When people start getting bored with the "birther" bullshit, ...

... it's time to crank up the batshit crazy one more notch. Or three.

"But enough about me. Let's talk about me."

Shorter Blogging Tory Sara Landriault: "The fact that many, many women have no interest in affordable and available childcare clearly means it's unnecessary."

The public spanking of Shona Holmes.

Only a week late to the festivities, the CBC finally buys a clue:

Anti-medicare ad an exaggeration: experts

Read the whole thing, of course, but here's the bestest part (emphasis towel-snappingly added):

After trying unsuccessfully to expedite the process, she was diagnosed and treated at the Mayo Clinic. Holmes said U.S. doctors considered the cyst a tumour, and that it would cause death if not removed immediately.

No, they didn't:

Dr. Naresh Patel, neurosurgeon, diagnosed Holmes as having a Rathke's cleft cyst (RCC). The rare, fluid-filled sac grows near the pituitary gland at the base of the brain and eventually can cause hormone and vision problems. Dr. Patel joined forces with Drs. David W. Dodick, neurologist, and Michael D. Whitaker, endocrinologist, to work on Holmes' case.

Their further tests revealed an increase in the size of her cyst over a short period of time as well as progressively worsening vision. "I was concerned that the pressure on Shona's nerves were causing her to become blind," says Dr.Patel. "We needed to remove the cyst to save her vision."

There is no evidence whatsoever that anyone at the Mayo Clinic considered that a tumour instead of a cyst, and the operation was to (allegedly) save her vision, not to save her life.

And the lying continues, and the CBC gets spun. Again.

What Gordie said.

After having started out badly by yammering on about abortion earlier in the year, Gordie Canuk is hitting his stride. Not surprisingly, Suzie All-Caps shows up and acts retarded. It's what she does.

We're not done here.

So who was dumb enough to swallow THAT one?

Over at TPM, Eric Kleefeld unearths some sleazy statistical wankitude:

The Rasmussen "Presidential Approval Index": Is This Newer Measurement Worth Anything?

Some commentators on the right have been pointing to an interesting number that has been coming from the Rasmussen daily tracking poll, which Rasmussen bills as the "Presidential Approval Index," which Scott Rasmussen only began bringing out in late 2008. The key questions then are: What is this number, and is it a valid measurement of real popularity? In an interview today with TPM, Rasmussen defended the index's validity against some harsh criticism, saying that intensity of opinion -- the true figure measured by his index -- does indeed matter.

The thing to remember is that this is not simply subtracting all the respondents who disapprove of President Obama from the people who approve. Instead, Rasmussen takes the numbers who strongly approve or disapprove, and then performs this math. As of today, that index number is -10, compared to an overall rating of +1 in Rasmussen's daily tracker.

It would seem at first glance that this number can skew negative -- that is, the people who disapprove of a president are inherently more likely to feel strongly about it, compared to a certain level of lukewarm support for a president. For example, the 2004 exit poll put George W. Bush's strong approval at 33%, to strong disapproval of 34%. But his overall approval was 53% to disapproval at 46%, and he was re-elected 51%-48%.

I asked three prominent polling experts about this, and they all lambasted it.

And yet, you just know that there will be wanks who will be all over that disingenuous douchebagitude like stink on cheese:

A Rasmussen poll released today shows Obama's Approval Index sitting at minus 12 percent, his lowest number yet. 40 percent of American voters now strongly disapprove of Obama's performance, compared to just 28 percent who strongly approve.

Canada's Small Dead Animals: When you want to know what the truly stupid and gullible people think.

And this is where we juxtapose ...

Blogging Tory and Depends spokesperson Sandy Crux is pissed about government medical wait lists:

Truly the situation for Ontario’s parents with children diagnosed with an autism spectrum disorder regarding funding for ABA treatment is urgent. Yet, the McGuinty Liberal government is seriously dragging their feet.

And speaking of medical wait lists ...

Unsurprisingly, you will search the Blogging Tories in vain for someone bitching about a lack of medical isotopes. Imagine that.

"So what you're saying is ..."

You're not going to believe this. OK, maybe you will. PZ warns everyone, in absolutely no uncertain terms, that all those visiting Ken Ham's "Creation Museum" must be on their best behaviour. Seriously, read the whole thing to be assured that PZ is giving everybody fair warning that he will tolerate no disrespect or incivility. Of any kind.

We then have someone who takes artistic license with the possibilities, which is clearly a riff off of PZ's treatment at the movie "Expelled" and involves creationist Ken Ham confronting PZ and expelling him, at which point PZ and his hordes transmogrify into killer cephalopods and do battle with Ken Ham, who mounts his dinosaur and ... well, you get the idea. Goofiness reins supreme.

Except for this brainless twatwaffle commenter over there:

So... Atheists wish that they'd initiate a violent conflict at the Creation Museum? That really says a lot.

And who might so thoroughly misrepresent someone's cartoonish attempt at humour? No, not him. You have to hop into the Wayback Machine to truly appreciate the monumental dishonesty.

Yes, they really are that stupid. Or dishonest. Pick one.

P.S. In unrelated news, Ann Coulter didn't really mean it when she suggested killing Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens with rat poison. Because that was clearly just a joke. Right?

And the mask slips just a little ...

Blogging Tory "Hunter" gets into the imagery just a little too much for comfort:

Slash goes the knife cutting into her. The pain would be unbelievable. My baby....I must protect my baby! Or maybe they bludgeoned her to death, then cut out the baby. Smack goes the hammer to her head, but don't kill her until the baby is out or it may die. Don't shut off the images, it's the cowards way out. Imagine how Darlene Haynes died. No matter how you picture her death, it is violent.

Is it just me, or does Hunter seem to be thoroughly enjoying this in a "Neo Conservative" kind of way?

You keep using that word "ships" ...

Over at TGB, Dave educates readers about ships. Weirdly, all of that sounds vaguely familiar.

P.S. You might not want to bother trying to follow any of the links to Sandy's blog(s). Sandy is, inarguably, one of the stupidest human beings alive in that, after years of blogging, she has yet to figure out that it's a bad idea to keep moving content, changing pages, breaking links or renaming blogs, which is why almost any link to her that's older than a month inevitably ends up with a "404".

Truly, a spectacularly stupid person.

Yes, Steve, let's go with that.

Blogging Tory and loyal Conservative Party of Canada supporter Steve "The Premature Ejankulator" Janke demands full accountability.

That's it. That's the punchline.

There's a reason the Blogging Tories are so stupid.

They love their Fox News.

Dear God in heaven, the burning stupid.

Seriously, this is "Hunter"-level stupid.

I have no comeback.

Folsom Prison Blues

Swiped from Boing & Boing Inc.

If you can fake sincerity, you can fake anything.

Over at "Small Dead Brain Stems," Kate and the Katettes put on a good show by pretending to give a crap about Canada's military:



Mercifully, refusing to be swayed by all those bogus crocodile tears, Blogging Tory "Neo Conservative" is sticking to his guns:

before you go all "taliban jack" here... try to remember that, statistically, we have lost less than 20 soldiers per year since 2001.

in contrast...

"nineteen snowmobilers have died in avalanches in B.C. and Alberta just this winter."and if you want a real wakeup call... read a book about world war one... or snakes.

And gunshot victims in Toronto, Neo. You forgot to minimize military deaths by comparing them to violent crime in Toronto. I'm just sayin'.

BONUS TRACK: One can barely wait for Neo himself to start pretending he cares about murder victim Victoria Stafford, given his somewhat less than sympathetic rant from a few months back:



I'm going to take a shot in the dark and guess that Neo is suddenly terribly, terribly awash with grief over this, after having told all of Woodstock to basically quit their boo-hooing, suck it up and stop being such pathetic attention whores over some missing kid.

Stephen Taylor must be so proud. Of what, I have no idea.

Hmmmmmm ...

When one is in the midst of re-reading "The Stand" (uncut version, of course), one should probably avoid articles like this -- especially if you have a healthy imagination.

Does anyone else hear footsteps?

Dear "Hunter": Please shut the fuck up.

To recap, Blogging Tory "Hunter" is tearfully concerned about the mistreatment of women, which suggests she should be howling in outrage over the appalling treatment of Canadian citizen Suaad Hagi Mohamud.

Not.

Here's a thought,"Hunter": Shut the fuck up. Seriously, just shut the fucking fuck up. The day you actually give a crap about women because you sincerely care about them is the day we might take you seriously.

Until then, well, you know, shut the fuck up.

Yeah, they know where you live.

Over at Hunter's, commenter "Martin" knows how to intellectually engage those uppity broads:



Good plan, Martin. And then you can post her address, and phone number, and maybe where she works, too. I understand that's how conservatives deal with dissent. It's the manly thing to do.

Rock. Of. Ages.

Stand in line in Times Square for an hour this morning for cheap tix, 50% off, "Yeah, I want the best seats you have left ... orchestra, middle ... yeah, that'll do," get to theatre, wander down to seats to discover they are in the absolute first row, dead centre, able to reach out and touch the stage without even leaning forward, get up close and personal with the players to the point where the narrator insinuates I have herpes but literally high-fives me, anyway. Awesome.

Can assure you that female lead wore pink panties. Thong.

Rainy day reading.

Why a woman’s right to choose matters now more than ever.

Perhaps Sgt. Crowley has even more explaining to do than originally thought.

Dear Global Warming Denialists: Actual scientists are researching whether or not our little planet is moving into a new "vicious cycle" of warming. Since no definitive conclusions have been reached, more research will be necessary. This, oddly enough, is how science should work.

Dilbert creator Scott Adam's struggle to regain his voice.

Health care statistics courtesy of the boys at Sadly, No.

Sunday Cinema.

Just for KEv.

Na na na na ... hey hey ...

Quitbull! If there is a God, it will be Palin and Joe the Plumber in 2012. One can always dream.

You keep using that phrase "fact checking," Dante ...

Blogging Tory "Dante" gets all sanctimonious about accuracy. Those of us who are painfully familiar with Dante's BT bunkmate Kate McMillan simply roll our eyes.

Your Sunday morning Blogging Tory douchebagitude.

Blogging Tory "Hunter" gets all panty-tuggy and shrieky when brown people are murdered for ideological reasons. When white people are killed similarly, eh, not so much.

How ... curious. I'm guessing it's a context thing.

P.S. Does anyone else find it odd that the same folks who don't even like brown people to begin with are this upset when they're killed? That seems awfully inconsistent, don't you think?

AH, THE IRONY: You'd think that yappy, screechy harridans like "Hunter" who profess to be terribly, terribly concerned about the plight of women might be supportive of government organizations whose mandate is to, you know, protect women. Like this:

Status of Women Canada
www.swc-cfc.gc.ca

Minister Guergis Addresses First Meeting Toward Establishing International Shelters Network

April 27, 2009

OTTAWA - The Honourable Helena Guergis, Minister of State (Status of Women), today addressed the first meeting arising from a Status of Women Canada-funded project entitled, Linking Canadian Shelters to International Networks: First Meeting of the Network: April 27 –28, 2009 at Ottawa, a two-day gathering aimed at linking Canadian women's shelters to an international network.

"The need for an International Network of Women's Shelters was a key outcome of last September's First World Conference of Women's Shelters," said Minister Guergis. "Canadian delegates to that Conference recognized that global trends, particularly the global economic downturn, greatly impact Canadian women and create a greater urgency around the need for concrete, timely and effective action.

Hmmmmmmm ... the Status of Women Canada would seem to have the right idea -- protecting vulnerable women and promoting shelters. So what does Hunter think of that group? Oh ...

At this point, I'd be tempted to describe "Hunter" as a stupid, worthless, hypocritical cunt, but I've been told that that's rude. So I won't.

I'll just think it. Does that work for you?

I {heart} New York.

Schedule for tomorrow morning is to hang out early at Times Square to possibly score cheap tickets to "Rock of Ages." I'm sure PSA is intensely jealous. REO Speedwagon! Journey! Styx! Bon Jovi! Boo-yah!

"Don't stop ... beleeeeevin' ..."

Satire can be a beautiful thing ...

... when it’s done properly.

Saturday Morning Cartoons.

Good morning, darlings.

As much as I might’ve enjoyed the thunderstorm last night -- I love thunderstorms -- I have to wonder if everyone is as sick of rain as I am. Coffee?

Holy motherfucking stupid, Batman!

Document the dumbassitude.

JESUS CHRIST, the level of stupid and evil in the comments section over there is truly breathtaking. Blogging Tory "General Brock" seems singularly ignorant about what this issue is all about, and it doesn't appear that anyone can clue him in.

Ah, well ... he's a Blogging Tory ... being a painfully retarded dumbshit goes with the territory. "Hunter" and Dr. Roy taught me that.

JUST FOR THE FUN (AND PROFIT) OF IT, I think that every gay couple in Saskatchewan that wants to get married should now seek out Mr. Orville Nichols to perform the civil ceremony. Given that he believes that "God hates homosexuality," he will refuse, at which point you have the grounds for an HRC complaint and, if all goes well, you'll get $2500 out of it. Think of it as a belated wedding present.

Shall we play?

I think an early start tonight, darlings. As always, your answers in the comments.

1) Name your favourite comedic thriller.

2) Name two movie quotes that, for whatever reason, have always managed to stay with you.

3) And just to change things up, name your favourite chocolate.

1) Charade with the absolutely perfect pairing of Audrey Hepburn and Cary Grant in a film often described as "the best Hitchcock movie that Hitchcock never made". Aren’t they wonderful?



2) "You’re gonna need a bigger boat."

"They'll swing back to the belief that they can make people... better. And I do not hold to that. So no more runnin'. I aim to misbehave."

3) Mmmmmmm ... Godiva dark chocolate with raspberry.

Your turn.

On the road open thread.

