Jack Layton brings you... CanWest Global (a Jew-owned Zionist entity)

Okay, with the revelation that several NDPers, including Jack himself, are awfully chummy with the "I'm not an anti-Semite but the goddamned dirty Jews caused 9/11" crowd, I couldn't resist the above headline. In researching the last post I came across this page on the CanWest site.

Now tell me it doesn't actually look like the NDP site, and the Dippers are just including a snippet from a canada.com newspaper article? (click for full-sized):

The Mystery of the Urinal Deuce

Tonight CBC television news claimed that their "fact checking team" [can "CBC" and "fact" be ever reliably said in the same sentence? -ed] has discovered NDP candidate Bev Collins is one of these "9/11 Truthers". Trouble is that the Liberals just lost a candidate for the same reason.

There's one more minor issue, though: blogger Jason Cherniak found this out last week. So how can the CBC take credit for it now? (Incidentally, partisan Liberal Cherniak is now taking serious flack by NDP commentators and the Vancouver Sun for daring to speak out against "9/11 Truthers" in the NDP (despite renouncing them having any role in his party as well).

Lets go Oilers, lets go!

A CFL team in Edmonton? Never heard of 'em.

Breaking news: Jack Layton's wife defects to the Conservatives

Jack Layton, as per usual, was going around earlier this week sounding like an idiot:

The New Democrat leader told reporters outside a Petro-Canada gas station here, where a litre of regular goes for $1.35, that Conservative Prime Minister Stephen Harper has failed Canadians by refusing to create a separate consumer protection branch.

Er, gas in B.C. is high because of Gordon Campbell's efforts to fight "global warming". If Jack Layton really wants gas prices in B.C. to drop, all he has to do is outlaw any silly carbon plans; from cap-and-trade to carbon tax, if none of them can be enacted by provincial governments then gas won't be so expensive in Lotusland. Of course, I'm sure Layton and his cronies would be the first to accuse Harper of being a control freak by advocating the feds coming in and taking away provincial responsibilities.

Anyways, it was about this time that Layton really started going off the deep end.

"Campbell slapped on his carbon tax and hurt families here in B.C. Bay Street Harper let it happen. He says he's against it now, but his Bay Street ministers sing a different tune," the NDPer said.

Jack Layton needs to brush up on his geography. Or else be better in the sack so his wife isn't adultering on him with some Conservative Party staffer. Because Bay Street is in downtown Toronto. The Conservatives don't have any MPs in Toronto, let alone ministers. In fact, Bay Street is in the riding of Trinity-Spadina (which Wikipedia describes as "the most left-leaning in Toronto and has voted NDP provincially for a number of years").

Who's the MP for Trinity-Spadina? Why if it isn't Olivia Chow, Jack Layton's wife. Is she the "Bay Street ministers" advising Harper?

You'd better stop campaigning Jack and go give her a good poke before she ends up moving to Jasper and running for the Tories in Yellowhead!

...and Kurt Cobain was obviously a Winnipeg Jets fan

Pearl Jam's Eddie Vedder, a longtime Chicago Cubs fan and Wrigley field attendee, has just penned a tribute song to the Cubs just in time for their big playoff push in what has to be their most hopeful season since 1989 (strong pushes exist for highly ranking the 1998 and 2003 seasons, the latter of which saw me in the stands around this time five years ago, but the 1989 season was the last one with this much promise (and the .574 winning percentage). May 2008 end without a 1-4 drubbing in the NLCS like that fateful year. Before '89 and '84 you have to go all the way back to '72 for even a second place showing (and back to the infamous goat-series in '45 before another first place showing). This is a club that's waited 99 years and counting for a World Series (I once saw a homemade Cubs T-shirt in 2005 that said "86 years is nothing").

Which, as I gleefully pointed out to a big Pearl Jam fan, might just explain all of the angst and mournful moping in Vedder's lyrics/voice. Being a Cubs fan leaves you feeling the need to listen to "Corduroy" with the lights off and a bottle of whiskey in your hand come early October more often than not, and there has to be more than an idle connection.

(This posts' title is an idle connection though, as the Jets hung on for two years longer than Cobain)

Catchy, but can you dance to it?

A friend on vacation in the U.S. reported in this morning. It turns out that Idaho's state motto is Esto perpetua -- Let It Be Perpetual -- not Amo Saskatchewan vacuus tripudium -- Like Saskatchewan Without the Excitement -- as I previously had thought.

