What would be a good name for this picture? “The Un-Hidden Agenda”?
(I don’t know what sick, twisted fucker is responsible for the actual painting or if he’s currently residing in one of Harper’s CONcentration Camps, but the photo came from Roman Swietiik on Twitter, via Cheddar)
When the PM offered a state funeral for Jack Layton, I suspect most were mildly surprised since the protocol dictates that state funerals are reserved for Prime Ministers, Governor-Generals and Cabinet Ministers. Nobody else, Opposition Leaders included, makes the cut… unless the Prime Minister says they do. But under the circumstances a state funeral just seemed like the right thing to do, and Harper rose to the occasion, in my view, admirably. And according to this Angus Reid poll, most Canadians across the political board agreed with his decision.
Enter the Partisan Knobs, in all their brainless, furious, spittle-flecked glory. (You all know what a Partisan Knob is, right?)
Shortly after the state funeral was announced it became the focus of feverish discussion by Partisan Knobs on both sides of the aisle. 
Some on the right argued peevishly that Layton hadn’t “earned” it, something I seriously can’t imagine them saying about a Conservative opposition leader extended the same courtesy, but oh well.
Meanwhile, over on the port side of the Good Ship Blogosp
here, those in the throes of a particularly virulent strain of the brain-rotting contagion known as “Harper Derangement Syndrome” still speculate darkly about Harper’s Real Motive — the “Hidden State Funeral Agenda”. Because obviously there had to be some odious ulterior motive: Harper surely couldn’t have done it because he’s a human being capable of sharing a sense of loss with his fellow Canadians and occasionally, having the class to Do The Right Thing. Nope. The prevailing consensus among the HDS-afflicted is that Harper offered the state funeral under duress — it was either State Funeral or Angry Backlash, take your pick, Harpie… even though nobody expected a state funeral until Harper offered it. Huh? Such is the absurd conspiratorial logic of the Partisan Knob in full frenzied flower.
I’m no fan of Harper’s, but I do believe he offered the state funeral simply because it was the right thing to do. Even a blind squirrel finds an acorn once in awhile, and if it’s also a good political move in that it softens the edges of his cold, geeky image, so what? After all, it’s possible to disagree with someone without envisioning them as some grotesque and depraved hybrid of Hitler, Darth Vader and the heartless Tin Man (and it’s been my experience that those who insist on doing this, whatever their political bias, are usually covering for weak arguments).
When Jack Layton wrote about love being better than anger, there was no asterisk beside it with a footnote adding “*Except when it comes to Conservatives”. Something to think about, maybe.
According to an Angus Reid poll, a majority of Canadians agree with Jack Layton being accorded a State Funeral, and remember him with fondness:
A majority of Canadians (55%) think Layton showed that politicians can have the common touch, and almost half (48%) think he will be lauded for his ability to engage with young Canadians. [...]
Four-in-five Canadians (81%) think holding a state funeral for Layton is justified, including a majority of respondents in every region. At least seven-in-ten Canadians who voted for parties other than the NDP in the last federal election believe Layton deserves this honour.
The 81% who agreed with the State Funeral is an interesting number because it surely includes many conservatives, maybe the majority of them. So take that, Barbara Kay and Christie Blatchford. You’re a warped bitter and twisted minority even among your own ilk, and maybe even at your own place of employment.
Agree with him ideologically or not, Jack Layton was clearly no ordinary politician, and the week following his passing has been no ordinary week. The widespread emotional outpouring in response to his death has been, dare I say it? Unprecedented? I certainly can’t recall anything quite like it.
Of all the memorials to Jack Layton, planned or improvised, to me the most touching is the now-famous chalk memorial in Nathan Phillips Square in Toronto:
Not just because it was such a spontaneously creative outpouring of grief, respect and even love for the guy. But because one night the sky cried it all away, and then within 24 hours:
… tenacious Torontonians had stubbornly brought it back. It was an act in such synchronicity with Layton’s determinedly optimistic spirit, I found it really moving.
I wonder if what we saw this past week says something about what we really want.
It’s called “Let’s Make Lefty Heads Explode”. Here’s how it goes:
A popular left-wing political leader passes away. The shock and sadness at this cruel turn of events transcends ideology as most everyone expresses their sorrow during the very human moment of shared loss and mutual comforting that ensues. We all hug, ever so briefly.
Then the first shitball is fired across the plate, lobbed by a bitter and twisted conservative columnist. She tastelessly chooses the day the lefty leader dies to publicly slag the somewhat political but heartfelt and inspiring deathbed missive he left behind. The outraged response of the left erupts like rancid lava and pours over the Blogosphere and across the Twitterverse and through the social media. Anger spirals into furious purple rage and lefty heads start exploding as righties look on with startled delight.