Out of here shortly for parts unknown for a few days, so I'll leave you all in the capable hands of my loyal co-bloggers, who probably just hope I get eaten by wolves or something. In the meantime, what's happening with Obama birther and total nutbar Major Stefan Cook? Can life hoof him in the nads any more than it has already?

One can always hope.

BONUS SNARK: Right-wing loony blog gets all birther over this issue, and gets slapped down in its own comments section. Apparently, actual soldiers don't care much for weaselly little shits like Cook. Imagine that.

The question no one seems to be asking.

Given this, I have to wonder -- if the Canadian government doesn't think the person who had possession of that passport is the correct person, why aren't they freaking out and asking where the real Suaad Hagi Mohamud is?

Or am I just being pedantic again?

Ah, the delicious mockery.

This is how you deal with weaselly frauds -- you mock them uproariously on national TV.

There's a reason I hate those people.

Now, about those OTHER ideological murders ...

In this morning's Blogging Tory news, numerous BTers are taking a perverse delight in the possibility of honour killings in Kingston -- sort of a "I told you so, nyah, nyah, nyah" attitude.

In unrelated news, when one brings up the topic of relentless violence against, and murders of, abortion providers by members of the Right, well, um, that's different because, well, it is. Now let's get back to talking about those bloodthirsty foreigners, shall we?

UNINTENTIONAL IRONY: Author Mark Peters above -- who so sanctimoniously mocks others' religious beliefs -- that would be this Mark Peters. Probably the last person who should be engaging in comparative religious wingnut analysis. I'm just sayin'.

Dear Stephen: Did NOT think that one through.

Blogging Tory co-founder Stephen Taylor tries his hand at humour and learns that, well, he sucks:

Where is Michael Ignatieff? Is he just vacationing?

Everyone in Ottawa is starting to wonder. Unlike the Prime Minister, who has official duties representing this country at events like the G8 and at funerals for past Governors General, as Opposition leader, Michael Ignatieff doesn’t have any real obligations when the House isn’t sitting beyond representing his constituents in Etobicoke-Lakeshore.

Ha ha! Oh, man, that Stephen ... he just kills. Here, let me try: Where was Stephen Harper for about seven weeks last winter? Was he just vacationing? Oh.

Some advice, Stephen -- don't try to be funny. You're just not very good at it.

BY THE WAY, Stephen, about those official PM duties like, oh, "representing this country at events like the G8 and at funerals for past Governors General," the last time I looked, it might have been better for Stephen the Corpulent if he had just stayed home. Know what I'm sayin'?

Your Republican family values.

You're not going to believe this. OK, maybe the novelty's worn off by now.

I Timothy 2:11-14.

Shorter State Rep. John Adams (R-Ministry of Vice and Virtue): In a perfect biblical world, dirty sluts (aka women) would require a man’s permission for everything.

I'm sure SUZANNE is in complete shrieking agreement.

Shona Holmes: Useful idiot or puppetmaster?

And here's Buckets, doing a number on Shona Holmes, which raises the obvious question (suggested by a drinking companion last night): Whose idea was it to lie about Holmes' condition in a TV commercial?

That Holmes lied with her claim of imminent death is now indisputable. So who decided to perpetrate that fraud on the TV viewing public?



Did Holmes choose to do that, thereby suckering the American group "Patients United Now?" Or did someone else write the script, and simply had Holmes play along?

It's a simple question -- whose idea was it to lie about this?

AFTERSNARK: All of this proves that leftists are interested only in the politics of personal destruction and attacking terminal cancer patients and hoping they die. Any bets on who seizes on that meme first? You know it's coming.

And this is why we mock them.

Over at Kate McMillan's Dog Grooming and Nazi Memorabilia Roadhouse, Kate takes credit for ... well, something, to which a faithful commenter chimes in:



In unrelated news, I would suggest that every single conservative in Canada is a drunken, racist, scientifically illiterate, NAMBLA devotee. But that would be generalizing unfairly. So I won't.

Douchebag! The Kathy Shaidle Chronicles.

The woman who keeps Arnie Lemaire's testicles in a velvet Crown Royal bag mouths off about some people's unsavoury histories:

Van Jones is President Barack Obama's newly appointed "Green Jobs Czar"

... Jones' past isn't so pastoral.

The Ella Baker Center was connected to STORM (Standing Together to Organize a Revolutionary Movement), a "multi-racial activist collective with Marxist influences" with which Jones was involved.

In 1992, Van Jones founded another STORM project, Bay Area PoliceWatch, a "hotline and lawyer-referral service for victims and survivors of police abuse." This is fitting, perhaps, since Jones was himself arrested and detained briefly during a protest after the Rodney King verdict that same year.

Jones told the East Bay Express in 2005:

I was a rowdy nationalist on April 28th [1992], and then the verdicts came down on April 29th. By August, I was a communist. (...)

I met all these young radical people of color – I mean really radical: communists and anarchists. And it was, like, 'This is what I need to be a part of.' I spent the next ten years of my life working with a lot of those people I met in jail, trying to be a revolutionary.

Like a character out of The Big Chill, Van Jones seems to have evolved from radical activist to Establishment insider. Perhaps only a left-wing administration incapable of recognizing irony would put a self-described communist in charge of creating jobs.

This embarrassing revelation of someone's personal past has been brought to you by Kathy Shaidle:

“I was a leftist,” she explains. “And I was a drunk. The two usually go together.”

These days, Shaidle is quick to assure you that she is no longer a leftist.

AFTERSNARK: By the way, in case you needed to know, Shaidle is a useless liar. I thought it was important to point that out.

And with respect to basic human rights, fuck you.

Blogging Tory Ezra Levant would like to take a second off of whining piteously about how mean people are to him to remind you that he doesn't give a shit about anyone else.

If the word "sociopath" just came to mind, there's a good reason for that.

AFTERSNARK: It's adorable how Ezra can write the following with a straight face:

Khadr was arrested by Americans and charged with murdering an American. The Americans have the evidence and the Americans have been preparing the case against him.

Apparently, Ezra's been too busy fellating himself for the last couple of years to keep up with the fascinating developments:

Lawyers for Omar Khadr called on U.S. authorities Monday to dismiss a murder charge against the Canadian, saying a newly revealed eyewitness account that had been covered up by the Pentagon casts doubt on the official version of events...

According to the original U.S. military version of events, Khadr ambushed American soldiers with a grenade following a four-hour fight at a mud compound in Afghanistan.

Pentagon officials later backtracked slightly after it was revealed nobody witnessed Khadr throw the grenade. Pentagon officials said an eyewitness wasn't needed, because Khadr was the only al-Qaeda fighter left alive and the only person who could have thrown the grenade.

However, a classified document, inadvertently released to reporters at the military prison by a Pentagon official Monday, provides a different eyewitness account of the events.

A U.S. soldier at the battle said in sworn testimony that two al-Qaeda fighters were alive after the fatal grenade attack.

The unidentified soldier says he killed the first al-Qaeda fighter before spotting Khadr, whom he said was wounded, on his knees and facing away from him. For reasons he does not go into, he says he shot him in the back twice.

Ezra would like to assure you that, with respect to this inconvenient truth, he doesn't give a fuck. Because, in Ezra's world, there's Ezra, and then there's people who don't matter. But I'm guessing you'd noticed that already.

HAHAHAHAHAHA!!!

Indeed. Over at ACR, pale goes crazy with the details.

Security clearances and wingnuts.

Am I a bad person for so thoroughly enjoying the miserable misfortune that has befallen one Maj. Stefan Cook? So be it. In any event, here are more recent developments, for those of you who are sincerely interested in, you know, facts:

There have been many claims that Maj. Cook's security clearance has been revoked. This is inaccurate, and presumably based on lack of knowledge of the distinction between a security clearance and access authorization. It is not possible that he has already had his security clearance revoked. The legal requirements of administrative due process will take several months to revoke his clearance which is under review.

OK, so what did happen?

He has had a suspension of access pending final adjudication of a personnel security clearance. The issuance of a personnel security clearance (as well as the function of determining that an individual is eligible for access to Special Access program information, or is suitable for assignment to sensitive duties or such other duties that require a trustworthiness determination) is a function distinct from that involving the granting of access to classified information. Administrative due process requires he be given written notice, have an opportunity to respond, and receive an agency response, and there just has not been time to get that done.

So was he fired or not? Oh:

The suspension of access still functions to prevent Maj. Cook from performed either his military or civilian job. DoD would not call his employer and tell them they have to fire him. They would call and tell them that his access to DoD classified information had been suspended and that the employer could no longer let him handle or have access to classified information.

Which effectively makes him worthless as an employee. Now let's skip ahead to the good part:

32 C.F.R § 154.7 Criteria for application of security standards provides:

(g) Disregard of public law, statutes, Executive Orders or regulations including violation of security regulations or practices.

(h) Criminal or dishonest conduct.

(i) Acts of omission or commission that indicate poor judgment, unreliability or untrustworthiness.

All some military official needs to say is that there were acts of omission and/or commission which, in his opinion, indicate poor judgment, unreliability or untrustworthiness.

And I believe that that, as they say, is that, because if there's one thing you can say about Major Cook, who officially joined a class-action suit against Obama in March, then volunteered for deployment a couple months after that, only to renege at the last minute in order to choreograph this idiotic stunt, it's that he's shown astonishingly poor judgment, unreliability and untrustworthiness.

Case closed.

Several days late and a brain cell short.

Blogging Tory and self-described military junkie Paul E. Marek of Saskatoon finally clues in to what we here at CC HQ have been blogging about for days:

The Invisible Hand of Socialism

Obama style:

The Department of Defense has allegedly compelled a private employer to fire a U.S. Army Reserve major from his civilian job after he had his military deployment orders revoked for arguing he should not be required to serve under a president who has not proven his eligibility for office.

According to the CEO of Simtech Inc., a private company located in Tampa, Fla., and contracted by the Defense Security Services, an agency of the Department of Defense, the federal government has compelled the termination of Maj. Stefan Frederick Cook.

Cook's attorney, Orly Taitz, wrote in her blog that Simtech CEO Larry Grice said he would try to find another position within the company for Cook, but nothing is currently available.

Unsurprisingly, Mr. Marek is, once again, as dumb as a bag of dog turds. But you already knew that, right?

BY THE WAY, there's actually a simpler interpretation of what happened here. The DoD had no need to demand that Cook's employer fire him. Rather, all the DoD needed to do was revoke Cook's security clearance, at which point he was probably unemployable if his position with Simtech required such a clearance. At that point, Simtech undoubtedly had no choice but to release him, and all the DoD probably did was remind Simtech of their contractual obligations to the DoD with respect to DoD-related work -- no security clearance, no workee.

Others have been speculating the same way, such as here, where the government's revocation of someone's security clearance is essentially unreviewable. Quite simply, by his actions, Cook demonstrated that he was entirely untrustworthy, at which point the DoD acted appropriately, at which point Cook was well and truly fucked, and all by his own hand.

And Paul E. Marek is still as much of a total twatwaffle as ever. Quelle surprise.

IRONY, OH IRONY: Appreciate, if you will, the stone-faced hypocrisy of Cook's supporters, rising to his defense, demanding fairness, or due process, or employment rights and so on. These are, of course, the same howling yobs who absolutely despise the concept of unions and workers' rights, suddenly deciding that those rights are incredibly important after all.

There's a reason I hate these people.

Still not quite grokking that "New Media" thingy.

Blogging Tory Chucker Canuck is some kind of pissed that he has to read this kind of vacuous drivel:

Everyone can breath easy, Iggy is back from where he never went. I found out because Iggy has a tweet account where he drops lots of great insights about himself and his life. Like here's the latest:

"Enjoying a rare day at home reading Canadian Adam Gopnik's Angels & Ages. Great book beautifully written. 7:54 AM Jul 18th from web"

It was at that point that someone took Chucker quietly aside and explained to him that reading someone else's "tweets" was entirely voluntary and absolutely no one was forcing him to do it.

"Really?", replied Chucker. "Wow, that's kind of cool, then."

A Hero For All The People

Should the U.S.A. survive this generation, I believe history will have a different view of a quiet man whose courage and decency were too good for America. Jimmy Carter was vilified for being weak because he chose not to speak in threats, because he asked questions first instead of shooting. For some reason mysterious to me, the insane traitor Ronald Reagan is still held in high regard, venerated as a wise and brave warrior leader while Carter is sneered at by the mugwumps and ambulatory excrement of the right. What is it called when one sells weapons to a sworn national enemy? Oh, that's right... treason. And yet the legacy of Reagan somehow persists despite Iran/Contra and his ugly war crimes in Central America. Reagan was an addled and unprincipled mass murderer while Carter is a thoroughly decent man of peace.

In an act more courageous than anything conceived in the poisonous heart of a Reagan or a Bush, Carter has actually chosen to live by his principles and by his faith. He isn't a church whore , bending his knee for appearances, power and votes. He remains a man of conscience and commitment. Last week, while Washington's "Christian's" were shedding crocodile tears over their latest round of infidelities, lies and graft and angling for the ways and means to continue their wretched grasping for power, Mr Carter left them in his wake. Jimmy Carter, a true American hero, walked away from the corruption of the message in the book he lives by. Jimmy Carter left the Southern Baptist Convention and in a stirring essay in Australia's The Age took a stand for the rights and future of women in the face of persecution and dehumanization as wrought by the world's major religions.

I HAVE been a practising Christian all my life and a deacon and Bible teacher for many years. My faith is a source of strength and comfort to me, as religious beliefs are to hundreds of millions of people around the world. So my decision to sever my ties with the Southern Baptist Convention, after six decades, was painful and difficult. It was, however, an unavoidable decision when the convention's leaders, quoting a few carefully selected Bible verses and claiming that Eve was created second to Adam and was responsible for original sin, ordained that women must be "subservient" to their husbands and prohibited from serving as deacons, pastors or chaplains in the military service.

