Local boy makes good -- creationism still stupid as hell.

What is it with attorneys and being abysmally stupid about basic science?

Dear Steve:

One: No one seriously believes that you fear for your children because of Robert McClelland. Really. No one. Not even your closest and most dimwitted friends actually believe that, and you're only making a total ass of yourself with that claim.

Two: It's "McClelland," not "McLelland." If you're going to start a personal vendetta against someone, at least have the fucking grace to spell their name correctly. It's not hard. And you wouldn't look like so much of a complete prat.

Well, OK, you would but, still, there's no substitute for good spelling.

SNARK AT NO EXTRA CHARGE: Amuse yourself with the opening of a recent comment in Steve's comments section, where Liz J., clearly taking aim at Robert McClelland, writes:

Anyone spewing that sort of venom is not in control of their senses, they are out of their mind.

Oh, please, Liz, can I quote you on that? Please, please, pretty please? Not in that context, of course, but you knew that, right?

Apparently, "reality" is an ugly word.

The opening sentence:

Liberals think that Fox News Channel isn’t fair and balanced because FNC doesn’t only tell the liberal angle to stories.

Seriously, do you really need to read any further?

You might want to put down those Cheeto-Os first, dude.

Tipped off by James Wolcott, we have the NRO's John Podhoretz, happily hurling spitballs from the safety of his keyboard.

That would, of course, be this John Podhoretz:

who, I'm guessing, is not about to inspire fear in the French defense anytime soon.

Dear wanks: How 'bout you explain that softwood lumber deal to me?

Having perused a number of howlingly illogical and inconsistent posts over at the Blogging Tories regarding the recent softwood lumber "deal," I have a simple question or two for any Canadian wankers who want to take a shot at them. And, yes, I will use small words to make sure no one feels excluded.

First, based on what I've read at some sites, in what way is this an "excellent" deal? As it stands, the U.S. collected some $5 billion in (illegal, according to NAFTA) duties on said lumber, and now they're agreeing to return $4 billion of it. Ignoring entirely the issue of whether we're entitled to additional interest on that money, and ignoring entirely the other appalling aspects of the "deal," in what way does allowing the U.S. to keep a cool billion constitute a win for our side?

By way of analogy, imagine that someone stole one hundred dollars of yours and got caught, and you were told that the culprit was going to make amends by returning eighty of those dollars. I'm guessing you'd be justifiably pissed. That was your money -- all of it. So the thought of getting back only some of it probably wouldn't sit well with you. And yet, here some of you are, making precisely that argument in defending the notion that the U. S. has the right to keep some of what they stole. How exactly does that work? How precisely does that represent an "excellent" deal for Canada? But we're not done.

Some wankers at least have the intellectual integrity to admit that it's not a terrific deal, it's just the best deal we could get. But note carefully that just being the best we could do by itself doesn't automatically make it a great deal. It's quite possible that Canada could have demanded the return of all $5 billion, to which the Bush administration might have responded that they were prepared to give us sweet fuck all and, if we didn't stop whining, they'd nuke Manitoba. That might have been the best deal we could get, and I'm sure we can all agree that it would have been less than optimal. In short, defending the deal as being as good as we were going to get does not in any way make it commendable -- it shows only that we are susceptible to extortion, which is not quite the same thing, as I'm sure you can appreciate.

And, finally, we have some mentally-challenged wanks who are now taking the position that, hey, at least we finally have a deal. I mean, the Liberals were flogging this baby for fucking years with no closure and the Cons stepped in and got the deal done in months, and doesn't that just show you what kind of shrewd businessman is Stevie Boy and his minions?

Looking at it another way, though, what it would appear to show is that the Liberals were adamant that the U. S. honour its obligations under NAFTA, while the Cons were more than happy to bend over and take it up the ass in order to give the Americans pretty much what they wanted. The fact that a deal was (allegedly) done says absolutely nothing about the merits of that deal for Canada. It's always possible to close a deal if you give away the farm, and the fact that the Cons did this so quickly seems to show little more than their talent for spineless capitulation.

So, wanks, here's your opportunity. I'd like to know how, in light of the above, this deal is a good thing for Canada. You might think it represents a fine example of diplomacy and negotiation. I, on the other hand, think it simply shows that our governing party has no problem being the victims of strong-armed extortion and is willing to sell out its own citizens so that "Steve" can hang out with Commander Codpiece down in Crawford occasionally.

Your thoughts, if you will.

Your daily pearl.

The other world of Baghdad's Green Zone.

Is it any wonder that the "Coalition" forces seem detached from the reality of the rest of Iraq?

All the people in the Green Zone have their bodyguards," one Baghdad man told RFE/RL recently. "It all belongs to the U.S. Army and the [Iraqi] National Guard. We Iraqis remain here; it is just explosions and no security in the streets. They are provided with electricity and water, provided with everything. The Green Zone is protected from all sides. They protect themselves, but no one protects us, the Iraqis.”...

Today, the most noticeable feature of the Green Zone is construction cranes – a rarity in the rest of the city. The cranes are building a new U.S. Embassy complex that will ultimately comprise 21 buildings on riverside parkland...

“Streets are clean there," says another Baghdad man. "Electricity and water are available. Everything is available there; even prices are different there than here. All the streets there are clean, and you can feel as if you are not in Iraq. It is like outside Iraq.”

Well, that's kind of because it is outside of Iraq. It's now American soil, and those people don't give a crap about the rest of you, as long as they have their electricity and running water and Starbucks and McDonald's and all the rest of it.

Welcome to America. You can look, but you can't touch.

The difference between left and right.

So here's how it works. When an unknown, inconsequential "leftie" that no one has ever heard of makes appalling comments regarding threats to one's physical safety and well-being on another's blog, the proper response is, of course, to condemn her savagely and tar the entire left-wing blogosphere by association.

On the other hand, when a well-known, world-famous and revered right-wing author and pundit makes a career out of publicly promoting the mistreatment, if not outright murder, of the entire liberal community, the proper response is, of course, to promote her book on your web site.

I'm sure some of you saw that coming a mile away.

Freedom and democracy on the march, yessir.

Shorter Bush administration: "I think our job here is done."

You can't HANDLE the truth!

Shorter Joanne: "Watch how I turn infantile, thin-skinned whining into a virtue."

Apparently, we're doing this all wrong.

If I've told you once, I've told you a thousand times -- it's totally unhinged and deranged to subject someone's site to a Denial-of-Service attack. I mean, what part of "in front of his family with a high-powered rifle" do you just not get?

BONUS SNARK: Damian Penny weighs in with his own delightful brand of utter cluelessness:

In other words, conservatives should be killed because of their lack of civility? Where have I heard that before?

Gee, Damian, I have no idea. Maybe here:

"When contemplating college liberals, you really regret once again that John Walker is not getting the death penalty. We need to execute people like John Walker in order to physically intimidate liberals, by making them realize that they can be killed, too. Otherwise, they will turn out to be outright traitors."

No, no, Damian, don't thank me. It's just another service I offer.

Lies, damned lies and Blogging Tory headlines.

Apparently, we progressives are a thoroughly ungrateful lot (all emphasis added):

When is 90% Not Good Enough?

When it's support for a Conservative Government. According to David Emerson, the Canadian government was able to reach 90% support for it's recent agreement to resolve the softwood-lumber dispute.

Wow, I had no idea that 90% of Canadians were solidly behind the recent softwood lumber resolution and ... and ... um, hold on ... what's this?

Emerson noted that he and his staff have met with many interested parties throughout the negotiations and have "captured 90 per cent of the issues we need to confront." However, he acknowledged the deal requires more than 90 per cent support form the industry to go through, and said companies will have to make the decision that is best for them.

Ah. So that figure of "90%" doesn't actually represent the level of public support for the deal after all. Rather, it represents some arbitrary percentage of the issues that Industry Minister David Emerson claims to have achieved, without actually explaining them.

