You can't spell "apologetics" without "apologize."

It's always amusing to watch Christian apologists bob, weave, duck, tap dance and engage in a furious relocation of goalposts whenever they're called on to observe the very same conditions they've laid down for their intellectual opponents. Here's my favourite:

Apologist: "Logically, everything that exists has to have a cause. There are no uncaused causes. Therefore, the universe must have a cause. Hence, God exists."

You: "Um, well, OK, but if everything has to have a cause, what caused God?"

Apologist: "Sorry, but that irrefutable axiom doesn't apply to us. What luck, eh?"

It happens all the time, particularly when you attempt to use the apologist's own argument against him. For example, one is constantly assaulted with the argument against natural evolution by way of probability, along the lines of, "Do you know the chances of an amino acid just reorganizing itself out of nothing? It's like a tornado blowing through a junkyard and building a 747! Oh, man, that's like, a hundred, million, skillion, bajillion to one! Ha ha! Stupid evolutionists!"

To which one, when hearing an argument that insipid, is tempted to respond thusly:

In that case, Mr. Ball, what do you think is the chance that an omniscient, omnipotent deity popped into existence by chance?

at which point, well, it's pretty much inevitable:

1. Probability has to do with chance and contingency. I see the universe as a contingent reality; one which need not exist, and which need not exist in the particular form it takes. So, both its existence and its particular form are both contingent.

2. Because the universe exists, it requires an adequate cause. Since time, matter, and energy all came into being as a result of the Big Bang, the sufficient cause of the Big Bang must be immaterial, exist outside of time, and be extremely creatively powerful.

3. Because of point 2, a being existing outside of time, i.e., eternal being becomes exceedingly likely. This being, in order to effect an ordered, mathematical universe which includes conscious, moral beings, must be a) eternal, b) personal, i.e., not impersonal, c) creative, d) moral, and e) powerful. All this becomes probable, because the universe requires a sufficient cause.

No, no, don't nod off, stay with me here, because we finally get to the gold standard of Christian apologetics relocation of goalposts (emphasis tail-waggingly added):

4. As a second point, probabilities apply to contingent realities. They do not apply to a being that exists outside of contingency, i.e., a necessary being. Therefore, the use of the logic and science of probability is inapplicable to the existence of God, who exists outside of time, chance, and contingency.

I'm going to do Blogging Tory Richard Ball a huge favour and supply him with the only Christian apologetic he will ever need, in any situation and under any cirsumstances:

"In order to prove the existence of the Christian God, I am going to propose some logical axioms that you have to obey but I get to violate whenever the fuck it suits me."

Really, that's pretty much the substance of it, isn't it? And it'll save everyone just buckets of time.

You're welcome.

AFTERSNARK: I've always loved how the vast majority of Christian apologists start off their fundamental axioms:

"I am now going to prove the existence of God. First, assume the existence of a necessary, perfect, infinite, immaterial, eternal, all-powerful, non-contingent being that exists outside of space and time, and for whom the basic rules of logic, physics and probability do not apply. The rest follows naturally."

Yeah, it would, wouldn't it?

Saturday Morning Cartoons.

Yes, yes, I know I'm late, darlings -- it is the long weekend, you know. I did, however, make what appears to be the perfect pot of coffee this morning.

Want a cup?

Dear Governor Asshat: Did not think that one through.

It appears to be a biological imperative that whingers start flapping their gums long before they bother engaging their brains:

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

And the pants-peeing cowardice keeps on rolling ...

Back here, we pick on Blogging Tory and inveterate whiner "shlemazl" here. But, curiously, if we scroll to the end of shlemiel's blog post, what's this?



Apparently, not content with simply banning commenters, shlemiel has taken to erasing the record of links to his work. Not quite the profile in courage you were expecting, was it?

And to set the record straight, shlemiel, we don't "hate" you -- we just think you're a whiny, annoying, dishonest, cowardly twerp. There's a difference.

FRANTIC CENSORING IN 3 ... 2 ... 1 ...: Over at shlemiel's place, the automatic link from this post shows up:



Any bets on how long it stays there before shlemiel scrubs the historical record? Pretty funny stuff for someone who accuses others of being "pitiful cowards," don't you think?

I'm confidently assertive; he's a pushy asshole.

Michael Ignatieff: stuck-up, snooty elitist:

One line of attack in particular, which derides Mr. Ignatieff for describing himself as “cosmopolitan,” both misses the mark and epitomizes the problematic character of the Conservatives' argument. The Canadian Oxford Dictionary defines that which is cosmopolitan as “sophisticated, worldly” and “consisting of people from any or all parts.” Far from insulting Mr. Ignatieff, this seems to position him as emblematic of the Canadian ideal: tolerant, multicultural and part of a diverse but coherent international mosaic...

[The current attack on Ignatieff] ridicules him for singing opera, belonging to a private club, owning a luxury condominium and, oddly, for drinking coffee. (It seems to take special offence at his choice of espresso, alongside a chocolate wafer, when conducting an interview.)

Jesus Christ, what a pompous, pretentious, self-absorbed blowhard, that Iggy.

In unrelated news, Her Majesty's Prime Minister Stephen Harper is an aspiring author, a curling fan, can (sort of) sing, plays piano, has "wide ranging" (almost, dare we say it, cosmopolitan?) taste in movies, and is currently learning to speak Spanish, which only proves what kind of talented and worldly intellectual he is. No, really.

In Mr. Harper's case, though, all of that is apparently a good thing. At least that's what I've heard.

Homos and Jewry and wingnuts, oh my!

Shorter wingnuts: "Any criticism or condemnation of any kind of Israel is blatant and obvious anti-Semitism. There is absolutely no distinction that can be drawn between disliking Israel for, say, its political positions or foreign policy or treatment of Palestinians, and being a disgusting, anti-Semitic Jew-hater. There is no difference between those two things, and any attempt to claim that there is is intellectual dishonesty."

Shorter wingnuts: "Any criticism or condemnation of homosexuality is in no way equivalent to being a rancid, anti-gay homophobe. It's critically important to distinguish between disapproving of gay rights or gay marriage or treating gays like human beings, and being a disgusting, homophobic bigot, because those two things are, like, totally different, and any attempt to claim that they're the same is intellectual dishonesty."

Allow me to put words in your mouth.

Blogging Tory and defender of all things Jewish "shlemazl" smites reality a mighty blow:

To Those That Hate Us

This blog has always received hatemail. As of late the flux has been on the rise. Which is why this blog is now moderated...

I am being constantly told by the Canadian lefties that anti-Semitism does not exist.