And think: “Hmm… that was more fun than pulling the wings off a fly!”
“Hells yeah! Let’s do it again!”
So a few more join in with their own cheap little shows of ignorance calculated to provoke and infuriate, which predictably work exactly according to plan. And pretty soon it isn’t about the departed lefty political leader anymore, it’s about right-wingers enjoying the weird Pavlovian response they’re getting to just about anything they say that’s even tangentially related to him. In some corners of the political spectrum, the sight of snarling lefties running around with their hair on fire in full foam-at-mouth mode makes for fine entertainment on a dull day, or any day for that matter. So they bring in a few more players, escalate, up the ante, turn up the volume, get a zamboni to plow back the shattered bits of skull and brain between games, and play another round.
Yes, it’s a game, Charlie Brown. And as usual, Lucy’s winning.
Illegitimi non carborundum, peeps!
The “Great Orange Wave” that made such profound changes to the Canadian political landscape last May apparently didn’t recede permanently into the electoral ocean. Since Jack Layton’s passing on Monday, everything’s been coming up
orange!
And then there was the CN Tower. Now it’s Niagara Falls:
Niagara Falls will join the CN Tower in going orange in honour of Jack Layton.
Tony Baldinelli of the Niagara Parks Commission says they received phone calls and emails requesting the falls be turned orange for Layton, who died Monday of cancer.
There were also requests on Facebook.
Baldinelli says the request was approved by the Niagara Falls Illumination Board.
The falls will be illuminated in orange at various times on Saturday night.
Holy Great, no, MASSIVE Orange Wave, Batman!
Jack would get a kick out of it: not so much because these things are being done out of respect for his memory, but because he would have appreciated the quirky creativity and enthusiasm and sense of fun that memorializing him has inspired in the many Canadians who admired and respected and even loved him. These were, after all, some of the qualities that characterized Layton himself. Even those who were ideologically opposed to him recognized that, which is why the outpouring of grief over his death seemed to transcend politics.
A few wet towels will probably gripe that it’s over-the-top, tacky, tooooo too much. An orange Niagara Falls!? AIIIEEEE!!! Let the red-faced, pearl-clutching, hair-pulling outrage begin!
But so what? It’s fun. The only thing more fun would be if Christie Blatchford had booked a weekend vacay to get away from the sea of hate mail she says she’s drowning in, destination: oh, somewhere close, you know… like Niagara Falls.
Human nature can be pretty perverse, and one of the more twisted aspects of it is that we can’t resist turning over the occasional rock, hoping to be stunned and grossed out and aggrieved by what’s crawling in the slime beneath. This truism is amplified in the Internet Age, when we run around lifting rocks at top speed for the express purpose of finding something to make us shriek and sweat and pound our keyboards red-faced in righteous fury, describing to all and sundry the scum-ridden underside of whatever rock was upended. But on a day when Canada mourned the loss of a political leader of integrity and optimism, I was hoping we wouldn’t bother looking; or if we couldn’t resist looking, that there wouldn’t be much to find under the rocks and we’d have the class to ignore what little there was.
Sure, I looked too: I’m only human. But what I observed was surprising and heartening. The prevailing sentiment around the conservative blogosphere yesterday was the same stunned sadness we felt on this side of the spectrum. When I checked the Blogging Tories aggregator (I told you, I’m only human), of the 18 Layton-related posts on the front page, all but one was civil and respectful. Some suggest that it’s rank hypocrisy coming from people who vilified the man in life, and in a way I guess that’s true. But death by cancer transcends ideology: like a terrorist attack, it plays no favourites, and when we witness it we instinctively give a primordial shudder and pull closer together. So I’m willing to believe the sentiments were sincere, if momentary.
For sure there were a few reptile-brained scum who couldn’t resist the urge to joke and smear and poke with sharp sticks. But it was a relatively small minority unworthy of attention on such a day and I wasn’t sure why anyone would choose to lavish it on them. It’s not like they were representative of the whole, or even the majority, of the so-called “Right”. Maybe I’m as optimistic as Jack was, but the vast majority of what I read yesterday confirmed to me that it’s possible to vigorously disagree with someone’s political ideology while recognizing their dedication to making Canada a better place. And that notion, while it may not be as entertaining as the spittle-flecked ravings of a few classless jerks, is far more deserving of attention.
(Having said all that, I haven’t looked around much today but I wouldn’t be surprised if the discourse had already started sliding back into its former slime pit of venom and vitriol, much of it directed against Jack Layton himself, thus completing the Official Period of Civility.)