No matter. After all, Canada paid $5 billion in penalties on softwood lumber and is set to get $4 billion of that back, so at least that corresponds to ... let's see ... subtract four, carry the one and ... wait a minute ...

WHOOPS, THIS DOESN'T LOOK GOOD. Uh oh ... apparently, "90%" means whatever you want it to mean (emphasis added):

Trade Minister David Emerson, faced with mounting criticism of the new softwood lumber deal with the United States, says if the agreement falls apart it won't be his fault - and he wouldn't resign over it.

In an interview on Sunday, Emerson acknowledged he's been surprised by the strength of opposition to the deal...

The treaty has been slammed by the forestry industry in British Columbia and Quebec, as well as by B.C. Premier Gordon Campbell.

I'm guessing this is a fast-breaking development and that Mr. MacPhail will have an update any minute now. Yessir ... any minute now ...

Why I could never work in retail.

Proud to be hernetically sealed.

Shorter Joel Johannesen: "It's about time we got rid of all that left-wing, politically correct propaganda in history class, and if I had a single example of that, well, by God, you'd be the second one to know."

Generalize much?

Apparently, the entire right-wing blogosphere can now be held collectively accountable for the demented, pathologically-dishonest, genocidal ravings of Ann Coulter. TBogg says so.

Why do some Republicans hate America?

Oh, man ... it's going to be entertaining to watch the wingnuts twist themselves into pretzels over how to deal with this:

[House Intelligence Committee Chairman Peter Hoekstra (R-MI)] debunked the administration claim that Congress is always kept informed of intelligence programs. Hoekstra revealed that administration whistleblowers have brought to his attention secret programs that Congress should have told about previously, including “at least one significant activity that we had not been briefed on that we have now been briefed on.”

Wow. That sure sounds like he's revealing classified information, doesn't it? I'm sure someone around here has his home address and phone number.

And pictures. We'll need pictures, of course.

He seemed like such a nice man. Well, actually, no, he didn't.

From this piece by Glenn Greenwald, we learn the following (all emphasis added):

Furthering his justifications for publishing the home addresses of the Enemy de jour, ["Instapundit" Glenn] Reynolds added an Update to his original post and said this:

As usual, Glenn Greenwald is clueless . . . . why is your publishing of my email different, exactly, from the "thuggish" tactics you condemn? Grow up.

Reynolds is referring here to two posts I have written in the past regarding blatant falsehoods or hypocricies contained in posts of his which he refused to address, and I therefore encouraged readers to e-mail him asking him to respond. The reason I know his e-mail address is because he publishes it prominently on his blog. The last time I did this was to point out that Reynolds' post on the Virginia Democratic Senate primary contained multiple factual errors, and by encouraging readers to e-mail him, he was finally forced to respond, and did so by retracting two separate false statements he made in his posts.

So make sure you understand Instawanker's position: encouraging others to e-mail a publicly-available figure to ask simply for clarification is nothing more than the act of a thug and a bully. Hang on ... what's this?

Joel Johannesen says:
...
Also: I don’t answer for Barbara Kay —and she doesn’t spend her vacation time reading your comments at PTBC. So as I already suggested, write to her through the National Post in order to get the much needed answers to your inquiries.

I believe the appropriate expression here would be "friendly fire."

AMUSING AFTERSNARK: I am moderately amused by the sentiment recently expressed in comment 39 at that comments section:

Please black list CC, he is a moonbat.

Note well that my entire contribution to that comments section (indeed, my sum total of comments to that web site overall) was exactly two comments:

[7] Since I’ve apparently been blacklisted from this site without ever having posted a comment here previously, I’ll take a shot at posting a link to my response to this article using a tiny URL.

and

[24] And in all this excitement, I notice that neither Joel nor Barbara addressed the points made by myself and another commenter early on—that at least two of Kay’s quotes seem to be grossly distorted and misleading.

Anyone planning on dealing with that? Joel?

In short, based on a total of three sentences that contained absolutely no vulgarity, no profanity, no name-calling and which clearly and cogently set out my position, the recommendation is that I be barred from any further participation.

The word "whiny" doesn't even begin to do this justice, does it?

I'm warning you ... don't cross that line ... DOH!

Following a link from the invaluable liberal catnip, we have yet another high-level American military honcho who seems awkwardly unfamiliar with the definition of "war crimes:"

CALDWELL: I'm not sure how you'd want to define war crimes. I'll just tell you that those actions are absolutely unacceptable.

And what exactly does one mean by "unacceptable?" Oh, here we go:

Q Tony, one week ago the President said in the East Room that a missile launch, a test firing would be unacceptable.

MR. SNOW: It still is...

Q If I could follow, if the first test firing was unacceptable, what's the potential second test firing?

MR. SNOW: Well, look, we've had seven firings. They're all unacceptable, each and every one of them.

So that first rape and murder was unacceptable, and the second one will be just as unacceptable. And the five after that? OK, now we're really getting annoyed.

Electoral protest, with a splash of style.

Apparently, the latest Blogging Tory talking point is that, in protesting his alleged loss in the latest Mexican election, socialist candidate Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador is, of course, a childish, petulant sore loser. This, naturally, is completely different from the carefully choreographed, right-wing "Brooks Brothers Riot" of 2000.

I'm sure this guy would have approved.

What could possibly go wrong?

Apparently, the braintrusts over at Fox News think a pre-emptive military strike on North Korea would be just ducky. In response, chickenhawks everywhere rise up in a chorus of agreement, then quickly hunker back down behind their bunkers of empty Cheeto bags.

Well, THAT didn't last long, did it?

"The reality! It burns! IT BURNS!!"

(Stolen shamelessly from a recent commenter.)

P.S. Note how Wayne has removed Glenn Greenwald from his blogroll and instead added more Blogging Tory sites. Have fun in that echo chamber, Wayne. It suits you.

I'M indescribably devout. YOU'RE a total whack job.

This creeps me out in ways I can't even describe.

I think I see the flaw in your plan ...

I'm pretty sure this is not going to work out well in the long run:

A decade after the Pentagon declared a zero-tolerance policy for racist hate groups, recruiting shortfalls caused by the war in Iraq have allowed "large numbers of neo-Nazis and skinhead extremists" to infiltrate the military, according to a watchdog organization.

The Southern Poverty Law Center, which tracks racist and right-wing militia groups, estimated that the numbers could run into the thousands, citing interviews with Defense Department investigators and reports and postings on racist Web sites and magazines.

"We've got Aryan Nations graffiti in Baghdad," the group quoted a Defense Department investigator as saying in a report to be posted today on its Web site, www.splcenter.org. "That's a problem."

So ... recruiting hate-filled bigots, training them militarily, equipping them with some of the most kick-ass weapons ever invented and turning them loose on an entire society of swarthy foreigners who all talk kind of funny and haven't even had the fucking grace to accept Jesus Christ as their Lord and Saviour.

I don't see a problem here. Do you see a problem here?

"WE'RE ALL GONNA DIE OHMIGOD OHMIGOD OHMIGOD ...!!"

Um ... OK, maybe not:

But authorities said there was no evidence that the plotters had taken any actions, such as buying explosives or sending money. They cast doubt on the feasibility of initial reports, which first appeared in the New York Daily News, that terrorists sought to flood Lower Manhattan and the Financial District by bombing tunnels.

There were conflicting assessments among U.S. counterterrorism officials about the significance of the alleged plot.

Two U.S. counterterrorism officials, speaking on the condition that their names and agencies not be identified because the FBI is the government's lead agency, discounted the ability of the conspirators to carry out an attack.

One said the alleged plot was "not as far along" as described and was "more aspirational in nature." The other described the threat as "jihadi bravado," adding "somebody talks about tunnels, it lights people up," but that there was little activity to back up the talk.

