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040507 - there I said it again..

Shit - I went and did it again - too hard on the sheeps last time, and now feel guilty about it. Because I know that most of them aren't bad people, most of them in fact are quite good people, who do good things for other people when other people need some help, and don't do bad stuff in general, and generally just want a decent life for themselves and their families, in a decent society - not unlike moi and most of us doing these things trying to stop the fascist neocons from taking over the world. They aren't a bunch of mindless automatons, and it is bad of me to allude such a thing. And I don't like doing bad stuff to other people either.

It is my frustration speaking. I see our country, hell our world, going, as the saying has it, to hell in a handbasket, and to me and a certain number of others the reasons this is happening are fairly clear, and what we have to do to stop it, while less clear, is at least evident in certain respects - primarily, at least for a beginning, getting rid of the "leaders" who are implementing the destructive policies at the behest of their elite masters who are causing the bad stuff we see happening - this is, after all, still a fairly honest democracy (hahahahaha that is CANADA I refer to here, not the US), and we COULD kick the bums out and put better people in our government, people who would really act as OUR representatives instead of betraying us constantly, acting against our best interests. And yet, for some reason, the people in this country (I'm not going to deal with the world right now - there are other reasons out there, it's a big mess altogether, and I don't want to pretend the solution is easy everywhere, it's not) keep electing the leaders who carry on the same old same old course.

But there are many reasons they do that, and referring to everyone as sheep just because they don't all agree with MY perspective on things is just a non-starter in almost every way.

First, it's incorrect - there are many, many reasons people are not taking an interest in changing things - and some of those reasons may be valid. Maybe most of them.

There are all those who do read a bit about what is going on in the world, and know to some extent what is happening - and agree with it. They won't vote to change anything - indeed, vote to carry on with yet more of the same. I think they are very wrong in their beliefs - but that doesn't by itself justify labelling them as moronic sheep. Morons maybe, if they really like Mulroney and Harper and Bush and the rest of that gang HAHAHAHAHAHAHAAA - sorry.

And then there are the many who are not overly intellectual to begin with, and who have been trained through our modern propaganda-"education" system to be passive and to believe in the things they are told - they may see there are some things around them that they think may not be quite right, but they have neither the time (having to work all day every day, wives too, either at a job or just looking after the house and kids and hubby) nor inclination (normal schooling drives what potential intelligence average people have OUT of them, rather than encouraging it - normal education does indeed TRY to make a society of sheep). These people want nothing to do, by and large, with running the country or understanding how it is run. A vote every few years is fine by them, and no big deal if they are too busy that day to vote either. The world is unfolding as it should, we gotta figure out how we're going to budget this month to pay for the repairs on the car, your mom's coming Saturday and she's always a handful, Bobby wants to go to Niagara Falls with his friend's family, Suzy's boyfriend seems like a, well, not very nice boy, you know, oh my it's time for bed already and we missed the news - do you suppose the Eye-racki terrorists have been beaten yet? Good night dear. And on and on and on it goes. They don't take much of an interest in politics, but they have real lives and they are not dummies. I'm just upset with them because I think the system is about to become very much worse for us all, and I think we could probably stop it now if we all really tried - but only if people like THIS start to understand that there IS a problem happening here, and what is the matter, and decide they have to take time to do something about it.

And then there are the many others who believe the system is fucked, and there is nothing that can be done about it, so just put on the old cynical face, laugh at everything, avoid and ignore it as much as possible, try to make the best of their own lives, whatever is left of them in a system doomed to destruction. Again, NOT sheep. And maybe even right. These would be the big part of the 40% or so of eligible voters who have not bothered voting in the last few elections.

So where does that leave my hasty, cynical little wrap up of last time - 5% elite, 5% aware citizens, 90% sheep? Pretty far off, I think - I still get about 5% elite, all the money and running everything, 5% aware citizens, concerned and thinking people who see a problem and want to do something about it but have next to zero actual power, maybe 30% see a fairly serious problem of some sort and think it is hopeless, maybe 25% is more or less aware of things in the country and to some extent the world and thinks things are just fine (the Harper and Fraser and National Pispot and Mulroney and Klein and Harris et al. supporters - perhaps a word like "aware" is overstating the case a bit... - but labelling them "passive sheep" is way the hell off too), and the rest - let's see - what's that? 35%? - troubled, but too busy to get informed, and don't know what should be done, if anything, so don't get much involved. Really, they have a point - we HAVE been one of the best countries in the world, and it's only the last couple of decades that SOME of us have seen a very troubling trend leading back towards times that were much less good and want to stop that trend - a lot of this last group don't see the same trend, they believe perhaps that the troubles we face are things beyond their or the gov's control, and trust that the gov is dealing with it as well as they can -

Well - there should be another category, I think - "don't know don't care" (not the same as the ones who think the place is fucked, who DO know and DO care, but feel there is no hope) - think of your 16 year old++, not-too-bright stud-types, for instance (or female counterparts), jockeying for position in their little gangland worlds, no idea at all of what is happening in the bigger sphere of their country or world and could care less (the stronger or more cunning of whom will eventually work their way to the top, however, in the natural "expansion of territory to the limits" game and become the big-time hoods whom we are fighting against in the bigger picture - the Bay St-Bankers-nexus Mafia types, exerting considerable influence in the country through corruption of various sorts), and their counterparts from earlier generations; or your truly unintelligent types, narcissistic morons, think the world revolves around their handsome little faces, they know not and care not about the larger picture, but think ONLY of how they can get their hands on a lot of money (dishonest much more than honest - they deserve it after all!!!) and live the lives of luxury they think they deserve (and female counterparts again) - ohoh, better ratchet that up a bit - 20% maybe altogether - NOT a proud moment for the species HAHAHAHAHAHAHAA. Actually, when you look a bit closer, there aren't many actual "sheep" out there at all - which makes things from MY perspective harder, less simplistic that is. But better, cause like I said last time, ya gotta ask the right questions before you have any chance of finding the right answers - and if I was looking for ways to educate sheep, I was barking up the wrong tree. You old dog you.

Fuck this is getting too complicated - I've known this for awhile, but have been too lazy or unsure to deal with it. But I wanted to take a first run at it. Cause I disparaged a lot of people with the sheep term, and unfairly so, and wanted to make what amends I could. If any of my few readers fit that category anyway, which I doubt.

