"Yo, Blair!"

I'm loving this stuff! I wouldn't have been surprised if Bush had "jokingly" ordered Blair to get down on his knees and suck Bush's dick! Or "seriously" ordered Blair to bring him a Diet Coke!

The best part of the Open Mic Incident at the recent G8 summit has to be the total humilation of toffee-nosed war criminal Tony Blair. (And no, in case you were wondering, the photo above was not photoshopped. Although it looks kind of fake, Bush apparently makes those sorts of facial expressions in real time.)

From the Observer:

There's no question which exchange is most enjoyable for those with contempt for the Prime Minister. It is the moment that makes Mr Blair look like the poodle of popular caricature. Worse, he comes over as a poodle who can't even beg his master to toss him a dog biscuit. It is the same bit of the encounter that has caused the most wincing among the Prime Minister's friends.

When Tony Blair offers himself as a Middle East peace envoy, he is casually rebuffed by the American President between bites on a bread roll. Told by Bush that 'Condi is going', the normally fluent Blair is reduced to inarticulate jabbering. 'Well, it's only if, I mean, you know, if she's got a... or if she needs the ground prepared as it were... Because obviously if she goes out, she's got to succeed, if it were, whereas I can go out and just talk.' Yeah, just talk.

The transcript of the entire recorded conversation, courtesy of the TIMESONLINE:

Bush Yo, Blair. How are you doin’?

Blair I’m just . . .

Bush You’re leaving?

Blair No, no, no, not yet. On this trade thingy . . .(inaudible)

Bush Yeah, I told that to the man. Thanks for (inaudible) it’s awfully thoughtful of you.

Blair It’s a pleasure.

Bush I know you picked it out yourself.

Blair Absolutely (inaudible).

Bush What about Kofi? (inaudible) His attitude to ceasefire and everything else . . . happens.

Blair Yeah, no I think the (inaudible) is really difficult. We can’t stop this unless you get this international business agreed.

Bush Yeah.

Blair I don’t know what you guys have talked about, but as I say I am perfectly happy to try and see what the lie of the land is, but you need that done quickly because otherwise it will spiral.

Bush I think Condi is going to go pretty soon.

Blair But that’s, that’s, that’s all that matters. But if you . . . you see it will take some time to get that together.

Bush Yeah, yeah.

Blair But at least it gives people . . .

Bush It’s a process, I agree. I told her your offer to . . .

Blair Well, it’s only if, I mean, you know. If she’s got a, or if she needs the ground prepared, as it were. Because obviously if she goes out, she’s got to succeed, if it were, whereas I can go out and just talk.

Bush You see, the thing is, what they need to do is to get Syria to get Hezbollah to stop doing this shit and it’s over. (inaudible)

Blair Syria.

Bush Why?

Blair Because I think this is all part of the same thing.

Bush Yeah.

Blair What does he think? He thinks if Lebanon turns out fine, if we get a solution in Israel and Palestine, Iraq goes in the right way . . .

Bush Yeah, yeah, he is sweet.

Blair He is honey. And that’s what the whole thing is about. It’s the same with Iraq.
Bush I felt like telling Kofi to call, to get on the phone to Assad and make something happen.

Blair Yeah.

Bush We are not blaming the Lebanese Government.

Blair Is this . . .? (he taps the microphone in front of him and the sound is cut.)

An idea for a Shootout replacement

Sudden death overtime, 1 new substitute in each period for 2 20-minute periods. After 2 periods, 2 players are allowed to be substituted in each period, including redcarded and previously replaced players, and the periods should continue INDEFINITELY.

Let's stop the madness! Perhaps this would avoid the spectacle of Portugal, one man up, playing defensively in extra time in hopes of a shootout.

Let the moronic horn-honking begin!

Well, it's the apex of the four-year World Cup cycle again, which brings the local yokels out in force to either a) drive around a couple of city blocks, honking their horns, screaming "WHOO! WHOO!" out of their windows, and doing their bit to ensure that everyone in Toronto has a better chance of developing lung cancer, or b) (if no vehicle is available) stand on the side of the road on either Dundas or College Street, scream "WHOO! WHOO!", wave flags and blow whistles at passing motorists.

