The Eye of the Barf Holder

Hey remember that awesome time I got baby puke in my ear? This time it was my eye. Now I can say I truly have lived a full life. Speaking of rock star like behaviour, she's probs not gonna be playing drums in her awesome megastar band.

Pike 2012

The story of teh GOP nom ination run is of teh boom and teh bust, with each succesive Tea Party favourite taking their turn at Mittster. And while Talking Pants Marshall is playing with yarn, the National Post brings much better graphics and analysis almost a week earlier. Anyways, we're left with the question of who is to take teh reins as Tea Party saviour after Newt flames out? I think teh answer is pretty obvious:

Surprise Police Raid on my Preconceptions

St James park has been cleared. It was a remarkably peaceful endeavour. Here's the summary:

Eleven people were arrested in all and most were released on site with trespassing tickets, rather than criminal charges.

It was surprising. I was shocked that our police force showed such restraint. That despite prepping a bunch of riot gear laden cops, they sent in only regular uniformed guys. The big extra piece of protective gear they had was raincoats. After last summer's G20 fiasco and the assorted abuses at other Occupy camps, it was a pleasant surprise. I mean, it's not like I expected a heavy-handed tear-gas rubber-bullet riot-like apocalypse, but what we ended up getting was way better than I had hoped it could be.

Then I read this:

Everyone's talking about how the police have been peaceful & no one is talking about how protestors are non-violent.

That's me. I was talking about how the police were surprisingly peaceful and had nothing to say about how well behaved the protestors were. And that's because I have lowered my expectations of reasonable behaviour from the police so far that I was shocked they didn't fuck everything up in a hail of police brutality. Because my expectations of the protestors - supposedly violent anarchists - was way higher.

Because this is the level to which my opinion of police has fallen. I am delighted that I was wrong about what I feared might happen in St James Park. I am very happy that I was mistaken about our law enforcement's lack of ability to learn. That despite my strong disagreement with what the police were doing - i.e. dismantling the Occupy Toronto encampment - I found myself, well not proud - but at least not ashamed of teh Toronto Police Services. Congratulations TPS, you managed to acheive the bare minimum I want from a police force - you did not make things worse.

Occupy Toronto

Twitter feed.

Stay safe, guys. It's probably not going to be G20-ish this morning, remember that teh worst of teh cop freakout was only because they got caught with their pants down on teh first day.

Why We Fight - War on Christmas Edition.

Apparently I am hard to shop for - and that's why I will have to wait five weeks before playing Skyward Sword.

Fuck You Santa!

World Toilet Day 2011

First, the obligatory sermonizing - this is from World Toilet Day Press Kit. The fraction of the world population without access to adequate sanitation is 40%. This is the combined population of all of North America and Europe, doubled. 2.6 billion people. Without toilets, these folks are stuck with "open defecation" which is exactly what it sounds like. This causes all sorts of illnesses and disease. Unsafe water, inadequate hygiene and insufficient hygiene are responsible for the deaths of two million children under the age of five every year.

WHO estimates that improved water, sanitation and hygiene could reduce the global disease burden by 9.1%. I admit that what got me first interested in World Toilet Day is that my highly developed style of humour is quite connected with toilets and POOP, but this is a serious actual thing. And it's more than just reducing disease - it's a serious quality of life issue. Even folks not at risk of dying from diarrhea stand to gain massively from better methods of dealing with their excreta.

Also too, this is one of those issues that should really speak to liberals and progressives. The most likely to be affected are the people with the fewest resources. The most at risk are children and women in patriarchal societies. The impact of reduced disease burden allows struggling communities in developing nations to dedicate more of their efforts to education or food production or a host of things that aren't lying down sick and dehydrated hoping not to die.

What can you do to help? Raising awareness is the first step. Without recognizing the issue, not much can be done. If you want to volunteer or make a donation, there's any number of organizations that are making efforts to address this issue.
-The folks behind World Toilet Day are here.
-Water Aid USA is another option.
-Here's UNICEF's list of partners in water and sanitation.

Okay. World Toilet Day is a serious, for real thing. Something that warrants serious, for real thinking. But despite all the seriousness, toilets are still funny, so here's my collection of amusing and interesting intarwebs POOP for World Toilet Day 2011:

Bill Gates gets World Toilet Day.

Sanitation for Occupy protests occupy this "reporter".

POOP War on Christmas.

Twenty five POOPS for FREEDOM!!!

Something for architects to think about.

Remember how SF wanted to name a waste treatment plant after W? Well, teh higher powers involved in toilet related issues decided to screw with his dad instead.

And of course, we are going to close out with a song.

UPDATE: Fixed a link

Debates Are Not His Strong Suit

They really aren't.

I can see how he was confused - there is no US Commerce Agency or US Education Agency. Those are Cabinet level departments. The one entity he isn't going to make gone - teh EPA - that one's an agency (also Cabinet level!). It's what the A stands for.

Also too, eliminating the Department of Commerce kinda bones over the Census Bureau (an agency!). Teh census is constitutionally mandated. Why does Rick Perry hate teh Constitution?

UPDATE! Apparently there's a movie poster!