The Turner Diaries
Poor, poor Garth Turner. After being a lifelong member of the Tory party, an MP on and off since 1988 and even a cabinet minister in the Mulroney government, he is just now realizing that the Conservative Party of Canada is an elitist old-boys network with little interest in democracy. Well boo-hoo-hoo.

"But my Conservative party believes in free speech, diversity of opinion, co-operation, equality of all people, progressive social values, true environmental protection and stands firm against intolerance, bigotry exclusion."

Umm, yeah, and I used to believe in the tooth fairy - then I turned six and got wise. Anyone who believe that about the Conservative party probably also believe in unicorns that shit rainbows and that the Queen runs England. For a former Mulroney footsoldier like Turner to be spouting all this naive claptrap about how the Conservative Party used to be some sort hippie love-in is disgusting - and what is more disgusting is the free pass that progressives are giving him simply because he is against Harper. Guess what, Osama Bin Laden probably hates Steve Harper too, but that doesn't make him my best pal. The enemy of my enemy is not always my friend and just because the conservatives kicked him out for going against the grain does not make Garth Turner any less of a total frickin' wanker. Even if he paints himself Green, it is still going to all be about Garth.

IN YOUR EAR

Kevin Wood / Daily Yomiuri Staff Writer

TOM WAITS
Orphans: Brawlers, Bawlers and Bastards
Sony Music/Epitaph, 6,300 yen

The great American lo-fi junkyard genius and hobo poet-philosopher clanks, chugs, cackles, wails and croons his way through an astonishing 56 tracks--about three hours of material--on his latest release.

Orphans began as an attempt to collect various Waits tracks originally recorded for films and tribute albums, and other assorted bits and pieces that had never made it onto any of Waits' albums. Somewhere in the collecting process, Waits and his wife and creative partner Kathleen Brennan were inspired to come up with 30 new compositions.

Along with all the new works, the material on Orphans includes a broad spectrum of covers, including the Ramones' "The Return of Jackie and Judy," the '50s R&B favorite "Sea of Love," Huddie "Leadbelly" Ledbetter's classic "Goodnight Irene" and sentimental chestnut "Young at Heart" as well as lyrics by Beat icon Jack Kerouac and meat poet Charles Bukowski set to Waits' music. And just wait until you hear his cover of the Walt Disney classic "Heigh Ho."

Waits' genius for avant-garde arrangements and unorthodox soundscapes gives a continuity to the diverse tracks that span decades in time and light years in outlook.

The first of the three CDs in the set, Brawlers, is Waits in his barroom piano-player and song-and-dance man persona, barking out blues about breaking out of jail with a fish bone ("Fish in the Jailhouse") and his baby leaving on the "2:19." Much of Brawlers sounds like material that could have come from 1999's Mule Variations.

The second CD, Bawlers showcases Waits' tenderhearted side with ballads sweet and sad, and sly love songs--if there is a hit on this album, it is the hummable "Long Way Home" from the soundtrack to the 2001 movie Big Bad Love.

The third disc, Bastards, is a trip into dark territory that includes recitations of Kurt Weill and Bertolt Brecht, a bedtime story bound to send most kids into therapy, a dirgelike cover of Daniel Johnston's "King Kong," stand-up comedy and a weird subterranean monologue about bugs.

"Orphans are rough and tender tunes. Rhumbas about mermaids, shuffles about train wrecks, tarantellas about insects, madrigals about drowning," says Waits in a press release accompanying the review copy. "Scared, mean orphan songs of rapture and melancholy. Songs that grew up hard. Songs of dubious origin rescued from cruel fate."

Take them home and give them the love they deserve.

ERIC CLAPTON AND J.J. CALE
The Road to Escondido
Warner, 2,580 yen

Just in time for Eric Clapton's latest Japan tour, The Road to Escondido is a reunion of the duo responsible for two of Clapton's biggest hits: "After Midnight" and "Cocaine." J.J. Cale wrote most of the 14 songs on the album and the two veteran blues rockers share guitar duties with Albert Lee, Derek Trucks, John Mayer and occasional Clapton and B.B. King sideman Doyle Bramhall II (who will be making the journey with Clapton to Japan along with Trucks).

