Where's the money, Karl?

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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.

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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?

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Catching up on my reading

I bet you thought I'd forgotten about this little project of mine to read 50 books this year. Admittedly, I seem to have fallen behind, what with switching jobs and house hunting and general laziness, but in fact I have not fallen behind on the reading part (at least not much) just on the reporting-what-I've-read part. So here is the latest list:

21. The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins

If you are over 40, this YA sensation is better than you think it will be. If you are under 30, this book is not as good as you think it is. Still, it is better than the movie. Girl who likes to hunt meets boy who likes to hunt. Girl gets sent to arena by fascist government, meets other gladiator boy. Girl kills just about everybody. Author cashes fat cheque.

22. Fraud by David Rakoff

A collection of various stuff that appeared elsewhere, most of it very funny in a New Yorker/This American Life/McSweeny's kind of way. I was about three quarters of the way through this when David Rakoff died, which kinda freaked me out, as the last time that happened was when I was rereading Great Shark Hunt for the umpteenth time and Hunter Thompson checked out. It made me a bit nervous for Neil Gaiman

23. Stories: All New Tales edited by Neil Gaiman and Al Sarrantonio

A great anthology of spooky stories by a bunch of authors including a good one by @Neilhimself. Other standouts: Walter Mosely's vampire tale, Roddy Doyle story about actual bloodlust and Joyce Carol Friggin' Oates! 

24. On a Cold Road by Dave Bidini

Having always enjoyed Bidini newspaper stuff  and his great work with the Rheostatics, I figured a collection of anecdotes about rock bands touring Canada would be a natural. I figured right. I read this in pretty much a single sitting, but it also a great book for just picking up and reading a few pages at random since most of the stories from various rockers great and small are quite short.

25. Gulliver's Travels by John Swift

One of the most famous satires ever written and for good reason. The damn thing is about 300 years old now and still stands up as topical, which is a pretty damn good trick. I envy anyone who has never read it, because that means they get to read it for the first time, something I don't to do, though it was pretty damn good for a book I've now read four times.

26. My Boring Ass Life by Kevin Smith

Going from the sublime to the ridiculous,  the utter profane director of Clerks put out a a book of his blog/diary entries. It's about four hundred pages of him shitting, picking up fast food and watching DVDs, so at least it is accurately titled. There are flashes of brilliant writing though, like the thirty or so pages of his describing Jason Mewes battles with drug addiction, which is absolutely gripping. If you hate his movies, you won't be reading this. I like his movies and his podcasts are often funny. The book is kinda meh, but does have its moments.

27. Catching Fire by Suzanne Collins

Second book of the Hunger Games trilogy. Girl survives fascist government gladiator games, girl gets confused about which boy she likes, girl gets sent back for more gladitorial games. Girl kills almost everybody. The movie will not be as good and teenage fan purists will complain about the casting.

28. Callahan's Legacy by Spider Robinson

No reading list of mine would ever be complete without Spider Robinson. Not his best book, not even the best Callahan's book, but as Woody Allen once said about orgasms, the worst one I ever had was right on the money. I just picked this up off the shelf one day and reread it while procrastinating doing some freelance projects. I love Spider's style so much, I think I'd enjoy reading his shopping lists. He also used to do some great podcasts. If anyone at CBC had a brain in their head, they would throw a bale of money at him to fill in when Stuart Maclean is on holidays. Go buy two of all his books, right now. 

29. Mockingjay by Suzanne Collins

Third book in the Hunger Games trilogy. Girl joins revolution. Girl is reunited with boy who likes to hunt. Girl rescues other boy. Girl learns about PTSD. This will be the worst movie of the three, unless it saved by Donald Sutherland chewing the scenery as the fascist dictator. Not the worst YA scifi I've ever read, but not nearly as good as Cory Doctorow's Little Brother.

30. Side Jobs by Jim Butcher

A collection of short stories from the universe of the Dresden Files - Jim Butcher's Harry Blackstone Copperfield Dresden is a sort of cross between a fledgling Gandalf and Philip Marlowe. It isn't often you find a hard-boiled fantasy novel, but Butcher's series is great geeky fun. It's well written and original enough to avoid being overly cheesy while still paying homage to the fantasy and noir canon. 