The NDP loses a beloved leader who took his party to new heights, the “Little Guy” loses a tenacious and constant defender, and Canada loses a politician of extremely rare integrity:
Jack Layton, who earlier this year led his party to an unexpected victory over the Liberals to become the official opposition party for the first time in its 50-year history, died Monday after a battle with cancer. He was 61.
You can express your condolences at the NDP website.
UPDATE: Written 2 days ago, Jack Layton’s last letter to Canadians.
Whoa, garbage truck driver:
What’s amazing isn’t that the driver crashed it through the windows/walls/whatever: what’s truly amazing, and pretty good driving in my books, is that he managed to stop it at just the right time to get it to hang like that.
It happened in New York City, the driver was injured but — FDNY to the rescue! — is doing okay.
Next time anyone criticizes my driving, I’ll direct them to this picture and say “Hey, I’ve never done that. YET!!”
As I said in that other post, I’m pretty sure that all but Sarah Palin’s most panting and delusional fans understand that she has no intention of running for president. Some of them may even understand the purpose of the coy allusions she occasionally makes to getting in the race: it raises her value as a Political Celebrity. Nothing else to see here, move along.
On last night’s Rachel Maddow show, there was a clip of Todd Palin having a back-and-forth with an Alaskan who accuses Palin of “selling out” — which is precisely true, and the Toddster pretty much confirms it. “We had all these bills to pay! What would you do??”
In another post, commenter Terrence links to a demented little screechfes
t from semi-lucid bigotblogger Pamela Geller. For the fortunately uninitiated, Geller is one of those turds who’s achieved minor notoriety in the fetid corner of Internetland labeled “POLITICAL BLOGGERS” with a routine that she’s been flogging like a pack mule for years: The Voice in the Wilderness Sounding The Alarm About Creeping Sharia. No surprise then to see her making the case that Rick Perry, GOP presidential primary contender and would-be Fed Chairman shitkicker, is actually a “stealth jihadi”. Why not? She probably feels the same way about 93% of the population. (When all you’ve got is a hammer, everything looks like… JIHAD!)
Geller’s agenda became a little more clear when she pivoted from her dire revelations about Perry to relate something else she read in the pile of entrails she was fondling: Americans will soon be “panting” for a President Sarah Palin. (“Panting”, no less.)
To be sure, some Americans have never stopped Panting for Palin (or Pulling for Palin, or Playing Pocket Pinball for Palin), but they’re fast becoming an 
endangered species. Sadly, it’s not that they’ve finally realized they were being played all this time: it’s just that the Next Generation of Dumb has taken over.
Just look at the motley crew that makes up the GOP’s presidential field, if you dare. The aforementioned obnoxious cretin Perry. The beady-eyed homophobe Santorum (anxious to prove that he’s more than just a pretty frothy mixture of lube and fecal matter). Fundamentalist Psycho Michele Bachmann, and her Completely Heterosexual husband. Mitt Romney, Dog Torturer, who’s too close to normal to do well in this particular political environment.
Those among the Incredible Shrinking Political Entity known as “Sane Republicans” stand aside with eyes widening in horror as they watch history inexorably repeating itself. Writing in The Week yesterday, former Bus
h speechwriter David Frum (now considered a flaming, flaccid, limp-wristed, latte-sucking liberal by many in the atavistic fever swamps of tea party politics) appealed to the GOP to smarten up and learn something from the Palin Experience. With palpable relief, he predicted that not only will Palin be a non-entity in the next election whether she enters the primary or not, but she will soon fade into “hard-earned obscurity”. Predictably, comments with the article castigated Frum for “misogyny” — something these people were completely unaware of before Palin was added to the ticket in 2008. And as Frum points out:
What Ziegler said out loud, millions of American women discerned for themselves: Here was a woman candidate chosen by men who do not respect women.
But Frum’s the misogynist. Spot the irony!
Palin’s future is anyone’s guess. She’s been milking the upcoming election for all it’s worth, making coy allusions about entering the race to re-ignite interest in her. But if she was serious the rubber should have hit the road awhile ago, and all but her most deranged fans know that.
I doubt Palin will fade away as Frum would like. After all, she’s still intriguing enough that people continue talking about her, even if it’s just as an example of what’s wrong with US politics. And hey, there’s another presidential election in 2016.
Rebel Rebel: great Bowie song? Or THE GREATEST Bowie song?
But then… Cracked Actor… Suffragette City… Aladin Sane… Diamond Dogs… Ziggy Stardust… Jean Genie… The Man Who Sold The World… etc. etc. et-freaking-cetera.
David Bowie: Great rock musician? Or THE GREATEST rock musician?
