Paging Elmore Leonard...

This could be an Elmore Leonard novel.
Scene one: A courier arrives one night at Peel Region police headquarters with a load of fruit he considers to be very suspicious. Under the mangoes, three police officers find 12 dozen bricks of cocaine.
Scene two: The RCMP arrive to say that the cocaine wasn't really cocaine at all -- it was a sting operation aimed at the Toronto traffickers for the cocaine smugglers in Peru, and the bricks contained tracking devices. So they pick up the cocaine bricks from the police evidence room -- but find there are 44 bricks missing.
Scene three: Using the GPS signals, RCMP find 15 of the missing bricks hidden in the garage of one of the police officers, and several more in a dumpster near the house of another officer.
Scene four: Disgrace, dismissal and prison loom -- not for the cocaine traffickers, but for the Peel police officers.

I thought it was just me

Nancy Nall describes how women play fantasy closet like men play fantasy football:

The first week of August marks the tra­di­tional Notic­ing of the Chang­ing Light for me, which means I’m going to grab at least one fat fash­ion mag­a­zine off a news­stand and start plan­ning my umpteenth fan­tasy closet.
Fan­tasy closet is like fan­tasy foot­ball, in which women start with the blank slate of a well-designed empty closet — with lots of attrac­tive, Con­tainer Store stor­age options — and fill it with non-existent clothes we can’t afford but pre­tend we can. Then we wear them in fantasy-closet dress-up games . . .

She also has some great stuff about photo retouching in fashion photography.

Just a coincidence, I'm sure

My son noticed that whenever we see a news story these days about police abuses during the G20 protests we almost immediately see another press release from Toronto police adding another few photos to their "most wanted" gallery.
Funny how that happens, isn't it?

Psych!

Not confident that the Alouettes will be able to defeat the Riders tonight, the Montreal Gazette tries to psyche the Riders out of winning::

A victory over the Alouettes tonight at Molson Stadium would prevent the Roughriders from emerging with a 4-2 record -an important bellwether in team history.
In 100 years of existence, Saskatchewan has won only three Grey Cups (in 1966, 1989 and 2007). During each of those seasons, the Roughriders had four wins and two losses after six games. So what happens if the Roughriders disregard a good omen and improve to (gasp!) 5-1?
Such a record is reflective of a powerhouse. But should the Roughriders covet that label? Can they handle that status?

Yeah, I think we could.
UPDATE: Darn -- 4-2 it is!

Cancer country

Christopher Hitchens describes his journey to Tumourville

The new land is quite welcoming in its way. Everybody smiles encouragingly and there appears to be absolutely no racism. A generally egalitarian spirit prevails, and those who run the place have obviously got where they are on merit and hard work. As against that, the humor is a touch feeble and repetitive, there seems to be almost no talk of sex, and the cuisine is the worst of any destination I have ever visited.

Stupid day

A clown car full of ridiculous news stories this week --
Like this one: some guy who says he is a soldier who speaks Arabic sends an email saying he's seen veiled women laugh at airport security staff -- oh, sure, because people around the world are always laughing at airport security staff these days, aren't they?
And then there's this one: Dog chews off man's toe, saves his life -- oh, sure, and did you hear the one about the choking doberman.
And this one: Mobile phones responsible for disappearance of honey bee -- oh, sure, I'll bet they all received a mysterious phone call at the same time.
And today we found out the real reason why the Harper Cons are building those new prisons -- sounds like they want to start making sex illegal again.

Leadership

I had never thought very much of Mayor Bloomberg in New York City, but he showed true leadership today in his speech supporting the Manhattan mosque.
Whereas in Canada, our political leaders want us to be afraid of an invisible crime wave.

