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October 09 Cult of PersonalityOK class, who can tell me what "apotheosis" means?
It's a theological tearm meaning "The exaltation and elevation of an individual to godlike status". Anyone who's ever picked up a history book or a modern newspaper will immediately recognize where we've seen it before. The greatest modern example would be "Dear Leader" Kim Jong-Il of North Korea; all state-controlled media portrays Kim as some kind of a god: A conduit through which all of the citizens' hopes and dreams of the future can be personified. It even goes so far as to remake the education system in that country, with a significant portion of the curriculum devoted to teaching the children how Kim's father, Kim Il-Sung created the world.
Of course, there are other examples. Another noteable modern example was Adolph Hitler. While Hitler did not specifically pose as a diety, his handlers and propagandists did go to great lengths to make him appear as "Der Führer", using levels of media saavy unheard of in the 1930's, to portray him in a "Christ-like" manner.
Fast forward to today's announcement of the 2009 recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize: 
Now, setting aside for a moment the blatantly political and decidedly anti-peace nature of the Nobel Peace Prize for a moment (Henry Kissinger? Seriously?), not to mention Obama's personal track record (I know nobody in the mainstream media has mentioned it lately, but the Iraq war is still going on), we have a serious problem on our hands. This is another blatant apotheosis.
Everywhere this man shows up, he is surrounded by throngs of adoring...there's no other word for it...he's surrounded by throngs of worshipers. School children are being taught to sing his praises in school and in some cases, swear allegience to him! His rallies are filled with videography stolen directly from "Triumph of Will", complete with classic from below "god shots" and messianic symbolism. Listen to what Professor Robert Wistrich had to say about the film:
"[Triumph of the Will is] the supreme visualisation in cinematic form of the Nazi political religion. Its artistry, reinforced by the grandeur and power of the Nuremberg decor, is designed to sweep us into empathetic identification with Hitler as a kind of human deity. The massive spectacle of regimentation, unity and loyalty to the Führer powerfully conveys the message that the Nazi movement was the living symbol of the reborn German nation."
And here's what American film critic Frank Tomasulo (you may not know the name, but he's basically the Babe Ruth of film critics) said about the film:
"Religion is a major theme in Triumph. The film opens with a Point Of View coming godlike out of the skies to alight on twin cathedral spires. It contains many scenes of church bells ringing, and individuals in a state of near-religious fervor, as well as a prominent shot of Reich Bishop Ludwig Müller standing in his vestments among high-ranking Nazis. It is probably not a coincidence that the final parade of the film was held in front of the Nuremberg Frauenkirche. In his final speech in the film, Hitler also directly compares the Nazi party to a holy order, and the consecration of new party flags by having Hitler touch them to the 'blood banner' has obvious religious overtones. Hitler himself is portrayed in a messianic manner, from the opening where he descends from the clouds in a plane, to his drive through Nuremberg where even a cat stops what it is doing to watch him, to the many scenes where the camera films from below and looks up at him, as Hitler— standing on his podium — will issue a command to hundreds of thousands of followers. The audience happily complies in unison. Hitler is cast as a veritable German Messiah who will save the nation, if only the citizenry will put its destiny in his hands."
Sound familiar? I've been hesitant to draw this comparison in the past because of the blatantly inflammatory nature of such a comparison, but how can I not do so now?
And now he's a Nobel Peace Prize recipient. I'm forced to wonder how long it will be before he's nominated for sainthood.
Someone recently put forward the idea of retasking Obama's trademark "O" thusly:
 But frankly, there's nothing funny about it. September 25 There is a Santa Claus!Yes, it's true.
At 10:00 this morning, the Mayor of Toronto, David Miller, announced he would not be seeking reelection in 2010. There's only one thing I can say:
Don't let the door hit you in the ass on the way out.
I said his obsequious bootlicking at the feet of the garbage union would cost him politically, and I was right. The only thing missing from his announcement was the banjo getaway music and the pickup trucks carrying the angry mob behind him.
Of course, his successor has quite a mess to clean up:
The list just doesn't end. I don't know who will succeed him, but I do know one thing: Whomever blackmailed him into walking away for "personal reasons" is owed a debt of gratitude from the citizens of Toronto. September 14 Look At These Green Shoots!You can tell the global economy is on the way back from the brink of disaster. Everywhere you look, the "government indicators" say so.
