The Lasso of Truth

My friends went to a crazies convention

...and all I got was some lousy pictures to share and mock ;)

This one is down with Zionist Barbarism...hey, me too!

 

This one is just inspirational, for me...

After all, Muslim babies are bred to become Muslim murderers.  It's curious that pasty white Canadian communists care more about Gazan babies, than the babies' mothers do.  Then again, since when do Communists care about babies, at all?

It's all very confusing...

The only good thing to come out of 9/11...

...was 19 dead Muslims.

And when the followers of the world's most violent religion wonder why they keep getting felt up at the airport, they will have only to look to a threadbare pair of cotton briefs, for the answer.

Ho-Ho-Ho!

It's not just the call of the Tiger ;)

Another year gone and it has been a pivotal one for me.  It has held many challenges, a lot of heartache and an immeasurable amount of joy.

All things considered, it has been the best year of my life.  With luck (and no small amount of determination) next year will be even better.  With my beautiful children and my sweet, loving husband by my side, I have no doubt it will be.

Thank you for sharing it with us.

The very definition of insantiy

A stupendous failure gets another kick at the can...

President Hugo Chavez on Tuesday announced a new chain of government-run, cut-rate retail stores that will sell everything from food to cars to clothing from places such as China, Argentina and Bolivia.
"We're creating Comerso, meaning Socialist Corporation of Markets," Chavez said at the opening of a "socialist" fast-food location for traditional Venezuelan arepas (cornbread).

"They'll see what's good. We'll show them what a real market is all about, not those speculative, money-grubbing markets, but a market for the people," said Chavez in his drive to change Venezuela from a market-based economy to a socialist one.

Because it worked so great the last time.

Everybody's favorite villain

I often get into arguments with people I know when I hear them make some flippant remark, using "capitalism" like it's a bad word.  The attitude being that when a person acts in his own self interest, it's inherent that he will screw over everyone around him.

What a stupid and simplistic concept.

Whenever I point out that the simple act of coming to work each day, cashing their paycheque and wondering what to get the grandkids for Christmas, are all luxuries afforded by the avails of capitalism -- and that they are actively participating in it -- they insist either that it's not (?) or that they are the exception to the general rule of the corporate money-grubber caricature they have been groomed to revile.

What hubris it is, to think that only they may be virtuous and selfless, while working toward raises and bonuses, or seeking the best price for goods, but the rest of us -- those of us who actually admit to being capitalists -- are of the greedy sheister variety.  Yet, they are not confused by the contradiction...

As for Scrooge, how does this peculiar man — “solitary as an oyster” — represent an indictment of capitalism except for those who continue to embrace the nonsense notion that commercial society eradicates goodwill?

 

[..]

 

Would the world have been better without Scrooge? Did he force people to do business with him? Was Bob Cratchit not free to find better employment elsewhere? And if no such employment was available, was that Scrooge’s fault? Scrooge’s “conversion” is also problematic. Once Marley’s spectre has shown Scrooge what the afterlife looks like for the uncharitable, is there any need for the three Christmas ghosts? Scrooge has been “scared good” the old Christian way. With fear of eternal damnation.

Dickens’ portrait was in fact a caricature in his own time, when industrialists and businessmen were emerging as the greatest benefactors in history, but he wrote during an economic downturn that provided fertile ground for another much scarier horror story, The Communist Manifesto. Marx and Engels were concerned with the grime of Manchester rather than “The palpable brown air” of London, but their “plot” provided a blueprint for mass murder. And yet we still prefer to bash Scrooge, no matter how great the success of capitalism in lifting billions out of poverty and providing them with an increasingly stunning array of options. Indeed, does nobody notice the irony that capitalism has unleashed the consumerist cornucopia and charitable sentiments that were A Christmas Carol’s ideal?

