Archive for the 'Head-Explodes' Category

Raging Out: DVD designed to create xenophobia works

Monday, September 29th, 2008

So, the Clarion fund, which exists to “educate the public about the threat of Islamic terrorism” has massively distributing their DVD, which sure seems designed to make Americans afraid of brown people.
Interesting, the fund seems to have done this massive distribution in the swing states only. I wonder what objective they could hope to achieve [...]

Raging Out: No One Cares About Torture

Monday, September 29th, 2008

It is now a matter of record that Bush, Cheney, Rice, Ashcroft, Rumsfeld, Tenet, and Powell were all directly involved in authorizing the use of torture.
The group called itself the National Security Principals Committee. It held dozens of top-secret decisions in the White House. This according to an ABC News investigation, sourced with unnamed, high-ranking [...]

I like Art

Thursday, September 25th, 2008

I also the The Arts. Of course I’m an elitist liberal scum, but this just gives me one more reason to despise Stephen Harper. I could rant, but let’s let George at BookNinja do it instead, since he’s so good at it:
First, he tried to set up arts and culture producers, from dance companies to [...]

Aside: Phelps again

Monday, September 8th, 2008

As a general rule I am entirely in favour of freedom of speech and thought, and I look askance at any government attempts to curtail them. I can go on for quite a while about how hate speech legislation is probably a mistake, especially in a country where the current government wouldn’t think twice about [...]

Why I Will Soon Have To Get A New Job

Tuesday, September 2nd, 2008

I work every day with people all over the world. Consequently, it is often hard to set a meeting time that is useful to everyone who needs to be in a meeting.
I am quite prepared to work in the evenings, and often do, but I really, really, want to keep that narrow window of time [...]

Picking At Religion Again

Sunday, August 31st, 2008

And now for your intermittently recurring muttering about the extremely religious.
Christianity: The belief that some cosmic Jewish Zombie can make you live forever if you symbolically eat his flesh and telepathically tell him that you accept him as your master, so he can remove an evil force from your soul that is present in humanity [...]

Still more on evolution

Thursday, August 14th, 2008

I read the drepessing statistic today that only 58% of people across Canada will support the notion of evolution. Actually, it’s 58% more or less consistently across Canada, except in Alberta, our little bit of Jesusland here in the heart of Canada, where the number is 38%. (Note: it’s not an accident that our current [...]

I am shocked! Shocked I tell you.

Thursday, June 5th, 2008

And in is-anyone-surprised-by-this news, the Senate intel committee’s Phase II report on pre-war intelligence on Iraq is just out.
You can read the details and the reports themselves over at TPM.
I’ll just list some of the choice points from Sen. Rockafeller’s press release, and if any of them surprise you, raise your hand and give yourself [...]

Oh CBC, no.

Thursday, June 5th, 2008

I have often said that I hate hockey. That’s a product of being a kid in a family where my dad played in two leagues, and my brother played, and did hockey school all summer. That meant that I was pretty much always at the rink. At least three nights a week one of them [...]

I’ve Got The Box

Tuesday, June 3rd, 2008

Did you catch the snippet from (retired) General Sanchez’s new book that was in the WaPo earlier this week?
As I was reading this bit:
During a videoconference with his national security team and generals, Sanchez writes, Bush launched into what he described as a “confused” pep talk:
“Kick ass!” he quotes the president as saying. “If somebody [...]

Crazy religious people have their priorities in order

Wednesday, May 7th, 2008

Tired of paying through the nose, Americans try praying at the pump
“Lord, the prices at this pump have gone up since last week. We know that you are able, that you have all the power in the world,” he prayed, before former beauty queen Rashida Jolley led the group in a modified version of the [...]

Hemmingway said some true things too

Saturday, May 3rd, 2008

We are turning into a nation of whimpering slaves to Fear—fear of war, fear of poverty, fear of random terrorism, fear of getting down-sized or fired because of the plunging economy, fear of getting evicted for bad debts or suddenly getting locked up in a military detention camp on vague charges of being a Terrorist [...]

Same As It Ever Was

Wednesday, April 30th, 2008

I helped make Mexico safe for American oil interests in 1914. I helped make Haiti and Cuba a decent place for the National City Bank boys. I helped in the raping of half a dozen Central American republics for the benefits of Wall Street. I helped purify Nicaragua for the international banking house of Brown [...]

Hypocrisy on parade

Friday, April 18th, 2008

There’s an evil tableau for you: the callous torturer stands up with blood on his hands and a lie in his teeth, while the priest draped in gilt reassures him of his righteousness. How often has that scene played out in history, I wonder?
You know, I wouldn’t change a word in what Paul Myers says [...]

Russell’s Teapot

Thursday, April 17th, 2008

Last night my mother sent me one of those horrible “email forwards”. She’s the only person with my email address who actually passes these hideous things on to me, knock on wood.
This one was one of those tedious things that abuse casuistry to snark at people who put reason above faith–you know the type, the [...]