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAA fuck no wonder I got no friends HAHAHAHAHAHAA

Well - if you followed all that maze, "first" implies a second at least - so, second, calling people names is not a good way to get them to agree and cooperate. More flies with honey than vinegar sort of thing. Fuck now I'm calling them flies. I better get on to something else. HAHAHAHAHAHA

Ahhh shit enough philosophy for one day. Let's look around and see what the neo-con-nazis are up to THIS fucking week. They NEVER fucking stop.

But first - back to the old letters - ease off sometimes, when the futility of it all starts to get to levels I can't deal with, but then something comes up again - like this piece last week, on the auspicious occasion of World Press Freedom Day (brings to mind the old Gandhi quote of ".... we ought to try it some time..." in a slightly different context HAHAHAHAHAAA) - anyway, the top dog (no relation HAHAHAHAHAHAA) of the Canadian Newspaper Association had some words about it all in the Globe, that I thought missed a rather important point, so tried to explain to her some things (no reply, as of yet...) -

Dear Ms. Anne Kothawala
Re your article on World Press Freedom Day - Press freedom: our issue, too (RM archive copy)

I think it is good that you take the opportunity during World Press Freedom Day to discuss freedom of the press in Canada, as it is indeed one of the basic necessities for a free and democratic society. I do believe, however, that in Canada there are not too many concerns around "freedom", at least of the press - yes, there are some worrying signs, the RCMP raid on the Ottawa reporter, various FOI acts being observed often as much in the breach and the "white"outs and unnecessarily long delays as the observance, and the increasing desire of the government to secrecy under supposed "national security" excuses - but all in all, you are not seriously prevented in any way from commenting on such things to your heart's desire, as far as I can see - we don't need to be ringing any panic alarms yet concerning "freedom" of the press in Canada.

However - "freedom" is good and necessary for our press or any press - but "freedom" is not a sufficient condition for most things if there is not a substantial amount of "responsibility" to go along with such freedom, and from this perspective, one can advance an argument that there are still some fairly serious shortcomings with the press in Canada, which led me to the following reflections after reading your commentary.

I believe that an equally important area concerning the Canadian press is not receiving anywhere near the amount of attention it ought to be - it doesn't even seem to have a name, actually, so I shall coin one, for the nonce - how about "Responsibility of the Press" in a free and democratic society?? That's a bit wordy for a catchy slogan, but call it what you will, this seems to get quite a lot less attention in our "free" press - there seems to be some sort of "understanding" or assumption that a "free" press will just sort of naturally behave responsibly, that diligently digging for government financial misdeeds or exposing other wrongdoings that reporters and news editors deem newsworthy constitutes the totality of what we need in the media in terms of their "freedom" - but I think that assumption is not warranted. It may have been different many years ago, when newspapers were less expensive to publish, and operated in smaller markets, and there were many, many more of them, or at least many, many more independent owners and publishers, speaking with a myriad of voices that more or less ensured most things the public needed to know would be published by someone at least - but today, where there are but a handful of owners, there are many fewer voices, and increasingly those voices are singing more or less the same tune - which raises the bar considerably concerning the responsibility of these papers to the people they are supposed to be "serving".

Let me explain, briefly.

To begin with, by "responsibility", I mean the responsibility of the press in a democratic society to present a full spectrum of news and commentary and whatever other information is necessary for the citizens of the country to know and understand the issues of the day, including many and various perspectives on any given issue.

There is a very, very strong argument to be made, Ms. Kothawala, that this responsibility is not being met here in Canada, all the freedom that the press enjoys notwithstanding - that the Canadian press, rather than impartially giving Canadians the information they need to make informed decisions about what is happening in Canada and the world, actually presents the news and commentary in a way rather more intended to actually shape and guide the decisions Canadians make on such things - that is, rather than acting as a more or less impartial presenter of news and commentary, the Canadian media is actually a PR organ, a "spin" doctor in modern parlance, for certain vested interests (corporate owners and "investors", to put a face on the accusation), and, as such, regularly spins news and commentary to favor those interests, while marginalizing or even ignoring news or perspectives or interpretations of that news it does not wish the people to be considering at any given time or that reflect negatively on the corporate gatekeepers themselves - and to this end, while not entirely ignoring alternative perspectives, that would be a bit obvious and is not necessary (as in Vegas, fixed games are not necessary, a "house edge" ensures a satisfactory outcome), heavily loads its op-ed pages with commentary from one side of the political spectrum. Anything but "impartial" in actuality - and thus failing seriously if judged on its degree of responsible behaviour, in its duty to present ALL the news the citizens need to be aware of, with a balanced offering of commentary from all relevant perspectives. Indeed, going yet another step, the evidence points rather strongly to the notion that the Canadian media is much more involved with trying to shape Canadian public opinion than doing its rightful job of providing a forum and the necessary information through which Canadians independently arrive at their OWN opinions of how things are, and what ought to be done.

I could give many, many examples of such behaviour on the part of our media in action over the last year or two, or decade or two for that matter, but shall limit myself to two of the more telling and important - not to mention obvious - examples of how the Canadian media compartmentalises the debate into a certain framework, ignoring important facts/options or steering opinion, in this short letter - the ongoing budgetary problems in the country, and the way Canadian political options are presented to the people who will be voting.

First, the ongoing financial problems every government seems to be dealing with these days, in the news every day, from Newfoundland to Ottawa to BC - always complaining about a lack of money, and looking for ways to cut expenses - usually by reducing services that Canadian taxpayers are paying quite a large amount of money to be receiving - or new consumer taxes-user fees to levy on the people least able to afford such things. And the press parrots their lamentations endlessly, with a GREAT deal of commentary about how we are going to have to face the idea of reduced public entitlements in various ways, because we certainly must NOT ever even consider the idea of returning income taxes on corporations to previous levels which helped sustain those programs.

And that is fine, as far as it goes - the people saying these things, government spokespersons or pundits or editors, have a right to their ideas, and to put forward into the public debate things they desire as policy for the country or province. But there is a very important element missing to this story - and a press that was truly responsible to the people of Canada rather than their corporate owners would be talking about it a great deal more, and questioning the position of the government and right-wing pundits on this, since it would be of great benefit to the people.

