada is a country in North America in a state of peace with the population of natives whose land it is occupying.

See the difference? We don't have a treaty with Israel that says we will come to their aid, and we certainly aren't bound to declare war on its enemies. At least I don't think that we have such a treaty. I won't deny that this government is the sort that would put treaties through in secret.

I wonder how long it will be before President Harper reminds his ministers that they aren't to speak to the press without vetting from his office. That's what happened when Peter McKay said Nice Things about Palestinians once.

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Unions: You're Doing It Wong

The Union is supposed to be there to protect the workers from various job hazards. Among these hazards are things like health and safety concerns, lousy pay, poor benefits, poor job security and various kinds of abuse.

That's what I expect unions to do, whether I agree with them or not.

I do not expect unions to protect and cover up for workers who are abusing other workers.

Call me crazy, but I thought that the union's job was to protect the victims, not the abusers.

Maybe they're a little confused.

They're so confused, in fact, that the employers have stepped in and filed a Human Rights complaint against the Union.

I mean, wow.

That's like Stephen Harper calling you on your sick day just to make sure you're not out on a golf course.

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I Blame The No Grammar Teaching

The Canadian Press wants you to know that Texting, Twitter and "no grammar teaching" is causing students to have poor grammar.

First of all, there's this quote:

"I get their essays and I go 'You obviously don't know what a sentence fragment is. You think commas are sort of like parmesan cheese that you sprinkle on your words'," said Budra.

You "go", do you? The verb you want there is "say".

Moving on. Moving on.

He [Budra] too blames poor - or no - grammar instruction in lower schools.

Break that sentence down. "He blames no grammar instruction in lower schools."

That doesn't make sense. What the writer means to say is that Budra is blaming a lack of grammar instruction. Instead, the sentence as written actually means that Budra does not blame grammar instruction at all.

Imagine if you were arguing with a Conservative who was determined to blame the recession on the poor. You might reply with, "I blame no poor person for this recession."

With that sentence, you would be saying that you are not blaming poor people. But, according to the "grammar" in this particular article, you would be blaming the recession on a lack of poor people.

Grammar: if you're going to write an article about it, get your act together.

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A Diatribe Against Teacher-Bashers

My mother is a supply teacher in the elementary school system. Sometimes she would teach at my school. So when I was young I had to listen to my fellow students trashing my mother. Mostly the big, dumb students who’d been held back at least a year, but I digress. My father taught at my high school. So when I went to high school, I had to listen to those most assuredly bound for jail or permanent welfare trashing him.

Then Mike Harris came along. And for the last fifteen or twenty years, I’ve had to listen to everybody trash my parents and thousands of other decent, hard-working professionals whose goal in life was to educate the young and prepare them for life.

It astounds me that I’m still hearing right-wing, conservative-supporting dittoheads using the same lies and deceit the Harris government used all those years ago in the war they waged against education.

Let us begin with the All Powerful Imperial Greedy Teacher’s Union. Yes, you know the one. Governments quake and tremble with fear in awe of their might, falling quickly to their knees. Yes, it was the All Powerful Union that let Bob Rae take five percent of their pay. It was the same Greedy Union that let Mike Harris outlaw their collective bargaining. The same Evil Union that let its teachers’ salaries be frozen for years, not even hedged against inflation. It was the same union that let the provincial government use millions of taxpayers’ dollars to trash them with deceitful television ads and then take away their retirement benefits.

That Union? I’m sure you’ve heard of it. It’s the one that makes it impossible to ever, ever, ever fire a single bad teacher. Ever.

Whatever. Your union-bashing lies are just that: lies. I’m tired of hearing them. Get some new ones.

What’s next? How about those teachers and their summer vacations? They get two months off, don’t they?

Here’s an idea. Go to Teacher’s College and become a teacher. You know those brats you’re raising? You know how you’re so happy when school starts again because you can get rid of them? Some poor bastard has to deal with 30 of them all day long while you’re at work. If it’s high school, they deal with 90 of them, maybe more if we can’t quite keep up with teacher hiring. After teaching them for 10 months, tell me you don’t need two months to regain your sanity.

You know what happens to the teachers that don’t really like to teach but get in to teaching for the summer vacation? They get to their first summer vacation and then they quit, because they can’t hack it. One of those teachers was Mike Harris. Yeah, the very same politician who set out to destroy the public education system or, as his Minister of Education put it, “Get the government out of the education business.” Coincidence?

Let’s move on to a few lies. There was the lie they told that Ontario’s education was the most expensive in the nation on a cost-per-student basis. Why was it a lie? Because they concocted their numbers by including private school tuitions in his average. Would you call that lying? I would. How about that bit about how making every teacher do an extra class per year was only “asking for fifteen minutes a day”? News flash. A teacher with a four hour teaching schedule puts in more than an eight hour day marking and preparing for classes. If you think that the only time a teacher spends working is in the classroom with the full class present, you’re both stupid and naïve and I’ve had enough of catering to your naïveté and walking on eggshells around your stupidity.