The danger here, of course, is that all that jihadi bravado gets out of hand, someone goes a bit too far and, before you know it, they're all out in the parking lot, cock-slapping each other Jeff Goldstein-style.

Then things get really ugly.

The curb stomping of Ann Coulter.

Oh, man ... I've seen some sweet smackdowns of Ann Coulter's stupidity, but none of it compares to this savage and meticulous disemboweling. Enjoy.

P.S. I suspect that Ann's not going to get too uptight over that slapping, since it appears she has slightly larger problems to deal with at the moment.

Yesterday's treasonous leak is today's cork-popping celebration.

Once again, Glenn Greenwald asks just the right questions:

John Amato astutely asks an excellent question: why are all of the Bush supporters celebrating the unauthorized leak to the Daily News of the FBI's arrests of alleged terrorists who were talking in Internet chat rooms about blowing up the Holland Tunnel (later news reports indicated that the plot was really aimed at the PATH commuter train)?

One Bush follower after the next who has been furiously protesting the publication of leaks by the NYT and other newspapers -- almost all of whom has accused the NYT of treason, of providing aid and comfort to their Al Qaeda friends, etc. for reporting leaked classified information -- have written today about this leaked story. But all of them are ecstatic over this story, celebrating it as a great and heroic blow for the Bush administration and as proof that The Terrorists really are the Epic Threat they've been claiming. And almost none of them are protesting the unauthorized leak, let alone calling for the reporters and editors at the Daily News to be sent to gas chambers or put in federal prison for the rest of their lives.

And an update of Glenn's piece also gives props to Liberal Catnip.

Hey! Here's a thought!

What about diplomacy? We can try diplomacy:

President George W. Bush on Friday defended the U.S. approach to dealing with North Korea, saying diplomacy is slow and will take more time, and he sidestepped a question about using military force.

With these folks, I'm guessing that's what you call "thinking outside the box."

AFTERSNARK: Commenter Simon writes: "American foreign policy in a nutshell: attack enemies who can't fight back, talk to those who can."

In a nutshell, we have the "Ledeen doctrine." Sound vaguely familiar?

And isn't it ironic ... don't ya think?

And over at the Blogging Tories, we have an overwhelming, collective, smug satisfaction that the drunken dumbasses who used the National War Memorial as a urinal have been identified and are apologizing.

Now there's a novel idea -- when you're busted having done something unspeakably asinine, standing up, taking responsibility and doing that mea culpa, mea maxima culpa thing without reservation.

So when exactly do we start?

That would be Ahmed al-Curly and Osama bin Moe, right?

And, once again, the crack forces of U.S. law enforcement have foiled another dastardly plot by dark-skinned evildoers:

The FBI has uncovered what officials consider a serious plot by jihadists to bomb the Holland Tunnel in hopes of causing a torrent of water to deluge lower Manhattan, the Daily News has learned.

The terrorists sought to drown the Financial District as New Orleans was by Hurricane Katrina, sources said. They also wanted to attack subways and other tunnels...

The FBI discovered the plot by monitoring Internet chat rooms, where the aspiring terrorists discussed striking the U.S. economy, rather than causing mass casualties, a source said.

Because nothing says nefarious, super-secret, clandestine, black ops terrorism like Internet chat rooms, does it?

I GUESS THAT'S WHAT THEY MEAN BY "NICK OF TIME": Ah, the details start to trickle out (emphasis added):

"The plotting for this attack had matured to a point where it appeared that the individuals were about to move forward," Mershon said. "They were about to go to a phase where they would attempt to surveil targets, establish a regimen of attack and acquire the resources necessary to effectuate the attacks.

In short, "I object, your honor! This trial is a travesty. It's a travesty of a mockery of a sham of a mockery of a travesty of two mockeries of a sham." Or something like that.

"And with Google, there's HOURS of entertainment for the whole family ..."

Apparently, we've established my legacy as a blogger. Mom would be so proud.

But please not to call it "indoctrination."

Courtesy of commenter Noel M., we have the following gem:

Every new federal civil servant from coast to coast is being sent to Ottawa on a two-day, all-expenses paid trip to give them a "big picture" understanding of how government works.

Especially you climate change and global warming research folks. They definitely want to have a quiet chat with you.

OH, JESUS. As commenter Noel points out, Redneck and the Redneckettes are thoroughly peeved at this unconscionable, indefensible waste of taxpayer money and, given that this program has been, according to the Ottawa Citizen, in effect since May, why, then, it can only be the fault of (here it comes ... here it comes ... wait for it) the Liberals and the Bloc.

And, somewhere, logic and simple coherent thought lie bleeding in a ditch, wondering just who was that crazy broad on the Harley.

"What about 'Harpo?' 'Harpo' is a nice name."

So Prime Minister Stephen Harper calls President George Bush "Mr. President." And Bush calls Prime Minister Stephen Harper "Steve." Given that Bush's pet nickname for Karl Rove is "Turdblossom," I'm thinking he can come up with something equally dignified for Steverino.

Something incorporating the word "turd" would work just fine.

Traitors and quislings, the lot of them!

If you don't believe fervently in George Bush's economic recovery plan, well, you must just hate America. Hold on ...

According to Tom Blackburn of the Palm Beach Post, [Dick] Cheney has invested heavily in "a fund that specializes in short-term municipal bonds, a tax-exempt money market fund and an inflation protected securities fund. The first two hold up if interest rates rise with inflation. The third is protected against inflation."

Cheney has dumped another (estimated) $10 to $25 million in a European bond fund which tells us that he is counting on a steadily weakening dollar. So, while working class Americans are loosing ground to inflation and rising energy costs, Darth Cheney will be enhancing his wealth in "Old Europe". As Blackburn sagely notes, "Not all bad news' is bad for everybody."

I'm guessing that, when the U.S. economy finally implodes, dear old Dick is never going to have to choose between Whiskas and Li'l Friskies for dinner.

"Ethnic cleansing" is such an ugly phrase.

Bemused smackdown of the day:

Under questioning from presenter Jon Snow of Channel Four news on the reasons behind Israel's bombing of Gaza's only power station -- thereby cutting off electricity to more than half of the Strip's 1.3 million inhabitants for many months ahead, as well as threatening the water supply -- Zvi Ravner denied this action amounted to collective punishment of the civilian population.

Rather, he claimed, the electricity station had to be disabled to prevent the soldier's captors from having the light needed to smuggle him out of Gaza at night. It was left to a bemused Jon Snow to point out that smugglers usually prefer to do their work in the dark and that Israel's actions were more likely to assist his captors than disadvantage them.

The rest of the piece is also worth reading, although the humour quotient dwindles quickly after that.

ABOUT THOSE GENEVA CONVENTIONS ... It's interesting to note that the deliberate targeting and destruction of civilian infrastructure is explicitly forbidden under the Geneva Conventions. Hey, even the wanks over at NRO understand that:

So exactly how are Islamic terrorists faring on Geneva’s “Do unto others” scorecard?

Well, the treaty’s provisions call for protecting civilians and civilian infrastructure. Al Qaeda targets civilians for mass murder and intentionally destroys civilian infrastructure.

Whoops, sorry ... apparently, that article refers exclusively to Al Qaeda terrorists, and gives Israel a free pass. My mistake. Sorry to disturb you. Carry on.

Positions are open, operators are standing by.

You too can write for the National Post. You just might not know it.

Blogging Tories Short Takes: July 7, 2006.

Shorter Civitatensis: "Continually trying to overturn the results of an election shows their whining immaturity. Continually trying to overturn Canada's same-sex marriage law shows our Christian morality and principle."

Shorter Sham the Tory Man: "So, one billion dollars and selling out Canada's sovereignty for a cool photo and a scratch behind the ears? What's the problem?"

Shorter(?) Spirit of Man: "And as for those young Iraqis who want liberty and to not be murdered by Coalition forces, whoops, I see we're all out of time here."

