Well, he's got a talent for fiction, we'll give him that.

Shorter Craig Smith: "It's easy to write a blistering, savage critique of the CBC, as long as I'm allowed to completely invent what they're saying."

P.S. That Craig still hasn't figured either humour, parody or satire is evidenced by the fact that some of his commenters thought he was serious. That's generally a bad sign.

Another useless Facebook milestone.

Feel free to pop over to the Blogging Tories to learn why this still doesn't count because shut up.

And while we're comparing Facebook groups ...

The Star's Susan Delacourt nibbles around the edges of a fundamental difference between the two Facebook groups currently under discussion:

The Facebook group against proroguing Parliament has crossed an interesting threshold this weekend -- it now has upward of 136,000 members [Ed: now 165,000+]; nearly 10,000 more than the Facebook group set up to oppose the Liberal-NDP coalition plan a year ago.

Size is not the significant distinction between these groups however. It struck me yesterday, though, as I was watching some of the chatter about this blog post, that the two protests are based on very different assumptions about public knowledge. This new Facebook group is counting on people to educate themselves about parliamentary tradition, practice and principle. The old Facebook group was organized around the notion of 'never mind parliamentary rules about majority/minority and confidence, this thing is wrong.' In other words, you have to understand basic rules of Parliament to understand why this prorogation is unusual; you had to ignore parliamentary rules to argue the coalition was wrong.

Good thinking, Susan, but you could have made it clearer: The fundamental distinction between these two groups is that the anti-prorogue group is honest, while the earlier Stephen Taylor anti-coalition group is simply Stephen lying, as is his depressing pattern.

Here's the definition of the anti-prorogation group:

On December 30th, 2009, for the second time in as many years, Stephen Harper has asked the Governor General to prorogue parliament. Like last time, he will certainly get what he's asking for, forsaking his responsibility to be accountable to his employers, us Canadians citizens.

What can we do? Ask your MP to attend parliament anyways. Think it can't be done? Check this out:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Long_Parliament

First, find your MP:
http://canada.gc.ca/directories-repertoires/direct-eng.html#mp

Contact Stephen Harper directly:
pm@pm.gc.ca

Our Members of Parliament are our employees, and they should show up to do what we pay them for. If you need help getting started, here's a sample letter:

What can you say about that? It's clear, it's concise, it's to the point, and it's perfectly accurate. There are no histrionics, no accusations of dishonesty or illegality or unconstitutionality. Regardless of whether or not you support the aim, you can't deny that the description is perfectly apt, which suggests that all of the currently 164,000+ members of that group know exactly what they're joining and there's no misrepresentation.

Let us now consider the description of Taylor's earlier anti-coalition group, and count the lies:

This group is for all Canadians against a Liberal/NDP Coalition propped up by the Bloc Quebecois.

Good, good ... Stephen starts out by accurately describing the proposed coalition as "Liberal/NDP", merely "propped up" by the Bloc since, as sane people might recall, the Bloc was most emphatically not part of the proposed coalition. We all remember that, right? They simply agreed to support the coalition, but they were not going to be a part of it, a fairly important distinction that Stephen is going to forget before long.

The argument is simple;

With Stephen Taylor, saying something is simple generally means a very simple bit of bullshit is imminent. Oh, look, there it is:

In the last federal election, Liberal leader Stephane Dion said he wouldn't form a coalition with the NDP because they had "bad economics" that weren't in the best interest of our country. What does Mr. Dion do a few weeks later?

He signs a coalition government with the NDP.

Oh, noez, Stephen!! A politician breaking a campaign promise!! The horror!!!! Are you sure that's a road down which you want to go? Really?



But Taylor's weaselitude is only beginning:

Also in the agreement was the separatist Bloc Quebecois. How low has the Liberal Party and NDP gone when they sign an agreement that gives so much power to a party devoted to the destruction of Canada? There is only one winner in this coalition accord. Unfortunately, that winner, is the Bloc Quebecois.

Notice how quickly Taylor's forgotten that the Bloc was not a part of the proposed coalition? And, if memory serves, the Bloc was promised absolutely nothing in the way of ministerial seats. But such distinctions are lost on Taylor, who's already spinning this as kowtowing to those evil separatists. At which point, Taylor pulls out the big guns:

This move by the opposition parties is unethical and not in the spirit of democracy.

Unethical and undemocratic? Harsh words for someone whose hero was more than happy to propose the very same thing only a few years back:

On Friday, Mr. Harper went before television cameras to slam a potential Dion-led government as illegitimate because he lost the Oct. 14 election.

But the Liberals and NDP said those arguments were undercut by Mr. Harper's 2004 letter to then-governor-general Adrienne Clarkson, which requested that she turn to him if Paul Martin's newly elected government were defeated in the Commons.

"We respectfully point out that the opposition parties, who together constitute a majority in the House, have been in close consultation. We believe that, should a request for dissolution arise this should give you cause, as constitutional practice has determined, to consult the opposition leaders and consider all of your options before exercising your constitutional authority," the 2004 letter stated.

Huh. Oddly, Stephen Taylor never found anything unethical or undemocratic about Stephen Harper wanting to get into bed with the socialists and separatists. That's the great thing about context, boys and girls. With Stephen Taylor, it's always about context. But Stephen's not done -- now he's just going to get incoherent:

Yes, it's completely within the bounds of our constitutional framework.

So ... it's totally legal and constitutional, but it's also unethical and undemocratic. You caught that, right? And that's when Taylor turns the incoherence to 11:

However, it's unethical for these parties to deny a coalition in an election and form an agreement after an election.

Huh? They can't discuss a coalition because ... they promised? Dear Stephen: See Harper, Stephen; income trusts. Seriously. At which point, the batshit craziness comes pouring out:

Canadians might have voted 62% combined popular vote for the opposition parties, but there is no majority who voted for a coalition.

Because, when people voted, the word "coalition" was nowhere to be found on the ballot. I'd try to explain this to Taylor, but history has shown us that he is appallingly ignorant of even the simplest basics of Canadian electoral law. But Stephen's going to keep riding that pony:

To form a coalition this accord should have to face the Canadian people in the form of a federal election. Put it to the people, let them decide, after being made aware of this agreement, whether or not they want a Conservative Government or Liberal-NDP, Bloc supported coalition government.

The way Stephen Harper was proposing back in 2004, Stephen? Like that? And here's the capper:

The opposition parties don't want an election, because they know they would be brutally defeated.

That would be the election that the Opposition was so ready to bring on until Stephen Harper, in a fit of pants-pissing cowardice, ran away from it with his first prorogation. Is that the election you were thinking of, Mr. Taylor? The one Harper dodged in fear by crawling to the Governor-General? Yeah, I think that's the election we're talking about here.

I could go on but I think I've made my point. If one wants to compare Facebook groups, one should at least make it clear that the current anti-prorogation Facebook group is clearly defined and describes exactly what it represents.

Stephen Taylor's earlier anti-coalition group, on the other hand, is defined by a whopping sack of lies, misrepresentation, selective memory and hypocrisy from beginning to end, which might be why it ever got to 127,000 members in the first place. I'm wondering how popular it would have been if Taylor hadn't been such a pathological weasel.

Sadly, I suspect we'll never know.

