Cartoonists, start your engines.

Sometimes, you need to go looking for humour, and sometimes it just falls into your lap:

++ Relapsed Catholic ++ religion politics culture blog

Are you a professional graphic designer?

I need someone to design the logo for my new blog, something very polished and slick so you really have to know what you are doing.

I have nothing specific in mind, but I can't help thinking that no one short of Ralph Steadman could do Kathy justice.



P.S. Oh, please, dear God, let some Blogging Tory show up, bitching and moaning about how rude it is to compare women to pigs.

Hoist. Petard. Dumbass motherfucker.

[Greetings, Pharynguloids. Pay no attention to the colourful language -- I just say the things PZ only wishes he could get away with. That's my excuse, and I'm sticking to it, Goddammit. Whoops ...]

Oh, man ... this is too delightful for words. First, there's the Mittster (all subsequent emphasis added)

Let me, uh, let me offer just a thought. And that is, uh, one of the great things about this great land, is we have people of different faiths and different persuasions. And uh, I'm convinced that the nation, that the nation does need, the nation does need to have people of different faiths but we need to have a person of faith lead the country.

And the absolutely delicious blowback:

Romney's Mormon faith, which has been a central topic of discussion here in recent days, is yet again playing a prominent role. A flyer being distributed by the U.S. Christians for Truth asks, "Would Jesus Christ vote for Mitt Romney?" It urges attendees to "join us to spread the truth about Mitt Romney and save America from his Mormon cult values."

Followed by the frantic and thoroughly hypocritical defense:

Matt Rhoades, communications director for Romney, condemned the flyer. "Attacks of religious bigotry have absolutely no place in politics today. It's unfortunate other camps stoop to such levels." (It's not clear, however, that the group has ANY affiliation to any other GOP campaign.)

How shall I put this delicately? Fuck you, Mr. Rhoades, you worthless piece of shit. Explicitly claiming that the U.S. must be led by a person of faith is pure religious bigotry and nothing but. As ye sow, so shall ye fucking reap. Deal with it, you jackass.

BONUS TRACK: And, once again for all you Pharynguloids, while you in the Excited States of America have the world-famous Discovery Institute, we up here have ... several idiots and their badly-designed web page.

You win again.

So that makes you ... uh ... 0 for 739.

Crazy-Assed Kate, 2006:

The US Army is is reaching recruiting goals again.

Unfortunate reality, 2007:

Bush war adviser says draft worth a look
By RICHARD LARDNER - The Associated Press
Updated: 08/11/07 12:41 PM

Frequent tours for U.S. forces in Iraq and Afghanistan have stressed the all-volunteer force and made it worth considering a return to a military draft, President Bush's new war adviser said Friday.

"I think it makes sense to certainly consider it," Army Lt. Gen. Douglas Lute said in an interview with National Public Radio's "All Things Considered."

And, yes, now that you ask, Kate and her neo-con cheerleader colleagues really are wrong about absolutely everything, absolutely all of the time. Or hadn't you noticed?

It's Saturday so we should pick on Mr. Erl.

As with other Blogging Tories, young'un Mr. Erl has his own choice of Republican presidential candidate -- one Rudy Giuliani. Um ... yeah, that would be this Rudy Giuliani.

I'm guessing that none of that will have the slightest effect on Mr. Erl. When it comes down to it, the BTs seem staunchly resistant to anything resembling reality. It's an acquired talent, I suppose.

Blogging Tories Short Takes, Aug 11, 2007.

Shorter Mr. Erl: "I have some brilliant ideas that I'm sure no one has ever considered before."

Shorter Paul: "I'd hold the conservative media up to the same high standard, but that would be, like, you know, work."

Shorter Steve Janke: "In a surprising new development, I will link to the mainstream media and speculate wildly. Kids, I'm a professional -- don't try this at home."

Simple solutions to simple problems.

What to do ... what to do ...

'New Government' mantra wearing thin, poll finds

OTTAWA -- Canadians are growing weary of the Conservative government's claim it remains "Canada's New Government" after 18 months in power, a recent poll shows.

Ah -- got it:

Cabinet shuffle due Monday, sources say
Fri, August 10, 2007
By CP

OTTAWA -- Every one of Stephen Harper's cabinet ministers has been told to be in the capital Monday morning, with signs pointing to a larger-than-anticipated cabinet shuffle as the prime minister moves to re-energize his minority government.

And then we'll be good for another 18 months of wingnuttery, neo-con "newness."

In other developments, the captain is re-arranging this bunch of deck chairs ...

Not your Blogging Tory news: Aug 11, 2007.

So ... how's that "surge" going? Uh oh ...

Rep. Schakowsky: Petraeus hints at decade-long Iraq presence
By Patrick Fitzgerald
August 10, 2007

Gen. David Petraeus told a congressional delegation visiting the Middle East that success in Iraq will require a U.S. military presence there for about a decade, Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D-Ill.) said Friday.

The commander of U.S. troops in Iraq, who will deliver a highly anticipated progress report next month, said the U.S. “will be in Iraq in some way for 9 or 10 years,” according to Schakowsky.

This would be a definition of "surge" with which I am unfamiliar. Apparently, looting a country of all of its natural resources isn't something that just happens overnight.

If you blinked, you missed it.

Um ... come again, Doc?

More sharia justice?

This is pretty horrifying. Where are the leftists to denounce sharia law?

Gay Nigerians face Sharia death

Eighteen men have been remanded in prison following their arrest for alleged sodomy in northern Nigeria, the state-owned news agency, Nan, reports.

The men were arrested in a hotel in north-eastern Bauchi State, which is governed by the Islamic Sharia law.

The Sharia punishment for sodomy is death by stoning.

I'm sorry ... when exactly did it become a Blogging Tory thing to care about gay rights? Besides, everyone knows you don't kill gays by stoning; you beat them unconscious and tie them to a fence to die of exposure.

Geez, those Sharia folks can't get anything right, can they? Pikers.

Go. Watch.

It's not like I need to tell anyone to go read TBogg but ... really.

UNRELATED BONUS SNARK: Just kill me now.

Busy Friday open thread.

Life is about to get seriously busy for your humble correspondent, so here's a double shot of Chris Rea to tide you over for the next four months. First, the live cut:

and the studio version:

Yeah, I'm a Chris Rea fan.

Up in the sky! It's a bird! It's a plane! No, it's ...

... Steno Steve! That's a good little, neo-con mouthpiece, Steve. Have a biscuit.

Small dead bubbleheads.

Shorter Kate McMillan: "The surge is working. I read that somewhere."

Save me former Ambassador Bolton, save me...

Oh Oh...

The good folks at Sadly, No! have hit the comedy motherlode. Seems beloved moderate, centrist commentator and all around reasonable, rational mom Pamela Oshry Geller might be in a spot of popo. Something to do with a massive million dollar scam at her ex-husband's auto dealership (the papers of which list her as co-owner).

The New York Post has the details, leading with this, "Detectives are investigating possible links between the men accused of gunning down two Brooklyn cops and an alleged million-dollar scam at a Long Island auto dealership." Greed is a terrible thing.

Further along in the article is the following, "His ex-wife, Pamela Geller, former associate publisher of the New York Observer and a conservative blogger, burst into tears when told her ex is under criminal investigation.
Although listed in business records as a Universal co-owner, she denied it. "I have nothing to do with this," Geller said." Yep, she's cryin' and denyin'.

Okay, all snickering aside, as distressing and crazed as Pamela can be, I do hope she isn't tied up in what looks to be a very nasty bit of crime. We're talking murder and attempted murder as well as massive fraud. When this all unravels, there will be some serious jail time to serve. What's more, this has the stink of gangland quality evil. Even deeply greedy fucks like Lord Conjob Black of Stench Harbour shy away from shooting at the police. Ideologies and politics aside, Pam has kids. I'd hate to see them become wards of the state. The adults involved make their own beds but the kids don't get to choose their parents or their fates. That said, it is still difficult not to stand in awe of the machinations of kharma and giggle just a bit.