To put it as simply and clearly as possible: currently every government in the country (except Alberta with their oil wealth) is paying approximately 10-20% of their entire budget on "debt service" charges - all in all, something like 75 billion dollars a year of all taxes collected in Canada, federally and provincially, goes into these "service charges" - read that figure slowly, put it in context - seventy five Billion per Year - by FAR the largest single budgetary item in the country, the major expense of almost every budget. And yet there is next to no commentary on this quite amazing fact, during the budget debates or news coverage, or in commentary afterwards - don't you find that a bit strange??? Politicians and pundits are constantly suggesting ways to reduce spending on health care, or the environment, or everything else, or raising revenue through new fines or consumer taxes or user fees on once-free government services that the taxes SHOULD be paying for, and so on - but NEVER any commentary on this HUGE sum, drained year after year after year from the budgets of the country, and if there is any way, any option we might find, to reduce this major expenditure. I myself find that quite striking.

It is even more striking and puzzling when one considers that there is quite a strong argument to be made that this entire expenditure has been and is quite unnecessary - a political decision was made many years ago to begin the incursion of this debt with the resultant service charges, and that path followed in later years - but different decisions could have been made in the past. This huge debt accumulated because the government of Canada (we'll stick to the Federal government here for now, as the discussion ultimately centers here) has, for the last 30 years or so, when it faced a budgetary shortfall, rather than issuing at least a substantial part of the necessary money through the Bank of Canada, which it is not only entitled to do but previously used to for a large percentage of its needs, gone to private banks and lenders, and borrowed that money from them, at prime rates of interest - and over a period of 10-15 years, created the HUGE National Debt that still (and has for years) eats up this HUGE chunk of our tax money every year - around, as I said, 25% of the entire national income - would you be shocked to learn that the federal government over the last 25 years has paid out something like one TRILLION dollars in "service" charges - a Trillion dollars of taxpayers' money that might have been spent on other things, had the government exercised its - that is to say, "our" - sovereign right of creating and controlling the Canadian money supply rather than turning a substantial part of that right over to private interests, for private profit??

Imagine - just imagine!!! - what the government budgets might be like if that constant 25% of taxes collected was not being turned straight over to banks or other "investors", in terms of taking care of the people of Canada who paid those tax dollars!!!! Imagine the federal government with an additional $40 billion this year!! McGuinty's Ontario government with an additional $6-8 billion!!! (and not only this year, but for years in the past and on into the future!!)

I know what's in your head - the "received wisdom" that governments printing their own money leads to terrible inflation, and must be avoided. But ask yourself two questions about this. First - is it really true? And second - what is so great about the alternative policy that has been followed instead, that has resulted in these huge debts that have for years been eating up this constant 25% of our budgets, right off the top, and will into the foreseeable future??? Might a different policy of responsible, government-issued, debt-free money resulted in a better situation today?

The "hyperinflation" bogeyman assumes governments printing huge scads of money irresponsibly, like kids with a printing press buying candy or toys - but why would a modern, responsible government do that? Why would we not assume that such a government would create just a small amount, calculated by responsible, intelligent people, created more or less to match the expected growth in the economy? Think about it - as the economy grows, new money is required to pay for new labour, new goods and services - and that money has to come from somewhere - if it is ok for the government to ask the banks to create a billion dollars which it will then borrow from them to inject into the economy, and this is not considered inflationary - why then is it not ok for the government to instruct the Bank of Canada to create that same billion dollars - with the single major difference that by doing so it does not stick the country with draining interest payments into the foreseeable future? I can provide you with many more references for this if you wish (i.e. start with COMER - the Committee on Monetary Reform, or PROSPERITY, or look up a most illuminating book by a writer called Michael Rowbotham titled The Grip of Death) - but suffice it to say - had the government been using the Bank of Canada for its constitutionally mandated role in the late 70s and early 80s, this whole national debt we all suffer under now - would not exist!!! Not be eating 25 cents of every dollar we pay in taxes! - and we could hardly have suffered worse inflation that we did in the early 1980s, if you'll recall, with the central bank setting interest rates of up to 20% on debt! Less than $100 billion of the accumulated national debt was borrowed for programs - most of the current $500+ billion of national debt, PLUS all the interest we have paid over the years, was borrowed for interest payments, and interest on the interest, compounded into the stratosphere - which would not have been necessary through the nominal interest the Bank of Canada would require.

But not to delve into ancient history, a story that needs to be told and explored much further in terms of possible criminal conspiracy and fraud on an unbelievable scale, but such is not the point of this short letter - we could even today take major steps to reduce the Canadian national and provincial debts by the same means - when debt came due, rather than rolling it over again with private banks and lenders and new bond issues or whatnot, have the Bank of Canada provide the money to retire the commercial debt, and keep the loan on the books more or less interest free (a nominal service charge to cover administrative expenses is normal - a fraction of 1%) - and all the money thus saved in commercial debt service would then be available for programs for the people who paid the taxes, rather than turning those tax dollars over to "investors" of various types, and the great bulk of the debt retired in a very few years! - and since the Bank of Canada is our bank, We the People of Canada, most of that debt can slowly be written down with no deleterious effects on the economy.

Well, I won't go on with this - there are many permutations to this discussion - but that is the point! - There IS no discussion in the national media about this! None whatsoever - I do not recall seeing ANY article about this ever, although I admittedly do not read every newspaper every day. But as a possible solution to the largest single expenditure of EVERY Canadian government - and a 100% useless expenditure at that, in terms of value received for the taxpayers - at a time when all governments are facing serious financial problems, it should receive some attention, one would think. The arguments about inflation are somewhere between seriously overblown and non-existent, the arguments about irresponsibility equally invalid - and it certainly seems like it could well be a way out of our financial problems, at the very least easing them considerably. But not a word in the press. One can but speculate as to why - but the same wealthy people who own the papers and other media in the country are undoubtedly the same people who are gobbling up the lion's share of that 75 billion in "service charges" the Canadian taxpayers are forking out every year, and thus have pretty large and obvious reasons to keep this discussion from happening.

The second thing I would like to point out that one might be excused for feeling indicates a Canadian press that is somewhat less responsible to "We the People" it purports to be serving than to its owners is the way the various political options in Canada are presented over time - that is, day after day after month after month after year after year - are any patterns evident? Can the Canadian press be accused of giving more attention, and more positive attention, to political parties that support the interests of the corporate-big business lobby, and marginalizing parties that favor policies less favourable to the same Big Business-corporate nexus but that would benefit the people of Canada more?

I think a pretty strong argument can be made to answer that question in the affirmative - indicating that there are some pretty serious issues concerning the "responsibility" of the Canadian press to the people of Canada not being met.