So then how do they explain the thousands of empty cargo ships, some half a kilometre long, anchored near Singapore in what is now the largest ghost fleet ever assembled?
They don't.
The truth is, over 12% of the world's shipping capacity is now sitting idle in massive floating mothball yards like this one, and that number can only rise as the shipyards are still processing new vessel orders from 3 years ago. You want a real economic indicator? Shipping rates have fallen as much as 90%, and the world's shipping companies are set to fall upon eachother like the bankers have been for the last year.
But unlike banking, infrastructure companies are slow to recover. The collapse in global shipping will drive companies out of business, and it could take years for that capacity to return to the market. Long after the economy is ready to resume previous levels (If you are one of the brain-damaged idiots who still think that's possible), the shipping companies will be trapped behind this bottleneck of 3-year turnarounds on build orders and laid up fleets that have rusted out.
But it goes even deeper than that. Some countries (particularly, South Korea) have spent the last decade positioning themselves as banana republics for the shipping industry. South Korea alone now produces 40% of all new cargo ships. But things are different now. Nobody is ordering new ships, and many of the companies are attempting to renegotiate (as is the case with A.P. Møller - Mærsk ), or outright renegging on their contracts (As is the case with Iran) These countries have transformed their economies to fill the glut in shipping demand created by those zany 90's, and now their entire economies will collapse. A lot of very wealthy South Koreans are about to become very, very poor.
It makes one wonder if President Dae-Jung's death last month was really caused by "multiple organ dysfunction syndrome" as the media states, doesn't it? September 11 And The Hits Just Keep On Coming!Imagine for a moment that you have somehow navigated Wall Street's murder of the global economy with your life insurance policy intact - a lot of people haven't, so it's a good exercise. So let's say you're sitting on a nice $1 million whole life policy. You might not have a roof over your head, but at least your family is taken care of if you should die.
Until you get sick.
But have no fear! Along comes Wall Street again, riding to your rescue. They offer you $400,000 for your policy - on the condition that when you die, they get to cash in. In fact, the faster you die, the more money they make.
If this ghoulish scenario sounds too vile to be true, then you have really underestimated those Wall Street bankers. Because that's exactly what they are doing. I kid you not, They have stolen everything else, and now they want to profit from your deaths. In fact, the only real threat to their nefarious plan is health care reform.
Read the article. If you can read the entire thing without vomiting, you will be outraged. August 18 And While the Serfs are Starving...So while people here in the "rich" west are losing their homes by the tens of thousands, one Saudi businessman has found a way to beat those recession blues.
That's right, suckers. Now that the great wealth transfer is complete and you've been relegated to the status of a third-world banana republic, the world's wealthy are spending what would have been a year's worth of your salary on solid gold penis pumps and laughing at you.
Do you feel stupid yet? August 13 What's This Tell You?So I've been monitoring this whole "health care" debate with less than moderate interest. You see, I've been called a cynic on...several occasions. Whether it's some sprawling government beaurocracy or mammoth insurance companies, I believe it's the patients who are going to get screwed. But I can say one thing for certain: What you guys have south of the border does not work.
I discovered this article today, and I couldn't decide whether to laugh or cry. Here's an excerpt:
"With Washington bickering over how to reform the system and contain its spiraling costs, many Americans like Ritz simply head to Mexico to get care they can afford. The total number making the trip is unclear. But a recent study by the UCLA Center for Health Policy Research estimated that nearly 1 million people from California alone seek medical, dental or prescription services in Mexico each year. Some making the trek have little or no medical coverage. Others like Ritz are on fixed incomes and want to avoid so-called co-pays and deductibles charged by U.S. insurers on top of policies that routinely cost from a few hundred dollars to a few thousand each month." I just don't know what to say about that. Going to Mexico for health care? Really? Mexico? Of course, I can't help but think if you guys could muster up some courage and buy some of your health care moguls tickets on my favorite bus, you might be able to get a private system that works. But of course, decades of festering in public education institutions that are only fit for turning out mindless, obedient consumer drones has completely neutered you. August 12 I found something useful on Fox!Actually, I don't watch much T.V. any more. The truth is, I found this on Youtube:
I'm ordering one right now. And in other firearm news, it seems there was one of those health care "town hall" meetings in New Hampshire. You know, those Hegelian talking point festivals where each side tries to scream their empty rhetoric the loudest, while the actual people caught in the middle are completely ignored? Well it seems William Kostric figured out a way to be heard. He showed up with a loaded firearm strapped to his leg, and a home made sign that said "It is time to water the tree of liberty" - a blatant reference to a famous quote by Thomas Jefferson. Oh, you can just imagine Chris Matthews crying about it! Oh wait! You don't have to imagine it, you can view it right here!