No reason ... I'm just being cruel.

Heh. Indeed:

I don't want to rush anyone. But are we ready to say that Fred Thompson's proto-incipient campaign for president might not be quite ready to sweep the current crop of goofballs from the field?

Or, isn't there a serious possibility now that this guy may never actually get into the race? If for no other reason than to salvage some of the aura of dignity upon which the lucrative acting career is based?

Today Thompson tapped his third campaign manager. Which means he's now operating at a ratio of 3 managers to 0 campaigns. And I guess that means a ratio of like infinity or something like that. But let's not get distracted by that.

In any case, I need to ask you a favor. Can you send me links to quotes of glitz columnists and yakkers gushing about Fred's gravitas, Reaganosity and generally inevitable waltz to the Republican nomination?

Well, this probably doesn't quite qualify, but Mikey is still a big fan. These kids nowadays.

A childrens' crusade, "The Politic" edition.

Just when you think they can't get any more infantile:

In its continuing catastrophic decline, The Politic, apparently channelling typographic instructions from the Lord, has begun editing comments in order to ensure that they show the proper degree of “respect” for God. “Matthew” (great evangelical name, that) has taken it upon himself to chastise a poster for using a lower case “g”, and to edit the poster’s writing, despite an explicit statement that the poster intended to write “god”, not “God”.

In the same vein, I would like to establish new rules for commenters at this site, which dictate that any reference to a member of the right-wing blog "The Politic" be spelled "Dumbass Motherfucker". Remember, that's capital "D" and capital "M".

Suitably demeaning, additional adjectives such as "boneheaded" are entirely optional. Capitalization is your call.

Blogging Tories Short Takes, Aug 9, 2007.

Shorter blog quebecois: "I don't have an actual existing issue to complain about, so I hope you don't mind if I just invent one. You're good with that, right?"

Shorter Back Off Government: "Man, what that Barack Obama said, was that stupid or what? For fairness, though, we're now going to cover the 461,000 idiotic things that George Bush has said and ... gosh darn it, I see we're all out of time. Bummer."

Shorter Kate McMillan: "Having previously presented a totally loony theory of bridge collapse that I will attribute to the liberals, I will now dispense with that theory and make fun of those liberals in the process. You got a problem with that?"

Submitted without comment.

There is no snark in Entish, Elvish or the tongues of men suitable for this.

NELSON MUNTZ: Ha ha!

The wingnut double standard. No, really.

At the moment, there's a bit of a brouhaha in the blogosphere regarding one Scott Thomas Beauchamp, for which there is a readable summary here if you haven't been paying attention.

There is a certain entertainment value in watching the residents of Wingnut Central go totally batshit over whether Beauchamp's rather mundane accusations are true or not. After all, these are the same folks who ... oh, fuck it, just go read.

Yes, I'm feeling lazy. So sue me.

TBogg does Malkin.

Heh. Indeed. That's my favourite Michelle Malkin video. Well, OK, maybe not:


OK, that was a mistake. Eeeeeeeasy, stomach.

It's all about the hits, baby!

Shorter Spanky: "Who needs integrity when you have traffic?"

And what's a billion between friends?

What kind of fuckery is this?

Jeff,

I'm gonna have to go ahead and dispute your portrayal of the [original softwood lumber] deal as "giving away" $1B dollars to the Americans. They already had the money, right? Along with another $4B or so. You can't give someone something they've already taken.

Furthermore, the US lost court case after court case, and shockingly, didn't return a single penny, let alone the full $5B that the brave Liberals were so steadfastly holding out for.

I know it's good spin to call it "giving away" money, but if we're going to use the English language as it was intended, it was quite clearly "getting money back", and $4B more than litigation ever won us. Personally, I think that this was the worst deal possible, except for all the other possibilities.

Readers, take it away.

JESUS, OLAF, ARE YOU REALLY THAT CLUELESS? Of the $5 billion that the U.S. stole from Canada in the way of illegal softwood lumber duties, Olaf writes:

... however the US had ownership of that money in every meaningful sense. They held the money in their hands and could spend it at will, with no repercussions regardless of the fact it violated the rulings of international law tribunals. I'm not saying it's right, I'm just saying it is the case.

"No repercussions," Olaf? Here, let me introduce you to a possible repercussion: a table of the countries that are the top exporters of oil to the United States. Notice anything interesting about that table, Olaf? Why, yes ... right there at the top: "Canada". Which means that, if whoever was running Canada had the fucking cojones, they could have retrieved that money with a phone call.

"George? Hey, how's it going? And, by the way, we want that $5 billion back here by tomorrow morning or we shut off the taps, you ignorant, Texas tumbleweed. And have a nice day."

But you and I know that's not going to happen, Olaf, because Stephen Harper's having too much fun tongue-washing George's pickup truck. And don't start in with that "But ... but ... the Liberals ..." bullshit. Stevie Boy designed his entire campaign around that worthless slogan "Getting things done for Canadians," and all he's done is hand over everything he could get his hands on to the U.S., and bone the rest of us up the ass.

So bugger off with that "no repercussions" rubbish. If Harper truly wanted that money back, he could have gotten it. He chose not to. End of story.

Someone who doesn't quite get the point.

From the comments section back here, regarding the freeping of the now-infamous "Beaver" poll:

I am a Beaver reader and contributor. I'm rather attached to the publication, and though I thought this was a stupid stunt with predictable results, I did pray that their poll would fall below the notice of the blogging community on either side because I was curious to see who Canadians thought was the worst Canadian, and hoping for something thought provoking (the Air India bombers above Homolka/Bernardo, for instance). But no, you all (left and right) turned it into another pissing contest. F**k you all.

By Mark Reynolds, at 9:07 AM

So, to recap:

• "The Beaver" holds an online poll,


• Canada's wankers freep the shit out of it, rendering it worthless, and


• Canada's non-wankers (your humble scribe included) decry said infantile, meaningless freeping.


• Conclusion: We are all equally to blame.

Thanks for stopping by, Mark. Feel free to pop in again whenever you're off your meds.

Not your Blogging Tory news: Aug 8, 2007.

Once upon a time, PM Stephen Harper went to the mats with the U.S. to "get things done for Canadians," and he emerged from the fray with a softwood lumber "deal" and, lo, the slavering, obedient, neo-con, wingnut groupies and leg-humping poodles did celebrate with much blogging.

Today, however, 'twould appear that we're back where we started:

Does this mean we get our billion dollars back?

Troubling news on the softwood lumber front. You remember that fantastic deal Steve Harper got us by giving away over $1 billion in illegally collected tariffs to the Americans? Apparently, he did as good a job of “fixing” that one as he did ending the long, tired era of federal/provincial bickering:

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The United States asked for binding arbitration against Canada on Wednesday in the latest flare-up of a two-decade-long dispute over softwood lumber.

U.S. Trade Representative Susan Schwab said the United States "has no choice but to initiate arbitration proceedings to compel Canada to live up to its SLA (Softwood Lumber Agreement) obligations."

And the sheepish reaction of the aforementioned wingnut groupies and yappy poodles upon hearing this news? Ehhhhhhh ... not so vocal.

FREE SNARK AT NO EXTRA CHARGE: Stephen Taylor edition.

THE STUPID! IT BURNS! Appreciate, if you will, this gem from commenter "northwestern_lad" at Jeff's blog post:

Hmmmm... this is the pot calling the kettle black, as it was Liberal MP's, including Liberal MP's from forestry ridings who voted with the Conservatives to avoid a leaderless election. I guess that the deal didn't seem so bad then, right??? If it was so bad then, when didn't the Liberals vote with Opposition to defeat this deal??? That's right, Liberal self-interest.

