Not "funny ha ha" so much as "funny ... yeesh."

Does anyone else find this just a little bit creepy? That is, creepy in that "Sweetie, your uncle hugs you for that long just because he loves you" kind of way?

Ironically, you can't spell "theological" without "logic."

And when you need another eye-rolling dose of Scripture-inspired wingnuttery, well, you know just where to go:

Judge Says Ten Commandments Can Stay

A Ten Commandments monument that has stood on the courthouse lawn for almost 50 years does not promote religion and can remain in place, a federal judge ruled.

U.S. District Judge James Carr said Tuesday that the monument can stay because the motives for placing it outside the Lucas County courthouse were secular and not an endorsement of a specific belief.

The American Civil Liberties Union of Ohio sued Lucas County in 2002 to have the display removed, saying it was unconstitutional and promoted religion.

To recap, then, leaving a Ten Commandments monument where it is is eminently reasonable since such a monument in no way promotes a particular religious belief. On the other hand, suggesting that such a monument be removed from the public arena is, of course, a disgusting, appalling and sickening attack on Christianity by immoral, Godless atheists.

Coming soon: how biological evolution has a scientific obligation to prove every single stage of evolutionary development over all of planetary history down to the smallest detail while, on the other hand, God simply works in mysterious ways.

AWWWWWW, THAT'S SO CUTE: Poor Jinx apparently doesn't like folks linking to him and pointing out his overwhelming wingnuttery, so he subtlely changed the URL of that piece to cause my original link to fail. No worries -- it's been fixed. Go. Enjoy the wankery.

About that Iraqi democracy thing ...

Hey, kids, you all remember how exciting it was when democracy was a-flowering in Iraq, and purple-stained fingers were everywhere and those people were having honest-to-God elections so that the government would reflect the will of the people and all that?

Well, apparently, actual democracy is overrated.

The lunatics are now running the asylum.

I was going to blog on this but, what the hell, I don't think I could improve on this.

UPDATE: When I first read Alison's title "When the thing arises ...", I swear this is what immediately came to mind.

Dear aboriginals: You've come a long way, baby.

The history of Canada's treatment of aboriginal Inuit has some pretty shameful episodes:

Simeonie Amagoalik's anger still burns more than 50 years after he and his family were taken from their homes and dumped on a frozen beach in the wastes of Canada's High Arctic...

In August 1953, federal officials took 34 Inuit from Port Harrison (now known as Inukjuak) in Hudson Bay and put them on a boat north. One month and 1,390 miles later, the group was split in two and deposited on two remote islands.

The Inuit found it hard to survive in an unfamiliar, freezing world with few of the foods they were used to and no schools, stores or churches. As years went by, the anguish caused by the relocation triggered major social problems.

Lucky for Canada's aboriginals, things are so much better today. I'm betting they can all sit around and laugh about it now, right?

Open thread.

Busy day today. Talk amongst yourselves. At least those of you who haven't been banned from this site.

The stomach-churning hypocrisy of the Right.

I'm not sure how many of you noticed this from the previous post, but there's a delightful bit of typical stupidity from Protein Wisdom's Jeff Goldstein in the following snippets (emphasis added):

... the reprinting of a press release (which last I checked was INTENDED to be disseminated, and was in fact, as of yesterday, still available in its entirety on a number of leftwing sites) ...

... this crusade to try to intimidate [Malkin] and her family—a crusade being waged by mostly anonymous cowards who no person in the blogosphere, left OR right, should encourage or countenance—is both disgraceful and, in the long run, dangerous...

... [To a commenter] Go ahead and stay anonymous, by the way. It suits you.

Did you catch that? See, those anti-war protestors are fair game for unlimited abuse and harassment because they made their contact information publicly available so they deserve whatever they get. Malkin, on the other hand, apparently prefers to remain as anonymous as possible so it's disgusting that people would go to the trouble to track down her private contact information since, after all, she should be protected from that as she obviously wants to remain anonymous.

So, anonymity should be respected, unless of course you're an anonymous commenter on Jeff's site, at which point you're suddenly some kind of gutless coward who is promptly banned.

In short, right-wing anonymity: a personal choice that should be respected. Left-wing anonymity: the mark of a coward.

Are we clear on that now?

The origin of blog names.

For those of you who are fans of the blog Canadian Cerberus, well, this explains a whole lot, doesn't it?

(Click image to enlarge.)

Our own Karl Rove? Aw, you shouldn't have.

