Better late than never.

You might want to have a thesaurus handy for this gem.

Oh. Dear. God.

Steve Janke: Boy Lawyer. You have to know this is going to end badly, don't you?

AFTERSNARK: When one reads the following snippet from Janke's infantile scribblings:

Is a police investigation considered a judicial proceeding? Are police acting under the authority of a court of justice?

Or is there another part of the Criminal Code that says you can't offer money to people in return for not reporting a what might be a criminal act?

Or is it legal in Canada to make that part of a contract? Especially if one party has already indicated that they are considering calling the police because of strong suspicions held that a crime has been committed?

Interesting questions.

one gets the distinct impression that Janke is not so much laying out a careful, methodical and well-researched case so much as he's begging his readers to do all the work and answer all his questions for him. And, yes, now that you mention it, that does sound familiar.

It's depressing to think that the loftiest ambition you have is to be Jonah Goldberg when you grow up.

While you were sleeping ...

Canada's Lowest Common Denominatrix™ wants to bring to your attention the appalling irresponsibility of those who would publish scurrilous untruths and biased rubbish that cheapen our national discourse and pollute the precious bodily fluids of the blogosphere.

In other news ...

Say hello to Monica.

Monica -- cousin to one Wanda Watkins -- has dropped by and left a lengthy comment here, so I suggest that, since she's taken the time to pen something, you similarly take the time to go and read it. (Yes, I meant now -- what did you think I meant?)

Monica closes with:

Let me know if you have an actual topic that you would like me to write on and I'll see what I can do...

and since it's my blog, I'm going to open the bidding.

It's a common position in the Left-o-sphere, Monica, that the whole philosophy of "Support the troops" has become so politicized that it's virtually impossible for anyone who opposes the mission in Afghanistan to still say that they support the troops, since that (troop) support will immediately (and dishonestly, of course) be re-interpreted as support for the mission. So my question for you, Monica, is two-fold:

• Do you agree with what I just said above regarding the frustrating (and dishonest) politicization of this whole troop support thing? And,


• If Canada's progressives are tired of being misrepresented this way, how should they publicly announce their support for the troops while making it clear that that support doesn't extend to the mission?

A good answer to that second question would go a long way towards settling this current dust-up. And if you want to address that (or anything else related, for that matter, it's up to you), e-mail the end result and I'll post it.

And thanks for showing up. This might end up being surprisingly productive.

P.S. Just between you and me, Monica, I agree that, yes, I was a bit over-the-top and there was no real need to come on that hard-assed but one of my cats was hit by a car and killed last weekend so it's been a shitty week all around and I felt like venting and, unfortunately, your cousin happened to wander in front of the sights at just the wrong time and ... well, you get the idea.

So let's just move on and see what we can accomplish here, OK?

The new kids on the block.

Apparently, a few refugees from "The Next Agenda" have some new digs at "A Creative Revolution," so that might be worth a look-see. Of course, my pimping is based purely out of self-interest because, apparently, they've been following the excitement.

So there's your first lesson, kids -- don't try this sort of thing at home. Remember, we're professionals.

Wave bye-bye to Patrick.

Serial annoyance Patrick Ross has simply become tedious, so he's been shown the door. If you're pathetic enough to need to know what he thinks, well, help yourself.

The shrieks of "censorship" should be starting any minute now ...

SOMETIMES, THEY'RE JUST SO ADORABLE. On his way out the door, Mr. Ross can't resist giving the junior high school war cry of victory:

Hey. If you boys aren't game-ready, don't step on the field.

Don't pick up the ball if you don't wanna play, Ann.

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

Dear Mike: Man, that's gotta sting.

The setup:

Hey Mikey, can't take the heat????

Well get out of the kitchen, then. Actually, just get out of the kitchen entirely, it sure looks like ya spend a teensy bit too much time in there. You've seen by know the Fat Bastard blew his lid at Wolf Blitzer on CNN, & why?? CNN had the cojones to hold the sumbitch accountable. Imagine that!! It's nice to see that finally, finally!! the MSM is holding this guy accountable. He's gotten away with so many lies, distortions & grade A bullshit over the years that he thinks he can continue to do so with impunity. Michael Moore has been exposed as a bully & a thug & that the best way to deal with a bully is to stand up to him. Good on CNN for leading the way & standing up to the Fat Bastard.