Or maybe, northwestern_lad, my intellectually-stunted little wank, those Liberals voted for the deal because they actually believed Stephen Harper when he looked them in the eye and flat-out lied to them when he told them that that "deal" would finally, once and for all, resolve the softwood lumber dispute and we could all get on with our lives and not have to worry about it anymore.

Could that be it? Hmmmmmmmm?

There's regular stupid, and then there's SUZANNE-level stupid.

There's already been a fair bit written about the "freeping" of a recent poll by "The Beaver," asking Canadians who they thought was the worst Canadian -- both Red Tory and Stageleft weigh in on the infantile tendency of Canada's jackass-o-sphere to want to turn to shit everything they touch. But there's more here than meets the eye.

As many (including your humble scribe) have pointed out, it is eye-rollingly obvious that you can't freep an online poll, make a mess of the results, then turn around and use those very results as if they have any significance. You know, like Blogging Tory and creepy fetus fetishist SUZANNE does in Stageleft's comments section:

What…we’re not allowed to vote? We’re not allowed to campaign for our choices?

Freeping doesn’t necessarily involve cheating, as it has been said elsewhere. Forwarding the contest on to acquaintances and suggesting they vote for Trudeau is not cheating. Blogging about the contest and asking that people vote for my choice is not cheating.

I’m proud because we got our guy to be chosen number one, and it shatters the myth that Trudeau was universally loved and no one really questions his beliefs. In the mind of the media, he embodies the quintessential Canadian, but many people disagree with that, and I’m glad we got that point across.

I’m also proud that Henry Morgentaler made it to number 3. I really wasn’t expecting him to poll that high.

Holy fuck. What kind of colossal moron do you have to be to have written that? In particular, appreciate the breathtaking dumbassitude in this passage:

I’m proud because we got our guy to be chosen number one, and it shatters the myth that Trudeau was universally loved and no one really questions his beliefs.

In other words, in the space of a single sentence, SUZANNE admits to having fucked up the results of that poll, then uses that as proof that Trudeau wasn't popular. I'm not sure there's even a word in the English language to describe that kind of idiocy, but that's not why we're here.

SUZANNE claims that all that freeping wasn't "cheating" and, in fact, she's right. If you offer your readers an online poll, and you don't put proper safeguards in place to make it moron-proof, well, you get what you deserve. But what SUZANNE doesn't appreciate (aside from anything resembling logical thought) is that there are times when freeping is appropriate, and times when it's not.

Every year, Major League Baseball has an All-Star game, and part of the selection process involves the fans voting their brains out to get their chosen player into the game. Not surprisingly, this generates massive campaigns in each city, where viewers work mightily to stuff those online ballot boxes to make sure their favourite player is selected. Sure, it's pretty much freeping but, in this case, there's a reason -- you're trying to affect the selection of the team, which means that there is at least some benefit to you.

The same can be said for that crappy TV show "Canadian Idol," where the whole point is to convince viewers to vote for you. And, once again, that's part of the process -- there's nothing subtle or surreptitious about it. But what about that "Beaver" poll?

Quite simply, there's no obvious benefit to freeping such a poll. There are no prizes at stake, no team membership on the line, no recording contract waiting at the end. What that poll represented was an attempt to learn what Canadians thought, nothing more. So to have freeped that poll is the equivalent of online, drive-by vandalism -- those freepers got nothing out of making a mess of that poll, other than a perverse satisfaction in having destroyed someone else's time and effort to learn something about Canada. But it doesn't end there.

If you truly wanted to distort the results of a poll like that and be able to use those distorted results to make an argument for something, there's one thing that's kind of essential -- you can't brag about it afterwards. Really, do I have to explain that? Said freeping really loses all its value when you strut around afterwards, crowing about how proud you are of it. But even that isn't the best part.

Given how pointless that whole SUZANNE-inspired, online vandalism was, one has to ask -- what was it that was lost here? And the answer is obvious -- what was lost was a chance to learn who Canadians thought was a truly bad person. And it's not at all clear why Canada's conservatives wouldn't be interested in knowing that as well, but in trashing that poll, they clearly threw away the opportunity to learn something. And that, I think, is what distinguishes Canada's conservatives from normal people:

They're not only ignorant, but they're proud of it. Given the chance to actually learn something about Canada, they prefer to just trash that opportunity. In short, they actually prefer their contrived, fictional world to the real one. Quite simply, they're stupid, they're proud of it, and they'll crow about that to anyone who'll listen.

Where I come from, that pretty much defines the word "pathetic."

The Angry, Angry ... um, hang on.

Hey, kids ... y'all remember how totally berserk went the Wingnut-o-sphere over my intemperate blog posting back here? Of course you do. Heck, some day I may even go back and collect some of the choicer threats and promises of physical violence, that sort of thing.

But if a single blog posting addressing a single person could generate that kind of sputtering fury, one can only guess how that same Wingnut-o-sphere will respond to the vile hatred promoted here: "Thank God for Minneapolis Bridge Collapse."

Yessir, one can only imagine the Blogging Tory outrage. Or not.

(Wag of the tail to the folks at Think Progress.)

With friends like that ...

Oh, my -- this is just precious. Regarding the Great Canadian Debate (more about which later), we have Olaf keeping us up to speed:

So, the first debate in the Great Canadian Debate is up. In it, Chris and Dirk argue whether or not Canada should adopt the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.

Um ... huh? I could have sworn ...

Hello all. Sorry, I've been derelict in my posting duties here, as a result of the Great Canadian Debate experiment, which, despite how little we have to show for it so far, has been surprisingly labour intensive. Anyways, things are moving along, however slowly, and here's an update for all you paying attention...

The first round

The "First Round" of Debates, which we hope to start posting next week, are here in no particular order:

Must a person be in favour of the Afghan war in order to "support our troops"?

Red Tory - NO; Richard Evans - YES

Well, OK, he did say "in no particular order" but, apparently, Red Tory finally ran out of patience as Dick Evans simply couldn't get his shit together.

But what's particularly amusing is that Richard Evans was invited to participate in the first place, given that one of the debate's organizers is one "Paladiea," who Dick lists on the front page of his own blog as a member of what he terms "The Looney Bin".

How to win friends and influence people, Dick Evans-style. You can't make this stuff up.

Out of the mouths of babes ...

Blogging Tory Adam Daifallah gets his Snuggies in a bunch:

The hypocrisy of it all

Brilliant column by David Frum in Saturday's National Post pointing out some of the hypocrisy of Hollywood enviro nuts:

Fascinating piece, Adam. And maybe, when you have a minute, you can indulge your little hypocrisy detector with this. And the other 50,000 similar examples.

It's just a thought.

Cherry picking the news from Iraq: Kate McMillan edition -- Part 3.

Moving on to the last in our three-part series on the questionable military victories of "handing over" Iraqi provinces to the Iraqis (or "What Kate McMillan lied about on her summer vacation"), we find ourselves in Dhi Qar province:

Italy hands over security for southern province to Iraqi forces

Italy formally handed over security responsibility of the southern Dhi Qar province to Iraqi forces Thursday, the second of the country's 18 provinces to be handed over to local control.

Ooooooooh ... lookin' good ... until you read a little more carefully (emphasis added):

The overall U.S. strategy calls for coalition forces to redeploy to larger bases and let Iraqis become responsible for their security in specific regions. The larger bases can act in a support or reserve role. A final stage would involve the drawdown of troops from Iraq.

With the handover, Iraqis will now be responsible for security in the province, calling in coalition troops only when they are needed for support.

Um ... yeah. Are you starting to notice a persistent pattern here? Moving on to Najaf, then, where we get a bit of foreshadowing about how long the Iraqis can keep taking control of their own provinces:

U.S. forces ceded control of southern Najaf province to Iraqi police and soldiers, who marked the occasion Wednesday with a parade and martial arts demonstrations. But doubts remain about whether the Iraqis, vulnerable to insurgent attacks and militia infiltration, can handle security in more volatile provinces anytime soon.