Speaking of Wheat Herder territory, living in Alberta right now is going to be tough between your friends from B.C. braggng about beating Saskatchewan 27-21 last night and friends from Saskatchewan crying about losing to B.C. 21-27 last night.

Even worse, B.C.'s victory coupled with the Blue Bombers beating Hamilton on Thursday means that Edmonton's upcoming game against Montreal will be burdened with bad karma: two of the three teams not in Ottawa with the strongest claims on the "ownership" of the late Ron Lancaster have lost their games following his death. If Montreal wins today, it will be a clean sweep for the Grim Reaper this weekend in the CFL.

Another anti-Harper flareup entirely manufactured by the media

There's another inappropriate campaign comment (besides the infamous Ritz listeriosis crack) that has begun plaguing the Tories. And again, its not that serious a comment but is being blown far out of proportion.

Cannon was officially opening his campaign office in Maniwaki, Que. on Thursday when protesters from the Barriere Lake community arrived to make their demands known to Cannon.

Cannon listened to some of the group's concerns before he left in a vehicle.

However, one of his aides, Darlene Lannigan, continued to speak with Norman Matchewan, the 25-year-old man leading the protesters.

In a video clip from the Aboriginal People's Television Network, Matchewan asks if he would be arrested if he came into Cannon's office.

"If you behave, and you're sober, and there's no problems, and if you don't do a sit-down and whatever, I don't care. One of them showed up the other day and was drinking," Lannigan said in the clip.

"Are you calling me an alcoholic?" asks Matchewan

"I'm not calling you an alcoholic, it's just to say you're in a federal office. If you're coming in to negotiate, I expect, there's decorum that has to be respected."

Liberal Party deputy leader Michael Ignatieff appeared on CTV's Mike Duffy Live on Thursday evening and said the comments made by the Conservative aide were troubling because of what they assumed about Matchewan.

"The issue here is what assumptions you start with. If you start with the assumption that when an aboriginal man come towards you in good faith and you think he's been drinking, you have a problem," Ignatieff said. "It's an insult to Aboriginals right across the country.

A statement from Cannon's director of communications, Catherine Loubier, sent to CTV.ca on Thursday afternoon said that the comments did not reflect the views of the Government of Canada.

"We would like to take this opportunity to apologize for an offence given," Loubier said in the statement.

"We also understand these comments were made in a difficult context. That is regrettable. The good news is the parties have agreed to meet later this week in a spirit of collaboration."

Matchewan spoke with CTV Newsnet on Thursday afternoon from Barriere Lake. The part-time police officer and schoolteacher said the apology issued by Cannon's office was "not good enough."

"I was offended...my community is offended (and) they are still upset," said Matchewan. "This goes to show how much they disrespect our communities.

"We were there in a peaceful, respectful manner to meet with Mr. Cannon (and) I do not know why she would say such things. That's hurtful, hurtful words for a community."

Matchewan released a statement to The Canadian Press on Thursday that condemned Lannigan's remarks, calling them "patronizing and racist" and "another example of the Conservative government's disrespect for our community."

Er, I'm sorry, this is a massive non-issue. Not only was this a staffer, but also one who had just recently had to deal with unruly intoxicated Indians^† from Matchewan's own lobby group. Sorry, no excitement here.

But in the comments on the CTV page, some lib-lefties are going nuts over this. Here are some highlights:

Marcel
The Conservatives are out control. Yesterday, it was disgusting jokes by Gerry Ritz on dying people and today it an aide to Lawrence Cannon on aboriginals. The Conservatives are still showing their Reform colors.

Mary Ewen
What I find interesting,is how the media failed to make headline news of the Lib. M.P. in Quebec who made disparing comments about Aboriginals.
In fairness,if you're going to attack one Party,then at least report the others gaffes.
Besides,being asked to show up sober for meetings,despite bringing race into the issue,is a fairly honest request.

Den
Inference about being a drunk to a native man... If you don't find the offense in this inference, then you're way too partisan. If a Liberal had said these comments, the Conservative blog-o-sphere would be on fire right now. You're hypocrites.

Don
So this woman had a run-in with someone who had been drinking, who, by chance, was also a native. Supposing that all other natives are always drinking is woefully ignorant. It is hard to negotiate eye to eye when one party constantly looks down their nose at you.

Hope
Just goes to show how much Racism still exhists here in Canada after reading some of your comments. Just because on man drinks is it fair to say we all do??
That's like saying because you raped and molested our children in the Residential Schools then all of you rape and molest!!!

