Okok - I haven't forgotten about the Pispot at all - just been more involved with other stuff - but their crap never stops - this one was particularly infuriating (even for one more or less well-prepared for the lies and slander) - The disgrace of Svend Robinson - RM archive copy, wherein the Pispot again, like their Republican Neofuckingcrazy masters down south, show their seemingly visceral, mindless hatred for anyone who dares to disagree with their "vision" of the world, of their "we're the elite and give the orders and you're the peasants and do what you're fucking told" idea of the order of things - not to mention their complete, contemptible disrespect for a sitting MP (hgughhh?!?!?! - yesyesyes, of course, one has been known to be a tad disrespectful oneself at times!! - the rather major difference being that RM is NOT a pretender to the title of "national media" (as of this writing anyway - I reserve the right to change that!!! HAHAHAHA) which should, in a civilised country, carry some expectations of a certain level of propriety - this piece of shit is (supposedly, using the word loosely, as we must use many such words with the Pispot) an editorial, not a signed opinion piece, and says a FUCK of a lot more about those who write it and publish it than whoever they happen to be slandering. Their excuse for going after Svend this time is because he dared to suggest that Sept 11 represents another anniversary as well as the US-centric one from 2 years ago - 30 years ago in Chile one of the first elected socialist governments, that of one Salvadore Allende, in the world was overthrown in a bloody, US-backed coup (the genesis of the whole spat was that the Pispot agrees with someone else who suggested that Canada should declare a national holiday on 911 to show our "closeness" to the Americans in their "time of grief" or some such momandapplepie shit (heyhey - I love both Mom and apple pie - I do not, however, much care for mindless "patriotism my country right or wrong", which this shit is), and it was Svend's response to this, mentioning Chile as a date perhaps as deserving of our commemoration, that got the Neo-Americon dickheads at the Pispot (fuck I've been coming up with a lot of good "cons" for these people lately!) so worked up. In case you don't bother reading the whole piece. So you know.).

But the Pispot - man it is sickening beyond words to have a "Canadian" paper, based in Toronto, so unabashedly supportive of the neo-Republican-Fascist American Reich, and using the same garbage "journalism" that has become commonplace in that country in this one, which could and should be so very much more civilised - few Canadians actually want to descend to the level of the Americans, but unfortunately those few (as in that country) have, through various less-than-honest or honourable (hahahaha - rules, as one of the great American conmen once noted, are for suckers - and most Canadians, once honourably but now to their detriment in the sense that it leaves them ill-equipped to deal with crooks in high places, believe in rules....) methods, managed to corral the money and thus the power in the country, and are trying to drag everyone else down with them.

They expose their wannabe-Republican/Bay St corporate-blobalist (hey - I think I'll just leave that typo in - it fits for some reason) roots through and through, from the classifying of the 911 attacks as the "greatest terrorist attacks" ever (others might disagree - 3,000 dead - the Americans have killed millions over the last 100+ years in all kinds of ways not related to declared wars that could only be called terrorist by anyone outside of a dedicated American apologist (yup - that'd be yer Pispot bunch... - how about, for starters, dropping nuclear bombs on two Japanese cities - long after the Japanese government had offered to surrender - to make damn fucking clear to the Soviets that they better watch their step (check it out, you don't believe me) - that may be the greatest double-terrorist act in the history of the world - although you could just as easily talk about what they've done in Iraq the last 12 or so years, or even this year alone), although the Pispot, of course, as a staunch (i.e. brainless) American jingoist defines "terrorism" as other people killing "us" ("us" for the Pispot means just that - a little US north outpost right there in Toronto) - when "we" slaughter others, it's always for "humanitarian" reasons (or didn't happen at all, of course - just them damned Elvis-loving conspiracy theorists again hahaha) - and they really seem not to get it that everyone does not see things that way - typical bully shit though, which the Americans have always been, and their sycophants like the Pispot following along dumbly, doing as told, asking no questions...) through their mindless (sorry - it's the appropriate word though) spouting of anti-Castro shit (we talked about Cuba a bit the last time - but the Pispot, in good American tradition, can only say things like "brutal communist government" and has no fucking interest whatsoever in the many, many positive accomplishments of that country - nor, for that matter, in the FACT that their great god US is, in fact, a great deal more brutal than Castro ever thought of being, even if he had of had the means... - have you heard the one about Bush giggling at and making fun of some lady he had sentenced to death pleading for her life? Pretty brutal stuff, altogether - although not a story you're going to find in the US media (including the Pispot) - or most of the Canadian media for that matter). They're pretty pissed at Robinson too for a couple of years ago daring to utter one of the unspeakable truths in the western media - that any objective examination of what is happening in the mideast leads to the inescapable conclusion that Israel is, indeed, a terrorist state - man that flames them fuckers big time! HAHAHAHAHAHAHAAAA - love it. And of course, daring to point out, as he also did, that prior to the US sanctions of Iraq, it was probably the most advanced country in the mideast, in terms of providing decent health care and education and infrastructure to its people, and in running a much less fundamentalist Islam state, where women actually had some rights, and stuff - but daring to say anything at all positive about anyone the US had deemed to be "evil" is not to be tolerated by the mindless editorialists at the Pispot in their black-and-white little world, and thus again do they go after Robinson - for daring to speak the truth, which offends these fuckers to no end.