This view that women are somehow inferior to men is not restricted to one religion or belief. Women are prevented from playing a full and equal role in many faiths. Nor, tragically, does its influence stop at the walls of the church, mosque, synagogue or temple. This discrimination, unjustifiably attributed to a Higher Authority, has provided a reason or excuse for the deprivation of women's equal rights across the world for centuries.

At its most repugnant, the belief that women must be subjugated to the wishes of men excuses slavery, violence, forced prostitution, genital mutilation and national laws that omit rape as a crime. But it also costs many millions of girls and women control over their own bodies and lives, and continues to deny them fair access to education, health, employment and influence within their own communities.

The full text of his essay is something that in a sane world would not need to be written or read. Would that the tough talking politicians, hawks and zealots of the day had a speck of the courage that Mr Carter exhibits here. If only the churches, temples and mosques chose to empower rather than horde power, to teach dignity and equality rather than viewing half of humanity as property.

In looking through Google images to find photos of the last American statesman to hold high office I came across endless bile and vitriol, wishes of death and imprecations against this humble man. How sad and blind so many people choose to become and stubbornly remain. We are led by fools and villains, bigots and monsters and too many of us are easy with that, content to wallow in violence both physical and spiritual. There is no more dangerous beast than a coward behind a gun. There is no more courageous creature than one who speaks unpopular truth. Jimmy Carter is a man of integrity and true courage, here's hoping some shard of his wisdom pricks the hides of the blowhards and brutes that see no solution to conflict but escalation and subjugation. Here's to his vision of equality without qualification, finding the sacred in each of us, brothers and sisters of every faith and race.

Via Crooks & Liars.

You can never be cynical enough.

Pretend to be surprised.

Beatdown!

This is how you handle the deranged wingnuts -- you humiliate them publicly in front of a nationwide TV audience:

"Shut up," he explained.

South Carolina governor and life-long morals scold Mark Sanford would like you to know that his abandoning his position and going missing for several days while bonking his Argentinian trollop is none of your fucking business. So get over it. Really.

In other news, screwing around on your wife is serious stuff. Really. Mark said so. Once.

You sure you want to go down that road, Fred?

Blogging Tory "Gay and Right" Fred takes a second from his relentless, 24/7 denial of climate change to make fun of people who deny the Holocaust.

Are you sure you're the right person to be making that kind of mockery, Fred? I'm just asking.

Breaking news: Conservative Minister is complete asshole!

In other news, water is wet.

The long, slow descent into wingnuttery.

In unrelated news, Barack Obama is a horrible, terrible, no good, very bad man who isn't even an American, whose wife is a reverse racist, whose kids are ghetto trash, and who should, for the good of the U.S., be impeached, driven from office or, at the very least, killed outright.

But that's different.

P.S. Dear truly stupid people: The above is sarcasm. Most folks will understand that. Twatsy won't. That's why he's Twatsy.

Poor Monte: Still having trouble grokking that whole "new media" thing.

Blogging Tory and Kate McMillan groupie Monte Solberg thinks everyone wants to know about the British Open. Other BTers beg to differ:

Dear Monte Solberg

I think you have made a mistake, your blog isn't twitter. You are drowning out everyone's posts from page one of the BloggingTories. Please stop! Lot's of interesting posts are getting knocked off the front page. As of the time of this writing, you have 9 blog entries on page one.

In other news, you don't have to be an imbecile to be a Kate McMillan fan; it just makes it easier to blend in.

P.S. Dear RaR: When referring to the Blogging Tories aggregator front page, I would use the phrase "interesting posts" extremely sparingly. You don't want to devalue it completely, do you?

"Sorry" doesn't cut it anymore.

SC Gov. Mark Sanford takes yet another stab at apologizing to his state for "hiking the Appalachian Trail" as the kids call it these days. Amusingly, the commenters are having none of it, particularly his piteously sanctimonious references to God.

No word on whether God has forgiven Sanford either, or whether He even wants to be dragged into the middle of this pathetic whinefest.

... and then there's reality.

Blogging Tory "Gay and Right" Fred does what Blogging Tories do best -- stenography:

One thing Bush deserves credit for....

He has saved lots of lives in Africa...

The president of the International AIDS Society says new research indicates the incidence of HIV is decreasing in African countries helped by George W. Bush's AIDS initiative.

And for people who prefer to dabble in, you know, facts:

How Bush's AIDS Program is Failing Africans

The president's much-lauded international AIDS initiative has succeeded in saving lives through treatment. But its abstinence-focused prevention programs have put many more lives in jeopardy.

Reality: Apparently, it's only for lefties.

Oh, man, this explains so much.

Ladies and gentlemen, your Blogging Tories.

Low-hanging fruit: Jabba the Roy edition.

Blogging Tory Jabba the Roy gets all moist and squishy over the clinically deranged Charles Krauthammer thusly:

Space, the final frontier?

Charles Krauthammer has a great piece [here] on why the United States shouldn't abandon space exploration. I absolutely agree.

Fortunately, those wascally wabbits over at Sadly, No (unintentionally, of course) yank down Jabba's and Chuck's panties and give them the public spanking they deserve.

OK, maybe that imagery didn't work out as well as I wanted.

P.S. While I am a huge fan of scientific research for research's sake, I'm going with Robert Park on this topic. Sorry, kids, but Star Trek ain't gonna happen. Get over it.

Kinda late in the game for THAT kind of shit.

Can't you just smell the hypocrisy from here?

AFTERSNARK: Say, I wonder if anyone recognized this ridiculous double standard years ago. Oh, look.

Thank ya, thank ya very much. Don't forget to tip your waitress.

P.S. It really is awesome to be right about everything, all the time. I've been told it's part of my charm.

Um ... let's talk about presidential eligibility, shall we?

It's interesting that the same shrieking, paste-eating lunatics currently obsessing over Barack Obama's eligibility to be President were never all that concerned about this.

I just thought that was worth pointing out.

Quelle surprise.

Oh, look ... another group supporting chickenshit traitor and utter fraud Major Stefan Cook. I'll bet you never saw that coming.

You sure you want to go down that road, Ezra?

Ezra takes a break from talking about himself to talk about other people talking about him:

Canada's HRCs denounced in U.S. Senate
By Ezra Levant on July 18, 2009 10:10 PM

Here's a clip from a debate on the floor of the U.S. Senate. After a preamble about the economy, Senator Jim DeMint from South Carolina uses Canada as an example of what the U.S. should avoid.

DeMint ... DeMint ... oh, right ... that Jim DeMint:

DeMint’s discourse: Government is fascist, says he will ‘break’ Obama and cause the Senate ‘pain.’

Sen. Jim DeMint (R-SC) is ratcheting up his anti-Obama rhetoric. On a call with right-wing activists yesterday afternoon, he proudly proclaimed that he aims to “break” the President by defeating health reform. He also said recently that he prefers to cause “pain” to his fellow legislators rather than working on reform.

Good choice in Jim DeMint as a role model, Ezra. I guess Michelle Bachmann wasn't available?

Sunday Cinema.

It's almost like when I was a little girl and the PBS station out of Watertown would play old movies all day long. Okay, it's really not but it's good enough for me.



I adore Danny Kaye. Coffee?

Wingnut madness, down the memory hole.

Over the last few days, we here at CC HQ have been having a howling good time, basking in the misery of one Major Stefan Cook, an Obama "birther" froot loop whose weaselly shenanigans to bring a lawsuit against Barack Obama regarding Obama's birth certificate cost Cook his job, probably his security clearance and may have set him up for a court martial, all of it richly deserved.

But what's truly curious is that this wingnut stipudity has been relentlessly promoted by the online compost pile "World Net Daily" who, weirdly, less than one year ago, had this to say:

ELECTION 2008
Democrat sues Sen. Obama over 'fraudulent candidacy'
Lawsuit disputing U.S. citizenship based in part on discredited claims

Posted: August 23, 2008

I'm sorry, what was that again ... all that bitching and moaning is based on "discredited claims?" What a peculiar admission for WND to make, given their current pimping of that same controversy. Oh, please, WND ... tell us more:

A prominent Pennsylvania Democrat has sued Sen. Barack Obama, the Democratic National Committee and the Federal Election Commission, claiming that Obama is not a natural-born citizen and, therefore, is not eligible to be president of the United States...

However, a WND investigation has found that at least part of Berg's lawsuit relies on discredited claims.

How odd, that they would have taken this position as recently as just last year. But don't let me interrupt -- carry on, WND:

... FactChecker.org says it obtained Obama's actual certification of live birth and that the document was indeed real. The site discredited some of the claims of Internet bloggers, such as that the certificate as viewed in a scanned copy released by Obama's campaign lacked a raised seal. FactChecker.org also established that many of the alleged flaws in the document noted by bloggers were caused by the scanning of the document.

It's not "factchecker.org." it's "factcheck.org," but this is WingNutDaily we're dealing with here, so you have to expect illiteracy. But then the entertainment value kicks in:

A separate WND investigation into Obama's certification of live birth utilizing forgery experts also found the document to be authentic. The investigation also revealed methods used by some of the bloggers to determine the document was fake involved forgeries, in that a few bloggers added text and images to the certificate scan that weren't originally there.

I'm sorry, WND, I didn't quite catch that, can you repeat that?

A separate WND investigation into Obama's certification of live birth utilizing forgery experts also found the document to be authentic.

Yeah, I thought that's what you said -- a curious admission given that you're taking exactly the opposite position today.

How exactly does anyone take these whackjobs seriously? I'm sure this isn't over. I'm still really, really hoping for a court martial. That would make my day.

Here, Bernie, let me tighten that up for you.

Shorter Bernie Farber: "It's time for legislation that makes it a crime for people to call me a worthless, whiny hack and fascist, thuggy douchebag."

Saturday Morning Cartoons.

Good morning, darlings, I know I’ve put this one up before but it’s one of my favourites.



I'm sick unto death of the rain so baby boy and I are having Sunday brunch a day early -- homemade waffles with fresh roasted plums in local maple syrup.

Can I get anyone a plate?

The major is a douchebag: The Stefan Cook Chronicles.

Am I a bad person for enjoying this so much?

Which one is lying - Major Stefan F. Cook, USAR or Orly Taitz?

... Military personnel records show that Maj. Cook requested to serve on active duty on May 8, 2009 which was well after he would have been fully aware of the “birther” movement if the statements of his attorney prove to be true. Ms. Taitz also stated that Maj. Cook signed a consent letter in February 2009 which authorized her to represent him against President Obama. According to Ms. Taitz, Maj. Cook’s consent was given at approximately the same time as Lt. Col. Earl-Graef, USAFR, MC, who is listed as a plaintiff in the lawsuit involving Maj. Cook which was thrown out on July 16, 2009 by a federal district court judge according to a report appearing in the Ledger-Enquirer. I asked Maj. Cook's attorney several times if my information was correct regarding the timing of her involvement with Maj. Cook and she stated repeatedly that he contacted her in February 2009. However, when asked about producing the consent letter, Taitz wavered stating that she had “so many” she could not be sure when it was signed or where it was located. In my opinion, the statements of Ms. Taitz confirm that Maj. Cook is a liar and made a false statement to the Army when he requested to serve on active duty in Afghanistan; a duty he had absolutely no intention of fulfilling. The good news is that the Maj. Cook may have cause to file a lawsuit against his attorney, Ms. Taitz for failing to keep her mouth shut about her involvement in his case.

I'm not sure that Taitz's blabbling about how early Cook got involved is all that big a deal since Cook himself yakked about it on Free Dominion back in March. So it's not like Taitz is spilling the beans or anything but, as a lawyer, she really is a stunningly incompetent airhead and twatwaffle.

And watch Taitz and fellow lunatic Alan Keyes get posterised on CNN:



The biggest disappointment in that clip is that no one has the sense to challenge either Taitz or Keyes and ask the obvious question: "What evidence do you have that Barack Obama was not born in the U.S.?"

The entire "birfer" movement is based on the unwillingness of complete fuckwits to accept any evidence that's placed in front of them. But, as far as I know, no one has challenged them to produce a positive case -- that they have any evidence that Obama was born elsewhere. Surely, the most basic question to ask would be, "Where do you believe he was born?" And if they have no answer, tell them to please, for the love of God, fuck off and stick their collective heads in a threshing machine.

Come on, MSM, step up here -- ask the obvious questions. Wait patiently for the dodging, weaving and tap dancing. Then tell them to fuck off.

P.S. Make sure you check out Skilling's previous article here, where he patiently lays out how many military crimes he thinks Cook might be guilty of.

Say hello to a whole new level of whiny dumbassitude.

Recently, I turned on comment moderation here at CC HQ, because of a nasty infestation of blogger Spam that thinks I need to be reminded, countless dozens of times, about Yahoo hacking. So I enabled moderation, but in what I thought was a fairly clever and selective way -- it would apply only to comments being left on posts that were more than three days old, which seemed like a reasonable idea since a) virtually all of that Spam was being left (curiously) only on older posts and, b) after three days, most readers have moved on and rarely bother going back that far to continue whining and pissing and moaning and kvetching and yammering on and on and, God help us, childishly, panty-yankingly on.

This morning, I checked the moderation queue to find 59 comments waiting for the CC HQ stamp of approval: 57 telling me they like me, offering me Viagra, and making sure I know that they can teach me how to hack Yahoo, Hotmail and Facebook. And these two here:

Malcolm+ said...

Ah, so you're accustomed to having people out you as a bigot.
10:30 AM

and here:

Malcolm+ said...

You prefer never to be challenged then?
10:32 AM

Yes, that would be recent arrival and "Neo Conservative" sock-puppet Malcolm+ who, yes, really does think as slowly as you suspected and is now clearly convinced that we here at CC HQ want nothing more than to trump his right to free speech in someone else's living room and to be a total and utter twatwaffle, whinging on about topics that everyone else has long since abandoned because there's more news out, which is kind of why we call it "news" but none of this matters to Malcolm+, who, dear God, wants desperately to be a free speech martyr of some kind to the point where he's brought the wood and is now handing you the hammer and nails.