Now, if one was to say that the NDP get a lot less press attention than the Liberals or the new party led by Stephen Harper (I hesitate very much to call them "Conservative" in the Canadian sense of the term, as any real Conservative of the past from Sir John to ol Dief would have cast our Stephen forcefully from the party, if not the country - the New Canadian Republican Party (CRAPv2 HAHAHAHAHAHA sorry I slipped that in later couldn't resist!! -rm) would be a much more accurate appellation, and I think the press should demand a little more honesty in the labelling of such things, but I'll leave that sidetrack too for another time), it is a standard response to say that the press reflects the views of Canadians, and since the Liberals and Harper's party are supported by more Canadians than the NDP, they naturally get more press than the NDP. Again, the "received wisdom" and/or stock answer to such criticisms - which, again, does not stand up to a bit of analysis.

To begin, and make a certain point, let us try a small thought-experiment - let us assume two brand new parties start up in Canada at the same time. Party A has a lot of money to organize and gets a lot of press attention virtually every day through all the things that money can buy and through having good friends at many papers and "friends help friends" stuff happening, while Party B has very little money and gets very little press attention, also having very few friends in newspaper offices. Over the next year or two or three, which party is more likely to become known by people and consequently gather support? This is, in a way, a version of the old chicken-egg question - if a certain party gets a lot of press attention so that more Canadians know of it, will that party get more support than a party that gets very little attention from the press? Which comes first? Press attention or voter attention?

Thus with today's NDP - are they low in the polls, and thus supposedly getting little press attention, because Canadians don't support their policies? Or - would it be more accurate to say that Canadians don't support the NDP a lot because they hear a lot more about other parties in the media? In today's television-driven consumer culture, where "brand-name recognition" is central to consumer choice and so important in product success or failure (if it's not, one might wonder why the big companies spend hundreds of billions yearly on establishing and maintaining such recognition), this kind of thing, over a long period of time, given the continuous entrance into the "political market" of new "consumers" every month, every year, on and on, thus creating a substantial cumulative effect, a very strong argument can be advanced that such coverage is quite central to the degree of support shown to any political party in the country. And again cumulatively, come the election call, will a party that has been receiving regular press attention, and thus is "known and familiar" to the voters, be more apt to attract support, or a party that the media seems to only recognize once the election is called, whose people and policies the voters know little about, and who thus have only a shallow "credibility profile", if I might coin a term?

It would be most interesting to see a study actually done on this by some academic institution, because I think that it would show that the NDP gets much less coverage even on this kind of reckoning (i.e. out of say 100 column inches of political coverage, how many go to which parties, on a long-term basis? - if the NDP have 12% support, do they get 12% of the coverage?? I would wager a substantial amount of money they get substantially less!! - and equally that Harper's New Republican Conservatives have gotten a HUGE amount more than the 20% or so "support" they have from Canadians overall), and has for years - but I have an even more telling idea.

One question throws a bright light on what is going on, in terms of political coverage in Canada, and whether the media "reflects" Canadians' views, or indeed tries to steer them. We all know from poll after poll after poll that the great majority of Canadians strongly support a strong health care system, everything important covered, fully funded by the government, all users treated the same, all across Canada, and are quite willing to pay for this, and even forego corporate tax breaks if called upon to make such a sacrifice. We all know that the Liberals have been gutting funding for the health care system for years, and downloading responsibility to the provinces who cannot afford it so have been cutting corners and reducing services as much as possible creating the unsustainable lineup and people being turned away from emergency rooms etc etc situations, until it is on the edge of collapse, and Harper's gang want to privatise as much of it as possible to allow them to cut taxes to the wealthy as much as possible, and Canadians are not happy with either of these approaches to their health care system - the NDP is the ONLY well-known national party that fully supports the Romanov report, as again do a strong majority of Canadians, and promises to maintain and strengthen the health care system.

Thus - if the press actually reflected the views of Canadians, it would be pushing the NDP and their health care policies much MORE than the other parties, because the NDP is speaking for most Canadians when it wants to maintain the health care system. And yet - as is the pattern overall, we see or hear very little about the NDP in the papers, on the health care issue or any other, yet it is a rare day goes by when we don't hear of some new scheme put forward by one of the other parties or some "think tank" like the Fraser Institute to privatise more of the health care system.

QED, as they say in Latin.

Not arguable - the great majority of the press of Canada, rather than siding with the NDP and the majority of Canadians, and prodding the governments to follow the wishes of Canadians and get their acts together and make the health care system strong once again through necessary funding, are ignoring the NDP and the citizens, but carrying a constant stream of stories and commentaries trying to convince Canadians that they will have to do with less and less health care in the future, and start paying for some variety of two-tier health care - very much against their wishes. Whether or not this is practical is debatable - it would depend on redoing finances as well, as I talked about at the first - but that is not the point - the point it that it does point out very clearly where the media are on this issue, and that they cannot use the argument of "reflecting the views of Canadians" in their coverage of this particular issue, which makes the claim dubious at best when raised for other issues.

One could mention any number of other issues and examine them under the same light - the new American "Missile Defence" shield, reducing corporate taxes, environmental protection, strengthening democracy through increased citizen input - the NDP speaks with the same voice as most Canadians on these issues, while the Libs and Harper people speak for a minority of views - and yet the NDP gets marginalized in the press, and the Libs and Harper people get their policies debated and promoted day after day after day, and the op-ed pages are dominated with similar POV-pieces, which most Canadians, according to most reliable polls ("reliable" does NOT include right-wing think-tanks such as the Fraser/Howe/etc Institutes), do not agree with.

It would be most interesting indeed to see what would happen to NDP support (and other small parties, for that matter) if they got the same amount of press coverage as the "mainstream" parties whose policies are more supported by the people who own the media. I am not holding my breath waiting for that to happen, however!

I am sure, in defence of the status quo, you could start going into details about how the NDP does get "some" coverage, and alternative points of view are printed "sometimes" - and these are the kinds of arguments presented when somebody wants to show how we have a great free press in Canada - but I would suggest to you that on balance, as I have explained above, if looked at impartially, it is at the end of the day pretty hard to deny that overall (there are notable exceptions who present a "centrist" viewpoint at times, that is to say carry both sides of an issue, such as the CBC and Toronto Star, but noone else - and these two organisations are but a small section of the overall Canadian media) the Canadian press is NOT an impartial press at all, but it has an agenda - a neocon agenda - that it promotes and pushes on the Canadian people - trying, that is, to shape the opinions of the citizens of Canada, rather than, as a true impartial media ought to do, being a national vehicle through which Canadians could truly become informed of all sides of any given issue, and debate the pros and cons of every side of an issue, giving everyone the information required to come to a fair and balanced decision about that issue.