Oh well, that's the most fascist end of the Canadian media at work. You may recall I've also been somewhat concerned about the Star lately, and here is a perfect example of why - this could have been lifted right out of the new Ashcroftian library - no fucking proof of anything, no reason to write it really except - let's talk about TERRORISM!!! TERRORISTS!!!! TERROR!!!! - just to get the people afraid, it would seem (why do we want scared people? Well - perhaps not everyone knows, but public officials concerned with controlling citizens certainly know that people who are afraid of some more or less undefined but REALLY EVIL BOGEYMAN!!!! are a whole lot easier to control (sort of like kids in that respect) - a whole lot more inclined to huddle somewhere in their houses and let the big strong government and their big strong police and armies and whoever look after them. That is to say - have you heard of any actual terrorism threats to Canada lately??? - real ones, that is, not police fantasies - have there been any attacks in your neighbourhood, any strange looking bearded people skulking around with masks on looking like they were looking for something to blow up? OF COURSE FUCKING NOT - AND DON'T LIE!!! But gosh darn, we REALLY REALLY WANT to get this Canadian Identity card out to all the people real soon - and we have found that most Canadians just do not want such a thing, so we better get working on them (the people, that is - we're already working on the card). And that, of course, is the main job of the media - citizen control, government propaganda. So things have been too quiet lately, and let's get that TERRORISM idea out there - after all, it could happen to anybody anytime!!! - and scared citizens are compliant citizens etc etc and etc.

Listen up - TERRORIST TERRORIST TERRORISM!!!

Hole in the border by one Miro Cernetig RM archive copy.

Look at it - something like 25 times he uses the word "terror" or some variation thereof to make sure we all get the message, starting in the extended title of the piece - something like "For years alcohol and cigarettes have been smuggled across the Canadian-US border - now it could be TERRORISTS!!!!!". It is a piece worthy of deconstruction in its entirety - it is so full of choice examples it could be offered in university courses as a very exemplar of the propagandistic trade which the modern media has become so proficient at. How disappointing to find such Ashcroftian fascist shit in the Toronto Star. Nothing more nor less than scaremongering - remember Bush a few months ago - "Do you want to wake up some day to MUSHROOM CLOUDS in the US?!?!?!?!?!"