Now if only Malcolm+ could keep up with the conversation, we could avoid these little unpleasantries in the future. Sadly, I don't see that happening. Mostly because Malcolm+ is a pissy little wank, but I suspect you'd already figured that out by now.

Isn't that 15 minutes over yet?

What part of "Fuck off and go away" do you just not get?

Palin set to let the tweets 'fly'
Posted: 06:01 PM ET
(CNN) — Sarah Palin says she's ready to be unleashed.

The Alaska governor, who is set to resign her post at the end of this month, took to the social networking site Twitter Friday to proclaim she's looking forward to being a little less restrained.

"10 dys til less politically correct twitters fly frm my fingertps outside State site," Palin declared.

"I'll stay in touch w/whomever wants via personal twtr site; launch July 26," she also tweeted.

Mercifully, the majority of the commenters know how to deal with this:



I'm thinking Sarah might want to return that "AKGovSarahPalin" Twitter handle and get a more appropriate one. I'm thinking "Quitbull" would work.

Shall we play?

It’s been forever since we did, darlings.

I think we’ll go with an all-food theme tonight -- won't that be fun? As always, your answers in the comments if you please.

1) Name your favourite food-related movie.

2) Name your favourite take-out dinner.

3) And just to change things up, name your favourite type of chips.

1) Big Night ... an absolutely delightful little film starring Stanley Tucci and Tony Shaloub as brothers Primo and Secondo. Doesn’t this clip make you hungry?



FYI, I’ve made the timpano that figures rather prominently in one scene but without the hard-boiled eggs -- they offend me. It was beyond delicious and so very bad for you.

2) Thai from The Green Papaya on Preston Street -- it’s what baby boy and I are having right now. Tonight’s dinner consists of Tom Yam, Green Papaya Grilled Chicken, Nuer Pad Prik Sod, Goong Sam Rot, Bai Gra Prow Pak, Pad Thai and lots of sticky rice.

3) Miss Vicki’s Sweet Chili and Sour Cream.

Your turn.

Why conservatives shouldn't do math.

Because they're fucking morons.

Stephen Taylor! Hacktacular!

And trying desperately to avoid whapping the low-hanging fruit at the Blogging Tories, let's check in on co-founder Stephen Taylor, who takes his "But ... but ... but the Liberals!" shtick to new and nauseating extremes:

Ah yes, who was the minister responsible for CSIS at the time of Omar Khadr’s interrogation? Khadr was interrogated and filmed by CSIS during February 2003. Wayne Easter was solicitor general of the Liberal government at the time.

Good point, Steve, since the expected reaction to Khadr's arrest and imprisonment back in 2003 is exactly what it should be these days, if you ignore the fact that 2003 was not that long after the alleged act when emotions were still a wee bit raw and maybe folks weren't thinking as clearly as they could have been, and that CSIS has demonstrated a nasty habit of not filling people on what they're doing all the time so who knows what Easter had been told, and that, at the time, everyone was accusing Khadr of having killed a "medic" when, it turns out, that was a completely crap accusation, and that the long-believed claim that he was the only terrorist fighter in the area and therefore must have been the killer is also complete crap, and that, oh, right, Khadr was 15 at the time and is therefore, under international law to which Canada is a signatory, a child soldier.

But other than that, Stephen, yeah, those two situations are exactly the same.

Science!

Don't Harsh The Buzz

As a kid I was, like most of my peers, hooked on NASA. It has been some forty years since humans set foot on the moon and still conspiracy buffs contend that it never happened. I prefer to believe that it did indeed happen, that highly skilled and courageous astronauts flew from Earth and landed on the moon. If I had chosen to believe otherwise, I wouldn't be as rude or as foolish as one Bart Sibrel, who decided to accost Buzz Aldrin and beak off. Oops. And for the twatsies in the crowd, no I don't advocate solving problems with violence (wait for it you know it will be coming). Regardless, here's a sweet right hand from a 72 year old man into the rude moosh of a younger and larger fellow bent on confrontation.

Girls these days.

Shorter Miss Huronia Helena Guergis: If girls didn’t dress like sluts, boys wouldn’t treat them like sluts.

Big Daddy Stephen Harper’s New, Newer, Newest Government™, boys and girls -- bringing back the 50’s one clueless initiative at a time.

The Major Cook Chronicles: The ongoing dumbassitude.

All in all, it's just another towel snap to the nads.

BONUS WINGNUTITUDE: The common meme amongst the residents of Twatwaffleville is, "Can you imagine if Dubya had done this? The leftard screeching would have been, like, total. I mean, can you imagine?"

Well, yeah, I can imagine Bush-inspired, employment-related thuggery. Thanks for asking.

Major Cook wingnuttery goodness.

Why court cases should be broadcast on network TV:

Instead of realizing that her case is dead, Orly Taitz has instead amended the original Complaint to make it even more bizarre: ...

Essentially she wants to turn the case into a class action and give every member of the military an excuse to disobey orders, not that most of them would take her up on that offer.

4. Once again, Orly has signed the Complaint herself. She’s not admitted to practice in Georgia, and she hasn’t been admitted to pro hac vice in this case either. There’s no local counsel. Does she really think the Judge isn’t going to notice that.

I have a vision of how this is going to play out ...



Yeah, something like that. But funnier.

OH, SWEET JESUS, the hilarity that's going to ensue:



Major Cook will be lucky not to get the death penalty.

Stephen Taylor: Just another wingnut, but with better fashion sense.

There's a common meme -- one admittedly pushed every so often right here at CC HQ -- that, despite the sad-sack collection of screeching yobs, howling dingbats, ugly racists and intellectual cripples that make up Canada's Blogging Tories, its co-founder Stephen Taylor is somehow above all that. He's more reasonable, he's more sane, he's more honest -- he's just not as batshit fucking crazy as the rest of them.

Rubbish.

Based on a recent post of Stephen's, I believe we can put all of that to rest, as we read here:

A lesson that I’ve learned from online politics and media in this town is that official still matters. You or I could make commercial quality Youtube videos everyday until the next election, but unless they were official party efforts, they would be largely ignored because of significance of source. If Stephen Harper made a Youtube video slagging Ignatieff, it would be national news. Iggyfacts.ca is a decent enough website, but while it got some buzz in the blogosphere, it didn’t get too much play in the mainstream media.

Yes, poor iggyfacts.ca didn't get much play in the MSM. It couldn't possibly be because what it offered up was unmitigated crap that would embarrass a moderately sophisticated 8-year-old, like:



Yes, that poor MSM -- completely unaware of the priceless political punditry they were missing. But that's not why we're here. No, here's Stephen's money quote, a bit earlier in that same piece:

In December, I launched RallyforCanada.ca to help organize nationwide protests against the Ignatieff endorsed unelected coalition government supported by the Bloc Quebecois.

Uh huh.

Here's Stephen Taylor, Canadian political wunderkind, yapping on ominously about that previous "unelected coalition government," as opposed to, what, Stephen? An elected one? How do you figure that would have worked, Steve? It kind of goes with the very definition of the term that a coalition government in Canada is not going to be the one that was elected, so one isn't sure what your point is.

But Stephen isn't done, as he digs a bit deeper into the sleazebucket with "supported by the Bloc Quebecois," clearly a quick smear job given the fact that they're, you know, French and everything and God help us all that a legitimate federal political party have any say in what happens in federal politics. And let's conveniently forget that Taylor's Conservative Party of Canada, not that long ago, tried exactly the same stunt. One wonders why that plays no part in Stephen's little missive.

One further wonders what the fuck they're teaching over there at the Manning Centre for Building Democracy when members like Stephen Taylor still haven't figured out how Canadian politics work, or what the deal is with coalition governments. And one wonders even more why so many people (moi included) have been willing to cut Taylor any slack at all when, quite simply, he's no better than the rest of the ugly liars over there at the BTs.

Sadly, regardless of how charitable one wants to be, Taylor is just another of the relentless liars in the Blogging Tory sandbox. He's not special. He's Kate McMillan without the paint fumes. He's Dr. Roy with better spelling. He's "Neo Conservative" without a police scanner. Quite simply, he's as wretchedly worthless and dishonest as everyone else at that house of douchebaggery. He just happens to dress slightly better. But take away the suit and haircut and, truly, he wouldn't stand out in that crowd. Not even a little bit.

But if we're lucky and he keeps at it, maybe some day Stephen will figure out how Canadian elections work. That would be awesome.

About that Afghanistan thing ...

Oh, dear ...

54% of Canadians oppose Afghan mission: EKOS poll

... Nationally, 54 per cent said they opposed it, while 34 per cent said they supported it, according to the poll. Twelve per cent were undecided.

Opposition was decisive in Ontario, Quebec and Atlantic Canada, while Western Canada had a narrower gap between those who support the mission and those who oppose it, EKOS found.

In related news, Canada's Blogging Tories still vocally defended the mission, as long as other people got to die for it because the Blogging Tories have, you know, important stuff to do. Kinda like this.

Yeah, yeah, anti-Catholic, whatever.

Wicked funny:

The Harper Conspiracy from Harper Conspiracy on Vimeo.

(Wag of the tail to Woman at Mile 0.)

Major Stefan Cook open thread.

Here, let me start things off:

But back to Dr. [Orly] Taitz, the California dentist-turned-political-coo-coo. Orly is also a “lawyer,” having earned her degree from the William Howard Taft online correspondence school. This allows her to practice in California, but not elsewhere, nor is she a member of the American Bar Association.

This can only get more amusing. Feel free to stay on top of this and keep the comments section topped up.

The Stephen Harper Party of Canada: Standing up for ...

... oh, wait ... she's brown. Carry on.

Actions have consequences.

Oh, dear ... let's drop in on Major Stefan Cook one more time and see what's happening. Ruh roh:

Late on Tuesday afternoon, July 14, 2009, at around about 4:30 pm, Plaintiff Stefan Frederick Cook returned a call to an unknown telephone call from (813) 828-5884 and was told that his services were no longer required in Afghanistan and that he need not report for duty. In addition Plaintiff an e-mail with the revocation order attached from Master Sargent Miguel Matos (Exhibit C). Upon receipt of the revocation, Plaintiff Major Cook called his civilian boss, the CEO of Simtech, Inc., a closely held corporation that does DOD contracting in the general field of information technology/systems integration, at which Plaintiff Major was employed until taking a Military Leave of Absence on Friday July 10, 2009, a senior systems engineer and architect, in preparation for his deployment to Afghanistan. (Plaintiff has five Cisco Systems certifications in information technology dating from 2000 and just recertified in June 2009 for the Cisco Certified Design Expert qualification exam.)

The CEO of Simtech, Inc., Larry Grice, explained to Plaintiff over a series of four conversations within the next two hours, that he had been terminated. Grice told the Plaintiff that he would no longer be welcome in his former position at SOCOM but that Grice wanted to see whether he could find something within the company (Simtech, Inc.) for Cook. The upshot was that at this time Grice did not have anything for Plaintiff to do. Grice told Plaintiff, in essence, that the situation had become “nutty and crazy”, and that Plaintiff would no longer be able to work at his old position.

Grice explained that he had been in touch with Defense Security Services (an agency of the Department of Defense<1>, with regional offices located in SOCOM Headquarters at McDill Airforce Base in Tampa, Florida), and that DSS had not yet made a determination whether Plaintiff Major Cook’s clearances would be pulled, but Grice made clear to Cook that it was DSS who had compelled Cook’s termination. Essentially, because of the “nutty and crazy” situation and the communications received from DSS was no longer employable by him at all. So he was not optimistic about getting me another job at the company. Grice also reported to Plaintiff that there was some gossip that “people were disappointed in” the Plaintiff because they thought he was manipulating his deployment orders to create a platform for political purposes. Grice then discussed Plaintiff’s expectation of receiving final paychecks (including accrued leave pay) already owed, without any severance pay, and wished the Plaintiff well.

Oh, no ... the wingnuts are furious. Man, that's gotta hurt. And here's the capper -- the closing line at that second link:

More indication that prosecution of Cook under the UCMJ is under consideration. If he's being investigated, security clearance gets pulled.

So Cook, in trying to be clever and game the system to score political points, has likely lost his security clearance and may very well be prosecuted under the Uniform Code of Military Justice. Gosh, that's too bad. He seemed like such a nice guy.

GUESS WHO SAW THIS COMING: Yup. And make sure you read the comments at the DU link. They're just adorable.

I DON'T KNOW WHAT TO MAKE OF THIS: Cook's dingbat lawyer is posting her request for injunction on her blog. And she's still trying to make an issue of Obama's birth certificate. Is she completely insane?

Amusingly, what's missing from that legal pleading is the rather embarrassing admission that Cook applied to join the "birther" class-action suit in February, then officially volunteered for a 1-year stint overseas in May, making his whining about conscience an obvious fraud and exposing him for the political con artist that he is. I don't think he's getting out of this unscathed.

OH, CHRIST: If you can stomach it, feast your eyes on the freeper-flavoured conspiracy theorizing here.

Dear Stephen Taylor: We need to chat. Seriously.

You know, Steve, we've all become pretty used to your Blogging Tories being an appalling collection of bigots, racists, white supremacists, neo-Nazi sympathizers and just plain scientific illiterates and deranged, eliminationist yahoos incapable of any sort of intellectual discourse. But you've truly outdone yourself this time with one Maria S., otherwise known as "Dodo Can Spell," who started off badly by condoning law-breaking and now, astonishingly, is directly accusing certain people (your humble scribe included) of having leprosy.

So this is the face of the Blogging Tories you want to show the public, Stephen? Seriously, that's what you're promoting as thoughtful, nuanced, Canadian conservative punditry? I just wanted there to be no misunderstanding that that's your idea of acceptable, right-wing political commentary in this country.

I'm glad we had this little chat, Steve.

