"This self-delusion is more than ideology"

Not much of a surprise that University of Calgary political scientist and nut bar Barry Cooper brags about his friendship with Tom Flannagan,  Why do I call him a nut bar? Well, this is Professor Coopers take on the First Nations in Canada and presumably aboriginal people anywhere else that white Europeans decided they want to live. At first I thought the subhead was some editor's warning about the content of this op-ed piece.

Aboriginals have no claim to sovereignty

Opinion: This self-delusion is more than ideology
BY BARRY COOPER, POSTMEDIA NEWS

The behaviour of Indian leaders and the gestures of the Idle No More movement are expressions of the same pathologies found on so many reserves in Canada. Political pathology is more than the well-known corruption of so-called chiefs. Almost the entire discussion between Indians and the government is based on complaints, assumptions and assertions that have no basis in reality. They are projections of the imagination. Participants in the discussions, however, take them to be the self-evident structure of the common sense world.
Such self-delusion is more than ideology, because it combines the lowest emotions — guilt, fear and resentment — with the most exalted aspirations to rectify injustice and fulfil the wishes of God, the Creator. To put this problem into perspective, recall a classic study published in 2000 by my longtime colleague and even longer-time friend, Tom Flanagan, called First Nations? Second Thoughts.
The fantasy devoutly believed in by many aboriginals, bureaucrats and lawyers, both on the bench and at the bar, as well as by numerous academics, journalists and intellectuals, goes as follows: (1) Aboriginals are privileged because they were here first; (2) there are no significant differences between European and Indian civilizations so that (3) Indians are sovereign nations; accordingly (4) treaties were nation-to-nation agreements that (5) affirmed aboriginal sovereignty and ownership of the land. And finally, when Canadians acknowledge all the above, Indians will prosper. http://www.canada.com/news/Aboriginals+have+claim+sovereignty/7874774/story.html#ixzz2JCzxr2Tg

You'll want to read the whole thing to really get a taste for how completely idiotic and racist the piece is, but if you are short on time or have a weak stomach, let Eddie Izzard give you the "shorter"





Tweet



(hat tip to Alison at Creekside for reminding my of the Izzard bit)

trophies

One assumes that Stephen Maher is out shopping for a frame for this press release from the PMO. I'm sure, in time, it will look lovely hanging on the wall next to Dean Del Mastro's scalp. Glen McGregor must be so jealous.
Tweet

Shameless

So let me get this straight: Unless the government steps in and order private companies to pay money a service that no one wants, SUN-TV will be unable to keep up its brave, principled fight against socialism, over-regulation and government interference in private enterprise. Sounds like Ezra Levant's previous adventure in publishing, The Western Standard, which despite accepting massive federal postal subsidies while decrying wasteful government spending and socialism, eventual went out of business as a print magazine whose main function seemed to be to foot Levant's legal bills whenever he got sued for acting like a loudmouth douchebag or wanted to sue someone for pointing out that he was a loudmouth douchebag.
On the plus side, if SUN-TV continues to lose $17 million a year, eventually Pierre Karl Peladeau will run out of money to run his horrible chain of  right-wing scandal sheets. After all, even crazy reactionary wingnuts like Levant, Sue Ann Levy and Peter Worthington aren't going to work for free.Even grifters gotta eat.


Tweet

Shocked!

I'm shocked to learn that there is payola gambling going on at FOX NEWS in this establishment



Your winnings Capt. Renault 

"The arrangement was simply FreedomWorks paid Glenn Beck money and Glenn Beck said nice things about FreedomWorks on the air," Armey, the former House majority leader, told Media Matters Friday. "I saw that a million dollars went to Beck this past year, that was the annual expenditure."
Armey, who left the organization this past fall after a dispute over its internal operations, said a similar arrangement was also in place with Rush Limbaugh, but did not know the exact financial details.