Look at it - right from the getgo, to get everyone in the right mood, he opens with the sound of gunfire - AK-47s actually, he makes sure to point out - that well-known TERRORIST!! weapon (and all the good citizens on the edge of their seats now - WOW!!!! TERRORIST WEAPONS BEING USED IN CANADA!! WOW!!! - TERRORISTS CAN'T BE FAR BEHIND!!!). And then carries on to pot-bellied men lazing on the banks of the river cracking a can of beer and carelessly tossing "handfuls of raw meat" onto a BBQ - fuck this Miro dude must be the very paragon of PC, he so casually slurs those whose lifestyle he obviously disapproves of - you understand the big middle one, Miro??), completely oblivious to the horrible danger he (and now his readers, of course, who always identify with respected newspaper journalists who always tell the truth and diss those less worthy!!) are aware of, diligently protecting our fair land - we picture flinty eyed citizen guard Miro and his sheeps watching the perimeter for the evil aliens, terrorists, whatever the fuck - we'll get em, we and Big John 'Green Beret' Canuck Wayne of the Mounties, you fucking betcha..., whilst the devil-may-care grasshoppers frolic away the day guzzling beer and irresponsible shit like that (you bet tv and cartoon books have their uses - how else would we be able to see these pictures lurking beneath Cernetig's words, somewhere there in our subconscious??). The exaggerations entwine with the scaremongering, as all good yellow "journalists" do so well - although he carries on with what a serious problem "people smuggling" is, he does admit (one of the remaining good guys at the Star must have vetted the piece!) that it has gone down considerably over the last few years (from something like 600 per year to under 200!! - so what's the problem? - but immediately counters that by saying that, of course, American "authorities" "estimate" that they actually capture only 10% (and who'd ever doubt an American "authority" HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA) - so suddenly a couple of hundred becomes a couple of thousand!! OHMYGOD!!!! DANGER!!!! - since, of course, there are AK47s blasting off all around, which surely means terrorists!!!! DON'T THINK PANIC!!! (in a rather calm and controlled Canadian sort of way, of course! - "Well, Dear, you know, with all of those potentially dangerous people (damned fucking terrorists!!!! sorry dear) being smuggled across our porous border (it certainly must be, I read it in the Star, and you know the Star would NEVER mislead us), and carrying AK47s they may well be terrorists - yes yes I know we don't want to jump to conclusions - but heck, dear, you know - that National Identity Card just might help control these people you know - and you know that our most honourable Politicians have PROMISED it will never be used for any Nefarious purposes, all those conspiracy theorists whining about Orwell and Fascism and Freedom not withstanding......." )

Right.

Oh well, no need to take the whole thing apart, one has other things to do, and you either understand this shit or you don't - but catch the last part - cigarette smuggling!!!! This is now a much more serious threat than it was before 911 - because people who smuggle cigarettes are probably giving money to terrorists!!!!!! Fuck - as anybody outside of the rather blinkered PC circles understands, the way to stop cigarette smuggling is to sell the damn things at a reasonable price in the first place!!! - too complicated for these people, I guess - better to give the RCMP their big new shiny boats and encourage all kinds of criminals, providing them with huge amounts of black market money to buy AK47s and what not - fuck, if you don't create such "criminals" by government policy, you might not have an excuse for the cop budgets - fuck, the two heinous crimes of cigarette smuggling and pot smoking provide the excuse for probably half of the cop, court and jail budgets in the country!! (and I don't really give a fuck if that is a small exaggeration - we could top up the pot with any number of other victimless "crimes" - you wanna count the cost of all the roadblocks and police chases to catch me not wearing a fucking seatbelt or something equally stupid, or what the cost to the economy is of insurance rates jacked through the roof because of all the people charged with the entirely victimless crime of reading over 0.08 on some breathalyser?? (No I don't support murder on the highways - anybody who commits vehicular homicide or assault through carelessness (including but NOT LIMITED TO people drinking to the point of losing control of their vehicle) ought be nailed and have the book thrown at them - those things ARE crimes, and serious ones - but what in the fuck are we doing filling the jails with innocent people?!?!?!?! - if the government cared about our safety, then what in the fuck is it doing closing hospitals and slashing health care budgets and allowing drug companies to price necessary drugs through the roof???? Oh well - getting sidetracked - for another day! (but I did write a wee letter a few months ago covering some of this - published in the Vancouver Sun ............. HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH - gotcha!!! no, of course it wasn't published!!! - you think any Canadian FREE MEDIA HAHAHAHA paper is going to publish a letter suggesting it is crazy putting people in jail for blowing some random number on a breathalyser?!?!?! - these guys ain't subversive!!! - they're fascist!!! They LOVE putting people in jail for victimless crimes!!! - yapping hysterically and continuously about shit like this distracts the people from wondering why the cops et al. aren't going after the real fucking crooks, for instance the ones on Parliament Hill who have stolen a trillion fucking dollars from Canadians over the last 20 years, and continue to steal 30-40-50 billion per year - +++, as they say at their fancy hotels...)