31. Ghost Story by Jim Butcher

The latest novel in the Dresden Files series, of which I have read all of them in the last two years and I think he's at 13 and counting. The next one is due out next year AFAIK. These thing are like potato chips, I tend to devour them by the bag-full.

So there you have it, an update on my progress. I have a couple or three more books on the go at the moment and when I finish them, I'll do another update. I still have three months to get in another 20 books so stay tuned to see if I can make my goal of 50 for the year....

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I almost feel sorry for Mittens...almost

Jon Stewart at his absolute finest, he practically has steam coming out of his ears. The Democrats should be airing this morning noon and night until the election on any channel that will sell them time. Anyone who can watch this and still believe a word uttered on Fox News or vote for Romney is either an aspiring fascist plutocrat or a few sandwiches short of a full picnic basket.

Wink at the moon

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books are stored wisdom, read some!

Think of them as analog Kindles, Nooks, or Kobos, or like really long blogs posts that you have printed off to read later.

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Happy Labour Day

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seven statements that prove Margaret Wente is an idiot

Is there anything more tedious than a professional contrarian with a newspaper column? You know the type, they are everywhere - those who can be relied upon to always zig when society zags just because they fancy themselves courageous rebels taking a stand for "freedom" or "common sense" by doing or saying stupid things just because they are the opposite of what everyone else is doing or saying.

I'm not talking about people who dislike top 40 music because it is top 40 music - unless you are a 12-year-old girl or tone deaf or actually hate music and have an IQ around room temperature (in other words American Idol's target audience) hating top 40 music is common sense. Nickleback really does suck. They have sold millions of records to people who don't actually like music but feel the marketing-driven need to consume pop culture. Their music is like a not-so-clever imitation of actual rock music, in the same way a paint-by-numbers copy of the Mona Lisa is an imitation of actual art. But I digress.

I'm talking about the sort of people who, because doctors say too much fat is bad for you, insist on eating nothing but bacon at every meal. The sort of people who mark Earth Hour by turning on every light and appliance in the house and idling their Humvee in the driveway for an hour. The kind of people who regularly say things like "Experts? ha, what do they know?" or "just because its on the news/in the newspaper/in a textbook/in a peer-reviewed scientific journal, doesn't mean it is true, my gut feeling tells me it is false!" or "Ha, all you sheeple think X is true just because of so-called 'evidence' and 'statistics' and 'math' - that's how I know Y is true!" These are the people psychologists talk about when they discuss the Dunning-Krueger effect.

One such person is Margaret Wente. She has had a long and successful career in the newspaper biz on the basis of a few things, one of which is undoubtably very thick skin. I suspect another is the ability to make herself such a pain the ass to her coworkers and superiors that she has often been promoted out of the way - a process often referred to as "failing up."

Anyone who has had the misfortune to read her column on a regular basis already knows this, but for those lucky enough to have dodged that particular bullet, I submit this article as proof: Margaret Wente "7 Things You Can't Say In Canada"

Wente's article is little more than a list of "sacred cows" that no one but brave little her dares to kick, with little or no evidence to support any of her claims. Her list:

• 1. Margaret Atwood writes some awful books. (none of which are named, naturally)
• 2. Recycling is a waste of time and money. (Maggie is the kind of person who thinks bailing out the leaking boat is a waste of time, what you really need to do is make some more holes to let the water out)
• 3. Only private enterprise can save health care. (apparently the ghost of Tommy Douglas will haunt you if you say this out loud)
• 4. David Suzuki is bad for the environment. (see number two)
• 5. A national day care program won't do a thing to help poor kids. (except allow both their parents to get jobs and earn money, thus making the family less poor)
• 6. The Group of Seven are overexposed genre painters (she may not know art, but she knows what she likes)
• 7. The United States is the world's greatest force for good. (Yes, you must never say this in the America's biggest trading partner and closest ally or you will join all the other conservatives in the liberal anti-american re-education camp we built that everyone else calls Alberta.)