Tweet

here we go again

Edmond Burke's famous maxim that "those who don't know history are destined to repeat it"appears to be a feature not a bug for the ascendent Japanese right-wing. Shinzo Abe seems to have moved on from the LDP's previous Fawlty Towers policy on dealing with the past, to a brave new embracing of George Orwell's notion that "he who controls the past controls the future, and he who controls the present, controls the past"

From the Economist

Consider the following. Fourteen in the cabinet belong to the League for Going to Worship Together at Yasukuni, a controversial Tokyo shrine that honours leaders executed for war crimes. Thirteen support Nihon Kaigi, a nationalist think-tank that advocates a return to “traditional values” and rejects Japan’s “apology diplomacy” for its wartime misdeeds. Nine belong to a parliamentary association that wants the teaching of history in schools to give a better gloss to Japan’s militarist era. They deny most of Japan’s wartime atrocities.
The line-up includes Hakubun Shimomura, the new education minister, who wants to rescind not just the landmark 1995 “Murayama statement”, expressing remorse to Asia for Japan’s atrocities, but even annul the verdicts of the war-crimes trials in Tokyo in 1946-48

From the New York Times (the Western newspaper that China reads)

In an interview with the Sankei Shimbun newspaper, Mr. Abe, a right-wing nationalist, was quoted by Reuters on Monday as saying he wants to replace the 1995 apology with an unspecified “forward looking statement.” He said that his previous administration, in 2006-7, had found no evidence that the women who served as sex slaves to Japan’s wartime military had, in fact, been coerced. 

With Japan wrapped up in war-time era territorial disputes with China, Taiwan, South Korea and Russia, Abe's eagerness to fan the nationalist embers into a full flame should be of serious concern to the United States. Abe is hoping his flag-waving militarism will distract from his party's corruption and inability to fix Japan's broken economy. He is also counting on the unquestioning support of the United States, which regards Okinawa as their largest aircraft carrier and has used Japan as its stable base in Asia since 1945.
While the U.S. has more pressing matters confronting it, unless it takes a firm line on Japan's provocative historical revisionism, it is liable to find itself dragged backwards into a confrontation with China.
China would happily play at brinksmanship with Japan over the Senkakus and would probably not even hesitate to seize the islands (possession being 9/10th of international law). Abe is counting on the Chinese not wanting to take on the U.S. Navy in the process, but the Chinese are probably well aware that no U.S. President is going to send U.S. sailors to die for Senkakus - especially when the U.S. military is already mired in Afghanistan, Iraq (and soon maybe Mali and/or Iran).

What could possibly go wrong?

Tweet

Former GOP honcho nets $8 million in armed robbery

headlines we should have seen:
Former House of Representative leader Dick "Dick" Armey pulls off $8 million gunpoint stick-up.

No, I am not exaggerating. Dick Armey walked into the Tea Party office with a gun-toting "aide" and six days later, he's paid $400,000 a year for the next 20 years, just to go away. That's $8 million dollars, just so some millionaire can make it look like his anti-public health care lobbying effort is some kind of  grassroots movement by bigoted yahoos. Read the whole story and ask yourself why anyone takes the so-called tea party seriously as a popular movement instead of a massive attempt by weathy crackpots to buy themselves a government. (Psst, guess what? The tea party now controls 26 state legislatures)

Also, too - scenes from the Voyage of the Damned aka the National Review Online at sea

Tweet

The real meaning of Christmas and Christianity

This is what real Christianity looks and sounds like: People trying to help those who are less fortunate than themselves. As an agnostic Internet clergyman, I give religions people a lot of shit, especially fundamentalist Christians whackjobs who think Jesus wants the United States to have a bigger defence budget and claim that God lets school shootings happen because the secular government has taken prayer out of public school. Those people are worthy of scorn because they ignore one of the central pillars of Christian philosophy. Phrase it however you like: The Golden Rule, Matthew 25:40 - my favorite reduction is Wil Wheaton's Law - but they all boil down to the same thing more or less: Be nice to each other, take care of each other, share.
All credit to the people who signed at the bottom of this piece and good luck to them throwing the moneychangers out of the temple.


from the Vancouver Sun:
(all bolding by me)