Jim Murphy
It is an insult to say that to somone who has never shown that past behaviour.

If the individual who the comment was made to had previously visited the office in such a state the comment may be warranted. However, the Minister's Assistant projected the behaviours of others to this individual and therefore it is an insult.

Hopefully people will see what Stephen Harper and his associates are up to.

Voting anything but Blue!
WOW - I cannot believe some of the comments I'm reading. Do you people honestly not see the problem with this situation? Nowhere have I read that Norman Matchewan was in any way intoxicated when he approached the Minister's office. The fact that he was told to be sober in any further discourse is a blatant use of a terrible stereotype that has been ascribed to Native peoples for decades. Shame on the minister's office and on anyone dim enough to think this kind of exchange is okay at a kindergarten level, let alone a federal government level.

The sooner this bunch of ignorant yahoos is gone from government the better!

Stu
I actually thought this sounded pretty bad when I first read the quote but after reading it again it appears that one of the protesters with Matchewan was drinking when they showed up at Cannon's office. Just because Matchewan is native it shouldn't mean that you can't say to him that someone in his group of protesters was drinking when they showed up previously.

Sort of depends if the word 'you' meand Matchewan himself, or if it meant the group of protesters as a whole. If it meant the protesters as a whole it's a completely valid statement. If it meant just Matchewan it's possibly racist but more likely a generalization across the protest group. It wouldn't have been a fair statement but sounds like it's because of the previous actions of the people he was with, not because of his race. If a white protester is drinking when they show up to a person's office, they don't get treated well either. I expect the group would be generalized the same way as this group of protesters was.

Sam Crawford
For me the answer to "where is the story" is the question: would he have said the same thing to a group of women; Muslims; Dentists; Farmers?

What makes it okay to tell a group of natives that they have to be sober? Has there been a problem with groups being drunk when they come to see the minister?

David in Ontario
No wonder there is very little progress with dealing with the unrest in Caledonia and Deseronto in Ontario when ones hears comments like these.

The First Nations are a federal responsibility under the BNA act. With recent attitudes and comments like this by the Conservatives, things will not improve.

Better vote Cons. Diane Finley out of her riding, which I think covers Caledonia. Things will get uglier there. She has done little to resolve that issue for her constituents.

I think Cons. Daryl Kramp is the Deseronto area. What has he done to rectify the unrest there? Things will get heated up there with public views like this coming from Conservatives.

Too many self-inflicted wounds here that do not bode well for the Conservatives and do not reflect well on Canadians as a whole.

Surprising to see so many comments in support of views in this day and age suggesting we have swung too far to the right here in Canada. Shades of the US situation when Kanye West saying "George Bush doesn't care about Black people" to 100 Million people in the US after Katrina hit New Orleans.

Steve Harper and the Cons may get hit hard for this one for those questionable Conservative views/attitudes on race.

Scott Stelmaschuk
I think the problem rests in the fact that the comment was "one of them showed up the other day and was drinking,"...

Lannigan didn't say 'a man/woman showed up yesterday, drinking." or "we had a person show up yesterday drinking." By saying, "one of them", he is specifically referring to Aboriginal people.

Also, this may be personal bias on my part, but I doubt Lannigan would have made the same comments if he were talking to a Caucasian group.

It would be like them addressing a gay rights group and specifically singling out men who came in dresses and make-up. It's a stereotypical image of a community that the Conservatives have about these minority groups and it's clearly coming through now that they're able to speak without PMO permission.

Paul Vancouver Island
To those who say get on with it, take another step back. This is an issue and relevant to an election.

It's about attitude toward First Nations people and there appears to be racism expressed today by conservatives.

Let's bring back the Paul Martin Accord reached in Kelowna that Harper cancelled when he came to power and give back to First Nations the dignity and respect they deserve.

John
The other 2 incidents were serious:
1) the con shots at the father of a Canadian soldier who died in battle.
2) the light-hearted joking about Listeria deaths by the con Minister.

This newer "incident" doesn't seem comparable (unless maybe something has been left out of the story).

The cons will be PLEASED to see this story, as it may have the effect of WATERING DOWN the COLLECTIVE seriousness of con gaffes. They got a similar benefit when they were being attacked by what seemed like dozens of parliamentary committees.

The opposition parties will be wise to stay on focus with a FEW REALLY GOOD items, as only hard-core political junkies are going to see through a wash of complexity.

