No Veto For The Wicked

If you are an embryo you will be pleased to know that you no longer have to duck and cover when an evil scientist, like this one...

...comes along and wants to kill you. That guy looks like he wakes up every morning just salivating at the idea of killing life. His only sadistic goal is to make a little Tarantino movie in that petrie dish. Thank God Americans have a President who can see that.

Science is so bogus anyway.

On the other hand if you're a family living in Northern Israel or Southern Lebanon there's no Presidential Veto coming for you, just missiles. You're on your own. The sooner you realize that your life and the lives of your children are less important than some microscopic tissue samples the better off you will be.

Reference Please recommend this post

Speechless

I find myself speechless when people come up with hilarious stuff like this. One part of me wants to wet myself laughing but another part is completely fatigued by the reality of anti-gay bigotry. Mostly fatigued. Please recommend this post

Asymetrical Blogger Rage

More awful news:

WASHINGTON(FF)

In response to grandstanding and potentially threatening suicides among terror suspects at Guantanomo bay 20 Senior Pentagon officials committed suicide today. A spokesperson for the Pentagon, speaking on condition of anonymity said the Generals decided to show an overwhelming show of force in response to the asymetrical warfare being waged by three detainees at Guantanamo.

The spokesperson went on to say that the Generals would stop killing themselves just as soon as the detainees stopped killing themselves in such a dramatic and attention seeking manner. The European Union has condemned the Pentagon for what they believe is an over-reaction, but President Bush defended the suicide offensive saying that the detainee suicides were a threat to America and its values. My most important job, said President Bush, is to protect the American people from attention seeking suicides.

Peter Mackay appeared to be caught off guard when asked how long it would take to evacuate all the Canadians at the Pentagon who are in extremely dangerous circumstances with all the swinging bodies and stray self-inflicted gun shots. Mackay said the External Affairs is doing all it can and that he has been masterbating quite a bit lately.

Vice President Cheney was at the top of a list of senior administration officials who were scheduled to commit suicide today if cease-suicide demands were not met. A spokesperson for Cheney's office indicated that he received a deferment due to an heretofore undetected pilodinal cyst. In Cheney's place suicides will be carried out by two data entry clerks and a yet to be outed CIA analyst.

Prime Minister Harper issued a statement saying the Americans had a right to defend their country and that so far he considered their response measured, and also noted that President Bush and his administration were a beacon of light and hope to the world.

Read More Please recommend this post

Daily Biking Musical Selections

While riding from downtown Calgary to home, I listened to the following tunes while desperately avoiding goofy two across roller bladers and goofy people with their flotation devices who think its actually safe to float on the Bow River. Someday I'll write about my horrible experience Canoing on the Bow.

Rob has a right to act in self-defense by putting good tunes on his mp3 player, and quite frankly I feel his selections are measured.

...

1. O Beauteous Heavenly Light - Jane Siberry
2. Jesus Christ The Apple Tree - Jane Siberry

A dude told me a story the other day about meeting Jane Siberry at a dinner party in Calgary. I could'nt even follow the story it was so weird.

3. Escarpment Blues - Sarah Harmer

A song about environmental damage. We send this one out to Rona Ambrose.

4. The Whole Night Sky - Bruce Cockburn

One of my all time favourite Cockburn songs, capturing the overall mood of the day.

They turned their backs i made it too hard,
every place they touched me is a laceration now
sometimes a wind comes out of nowhere and knocks you off your feet
and look see my tears, they fill the whole night sky...

4. October 70 - James Keelaghan

I wish I'd found out about James Keelaghan sooner. He writes incredible songs about Canadian history. The backdrop to this song is the FLQ crisis of 1970. I was not very old when that happened. I was kind of a doofus. I'd come home from school watch the images of soldiers in the streets, Trudeau talking tough, read about Pierre Laporte, flip the channel and watch something about Vietnam or Nixon. Things blowing up. People on fire screaming. Usual response: Can we have fish-sticks? I was a doofus. Awareness of the world grows to slow for some. Too fast for others.

5. My Sweet Lord - George Harrison - Concert for Bangladesh Live

My all time favourite Harrison song. He was the smartest of the 4. Love the guitar riff which may or may not be plagiarized. Personally I think not.

6. I'm A Mountain - Sarah Harmer

Wicked and wild Piano solo.

You must decide if you will die or grow

7. Gordon Lightfoot - The Way I Feel

Not my favourite Lightfoot tune but even his worst tune towers.

8. Way Over Yonder in the Minor Key

Billy Bragg sings a Woody Guthrie standard. A little cheeky. Natalie Merchant sings harmony.

