Lets see if I’ve got this straight. Bush takes office and hands out billions of dollars worth of tax cuts to the wealthiest Americans. This racks up a huge deficit in the country so he cuts federal spending to things like the New Orleans Army Corp of Engineers; the people who are tasked with building the dams and levees that protect the city. Along comes Hurricane Katrina which floods the city causing a loss of life and billions of dollars worth of damages. This in turn causes the Canadian right whingers to moan and wail that our government should be spending our tax dollars to give aid and assistance to Americans who are affected by this storm.

Following this chain of events, am I right in assuming this means the Canadian right whingers believe Canadians should be paying for the big fat tax cuts the Bush administration gave to the wealthiest Americans?

The more I play around with this new sidebarless theme, the more I like it. It’s less cluttered and let’s face it, most readers don’t pay attention to what’s on the sidebar anyway.

You might have noticed by now that random quotes have replaced the tired old “Happy thoughts to you” signature. If you come across a good quote you think should be included, drop me an email with the text of the quote and the url where you found it.

Anyway, now that I’ve got the basics up and running on my new website, normal blogging should resume.

Now with twice the blahggy goodness.

You’ve no doubt heard the blustering, especially from the right whingers. Blogs are the new media and are different than the “tired old media”. If that’s the case, then why is every fucking blogger in Canada wasting so much time covering a bloody storm in the US just like that supposed “tired old media”?

This is too funny. It seems that the anti-Sheehan right whingers are so intolerant of anyone who expresses an opinion different than their own that they’re picking fights with each other.

There also were some heated moments at the pro-Bush rally when Bush supporters mistakenly identified two people as war protesters. The two walked in with a sign that read “Say No to War — Unless a Democrat is President.”

Many Bush supporters only saw the top of the sign and believed the men were war protesters, so they began shouting and chasing the pair out. One man tore up their signs.

And just who did this second group of anti-grief stricken mother protesters turn out to be?

Um. That would be Move America Forward kicking The Protest Warriors asses.

But that wasn’t all the right on right action taking place at the “We hate Americans” camp.

Ken Robinson, of Richardson, Texas, who described himself as a Vietnam veteran, was carrying a sign at a “You Don’t Speak for Me, Cindy!” rally. The sign read, “How to wreck your family in 30 days by ‘b**** in the ditch’ Cindy Sheehan.”

Kristinn Taylor, an event organizer with FreeRepublic.com, heard about the sign and rushed up to Robinson.

“This is our rally and you can’t do that here,” he said, only for Robinson to insist he was within his rights.

Camera crews rushed in and Taylor turned to face them.

“To all the media here, this sign is not representative of the crowd here today,” Taylor announced. Some of the crowd around Robinson came forward to shake his hand, while others chanted, “Idiot, go home.”

The two men then squared off and raised their voices.

“Just get outta here!” Robinson yelled, and aimed a kick at Taylor’s midsection. Taylor called for security, and a young Woodway policeman quickly showed up.

“I have the right to freedom of speech,” Robinson said.

Robinson continued to protest loudly as police handcuffed him and led him away.

This sort of thing shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone. After all, the right whingers hate everyone else so it was only a matter of time before they also started hating each other.

The behaviour of the right whingers over the Greatest Prime Minister poll being conducted by Calgary Grit is a perfect example of just how blinded they’ve become by their hatred of the left. Rather than allow their readers to make their own decisions, the right whingers immediately set about marginalizing the left by actively campaigning to vote out Pierre Trudeau so that Joe Clark–a PM who only won a minority government that lasted less than a year–could move on to the next round. And it wasn’t done by them because they think Clark was a good PM. It was done only because their hatred of Trudeau and the left have rendered them blind to the point where a fun exercise for the blogosphere has turned into just another opportunity for them to stomp on the left.

So now instead of the stage being set for exciting later round matchups like Trudeau vs. MacDonald, we’re going to end up with dull and meaningless matchups like Clark Vs. MacDonald. And imagine how much more meaningless this poll could have been if the left, instead of voting for MacDonald as they clearly have been, had campaigned like the right whingers have to get Kim Campbell–an obviously inferior PM–elected to the next round. What fun that would be, eh. I’m sure there’d be a whole lot of excitement over a Campbell/Clark matchup.