And before anyone else starts crying about it, you should be aware that what he did was perfectly legal in New Hampshire. I've gotta give Kostric credit. I don't know if he's had media training or not, but he delivered his message without swallowing Matthews' bait. I think it was something of a propaganda backfire on the part of MSNBC. They invited Kostric on the show, likely hoping he would sound like a raving lunatic. Quite the contrary, he made Matthews look like an impatient, volatile man with a hidden agenda. Big stretch, I know. That being said, I'm concerned. In the last year, I'm noticing the eyes of the media looking ever more intently on "domestic issues". There seems to be a definite concerted effort to villify freedom-oriented individuals, and this is just another step. Remember the domestic terrorist cell uncovered in North Carolina last month? Well as it turns out, the chief player in the arrests, Daniel Boyd may have actually been a "company man" who decided the America he fought to protect was dead: "It is said Boyd — a poster child for “white al-Qaeda” if there ever was one — trained at a terrorist camp in Afghanistan in the late 1980s and fought against the Soviet occupation of that country. Boyd was associated with Hezb-e-Islami, or Party of Islam. This, combined with the Department of Fatherland Security classifying veterans and Libertarians as "dangerous extremists" (See H.R. 1955 for starters) certainly paints an unpleasant picture. August 07 Why so ssssssssssssocialist? OK, now that I've gotten that out of my system, you're not going to believe what comrade Barakski is trying to pull this time.
For one thing, the above picture is not my work. Apparently, these rather ghoulish visages began appearing on telephone poles in Los Angeles this week, and the White House is furious. They sent in their local pitbull, Los Angeles Urban Policy Roundtable President Earl Ofari Hutchinson to call the depiction "politically mean spirited and dangerous." He even went so far as to issue a "challenge" to the thus far unidentified artist to step forward and take credit for his political cartooning.
Given some of the events that are transpiring lately, I can't say I blame the artist for keeping his identity safely anonymous.
Incidentally, I found someone who took up the challenge of spreading this... rather amusing protest... and even make a buck off of it. If painting a target on your forhead for Obama's snitch squad is your cup of tea, you can order a T-shirt here. If you order, make sure to mention that the 'twister sent you. I don't actually get anything out of it, but I figure "Hey, if I can send some customers their way, maybe they can send some hits my way." Don't want a T-shirt? You can always print off a pdf flyer and bring the message to your neighborhood instead.
And speaking of snitch squads, Did you hear about the administration's new scheme to "monitor" opposition to his health care reform? Apparently, if you see anything "fishy", you are supposed to forward the information to flag@whitehouse.gov for "further analysis".
Think I'm kidding? Ask Senator John Cornyn about it. Here's an excerpt from an article on World Daily Net:
"'I am not aware of any precedent for a president asking American citizens to report their fellow citizens to the White house for pure political speech that is deemed 'fishy' or otherwise inimical to the White House's political interests,' the Texas senator wrote in a letter today to Obama.
By requesting that citizens send 'fishy' e-mails to the White House, it is inevitable that the names, e-mail addresses, IP addresses, and private speech of U.S. citizens will be reported… You should not be surprised that these actions taken by your White House staff raise the specter of a data collection system."
Still not convinced? This is taken directly from the White House website:
"There is a lot of disinformation about health insurance reform out there, spanning from control of personal finances to end of life care. These rumors often travel just below the surface via chain emails or through casual conversation. Since we can’t keep track of all of them here at the White House, we’re asking for your help. If you get an email or see something on the web about health insurance reform that seems fishy, send it to flag@whitehouse.gov."