Melissa- Ontario
The issue here is the prejudice - she's assuming that since he's representing a native group he's an alcoholic - doesn't matter if a native group showed up drunk at a different time - if he wasn't there she's being rude and offensive.
Nonetheless her comments won't affect who I vote for... not likely conservatives anyways

Doug BC
I'm also finding it difficult to find a real issue here.Is the "noise" being created by the media,or by other politicians?
And,while I'm not sure how intention,or even that it's blatant,I agree that the media,both in Canada and the USA appear to have a slant to the left.Perhaps I've seen it more in American coverage this time.The media seem very determined to elect Sen.Obama.
It gets harder and harder to know what,or who to believe any more.Of course politicians don't do much to clear the air either.And making mountains out of mole-hills seems to be a deliberate way to distract voters from honestly debating real issues.
Hmmm.Now that I think of it,quite a lot like "question period" in parliament.
But here.Sorry.I see no story.If protestors expect to be treated with respect,I think they have to protest with respect.

Dina
Typical, typical, and the Tories want to run our country. With an attitude like that, she might as well stay assistant. Her view on Natives may be mirrored by the Natives if every time they see a white man in a suit they know they are going to get screwed in the end. Because we all know the Natives will be on the losing end in THEIR own country.

Tom D.
Anyone who does not see an insult here is either ignorant, insensitive, or biased towards a certain party (most probable), and possibly all three. This has nothing to do with liberal bias,left wing media, or making a story from a non-issue.

This was a generalization made by a representative of the government. It may come as a surprise to those who choose to see otherwise but not all First Nations members are irresponsible drinkers any more than all whites are tea-totalling examples of decorum.

To ask a group to behave "sober" is very insulting and in this case racist, regardless of whether there were prior incidents from a similar group in the past. For example, should a politician in B.C. have the right to say in seriousness to a Students Union group "I'll meet with your group as long as you are not high". It goes beyond the ridiculous to the sublime.

The aide could have simply said "if there is a civil discussion with a respectful tone, we would be happy to arrange it", and that would have been completely acceptable. Instead, an insulting stereotype was thrown in the mix for good measure.

If it really was no big deal, then I can guarantee this party would not have apologized. We are in the midst of an election, and apologies are BAD news. So, obviously someone withing the group realized that this was a major faux pas.

It seems being "Politically Correct" is politically incorrect, literally.

Gerald from Belleville
We, as usual, probably don't have all the facts. But, based on what is presented here, I don't think there should have been an apology.

Consider this sequence, as described in the article(paraphrasing):
1)Matchewan asks if he'll be arrested if he goes to the office (nobody asks that unless there's some intent to challenge or disrupt, or else it wouldn't need to be asked...ESPECIALLY by a part-time cop who would know the law).
2)Lannigan says it's okay, as long as "you" behave and aren't drunk.
3)Lannigan also specifies that one of "them" showed up and was drinking last time
4)Matchewan asks if Lannigan called him an alcoholic
5)Lannigan specifies no, but decorum is expected during negociations

"You" and "them" appear to refer more to the collective protesters rather than strictly Matchewan.

We can deduce, from the article at least, that there had been a previous incident where protesters had shown a lack of proper "decorum" and at least one person had been drinking. It is not unreasonable then for Lannigan to ask "them" to behave and refrain from drinking (being drunk).

This seems like a case of protesters trying to provoke and get a good sound bite to further their protest. Turn it around: Group A show up at your house and make trouble on Tuesday. A member of Group A shows up at your house on Thursday, you tell him to behave based on Tuesday's incidents. It's totally reasonable. In fact, you'd be an idiot NOT to tell him and his group to behave...

sickened
No real surprise here, instead of saying "...as long as we are all seriously negotiating" or something not as inflammatory as the "drunken indian" mentality, it would have been a non issue. But when an apology has to be given because the views of the Minister do not reflect that of the GOVERNMENT OF CANADA. I have said it before here and I'll say it again, these are NOT your Daddy's Progressive Conservatives, these are namely Reform hacks. Harper can barely trust them to speak in public without insulting the population of Canada. The narrow mindedness ranges from Stockwell Day mocking climate change saying basically that his constituents (in the Mountains) were looking forward to having water front property, to insulting natives, to mocking those dying from Listeria. Now Canada, see what you are electing to a majority. Me, I'm voting ABC.

And so on, and so forth.