And the delicious Mike McGuire-sized towel snap to the nads (emphasis gleefully added):

Michael Moore makes CNN blush

After a much publicized tête-à-tête between Dr. Sanjay Gupta, CNN's chief medical correspondent, and the outspoken director of "Sicko," the network released a rare statement of apology. In it they owned up to two errors made while reporting on Moore's new documentary...

"CNN confirmed that all our statistics in "Sicko" are the correct numbers from the sources we cited," Moore writes. "Although CNN still prefers to use older World Health Organization statistics, we will stick to using this year's Bush administration stats and more recent UN data. (In "Sicko," we consistently use only UN Human Development Statistics unless it's for studies they don't do or have recent numbers for."...

Moore's beef with CNN first began during a July 9 interview with CNN's Wolf Blitzer.

Prior to that segment, the show played a fact-check piece on "Sicko" by Dr. Gupta. That report led to a contentious exchange between Moore and Blitzer. It also fueled Moore's ire further on July 10, when he and Gupta butted heads on CNN's Larry King Live.

When asked by King why he took such exception to Gupta's piece, Moore replied, "He said the facts were fudged. That's a lie."

In Gupta's original piece he refuted figures Moore presented regarding Cuba's per capita spending on healthcare. Gupta alleged that the $251 per person cost reported by Moore was untrue.

Yet on "Larry King Live" Gupta admitted the error was his, not Moore's. "Michael correctly said $251 in the movie."

Gupta also made a correction statement on July 11.

"To be clear, I got a number wrong in my original report, substituting the number 25, instead of 251."

Snap. But don't worry, Mike -- you're a Blogging Tory so it's not like anyone's going to hold you accountable or anything. They never do.

Chet speak.

You listen.

Ed, here's what you are required to do now.

You will apologize, abjectly, cap in hand to the millions of people who were right when you were wrong. You will admit that you were wrong. You will also admit, out loud, that what you are doing now is in no way emboldening the enemy or undermining the nation, and that those you accused of doing so were not in fact doing so. You will admit to having absolutely no comprehension of international politics, and you will express sincere regret in opening your big festering mouth on a topic you do not understand. You will then apologize to Senator John Kerry for undermining him at the Republican convention in 2004. You will then give up your membership in the Democratic Party, and join no other party for the rest of your life.

You will then vanish, never speaking in public on any topic ever again.

Get to work.

The same can be said for about 250 of these ignorant yobs, but I wouldn't bother holding my breath.

Not your Blogging Tory news: July 21, 2007.

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

Daily attacks in Iraq hit new high in June

WASHINGTON, July 20 (Reuters) - Attacks in Iraq last month reached their highest daily average since May 2003, showing a surge in violence as President George W. Bush completed a buildup of U.S. troops, Pentagon statistics show.

The data, obtained by Reuters from the Defense Department, showed an upward trend in daily attacks over the past four months, when U.S. and Iraqi forces were ramping up operations against insurgents and militants, including al Qaeda, in Iraq.

You might as well read it here, because you sure as hell won't read it there.

Your daily "Whaaaaa?"

Um ... yeah:

The level of discourse from Blogging Tories is much higher, more respectful and tolerant than any of the leftist blogs... but that's not hard to do.

I don't make this stuff up. I don't have to.

Make yourself comfortable ...

... it's worth the read.

The forest and the trees -- more lessons in civility.

And while the wingnut-o-sphere is still yanking themselves into a frenzy over my intemperate remarks, Big City Lib is staying on top of the current brouhaha involving the Human Rights complaint against Free Dominion involving Christian activist and deranged loon Bill Whatcott.

That would, for you newbies, be the same Bill Whatcott who really, really, really wants to put gays in jail for being, well, gay:

I see I will have to start another post soon on the wisdom of criminalizing homosexuality (I refuse to use the term gay as homo-sexuals are not happy).

I'm sure Warren Kinsella will be all over this the instant he sobers up.

And the Lord said, "Yea and verily, break me off a piece of that chocolate lovin'."

Apparently, some of those "morals and virtues" folks are down with the swirl, if you know what I'm sayin':

Coy Privette, a retired Baptist pastor, conservative lawmaker and outspoken advocate for Christian groups, was charged Thursday with paying a prostitute for sex acts.