How I spent my summer vacation

Actually, just hanging around the house, doing housey things, it was fun and I feel somewhat organized for the first time in about two years -- its amazing how much junk accumulates, isn't it. I've been making trip after trip to take stuff to the Mennonites, which seem to be just about the only charitable agency left here which still handles their own donations.
But I've also been having fun reading other people's blog posts about their vacations.
Like from Doctor Grumpy:

Today we went whitewater rafting. Our guide, I swear, was a guy named Stoner.
[Middle son]Craig, of course, was horrified at the idea he might get wet, and so insisted on sitting in the middle of the raft. [Eldest son]Frank and [daughter]Marie loved the idea of getting soaked, and even wanted to help row. So Stoner gave them each a paddle.
For a while they were somewhat helpful, and it kept them busy. Until we hit a stretch of non-rowing quiet water.
Somehow a shouting match broke out, and I turned around just in time to see them beating each other WITH THE PADDLES while Craig tried to hide in the bottom of the raft. Before I could yell at them to stop, Frank sent Marie’s paddle into the river. Craig, trying to avenge his sister, stood up and knocked Frank’s into the river.
And now we were heading into white water, with half our paddles gone. Stoner was clearly horrified to be watching his company’s property floating behind us, and began frantically steering the boat to try to get them, while Mrs. Grumpy and I paddled away. The next few seconds sent some big waves crashing over the raft, drenching everyone (including Craig). He began hitting Marie on the grounds that it was her fault he was wet, since she’d lost her paddle.
Fortunately, we were able to collect the paddles at the other end of the rapid run. But we spent the rest of the day hearing from Craig about how this was “the worst day ever” because he got wet. All the kids, when we got back to shore, agreed that they liked the river rides at amusement parks better. Wimps.

And from Lance Mannion on the Maine coast:

There be whales here
You can categorize your own brand of geekitude by whether the title of this post made you think of Herman Melville or Star Trek or both.
Late this afternoon, after we’d set up our chairs and towels on a high spot on the beach at Nauset, I spotted a white-hulled sailboat far out on the horizon. The rest of our gang rushed headlong towards the water to throw themselves into the breaking waves but I stayed put with my binoculars, thinking that a closer look would show me that another Edward Hopper painting had come to life for a moment.
That happens down here, Edward Hopper paintings coming to life, and it’s no surprise, since the Cape was one of his favorite subjects.
Today happens to be Hopper’s birthday---he’d have been a hundred and eighteen---and it would have been a nice coincidence if it was one of his sailboats hauling by.

But just as I got my sights trained on the boat something black and rounded broke the surface in the foreground. It rose with a splash and disappeared with another toss of white foam and I thought:
“Whale?”

Nancy Nall stayed around Detroit:

It was hot this week­end. How hot was it? Here’s one of the neigh­bors at Alex’ house:

Alex said he’s never seen a squir­rel relax like this. I have, once. It was on a pic­nic table, and it was stretched out, belly down, in much this fash­ion. It was also on a hot day. Spriggy would stretch out like this, terrier-style, but almost always on a cool sur­face, like a tile floor, or even wood. That pic­nic table wasn’t cool, but maybe it was, rel­a­tive to every­thing around it.

And John Cole now has two dogs instead of just one:

In Retrospect It Was a Bad Idea
The dogs were driving me crazy and I couldn’t get any work done as apparently three walks before ten am is not enough, so I took them to the park to run. And they ran about 200 yards away from me, and Lily promptly spent the next minute and a half rolling in something. This picture can not describe the stench, but if I had to guess what it was, I would guess the rotting rancid remains of Satan’s bowel.

Ah, those lazy hazy crazy days of summer.

Long weekend

These people are nuts - part 2

A pseudo-Christian church in Florida is inviting people to burn the Koran:

It's astonishing that there are people in America who are so far gone in their islamophobia that they actually would celebrate 9/11 with a book burning.

Ahh, but, just like Breitbart says about the NAACP, any anti-Muslim racism in America is really Muslim people's own fault, because their very existence is just so provoking.
Hmmm, seems to me that we've come across this type of argument somewhere before...