Oh shit - just when I thought I had it all figured out!!! - look at this, from the same British Columbia media - they actually publish a column from some guy saying the whole debate about the pot law is junk, the turdhead in the US government who said Canadians are ashamed of their PM for his actions is crazy (he actually agrees with me and a whole fuck of a lot of others that BUSH is the fucking embarrassment in the world these days, but by fuck you don't see THAT popular opinion expressed much in the mainstream media these days!!!!), and the solution is to legalise pot!!!!!!! - I don't know, I have a copy here - if you want to read the original - Political madness infects marijuana debate - I suggest you get at it - the guy's closing line is "Expect more hopeless time-wasting until pot is legalised, taxed and sold like alcohol." - I can't imagine they're going to leave this radical shit on line for long! HAHAHAHAHAHAHAAAAA - ah, what a buzz!!!! - where's my fucking beer....

Anyway, fuck sidetracked again - about the "Terrorist" story, this, ultimately, is what we are looking at if we let them get away with this kind of terrorist talk - any time they want to go after someone or do something like fingerprint everyone for the National ID Card they'll link them/it to that horrible bogeyman TERRORISM!!!! - and all well-trained citizens will roll over and play dead - "Oh well, if we're helping stop terrorists (shivershakeshiver!!!) sure you can do whatever it takes oh Great Benevolent Loving Government!! A National ID Card? Really?? Why?? Ohhhh!!! - to help fight terrorism!!! Sure - we LOVE it!!!"

I guess I date myself, but I do remember different times, times when ALL people were presumed innocent, and NOT to be interfered with by the cops or anyone else without a damn good reason (well, all people except the ones the cops didn't like for some reason - but we'll just leave that sidetrack for another day too) - but we appear to be about over those days, as we follow the US down the fascist lane - we are on the fast track for days when we will all be presumed guilty (of what? well - anything at all - YOU know!! - after all, YOU'RE THE GUILTY ONE AND JUST PROVING IT BY NOT WANTING TO COOPERATE!!! - remember the bogeyman tales of those horrible Soviet torture prisons, where innocent people would confess to anything to stop the torture??) - but of course, they're just stopping you to check your National ID Card - as long as you have that, you're ok!!! - and you certainly wouldn't want to help the TERRORISTS by not cooperating with our wonderful SS RCMP now would you? No, of course not! HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAAAAAAAAAAA

(nonono - don't laugh at me now scornfully and then come running to me when they get around to coming for you for some fucking trivial thing - I'll be long gone, one way or another..... - outside-the-boxers like me are few and far between - this crap gets stopped by ordinary Canadians at the ballot box (very soon) or not at all - there, don't that make your day feel better!!! HAHAHAHAHAHAHAAAA)