AFTERSNARK: Make sure you appreciate this bit of philosophizing from Taylor:

This move by the opposition parties is unethical and not in the spirit of democracy. Yes, it's completely within the bounds of our constitutional framework. However, it's unethical for these parties to deny a coalition in an election and form an agreement after an election.

In other words, what Taylor is saying is that, even though a coalition is perfectly legal and constitutional, it's sleazy, underhanded and undemocratic.

And Stephen's defense of Harper's latest prorogation: It's perfectly legal and constitutional, so shut up.

Like I said, with Stephen Taylor, it's always context.

OH, AND THERE'S THIS: There's no end to Stephen Taylor's hypocrisy and double standards, but here's more. Not that long ago, dragging Canada into an unnecessary election would be incredibly damaging because we're in a recession and we absolutely need to stay laser-focused, every minute of every day, on what it takes to protect Canadians and we can't let our concentration waver for a minute.

On the other hand, let's kick back for several weeks, it's not like there's anything important that needs doing.

Does anyone else spot the hypocrisy?

MORE WINGNUTTY GOODNESS: As I've pointed out in earlier posts, it's entertaining that the people who are utterly horrified by the concept of a Canadian coalition government are much the same folks who are such fans of Israel, a country that's made coalition governments pretty much a way of life. Oddly, that doesn't seem to bother them in the least. Go figure.

The Shy Sister

I had a lot of fun shooting interviews down at the CBC's Winter Launch event. This is the first Judecast segment produced with the gorgeous Jude Klassen from Movie Entertainment Magazine with her special guest Robyn Palmer. We also shot interviews with Gordon Pinsent, Chris & Steve (the design guys), the Dragons' Den cast, Peter Keleghan and we were able to grab some stills with Don Cherry who is actually less than 4 feet tall (that may not be entirely accurate). Future plans include taking the show live for tapings in a cozy theatre in the Kensington Market. I'll have more information in the coming weeks as we lock down the details.

It was only a shoe! Get over yourself!

It's amusing to watch the historical revisionism of Canada's wankers when they're trying to downplay the recent allegations of Afghan detainee torture (that is, when they're not embracing it wholeheartedly, but that's a whole 'nother post).

Let's set the stage regarding the single incident of a detainee and some shoes, shall we (emphasis depressingly added)?

PROOF OF DETAINEE ABUSE EXISTS, DESPITE MACKAY’S DENIALS

Uncensored documents and sworn testimony indicate one prisoner was beaten so badly, Canadians intervened to take him back and treat him
Paul Koring
From Monday’s Globe and Mail
Published on Sunday, Dec. 06, 2009 10:30PM EST
Last updated on Sunday, Dec. 06, 2009 11:14PM EST

Sworn testimony by senior Canadian officers and rare uncensored documentary evidence contradict Defence Minister Peter MacKay’s repeated assertions that no proof exists of even a single case of a Canadian-transferred detainee abused by Afghan security forces.

In one well-documented case in the summer of 2006, Canadian soldiers captured and handed over a detainee who was so severely beaten by Afghan police that the Canadians intervened and took the detainee back. Canadian medics then treated the man’s injuries. The incident is documented in the field notes of Canadian troops, recounted in a sworn affidavit by a senior officer and confirmed in cross-examination by a general...

In the case of the transferred and subsequently rescued detainee, Canadian soldiers intervened to take an Afghan from a room where he was surrounded by five or six Afghan police who were beating the handcuffed man with shoes or boots. Blood was running down the detainee’s face so “I immediately assumed positive control of the individual and removed him,” the soldier’s field diary says...

The Canadian soldier’s account, handwritten in a field notebook in the hours after the June 19, 2006 incident, is corroborated by a medic’s examination of the detainee’s injuries and photographs, which the government refuses to release. The account, first outlined in a May, 2007 affidavit by Colonel Steve Noonan, Canada’s first task force commander, was subsequently confirmed by then Brigadier-General Joseph Deschamps, who was chief-of-staff for operations in Canada’s expeditionary forces command when he was cross-examined about it in January, 2008.

So ... are we good here? Everybody have a clear idea of what happened, and how undeniably it was corroborated? Because if you went only by the shrieking idiocy coming out of Canada's Wankerhood, you'd never know such a thing ever happened:

Today, Afghan detainees, one allegedly beaten with a shoe by an Afghan prison guard, is (allegedly!) throwing the country into madness.

And, trust me, you will search in vain through the archives of Canada's Wingnut-o-sphere for an accurate portrayal of that event. I've tried. What you will find are amusing anecdotes involving, oh, a detainee that was hit with a shoe, or smacked with a shoe or, in one case, the show was simply thrown at him, ha ha!, when the heck did that become torture?

What you won't find is a single member of Canada's Blogging Tories who described what happened honestly. I'm willing to bet on that.

THE NATIONAL POST GETS ITS MARCHING ORDERS: Commenter CWTF warns us that loyal Stephen Harper water-carrier Adrian MacNair is once again lying in the pages of the Post:

And what you get instead is this. The same old manufactured controversy about another hidden agenda, except that this time it’s based upon the testimony of a single Canadian out of the entire mission in Afghanistan who believes there is a remote possibility that torture may have occurred after detainees were handed over.

And it wouldn't be a Canadian MSM comments section without the relentless, pathological dishonesty of the ubiquitous "Sassylassie":

Iggy's campaign platform appears to be "Smear our troops as war criminals who aided an Afghan to beat A SINGLE detainee with a shoe," their second platform appears to be Climate Change. Need I say more about the loopy upside down logic of the leftwingers?

I'm not sure whether it even matters anymore whether they're liars or just stupid.

Another useless Facebook milestone.

You'd think this was something to be proud of:



Sadly, it turns out that all of these people are simply ignorant students or useless welfare bums being hoodwinked by their leftard corporate MSM masters and evil, undemocratic coalition leaders so they can be safely ignored.

I read that somewhere.

P.S. Stephen Taylor's earlier anti-coalition Facebook group was totally, totally different. You knew that, right?

Just wait until they can drown it in a bathtub.

Here's an interesting new, prorogation-related talking point: government is bad. Oddly, the very people who think so little of government are the same ones who are desperately trying to retain control of it.

Does that strike anyone else as curious?

Stephen Taylor: Because reality is hard werk.

Captain Canada Stephen Taylor can't figure out what all the fuss is about (all emphasis tail-waggingly added):

Today, Afghan detainees, one allegedly beaten with a shoe by an Afghan prison guard, is (allegedly!) throwing the country into madness.

And then there's reality, courtesy of none other than the National Post:

Gen. Natynczyk ordered a military investigation into the incident to find out why he was not told for more than three years that the captive had been in Canadian custody and to examine a Canadian soldier's report that he took a photograph of the captive "to ensure that if the Afghan National Police did assault him, as had happened in the past, that we would have a visual record of his condition."

The Canadians took the captive back when they found him being beaten with shoes by a half dozen Afghan police.

Tune in tomorrow when Taylor lectures us on how rancid dishonesty and gross misrepresentation is the very foundation of modern democracy. Or something.

FROM STEPHEN'S BLOG TO ADRIAN'S KEYBOARD: As commenter CWTF points out, Adrian MacNair is on the job, faithfully regurgitating his Stephen Taylor talking points:

The same old manufactured controversy about another hidden agenda, except that this time it’s based upon the testimony of a single Canadian out of the entire mission in Afghanistan who seems to believe there is even a remote possibility that torture may have occurred after detainees were handed over.