Well, I see I have gone on a bit longer than expected, but these are important issues, and do not really lend themselves to soundbites, and I shall not apologise for being a concerned citizen. I do hope you will give some consideration to the points I have raised - and maybe sometime in the near future the Canadian Newspaper Association can sponsor a new Canadian Press "Responsibility" Day, in which such things might get examined a bit. While we get an "A" in freedom of the press in this country, I fear that in terms of responsibility, the overall mark of the Canadian press would be somewhat closer to "D", at best.

-30 -30- 30-30-30-30-30-30-etc (that's newspaper talk for "the end" hahahahahahaha)

Ok - back to Orwellianada -

Child car seat penalty planned - Province to toughen rules - Violators will lose demerit points - I don't know why I keep warning everyone Big Brother is coming - Big Sister is here already and has been for some time, and is at least as dangerous - Big Bro kills with guns and dark rooms and torture chambers, Big Sis kills with some combination of castration and lobotomy and DO AS YOU ARE FUCKING TOLD CHILDREN!!! pa-cum-ma-ternalism (well, that's sort of something they have in common, I guess) - so we're still sort of alive, in terms of breathing and going to the day jobs making money for Big Sis's bosses, and whatnot - but there's not much life in terms of comptis mentis as they say - just a bunch of little robots running diligently around, rule book in hand to make sure they don't get the storm troopers upset. Fuck back to the sheeps thing already - but FUCK!!! - it sure seems that's what Big Sis wants, the same as Big Bro - a whole gang of "citizens" playing in the sandbox, with Big Sis making all her little rules so everyone can live JUST like she KNOWS is good for us all. PUT THAT CIGARETTE OUT!!! HAHAHAHAHAHAHH FUCK YOU SIS!!! HAHAHAHAHAHAHAA

nononono dontstartonsmoking!!! - but I'm not saying DON'T use these child things if you like - I'm just saying leave it up to the individuals involved! Why do we need yet MORE laws that give the cops MORE excuses to haul people over and harass them? More paternalism is NOT the answer to what is wrong here - it is, actually, the opposite - we need to make people MORE responsible for their actions - THEN they'll behave more responsibly. And NO - being "responsible" doesn't mean carefully doing what somebody tells you because they smack you if you break THEIR rules!!! geezushfuckingkrist!!!

And there ARE sinister motives, if you want - a whole generation of children raised so the ONLY way they feel secure in a moving vehicle is if they are strapped in! - man, if you don't see the symbolism there, THINK ABOUT IT!!!!

I gotta work out an analogy one of these days - society as an assembly line, the final product being the "perfect" citizen - they wear their seat belts, don't smoke or drink, watch their tvs every day for a few hours, go to the malls and amusement parks on weekends, vote for tweedledum or tweedledee and never wonder why there is no tweedleXXX - and all the steps in the assembly line process that are required to achieve this Stepford person - tv, day care, primary school, parents who have already been through the system, church, MacDonalds, malls, older kids who have spent a year or two longer in the system and know the right things to do, Pavlovian rewards for good behaviour (good jobs, approval etc) and punishment for bad (ostracism, no toys, cops harrassing you endlessly, jail) etc and etc. Sort of an updated version of Chaplin's "Modern Times" melded with 1984-v2004- funny how things don't change much.

YOU BABY KILLER!!! HAHAHAHAHAA - but it isn't so - if I decide that the odds are BILLIONS to one of an accident happening between my home and the corner store, and don't strap the kid in - what fucking business is it of the cops and the Big Sis gov?!?!?! And just MAYBE - just MAYBE!!!! - I want my kid growing up understanding there ARE chances in life, and that's the way it is. It is NOT a good life to be running around afraid of your own fucking shadow all the time. It is GOOD to JUDGE FOR YOURSELF what the acceptable limits of risk you are willing to take are - and NOT GOOD to let someone else make those decisions for you. Are you a man or a fucking sheep?!?!?!?! fuck there it goes again HAHAHAHAHAHAA

By the way - when are we going to see those neat commercials, in this "fair debate" (Big Sis tells you she ALWAYS does things fairly and democratically!! my my yes yes!! - but HAHAHAHAHAHAHA - that is one thing about Big Sis - the words "fair debate" are not in her vocab - "BRAINWASHING AND PROPAGANDA AND COERCION THROUGH GUILT (BABY KILLER!!!) are MUCH more effective HAHAHAHAHAA) - that commercial that shows a car upside down in a ditch with the baby's little strapped-in head under water, kicking and dying as the mother frantically tries to find the release switch, pulling on the wee arm but unable to get him out of the water?!?!?! HAHAHAHAHAHAHAA right. But - what about the one with the dear little tyke flying through the window and bouncing his wee pumpkin-head off a tree? Think we'll see that one???? HAHAHAHAHAHAHA

can we say PAVLOV HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

If these people REALLY cared about our health, they might be doing other more useful stuff - what about implementing the Romanov report, for instance?

Or here's a new idea I had - why don't they pass a law saying NO MORE FUCKING TAX BREAKS (ok they can leave out that darn f-word HAHAHAHAHAHAA) until the child poverty level in this country is reduced to ZERO percent?!?!?! HUHHH???? What about it, Big Sis????? Why aren't we reading about something like THAT in the Great Free Democratic National Canadian media - huhhh??? We get LOTS of "National Citizen Coalition" shit about NO NEW TAXES NO NEW TAXES!!! HAHAHAHAHAHA

HAHAHAHAHAHAHA IN A MILLION FUCKING YEARS HAHAHAHAHAH GET THOSE FUCKING SEAT BELTS ON WINSTON - THREE OF EM FOR YOU!! HAHAHAHAHAHAH

(((darling?? are you saying naughty words again and thinking nasty thoughts???? mommy's coming with the soap, dear...... HAHAHAHAHAHAHAAA ding ding!! DON'T SAY THAT!!! DING DING DON'T THINK THAT HAHAHAHAHAHA GOSH MOMMY BILLY SAID THE F-WORD TODAY SHOULD WE WASH HIS FILTHY MOUTH OUT WITH SOAP HAHAHAHAHA GOSH DEAR SHALL WE VOTE FOR THAT NICE STEPHEN HARPER OR THAT NICE PAUL MARTIN WE CERTAINLY CAN'T VOTE SOCIALIST DINGDINGDINGDING!!! HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA DEMOCRACY ROCKS HAHAHAHAHAHAHA))