First, the fact that such an article being published in the Canadian edition of Reader's Digest pretty much proves that not only can you say these things Canada, but that you can be paid handsomely to say them in a mass market magazine that generally publishes the literary and journalistic equivalent of rice pudding. Second, every single thing she says is idiotic, reactionary, meaningless nonsense that is being spouted simple for the sake of trying to start an argument. An argument that Wente would then inevitably lose and then proceed to claim that because someone took issue with her saying something as  dumb as "David Suzuki is bad for the environment" proves that she is a courageous maverick who bad people want to censor.

Look Margaret, saying "the earth is flat" is not insightful, it is not clever and it is not true. Claiming that by saying it, you have somehow kicked a sacred cow or declared that the emperor wears no clothes is  not just bullshit ("my heavens. just look how outrageous I am! Is there anything I won't dare to do? Watch out, I might wear white after Labour Day!") but exceedingly tedious, attentions-seeking bullshit that most people grow out of before they finish high school.

Addendum: Just to be crystal clear, I have no problem with Wente saying whatever she wants. Free speech being promised by the constitution and all that, she can blather on about what ever she likes, but free speech being promised in the constitution and all that, I can blather on all I want about how stupid her blathering are. That isn't censorship, that is criticism. And there is nothing in the constitution promising that no one will critique your stupidity when you exercise your freedom of speech.
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Tell me again how 'government can't do anything'

 These are photos from Mars, taken by a nuclear-powered truck that a bunch of hairless monkeys landed there by remote-control sky-crane from a planet away. I was able to download them from the internet less than 20 minutes after the aformentioned atomic space truck landed. Doing so cost about one fifth of the cost of the London Olympics.
Sometimes our species disgusts me and makes me wonder how we ever made it out of the caves.
Sometimes not so much.


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Which side are you on, MacKay?

Conservative legacy hire Peter MacKay, Minister of Defence and CPC capo for Atlantic Canada, gives a speech at the French Embassy on Bastille Day (video not an exact match, but you get the idea)





This illustrates a few things: First, that MacKay knows as much about history as he does geography. Second, that he must write his own speeches and may think he is American. Third, the millions of dollars the CPC has decided to spend celebrating the War of 1812 hasn't been spent on briefing cabinet members on what the War of 1812 actually was.
I bet as part of the cutbacks, they brought in a highly-paid consultant who just made them watch this movie trailer and told them it was a documentary made up of contemporary newsreel footage. It would have to be newsreel film, everybody knows they didn't have videotape back in the early 19th century, right Minister MacKay?







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thou shalt not bear false witness

Someone thinks this story should make you angry about the big bad government and how it discriminates against poor persecuted Christians and robs people of fundamental liberties with its jackbooted thugs and politically-correct commissars. In other words, it is a typical SUN news story.

Naturally the story of how Michael Salman has been mercilessly hounded by the prayer police and thrown into prison for studying the bible in his own home and helping lead people to Jesus has been making the rounds of the all the conservative and christian websites, where the "morns" have been lapping it up like manna from heaven.

A little basic research and you realize that the SUN has left out a few inconvenient facts, in other words, it is a typical SUN news story.

Even FOX News and a conspiracy-mongering libertarian website did better jobs at presenting more than one side of the story. And these guys seem to have gone over the internet with a fine-toothed comb to find the good pastor's previous criminal convictions for impersonating a police officer, involvement in a drive-by shooting and a number of indications that he has been engaged in less-than-honest business practices.

Essentially, this boob has built a 2000 square foot church in his backyard and hosts services three times a week. The building does not conform with the building code or zoning requirements for a church. And despite his making a big martyr-flavoured whoop-de-doo about surrendering himself to go to jail, the authorities sent him home. But don't tell the rubes on the internet or that read the SUN that, or they might not get outraged about "liberal persecution" and send money to this con man.