Quite so ... all that controversy based on nothing more than the speculative, uncorroborated testimony of a single Canadian. How irresponsible. Oh, wait ... what's this?

Canada's troops investigated for Afghan abuse

Canada's military police have been quietly investigating allegations for more than a year that the country's troops abused Afghan detainees, CBC News has learned.

Canadian soldiers captured the detainees sometime in 2008 and the investigation into their conduct has been ongoing for at least a year.

We have now (as I sort of predicted) come full circle: from "What torture?" to "Big deal, who cares about torture?", amusingly back to "What torture?". And the Canadian right-wing wurlitzer's job is now complete.

Good job, Adrian. Stephen Taylor has a biscuit for you. Done well, you have.

Just because ...

... I'm in one of those moods.

Sing Along!

Having received the triple sealed, top secret, super duper orders from high command, there are few things that might inspire a person to break protocol. Surely only matters of greatest portent might sway one to fail obedience and risk calamity. Only the very gravest of comedy could have the impact necessary to cause such discord. And when it comes to comedy there are few jokes bigger than Splatrick. My pals over at Stageleft have discovered a music video worthy of that puckered nexus and I cannot help but share its intensity. The next time you see the signature ROFLMAO deployed as a the sole and culminating point in one side of an endlessly shifting argument, this should be the soundtrack. When the goalposts go skidding randomly around the intellectual arena, here is the theme song. When an authors mental deficits rival Harper's budgetary one's sing along with this one bitches.

All quiet on the Stephen Taylor front.

Curiously, ever since the "Canadians Against Proroguing Parliament" Facebook group started kicking the ass of his older "Stupid People Who Don't Understand That a Coalition Government in Canada is Perfectly Legal" Facebook group, Stephen Taylor has been awfully quiet.

Getting wickedly spanked in public will do that to you.

Jesus loves you.

His followers ... eh, not so much. As Roger Waters once said, "The bravery of being out of range."

BONUS TRACK: On the bright side, if we're interested in genocidal lunatics, we know where to find them.

It's hard to believe that anyone could make Stephen Taylor look like the voice of reason.

OK, HERE'S THE DEAL: You'll notice that, where there used to be a link up there under "not so much", there is no link anymore. And that's because of a new policy of mine.

I will no longer link to (or I will remove links to) any blog posts where one Patrick "Twatsy" Ross has commenting privileges, for the simple reason that Twatsy shows up to comment for the sole purpose of leaving links back to his site to pimp his crap and boost his blog stats.

If he wants more visitors, he's welcome to do that by publishing stuff that isn't execrable, eliminationist crap. But it's tiring to see Twatsy suddenly pop up in someone's comments section, only to say something stupid before linking back to himself.

So there you go, Balby and Stageleft. As long as Twatsy gets to comment over at your abode, you get no more links from me. I have no interest in pimping his creepy, racist rubbish.

Movin' on ...

Sure, let's talk about echo chambers.

Over at Craig Smith's new Home for the Terminally Deranged, we have this:



and we have this:



At this point, anyone accusing Canadian progressives of living in an impenetrable echo chamber should simply be taken out and shot.

Dear electorate: Fuck you and your frustration.

Yours sincerely,
Stephen Harper

I just thought it needed to be said.

About that "getting tough on crime" thing ...

How ... interesting (emphasis eye-rollingly added):

In a pretrial hearing Friday, Kansas Judge Warren Wilbert said he might allow the defense to present evidence that [Dr. George Tiller murderer] Mr. [Scott] Roeder acted in defense of others -- in this case, fetuses -- whom he believed to be under imminent threat. The judge said he would make that call as the trial proceeded, on a witness-by-witness basis.

"He said it's probably a very tough burden for us to meet, but he didn't rule it out," said defense lawyer Mark Rudy, adding that he was satisfied with the ruling.

Judge Wilbert also said he was open to the defense presenting evidence that Mr. Roeder might be guilty not of first-degree murder, which carries a mandatory sentence of life in prison, but of the far lesser charge of voluntary manslaughter, which carries a sentence of about five years.

I await the inevitable screeching from the Canadian Dumbass-o-sphere about how liberals are a bunch of bleeding heart pansies. Or something like that.

NO, SERIOUSLY, I eagerly await the howling from either the "Blogging Tories" or Craig Smith's "Canadian Conservatives" about how violent criminals should get the book thrown at them. So far, it's not looking good:





I'm sure they're just working up a good head of outrage as we speak. That must be it.

Um ... OK.

This is satire, right? Please tell me it's really, really incompetent satire. Because the thought that Craig is dead serious is kind of disturbing.

BY THE WAY, I once tried to point out the logical consequences of that kind of thinking. Apparently, Craig wasn't paying attention.

BY THE WAY (2), I have a screenshot of Craig's proposal, just in case he tries to disappear it quietly and hope no one notices. History teaches us that folks like Craig have a bad habit of doing shit like that.

LuLu here: One can only hope that this is, in fact, satire. Unfortunately, at least where our boy Craig is concerned, one can never be too sure.

When total and complete dumbasses blog.

Apparently, newspapers don't have the right to choose who writes for them anymore. So opines newly-minted anti-free marketer Blogging Tory Mike McGuire:

So much for progressive tolerance

Well Rex Murphy's dismissal from the G & M just proves what i've always known about the left. They talk all the time about the joys of tolerance & diversity, but when it comes time for them to put those beliefs into practice, they don't seem very interested. I guess you'll be tolerated if you fit into their worldview. They talk about diversity, but what does Rex getting fired say about their belief in intellectual diversity, which IMO is the most important form of diversity there is.

In unrelated news:

I'll start reading the post again when they fire Dr. Dawg.

Posted by: Kathy Shaidle at December 27, 2009 8:15 AM

Thanks for playing, Mike. Now give the keyboard back to a grownup. That's a good boy.

BY THE WAY, MIKE, remember that pro-prorogation Facebook group?

This Facebook group was not convened or advised to convene by anyone other than NB Tory Gal. She opened this page to allow communication from all Canadians who say YES to the prorogation of parliament. This Group is not a pro or con discussion group. It is solely supportive and informational. I and my admins reserve the right to delete comments that are texted within the group that clearly show that the person texting them is not a YES person but is there to cause as much trouble and aggrevation [sic] as they can. This includes the banning of these individuals.

So you just go ahead and lecture the rest of us on intolerance there, Mikey. And we'll take you as seriously as you deserve. I promise.

Embarrassing yourself on a national stage in one easy step.

Blogging Tory Steve Janke makes a massive ass of himself coast to coast in three ... two ... one ... ah, there we go.

P.S. Shorter Steve Janke: "Can you believe that anyone takes a Facebook group seriously? I mean, really, what kind of complete loser do you have to be to brag about your stupid Facebook group and think that anybody gives a shit about it and that it means anything? What's that, Stephen? Oh ..."

Dear Stephen Taylor:

Blow me:



Seriously, just blow me.

P.S. These pathetic losers can blow me, too:



BY THE WAY, it's crap to compare the current anti-prorogation Facebook numbers with the earlier anti-coalition Facebook numbers. Apples and oranges, kids, stop doing it. The proper comparison is 130,000 versus 591. There's your comparison. Stop buying into Stephen Taylor's disingenuous bullshit.

Try to keep up, Scott.