There was a time when I wanted to be teacher. It’s a tradition in my family, going back a couple of generations. But then I learned that my employer, the government, would bizarrely be permitted to purchase television ad time to tell people that I’m lazy, overpaid and greedy while implying that I don’t care about the children I teach. Can you imagine the hatred I feel for a government – and any people who support its lies – that used my tax dollars to take out television ads to publicly trash my parents?

I’m tired of being kind to you people. I’m tired of mincing words. You’re stupid. You’ve allowed yourself to be led in to ignorance. You need to be shaken out of your comfortable, arrogant, talking-point parroting shell and told to shut up. And if you’re going to repeat those lazy, conceited, twenty-year old arguments to me? I’m going to shut you up myself.

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Canada’s Third World Health Care System

So a UFC star, diagnosed with a hole in his stomach (well, not quite, look up diverticulosis if you care), feels that Canada is a third world country because “They couldn’t do nothing for me”.

“It was like I was in a third world country.”

Apparently, the Canadian hospital he visited - when the symptoms he had been ignoring for some time finally got out of control – was unable to satisfy him in some way. It’s not quite clear from the article, but it sounds like the unidentified hospital in an unidentified province was able to update his diagnosis from “flu” to “mono” to “diverticulosis”.

I’m not sure though. He then claims that he had his wife drive him some 200 plus kilometres to an American hospital where they instantly made the correct diagnosis.

If I may be so bold, I might suggest that Canadian hospitals could be much more prompt if we discouraged and rejected about 12 million people from our health care system. We just don’t roll that way.

Moving on.

He says that, “… that doctor there saved my career and saved my life.”

So he visited MedCenter One in North Dakota and later went to the Mayo Clinic in Minnesota. Both of those doctors recommended surgery. But Brock didn’t want the surgery. Brock didn’t have the surgery. And Brock is now fine.

Get it? Brock is very thankful for the wonderful, amazing medical system that recommended unnecessary surgery. He doesn’t trust the third world Canadian medical system that may (or may not have?) made the correct diagnosis, but he trusts his first world medical system that wanted to do extra surgery to keep the cash rolling in.

Double standard much, Brock?

“I'm not bashing the Canadian health care”, he waffles, after bashing the Canadian health care system as “third world”. Also, “I'm not going to disclose anything”, he hedges in classic Fox News style, after making accusations that can’t be disputed by the system he’s bashing because – despite it all – we still respect him as a patient and therefore respect his confidentiality.

But maybe I shouldn’t take him so seriously: “He said he revamped his diet, prayed a lot and used some ‘natural healing medicine.’ “

Yes. Keep praying. That’s about in line with the level of logic displayed throughout this entire article.

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Yes, I Want Them Humiliated

So what do we do with our alleged war criminals in government?

That's what they are. The evidence from Richard Colvin and quotes from General Hillier himself indicate that officials high in our government were well aware of the treatment of Afghan prisoners. Of course, they’ve taken the black magic marker to the documents and then violated the will of the people in not releasing those documents unredacted. Then, when it got too hot, they shut down Parliament.

At least the Liberals had the courage to face their crimes, face the investigation and take their punishment.

But not the Conservatives. They’re cowards.

And let’s be clear on this. I want the politicians who are responsible to be humiliated. Because, you see, all the Liberals ever did was steal my money and, from the looks of the thing, it was a small subset of the party that did the stealing. But the Conservatives? This came from high up. They were incompetent or malicious in disregard for the treatment of prisoners and the honour of our nation.

They pissed on my flag. They pissed on our honour and our international reputation.

I still believe in the Canada that was the renowned peacekeeper of the world.

And I see these Conservative cowards, out to change Canada in to the United States, to change it in to a war monger, to destroy the honour we had in exchange for military action of dubious glory and morality. I see an Afghan prisoner afraid to tell Canadians what happened to him for fear that they would send him for more torture.

I want these people humiliated. If I could put them in stocks and parade them up and down Sussex Drive on a horse cart, I would. I would see them shamed in front of their spouses and children and grandchildren. I would see them paraded in front of every wannabe politician in the country, as if to say, “We will do this to you, too, if you ever shame us as these have shamed us.”

And, no, I don’t consider that shallow at all.

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The Emperor Has Dissolved The Parliament

Regional Governors now have direct control of their systems.

Fear will keep the opposition in line. Fear of ... of ... of ...

I don't know what we're afraid of. Terrorists maybe. Or the gays.

Apparently having our government turn in to a dictatorship of a minority isn't one of the things that inspires fear though.

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