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.

The Fellowship vs the Fountainhead

"There are two novels that can change a bookish fourteen-year old's life: The Lord of the Rings and Atlas Shrugged. One is a childish fantasy that often engenders a lifelong obsession with its unbelievable heroes, leading to an emotionally stunted, socially crippled adulthood, unable to deal with the real world. The other, of course, involves orcs."
-John Rogers
Kung Fu Monkey

Not an aircraft carrier

This is the Hyuga, the newest destroyer to be commissioned into Japan's Maritime Self-Defense Force. It is not an aircraft carrier.

Just because it is more than 10,000 tons heavier than the destroyer it is replacing and carries almost no guns and is basically a floating flight deck that is 20 m longer than the Italian carrier Garibaldi - and about 20 shorter than the HMS Invicible doesn't make it an aircraft carrier, even if if it could easily handle Harrier jets and other VTOL aircraft. Perish the thought!

Aircraft carriers are offensive weapons of war! Japan would never have one of those - it would be unconstitutional. Japan's constitution forbids the country from having the ability to make war or even have a military - just because it has the seventh largest defense budget in the world, don't think for a second it would violate the US imposed constitution! It doesn't have a military - it has a "self-defense force."

Policy at our newspaper in Tokyo is that we must never call self-defense forces personnel "soldiers" since Japan, as we all know, does not have a military. So clearly the Hyuga cannot be an aircraft carrier. It is merely a very, very large destroyer, I mean, in actual fact it is just the world's largest peace-loving civilian coast guard cutter - hurrah Japan! Banzai! Banzai! Banzai!!!1!

Also, that bird over there swimming around the pond, the quacking one with the green head, broad bill and the webbed feet? That is a special kind of chicken, not a duck.

We interupt this blog for an important news bulletin

This just in - MSNBC "pundit" Tucker Carlson is still a dick. In fact, he's an even bigger dick than previously suspected.

In other news, Generalissimo Fransisco Franco is still dead.


Good night and have a pleasant tomorrow.

Global jam session

Watch and then go learn how, no matter how cool you thought this was, it's even cooler than that.

Much of the money raised is going to support centers for Tibetan refugees in India and music and arts programs in South Africa, but even if none of the money was going to charity, this would still be a very, very cool idea.

Special thanks to Jackson Street Books for pointing this out.

A snappy dresser, sure, but infallible?

So Pope Benedict is in Africa and as popes usually do when they visit places suffering from poverty, AIDS and overpopulation, reminded Africans and the rest of the world about the church's position on birth control - specifically condoms in this case, pointing out that they are the devil's balloons and prophylactics make Baby Jesus' Mommy cry etc etc -- then things got really stupid and he claimed that condoms had actually made the AIDS crisis in Africa worse.
Naturally, just about every public health NGO and antiAIDS group in the world has jumped on this with both feet and rightfully taken the pontiff to task. But what about our elected governments? Do they dare to criticize the Vatican? One does:

But XXXXXXXXXX, echoing the reaction of some aid agencies, said it "voices extremely sharp concern over the consequences of [the Pope's comments]."
"While it is not up to us to pass judgment on Church doctrine, we consider that such comments are a threat to public health policies and the duty to protect human life," a foreign ministry spokesman said.

I know, you're thinking it must be Canada's brave science minister ---no way, too many Catholic voters in Quebec and Ontario! The Obama administration? Nope, can't alienate the Catholic vote and the family values crowd. Some heavily Protestant Northern European country? Atheist China? Cuba? Israel? Those godless heathens at the UN? Nope, none of the above.
How about massively Catholic France, where they know from separation of church and state and the people mostly take their theology with a dose of salt.

Pot calling the kettle blonde

GOP catfight! Meghan "my daddy could have been president" McCain vs. Ann "the man" Coulter & Laura "Coulter for Dummies" Ingraham and assorted conservatard bloggers.  McCain calls Coulter "offensive, radical, insulting, and confusing all at the same time"  -- it's blood off a wolverine's muzzle to Coulter, but Laura Ingram gets all "Oh no, you din't!" and "Do you think that anyone would be talking to you if you weren’t kind of cute and you weren’t the daughter of John McCain?” not stopping to think that "kind of cute and/or the offspring of someone connected" pretty much describes every conservative pudit out there. Hilarity ensues as even stupider (yes, that is possible) bloggers join the fray.

Somebody pop more corn!

Well, I'll be a monkey's (very distant) nephew

Canada's Minister of Science and Technology Gary Goodyear won't say whether he believes in evolution.

"I'm not going to answer that question. I am a Christian, and I don't think anybody asking a question about my religion is appropriate,” Gary Goodyear, the federal Minister of State for Science and Technology, said in an interview with The Globe and Mail.

