lotusland - nervous politics from a laid-back city

poppy coin scares spooks

and those breast cancer ribbon quarters from shoppers drug mart contain anthrax.

hat tip to the whiniest bitch ive ever encountered in my life

just about the worst thing ive seen all week

but i still had to lol.  hanging out with this one, i think i need all the anti-hillary i can get.  everyone knows the real ho was bill, anyway.  its just too bad that society cant fully accept whore can be a male designation.  then we could call him petewhore mackay instead of worrying about who belinda has opened up to. 

yeah, thats all youre getting.  ive been dicking around with school and student politics - nothing blogable.  harper and dion bore the crap out of me.  omg, throwing money at soccer moms and quebec, how astute.   im glad so many stay-at-home parents can settle for such a low amount.  i cant believe one interviewee felt this little wad of 'campaign literature'  would enable more women (her specification, not mine) to be stay-at-home parents.   minimum wage, anyone? 

maybe i should pick a fight with the whole internet?  do a meme?  nah.

and i have to thank johnny maudlin for the best comment evar.  ill add you to the sidebar.  i swear.  nothing personal.

wal-mart: your one-stop shop for nazi t-shirts

from bent corner, via the pit of vapid, self-indulgent hell known as livejournal:

I stopped in at Wal-Mart today after I got off work.  I had to pick up a few things.  As I was walking past the men's clothing area, something caught my eye.  I noticed something weird over at a wall of t-shirts. One of the t-shirts had a design on it that looked remarkably like
the freaken totenkopf:

hey, nazis are sooo vintage.

yeah, germans are generally into skulls, and the prussian army and sankt-pauli and probably german pirates wore them, too... but this one looks specifically like that of the 3rd ss division.

aclu pizza

a tad over the top, but something we might want to think about since we sold our census to an american company and put crazy stockwell day in charge of reviving denis coderres ridiculous dream and making us soviet-style internal passports.

trolling is illegal in america; ubc still tardcity

i'm not even shitting you - the world is really full of lolz these days.

if youre interested in the latest "university is about being in a frat" vs "university is about padding your resume and being involved in groups and saving the children" war, click on the "continue reading" below.  the following is an email that was passed around to all the frats during the recent student elections.   it's pretty funny.  it's been my experience that more women get harassed and assaulted by their male peers than by any of the ubc homeless guys, but what would i know about being harassed and assaulted - i'm not even in a sorority.

rhode island uses COBOL for their id system: LOL

Some states' ancient computing systems will have to be overhauled in order to link to other networks. Minnesota runs a 1980s-era mainframe system; Rhode Island says its "circa 1979" COBOL-based network will require a $20 million upgrade.

us government e-passport test run luckily makes the idea look crappy

the americans are into the idea that little chips emitting some kind of radio frequency ought to be inserted into passports.  needless to say, this idea is way too 1984:

The main area of concern has to do with the potential for unauthorized reading or hacking of the RFID data. Although RFID chips are supposed to have a limited readable range of just a few centimeters, tests have been conducted which suggest that the readable distance can be several meters or more under certain conditions, meaning anyone in your vicinity with an RFID reader would be able to scan your data.

apparently, theyre fixing that, but i still have major issues with any id document others could read without even stealing my purse. 

culture of cash, man

Politicians did not speculate on her diagnosis via video tape.  Conservative religious zealots did not picket the hospital.  She didn't have insurance. Ventilator treatment is expensive. Baylor did not want to incur any more expenses. So they removed a conscious woman from a respirator.

basically, she couldnt pay for it, so no circus ensued.  schiavo was a vegetable and this was a conscious woman - culture of life, my ass.  this had nothing to do with life, it had to do with insurance.  taking a principled stance in favour of the texas healthcare system isnt really in the bible, is it.  i guess it's her fault for being from africa, getting cancer, and not being able to pay for it.

tucker carlson is our retarded cousin

"Canada is a sweet country. It is like your retarded cousin you see at Thanksgiving and sort of pat him on the head. You know, he's nice but you don't take him seriously. That's Canada."

he's kind of cute, but he's such a tool the way he tries to slag canada all the time just so someone up here will pay attention to him.  who calls a country a "retarded cousin"?  i mean, really.

tucker carlson needs to be googlewhacked for the phrase "retarded cousin" - i reckon i'm not the only one who finds this amusing.

ann coulter is so awesome!

i found this enlightening quote on her site:

Saddam is on trial. His psychopath sons are dead. We've captured or killed scores of foreign terrorists in Baghdad. Rape rooms and torture chambers are back in R. Kelly's Miami Beach mansion where they belong.

i guess being kind of disturbed by jokes about rape rooms and torture chambers is really pc and uncool of me.  dont get me wrong, i am still totally in favour of glib comments that point out r.kelly's pervness. really, though, you know youre cocky about your invasion when youre all "OH GUYS THERES NO RAPE HERE THAT HAPPENS AT R.KELLYS! LOLZ!!"

i've returned to canada.

that is all.