Yours,
CC

Because they're fucking idiots, that's why.

I'm not even going to link to that insufferable twatwaffle anymore, but you know who I'm talking about by now -- the extinct, flightless one -- who crows thusly:



Wow ... we better rush right over to that link at WingNutDaily and see what's shakin':

A U.S. Army Reserve major from Florida scheduled to report for deployment to Afghanistan within days has had his military orders revoked after arguing he should not be required to serve under a president who has not proven his eligibility for office.

His attorney, Orly Taitz, confirmed to WND the military has rescinded his impending deployment orders.

"We won! We won before we even arrived," she said with excitement. "It means that the military has nothing to show for Obama. It means that the military has directly responded by saying Obama is illegitimate – and they cannot fight it. Therefore, they are revoking the order!"

She continued, "They just said, 'Order revoked.' No explanation. No reasons – just revoked."

Really? Is that what happened? I know ... let's check in with someone who's not an astonishingly, pig-ignorant imbecile. Like, oh, this guy:

UPDATE: The Army has revoked the deployment orders for a soldier who said he shouldn't have to go to Afghanistan because (he believes) Barack Obama was never eligible to be president.

And here's the money quote:

Because he's a reserve soldier who volunteered for an active duty tour he can "ask for a revocation of orders up until the day he is scheduled to report for active duty," a public affairs officer explained. Cook volunteered for the tour in May of this year. It is not clear why he did so, considering his current objections.

Wow, imagine that ... the revocation had nothing whatsoever to do with the asinine accusation of Obama's birth certificate, and everything to do with the guaranteed freedom of a reserve soldier to un-volunteer up to the day of departure.

Ladies and gentlemen, your Blogging Tories: Yes, they really are all that fucking stupid.

P.S. You don't need to trust the Huffington Post. Here, here's a slightly different take on it from www.military.com:

U.S. Army Maj. Stefan Frederick Cook, the reserve soldier who says he shouldn't have to go to Afghanistan because he believes Barack Obama was never eligible to be president, has had his deployment orders revoked, Army officials said.

Lt. Col. Maria Quon, a spokeswoman for the U.S. Army Human Resources Command-St. Louis, said Cook was no longer expected to report today to MacDill Air Force Base, Fla., for mobilization to active duty, according to a report in the Columbus Ledger-Enquirer of Georgia.

The paper said Cook, as an Individual Mobilization Augmentee, had volunteered for a year's deployment to Afghanistan on May 8 and his orders were issued June 9. Quon told the paper that IMAs who volunteer may ask for a revocation up until their reporting date, but that Cook had not asked for this. Quon also told the paper she could not say why the Army had revoked his orders, citing the Privacy Act.

And once again, we note that, because Cook is a reservist who volunteered (and, yes, one wonders why he did so in the first place), he has every right to change his mind, and the revocation says nothing about the merits of his idiotic lawsuit.

And that's why you read CC HQ. Because we know shit. And stuff.

OMFG!! This has been a con game from the very beginning. I am so not shocked.

Waiting for the grownups to be back in charge.

If you're wondering where the Blogging Tories get their infantile petulance and childish vindictiveness from, well, here you go:

G8 Attack Reflects Poorly on Canada: Experts

Minutes before Mr. Harper was to address reporters for a final time at the end of this year's G8 summit in Italy, an assistant to the prime minister told reporters Liberal Leader Micael Ignatieff had suggested the G8 may soon be replaced by a new forum from which Canada would be excluded. When he appeared, Mr. Harper pounced on the comments, slamming Mr. Ignatieff for daring to imply Canada wouldn't be worthy of membership in influential fora...

As it turned out, the comments had actually been made by former deputy foreign minister Gordon Smith, now a professor at the University of Victoria. Mr. Harper, as has now been widely documented, was forced to apologize.

Although the misstep by the prime minister will likely make few waves with Canadians—most of whom are busy enjoying summertime—experts say it adds to a troubling pattern in Mr. Harper's approach to foreign policy. They say he seems content to miss opportunities to contribute to the international dialogue, instead commenting on internal, domestic politics that international journalists will have no interest in...

Canwest News reporter David Akin said that when he follows the prime minister to such summits, the Canadian leader is so poorly known that photographers are constantly asking who Mr. Harper is.

Mr. Akin recalled that at the prime minister's first G8 Summit in St. Petersburg in 2006, Mr. Harper avoided the press for three entire days, even as every other G8 leader loudly trumpeted their messages to the international press gathered on site.

Yeah ... we're back, all right.

(Wag of the tail.)

Yes, they really ARE that retarded.

I'm not sure whether to laugh or fear for my country:

Confusion reigns as defence contract opens for bids

A $3-billion project to buy new search-and-rescue aircraft kicked off Tuesday in Ottawa amid complaints from aerospace industry officials that government representatives can't even say how many planes will be purchased or when.

The industry day, signifying the start of the much-delayed program, left aerospace representatives puzzled and at times, frustrated.

Government representatives who called the meeting couldn't answer questions on how many planes would be bought, when they would be purchased, whether they would be equipped with sensors or how they would be maintained.

Several participants described the event, put on by the Defence Department, Public Works and Industry Canada, as a disaster.

Can it get any funnier? You bet:

About 140 people were jammed into a room in a military hangar, with some having to stand in a nearby hallway. The audio-visual presentation that was to outline details of the program did not work and the microphones for the main speakers and audience members failed.

At the last minute, the Harper government shut down an invitation for the media to listen to the presentations, leading to a bizarre situation where government employees refused even to confirm they were government employees.

In other related developments, numerous members of the Blogging Tories will knee-jerkingly praise the Harper government for "supporting our troops," while Sandy Crux will add this latest clusterfuck to her growing list of "Harper Government Accomplishments," then promptly move that list to another URL, confusing the crap out of people who are trying to keep up.

It's all in the headline, don't you think?

Blogging Tory "Gay and Right" Fred takes time off from never talking about gay issues to get all panty-bunchy about terrorism:

Was another 9/11 recently foiled???

Here's an interesting story from Pajamas Media...

The United States may have narrowly missed a repeat of the 9/11 attacks in June — and, apparently, even the FBI doesn’t realize it.

I'm not sure what Fred's point is but, if I was an editor in the MSM, I might headline that story as, "Vigilance by Obama administration prevents more terrorist deaths, unlike previous Bush administration, which killed 3,000 people."

Or something like that.

P.S. You'll never guess who shows up in the comments there, offering to give Fred a reach around. Seriously, you'll never guess.

Ouch.

It's always painful to watch the death of someone's innocence, isn't it?

Stupid like a fox?

Hmmmmmmmm ... is it possible?

BONUS DUMBTH:



Because it's easier than eye-rolling, loathing contempt, Kathy. And it's simpler to spell.

Living life on the edge.

Newest contestant on "Canada's Got Dumbth!" Maria "Dodo Can't Think" S. gets positively Hunter-level gushy over (who else?) Sarah Palin.

That would be this Sarah Palin.

That would be this Sarah Palin.

This has been another savage, vicious, cruel, unforgivable attack on Dodo, her family, her principles, her chastity, her job, her way of life and every single thing she holds dear. Apparently, that's how hyperlinks work.

AFTERSNARK: Unsurprisingly, "Dodo" is utterly unaware that Palin is flat-out lying here:

We can safely drill for U.S. oil offshore and in a tiny, 2,000-acre corner of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge if ever given the go-ahead by Washington bureaucrats.

Ah, yes, the "2,000 acre" myth, that economist Paul Krugman so thoroughly disemboweled here:

Last week Interior Secretary Gale Norton repeated the standard response to concerns about extensive oil development in one of America's last wild places: ''The impact will be limited to just 2,000 out of 1.9 million acres of the refuge.'' That number comes from the House version of the Bush-Cheney energy plan, which promises that ''surface acreage covered by production and support facilities'' will not exceed 2,000 acres. It's a reassuring picture: a tiny enclave of development, practically lost in the Arctic vastness.

But that picture is a fraud. Development won't be limited to a small enclave: according to the U.S. Geological Survey, oil in ANWR is scattered in many separate pools, so drilling rigs would be spread all across the coastal plain. The roads linking those rigs aren't part of the 2,000 acres: they're not ''production and support facilities.'' And ''surface acreage covered'' is very narrowly defined: if a pipeline snakes across the terrain on a series of posts, only the ground on which those posts rest counts; bare ground under the pipeline isn't considered ''covered.''

Now you see how I work in such a small space. By those definitions, my ''impact'' is limited to floor areas that literally have stuff resting on them: the bottoms of the legs on my desk and chair, and the soles of my shoes. The rest of my office floor is pristine wilderness.

Amusingly, Palin can't even lie properly by claiming that only 2,000 acres will be used. Rather, she makes the clearly bogus claim that all of that drilling will fit in a "tiny, 2,000-acre corner" of ANWR, which is not the same claim at all and is clearly nonsense.

"Dodo": Even dumber than "Hunter." Hard to believe, but true.

And The Winner Is...

Ladies and gentlemen, the votes have been tabulated by the libertine accountants of Bendham, Spreddum and Pucker and you can feel the tension in the air. The moment you've been waiting for is at hand, who will be named today's perfect rectum, the glinting sphincter and supreme arse of Blogging Torydom? The cardigan blue knobs always put up a stirring fight for the accolade that toots but after all of the CCM helmets have been buckled and all of the drool mopped up, there can only be one winner.

The envelope please...

and the winner of today's Blogging Tory Award for Excellence in the Pursuit of Terminal Dumb Fuckery is DODO! No one doubts that this is only the first of many Silver Anuses that Dodo's, um, talents will rightly warrant. Let's hear it for Dodo!

Calling all lawyers.

How many laws are potentially being broken here? (emphasis in original)

Did [CC] get paid, and if so how much? Will he declare the money he received in his tax returns? How much did the sidekicks get? Will they declare those earnings and maybe other similar ones in their tax returns ? Or did he prostitute himself and his sidekicks for free?

Note to self: Get in touch with the Revenue Canada guys I used to know during the short term contract a couple of years ago. Always good to keep in touch with influential friends.

I'm just curious. Maybe Stephen Taylor knows. I'll bet that, as co-founder of the Blogging Tories, he needs to have a lawyer on call pretty much 24/7.

Yes, they really ARE as retarded as you suspected.

Just when you figured nobody, but nobody, could be any dumber than Blogging Tory "Hunter," we have a new contestant -- her BT colleague "Dodo Can Spell" who, in a "Have you heard? Michael Jackson is dead!" moment, gets the drop on all of us here at CC HQ. Read it and howl:

He calls himself Canadian Cynic - SICKO is more like it

He describes himself as:
Left-leaning, progressive snark from the general vicinity of Waterloo, Ontario

He has four nitwits chewing up endlessly like cows in a dung-ridden pasture, the crumbs and leftovers that we at Blogging Tories deem to throw their way.

And now, let the steel trap of Dodo's research abilities take charge:

The nitwits are aptly named:
Lindsay Stewart (a female maybe or a girlish name for a guy whose mother thought he looked better in a frock?), ...

So Dodo is perhaps the last person in this galactic quadrant who is unaware that my co-blogger Lindsay is a dude. Let the dumbfuckitude continue:

LuLu (more like LoopyLoo?)

HA HA! OHMIGOD, that's funny ... really. I can hardly keep my sides from splitting. But that's positively cerebral compared to what follows:

M@ (and no - that's not a typo)
and more hilarity follows with the fourth contributor's name, the sicko himself: CC (yup - ladies and gentlemen - you read that right, CC - carbon copy or corroding corpse? Me thinks, the latter.

No, no, hang in there, really ... you'll thank me by the end. Promise. Movin' on:

Yesterday, some of you might have noticed that Dodo Can Spell was silent for most of the day. Silent on the blog but researching the blogosphere to ferret out the weasels who were leaving their smelly turds on my blog. And ferret them out I did.

And ferret them out Dodo did. Well, except for that part about not knowing that Lindsay is a dude. Apparently, researching is hard werk. Onward, to the results of the aforementioned "research", and jumping over some vacuous, non-research-related snark, to read:

This excuse for a human being got himself invited as a speaker to a meetup group in Toronto called "The Toronto Atheists and Friends" and the organizers put up the following in their calendar for July 3.

Damn. Busted. I'm guessing it was the numerous blog posts I wrote on that topic that gave it away. Dodo, she so smart. Or perhaps not:

This event was attended by 28 people. Minus the 3 stooges and the sicko himself, you have an attendence of a measly 24 long faced atheists who although they deny there is a God they go every morning searching for God or the word GOD on the internet - if you get my drift.

Hmmmmm ... how curious. Since I was there, and there were about 50 chairs set up, and there was barely an empty seat in the place, and none of my co-bloggers was there. Other than that, Dodo is perfectly correct. But only briefly:

Now the questions that need to be asked are: Did he get paid, and if so how much? Will he declare the money he received in his tax returns? How much did the sidekicks get? Will they declare those earnings and maybe other similar ones in their tax returns ? Or did he prostitute himself and his sidekicks for free?

Dear Dodo: I was, in fact, not compensated for that evening, other than having a couple of the other attendees buy me dinner and a beer. So I don't see how my tax return factors into this. Ah, but this is where Dodo crosses at least one boundary of civility:

Note to self: Get in touch with the Revenue Canada guys I used to know during the short term contract a couple of years ago. Always good to keep in touch with influential friends.

Good thinking, Dodo -- after all, what can possibly go wrong? I mean, other than a legal action based on encouraging Revenue Canada employees to violate at least one well-defined law related to taxpayer privacy. I'm sure your "friends" would be delighted to risk their jobs for the sake of your childish sense of vindictiveness. Make sure you let me know when you're done with that, and I'll have my lawyer ready with a subpoena with your name on it. Seriously. Amazingly, we're not done here, as Dodo continues:

Note to self: More investigation required to ferret out full profile of Ti-Guy to determine why the little weasel is such a sucker upper.