Scott Tribe is educated on how Conservative Party fluffer Stephen Taylor adroitly moves goalposts when it suits him.

Jesus, Mary, Mother of Freakin' God!

Over at Blogging Tory "Alberta Ardvark's", commenter "Ruth" has a wicked cool, kick-ass idea to discredit all those anti-prorogation Facebookers. Take it away, Ruth:

Oh, wouldn't it be fun for Roy Greene to call the ones that started the Facebook group and just ask a few questions about Politics. I would bet that they don't know too much.

That would be one of Canada's conservatives, suggesting that others might not be politically educated or astute.

If you didn't just piss yourself, you haven't been paying attention.

Oh, this should be good.

Blogging Tory "Hunter" almost has a good idea:

Your Assignment If You Choose To Accept It!

Sandy over at Just Politics has had a great idea (H/T Catherine), let's get together to do a Truth Video, maybe called "The Prorogation Myths".

Actually, I think that's a terrific idea. It would be just ducky if one of Stephen Taylor's loyal shills took the time to do, you know, research and figure out the facts and report on actual reality, as it were.

Sadly, though, the potential of posting something useful and informative lasted all of one sentence as Brenda continues:

So I am asking you to send me links to videos and radio broadcasts about proroguing Parliament both in favour or not, send me video links about the Afghanistan detainee affair and anything else you think has skewed the Conservative message on proroguing. Blatant bias by the media is good, newspaper quotes by MP's would be great.

Here's a hint, Brenda -- once you get into yapping on about being in favour or not, and encouraging people to go hunting for bias, you're no longer in the realm of objective reality, you're just spewing opinion. In other words, Brenda, before you even finished your first paragraph, you've clearly given up on what you proposed to do.

Unsurprisingly, the fun continues in the comments section as "Liberal Supporter" asks a simple question about the mechanics of editing and posting videos, and Brenda "Har har har!!" refuses to let him in on the tricks because, after all, videos are a Conservative trade secret, or something.

I'll go out on a limb and predict that what's eventually posted will be dishonest crap. Call it a hunch.

In which I am once again right about everything all of the time.

Back here, I warned you, didn't I? I warned you that the same people who kept yammering on about an earlier Facebook group against a coalition government -- "We had 127,000 members! Top that, suckah! 127,000!! Freakin' A!!! Boo yah!!! 127,000!!!! Suck on that!!!!!!" -- would, as soon as the current Facebook group against prorogation started to hit those numbers, immediately begin a frantic tap dance to redefine the metric for success -- "Hey, it's not just about the numbers, you know? There are other things to consider, like, uh, you know, not numbers."

And so it begins, starting with Andrew Coyne's weaselly, graceless and classless mea culpa during which he admits that he was full of crap, and that's when the goalpost-moving commenters take over here:

"Could it be that Canadians are not so apathetic as I made out?"

I'll believe it if the rallies are well attended.

and particularly here:

How many people did 22-minutes get to sign-up for the petition to change Stockwell Day's name to Doris?

Let's not start governing based on Facebook groups, please? Apathy, I think, would be better.

I'll bet you could get 108,000 people to sign-up on Facebook for Stalinism.

That's why the minimum requirement for voting is you at least have to drag your arse outta the house.

How do you know all of these 108,000 are actually Canadian? Anyone checking?

Damn straight! We've suddenly decided that raw numbers are not so important, and who's checking out these people, hell, some of them might not even be white, I mean, what the hell, man?

I'm thinking they'll be tracking IP addresses next, because it's important to know who these people are, don't you think?

A well-paid whore is still a whore: the Pamela Wallin edition.

Conservative Senator Pam Wallin does her pimp's master's bidding:

A new feud is brewing in the Senate after Liberal senators said they plan to release a controversial committee report on the RCMP while Parliament is shut down -- a move the Tories say is "unprecedented, dangerous and offensive." ...

Conservative Senator Pamela Wallin said the Liberals have no right to do this and accused Kenny of using his position as a "bully pulpit" to spread his "own bias."

"No one behaves this way," Wallin said. "These are observations that don't belong to him ... (Kenny) is not chair of the committee and the report is no longer his."

At the risk of sounding sexist, the proper response to Wallin from her Liberal Senatorial colleagues would be to tell her to shut up, get back in the kitchen and start making cookies, and the men will handle the grownup stuff, thanks very much.

If Wallin wants to be a good Conservative Senator, she really needs to learn her place.

And speaking of a culture of stupid ...

... here's Blogging Tory "Back Off Government" in a veritable celebration of ignorance:

Abortion On The Agenda?

Maurice Vellacott seems to think so. Being vindicated over his comments on the link between Abortion and breast cancer seems to have given him a second wind.

As others have already suggested, the prorogation of Parliament seems to have allowed the crazier Conservative MPs to gnaw through their leashes and start spewing crazy all over the MSM. Good for them. At least we can keep track of the certifiably insane ones that way.

Cultivating a culture of stupid.

Commenter "Holly Stick" draws our attention to this gem:

The Fraser Institute's school of spin

In this excerpt from his latest book, Donald Gutstein exposes the Fraser Institute's school programs that work "toward changing the climate of opinion in Canada"


Not a Conspiracy Theory: How Business Propaganda Hijacks Democracy
by Donald Gutstein
(Key Porter, 2009; $22.95)

And that's when things get amusing:

The Fraser Institute launched a program in 1988 that would have far-reaching impact on advancing the corporate agenda. This program, aimed at students, is actually a half-dozen initiatives through which the institute "is cultivating a network of thousands of young people who are informed and passionate about free-market ideas and who are actively engaging in the country's policy debate," ...

It's that part about cultivating thousands of young people who are "informed" where I snorted Ovaltine out my nose, because if there's one thing that can be said about Canada's young, right-wing culture, they are easily the most ignorant, uninformed and misinformed demographic in the history of the universe, and that ignorance starts at the very top with people like Stephen Taylor who has, to this day, not figured out that a coalition government in Canada is perfectly constitutional. One need only visit the "Blogging Tories" or Craig Smith's new "Canadian Conservatives" to appreciate how hideously, hopelessly, appallingly ignorant these people are in every possible and depressing way.

(Another well-known, right-wing troll who fancies himself a pundit continues to claim -- to this day -- that Canadians actually vote for Prime Minister during federal elections. The ignorance is breathtaking, is it not?)

And I'm guessing that "actively engaging in the country's policy debate" means infesting the comments section of every public forum in the country with screeching racism, bigotry and dumbassitude. But that's just a guess.

AFTERSNARK: I like this bit:

Over 17,000 students have come in contact with at least one of the student programs, the institute claims. "Developing talented students sympathetic to competitive markets and limited government" through these programs "is one important way that the Fraser Institute is working towards changing the climate of opinion in Canada." Graduates have spread into politics, academia, other think-tanks and the media.

They're especially proud of Ezra Levant, ...

That would, I'm guessing, be the Ezra Levant who is a perpetual liar.

You can understand the pride now. Learned well at the feet of the masters, Ezra has.

"Um ... your employment history seems a bit light, Mr. Harper."

The late Molly Ivins once eviscerated perpetual Republican blowhard Phil Gramm thusly:

Gramm, the great crusader against government spending, has spent his entire life on the government tit. He was born at a military hospital, raised on his father’s Army pay, went to private school at Georgia Military Academy on military insurance after his father died, paid for his college tuition with same, got a National Defense Fellowship to graduate school, taught at a state-supported school, and made generous use of his Senate expense account.

