Dear wanks: Please piss off with your "secret."

As anyone who is even moderately sentient has noticed, Canada's wankers have totally, utterly given Lisa Raitt a free pass for her mouth-breathing incompetence, and instead have launched into a prolonged, primal howl of bloodlust outrage over CTV's appalling lack of morals and ethics and high-fibre diet or whatever in releasing details of "secret" documents to the public. Which, of course, prompts some of us here at CC HQ to ask: So what the hell is it about what was in the docs that deserved a security classification in the first place, hmmmmmmm?

Seriously, why would it matter how super duper ultra mega colon top secret something was stamped if, upon examination, it turned out to be worthless, partisan political crap? Does anything like that deserve a security classification? And who gets to make that decision, anyway?

Let's refresh our memories:

In documents headlined "Background for discussion with chair of Atomic Energy Canada," the government lists funding for the Crown corporation at $351 million for 2009-2010. That figure was in the January budget.

However, it also lists $72 million to "maintain the option of isotope production." The public 2009 budget does not specifically mention funding for isotopes.

The documents also include a hand-written note that lists total funding for Atomic Energy of Canada, Ltd. since 2006 at $1.7 billion, and then a talking-point memo to characterize the spending as "cleaning up a Liberal mess."

Let's deal with that last point first. Is it really a significant matter of national interest or security that no one be allowed to reveal that the Cons are going to try to blame the Liberals for something? Really, does revealing that endanger anything worth protecting? Are we somehow more at risk for terrorist attacks after we learn that the Stephen Harper Party of Canada are a bunch of whiny, snivelling buttwipes who refuse to take responsibility for anything and are always trying to shift the blame to someone else? Answer: No.

But it's the Toronto Sun's Greg Weston who really puts the boots in by showing us what it is the Cons were trying desperately to hide from us:

Further proof this is a government that doesn't let the truth get in the way of public opinion is to be found in the contents of Raitt's lost briefing book. For instance, taxpayers learn for the first time that the Harper government has pumped a staggering $1.7 billion into Atomic Energy just in the past three years -- most of it up in smoke if the Chalk River reactor remains beyond repair.

Whoa whoa whoa ... back up a bit ... what was that, Greg?

For instance, taxpayers learn for the first time ...

For the first time? In other words, Harper and his sleazy trollop Lisa Raitt were using a national security classification to conceal that he's been lying to us for the last three years. Is that something that deserves "secret" protection? I thought we, the public, were entitled to know how our money was being spent. Apparently not. And not only that, apparently, the sitting government feels they can keep such things from us by just slapping a security classification on it. And the douchebagitude just rolls on:

Even if the reactor had remained working, Raitt's briefing documents say Canadian taxpayers would have had to shell out $72 million this year to produce medical isotopes, 90% of which go to U.S. hospitals.

Awesome! More use of the taxpayer's purse, but nothing we should worry about since Harpo has decided that it should not be shared with us 'cuz that would be, what, a security breach of the highest order? And Weston finally hoofs Harper in the nads good and proper:

The documents openly admit the financial truth about Chalk River was deliberately hidden in the last federal budget.

Oh, man, that is just all kinds of awesome -- the Cons lied about Chalk River, and they're trying to keep that information from coming out by claiming that it should be "secret?" Which, not surprisingly, inspires a couple questions.

First, is there anyone who's an actual grownup whose job it is to examine attempts to classify documents and say, perhaps, "I'm sorry, you want a secret security level for something that admits that you're a pathetic, whiny douchebag who lied to the public for three straight years in the federal budget? Um, I don't think so. Fuck off."

And, more importantly, are there sanctions for things like this? Silly me, but I always thought that a federal budget was supposed to be, you know, accurate. But if someone's been fibbing all this time, shouldn't some heads start to roll somewhere?

In any event, and in closing and addressing Canada's whiny wankers, please take your "secret"-inspired outrage and cram it up Hunter's butt. There was absolutely nothing that I can see in those documents that merited a security classification, and the only reason you're bitching about it is that it revealed your hero Stephen Harper to be a liar and a crook and a petulant douche. If it were the other way around, you and I both know that you'd be praising CTV for their rock-ribbed ethical standards for exposing a Liberal coverup of the same order.

So, please, shut up about this. CTV did not commit an ethical lapse. They did their job by exposing your party for the useless, buck-passing, criminal scumbags they are. They're the media. It's what they do.

AFTERSNARK: Perhaps the most damning part of Weston's piece is this bit at the end:

Sixteen months ago, the Harper government ordered the reactor restarted after a shutdown for safety reasons, saying cancer and heart patients would die without an immediate isotope supply.

At that time, the shutdown lasted four weeks and the world's other four isotope reactors were operating. This time, the situation is far worse -- Chalk River is out of order indefinitely and two of the other reactors are also down.

Yet, Raitt testified at a Commons committee this week there is nothing to panic about.

Why, yes, it was less than a year and a half ago that Stephen Harper and his loyal Harperettes were clutching their pearls and yanking their undies and rending their hairshirts and shrieking, God, yes, shrieking, about the impending disaster and this was totally unacceptable and that bitch Linda Keen has to go because people are going to die, die, I tell you, oh, Lord, the humanity!!! And today, with the situation immeasurably worse? No problem, we're good, it's all under control, take a Valium. How ... curious.

But here's something to think about. Given that it's now public knowledge that Harper and his criminally incompetent flunkies have been quietly pumping money into AECL, wouldn't it be interesting to go back, lo, those 16 months, and peruse the public record of the time, and make a note of any shrieking, panicky pronouncements about Chalk River that now wouldn't seem to make any sense? I mean, would it not seem odd if the Cons were, on the one hand, say, complaining about how no one could possibly have seen this coming if, on the other hand, they were piling cash into AECL while no one was looking? Wouldn't that have some entertainment value?

Yo, Greg. I have a job for you.

BONUS TRACK: For the terminally stupid who might pop by, I should remind you that even Canwest Publishing had the presence of mind to realize there was little in Raitt's "secret" folder of any value (emphasis added):

While [Maxime] Bernier's documents contained information that may have compromised national security, Raitt's seemed to have simply been political talking points which contained more detail about how the funding announced in the federal budget for AECL and Chalk River was to be spent.

Maybe it's just me, but I don't see why Canada's security infrastructure should be wasted on protecting partisan Conservative gibberish.