Oh, dear ... that doesn't sound particularly promising, does it? But no worries ... those Iraqis are prepared for ... uh ... anything?

At one point, a small group of soldiers stepped forward with a live rabbit and tore it to pieces. The leader bit out the heart with a yell, then passed around the blood-soaked remains to his comrades, each of whom took a bite. The group also bit the heads off frogs, as some of those in the crowd held their noses from the stench.

Great. So if they're attacked by killer rabbits and warrior frogs, they have at least a fighting chance. My head hurts. Moving on (all emphasis added):

Fourth Iraqi Province Transfers to Local Control

WASHINGTON, April 18, 2007 – Maysan province has become the fourth of 18 Iraqi provinces to transfer to provincial Iraqi control, marking another step toward a stable and secure Iraq, according to Multinational-Force Iraq officials.

In a ceremony today at the provincial capital of Al Amarah, Iraqi officials assumed total control of governing the southern province. The province is in the British-led Multinational Division Southeast area of operations.

All right, then ... "total control." It's about time someone took the training wheels off those folks and ... and ... oh, crap:

Coalition units will continue to partner with Iraqi security forces, and small military and police training teams will continue to help Iraqi forces as they gain more hands-on experience, an official said.

Iraqi officials can call on coalition forces in Basra province if they face a situation they cannot handle, the official said.

Coalition forces will also help Iraqi border police. The province has a long border with Iran and coalition forces will continue to help the police patrol the border, the official said.

This is apparently a definition of the word "total" with which I am unfamiliar. But I'm guessing you can see the pattern here, and that pattern finally descends into total absurdity with the next three provinces that got "handed over," which Kate is creaming herself over here:

ARBIL, Iraq (AFP) - In a blaze of pomp showcasing Kurdish military muscle, US forces handed over responsibility for security in Iraq's three northern provinces to the Kurdish regional government on Wednesday [...]

The handover was followed by a parade of Kurdish soldiers, including an all-female martial arts display.

Quick -- who can spot the logical absurdity here? Why, yes ... it's the thought of handing over control of the northern Kurdish provinces back to the Kurds ... yeah, that would be these Kurds:

Trouble looms after coalition tells Kurds self-rule can stay

Owen Bowcott and Brian Whitaker
Tuesday January 6, 2004

Kurdish political leaders have been reassured that their region's semi-autonomous status will be allowed to continue after the handover to Iraqi self-rule on June 30.

Right ... that would be the Kurds who had been promised -- as far back as 2004 -- that they would be allowed to remain semi-autonomous, so one wonders what the big deal is about "handing over" control of the provinces that they've been controlling for the last few years, anyway.

In short, the "handovers" that have taken place so far have been, as we've pointed out, singularly unimpressive, if not downright meaningless. But it looks like that's about to change. Maybe.

Gen: Iraqi Handover May Be Delayed
U.S. Commander In Diyala "Not Optimistic" That Control Of Region Can Be Achieved By Year's End
TIKRIT, Iraq, Feb. 24, 2007

(CBS/AP) A U.S. general warned Saturday that an upsurge in violence outside the capital may delay plans to hand over at least one of the 18 provinces to the Iraqis by the end of the year.

Plans call for all provinces to be transferred to Iraqi security control by Dec. 31. But increased attacks by Sunni insurgents could delay the transfer of Diyala province, which lies just northeast of Baghdad, Maj. Gen. Benjamin Mixon told The Associated Press.

Mixon is the commander of U.S. forces in northern Iraq, which includes Diyala.

"The potential is there" to hand over provinces "except in Diyala, where the future remains in question," Mixon said. "I'm not optimistic" about Diyala "given the current situation."

That was back in February. How are things going? Whoops ... not so well:

Iraqi Forces Unable to Control Diyala
Stars and Stripes | Jeff Schogol | June 26, 2007

ARLINGTON, Va. — The strategy of “As Iraqis stand up, we will stand down” appears to have backfired in Diyala province.

The province shows what happens when U.S. troops transfer security too quickly to ill-prepared Iraqi troops, said Brig. Gen. Dana Pittard, commander of the Iraq Assistance Group.

Three U.S. Army brigade combat teams are currently trying to retake Diyala province from al-Qaida terrorists.

And since cheerleading wanks like Kate were so excited when things were going "well," one should, of course, expect that they'll be fair and balanced and report on when things like this start to go south in a hurry, because that would be the "fair and balanced" thing to do, right? Right?

And, some day, pigs will fly. I'm waiting for that, too.

Poor Stephen Taylor: What hath he wrought?

(A pre-emptive strike for an upcoming article I've been thinking about for a while.)

You have to feel sorry for Blogging Tory co-founder Stephen Taylor. I'm sure he had the best intentions in the beginning, but it has to hurt for him to see how that little exercise in Canadian right-wing dumbassitude turned out. Rather than a dynamic collective of Canadian conservative deep thought, what poor Stephen got was a group of shrieking, childish, neo-con retards. And when it appears that he's finally trying to act like a responsible grown-up:

Just a moderator's note: Please do not repost material from FreeDominion that is the subject of the CHRC complaint. Doing so exposes us, and this warning serves as clear notice that we will pursue civil action against anyone that in turn exposes us to CHRC action related to this complaint against FreeDominion.

Translation: here's a warning that says if you get us in trouble with the CHRC for material we've warned you not to post, we will do what we can to recover our damages (from you) because this warning also indicates that as moderators and site owners, that we don't want to have anything to do with the material that lands a person (rightly or wrongly -- which is another debate) with a human rights complaint.

We think that a country is freer with true free speech and the Canadian laws are not ideal. Regardless, imperfect as they are, we must comply with them and we'd ask that you do the same.

Also, please do not post the name of the complainant or any information about her as there are specific laws against harassment that we must be aware of as well.

Thanks!

... well, it seems that the monster he's created just isn't interested in even an occasional moment of lucidity. Right-wing hatemonger Kathy Shaidle will have none of this lame-ass restraint:

Blogging Tories are pathetic, cowardly weenie-heads

Thank God not every corner of the Canadian conservative blogosphere is inhabited by sucky baby lawyers and other grasping, careerist wimps.

But there are enough of them out there to be an embarrassment to any principled person: ...

And, not surprisingly, the creepy, NAMBLA-obsessed (and potential Calgary alderman) Richard Evans has a word or two for poor Stephen:

Blogging Tories = No Balls

In regards to the (now dropped) CHRC complaint against Free Dominion, BT leader Stephen Taylor writes the following: ...

Nothing like showing a little solidarity with fellow conservatives right?

I left a note in the BT forum letting Stephen know that he needs to grow a pair lest his little group become known as the “Blogging Pansies”. It got deleted within minutes. Is it any wonder the BT membership is dropping?

In all fairness, Evans himself isn't a member of the BTs, but it's telling to see what the seriously insane of Canada's dumbfuck-o-sphere think of Stephen's attempt to finally draw a line and avoid what might be potentially legally actionable. And now we know.

Congratulations, Stephen. You created it. And now you have to live with it. That's gotta hurt.

UPPITY DATE: Whoops, it appears that Kathy Shaidle is no longer a member of the Blogging Tories. When did that happen? Apparently, I'm just not paying attention these days.

Oh, those GOP family values.

Submitted without comment.

Cherry picking the news from Iraq: Kate McMillan edition -- Part 2.

Back here, we started in on the unseemly satisfaction that Canada's Lowest Common Denominatrix™ (and right-wing nutbar) Kate McMillan gets from yammering on tediously about how things are going so swimmingly in Iraq because the Coalition forces are turning over control of the provinces of Iraq one by one back to the Iraqis. (And only in Kate's fevered imagination could the idea of slowly and carefully giving people back their own country piece by piece be considered a sign of stupendous progress, but let's not go down that road. We don't need to.)