Honestly, we require other consumable products to carry a label listing ingredients. If the SUN had to do likewise the label would read something like: "10% stereo ads, 10% hometown sports boosterism, 2% cheesecake, 77 % sheer bullshit, 1% white space.

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if they gave out awards for sheer brass...

Then Lord Tubby would certainly get one, with crossed swords, oak leaf clusters and bar.
But they don't.
People who renounce their Canadian citizenship to accept foreign honours should automatically be stripped of the Order of Canada, as should people who disgrace the Order by being convicted of serious criminal offences.
They stripped Alan Eagleson of his Order of Canada and, despite his being a complete and total crook and slipperier than a greased weasel, he did actually make a contribution to the country and to the sport of hockey. Unlike Conrad Black, the Eagle at least has the enough shame to accept that he did not deserve the honour.
Unlike Eagleson who was instrumental in putting together the 1972 Canada-Russia series while lining his pockets, Conrad Black, has contributed zero to the nation. Anything he has done, he has done to line his own pockets and achieve his own ends.
At the very most, I suppose it could be argued that he did do Canada a small service by taking Barbarella Amiel off the dating circuit, but I hardly think that saving a handful of media executives and faux aristocrats from here tender ministrations hardly merits the Order of Canada.
If – and it is a big if – there has been a net benefit to the nation as a result of his actions, it has been purely accidental and more likely than not a result of his inability to figure a way to keep the cash in his own grasping, grubby paws.
The board of advisors to the Order of Canada does not owe Conrad Black a hearing, it owes him naught but the back of its collective hand.
Canada owes Conrad Black absolutely nothing and as a convicted felon and foreign citizen he should count himself extremely fortunate that we allow him to enter the country at all.

Though he did inspire a great song.
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why is this man smiling?

This photo of Finance Minister Jim Flaherty with Canada's last penny cost taxpayers $56,000. 
That is more than many rank and file public servants make in a year. That is the annual salary of a nurse or government clerk or soldier.
So, the next time you get pissed off about how long you had to wait to get get your tax refund or passport processed, or why the hospital emergency room is closed on Sunday or why your friend got laid off from their government job, just remember that this is how the party of fiscal responsibility spends your money on themselves.
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This Search Engine Kills Fascists

While we in Canada had a crown-wearing Beaver for our national birthday Google Doodle, our neighbours to the south were treated to the work of one of their greatest patriots,  who would have been 100 years old on July 12 14.

Naturally, this did not sit well with the very people Woody claimed his guitar killed. Mainly because, as one of the commenters at Tbogg points out, these people are nuttier than squirrel poop.
And so, we have a little song from Woody for Twitter users @MarciDPorter @DeusVult1911 @PL1776 and @JammieWF




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Fingerprints or laziness?

I am enjoying Aaron Sorkin's new series The Newsroom. He pretty much had me at "It's not"





however, I will be listening for Sorokinisms



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I'll bet your day seems a lot better now, doesn't it?

WARNING: extremely foul video, do not watch while eating, digesting, considering eating, or thinking about using a bathtub, ever.

I woke up yesterday morning to find the toilet overflowing and the bathtub half filled with raw sewage. No, that is not the opening line in a new blues song, that was my July 2nd.
"The horror, the...horror" as Col. Mistah Kurtz would say. I'm not sure anything will ever smell good to me again, ever. And I am definitely sticking to showers from now on.
I know, I know - some people in Attiwapiskat don't even have indoor plumbing. I will be the first to admit that bitching about turd-water in my whirlpool tub is a very very middle-class first-world problem, but a bathtub full of shit is a bathtub full of shit -- and it's not something you want to wake up to, ever.
Our ace superintendent/fix-it guy WS dropped everything and charged over the hill like the Light Brigade, but 4 or 5 hours later his independent entrepreneur plumber guy was a no-show.
Thankfully, WS whistled and BAM! Those "lazy, overpaid union thugs/parasites on the public purse" you hear so much about on SUN TV, who work for the city public works department here were able to come by within an hour on a statutory holiday and unclog the drain at no cost to me. Hurray for public employees!
It turns out a root from our neighbour's maple tree had grown into the old clay sewer line connecting our older home to the street.
Somewhere there's a political joke in here about maple trees, shit and Stephen Harper, but I'm too tired and just plain grossed-out to come up with it right now.

