I know that my Habs will live on

But I'd really rather see Brofman in charge than that other Quebecois institution. But hey, at least they squeaked into the playoff.

Power ballad schlock queen eyeing bid for Les Habs.

I have seen more intelligent cacti

Republicans - because we needed a name for people who are dumber than houseplants. I just hope someone remembers to water Betty Brown occasionally, it must get dry in Texas.

Brown suggested that Asian-Americans should find a way to make their names more accessible.

“Rather than everyone here having to learn Chinese — I understand it’s a rather difficult language — do you think that it would behoove you and your citizens to adopt a name that we could deal with more readily here?” Brown said.

Brown later told Ko: “Can’t you see that this is something that would make it a lot easier for you and the people who are poll workers if you could adopt a name just for identification purposes that’s easier for Americans to deal with?”

Yes, Betty, because Asian names like Ko, Sato, Hu and Singh are much much more difficult than say Tatigliano, Satterthwaite, Papadopolis, Rogazinski, Medvedev or Gonzales. I'll admit that some Asian names are a mouthful  - Indonesian, Thai and Sri Lankan names in particular tend to be longer and more complex compared to short, blunt Anglo-Saxon monikers like Brown and Wood - but that isn't really the point here. Brown isn't suggesting that all names should be anglicized, just Asian names. 

But it isn't about race. 

Sure it's not. Nothing is ever about race with the Republicans and the conservatives, except when they get shoved back from the trough, then its all about discrimination against poor, persecuted middle-aged, wealthy, white men.

ending torture

Say what you want about Obama and his insistence on protecting the bankers and the wealthy and his refusal so far to prosecute his vicious, corrupt and venal predecessors -- if he does nothing else for the next eight years this is a significant accomplishment in cleaning up the mess left behind by the previous neofacist administration. This is the next step.

Sorry isn't good enough

I appreciate that the police in Vancouver have a difficult job to do right now what with the wave of gang violence engulfing the city, but the police have absolutely no right to seize cameras from journalists or any individual who is taking pictures at a crime scene, whether it interferes with their investigation or not. They are within their rights to request that news organizations not publish information that might impede an investigation, or to ask individuals to come forward with photos or videos of crimes, but the decision of what to do with such private property is up to the owner. The officer who assaulted the news photographer and threatened him with arrest should be fired immediately. This kind of conduct is illegal and a violation of a host of constitutional rights. In light of the actions of the police in the Dziekanski killing at the Vancouver airport and the attempt by the RCMP to confiscate evidence of their misconduct, and a cop in Ottawa not so long ago, this kind of thing cannot be tolerated by a free society. It isn't as if the Vancouver cops haven't been accused of this kind of thing before either.

No, but I think there may be anarchists in my broom closet

tip of the fez to Hypatia!!

Second Life Sunday

This weekend's theme is the magical world of witchcraft - so we have a couple of hours of supernaturally great music and the latest entry in our James Stewart Film Festival as the Glorious People's Cinema Project marches forward. This week's offering is "Bell, Book and Candle" in our man Jimmy is pursued by modern day witch Kim Novak  - she probably wants revenge for his throwing her off that tower in "Vertigo" a couple of weeks ago.

The music starts at 5 pm Pacific / 8 pm Eastern with the movie rolling at 7 pm Pacific/ 10 pm Eastern. Join us here and on Radio Woodshed or in Second Life at the Red Zeppelin.

Further evil

Apparently it isn't just Thomas Wolfe who can never come home again. 

Apparently it doesn't matter if the RCMP and CSIS say you aren't a terrorist, what matters is whether a regime - known to have imprisoned and tortured people for no good reason  - that is no longer in power once said you were a terrorist.

The George W. Bush administration = evil.

The Stephen Harper administration = evil's lil' helper.

Canadian Foreign Minister Lawrence Cannon = unprintable, even on a blog.

Stunned and stunning report

The Commission for Public Complaints Against the RCMP has released a report in which it rules that the use of a taser by RCMP officers against a bed-ridden 82-year-old man who was infirm enough to require an oxygen tank was entirely justified. No, really. Apparently three mounties in body armor can't be relied upon to disarm an knife-wielding octogenarian invalid. That whirring sound you hear is Sam Steele spinning in his grave.

The Horror, the HORROR!!

