Cover your ears

Sounds like the US Congress is working on a debt ceiling bill that might actually pass their disfunctional political system.
Cue the right-wing hysteria and the left-wing flip-out in three, two, one...

Well, that was weird

I posted a little item about an elderly woman in Ontario who needs to get the governor general's office to award her the Order of Canada, and the rest of the posts in my blog disappeared!
So I deleted the item, and everything else came back.
Noblesse oblige, I guess.

Shorter

Shorter ethical oil campaign

Canada: we're not as bad as those guys

Black Friday?

Oh, dear
I suspect that today's the day that the big investors will sell, sell, sell, and the stock market will tank.
And the Republicans will blame Obama.

Picking leaders

Steve is right. All the sturm and drang about whether the NDP will "survive" without Jack Layton is just silly. Over the years, the NDP has done a pretty good job picking leaders and I have no doubt they will continue to do so.
That said, I hope they don't have to.

Boom goes the dynamite?

So the Republicans have screwed the pooch on raising the debt ceiling and Obama is speaking to the nation tonight.
With any luck, he'll tell the Republicans to sit on it and rotate.
I'm hoping he'll announce he is using the 14th amendment to raise the debt ceiling unilaterally, and let the Republicans impeach him if they dare.
UPDATE: Piffle.

Triple Putz-Lutz

At the Mahablog, commenter gulag describes how right-wingers are greeting the news that the Norway terror attacker was right-wing extremist:

They perform what I call “A Triple Putz-Lutz.”
This maneuver is not as difficult as it sounds, and happens pretty frequently.
“A Triple Putz-Lutz" is where some Conservative individual or group blames someone or something they hate (which is pretty much everyone except for themselves) for something that happens, find out it’s actually someone who is also a right wing nut (usually Christian), and then try to blame it on Liberals who are trying to discredit Conservatism – because, as we all know, Conservatism is perfect, and can only be discredited by Conservatives being insufficiently Conservative, or by Liberal infamy.

See Small Dead Animals (Socialists are even worse!), Powerline (Just goes to show that concealed carry laws are the answer!), the Other McCain (Just goes to show that Andrew Sullivan needs to apologize for slandering Sarah Palin!), Bruce Bawer (What a tragedy that Muslims aren't to blame!) -- and meanwhile, Little Green Footballs traces the connections between European, English and American anti-Muslim hate groups.

Owling

Owling is the new planking:

Great line of the day

Carolyn Hax replies to a question about whether to tell the child that their parent didn't want the pregnancy:

Don’t succumb to the temptation of making your origin your destiny.
Don’t read too much into your childhood, either, for that matter, and whether your parents were or weren’t over the moon. Your parents decide whether you exist and whether they’ll do right by you, but they don’t get to decide whether you matter. That’s something every one of us, pampered or buffeted, gets to decide for ourselves.

Emphasis mine.

Woody ‪

Woody Allen was The Onion before there was The Onion.

Shorter

News flash -- Neanderthals interbred with early humans:

Conservatives explained at last!

National FU Day

Dr. Dawg posts about the latest outrage connected to the SIU "investigation" of the G20 police riot -- commenter Blawg makes a modest proposal:

Ever since G20 (and on top of everything else that came before) I've been thinking we need a national "Fuck You Day." It would be a day put aside each year on the anniversary of the G20 mass arrests to show peaceful disrespect to police as a reminder of who they work for. Flip them a finger as they drive past in their cruiser, yell "fuck you, assholes" as they walk down the street or direct traffic. That kind of thing. We need police who will respect us, the ordinary people, not the narrow interests of the elite. I'm just a guy, not well connected, not very activist, but I would really like to see something like this happen some day.

Small but mighty

Having fun at someone else's expense

As Republicans continue to paint themselves into a corner on the debt ceiling, the world is beginning to realize that the global economy is being held hostage by a gang of idiots who aren't even listening to their own people, much less to the financial powers that be.
In the Halifax Chronicle Herald, Dan Leger writes about the impact on Canada when the Republicans make the US default on its debt :

In a country that worships economic growth, prosperity and optimism, a bullying minority of politicians is showing itself capable of tossing the whole economy into reverse, killing growth and profoundly affecting the well-being of millions of Americans.
In effect, you’ll have the most powerful economic engine in the world blowing gaskets and spewing burnt oil in all directions. The Tea Party thinks that’s fine.
But it’s not just Americans trashing their own country. If mayhem breaks out there, Canada and large chunks of the world economy will be dragged into the mess.
A U.S. government default will likely cause the treasury bond market to collapse, sending interest rates skyward. Mortgages that are barely affordable now will become unaffordable and people will lose their homes. Jobs will disappear right across North America. And in Canada, which is the largest U.S. trading market, the tepid economic recovery will flop.
The infuriating fact is that it’s all political and it’s all avoidable.