Oh, shlemazl, of course it exists. Look ... there's some now:

Arkansas GOP Senate Candidate Apologizes For Calling Schumer "That Jew"

North American Jewry: Unable to recognize actual anti-Semitism because they're too busy spooning intimately with it.

BONUS TRACK: shlemazl would like to take a brief break from accusing others of being hateful bigots:

Can Someone Please Drop a Nuclear Bomb on Egypt?

So where were we? Oh, right ... shlemazl was complaining about other people being hateful bigots. Carry on, then.

That irony is ALL kinds of awesome.

In which hate speech radio host Michael Savage confuses "free speech" with "consequence-free speech."

Dontcha just love it when that happens?

Yeah, about that "sanctity of life" thing, Hunter ...

Blogging Tory Hunter continues to whine ... and whine ... and whine ...

It is the March for Life rally that had 12,000 people show up in support of life... Funny how it was only Conservative and Liberal MP's that support life.

Kind of similar to the way that it's only Blogging Tory members who support wholesale genocide of brown people:

Hey Sri Lanka, would you just hurry up and finish [the Tamils] off so traffic can get back to normal?

Hunter then gets all panty-bunchy:

We will have to start calling the Bloc the Culture of Death party, as they support both abortion and euthanasia. Sicko's.

And along those lines, I guess we could start calling the Blogging Tories the "Let's Kill all the Brown People" blogging aggregator. Kate McMillan and "Neo Conservative" alone could carry the banner for that.

AFTERSNARK: Zerb takes Hunter out to the woodshed without even realizing it.

Me. Me. Meeeeeeeeee.

Shorter Ezra Levant: "But enough about me. Let's talk about me."

I've just given you the condensed version of every Ezra Levant blog post from now until the heat death of the universe. No, don't thank me -- consider it a public service.

None dare call it "carpetbagging."

Yeah ... fucking carpetbaggers, hanging out down south, only to come back to run for office and, if they lose, bail in a fit of pique. Assholes.

Oh, wait ... wrong link. Sorry.

Get 'em up against the wall.

Clever, cutting, witty insight. Eh ... not so much.

Teh Rock!

No, we SHOULDN'T execute all of the Blogging Tories. That would be wrong.

Apparently, the new right-wing talking point down south is that torture is defensible because, well, it works:

After refusing to release even unclassified materials as Vice President, former Vice President Dick Cheney is now calling for the release of all interrogation reports to show that torture works.

Ignore for the moment that all of the evidence shows that it doesn't work (in the sense that it doesn't reliably produce accurate or useful information). Put that niggling detail aside and let's assume, just for the sake of argument, that it does work. Let's go with that position and see where it takes us.

That argument would seem to suggest that, even if torture is illegal, unconstitutional, a war crime or what have you, it's acceptable because it works. It's acceptable because it produces the result you're after. It's acceptable because you end up in a better place than when you started, with more potentially valuable information. In short, even if it's legally, ethically and morally reprehensible, in the end, you shouldn't object to it since, well, quite simply, the ends justify the means because the end result is an undeniably good thing. Except that, if you buy that argument, ugly things start to happen.

If you accept that logic, then you similarly have to accept that it would be equally defensible to torture a suspect's family to get information. Maybe a suspect is a tough nut to crack. So you drag in his family, and torture his wife and children in front of him. Is that acceptable? Using the above logic, it would have to be, which puts the torture apologist in an increasingly awkward position. So let's push this "logic" one step further.

Personally, I would like to see a "smarter" Canada. And by "smarter," I mean that I think it would be a good thing if Canadians were more educated, more logical, more intellectual. I've always felt that knowledge is a good thing; that the better educated we are as a populace, the better society we're capable of creating. Can anyone seriously deny that? So how can we get a smarter Canada? Simple: Execute all the Blogging Tories. No, wait, hear me out.

I don't think anyone can possibly deny that, as a group, Stephen Taylor's Blogging Tories are the most uneducated, cement-headed collection of racist, intolerant yahoos and painful scientific illiterates this side of the 49th parallel. Seriously, there's no way you can even begin to deny the jaw-dropping idiocy of folks like Dr. Roy, Hunter, the dingbats at The Politic, Raphael Alexander, Paul E. Marek, Neo Conservative ... the list just goes on and on, doesn't it? Which suggests, quite simply, that to improve the intellectual level of this country, all we need to do is take them all out, line them up against the wall, and have them shot.

Sure, that would be ethically and morally repugnant. In fact, I'm pretty sure it would be illegal in some provinces. But (and here's the kicker) if you put aside the horrific human rights violations involved, I think we can all agree that, in the end, we'd end up with a smarter country. Really, I think that would be a foregone conclusion. The means might be a bit tacky and classless but the end result would be a good thing, nationally speaking.

So why don't we do that? Because it would be wrong. Simply put, it doesn't matter if the end result is a good thing. That doesn't justify the behaviour. It doesn't matter if the Blogging Tories are embarrassing retards, wretched racists and vile neo-Nazis and white supremacists whose collective execution would make this a better country in an instant. None of that matters.

Killing them outright would be wrong. Wrong, wrong, wrong! The fact that it would be good for Canada is not even remotely relevant. The end does not justify the means. It doesn't justify executing Blogging Tories, and it doesn't justify torture. And anyone who wants to defend torture because it "works" might want to take a minute to really think about what lies at the end of that road.

Douche vs Douche

True to form, the Stephen Harper Party, home of the lowest common denominator, has gone for the garbage. The new attack ad campaign is under way, it portrays Ignatieff as an arrogant, expatriate intellectual and ego stroking narcissist. While those charges are true enough by my reckoning, I'm just not sure how the Cons figure that they look better by pointing them out. Dion they could make look the fool, they could mock his accent, his posture and appearance. But Ignatieff is more or less one of their own, a blustering, self impressed douche bag who will do anything it takes to gain power. I kind of feel sorry for the poor C.R.A.P. operatives that had to comb through the tens of thousands of pages of Ignatieff's copious self expression. Sure, there's a mother lode of material to exploit but it also opens the door for the similar exploitation of Beefy Steve's anti-Canadian diatribes and much as I don't like Ignatieff, he's a damn sight more artful in his prattling than Stevie-boy has ever been. From my vantage point we're about to witness a douche fight of epic proportions. I don't want either of the combatants to win but I sure am hoping for injuries.

Dear God ...

... make it stop:



Is that ditzy airhead's 15 minutes up yet?

Heh.

Indeed. With free food, I'm guessing Jonah Goldberg is a lock.

Because even thuggish, neo-Nazis have their Blogging Tory groupies.