And so, without further ado, let's examine closely the actual victories here, sort of like what Steve Janke does when he gets into junior investigative journalist mode, the major difference being that we here at CC HQ actually end up publishing stuff that isn't meaningless, boring shit.

In the beginning, there was the stirring, heart-wrenching victory of Muthanna:

For the first time since the war began, Iraqi forces took over security in a province. The Coalition has high hopes for the handover’s success.
Newsweek
Updated: 2:41 p.m. ET July 13, 2006

On Thursday, the southern Iraqi province of Muthanna celebrated the handover of security responsibilities from coalition forces to Iraqi troops in a soccer stadium outside the provincial capital of Samawah.

Whoo hoo! Yowzah! High five, slap my hand, dammit! Whoops, hang on a second, what's this? (all subsequent emphasis added)

The first transition of its kind in the country—Coalition troops will remain in Muthanna, but only in an advisory role

Oh.

Apparently, that "handing over" thing doesn't actually involve Coalition troops actually ... what's the word I'm looking for here ... oh, right -- "leaving." Kind of a bummer, that. Takes a bit of the lustre off the celebrations, don't you think? But let's not be cruel; surely, we should appreciate this for the spectacular miliary victory that this is and ... and ... uh oh ...

Australian and British forces have handed over security for the relatively peaceful southern province of al-Muthanna to Iraqi forces, in the first such transfer of an entire province.

Maybe it's just me, but I don't quite the see the excitement in handing over a province that was "relatively peaceful" to begin with, if you catch my drift. But, what the heck, at least it's peaceful, and successful, and well-run, and ... oh, shit:

... as many Iraqis are fond of saying, shwey-shwey—little by little. Coalition-led water treatment projects and road and bridge projects in the province have proved successful, but even putting on the ceremony in Samawah seemed to present some real challenges. When Maliki arrived shortly after 9 a.m., a small crowd on the track began to push and shove as he made his way to his seat in a tent to the side of the track. The Iraqi military stepped in quickly to prevent the situation from getting out of hand. Test one: passed.

Moving the increasingly nosy bystanders to clear a corridor on the grass behind the speakers' podium, however, proved a bit too difficult to achieve in one go. Test two: failed. And then there was the PA system. Having already proved the unreliability of Muthanna's power supply by cutting out during several earlier speeches, the creaky audio system at times reduced Maliki's voice to a feint croak reminiscent of Yoda. "How are they going to run the [province's] infrastructure if they can't get the mics to work?" a Coalition soldier asked me as Maliki mumbled away. To the P.M.'s credit, he persevered and kept on speaking despite the fact that few in the crowd could hear a word he was saying.

And about those Coalition troops, well ...

The international troops have said they would maintain a presence nearby and be prepared to help the Iraqis if needed.

That fits in with the overall strategy so far: American and international forces hand over security control for specific regions and redeploy to larger bases - where they can act in a support or reserve role. A final future stage would involve the drawdown of troops from those bases.

Ah.

So, to recap, what we here is the ceremonial handover of a province that was already doing fairly well (except for the crappy infrastructure that would allow for a reasonable standard of living), the actual handover meaning that international troops would simply walk down the road a bit and wait for the shit to hit the fan, at which point they'd simply wander back in to help out. Yes, I can see how, in Kate's world, this would constitute success. And we've only covered the first province. It just gets better from here.

Up next: You can't spell "Dhi Qar" without "dhiq".

Can you say "whackjob," boys and girls?

Seriously, is it a requirement that you be batshit crazy to be a Republican?

Dear dumbass wankers: No end in sight.

Go. Watch. And when the next idiot wingnut tells you that things are just peachy keen in Iraq, drag them outside and club them with a tire iron. Because they deserve it.

Really, really, really, REALLY stupid bloggers.

Honest to Christ, every time I think Kate McMillan can't get any dumber or dishonester, she continues to amaze:

Good Luck With That

Inside The CBC;

Any CBC employee who wants to start a personal blog which “clearly associates them with CBC/Radio-Canada” now requires their supervisor’s permission, according to a new policy document.

The unsigned policy document also states that this rule applies “not only to CBC/Radio-Canada journalists but to any corporation employee.”

Besides what you’d expect in a document like this, like not using the CBC’s resources (email, bandwidth, time, etc.) to update your blog, the policy states that such bloggers are “expected to behave in a way that is consistent with our journalistic philosophy, editorial values and corporate policies.”

Which means screwyoucbc.blogspot.com is about 15 minutes from launch.

Now, for those of you who are not shrieking, demented wingnuts, what is the critical, operative phrase above? Why, yes, it's (emphasis added), 'Any CBC employee who wants to start a personal blog which “clearly associates them with CBC/Radio-Canada” ... '

Which means that this has nothing to do with anyone who wants to start a truly personal blog, but only to those who want to publicly associate themselves with the CBC, which makes perfect sense. In fact, Kate, true to form, carefully stopped quoting just when this distinction was addressed (emphasis added):

To be clear, this policy applies only to personal blogs where the author identifies themselves as a CBC employee.

All in all, that seems eminently reasonable. It's sort of like being a Blogging Tory and understanding that you will never, never, ever speak ill of Dear Leader Stephen Harper, or point out how he is a pathological liar and control freak. Kind of like that.

Canada's Kate McMillan: When you think Canada's wingnuts can't possibly be as deranged or dishonest as their American counterparts, and you need to be set straight.

P.S. Note the update at that CBC web page discussing the "policy," where the "policy" has been downgraded to a "guideline," since policies need to be approved by the CBC Board. CBC News’ Acting Editor in Chief Esther Enkin even provides a clarification in which she states that "As with all guidelines, there is always room for discussion."

One wonders if dear Kate will bother updating her accusatory screed to point out this redefinition. Yeah, and pigs will fly out of my butt.

STUPID COMMENTERS, TOO. To absolutely no one's surprise, Kate's first commenter "GDW" also takes reality and reams it a new butthole:

In other words nobody associated with the CBC is to be allowed to utter any noncongregational opinions in any forum whatsoever.

Why, yes, GDW, that's exactly what that guideline says, isn't it? Seriously, has anyone tried suggesting that these folks stop breeding with one another? It's just a thought.

NICE CATCH, M@: Commenter m@ reminds us of a creepy parallel to this story. Remember this?

Minister stops book talk by Environment Canada scientist

Environment Minister Rona Ambrose has stopped an Environment Canada scientist from speaking publicly about his own novel.

And the rationale for this blatant censorship?

A spokesperson for Ambrose said the speech was billed as coming from an Environment Canada scientist and even though his book is a work of fiction, he would appear to be speaking in an official capacity.

Do I really need to harp on the parallels any further? Of course, that doesn't count 'cuz, well, it's different. Ya know?

A day without Dick Evans is like a day without batshit craziness.

For someone who accuses me of obsessing, right-wing whackjob Richard Evans can't seem to keep from popping by on occasion and learning what kind of demented lunatic he is. Here's a recent screed:

Keep screaming CC! The incessant raving from anonymous internet nutbars like you, thai-guy, m@ and lenny will do nothing but give me additional publicity.

Really? All publicity is good publicity? That would, of course, be the same Dick Evans who, back here, didn't seem particularly keen on the accusations levelled in his direction:

You'd have to prove said promotion lenny lest you be faced with a severe libel suit... Actually... Go for it...

So which is it, Dick? If we point out that you have a decidedly creepy, sexual attraction to children, are we opening ourselves up for a lawsuit, or are we falling into your clever trap of giving you free publicity?

Come on, Dick, make a decision here. We need the entertainment value.

Cherry picking the news from Iraq: Kate McMillan edition -- Part 1.