For hours. And hours. There doesn't seem to be any boozing in the street (lots of police are around to actively prevent this) nor is there any indication of pot smoking (although police generally seem to tolerate this). So how are these people able to maintain this level of apparent euphoria for hours on end? They can't ALL be on mushrooms/extasy/whatever. It is a total mystery to me. The only thing I can think of is that they are, in fact, morons.

I shudder to think about what being a tourist at a real World Cup tournament is like, if this is any indication. However, at least those people are drunk. Which makes it a little more acceptable, especially since they aren't driving.

Sometimes people from other parts of town drive down to blow their own horns, wave their own flags (Korean, Croatian, English, Ecuadoran, Angolan, even Greek, perhaps in memory of their Euro 2004 victory), and generally contribute to the pollution.

The ironic thing, as usual with the World Cup, is that Holland were way better, and deserved the victory. If that ref wasn't in the pay of Portugal's sneaky José Manuel Durão Barroso, I'll eat my hat.

While Portugese seem like interesting enough people (and I originally moved to Toronto because I figured that if I am forced to live in anglophone Canada, at least it should be a place with lots of immigrants), I ultimately find this sort of celebrating a bit of a drain.

Especially since, once Portugal are eliminated, the Brazilian flag will join that of Portugal and the Açores on the roof of everyones' vehicles. That way, any Brazilian success is an excuse for more driving, and more WHOO WHOOing.

That is why I fervently hope for Brazil and Italy to lose. Their presence in World Cup competitions tends to be longer than that of Portugal.

Also, they are notorious 'floppers'.

David Beckham: Useless Tit

Luckily for David Beckham, we haven't been treated to the spectacle of him poncing around in a sarong for a while. Because, as far as I can tell, the guy is a waste of space on the pitch.

Joe Cole, another midfielder: now there's a guy that's "on the ball" (as my dad would say). He is like the English version of Branko Segota, a powerhouse of energy and aggression. Even freak o' nature Peter Crouch (I intend a separate posting on the subject of Crouchinho) is at least making some sort of effort.

This is the first World Cup where, thanks to the twin miracles of highspeed internet connections and person-to-person filesharing, I have been able to actually watch all the games I want. Which in turn means I can watch the England games over and over, if I want, when I want. And I do!

Perhaps the source of Beckham's failure lies in the fact that he is the squad's captain, and is over-sensitive to the pressure of being the focus of English hopes. Or maybe, like Michael Owen, he is an over-rated putz that should be dropped sooner, rather than later, despite how many endorsement contracts he has listed on his c.v.

Don't get me wrong, I am not saying that David Beckham is a useless tit in all fields of human endeavour. To quote an English guy I met while vacationing in Thailand a few years ago (shoutout to Ben!):

Besides David Beckham the Sportsman, there is David Beckham the Cultural Icon, David Beckham the Politician, and especially David Beckham the Thinker.

So David has got that going for him, which is nice.

Addendum: Go Ghana!

The Great Satan

I was recently reminded by someone, in meat time, that I habitually refer to the US as "the Great Satan" when I am speaking. For example, "I was last in the Great Satan for Teamsite training, spring 2005 I think".

I acknowledge the hypocrisy of using "the US" in this continuing journal, and will henceforth refer to "the US" as "the Great Satan".

Gosh, when you type it out, 'Satan' is a weird looking word.

I fail to understand how anyone can take these clowns seriously



From this morning's Guardian:

The deputy secretary-general of the United Nations was last night accused of making "a very, very grave mistake" after calling the Bush administration hypocrites who were feeding a right-wing anti-UN frenzy in middle America.

Washington's ambassador to the UN responded with undisguised fury to a speech by Mark Malloch Brown, the deputy secretary-general, in which he accused Washington of using the international body "almost by stealth as a diplomatic tool" while failing to defend it at home.

What I find really funny is wondering just what "Washington's ambassador to the UN" (John Bolton, pictured above) plans to do, bleed on him or something?

