Welcome 2008!

A toast to the new year, and a thank-you to all who have taken the time to stop by this little blog.

I hope all of you had a relaxing and enjoyable holiday. Mine was certainly so. I have a busy month at work ahead, so blogging will be light. But I will get around to commenting on some of the more tumultuous events that have recently taken place around the world (many of them unspeakably sad).

For now, though, I will simply wish everyone a healthy and prosperous 2008. Cheers!

Happy Holidays

Best wishes to all!

Conservatives Still In Neutral

Ahhh, life in the slow lane.

The Canadian Press
December 19, 2007 at 11:28 AM EST
OTTAWA —
A new poll suggests Stephen Harper's Conservatives have lost their big lead over the Liberals, plunging six percentage points in popular support in just one week. The Canadian Press Harris-Decima survey puts the Tories at 30-per-cent support, in a statistical tie with the Liberals, who are up four points to 32 per cent.
Support for the Tories dropped across all regions and demographic
groups.

The Wingnutosphere will no doubt be atwitter with their requisite responses:

• Poll? What poll? We don't believe in polls.
• It's the CBC!
• It's the Red Star!
• Sound of deafening silence as BTs ignore story altogether.

Take your pick.

TOO GOOD TO PASS UP: Researchers have discovered a giant rat in Indonesia! Originally thought to have been a new species, Stephen Harper today confirmed that it is not.

Perpetual Victims Cry Foul....Again.

For all of their bigotry, ignorance and general blowhardiness, The Blogging Tories have perfected the art of playing the victim card. And you have to feel sorry for the poor little nincompoops. Forever under the boot of the immigrants, the gays, the Muslims, the environmentalists, the peaceniks, and any other group at whom they sneer, they continue to stand on guard against oppressors (real or imagined) in all their forms.
The latest threat...making a return appearance...LIBERAL MEDIA BIAS!!!

Allow me to summarize their complaints: "BOOO HOOOO HOOOO HOOOOOO HOOOOOOOO!!!!!!"

Assclowns, the lot of them.

BONUS STUPIDITY: I don't pretend to compete with Canadian Cynic when it comes to exposing BT dumbassitude, but if you want to read one of the world's dumbest attempts at fisking, check this out. I love the fact that Sandy proudly blogs under the banner "Crux of the Matter" while managing to miss the point of her own post by a country mile.

Mike McGuire: A Sadist with a Heart

"I understand that torture isn't something that's to be all that fond of."

So says Mike McGuire in one of his more feculent "dispatches" from the Socialist Gulag. Good for you Mike, good for you.

Gee, I thought all along that waterboarding doesn't work, that roughing up terrorist scum isn't the way to interogate them because it's counter-productive. Well, it appears the bleeding hearts were wrong...

Well, Mikey, I don't suppose it would do any good to point out that in fact there has never been any evidence that torture is an effective means of eliciting valid information. Or that many people more enlightened than you (and I'm guessing that's a pretty big list) have dismissed it as unreliable. Or that lack of efficacy is not the only thing that "bleeding hearts" have against the practice of physically and psychologically abusing another human being. Seems ethics, a basic sense of human decency...and...oh yeah..the law are hardly the types of things one has time to ponder when shrieking for the heads of one's enemies from the chilly depths of the socialist gulag.

In case you're wondering, Mike is referring to a recent admission that the CIA used waterboarding on an Al Qaeda prisoner, and "broke" him in 35 seconds. What the "dispatch" fails to mention is that the CIA was so proud of their accomplishments in this regard, they decided to destroy the video evidence. And as Wonkette observes:

Um, hey, buddy? If it only takes about 30 seconds of non-torture-y waterboarding to break a senior terrorist dude, then either waterboarding is way more torture-iffic than you really know, or the guy’s such a pussy you probably didn’t need to torture him in the first place to get the information out of him. I’m just sayin’.

But maybe my heart doth bleed too much. Maybe we should torture them all! And since Mike is so convinced that these kind of techniques don't cause "death or long term physical damage", maybe we could start with him! If the CIA strapped a car battery to his genitalia, he'd probably fess up to the JFK assassination. And 5 bucks says he'd do it in less than 35 seconds. Any takers?

Update: Courtesy of Canadian Cynic, turns out that Mike's shining example of waterboarding success is a little less than advertised. The CIA found Zubaydah was "certifiably insane" and knew "nothing about terrorist organizations". No soup for you, Mike!

The Gospel According to KKKate: More Guns!

Just when you think the Blogging Tories couldn't get any dumber, they manage to defy expectations. The latest blast of douchebaggery comes from Small Dead Brains where Kate has managed to seize upon the recent spate of gun violence in American churches.

Normally, after a shooting spree, the conversation between a normal person and a Blogging Tory goes something like this:

Normal Person: This is tragic.

BT: What's tragic is that the Communist Fiberals won't let us defend ourselves by carrying concealed automatic weapons.

Normal Person: Don't you think it's a little dangerous to have everyone walking around with concealed weapons?

BT: Fuck you, leftard.

Normal Person: Umm, that's not really an argument.

BT: Heil Hitler.

Normal Person: What did you say??

BT: HAROOJAHHH

Normal Person: That's not even a word.

After the recent tragic shootings the the YWAM in Arvada and the New Life Church in Colorado Springs (not to mention the mall shooting in Omaha), I was hopeful that usual right-wing cries for further weaponization would be muted by the obvious absurdity of suggesting that ordinary churchgoers should carry concealed weapons and use them to blow away potential attackers in the middle of their congregation. Absurdity be damned, says Kate - arm 'em all!

Referring to a story about Pastor Boyd praising a security guard for shooting the New Life attacker, Kate starts off by complaining:

Here's a detail they may have left out of your morning news. I know they left it out of mine.

Oooooh, those sneaky moonbats at....CNN. Trying to slip that story by you by posting it on their website...how frightfully devious of them! And she ends with this steaming turd of anti-intellectual tripe:

When you legislate gun-free zones, only the mass murderers have guns.

The very thought of Blogging Tories and SDA commenters running around with concealed weapons should make us all profoundly scared. Because when you arm the Blogging Tories, only the idiots have guns.

Worst Courtroom Sketch. Ever.

"Smiling Confident Bonds in Court", proclaims the Toronto Star. Now, I'm no artist, and I don't mean to nitpick, but seriously. I don't like Barry Bonds, and even I feel bad for the guy after seeing the way he was sketched. He looks like some kind of crystal meth inspired Stan Lee nightmare. Or maybe Roadblock from GI Joe (who coincidentally was probably also on steroids).