By Louise Mangan
President, Interspiritual Centre of Vancouver Society
on behalf of the 31 signatories named below
As leaders in communities of spirit and faith, we are concerned about the new normal in our society. Sights that should shock us to our core are hardly noticed anymore: a tiny, elderly woman rummaging through the garbage; a man sleeping on the sidewalk, shuddering from the cold; a young woman begging with a toddler clinging to her leg. At some point, as a people, we stopped noticing and caring. Now is the time to notice and care again.
B.C. has the highest poverty rate in Canada and, before this year, had the highest rate of child poverty for eight years in a row. Poverty here largely affects the working poor. Single mothers, Indigenous people, recent immigrants, refugees, and people with disabilities are especially vulnerable. More than half a million British Columbians lived in poverty in 2010, the most recent year for which we have statistics.
The gap between the rich and the poor is also growing. A report by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) confirmed that the income gap in Canada is at a record high, which places Canada 26th out of 34 countries. Within Canada, B.C. has the largest gap between rich and poor.
The poverty and inequality that such statistics represent is altering and distorting our society. In 2009, British epidemiologists Richard Wilkinson and Kate Pickett found that virtually every marker of wellbeing in wealthy societies — from wellness, academic achievement and life expectancy to illiteracy, violence and mental illness — is affected not by how rich the society is, but rather by how equal it is. Wellbeing for everyone improves with equality, whereas societies with a bigger gap between the rich and poor experience more social ills, affecting everyone, including the well-off.
The lack of comprehensive action from our provincial and federal governments suggests they have not heeded these findings. The OECD report confirms that poverty and inequality in Canada reflect intentional choices by governments. Prior to the mid-1990s, our system of taxation and social spending was as effective as in Nordic countries, stabilizing 70 per cent of the rise in inequality. Since then, the positive effects of redistribution have declined by 30 per cent. Current strategies are intensifying inequality instead of easing it.
These choices flow from a belief system that holds economic growth as the ultimate value and believes a prosperous business community produces growth that trickles down through society. Unfortunately, as the OECD secretary-general points out, the trickle down of wealth to the rest of society is just not happening. The theories behind the policies are “not working.” In fact, according to reports from the International Monetary Fund and the Conference Board of Canada, inequality can diminish economic growth.
Still, governments continue to invest public resources in efforts to entice business activity to come or stay here. They provide corporations with infrastructure, tax concessions, subsidies, favourable labour policies, and access to the natural resources of the commons. As corporate incentives expand, funds for targeted benefits and essential services shrink. The resulting re-allocation of public wealth into private wealth has measurable negative effects on equality, wellbeing, natural habitat and economic stability for all of society, and means poverty for those on the lower tiers. 
The OECD suggests remedies that echo the proposals of the BC Poverty Reduction Coalition. Both recommend increased investment in integrated approaches to education, starting with quality childcare and early learning and continuing into adult years; well-conceived income support policies and government benefits for low-income groups; and freely accessible and high quality public services in health and family care.
To have the most impact, these changes should be part of a comprehensive poverty reduction strategy with legislated targets and timelines. B.C. is one of the last provinces without one. Other places are saving lives and benefiting their economies by tackling poverty directly, and are simultaneously improving the long-term health and wellbeing of whole societies. As leaders and participants in communities of spirit, we believe it’s time our province did too.
Instead of focusing on economic growth at any cost, we need to focus on the health and sustainability of our society by bolstering the caring sector and upholding the strengths we need to face the social and environmental challenges ahead. We seek leaders with the vision and courage to share with citizens the work of crafting an effective caring culture. The work of caring for one another is the work of healing persons, communities and our natural world. This is the kind of richness we really need.
We are now in the time of year when our hearts are strongly moved by generosity. We give because we care about those who would otherwise go without. In fact, B.C. is one of the most generous provinces in Canada if we compare charitable donations across the country. But consider the gift of a can donated to a food bank — and then think of how much more powerful the gift of justice and equality would be. Making sure that everyone can have an adequate standard of living is the kind of gift that truly keeps on giving.
We can give this gift together. Let’s make it happen.
Signed by:
Erik Bjorgan, Pastor, Deo Lutheran Church, Salmon Arm; Christine Boyle, Spirited Social Change, Vancouver Pastor; Carol J. Dennison, Faith Lutheran Church, Powell River; Dave Diewert, Streams of Justice, Vancouver; Susan Grace Draper, Faith in Action, Victoria; Steven Epperson, Minister, Vancouver Unitarian Church; Steven Faraher-Amidon, South Fraser Unitarian Church; Gary Gaudin, Ordained Minister, South Arm United Church, Richmond; Reverend Doctor Murray Groom, Minister, Sylvan United Church, Vancouver Island; Jonquil Hallgate, Surrey Urban Mission; Joyce Harris, Sisters of St. Ann, Victoria; Marianna Harris, Chair, Faithful Public Witness Community, Vancouver Burrard Presbytery, United Church of Canada; Reverend Doctor Sarah L. Harris, Director, Compassion Globally, Vancouver; Laura Holland, a founding member of the Aboriginal Women’s Action Network (AWAN), Vancouver; Hans Kratz, Chair, KAIROS Parksville/Qualicum; Hereditary Chief Phil Lane Jr., Four Worlds International Institute; Margaret Marquardt, Co-Chair of Eco-Justice Unit, Anglican Diocese of New Westminster; Ric Matthews, Executive Minister, New Way Community, Vancouver; Rev. Dr. Gregory Mohr, Bishop, BC Synod, Evangelical Lutheran Church in Canada; Barry Morris, Longhouse Council of Native Ministry; Reverend Doctor Harold Munn, Anglican Mentor-in-Residence, Vancouver School of Theology; Barry Nelson, Cathedral of Mary Immaculate, Development & Peace Committee, Nelson; Sergio Petrucci, Prince George Diocesan Council for the Canadian Catholic Organization of Development and Peace; Sandra Severs, Deputy Executive Minister, New Way Community, Vancouver; Mary Murray Shelton, Minister, Centre for Spiritual Living, Vancouver; Keith Simmonds, United Church Minister, Trail; Social Justice Committee, Pilgrim United Church, Colwood; Social Responsibility Committee, First Unitarian Church of Victoria; Eleanor Stebner, J.S. Woodsworth Chair in the Humanities, SFU; Rebecca Tobias, Global Trustee, United Religions Initiative, Vancouver; Peggy Wilmot, Faith in Action, Victoria.