Shorter Dr. Roy: "Let me explain how real Christianity works."

Exercises in really creepy Freudian symbolism.

It's called "projection," Pete. I'd see someone about it if I were you.

If you don't see them, apparently, it doesn't count.

As you can see, everything is still pretty clouds and cotton candy and smiling children who still have all their limbs in Laura's world:

Laura Bush dismissed polls saying her husband is unpopular...saying that when we travel around the country, it's not what we see.

Laura, sweetie, that's because the troublemakers have already been relocated. That's what the razor wire is for, dear.

Proud to be detached from reality.

I'm sure we're going to be getting slowly-diminishing entertainment value from the Barbara Kay wankitude for quite some time, as with the recent comment 38 on that piece:

Barbara Kay has the fact, other commenters have them too but the lefties keep denying what is right before their very eyes.

They demand the right to advertize their prefered lefty sites in the comment section of a conservative blog,
they demand the right to direct us to sites where distorted facts are presented,
and worst of all,
they demand the right to direct us to sites where they call Barbara Kay disrespectful names for presenting FACTS they do not like ...

In other words they demand the right to pee on our factually accurate picnic.

And then they claim they are victims of Joel because he refuses to let them do it…

As if peeing on people who disagree with their twisted facts was a Gaia given right to them lefties ...

ps; sorry to be saying pee so often but I’m still not over the war memorial...peeing incident ...

And while I might take exception to the majority of the above, I will admit that, when it comes to Kay's dishonest hackery, the notion of urinating several times was exactly the reaction I had as well after reading it.

Who says righties and lefties have no common ground?

Step across that line ... OK, what about THAT line? All right, then ...

There really are times to quit while you're behind:

Q Tony, one week ago the President said in the East Room that a [North Korean] missile launch, a test firing would be unacceptable.

MR. SNOW: It still is.

[snip]

Q If I could follow, if the first test firing was unacceptable, what's the potential second test firing?

MR. SNOW: Well, look, we've had seven firings. They're all unacceptable, each and every one of them.

See, the first one was unacceptable. And so was the second one. Those next five, they were just being pricks about it.

Apparently, "success" is in the eyes of the beholder.

File this one under "the bigotry of low expectations":

The U.S. Northern Command said in a statement that all seven missiles were detected and tracked “immediately” after launch Tuesday and Wednesday.

“While Ground-based Midcourse Defense System interceptors at Fort Greely, Alaska, and Vandenberg Air Force Base, Calif., were operational during the flight, top officials from the command were able to determine quickly that the launch posed no threat to the United States or its territories,” the statement said.

Which means that, if Canada signs on to the U.S. missile defense system, we'll still get clobbered -- we'll just know it's coming. I'm guessing there would be a phone call: "Hey, guys ... um ... about that missile defense system ... well, funny story ..."

My new favourite comic strip.

(Click to enlarge.)



It's called "Pearls Before Swine," but don't take that personally. Except for you, Joel. You can take it as personally as you want.

Dear Wayne.

Y'all forgive me for making this post just a touch personal, but I'm going to try to save someone from a life of abject ignorance and, sometimes, drastic situations call for drastic measures.

Back here, one-time commenter Wayne made the mistake of mindlessly regurgitating the now-debunked neo-con talking point of how the New York Times had compromised the personal security of some members of the Bush administration by (gasp! horrors!) publishing, with their permission, stories of their vacation houses as part of a travel feature. Me, being in a bit of a snotty mood at the time, took the opportunity to lay a quick beating on Wayne, who seemed a bit hurt by it and claimed that all he wanted are facts.

No, Wayne. You don't.

What you appear to want, Wayne, is to mindlessly and gullibly regurgitate an endless stream of idiotic right-wing talking points, without taking even the smallest opportunity to see if there's any truth to them. And why can I say that and get away with it? Easy. One need only consider your blog, Wayne, to see what I'm talking about.

Let's take a look at that blogroll, Wayne, shall we? Now, with the exception of your "favourite lefty/prog" (excellent choice, naturally :-) and the rather weird selection of "Talk Origins" in the middle of all that, one can safely say that your choice of reading material is almost exclusively right of centre. And not just slightly right of centre, Wayne.

There's nothing wrong with wanting to keep up with news from the wankersphere but, seriously, is that the best you can do in terms of where you get your information? In terms of the conservative viewpoint, we're not talking the creme de la creme, are we? It's more like the scum de la terre. I mean, really -- Dust My Broom? Free Republic? Kate McMillan? Canadian Free Press? Proud to be Joel Johannesen's Bitches? This is your idea of trying to stay informed? This is your idea of trying to figure out what the facts are? To get your perspective on the world from the most rancid purveyors of right-wing dishonesty out there? But that's not even the worst part.

Consider all of your latest postings on that main page. Almost without exception, they represent nothing but links to, or straight reproductions of, hard-right news pieces. FOX News. Front Page Magazine. The National Post. Adam Daifallah, fer Chrissake! But it's not the sources that are so irritating, it's that there's not an original thought of yours anywhere there.

As far as I can tell, Wayne, you have contributed absolutely nothing to the online discourse. Not a sentence. Your entire production consists of nothing but other peoples' work. In short, you could just as effectively stop posting and have nothing but a blogroll, and readers would get exactly the same information. You've shown absolutely no interest in doing any research of your own, and yet you have the nerve to show up in my comments section, claiming that you're just interested in "facts."

Let me give you some advice, Wayne, and here's hoping it sticks. If you really want to know what's happening, stop reading those worthless neo-con sites. And if you want one, just one, recommendation for a site that shows you what real research and writing is all about, you can't do any better than Glenn Greenwald who, coincidentally, has some recent articles on that whole New York Times idiocy. Glenn is a model of what real blogging is all about and, if you have the sense God gave a urinal deodorizer disc, you would make yourself comfortable and invest an hour or two over at his site. But there's one more thing I want to mention, Wayne, about how you've pissed me off lately.

In a recent comment of yours, you actually had the nerve to thank me for bringing your attention to the web site "Proud to be Canadian," which I see you've added to your blogroll. So, if I understand this correctly, I have exposed PtbC's Barbara Kay as a dishonest hack, and Joel Johannesen as a whiny, petulant sleazebag, and your response is to add that site to your blogroll? Can you now understand why I consider you to be a total prat?

I mean, really ... think hard. It'll come to you.

Canadian comedy with just the right amount of edge.

Seriously, you have to love them just for the name. By God, it purely makes your little soldier want to stand up and salute, doesn't it?

In a purely heterosexual way, of course.

Oooooooooh, Caaaaanada! You suck.

There's just no pleasing some people, is there? By the way, anyone there look familiar?

The hypocrasy of the rite.

Publishing, with permission, the publicly-available addresses of members of the Bush administration as part of a travel section in the New York Times? Holy fucking shit!

Publishing the contact information of citizens for the purpose of humiliating them and driving them out of town? Eh ... whatever.

BONUS TRACK: The Green Knight gets in his $0.02.

Humour! God Almighty, we need some humour here.

An award should go to the United Airlines gate agent in Denver for being smart and funny, and making her point, when confronted with a passenger who probably deserved to fly as cargo.

During the final days at Denver's old Stapleton airport, a crowded United flight was cancelled. A single agent was rebooking a long line of inconvenienced travelers.

Suddenly an angry passenger pushed his way to the desk. He slapped his ticket down on the counter and said, "I HAVE to be on this flight and it has to be FIRST CLASS."

The agent replied, "I'm sorry sir. I'll be happy to try to help you, but I've got to help these folks first, and I'm sure we'll be able to work something out." The passenger was unimpressed. He asked loudly, so that the passengers behind him could hear, "Do you have any idea who I am?"