The way the Republicans are acting reminds me of this:

‪0-3

Damn it.

New links etc

Some new links to the right. Also, I started a new list called "I love the internets" as a place to post individual articles I really like from various magazines and blogs, including my own. Additional suggestions gratefully received!

Shorter

Shorter Eric Bolling:

I know you believe you understand what you think I said, but I'm not sure you realize that what you heard was not what I meant.

Gazebo memories

Here's today's Globe and Mail cartoon. Remember the gazebo in the middle of nowhere? Good times...



You know, the horrendous G8-G20 spending debacle was revealed just three months ago.
Why is our Canadian media now acting like all of the scandals which were talked about during the election campaign are ancient news?

Great line of the day

At Balloon Juice, Angry Black Lady takes on Jane Hamsher's Obama-bashing:

Jane, you are a mindless twit. You are wrong about everything, like, ALL THE TIME. Your blog posts are where facts go to die.

Emphasis mine.

Sanity test three

Anyone who takes Michele Bachmann seriously as a candidate for president of the United States is certifiably nuts.
Why do Republicans keep doing this?

Now that's leadership!

Saskatoon city council has boldly gone where politicians always go to cut budgets -- they're grinding a few more dollars out of the poor:

The largest decision made Tuesday was to decrease by $5 a city subsidy for monthly bus passes for those on social assistance. The move will increase the cost of the pass to $25 for an estimated 2,800 transit riders and add an expected $160,000 next year to city coffers.

Outstanding, guys!

When you care enough to give the very best

In Nancy Nall's comments today, apropos of nothing in particular, they got talking about what gifts to give to the kids of relatives you don't like (the kids or the relatives or both). Here's some of the best:

They cranked out two of the most obnoxious kids I’ve ever been forced to buy Christmas presents for, so it was always books. Hearing them hiss “Books. Again.” was probably the only reason I had to look forward to the holidays. What can I say? I ought to get myself some passive-aggressive cards printed up. . . .
My brother in law bought a used tuba for his (now former) friend’s daughter. . . .
I once got one of my brother’s kids an electronic drum kit. He was so pissed at me that his Xmas present to me was membership in the NRA. . . .
I know a guy who bought an obnoxious in-law’s kids toy firefighter helmets equipped with flashing lights and sirens. Every time he had to visit, he took the kids a box of batteries.

Hubris

The end of history was announced in 1992.
The permanent Republican majority was announced in 2001.
Now Harper has announced the end of Canada's ‘long Liberal era’.
Well, we'll see...

Always listen to your mother

This is why your mother always told you to wear a slip under a dress, no matter how warm it is.
And the idea that this photo is lèse majesté is just silly.

Move along, move along

British Prime Minister David Cameron is getting sucked into the phone hacking scandal because he hired Andy Coulson AFTER he had been convicted of fraud
Hey, that reminds me -- didn't our Prime Minister also have to deal with a scandal because he hired someone sleazy? Now, who was that guy anyway? Did we ever get to the bottom of whether he tried to use his PMO connections to get money for his girlfriend? No? Oh well, it was all so long ago -- several weeks at least...oh, look, a royal visit!
I'll bet Cameron is experiencing some Harper-envy right about now...

Stupid

As Obama tries to get the Republicans to act like adults in dealing with the debt ceiling, his blogosphere is onside NOT.
In anticipation that Obama might have to actually make a deal with the devil, the blogosphere is starting another one of its periodic "evil Obama" spasms.
Ian Welsh asks compared to McCain, was Obama actually the lesser evil? Welsh says Bush "failed to slash Social Security. Obama is probably going to do so soon" -- let's not remind anyone that Bush actually WANTED to slash Social Security and actually PROPOSED slashing it, oh no its much more important to criticize Obama's supposed thought crimes.
And Firedoglake thinks we should discuss whether Obama is the Worst President Ever -- they're mad because Obama has supposedly "betrayed his base at every turn".
As No More Mr. Nice Blog says

If I'm following this logic correctly, the results from the Bush presidency were horrible and the results of the Obama presidency are horrible so far, but we ought to give Bush credit because he doled out the horrors deliberately.
By that logic, I guess we ought to ask: who piloted a mass transportation vehicle in the most monstrous way in the past century -- the 9/11 hijackers or the captain of the Titanic?
Really, it's an open question, isn't it? Oh, sure, the 9/11 hijackers killed nearly 3,000 people with malice aforethought, but that's just the point. The malice aforethought is a good thing -- they served their base. The fact that the captain of the Titanic didn't want to kill people very possibly makes him a worse person.
Right?