2kd PAAAARRRRTYYYYY!

lgf and michelle malkin all link to a site with the hot details on the "party" celebrating the 2000th death of an american soldier in iraq.  this is a description of the bumpin, jumpin, bassline thumpin kegger that will be thrown by groups such as afsc, military families speak out, gold star families for peace, and iraq veterans against the war:

"On the day after the 2,000th reported U.S. military death in Iraq, people will gather in communities across the U.S. to say that the country’s pro-peace majority wants Congress  to stop the deaths by stopping the dollars that are funding the war. "

that doesnt sound like some irreverent, morbid death party.  it kind of sounds like protesting a policy. theres another link where you can search for candlelight vigils in your area.  im guessing people probably bring a lot of pot and psychedelic art rock to these vigils because candles are so trippy.  (or maybe they just express grief and pray, much like at every vigil ive been to.)

michelle malkin, get a life.  how you can compare these vigil/protest events to the time the partisan hacks at the daily kos said "screw them" in reference to iraq casualties is absolutely beyond me.  people are going to disagree with you on the issues, and if theyre going to do it with petitions and prayer, why the deuce are you going to bother to pick on them?  go pick on some actual moonbats and let these people exercise their rights.

pre-katrina fema incompetence

if you can put your partisanship behind you, and look at this link about fema's illogical resource allocation, and see that it is backed up by a series of white house press releases... this isnt even about politics - the guy even said that the nonsensical plan didnt seem to favour pro-gop parishes.  it's about pure incompetence.

(the politics come in when you consider *why* fema was gutted.)

bob novak gone wild

While facing off with Democratic strategist James Carville, the 74-year-old Novak responded to one Carville dig with, "Well, I think that's bullshit, and I hate that." He then walked off the "Inside Politics" set

after watching the incident in question and reading the fcc complaint letters, i couldnt decide who sounded more ridiculous.  one of the concerned citizens expressed disbelief that cnn would air something like that while children could be present (kids love the cnn), or "worse yet," her pregnant friend's unborn child.  i dont know what kind of issues that kid would battle through childhood as a result of fetal crazy pundit syndrome.  if prolonged exposure to crude partisan hackery was a confirmed hazard to fetal health, i would have been stillborn or something.

obviously, "novak was drunk" rumours abound, which is funny, cos he was defending katherine harris, who is also rumoured to be a practicioner of the art of drunken cablenewsery, if you believe crooked timber.

i wonder who will be drunk on tv in september - we cant keep laughing at august news forever.

i had to link to the liberal media conspiracy's comintern (mediamatters.org) cos ifilm makes you watch a car ad, and nobody wants that.

tierney shows us the truth is for pussies

hat tippage to crooked timber for this sparkling gem:

Tierney, of the Institute of World Politics, identified five groups: ANSWER, Not in Our Name, Code Pink, United for Peace and Justice, and MoveOn.org. He said these groups "come from the Workers World Party" and are an "umbrella" for smaller groups, such as the "Communist Party of Kansas City" and the "Socialist Revolutionary Movement of the Upper Mississippi." Of the last two, he said, "I'm just making these up."

tierney's institute is an umbrella for the nazi party of milwaukee and the white power association of eastern washington.  yeah, im just making those up, but you know what i mean because im basically pulling stuff out of my ass that reinforces your simplistic worldview of conflating extremist politics with democracy-oriented political activism.

what does he mean by "ours" ... ?

"There's a lot of people in the world who don't believe that people whose skin color may not be the same as ours can be free and self-govern. I reject that. I reject that strongly. I believe that people who practice the Muslim faith can self-govern. I believe that people whose skins aren't necessarily -- are a different color than white can self-govern."
-president bush, 2004 press conference with paul martin

old news, but an interesting question:  does "ours" mean white, or non-iraqi-colour? 

more american arrogance over softwood lumber: highly important u.s. blogger speaks out

ok, so he's not that important, but i want this post to attract people on infosyn and canconv.

this is what he posted, so let's spam him:

New editorial policy: I will delete any comment on this blog containing the words "softwood lumber."

most l33t hax0rz know you can spell it $0|=+|/\|00|} Lu|\/|83|2 anyway.

yahoo!, said lieberman

“Yahoo!” exclaimed Sen. Joe Lieberman, D-Conn. “Submarine base New London lives, and I think that it will live forever.”

who says "yahoo!" outside the calgary stampede?

liberality for all!

arguably, this is the greatest comic series of our times.  here are some choice tidbits from the synopsis:

"America’s future has become an Orwellian nightmare of ultra-liberalism. Beginning with the Gore Presidency, the government has become increasingly dominated by liberal extremists."