Seriously, you can't make this crap up! Also, notice that part in bold. If you even talk about the bill in a negative way, they want your friends to rat you out.
So exactly what is in this bill that Obama is so terrified might become public knowlege? Well I haven't read the entire thing yet (You can do it yourself if you like, the full text is here), but I can say there's a fair amount that would annoy anyone who favours the current system. But that isn't enough. I'm not interested in the partisan nonsense that drives these kinds of arguments. It needs to be bigger than the "He's going to deny coverage to old people" rhetoric (Which incidentally, may have some truth to it).
What we're looking for must be something so serious that even discussing it puts you on "the list". Something positively Earth-shattering. If you spot it, please let me know. July 13 Bet You Didn't Hear About This on CBCWell, it looks like the worldwide slave revolt has finally come to Canada. And big surprise, the mainstream media is silent on the issue.
Apparently, residents of Dawson Creek, B.C. have taken the rather drastic step of blowing up natural gas pipelines in their ongoing battle with EnCana and it's nasty habit of leaking hydrogen sulphide into the air. There have been 6 bombings so far, and the police are completely without suspects. The RCMP are obviously feeling some pressure on this, so they are really leaning on the community for information - even going so far as to engage in public harassment - but so far nothing has turned up. There are only 3 possibilities that I can see:
1) Nobody in the community knows anything. The perpetrators are not local.
2) Nobody in the community knows anything. The perpetrators are local, but they aren't bragging about it
3) The community is shielding the perpetrators
Personally, I believe it is 2), but either way, this situation is getting out of hand.
Some background is in order.
Hydrogen sulphide is a naturally occuring gas commonly associated with natural gas. It is responsible for that distinctive "rotten eggs" smell that 90% of the population can detect at concentrations as weak as 50 parts per billion. Most of the natural gas in Western Alberta and Eastern B.C. is "sour", meaning it has higher than normal (1% or greater) concentrations of hydrogen sulphide. It is fatal at atmospheric concentrations exceeding 250 parts per million. So why are the people of Dawson Creen so angry? Because they have learned from their neighbors.
In October 2008, a school board in Alberta discovered that one of EnCana's nearby wells was venting hydrogen sulphide at concentrations exceeding 160,000 ppm. to be clear, that is 640 times a fatal concentration. If this is the way EnCana does business, it's no wonder the citizens of Dawson Creek are taking action.
Naturally, the RCMP has chosen to classify this as domestic terrorism, rather than arson. EnCana is also offering a $500,000 reward and beefing up security. Of course, there is no way to provide 24/7 security to the ~43,000 kilometres of pipeline and the ~150 wells around Dawson Creek, so we call all be assured there will be more attacks in the future. June 25 DON'T PANIC!I hope you assclowns have finished moving your money out of $USD denominated assets, because the stampede for the exit has started.
 (Above: An old woman accidentally wandered onto Wall Street with a dime
in her purse, and these nice bankers are rushing to help her carry it.)
Some of you may remember my June 5 article on how the Obama gave Germany the proverbial finger when they asked for their gold back. Well as it turns out (and this shouldn't really surprise anyone who reads here regularly), that was only the overture. The curtain is going up on this little drama, and it's every bit as depressing as King Lear.
On June 8-9, members of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization met in Yekaterinburg, Russia to discuss how to extricate themselves from their own $USD holdings. Obama asked to be allowed to send an envoy to the meeting, but Chinese President Hu Jintao told him "是性交，象家一样不演奏那。", which is Chinese for "Go fuck yourself, Homey don't play that." You see, the US has been buying Chinese products and paying for it with money they borrowed from...the Chinese. The Chinese were getting screwed, and President Hu is finally saying "No more dorra fo you, round eye!"
Russia is also getting fed up with the Americans policy of hyperinflation. You see, Russia is an oil exporter, and because oil is priced in $USD, an American policy of inflation gobbles up any profits the Russian government makes from it's oil sales. They are obviously getting fed up with getting robbed as well, because at the aforementioned metting in Yekaterinburg, the President Medvedev puppet on Putin's hand suggested monetizing gold (gasp! Non-inflationary money? How will the bankers keep robbing us?)