Is Marcus Gee a paid White House Stooge?

Remember when the U.S. administration announced a little less than a year ago (right around when Marcus became the Globe and Mail editorial writer) that they were going to start planting pro-USA articles in foreign media?

I didn't pay attention (therefore I have no immediate link for this). Why should I care overmuch if the US is attempting to upgrade their image in Cairo, or Jakarta, or wherever, through the sneaky payoff of foreign opinion makers?

I guess that acknowledging, and modifying (sp?), the injustice at the heart of US foreign policy would be too much. Instead, they are still beating the dead horse about how the US is a "light unto the world". (Maybe a "gaslight unto the world", considering how much gas issues through their collective blowholes.)

Anyhoo, a posting at What's Left got me thinking. In part:

According to the July 31st issue of Marcus's own newspaper,

"The office, which has been operating unofficially for months, will work with foreign journalists and broadcasters to create positive images of the US that do not appear to be propaganda." The office, the newspaper goes on to explain, reports directly to the White House.

Propaganda that does not appear to be propaganda, prepared by foreign journalists working with a US agency reporting directly to the President? Hmmm.

This is only a sidebar to the main thrust of the article, which is certainly worth a read.

Previously I have complained about Marcus Gee. This conspiracy theory confirms what I have always felt: Marcus Gee is the journalistic equivalent of Tom Jacobek.

And now that I think about it, I would be interested to know how well Tom and Marcus got along...

[Every day, I try to praise Wotan for the internet]

A cry from the heart!

Can someone supply me with the shot of Paul Martin (ex-Head Custodian of Canada) that was printed sometime, approx. 2 years ago on the front page of the Globe and Mail in regards to an international conference (maybe the OAS?) that showed him (apparently) giggling with glee, arms raised akimbo, as the bushman leans over and condescends to address him.

I know that shot is still out there, and I want it!

Gorgeous George is at it again!

My old buddy is at it again: Respect MP George Galloway, the UK's leading rabble-rouser (but in a good way), continues his public campaign of harassing toffee-nosed war criminal Tony Blair. From wikipedia:

In May 2006 there was controversy about remarks he made in an interview conducted by Piers Morgan that was published in the May 2006 UK edition of GQ magazine. When asked "Would the assassination of, say, Tony Blair by a suicide bomber - if there were no other casualties - be justified as revenge for the war on Iraq?" He is reported to have replied "Yes, it would be morally justified. I am not calling for it - but if it happened it would be of a wholly different moral order to the events of 7/7. It would be entirely logical and explicable. And morally equivalent to ordering the deaths of thousands of innocent people in Iraq - as Blair did."

Galloway's prepared response?

“...What I did make abundantly clear to Piers Morgan in the GQ interview is that I would like to see Tony Blair in front of a war crimes tribunal for sending this country to war illegally and for the appalling human consequences which resulted. That’s what I will continue to press for...”

I am just glad someone in the public eye finally said it. And no surprise it was George!

Assholes of the world, unite!

A turbulent week in Canadian politics was capped off by a speech to parliament by noted racist Australian PM John Howard.

The other highlights?

-A chick got killed while preforming her duty as an FOO (forward observation officer). This is an extremely dangerous job so why the breast beating? Should local insurgents have given her some slack or whatever because she is female?

-Harper demanded a snap vote on extending Canada's involvement in keeping Afghanistan safe for US oil interests, and barely won, 149-145.

-Harper's choice for the new Public Appointments Commission chariman was voted down by the Government Operations Committee. Apparently not understanding that this sort of thing will happen when one is running a minority government, Harper in a fit of pique has decided to disband the Public Appointments Commission. It seems I was wrong. Even if you are a minority government, you can still fuck up Canada plenty!

BTW, let us all pray to Allah, or what ever figurative deity(s) you pretend to worship, that Christine Blatchford catches a stray one in Afghanistan. Also, inshallah, maybe Leah McLaren and Margret Wente might decide to sample the Afghani lifestyle for a week or two.

"Ball cupping"- socially acceptable term?