- really - what would a REAL media be doing in the country, rather than trying to get everyone afraid of bogeymen? Well, just a for instance or two - it might be saying to the government - "Where the hell are the guys you picked up a few weeks ago and accused of "links to terrorism"!!! - a very scary thought to Canadians, obviously - why haven't these men been charged yet - hmmm?? ohhh!! - they've all been let go!!! well isn't that surprising!! - why in the fuck hasn't there been the big coverage of this the last few weeks - that the Canadian government, after weeks or months of investigation, conducted midnight raids on 20 or so Canadians, and hauled them all off to jail, sternly muttering about terrorist links and what not - and now we find that no charges have been laid or anything?!?!? What exactly fucking kind of "investigation" did you people have before arresting these people?!?!? - you're not using some of George's people who promised all those WMDs and whatnot in Iraq last year are you?!?! HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAAAA - but seriously, is this the best we can expect from our vaunted RCMP and CSIS and OPP and whoever the fuck else was involved - that they get all excited about a guy taking pilot training lessons who has flown over a nuclear facility - and rush off to drag him in before finding out that that was a normal flight path for trainee pilots??? Jesus fucking christ mate, as we used to say, wake the fuck up!!! We get better cop work than this from 15 year olds!!! - and you guys have years of training and huge budgets and instant links to INTERPOL and other international agencies - and this is the best you can do?!?!?!

Why doesn't the Canadian media take an approach along those lines - I mean, this really, really is pretty outrageous, this kind of fuck up. But no - no outrage - just planted stories from hacks like Cernetig - "Well, dear, yes, they did let those men go - but we can't be too careful, you know, with all them terrorists trying to get into Canada - the Star told me so, you know....".

Actually, as I have suggested before, and a few others - it might be a bit more useful if the media was demanding to know what investigations our government has undertaken to see what exactly terrorist threat REALLY exists in Canada, if any, and what actual APPROPRIATE measures might be taken - assuming, of course, ANY fucking sort of threat could be established at all - you may or may not have noticed, but the major large scale violence in this country the last few years has been the Darth Vader cops hammering on citizens with pepper spray, rubber bullets, tear gas and like that, and ganging up on innocent citizens who have DARED to gather together to protest something or other the government was up to, or trying to get up to. Now, that kind of terrorism really ought to be nipped before it gets out of hand - but I don't see a fucking word in the mainstream media about this REAL violence against the citizens - just more scaremongering about bogeymen.

Remember the last time - a small screed about how the media MAKE the news they want you to be thinking about, rather than simply reporting it? This terrorism shit is a perfect example. Now why, why, why???? you must then ask, do they want us afraid of bogeymen??? Who benefits from this little game? Who loses? Play an Albert mind-game - IF - just supposing IF - some bad people were trying to take over the government, and needed to expand the military/police presence, for instance, but knew that Canadians naturally resisted that kind of thing, being the peaceful society we are - and these bad people, as part of civilian population control, wanted every Canadian to have a modern "biometric" ID card - even though, again, most Canadians were pretty wary of this kind of shit - well, short of starting an overt violent war against the people of Canada, what sort of tactics do you suppose such bad, and very sneaky, people might use to try to coerce the people of Canada into accepting an increased police presence, and a national ID card (especially if, for instance, they were getting advice from someplace already engaged in such tactics like, oh let us say just for the sake of the mind game, Washington)??? HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAAA - just a little mind game, of course - anything else would have to be dissed as another damn conspiracy theory, and we certainly don't do that kind of stuff here!!!!! HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAAAA

Imagine imagine - always thinking democratic thoughts here!!! - and after the bit last week about outrageous MP expense accounts, got to thinking about how we could control it - what if MPs had to justify their expenditures for junkets here and there around the world, and other expenses, to the people who had to PAY the fucking expenses - the taxpayers themselves, and, more specifically, the taxpayers in their ridings!!!! - not at all hard to arrange, if it was wanted - that is, perhaps 2-6 times per year a meeting would be set up in the riding wherein the MP laid out his/her proposed expenditures (including, of course, some provision for unexpected things, one way or another - various ways to deal with this, where there is a will there is a way, as the saying goes - a certain leeway, but anything not approved before it happened would have to be justified at the next meeting...) - and a group of taxpayers - the more the merrier, but randomly chosen, maybe from the voter's list, or phonebooks, to prevent any kind of bias on either side (automatically for or against anything, that is) - and over the course of an hour or three the MP laid out his/her desires for expenses for the coming period of time one by one, and the group gave or denied permission. They would, of course, have been presented with a small (but inclusive!) amount of documentation in advance so they could prepare, talk about things with their neighbours, that sort of thing - including an opportunity for anyone who opposed anything to have their document included.