"The F.O.I.L. Organization is forced underground by the “Coulter Laws” of 2007; these hate speech legislations have made right-wing talk shows, and conservative-slanted media, illegal. Our weakened government has willingly handed the reigns of our once great country to the corrupt United Nations."

"America’s administration of 2021 (President Chelsea Clinton and Vice President Michael Moore)"

"Only with F.O.I.L.’s help, can 'Liberality For All' once again become 'Liberty For All!;"

last day at work.

this is truly a momentous occasion.  today will be my final day of work (aka work blogging).  from august 1st to the end of the month, i will be blogging from the united states, where i will be visiting the infamous lotusland boyfriend.  i look forward to downloading all kinds of plugins and mp3s and p2p software and useless toolbars onto his laptop just to see his reaction.   

fake purple hearts!

best wonkette post in a while:

"Let's round up the douchetards at last year's GOP convention who distributed the bandaids mocking John Kerry's war wounds (surely tasteless medal parody falls under the law's provisions). "

laura bush: why today's post mentions horse masturbation

michelle malkin on laura bush:  If it were Teresa Heinz Kerry standing up on the dais telling the same [horse masturbation and stripper] jokes, the conservative commentariat would be buzzing for the rest of the year about what a tasteless skank she is.

some, er, fanmail malkin received:  I guess some people would consider your overuse of makeup a vulgar display better left to the worlds oldest profession. Its all relative. Fortunately, most people do not think that a 50 year old farm joke needs to be "cleaned" up. I used to also think it was just liberals and leftists that had a problem with logical comparisons. I stand corrected.

so yeah, malkin, maybe stuff you do is skanky by the puritanical standards you want to uphold.  tee hee.  all this b.s. about the horse joke being "unladylike" is getting to me.  in front of an adult audience, a woman ought to be able to be as raunchy as any man.  women don't need to be constrained by people like malkin prattling on about gender roles.  despite my apparent relativism regarding other spheres of life, i think we've reached a stage where morality isn't really gendered anymore. 

tucker carlson, ann coulter slag canada. what else is new?

the most disturbing part of this charming little anti-canadian montage is that compared to tucker carlson and ann coulter, carolyn parrish looks composed.  tee hee.  the cutest bit is hearing wolf blitzer rush to reassure parrish that carlson's commentary is often tongue-in-cheek. 

ok, yeah, carlson is kidding (presumably) and coulter is so ridiculous im sure her persona is some kind of extended piece of performance art.  am i hyper-sensitive to be somewhat offended by these views of canada?

also, on tucker's views of the brain drain - im not "talented" by any stretch of anyones imagination, but id like to point out to carlson that im only going to the usa so i can get the "big american school" phd in order to get hired at a good *canadian* university.

this post is one of many that resulted from conversations with everyone's favourite massachusetts democrat latte-sipping flip-flopper ivory tower academic. moreover, id like to tell the sasha, "hey, mr. propaganda ... do your own research, and stop getting that left wing garbage and throwing it out there for the folks."

apparently people take ann coulter seriously

this is an old story from the election fallout, but procrastination leads me to browse the entire internet in one sitting.

if theres one thing ill never understand, its how people can accept something this ridiculous as principled, conservative commentary.  remember when lisa gave homer the rock that keeps tigers away on the simpsons to illustrate how the bear patrol wasnt really keeping the bears off the streets of springfield?  even he understood.  coulter either doesnt get it or assumes her readers are dumb enough to buy this crap:

The day after the election, documentary filmmaker and Upper West Side denizen Mitch Wood told The New York Times: "Watching my kids this morning, going down the street, flicking things in the air, jumping around, I wondered, are they going to have that sense of freedom that I had growing up?"

As if on cue, a commercial jetliner piloted by Islamofascist hijackers did NOT crash in front of Wood at this point, killing his entire family instantly, in silent testimony to the national security we currently enjoy under President Bush. Wood gave no indication of noticing this.

i really, sincerely wish id made that up. 