And if this isn't quite enough to make you crap your pants, there's the article that I just discovered today which raises the spectre of a bank holiday in August or September, and that American embassies around the world have been ordered to spend massive amounts of $USD to aquire local currencies - enough to last them an entire year.
Even Leap2020 (A big European thinktank) is trembling in terror. They are predicting a "financial perfect storm" of
"1. Wave of massive unemployment: Three different dates of impact according to the countries in America, Europe, Asia, the Middle East and Africa
2. Wave of serial corporate bankruptcies: companies, banks, housing, states, counties, towns 3. Wave of terminal crisis for the US Dollar, US T-Bond and GBP, and the return of inflation" and that the summer 2009 will:
"be marked by the converging of three very destructive « rogue waves » (2), illustrating the aggravation of the crisis and entailing major upheaval by September/October 2009. As always since this crisis started, each region of the world will be affected neither at the same moment, nor in the same way (3). However, according to our researchers, all of them will be concerned by a significant deterioration in their situation by the end of summer 2009."
There's no way to put a positive spin on this. Reports are coming in from every sector now, and they all say the same thing:
 June 24 How Do They Get Away With It?With all of these already rich bankers robbing taxpayers to make themselves even more rich, one is tempted to ask "Just how do they keep getting away with it?"
Well I thought it might be fun to delve into this discussion a little bit. Surely some tiny group of people could never gain so much power as to control the entire world, could they? Surey the people are smart enough to stop them, right?
Unfortunately, a quick tour of http://answers.yahoo.com/ tells us that no, in fact the people are not smart enough. Here's a quick sample of some of the earth-shatteringly stupid questions people ask:
i shove pizza crust up my butt when I get angry at my mom because i want her to get pissed because she has to take me to the emergency room. whats another way to get back at my mom?
ok im kinda worried here since my g/f got pregant and she isnt been havein her period do u think the baby is drinkin the blood?? she 6 month pregant.
This could be a phase. Is there some way I could find out if he's really gay? He's only 19.
Doesn't seem so surprising now, does it? It's not hard to stand head and shoulders above the masses when these are the masses . June 05 Nothing leftI'm sure by now all of you have had a chance to see CNBC's most recent piece on Obama. Oh, it's a grand example of fellatio. Lots of fluff, not much substance.
But the careful observer would have detected a rare moment of downright frightening honesty starting at about 7:15 of part 1. It deals with Larry Summers (Everyone remembers him, right?) and a phone call with "the Germans". It seems pretty innocuous at first, and I'll admit I didn't pick up on it immediately myself. It wasn't until a few days later, when I stumbled upon this. Apparently, "the Germans" are demanding the return of their gold.
Now, I'm not normally one to immediately jump on the rumours circling the blogosphere, so I did some research. As it turns out, Germany recieved some 24,000 kg of "gold compounds" and another 5,000 kg of "gold scrap" in January 2009 alone. That accounts for approximately 12.4% of total exports for that month. Unfortunately, the figures weren't broken down for 2008, but if the percentages are even close, they recieved approximately 470,000kg of gold in 2008 as well.
Now I want my readers to pay special attention to the following paragraph, taken from the link above, and try to grasp the true scope of the problem:
"Ladies and gentlemen, the foregoing data and discussion with the USGS individual is proof that the United States of America [or criminal elements within its Treasury and/or The Federal Reserve] “HAS” surreptitiously exported physical gold - and continues to do so. It is confirmed. The exports are likely coin melt [or gold compound, if you prefer] from the great gold confiscation back in 1933; or alternatively, this terminology is being used to disguise physical repatriation of foreign gold bullion formerly on deposit with the N.Y. Federal Reserve. Such repatriations are recorded as “exports” in U.S. Trade data. Public acknowledgement of same would scream like a siren call that the global financial community has totally lost faith in American financial stewardship – hence the need to do so on the sly. "
So what does this have to do with the call from "the Germans"?
Well there's the distinct possibility that the shipments have stopped. The USGS hasn't published export data since February.
Remember back in March, 2008 when I suggested the treasury was going to have a fire sale? Well if these numbers are correct, that's exactly what they did - right about the same time I was making the prediction. There's a very real possibility that there's no gold left! I won't know for sure until some more recent data is published, but what if the Germans were calling to say "Give us our gold", and America is saying "We don't have it"?