Some of these comments just cry out for a response. The first thing you notice is a consistent claim that Cannon's aide was engaging in "unfair negative stereotyping", namely that any Indian you come across is an alcoholic. Re-read "Vote Anything But Blue's" comments above: "The fact that he was told to be sober in any further discourse is a blatant use of a terrible stereotype that has been ascribed to Native peoples for decades." A terrible stereotype, eh? Well, then perhaps the taxpayers of Canada should ask for their money back.

The National Native Alcohol Abuse Program is a joint effort by the Department of Indian Affairs and Health and Welfare Canada to provide up to $13 million over three year trial period to help native people across Canada to develop and carry out preventive and rehabilitative projects.

In the past, federal and provincial governments have funded a variety of native alcohol abuse projects, but the approach was piecemeal and evaluations of projects success' have not been undertaken. The new program is intended to treat some of these shortages and also to begin to provide a technical support and expertise while giving native people the leading role in designing and implementing projects.

The need for a concerted attack on the native alcohol problem has been acknowledged by all governments and agencies who have been involved in past efforts in this area. Native leaders have increasingly called for greater assistance.

Now why would "Native leaders have increasingly called for greater assistance" if the whole notion of the drunken Indian is just a shallow racist generalization as these CTV commentators are claiming? I know this link was from 1975, but the fact that governments keep funding programs to get Indians to sober up, and the Indians keep asking for more, seems to negate the criticisms being leveled.

Now it turns out Cannon has in fact wandered into a bit of a intra-Indian controversy. Remember how Bill Cosby got in trouble for insisting that much of the socioeconomic problems amoungst U.S. blacks were a result of poor personal decisions and not racist white policy? Well, Glen McGregor for First Nations Drum has an artcle about this very issue:

When Assembly of First Nations Chief Matthew Coon Come warned that native leaders must sober up, he was drawing on a long-standing and persistent stereotype of native alcoholism that never has been proved conclusively.

``Our people smoke too much and drink too much,'' said Mr. Coon Come, Canada's top elected native. ``I think it does not give a good signal if a chief and council and anyone who is in Indian leadership is denying that he has alcohol problems.''

To many, Mr. Coon Come's recent remarks came as a welcome recognition of a health problem endemic to Canada's aboriginal communities.

But to others, it was an endorsement of an unfair stereotype that natives have tried to shake for years.

Had it been anyone but Mr. Coon Come who said it, they suggest, the remarks would be vilified as bigoted and uninformed.

Indeed, former Newfoundland premier Brian Tobin was publicly castigated last year for saying pretty much the same thing as Mr. Coon Come when he suggested many aboriginal leaders in Labrador are ``themselves abusers of alcohol and themselves in need of help.''

His remarks set off a rage of controversy, with Phil Fontaine, Mr. Coon Come's predecessor at the AFN, denouncing the comments as ``a stereotypical image of our people that's so completely wrong.''

So Cannon should really have, instead of apologizing, stood up to Matchewan and his band and told them that if they don't like the notion of Indians being mischaracterized as drunk, they should follow Matthew Coon Come's advice and fix rather than deny alcohol abuse problems in his group (both "his group" as in his protesters and "his group" as in the reservation he represents... its best to be explicit here because it seems that pronouns are being jumped on left right and centre and its best to just be bold from the get-go).

Other comments are almost too hilarious to believe:

Surprising to see so many comments in support of views in this day and age suggesting we have swung too far to the right here in Canada. Shades of the US situation when Kanye West saying "George Bush doesn't care about Black people" to 100 Million people in the US after Katrina hit New Orleans.

Whats surprising is that the poster fails to realize that Kanye West's claims were so laughably and demonstrably false that it boosted Bush's profile: now his enemies were claiming that he was sending the forces of nature into cities with black populations and somehow tricking the black mayor to act like an idiot. These same enemies will call him a "simple moron" the next day, and not once think about the inconsistencies. Likewise this poster: if Canada really doesn't care about Indians, why is the government spending billions on them? It was $5 billion in 1998-99 (under the Liberals, one may note). If anybody has newer figures for how much money DIAND costs us, feel free to post them in the comments.

Meanwhile I find the comment how this gaffe is weak and will weaken the anti-conservative argument to be a much more reasonable leftie to be trying to discuss this with. I don't think the Ritz situation is particularly serious either, at least the cold-cuts gag. The wishing a Liberal minister was a victim was a little over the line for my tastes, but it seems that reasonable leftie is turning out to be right: now the tide is starting to turn in favour of accepting the cold-cuts comment: "In a crisis, Ritz did what people do – resort to gallows humour to cope or make it through."

