The Dickson Medal for Best Oral Advocacy

Congrats to Paul Alexander - today's King of FAIL.

This story deals involves the death of a two-year old girl - so if you're not up to being depressed by the sorry state of the human condition, here's a link to the proper way to play the PENIS game.

It was exactly seven years ago when a two-year old girl died from the brain injuries she sustained during her beating.  There was a lengthy investigation including wiretapped phone coversations which produced the Crown's killer evidence - vaguely ambiguous confessions of guilt by a distraught woman who recently lost her two year old daughter.  They laid charges and went to trial.  Paul Alexander was on the Prosecution team.

Then they got an unambiguous confession.  From the boyfriend.  Ooops.  The same boyfriend who, in the wiretap recordings, asked the mother if she suspected him of doing anything to the girl.

But apparently in Prosecution Land, you aren't allowed to change your mind or ever admit mistakes - so the show went on.  The boyfriend's confession was declared phony and made-up.  Besides, the confession couldn't be used because of some legal stuff about self-incrimination which I don't understand.  Perhaps it was the system's self-awareness kicking in - I mean considering the quality of the investigation they had, any subsequent work focusing on a new suspect would probably be a waste of resources.

Don't get me wrong - the mother's no saint.  There's even a possibility that she's actually guilty and not merely Prosecution Land guilty.

One year ago, the jury came back deadlocked.  The Prosecution had the option of having the judge determine the verdict, but opted not to.  Probably because of the difference between how judges and juries understand "reasonable doubt" when looking into the murder of an infant.

So the Crown got a do-over, which was in the process of winding up when the jury sent a note to the judge.  The note asked if the annoyingly distracting man in the gallery could be removed.  Apparently there was this guy sitting immediately in the front row, who was making faces and rolling his eyes and acting like a total Dickson Medal winner.  Paul Alexander.  In civvies.  Sitting in the audience, as in not part of the Prosecution team.  Still trying to influence the trial by acting like an idiot and suceeding to the point where he managed, on his very own, to get another mistrial declared.

It's been half a decade since charges were laid and now we've had two mistrials.  Prosecution wants another do-over, which is pretty fucking rich considering they literally have no one to blame for this except for someone employed by the Crown.

In another case involving jury issues, Gillian Guess was convicted of obstructing justice for boinking the accused in a trial where she was on the jury.  In her conviction, the definition and meaning of obstruction of justice was discussed:

The offence of attempting to pervert the course of justice has been authoritatively defined, in this court and elsewhere, as "the doing of some act which has a tendency and is intended to pervert the administration of public justice".

There's certainly a whole lot less reasonable doubt about Paul Alexander's guilt of obstructing justice than there is in the case he's so desperate for a conviction on - but only one of these cases is ever going to trial.  Which is a shame because then we could expect some guidelines on proper behaviour for Crown attorneys in a court of law.

With regard to Mr. Alexander, I guess he should probably stick to fluffing what he's good at.  His oral skills may be exceptional, but his acting is so over-the-top and unbelievable that it distracts from the action.

UPDATED (bonus actually added - (update 2 and deleted from where it shouldn't have been)) BONUS for SMcG: Paul Alexander's VANOC blog.

Sunday Audition: A Sea of Leftists

Mother Mother Ocean, I have heard your call - and it is the siren song of doom.

Consider the biggest items in the news today - the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico and the Israeli interception of the Free Gaza flotilla. It is hard to imagine two more stinging rebukes to neo-conservative ideology. The foundational pillars of industrialism in the shape of always standing by private enterprise and muscular foreign policy in the form of always standing by Israel have suffered attacks to their fundamental cores.

And the commonality between those stories? The Sea. It is as if the oceans themselves were part of a great conspiracy to discredit conservative ideals. And no wonder, after all the Sea has always been an enemy of individualism and personal freedom.

What more enduring trope is there than the struggle of one brave and intrepid entrepreneurial adventurer versus the cruel ocean, that Great Leveller that strives to make even the most worthy of us the same as the petty criminal or deviant? The ocean is there to take away our freedoms. The endless ocean serves as a symbol of where our ability to do what we want ends.