I would just fucking LOVE to hear these people explaining why, for instance, they had to spend 2 or 3 weeks in Europe to talk to 2 or 3 or 10 people about how a modern city government works or their experiences with national ID cards or whatever (as here - Fontana defends ID tour RM archive copy - stuff that any of us who actually have a clue could get a great amount of very useful material from the internet in half an hour on. More useful, probably - fuck what are these people spending all their staffing budgets on - they don't know how to make phone calls or write letters?!?!?! Right. And then they could justify their business class travel expenses, and expensive hotels and stuff at the same time - man it would be a riot!!!! (not to mention, a tad more seriously, I would rather confidently predict that junkets would suddenly, mysteriously decrease by about 80%!!! (I'll admit that the ODD fucking time there is a legitimate excuse to go somewhere - but I am also certain most of their trips are 99% pleasure based rather than business - I know the few times these things get into the papers, I think to myself, fuck I could have got better info in half an hour on the net - and my budget for such shit is nil!!!). I could write a para now about their self-righteous justifications, lofty excuses like "doing necessary government work", "committee requirements cannot be foretold in advance", "emergencies come up", their "necessary trips doing the necessary business of the nation" are planned by others and not the individual MPs at all, etc and etc - and all of it pure bullshit designed to protect their perks. Very little of it would stand up to serious scrutiny - which is why they would NEVER submit to questioning by their constituents. Like the Clement neocon I mentioned last time - remember his big trip to Europe last year, with his whole fucking family, that he tried to bill the taxpayers for??? Sure - he got caught and a wee slap on the wrist for his acting as if the public purse was his personal bank account - how many don't??

Fuck - you could use such meetings for everything from getting a few words from them about why they thought they deserved their fancy salary-benefit packages to some real discussion on proposed legislation - or NEW legislation the people in the riding wanted!!! Fuck it would SOOOOOO democratic!!!! (hey - you wanna know something else really neat - I forgot to mention it the last time - but this is EXACTLY how they do things in Cuba, the place that the great modern Fascist US hates so much - and believe it, that is one of the main reasons why!!!)

What a great instrument for accountability and thus democracy this would be - and that is why you can be 100 fucking percent sure that there is NO FUCKING WAY JACK WHAT THE FUCK HAVE YOU BEEN SMOKING IT'S STILL ILLEGAL WE'RE GONNA GETCHA HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAAAA!

Oh such fun to dream!!!

Somewhat less fun to watch my country go to the dogs. Literally. But on it will go until a whole lot more people start standing up and saying STOP THIS FUCKING SHIT RIGHT THE FUCK NOW!!!!!! (or words to that effect - but I'll sit here and tell you straight and true, writing polite little letters to the Editor or your MP ain't gonna cut it - remember little Oliver Twist (I think it was) in the Poor House - Please Sir can I have some more?? - HAHAHAHAHAHAHAAAAA - the answer to him, the answer to you. If you want Democracy and Freedom - you take it. You don't beg for it. The Bay St Boys wanted corporate government - they didn't beg you or we the voters for it - they went behind the scenes with their money and took it. And if we want our government back - that's what we're going to have to do. Take it the fuck back. Jack.)

Man there's so much good reading out there on the web these days - I try not to suggest too much, in the spirit that we all go looking for that which interests us and like I didn't have enough to say myself HAHAHAHAHAHAH, but there are times I just can't resist - so a couple more today -

Here's one about Korea, that puts more and better perspective on the situation than I've read in ANY fucking mainstream paper - from the International Herald Tribune (apparently this rag cares a bit about real analysis and doesn't simply run US propaganda like most of the American rags, which is REALLY fucking nice to see sometimes!!) - a bit of the light of truth, to counteract some of the insane Bush stuff - Korea: The real danger is the fantasy in Washington by William Pfaff IHT Friday, October 10, 2003 - RM archive copy he says some things that are really worth repeating - for instance,