Anyway, I hope the right whingers enjoy their hollow victory because in behaving this way, they’ve once again demonstrated ample reason why their putrid ideology of hate should not be allowed to even come close to taking power in this country.

What should the province of Alberta do with its massive surplus this year? Since Alberta is a conservative province, all suggestions should reflect the conservative mindset. So no liberal loonie or dipper moonbat suggestions like improving healthcare or feeding the poor are allowed.

To get us started, here are my suggestions.

1: Ralph should hire every mover in Canada to transplant the province’s entire conservative population to Texas.

2: The Alberta firewall should become a reality except that instead of just being a firewall, it should be an actual bricks and mortar wall that circles the entire province.

3: The provincial government should buy thousands of acres of Saskatchewan and deport all of Alberta’s “undesirables” there.

4: They should pay for cosmetic surgery for every conservative so that they can at least be beautiful on the outside.

5: They should buy the province an aircraft carrier.

6: The government should hire sculptors to carve the faces of Klein, Manning, Day and Harper into the side of the Rocky Mountains.

Okay, your turn.

Yesterday Stephen Harper announced he’s going to form a task force to examine crime in Canada. That sounds like good news, doesn’t it?. After all, crime has always been a problem in any society. The problem however, is that his press release on the subject is filled with lies, like this whopper.

“The continued increase in many crime indicators and the fact that the overall crime rate has not seen a marked decrease while the Liberals have been in power is a clear indication that the Liberal approach to combating crime, as on so many other issues, has failed,” said Harper.

Oh really. Well lets just look at the crime statistics in Canada to see if this is true.

As you can clearly see from this chart, the overall crime rate in Canada has been decreasing since 1991. Now lets look at some numbers. Here’s the percentage change in the crime rate of the major offences from 1994 to 2004.

Homicide: Down 5.3%
Attempted Murder: Down 29.4%
Assaults (level 1, 2, 3): Down 4.5%
Other Assaults: Down 18.1%
Sexual Assaults: Down 32.6%
Other Sexual Offences: Down 37.6%
Abduction: Down 48.9%
Robbery: Down 14%
Violent Crime Total: Down 9.7%

Break And Enter: Down 35.7%
Motor Vehicle Theft: Down 3.5%
Theft Over $5,000: Down 40.8%
Theft $5,000 And Under: Down 23.4%
Possession Of Stolen Goods: Up 6.7%
Fraud: Down 14.6%
Property Crime Total: Down 24.1%

As you can once again clearly see, the crime that most affects Canadians is down in all but one indicator and in many cases is down significantly since the Liberals took power. If this is failure, I’ll take failure any day. So what then is Harper referring to when he declares the Liberal government a failure at dealing with crime in our country?

Bail Violations: Up 43.6%
Disturbing The Peace: Up 107.4%

So not only is Harper peddling a pack of bald faced lies, but he’s obviously promising to, if elected, take up the dire task of protecting Canadians from the most heinous of criminals; bail jumpers and disturbers of the peace.

Here’s another wonderful example of the Conservatives tripping over their own propaganda. You’ve no doubt heard them whinge about our “bloated government” and how our “bloated government” should be trimmed down. So what do the Conservatives do when the Liberals actually do trim down this “bloated government”. Why naturally they whinge about it.

“The Liberal Government’s actions with respect to rural post office closures speak louder than their words,” said Pallister. “They’re trying to do damage control with phoney announcements and empty press releases rather than taking action.”

According to the Canadian Postmasters and Assistance Association, the Liberal Government has either closed, or temporarily closed, 28 rural post offices since Paul Martin became prime minister. Fourteen of these offices were closed in the past year – since McCallum’s appointment.

“The Minister talks a good game but his government has shown no ability or interest in addressing the needs of rural Canadians,” continued Pallister. “Post office closures are just another example of this Liberal Government’s consistent neglect of rural Canada.”

It’s quite clear the Conservatives have now spewed out so much bullshit that they can no longer keep track of where they stand on any issue. One day they believe tax cuts are beneficial to Canadians and the next day they believe tax cuts don’t accomplish anything. Now it looks like they only believe in small government on even numbered days when the moon is waning.