Uh, Gary, no one asked about your religion, they asked about science. I don't care if you're a Christian, a Buddhist, an atheist, a Sihk or a Pastafarian -- if you don't believe in one of the cornerstones of biological science, you shouldn't be the science minister. Its sort of like having a defence minister who believes that the Prime Minister's ability to summon dragons is the reason the Russians and Chinese haven't invaded Canada yet or a finance minister that believes massive tax breaks for the rich will lead to economic prosperity for all.

“I do believe that just because you can't see it under a microscope doesn't mean it doesn't exist. It could mean we don't have a powerful enough microscope yet. So I'm not fussy on this business that we already know everything. … I think we need to recognize that we don't know.”
Asked to clarify if he was talking about the role of a creator, Mr. Goodyear said that the interview was getting off topic.

I agree that we do have to admit there are things we don't know -- but we also have to admit there are things that we do know, like the fact that the earth revolves around the sun, gravity works, light behaves like a wave and a particle, bodies in motion tend to remain in motion while bodies at rest tend to remain at rest and biological entities evolve over time to adapt to their surroundings or die out.

Goodyear was a chiropractor before entering politics. I don't want to criticize chiropractors - they certainly helped me when I telescoped my spine skydiving years ago - but ask an actual physician what he thinks of them sometime. Many in MDs consider the practice a tiny step up from voodoo. I'm not saying his previous occupation or simply being religious disqualifies him from being science minister, but if either of them mean he doesn't believe in verifiable scientific facts, then he belongs in another portfolio. Apparently, he's also more than a bit of dick as well, which I do think should disqualify him from getting elected, but seems to be a requirement to get into the Conservative Party Of Canada.

Update: Apparently Goodyear has "clarified" his remarks:

Jane Taber: So you do believe in evolution. You believe in the theory of evolution. Let’s just get this off the table right now.

Gary Goodyear: We are evolving, every year, every decade. That’s a fact. Whether it’s to the intensity of the sun, whether it’s to, as a chiropractor, walking on cement versus anything else, whether it’s running shoes or high heels, of course, we are evolving to our environment. But that’s not relevant. And that’s why I refused to answer the question. The interview was about our science and tech strategy, which is strong…

The appalling thing here is that if Goodyear really does believe in evolution all he has to do is say so, say "Yes, Darwin was right, man descended from apes" but he won't do that. Either because he really doesn't believe or because he's afraid of pissing off Charles McVety and his merry band of Christian Taliban wannabes. The CPC relies on the knuckledragging religious crazies in the social conservative caucus for votes, money and campaigning and doesn't dare cross them (no pun intended). So apparently in addition to being a bit of a dick, Goodyear is also a bit of a coward.

Weimar Amerika?

Read this thought-provoking little essay by Robert Freeman and you'll find yourself wondering whether this kid has learned all the words to "Tomorrow Belongs To Me" yet.

In other news, Tucker Carlson is still a dick.

There's a reason they call him Dick, not Richard

Darth Cheney speaks and the stench of brimstone is overwhelming. I watched this live and if the interview had been 5 minutes longer, I'd be shopping for a new television set today.

Groovin' on a Sunday afternoon & the Glorious People's Cinema Project

Yup, that's me - in the cartoon world of Second Life. As some of you already know, I do an internet radio show built around a weekly Second Life dance party know as "Groovin' on a Sunday Afternoon." You can join us "in-world" at the Red Zeppelin, headquarters of the Second Life Marxist-Lennonist Party (Groucho and John Factions United) or just click on the radio over there at the right to listen in on Sundays from 5:30 PST (8:30 EST). I know a few of you have been listening in, and I hope you've been enjoying it. Before the groovin' began, I started hosting Sunday night get-togethers on Second Life to watch movies on YouTube, which we still do starting from about 8 PST. But I figured, why leave you non-SL types out when it comes to the movies? So if you don't want to join us in SL, just tune in the music on the Internet via Radio Woodshed and join us on YouTube when the time comes.  

No good deed goes unpunished

Yeah, this should be entertaining when and if it gets to court.
The short version of events is this: Sudanese Abousfian Abdelrazik fled civil war in his home country and was granted refugee status in Canada in 1990. He became a citizen in 1995. Six years ago he flew to Sudan to visit his ailing mother and was arrested at the request of the CSIS and U.S. security services who suspected him of links to Al-Qaida, imprisoned and tortured and abandoned by the Canadian government. As with Mahr Arar, it appears that they had the wrong man. Neither the Sudanese or our own RCMP have been able to build any kind of case against the man, but for the last six years he's been living in the exercise room of the Canadian embassy in Sudan because his Canadian passport has expired and the government refused to give him a new one until he bought a plane ticket home. He cannot legally work in Sudan and because he is still on a terrorist watch list, anyone who gives him money is considered to have aided a terrorist. 115 Canadians -- many of them bloggers -- have thumbed their nose at the government and ponied up the cash to fly their fellow citizen home.