Her mama cut a switch from a cherry tree
And laid it on to she and me
It stung lots worse than a hive of bees
But there ain't nobody that can sing like me
Ain't nobody that can sing like me

Hence the name Woody. For the longest time I thought he was singing "Harvard Bees" instead of "Hive of Bees". Googled Harvard Bees. Nothing. There was an urban legend about a guy who thought Jimi Hendrix was gay because he sang "Scuze me while I kiss this guy."

9. Pacing the Cage - Bruce Cockburn

Sunset is an angel weeping
Holding out a bloody sword
No matter how I squint I cannot
Make out what it's pointing toward
Sometimes you feel like you live too long
Days drip slowly on the page
You catch yourself
Pacing the cage

Conservative Majority.
Sorry, I don't know why I blurted that out.
Harper's a useless fascist.
Stop it. You're tired. Lets move on.

10. In The Falling Dark - Bruce Cockburn

Earthbound while everything expands
So many grains of sand
Slipping from hand to hand
Catching the light and falling into dark
The world fades out like an overheard remark
In the falling dark

Trivia: Apparently written sitting on Murray McLaughlin's roof watching the sunset.

Someday, I'd like to write a song sitting on top of Murray McLaughlin's roof. Or anyone's roof. If you wrote the world's greatest love song then fell fatally off the roof would that be Irony or Black Humour?

Its been hot all day but the sun is going down here also. The wind is picking up and a storm is moving in. *COUGH*Conservative Majority*COUGH*

Chick next door just brought a guy home. Or maybe he's "the" guy I don't know. They don't really walk up to the house as much as grope up to the house. Hilarious. Driveway foreplay. What are we animals are human beings I ask you? I hope her mother comes over with a switch from a cherry tree. Please recommend this post

In A Corner Backed In

Another postcard from the edge:

I find myself in a moral dilemma trying to figure out what's going on between Israel and Lebanon and how to form an opinion on it. My gut reaction to Mr. Harper's comments that Israel was acting in self defence and was demonstrating a measured response was not very good. Part of the problem is the twisted language. Orwell's ghost sighs with exasperation. Can't you people grow up and say what you mean. I have no idea what self defense means anymore and measured is just one of those words that does'nt really mean anything except that its intended to make us feel better about the death of people in both countries. I've never trusted Economists to speak clearly.

When the news came out that a Canadian family from Montreal was killed while visiting in Southern Lebanon I was absolutely fuming with the seeming recklessness of the IDF. I don't believe for a second that the IDF deliberately wanted to kill Canadians or any other civilians, I just wonder how these things happen, especially in the age of advanced weapon technology. I wondered how Mr. Harper would talk his way out of the seeming contradiction. Israel defends itself in a measured manner by accidentally killing a Canadian family and other civilians. How do you stand up with a straight face and tell people you support this. I have a sick feeling that Canada's position on the middle east has been radically changed by a minority government without any discussion at all. There's a debate you can look forward to with fear and loathing.

We have a pretty complacent life here in North America. Our hearts bleed a little when people die en masse in the third world. But then there's all that hockey to watch. Then we hear that some Americans or Canadians were killed and all our moral outrage starts pouring out. If you allow yourself a moment of reflection you start to ask yourself why one man's life is more important to you than another. It will be interesting to see how the Canadian media reacts to this family being killed. I wonder how they would react if Hezbollah had killed them.

The classic right/left positions don't really work and never have. Right wing thinking says that you have to approve of everything that Israel does or else you are anti-semitic and support terrorism. Typical leftist thinking offers too much sympathy to the Palistinian leaders who choose terrorism as a tactic and offer no hope to their people. Both positions are full of crap. A classic case of the coercive false dilemma. With us or against us can't be the only two choices because neither offers any hope.

If anything I suspect I have a bias towards Israel and a lack of understanding of the other side. I actually know very little about the Palestinians and their history. I have a pretty good nose for historical BS. You sort of have to because there's so much of it. I find it hard to get through the first paragraph of a lot of what I read because it is so full of hate and misinformation.

Our biases in North America are mostly cultural and religious. Most Canadians, such as myself, grew up going to Sunday School and learning about the history and religion of the Jewish People since most of their scriptures were co-opted into our Christian Bible. Christianity has always explained itself by using the Jewish Nation, History and Symbolism as a metaphor for the Church. I can see from the wacky rapture-ready web sites that this has caused all kinds of perverted thinking. Do they really need to cheer for the death of Palestians to feel closer to Christ and his return?

I also find myself not understanding why Israel keeps getting drawn into the same wars over and over again when it is clear that the approach is not working. I have trouble understanding why the Palestinian leadership repeatedly puts its civilians in such deadly and hopeless circumstances.