Hey, kids, remember Sheriff Joe Arpaio? Apparently, the good sheriff was recently hobnobbing with some less-than-reputable characters. No worries, though ... I suspect Sheriff Joe is always going to have his adoring fans:



That would, of course, be one of Stephen Taylor's Blogging Tories -- "Neo [Nazi] Conservative." But you'd probably already guessed that, right?

When stupid Blogging Tories blog.

Blogging Tory Daniel "The View from the Right" Roest fucks things up completely (all subsequent emphasis added):

Today Ruby Dhalla was the latest politician added to the list of those dragged before the ethics committee.

Then there's the race of not-retarded people:

Dhalla asks ethics commissioner to launch review

... In a written statement released Wednesday night, Dhalla said she was "saddened and troubled" by the allegations and that a transparent, third-party evaluation was required to clear her name.

Dhalla added that she had requested the ethics commissioner "commence a review to ensure that this matter is resolved in a fair and objective manner."

Stephen Taylor's Blogging Tories: When you want the pure, unadulterated, objective facts, but also want to see what the batshit airhead crazies are thinking as well.

Pants.

Being pro-child is context-dependent.

Blogging Tory "Raphael Alexander" once again makes it clear that he's not a real big fan of the brown people as he and some of his commenters get all panty-bunchy about the use of children as human shields. Here's commenter "Anne in swON":

The use of children on the front lines of a surging tide of protestors is deplorable. It certainly adds credence to the often-mentioned tactic used by the Tamils in Sri Lanka of using children as human shields.

In other news that you will never, ever, ever hear from a Blogging Tory ...

I really wish a bunch of dark-skinned furriners would all be killed.

Oh, wait, that's not me thinking that, that's Kate McMillan:

Hey Sri Lanka, would you just hurry up and finish them off so traffic can get back to normal?

It's nice to see that, in a world of change, some things remain predictably consistent:

[McMillan] wrote that people there would have better luck attracting businesses to the inner city area if they put down the spray cans, crossed their legs and put the caps back on their needles.

"Failing that, share it with your friends. It's a quicker solution to your problem anyway," the post said.

The Blogging Tories' Kate McMillan: Because why waste your time on eliminationist thinking at a retail level when you can do it wholesale?

Stephen Taylor must be so proud. Genocidally speaking.

BONUS TRACK: Blogging Tory "Kez Creates" is the latest to jump on the "OHMIGOD OHMIGOD OHMIGOD Wanda Sykes OHMIGOD OHMIGOD" bandwagon:

She commented, among other things, that maybe Rush Limbaugh's kidneys should fail (after alluding that he was the 20th hijacker of 9/11, and making reference to his past addiction to prescription medication which has indeed led to his kidney problems). Anyway - this was not just poking fun at the President's dog, or even Bush's 'failed policies',,, it was a hateful remark directed at one individual who was not there to defend himself, and pretty much bold-face stating she hopes he dies. Wow.

Curiously, Kez has nothing to say about Kate McMillan. How ... odd.

BY THE WAY, once again, we have one of Stephen Taylor's stable of microcephaloids, arguing in bad faith:

She commented, among other things, that maybe Rush Limbaugh's kidneys should fail (after alluding that he was the 20th hijacker of 9/11, ...

Really, Kez? Sykes sincerely suggested that Rush Limbaugh was the 20th 9/11 hijacker? She seriously made that claim? She actually publicly made that accusation?

Oh, wait, no, she didn't. It was a joke. But, like so many other wanks before her, Kez deliberately misunderstands something in order to stoke her faux outrage. Because it's the only kind of outrage these people can muster anymore. The phony kind. The bogus kind. The contrived kind.

But when BT colleague Kate McMillan explicitly and publicly calls for the mass murder of the Tamil people of Sri Lanka? Apparently, no big deal.

And Kate wasn't even joking.

Did not think that one through, did we, Kate?

Canada's neo-Naziest blogger Kate McMillan curiously makes fun of lax academic standards:



So, if I understand this correctly, Kate -- a member of the Blogging Tories -- is mocking and ridiculing a formula that helps intellectually sub-standard yahoos graduate from high school? Seriously?

I can't possibly need a punchline here.

Oh Dear... Nerd Fight

Remember, boys and girls ...

It's only patronage when the Liberals do it.

Batshit conspiratorial craziness in 3 ... 2 ... 1 ...

Shorter Wankersphere: "Oh please, oh please, on please, let him be Muslim. Or black. That would work, too."

Logic, as it is fed through a woodchipper.

Canadian blogger and clinical psychopath Weiner Pratfall attempts to think deep thoughts:

For us, who follow these events as outsiders, it is impossible to say whether Abdelrazik is innocent or not. Only a proper – and transparent – investigation and inquiry can do that.

No, that doesn't scan quite right. Here, let me help:

When it comes to our suspicions of murdering hookers and the homeless, it is impossible to say whether Werner Patels is innocent or not. Only a proper -- and transparent -- RCMP-driven, Taser-filled investigation and inquiry can do that. Especially the Tasers part.

There we go. Much better. I call that "Werner-speak." Any resemblance to logic, critical thought or simple sanity is purely coincidental.

Dear Dick:

I'm betting PZ Myers has never met Blogging Tory Richard Ball, so it's creepy just how appropriate this is, don't you think?

Let the utterly fake, pretentious shrieking begin.

You can't say I didn't predict it:

Let the panty-tugging, pearl-clutching, ear-piercing shrieking of Lefty incivility begin in 3 ... 2 ... 1 ...

And right on cue, the same wanks who have no problem with the murder of abortion providers with high-powered rifles start predicting the downfall of Western civilization due to all that Lefty incivility. Here's Greg Farries at The Politic:

Irregardless of the president’s personal opinion of conservative commentator Rush Limbaugh, it’s interesting that he finds the suggestion that Limbaugh has committed treason, be water-boarded and killed funny.

Curiously, I don't recall Mr. Farries ever objecting when right-wing harpy Ann Coulter suggested poisoning a U.S. Supreme Court Justice.

Then there's Blogging Tory Paul E. Marek, whose panties are now in a bunch:

Yuk-Yuk-In-Chief

Oh what passes for yuk-yuk among friends: ...

But, mysteriously, the people who are now rushing frantically to Limbaugh's defense from that mean ol' Wanda Sykes are carefully averting their eyes from Rushbo's own eliminationist rhetoric:

"I tell people don't kill all the liberals, leave enough around so we can have two on every campus; living fossils, so we will never forget what these people stood for."

Unsurprisingly, neither Mr. Farries nor Mr. Marek -- nor any of the other of Limbaugh's staunch defenders -- seem even the slightest bit interested when their waddling, draft-dodging, hillbilly heroin-addicted, sex tourist blowhard of a role model clearly promotes the murder of merely most of the liberals.