Nevermind the wars, the economic collapse or even the imminent (OMG) maybe-it's-a-satellite-maybe-it's-a-nuke (SHRIEK! WE'RE ALL GONNA DIE!!) rocket launch by North Korea, Japan's largest national daily newspaper, the biggest newspaper in the world, knows horror and know what kind of information its 10 million readers crave:

School baseball player insulted rivals on blog
The Yomiuri Shimbun
A high school student who participated in the current National High School Invitational Baseball Tournament posted comments insulting one of his team's opponents on his blog, prompting complaints to be made to his school, it has been learned.
Though the student quickly deleted the comments, the manager of his baseball team said the school was considering apologizing to the rival team and reporting the matter to the Japan High School Baseball Federation.
According to the school and its baseball team, the student posted insulting comments about his opponents, such as: "They all look ugly. (Laugh out loud)." and "They look like they're from the Showa era [1926-1989]."
His school received several complaints by e-mail on the day of the game and afterward, one of which said the comments were inconsiderate.

Heavens to Mugatroid, someone is being mean on the Internets! We must alert the populace! Won't someone think of the children?

Ask not why the humble inkstained wretch drinks, ask why it doesn't drink more.

UPDATE: Stop the presses! We have a scoop! Breaking news! Read all about it! Extra! Extra! Knob says something mean and stupid on the Internet! Oh my stars and garters, will this unendurable horror never end? Someone push me toward the couch, I feel faint!

Asahi Shimbun employee posted offensive remarks

The Yomiuri Shimbun
A 49-year-old male employee of The Asahi Shimbun's Tokyo headquarters posted discriminatory remarks about historically marginalized communities on an Internet bulletin board, the newspaper company said Tuesday.
According to the company, the employee, from the editorial bureau's proofreading department, repeatedly posted messages seen as encouraging discrimination against marginalized communities and people with mental disorders on the popular online bulletin board "2 channel." All of his messages were composed and posted using a company computer during working hours.
A spokesperson for the company said the man had admitted to writing the messages after his postings had drawn attention from readers of the bulletin board.
"[The tone of the postings] intensified during an exchange with another person. I've done something bad," the man was quoted as saying during an internal investigation.

(Sniff, sniff) Can you smell that? It smells like ......Pulitzer!

And we wonder why circulation is dropping. I've checked the gauges and the dipstick and I think I'm down a quart -- pass the scotch.

"Thanks for having me, Chris"

Shorter Stephen Harper: "When I said we couldn't win in Afghanistan, I meant that as long as its just Afghans blowing up each other, we win. And all that stuff that Paul Martin did to regulate the banks, stuff I wouldn't have done in a million years? Well I'm happy to take credit for it now."

Ol' Dead Eyes never even mentioned his own defence ministers call for an explanation of Fox News' Greg Gutfeld's ridiculing of Canada's contribution in Afghanistan. He probably thought it might hurt his chances of going out for falafel with Bill O'Reilly while he was in town.

The newspaper is dead, long live the newspaper

The industry I work in is dying, but it is also poised to take a massive leap forward. Paradigms are shifting and technology is dragging the newspaper industry into the future kicking and screaming, and leaving a trail of bodies in its wake. The last few months have seen the demise of the Rocky Mountain News,  The Seattle Post-Intelligencer, the Philadelphia Daily News and papers like the San Francisco Chronicle and Atlanta Constitution-Journal are losing a million dollars a week. Tribune Co. publishers of the Los Angeles Times and Chicago Tribune filed for bankruptcy in December.  In financial terms, many newspapers simply are literally not worth the paper they are printed on  and need to find a new model, whether it is advertising supported internet publishing or paid subscription via some off-web device such as the Amazon Kindle.

I don't think newspapers will become extinct anytime soon, but the print editions may become something of a luxury. Some will survive in their present printed form for years to come, others will sink or swim on the tide of the internet and others may well end up going the Kindle/itunes paid subscription route. Others will fall by the wayside and be replaced by a new species of online journal, something part blog, part online forum, part viewer-driven local tv news station. Think of a cross between the Huffington Post, Talking Points Memo, You Tube and a news-junkie chat group. 

Whatever happens, the journalism trade isn't likely to go away anytime soon. Someone has to do the primary legwork and interviewing and write that snappy pyramid lede for all the "citizen-journalists" in the blogosphere to disparage. I don't mean to say that bloggers don't do any original reporting, many do. But not on a daily basis and not within a central organizing framework that ensure the things that need to get covered have people assigned to them. Newsgathering organizations are as old as civilization, whether they've been wandering traders exchanging commercial gossip, military spies, wandering tinkers and minstrels  or what have you. 

Blogs tend to work from secondary sources, sifting through all the online media to find the information they want, cutting and pasting in raw data gathered by governments, universities, think tanks and NGOs and linking to published journalism. Which is great as far as it goes --there is a lot of information out there to be distilled down to the point where the signal-to-noise ratio is bearable and the information digestible and newspapers, along with television and radio and magazines have traditionally served that role with radio getting the info out first, followed by television giving the visuals, newspapers supplying the detailed information and news magazines trying to put things in perspective and show how the puzzle pieces fit -- obviously there is overlap and all four have also leaned heavily on news analysis and opinion to fill the empty spaces and try to tell their customers what it all means. Blogs can do all that but it is a hell of a lot of work for a single person or a even a small group. They may individually or as a group have the various types of expertise to write knowledgeably about all current events in their sphere of interest and a blog, as some newspapers and magazines are finally figuring out, can provide more immediate coverage than print. 