And don't forget that the ocean is the source of horrendous natural disasters. Now that we are entering hurricane season, remember that these hurricanes don't appear from out of nowhere. They are birthed and coddled and made into destructive forces by the oceans - not unlike how Democratic politicians give birth to equally disastrous policies like Health Care Reform or how bleeding heart liberals coddle violent criminals and terrorists until they too become deadly tools of disaster.

Hurricanes are essentially liberal in their outlook. They are destroyers of private property and do great damage to private enterprise. The states that they target are those in the South, areas much more likely to vote Republican, and they amount to an awful lot of wind - blowing around for no purpose other than laying havoc to innocent people who have done nothing wrong. There is no better description of the liberal mindset that doesn't include a certain Austrian-born German political leader from the mid-twentieth century.

There's the word of warning. That in addition to the Global conspiracy of media elites, union bosses, trial lawyers, abortion doctors, Islamic extremists, unscrupulous climate scientists, activists judges, homosexuals, ivory tower intellectuals and drug addled criminals, you can add the oceans. Recent events are just further proof that the Seas has a liberal bias.

For Esteev

The problem is all inside your head, I said to he
The answer is that you can't think logical-ly
I’d like to help you in your struggle to be free
There must be twenty ways your column's stupid.

He said it’s really not my habit to tell the truth,
Furthermore, I hope the facts get lost and misconstrued
But I’ll repeat myself at the risk of being crude
There must be twenty ways Obama's a despot.
Twenty ways Obama's Hitler.

You can't just dump the sick, Rick (Cission)
You gotta offer 'em a plan, Stan
And not one filled with shit, uh-something that rhymes with shit Mitt (ster)
Just teabag yourself free

Jus' eat that chicken fat off the floor, boor (tz)
And use the word "Tough" much
Just drop your pants, David
And teabag yourself free

I said your article it gives me so much pain
I wish there was something I could do so that you never write again
And the world would appreciate that, and we'd be free from the taint
Of Hogberg's words....

Hogberg's mom said why don’t we both just sleep on it tonight
And I believe in the morning you’ll have fucked me just right
And then she kissed my PENIS as I rammed it down her throat - oh so tight
There must be fifty ways to do Hogberg's mother
Fifty ways to fuck his mother.

UPDATE:  Tweaked for Great PENIS and thnax to Xecklothxayyquou Gilchrist for the shit rhyme.

ME-gan McArdle is Universal Catastrophic Health Care

I still kinda like Yglesias despite his not spitting in McArdle's face before leaving the Atlantic.  But that's because I'm an optimist and one of those bleeding hearts that tries to see the good in everyone, giving folks the benefit of the doubt whenever possible.  I assumed that Matt's treatment of ME-gan is due to his being a passive-aggresive pansy who's frightful afeared of confrontation, even with a pathetic lightweight and brainless vapid wreck like the McArdle thing.  Srsly, I meant that in a good way, I'm totes about avoiding conflict and confrontation whenever possible (except for you, Whale Chowder.  Your due for a good thrashing, once I'm done having intercourse with your mother).

Then again, this sort of bullshit reminds me that I've been wrong about things before.  First, let me start off with the disclaimer that there is no fucking way I am going to read McArdle's bullshit.  No.  Fucking.  Way.

Okay, that out of the way, let's go on to tearing it apart.  I'm guessing that the gist of it is legally codifying the GOP answer to the uninsured - "Everyone has health care, you can just go to hospital emergency rooms."  IOW, if you have an easily treatable condition, all you've got to do is ignore it until it becomes serious and then they'll take care of you at Emerg.  ME-gan's kind enough to believe that if you're unlucky enough to be in this situation, you shouldn't also have to declare bankruptcy because of it (unless you have a shitty job and the lost wages while you're convalescing do in your finances - but she really doesn't hate poor people - she just wishes they would go away).  Yeah, that's a great fucking plan - if it were twenty-five years ago.  Wait, let me guess - ME-gan's plan also expands this coverage to people who have been diagnosed with very expensive to treat conditions (incidentally with no provision to screen people who aren't already seeing a GP regularly).  Fan-fucking-tastic.  Even if she's proposing to pay for this program with a special tax on asshole-douchebaggery that bankrupts Cheney and that Blackwater Xe Prince guy, I'd still think it's a useless proposal.

TL:DR version - ME-gan thinks that the best way to help the uninsured and down on their luck is to provide a benefit that helps folks in proportion to how much health care they already have.  Also, preventative medicine is a crock and you can keep costs down by letting things develop into Emergency Room situations before doing anything about them.