That's because, as they say, IOKIYAW (It's OK if you're a wanker). It always is.

P.S. I'm amused that Mr. Farries suddenly finds the concept of waterboarding so intensely unfunny, since it's his ideological fellow travellers over there on the Right who've been making such sport of it. There's the terrifically amusing waterboarding t-shirt. And there's Red State's howlingly entertaining comparison of waterboarding to swim practise. And, not to be outdone, we have Canada's own Rachel Marsden, who finds the concept of torture by waterboarding knee-slappingly funny:

When asked about it during a recent CNN appearance, I suggested that "one man's torture is another's CIA-sponsored swim lesson." In case anyone thought I was being facetious -- I wasn't.

I suppose that those who object to terror suspects getting water up the nose would say that, as a young competitive swimmer, I was also tortured. It was called "hypoxic training" -- swimming underwater and holding our breath until we passed out. Our coaches didn't call it torture, just an exercise in "mental toughness." So think of it this way -- terror suspects are getting some free mental toughness training courtesy of the U.S. government.

Here's another idea to make the concept more palatable to objectors: Call the place where waterboarding is performed "The CIA Centre For Aquatic Excellence," give all participants an "I survived training camp" T-shirt with the centre's logo on it, and treat them to a couple of carbo-loading pancake breakfasts. It worked for us.

So here's a suggestion, Mr. Farries. Long before Wanda Sykes poked fun at Rush Limbaugh, your buddies were pissing themselves over the inherent humour in torture by waterboarding so, you know, you might consider taking your totally contrived outrage and putting a fucking sock in it.

And as for Rachel Marsden, well, my opinion of her still hasn't changed. I'm thinking the world would be a better place if she wasn't around. And I mean that in a strictly Weiner Pratfall kind of way.

AFTERSNARK: Enjoy.

For my bella mamma ...

A sweet, shy Irish girl who married into an enormous, overwhelmingly loud and overtly loving Italian family and fits like she was born into it.

I love you bunches.



Now I’m off to dinner with baby boy who’s buying. How awesome is that?

You only wish I was joking.

Shorter Dick "Shoot 'em in the Face" Cheney: When it comes to reasoned and intelligent political analysis, I will always choose a drug-addicted, flopsweat-drenched, Viagra-humping sex tourist over a retired four-star general who also served as National Security Advisor and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. After all, we chicken hawks really should stick together.

Sunday Funnies.

In time, you’ll drop dead and I’ll come to your funeral in a red dress.

BREAKING: Right-wing Canadian blogger calls for murder of "lefties."

Oh, dear. It would appear that Canadian blogger and pathological loon Werner Patels is calling for the death of "lefties":

As for comment #1, typical lefty: cannot read and cannot spell. The world would be a much better place without those sorts of people.

"The world would be a much better place without [them]". What could that possibly mean, other than that Mr. Patels would like to have them killed? I can't think of any other possible interpretation. Can you think of any other possible interpretation?

Let the frantic, right-wing bloggysphere tap-dancing, parsing and hilarious rationalization begin.

AFTERSNARK: Appreciate the irony here, as Weiner himself was one of the recent mock outraged. It just doesn't get any funnier than that, does it?

Oh, the humanity!

Let the panty-tugging, pearl-clutching, ear-piercing shrieking of Lefty incivility begin in 3 ... 2 ... 1 ...



In unrelated news, someone from the Right publicly threatening a guest with physical violence is, well, still cool, I guess. It always is. Cuz that's different.

Don't poke the retard! Too late ...

Spare a few seconds to revisit the Twatsiness of it all:

Undercover Police Officers, Clearly. Agents du Provacateurs [sic]? Hardly.
Still much ado over nothing

And via Cliff over at Rusty Idols from a couple months back (emphasis Twatsifically added):

Now Quebec activist and Poli-Sci Professor Francis Dupuis-Déri has used access to information requests to acquire police records of the operation. Records that, among other things, reveal that at least three of the undercover officers in the unit were listed as 'Provocateurs'.

Poor Twats -- still 0 for infinity. You should be getting used to that by now. I blame the mullet.

Saturday Morning Cartoons.

Monsieur Louis! Monsieur ... what have you do with my rabbit?



Mmmmmm ... coffee. Did you know that a true caffè corretto consists of a shot of espresso "corrected" with a shot of liquor, usually grappa, brandy or sambuca? Quite the way to start the morning, non?

Dear Richard: Please stop.

Seriously, please stop. You're making all Christians look like blithering retards.

AFTERSNARK: One can trivially rewrite Dick's inanity and have it sound just as rational.

1. God Galactus exists in human understanding as the greatest of all possible beings. (Even "the fool" who says in his heart "there is no God Galactus" has a definite sense of the being whose existence he is denying -- a supreme, greatest being for whom a greater being is, by definition, neither possible nor conceivable.)

2. The concept of God Galactus as the greatest possible being resides in our minds and is not an incoherent or nonsensical category of thought (unlike, e.g., flying spaghetti monsters, for whom atheists seem to have a particularly unhealthy obsession).

2. Something that exists only in our understanding is not as great as something that exists in reality. If God Galactus exists only in our minds but not in reality, it would in fact be possible to conceive of a greater being -- one who exists in reality.

3. Therefore, it would be contradictory to hold in our minds the concept of the greatest possible being and to deny his existence.

4. Therefore God Galactus, the greatest possible being, exists in reality as well as our understanding.

Galactus -- worship him.



You know you want to.

BY THE WAY, it's trivially easy to blow a gaping hole in Mr. Ball's alleged logic. Consider his axiom:

God exists in human understanding as the greatest of all possible beings.

That is demonstrably false, as I can easily imagine a greater possible being. Consider, if you will, Genesis 2:1-3:

1 Thus the heavens and the earth were completed in all their vast array.

2 By the seventh day God had finished the work he had been doing; so on the seventh day he rested [a] from all his work. 3 And God blessed the seventh day and made it holy, because on it he rested from all the work of creating that he had done.

Given that it was apparently necessary for God to "rest" after his six days of labour, I can trivially imagine a greater being -- one who didn't need to rest. And my imaginary being clearly trumps Mr. Ball's, being superior in the area of energy, durability and staying power. But it doesn't stop there.

Consider God's apparent confusion as he wanders around the Garden of Eden, trying to figure out what's up (emphasis tail-waggingly added):

8 Then the man and his wife heard the sound of the LORD God as he was walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and they hid from the LORD God among the trees of the garden. 9 But the LORD God called to the man, "Where are you?"