I first heard it used by Rob Cordry on the "Daily Show" about a month ago, in the context of "If you question the illegal wire-tapping, you are CUPPING OSAMA'S BALLS!"

Since then, on several occasions, I have tried to use it in a corporate context as a substitute for "brown-nosing", an expression which I feel is no longer politically correct, especially considering how many of my colleagues have origins in the Indian subcontinent. An example of the new zeitgeist:

"Wow, Nejindra, you sure were cupping Peter's balls in that meeting this morning!"

Every time I try it out, however, I receive looks of consternation and/or disapproval. For this expression to be used on the "Daily Show", it would have had to be cleared by Comedy Central's legal department. Does ball-cupping really seem like such a bad thing? Such a crime against humanity?

No, I say.

Ba-ZING!! Bush gets publicly bitch-slapped!

Face to face. I found it a little embarassing to watch, actually, but that is probably because I am a Canadian and we are generally uncomfortable with face to face confrontations.

Stephen Colbert headlined the Annual White House Correspondents' Dinner. In the course of doing so, he got to zing Bush to his face-- it is something to see!

Broken into 3 parts, links originally courtesy of A-lo:
--1-- --2-- --3--

I worry for iPods, and the iPeople that inhabit them.



It isn't like this is a big innovation, or anything. MP3 players have been around for a long time. When I ask iPeople about what is it that makes the iPod so special, the only thing they can ultimately come up with is the distinctive white ear-nubbins.

These 'ear-nubbins' (my own word, I am disinclined to expend the energy and time necessary to search the weeb for what they are officially called) are the kind of personal sound system that inserts directly in the ear. The result? Total blacking out of any real world aural awareness!

In the heavy traffic of downtown Toronto (well, heavy for Canada, anyway), I have seen people wearing ear-nubbins walking, on bikes, or worst of all, driving cars. (That way, they can't hear my screams!).

People that wear ear-nubbins in public in a large city, unless they are in a park or something, deserve mention in the Darwin Awards when they are inevitably killed in some senseless accident that could have been avoided if they were a little more defensively minded.

LESSON: DON'T DISABLE ONE OF YOUR PRIMARY SENSES IN DANGEROUS SITUATIONS.

There. I have said it.

What is it with Australians?

Is it just me, or are they way, WAY too happy? I was working as a breakfast cook at a hotel in Lake Louise, AB in the mid-90s, where a significant proportion of the staff were Australian. While the Canadians on the morning shift (6h00-14h30) were uniformly glum (and rightly so), the Australians were so uniformly cheery that I often had to control the urge to break a chair over their collective heads.

When they gathered as a group for social events, they reminded me of nothing so much as a pack of happy, hooting, rambunctious monkeys.

True, there was that one Australian dude a dozen or so years ago that went psycho and gunned down a bunch of his countrymen, but I consider him the exception that proves the rule.

They still seem like a group of happy monkeys.

Monkeys, I say!

Thanks to A-lo from Mäko Media for the new, somewhat macabre header image. As much as I like it, I am still finding it disturbing to confront first thing in the morning, when I am still "oot a' the pipes".

General Smedley Butler.
One of the Good Ones.

"WAR is a racket. It always has been.

It is possibly the oldest, easily the most profitable, surely the most vicious. It is the only one international in scope. It is the only one in which the profits are reckoned in dollars and the losses in lives."

-Maj.-Gen. Smedley Butler, War is a Racket

That Smedley Butler actually ever even existed gives me some hope -- maybe all the militarists aren't assholes, after all.

Butler was "the most decorated Marine in U.S. history", yet he wrote War Is A Racket, amongst other things.

A choice quote, written in an article for Common Sense magazine:

"I spent 33 years and four months in active military service and during that period I spent most of my time as a high class muscle man for Big Business, for Wall Street and the bankers. In short, I was a racketeer, a gangster for capitalism. I helped make Mexico and especially Tampico safe for American oil interests in 1914. I helped make Haiti and Cuba a decent place for the National City Bank boys to collect revenues in. I helped in the raping of half a dozen Central American republics for the benefit of Wall Street. I helped purify Nicaragua for the International Banking House of Brown Brothers in 1902–1912. I brought light to the Dominican Republic for the American sugar interests in 1916. I helped make Honduras right for the American fruit companies in 1903. In China in 1927 I helped see to it that Standard Oil went on its way unmolested."