Curious, isn't it, how a member of the Blogging Tories seems to have no qualms about outing someone who chooses to remain anonymous. Why, I can remember the good old days when BTer "Neo Conservative" was behind a plot to out your humble scribe, and BT co-founder Stephen Taylor actually weighed in briefly:

Stephen Taylor said...

For anyone that believes that what Aaron did was somehow below par, just know that I support him in his decision. In a free society, people have the right to blog anonymously even if we disagree with them on the most fundamental of levels.

Yes, there really was a time when Stephen Taylor defended the notion of bloggy anonymity. Obviously, something's changed, given that members of his aggregator are now gleefully outing other bloggers they don't like, and explicitly encouraging employees of Revenue Canada to reveal the private financial details of other Canadian citizens. My, how times have changed.

The rest of Dodo's screed is astonishingly illiterate, and then there's this:

This is Part One of my investigation. I will soon be bringing you Part Two with some gripping graphics and quotes AND photographs. I am making a list and checking it twice. Stay tuned ...........

OK, I guess the rules of engagement have changed drastically, and BT co-founder Taylor has no interest in trying to preserve whatever little civility is left in the Canadian blogosphere, so here's what we're gonna do. I want to know about "Dodo", who you can see is "Maria S." All the good stuff -- full name, address, phone number, the works. It seems only fair.

And while we're at it, and this creepy and petulant behaviour on the part of Stephen Taylor's Blogging Tories seems to be standard operating procedure these days, I want to know all about "Neo Conservative" and "Raphael Alexander" as well. What the hell -- that seems only fair as well, wouldn't you say? Names, addresses, places of employment ... the whole ball of wax.

Obviously, turning the other cheek just isn't working, as much as I wished it had so, damn the torpedoes, let the outing jihad begin. And let's all remember -- I didn't start it.

DEEP AFTERTHOUGHTS: To be perfectly frank, I have no overwhelming urge to start an "outing" war. So, what's to be done here when one wishes only to blog in peace, and yet has one of Stephen Taylor's mouth-breathing horde publicly calling for employees of Revenue Canada to violate someone's privacy? Seriously, I'm open to suggestions, given that BT co-founder Taylor is a totally useless, unprincipled hack who I know condoned my outing not that long ago, so he's going to be of no use whatsoever in terms of putting a leash on these lunatics.

Thoughts?

AMUSINGLY, "Dodo" -- who, by God, is not going to put up with these vicious "attacks" -- is too much of a weaselly, spineless coward to have an unmoderated comments section. Yeah, those are the folks who are going to protect us from all the bad, brown Islamojihadifarianists -- the same folks who piss themselves in uncontrollable terror when someone writes a blog post about them. I feel safer already.

Bernie Farber: Man of a thousand whiny grievances.

Rabble tees off on Bernie and the Crets. Hard to believe that even Mark Steyn has a clue on this one.

OUCH. That's going to leave a mark.

Sandy Crux: Not quite getting the point.

Blogging Tory and Stephen Harper fluffer Sandy Crux can't quite figure out what the kids are all a-Twitter about:

Is Twitter a complete waste of time?

Maybe its because I am older and don’t have any time to waste.

I don't know, Sandy ... someone who has time to keep updating this steaming turd really has no right to be whining about being overly busy, know what I'm sayin'? Ah, but the monstrous stupidity is just beginning:

As before, at first it seems fun. You get the short tweet messages from people you know and respect.

Good, good ... so far, you seem to have the hang of this, Sandy. Uh oh ...

Then, however, people start “following” you who have nothing much to say apart from daily trivia.

EPIC FAIL! Oh, Christ, it just gets stupider ...

Similarly, you start to follow other people and your own messages leave much to be desired.

So Twitter is a bad idea because Sandy Crux is screamingly retarded and has nothing to say of any value. Got it. Can Sandy possibly get any dumber? You had to ask:

However, before you know it, you find you have to check your account a couple of times a day. Then, it becomes several times a day. And, it can take an hour or more just to read everyone’s tweet. But, out of the hundreds of such messages I read, not one was something I could write about here. Although I did get tweets about posts other bloggers had put up. But, I already check on those blogs everyday anyway!

Brilliant, Sandy! Because, given that someone else has a blog, why in God's name would you possibly want to follow them on Twitter? That's just weird! Fellow BTer Gerry Nicholls (the smartest blogger in all of bloggerdom -- just ask him) tries desperately to get Sandy to clue in:

It’s an acquired taste.

At first, I didn’t know what to make of Twitter.

Kind of let it go for awhile.

But now I find it an excellent resource for finding out what think tanks and individuals are up to.

It’s just a matter of following the right people or groups.

Sadly, Sandy still hasn't managed to distinguish between following and having followers:

Gerry — You must have to block an awful lot of potential “followers.” I was only new at it and had to spend a great deal of time doing that. But, I suppose a message about the release of a report, etc., would be helpful. Glad it has worked out for you.

Ah, but here's the entertainment value, back in Sandy's main post:

So, I decided to delete the account before I became too involved – first changing the user and e-mail to “sandyinontario” so that if ever I changed my mind (I won’t) I could use “cruxofthematter” again.

Oh, I don't think so, dear. Let the Canadian Idiotsphere outrage over "stealing" someone's online identity begin in 3 ... 2 ... 1 ...

You know it's coming.

And, curiously, he's never even MET Hunter.

The Times' Frank Rich takes his turn at slapping the bejeezus out of Sarah Palin and, buried in the midst of all that snark, we find this absolute nugget:

She is not just the party’s biggest star and most charismatic television performer; she is its only star and charismatic performer. Most important, she stands for a genuine movement: a dwindling white nonurban America that is aflame with grievances and awash in self-pity as the country hurtles into the 21st century and leaves it behind.

Could you possibly come up with a better description of Blogging Tory and adoring Sarah Palin groupie "Hunter" than "aflame with grievances and awash with self-pity?" Lord, but that's perfect, isn't it?

The Star's Kathy English: A thoroughly useful idiot.

The Star's public editor Kathy English makes a complete ass of herself:

'Gay' blog post was just not fair

It wasn't the "post" that was the issue, Kathy, it was merely a comment that Antonia added to that thread days later, so to describe it as a "post" shows either a withering stupidity or an astonishing duplicity. You're free to let us know which. But let's not stop there, as English really goes for the gilded turd with this passage:

Here's what Zerbisias wrote: "Yes Susan, imagine my surprise when I saw Bernie Farber identifying himself as queer by joining a pro-Israel gay rights group in the parade. Funny, because I had never seen him in the march before.

"Funny because I didn't know he was gay. Not that there's anything wrong with that."

Farber is not gay, as was made clear in several subsequent comments Zerbisias herself allowed to be posted on her blog. Those commenters praised the CJC head for being "gay positive."

Zerbisias knows Farber is not gay. She says she intended the post to be "ironic" and she expected he would know that.

Understandably, Farber doesn't accept that.

Yes, he does, Kathy -- I'll bet my nads on that. What Farber's done is to deliberately misunderstand Zerb's comment, in order to fabricate the outrage he needed to sucker you entirely. And it worked. It's sort of like the panty-yanking phony outrage of utter frauds like this, who deliberately misinterpreted what was said in order to foam and froth at the mouth while they knew full well that they were full of crap and were well aware that the offense was not even remotely close to being as offensive as they were painting it.

You know, Kathy -- the way Bernie Farber got cranked all out of proportion and PWNED you completely, after which you were only too happy to suck up to him and throw your own columnist under the bus when, actually, the proper response would have been something like, "Oh, give it a rest, Bernie ... man up and stop being such a hysterical, whiny pussy." Or something like that.

Sadly, though, Kathy, you were played for a sucker and you played your part beautifully. I'm guessing that, the next time Bernie Farber comes calling, it will be just that much easier to give him whatever he wants. I'm betting he's counting on it.

BONUS TRACK: Dave kicks Kathy's ass.

Obsession is in the eye of the beerholder.

Shorter deranged conservatives: "It's hilarious watching all those stupid lefties keep fixating on Sarah Palin. Now, let me tell you how much I adore Sarah Palin."

AFTERSNARK: Stuff you wish you'd written.

DEAR GOD: When even Peggy "Magic Dolphin Lady" Noonan gives you a public spanking, your conservative political career is pretty much toast.

BONUS SPANKING: Josh Marshall gets in his licks, too.

How's that Dick Cheney man-crush working out, Adam?

Into the wayback machine, Sherman:

One of the reasons I've always liked Dick Cheney is that he doesn't beat around the bush.

That would be this Dick Cheney:

Cheney Is Linked to Concealment of C.I.A. Project

The Central Intelligence Agency withheld information about a secret counterterrorism program from Congress for eight years on direct orders from former Vice President Dick Cheney, the agency’s director, Leon E. Panetta, has told the Senate and House intelligence committees, two people with direct knowledge of the matter said Saturday.

Adam would love to address this rather glaring discrepancy in his Cheney worship, as soon as he finds an appropriate bright, shiny object for you to look at.

Dear Dennis Kucinich:

I think I might love you.

Kisses,
LuLu

P.S. Is it just me or does anyone else feel an uncontrollable urge to smack that petulant snot, Dr. Gratzer? I don't think it's just me.

The important thing to remember, darlings ...

... is that the Left uses bad words and suffers from a terrible lack of civility.

The Right, on the other hand, is populated by sweet, gentle, courteous churchgoers who are open to all opinions and completely lacking in self-righteous, judgemental and/or objectionable behaviour.

No, really.

The burning stupid of Jabba the Roy.

Blogging Tory Jabba the Roy pushes himself away from the buffet long enough to hork up another hairball:

Here's what lefty Ruth Baider [sic] Ginsburg thinks. She believes in a eugenics program using abortion.

Frankly I had thought that at the time Roe was decided, there was concern about population growth and particularly growth in populations that we don’t want to have too many of,” said the Justice (emphasis added).
In other words, Ginsberg says abortion is a eugenics tool designed to weed out the undesirable and useless eaters, to specifically control the number of people the ruling elite “don’t want to have too many of,” i.e., the poor and specifically people of color. Very scary.

Really? Is that what she thinks? Uh, no.

Jabba the Roy: Still the biggest douche in the bag. I swear, someone must have to chew his food for him or he'd choke on it.

Krauthammer Derangement Syndrome?

As someone who has frequently used his psychiatric background to "diagnose" political opponents with mental problems, it's nice to see someone finally calling out screeching lunatic Charles Krauthammer for the deranged dingbat and worthless hack that he is.

BONUS TRACK: Media Matters takes it to Krauthammer as well.

Now THAT'S funny!

Heh. Indeed. I always suspected those morons share a single brain amongst the lot of them.

AFTERSNARK: It's truly entertaining that, after commenter "John Cross" writes of trying to comment at Mr. Currie's:

There is something funny going on at Jay’s site. It wasn’t letting me post either from work or from home. SO I started to play around and found that it was my name that was keeping me from posting. If I post using the name JC instead of John Cross, no problem.

Jay shrugs his shoulders and responds thusly:

On comments: poor John seems to have been consigned to comment purgatory for no reason that I can figure out. I am working on it and am happy to try to post whatever he writes.

It's odd how people just end up "consigned to comment purgatory" at Jay's place, for no apparent reason. It's like Jay is off mowing the lawn or something, and his blog takes it upon itself to simply start reorganizing itself while Jay isn't looking. No problem, though -- Jay is happy to "try" to post whatever John writes, but I'm guessing there's no guarantee of success, is that it, Jay?

Poor Jay. Someone really should take him aside someday and explain how those blog things work. Really, it's not all that hard.

The stupid! It burns!

How do people like this even remember to breathe without reminder notes?

It saves time when you can dismiss them almost immediately as idiots.

Blogging Tory "Right From the Prairies" gets all panty-moist over Stephen The Corpulent:

Harper Interview with Globe and Mail

I noticed the article on the interview, and instead skipped to the transcript of it. There's some interesting stuff here. It shows, in my estimation, Harper to be a smart man, careful with words ...

And that's pretty much where I stopped reading.

Tune in tomorrow when we see Blogging Tory Jabba the Roy get his John Baird Underoos in a bunch over Antonia Zerbisias' alleged eliminationism, only to ... oh, hell, here's a link. Go wild.

AFTERSNARK: Alison calls out The Star for their spineless capitulation to the CJC.

All Conservatives are rapists. Who knew?

Hmmmm ... what an interesting development. And using standard Blogging Tory logic, we can now conclude that a) because they've been charged, we can assume they're guilty, and b) if one is guilty, then we can obviously generalize that they're all guilty, therefore c) all Conservatives are horrible rapists who should be thrown into prison. Q.E.D.

That's the way it works, right?

Your perpetual Blogging Tory stupid.

The stupid. The smackdown. I could do this on pretty much a daily basis if I wanted to.

Oh, wait ...

Profiles in statesman-like behaviour.

"We will not start raising taxes and cutting programs. That's a very dumb policy and, to the extent, frankly, that the parliamentary budget officer suggested it, it's a dumb position," he said.

Shorter Big Daddy Stephen Harper: Omigod ... whatever.

Saturday Morning Cartoons.

Good morning, darlings – this one is just for Teh Boss.



And this one is just for me.

BT dumbassery -- part deux.

Stephen Taylor's long-ago dream of a thoughtful, educated, Canadian conservative punditry runs even more horrifically off the rails, as one checks in on Blogging Tory "General Brock," who proceeds to do to logic and history what Peter Stormare once did to Steve Buscemi in "Fargo":

Our friend over at Blazing Cat Fur has dug up another gem of leftist stupidity. The left’s answer to all of the questions regarding the threat of Islamic fundamentalism? Nope, doesn’t exist. It’s just some made up problem, most likely by those vile Conservatives. But you really should watch out for those Christian fundamentalists. Some actually committed the terrorist act of sending out a pro-life pamphlets [sic] one time.