10 He answered, "I heard you in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked; so I hid."

11 And he said, "Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten from the tree that I commanded you not to eat from?"

12 The man said, "The woman you put here with me—she gave me some fruit from the tree, and I ate it."

13 Then the LORD God said to the woman, "What is this you have done?" The woman said, "The serpent deceived me, and I ate."

For someone who is allegedly omniscient, God strikes me as truly Twatsy-like in his cluelessness. My imaginary being, on the other hand, would simply have known what was happening, and would have had no need to ask.

I could go on but, really, what's the point? To suggest that the God of the Christian Bible is the greatest being possibly imaginable demonstrates an embarrassing ignorance of, well, pretty much everything. Which, when you think about it, kind of sums up Mr. Ball in a nutshell.

Your early morning irony.

Blogging Tory Matthew Campbell is some kind of miffed:



And if Matthew ever learned how to spell Dhalla's name correctly, she might even give a shit what Matthew thought.

Actually, no, she probably wouldn't. She seems smarter than that.

P.S. It's always fun to revisit Matthew's greatest hits. Just so you know that the stupid isn't an occasional anomaly.

"Batshit crazy" doesn't begin to describe this.

They're calling it "Dijongate," and it's one of the most spectacular barometers of absolute deranged clinical insanity you're ever seen. Let's start with the video:



wherein you can hear one Barack Obama asking for mustard thusly:

"You got, like, a spicy mustard or something like that, or a Dijon mustard, something like that?"

Seriously, go back and watch the video again until you're convinced that those were his exact words. I'll wait, because this is important.

Now, let's see how NBC reported it:

"I'm going to have a basic cheddar cheese burger, medium well, with mustard," Obama said. "Do you have spicy mustard? I'll take that."

At which point -- and I am not making this up -- the conspiratorial idiocy began.

And if you've managed to survive this far, well, the comments section here will give you the clearest window into the potential ugliness of the human psyche you're ever likely to see, without actually reading Patrick Ross.

P.S. Even the Star can't quite believe what's happening here.

P.P.S. Read the comments at Kate's place. Seriously. These people are what restraining orders and prescription pharmaceuticals were invented for.

AFTERSNARK: At what point will the residents of Dumbfuckistan start claiming that it was all a joke, just satire, and man, we leftards sure got suckered by that? You know it's coming.

Someone hasn't been paying attention.

The Hon. Patrick Brazeau (Conservative Senator, Sexual Harassment Ville):

Honourable senators, simply saying anything, depending on where you are or who you are speaking to, is not effective governance. That is not leadership. Real leadership means dealing with difficult issues without hesitation.

Would someone please take Sen. Brazeau aside and explain the concept of "prorogation?" Apparently, he slept through that.

P.S. Impolitical points out that Sen. Brazeau is an asshole. He's a Conservative. Also pointing out that he's an asshole is what we in the trade refer to as "redundant."

In which Kate McMillan turns out to be a douchebag.

Whenever I don't feel like exerting myself, I just pop by "SDC Nation" and read one of Kate's latest screeds. Oh, look:



Nancy Pelosi knew. She knew! SHE KNEW!!! Oh, wait.

Small Dead Animals: For people too brain-damaged to hang out here.

P.S. If you really want to follow the twists and turns in this fiasco, I recommend spending some time over at EmptyWheel. It's sort of like the left-wing version of SDA, except not stupid, ignorant, shrieky, racist, pathologically dishonest and Nazi. Other than that, they're the same.

When literacy goes horribly, horribly wrong.

The endless entertainment that is SDA Nation:



The fact that that sentence contains the word "education" just takes the irony to new heights.

And then these people did something to this other guy ...

Shorter Blogging Tory "Gay and Right" Fred: "It's appalling that people I don't know did something to more people I don't know in a place I've never heard of. Oh, the humanity!"

The deranged batshit craziness that keeps on giving ...

Canada's neo-Naziest blogger Kate McMillan would like the Left to, like, chill out:

If This Is A Non-Story

"Why is the left obsessed with it?

In apparently unrelated news:



Any punchline would be superfluous.

(Wag of the tail to TBogg.)

Asphalt Jungle Shorts

Coming soon to the streets of downtown Kitchener, Asphalt Jungle Shorts 5! Asphalt Jungle Shorts is theatre on the street and on the move. A cycle of short plays beginning at the Kava Bean Commons on Gaukel Street near the bus terminal and winding through the downtown core before arriving at the Rumrunner Pub in the historic Walper Hotel. Expect the unexpected, come out and enjoy theatre like you've never seen it before.



For more information, visit the Facebook page. Asphalt Jungle Shorts 5 runs May 21, 22, 23, 24 and May 27, 28, 29, 30. The shows begin at 8:00.

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

... goodbye. I'm thinking someone should break this to Hugh. His screams of anguish will sustain me.

THE STUPID, it burns!

Oh, dear.

Someone's been a bad girl. And by "bad," I mean a bigoted, lying airhead. But I'm sure you knew that.

Blogging Tories: 'Cuz all the stupid has to go somewhere.

Keeping that hot streak going over at "Dust My Broom," it's Publius' turn to put on the retard hat:

Sheryl Crowe advised us to conserve toilet paper.

First, Pubes, my boy, it's "Crow," not "Crowe." And, second, Crow's appeal to only ever use a single square of toilet paper when the situation arose? Kind of a joke, if you were too stupid to figure it out on first reading and had to have her explain it to you.

I swear, every time I pop over to check out the BTs, it takes an hour or two for my IQ to recover.

Copyright & Wrong

This is a well put together look at the failure of Canadian government to deal intelligently with intellectual property law, choosing rather to take orders from Hollywood and New York.



Tip of the brain bucket to Boing & Boing.

Dear Stephen: Brain in gear, THEN, mouth in motion.

Blogging Tory co-founder Stephen Taylor gets positively Steve Janke shrieky over the unforgivable lack of decorum:

Never get between a Liberal and his pork

We get letters! From a Conservative staffer on the Hill today…

Today, Canadian Pork Producers held a free BBQ on Parliament Hill to demonstrate to Canadians that Canadian pork is safe.

Hundreds of MP’s, Senators, and staffers from all parties waited in long lineups to express their support for Canadian pork producers and enjoy a delicious pork sandwich.

Unfortunately, Michael Ignatieff proved to be the exception. Instead of waiting like everyone else, he decided to cut in front of hundreds of people who were patiently waiting in line.

It’s obvious that, in his 34 years outside the country, he forgot that Canadians are usually courteous enough to wait in line with everyone else.

Embarrassing revelation in 3 ... 2 ... 1 ...