If there's one thing you can count on, it's that Canada's resident screech harpy and Lowest Common Denominatrix™ Kate McMillan will always, without fail, present you with a slanted, distorted and fundamentally dishonest picture of the news for whatever topic she happens to be writing about. Case in point -- and something I've been meaning to blog on for some time -- the alleged "handover" of Iraqi provinces back to the Iraqis as evidence that things are getting better there.

Witness, if you will, the excitable high-fiving here:

"One by one, the 18 provinces of Iraq are being turned over to the Iraqis"

and here:

Pershmergrrrls

ARBIL, Iraq (AFP) - In a blaze of pomp showcasing Kurdish military muscle, US forces handed over responsibility for security in Iraq's three northern provinces to the Kurdish regional government on Wednesday [...]

The handover was followed by a parade of Kurdish soldiers, including an all-female martial arts display.

Via Gateway Pundit;

7 of 18 Iraqi Provinces now control the security and governmental operations in their region.

How many Americans do you suppose know that?

Well, colour me pessimistic but I'm guessing that most of us don't know about that because, in a nutshell, it's utterly worthless news and means nothing. Let me demonstrate.

In chronological order, the order of turnover of the seven provinces thus far is (allowing for varieties in spelling) Muthanna, Dhi Qar, Missan, Nijaf, Sulaimaniyah, Arbil and Dohuk. Sure sounds impressive, doesn't it? Until you take a closer look.

Let's first consider the percentage of the Iraqi population that that actually represents (the column on the far right):


If you look closely, you'll notice that the majority of provinces that have been turned over are, for the most part, fairly small in terms of population. While 7/18 represents 38 per cent of the provinces, the corresponding population represents only 25 per cent of all of Iraq. So is it any wonder that wanks like Kate and Gateway Pundit would prefer to emphasize that 7/18 figure?

So it's already clear that the residents of the Wingnut-o-sphere are planning to play a bit fast and loose with the facts, and to spin them to their advantage. But when you dig into this further, it gets better. Oh, yeah, it gets so much better.

Stay tuned ...

(Cue really, really stupid wankers howling, "That's it!?!? That's all you've got?? A choice in how numbers are presented? Man, that's so lame," while ignoring the "Stay tuned" admonition. You know it's coming because those people are, well, stupid.)

Apparently, there are bad people out there: The Steve Janke edition.

Oh, no!

The brutal death of Constable Robert Plunkett while trying to arrest alleged car thieves has brought into focus the lucrative business of auto theft for parts. In this case, the alleged thieves were trying to steal airbags. Components such as these are sold for lucrative profits to unscrupulous auto shops to sell to unsuspecting customers.

Join us next week when Steve warns us that there may be more to those e-mails you've been getting from Nigeria than meets the eye.

Yes, they really DO think as slowly as you've heard.

From a full four days ago:

“As two analysts who have harshly criticized the Bush administration’s miserable handling of Iraq, we were surprised by the gains we saw and the potential to produce not necessarily ‘victory’ but a sustainable stability that both we and the Iraqis could live with,” O’Hanlon and Pollack wrote in an article entitled “A War We Just Might Win.”

Yet the authors – and the New York Times – failed to tell readers the full story about these supposed skeptics: far from grizzled peaceniks, O’Hanlon and Pollack have been longtime cheerleaders for a larger U.S. military occupying force in Iraq.

Indeed, Pollack, a former CIA analyst, was a leading advocate for invading Iraq in the first place. He published The Threatening Storm: The Case for Invading Iraq in September 2002, just as the Bush administration was gearing up its marketing push for going to war.

British journalist Robert Fisk called Pollack’s book the “most meretricious contribution to this utterly fraudulent [war] ‘debate’ in the United States.” (Meretricious, by the way, refers to something that is based on pretense, deception or insincerity.)

Sadly, some people just can't keep up. And that's from a military "expert". It doesn't get much more depressing than that, does it?

Vote early, vote often. It's the Freeper motto!

Who said Hollywood was all about Liberals? Let's help get out the vote. It's our civic duty!

The Hollywood sign generator can be found at Glass Giant. Tip o' the hat to World o' Crap.

Submitted without comment.

Swallow that milk first:


(Wag of the tail to Jane at FDL.)

Southern culture on the skids.

I swear, they just said we were getting together for drinks. I had no idea what I was walking into.

And, yes, if they turn out, there will be pics. I feel so deliciously trailer trash. Mummy, I want a mullet!

"Support the troops"? Eh, not so much.

Holy. Freakin'. God.

The Honorable Alberto R. Gonzales
Attorney General
U.S. Department of Justice
950 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW
Washington, D.C. 20530

Dear Attorney General Gonzales: ...

During the July 24th hearing, I identified five interrogation techniques: 1) painful stress positions, 2) threatening detainees with dogs, 3) forced nudity, 4) waterboarding (i.e., simulated drowning) and 5) mock execution. I explained that the Judge Advocates General, the highest-ranking attorneys in each of the four military services, have stated that each of these techniques is illegal and violates Common Article 3 of the Geneva Conventions. I then asked you, "Would it be legal for a foreign government to subject a United States citizen to these so-called enhanced interrogation techniques which I just read?"

You're not going to believe what happens next:

You responded, "Senator, you're asking me to answer a question which, I think, may provide insight into activities that the CIA may be involved with in the future. … [I]t would depend on circumstances, quite frankly" (emphasis added).

Very. Long. Pause.

It would "depend on circumstances."

Make sure you appreciate what just happened here: Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, the highest ranking law enforcement official in the United States, has just announced to the entire world that he's not sure there's anything illegal about torturing American citizens because, after all, that would "depend on circumstances."

Dear U.S. troops: Your government has just declared open season on each and every one of you, and may God have mercy on your souls because the Bush administration doesn't give a fuck about you.

Have fun. I hear waterboarding is a real hoot. You might want to start practising holding your breath.

P.S. I'm sure that, being the super-patriot, "support the troops" kind of folks that they are, the Blogging Tories will be expressing their outrage over this recent development any minute now.

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

Sometimes, I crack me up.

Boy Detective Adventures: The Steve Janke edition.

And in this week's gripping installment, we again find courageous crime-fighter and Chinese toothpaste expert Steve Janke, hunkered down under his blanket with his flashlight and slooooooowly turning the knob of his Acme Police Scanner 3000 until ... Hokey Smoke, Bullwinkle, evil is afoot!

Cedrika Provencher of Trois-Rivieres, Quebec, is nine-years-old and has been missing for 40 hours. We know that she was looking for a lost dog, but we don't know whose dog it was or who asked her to look. That is very disturbing.

Yes, you could get the same information from CTV or CBC, but those people would just do plain reporting and stuff and give you the facts, and what's the fun in that? It takes a crack analytical mind like Steve's to decide that all of this is "disturbing," and that's why he's a big time right-wing blogger and you're not.

But you knew that, right?

Calgary municipal elections: The Richard Evans edition.

Dick Evans: the cold sore that keeps on festering:

You know Meaghan I was being nice and redirected somenamedia.com back here a couple of weeks ago. You have a choice: Keep things peaceful or don't. It's your decision...

Richard

Ah ... redirecting a look-alike site of Meaghan's away from a site that promotes white supremacy. This is apparently Richard's idea of being "nice." I can just imagine what family life must be for Richard if he's married: "Look, I'm trying to be nice to you, honey. That's why I stopped beating you. But if you keep up that crying, ..."

What a treat, that Richard. From registering look-alike domains and redirecting them to sites promoting racism and pedophilia, to now ominously threatening female bloggers with ... what exactly? If I were Meaghan, I'd be starting a folder of evidence and making sure the local authorities knew about this.

And if I lived in Calgary, well, I'd make sure Dick's potential run for local politician was a decidedly unpleasant one, if you catch my drift. I'm betting someone at the Calgary Herald would think this story has at least a little entertainment value, don't you?