And the Rev. Privette became aroused, and lo, he unsheathed his divine rod of retribution ... OK, I'll stop now.

Great moments in intellectual, right-wing discourse.

From the comments section:

At Fri Jul 20, 10:56:00 AM EDT, ootpoot said…

If you were Ann Coulter's cousin, would that justify supporting her inflammatory lies about the 9-11 widows?

It is quite apparent from even a quick reading of the Canadian Cynic commentary that he is using a writing style called "satire" to highlight the two-faced obsequieousness of the rightwing's support of Coulter-style rabid attack dog moonbattery.

You seem to have easily slipped into the self-righteous whining "Boo hoo, think of the children" defense that particularly characterises the fundamentalist hypocrites.

Not buying it, JJ.

At Fri Jul 20, 10:58:00 AM EDT, Joanne (True Blue) said…

Ootpoot, you have made a bizarre comparison there with Coulter. It's not even worth addressing.

...

And just so you all know, I will delete any comment on a whim.

No reason. No apologies. My blog, my rules.

JJ then went on to tell ootpoot that he was ugly, and that he smelled bad.

BONUS HILARITY: At that same post, commenter "Kingston" proffers the following:

I have a suggestion, and I would like to hear other thoughts on it. The vast majority of our little blogging family that we all surf to belong to BT,Liblog, or PBlog. Can we not request the leaders of these three main entities hold a meeting and form some kind of common ground rules that will be adhered to, even to sitting up a non-partisan little disciplinary board to govern the common blogs. i.e. penalties could be, some form of censure such as removal from blog rolls, etc. I think it could be easily setup if Mr.Taylor, Mr. Cherniak, and not sure who runs Pblog were agreeable.

Why, yes, Kingston ... and let's have Canada's conservatives finally decide that it's time to clean up the toxicity of the blogosphere. What a ducky idea.

I'd write more but I'm busy snorting milk out of my nose.

That whole "anonymity" thing -- Part 2.

Back here, one "Patrick Ross" has been on an absolute mission, badgering me incessantly to get me to reveal who I am, as if that would somehow contribute to this discourse in some meaningful way. This leads me to ask the simple question, Patrick: If I told you who I was, what would you do with that information?

What would be the value of that information, Patrick? Would it make my posts suddenly easier to address or refute? Would it allow you to more thoroughly engage me on the field of intellectual combat? What? Because I'll tell you what it would allow.

It would allow people like Celestial Junk's Paul to exercise his rather peculiar notion of "free speech":

Civil society offers us legal remedy via the courts. The Left has fought for this more than any other group ... so, Mr. CC would have to face the very institutions and standards that have largely been advanced by the Left.

In CC case, I doubt that the courts would be necessary ... a simple exercise in free speech by the other side would likely have him groveling like a kitten. But you see, the other side can't exercise their right to free speech unless CC were known. And that, is where he and others like him are operating outside the bounds of civil society.

So, apparently, the "other side" has been utterly unable to respond to me and exercise their right to "free speech" because ... they don't know who I am? Yes, let's ignore the dozens and dozens of comments I've allowed them to leave on my blog, and let's ignore their freedom to have written dozens of posts, expressing their opinion on the subject because, in Paul's opinion, that doesn't qualify as "free speech".

No, in Paul's world, "freedom of speech" must necessarily involve, as you can read above, having the ability to make me "grovel like a kitten." So let's strip the veneer of civility off of this discussion, shall we, Mr. Ross? Because, quite simply, for Paul (and a frightening number of people just like him), the only definition of "free speech" that means anything to them would be the freedom to learn who I am so they can take it from there.

That "freedom" would undoubtedly involve harassing me incessantly, leaving threatening messages on my answering machine, maybe vandalizing my car and, hey, probably just plain tracking me down to physically assault me. Don't believe me? Then explain what Paul could possibly mean when he writes that he and others can't exercise their right to "free speech" until they find out who I am.

You think I exaggerate? Not even a little bit. And there is, at that comments section of Paul's, this comment directly underneath the one I quoted:

Ah, but Paul - someone out there knows who CC is. An ego like his is unable to keep silent. All it takes is one of his entourage to let slip the information.... And that shouldn't be hard. An offensive individual like that is bound to seriously annoy someone close to him, annoy enough to provoke creative retaliation. Unless, of course, CC has no friends at all, and is shunned by his family, always a possibility.