Without hesitating, the gate agent smiled and grabbed her public address microphone. "May I have your attention please?" she began, her voice bellowing throughout the terminal. "We have a passenger here at the gate WHO DOES NOT KNOW WHO HE IS. If anyone can help him find his identity, please come to Gate 17."

With the folks behind him in line laughing hysterically, the man glared at the United agent, gritted his teeth and swore "Fuck you."

Without flinching, she smiled and said, "I'm sorry, sir, but you'll have to stand in line for that too."

Dear Joel: I think it's time for you to go.

At this point, I think it's safe to say that Joel Johannesen has been treated more than fairly at this blog and it's time for him to vacate the premises. In response to my two brief comments at his site, he has positively inundated my comments section with his petulant and utterly uninformative whining. But before I finalize those thoughts, a couple observations that he's welcome to take with him.

Part of Joel's outrage is apparently that I referred to one of his columnists, Barbara Kay, as a "loon" and an "innumerate dumbass." And yet, Joel has made it clear that he has no interest in debunking either of those claims. How odd.

More generally, Joel has made it clear he's positively outraged that anyone would impugn the integrity and reputation of his precious web site, but when a number of us have done exactly that (in great detail, mind you), Joel's response is not to stand and defend, but to throw up his hands and say, "Hey, not my problem, talk to Barbara." In short, Joel wants to have it both ways: he wants everyone to respect the integrity of his web site, even as he simultaneously refuses to address accusations that impugn exactly that. Not exactly a profile in courage, I'm sure you'll agree.

In any event, Joel has had more than his share of air time here and, for someone who is clearly ready to ban commenters at his site for the most insignificant violation, he really doesn't have the moral high ground to complain about being shown the door. If he wants to continue this discussion, he has his own shiny web site to do that, and he's welcome to whine like a childish six-year-old over there until he's happy, but any further comments on this site will be summarily deleted. Quite simply, Joel has become tiresomely repetitive and is no longer contributing anything to the conversation, and that's enough for anyone to get the boot here.

I will, however, being the magnanimous sort that I am, leave him an opening. Joel is always welcome to come back and comment if his comment addresses, directly and explicitly, the issues raised about Kay's apparent dishonesty at his site. He knows what those issues are, and if he wants to stop being such a whiny-ass titty baby and actually look into the accusations from myself and others and report back with his conclusions, he's always welcome. Anything else will be turfed without comment.

So there you go, Joel. You can either put up or shut up. The choice is entirely yours.

Dear wanks: Pay the fuck attention just this once, OK?

I don't want a domain filter on this site -- I want a stupidity filter, so I don't have to read insipid comments like this:

"The current system which awards sole custody 60 percent of the time to women, joint custody 30 percent of the time and provides custody to men less than 10 percent of the time will need to change to reflect recent psychological studies which show earlier studies in support of a primary caregiver were ill founded." 60 + 30 = 90% So 90 % of the time men do not have full custody.
...
"60 + 30 = 90% So 90 % of the time men do not have full custody."

Oh there you go. Using those pesky facts on illiterate progressive liberals.

Mr Kennedy (Kennedy)

Now let's go back and read Kay's actual words (emphasis added):

Family law in the U.S. and Canada today continues to serve up the “make him wish he was dead” option to women, who win sole custody in 90% of disputed cases.

Now, gents -- what part of "sole" is giving you trouble? I await the sheepish retractions and apologies.

The angry, angry Left.

And if you can handle it, I think I have one more post in me regarding dishonest Canadian wankers and the insufferable assholitude of one Joel Johannesen of "Proud to Be Canadian." If you feel like keeping up, Barbara Kay's original article is still here, and the ever-so-animated comments section that goes with it is still here.

First, a couple of brief issues we can dispense with in short order. Not surprisingly, Joel is still lying, when he writes in comment 29:

Canadian Cynic: Attention! Upon further investigation, typing canadiancynic.blogspot.com works fine. Always did work fine.

Typing a www or http:// in front of it screwed it up, and caused the error message you reported to the world as my unquestionable attempt to censor you / blacklist you / or otherwise preemptively ban you personally even though I don’t know you or your blog from a squirrel.

In the first place, how idiotic is it to suggest that, if you start a URL with either "www" or "http://", it's going to be blacklisted? What kind of moronic system administrator would you have to be to put that kind of filtering in place?

More to the point, though, that claim is simply a lie as you can see for yourself in comment 7 where I used a "tiny" URL to get around the "blacklisting" and the "http://" at the front of that URL worked just fine. Joel is now simply lying at random but, at this point, it's pretty much what we've come to expect from him.

Joel also makes it clear for all of us what he thinks of his accountability for what appears at his web site when he writes (in comment 26):

(Also: I don’t answer for Barbara Kay —and she doesn’t spend her vacation time reading your comments at PTBC. So as I already suggested, write to her through the National Post in order to get the much needed answers to your inquiries. Members can email her from here, and as you know, folks can make respectful comments right here. I think that’s enough for now.)

So even though Kay (one of Joel's masthead columnists) has been accused of just flat-out making shit up, Joel doesn't seem terribly, terribly concerned. If we don't agree with Kay's "facts," we can take it up with Kay as Joel has better things to do. Apparently, that wussy fact-checking stuff is for liberals. But here's where we step back and look at the bigger picture.

If you read the first few comments, it's a bit puzzling how fast the discussion descended into vitriol and name-calling, isn't it? Based on nothing more than a couple comments from myself and "macadavy" about obvious blacklisting that is happening, Joel launches a blistering attack on his critics, accusing us of "gross misrepresentation" and other such rubbish. A Mr. Mattt Enss in comment 10 tries (very politely) to return things to civility, and he is also savaged. What the fuck is happening here?

What's happening, if you haven't figured it out by now, is that Joel is responding to the most mundane critisicm with totally out-of-proportion rage but, in fact, it's all part of a carefully choreographed script. Rather than actually respond to the issues, it's Joel's job to lash out at his critics and try to drag them into mindless name-calling, for a couple of reasons.

First, if he can make the discussion about personalities and not facts, he can distract everyone from Kay's blatant dishonesty. By the time we get to comment 17 or 18, Joel has insulted the rest of the commenters so much, they've all forgotten what started the discussion in the first place, which is exactly what he wants. And if he can keep the anger cranked up suitably a little while longer, he can start kicking people out. (Oh, look, there he is in comment 23: "And by the way, I’ve heard enough out of you now. You’ve abused your priviledges [sic] here. Don’t post here again.")

It's amazing, isn't it? Early on, things could have been resolved with a simple, "You're being blacklisted? Hmmm ... that's odd, you shouldn't be. Let me check into it and I'll get back to you." Instead, Joel made sure that didn't happen with a neck-snapping attack on early commenters, which guaranteed that the entire dialog was going to go to hell in a handbasket. Which is, of course, exactly what he wanted. But it doesn't end there.

Because now, Joel has proof positive of the existence of "the angry Left." If he ever needs evidence of just how angry we liberals can be, all he needs to do is drag out this comments section down the road, carefully hide the fact that he started this whole brouhaha, and happily point out how, no matter how polite you try to be, well, those liberals are just a bunch of offensive, insulting, unhinged, deranged moonbats, see? But that's par for the course these days, isn't it?

It's all part of a pattern in which right-wing dumbasses say the stupidest and most dishonest things, to which one might raise a quiet objection. When that objection goes unanswered, one might raise it again, a little more forcefully, to again be met with either silence or dismissive derision. And the pattern continues, being slowly ratcheted up until the leftie critic finally loses it a bit and says something intemperate, to the sudden accusations of, "Angry liberal! Angry liberal! Deranged, unhinged moonbat!" Which is, as I'm sure you can see, exactly what has happened here.

The funniest part of all of this is that, in the end, it's Joel who, commenting from right-wing Bizarro World, thinks that everyone else owes him an apology, as he writes in comment 29:

I suspect all the stupid and malicious allegations will be respectfully withdrawn now and apologies will flow to me like water.