Lets just hope that bigger campaign issues, such as the Liberals out-promising the NDP by a 4-1 ratio, start to make it to the forefront.

^† You will notice that I blatently use "Indian" in this post even though it creates an East Indian/West Indian/North American Indian element of confusion. This is intentional, because none of the "more politically correct" terms are suitable. "Native" is a person who was born in the country in which he lives: a Sioux born in South Dakota who moves to Toronto isn't a native, while the hot asian girl who lives next door is because she was born in Halifax. Not only is "Peoples of Canada's First Nations" too long to say, but it and its derivatives are wholly inaccurate as well: these people were tribal communities at best and were not in any practical level "nations". If you can come up with a better term, suggest it in the comments.

Breaking news: pinkos in B.C. smoke cannibus

Harper's campaign gaffes are catching: A candidate for the NDP in British Columbia has resigned over video surfaced of him consuming large amounts of drugs and then driving.

The first thought that came to my mind was is it possible to be an NDP supporter in B.C. and not be a drug addict? Come to think of it, don't you have to be a serious drug user to even think of voting for the Dipper morons?

Even more insight comes from commenter "Andy" on the Times-Colonist's article online I link to above:

Now you know why so many of these guys are against sending troops to Afghanistan. The taliban also make their money off the drug trade, and who wants to fight a brother in arms?

This is more than a half-decent point, and for all the rallying the left wing morons do about "we're only in Iraq for oil" (again forgetting that many of the countries opposed to the Iraq war were illegally funding Saddam during the UN embargo), remember that Layton and his NDP buddies have their own selfish (and corrupt) reasons for their own policies on the matter of international politics.

I (heart) the 80s

Bossy

One of the big stories today is Lindsay Lohan's recent rant against Sarah Palin.

I mean, this is so amazingly outrageous that even hard-core left-wing MTV couldn't help but note this was less than a blistering attack:

Just typing about Palin, whom Lohan called a “narrow-minded, media-obsessed homophobe,” apparently filled her with so much “fear, anxiety, concern, disappointment and stress” that she reportedly punched a paparazzo in the nose later that night, after tripping over a metal barricade that she mistook for a photog’s foot, according to TMZ.

After all, if you're looking for socio-political analysis, naturally you go for the rehab-regular girl celeb who's famous for her cocaine and alcohol addictions, and has decided to follow the trends by carpet-licking a woman so ugly that even dogs won't lick her without at least 3 gallons of gravy poured over her. In fact, Lohan and this woman who looks more manly than I do are rumoured to be engaged to be sapphist-married. If this doesn't put another 600,000 votes in the McCain camp, who knows what would? (Even MTV almost wants to make this point).

Still, the best part of Lohan's post is this:

Also interesting that she got her passport in 2006.. And that she is not fond of environmental protection considering she’s FOR drilling for oil in some of our protected land…. Well hey, if she wants to drill for oil, she should DO IT IN HER OWN backyard.

Er, Lindsay, Sarah Palin supports drilling for oil in the infamous ANWR wildlife refuge. Assumably, her support for this famous concept is what is being mentioned. Should somebody tell Lindsay Lohan that Sarah Palin was the Governor of Alaska? And maybe, just to make sure, ask Lohan if she can guess what the "A" in "ANWR" means?

Sarah Palin wants to drill for oil in protected land, which is in her backyard you useless lesbo twat (no pun intended).

Super Morphing Outer Space Fighting Robots: A Michael Bay film

Back when it came out, I watched Transformers and reviewed it. It's also the last movie I've watched in theatres to date. Huh.

Anyways, its reviewed again in YouTube format below:


Highlights:

1. The changes in robot design result in the title of this post hilariously suggested as the new movie.
2. "How does Megatron turn into a gun that's 1/100th of his original size?"
3. "Where the fuck does Optimus Prime's trailer go when he transforms?"
4. At 8:43 he figures out the entire plot (minus the computer hacker subplot) only from the trailers, correctly surmising that a black box shown in two of the quick preview scenes is what the Decepticons were after.

Bonus Transformers YouTube discoveries: You can check out the epic battle between Optimus Prime and Megatron from the 1986 movie, Galvatron (Leonard Nimoy) murders the living daylights out of Starscream from the same flick, the First, second, and third parts of the original pilot episode. (Each part a full 22 minutes). Finally, the Black Lab theme version set to scenes from the cartoon.