Apparently, much the same can be said about one Stephen Harper who, if you believe Wikipedia, has rarely held an actual job. That would certainly explain why he values everyone else's job so little.

Banana Splits!

Jesus, Stephen, you're an asshole.

Just when you think Stephen Taylor can't be even more of a total douchebag, there's this:

As Milewski remarked, and as CTV’s Roger Smith confirms below, Michael Ignatieff is on vacation in Europe while Jack Layton is snorkling in Belize. Opponents to prorogation have remarked with some hyperbole that “MPs just gave themselves a three month vacation”. While the Conservative line is that MPs are indeed working in their ridings consulting with constituents on the next phase of the economic recovery, it is Stephen Harper’s opposition that is on vacation. Grassroots Canadians on the left are upset that their Parliamentarians aren’t “working” in Ottawa, while their partisan leadership jets off for a little R&R.

Or maybe, Steve, you useless jackass, they're on vacation because those were the vacations they were planning to take all along, it being the holidays and all.

Can someone just punch Stephen Taylor in the mouth? Christ, what a complete ass.

Jeezus, Matt, whine much?

The National Post's Matt Gurney has suddenly decided to be totally, totally put out by rude people who aren't interested in his opinion. I'm guessing this is a new development for Matt, since it's never seemed to bother him before.

AFTERSNARK: Before Matt gets even more insufferably pompous about being ruthlessly censored, he might take a second to read the description over at the Pro-prorogation Facebook group (emphasis tail-waggingly added):

Description:

A gathering of persons who live in Canada who would like to voice their support of the prorogation of parliament and the Prime Minister. These persons may join this group and discuss their support.

This Facebook group was not convened or advised to convene by anyone other than NB Tory Gal. She opened this page to allow communication from all Canadians who say YES to the prorogation of parliament. This Group is not a pro or con discussion group. It is solely supportive and informational. I and my admins reserve the right to delete comments that are texted within the group that clearly show that the person texting them is not a YES person but is there to cause as much trouble and aggrevation [sic] as they can. This includes the banning of these individuals.

So here's a thought, Matt -- given the above, howzabout you shut the fuck up about lefty intolerance and censorship? Think of that as friendly advice, to help you look like not so much of an ass.

Why the "Canadians Against Proroguing Parliament" Facebook group sucks.

Let's follow the frantic, desperate arguments emanating from Canada's whackjobs and wingnuts as to why their Facebook group was super, ultra, mega-cool, while this new Facebook group blows dead bears.

Initially, it was, "Har har har, we had 127,000 members and you guys are pathetic! Har har har!"

Now that the CAPP Facebook group has exceeded 100,000 members, the dissing has to be reworded. Here's Captain Canada Stephen Taylor, trying to distract everyone with a bright, shiny level of stupid as he moves the goalposts:

We'll see if those Facebook users can move past poking each other online and hit the streets to protest. We turned out about 20,000 real life people (ie. offline) to protest. It appears that the prorogies have so far turned out 5: ...

In other words, Taylor has just redefined the metric for success. Now that the pure membership number threatens to kick his ass (nullifying that first argument), success shall be measured by actual political activism out on the streets because, after all, it's critically important to suddenly ignore and minimize the very argument you were just making now that you can't make it any more.

And Canada's most senile blogger Sandy Crux has a totally different approach:

Skinny — I would agree with you except most of the anti-group are simply Harper/Conservative haters. Otherwise, getting involved in a group like that is the essence of democracy.

Did you catch that? When Conservatives do it, it's a true grassroots expression of the democratic ideal. When progressives do it, it's just a bunch of haters so they don't count.

What other pathetic rationalizations should we expect to see? Surely they're going to get even stupider than the above. It's kind of inevitable.

Great Canadian Blogosphering! As it were.

Every so often, we need to link to The Albatross just so everyone can appreciate the magnifitude of the blogroll over there. Heh. Indeed. Sort of.

Heh. Indeed.

I foresee a day when comparisons to Stephen Harper will be the standard by which fascism is measured. Adolf Hitler will be so old school by then.

(Wag of the tail to Doctor Cynic.)

When the hell did we become "Liberals?"

Whose dumb idea was this?

Christ, but Stephen Taylor is a whiny little runt.

Here's the dumbest and whiniest political pundit in Canada, Captain Canada Stephen Taylor, doing what he does best -- whining piteously:

Aaron, you should put my comment in context. I was wondering why 20,000 earns you the main headline on the front page of the Toronto Star while 127,000 gets no such treatment.

A couple things for you to chew on, Stephen. First, it's possible that no one takes your 127,000 anti-coalition droids seriously because, as we've all discovered after years of painstaking observation, your particular brand of Canadian conservative is utterly incapable of independent thought, and simply waits by the fax machine for the next set of talking points and marching orders. And it's not particularly impressive to muster a group of people who are united only by their Canadian constitutional ignorance and seething hatred for democracy.

Add to that that the anti-prorogation Facebook group really does seem to tap into some massive national frustration with your adorable hero Stephen Harper, and anyone who isn't an intellectual cripple (see: Blogging Tories, Canadian Conservatives) should recognize this as a legitimate news story that deserves front page coverage.

More to the point, though, Stephen, given that your precious Blogging Tories have perpetually slagged the Canadian mainstream media (particularly the Toronto Star) for being horribly, horribly biased and anti-Harper, it's pretty fucking rich to accuse them of blatant bias, then keep whining about how they're biased. What's the point of having written off the Star as being shills for the Liberals, while simultaneously trying to hold them up to a standard of fairness and objectivity and complain that they don't succeed?

If you think the Star is biased, Stephen, then say so, write them off and shut the fucking fuck up about it. And quit your pathetic whining. It's really unbecoming.

I need a word more demeaning than "hypocrisy."

Apparently, the same folks who were, not that long ago, patting themselves on the back for the MASSIVE accomplishment of a Facebook group with 286 members are now totally umimpressed with Facebook groups.

That's because they're douchebags. But you knew that.

THE DOUCHEBAGITUDE IS NEVER-ENDING: Blogging Tory and loyal Stephen Harper shill JoJo was once just the hugest fan of the Rally for Canada. Now, she's not so much a fan of that whole Facebook grassroots thing. Unless, of course, she's pimping the PRO-prorogue Facebook group.

Could these people be any stupider or more two-faced?

They lie because they're cowards.

It's curious that, as the Stephen Harper Party of Canada continues to contemptuously dismiss the rest of the country, they don't have the courage to be honest about what they're up to. In a nutshell, they're such cowards that they have to lie.

Consider the latest fiasco regarding prorogation. The official Conservative Party line is that this has nothing to do with avoiding the tough questions regarding Afghan detainees, oh, no, it's all about, uh, getting ready for the Olympics, and taking a breather, and "resetting" Parliament for another year, and other ridiculous fairy tales that absolutely no one believes. But this raises the obvious question: why doesn't Harper tell the truth?

Why doesn't Harper just come out and say, "We prorogued Parliament because we're tired of the bitching and whining from the Opposition and we don't give a crap about prisoners or torture so the rest of you can all suck it because I'm shutting this place down and you can all go bitch and whine somewhere else for the next couple months."