Anyway, I look forward to Stephen Harper’s next round of television ads. Sources tell me that one of them will address the “hidden agenda” issue. Here’s a sneak peak of what it will look like.

[Stephen Harper is sitting on the edge of a desk chatting with Monte Solberg. He turns and looks into the camera] “The Liberals have often accused us of harbouring a hidden agenda. I just want to reassure Canadians that nothing could be further from the truth. In fact, the new Conservative Party now has 9 completely different and conflicting agendas for you to choose from.”

I see that Pat Robertson has retracted his fatwa against Venezuelan President, Hugo Chavez. Man, what a pussy. I bet the other Mullahs are all laughing at Robertson right now.

I wonder what has Robertson so riled up. Could it be this?

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, popular with the poor at home, offered on Tuesday to help needy Americans with cheap supplies of gasoline.

“We want to sell gasoline and heating fuel directly to poor communities in the United States,” the populist leader told reporters at the end of a visit to Communist-run Cuba.

Chavez said Venezuela could supply gasoline to Americans at half the price they now pay if intermediaries who “speculated … and exploited consumers” were cut out.

It’s a strange world we live in when a socalled “man of God” is calling for someone to be assassinated and a socalled “dictator” is offering to help out the poor.

Now for a completely different topic. A right whinger recently brought up the subject of bank mergers in a previous post, so I thought I’d comment on it. I’m against bank mergers because it will surely lead to the destruction of the sacred institution of finance. Bank on bank merging is a moral perversion and allowing it to happen will most certainly open the door to other perversions; like multiple bank on bank merging and bank on dog merging.

I just love it when conservatives trip over their own propaganda. Take for example, Stephen Harper’s new tv ad in which he claims that the lives of Canadians have not improved over the past 12 years. How can this be true when the federal, and most of the provincial governments, have delivered numerous tax cuts over the past decade and according to conservatives, tax cuts are the only way to improve the lives of Canadians? Is Harper now telling us that all those tax cuts accomplished nothing?

It sure seems like it to me. Which makes me wonder. Will the Conservatives stop flogging tax cuts since the leader of the party no longer believes they accomplish anything? Yeah, I don’t think so either. It’s more likely the conservative spin machine will now claim that all those tax cuts didn’t accomplished anything because there wasn’t enough of them. You know, in the same way a man trying to douse a fire with gasoline might claim it’s not working simply because he hasn’t poured enough gasoline on the fire.

Ghost of a Flea links to and republishes a great paragraph written by James Lileks that every left winger should store on their computer. Here’s the paragraph from Lileks’ column.

The hard left in America needs to realize a bald, cruel fact: Anyone who sees no moral distinction between Israel and the mullahs of Iran, or sees the U.S. attempt to set up a constitutional republic in Iraq as equivalent to the Syrian occupation of Lebanon, suffers from incurable moral cretinism. The more the fervent anti-war base embraces these ideas, the more they ensure that no one will trust the left with national security. Ever.

Now you might be wondering why I would suggest that left wingers save a copy of a paragraph written by an addleminded right whinger who wouldn’t know the truth if it bit him in the ass. The reason is that you can use this paragraph in response to every single instance where the right whingers do exactly what Lileks is accusing the left of doing.

Such as this instance for example, where Kate of Small Dead Minds thinks selling seeds over the internet to American customers is equivalent to David Radler ripping off Hollinger International Inc to the tune of $32 million. With just a few edits, I can tailor Lileks’ paragraph so it’s an appropriate retort for Kate’s moral equivocating. . .excuse me, I mean moral cretinism.

The hard right in Canada needs to realize a bald, cruel fact: Anyone who sees no moral distinction between Mark Emery selling marijuanna seeds over the internet and David Radler stealing $32 million dollars suffers from incurable moral cretinism. The more the fervent socon base embraces this idea, the more they ensure that no one will trust the right with fighting crime. Ever.

Try it out for yourself. There are no end to the instances of the right whingers using this type of moral cretinism and you’ll feel better throwing one of their own’s words back in their faces.

I’m back and that means the usual inciteful commentarymindnumbing blather you’ve all come to expect from this site is too.