I’ll be right here waiting.

Why, yes, and even after Joel's sputtering denigration of folks who tried to keep a civil tongue while they were pointing out his overwhelming dumbfuckitude, it's all of us who owe him an apology, which will make his wanker beerfests down the road even more entertaining, "Not only did they insult me and call me names, man, they never even had the grace to apologize after. Boy, those liberals sure are angry, aren't they? Hey, honey, another round of Zimas for me and my posse here."

And in all of this, should we ever expect to get some clarification on Kay's bogus quotes? Not if Joel has anything to say about it, I expect.

TOTALLY GRATUITOUS AFTERSNARK. I'm moderately amused by Joel's outrage at what he calls "gross misrepresentations," given that his site advertises Ann Coulter's new book, "Godless," a piece of dishonest swill that has been savagely panned for its appallingly dishonest distortion of biological evolution.

Apparently, mind-numbing dishonesty and absurd misrepresentation is OK if you're a wanker.

Dear Joel:

You know, in all that witty repartee in that comments section over at "Proud to be Canadians," it seems that many of us lost sight of the original issue, which was that Barbara Kay appears to have thoroughly distorted and misrepresented at least a couple of quotes to bolster her argument. So I thought I'd prod Joel ever so gently about that by leaving a (very polite) comment to that effect.

Since I had to comment anonymously, the comment is being held for examination, and it remains to be seen whether it will be released and whether Joel or Kay bothers to address it. See? I am capable of being ever so polite and genteel. Even with unspeakable dumbfucks like Joel Johannesen.

Blacklisting, the sequel: The dumbassitude continues.

Oh, dear God, this is just too amusing. You must -- I say, must -- try to keep up with Joel J's dodging and weaving in the comments section here, as he tries desperately to avoid admitting what has, by now, been established beyond any doubt.

Seriously, how can you respond to someone who writes:

... if you think that I’m so utterly infantile and petty (and that I would even remotely have the time) that I would even start to think about ever even considering somehow encoding into the programming that runs this web site some form of “pre-emptive censorship” against a web site I’ve never even remotely heard of, ever, then you’re terribly wrong and making absolutely ridiculous and potentially harmful assumptions —in as public a way as you can, knowingly.

despite the fact that I explained how to reproduce it, that others have confirmed it and that yet others have taken screenshots.

And yet, in spite of all that, rather than take 30 seconds to verify his site's blacklisting for himself, poor Joel has worked himself into a high dudgeon, outraged -- outraged, I tell you -- that anyone would dare impugn his or his site's credibility and integrity.

(And let us not forget that I was not simply prevented from submitting comments, I was blacklisted from even registering as a commenter, which Joel has, of course, refused to address.)

This is just plain sad. It's like the six-year-old, standing in the middle of the kitchen, adamant that he never helped himself to the chocolate cake, even as he stands there with chocolate smeared all over his hands and face.

"Pathetic" doesn't begin to describe it, does it? At this point, I'm going to guess that it's only a matter of hours before either comments are de-activated or deleted, or that the entire article is just pulled from that site. Any bets? I'm thinking of starting a pool.

P.S. Note, in comment 14, how Joel childishly avoids having to deal with his bullshit:

This web site has filters in place to shield against spam attacks, referrer attacks, DOS attacks, and sundry hacker attacks that constantly happen to this web site because liberals and others are so gosh darn tolerant of it. I suppose that there’s something in our long list of items in our filters which prevents that URL from displaying. I don’t know. I might have looked at the problem had it been dealt with like a half-ass reasonable person would have dealt with it, but now I won’t.

Note that all of Joel's huffing and puffing about attacks of one form or another has nothing whatsoever to do with the issue here, but he uses his thoroughly-unjustified annoyance to call a halt to the discussion. We'll be talking more about that sleazy rhetorical trick in a future post.

AND WE HAVE A RESOLUTION! OK, let's see here ... first, there's Joel:

Why do you “banned” and “blacklisted” folks (or are you the same people?) insist that you are “banned” and “blacklisted”? Upon what facts do you base that?

That’s a gross misrepresentation of the facts, and leads to some very bad feelings amongst the administration of this site because it can damage the reputation of a web site such as this. Perhaps you already know that.

But, hark! What's this? Only hours later:

Meanwhile, on Planet Sane, It turns out “blogspot.com” is in our filter list because it was the source of a referrer attack at some point.

Oh. So there was blacklisting going on after all. And as for those bloggers who just happened to live at that domain, like this guy, who's only politely trying to be helpful:

kevvyd here from b levkog. Guess what? I couldn’t register either, and for the same reason as the others.

If you haven’t put anything up here to block posters on purpose, then it’s been put there by accident.

Well, Joel, knows what to do with uppity cranks like that:

Another “blogspot” blogger. Genius!

So if you happened to live in the blogspot.com domain and were getting blacklisted, well, Joel's blog absolutely doesn't blacklist, no way, except when it does and if you can't figure that out, you're a moron.

Tune in next week when Joel writes an editorial chastising lefty bloggers in general for pointing out that he's a lying dumbass, and that it's all their fault.

New adventures in blacklisting -- the fallout.

[ONGOING ENTERTAINMENT: I suggest keeping up with the accumulating comments here to watch site administrator Joel Johannesen being too stupid to realize that he's just digging himself a deeper and deeper hole.]

Well, isn't this interesting? Suddenly, there are a slew of additional comments at Barbara Kay's article, including mine, but the most amusing one is from site manager Joel Johannessen, who writes:

Why do you “banned” and “blacklisted” folks (or are you the same people?) insist that you are “banned” and “blacklisted”? Upon what facts do you base that?

That’s a gross misrepresentation of the facts, and leads to some very bad feelings amongst the administration of this site because it can damage the reputation of a web site such as this. Perhaps you already know that.

We reserve the right to post what we see fit at our property, and we reserve the right to screen posts from unknown individuals such as yourself, and to do so when we wake up in the morning and when we get around to it, not the moment you choose to post comments. We do hope that’s OK with you all.

Please reconsider your words and be more careful in characterizing the nature of this web site.

Thank you.

Dear Joel: Fuck you. I make my claim of being "blacklisted" based on the clear and unambiguous dialog box that was presented to me when I first tried to comment on that article. For you to take sputtering umbrage with my accusation is the height of arrogance and dishonesty. As you can read in the comments section of my earlier piece, I'm not the only person who suffered exactly the same fate, so don't you get all self-righteous and uppity with me.

As for your right to screen posts, you know as well as I do that that wasn't the issue. The issue was that I was prevented from even submitting a comment that made any reference to my blog or registering as a commenter, so let's not change the subject, shall we?

Here's hoping you can come up with a better explanation of your web site's behaviour than that lame-ass excuse above. I'm waiting.

BY THE WAY, do I really need to mention that I just tried to register again as a commenter at that site and, once again, received:

Action Denied: Blacklisted Item Found
http://canadiancynic.blogspot.com

You keep using that phrase "relatively open forum," Joel. I do not think it means what you think it means.

Sometimes, snark is just plain superfluous.

Shorter Big Blue Wave: "How dare those immoral, promiscuous, sinful, atheistic, God-hating, baby-killing, terrorist-loving, homo-tolerating lefties accuse us of intolerance! Of all the nerve!"

Deep integration and appalling dumbfuckery.

If we continue to deeply integrate Canada and the United States, can we look forward to the day when our politicians are this abysmally stupid?

Dear Stephen: What do you plan on fucking up next?

And now that the Harper government has thoroughly screwed us over regarding softwood, what's next on his list of "Things to give away to the Americans?" Ah, there it is:

In Ottawa, the Tory hope is that, with softwood out of the way, Harper and Bush can concentrate on issues like global security, water exports, ...