I've already acknowledged that I've been wrong before, so if I'm wrong about the ME-gan plan To Save The World And Make Everyone Happy, I'd be glad to recant.  Forgive me if I don't hold my breath waiting.

Ultra Hallowe'en

One of teh awesome things about babbies is Hallowe'en.  I picked out Ultra Ninja's costume before listening to teh story again.  I just remembered teh strong female lead using her cunning to overcome her enemy and *SPOILER* learn that she didn't need no boy to make her life complete *END SPOILER*.  Anyways, I didn't realize that it was such an ecological nightmare!  If I could go back and pick out a different costume - one that wasn't so violently adverse to Mother Earth - I would not have changed a thing.  The story for those of you who don't know it.

Anyways, here she is between her dragon and Prince Ronald:

No Thanks Ebert, I'm Too Busy Playing on Your Mom's Lawn

And by that I mean I'm totally doing your mother.

A few months ago, Roger Ebert made the following sweeping statement:
Video games can never be art.

This is actually a re-iteration of a previous sweeping statement he made regarding video games and their not-ever-being-art status, but this last round was pretty notable in the bit of a ruckus, a to-do, a veritable hooferaw it provoked on teh intarweebles. All sorts of shit from "G4M35 R 2 ART" to long detailed intelligent essays on why Ebert was wrong.

My personal reaction was "meh, d00d's talking out his ass. I give it as much credence as if he was saying that he had definitive proof of observing the Higgs Boson." Guy has no clue.

But apparently, he's now apologized, and man I am livid. What a fucking asshole.

Point #1 - He admits that he has no fucking clue what he's talking about. He admits to not playing video games - and also to not ever wanting to play video games.
Point #2 - His "apology" was that he now believes he was wrong to have said anything, but most definitely not wrong for holding that opinion - which as mentioned in Point #1 he acknowledges as being based on conjecture and fairy dust and by gum that's good enough for him.

FUCK.

Worse than the asshole media shitbags that were wrong about WMDs for the right reasons (although on a far far lesser scale of importance). Ebert is saying that he is right and fuck you if you have incontrovertible proof otherwise. He's basically put into words the fundamental basis for fringe thought and behaviour. His stance on video games is now, by his own admission, on par with Young Earth Creationism. Actually, less than that because at least some Young Earthers make pathetic attempts to address criticism.

He's revelling in his ignorance. He's using it as the foundation of his argument. And he insists on refusing to learn. In the words of another great assmunch fuckface, he has neither the time nor the background to figure out if games are art, let alone whether or not they can ever aspire to that title. Therefore they aren't. Period. Although he's sorry if you took offense - because you're a gamer and therefore are deserving of pity- but he's still right because shut up that's why.

And consider his excuse for not even giving games a chance -

Besides, arguing with a You Tube video was pointless if I had never played a game. They had me there. And I didn't want to play a video game. If I should dislike it, I already had a preview of the response awaiting me: I was too old, I was over the hill, I was too aged it "get it.".

He goes on, but at no point does he ever concede the remotest possibility that maybe - just maybe, the 4200 odd commenters might possibly have a point and that there is artistic merit enough in some specific video games that even a pompous blowhard like himself might concede that it could be considered Art.

This fucking jackwad got 4500 responses - on the fucking internets - where only as many as a dozen were offensive trollery. On the intarweebs. A 99.7% plus valid response rate. On the web. Not counting folks who replied outside of the thread with their mountains of posts. Like finding a Coupe de Ville at the bottom of a Crackerjack box.

And despite a 90% plus rate of folks who disagreed and rationally pointed out that games are Art - well, wevs. He's Ebert, his opinion based on nothing but some vague something or other and general idea of this or that is way more important than getting 4000+ intelligent responses in a comment thread appended to an incendiary post that HAD LESS THAN A DOZEN "FUCK YOU EBERT"'es in it.

For balance - FUCK YOU EBERT. FUCK. YOU. EBERT. Hey Ebert, Fuck You. (x1000)

You know, a lot of people are going to give Ebert credit for admitting he was wrong. Before you do that - remember that he's still firmly on the side that games are not only "not Art" right now, but that they never can be. He says so right at the beginning of the article. Also that he's too busy to give games a chance.