The feverish madness of USian politics continues apace, entertaining as usual.
If you thought the GOP couldn’t possibly come up with a goofier presidential candidate than CrazyEyes, you’d be wrong. This past weekend their collective delirium spiraled even further out of control when Texas Governor Rick “Goodhair” Perry threw his 10-gallon hat in the ring, raising the Batshit Index to a level usually confined to the dank subterranean homes of small winged rodents. Perry is a guy who happily cavorts with fundamentalist whackjobs whose madness is so vile and virulent that other Republican candidates have been forced to reject their endorsements.
Governor Goodhair joins the race
A late entry to the race, Perry clearly felt there was no time to fuck around so he got right to the point. Which was? The Point was to establish Perry’s own snout as the most rightward of all the right-wing noses pressed against America’s tea-and-snot-smeared Overton Window. In an effort to authenticate his teabagger cred, Perry immediately launched into a deranged attack on one of the Tea Party’s favourite targets, George W Bush-appointed Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke:
“If this guy prints more money between now and the election, I dunno what y’all would do to him in Iowa but we would treat him pretty ugly down in Texas. Printing more money to play politics at this particular time in American history is almost treasonous – or treasonous in my opinion,” said Perry.
“Treat him pretty ugly”. Hm. Perry didn’t specify what kind of rude ugliness might await Bernanke in the Lone Star state, but if we use History as our guide, it’s not hard to imagine. Yee-haw. Welcome to Texas.
Perry claims to despise the Fed and the printing presses they run at top speed whenever the constipated American economy needs a laxative to help it crap out a few more burger-flipper jobs. While this supposedly bothers Perry, oddly enough, it doesn’t seem to faze that snakepit of frenzied avarice known as “the Stock Market” — in fact, the stock market seems to like the idea of the economy getting an infusion of increasingly-worthless currency. During a Q&A with Congress in July, Bernanke vaguely alluded to the possibility that the “treasonous” money machines might be fired up again if the economy continued on its current trajectory. A previously lacklustre stock market responded to Bernanke’s remarks with a euphoric rebound that spiraled all the way to the closing bell...
Dow, July 12-14
…and then tumbled the next day when he walked his remarks back. One wonders: Why does Rick Perry hate Capitalism?
I keed, I keed. But it’s not all rainbows and teabags and hillbilly heroin psychosis and Getting Ugly with Ben. Perry’s been taking some understandable flack for his remarks, even from other Republicans. But he’s dug in his heels and stands by his weird little rant, which pretty much makes him Not Ready For Prime Time. Establishment Republicans must be downing aspirin by the gross at the appearance of yet another of their candidates that has to be Stopped. There’s already a campaign underway to “Stop Bachmann!” — will they have enough gas left in the tank to “Stop Perry!” too?
And then there’s this potential skeleton pounding on the closet door, courtesy of Google:
Gee, I told myself that if I started blogging again I wouldn’t pay so much attention to USian politics — after all, it’s been a while since I’ve seen a post about Stephen Harper on Daily Kos. (“A while” as in “never”.) But the way things are going, I don’t know if it’ll be possible…
…that much was clear long before his rancid race-baiting rant about the Tottenham riots, projectile-vomited at anyone who happened to be dozing, bored to tears, in front of a TV tuned to Brian Lilley’s show on Sun News last week. Stand back! Incoming!
Hoho. Black-berries, Black-thuggies. Cute.
Many found Coren’s stinky little diatribe offensive in the extreme, and I guess it was. But given that most of the riot footage shows a predominantly white crowd, I mostly thought it was kind of goofy: maybe a sign of some early-onset brain-rot brought on by terminal Doctrinaire Catholicism and excessive furious masturbation. This is, after all, Coren’s shtick as a “Media Personality”: the Lonely Voice In The Wilderness Speaking Truth to Politically-Correct Power, especially regarding “race issues”. When all you’ve got is a hammer, everything looks like a… black guy!! No commentary from Coren on this particular topic could possibly end well.
But should he be silenced? No. I’d rather know such people are around, and what they’re saying, than have them slither underground to indulge their paranoid fantasies away from the harsh light of day that exposes them for the scum they are. Besides, it’s only a matter of time until Sun TV finds out that most advertisers don’t want their brands associated with Coren-style race-rants, and that will be the end of that.
h/t: Dr.Dawg
Potential next President of the USA:
CrazyEyes, come on down!
Yes. It’s true. And amidst the squirming-like-a-toad insanity that’s been holding the collective USian brain in its grip lately, it could happen… a lot more easily than we probably think.