This should give you a whole new shot of confidence in the openness and accountability and transparency of our new CPC government:

According to Philippe Gervais, a former Conservative co-worker, he's the Canadian version of Karl Rove, the Bush administration's key strategist.

According to another Conservative insider, his influence is comparable to that of Eddie Goldenberg's in the Chrétien government.

Whatever the comparison, one thing is clear. Patrick Muttart, a 33-year-old brainiac from Woodstock, Ont., who became a Reform Party enthusiast in his teens, is emerging as the power behind Stephen Harper's ever-widening throne.

Well, isn't that just delightful? Our very own Karl Rove. All we need to complete the picture is an evasive, dishonest, weaselly little fuck to act as Harper's press secretary and we're all set.

I hear Scott McClellan's available.

Unintentional humour, I'm sure.

Ooooooo ... someone got themselves a pair of rose-coloured glasses for their birthday:

Scott McClellan announced that he is stepping down from his position of White House Press Secretary today. "It has been an extraordinary honor and privilege to serve you for more than seven years now," McClellan said, choking up a little. "I have given it my all sir and I have given you my all sir, and I will continue to do so as we transition to a new press secretary."

In addition to McClellan's announcement, Karl Rove will also be moving away from his policy duties to concentrate on the fall midterm elections in Congress. Recent polls have suggested that the GOP could face losses in both the House of Representatives and in the Senate. The downturn in support for the GOP is thought to be linked to the Iraq War, rising deficits, and appearance of corruption. Nevertheless, the economy is booming, employment at historic lows, and the stock market is robust.

Feel free to insert your own punchline here.

Oooooh, Jinx. Bad commenter. No biscuit.

I'm actually a bit surprised that uber-Christian dumbass Jason/"Jinx McHue", just now, left a comment replying to this recent post, in which he wrote ... well, actually, there's no point telling you what he wrote since, based on a Jinx-related policy I established some time ago, I deleted that comment immediately.

For those of you who have been here a while (Hi, Mom!), you already know that, while I'm fairly accommodating in allowing anyone and everyone to leave comments, I draw the line when people start to become annoying jerks. I don't delete comments just people disagree with me. I delete them when people refuse to play by the well-established rules of civilized dialogue and, particularly in Jason's case, if you keep making stupid claims and refuse to acknowledge their refutations before moving on to toss out even more dumb ideas on another topic.

In Jason's case, Jason likes to think of himself as an intimidating example of manly Christian scholarship. In truth, he was thoroughly incapable of responding to even the simplest questions regarding Scripture that were posed on this blog, by myself and others. Instead, he would airily dismiss all questions with an arm-waving, "Oh, you people just don't know anything about Christianity."

In the end, I got annoyed enough that I put a very simple question to Jason: Did he believe in the literal accuracy of the entire Bible, both Old and New Testaments? It's a simple question, and rates an equally simple "yes" or "no" answer, which is what I asked for. Not only that, but I made it abundantly clear to Jason that he was not welcome to leave any more comments here on any topic until he answered that question. Quite frankly, I was tired of chasing him around so it was time to put up or shut up.

Jason suddenly vanished and I hadn't heard from him until today, when he was apparently hoping I had forgotten that original restriction. Um, no. It's still there, Jason, and you don't get to say anything here until I get an answer, and that answer must be an unambigous single-word answer. Nothing else is acceptable, capische?

Jason will, of course, whine and blubber about how that mean old CC is "censoring" him and can't handle the pressure of intellectual banter. Hardly. Jason (and everyone else who's been following this) knows full well that, if he wants to regain commenting rights here, all I need is that one-word answer, that's all. Until that happens, Jason, feel free to go drop your steaming, Scriptural turds in someone else's sandbox.

Buh-bye.

AND HE JUST KEEPS COMMENTING. Just deleted yet another of Jason's comments, in which he (not surprisingly) accused me of deleting him because I'm just too much of a coward to take him on. Naturally, he avoided entirely the fact that all he has to do is answer the pending question, and he's back in.

Anyone want to bet he's telling all his friends this story while omitting that salient detail?

I (heart) Natalie Maines.

Too funny. (And, for no related reason whatsoever, this, too.)

They can dish it out, but they can't take it. Part deux.

Sure, it's all right when Michelle does it. But let's not get carried away, OK?

Plus ca change, etc etc ...