But it is a full time job. Someone has to go and sit through the town planning meetings, the press conferences, the board of directors meetings. Some one has to scan the police blotter, the committee minutes, the legislature's agenda. Someone has to go door to door canvassing for witnesses, someone has to call all the Smith's in the phone book to find the right guy, someone has to go do the work. So the world will still need trained journalists and investigative reporters, camera jockeys and assignment editors. It just needs to find a way to let them keep eating and living indoors. 

The old Chinese curse "may you live in interesting times" has settled around the news industry like a noose. In many ways this is a very exciting time to be in the news industry because everything is going to change in the decade or so. As the new paradigms shake out and separate the Pyjamas Medias from the Talking Points Memos, the yoyos  and dilettantes from the pros, there will be blood on the floor, empires worth millions of dollars  will fall overnight and a lot of people are going to be losing their jobs  - not just journalists, but studio technicians, printers, truck drivers and paper mill workers.  In the words of Chairman Mao: "There is chaos under heaven, and the situation is excellent."

Groovin' and gazing on a Sunday Afternoon

Well, Sunday for all you North American types at least -- I'm doing the Radio Woodshed show/Second Life dance party on my Monday morning, so excuse me if I'm a bit foggy at the start. We get started at 5 pm Pacific/SL time - 8 pm Eastern, with two hours of fine tuneage you can listen to via Radio Woodshed (broadcasting 24/7 through the magic of itunes shuffle - but properly DJ'd on Sunday nights!) just click on the big radio on the right or join us in SL at the Red Zeppelin. We have a bit of an old-timey/western theme this week in honor of this weeks selected presentation of the Glorious People's Cinema Project -- Destry Rides Again.

Harper to teach FOX News a lesson

A week after Greg Gutfeld and his panel of brainless wonders yukked it up over the idea that Canada actually has an army, pissing off so many people in the Great White North that even Canadian Defence Minister and neocon lickspittle Peter McKay condemned FOX News. But not to worry, Prime Minister Stephen Harper has now entered the fray. He's going to be in Washington on Sunday and New York on Monday - not to meet with U.S. officials - but to do media interviews. Including one with FOX News host Chris "His father must be so embarrassed" Wallace. 

Harper did provide Radio-Canada with a rare interview on Thursday evening and is scheduled to give another Sunday to CTV.

Canadian correspondents were told not to bother trying to track Harper in Washington or New York. "You will likely be disappointed," said Teneycke.

The prime minister's latest round of media shopping comes just a month after he was last in New York.

It's part of a strategy to limit Harper's Canadian interrogations - where the questions tilt toward the specifics of Canada's troubled domestic economy - in favour of foreign media who can be expected to compare this country favourably to its international partners.

The only detail provided by the Prime Minister's Office was that Harper will be doing a live interview on Fox News on Sunday morning and a CNN interview on Monday.

Somehow I doubt the interview will begin the way it should, with Wallace presenting Gutfeld's head on a silver platter. Way to stand up for Canadians, Steverino.

It will be Harper's second interview with both Fox and CNN in a month. He has not granted an interview to The Canadian Press, Canada's national news service, since December 2007.

Canada's Sado-Conservatives

Evil is not a word to use lightly, but like Dr. Dawg, I find it hard to think of a more appropriate term. Alison has more over at the Galloping Beaver. My homeland needs to ruled by people who are not suckers of Satan's cock. I need a drink.

If brains were dynamite

Michelle Bachman, (R-Fantasyland) wouldn't have enough to blow her nose.

Dumbest. Congresscritter. Ever.

(h/t to Canadian Cynic)

Dylan wrote every popular song of the last 35 years

Little Bobby Zimmerman  and his rock and roll combo have a new recording coming out at the end of April. Advance word is that "Together through Life" is like "Modern Times" only bluesier and more raw. 

So, perhaps there is a god after all.

Check out the advance reviews. And check out Bob's super slick website that allows you to listen to anything off any of his albums.