Why doesn't Harper just say it that way? It's not like he cares what the rest of the country thinks, and it's painfully obvious that he holds the electorate in utter contempt. Why not just say what everyone else already knows? Instead, we have the image of the cocky, swaggering Stephen Harper, reduced to making shit up because he's too gutless to be honest. And that's just the latest in a long line of cowardly lies.

Consider Harper's lies with respect to Afghan detainees. Wouldn't it have been refreshing if he'd just said, "I don't give a crap about that because those people are brown with funny names, and they don't interest me in the slightest. Fuck 'em." At least he would have been honest. Instead, blustery Harper had to take a back seat to cowardly Harper, who made up excuse after excuse, every one of which crumbled under even the slightest inspection. And the pattern continues as you go back in time.

Consider Harper's lie about why he called the 2008 election considerably ahead of time (and in violation of his own "fixed election dates" law). The excuse was that he had no choice since his minority government had "lost the confidence" of Parliament. Ignore, of course, that he hadn't lost a single vote of confidence. He could have just said, "Hey, we're looking good in the polls, time to go for a majority, we'll take our chances." He could have been honest that way. He wasn't. He lied like the coward he is.

It even extends to cowardly lies involving individuals, when the Conservatives claimed that, hey, they'd love to help out Abousfian Abdelrazik but, gosh darn it, he's on a U.N. no-fly list and there's nothing they can do about it, what a shame. As most people pointed out at the time, that very U.N. law expressly permits nationals to be returned to their country of citizenship, but that made no difference whatsoever to Harper and his collection of criminals. Wouldn't it have been a relief if Harper had simply said, "No, we're not bringing Abdelrazik back, he's brown and I don't really care for brown people." At least we would have known where we stood.

It is ever thus with the cowardly Stephen Harper. Full of piss and vinegar and braggadocio and contempt, but the instant he's called on anything, it's cowardly Stephen Harper who suddenly starts inventing massive fibs. Come on, Stephen. If you want to accuse everyone else of being spineless wimps who buckle under the first sign of pressure, at least lead by example and be honest about your motives. This constant stream of fiction is really quite unbecoming for someone who claims to be a leader.

If you're going to totally fuck over the country and its citizens, have the balls to be honest about it.

AFTERSNARK: There are so many cowardly lies, I could be here all day. One of my favourites is when Harper bitched and moaned about a possible coalition back in 2008 and described it as "overturning the results of the last election." It would have done no such thing, of course, and it was entirely constitutional.

Why didn't Harper just say what was really on his mind, "How dare the rabble seek to supplant me?" Instead, once again, arrogant Harper quickly sat down, and was replaced by cowardly Harper who simply lied.

It's not that Harper's such a pathological liar that bugs me. It's that he's such a coward that I find so grating.

Fuck off, Andrew Coyne.

Macleans' Andrew Coyne earns his paycheque this week:

So: Parliament has been prorogued. What is to be done about it? Answer: not bloody much.

Certainly there’s no evidence the public is up in arms about it, notwithstanding the Star’s typically tendentious headline. Smug Tory types whose response to every principled objection is “nobody cares” are, unfortunately, right: the 38,000 plus who have subscribed to that facebook page are indicative of very little: most, I would bet, are opposition partisans. Were their situations reversed, they would be saying the same things the Tories are.

Or, Andrew, a number of those people might actually be saying the very same thing because they have, you know, principles. That don't depend on context.

Principles, Andrew. It's not surprising that you don't recognize them.

AFTERSNARK: Over at TGB, Boris introduces us to the Facebook Group For Proroguing, created by the criminally insane Adam Yoshida. Yeah, that Adam Yosihda.

CC HQ's own PSA takes Adam out to the woodshed here.

They lie because it works.

It was amusing to listen to Stephen Harper claim that prorogation had nothing to do with the grilling he was getting over Afghan detainee torture because, hey, that issue isn't even on the average Canadian's radar screen and the public just doesn't see what the big deal is. In a funny way, he's right. Of course, that's because he and the rest of his sycophantic cronies have simply been lying about the issue for so long that the public has finally bought into the lies.

Here's Exhibit A: how a documented instance of a detainee being beaten with shoes by a half dozen Afghan police conveniently morphed into a member of the Taliban being hit with a shoe.

If the public doesn't think the torture allegations are that big a deal, you can hardly blame them. When you're lied to that often and that relentlessly, chances are you'll eventually believe the lies. It's a strategy that's worked brilliantly for Stephen Harper so far.

Thanks for nothing, Rick.

Here's Rick Mercer, just yesterday:

It is too bad that prorogation isn't something that our soldiers have in their arsenal. When faced with the order to head out on a foot patrol in the Panjwaii district of southern Afghanistan, to risk their lives to bring democracy to that place, wouldn't it be nice if they could simply prorogue and roll over and go back to sleep. Soldiers don't get that luxury.

And here's your humble scribe from a week ago:

Dear Prime Minister Stephen Harper:

While you take a two-month vacation with pay, could you see about allowing hard-pressed Canadians to take a two-month prorogation from their bills? And, if it's not too much trouble, I'll bet Canada's military would love a two-month break from getting killed overseas.

If you're going to steal my stuff, Rick, you could at least give me credit.

Seriously, Craig, what's your point?

And with the recent acquisition of one Maria "Dodo Can Spell" Nunes, one can safely conclude that Craig Smith's new Canadian conservative blogging aggregator "Canadian Conservatives" has achieved a level of pure crapitude that suggests absolutely no one take it even remotely seriously. Which is a shame, since it actually had the potential to be useful.

One has to wonder what Blogging Tory co-founder Craig Smith was thinking when he decided that Canada needed yet another right-wing Canadian blog aggregator. However, upon reflection, it wasn't a bad idea since, quite simply, the Blogging Tories (under the current baton of Captain Canada Stephen Taylor) is complete garbage.

Even with the disclaimer that the BTs don't officially represent Conservative Party of Canada dogma, it's hard to miss that the Blogging Tories are little more than a gushing, moist-panty, perpetual paean to the awesome, dick-stiffening wonderfulness that is Stephen Harper, to the point where one can safely ignore everything written there. But if that's the case, where would one find, you know, thoughtful, nuanced, intelligent and educated right-wing commentary? And that's where Craig Smith screwed the pooch tremendously.

He had the chance to do exactly that -- provide an outlet for Canadian conservatives that weren't batshit crazy bigots, racists, neo-Nazi sympathizers and scientific illiterates. It would have been delightful to read the ponderings of staunch conservatives who nonetheless disapproved of torture, or thought the government had some kind of obligation to help Canadian citizens marooned overseas, or thought that democracy was a good idea. Good God, what a breath of fresh air that would have been. But it would have required imposing some standards, and explicitly leaving behind the worst of the worst of Canadian conservatism to fester in the swamp of Blogging Tory putridness.

No such luck. Given the chance to clean house, Smith has instead thrown open the doors, and has already collected the likes of Dr. Roy Eappen, Justin Hoffer, "Hunter", Fred "Gay and Right" Litwin and Maria S Nunes. At which point, one is entirely entitled to ask -- what was the point, Craig? Why create a new aggregator if it's just going to ooze the same screeching idiocy and mindless sycophantic hero worship as the old one?

You had a chance to actually do something useful, Craig. What a shame that you fucked it up completely.

Your Conservative Party of Canada: Incoherence in action.