Um ... okay:

Today at the White House Easter Egg Roll, dozens of children “from the stricken Gulf Coast region serenaded First Lady Laura Bush with a song praising the beleaguered Federal Emergency Management Agency.” To the tune of “Hey Look Me Over,” the kids from Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama sang:

“Our country’s stood beside us
People have sent us aid.
Katrina could not stop us, our hopes will never fade.
Congress, Bush and FEMA
People across our land
Together have come to rebuild us and we join them hand-in-hand!

Hmmmmmm ... why does this sort of thing sound disturbingly familiar ... oh, right:

"During the music lessons we had to sing more Chinese than Tibetan songs. We were made to sing texts like 'Long live Communist China' or 'The teachers are good people and they are here to help us'. Most of the Tibetan students did not sing these songs in class and we would be punished by the teachers, even the Tibetan teachers. They hit us on our backs and heads with wooden sticks. When Deng Xiaopeng died, the teacher put his picture in front of the class and told us that we had to mourn the death of the great Deng Xiaopeng. We were told that we had to cry in class but, when most of us did not cry, the teacher hit us badly with a wooden stick."

Those who cannot remember the past ... oh, fuck it, you know the rest.

Dear Americans: About that Second Amendment ...

It's not like I'm encouraging this sort of thing, but:

"The strongest reason for the people to retain the right to keep and bear arms is, as a last resort, to protect themselves against tyranny in government." (Thomas Jefferson)

Going after Dick Cheney with a shotgun: It's not just a good idea, it's your constitutional right.

The utter hackery of Jinx McHue.

You might think that any blog post involving serial liar "Jinx McHue" would be pretty much a waste of time. You'd be wrong. Over here, our old buddy Jinx uses one of the sleazier rhetorical tactics from the wanker's bag of tricks, which I think is worth exposing for the wankery it is.

As you can read, the focus of PZ's post is how "Crazy-Assed Racist Bitch" Michelle Malkin is a total douchebag for subjecting anti-war protestors to the tender ministrations of her deranged, homicidal groupies, to which Jinx replies:

And the left never, EVER sends people death threats. Nope.

Now, note carefully what just happened here. PZ never claimed that those on the Left would never, ever do something like this. He never even addressed that point. He (quite correctly) pointed out that what Malkin did was grotesque and vile, as he had every right to do. So, in response, Jinx is saying ... what exactly?

Well, if you read carefully, Jinx is not technically claiming that those on the Left have uttered similar threats, is he? He didn't actually take that position, did he? Rather, he replied with a sarcastic comeback in which he is implying such a thing without actually coming right out and saying it which is, if you think about it, a clever bit of evasion.

In doing what he did, Jinx never actually made a claim that he has to substantiate. Rather, he constructed a strawman, suggesting that what he wrote is the position of his critics, thereby throwing them on the defensive. It's a delightful bit of rhetorical sleaziness -- by phrasing his comment this way, Jinx removes from himself the obligation of actually doing any research to find examples of what he implies, and further implies that it's his critics' job to disprove his position. The position that, as I already pointed out, he never really took.

It's a clever little misrepresentation and, sadly, too many people get suckered by it and start to do Jinx's homework for him. Bad move. The proper response to someone who is as much of a dodgy, little weasel as Jinx is to say, "What's your point? Make your claim, then put or shut up." Jinx and his ideologically-similar wanker colleagues don't deserve any more of a reply than that.

Angry, angry, angry.

Sometimes, I seriously wonder whether it's worth allowing comments when this is the kind of meaningless vacuity that's left for me. People like Kate McMillan and Michelle Malkin invade peoples' privacy and (in Malkin's case) post their personal information on the net, knowing what's going to happen and, in response, I get the paste-eating twins, writing stuff like "Michelle Malkin and Kate both do a good job."

I'm sorry ... is that what passes for intellectual discourse in the wankersphere these days? In any event, PZ encapsulates this whole disgusting attack job by Malkin here (where, hilariously, Jinx McHue continues to comment as irrelevantly as ever with nothing to back up his claims).

But never forget -- we on the Left here are angry. David says so.

Another CPC broken promise. Oh, yawn.

Oh, look ... another broken promise by Stephen Harper (emphasis added):

Harper changes tune on appointments

Prime Minister Stephen Harper is choosing which Conservative MPs will become chairs of Commons committees, reversing a parliamentary reform that he championed while leader of the Official Opposition.

Opposition members are concerned that the role of MPs will be significantly weakened as a result, because the chairpersons' loyalties will be to the Prime Minister rather than the MPs on the committees, who may at times wish to publish reports critical of government policy.