Speaking of gay marriage, as long as liberals are so big on discussing "mandates" and whether Bush has one (they say he does not), I think the one thing we can all agree on is that there is definitely a "mandate" against gay marriage. In fact, a clear majority of us are uncomfortable with the word "mandate" because it sounds like Wayne asking Stephen out for dinner and a movie.

reading crap like this makes me wonder why im even in school.  why am i killing myself studying these heavy tomes of political theory?  why do i force myself to work at my boring computer-arsed job?  i could be making tons of money writing vitriolic nonsense. 

i think its time for me to drop out and become the next ann coulter.

eminem's call to vote againt bush is only the lamest thing ever

theres nothing special about this

it disturbs me that my friends and some of the blogs i read seem to be deriving an undue degree of inspiration from eminem's little foray into participatory democracy.

uh. hi. it's eminem, the guy who decided the best way to take a stand against the orthodoxy of political correctness would be to pepper his rap with hate speech. this is the guy who (curiously) thinks he is undermining and ridiculing mtv culture by giving moby, christina aguilera, fred durst, and carson daly little product placement slots in his lyrics.

why did eminem go political? a very successful artist who has a huge fan base knows a thing or two about keeping up with the trends, and bush-bashing is so hot right now.

there is no substance to this. all eminem wants to do is annoy old people.

(three self-proclaimed wiggas were consulted in the production of this post, and they approved this message)

kerry supported by klingons

there's not much i can add to this. id like to thank sasha, my official sci-fi geek friend, for the link.

The incumbent has staked his campaign on the war on terror. But those who speak the language of the Trek warrior race--known to disdain dishonor, or quvHa'ghach--seem alienated by Iraq and other issues.

According to the poll of eight local Klingons, a whopping 75 percent support the Democratic nominee.

Two Klingons polled--or 25 percent--said they planned to write in Satan.

Bush scored an abysmal zero percent in the poll.

"A good war is based on honor, not deception," says K'tok (Earth name: Clyde Lewis), a 40-year-old Klingon from Lair Hill. "The first warrior, President Bush, deceived us all with this war."

"On the home world, if there had been a contested election between Gore and Bush, the honorable thing would be for Gore to kill Bush," explained Khraanik (Earth name: Jason Lewis), a 38-year-old from Southeast Portland. "Or the other way around. And then ascend to the head of the High Council."

president bush on depression medication?

“President Bush is an untreated alcoholic with paranoid and megalomaniac tendencies,” says capitol hill blue, which claims bush is on depression meds.

since every 2nd ad on american tv is about prescription drugs, who's even surprised.

all canadians are total commies, you know

if theres one thing i can say about "alex" (call him sasha) the detached observer, it's that he is a very intelligent lad who posts coherently on subjects running the gamut from machiavelli to mathematical theorems. he's also rather sexy.

however, in his latest post, he incorrectly decides that "canadians" are going to serve as a leftist counterexample to his criticisms of the right-leaning, nominally liberal writers of the volokh conspiracy.

he says the choi shutdown, the general crackdown on anti-gay rhetoric, and the incident with sunera thobani's 2001 speech are more worthy of criticism than the patriot act. obviously mel hurtig's crusade at vivelecanada.ca to get lockheed out of the census and similar campaigns in bc (remember to mail the privacy commissioner) re: the contracting of pharmacare suggest that all canadians care about is the patriot act. duh, obviously. nobody gives a crap about choi, right? nobody's pissed at the crtc, except for andrew coyne.. right? whatever!

this is just an example of stereotyping: since canadians have universal healthcare and high taxation, we must be one big, fat, 'blue state' hell bent on silencing 'red state' opinion. yeah. the country is a pinko utopia. there is no such thing as ralph klein.

you can read the post here.

as dave chappelle once said, "this racism is killing me"

so i get home from my last english class ever, and i decide i want to read some absolute fluff. naturally, i headed for the cnn to read up on the democratic convention (i love paul wells and all, but he seems to be sitting around and people-watching all day, which makes me ridiculously jealous). an archive story about wee ronnie reagancaught my eye. for some reason, the following paragraph was deemed necessary:

Chair Bill Richardson, the New Mexico governor and a Hispanic man, will be joined by vice chairs Jeanne Shaheen, a former New Hampshire governor and white woman, and Juanita Millender-McDonald, a California representative and black woman, at a presser in DC.