Other guests include journeyman bassist Pino Palladino, bluesman Taj Mahal and the late, great Billy Preston.

Nothing here matches the intensity or energy of Clapton's earlier covers of Cale in the 1970s, but there is plenty of relaxed, foot-tapping blues, rock and countrified jazz. For a pair of guitar heroes, Cale and Clapton show admirable restraint in their solos and never push to hard, going for taste over flash.
(Nov. 11, 2006)

Let the trials begin

Depending which version of events you believe Donald Rumsfeld has resign or been fired in disgrace over the blazing clusterfuck that is the U.S. occupation of Iraq. He may have been pushed over the side to placate the Democrats in light of last week's electoral "thumping" they gave the Republicans. He may have quit to avoid the humiliation of a congressional investigation into just how badly he screwed up. He may be gone, but he is not forgotten

"And the war criminals must be brought to justice - beginning with Donald Rumsfeld. On November 14, the Center for Constitutional Rights, the National Lawyers Guild, and other organizations will ask the German federal prosecutor to initiate a criminal investigation into the war crimes of Rumsfeld and other Bush administration officials. Although Bush has immunized his team from prosecution in the International Criminal Court, they could be tried in any country under the well-established principle of universal jurisdiction."

And if not war crimes charges, then how about a civil suit for the wrongful deaths of about half a million Iraqis and three thousand Americans? Anyone for a criminal negligence suit? That ought to put a dent in Rummy's bank account.

The genius of Brian Mulroney
Admittedly this is not a phrase I ever expected to type, but this week I've been listening to the 2005 Massey Lectures on CBC podcasts and I have come to the realization that the appointment of Stephen Lewis as UN ambassador was a masterstroke. Because if he hadn't been distracted by the horrible problems of Africa at the UN and had stayed focused on Canadian politics, he'd have kicked Mulroney and John Turner's collective butts around the block and been Prime Minister for the last 10 or 15 years and probably the next 10 or 15. And we would all mourn his departure when he stepped down.

Certainly, both Canada and Africa would have been better off with him at the G8 meetings. Just listen to the lectures and tell me he wouldn't have been handed the Prime Minister's office by acclaimation after a 15 minute debate with Harper or Martin. Or Harper and Chretien. Or any other political combo in the last 20 years you might care to name. Christ, if he had gotten into federal politics back in the day, he'd have eaten Mulroney alive.He could have made Pierre Trudeau looked tongue-tied. He's been named one of the 100 most influential people in the world and not without very good reason.

If only he would come back to Canadian politics, I'd suggest that he would be one of the great PM's of all time, but I don't think he would take the step down from the UN. So let's make him the next Governor-General as a stepping stone to becoming UN Secretary-General

Electoral Crystal Ball
In the U.S. Senate elections, Joe Lieberman will squeak out a narrow win (not more than 5%) against Ned Lamont and join the Republicans by Christmas unless the Democrats have a majority of at least three seats in the Senate - which they probably won't.
George Allen and Jim Webb will be so close that it will take a month to recount the votes, which means the Republicans will win the seat because they are better at fighting dirty in the clinches and control the bench in Virgina.
Rick Santorum will get his ass handed to him in Pennsylvania, Casey will beat him like a rented mule.
My best guess is the Democrats will take 15 to 20 new seats in the house, giving them a majority, though it may be a slim margin. They should take five seats in the Senate, counting the independent socialist (!!!) that is poised to take a seat in Vermont. Look for them to win in Montana, Pennsylvania, Maryland, Ohio, and (please, please, please oh Flying Spagetti Monster) Tennessee.
For all you eligible Americans, get out and vote and take friends to the poll with you. Be prepared to have your right to vote challenged, expect long lines and hundreds if not thousands of "accidental" technical screw-up with the voting machines. Rove will do his best to supress the vote, because a good turnout in which all the votes are accurately counted means a sweep for the Democrats.