That was then:

Having booked and paid for a flight to Canada, thus fulfilling the conditions under which the government had promised, in writing, to issue an emergency passport, the apparently destitute [Abousfian] Abdelrazik was instead told he needed somehow to get himself removed from the United Nations’ no-fly list before the papers would be issued.

This is now:

It's important that "we make sure that we respond in ways that are intelligent, ways that effectively identify threats before they happen, as opposed to simply massive bureaucratic sets of rules," [Stephen Harper] said, likening this to the "gun registry approach."

"Putting people on a list is not the best way to identify a security threat."

Harper then went on to say something even more incoherent. That's just a guess.

Ah, the irony.

And if I recall correctly, it was Canada's conservatives who, month after month after month, accused the Liberals of simply wanting to hang onto power.

Does anyone else remember that?

This one's never getting old.

Seriously, I think everyone should post that every month. It's just classic, isn't it?

The irony is just crippling.

Briefly revisiting the rapid descent into senility of Blogging Tory Sandy Crux (and ignoring the utter crap she writes regarding KAIROS), here's her delightful closer:

No, in my opinion, this [KAIROS] issue has nothing to do with Tory zealotry. Rather it has everything to do with fairness, openness and government accountability.

Yes, Sandy ... as a misty-eyed worshipper of Stephen Harper, why don't you lecture the rest of us on fairness, openness and government accountability?

By the way, that's why we don't engage them intellectually.

Ezra Levant: Liar.

Hey, kids, let's see what Ezra is lying about today: Oh, look:

It's one thing when a Taliban propagandist claims that the Canadian Forces are immoral crusaders – it's quite another when a Liberal front-bencher says they're "absolutely" accused of war crimes.

Really? Was that the accusation that was being made? Why, no:

Earlier this month, Ujjal Dosanjh, the Liberal defence critic, described a lone diplomat's allegations as "the fact that this government ignored the warnings of torture, sent prisoners to Afghan jails at the risk of torture, which is a war crime, which is an absolute war crime."

Gosh, Dosanjh wasn't "absolutely" accusing Canada's troops of war crimes. What he claimed was that turning over prisoners when there is a clear risk of torture is "absolutely" a war crime -- which, I should point out, is entirely correct.

Ezra Levant: Lips moving. Therefore, lying.

TELL YA WHAT I'M GONNA DO: I'm so confident that Ezra Levant is a pathological liar that I will make the following public challenge. I'm betting that I can find at least one obvious and blatant lie in absolutely anything Ezra Levant has written in column form. Doesn't matter where; as long as it's an official column, I'll bet it contains at least one egregious falsehood in it somewhere.

Anyone want a piece of that action?

Sensitive much, Craig?

Craig Smith -- whose new Canadian conservative blogging aggregator "Canadian Conservatives" boasts the likes of "Hunter", Dr. Roy Eappen, Fred "Gay and Right" Litwin, Sandy Crux and Justin "Raging Roids" Hoffer -- presumes to lecture us on the issue of childish behaviour:



I would have linked, but I'm not sure whether Craig is having one of those "Thanks for the link, it's great for my site traffic, haha!" days, or one of those "Stupid leftards always trolling our sites, I wish they'd leave us alone" days. If anyone figures it out, just let me know.

P.S. If you hang out long enough at the main page and watch the photos go by, you start to notice a theme. Where I come from, we call that a "man-crush."

Nice family you got there ...

CC NEWS -- As a way of defeating Prime Minister Stephen Harper's plan to stack the Senate with Conservatives in order to push through his legislation unopposed, blogger Robert McClelland has proposed to lobby other senators to cross the floor and join the Liberals.

When told of this possibility, Harper dismissed it by saying that, if that happened, he would simply have the first floor-crossing Senator and his entire family taken out and executed on the front lawn of Parliament as a warning to the rest of them.

When told that was probably illegal, Harper shot back, "Yeah? And what's the Supreme Court going to do about it? I know where they live, too."

When asked his opinion of Harper's plan, Blogging Tory co-founder Stephen Taylor looked briefly thoughtful, then opined that, as long as the Senator being executed was a socialist or a separatist, he didn't really see a problem.

Dear Bert:

It doesn't matter how ridiculously you gush over Sarah Palin -- she's not going to give you a blowjob.

A Message From The Political Wilderness

Received the latest idiotic garbage from the office of waffle god and visiting professor Mike Ignatieff. If I were capable of such a condition, I'd be speechless. I wonder who's going to get to play the Kim Campbell to his Mulroney. Mind you Mulroney got to form a government, something this dipshit will never do.

Friend --

No, not actually. I can trust my friends not to betray my best interests or turn a blind eye.

Happy New Year.

That would look sublime on a resignation letter with your signature!

I hope you’re starting off 2010 in the spirit of the season, with friends and family, reflecting on the year that’s been and the one that’s just begun.

Yeah, I'll pass on the spirit of the season thanks. My reflection on the year that's been is one of deep and abiding disgust at Canadian politics. You and your counterpart in the blue sweater make me queasy.

It seems unbelievable that the Conservative government has prorogued Parliament for the second time in a year. Canadians are rightly starting to wonder if Conservatives intend to shut down government whenever things don’t go their way.

Unbelievable? Really? Where the fuck have you been all this time you pretentious dick? You sit across the floor from Harper and his government. This isn't unbelievable, it is as utterly predictable as your failure to respond has been sickeningly predictable. They aren't shutting down the government because things aren't going their way, they are shutting it down because they are a pack of unprincipled scumbags that don't care a fig about this country, its heritage or its people. They are doing this because there is no one across the aisle with the requisite balls to fight them or stop them. Don't give me unbelievable and expect to get away with tucking your tail and rolling over like a supine mutt and still expect a treat. Bad dog. Bad.

While Conservatives will be in hiding, Liberals will be hard at work over the next few months.

Hey stupid, the Cons aren't going to be in hiding, they're going to be milking the Olympic whore train for every photo-op they can get. Harper will be licking Niedermyer's cup on the national TeeVee and his ugly herd of toads will be hopping about making promises they don't intend to keep and getting the fucking rings tattooed on their public images. You dipshits will be hard at work? I feel so reassured knowing that the most hapless bunch of losers in Canadian politics today will be straining themselves to sit up and not drool. But go on, what tremendous tasks have you set for yourselves?

On March 26 to 28, 2010, some of Canada’s leading progressive thinkers and doers will gather in Montreal for a conference entitled Canada at 150: Rising to the Challenge. They will be part of a national conversation about the Canada we want to be in 2017, when we celebrate our 150th birthday, and the steps we can take today and tomorrow to get there.

Thinkering and doering! How's this sound Mike... fuck you. Fuck you and the thinkers and doers. Come 2017, you'll be back on the tenure like a junkie that just can't stay clean. Canada is facing a crisis of governance and you and the fucking witless remnants of the once potent Liberal Party of Canada are going to prognosticate over the big party we'll have in 7 years time. You want a step, here's one... resign. And take Donolo and Kinsella and the rest of the Conservative lite assholes with you. Take Dryden, Rae, Cotler and the Liberal MPs for the riding of Israel with you. Take the team that nuked the possibility for a coalition to dethrone Harper and go fuck yourselves because there are a growing number of folks that are sick of your passive stance as Harper fucks this country over. Harper promised we wouldn't recognize this country by the time he was finished with it, he'll have long since achieved that goal by 2017, no thanks to you.