The Great Canadian Debate. Resolved: Conservatives are imbeciles.

See, this is why you should never try to engage the Right in intellectual discourse -- they're idiots. Here, we have "Marginalized Action Dinosaur," being, quite simply, wrong about everything.

Retarded Porn Smuggling Expert Canadian Cynic, comes up with a drinking game.

Because “Canadian Cynic” is smarter than your average perv…”I can encrypt them. Or misname them. Or put them in hidden folders. Or just not bring them at all, and get them later via e-mail or from a web site. I mean, Jesus Christ, the possibilities are endless. Really, you’d have to pretty stupid to get caught smuggling porn on your computer.”

Ah. So, since I chose to blog about the ease with which one could theoretically smuggle pornography across international borders on one's laptop, that consequently makes me "smarter than your average perv" and a "porn smuggling expert." If you really need a refutation of that infantile claim, well, you're too stupid to be hanging out here and you should go read the Blogging Tories. In any event, onward:

First CC quotes re Richards assertion that no lefties complain re oprah, CC in all it’s wisdom can’t find one link in the entire blogosphere to refute LFR.

Wow ... the stupid here is breathtaking. Let's see what I was responding to, shall we?

The MoonBats are continually screaming about CEO compensation.

Except, it seems, when it comes to Oprah.

She pulls in 250 million/year and this is what we get from the left side of the blogosphere: [listen] [crickets chirping]

Why do you think that is?

It's because comparing Oprah's income, which she earns by her own efforts, is not comparable to that earned by CEOs, who can be incompetent cretins and still be granted obscene salaries by their boards of directors, so it has nothing to do with complaining about Oprah. I would have thought my point was self-evident but, apparently, there are still some people who need these things explained to them sloooooooowly and carefully. But, hilariously, it just gets better and better:

Then he goes on to say how wanting the troops to fail in afghanistan is how you support them. Lets do that with our Olympic team too hope they lose but support them any way,… Makes no sense to me but I’m not cc.

Again, too asinine to bother responding to (are you seeing a pattern here?). Moving on:

he says that lefties do like talk radio!

Let us examine the statement I was responding to, from the tediously stupid Dick Evans:

We can pretty much all agree that leftists hate talk radio, yes?

As the non-brain-damaged among you will realize, the counter-claim of the above is not that all lefties like talk radio, it is that some lefties like talk radio, a logical construction that MAD clearly fails to grasp.

I could go on, but what's the point. Poor MAD is, as Arnold Rimmer would say, "brimming over with wrongability." So let me leave you with the following telling statistic of MAD's putrid example of a web site:


I believe the expression "Once is more than enough" applies here, don't you think?

What part of "it was freeped" don't you understand?

One more time, let's explain this sloooooooowly:

Duh! A bunch of people with too much time on their hands stuffed the ballot box (as it were), and are now bragging about it as if the results meant something. But they don't. And The Beaver really needs to catch up with how things work out here on the internets if it doesn't want to get fooled again.

So, are we good here? Do we all understand this now? Seriously, do we all now appreciate the utter worthlessness and irrelevance of ... oh, shit:

Recently, a small Canadian Natural History publication from the west, called Beaver, published the results of an online survey it ran. The survey asked who was the worst Canadian. The person who topped that list was none other than Pierre Elliot Trudeau.

Somewhere, a village is missing its idiot.

Apparently, I have a tiny dick.

I apologize for being unable to resist slapping Dick Evans around the parking lot so frequently but, really, we're talking the ultimate in low-hanging fruit here:

Interestingly enough, I was cruising the TTLB Ecosystem listing at about the same time. Let’s look at the rankings for a minute shall we?

Let Freedom Reign = 241

Small Dead Animals = 383

The Blogging Tories = 397

Canadian Cynic = 4,321

Yes, Dick, I'm sure those other sites are far higher up the TTLB food chain than I am and, no, I guess there's nothing wrong with comparing me with LFR (which has 12 contributors) or the BTs (which have about 8 gazillion), while (no slight to my co-blogger PSA) I'm the primary author of my little corner of blogworld but, hey, don't let facts get in the way of your little "Neener, neener, neener" outburst or anything.

By my count, LRF [sic] is ranked about 4,080 slots higher than CC’s little e-tabloid. Imagine that.

Or, conversely, imagine that Dick can't even get the acronym of his blog correct. Onward.

If I were a betting man I’d wager that CC’s got a serious case of “little man syndrome”. Or is that “small penis syndrome”? Oh well, no matter… He’s like the midget at the bar picking a fight with the biggest patrons in a sad attempt to try and look bigger than he really is… I think I’ve had farts that have gotten a better TTLB ranking than the one CC’s currently sporting.

Yes, Dick, we get your point ... you have a much bigger dick, etc, etc. ... hold on ... what's this?

In all fairness I have to admit that CC gets more daily visits than LFR but I liken it to rubber-neckers at a car wreck.

Translation: More visitors are better, unless I don't want more visitors to be better.

Seriously, Dick, how are those lobotomy scars healing?

Juat another towel snap to the privates: Kate McMillan edition.

Hey, kids ... remember how Canada's Lowest Common Denominatrix™ was creaming herself over the good news from Iraq:

I Hope You're Sitting Down

"A War We Just Might Win"

... etc etc etc ...

Whoopsie:

O’Hanlon begins backpedaling from op-ed.

Just a few days after writing about the progress he saw in Iraq, Brookings analyst Michael O’Hanlon claims that if the situation remains as it is currently, he could not “write another Op-Ed” declaring success:

In an interview on Wednesday, Mr. O’Hanlon said the article was intended to point out that the security situation was currently far better than it was in 2006. What the American military cannot solve, he said, are problems caused by the inability of Iraqis to forge political solutions. “Ultimately, politics trumps all else,” Mr. O’Hanlon said. “If the political stalemate goes on, even if the military progress continued, I don’t see how I could write another Op-Ed saying the same thing.”

I'm fairly sure you won't be reading about this latest development over at Small Dead Brainstems because that would be, you know, fair and balanced, and Kate doesn't do fair and balanced. But you didn't need me to tell you that, did you?

Richard Evans: Down the memory hole.

You can almost smell the fear as commenter "notnonny" (that would be one Richard Evans of http://no-libs.com) tries to bluff his way out of deep, deep trouble here:

I guess we'll see if the voters in his Calgary ward aren't interested in his pedophilia promotion because that was, like, months ago.

You'd have to prove said promotion lenny lest you be faced with a severe libel suit... Actually... Go for it...

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! So, having previously realized what kind of shitstorm he was letting himself in for with those earlier tasteless links, Dick has since fixed them and is now, believe it or not, denying that they ever existed. That's hysterical since I'm betting, without even looking, that there's abundant evidence that Dick once redirected a look-alike site to NAMBLA, just as subsequent commenter "lenny" suggests:

Are you denying that you have directed traffic from one of your domains to NAMBLA?

Yes, Dick ... are you actually denying having once done that? And maybe you're also denying that you also registered a look-alike site for Somena Media once, and linked it to the white supremacist "Stormfront" site, as I documented back here.

I bring this up only because rumour has it that Mr. Evans is running for alderman or something in his hometown of Calgary and, if any of my regular readers are fans of his, they might want to make a quiet phone call to the local paper and mention Mr. Evans' amusing hobby which involves racism and pedophilia. I'm sure Calgary voters would be just tickled to know how enlightened is our Dick. And if the western media needs some corroboration, why, I'll just bet I know a handful of people who'd love to help out.

What do you think, folks? Any Calgary readers who are feeling civic-minded and have a minute or two to chat with the Herald? Come on -- think of it as your civic duty.

And protecting the children. That, too.