Apology not accepted

Bygones?
Do they think they can repeatedly talk this kind of smack about Canada and then just say "oh sorry, just kidding" when they are finally called on it? Really?
Well, I don't think so. What exactly did we "misunderstand" about this festival of dumbassery? Was it actually a scripted outtake from a Rick Mercer "Talking to Americans" special? Greg Gutfeld and the rest of the crew of ignorant jingoistic taints at Fox can kiss my Red-and-white-but-never-blue-maple-syrup-and-hockey-loving ass. Thank god most Americans are smarter than these smirking arses. Fox News is blight on the airwaves and should never have been given a licence in Canada. I vote we cut off the oil for a few months, starting yesterday. Sorry to the rest of America, but if you have a problem with the spike in gas and heating oil prices, take it up with Fox News.

"Isn't this the perfect time to invade this ridiculous country? They have no army!"
-alleged funnyman Greg Gutfeld

Yeah, cause that worked out so well for you guys the last time, Greg.

Bonus funny: One of douche bags involved, Doug Benson, was actually scheduled to perform his comedic stylings in Edmonton from April 2 to April 5. According to the Star, he has decided to cancel the gig. I guess he was afraid some of these guys might have misunderstood his humourous take on their activities. Too bad, I'd certainly have paid top dollar to have seen that. No more BC bud for you, Dougie, your eyes are red enough.

Life in the technological fast lane

I haven't owned a car in a decade. Living in Tokyo, I don't really need one. Public transportation and taxis get me everywhere I need to go in the city with a minimum of fuss and expense. Back in Canada, I nearly lived in my car, putting 20-30,000 kilometers a year on the succession of old jalopies I owned. Living out in the countryside or in the suburbs in Canada, a car was an absolute necessity and given the totally inadequate nature of public transit even in the largest cities, having a car even in an urban setting was mighty useful. And expensive ("gas is how much a liter this week?"). And stressful ("traffic is backed up how far?"). And dirty and smelly and noisy and all the other things that go with a gasoline powered vehicle. Traffic in Tokyo is insane and the air is already nearly unbreathable anyways, so as long as I'm here, I don't want a car.
I write about a lot of pretty nasty things on this blog - politics, hypocrisy, war, pestilence, corruption, stupidity and petty meaness and ignorance (and that's just Canadian Prime Minister's office) -- so its really nice to mention something positive for a change.

MDI is a French company that is going to save the world if people give them half a chance. They have created a radical new reimagining of the automobile industry, based on building small local plants that manufacture cars for a local market. Imagine a car built right at the dealership. Their labour-intensive plant design allows for an environmentally-friendly car to be built every half hour at a very, very reasonable cost - meaning lots of steady, decent-paying jobs building non-polluting products where they will be sold. No more having to head to the big city for a factory job. No more stinking industrial hellscapes. No need to ship vehicles thousands of miles to market. Hopefully, their cars will be available in Europe and the US this year.

Oh, and did I mention the cars run on compressed air? No need to waste food crops on biofuels, no need to mess with superflammable hydrogen or propane, no need for gasoline. There is a hybrid model that will run on anything from gasoline to alcohol and give you about 80 km per liter of fuel intended for highway driving, but for city driving, you just hook them up to an air compressor and you can go about 100 km before you need a refill. The bodies are mostly fiberglass, so they never rust. Hook that ordinary air compressor up to a neighbourhood windmill and you might never pay to run your car again. And the basic model sells for between $7000 and $12,000.

They may never replace the gasoline-engine roadster for long-distance highway driving, but think what it would do for air quality if you replaced every taxi, delivery vehicle, commuter car and bus in a city like Tokyo or Los Angeles or Mexico City with something that has zero emissions. Think how much money could be saved in fuel costs. And the loudest thing in them is probably the car stereo.

Movie of the week

The Glorious People's Cinema Project continues to march forward providing all comrades of the Marxist-Lennonist revolutionary cadres with wholesome entertainment expropriated from the running dog capitalist copyright blue meanies. This week's feature at the Red Zeppelin is Alfred Hitchcock's "Notorious" starring Ingrid Bergman, Cary Grant and Claude Rains. Join us in high in the skies over Second Life or tune in via You Tube below. 

The invisible hand of the market is giving AIG the finger

"Civil government, so far as it is instituted for the security of property, is in reality instituted for the defence of the rich against the poor, or of those who have some property against those who have none at all.

It is not very unreasonable that the rich should contribute to the public expense, not only in proportion to their revenue, but something more than in that proportion.

The proposal of any new law or regulation which comes from [businessmen], ought always to be listened to with great precaution, and ought never to be adopted till after having been long and carefully examined, not only with the most scrupulous, but with the most suspicious attention. It comes from an order of men, whose interest is never exactly the same with that of the public, who have generally an interest to deceive and even to oppress the public, and who accordingly have, upon many occasions, both deceived and oppressed it."

So just who is this commie socialist slimeball, you ask? Adam Smith in The Wealth of Nations (first book, chapter 11, last section).

All credit goes to Dr. Dick, winner of all threads everywhere.