That’s right, tens of thousands have died in the past decade from Islamic fundamentalists attacks, and the left is saying watch out for those Christians because they got a pamphlet.

Yeah, those Christian fundies and their pamphlets. And their posters. And their high-powered rifles and stuff.

It's the pamphlets I'm worried about.

Let the dumbassery begin.

Via TPM, we have actual, you know, video analysis:



Via Stephen Taylor, we have another Blogging Tory dumbshit.

Pretend you're surprised.

Wafergate! Canada's Littlest Racist mouths off.

Devout Catholic and shrieking, hate-filled bigot Kathy Shaidle gets all preachy about crackers:

I too have to object to the use of the word "cracker".

Mercifully, no one gives a fuck about what Kathy thinks, but it doesn't stop her from continuing to spew:

Unlike Protestants, Catholics believe that the communion Host is the actual Body of Christ. We're touchy about people pocketing the Host because believe it or not, there are weird people into Santeria and stuff who use them in pagan rituals.

Also, er, it's Jesus.

No, Kathy ... it's a cracker. But here's a suggestion.

If you actually want sane people to take your idiotic ritual seriously, why not have the "wafer" magically appear out of the air each time? That would be wicked cool -- the sudden appearance of the mystical biscuit in the fingers of the priest just before he places it in someone's mouth. It might even convince me to give this Catholicism thing a try.

But if wafers come, not out of thin air, but out of mixing flour and water, then baking at 350F for 20 minutes, then they're not magical representations of the body of Jesus Christ, ready to be transmogrified into His actual flesh. They're crackers.

Deal with it.

NOW THIS IS CURIOUS: What's up with gluten-free communion wafers?

For eight years, Robert Snow crossed himself as he approached his priest during communion instead of receiving the wafer he desperately wanted.

Snow, of Deerfield Beach, was diagnosed in 2001 with celiac disease, which prevents him from eating foods containing gluten, including communion wafers.

But Snow's church, St. Gregory's Episcopal in Boca Raton, recently began offering wheat-free communion wafers for people who cannot digest grains. And Snow says he finally feels part of the Mass.

So parishioners now have a choice of regular or gluten-free transubstantiation. How thoughtful of Jesus.

It's just a coincidence. I swear!

But every time I Google on a combination of "Blogging Tory" and "Holy screeching stupid," I end up here. Yes, that would be one Paul E. Marek of Saskatoon, taking the position that Sarah Palin's resignation speech made perfect sense, if by "perfect sense" you mean complete crap like, oh, this:

It's that our administration is so stymied and paralyzed because of a political game that has been chosen to be played by critics who have discovered loopholes in the ethics reform that I championed that allows them to continually, continually bombard the state with frivolous ethics-violation charges, with lawsuits, with these fishing expeditions. We win the lawsuits, we win the ethics charges, we win all that — but it comes at such great cost. The distraction, the waste of time and money, the public's time and money — it's insane to continue down this road. And Alaskans who have paid attention to what's going on, they understand that. (Read "How Sarah Palin Mastered Politics.")

Now, there's been some frustration with some in the media not fully reporting what's been going on, so this may come as a shock to some Alaskans. We have sat down with reporters, showed them proof of the frivolity, the wastefulness — you know, millions of dollars this is costing our state to fight frivolous charges. And countless, countless hours from my staff, our department of law, from me every single day just trying to set the record straight.

Oh, noez!!11!1! "Millions" of dollars in defending against ethics charges! How awful! Curiously, I'm guessing that the same people who are totally outraged about all that "wasted" taxpayer money never had a problem with the Bill Clinton investigation, which cost upwards of $70 million in public funds to investigate. Even more curiously, one wonders about the thought processes of all those right-wing "law and order" types who don't think law-breaking should be prosecuted because it will, you know, take time and cost money. What an odd and unexpected sentiment, don't you think?

Ah, but the real entertainment value kicks in when someone actually does some research and makes Mr. Marek look like the stultifyingly ignorant prat he is. Let's read along:

Gov. Sarah Palin, explaining her stunning resignation announcement, has repeatedly said attacks on her since she ran for vice president have cost state government "millions" of dollars.

"That huge waste that we have seen with the countless, countless hours that state staff is spending on these frivolous ethics violations and the millions of dollars that Alaskans are spending, that money not going to things that are very important, like troopers and roads and teachers and fish research," Palin said this week.

Yes, that's the claim she's making. So, Sarah, let's see some numbers. Oh:

Palin administration officials provided the Daily News with a breakdown of what it says are $1.9 million in costs.

Um ...OK ... it takes a bit of an imagination to describe the precise figure of $1.9 million as "millions of dollars" when it doesn't even reach the technical value of what would make it plural. But then the hilarity truly begins:

Most if it is a per-hour accounting of the time state employees, such as state attorneys, have spent working on public records requests, lawsuits, ethics complaints, and issues surrounding the Legislature's "Troopergate" investigation last summer of Palin.

"Is it a check that we wrote, no, but is it staff hours, yes," Sharon Leighow, spokeswoman for Palin, said of the expenses related to state employee work.

Those state employees would have been paid regardless.

Ha ha! Yes, you read that correctly. Not only is a good deal of that expenditure related to Sarah Palin's unethical behaviour, but all that alleged expense would have been paid to those state employees, anyway! State expense? What state expense? By all means, read the whole piece, but pay close attention to this nugget:

Anchorage activist Andree McLeod is suing in an attempt to obtain state e-mails sent to Palin's husband, Todd, who Palin critics have claimed is a "shadow governor." The e-mails have been withheld based on the claim of executive privilege, with the argument that Todd, while not a state employee, is an adviser to Palin. McLeod also filed a lawsuit meant to force the administration to abandon use of private e-mail accounts, like Yahoo messages, saying that can put state policy information off limits to public records requests.

"The high cost Palin keeps talking about is a function of Sarah Palin's refusal to secure, preserve and protect the state of Alaska's public records and (her circumvention of) state servers and public record laws," said McLeod, who said she offered to drop the suit over private accounts if Palin would ban them.

All of that would be describing this incident, where Palin was using non-governmental e-mail accounts (specifically, a Yahoo account) to conduct official government business with the clear intent of evading accountability and bypassing public record laws:

A hacker claiming affiliation with the group Anonymous has broken into GOP vice-presidential nominee Sarah Palin's Yahoo e-mail account, subsequently posting the account password to an online chat forum. Information from the hacked account, including screenshots of several individual e-mails, a pair of family photographs, Palin's contact list, and header information from her inbox, were posted on the site Wikileaks earlier Wednesday.

The break-in comes amid controversy over the Alaska governor's use of the Yahoo e-mail account for state business. Internal documents obtained by reporters allegedly show Palin staffers discussing the possibility of using unofficial channels, such as personal e-mail accounts, as a means of evading subpoenas and requests under the state's open records law targeting her official account.

Though criticism of Palin's use of the Yahoo account had largely focused on worries about transparency, Donald Mitchell, the attorney for an Alaska citizen-watchdog who had been seeking disclosure of the governor's e-mail records, also broached security concerns. "There's a reason the governor should be using her own official e-mail channels, because of security and encryption," Mitchell told The Washington Post, "She's running state business out of Yahoo?"

I could go on, of course, but I believe I've made my point. All of Palin's grief is entirely self-inflicted, and only truly, truly stupid people like Paul E. Marek of Saskatoon are going to man the battlements for an unethical, law-breaking twit like Palin and whine about how much it's costing to nail her sorry ass to the wall.

Pick me! Pick me!

Any guesses, boys and girls? I’m going with Lindsay Graham -- it's just something about his decided lack of chin.

Would it be too much to ask...

..for a government that spent some time, you know, actually governing?

Let's take the Department of Citizenship and Immigration. They're working on putting some new procedures in place to reduce the backlog of immigration and refugee applications. The resources are just too limited, the difficulties in assessing claims, are just too great. They just can't handle it.

Well, I sympathise. But here's a suggestion: how about CIC expend fewer resources monitoring the movements of private citizens' groups who oppose their current policies -- including the blogs of private citizens -- and actually do their job?

Or better yet, get the hell out of the way and let someone else -- someone competent -- actually run this country.

And this is when we juxtapose.

There's this:

Prime Minister Stephen Harper formally apologized to Michael Ignatieff on Friday for questioning the Liberal leader's commitment to crucial Canadian interests.

Harper, at the closing news conference at the G8 summit here, alleged that Ignatieff had suggested a new body to replace the G8 might be created that won't include Canada.

Harper, whose party has questioned his rival's commitment to Canada because Ignatieff lived three decades overseas, said Ignatieff should withdraw the remark.

"I think it's an irresponsible suggestion, and Mr. Ignatieff is supposed to be a Canadian."

But Harper quickly withdrew the remark after learning he had been misinformed by one of his media aides, Dimitri Soudas.

"During my press conference, I attacked Mr. Ignatieff for some things he had allegedly said about Canada and the G8," Harper said.

"I learned shortly after the press conference this was not a quotation of Mr. Ignatieff. I regret the error and I apologize to Mr. Ignatieff for this error."

Followed in the same article by this:

Harper, during a lengthy news conference at the conclusion of the three-day G8 summit, also denounced a report in a New Brunswick newspaper earlier this week saying he pocketed the Holy Communion host during the funeral at a Catholic church for former governor general Romeo LeBlanc.

"First of all, as a Christian I have never refused communion when offered to me. That's actually pretty important to me," he said.

"Somebody running an unsubstantiated story that I would stick communion bread in my pocket is really absurd and I think it's a real, frankly, a low point. This is a low moment in journalism, whoever is responsible for this. It's just a terrible story and a ridiculous story and not based on anything as near as I can tell."

Identifying the unintentional hilarity is left as an exercise for the reader.

Your regular Denyseitude.

Screeching dingbat and Canada's most prominent IDiot Denyse O'Leary gets positively moist over the latest piece of literary offal coming out of the Discovery Institute. Mercifully, we can also check in with someone who is not clinically insane who, while admitting he hasn't yet read the book, makes it clear he has a pretty good in a "pre-review" of what's coming down the sewer pipe.

Then there's Meyer's Discovery Institute colleague David Klinghoffer, who goes positively Jewish mystical over the book, and promptly gets his ass handed to him on a plate by his commenters.

It's truly impressive that these people don't just collapse into themselves in a massive black hole of stupid whenever they get together.

BONUS TRACK: Stephen Meyer shows up, albeit briefly and indirectly, in this wicked smackdown documented over at PZ's. That had to leave a mark.

Your Republican family values.

None dare call it "extortion". Countdown to Fox News describing Ensign as a "Democrat" in 3 ... 2 ... 1 ...

Awwwwwwwkward.

Blogging Tory Mike McGuire goes full-metal panty yanking over the MSM's utter indifference to dead American soldiers. Fortunately, Mike is all over ongoing Canadian military casualties like stink on cheese.

You had to see that coming.

P.S. Mikey seems to consider NewsBusters a reliable source of information. Sane people beg to differ.

Irony, oh where is thy Ezra?

Ezra Levant gets all morally upstandy and everything about someone else being "ethically challenged." That would be this Ezra Levant.

This can't possibly need a punchline.

Some days, I seriously need my anti-stupid shield.

Blogging Tory Paul E. Marek of Saskatoon gets his Ann on. That would be this Ann -- the one who firmly believes Sarah Palin is just crazy like a fox (even as Marek opens by describing Palin as "just a ditz and flash in the pan; and now washed up").

Perhaps Marek and Coulter should get together and get their stories straight. It would make mocking them so much easier.

Accountability! Boo-yah!

The funniest part of the scarce isotope clusterfuck:

Health Minister Leona Aglukkaq and Natural Resources Minister Lisa Raitt issued a joint statement saying they are disappointed the repairs will be delayed. They said the shutdown will result in a significant shortage of medical isotopes in Canada and around the world this summer.

“I have directed AECL to give paramount priority to bringing the Chalk River reactor back to service as quickly and safely as possible and will hold AECL accountable to that end,” Ms. Raitt said in the statement.

Yes, that would be Conservative MP Lisa Raitt, promising that, by God, she's going to be holding someone accountable.

I think I just wet myself.

Science!

Docking from Mato Atom on Vimeo.

Wafers, slow news days and lessons to be learned.

So there's the shrieking controversy:

The controversy revolves around whether Mr. Harper, a Protestant, ate the Communion wafer or pocketed it while attending the funeral of former governor-general Romeo Le-Blanc at a Catholic church in Memramcook, N. B., last week.

In a 40-second video clip, which is being played and replayed online, Mr. Harper seems to hesitate when a priest approaches him with the Communion wafer, but he then takes it in his hand, and it is unclear what happens next.

To which the proper response would be, um, who gives a shit? It's a freakin' cracker, something most of Canada's wingnuts are properly dismissing with, Jesus, slow news day or what?

So who made this such a big deal? Why, the Catholic Church:

"It's worse than a faux pas, it's a scandal from the Catholic point of view," Monsignor Brian Henneberry, vicar general and chancellor in the Diocese of Saint John, told the Telegraph-Journal...

"It's not a symbol of the body and blood of Christ, but is in fact the body and blood of Christ," said Neil MacCarthy, director of communications for the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Toronto. "The Communion wafer starts as a host and becomes the body of Christ. And that happens in the course of the sacrament we celebrate."

"We believe we are holding Jesus in our hands, so to put Jesus in your pocket or to put Jesus on the ground [is serious]. If it falls on the ground it has to be consumed. We never throw Jesus out," Mr. MacCarthy said.

OHMIGOD OHMIGOD OHMIGOD ... heresy!! Whether our Prime Minister -- the man charged to lead this nation -- ate a goddamned cracker (albeit one with magical and mystical properties). Yes, dear Lord, this is news!