One thing few people realise is that no one is truly anonymous on the internet. A good techie could track CC down. Anyone out there want to give it a shot?

Anonymous | 07.20.07 - 7:09 pm

And the point of "tracking me down" would be ... what, exactly? To personally engage me in witty, intellectual banter? I think not.

These people have had unfettered freedom to exercise their "freedom of speech" every which way from now to Sunday but, apparently, there's something they can't quite do until they find out my true identity. Now what could that be, Patrick? Hmmmmm? What could that possibly be? Think hard ... given time, I'm sure it will come to you eventually.

So how about you put away that childish attitude, Patrick, where you keep challenging my "courage" for choosing to remain anonymous. I have my reasons. Now it remains to be seen whether you're too fucking stupid to finally realize what they are.

The Wanda Watkins saga: The family members.

I just noticed that, deep in the comments section of the article that started all this, there are some recent comments from a "Monica" who claims to be a cousin of the aforementioned Ms. Watkins (and I have no reason not to believe her), and I'm going to address some of what she writes in two parts.

First, Monica accuses me of something I didn't do:

Additionally, your sarcastic apology and suggestion that my cousin is "enjoying the death of her son immensely" is disgusting.

I never said that, Monica. What I wrote was:

Yes, from the comments section back here, it would appear that, at long last, I have no sense of decency left at all and, upon reflection, the majority of commenters would seem to have a point.

It was, I admit, beyond the bounds of decorum to have told grieving mother and convenient neo-con propaganda mouthpiece Wanda Watkins to fuck right off. Instead, I should have suggested that she was merely enjoying the death of her son immensely, since that would have been the right wing thing to do.

As you noted, Monica, that was sarcasm, and was meant to highlight the difference between what I wrote, and what was written about the 9/11 widows. I was drawing a (perhaps badly-phrased) analogy to show that the same people who were climbing all over me for my alleged callousness had no problem whatsoever with the far worse, mocking cruelty of people like Ann Coulter. I was demonstrating the inherent hypocrisy, nothing more. But here's the second part.

Monica also writes:

I have a B.A. in "political science" and a Masters Degree in "gender and peacebuilding" from the United Nations mandated University for Peace.

It occurs to me that someone with those qualifications doesn't deserve to be buried 55 comments down in a days-old article here, so I'm inviting Monica to write an article which I'll post at this blog, verbatim. (I reserve the right to follow up with a comment to disagree with what I feel are simple inaccuracies but, other than that, I promise to post, front and centre, whatever she wants to write, unedited, in its entirety.)

And, as an added bonus, now that the Canadian shriek-o-sphere has agreed that they wouldn't touch this blog with Ann Coulter's dick, perhaps we can even have a reasoned, nuanced and thoughtful discussion for a change. If you're interested, Monica, drop me a note at the e-mail address to your right. I'm guessing my regular readers would also be interested in what you have to say.

Great moments in journamalism.

Apparently, that "free speech" is devilishly tricky stuff.

Shorter "Celestial Junk": "I'm a big fan of free speech. Except for CC."

Yes, let's talk about "hate speech," shall we?

Given that my original post back here inspired the following, rather deranged comment:

What you have written is "hate speech" pure and simple and I am going to notify the proper authorities in the morning.

I think I'll be keeping a close eye on this. And if some people pay attention, maybe they'll be able to tell the difference when it's all over.

We should be so lucky.

Dear wanks: How's that "surge" coming?

Ooooooooh ... not so well (emphasis added):

If the U.S. troop buildup in Iraq is reversed before the summer of 2008, the military will risk giving up the security gains it has achieved at a cost of hundreds of American lives over the past six months, the commander of U.S. forces south of Baghdad said Friday.

Maj. Gen. Rick Lynch, commander of the 3rd Infantry Division, mentioned none of the proposals in Congress for beginning to withdraw U.S. troops as soon as this fall. But he made clear in an interview that in his area of responsibility south of Baghdad, it will take many more months to consolidate recent gains.

"It's going to take through (this) summer, into the fall, to defeat the extremists in my battle space, and it's going to take me into next spring and summer to generate this sustained security presence," he said, referring to an Iraqi capability to hold gains made by U.S. forces.

Another Friedman or two. Just be patient. They're working on it.