Believe me when I say that I got somethin for his punk ass

So with major elections being held in both Canada and the United States, with the anniversary of 9/11 coming into play, and a variety of exciting photos I took today in the Bonnie Doon area all of which would make excellent blog postings, I decide to use my Friday night home alone to make a post of Sublime music videos. Enjoy.

Santeria:


Caress Me Down:


Burritos:


What Happened -- not the official video, but the guy looks like this creepy dude I know:


April 29, 1992 (Miami) -- again just a bunch of images from some guy. And whats with all the video-less YouTube videos for this song?:


Smoke Two Joints -- this time at least a bunch of Sublime publicity stills. Did these guys ever make actual videos?:


Date Rape -- yes, that is Ron Jeremy. Yes, that is also Ron Jeremy:

In search of God (particle form only)

Today the Large Hadron Collector "went online" (though powerless tests and powered tests with this machine aren't fundamentally different).

All of the cool experiments are still to come, as power is ramped up. And, well, the possible side effects include the destruction of the Earth. Though that is extremely unlikely (though the LHC death toll is now greater-than-zero).

The big question is "Will it find the Higgs Boson?" I have said no since I first saw the specs of this experiment. Stephen Hawking agrees with me (though I admit its ultimately unclear which of us came to the conclusion first). Hawking says no in the hope that there will be some revolutionary need for Higgs-free theories. I say no because I don't think the theoretical Higgs is as heavy as people think.

Its not fun to be at a BBQ without the B

Yesterday lovable Bloc Quebecois leader Gilles Duceppe warned Quebec voters that the Conservatives were dangerous right-wing ideologues, in part because Charbonneau Barron is a member of the Catholic group Opus Dei. Duceppe, a supposed Catholic, is not impressed with this.

Which makes this statement all the more interesting:

Referring to the discovery that Nicole Charbonneau Barron, the Conservative candidate for St. Bruno-St. Hubert, a riding on Montreal's south shore, was the former spokesperson for the group, Duceppe called Opus Dei a "secret society" with a "narrow ideology" that doesn't fit with a modern Quebec.

"Those people are against a lot of things that are generally accepted in Quebec," he told reporters in Quebec City. "That candidate said very openly that self-whipping is a sacrifice they have to make. I question such practices."

First off, Duceppe's own regular Catholicism doesn't fit into the modern Quebec of low birthrates and Muslim conflicts.

Secondly, why is Dion so concerned about a candidates (alleged) practise of "self-whipping"? After all, he doesn't mind that one of his own MPs is a disgusting sodomite. Why is whipping, which Menard likely does in the presence of dozens of nubile young boys, not acceptable when done alone as a test of piety?

"I have made the first move. That is all they know."

Today, popular p2p aggregate site isohunt.com launched a lawsuit against the Canadian Recording Industry Association.

As one digg commenter puts it, the CRIA is so quick to sue....lets see how they like it.

Now, before the critics say isoHunt.com is full of links to copyright infringing content and we should just pack up and leave. To which I'll summarize what our petition to the BC court is all about. isoHunt is a search engine of BitTorrent sites, and our sister sites are indices of direct user contributed .torrent links. None of the pieces of files exchanged over BitTorrent pass through our servers, they are exchanged over external P2P networks. We serve cached .torrent links to such files on P2P networks. Some of these files maybe copyright infringing, some aren't. But given the ridiculously long copyright terms in most countries of the world (which does differ) and that all creative media are copyrighted by default (in many countries), large majority of files exchanged on the internet would be copyrighted. That includes Linux ISO images and your videos of friends and family doing whacky things. The real question is are they infringing against the wishes of respective copyright owners. We make and run a great search engine here at isoHunt, but we unfortunately do not have the technology to mind read what are the wishes of all copyright owners, or who they are to begin with in association with the tens of millions of files on BitTorrent, to which we only indexes metadata links and not actual content files. Whatever copyright laws or safe harbor provisions provided in different countries, the only sensible and technically possible thing to do we've found is to take down links to allegedly infringing content upon request and verification. This part of the US's DMCA is one which has much foresight and makes sense. (although not perfect obviously, it should add provisions for monetary punishment on erroneous notices as we receive plenty of ignorant or erroneous takedown requests and there isn't much recourse about them, but that's another topic)

The bottom line is we developed a search engine for BitTorrent protocols when it was still in its infancy, and even now it has not yet gained full mainstream use. We are on the cutting edge of emerging internet technologies, and I ask reasonable people of Canada and whoever else reading this to accept that it is not my wish for my websites and search engines to infringe rights of others. As all emerging technologies go, increasingly beneficial usage of BitTorrent will emerge with more widespread adoption by various parties. I'm referring to the US's Sony Betamax decision here; as the VCRs have been allowed to develop, enabling a new industry of videos playable at home, I plead that emerging technologies like BitTorrent and our web services be allowed that same chance to develop.