On a side note, I’m finally going to get around to opening up a real website for some of my blahg related projects. There is a problem though. When I went looking for a webhosting service I discovered there are like a gazillion of them. So for anyone who has a good webhost, let me know who it is. The only requirement is that I need one that allows access to the server so I can set up an RSS aggregator for the Blogging Dippers site the way the Progressive Bloggers and Blogging Tories sites have.

It turns out the right whingers are even dumber than we thought.

Another Conspiracy Bites the Dust
It has long been contended by conspiracy nuts and moonbats that the US gave Saddam a green light for his invasion of Kuwait after the Iran-Iraq war. The April Glaspie story has been retold countless times, in many different ways.

Now, an interesting tid-bit of information has come out of Iraq via Iraq the Model, and courtesy of Tariq Aziz, former Deputy PM of Iraq. The long and short of it is that this conspiracy, like so many others, is bogus.

Lets set aside whether or not the Glaspie story is true or even if it is, whether it played any part in Saddam’s decision to invade Kuwait. The real question this raises, is just how fucking stupid do you have to be to now believe that whatever a former high ranking member of Saddam’s regime says is true without even questioning it. I swear, these right whingers will believe anything as long as it corroborates what they already believe, or want to believe is true.

The worst part though, is that this sort of thing isn’t rare or even uncommon amongst the right. This type of stupidity extends from the lowest member of the right whinging noise machine all the way to the top of each country’s right leaning political party. Which is just one more reason the right whingers need to be kept as far away from power as possible.

I’m back from my vacation but still visitingmooching off relatives for another week. It’ll still be pretty dead here until then, but I thought I’d dash off a few thoughts on the hot topics over the past two weeks to keep the loyal readers, who’ve been pining for my return, happy.

Western Alien Nation

So the most dishonest journalist in Canada, Ezra Levant, commissions a poll saying that nearly half of all Albertans want to separate and it causes a flap in the blahgosphere. First of all, without even looking at it I can say it’s an outright fabrication. Why? Well duh, because Ezra is the most dishonest journalist in Canada. The man probably even lies to himself.

Second of all, it’s a non-issue. Quebec separatism has not gained them any big payoffs as the right claims. The only reason it looks like it has is because Quebec has one third of the country’s population and therefore gets one third of the goodies. Since the right whingers are always drawing attention to anything Quebec gets, it looks like they’re getting more than their fair share; which they aren’t. So using separation to blackmail the feds won’t work for Albertans either and they’ll still only get around 10% of the federal hand outs because they only have around 10% of the population.

Last of all, if Albertans really do want to separate I say good riddance. We’d lose more than half of the right whingers in this country were it to happen. That’s more than worth it. And if Alberta were to decide to join the US after splitting away from Canada it would only add to my merriment. Albertans would become third class citizens of the US behind the second class Puerto Ricans. Of course, that would be after the US rapes Alberta of its oil reserves. They’d be begging Canada to let them back in after less than a decade of being crapped on by the Americans.

Conservative Climate Control

This illustrates just how stupid the right really is. Bush’s plan for dealing with climate change is to extend the length of daylight savings time by two months. Harper’s plan to deal with it is to make the cost of bus passes tax deductable. Yeah. I’m sure the reason most people don’t ride mass transit is because of the cost.

Harper really needs to keep in mind one thing while he’s off on his summer makeover tour. It’s often better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to open your mouth and prove it.

Dude, Where’s My Governor General

What is it with the Governor General and right whingers? I swear, for a position that is irrelevant, the right whingers spend a great deal of time complaining about who is appointed to it. I even read one of them claiming that Martin missed a great opportunity to give in to the blackmail demands of the Western Alien Nation by not appointing some redneck dittohead to the GG’s office. Yeah, that’s exactly what we need. Couldn’t you just picture some right whinger telling new immigrants they’re not welcome here during their swearing in ceremony.

Anyhow, I’ve already forgotten the name of the new GG, even though I just read it ten minutes ago. And by the time the episode of the Simpsons I’m watching is over I’ll undoubtably have once again forgotten we even have a Governor General.

Okay, that’s all I’ve got, but what do you expect. I haven’t read the newspaper in two weeks.