Hey! Get your tongue out of there, fatso!

Will the humiliations never cease? First Canada sends our own troops as sepoys to Afganistan to help pacify the locals in advance of a new oil pipeline, then Stephen Harper starts quoting Bush and mentions Allah in his throne speech. (Whoops! Typo: it wasn't Allah, it was Jesus, or something).

Check out Canadian Ally, owned and operated by the government of Canada.

Apparently, "Canadian Ally" was put together as a reminder to our southern neighbors that we Canadians are their biggest ball-cuppers. So, at least until the new passport law comes into effect, we are desperately encouraging "Americans" to come up to Canada: debase our frenchie women at strip joints, drive poorly, and feel free to over-fish/hunt our natural resources. (How I feel? don't let the door hit your bums on the way out!)


Money talks, Liberal or Conservative. It is the stronger than normal obsequiousness that I find most disturbing.

This Afganistan thing, championed by the continued slavering, blathering bullshit of Marcus Gee on the editorial page of the Globe and Mail , along with "embedded" journalists like Christie Blatchford, seems like obvious propaganda. The majority of Canadians think we shouldn't be in Afganistan, but according to the Globe and Mail editorial page, this is because the Canadian public hasn't been "educated" on the topic enough. (BTW, I wonder which poor enlisted fucker has to "take a hit for the team" to keep 'Blatch' in line?).

We all know it is bullshit, except for iron-Maggie Wente. Her 'latte-land friends' are "in like with Stephen Harper", as opposed to "in love", you see.

Has the Globe been infiltrated from outer space??!? Seriously...

Another view of the LOST Hatch-map

(DON'T click on the image! I am still figuring out how to work with the blogger.com CSS, and all it does now is reproduce itself in a new window.)


This one has an overlay of the scrawled comments on the door, including a handy latin translation key.

If I had the time (ie. I was unemployed, or "at leisure", as they say) I would take the time to compare this overlay with the other versions of the map out there, just to make sure I wasn't helping to distribute disinformation.

For, now, however, I will have to accept this map as it is presented.

All of a sudden, I am interested in U.S. immigration policy!



I have been reading (during working hours, of course) a bunch of articles about the *huge* rally in Los Angeles last weekend. This one "Immigration, African Americans, and Race Discourse" was especially interesting, in that it treats immigration questions from a perspective than I had previously never considered.

A quote from the link posted above:

The proof that European immigration was devastating to blacks is that as soon as immigration was cut off by the First World War, it triggered a massive migration of blacks to cities in the North and West, resulting in the most significant economic advance since the abolition of slavery. The relationship between immigration and race caught the attention of the New Republic, which in 1916 printed an editorial under the caption: "The Superfluous Negro." The editorial began as follows: "The average Pole or Italian arriving at Ellis Island does not realize that he is the deadly foe of the native Negro . . . It is a silent conflict on a gigantic scale.

Joke from SpongeBob SquarePants' standup routine


"What do you call a vampire whose car has broken down 3 miles from a blood bank?"

"A cab."

Right now, I can't decide whether this is really, really funny, or very, very lame... This is a show that seems to appeal to sentients aged 1.5 (human years-- my nephew) to 5.5 (dog years-- me).

It has a different vibe than "the Simpsons" (which incidentally I used to love in, oh say, 1992, 10 YEARS AGO), with less talking and more physical gags. The hilarious shoutouts to alert, reality-based adults are almost continual.

Why adults are amused by SpongeBob is no mystery to me. The thing I ponder is what would a toddler find entertaining about SpongeBob?

It is entirely possible that the things I find annoying (for example, the sudden enlarging of the eyes for the sickening 40s disney-style cutesy-poo effect) are the exact things this child likes about SpongeBob. So I guess I shouldn't complain...