HEY, KIDS ... quick, before Richard disappears it, look where he's redirected the look-alike domain name http://canadiancynic.net. Isn't that cute? Yeah, Dick ... you keep yapping on about that libel lawsuit. Give us all a good chuckle.

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! Having threatened with a lawsuit anyone accusing him of redirecting domain names to sites that promote racism or pedophilia, Richard now does a gigantic flip-flop in the comments section in responding to lenny:

That's not direct enough lenny. In those cases it's easy for me to argue that I directed two domain names to sites that seemed appropriate to the their namesakes.

Take somenamedia as an example; As MWW seems to be racist against white people, the domain somenamedia.com was directed to another racist site.

Here, let me translate for you: "I never did that and I'll sue you if you suggest it! Well, OK, I did, but those people deserved it." Yes, you can smell the growing panic from here as Dick realizes he's fucked up big time, and is now inanely threatening to sue anyone who points it out.

I think my Calgary readers need to watch these upcoming elections closely and, if one "Richard Evans" shows up as a candidate, a short phone call to the Calgary Herald would seem to be in order.

What do you think, Dick? How's that "accountability" and "personal responsibility" and "actions have consequences" tasting right about now?

Jackass.

P.S. Richard is still, as I type, redirecting the domain name "canadiancynic.net" to the NAMBLA home page. One wonders what his rationalization is for that, but I'm sure his diseased brain can come up with something. Maybe he'll threaten me with a lawsuit for pointing it out.

Yeah, that would be just priceless, wouldn't it?

IT'S ALL ABOUT THE CHILDREN. And since Richard has pretty much pissed me off by now, I would be remiss in not pointing out that you can apparently get his personal information right off the web by querying the registration information for the domain "somenamedia.com" to learn that he lives in Calgary on Beddington Crescent (all of that information easily available to the general public with a single query).

And if it just so happened that his neighbours awoke one morning to find flyers in their mailboxes describing Dick's creepy obsession with NAMBLA and white supremacist sites and suggesting they might want to keep a closer eye on their kids, one would think that Dick would have no one to blame but himself.

You want to fuck with me, Dick? You go right ahead. I'll be happy to play that game.

Set the Record Straight

Following up on the article below, I sent this to the Record's online feedback for factual errors:

"Regarding the article "U.S. might be able to win in Iraq" posted as http://news.therecord.com/Opinions/article/222043 ON July 31, 2007
MICHAEL E. O'HANLON AND KENNETH M. POLLACK
New York Times News Service.

I think it is important for the context of the authors opinions to be shared with your readership, I think it would be fair to state that they haven't been entirely honest. They portray themselves as harsh critics of the Iraq war and the administration in Washington. They make claims about troop morale and the success of the surge. Yet there are serious factual errors. They cite electricity as a marker of success, yet the provision of that vital utility has fallen to approximately an hour a day and is enough of an embarrassment that the American leadership has ceased to report on the state of the grid there. There are also documented instances of troops stating the opposite of improved morale. The increased deployment to 15 months has not been popular at all. The authors provide only their hearsay account with neither quotes nor documentary evidence. This is shoddy reporting. Your readers deserve better.

I think that if one were to take the time to look into the positions espoused by Mr. Pollack and Mr. O'Hanlon, one would find that rather than being harsh critics of the Bush administration policy they have been cheerleaders.

Here are a few links that might be of assistance:

Greenwald at Salon

Think Progress

The Carpet Bagger

Lefarkins

Booman Tribune

Liberty Street USA

Here's a quote from an article posted at:

Consortium News

"Yet the authors – and the New York Times – failed to tell readers the full story about these supposed skeptics: far from grizzled peaceniks, O’Hanlon and Pollack have been longtime cheerleaders for a larger U.S. military occupying force in Iraq.

Indeed, Pollack, a former CIA analyst, was a leading advocate for invading Iraq in the first place. He published The Threatening Storm: The Case for Invading Iraq in September 2002, just as the Bush administration was gearing up its marketing push for going to war.

British journalist Robert Fisk called Pollack’s book the “most meretricious contribution to this utterly fraudulent [war] ‘debate’ in the United States.”

With a very large tip o' the hat to all of the commenters that did the homework and collected the links. I'll be interested to see what comes of the note. And of course you are all welcome to use the Report Typo or Correction feature in the side bar.

I believe the word I'm looking for here is "vindicated."

Into the wayback machine, Sherman, back to the days when Canada's wankers still lived in their little, hermetically-sealed cocoons:

19 June 2006
Myths and the US Military

Combat Jump Star has a synopsis of common myths about the US military. For those who don’t know CJS, he’s a duel [sic] citizen of Canada and the United States and has served 2 tours in Afghanistan and 1 in Iraq with the 82nd Airborne…. ( I dare you to tell him that the 82nd is the “little sister” of the 101st). Check out his debunking of some common myths; myths by the way, that are MSM or Leftist boilerplate:

1. All or most soldiers are rednecks from the South.

2. Minorities are being used as "cannon fodder" on the front lines.

3. Soldiers are uneducated, or less educated than their peers outside the Military

4. Recruiting is down

You know what's coming, don't you? Yes, you do:

Military Lowers Standards To Fill Ranks
The Army Is Taking Chances On Recruits With Rap Sheets

(CBS) The longer the war continues, the harder it's proving to fill the U.S. Army's ranks. A strong economy also means there are easier jobs around.

So the Army is accepting a growing number of new recruits with everything from health and weight issues to lower academic test scores to criminal records.

The number of incoming soldiers with prior felony arrests or convictions has more than tripled in the past five years. This year alone, the Army accepted an estimated 8,000 recruits with rap sheets, reports CBS News correspondent Kimberly Dozier.

There's a lesson here that we progressives would like to point out to you conservatives, and it's this: We are always right, and you are always wrong. The sooner you can come to grips with that, the better off we'll all be. I'm just sayin'.

(A big wag of the tail to Pam at AmericaBlog.)

Document the dumbfuckitude.

And another gullible buffoon goes into:
slavishly-obedient, right-wing stenographer mode:

Iraq Winnable

There is an interesting opinion piece in the local paper this morning, that suggest the war in Iraq may be winnable after all. It would seem that the surge is working. Time will tell.

And the perkily optimistic piece that KC refers to that gives him such cause for happy thinking? Oh, please ... like you had to ask?

The "let me save you some time" irony edition.

Blogging Tory Jonathon Narvey opens with:

"Brainwashed religious fanatics ..."

Um ... yeah. Whenever a member of the Blogging Tories starts writing about "brainwashed religious fanatics" is pretty much where I stop reading.

Richard Evans: The supreme irony edition.

One of Dick's co-bloggers, "Wonder Woman," gets her thong in a bunch over the potential danger associated with child predation:

How would it feel to be trolling around the Internet, following an endless loop of links from site to site and suddenly come across the face of your very own 5-year-old daughter; her sweet, cherubic smile peering up at you through the set of monkey bars at your local park, captured in a photograph and posted on a website that advocates pedophilia?

Yes, all this outrage would be coming from a blogging bedmate of this Richard Evans (emphasis tail-waggingly added):

Evans has been for some time involved in a personal little war with someone by the name of “cycles2k”. They have been exchanging comment and insult - in a rather assymetrical way, as Evans leans strongly towards the latter - since long before I started following Evans. Cycles too has a blog, somenamedia.blogspot.com. Evans, confident in his self-rightous crusade against the leftist scum, did something that should ensure he gets a brief stay as one of the internet's villains. He bought the domain somenamedia.com, and used it to start pretending to be Cycles2k. With the domain as credentials, he started wandering the internet posting a lot of homophobic and racist rants, and expressing his support for pedophilia - all the while signing his comments with the name of his enemy, Cycles2k, or his alternate name Somenamedia.

Pedophilia: It's funny until someone gets hurt. Then, in Richard Evans' world, it's hilarious.