I didn't have a problem with his original piece. He had an opinion, one that was pretty easily debunked as it had no basis in reality - something that he admits. That's fine, we're all wrong on something every now and then. We all have blind spots and we all make mistakes.

But now, he not only reasserts that opinion - but doubles down on it by insisting on never testing it. Despite the overwhelming weight of evidence that he's just plain wrong.

Moreover, his position now is that even though he still believes that he's right, he's sorry for speaking out. Fuck. Hey assclown shitbag, if you really believe in something why would you be sorry for stating it? If there's something you believe to be true, but saying so would be unpopular - you should... well according to Ebert, you should shut the hell up (which I will note that he didn't).

Incidentally, the real reason he won't test it isn't because he has "books to read and movies to see." It's because, somewhere in that shrivelled up pea brain of his, he knows he's wrong (and that's why he's actually sorry for saying something he professes to believe - because he doesn't really believe it, although he also doesn't have the guts to realize that either). He's played two video games ever - one he didn't get at all (Myst, no wonder - that's a POS game) and one he "enormously enjoyed". So if he based things on experience instead of some touchy-feely totally arbitrary and never explained way of seeing things - he's got a 50% chance of finding something he'd really get a kick out of. If he can claim a 50% chance of enjoying the next book or movie he consumes than he's lying.

I guess that's the bright side of this thing - jackass is so fucked up, so obsessed with being right and ascared of being wrong, even after admitting that he has no idea what he's talking about - that he's willing to forgo experiences he knows he'll enjoy. And after that display of wallowing in ignorance, the idea of Ebert missing out on the fun makes me smile.

Oh, and for good measure - FUCK YOU ROGER EBERT.

My Generation's Reaching Out For You*

SOCIALISM!

We got our phone call from Toronto Public Health to see how things were going. They phone all new parents and "interview" them to make sure they're raising the kids in the Government Approved Prescribed Method**. I was talking about it to the mother-in-law who explained how things went back in the day. Public Health made house calls. To every home with a new baby. They didn't ask to be let in, they just flashed their "badges", barged in and inspected your baby for signs of abuse. The State wasn't acting like a nanny, it was acting like you were the nanny of their child.

Tea Party people are, by and large, geezers. They are from generations before mine, from the Olden Days when Government actually acted in the ways they claim it does now.

Maybe it's really different south of the border. Maybe you guys really do have some sort of massive Creeping Socialism thing going on. But I doubt it. Don't get me wrong, it's certainly true that the current Administration is making some pretty broad and sweeping claims to power. Suspension of habeas corpus, warrantless wiretapping, the things being done in the name of the Struggle With The Existential Threat To Civilization Posed By A Few Unhinged Religious Nutjobs, or whatever they are calling it these days. But,,,

The generation before mine was the one that got drafted to shoot the Viet Cong. The generation before that had McCarthy's witch hunts. Imagine the response to the "grassroots" Tea Party protests if they were held in the fifties.

We laugh at blue laws now, but for me - it was only twenty years ago that Government decree prevented people from shopping on Sunday. The stories I hear about the hoops one had to go through in order to purchase alcohol back then make my head spin.

All a part of that arcing moral universe bending towards justice and whatnot.

Now if the complaints against Government were that the arc was bending too slowly - that we aren't doing enough to get to that just society where people are judged by the contents of their character - then I am all in. In fact, my words to the "Moral Universe" are "Get Bent".

But that's not what Tea Partiers and conservatives in general are saying. They aren't calling for progressive changes, they aren't clamoring for moving with that arc. They are pining for the Olden days - when there wasn't as much SOCIALISM! - only that Government intruded much moar deeply and into way moar areas of your life.

Here's what I'm saying (although I recognize no one that needs to hear it is going to be reading this blog) - you are now more Free than you ever have been***. It's a bit clouded for the Tea Partiers since everything they want to do are the socially and legally mandated behaviours, but being prevented from doing things that you probably weren't going to anyways is still a loss of Freedom.

In closing, my baby is UNBELIEVABLY ADORABLE! SHE IS THE BESTEST THING IN TEH UNIVERSE (even if her hand is too small for my bourbon glass).

* Title from this song which I may have posted before, but this video is a newer version.