What's Farsi for "Last Stand"?
By the end of the year, at least 3,000 U.S. soldiers will have "died with their boots on." Somehow I'm not surprised to learn the head of the intelligence directorate of U.S. Central Command is Brigadier General John M. Custer. I'm busy this week, write your own jokes.

Media Matters vs. the MSM Hacks
This plea for less crapulous horserace coverage and more (any) substance should be nailed to the door of every newsroom, stuck on every computer screen on every news desk and slipped into every reporters pocket (or in the case of CNN, stapled to certain people's foreheads).

More Spankers!

"Stick Magnetic Ribbons on Your SUV" has drawn over 12,000 hits to this blog in the last month (and over a quarter of a million on YouTube) so I thought I'd treat all of you to some more from God's Favorite Band. This one is from the video of their tenth anniversary show in Austin. Check the links on the side of the page for their homepage and go BUY ALL THEIR ALBUMS!!! NOW!!

True punditry, thy name is Billmon
Sometimes, I write something and read it and pat myself on the back. Other times I read what someone else has written and think to myself, "Why do I bother to do this when someone else has already done it so much better than I ever will?" Sometimes that someone is Hemingway or Shakespeare or Bob Dylan or Raymond Carver. Sometimes it is Billmon. If you are one of the few people who read this blog that doesn't also read the "Free thinking in a dirty glass" at Billmon's Whiskey Bar, go smack yourself upside your own head and get wise.

When he is on, he is one of the best writers on current affairs you'll ever read, not just on the internet, but anywhere. For sheer elegance in turning a phrase and clarity of thought and expression, I'd put up against any of the TV talking heads and current newspaper and magazine opinion columnist. He could kick David Brooks' sorry ass and eat a dozen Friedmans for dessert. Comparing him with the lamer-than-lame bleating of James Lieks or the cognitive dissonance on parade that is The Corner, would be tooling up with a helicopter gunship for a knife fight against a double amputee.

"None of this babbling makes any sense, in other words. Nor is it remotely in scale with the size of the Cheney administration's failure in Iraq. Part of me thinks it's all being driven by the need of beltway journalists and think tankers alike to have something new to say about Iraq, something that isn't a variation on: "Yep. We're still fucked." But there's obviously a hard edge of real desperation -- if not despair -- behind this. America's ruling elites have had things largely their own way for the past couple of decades. But now they're looking at a bottomless quagimire that may have a much bigger disaster (like loss of access to Persian Gulf oil) hidden somewhere in the mud. And they don't
have a clue about what to do. They've lost control, which is the last thing any ruling elite can afford to admit."

Wavy Gravy alway says:
If you remember the 60's you weren't really there, but this study on Alzheimer's and marijuana indicates that it was better to inhale pot
Actually, I think its not so much that weed prevents Alzheimer's, I think chronic chronic users are just much more accustomed to functioning without their memory working properly.

The Hockey Sweater
One of my all-time favorite stories -- I love the narration by the author, Roch Carrier.

Over the hill and picking up speed
Okay, I've been 40 years old for about 99 minutes now. I don't like it, but I suppose it beats the alternative. I guess I better go do the stuff that 40 year olds do...."Hey you kids, get off the lawn"


addendum: Dave over at the Axis of Evel Knievel fill us in on the religious significance of my birthdate - worship me puny mortal! I am He who Is! and make that cheque payable to "cash"!!!

Dilbert's Unified Theory of Everything Financial
Everything you need to know about money in under 130 words.
From Scott Adams' "Dilbert and the Way of the Weasels."

1. Make a will
2. Pay off your credit cards
3. Get term life insurance if you have a family to support
4. Fund your 401k/pension plan to the maximum
5. Fund your IRA/RRSP to the maximum
6. Buy a house if you want to live in a house and can afford it
7. Put six months worth of expenses in a money-market account
8. Take whatever money is left over and invest 70% in a stock index fund and 30% in a bond fund through any discount broker and never touch it until retirement
9. If any of this confuses you, or you have something special going on (retirement, college planning, tax issues), hire a fee-based financial planner, not one who charges a percentage of your portfolio.