UPDATE: A former Liberal staffer (and current pork lobbyist) who is a friend writes to say that MPs from other parties were also allowed to cut the line for photo-op purposes and insists that some in fact did.

I'm thinking that if the Blogging Tories simply added an "Oops" button to their blogs, they'd save just buckets of time.

Towel snapping the mock outrage.

Go wild. Have fun. I may not be done there yet.

If it's a day that ends in "y", Neo's being a douche.

So what's happening over at Blogging Tory Neo Conservative's Dead Minority Bar and Grill? Oh ...



Really? That actually sounds kinda stupid, not to mention totally unenforceable. If only there was someone to research claims like that, to determine their actual accuracy. Oh, look:

To explore whether the claim is true, we went back to Sunstein's 2002 book, Republic.com. In it, Sunstein discusses the drawbacks of limitless choices on the Internet that allow people to seek out only like-minded people and opinions that merely fortify their own views, creating an echo chamber that Sunstein argued is bad for democracy. [Ed: Paging Stephen Taylor; Stephen Taylor to the white Blogging Tory hermetically-sealed bubble courtesy phone.] In the book, Sunstein talks about the idea of the government requiring sites to link to opposing views.

In a later edition of the book released in 2007, Republic.com 2.0, Sunstein tempers that position, advocating instead for the creation of public spaces on the Internet where people with differing viewpoints could share their ideas with one another.

But in a video interview on the Web site Bloggerheads.tv on Feb. 29, 2008, Sunstein actually goes a little bit farther than that, calling it a "bad idea" he should never have ventured.

Asked to explain some of the differences between the first book, what Sunstein called "the initial inadequate edition," and its successor, Sunstein said, "To me, the most important (difference) is that the first Republic.com was full of some bad policy recommendations and I was able to get rid of those. So I feel the book has been corrected." ...

Yes, Sunstein acknowledges this was an idea he once threw out there -- albeit, in his words, "tentatively." But he now thinks it's a bad idea. So the chain e-mail/article is correct that Sunstein once suggested it. But contrary to the headline, it's a position he no longer holds, as he has since said strongly and repeatedly. Once true. No longer. That leaves us at Half True.

And yet, the Neo-flavoured shrieking and panty-rending will continue. It always does. He's such a Twatsy that way.

Um ... Stephen? Your thoughts?

Democracy in Canada takes another swift boot to the happy sack:

Sitting Tories to be automatically renominated
Party says repudiation of populist roots necessary to ease stress on MPs in minority government

OTTAWA — The governing Conservative Party has moved to shield its 143 sitting MPs from grassroots challenges to their right to run for the Tories next election. This means incumbents will be automatically nominated as candidates and spared riding-level battles.

The move came after the Tories polled members by mail in the 143 ridings and found that support for opening up the nomination process did not reach a relatively high bar - 66 per cent - in any of them.

It's a repudiation of the party's populist roots in the Reform Party and the Canadian Alliance. But Tories say it's necessary to ease stress on their MPs and allow them to stay focused on the onerous demands of a minority government.

One wonders what Blogging Tory co-founder and "Manning Centre for Building Democracy" fellow Stephen Taylor thinks of this. One suspects we're never going to find out.

OH, THIS IS DELICIOUS: As M@ points out in the comments, Dave over at TGB explains that, of the ballots mailed out to determine if incumbents should be open to challenge, unreturned ballots were arbitrarily tallied as "no" votes.

I dearly want Stephen "I'm all about the democracy" Taylor to explain in what alternate universe that constitutes "democracy." Can someone ask him? Please?

THE PANTS-PISSING HILARITY: You have to love this bit from that original link:

University of Calgary political scientist Tom Flanagan, a former adviser to Mr. Harper, said he can recall the Calgary MP speaking vigorously in favour of nomination races.

But he said nobody in the Alliance at that time could have foreseen the "state of permanent campaign" that's yielded three minority governments after three elections in five years.

Yeah, all those Con MPs don't have time for open nominations since they're just too gosh-darned busy being in a "state of permanent campaign." I'd point out whose fault that is but if you can't figure it out, you're too stupid to be reading this blog. Or you're Twatsy.

But I repeat myself.

Character! Integrity! Boobies!

One wonders how adoring groupies like Blogging Tory Mark Peters:

Witness Miss California 2009, Carrie Prejean, willing to stand for her principles rather than sell out for an accolade...

External beauty is fleeting. Inner beauty lasts forever and is greater. Bravo!, Miss Cali.

are going to handle this latest bombshell:

The directors of the Miss California USA pageant are looking into whether title holder Carrie Prejean violated her contract by working with a national group opposed to gay marriage and by posing semi-nude when she was a teenage model...

A photo of Prejean wearing only pink panties with her back turned to the camera appeared Monday on the gossip blog theDirty.com. She issued a statement early Tuesday saying she posed for the shot when she was a 17-year-old model and objected to its release as an attempt to belittle her religious faith: "I am a Christian, and I am a model. Models pose for pictures, including lingerie and swimwear photos."

Yes, Mark, external beauty is fleeting. But external beauty and pink panties? That lives on forever on the Intertoobz.

BONUS TRACK: TBogg hits this as well, but it's his opening paragraph that leaves one spewing milk out one's nose:

One of of D-list blogger Robert Stacy Emmett Till Had It Coming McCain's rules (#5 to be exact) for attracting ONE MILLION HITS to your conservative blog in a year, is to post pictures of scantily clad women that most conservative bloggers couldn't get within pepper spray distance of.

I'm sure TBogg has never even heard of NAMBLA Dick Evans and yet he seems to know that demographic all too well. It's almost creepy.

Gary Goodyear, Indiana-style.

Via PZ, we learn that Republicans are spectacularly ignorant people.



And, no, Minister of Science Gary Goodyear does not accept evolution. Do you really need me to prove that?

Great minds think alike. That's not what's happening here.

The National Post's Terence Corcoran makes an ass of himself (no, no, don't read the comments just yet). Blogging Tory Mathew Siscoe is all, "Yeah, fuckin' A, dude, nanny state, booyah!" Now go back and read the comments.

And the Wanker Circle Jerk of Life carries on ...

If I'd used the phrase "hunting Christians for Satan," ...

... I'm betting there would have been a backlash.

It's a mystery, but ...

... no worries, Ruffles is on the job. He'll get to the bottom of this eventually.

Dawg bark. You listen.

Yeah, this is good. More on this later.

Cue the faux outrage in 3 ... 2 ... 1 ...

Blogging Tory "Gay and Right" Fred is livid over that whole "human shield" thing:

Are the Taliban holding 2,000 civilians as shields????