Well ... all right, but is this really that big a deal? I mean, how bad could this be? Oh, Jesus ...

The new selection process is expected to be used next week, according to Saskatoon-Wanuskewin Conservative MP Maurice Vellacott, who issued a press release titled "Vellacott accepts Prime Minister's Nomination as Committee Chair."

Mr. Vellacott is one of the more controversial MPs in the Conservative caucus, an evangelical pastor who frequently issues anti-abortion press releases.

Mr. Vellacott told The Globe and Mail he has been told he is the Prime Minister's choice to chair the Commons aboriginal affairs committee and is therefore unlikely to be challenged when chairs are selected next week.

You aboriginals are so fucked. And as for Harper's consistency on this topic:

Mr. Harper was a vocal critic of appointing chairs when he was leader of the Official Opposition. In 2002, he co-wrote a letter to The Globe with Chuck Strahl, now the Minister of Agriculture, accusing the Liberals of "posturing" on parliamentary reform.

"Standing committees of the House should not simply be extensions of the Prime Minister's Office, and members of Parliament should choose their committee chairs by secret ballot and set their own agenda, free from the Whip's direction," Mr. Harper and Mr. Strahl wrote.

All right, at this point, I've pretty much given up on that "openness, accountability and transparency" stuff. Now I just want them to stop being such pathological, lying douchebags.

Am I still setting my sights too high?

BONUS TRACK AND CC CHALLENGE: Sadly, Canada's aboriginals might be familiar with some of Maurice Vellacott's recent work:

Maurice Vellacott drew fire in 2004 for defending two Saskatoon police officers convicted of leaving a drunken aboriginal man on the outskirts of town on a -25 winter evening.

Sure ... taking a man who had no problem with leaving an aboriginal man to freeze to death in the middle of winter and making him the chair of the Commons committee on aboriginal affairs. What can possibly go wrong?

Along those lines, I'm asking my readers to consider the upcoming Commons committee chair positions and submit their choices for who they would consider the most inappropriate, hideously-unqualified people that could possibly be given those positions by PM Stephen Harper.

It might be hard to top evangelical, anti-abortion, aboriginal-hater Vellacott's choice to be in charge of aboriginals but give it your best shot. And, remember, given this government, no submission might be too horrifying or unthinkable that it might not actually come to pass.

The lines are open.

Leaving a trail of stupidity wherever he goes ...

Only my long-time, long-suffering readers will appreciate this (emphasis added):

... There are a few people, though, who really don't add any value to the site, even though they haven't done anything (yet) to warrant banning them. A reader sent me this script many of you might find useful: it requires Firefox and the greasemonkey plugin, and what it does is chop comments by certain people out of the page, so you don't have to see them, or even see comments by people that refer to them. Cool—a www killfile!

If you're interested, click here to download it. It's currently set to kill comments by "JMcH" ...

"JMcH"? HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! Oh, Lord ...

They can dish it out, but they can't take it.

A short followup to this bit of insanity, where America's Crazy-Assed Racist Bitch has no qualms publishing the phone numbers of people whose lives she wants to make miserable and perhaps even put in jeopardy.

Apparently, for those protestors, it's tough shit. They're responsible for their actions, so they can grow up and deal with it and quit their whining. Of course, things are ever so different when one is on the receiving end.

Once upon a time, I wrote this about Canada's own Crazy-Assed Racist Redneck:

... a quick note to all those radical, dark-skinned terrorists: this woman really doesn't like Muslims. Not at all. Not even a little bit. In fact, she thinks Gitmo is a real hoot.

It's not like I'm suggesting you do anything about it. But if you really are checking out my blog on a regular basis, well, she's not hard to find.

Now, if I recall correctly, Kate was the one who publicly published Belinda Stronach's cell phone number, so it's not like Kate is any stranger to the concept of harassment or anything. But, oh my, it's no fun to be on the receiving end, as Kate whines:

An observation, Angry - when Warren Kinsella publiclly endorses an anonymous left wing blogger [That would be me -- CC] who has published a link to my contact info and home address in a post that states I "don't like Muslims", and then counsels others to do me harm, the notion of Canadian medua pundits using their precious time to criticize Charles Johnson and Kathy Shaidle is pretty rich.

Oh. Dear. Well, gee willikers, Kate, if you're so put out by the idea of having one's personal contact info splashed all over the Internets like that, I can't wait to read your outraged condemnation of Michelle Malkin. Really. Can't wait. Should be any minute now, right?

Yessir, any minute now ...