Drunken music trivia

Late night bar info: This song -- don't click without guessing first is the only song to mention both the Whopper and the Big Mac.

Mid afternoon Google info: Technically not true.

The new Conservative ads

In a new series of ads released this weekend and broadcast during the BC-Hamilton football game today Harper sits wearing a blue shirt with a dark sweater talking about various political issues.

I think it was the "Family" one shown below, where they cut from the usual close-in shot to another camera angle some 10 feet away from where Harper is sitting.

Even I, politically astute as I am, first glanced up at the TV (sound was off as it was in a bar) and first thought "is Ted Danson in a new movie?"

Is there a particular reason Windows 95 was deliberately not back-compatible?

After some hard drive reconstruction as a result of the joke.blusod worm not being so "low" threat as advertised, and since I dual-boot with MS-DOS 6.22 I thought it was time to stop having to read G:\PROGRA~1.

So imagine the mind-blowing shock when I suddenly noticed yesterday that PROGRAMS is an eight-letter word, and therefore fits just fine into the 8.3 naming system.

Now surely some Microsoft engineers in 1994 could have figured this out from scratch, and stopped having 16-bit programs having to deal with 255-character directory names fresh out of the gate.

(Bonus Windows hacking blog entry featuring hot cleavage)

John McCain and I have the same problem

With the Democratic Convention recently wrapped up, and with the pre-convention McCain news that his running mate is going to be a beauty queen contestant I guess its no better time than now to reveal that I have recently had an insight regarding last week's two weeks ago's big U.S. Presidential news story: John McCain hilariously doesn't know how many homes he owns.

Ahh, look at the rich Republican being out of touch with the common man! How can you not know how many homes you own? Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha! Er, wait, those are all his homes, n'est pas?

No, they aren't. They're all his properties, but its not like he has the New York condo to stay at while in Manhatten, and the mansion in Arizona that's his primary, and that beachfront villa near San Diego that he likes to reside in from time to time, and don't forget that little cottage in Vermont with the little orchard behind it and what are we up to did we forget the ranch house near Richmond Virginia? He owns all of them, yes. They are investment properties [and if we need a reason aganst McCain entering the White House, perhaps we should consider the fact that this genius currently has properties in the United States of America, where realtor.com shows $14,000 houses in Ohio, as an investment... -ed]. They are McCain's real estate investments. Now should this change the scandal considerably? Yes, yes it should, because like John McCain I had an embarassing situation last week where I didn't know my own investments.

You see, I stopped in for one of these "annual investment reviews" on Friday, where they ask about your knowledge, term of investment, and risk acceptance. From all this, its determined which underperforming accounts you should be in. 99.5% of all my investments are in RRSPs, which I've been adding to for almost a decade now. So the lovely girl who's been in banking for at least 24 hours is looking over my account. It turns out mutual funds are the way I should be heading.

"Do you currently have any mutual funds with us?" she asks? I shake my head, knowing that I did some mutual fund work about 5 years ago with a non-bank investment house, but really not much else. Just to be safe, she looks up my account anyways. Lo and behold, I do have a mutual fund RRSP in place with them, dated 2006. And suddenly I realized that John McCain's "gaffe" is nothing new.

With all the RRSPs and GICs and such, I don't where my money is, or even who has it. Two weeks after tax time, I couldn't tell you my current RRSP status if you held a gun to my head. I have a pension plan at work, and an RRSP matching plan that a previous job had set up, as well as the RRSPs I did 5 years ago with that non-banking outfit, and I think Wood Gundy took some retirement investments from me when I was 14 years old. I don't have any apartment properties that I've forgotten about, but I'm not in the "buying property for shits and giggles" bracket. I earn 5 figures, and not on the high end of that scale, yet here I am losing $4000 investments into the aether.

John McCain is a rich man. He couldn't remember how many investment properties he had in his portfolio, that being the job of his accountant. There is no scandal here. Time to move along.