What, did they get this strategy from the Palestinians???

Taliban militants were holding 2,000 people in Buner district of restive North West Frontier Province in Pakistan to use them as human shields in case the army attacked.

Yeah, where did they get that strategy, Fred? Oh ...

Israel Used Palestinian Children as Human Shields in Gaza

On Monday, March 23rd the Israeli Army was accused by two different sources of using children as human shields in its recent war against Gaza. The British website guardian.co.uk reported that Israel was accused by three Palestinian teens of using them as “human shields” during the recent Gazan massacre. During the war, Israel frequently defended its killing of Gazan civilians by claiming that Hamas was deliberately hiding among the Palestinian population and that civilians were merely“collateral damage.” But now the Guardian is reporting that Israel is in breach of the Geneva conventions by putting civilians deliberately in harm’s way.

Three teenager brothers (Al'a al-Attar, age 14, Ali, age 15, and Nafiz, age 16) told the Guardian that on January 5th they “were taken from their home at gunpoint, made to go in front of tanks to prevent Hamas fighters from firing, and sent by Israeli soldiers into Palestinian houses to clear them.”

And why should we trust the Guardian? Let's keep reading:

The Israelis have unwittingly supplied their own incriminating evidence to corroborate the stories of using civilians as shields. An Israeli Army magazine shows Nafiz, shortly after his kidnapping, bound and blindfolded. His brother, Al'a al-Attar, told the Guardian that “They would make us go first, so if any fighters shot at them the bullets would hit us, not them." Ali and Nafiz also told the Guardian that the three of them were taken through their town of Attartra by an Israeli Army patrol. The children were ordered to stop by the soldiers who then would fire their weapons over the boys' shoulders and between their legs. The boys also told of being forced to march along with Israeli tanks.

Ali and Al'a were used as shields for five days by the Israelis before they were released in the midst of an ongoing firefight to fend for themselves. Nafiz was taken to Israel where he was interrogated and beaten. After three days of this abuse he was finally released.

In the same magazine’s online edition there is a piece entitled, "For a week and a half they lived with a family of Palestinians whose home became their stronghold." In the article, an Israeli Army officer brags of using the house as his military base while keeping the Palestinian family downstairs. He states, "At the top floor of the house we have established an improvised operational room and soldiers' bedroom, we have opened firing positions and observation points in the three additional rooms. In addition, we have established another guarding position on the entrance door of the family home." This is also a violation of international law and puts civilians in danger.

We now return you to Blogging Tory "Gay and Right" Fred, who is only outraged by using people as human shields when someone other than the Israelis do it. 'Cuz that's just the way Fred rolls.

This is a joke, right?

I've finally decided that this is a monstrously clever practical joke. Anything else is just scary.

P.S. I love Mr. Ball's first set of axioms (1-7), for which 1-6 are actually quite unobjectionable, whereupon number 7 takes a spectacular leap into utter illogic. Seriously, read 1-6 carefully, and shrug your shoulders and admit that, sure, you can accept them. Then try to figure out where 7 came from.

P.P.S. Actually, no, I take it back. Number 1 is utterly retarded.

AFTERSMIRK: The best part of watching buffoons like Ball torture apologetics is the ease with which they invent, out of whole cloth, spanking new metaphysical concepts. Take axiom 1, which refers to "a reality beyond our finite, material cause-and-effect universe," which is just all kinds of awesome given that Ball tosses off the idea of such a thing as an axiom.

These are the people who are never satisfied with the amount of evidence for biological evolution, but will glibly assume the existence of a divine being "outside of space and time," whatever that could possibly mean and for which they have no actual evidence whatsoever.

One should remind Ball why they call it "apologetics": Because whenever you're about to defend it, you have to preface every statement with, "I'm sorry that this is going to sound unspeakably stupid but ...". And it just goes downhill from there.

Are you still talking?

Dear Bigotry Barbie:

This may come as a complete shock to someone as narrow-minded as you but "traditional marriage" needs far more protection in the bible-thumping, family values red states than it does in the islamocommiehomofemiabortifascist blue ones.

Makes a person wonder, doesn't it?

Yours in endlessly superior tolerance,
LuLu

P.S. The Miss California Pageant called -- they want their boobs back.

Balbulican speak.

You listen.

CC HERE: PARDON ME FOR BUTTING IN, but this is just too delicious to let slide. Once you read how horrific a liar Shaidle is, I'm betting you'll appreciate this, too.

Logic, as it is reamed.

Blogging Tory "Hunter" gives her kids yet another reason to insist they were adopted as war orphans:

Global warming is a huge lefty scam to take money from the poor and give it to the rich, like Al Gore.

Which clearly explains the overwhelming lower to middle class support to tackle global warming, and the similarly overwhelming upper class support to ignore it entirely.

Wait ... something about that doesn't make sense ...

And, suddenly, the wingnutiness gets dialed back a notch.

No word on Sandy's other blogs ilovestephenharper.com, iadorestephenharper.com, iheartstephenharper.com and whatdoeslaureenteskeyhavethatidontthatbitch.com.

Apparently, lack of humour is in the eye of the beholder.

Canada's neo-Naziest blogger plays to her audience:



McMillan then went on to make some dead Indian and fart jokes that had her commenters rolling in the aisles.

For Ti-Guy

Iggy. Meh.

So much nothing to choose from.

Kisses.

And if you don't like Stephen Harper's principles, well, he's got others.

Breaking developments -- Stephen Harper flip flops! In other news, water is wet.

IOKIYAR/C.

Compare and contrast if you will, boys and girls.

This is a terrible, awful, no-good, horrible offense to civility, Mom, apple pie and everything that’s good in the world and, undoubtedly, makes the Baby Jesus cry.



This ... not so much.



That would, of course, be Erick Erickson, RedState's Dear Leader and Sadly No favourite.

ADDED BY CC: Somehow, this seems appropriate:

Saturday Morning Cartoons.

Who wants coffee?

And the meds should be kicking in ... when?

NAMBLA Boy Dick Evans is all about the educamashun:



Cool ... a public service that doesn't involve redirecting people to child rape sites. That's awfully nice of Dick. And what might be available for checkout?



Well, thanks, Dick, we appreciate it. Any particular reason for the altruism? Oh ...



Quite right, Dick. Because someone has to courageously stand up to the sweeping wave of leftie censorship of Ayn Rand and the Bible on the Intertoobz.

Is it too late to get Mrs. Dick into a shelter somewhere? For her own good, of course. I fear for her safety.

The rolling of eyes must have been audible out into the hallway.