(And just another by the by - did your Ontario MP call some sort of meeting to get a sense of how people in his/her riding felt about this new proposed law, since it was NOT mentioned in the election campaign less than a year ago?!?!?! Why do they always spring this shit on people with NO chance to talk about it??? HAHAHAHAHAHAHAAA I didn't think so. So when you write calling me a fucking baby killer, add a little note about how this represents the very highest ideals of citizen democracy too HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAAA - HI Boys and Girls - Mommy has a GREAT new rule to make all her little children REALLY happy campers!!! Come on, Davy, try these electrodes on your little head - they're REALLY good for you and Mommy KNOWS you'll LOVE them! HAHAHAHAHAHAHA

Speaking of baby killers and such like - this week's entry in the TERRORISM TERRORISM NEVER FORGET THAT WE ARE ALL IN HORRIBLE DANGER files - CSIS warns terrorists may target Canada- ????? - that is to say, have we heard this before ?!?!?! HAHAHAHAHAHA ONLY EVERY FUCKING DAY FOR THE LAST YEAR!!! - do you think there might be a point to it all??? - like the next time the gov starts telling us all we gotta have national ID cards (I will wager about the FIRST order of business after the next "election", no matter who wins (nah, Jack ain't gonna win, the "divide and conquer" trick will work again, and again and again and again as long as people refuse to wake up to it - like any scam, why change a winning formula??) - possibly even before the new pay package legislation - HAHAHAHAHAHAHAAA nonono just joking NOTHING comes before the new pay package legislation HAHAHAHAHA) - everyone will think (with a little prompting of course HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAA) that, gosh darn, if it's necessary to stop them darned terrorists that are right on the verge of doing something "REALLY BAD BOGEYMAN BOGEYMAN HAHAHAHAHAAA" - well, I suppose it's necessary.... - they must be getting a bit desperate for new ways to justify putting this shit in the papers week after week after week when it's obvious that there is a pretty minimal "danger" to us from "terrorists" - but on the other hand, it has been pretty well established that Canadians (like most of us here in the Greater US 51++) are pretty open to all kinds of "suggestion" from their tvs and media, and don't ask many hard questions about anything we are told NOT to ask hard questions about (silly conspiracy theories hahahahaha what's on tv hahahaha) - so they probably don't worry much about that sort of thing. Great quote at the end - "....Elcock also repeated a statement he's made before, that terrorists are operating in Canada, and that CSIS continues to monitor their activities...." - I find that quite interesting - if these are known terrorists he refers to, who have committed terrorist acts - why are they wandering around free for fuck's sake?!?!?! - on the other hand, if they have NOT committed known "terrorist" acts - why is he calling them "terrorists"???? Fuck I wish we had a real media in this country sometimes, to ask questions like that.... HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA THERE GOES THAT TRICKSTER WITH WEIRD STUFF IN THE BEER AGAIN HAHAHAHAHAHAHA

Speaking of "democracy", a VERY good read this week - Democracy: A Heretic's View by some guy called Sam Gerrans whom I haven't heard of before but will be checking out. The whole thing is quotable - "...The rhetoric of democracy is predicated on the idea that most people are responsible and able to think for themselves. If that were true there would be no need for government..." sort of gets it underway. (The Antiwar.com site is always worth a look around - the head guy, Justin Raimondo, a very good writer too - he/they're Libertarian, which I don't agree with entirely but we have a lot in common...)

SNIFF SNIFFF OOOOOOOOO THAT SMELLS HAHAHAHAHAHAHA Liberal MP moves to shut down sponsorship probe - the PEI Lib guy on the committee supposedly investigating this, no surprise, PEI has been running on corruption since day 1, and this guy probably thinks it a bit of a laugh that anyone is complaining about a paltry hundred million bucks in the big pond - but as long as all the people out there, sheep or not, do nothing more than say "How interesting! What's on tv tonight?" - it ain't gonna stop. That's kinda smelly too, in my books.

And more of the "Justice" in Great Free Democratic Canada shit - Former B.C. judge admits to beating, sexually abusing teens - I mean this ain't just misdemeanour shit, breaking meaningless laws like failing a breathalyser or something, this is VERY serious shit - the abuse of children is one of the VERY worst things done in our society, because it has huge repercussions, throughout both time and space. It's not only the hypocrisy involved here that is so telling, but stuff like this - and there is a LOT of it going on, far more getting covered up than exposed like this - makes quite clear, if you think about it, that the entire justice system is nothing but a farce - there to keep the average people under control, while allowing the elite to carry on more or less as they wish. A TRUE justice system would have ZERO tolerance for this kind of shit - yet ours is riddled with it (another here - N.S. Mountie pleads guilty to impaired driving and leaving accident scene) - "justice" indeed, in Canada, is observed much more in the breach than the practice, as pretty much ANYone who has been involved with it will tell you. It is very, very true, the old saying, that justice, to be effective, must not only be done, it must be SEEN to be done - and when we see assholes like this guy allowed to sit on the bench for years, throwing people in jail for stuff he is doing himself, or for lesser things - well - there's not much "justice" to be seen. A man with morals so low that he would rape and beat more or less helpless teenage girls sitting on a court of justice?!?!?!?!?!!! It is absolutely impossible to have any respect for a system that would let this happen (this is not a revelation to ME, you will understand!!!! - but it would be nice if more people could wake up and see what is going on... - but that is a problem - I did not wake up to how thoroughly corrupt the whole system was until I got involved with it - before that I was a willing little believer of the propaganda I had been fed since I was very young - even though a rebel in various ways, I still had this "heart-belief" if you will that the Canadian justice system was the best on the planet!!! - man o man o man!!! HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAA - oh well, better waking up late than never, I suppose..... - actually, it may be one of the better ones on the planet!!! - and if you think about THAT, and the fact that it is getting worse instead of better as well, then you might start to get REALLY scared HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAA)

There's some more on it all here - Man wants compensation for being wrongfully jailed - people in jail for long periods of time because the people involved with the "justice" system withheld evidence that would prove them innocent and stuff like that - so many instances of it. Proving over and over that it is NOT a "justice" system, but a system that does exactly what it is supposed to do - legitimise the Elite's hold on power, by PRETENDING to be a democratic justice system, so many legitimate complaints of the citizens against the elite can be shuffled through here and sanitised one way or another, and at the end of the day the Elite can claim that "justice has been served". In a fucking word - HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAA.