And the Germans aren't the only ones running for the hills. China is buying up every gold filling it can get it's hands on. Saudi Arabia as well. The stampede has begun. Gold traders have suspected for years that the Fed's unaudited gold reserves have been...overstated. Now it's starting to look like not only were the reserves flat-out non-existant, but they may have been loaning out other countries' gold as well - without the owners' consent.
And that's just not good for business. May 12 Are you paying attention?Pardon me while I wax mainstream for a moment, here.
For those of you who have been following the Tamil protests around the world lately, I have some information for you:
On the local news this morning, the reporter was interviewing one of the protest organizers in Toronto. The guy was talking about forming another human chain to grind traffic to a halt. Pretty standard fare. However, he let slip that at tomorrow's event they will be asking protesters to bring donations to the Daily Bread Food Bank. He wants his protesters to "give back to the people".
I guess these guys have learned from the failures of General Prabhakaran, Leader of the LTTE in Sri Lanka (Excuse me, former leader of the former LTTE. It's getting pretty hard to find either Prabhakaran or his men, no matter how hard they try). This food drive is straight out of Mao Tsedong's book "On Guerilla Warfare". I mean it's literally straight out of the book. It's right there, at the end of chapter 6:
"Many people think it impossible for guerrillas to exist for long in the enemy's rear. Such a belief reveals lack of comprehension of the relationship that should exist between the people and the troops. The former may be likened to water the latter to the fish who inhabit it. How may it be said that these two cannot exist together? It is only undisciplined troops who make the people their enemies and who, like the fish out of its native element cannot live."
By giving food to the poor, these modern day Che Guevara wannabes figure they can garner the support of the disenfranchised here in Canada. There's only one small problem with this plan: Canadians don't give a rat's ass about your dead countrymen, and they laugh at your cowardice. All the rice and canned tuna in the world isn't going to make your rediculous whining, 10,000 miles away from the front lines look the slightest bit noble.
Besides, we Canadians have long memories. We know all about the brave LTTE, boldly sending women suicide bombers to murder foriegn politicians. We know all about the brave LTTE generals, sending children as young as 7 to the front lines. We know all about your crimes at Aranthalawa, Anuradhapura, Kattankudy mosque, Kebithigollewaand and the Dehiwala train bombing. We know, and we are not impressed. You whine about the atrocities committed against your countrymen by the Sri Lankan government, but where was your outrage when it was they who were commiting genocide?
And let's not forget your fellow Sri Lankan and Indian Tamil immigrants right here in Canada. I can't count the number of friends who have had encounters with Tamil gangs. Friends who barely survived. Friends who didn't survive. Your brothers bravely attack lone individuals. You descend upon us with 10 of your friends, armed with sawed-off pool cues, baseball bats and knives. You have imported your ethnic violence, and you ask us to come to your aid?
The truth is, despite the Canadian government's measured responses in public, behind closed doors we are applauding the deaths of your countrymen. May 07 This Just Pisses Me OffIt's been a few days, and a lot has happened. Chrysler went bankrupt, H1N1 turned out to be exactly as meaningless as I predicted, and the American puppet government in Georgia crushed a populist military coup d'etat. Even as I post this, the Chairman of the Canadian Auto Workers' Union is giving a press conference, stating that they WILL NOT agree to any more pay cuts in the face of GM's most recent $6 BILLION quarterly loss. Each of these events on their own are worthy of a full-page Dreamtwister rant. But you know what? Even the Dreamtwister gets tired of looking at the big picture. Sometimes, even I like to stop for a second and focus on the little injustices that tend to get completely ignored in the face of world-crushing geopolitical juggernauts.
"But what problem could be so little that the mainstream media would overlook it, but the mighty Dreamtwister would get mad enough to rant?" You might ask. "Could it be how the US government, failing to convince the landowners to sell, have decided to declare condemned 500 acres of land so they can build their Flight 93 monument?"
Again, it's a topic fully worthy of a Dreamtwister rant, and you can be forgiven for assuming it was my topic of choice for today. But no, today's issue is an even smaller injustice than a government robbing a few landowners of their land.