Dante was supposed to have written, The hottest places in hell are reserved for those who in times of great moral crises maintain their neutrality. Well, he's only half right. Hell also reserves a places for people who coerce side-picking in a crisis where both sides are plain and deadly wrong. Please recommend this post

Slum Landlord

It should come as no surprise that our provincial government has not been keeping up with the maintenance and repair costs of Calgary's public school facilities. It has been well publicized lately. As a result we have numerous cases of ceilings falling in, electrical panels that have to be wrapped in plastic because the rain can't be kept out and students disrupted by having to be moved to other schools on short notice. I have not heard anything about conditions in Edmonton, but I would doubt they are any better, especially if you live in a riding that did'nt vote for the government.

According to estimates the cost of the deferred maintenance is around 425 million dollars.[1] This does not include capital projects that the government said they were committed to but have never funded. Why would a government with multi-billion dollar budget surpluses defer maintenance on publicly owned assets? Could it be they are philosophically opposed to publicly owned assets? No, that could'nt possibly be true. If it were true we'd expect them to also be ruining the public health care system...

The education minister apparently has no say in the way the education system is funded, and would much rather take a publicly funded trip to the Ukraine, where he does not have to hear about leaky ceilings and electrocution. When asked about whether the government would cough up the needed money Mr. Zwozdesky shrugs his shoulders and says apathetically, all we can do is ask. Poor Gene, he's not part of the inner circle. Therefore wet ceiling tiles will fall on little Timmy's head while he's trying to do calculus.

Meanwhile the Premier muses about another prosperity cheque and announces that Alberta is actually a Republican State. While the Premier wanna-be's engage in a pointless who's more bitter about the National Energy Program contest. It is truly surreal. Its a Stanley Kubrick movie and we play the peasants.

It is an appalling lack of judgment to let valuable assets slip into disrepair because the problems get worse and more expensive to fix. But thats what slum landlords do.

[1]The Alberta NDP cites $425M. The Alberta Liberal Party cites $420M. The Calgary Sun cites $425M. These estimates were likely obtained from the Calgary Board of Education. Please recommend this post

Picking Italy

I'm picking Italy to win in the World Cup 2006 final. I have some Euros riding on this prediction, but not enough to draw the attention of the Bishop of Calgary who apparently opposes gambling. The game will finish with a 1-1 tie and the Italians will win in a shoot-out.

Historically the French do not defend their territory very well and this will be a problem against the Italians whose game is built on spending a lot of time in the other teams end.

J'en suis désolé mes amis français. Peut-être prochaine.

Afterthought 1:
People will be googling Italians shoot-out and will end up here. Good thing I did'nt mention Etobicoke. Please recommend this post

My Heat Oppressed Brain

In a recent interview Keanu Reeves admits the fact that he was in a few fairly crappy movies. He goes on to say that he would like to do a film version of Shakespeare's MacBeth. He claims he can do a Scots accent, even without having a stroke first. The accent is probably the least of his worries in this difficult play. MacBeth is a complex complex character who gets screwed over by his wife and three English witches.

My suggestion is he talk Sandra Bullock into playing Lady MacBeth. They say that role is a bitch to play. The risk of Sandra Bullock playing Lady MacBeth is that some smart ass in the back row will yell, Hey, how can we make this Bus go below 50?

Another suggestion - modernize the story a bit. Replace the witches with Chartered Accountants. Or Bank Managers.

I actually think he could do it. It could not possibly be any worse than Mel Gibson's Hamlet With Turrettes, or Roman Polanski's 1971(?) version of MacBeth, with the skanky naked witches and all the senseless fast paced horse back riding, and more continuity problems than our Federal Government's environmental policy. Please recommend this post

Foreign Accent Syndrome

I just read the most amazing science article on the BBC website. It was even more amazing than the CBC article about the scientists putting stilts on Ant's legs to see how they measure distance. Ants on Stilts!

A woman in Newcastle UK had a stroke and after she woke up she could only speak in Jamaican, French Canadian, and Slovakian accents.

It does not surprise me that Doctors have a Diagnostic code for this, referring to it as Foreign Accent Syndrome. It is a bona fide brain disorder that occurrs very rarely in stroke victims.

If, God forbid, I should have a stroke, I would be very pleased to receive a very thick and hearty Nigerian accent. Finnish would be cool too.

It could be that the brain hears an accent here and there throughout the person's life then tries to use that information to relearn speech. Or maybe it is some form of hysteria brought on by the trauma of the stroke. I wonder how Freud would have explained this. He would have positively wet himself with a case like this.

Anyway its fascinating, no?

I think I smell burning toast...

Links:
Foreign Accent Syndrome
Ants On Stilts Please recommend this post