** Mostly that you're feeding her and that mom is recovering well. Oh, and that you are reciting the correct ideological manifestos**** to her while she sleeps.

*** Offer not valid for Bradley Manning and other Enemies Of The State.

**** This is what I mean. The concept of reading brainwashing materials to a baby as it sleeps is too ludicrous to be considered reasonable satire. Especially by those who read the Bible to their sleeping babies.

On The Road Again

Nothing could be finer than to be in Carolina in the wee hours of the morning.  Other than being with my babby girl and her mom.

Anywho, thanks vs for teh shoutout and opening to revel in trite rhymes and bad meter.  Or you can blame SMcGILF (totes heterosexually, of course).

Some snippets:

Poetry, like your mom
Is easy.
Like the storm before the calm,
She rides me.
Your mom is easy.
And we're fornicating.
She is easy.
Easy like Sunday Morning-cating.

Left here for some reason
Perhaps your mom to be pleasin'
Left here for some rhyme
Your dad's ass is sublime,
But what's moar
Yer mom's the whore.

Your father's ass is a popular destination

For sex tourists with a love of degradation.
For the truly depraved, there can be no other,
Except for the whore that's your mother.

Anyways, thanks for the distraction.  I guess this round of insomnia is related to being conditioned to wake at around midnight - but I've a plane to catch in six hours, so I really must sleep.

Mother's Day 2011

I like to think of myself as an expert on moms and AFAIK, teh only thing that moms love almost as much as me is cute videos of cute babbys.  Ultra Ninja has cuteness in overwhelming quantities, almost enough to offset the fact that she also inherited at least some of my dorkiness.  Here she is LARPing:

Ann Apology

Ann Althouse,

This is just to say,
I have done your mother
On the icebox
Just before having
Breakfast.

Forgive me,
I know you keep food under where we coupled
Frozen dinners
So cold.

What Happened to Sunday Audition?

It's late. Mother's Day is a very busy day for me (not-so-veiled "I so did your mom" reference).

Windows Vista*

*About teh post title - I was going to title this post Broken Windows Vista, but then realized that was redundant.

Before going forward, just want to shoutout the Graeber Invention of Money post again. His highlighting the fact that one of the foundational ideas about economics is totally bogus is pretty awesome. Also too, teh interview wherein we learn that teh symbol of teh Liberty Fund is an excellent example of how money, debt and credit pre-existed barter and was probably a result of government regulations and trial lawyer type compensation processes.

Also too, a disclaimer. This post is Part 2 – and if you had a problem with Part 1 then you should probably give this one a bye. This post is going to be speculation about the reasons and related bits associated with the mistakes I pointed out in the previous post.

One final bit of preamble.
TLDR version: FYIGM is actually a generous interpretation.

So anyways, there’s a bunch of different things you can read into the broken windows fallacy. Firstly, you’ll notice that there is a premium of sorts for wealth on hand as opposed to earned money. The owner of the broken window is worse off because they had to spend cash that they had – but the window repairman is not better off because he exchanged his labours for the replacement cost of the window. Now if you stipulate that the opportunity cost to the repairman is zero – IOW he doesn’t have to cancel other window replacement jobs or postpone window replacement training or skip that year’s window replacement trade show (GlazeCon 1849 – the cosplay is practically pornographic) – then the window repair is pure windfall profit for him. So what difference is there in the value between the window owner’s six francs or the window repairer’s six francs? Obv. none.

Not so obv. This misconception – that available cash is worth more than earned cash – has been carried through to this very day. For instance, the capital gains tax rate is lower than income tax rate. If you accept the conservative/libertarian never before observed Laffer curve concept that the higher the taxes the greater the disincentive to produce – the result is that it is somehow less harmful to directly “disincentivize” producers than it is to “disincentivize” investment. Apparently the ideas surrounding “supply-side” economics does not extend to the market for labour.

The other big problem I had with Bastiat was the labelling of things as useless. He doesn’t accept the idea that the window repairman’s exercising of his trade has value in and of itself. That since the net wealth of the village is unchanged, the window repairman’s efforts are cancelled out and somehow “useless.” It is as if he could not see the value of maintaining skill and expertise in local industries. The type of attitude that would denounce tariffs of all types and push for widespread free trade.