Canada used to occupy the high ground on issues of human rights. Not anymore.

If the government had any shame at all, this would not have been necessary. But of course if the government and CSIS had any shame at all it would never have happened in the first place.

What next, will lawyers start making sense?

Change you can believe in

The Woodshed is now an affiliate of the Canadian Progressive Bloggers after long being a supporter. That means that we now have the nifty "Recommend this post" button down below. Go ahead and click it and vote to give the posting in question greater prominence on the `prog blogs' site. I will be editing the blogroll over the weekend too, so if you have any sites you'd like to recommend a link to, leave them in the comments.

A couple of messages from one of the neighbours

Billy Bob Neck speaks for the heartland of America.

Big darkness, soon come

About 1,500 people live in this shantytown, huddling in tents and makeshift shelters built of scrap lumber and plastic tarps, cooking meagre meals over communal fires less than a mile away from wealthy property owners who are barricaded in walled compounds protected by a private army of a hired security guards. The police, who have become increasingly violent in recent years, cruise the shantytown hoping to keep a lid on drugs, gangs and violence and to make sure the have-nots don't wander off to trouble the haves. The shantytown is growing by about 50 residents a week. It's not in some distant underdeveloped third world hellhole -- it's Sacramento, California.


The divide between rich and poor grew faster in the last 35 years than at any point in recorded economic history, certainly since the 1920s and probably since the industrial revolution - but we don't have the facts and figures for that. But we do know a lot of homes have been lost to foreclosure, a lot of people have lost their jobs (more than a million jobs lost this year so far) and the market crash has wiped out a lot of middle class portfolios intended to as retirement savings. People are ending up on the street while abandoned homes are left to rot. In Georgia alone, 1 in 8 mortgages are in foreclosure or 90 days past due in payments.

How bad is it? According to Consumer Reports, pretty bad:

The number of U.S. homeowners with mortgages whose homes are worth less than their loans is 8.3 million, according to an analysis by First American CoreLogic that was reported on by CNN. The number means that about 20 percent of mortgages are underwater.
Eight percent of all mortgages are delinquent, and 6,600 homes go into foreclosure each day, says the Center for Responsible Lending; foreclosures could total 8.1 million by 2012. Some banks suspended foreclosures, but the moratoriums are set to expire this month.

And while all this is going on, all we seem to hear about is Rush Limbaugh's takeover of the Republican party, whose economic policy at this point in time is damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead on tax cuts for the wealthy. I keep hearing the same old upper middle class spoiled white man's refrain: "I got mine Jack. If you make me pay another couple of percent in tax on the money I make over a quarter million dollars, me and the other five percent of Americans priviledged enough to be making the big money are gonna take out ball and move to Galt's Gultch."

More factual fun from the esteemed R.Porrofatto in comments at the Alicublog post linked above:

The total tax rate (including all federal, state and local taxes) for the top 80% of the country is essentially flat. According to the Tax Foundation, here is the effective total tax rate in the U.S. by income quintile:

Highest income quintile: 35%

Second-highest income quintile: 31%

Middle-income quintile: 28%

Second-lowest income quintile: 23%

Lowest income quintile: 13%

More fun:

- The average tax rate of the wealthiest 1% fell to its lowest level in at least 18 years.[IRS]

- The top 1% of wage earners have more wealth than the entire lowest 95% of wage-earners.

- The top 1 percent of households saw income gains of over 45% in the last eight years. The bottm 90% saw gains of less than 4%. Since 1976, average income of the top 1% grew by 232%, average income of bottom 90% grew by 10% [IRS]

- The share of the nation's income flowing to the top 1 percent has increased sharply, rising from 15.8 percent in 2002 to 22.1 percent of all adjusted gross income for 2006. Not since 1928, just before the Great Depression, has the top 1 percent held such a large share of the nation's income[IRS]

- The 400 U.S. taxpayers with the highest incomes pay income taxes worth only 18 percent of their income on average, compared to 25 percent for the typical American. Because of reduced capital gains taxes, the top 400 taxpayers cumulatively saved $10 billion between 1995 and 2005. [CBPP]

- The campaign to repeal the federal estate tax was financed by 18 of the richest
families in America-including 23 billionaires-who spent nearly $500 million on it.

According to a recent study 1 in 50 American kids experiences homelessness at some point. The study is based on figures from 2005 and 2006 - anyone want to bet that the situation has improved during the current crisis? I didn't think so.

In Japan, all of the senior excutives of these bank and financial institutions that are failing would have resigned in ignominous shame by now and several would have probably had the decency to hang themselves. Meanwhile at AIG et al, it's bonuses all around while the U.S. taxpayer is left holding the bag.

I've said it before and I'm sure I'll say it again: The only surefire investments right now are in pitchforks, torches, tar and feathers.
Other Recommended Reading.