In other news:

Digby asks "Who would Jesus Taser"

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we stand on guard for theeeee

If the video is acting buggy or has vanished, go look here on YouTube

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We have a special guest

Members of the congregation, your attention please! We have our first ever guest post from none other than our spiritual leader of the moment aka Our Man in Abiko:

Dearly beloved, agents provocateur, lost sheep, members of the choir and the Rev. Paperboy,

Our Man wanted to make the purpose of this sermon crystal clear lest there be any ambiguity. He is not speaking to you in his capacity as Spiritual Leader of the Moment, a moment he might add has gone on for far too long already, but as just another shadowy internet silhouette flogging yet another ebook. 

That said, he trusts you will appreciate that he won't actually get round to the point of self-promotion until the very end of this post, in the meantime, he proposes to wrap himself in the flag of the greater good, as all great authors do when they are invited to wax lyrical about their area of expertise and just happen to mention that their latest overpriced literary doorstopper is available from this website here or that stack-em-high emporium there, if you'd just like to sign up for an email junk mail feed newsletter...

No. He will not do that. Instead he will tell you a little story.

Once upon a time there was a journeyman journo who decided to jump from his minor position in a small time provincial UK paper before he was pushed big time. He ended up back in Japan teaching English by day and writing twisted, drunken and occasionally funny blog posts by night. He didn't have much to say, but he enjoyed saying it. And little by little, he built up a small but well-connected following. He didn't know where it was going, but he hoped it would somehow benefit him in the future for his highly unoriginal and equally unlikely goal of publishing a novel.

Then the earthquake struck on March 11th, 2011, and although he was on the outskirts of the disaster, away from any newsroom and far from Fukushima or the tsunami zones, a dormant journalistic instinct woke up long enough to bite him in his his ass in the shower one morning, a week after the quake:

I've got email. I've got a (bootleg) word processor program. I've got a twitter feed. I'll edit a book of earthquake experiences and flog it to raise money for charity. In a week.

So he did. The rest is history. How exactly the $50,000 raised was spent by the Japan Red Cross, he doesn't know. Exactly how many copies of the book have been sold, he doesn't know. How much genuine suffering was relieved by the book, he has no idea.

But he does know this: It was absolutely worth doing. As an imperfect record of the impact of the earthquake on a nation -- absolutely. As a way for folk to express their true feelings -- absolutely. As an expression of what is possible by anyone with a good idea and a twitter feed -- absolutely.

As a tool for self-promotion? Absolutely not.

And yet, here he is rehashing his glory days on Quakebook. Isn't that a form of selling out and cashing in? He hopes it isn't. 

In his defence he can only say this: that bloody earthquake was the biggest thing to happen to Japan in his lifetime. And Our Man was there. He still is. To not write about the biggest event in a generation for fear that someone might think he was cashing in was as absurd as a relief worker refusing to give out any of 25 bags of rice because there were 30 people starving. To write for free is not tenable, not for a pro, no matter how middling and imperfect he may be. 

The only absolute purity is in doing nothing.

Our Man is not about doing nothing. If you are interested in the story of a half-British, half-Japanese natto-loving ramen waitress helping an American father search for his abducted daughter in Japan in the days of the earthquake, tsunami and nuclear meltdown, Our Man has just the book for you. If you are not; if you think this is cashing in, then please, in all seriousness, do not buy Hana Walker's Half-Life 2:46.

Much obliged, my fellow lost sheep, now back to your regular moral leader, the Reverend Paperboy.

Our Man in Abiko

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A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away...

The level of Star Wars geekdom involved in this bends the needle. I mean, writing the parody lyrics is one thing, even the notion of making it a rock opera. But making a seriously high quality video of it? This is a super sized, extra-large order of hot Star Wars geek-love with a side order of deep-fried ewok

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