As for the modern businesses, far from embracing Scrooge-ian attitudes, they positively slather themselves in the humbug of “corporate social responsibility. Indeed, the financial crisis was rooted not in the spirit of Scrooge but in the reverse: in the desire by strong-arming politicians to make sure that the Bob Cratchits of the world — particularly the ethnic minority Bob Cratchits (who, as opposed to in 1843, now have the vote) — be given loans they couldn’t afford so that they might achieve the dream of home ownership.

Rushing into that good night

Thank you to Paul Tuns, for pointing this one out...

Quebec's National Assembly has just struck a roving committee to seek expert and lay opinions on euthanasia and assisted suicide.

The move is a response to remorseless forces that insist on a need to debate whether euthanasia or assisted suicide should become part of standard medical practice. As a defender of free speech, I would never oppose such debate. I would argue only that the ordained answer must be short and sweet: No. Or, for those who want a more prolonged response: Never.

Once we make it ok to take a life -- your own, or an other's -- how long before it becomes difficult to justify dictating how and under which circumstances?

If a person wants to, they can take their life.  I see no reason why the state should sanction it as a "medical treatment", or why the taxpayer should pay any more than they already do, to clean up the mess.

Pass the stuffing!

This article kind of reminds me of how I felt when I learned about dust mites and the "friendly bacteria" in cheese and yogurt...

Turkey, stuffing, cranberry sauce and potatoes expose you to a myriad of Mother Nature’s finest carcinogens. They contain heterocyclic amines, acrylamide, ethyl alcohol, benzo(a)pyrene and ethyl carbamate. Add to that the furan derivatives, furfural, dihydrazines, d-limonene, psoralens, quercetin glycosides and safrole, not to mention caffeic acid. Umm, caffeic acid.

If you think you can escape exposure to these so called toxins by sticking to a simple tossed-green salad topped with a splash of basil-mustard vinaigrette, think again. You’ll then be dealing with allyl isothiocyanate, estragole, methyl eugenol and caffeic acid. A buttered roll will add acetaldehyde, benzene, ethyl alcohol, benzo(a)pyrene, ethyl carbamate, furan derivatives and furfural to the mix. Broccoli spears mean allyl isothiocyanate.  Carrot sticks equal aniline and that darn caffeic acid (again!). Cherry tomatoes offer benzaldehyde, caffeic acid, hydrogen peroxide and quercetin glycosides, just as God intended.

 

You know, what we really need to do is start jacking our food with drugs, to head off this kind of, uh, chemical interference. /SARC

 

Cavemen were eating charred rabbit since before there were product labels, and here we all are, in abundance now.

 

A proper meal isn't worth the trouble, if you don't risk full cardiac arrest with each bite and macrobiotic is for fairies.  Eat hearty this Christmas, before big nanny starts doling out the portions.

My tax dollars

...hard at work...

Indian and Northern Affairs Canada is reviewing Peguis First Nation's finances following complaints by band members about audit practices and the salaries paid to the chief and to council.

[..]

Peguis Chief Glenn Hudson made $174,230 in the fiscal year ending in March. That includes a base salary of $124,000 plus $48,200 in unspecified "other remuneration" that includes fees for meetings and committee work outside band business. It doesn't include $32,000 in travel per diems and expenses.

But Hudson made far less than his four councillors last year.

One band councillor, Glennis Sutherland, made $251,000 and charged an additional $59,000 in travel expenses in the 2008-09 fiscal year.

Fat salaries have been a recurring problem on Peguis, the province's biggest reserve. In his last year in office, former chief Louis Stevenson was paid $240,000 plus a further $133,000 in travel expenses.

Consider that not only are these salaries exceptionally high, they are also tax free.

But the last line of the article is the one that really turns the knife...

The Interlake band has about 7,200 members.

The most expensive constituency in the country?  Maybe.

Ask the victims of Thalidomide...

...about the law of unintended consequences...

Health Canada is proposing an unorthodox way of combatting a food ingredient suspected in some cancers: It wants to let manufacturers put small amounts of a cancer-fighting drug into potato chips and similar foods to curb production of the harmful chemical.

[..]