Tweet

It is our game, not theirs

Jack Todd goes end-to-end and puts one right through Gary Bettman's five-hole (which is not anything like as dirty as it sound, get your mind out of the gutter, ya damned preeverts!)
Todd is entirely correct, the NHL owners cannot own hockey as long as players play the game.
As much as I love the Habs, I get most of my hockey fix from watching OHL and Jr. B games. Sure, I miss the NHL, but it isn't like I can afford to go to a game or anything.

(a tip of the CCM brain-bucket to my Dad for spotting the Todd column)
Tweet

Freedumb to own push-button death machines must never be curtailed!

• Apparently there are people in America who follow mass shootings the way some people used to follow the Grateful Dead.
• Another member of the "well regulated militia" is heard from in California.
• Just another law-abiding gun owner and firearms hobbyist in Indiana.
• Yet one more responsible gun owner .
• I couldn't agree more: "Fuck You, Guns"
• And fuck this guy, twice, sideways. This idiotic notion that the solution to gun violence is more guns is about as logical as saying the solution to a gas leak is more lit matches. Police responding to the scene of a shooting are not going to be able to tell the good guys from the bad by the black and white hats and just because you happen to have a gun handy in an emergency doesn't mean you can hit squat with it (innocent bystanders not included). Also, there is the chance that a backfiring car or a child pointing a stick at you is liable to spark a massive accidental firefight among the school staff. 
• And for sheer lack of self-awareness, the former Confederate Yankee, Gun Counter Gomer hisself, has this post sandwiched between his posts blaming Clackmass mall shooting on society and explaining how the AR-15 is just a tool ( but neglecting to mention that it is a tool purpose-built for killing people) and his post on the Newton school shooting blaming rap music, Hollywood and video games and the culture of "killing for pleasure."
• First there was the shit-fit thrown over Bob Costas mentioning that maybe guns might not be so wonderful during a holy football game, but now football fans have really show how kkklassy they can be.

From your "cold, dead hands," you say? Fine with me.

Tweet

Just another day in America

NEWTOWN, Conn. — As gunshots echoed through an elementary school in Connecticut on Friday, children huddled in the corners and closets where desperate teachers had tried to hide them from the gunman who had invaded their school.
By the time it was over, 28 people, including 20 children the gunman and his own mother were dead, and a nation was left struggling to put some kind of context to its latest school massacre.... 