Actually, it’s worse than that. Because the things he rails against have as their intended purpose things which are clearly indicated. In the case of tariffs, it’s protecting local industry – in the case of “make work” programs it is keeping people employable and engaged in society – in the case of the assorted social programs that are always at risk of funding cuts it is the provision of those social services. Those things all have value, but Bastiat as well as modern day conservatives claim that they don’t. Usually based on this dollar value taxes-are-evil approach.

This ties into the glibertarian “why can’t we let charities do that” thing which I’ve railed against elsewhere. Perhaps another post.

Lastly but not leastly, the whole broken windows fallacy thing gives us a new and more complete definition of modern conservatism than Galbraith’s. Observe that in the broken window story, society is no worse off for having lost the window. Overall wealth is unchanged because an otherwise idle labourer has the opportunity to produce a replacement. But the window owner is definitely worse off. And this is the parable that Bastiat uses in order to advocate for policy decisions that affect all of society – including the window repair d00d. That’s conservatism in a wingnutshell – this idea benefits me personally therefore it should be the way it is for everyone.

This not only covers the greedy position conservatives have about government providing only the services they want and need and nothing else, all the while complaining about having to pay for any of it. It also applies to social conservatives and their insatiable need to prevent anyone else from having a good time. Their religion has forced them to suffer a joyless existence made bearable only by the future promise of eternal happiness and communion with the most powerful being in the universe. And if that’s good enough for them,,,

It’s not that conservatives lack empathy, it’s that their empathy only works backwards. It’s not that they can’t imagine themselves in position of someone less fortunate or successful – it’s that when they do so they project so much of their own experiences that they actually become offended. Because they achieved whatever level of success and comfort they have, everyone should be able to as well. That for conservatives, imagining what it is like to be in someone else’s shoes really means wondering why being insulted that people have the audacity to not do exactly as they do all the time.

And so the way they understand the world is through that lens. Their metaphors and analogies are all of the Me First variety. Tax cuts are good because they want to pay less in taxes (even if those tax cuts don’t target them but only benefit the uber-rich, because they may be uber-rich some day). Cutting social safety net programs is okay because they don’t use them. Something about your mother. Hence government budgets are like family budgets meaning the anti-Keynesian belt tightening austerity during recessions and crazy deficits during market booms. Hence “if you have nothing to hide,,,” since of course everything they do is by definition societally accepted if not revered. Hence all sorts of authoritarian abuses because there would never be a reason to racially profile them.

And finally I started Part 1 by mentioning that I was going to be very critical of Claude Frédéric Bastiat, but that we should bear in mind that his time was a very different one. While it was the Age of Enlightenment, enlightenment is a process whereby one starts of unenlightened. That his writings show the twisted thoughts of a selfish sociopath with no empathy for his fellow man, he was probably still pretty progressive for his time. However, the folks that buy into his century and a half old worldview - they don't have the same excuse.

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.

Love Thy Father And Mother

Someone would like to portray himself as the master.

Your dad grows potatoes up his bum,
About tubers, he thinks “Yum!”
Starchy anuses make him cum
But he’s totes vanilla compared to your mum.

The men who have fucked your dad in the ass,
Is a number that very few will surpass.
He’s been had by every Hairy Dicked Tom,
But still by fewer than have fucked your mom.

Your dad’s prostate is sore and bruised
From all the rough ways it has been used.
He’s a downright skanky old bear,
But a model of virtue considering ta mère.

Your dad, when he’s really in luck
Has Yorkshiremen give his butt a fuck.
“Luxury!” he screams as his ass gets raw
But he’s a prude compared to your ma.

Your dad eats shit for the win,
That’s why he has that grin.
But the frothy mixture known as Santorum
Is much better suited to the whore that’s your mum.

UPDATE: Yes, there's moar.

Your dad’s ass is wider than you think,
Wider even than your favourite link
It can contain multitudes and then some,
But not quite as much as that whore, your mom.

Your daddy loves guys on construction sites
To fill up his hole and his nights.
But while he fucks those men again,
Your mom’s playing hide the crane.

And your dad goes nearly bezerk
As those men go about their work,
“MOAR MOAR” he stammers,
As your mom rides the jackhammers.

All those men your dad has laid,
But it’s your mom that’s the one that gets paid.
Because all he does is scream for MOAR
But your mom, she’s the whore.