As a partial answer, Health Canada is suggesting removing the requirement for a prescription to administer the enzyme asparaginase, except when it is injected into leukemia patients as a treatment.

That way, food companies could include small amounts of the drug in their products, the department says in a "notice of intent" document published on Saturday.

The health industry, that can't get me a hip replacement in less than 4 months, wants to start adding prescription medication to my food.

Outstanding.

Just Imagine

...how the letter would read, if it were sent now...

We implore you to confirm these facts to your leaders, and to do your utmost to stop the destruction and waste of life which can only result in the total annihilation of all your cities, if continued. As scientists, we deplore the use to which a beautiful discovery has been put, but we can assure you that unless Japan surrenders at once, this rain of atomic bombs will increase manyfold in fury.

Steely resolve in war.  Now, more extinct than the dinosaurs.

h/t

The Hierarchy of the Vacuous

I guess you have to have a brokeback cowboy role under your belt, to get inconsolable grief out of Hollywood.  Ledger got a posthumous Oscar but by tomorrow, it will be "Brittany who?". 

If only they all went so quietly.

Happy Ho-Ho Pinup

Is everyone ready?  I've had my shopping done for weeks.  All of my coworkers are jealous, which might explain why I got this in my inbox...

~ Help Find A Cure: "Ginger Kids are people just like everyone else, even if they don’t have souls."  It's like grade school, all over again.

~ Rosanna von Sacken is dismayed that Rogers has changed the terms of her daughter's cellphone contract.  What she should be more concerned about, is why this poses a problem for her little snowflake... "Von Sacken's teenage girls generate thousands of texts every month, to and from their 10 unlimited numbers. Her 16-year-old daughter sent and received close to 6,000 texts in one month — that's 200 per day — to and from those numbers.  Von Sacken said the numbers illustrate just how difficult it is for parents to police text messaging by teenagers."  Not so difficult if you make them pay for their own usage...or confiscate the damned phone.  Jeezus.  No discipline.

~ Speaking of which...Rex Murphy takes the on the eco-sonorous horde of despots in Copenhagen.  A must read.

~ Nearly half of Canadians think immigrants should assimilate into their adopted country... "the poll found that while Canadians don’t believe there are too many immigrants and 70% have a favourable view of newcomers, many Canadians also believe immigrants should put their customs and traditions behind them."

~ While in some countries, immigrants adopt the local customs just a little too much. (Unbelievably, not an Onion story)

Intriguing paradox, indeed

I have sacrificed countless hours to watching lame, sometimes ideologically infuriating films, to feed my lust for aesthetic richness and visual spectacle.  Often, the creative use of lighting and effects in cinematography will be enough to redeem for me, an otherwise unwatchable dud - or at the very least, make the time spent worthwhile.

For this reason, I have had a sense of divided loyalties about the new cinematic epic, Avatar.  The promise of a spectacular three dimensional visual wonder has been enough to lull me into the false hope that I might be able to suffer the film's obvious and tiresome politics.

I haven't come to a decision yet, about whether I will part with my hard-earned money to see it.  Perhaps my hectic schedule of 2 jobs, 6 kids and Christmas will decide for me ;)

At any rate, it is nice to see that I'm not the only one who is somewhat turned off by the inherent hypocrisy of the very existence of the film, considering it's purported message...

Cameron’s story clearly curses the proliferation of human technology. In Avatar, the science and machinery of humankind leads to soulless violence and destruction. It only serves to pollute the primitive but pristine paradise of Pandora.

Of course, without centuries of development in science and technology, the film putting forth this simple-minded, self-loathing worldview wouldn’t exist. You’d imagine Cameron himself would be bored to tears on the planet he created.
There are no movies on Pandora, so he’d be out of a job. The Na’vi rarely visit a multiplex. They sit around their glowing trees, chanting; they don’t build and sink titanic ocean liners, and they don’t construct deep-sea mini-subs enabling certain filmmakers to spend countless days exploring said cruise ships.

Behold!

The unparalleled success of "creative", progressive sentencing...