Saner people are already making a mad dash for the exits, raising the Batshit Index of the GOP’s 2012 presidential field a few more points. Before this is all over, Charles Manson will announce his candidacy. Why not? He’s got the eyes for it.
Hey Harpie, here’s a Job Creation Program for you: let’s get that Zombie Wall along the 49th built before 2012.
It’s not a truck, it’s a series of tubes. Very fragile glass tubes, and sometimes they break.
In the course of doing the so-called “upgrade” they’ve been bragging about for the last 2 months on TV commercials and in the junk mail that relentlessly jams up my postbox, my cable company broke the internets. I at least have a connection (for now), but wow: to describe it as “slow” would be a classic understatement. It’s like being on dialup again, without the little beepbeepbeep and static sound effects.
My connection speed has been slowly grinding to a penultimate halt for awhile now. I suspect this is by design, a little “reminder” to any recalcitrant laggards still on “High Speed” that they might want to think about an upgrade to the new “High-Speed On Steroids”. Maybe the broken internet was the virtual Horse’s Head in the bed: Nice connectivity you got there — be a shame if anything were to happen to it.
Johnny Fontane, pick up the courtesy phone! You’re hired!
In other news, last week I came across a trailer for the movie “Red State” that opens in September. It appears to be a Tarantino-esque romp based on some cult like the Westboro Baptist nuts, or maybe killer teabaggers on crack… I can’t be sure. I post, you decide:
The horror, the horror.
…because they piss their own bed and gleefully wallow around in it.
So who’s to blame for the US government’s credit rating being downgraded by S&P for the first time in history?
Who else? 
Yes, the Teapublicans: the same bozos who were ready to go all Thelma and Louise with the economy bound and gagged in the trunk of the T-Bird just to prove some kind of moronic point are being specifically called out by S&P as one of the reasons for the downgrade. No, really?? I would have thought 6 weeks of arguing over whether to let the economy implode and pushing closer and closer to the midnight hour would have instilled Maximum Confidence in credit rating agencies. But I would be wrong!:
According to the initial report, S&P sees the GOP’s intransigence on taxes as a reason to suspect the country will not be likely to reduce deficits in the years ahead, and Republicans are already trying to get out from under the blame.
Nice work, baggers! (Or on Twitter, #heckuvajobteaparty)
Speaking of Twitter, I couldn’t help checking out #tcot to see what Twitter’s Top Conservatives are saying about the downgrade; predictably, they are absolutely giddy with joy. They consider this a “WIN”. And up is down, war is peace, you know the drill.
UPDATE: Here’s a frighteningly prescient post, written almost a year ago, from Mike Brock at The Volunteer.
After nine ominous down days on the stock market, yesterday investors were treated to a 500-point fiscal bungy jump with a worn-out cord that took them on a wild ride to the bottom, slackened and instead of springing back up, whipsawed sickeningly for the next 36 hours. Meanwhile, the investing public had already collapsed into the various stages of Grief: 
Those who weren’t busy grieving and puking ran for the exits… others were caught in the shitstorm:
To add to this week’s rancid, maggot-infested stock market stew, today the business media has been absolutely spastic with frenzied and feverish rumours that the US government is “bracing itself” for an imminent credit downgrade by S&P. The government claims the whole thing is based on a miscalculation — in the trillions. Just a rounding error.
Look out below!
UPDATE: History — US credit rating downgraded to “AA-Plus”. (Plus what?)
UPPERDATE: Krugman says S&P just making stuff up. It’s true, none of these rating agencies should have much credibility after 2008, when they gave great ratings to the banksters’ toxic crap assets and set off the financial meltdown.
(h/t for video: Cathie from Canada)
Watching one of his brain-damaged, spittle-flecked rants, I’ve sometimes wondered what a regressive, racist old paleocon whackadoo like Pat Buchanan (or if you like, Pat BucKKKanan) is doing as a “political analyst” on a generally liberal-leaning media outlet like MSNBC. But as someone who’s never been afraid of expressing or being challenged by contrarian viewpoints, I assumed he was there for the entertainment value beer.
Today on Hardball, hosted by the Rev. Al Sharpton, Pat demonstrated yet again the uniquely retrograde state of his frontal lobe as they discussed the winners and losers of the debt ceiling debate:
“Boy”? “Whipped”? Also loved the “briar patch” reference. Yep, stay classy there Pat!
UPDATE: Angry Twitterverse is angry, calls for Buchanan’s dessicated, non-sentient head.
…but today’s National Post carries a headline that made me do a doubletake to find out if it was about a real story or just an analogy for the Great Out-of-Control Debt Ceiling Debate that’s been dragging on in the States lately. Know what I mean?
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