It is beyond stupid. As John Cole says, these people are fucking clinical.
Ah, yes, the "evil" Obama -- the man who appointed Sotomayor and Kagan to the Supreme Court, who saved the US car industry (and Canada's, too), who promoted equal pay for work of equal value, who ended DADT, who reversed 8 years of Republican tampering with every social and administrative agency of the US government, who forced Mubarak to resign, who did not attack Iran, who passed health care reform, who .... well, look it up.
None of these things would have been done by McCain. Many of them would not have been done by Hilary, either.
Obama hasn't taken down the US financial industry. No president would have, not Hilary, not any Republican, certainly not McCain.
And Obama hasn't reversed the imperial presidency started by Bush and Cheney. It ain't gonna happen, no matter who is elected in the future. McCain certainly would not have reversed this either, and neither would Hilary. Considering the dysfunctional US Congress -- ever since Newt Gingrich was elected Speaker, they have been a collection of clowns and fools -- no president is ever going to let these guys run things the way people of the calibre of Tip O'Neill and Ted Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson used to.
That ship has sailed.

Junk mail

Various journalists are blaming the postal workers for the mail backlog -- they're forgetting that it was Canada Post management that decided to lock out its workers for two weeks in June and settle the dispute by legislation rather than negotiation.
Now, we've had a week of mostly junk mail, while Canada Post apparently still struggles to set priorities:

The Canadian Union of Postal Workers claimed Wednesday that its members were being forced to deliver out-of-date flyers rather than bills and cheques, "setting themselves up to be blamed by an angry public."
"The CUPW is concerned that decisions made by Canada Post senior management to first lock out and then delay delivery will be blamed on postal workers," wrote the union in the mid-week release.
"Canada Post is prioritizing junk mail over cheques," said Alain Duguay, CUPW president of the Montreal local, adding that he has seen passports collecting dust that date back to early June. "I'm really wondering if there's a collusion to privatize."

We've had four or five bills delivered this week, plus a batch of junk mail -- but my father-in-law hasn't received his Father's Day cards yet.

This is the way "The World" ends

Not with a bang but a whimper.
The Telegraph reports that the phone hacking scandal which has destroyed Britain's 168-year-old News of the World newspaper all began with Prince William straining a tendon in his knee:

In November 2005, Clive Goodman, the paper's royal editor, wrote a brief story revealing that Prince William had strained a tendon in his knee and sought medical advice. A week later, he revealed that the prince had borrowed some broadcasting equipment from his friend Tom Bradby, an ITV journalist.
The stories baffled Royal officials, since so few people knew about them. In a conversation between Bradby and the prince, the two established that the information could only have come from voicemails they had left one another.

Apparently there are now 4,000 people who have been informed that their voicemails were hacked. What I wonder is, how easy is it to hack into someone's voicemail account? Is it happening here, too?
UPDATE: And now Prime Minister David Cameron is getting dragged into it.
DOUBLE UPDATE: I guess hacking into someone's phone is pretty easy.

Panic

Its just in fun until someone loses an eye. Then its a sport.
The Republican wingnuts in Congress are turning the US debt ceiling fight into a sport and the Village is starting to panic at the prospect.
David Brooks is horrified at Republicans cheering the prospect of defaulting on the US debt:

If the debt ceiling talks fail, independents voters will see that Democrats were willing to compromise but Republicans were not. If responsible Republicans don’t take control, independents will conclude that Republican fanaticism caused this default. They will conclude that Republicans are not fit to govern.
And they will be right.

Richard Cohen is calling republicans "a cult" and Megan McCardle says the sky is falling. Even David Frum says Republicans need to smarten up, though of course its all Obama's fault really.

Organ donors-in-waiting

In the story about this year's Darwin Award Winner in New York state, we also find out that Michigan is trying to become the go-to state for people in need of organ transplants.

Happy July 4th‬‏

Toronto Pride

Mayor Ford missed a good party.

Happy Canada Day‬‏