Excellent -- water exports. Yes, let's make sure that, now that the Americans control our softwood policy, they can pretty much have their way with our water:

Contrary to the reassurances of federal politicians, Canada's water resources are not protected under the terms of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). They were protected under the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT), which gave Canada complete control over its water, but in signing NAFTA the federal government in effect yielded control of the country's water to the United States...

Now that the GATT has been superseded by NAFTA, however, Americans are given the same rights as Canadians to our water. NAFTA cancels our right to tax water exports to the U.S., overrides the constitutional right of the provinces to control the water within their boundaries, and accords U.S. corporations the right to sue the federal government if it--or a province--fails to respect the terms of NAFTA. Nowhere in NAFTA is there any wording that gives Ottawa or the provinces the right to limit or embargo water exports to the U.S...

Inevitably, sooner or later, the Americans will invoke their NAFTA rights to take substantial quantities of water from Canada. NAFTA denies our federal and provincial governments the right to stop such exports.

And if there are any possible legal protections for Canada in the existing treaty, I think we can rest assured that Stephen will track them down and have them taken out and shot. 'Cuz that's just the kind of guy he is. Republican.

Why CNN should be taken out and shot.

Jesus Christ, just how stupid do you have to be to work at CNN these days?

But if he loses the primary, Lieberman could still get on the ballot by petition.

"He would be a 'petitioning Democrat,'" said Smith. "He is not leaving the party and not running as an independent."

Connecticut law requires 7,500 registered voters' signatures by August 9th in order for an independent candidate to have a place on the November ballot -- and running as a petitioning Democrat is an option.

No, it's not. Now, will someone please put the grown-ups back in charge?

Really, really, really, really stupid people.

And, shockingly, religion is involved.

Oh, those thin-skinned conservatives.

[UPDATE: Oh, dear. Someone seems to have their Snuggies in a bunch.]

Oh, my, but this is entertaining. Back here, I laid a beating on Canadian wingnut Barbara Kay for her apparent dishonesty in a recent column of hers.

However, in what is a break with tradition for me, I decided to leave a comment there as well, with a simple link back to my article to see the reaction. Since that site requires registration, I actually went through the registration process, being entirely up-front with my desired username and web page, at which point I was shown the following:

Action Denied: Blacklisted Item Found
http://canadiancynic.blogspot.com

I'm guessing that's what you call a "pre-emptive strike."

BETTER AND BETTER. As an intellectual challenge, I decided to see what it would take to be able to leave a comment on Kay's article. Man, they really don't want to hear from me.

First, I tried to leave a comment sort of anonymously, but giving the name of my web page. No chance -- I was once again told that I was blacklisted.

As a last resort, I tried to leave my comment entirely anonymously, except for the fact that the comment contained an HTML link to my article. The result?

Action Denied: Blacklisted Item Found
http://canadiancynic.blogspot.com/2006/07/dr-roy-and-barbara-kay-race-to-bottom.html

That's hysterical. Apparently, not only have I been blacklisted from registering as a commenter at "Proud to be Canadian", but it appears that that site has been set up to reject any comments that even refer to my blog. And all this from a site that describes its comments section as "a relatively open forum."

Man, that's one serious echo chamber you have going on there, people. Would anyone else like to see if they have any better luck?

SUCCESS! SORT OF. As one last attempt, I submitted a comment to that article under the name "Anonymous", with no web page URL, the e-mail address "cthulhu@rlyeh.ca" and using a tiny URL to link back to my web page. The comment was accepted only to the extent that, since it was submitted anonymously, it will subsequently be reviewed by a moderator.

Jesus Christ, but those folks really don't want to touch reality with their hands or anything, do they?

The impending disaster.

If you need to prepare yourself for what's going down in Gaza, I suggest you start here. And extrapolate.

Dr. Roy and Barbara Kay: The race to the bottom.

First, there's Canadian loon Barbara Kay:

Family law in the U.S. and Canada today continues to serve up the “make him wish he was dead” option to women, who win sole custody in 90% of disputed cases.

Then there's the Blogging Tories' Dr. Roy, sycophantically bounding along right behind:

Women stll get custody in 90% of divorces.

And then there's reality, which shows them both to be a couple of depressingly innumerate dumbasses:

The current system which awards sole custody 60 percent of the time to women, joint custody 30 percent of the time and provides custody to men less than 10 percent of the time will need to change to reflect recent psychological studies which show earlier studies in support of a primary caregiver were ill founded.

I'm guessing it was the big numbers that threw them off. Once a wanker runs out of fingers and toes, things can get ugly in a hurry.

AFTERSNARK: I toyed with the idea of mentioning this originally and just let it go but, since one of the commenters at Kay's article brings it up, well, what the hell?

Kay gives a few examples of all that hideous, gender-based inequality, including this gem:

Former justice minister Martin Cauchon: “Men have no rights, only responsibilities”

Really? He said that? Because, if you think about it, that's the kind of statement that would certainly provoke a firestorm of outrage, along the lines of Scott Reid's "beer and popcorn" line. So did Cauchon actually say that? Google doesn't seem to think so, certainly not with a grand total of 34 hits.

But if you loosen the search parameters and keep trying, well, lookee here:

Estranged parents have no rights when it comes to their children -- they only have responsibilities, says Martin Cauchon, the Minister of Justice.

The married father of three made the comment yesterday as he explained why he rejected the presumption of shared parenting -- or joint custody -- in his proposed new divorce laws.

"Parents have responsibilities, they don't have rights," Mr. Cauchon said under questioning from the all-party justice committee. "The starting point in each and every crisis is the best interests of the child."

Apparently, then, Cauchon didn't single out men -- his position was gender-neutral. How about that? And how about that Barbara Kay making shit up again? I'm not surprised. Are you surprised?

PILING ON. It's not like I really need to stomp what's left of Kay's credibility into the sidewalk but, what the hell, it's fun and no one gets hurt in the process. Kay accuses Supreme Court of Canada justice Beverly McLachlin of saying, "We have to be pro-active in rearranging the Canadian family." Once again, let's let Google do the heavy lifting.

The prosecution rests.

Oh, lord ... they know not what they do.

Please, please, oh please, let this project be unclassified:

The Air Force is venturing forth into the virtual blue yonder with $450,000 in funding for a three-year project entitled “Automated Ontologically-Based Link Analysis of International Web Logs for the Timely Discovery of Relevant and Credible Information.”

That's right. The Air Force is studying blogs.

Credible? Yeah, credible is good. I mean, if you can't believe a bunch of Blogging Tories, well, who the fuck can you believe?

By the way, guys, that Osama dude is hanging out in Delisle, Saskatchewan. But you didn't hear it from me, right?

Apparently, overt political assassination is now on the table.

I'm sure this latest development can't help but contribute to freedom and democracy in the Middle East:

Israel last night threatened to assassinate Palestinian Prime Minister Ismael Haniyeh if Hamas militants did not release a captured Israeli soldier unharmed.

So ... if we publicly disagree with this strategy, are we still anti-Semitic? I'm just curious.

UPDATE: Just to let you know that they mean business, I guess.

DOUBLE UPDATE: In case you really don't appreciate what's happening here, I suggest you come up to speed quickly.

Ah, so THAT'S how conservatism works.

And as Exhibit A, I give you the joy of the unfettered, unregulated, demand-driven, openly competitive free market in action. It's just a conservative's wet dream, isn't it?

Please tell me that isn't wanker whining I hear.

Damn you, TBogg! Damn you!

I was so going to have some fun with Crazy-Assed Racist Bitch's latest, jaw-dropping foray into whiny, snivelling wingnut hypocrisy but -- wouldn't you know it? -- Mr. "My basset hounds are better looking than your basset hounds" got there first.

OK, maybe I'll go slap around Jeff Goldstein and ... what? Blast!

AFTERSNARK: For someone so (selectively) concerned about privacy, one has to wonder how Malkin feels about, oh, posting the names and addresses of abortion providers on the web while describing them as "baby butchers."