A infamous robber dubbed 'Canal Boy' when he was just 13 years old after he was taken on a three-month narrowboat holiday to stop him committing crimes, has fallen foul of the law again.

[..]

In the late Nineties Bowen was one of a number of young offenders who appeared to be rewarded for their crimes by being taken on holiday at public expense or given excessive pocket money in a bid to steer them away from crime.

'Safari Boy' Mark Hook, who was taken to Africa and Egypt for 88 days, and 'Pocket Money Boy' Casey Bowen, who was given £60 a week by social services, have both also been jailed this year for their latest crimes.

Not unlike a man who gets a "sentencing circle" as punishment for leaving his 2 daughters to freeze to death, on a drunken midnight excursion.

Like Robin to my Batman

Typepad has recently updated their platform to offer me all sorts of new features and goodies, for my blogging pleasure.  But since I am a simple creature with little time to fiddle with new-fangled contraptions, I mostly just ignore the frosting and sprinkles, like the "Question of the day" survey.  They're usually silly and have nothing to do with what I blog about, and who ever compiles or cares about the answers, anyway?

Today's question though, caught my eye and got the little geek in me thinking:

If you could hang out with any movie character for a day, whom would you choose as your sidekick?

Now THAT is a tough one.  Because mine is an eclectic personality, it's a toss up between the ones who would feed my intellectual curiosity, and the badasses.

Harry Potter's Dumbledore could, I expect, teach me a few useful tricks, while Klaatu could teach me the secrets of the universe.  For adventure, many would say the definitive sidekick would be Indiana Jones, but I've always been partial to the slapstick adventures of Allan Quartermain.

But tempting as it would be to expand my knowledge and experience, my visceral response is to pair up with a badass, and settle a few scores.  Who would dare mess with me, with King Leonidas on my hip?  Or one of the two Walters?  Not to mention the potential for a double-tap of ass-kicking and a little girl-on-girl, with the luscious and terrifying Anna Valerious.

All things considered though, I'd have to say the one who would get the call would have to be the inimitable John McClane.

Who would you choose?

A question of causation

Which came first:  The "Eco" or the "Jerk"?

It's a question that some people are starting to ask, and find answers for...

But new research by Nina Mazar and Chen-Bo Zhong at the University of Toronto levels an even graver charge: that virtuous shopping can actually lead to immoral behavior. In their study (described in a paper now in press at Psychological Science), subjects who made simulated eco-friendly purchases ended up less likely to exhibit altruism in a laboratory game and more likely to cheat and steal.

In an experiment, participants were randomly assigned to select items they wanted to buy in one of two online stores. One store sold predominantly green products, the other mostly conventional items. Then, in a supposedly unrelated game, all of the participants were allocated $6, to share as they saw fit with an anonymous (and unbeknownst to them, imaginary) recipient. Subjects who had chosen items from the green store coughed up less money, on average, than their counterparts. In a second experiment, participants were again assigned to shop in either a green or conventional store. Then they performed a computer task that involved earning small sums of cash. The setup offered the opportunity to cheat and steal with impunity. The eco-shoppers were more likely to do both.

[..]

The green-products study broke ground by suggesting that behavior in one realm (environmental decisions) may have a licensing effect in a different area (not future environmental choices, but general morality). So, when I buy Seventh Generation laundry detergent and organic local squash—or bring reusable bags to the grocery store—will that make me act like a selfish jerk?

Is it just an elaborate system of "brownie-point" rationalizing?  Could be.  But judging from my own experiences with the eco-pious and fashionably fake cause-seekers, their morality has always been lacking.  The Eco-piety movement is just the newest way for them to put lipstick on the pigs of their character.  It gives them an opportunity to tell themselves (and others) that they're not really so bad.  After all, they're saving the planet with every purchase!

h/t

What mystery?

A celestial blue light, hovering over Norway yesterday?

There can only be one explanation.

Humbuggers

You thought the warmenists were all about the trees, but no..!