That conversation starts with you.

Oh please tell me that you're listening and that you're learning and that you want to be an alternative. Please tell me this while you're standing in the woods somewhere trying desperately to get your weaselly squinting eyes to open and your mirthless crag of a mouth to imitate a smile. Because you are every bit as useful in the woods as you are on the hill.

That’s why I’ll be spending the first few months of the year reaching out, travelling from coast to coast, holding town-hall meetings, web forums and small gatherings to hear from Canadians first-hand.

Dude, you forgot telepresence bar-b-cues. Note to Liberal Party honchos: Ignatieff experiment failed. We don't want you wandering around like a fucking undergrad trying to curry favour with the department. We want an opposition party that will have a fucking clue right out of the gates. We want an opposition party that has a platform, that can articulate that platform and has the will to fight tooth and nail to see this nation's interests looked after.

Your ideas, hopes, concerns and priorities will feed the discussion in Montreal.

How's about you stroll on into Montreal to chat and strategize about the year 2017 and feed on this message, fuck off losers. We have the idea that an adversarial system of representative government should have a modicum of adversarial opposition. We have the hope that an opposition leader will not pattern himself as a dilute version of the current minority Prime Minister only with a distinct lack of policy and platform. We have a hope that someone that isn't a waste of valuable oxygen might step forward to fight for a Canada that advocates for our arts and culture, for the protection of all of our people regardless of race, gender or orientation and who might put up a fight for the rule of law both at home and abroad. We hope that our government will show a little spine in steering a path in the interests of our nation apart from the interests of corporations or larger neighbouring governments. We are concerned that the leadership of the two major political parties are driving the national vehicle into a fucking ditch that we won't easily be extracted from. Our priorities are peace, order and good governance none of which you or Harper are capable, willing or inclined to provide.

We’re starting off by visiting university and college campuses across the country – because a conversation about Canada’s future starts with the generation of Canadians that will shape it more than any other.

I do hope you plan on addressing all of those young people and apologizing for wasting their time, squandering their legacy and failing to look out for their interests. I hope you'll apologize for deciding it was better to bury your face in the crotch of the oil industry than to fight to clean up the tar sands or fight for alternative forms of energy and conservation. I hope you apologize for abandoning those poor young folk to a future of filth and environmental illnesses, you grasping narcissistic whore.

Tell you what Mike, make it a farewell tour and all will be forgiven, then you can write us all a book about how awesome you are. Jackass.

So how much is this costing us?

Given the recent funding cuts to the ecumenical social justice group KAIROS of all of $7 million over four years and how this was justified in the name of fiscal restraint, it behooves one to ask just how much of the taxpayer's money the Harper government has absolutely wasted. And I do mean wasted, so if anyone has the time and inclination, perhaps an accounting is in order.

Let's start with this latest prorogation. Playing fast and loose with numbers, if one simply uses the figures of 308 MPs * $100,000 salary * 1/6 year, one arrives at a wildly ballpark figure of around $5 million utterly wasted by that many MPs who will spend the next two months sitting on their hands. Naturally, this figure is not necessarily accurate, but it's a starting point. Add to that what was wasted in the previous prorogation and one realizes that one could have funded KAIROS quite comfortably over the next four years with that. But we're just getting started.

As most sane people know, when one prorogues Parliament (and at the risk of over-simplifying), all of the pending bills simply die and have to be restarted. Would anyone like to calculate how much time will have to be re-invested just to get back to where we were before? Surely that is not an insignificant amount. And, again, money simply wasted. But there's more.

Let's consider how much of the taxpayer's purse is going up in smoke due to the Harper government's intransigence in refusing to allow the return of Canadian citizens marooned overseas. Let's start with one Abousfian Abdelrazik. How much Parliamentary time was wasted debating this case, arguing it, litigating it? How much time that could have been spent doing more productive things was blown off due to the ridiculous racism of Stephen Harper and his cronies? Would anyone like to put a dollar value on that? And add to that what Abdelrazik might make in a massively-justified lawsuit, I'm guessing we're talking millions of dollars -- money that simply did not have to be spent. Toss in Suaad Hagi Mohamud and the total goes even higher.

I think you get the idea. For a government that prides itself on its economic smarts and fiscal conservatism, it would be hard to even imagine a more retarded approach to protecting the public purse. Would anyone like to do that accounting? I think it would be awesome to know just how much money these idiots have pissed away for absolutely no reason.

P.S. One is, of course, tempted to add in the cost of an unnecessary election (pro-rated, of course, based on how unnecessarily early it was). Seriously, is there someone who's willing to crunch the numbers? I think it would be depressingly funny to see the results.

Rush is fine. What a relief.

I'm guessing all those bloated, jabbering, right-wing imbeciles have to stick together.

That's a good little stenographer, Adrian.

You know, Adrian, when even a deranged loon like Connie Fournier can find a seat on the cluetrain, it has to be embarrassing when you're still getting your talking points off of Stephen Harper's tele-prompter.

When the Liberals do it, they're assholes.

Life was so much simpler back in 2005, when it was the Liberals who were undemocratic douchebags:

Canoe.ca reports that the Liberals might prorogue Parliament in the fall as a way of giving themselves more time to put together a platform and to implement a cabinet shuffle.

They’d also have a new Throne Speech in early 2006.

In other words, it will hinder the work of Parliament for its own partisan purposes. They’ve already undermined the constitution to do this, why not prorogue Parliament.

It's so cool that the Intertoobz never forget.

Happy New Year, darlings.

The bad news? My feet may never be the same after 6 hours of booty shaking in brand new stilettos.

The good news? Two Grey Goose martinis and only one glass of champagne all night long means no broken head this morning.

Does this mean I’m growing up? Crap.

Hello? Remember this?

Just in case it got lost in the end-of-year shuffle, let me once again remind you of this:

Mr. Layton remembers when Mr. Harper, as leader of the Official Opposition, lambasting [sic] the Chrétien government's plans to prorogue Parliament back in 2003, to prevent the Auditor-General from reporting on possible abuse of the sponsorship program in Quebec.

“The government will prorogue the House so that it will not be held accountable for its shameful record,” Mr. Harper thundered.

Perhaps we should keep reminding folks of that on a regular basis. It's just a thought.

OH, YEAH, THAT'S PRECIOUS:

The National Post are a tricky, tricky people.

I'm imagining a recent NP editorial meeting:

"OK, folks, we've been ordered to give Canada's most deranged, psychotic and scientifically illiterate yahoos and dingbats absolutely free rein of our opinions page. But we all know that that just wouldn't look right without a good excuse. So here's my plan."

"We find a well-known progressive blogger -- no, no, hear me out -- we find a well-known progressive blogger, and let him write some Full Comment pieces -- hang on, let me finish -- we let him write some Full Comment pieces, then we open up the comments section and let every drooling, mouth-breathing wingnut and whackjob have at him."

"It's perfect. We look like we're being fair and balanced, but he gets only a few hundred words to have his say, after which we let our regular trolls and howler monkeys screech on as much as they want. Whatever message that poor fucker wanted to get across is totally lost in the shrieking. And here's the best part -- we let the next Full Commenter mock him by name."

"Oh, and when he finally gets tired of the relentless character assassination and personal insults and walks away in disgust, we can write an Op-Ed about how progressives are cowards who can't handle discourse. Am I a fucking genius or what?"