 (snip of comments from Barack Obama about how tragic it all is) 

...The suspect this time is 20-year-old Adam Lanza, who is believed to have killed his mother, Nancy Lanza, a teacher at the school, before driving to the facility in her car with an arsenal that is now believed to have included at least five guns.Reports in the wake of the shooting said Lanza suffered from some type of personality disorder.

"some type of personality disorder" geez, YA THINK?!?!?! Another day, another meat robot with faulty wiring and a firearms collection. Earlier in the week it was shopping mall, now an elementary school. I'm not even surprised by these mass shootings anymore, they only seem to happen on days that end in a "Y." Seriously, America, get some collective therapy and ditch the fixation with the goddamned push-button death machines. Stockpiling guns doesn't make anyone 'free' or defend anyones' 'rights' they just lead to people getting dead, which is exactly what they are designed and built to do. So quit acting surprised or appalled when some lawabiding freedom loving 'hobbyist' with an armory in his basement suddenly has a bad day and decides to use his gun collection for exactly what guns are made to do: kill.

Quit spending money on guns and stupidity and start taking care of the mentally ill, and by taking care of them I do not mean electing more of them to Congress.

And the first dingbat who claims that this all could have been avoided if the principal or teachers had been packing a .45 wins a chance at a (figurative) boot in the plums.

update: less than ten minutes later and I didn't even have to go surfing anywhere I don't regularly visit. Fuck you Glenn Reynolds,  you miserable piece of gun-loving shit. I hope the ghosts of those six-year olds haunt your every moment for the rest of your pathetic life.


Tweet

If they gave Nobels for this sort of thing I have a nominee

Tweet

Santa doesn't send threatening cards

From the Huffington Post Canada:

In the spirit of the holidays, Abbotsford police are sending Christmas cards to gangsters and drug dealers featuring the police chief dressed as Santa in tactical gear.
A message in the card says: "We believe it is never too late to make a better choice for your life. For the sake of your family & for your own sake, consider 2013 the year you choose a new & better life. Make your New Year’s resolution now! We’re here to help."
The cards are being sent to "prolific offenders, property offenders and persons known for drug and gang activity," said police in a news release Monday.

Call me oversensitive, but if the police sent a card like this to me, my first call would be to the crown attorney to ask that they be charged with sending me threatening mail. My next call would be a civil litigator to sue the department for harrassment. Given that the police have been known to shoot people from time to time, I think it would be considered a credible threat. What's the difference between this and the cops sending out a note like this with "happy Valentine's Day" printed on the back?


pics on Sodahead

As to the cops Christmas card list of  supposed ne'er-do-wells, I imagine a good trial lawyer might have something to say about presumption of innocence and predjudical treatment should any of them land in court.
If you sent a neighbour you had repeatedly quarrelled with this kind of picture with note that said "You better stop letting your dog shit on my lawn or else" and were known to own guns, well, as they say "I am not lawyer, but..."  You can bet that if one of the recipients of these cards sent back a photo of themselves with an assault rifle that read "thinking of you this Christmas" they would be in jail by Boxing Day.
If someone from the Occupy Movement had themselves photographed as Saint Nick holding a bag of feathers and a pail of hot tar and sent it out to a bunch of  Wall Street types with the message "He knows if you've been bad or good, so you better be good for goodness sake" just imagine the howls of outrage. Don't think for a second they wouldn't be prosecuted. Why should the police be treated differently?

Tweet

A statement from the police or his plans for the weekend?

Quote of the day from the Associated Press:

In dealing with marijuana, the Seattle Police Department told its 1,300 officers on Wednesday, just before legalization took hold, that until further notice they shall not issue citations for public marijuana use.

Officers will be advising people not to smoke in public, police spokesman Jonah Spangenthal-Lee wrote on the SPD Blotter. "The police department believes that, under state law, you may responsibly get baked, order some pizzas and enjoy a 'Lord of the Rings' marathon in the privacy of your own home, if you want to."

He offered a catchy new directive referring to the film "The Big Lebowski," popular with many marijuana fans: "The Dude abides, and says 'take it inside!'"

Tweet

Better living through chemistry

Every once in a while I am reminded of Arthur C. Clarke's maxim that any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic. Also, I am reminded that every once in a while a gigantic corporation does something really good for the world and doesn't insist on squeezing everyone to make a huge profit.
This is one of those times.