It's not only the hypocrisy - what this tells us is that a whole lot of these people understand very well they are NOT there to administer a just set of laws agreed on by all the citizens impartially - they are there to keep the citizens of our great brainwashed "democracy" under the heel of the elite, which requires cops and courts to make it all appear legitimate - citizens would be a lot more apt to rise up against Hitlerian brownshirts and/or Gestapo, and other more free countries would be more apt to be putting pressure on the government if they behaved in such a fashion to get with the program - okay enough for now I'm getting into the "so fucking mad and frustrated trying to convince adults there is no Santa I get incoherent" phase HAHAHAHAHAAAA - save it for "the book" hahahahahahahahahaa

And late breaking as usual - here is an interesting piece that can help explain a lot - nothing like a bit of science!! - The bad barrels that corrupt any good apples they touch - "....At Stanford and in Iraq, he added, "It's not that we put bad apples in a good barrel. We put good apples in a bad barrel. The barrel corrupts anything that it touches."..." - and I think that explains a good part of it perfectly - our government IS corrupt, and growing more so every year, with corporate money buying politicians and decisions and policies that favor corporate and wealthy interests - and when everyone has to pretend it is NOT corrupt - the fundamental lie corrupts everyone and everything it comes in contact with. The cops are corrupt, from the top down, the judges are corrupt from the top down, and the average officers and judges cannot help but know it, and understand the hypocrisy they are expected to live under, and from time to time "act naturally" - the rules that control the proles are not meant to inconvenience the masters - although they must try to keep up appearances. More in the book HAHAHAHAHAHAA

On the matter however, to get back where I started sort of as this piece came along later, of the PEOPLE of a place having to WAKE THE FUCK UP before ANY change can happen, here is another good piece by a writer called John Stanton - he writes about Americans, but the problems are pretty parallel - Don’t Live the Lie, Boycott It - he uses a quote from Vaclav Havel - "...“Living in the truth stood in opposition to living in the lie which meant living in obedience to an oppressive regime…By living within the lie, that is, conforming to the system’s demands, individuals confirm the system, fulfil the system, make the system and become the system. A line of conflict is then drawn through each person who is invited in the countless decisions of daily life to choose between living in the truth and living in the lie...." - sure, sure, Havel was writing about "communist" (about as "communist" in the actual sense of the term as western capitalism is "democratic" in the actual sense of the term...) Poland - but Stanton and I (and many others) share the view that America and Canada are a FUCK of a lot closer to totalitarian-style control than most people want to admit.....

Paranoid conspiracy thought of the week (fuck you wouldn't want to be inside my brain some days HAHAHAHAHAHA AA maybe ANY day for some HAHAHAHAHAA) - Sasser worm sign of things to come - this is as bad as the endless TERROR TERROR warnings we get here in Canada, except about your computer - it could be trashed any day now danger danger!!!! you MUST get the latest MS updates NOW NOW NOW GO GO GO !!!!!! - now just imagine, if the US gov, using MS, which has shown a willingness to be cooperative this way, really wanted to get into people's computers (one of the central aspects of Big Brother is that he has to know EVERYTHING the Lil Bros are up to - gov secrets are great, citizen secrets NO FUCKING WAY !!!!! (Big Bro is FAR more paranoid than moi, being up to MUCH more nefarious shit...), but people were just being too darned uncooperative - this sort of thing could spook a lot of them into getting all these mysterious MS updates onto their computers - anybody heard of the Trojan Horse? Or is Greek history allowed on MS??? HAHAHAHAHAHAHAAAA - told ya ......

Fuck if you possibly can, get Linux - get MS off your poor computer and out of your poor life - you WILL be happier .........

Tom Walkom at the Star, giving perhaps the best short rundown of why not to believe the latest Lib lies about how they are going to do WONDERFUL things for medicare if we elect them just ONE more time please!!! -Why delay repair of medicare? - personally, I find it amazing that people still listen to Martin claiming to be all set to do just WONDERFUL things for the country and people, after he spent the last ten years slashing funding for everything under the sun (well, except MPs benefits packages, of course, and payoffs to his BB Buds) - as Walkom says - "...If fixing medicare is as important as the prime minister says, why doesn't he just do it?...". Exactly.

This is interesting - THE PARLIAMENT WE WANT - PARLIAMENTARIANS' VIEWS ON PARLIAMENTARY REFORM - in the same way as the press freedom piece of the letter - read both of these, and think what is missing??? The press freedom piece is about the freedom of reporters and newspapers, and this parliamentarian piece is almost entirely about what THEY want to be able to do, that they think might make them better at their "jobs" (I mean, someday we gotta talk about "work" - scrubbing toilets or flipping burgers or sitting at an assembly line for all your poor fucking life is "work" - running a big corp and making 50 million a year, or being a superstar anything, or being a Canadian MP are also referred to as "work" - but are NOT comparable - definitely talk someday HAHAHAHAHAAA - now where was I - ) but in both of these pieces, "We the People" are just some sort of distant robots - it ain't ME that has a problem thinking citizens are "sheep" - it's these people. Nowhere in the press story did the writer ask what the PEOPLE wanted in the "news" and commentary, and although the parliament report does have a little list of what people said in some survey they wanted from their parliamentarians (all the good stuff about more citizen input and more MP accountability) - these ideas were COMPLETELY ignored in the final recommendations!!!! - the parliamentarians evidently do not feel it is important to their "work" to have to listen to the people in any way or be accountable beyond the "elections" - well, I can see how that would be a nuisance, if you couldn't lie through your teeth during an election campaign, that is to say if you were actually expected to keep your promises, or if there was some law that said you could NOT bring up new things you planned to do a few months after an election unless you had talked about them during the campaign, or gotten a definite, solid mandate afterwards at least (remember McGuinty's new child seatbelt law? odd they didn't mention that last fall - or EVERY MP/MLA pay hike that I recall the last bunch of years was NEVER mentioned during a campaign, but shortly after they got elected they suddenly remembered OH YEH!! WE NEED MORE MONEY HAHAHAHAA) - anyway, I suppose they figure that if the people are going to sit back and quietly accept any old shit these people throw at them, then they might as well keep tossing.