Today, I want to talk about a 15 year old boy's right to defend himself.
Last week at a high school in Keswick Ontario, a 15 year old Korean boy was suspended for 20 days for breaking another student's nose. The York region school board was even pushing for a permanent expulsion. There are charges pending. He might even face jail time.
I know, I know. Young Offenders' Act, LOL at Canadian youth prisons, all of that. You get a gold star for completely missing the point.
As it turns out, this Korean boy was being bullied.
You see, the other boy was calling him names and shoving him. Bad choice for the bully. Turns out the Korean boy holds a black belt in Tae Kwan Do. (Spare me the 'take my dough' jokes for the time being, please). Finally, when the victim felt the abuse had continued long enough (And I have to admit, he used far more restraint than I would have in a similar situation), he broke the boy's nose.
Of course the school board, in it's infinite wisdom, decided to not only hand down the maximum suspension allowed, but to begin expulsion proceedures and notify the police!
Things have changed a bit since this happened last week. The students of the school staged a walk-out and notified the media. The school board has repealed the suspension and terminated expulsion procedures. The price? The victim was forced to apologize to his attacker. I can't even begin to articulate my outrage at this miscarriage of justice. There are just so many little details to this story that make my head want to explode.
First of all, why is the Globe and Mail trying to make this story all about the racism? Is that even the point? The victim was being bullied. He was verbally and physically abused by his classmate. It doesn't matter what the words were, they were abusive. Mister Friesen, why are you trying to downplay the self-defense aspect of this story in favour of playing up the racism? What is your agenda here?
Second, why has no disciplinary action been handed down for the assailant? Last time I checked, assault is a crime in Canada. This little bastard assaulted his classmate in front of a score of witnesses. Why is he not being punished?
Third, why was the victim forced to apologize for defending himself? Could it be that the school board is participating in the systematic destruction of self-reliance in our children, prefering instead that these children grow up to be completely dependant on the state for everything?
Finally, WHY THE HELL ARE THE CHARGES STILL PENDING? I kid you not. The boy's first court appearance is on May 13, at which point the Crown will determine if the case is to proceed. So now this kid who has already been forced to miss a week of school for defending himself, now has to miss another day of school to appear in court to explain why he felt he should defend himself. Not only that, but his parents have to take time off of their jobs and incur the expense of retaining a lawyer.
OK, I think I'm done now. Excuse me while I go vomit. April 28 Are you scared yet?
The Triumph of Death - Pieter Bruegel the Elder, 1562. The way the media is stoking this fire, you would expect nothing short of a biblical plague. Too bad the facts don't support it.
At last count, there have been a grand total of 68 confirmed deaths worldwide, and all of them in Mexico. My regular readers will know that Mexico isn't exactly a bastion of good sanitation right now, what with the water being shut off to roughly 5 million people and all...
So here's the situation. You have a sub-tropical country that is literally 5 seconds away from collapsing. You have millions of people who keep pigs tied to their front door frames as part of their food supply. The same people who live 10 to a hut and hug everyone they meet. They are constantly dodging bullets fired by their own army and the drug cartels. You take these people and cut off their water, and then act surprised when disease breaks out?
Frigging retards.
Oh, and to those people who think this is some form of bio warfare, I'm going to have to rain on your parade. Don't get me wrong, I like a good conspiracy as much as the next guy. But in this case, the facts just don't support it.
It looks like "patient 0" might have been an employee at, or resident near a Smithfield Farms industrial pig farm in Vera Cruz. It appears that the residents of Vera Cruz have been involved in ...given the state of government in Mexico, I'm hesitant to call it "legal action"... against the Smithfield Farms subsidiary, Granjas Carroll, for it's unsanitary practises. It appears that their sanitation regime consisted of shoveling pig feces into the local drinking water. Imagine that? A pig farmer, who spends all day shoveling pig shit into the river, then goes home and actually drinks that water, and he comes down with swine flu. Someone better call Mr. Ripley.
"But 'twister, I heard it was genetically engineered!"
OK, it's time for biology 101. Let's pretend you have this stupid lazy pig farmer. He goes to work one day with the flu because if he doesn't go in, his boss will give his job to some other stupid lazy pig farmer. So this pig farmer transmits his flu to the pigs. Yeah, it happens all the time. There's a reason most of the world's religions forbid the eating of pork, and this is it. WE SHARE DISEASES.