From the "you can't make this stuff up department"

The best part? Aside from having a quick, cheap, effective way to get clean water, the guy heading up the effort is named "Allgood"
Tweet

Stopping the gravy train

to make room on the track for the Schadenfreude Express!

Since the lawyers and the judge obviously didn't get through to him, let me put this in terms Rob Ford will understand: Coach, when there is a penalty flag on the play for say an ineligible receiver or pass interference, you don't get to go out on the field and tell the ref what the call is. You can stand on the sidelines and yell all you want, but it is the ref's decision and you don't get any say in the matter. In fact, if you do go out on the field and tell the ref "that was too an eligible receiver and we refuse to move the ball back and give up the gain and by the way, screw you and your seeing-eye dog! Just because your mother got knocked by a zebra doesn't mean you can tell me what to do, I'm  the coach and my team loves me!" the referee is going to throw you out of the game. If you don't  give in and play by the rules, you might end up forfeiting the game.

And no matter what Marni Soupcoff, her husband and her parking lot attendant think, being elected mayor doesn't give you legal immunity when you break the law.

And it doesn't matter how "authentic" Crusty Blatchford thinks you are, you've been at city hall long enough to have heard the phrase "conflict of interest" used and to know it is something to avoid. It wasn't left wing political tricks that made you break the rules. Willful belligerent ignorance may be your style, but it isn't a very good legal defence.

And it doesn't matter whether you or the National Post editorial board or even the judge agree with the way the law is written or the penalties it lays out. You break the law and get caught, you pay the price. Changing the law is whole other kettle of fish.

You might ask the other Paul Magder. He might know something about that.
Tweet

The Democrats should be so lucky

This is a real column in a real newspaper, not an article from the Onion or some piece of snark from the Daily Show. And the scary part is that about 15 to 20 percent of the voting public in the United States would think it was wise, incisive political analysis.

Op-Ed

She's hot, she's blue collar, she's electable.

November 18, 2012|By Charlotte Allen

The Republican Party has been doing a lot of hand-wringing and finger-pointing since the presidential election. Half the conservative columnists and bloggers say the GOP lost because it overemphasized social issues such as abortion and gay marriage. The other half says the party didn't emphasize them enough. And everyone denounces Project ORCA, the campaign's attempt to turn out voters via technology.

But I've got a suggestion for cutting short the GOP angst: Sarah Palin for president in 2016.
You think I'm joking? Think again.

Honestly, go read the whole thing and ask yourself a few questions - like how long before we see an "exploratory committee" so she can grift some more cash from the gullible fundraise? And who at the Los Angeles Times management level was photographed having sex with a cub scout and how did Charlotte Allen get the negatives? You think I'm joking? Think again.

Tweet

Res Ipsa Loquitor

Actual screen capture. To say anything further would be superfluous.



Tweet

Where's the money, Karl?

Tweet

I think we have reached peak stupid

Via Tbogg

THOMAS JEFFERSON, a denunciation of slavery, 1785

The whole commerce between master and slave is a perpetual exercise of the most boisterous passions, the most unremitting despotism on the one part, and degrading submissions on the other. Our children see this, and learn to imitate it…The parent storms, the child looks on, catches the lineaments of wrath, puts on the same airs in the circle of smaller slaves, gives a loose to his worst passions, and thus nursed, educated, and daily exercised in tyranny, cannot but be stamped by it with odious peculiarities. The man must be a prodigy who can retain his manners and morals undepraved by such circumstances … if a slave can have a country in this world, it must be any other in preference to that in which he is to be born to live and labor for another … or entail his own miserable condition on the endless generations proceeding from him … Indeed, I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just: that his justice cannot sleep forever.

Tweet

While I was away from the blog...

• I bought a house!
• The East Coast got slammed with a hurricane
• The Excited States got ready to elect a president. Somehow, it is considered to be a close race. Damned if I can understand how it could be close, but then George W. Bush beat John Kerry so clearly anything is possible if you feed the stupids enough horseshit.  But really, how the hell is this thing even close?

Now try to imagine Mitt "we should privatize FEMA" Romney in this photo. Just try.

Can't do it, can you?

Tweet