I would have given my left nad for visible audience thought bubbles:

Mr. Goodyear, during a speech in Washington at the American Association for the Advancement of Science, ...

I'm guessing at least a few attendees tried to suffocate themselves with their souvenir tote bags before that speech was over.

And sometimes, God is bery, bery good to me.

Apparently, we on the Left should really understand the distinction between supporting the troops versus supporting the mission because those are two very different things:

The friggin' sticker says support our troops and does not say support our troops in Afghanistan...

Hope you die you bastards, hope you die.

A critical distinction, to be sure ... and one which is absolutely meaningless. And how do I know this? Because Canada's High Priestess of batshit craziness says so:

The left talks a good game, but in everything they do - from voting for the Taliban Jacks, to "Soldiers In Our Streets", to the relentless drumbeat of failure that spews across our media, to the silence when the tables turn and we score military success, to hiding behind meaningless slogans such as "we support the soldiers but not the war" ...

And there you have it, Darcey -- it's kind of awkward for you to be lecturing us on appreciating the distinction when your very own KKKate makes it clear that that distinction is total bullshit. So if you have an issue with this, I suggest you take it up with Kate. Or you could just scream that you want her to die. That's kind of your style, isn't it?

Irony, where is thy towel snap to the nads?

Canada's Mostest, Bestest, Naziest, White Supremacist Blogger Kate McMillan gets her leathers in a bunch over, well, leftie incivility.

In unrelated news, well ...

Dear K-W: You suck. Again.

The band kicked ass. The venue was lame. The attendance blew dead bears. And they didn't have a liquor license. Did I mention that the band kicked ass?





Next week: Shawn Kellerman.

Ouch.

Not a lot of love for Stephen Harper in the comments section here. Curiously, Mr. Stephen "Democracy and Freedom" Taylor is nowhere to be seen on this issue. I'm guessing he's pretty busy these days. Something involving sherry and cocktail weenies, I suspect.

Yeah, I've seen that kind of stupid before.

I defy you to read this and not think of Patrick Ross.

I win.

Jabba the Roy horks up another one.

Ah, the dumbassitude:

President Bush is a free trader.

EPIC FAIL! And people trust this idiot with their medical care. That's just weird.

Some pretty thin skin over there in the Idiot-sphere.

Blogging Tory Richard Ball takes a break from enumerating pin-sitting angels to crank out another piece of rancid theological sewage:

Most arguments for the existence of God provide evidence based in probability (a la Pascal) rather than proofs to a mathematical certainty. You can always wiggle-out of them by denying this-or-that.

By way of illustration, a painting may exist, but how does a painting "prove" the existence of a painter in general, or a specific painter in particular -- couldn't the painting have been formed by some as-yet undiscovered natural cause(s)? In the absence of actually presenting the painter who painted it, isn't it best to be skeptical when someone points to a painting, and goes around proclaiming, "painter"?! And, in the case of a 200-year-old painting, the painter, if there ever was one, is now dead, so no proof that there was a painter is now possible.

Yes, it really is that painful and incoherent, but then things get interesting:

For example, in my previous post, one commenter said, "why couldn't something come into existence uncaused?". When the subject in question is the entire universe, the uncaused existence of a mere painting should be a walk in the park. A second commentator threatened me with physical violence.

Whoa, what? Physical violence? Seriously? OK, we need to look into that more carefully, so we visit the appropriately-named Dick Ball's previous post to find, uh:

"However, the minute you try to stick that belief system down my throat... that is the day I and many others push you... to the ground and walk on by..."

Kursk: We discourage threats of violence on this site.

I'm sorry ... that was a threat of violence? Let's make sure we represent kursk fairly and accurately:

People can choose to believe whatever they wish.If you think there is a God or Gods, please by all means knock yourself out..

However, the minute you try to stick that belief system down my throat, be it by state or church decree, that is the day I and many others push you and your doctrine, dogma and idols to the ground and walk on by...

I will not bow to any man or 'God', and those that try to force their own belief system on me will rue the day they tried.

Jesus Christ, Dick, that's your idea of "physical violence?" A metaphor? Seriously, Dick, you need to get more resilient panties. That kind of whiny misrepresentation is positively Twatsian in its dishonesty.

It's no wonder Canada's Right is whining about dangerous, life-threatening incivility -- they see it pretty much everywhere. Free speech warriors, indeed.

Wow. I'm fucking shocked.

Who didn't see this coming?

Survey: Support for terror suspect torture differs among the faithful

The more often Americans go to church, the more likely they are to support the torture of suspected terrorists, according to a new survey.

So ... irrational scientific illiterates are more likely to want to inflict pain and suffering on others. Go figure, eh?

But ... but ... but ... that's DIFFERENT!

Unsurprisingly, Canada's wanks are trying desperately to suggest that this coalition with socialists and separatists is like, you know, totally different from that coalition with socialists and separatists.

Let's drop in at JoJo's place, where commenter "LC Bennett" tries his/her own spin on the topic:

This article is flawed tough. To compare Harper working with opposition parties to the December Coalition is a real stretch. The socialists and separatists will not be given Cabinet seats, Senate seats or a Quebec veto.

Curiously, the "separatists" in the earlier coalition would also not have been given Cabinet or Senate seats (emphasis tail-waggingly added):

"Under this deal the Liberals would form the government, the NDP would sit in it with cabinet seats and the Bloc Quebecois would support this new NDP-Liberal coalition from outside the government," said Fife.

I mean, Jesus, even the intellectually-crippled Jay Currie understood what was going on:

Ezra treats the dual agreements as, in effect, a contract. Which it might be. And it is pretty clear what the NDP is getting out of the contract – the consideration as it were. But what is the Bloc getting?

We don’t know and neither will the GG. Nor will we find out if the Coalition comes to power.

The NDP will get seats in Cabinet meaning, day to day, that their Cabinet members will have to answer questions in the House. The Bloc will not be in Cabinet and will not be subject to the scrutiny of the House. Whatever deals they do, whatever policy vetos they cast, will be in private.

Perhaps Jay should pop by JoJo's and try to clear things up. That would be monstrously entertaining -- watching Jay Currie explain something to people even dumber than he is. There isn't enough popcorn in the world for that.

AFTERSNARK: You really have to read the comments at JoJo's, in which you learn that having to count on the NDP and Bloc to keep his government afloat means Stephen Harper has them right where he wants them. The batshit craziness over there really is a sight, isn't it?

Blogging Tory. Stupid. Connect the dot.

The Lemon-flavoured stupid. The reality.

Stephen Taylor's Blogging Tories: Because during these days of economic crisis, it's critically important to continue lying about meaningless, 10-year-old quotes by foreign politicians.