For crying out loud

What a bizarre spin to put on a news story about an upcoming theatrical production -- 'Sympathetic' terrorist play gets boost.
I guess whenever government funds are involved, we are only supposed to see approved versions of history, not versions which ask whether an injustice might have been done?
So I certainly hope the media has investigated to make sure there were no government funds anywhere near this film or this one or this one. And let's hope the movie Ben Stiller is trying to put together about these guys isn't going to get a penny of public money, either.
Much closer to home, here's another one that I guess people shouldn't be seeing at the Mackenzie Art Gallery in Regina, which is supported by federal, provincial and municipal funds.

How hard would it be?

How hard would it be for the Canadian government to just adopt a policy that says, if you are a Canadian citizen and you get into trouble outside the country then our top priority is to help you?
Oh, yeah, him.
Never mind...
UPDATE: Just to clarify, in case it wasn't clear -- I believe citizenship is supposed to mean something. That neither the Harper Cons nor the Paul Martin Liberals would would try to repatriate Omar Khadr, however odiously that citizen and his family may have behaved, is shameful and has weakened the value of Canadian citizenship around the world.

Questions abour the G20

The Facebook group Canadians Demanding a Public Inquiry into Toronto G20 have released the list of the most urgent questions that an inquiry into police behaviour during the protests should answer:

1. Why were the police forcing peaceful protesters out of Queen's Park on Saturday when that was the designated protest area? ...

2. Were special powers actually extended to police for the duration of the G20 summit? If so, what exactly were they? ...
3. Why was the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms trampled on by the police through actions such as: Unwarranted searches, Intimidation to deter people from assembling, Arbitrary arrest, Detainment of innocent bystanders. Who is responsible for giving police orders to act this way? ...

4. Why are police officers allowed not to wear a nametag? Why are police officers allowed to refuse to identify themselves when a citizen asks for their name?
5. I would like to see every dollar of the security budget accounted for in a detailed expense report.
6. Who were the men seen in numerous videos in plain clothes, with batons, arresting peaceful protesters and putting them in unmarked minivans?

7. How does the 'kettling' technique (surrounding protesters with riot police and blocking exit paths from the protest area) comply with the rights of Canadians as laid out in the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms?
8. Will the tapes documenting the holding facilities be reviewed by an independent reviewer?
9. Why were members of the media cleared out of protest areas or in some cases, arrested?
10. Why were protesters blocked in and not allowed the option of leaving peacefully, especially those in designated protesting areas.

11. What were the reasons behind the orders sent to front line officers to 'stand down' when windows were being broken and cars were being torched, and who gave them?

These people are nuts

The closer the United States gets to the November mid-terms, the crazier some people are getting.
I watched this Red Dawn fantasy and I thought -- WTF?
It makes references to "Patriot Uprising" against "Despotism", but the most chilling line is this one: "I sincerely hope that enough people have crossed that personal line in the sand to join forces with the rest of us so that a small number of us are not required to use force and use of arms".
Why the Horst Wessel Song is playing at the end, who knows.


Boo Man writes about the Red vs. Blue divide:

Over hear in Blueville, there are certain things you don't do in polite company. For example, you don't break out in song with your rendition of "Barack the Magic Negro Lives in DC." You don't pose open-ended questions about the validity of the president's birth certificate. You don't use every cold day as an excuse to remind people that Al Gore is fat. If you don't know what socialism is, you avoid the topic and remain silent when it comes up. . . .
We increasingly live in two different, largely incompatible worlds. It's not all North vs. South. But it's definitely Blue vs. Red. And all of it is dividing people along the wrong lines. It should be those who have vs. those who don't. Instead, it's those who are tolerant vs. those who are not.

Summer of discontent

For a government which tries to pride itself on how well it handles problems, the Harper Conservatives have shot themselves in the foot with the census issue and the boss-from-hell at the RCMP.
Now the Wikileaks Afghanistan papers could result in the Afghan prisoner issue circling around to bite them in the ass again.
And its not even August yet.
No wonder Harper has disappeared.
Meanwhile, Iggy is kicking ass and taking names.