Anyway, back to our little piggies. So now they have this nasty flu that is a mix of North American and European flu, contracted from our dirty naco friend. The piggies run around, happily spreading human flu amongst themselves. When along comes Porky, our friendly neighborhood swine flu carrier pig. Porky (carrying swine flu) noses up to Petunia (carrying human flu) and they make pig kissy faces and swap virii. Now you have 2 distinct strains of flu in 1 carrier. Well you can't leave those 2 crazy kids alone for a moment, because before you know it, they've had a little baby flu. (Just imagine the looks on the other pigs' faces when Porky shows up at the country club with Petunia and their half-breed flu baby!) But pigs are no less vulnerable to trends than the humans who eat them. Soon all the little piggies want to have a pet cross-bred flu of their own.
But here comes the crazy part!
Imagine if you will, one of those migrating birds that always seem to be carrying H5N1 - the dreaded avian flu. Maybe a flock of Chinese ducks got lost and ended up over Mexico. (I guess they can't drive any better than Chinese people. Who knows). Anyway, your flock of avian flu carriers fly over our happy little flu factory and shit all over the pigs. Naturally, if this farm were in a country that had sanitation standards, this wouldn't be an issue. All of the little piggies would get hosed down regularly, and the feces would be isolated. But not in Mexico! In Mexico, the pigs can wallow in their own shit for days, reinfecting themselves with swine, human and now avian flu!
You see, the flu virus can survive in feces. And when the pigs infect themselves with this third type of flu, their genetic material gets mixed in with the human and swine variants, and you get a brand new strain. This strain gets shoveled into the town's water and VOILA! Instant pandemic!
Isn't science fun?
But I digress. Back to my main point.
This new variant of flu was detected on April 9th. That means in the last 20 days, 68 people have died worldwide. That works out to 3.4 deaths per day. To put that into perspective, within the last 24 hours, 3,288 people around the world were killed in car accidents*. That means at this stage, you are literally 1,000 times more likely to get killed in a car accident than you are to be killed by this "terrifying pandemic".
But of course, if your only source of information is the mainstream media, you are probably shitting bricks right now (not to mention, not reading this blog. Everybody knows people who get their news from television can't read).
*Based on these statistics from 2004. - 1.2 million deaths per year, divided by 365 days and rounded up. April 19 I warned you!I seriously hope nobody is surprised by this, because I have been warning about it since at least September 2007.
Those guys over at the Long War Journal (Forget the name, they actually do some pretty good work) Put together this map in February, outlining just how much of Pakistan had fallen under the control of the Taliban. Have a gander:
 The map excludes data about the northern tribal areas (Because they are technically autonomous, though completely under Taliban control), and everything east of Islamabad (Because by that point, it doesn't matter any more).
And now here's the situation just 2 months later:
 Government forces have ceeded control of 3 provinces in just 2 months. Taliban fighters are now within 60km of Islamabad. You want to talk about balls? After the federal government surrendered Buner district to the Taliban, they drove a convoy of 10 trucks back to Malakand, passing by a military base and through the home town of the province's Chief Minister. It's as if they are saying "We dare you to try it, bitches."
So while the Pakistani government surrenders it's positions faster than the French in 1940, the Obama administration continues to conduct it's war as though this were a conventional army: assasinating leaders. NEWS FLASH! That doesn't work! You can't play this game with a top-down approach, because the "top" is meaningless. The Taliban (and al Quaeda) don't so much issue orders as they preach ideology. They take that whole "army of one" philosophy very seriously. The guy on the front lines isn't sitting around waiting for orders from the cave, he acts independantly on his own timetable and with his own resources.
And there are only 2 ways to deal with that kind of distributed insurgency: Capitulation, or extermination. That means if you aren't willing to kill every man, woman and child in the entire theatre, you might as well go home.
But whatever the decision is, we need to move quickly. Islamabad (and the keys to the nukes) are now just 60km away. April 08 At least one sector of the economy is booming!I was going to write something tremendously clever and sarcastic, but I decided against it. The facts speak for themselves:
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