But Christmas is a religious holiday that has no place at a United Nations function, according to the Foreign Ministry’s Svend Olling, who is the head of practical planning for the climate summit.

‘We have to remember that this is a UN conference and, as the centre then becomes UN territory, there can be no Christmas trees in the decor, because the UN wishes to maintain neutrality,’ said Olling.

I guess they figured there were already plenty of Ho-Ho-Hos! to go around.

But sadly, they'll be at least one Ho short.

A pox upon the social engineers

Only an environmentalist would make the argument that civilizational suicide is a rational choice for humans to make...

Humans are the only rational animals but have yet to prove it. Medical and other scientific advances have benefited by delivering lower infant mortality rates as well as longevity. Both are welcome, but humankind has not yet recalibrated its behavior to account for the fact that the world can only accommodate so many people, especially if billions get indoor plumbing and cars.

The fix is simple. It's dramatic. And yet the world's leaders don't even have this on their agenda in Copenhagen. Instead there will be photo ops, posturing, optics, blah-blah-blah about climate science and climate fraud, announcements of giant wind farms, then cap-and-trade subsidies.

None will work unless a China one-child policy is imposed.

To be environmentally responsible, humanity should subject itself to a eugenics policy to cull the herd, like the Chinese did.  Because a society with a swelling population of red-blooded boys and no girls to keep them occupied, sounds like the ideal solution.  Whatever do you think they might get up to, when they reach their tipping point, in the not-too-distant future?

All in the name of saving the planet, to which I must ask...if people are the problem, saving it for who?

The Equivocation Game

I, for one, always thought that smarmy, obnoxious road runner had it coming...

How many classic cartoons were based on the premise of the perennially hapless hunter – Elmer Fudd tracking Bugs Bunny, Wile E. Coyote chasing Road Runner – caught in booby-traps of their own making?

For novice PC Leader Tim Hudak, his party's protest over the Liberal government's proposed harmonized sales tax produced a couple of unforeseen outcomes.

[..]

Hudak said that, irrespective of rules, sometimes "extraordinary measures" are warranted. With that utterance he undercut his own law-and-order positioning and his credibility on long-running issues of civil disobedience.

What Hudak essentially did was give licence to civil disobedience any time anyone feels sufficiently aggrieved to arbitrarily take "extraordinary measures."

How will he stand, for instance, against any future native highway blockades in support of land claims? How can he say his right to extraordinary measures trumps anyone else's?

How can he go to Caledonia, say, and denounce native blockades and occupations there that his own caucus members have long railed against but, in essence, mimicked?

Regarding the "land claims" logic, being used here to widdle down the credibility of the opposition: Doesn't it stand to reason that by the same token, the government's efforts to forcibly remove the caucus "protestors" undermines their credibility in the face of the utter lack of action they've taken with the protestors currently entering their fourth year of occupation on disputed land in Caledonia?

Maybe Hudak and Co. decided to go with a tactic that's proven to work with this government.  See?  The Indians can still teach us a few things.

Best Social and Environmental ads?

Well, I suppose "best" is a subjective word.

Bike to work, or the girl gets it...

  And, in case you thought the Environmental movement was completely out of class...

It has a special irony, when you realize this one comes from China.

Discovered!

The clearing house to beat all clearing houses, of information and news links on Climate Change hysteria.  Like Drudge on Ritalin, with pictures.

Brought to you by these guys.

Now a permanent resident in my Google Reader.

Will goat-humping Ken be next?

I never had a Barbie.  But I was fortunate enough to have a friend with a trunk full of various Barbie dolls, and friends, as well as all the full range of lifestyle accessories, like the RV, Corvette, country home with pool and the larger than life walk-in closet.

Countless hours of my childhood were spent in the Mattel-sponsored melodrama of a 6" vixen and her nefarious exploits.  What a slut that doll was.  She was the socialite that neither myself, nor my awkward (and I would suspect eventually gay) friend, could have ever dreamed of being, in our pre-teen ugly duckling fazes.