But can we finally just roll our eyes, wave our hand and move on, and forget this idiocy? No, of course not:

At least one person at the service thought they saw the Prime Minister put the host in his pocket, although that cannot be verified by the video footage and is in fact rebutted by the Prime Minister's Office and by a testimonial from another political dignitary at the funeral...

The Speaker of the Senate of Canada, Noel A. Kinsella, even issued a statement refuting the claims the Prime Minister pocketed the holy wafer: "I would like to state that I personally witnessed Prime Minister Harper consume the host that was given to him by Archbishop Andre Richard. Sitting only a few seats behind him I had a full view of the proceedings and clearly saw the Prime Minister accept the host after Archbishop Richard offered it. The Prime Minister consumed it."

Yes, oh Jesus, let us drag out the eyewitnesses who will now testify regarding the cracker! And after all this, can it possibly get any more absurd? Of course it can:

Yesterday, a spokesman for the Mr. Harper said that "it's totally absurd" to think Prime Minister pocketed the wafer. "The priest offered the host to the Prime Minister, the Prime Minister accepted the host and he consumed it," said press secretary Dimitri Soudas.

Yes, that would be someone from the Prime Minister's Office, weighing in solemnly on whether the political leader of this country ... ate the cracker. At which point, we can finally summarize the lesson learned here:

All of these people are completely, totally, batshit crazy deranged and should be locked up. From the Church who takes the wafer idiocy that seriously, to the official representatives of the PMO who seem to think that it's a good investment of their time to respond to such inanities, all of these people are gibberingly mindless airheads who should be interned somewhere for their own safety, and the safety of the rest of us who should never have to listen to this kind of screeching stupidity ever again.

It's a cracker. Get over it. Get a life.

Stephen Harper: Hangin' with the homos.

Apparently, Stephen the Corpulent has a bit of a man-crush on the gay community. However, Stephen would like you to know that he is absolutely, positively, 100 per cent not gay!



Well, OK, he's a bottom. But he's a power bottom.

It's all about the gays, isn't it?

It starts with Stephen the Corpulent and a cracker. It continues at more length over here, but it's first commenter "Prairie Kid" who brings the crazy:

So you're a Catholic and you seem to think that some Catholics might remember this little incident at the polls?

Would these same Catholics be voting for the Liberal party in the next election then?

The same party that supports homosexuals, same-sex marriages and abortions? Is that the party you mean?

I can see the next CPoC attack ad now: "The Liberal Party of Canada: Supporting homosexuals."

Every so often, I dream of the notion of all right-wingers being forced to wear a blue badge that reads, "Yes, I'm an idiot." That would make life so much simpler.

AND THE BURNING STUPID BEGINS. It was, of course, only a matter of time before the Stephen Harper Fluffer Brigade (aka the "Blogging Tories") got all "Geez, making a big issue out of nothing, get a life." Let's start with one Rob Harvie, who casually waves away the controversy thusly:

Apparently the media has been running amock [sic] with the earth-shattering news that PM Harper may not have eaten the communion wafer given to him during Romeo Lablanc's funeral.

There are video's [sic] of the "incident" if you wish to watch it online.. I won't link it here, becuase, in my mind, it's all but irrelevant.

Except, Rob, the Catholic Church certainly doesn't think it's irrelevant. In fact, they're some kind of pissed, because they take their ridiculous rituals very seriously indeed. So what seems idiotic and inconsequential to non-Catholics is a major issue to the devout when it involves a magic cracker with mystical properties. Go figure.

On the other hand, Rob, it's amusing when the situation is exactly opposite, like, say, when the Catholic Church doesn't seem all that concerned about child sexual abuse, while those of us on the outside think it's kind of a big deal. I guess it's all a matter of perspective, eh, Rob?

BY THE WAY, need I really point out that, while Canada's wingnuts are blithely dismissing this as no big deal, if Michael Ignatieff had done the same, the hysterical shrieking and condemnation would have been off the scale. Because, with wingnuts, context is so important.

Wingnut welfare at the Post?

I'm sorry ... would that be our Stephen Taylor, expounding on the Tour de France? I'm just asking.

By the way, that's a blazingly stupid headline: "Armstrong now within seconds of leading Tour." He is not "within seconds" -- he is less than one second from taking the yellow jersey. But seeing as journalists aren't responsible for their headlines, I won't hold it against the writer.

The Stephen Harper Party of Canada: Standing up for Canadians white people everywhere.

Gosh ... imagine my surprise. I blame the Liberals.

Credit where credit is due.

Blogging Tory Russ Campbell writes something eminently reasonable. I'm guessing the BT shunning will start any minute now.

Boom.

That sound you hear is Bill O'Reilly's head exploding. That would be this Bill O'Reilly:

[The sexual harassment suit] also quotes O'Reilly as threatening "any woman" who complained about his advances, and as suggesting that Fox News chief Roger Ailes would "go after" enemies of the channel.

"Look at Al Franken -- one day he's going to get a knock on his door and life as he's known it will change forever," the suit quotes O'Reilly as saying.

In unrelated news, we on the Left are terrible, terrible people. But you knew that.

OK, that's just weird.

Over at Blogging Tory blog "Celestial Junk," one Paul E. Marek of Saskatoon blogs, well, I can't figure this one out. As I read it, Mr. Marek blatantly steals someone else's work to demonstrate ... what? That Hillary Clinton was attacked ruthlessly and misogynistically while on the campaign trail. Over and over again. Repeatedly.

Marek's point is not at all clear, since it seems to undercut all those whiners who are bitching about the "misogynistic" attacks on Sarah Palin, despite the fact that Sarah Palin really is a duplicitious, unethical, cowardly cretin and misogyny has nothing to do with it. So what's Marek's point? Am I missing something here? Or is Marek just so stupid that he has no idea he's made our argument for us?

WOW ... in case there was any doubt about Mr. Marek's mental instability, you need to read this. Obama Derangement Syndrome much, Paul?

The lies of Sarah Palin.

An emailer points me at this. Yo, Hunter! How's that panty-moistening Palin worship of yours these days?

Don't Fly United

Some of my best friends are coons, OK?

Young Republicans are all about the LOL "coon" jokes. I'm guessing dead abortion provider jokes have been sucked dry by now.

(Wag of the tail to emailer DB.)

Apparently, you should quit your whining about that mean old media.

Sarah says so:



I think my irony-meter just melted down.

Oh la la ...

Isn’t this interesting?

Big Daddy Stephen Harper, boys and girls – making Canada safe for moral, upstanding, Bible-thumping, mouthbreathing, God-bothering Canadians one icky issue at a time.

Harper's Big, Stinking Memory Hole

Surprised at various Blogging Tories' willingness to delete comments and even entire posts that annoyingly conflict with the talking point du jour?

Don't be. They've learned from the best.

"Hunteritis" -- it's contagious.

Blogging Tory "Dodo Can Spell" takes comfort in her own rainbow-flavoured delusions:



What's funnier is Dodo's idea of a welcome mat at the top of her blog:

This blog belongs to a Conservative woman who believes in total freedom of speech. If you cannot bear to hear it, buy a set of ear plugs and stop whining. Also, I happen to hate anti-semites and anti-gay idiots. If you are not in sync with my mind-set, please keep away from this blog, and I "Thank you" for not polluting it with your presence.

Dodo would like to thank you for stopping by. Now piss off.

Stephen Taylor ... so proud ... you know the rest by now.

Your daily Blogging Tory dumbassitude.

Blogging Tory "General Brock" wants to alert you to some disturbing new developments:

Obama’s government classifies pro-lifers, veterans and immigration critics as terrorists

Really, GB? All of them? Every single one? Without exception? Let's continue, where we let GB hang himself by his own nads:

An amendment moving through Congress will allow the Attorney General to use their discretion in classifying individuals as terrorists. This will allow the government to have much broader powers in who it declares a terrorist. Particularly disturbing is that a recently declassified Homeland Security document singles out so called ‘right wing extremists’ as potential terrorists.

Hmmmmm ... that's not quite as spectacularly emotional as the title would suggest, the suggestion that the aforementioned amendment would allow for terrorist classification. Methinks GB is embellishing his pearl clutching ever so slightly. But let's get to where GB starts quoting from the document in question (all emphasis tail-waggingly added):

“The possible passage of new restrictions on firearms and the return of military veterans facing significant challenges reintegrating into their communities could lead to the potential emergence of terrorist groups or lone wolf extremists capable of carrying out violent attacks.”

“It may include groups and individuals that are dedicated to a single issue, such as opposition to abortion or immigration.”

Wow, GB ... that's some kind of wide-sweeping generalization, followed up by some incredibly careful speculative qualification and specific theorizing. And it's not like any of that sort of shit is even remotely possibly, is it, GB?

Finally, I will refrain from pointing out that this issue is almost three months old, which only proves that, yes, the Blogging Tories really do think as slowly as you suspected.

BY THE WAY, there's a fascinating right-wing cognitive dissonance happening here. Conservatives typically have no problem whatsoever with extra scrutiny of those swarthy, turbaned folks since, let's face it, it's the radical Muslims that are the dangerous ones and what in God's name is wrong with paying more attention to the more dangerous demographics?!?! What indeed?

These are, of course, the same wanks who promptly howl with outrage when someone in authority suggests that, if you're going to concentrate your limited anti-terrorist law enforcement officials, you might as well focus them on those folks who are the ones committing the actual crimes. You know -- the whackjob Right. That, however, is apparently totally unfair political profiling because ... well ... oh, just shut up, OK?

Your daily Sawahtude.

Who knew that Blogging Tory "Hunter" was a bald black guy? Go figure.

Apparently, forgiveness is context-dependent.

Over at Denyse O'Leary's other House of Screaming Dumbth, someone finally gets a word in edgewise:

95

djmullen

07/06/2009

1:55 am

O’Leary, what’s your explanation for this?

http://www.girlontheright.com/.....-days.html

A bit later, someone else clues in that all is not well in Idiotville:

106

herb

07/06/2009

11:15 am

djmullen,

O’Leary, what’s your explanation for this?

http://www.girlontheright.com/.....-days.html

That is pretty disturbing:

As opposed to the other 364 days

When the Natives do absolutely nothing except smoke, drink and **** their daughters. This Friday will mark the Native Day of Action(tm) here in Canada. It’s their chance to whine and complain that us white guys who pay 45% in income tax to support their smoking, drinking and daughter-****ing are ripping them off...

Others start to see the problem:

113

blurt

07/06/2009

5:38 pm

And then maybe O’Leary can apologize to us and retract her linking to a racist website. You’d think a group endorsing the Haeckel to Hitler argument would be a safe place.

But Christians are nothing if not forgiving:

The fact that a professed Christian, who calls herself “Girl on the Right,” displays behavior at odds with her faith, in no way lessens the value of her faith. It simply means that this individual should conform her life to her faith.

Damned straight. It's not as if Wendy Sullivan is a horrible, offensive, lying, racist shrew; it's just that she needs to suck it up and read her Bible a bit more and everything's cool, and we can all get back to slagging all the other people who truly deserve it. You know -- the ones who aren't Christians, for which forgiveness will not be so easily dispensed.

P.S. Hilariously, back in comment 106, "herb" wants to shift the blame in a predictable way:

OTOH, I’m starting to wonder if Girlontheright isn’t a cryptoDarwinist herself ... which would explain the racism in that post...

But of course -- Wendy Sullivan is a horrible racist because she's a Darwinist. It all makes perfect sense. Because no true Christian would be that vile a human being. (Insert obligatory reference to Scotsmen here.)

HMMMMMMM ... not sure what this is supposed to mean:

I did a little more checking on the Girl on the Right blog, and I am relieved to find that she is indeed a Christian.

I have no idea what that means, but it sounds creepy.

The douchebaggery of arguing in bad faith.

Over at "Liberal Arts and Minds," KNB exposes the Conservative weaselitude:

Do you ever read Letters to the Editor? I will often browse through them, particularly to see what the general public is feeling, especially if there are large issues of the day playing out in the media...

In other words, Kyle, someone who is on the payroll for the Conservative Party of Canada, is sending a letter to discredit a member of parliament and worse, he fails to tell us who he is.

Is this the end of the world? Of course not, but, it's indicative of how the party works and pushes it's talking points. You'll note in the letter that Kyle basically spews the party line on the issue.

Kyle [Simunovic] is entitled to his opinion, but we're entitled to know who he is and how the governing party is pushing it's message under false pretenses.

Read the whole thing, of course, but that's not what I find most amusing. No, what's amusing is commenter "wilson," immediately launching into a bad faith argument:

wilson said: ...

Freedom of speak [sic], even for Conservatives, is our right as Canadian citizens.

Ah, but wilson, my adorable little anal cyst, no one was denying Mr. Simunovic his right to free speech. No one at all. What people were miffed at was the lack of what we call "disclosure" -- the identification of a clear political conflict of interest, something the general readership has every right to know.

That disclosure was the obvious issue here means nothing to wilson, whose rancid dishonesty inspires him to turn this into a free speech issue when he knows damned well that's not what this is about -- it's what we here at CC HQ refer to as "going Twatsy." Such is the festering dishonesty of today's Cons -- something we're sadly all used to by now.

P.S. One might give wilson the benefit of the doubt and just accept that he's criminally stupid and truly doesn't understand the point being made. That would also be considered "going Twatsy (version 2.0)". It's kind of a catch-all diagnosis for truly stupid and useless people.

Yeah, Chuck, that's a good point.

The Angry, Angry ... Left?

So ... you were saying something about the civility of discourse these days? I am so ready to be judged.

The martyritude of the Sarah.

Shorter Idiotsphere: "As adoring disciples of Sarah Palin who have yammered on and on and relentlessly and tediously on about her devotion to her Down Syndrome child, and how this clearly shows her breathtaking morality and stunning compassion and outright superiority as a human being, we think it's incredibly tacky when other people want to drag her family members into this dustup and make them part of the story. That's just wrong."

Little Wing

Here's a gorgeous rendition of the Hendrix classic performed on acoustic stick.