(emphasis all mine, baby, yeah).

i'm really glad i know the ethnicity of everyone involved, aren't you? i'm trying to come up with something even vaguely amusing (i'm not even aiming for witty), but thinking eludes me cos i'm just so bloody miffed by the little racial asides. look, america, the dems won the mainstream political correctness trifecta with a white-latino-black starting lineup!

television! teacher, mother ... secret lover.

some would argue i'm utterly unsuited to writing a post on television considering i only watch 1-3 hours per week, counting vhs episodes of trailer park boys. i don't think you need to have a sofa with a permanent imprint of your arse to comment on the crtc thing.

pogge has done a brilliant job of dispelling all the stupid fox news vs al jazeera business. i'd like to remind anyone who is still confused that the war is carried out by soldiers in the middle east, not by television stations and regulatory agencies on this continent.

this wall street journal editorial is cute. i've plucked a few gems for your appraisal:

When it comes to Canadian identity, Fox News Channel is apparently a threat. Al-Jazeera, on the other hand, is just another point of view enriching Canadian culture.

A few years back the CRTC told Fox it could enter Canada, as long as its 24-hour programming had 35% Canadian content. That may have implied a little too much televised gopher hunting on Baffin Island, so Fox stayed home.

The darkest interpretation of all of this is that Canada's liberal political elites find al-Jazeera's view of the world more compatible than Fox's. The Arab network is always putting the worst face on U.S. policies, while Fox doesn't mind suggesting that it is rooting for America to win when it goes to war.

yes - not extending rights to fox news really highlights how much canadians loooove al-jazeera. i don't think canada is as much of a posterchild for media censorship as the usa is, from tipper gore's crusade to eliminate profane lyrics to the repressive fallout of the janet jackson wardrobe malfunction. we have a few channels and papers that root for america to win when it goes to war - some are even american. there are people making noise about a liberal bias here, but last i checked it wasn't that different in the states. in fact, i hear this kind of thing has been popular since edmund burke explored the deficiencies of the "literary cabal" while reflecting on the revolution in france. for every disparaging comment made about the usa by a canadian politician, there is a scott brison, a pierre pettigrew, a stephen harper who will step up and convincingly commend america. forgetting figureheads, both in the legislatures and the media, of the people who bothered to vote, lots voted conservative.

i think the bigger question is why isn't fox news bothering to learn these things about canada so they can capitalize on them? could you imagine deb gray's candour being put to use on a fox news canada talk panel? she wouldn't be lonely either - there *are* conservatives in the country, they're just not the governing party.

the crtc has instances of meddling and favouritism - the snub of rai internazionale in favour of telelatino comes to mind. for all one could say about the crtc (mr coyne's contribution is another favourite), the wall street journal comments constitute an uninformed rant. that's about all.

speaking of 1-3 hour habits, that's how long i've been sleeping each day this week - it's paper season. for my english class, i wanted to do something exploring a possible dichotomy between machiavelli's body of work and the adjective 'machiavellian' given it is largely based on the prince and only certain aspects of it, anyway. shut up - it's not a theory paper, it's to satisfy an english requirement i never met having transfered from a french university. i'm currently attempting to cobble together something that proceeds from diIulio's famous 'mayberry machiavelli' comment thanks to the godsend i call sasha who is so very generous and patient while i'm freaking out. has w's administration been acting all machiavellian? i'd be glad to hear from people who have read machiavelli and those who just know the definition of the word.

americans are fun.

sign this petition and maybe one or two americans will read it and get rid of dubya? says the site, Join a growing group of Canadians that want to prevent the re-election of George W. Bush this November 2nd.

Our mission is simple: to provide a forum for Canadians to show their support for the election of a new United States government.

Show your southern neighbours how you feel! Canadians stand united against the re-election of George Bush. Make a difference - have your voice be heard!

hmm.

tonight, i will share a message sent to me by chicago dave, one of my american friends:

dave: do me a favor and be careful, eh? http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/story/CTVNews/1089149899663_63/?hub=TopStories

i appreciate his concern, but if im not mistaken, his chicago address makes him more geographically vulnerable to risky individuals fleeing brampton.

now, on to other things. it was nice to get back to class after a weekend in the interior with the family that left me really distraught. seeing all these people my age who were married with children made me feel old. sitting in a virginia woolf lecture eating cherries while thinking "gee, my prof is cute" as i scribbled notes into a pink notebook made me feel comfortably young again. moreover, i ended up getting a thoroughly unexpected good mark on an essay i was confident i failed, given that it was essentially another indulgent rant. i'm a bit confused by the comments the prof left me:

bunch of compliments, blah blah blah, i could say something along the lines of "you need to include more of your own voice or pov," but i'd feel silly doing so

like i said, this essay was such a rant. i don't know how i'd put more of my own voice or point of view into it. the conclusion was "orwell and freire operate on the same underlying principle with regard to the dissemination of knowledge. reducing language to a rudimentary tool to explore complex ideas from many approaches is superior to fashioning complex ideas into rudimentary tools which can only be employed in previously established ways." now, if that isn't me talking out of my arse, i don't know what is. oh well.