Top 10 of 2010

It's that time of year again. The retrospective look back at the past twelve months - and of course in the standard Top Ten format.

Unfortunately, I wrote the definitive Top Ten List last year so this time I'm actually going to have a topic. And since I didn't officially Air Any Grievances this holiday season:

Top Ten Disappointments of 2010 (although with my memory and attention span it's more like Top 8 Disappointments from the past four weeks and maybe a couple others)

10. Barack Obama. I know he never claimed to be Liberal Jesus - that he was always a compromise seeker and consensus builder. And he did get some stuff done. Still, for a guy who so thoroughly captured the entire world's attention - who truly seemed like a tranformative figure - he certainly didn't seem to be personally involved in pushing forward his agenda. Well except to tell the dirty fucking hippies to grow up and bend over. There's stuff he's done specifically too that will be getting their own numbers.

9. Accountability for G20 violations. On the part of the police. The LEAFS SUCK police separtment has a special watchdog called the Special Investigations Unit. The SIU looked into allegations of use of excessive force during the G20 protests and found clear evidence of it. Reasonable grounds to proceed with criminally investiagting police officers for violating the law. No charges will be laid and no investigation will proceed. Why? Because the police are unco-operative. Let me be as clear as possible on this. There is "reasonable grounds" to believe that excessive force was used - that a crime was in fact committed - and in the case involving Adam Nobody - with a minimum of five police officers present as witnesses. No investigation is being conducted because the police refuse to answer questions. Fuck.

8. The Healthcare Sellout. This still bothers me. And if you've got a problem with that - if you're thinking the words "perfect the enemy of the good", then Fuck You. Hey, all those imperfect flaws that had to be included but could be fixed later on? It's been a year - are there any plans on how those fixes might happen?

7. Mayor Rob Ford. What a fucking farce. A raftload of candidates more qualified and less batshit bugfuck crazy - all imploded. Even when he was gathering steam and the Anyone But Ford sentiment started crystallizing, what happened? The liberal and progressive candidates moved rightwards to copy Rob. Fucking pathetic.

6. The Tax Cut Sellout. Really? The compromise tax cut plan is the Joe The Plumber plan? Fantastic.

5. The Economy. I don't travel much, but this year I got to spend some time in Oklahoma City. North of the border, we weren't hit nearly as hard by the financial meltdown so I didn't have any understanding of how bad it was until I got to Oklahoma. It's a city that's had it's downtown core completely de-populated and then a small theme park dropped in to replace it. just looking at all those stretches of empty store fronts brought it into focus.

4. The continued acceptance of war crimes in the name of protecting the free world from terrorists. Message for you shitfucks with the solitary confinement, sleep disruption and the whole host of other enhanced interrogation techniques - Private Bradley Manning being the current victim de jour. The inhuman monsters that are a threat to civilization? It ain't the "terrorists".

3. Alison was robbed.

2. Something about your mother. Just kidding, your mom never disappoints.

1. The media. Spineless stenographers? Not even. Stenos at least manually enter the stuff that's dictated at them. Jerkwad douchebag fucking shitstains. But to be fair and balanced, some folks feel that it's only most journalists that are complete wastes of sperm as well as goat-fucking baby murderers - and the rest are worse.

Also, WTF is the criteria to get a regular op-ed spot in the top tier newsrags? It is fucking pathetic the bullshit that gets printed on those op-ed pages. Yeah yeah, yelling at clouds - water is wet - can't fight city hall - talking to a wall - &c. Bullshit op-ed pieces are the heart and soul of newspaper fascism and never will it ever eveer change. Still pisses me off though.