Than again, I'm sure that's no big deal. After all, what can possibly go wrong?

NOT SURPRISINGLY, Glenn Greenwald has more sense all by himself than a busload of freepers going over a cliff. OK, that last part wasn't, strictly speaking, necessary for the comparison but I always try to start the day with a happy thought.

It's only a sellout if I SAY it's a sellout.

An exercise for the reader.

Scenario 1:

Ontario taxpayers will pay $12.3 million to buy a controversial housing project in southern Ontario that has been occupied by aboriginal protesters since late February, Premier Dalton McGuinty disclosed Thursday.

Scenario 2:

Canada and the United States closed a long-standing trade dispute over softwood lumber on Saturday after ironing out final details of a deal on the sidelines of World Trade Organization (WTO) talks...

Under the terms of the agreement, Canadian lumber companies will get a refund of about $4 billion of the $5 billion they have handed over in duties.

According to Canadian right-wing wankers, which of the above represents an excellent agreement which involves making certain financial sacrifices to bring a satisfactory end to a long-standing dispute allowing us all to move forward, and which represents a disgusting, spineless capitulation to a bunch of bullies who could only be appeased by paying them off?

Show your work.

The parallels are getting downright creepy, I tell you.

You remember what got Republican Tom DeLay in a world of trouble? No? Here, let me refresh your memory:

The Travis County grand jury indicted DeLay and the same two associates, John Colyandro and Jim Ellis, on conspiracy charges stemming from the same allegations last week.

Prosecutors say the three men agreed to violate campaign finance laws by sending corporate donations given [to] a state political action committee, Texans for a Republican Majority, to the national Republican Party.

The national GOP in turn is alleged to have distributed [returned] the same amount of funds [directly back] to Republican legislative candidates in Texas.

Corporations cannot donate to candidates in Texas elections.

Apparently, everything old is new again:

Conservative party officials engaged in a "cheque-swapping" scheme that enabled delegates to get federal tax credits for donations that were not donations, according to e-mail correspondence of Conservative party delegates prior to a 2005 political convention in Montreal.

The correspondence, written three months before the March 17-19 convention, appear on a website accessible only to party members.

Under the scheme, individual riding associations footed the bill for their delegates for food, travel, hotel and registration fees associated with the Montreal convention.

In exchange, the conventioneer would make a donation back to the riding association in the same amount.

It's not that the CPoC are such fucking crooks. It's that they're not even original crooks that's so disappointing.

Thinking iz hard werk.

In a world in which popular, right-wing pundits are literally calling for the gruesome death of newspaper editors, it's nice to see that some folks appreciate their intellectual limitations, discourse-wise.

Compare and contrast.

On the one hand:

Disgraced former lobbyist Jack Abramoff and a business partner were sentenced Wednesday to five years and 10 months in federal prison, the minimum they faced for fraud related to their 2000 purchase of the SunCruz Casinos gambling fleet...

Abramoff and Kidan admitted concocting a fake $23 million wire transfer to make it appear they had made a large cash contribution to the $147.5 million purchase of SunCruz Casinos. Based on that fake transfer, lenders provided the pair with $60 million in financing.

The same week Abramoff pleaded guilty to the SunCruz fraud, he entered guilty pleas to three federal charges as part of a wide-ranging corruption probe that could involve up to 20 members of Congress and aides, including former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, R-Texas.

On the other hand:

Former Rep. Randy "Duke" Cunningham, who collected $2.4 million in homes, yachts, antique furnishings and other bribes on a scale unparalleled in the history of Congress, was sentenced Friday to eight years and four months in prison, the longest term meted out to a congressman in decades.

And on the third hand:

Three people convicted of hauling away liquor, wine and beer from a grocery store after Hurricane Katrina were sentenced Wednesday to 15 years in prison.

They were convicted of attempting to leave the grocery with 27 bottles of liquor and wine, six cases of beer and one case of wine coolers, six days after Katrina made landfall.

Apparently, sacks of cash is one thing but, in George Bush's America, you just don't fuck with someone else's wine coolers.

When it comes to vicious, left-wing, anti-homophobic violence, patience is once again a virtue.

Remember this? And, in particular, how Canada's own Crazy-Assed Racist Redneck got her unmentionables in an absolute knot over that story? From the original, hyper-ventilating article:

That was the day that 10 of these thug-kins grabbed David Parker's 7 year old son, dragged him behind the corner of the school, well out of sight from the school officials, and proceeded to punch him in the groin, stomach, and chest, before he dropped to the ground when they then kicked and stomped on him. Several of the alleged thug-kins were children of the adults who had been protesting Parker, several of them - not even in the same class as Parker's child. It also needs to be pointed out that May 17 was a targeted date because that is the anniversary of changing the marriage definitions in the state of Massachusetts to include homosexual unions. Emotions among many activists were running very high on this day.

Luckily, as progressives, we are not as totally deranged as Kate McMillan and her adoring groupies and we know that, if you just wait long enough, the truth will eventually out. Oh, look (emphasis added):

The superintendent of schools in Lexington, Mass., said it all started when two first-grade boys argued over who should sit where in the cafeteria.

One of them punched the other several times on the playground while at least five children stood by and watched, the superintendent said...

Lexington school superintendent Paul B. Ash disputed the Mass Resistance account, saying a thorough investigation conducted by the school’s principal showed the incident stemmed from a squabble over cafeteria seating that continued during an outdoor recess period.

“These were two first-graders having a child squabble on a playground,” Ash told the Boston Globe. “Some adults are exploiting these children for political purposes.”

Meg Soens, co-chair of Lexington Cares, a group that supports teaching children about family diversity, including households headed by same-sex parents, said David Parker, Jacob’s father, appeared to be using the playground incident as a “publicity stunt” to promote a lawsuit he filed against the school system...

Ash said in a June 16 statement that the Estabrook principal conducted an investigation into the assault of Jacob Parker that included interviews with more than a dozen students and an adult school aide who stepped in to break up the altercation.

He said the investigation found that several first-grade students became involved in a disagreement over who would sit next to whom in the cafeteria. The dispute spilled outside into the schoolyard, where one student took Jacob by the hand and brought him to another student in an area “that is somewhat difficult for the adults to see,” Ash said.

The second student hit Jacob two to four times in the chest or abdomen, Ash said. The superintendent said at least five other students stood nearby watching but did not participate in the assault.

“The child who was hit said he was not hurt and did not want to go to the nurse,” Ash said in his statement. “He reported that his feelings were hurt because the child who hit him was his friend.”

According to Ash, the assailant was sent to the assistant principal’s office, where he acknowledged that what he did was wrong. The boy then filled out a “think sheet” to reflect on his behavior and wrote an apology to Jacob, Ash said.

“Following the incident, the boys were observed arm-in-arm at school and subsequently the child who was hit went to the house of the child who hit him for a play date,” Ash said.

You have to admit, though -- it was a great story before it was finally exposed for the thoroughly dishonest, politically-motivated swill that it was. Right, Kate? Kate? Hello?

(Tip of the hat to e-mailer Tom S. for the link.)

Oh, fuck.

Submitted without comment.

P.S. Anyone who takes the Noachian flood story seriously is truly a scientific illiterate and badly needs to read this.

There's REAL journalism. And then there's Fox News.

Shorter Fox News' Brian Kilmeade: "If we were an actual member of the media, I'd be outraged."

"... and besides, everybody does it ..."

There's a well-known lawyer joke involving defending a client accused of murder that goes, "Your Honour, my client wasn't even there. But if he was, he didn't do it. And even if he did it, it was an accident. Besides, that son of a bitch had it coming to him."

Welcome to the CPC illegal donation scandal: "We didn't break any laws. But if we did, it was an accident and entirely unintentional. And besides, everybody does it anyway."

How pathetic is it when your best defense is the rest of the world's lawyer joke?