I guess the RCMP now has a '00' section

This outrageous ruling just gave the mounties the licence to kill anyone who loses their temper, no questions asked. It's funny no one ever dies of hysteria when the cops aren't involved. I have family friends who are in the RCMP - I don't think of them as killers, but these four don't pause for an instant to try to calm the man, they just kill him. 

Watch the whole video -- I insist-- and remember that the man had been there for TEN HOURS without getting any help to find his way out of the customs section and into the arrivals lobby. Watch it all, and tell me that the officers involved acted in a reasonable way and that the man deserved to die. Tell me they had any reason to fear for their lives or were defending themselves. Because if you can tell me that, you are watching a different video than I am.

The four horsemen arrive at 6:12, at 6:40 they taser Robert Dziekanski for the first time, by about 9:30 he seems to be dead, and the Mounties never even try artificial resuscitation, in fact they don't even seem to be in any rush to try to get medical help for the man they have just murdered. 

 

I hope someday the 4 officers, the crown attorney and the judge involved all in their turn travel to some far off foreign land like China or Uruguay or, oh, I dunno, maybe even Poland, on a holiday or a business trip. I hope they get lost in the airport. I hope that what with the jet lag, and the lack of sleep and the confusion and frustration and the fact that nobody speaks English that they just flat out lose it after a few hours and throw down their suitcases and start shouting. And I hope it doesn't cost them their lives, because these fuckers should live with this poor bastard's needless death haunting their consciences every waking moment for a long, long, painful time.

RNC Morans

How many of these pictures of misspelled signs from various Republican and conservative rallies, hate-fests and box lunch socials do we need to see before they admit the truthiness of John Stuart Mills dictum that "not all conservatives are stupid, but all stupid people are conservatives" ?

Shamelessly stolen from the Buffalo Pundit

Political Art

There are some brilliant editorial cartoonists out there and some great and not so great political comic strips, but political art is a whole 'nother ball game. There are great works of high seriousness like Picasso's Guernica and there are others that are more about the politics than the art.

Then there is the brilliant, sharp, brilliant, funny, brilliant and subversive (did I mention brilliant?) work of Zina Saunders

Meet the Gnu Boss

Apparently the Liberal Party of Canada, a party with which I long identified and which I long supported, has decided that the best thing for Canada is to keep Steven Harper in office for as long as possible and then replace him with someone who has almost exactly the same opinions, but wears red neckties and is twice as smart.
Not content to wait for January and keep the coalition together, defeat the government and be appointed to form a coalition government with the icky NDP, the Liberals started reading Conservative Party Press releases and accepting them as fact. One little bump in the road and they panic.
Splendid. I guess that was the revolution that wasn't. Fuck you very much Liberal Party for snatching defeat from the jaws of victory once again. In the last election 62% of the country voted against the Conservatives, so in answer to this you have decided that running even further to the right is the sensible option. Michael Ignatieff, for all his very impressive academic credentials supported the Iraq war until 2007.
In other news, when and if I ever move back to what used to be Canada, I will either be moving to Westmount in the Republic of Quebec and starting my own Anglo separatist party, Le Bloc Maudit Bloke, or to Vancouver Island in the People's Republic of Pacifica and opening a "Yo-Yo" frozen yohgurt stand/Yoga fitness centre/legal marijuana distribution centre.

Blindfolds, not Bailouts

First against the wall when the revolution comes: AIG executives.

Dec. 9 (Bloomberg) -- American International Group Inc., the insurer whose bonuses and perks are under fire from U.S. lawmakers, offered cash awards to another 38 executives in a retention program with payments of as much as $4 million.

The incentives range from $92,500 to $4 million for employees earning salaries between $160,000 and $1 million, Chief Executive Officer Edward Liddy said in a letter dated Dec. 5 to Representative Elijah Cummings. The New York-based insurer had previously disclosed that 130 managers would get the awards and that one executive would get $3 million.

“I remain concerned, as do many American taxpayers, that these retention payments are simply bonuses by another name,” Cummings said in letter responding to Liddy. AIG, which received a U.S. rescue package of more than $152 billion, has been criticized for saying it will eliminate bonuses for senior executives while still planning to hand out “cash awards” that double or triple the salaries of some managers. The payments are designed to keep top employees at AIG while Liddy seeks to sell units and pay back the federal government, which owns 79.9 percent of AIG.

...AIG’s managers have overseen a record $37.6 billion in net losses so far this year. Cummings has called for Liddy’s resignation and said AIG should provide names of those getting retention pay and explain why the awards are needed. Firms accepting taxpayer money shouldn’t enrich employees, he said..

Yeah, because when the senior management of the company steers the firm in losses of nearly $40 billion and forces the firm to seek a $150 billion bailout from the government, the last thing you want them to do is jump ship and work for someone else.
While I understand the importance of propping up all those struggling Porshe dealerships, caviar importers and executive country club operators that provide much needed greenskeeping and caddying jobs in these dark economic times, frankly I'd have a lot more respect for these people if they just drove up to Fort Knox in a convoy of trucks with masks and guns and cleaned the place out like honest thieves.

CNN Dec. 5

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- A record 1.35 million homes were in foreclosure in the third quarter, driving the foreclosure rate up to 2.97%, the Mortgage Bankers Association said Friday.

That's a 76% increase from a year ago, according to the group's National Delinquency Survey.At the same time, the number of homeowners falling behind on their mortgages rose to a record 6.99%, up from 5.59% a year ago, the association said. This means that one in 10 borrowers in America are either delinquent or in foreclosure

What would Woody Guthrie say?

"Yes, as through this world I've wandered
I've seen lots of funny men;
Some will rob you with a six-gun,
And some with a fountain pen.

And as through your life you travel,
Yes, as through your life you roam,
You won't never see an outlaw
Drive a family from their home."

-Woody Guthrie
The Ballad of Pretty Boy Floyd