Enough. Stuff to ponder if you can't sleep HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAA

Another one!! - speaking of the calling of elections (they've been doing it every day for weeks!) - why in the fuck do we let the Prime Minister decide when the election is going to be called?!?!?! These people are our employees HAHAHAHAHAHAAA no really - but it's true, theoretically, they are public servants working for us - and to me, that means that if anyone working for me fucks up real bad - well I get rid of them! It's crazy if we have a government that we see is making a big mess of things - but there's nothing we can do about it for another 2-3-4 years!!! - pretty much underlines the reality of the entire situation, when you think about it - proving once again that the whole thing is just a big shell game to give the appearance of "democfarcy" (HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA GREAT ONE!!!), while keeping everything very firmly under the control of the elite. Christ, why have regular elections at all? Let the people in each riding decide who they want to represent them in Ottawa, and replace that person when they want to - the whole "party politics" system is just another way to marginalize us all, and keep the power in the hands of the elite, controlling the ENTIRE process! Imagine a smaller forum - a town council or something - where every family got to send one rep to the monthly (whatever) meeting - BUT - EVERYBODY had to choose their "rep" at the same time, and then had to stick with that rep for the next several years! - or imagine a much more realistic process, where the family sent who they wanted, and could change that person when they wanted!

Have to think on that a bit - the whole system needs reworking big time - so We the People control it, not They the fucking Elite - but it wouldn't be that hard to do. HAHAHAHAHAHAA - in principle, that is - implementing a system that took power away from the elite is going to be a LOT more difficult.

HAHAHAHAHAHAAA - The GREAT Robin Mathews just got greater!!! - he seems to have found the Debt Scam I've been going on about for - well - quite some time HAHAHAHAHA - Right Politics and National Wealth: Part Four - this is another great read, last in a 4-part series - Robin don't pull any punches, which is what makes him such a great writer - WAYYYYYY out of the Box. Where ya gotta be.

On the other side of the coin, of course, which there always is, here is a writer very solidly inside the box - worth a look, and a bit of thinking about, if you're still trying to puzzle out the difference between inside and outside the Box - Looking at 9/11 under the light of history by one Salim Mansur. Ol Salim seems like a decent enough guy - which is one of the main weapons of the Elite - people like this who have come up through the system and accepted the brainwashing hook, line and sinker, and then, with the intelligence they have, branching out and working out their own justifications to affirm what they have been taught - you gotta figure ol Salim ain't lying here (in the same way people like d'Aquino or Bush or Mulroney etc and etc lie and lie and lie) - he actually believes all this shit. Like an 8-year old really believes in Santa, and it's only daddy lying when he says "Yes Virgin darling, of course there is a Santa!" - and then wee Joey goes and figures out some embellishments to the story to tell to Suzy, who isn't quite sure about this Santa stuff anymore... Salim writes from In the Box. The Government is a Good government. There are NO "conspiracies", no group of Elites, call them what you will, running things behind the scenes.

Ah enough. MOMMYYYYYY TELL THAT MEAN MAN TO GIVE BACK MY ELECTRODES!!! MY HEAD'S HURTING AGAIN FROM THINKING TOO MUCH HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAA TURN ON THE TV DEAR YOU'LL FEEL BETTER IN A MINUTE HAHAHAHAHAHAA

Me - I'll just get another beer. Ribs are ready.

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAA

But things are moving on in Greenways, for those looking for something outside of The Box.



I prefer to be true to myself, even at the hazard of incurring the ridicule of others, rather than to be false, and to incur my own abhorrence.
Frederick Douglas



"The most powerful weapon in the hands of the oppressor is the mind of the oppressed..." -Steven Biko

"I didn't say it would be easy. I just said it would be the truth."
- Morpheus


- and insofar as this grasshopper understands it, so it is.


"Be who you are and say what you feel, because those who mind don't matter and those who matter don't mind.” - Dr Seuss - man he was smart....... I gotta read some of that stuff again ..... that's almost as good a play on words as the great old line about comforting the afflicted and afflicting the comfortable.....


George Orwell: During times of universal deceit, telling the truth becomes a revolutionary act

“It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends upon his not understanding it.” (Upton Sinclair - great writer - reading stuff like this helps understand how the problems of today are NOT new!!! - and is a clear indication of the truth of the old saying that he who does not know history is destined to repeat it, or whatever)


"Your failure to be informed does not make me a wacko." — John Loeffler


Write if ya want (ya gotta take the xxx off the front - I'm trying to reduce the intake from the spam assholes (oh yes you fucking are - it is NOT amusing - get a fucking life why don't you, instead of bothering people - how fucking stupid can you be?? If you were the last fucking product on earth I wouldn't buy anything from you!! Fuck.)).

What direct action did you take today to do something to get rid of corporate government in Canada besides deleting spam? Do you feel that it was enough, given the situation? Will you feel content telling that to your grandchildren, should they survive, and the country, and the planet?

So much left to say, so little time to say it in - probably only a few months until the next federal election - do you want to try to save Canada in that frantic four weeks when big Paul drops the writ and EVERY friggin advantage is his - or would you like to start now, when we have some sort of outside chance? Canada for Canadians Coalition - get involved.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS: With thanks to the Editors of the Toronto Star, Globe and Mail, Ottawa Citizen, Ch'town Guardian, Vancouver Sun, and others I cannot think of at the moment, for their refusal to print my letters over the last few years on various issues of national import - had I even a hope of being printed occasionally in these fora and my voice acknowledged in the national debate, I would undoubtedly not have bothered putting all this together. Cheers!





(for the legal-minded types - all this stuff not otherwise credited to some newspaper or something IS original, and thus copyright by Rude Macedon - I don't even have to say it - check it out - but given that, repost at will, with acknowledgement. Letting me know (remove the xx - see above HAHAHAA) would be nice too - and we do want to be nice people in a nice world, don't we? Isn't that why we are doing what we are doing, to get rid of the liars and crooks (NOT nice people) who are running things now?)




8,978,976,745 people (that'd be yer SCpoll, correct within 0.5 percentage points, 18 or 19 times out of 23, as long as it's Tuesday and the moon is full where you sit, and there hasn't been a special dispensation by Neptune cancelling those caveats under security code X37.25, and nobody was lying or trying to get off the phone quick because they were watching Survivor or Bangkok Ladies on Motorcycles) have visited this site in the last 13 or so hours, Paul Martin's our new PM and owes the Bay St. Boys 12 million worth of favors and George Bush is talking to ALLAH on his red phone, direct line, as you read. Which of those statements do you find the most unbelievable? Why? Do you know where Frodo and Gandalf went on that boat? Can we call them? Maybe the really nice elf lady too HAHAHA!!! And Smith - don't forget Smith ....