And as my mother the stock broker and financial planner always says: "Pay yourself first" meaning take ten percent of your paycheque and put it straight into the bank before you pay the bills, buy grocieries, beer or anything else.

Guilty until proven innocent
Ex-con (1) and Canadian Justice Minister Vic Toews has brought in a bill to establish a U.S. style three-strikes law in Canada that would see people convicted of a third violent or sexual criminal offense jailed indefinitely as "dangerous offenders." Now, you might be thinking "What's wrong with that? I don't want violent criminals or perverts roaming the streets!" but the catch is that the dangerous offender status is automatic unless the defendant can convince the judge they are not at risk to reoffend - in other words the onus of proof is on the accused, not the accuser.

This is so obivously a political ploy on the part of the Conservatives to show they are "tough on crime" that it is offensive that they would even suggest it. Regular reader already know how this kind of stupid grandstanding pisses me off . How dumb do they think the average Canadian is? Do they really think that someone who gets in three bar brawls deserves to be automatically jailed for life?

Even defense lawyers, who stand to make a fortune from defending all the poor bastards who will suddenly be facing an automatic life sentence, oppose the idea, saying it is abitrary, will clog the courts and lead to shortage of available lawyers. And it won't do a damn thing to fight crime. It is also completely unnecessary since prosecutors can already apply to the judge in cases involving violent or sexual crimes to have defendants declared dangerous offenders, even on a first offense. Toews is saying that he doesn't trust our justice system or the judgement of crown attorneys and judicary.

The three strikes system in the U.S. has not cut the crime rate one iota, has filled prisons to beyond bursting and tied the hands of judges to make reasoned, thoughtful appropriate decisions on sentencing. It just doesn't work (2). But it gives Stephen Harper and Vic Toews the chance to pose with big, strong policemen for the cameras and gives the Conservatives a nice little hobby horse to ride in the next election when they need to distract people from their various screw-ups.

I can see the blogging tories and ex-reform party types foaming at the mouth at the first opposition to this clearly unconstitutional move: "What?!? You mean the Liberals are siding with child molesters and murderers? Clearly such evil liberals cannot be trusted!" (Clutch pearls) "Won't someone think of the children?"

I can see the Conservatives response when the law is struck down as unconstitutional too: "What?!? You mean the Supreme Court is siding with child molesters and murderers? Clearly such evil activist judges cannot be trusted! (clutch pearls/pound podium) "Won't someone think of the children?"


footnotes
(see how thorough and serious I'm being? Aren't you impressed?)
1.On January 25, 2005, Toews pleaded guilty to the charge of exceeding personal campaign expense limits in the 1999 provincial election.[55] Toews claimed that the overspending resulted from a miscommunication between his campaign and the provincial party as to how some expenses were accounted.[56] There were some calls for him to resign as his party's justice critic, but nothing came of this.[57] Toews received a $500 fine, and the charge remains on his record.[58]

2. Take your pick

So it goes
Another day, another Republican accused of nepotism and corruption.
Seriously, if the Democrats can't turn all this into a congressional majority, there is no hope -- it will be time for progressives to organize a third party or emigrate to Canada.

Religious round up
Salon has an amusing juxtaposition of articles this week: A story on Steven Baldwin, who has morphed from C-list actor into A-list evangelist; and a lengthy interview with uber-atheist and top evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins. Now if we could just get the two to take part in a cage match...

On the right we have the faithful:

"Baldwin preaches that free will is a lie of Satan -- we must shut off our brains, he says, and be led by what God tells our hearts. Furthermore, he writes, efforts to end global poverty and violence are just the sort of "stupid arrogance" that incur God's wrath, which we'll be feeling any day now in the coming apocalypse. I suppose when the star of "Bio-Dome" is advising the president and converting kids by the thousands to his gnarly brand of faith, the end is, indeed, nigh. "

While on the left we have the rational:

"What is so bad about religion?
Well, it encourages you to believe falsehoods, to be satisfied with inadequate explanations which really aren't explanations at all. And this is particularly bad because the real explanations, the scientific explanations, are so beautiful and so elegant. Plenty of people never get exposed to the beauties of the scientific explanation for the world and for life. And that's very sad. But it's even sadder if they are actively discouraged from understanding by a systematic attempt in the opposite direction, which is what many religions actually are. But that's only the first
of my many reasons for being hostile to religion. "

In Baldwin's defense, he does consider Bono a tool of Satan - and Dawkins can be a bit of a pushy prick, but still and all, what this boils down to is a dumbass encouraging other people to be dumbasses and a smart, educated guy encouraging people to be smart and educated. Which do you think is likely to make the world a better place?

Sweet Jesus
And they wonder why there is a problem with obesity in North America? As a bit of a lardass, I suppose I'm not in a great position to criticize, but "deep fried Coke"? Why not just take a bag of white sugar, roll it in bacon fat and graham cracker crumbs, deep fry it and inject it straight into your heart?

Rae makes splash in leadership race



Many Ontario voters would like to tell Bob Rae to "go jump in the lake" - Rick Mercer seems to have convinced him to do it.

Despite the picture scramble, I think this shows Rae has the balls to be Prime Minister - or at least that he is the candidate with nothing to hide. It also shows an admirable amount of humility and a sense of humor, things I want my PM to have.

And for Blogging Tories having this read to them: No, there is no double standard involved in the press virtually ignoring this while jumping on "Doris" Day for his arrival at his first press conference on a jet ski. Doris was trying to look cool in his wet suit at an official press conference and this was a joke for a comedy program. It's not even apples and oranges, it's more like rhinos and the national debt, or anthracite coal and sea water, or blogging tories and sane people -- you know, things that are completely different.

I think this and other similar stunts on the Mercer Report -- Rick skydiving with Gen. Hillier, going to Canadian Tire with Prime Minister Paul Martin etc etc -- show a key difference between Canada and most other nations. We refuse to let our leaders take themselves too seriously. Try to imagine George Bush going to the hardware store with Jon Stewart, or Dick Cheney hosting Saturday Night Live.

Readin' Ritin' and Rithmatic
Linwood Barclay in the Toronto Star on the Tories brave new literacy plan. Next from the Conservative brain trust: A new math curriculum that uses only prime numbers, thus saving taxpayers millions of dollars.

Awww, isn't it cute...
We've had our first troll! 15,000 hits - about 5,000 in the last week or so thanks to the Asylum Street Spankers video - and we've finally gotten trolled.

BlameCanada (on blogger since last week) wrote in the comments:
"This is the biggest bunch of crap ever. Tell that out of shape joke of a lead singer to hit the gym and get a haircut. As for him and the rest of the freak show, stop abusing free speech to attack the people that are defending and providing you with that right! You just prove to the rest of the world that Texans ARE retarded, Bush included. You can return to Canada or France whenever. Preferrably sooner rather than later."

I suspect this may be someone I know yanking my chain and hoping to get me to go off on a rant. If so, they have crafted a great and subtle parody of a troll.

Strawman argument? Check.
Misunderstanding of the original material? Check.
Ad Hominem attack and personal insults? Check.
Bad mouthing of French? Check.
General dumbassery? Check.

Now if this dingbat is sincere, let me just ask how it thinks one can "abuse free speech" when it is supposed to be a near absolute. I'd also like to know how the chowderheads whose support of the troops involved in the USA's illegal war in Iraq is limited to slapping magnets on their gas-guzzler are "defending and providing" that right to free speech. And even if the band were referring to the troops - which they pointedly are not - how exactly were the Iraqis threating free speech in the United States?

The puzzling thing is that "BlameCanada" claim to think Bush is an idiot, which leads me to wonder whether it is a real troll or a parody troll. He also dwells on the lead singer being out of shape and having long hair, when in fact the lead singer-Wammo by name and nature-looks fairly dapper in the video and not especially fat (thanks to the lighting and the slimming nature of the black tux). I therefore suspect it is Wammo or someone else from the band - though I would have expected less subtle parody from the rest of the band and more mocking of Wammo.