At the time, I was an ugly, awkward, introverted freckle-faced redhead, who spent most days in the playground either running from the bullies, or being caught by them.  I never had much courage to talk to boys and I rarely had the courage to talk back at the nasty little girls who had a higher social station than me, and knew it.

Never, in a million years, would I have ever dared to do or say any of the things that Barbie did, through our role-playing. The life I made for her was completely alien to me, and that was the reason it was so much fun.  After all, what fun could it have been, if Barbie had been a character that "represented" me, because I didn't even like the place where I was?  Why would I drag my imaginary play friend into the bottomless pit of misery, where I already spent far too much of my own time..?

The words "Barbie doll" used to elicit the image of a ditzy blonde bimbo. No longer. Since Nov. 20, the 50th anniversary of this iconic doll and beloved plaything of little girls everywhere, 500 Barbies --including various Barbies wearing chadors and full burkas -- have been on show at the Salone del Cinquecento in Florence, Italy.

The exhibition is sponsored by toy company Mattel, Barbie's owner. Dolls wearing "traditional Islamic dress" -- the burkas and chadors -- were chosen to be auctioned off by Sotheby's as a fundraiser for the Italian branch of Save the Children.

A Barbie collector attending the exhibition from England opined: "Bring it on, Burka Barbie ... I think this is really important for girls. Wherever they are from, they should have the opportunity to play with a Barbie that they feel represents them."

I have seen some pretty tawdry advertising campaigns in my time, but I must say this one takes the cake for insensitivity. What's next in dolls that are "important for girls" to play with? "Illiterate Barbie"? "Forced-Marriage Barbie"?

Other suggestions for niche Barbies, within the paradigm of dolls little girls can relate to:

* Militant Dyke Barbie, complete with flannel shirt and strap-on. Skipper doll comes extra

* Honor Killing Barbie, with noose-knotted headscarf or optional sandbox and bag of stones

* Bad Touch Barbie and Babysitting Uncle playset

* Babymomma Barbie with full set of gangsta bling (absentee unknown babyfather not included)

Call me. beep me...

The hyper-geek in me thinks this is pretty cool.  The not-so-geeky girl in me just says ewww!

Moderate Muslims: The New Loch Ness Monster

Latest sighting:  Luton.  Scene of disgraceful, hatefilled protests at an Army homecoming parade, earlier this year.

The same moderate muslims who allowed rioting lunatics to shout "butchers" and "cowards" at returning soldiers, without a peep of protest, were also on hand to silently witness similarly middle-eastern thugs hurling eggs at and threatening a member of parliament, on a walk-about to engage in reasoned debate with the community...

Yesterday, Baroness Warsi said there were only about 'seven, eight or maybe ten' protesters who did not represent the true feelings of the thousands of moderate Muslims in the town. 

But are they a tiny minority, or was the outbreak of violence a symptom of a wider problem: the failed integration into society of a group of Muslim extremists (many British-born)?

Is it apathy, or tacit approval that makes these thousands of moderate muslims sit silently while a woman is harrassed and assaulted in their streets?

Although only 20 per cent of Luton's 200,000 population is Muslim, the figure in Bury Park is much higher. The area has its own madrassa (faith school), Islamic primary school and shops selling halal meat and Asian clothes.

While the overwhelming majority of Muslims lead decent, peaceful lives, there have been incidents which reveal tensions. When a Mecca Bingo Hall opened, its windows were smashed after some Muslims claimed the neon 'Mecca' sign insulted their religion because it associated the name of their holy city with gambling. Advertising hoardings featuring women deemed to be showing too much flesh have also been defaced.

Over the past 18 months or so, around 30 non-Muslim homes have been attacked. One white couple in their 80s had bricks hurled through their front window. A West Indian woman in her 70s was watching TV when a metal beer keg crashed through her bay window.

Whichever it is, Muslims cannot claim these "extremists" don't represent them, when they cede the stage to them at every opportunity.  It just shows the rest of us whose side they're really on.