"Washington people think they know, but they actually deal in a limited number of ideologically constructed "stories" about the world that rely heavily on stereotype and prejudice, and are infrequently submitted to serious pragmatic challenge..." - man, if more people only understood that!!!!

and - "South Korea wants North Korea's regime and economy liberalised, but expects this to come gradually, in an international context that reduces pressure on the regime while providing incentives for reform.." - HAHAHAHAHA - that's beautiful - accept that change will come gradually, and encourage it with less pressure and some incentives - now listen to Bush's version of international relations - DO WHAT WE FUCKING TELL YOU OR WE'LL BOMB YOU BACK TO THE STONE AGE!!!!

fuck. what a world

As usual - on and on and on we go - every fucking day every fucking day - look at this one Monday - Let's think more deeply about voter turnout by one John Ibbotson of the Glob RM archive copy- another "exploration" into why people are voting less, again completely, for some reason, ignoring the one central fact - that people are, in substantial numbers, catching on to the fact that it doesn't matter WHO in the fuck they vote for, they get the Bay St. Boys Party in one incarnation or another - Tweedledee-Tweedledum politics, and the voters are finally saying "Hey, we ain't that fucking "dum" anymore, - take your stupid politics and do what you want, but don't ask ME to approve of it like some dumb mark at the carnival!". But no, no, no - as with the Star before, and undoubtedly others I haven't seen, they search frantically around for other reasons to feed the readers, desperate to find something that doesn't come right out and admit how fixed and scuzzy the whole system is - Ibbotson really gets scratching the bottom of the barrel here - one of the comedy shows ought to pick it up - first he says, well, maybe it's - YEAH!!! Immigrants!!!! - we have a lot of immigrants who come from sad little dictatorship 3rd world countries and don't understand our wonderful democracy, and the GREAT PRIVILEGE OF VOTING!!! Yea that's good!!! - but let's try some more while we're on a roll - he goes back to young people, but with a twist - they don't know about the "Great Wars" that were fought in the last century to Save the Free World for Democracy (fuck is anybody starting to smell a Bush here??), and they don't understand what a huge, great honour and privilege we have to vote for Tweedledum-Tweedledee sorry our Wonderful Politicians every few years hahahahahaha - but (sorry it's late - I'd like to run with all of these for awhile but TIMETIMETIME SEE WHAT'S BECOME OF ME!!!) then comes the greatest one of all - ya really gotta give the guy credit for originality on this one (he doesn't source anything, but this sounds a bit like something the Fraser Brain Trust HAHAHAHAHAHAHA might have come up with) - it's the damned "permanent voters list"!!!!! - he notes some (again unsourced) rumour that at least one enumerator in times past got to some house with his/her little list in hand, and found 3 year olds, 5 year olds, and "numerous" dead people on his voter's list!!!!!!!!! - and, of course, such people don't vote (I suppose the people passing out ballots wouldn't give one to someone whose head didn't reach the top of the table, or whose smell made the ballot-guarders barf before they could give one to him/her/it?) - so naturally, the "permanent" voter's list numbers are overestimated because of all these non-eligible people or things are now going to stay on the list now that enumerators don't catch the damned 3-year old cheats (not to mention the dead guys), and thus the percentage of people not voting equally overestimated. QED - THERE IS NO PROBLEM!!!! HHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAAAAAAAA - this sounds Mulroneyian in its deviosity - or should that be Harrisian - fuck I get them confused - but remember a few years back when one of them, based on a Wonderful Scientific Study from the Fraserites, virtually overnight reduced the number of poor people in Canada by 20 or 30% (I think - must have been Mulroney - Harris would have done it if he had of read the report first, but Mulroney got there first - he broke a lot of new ground in ways to fuck everything up in Canada) by revising the "official" poverty cut off line from what one could survive on to what one could exist on, or something like that - fuck, if these people can afford (cheap fatty) HAMBURGER for fuck's sake once or twice a month to mix with their Kraft Dinner (and that ain't cheap no more by golly!!!) then you can't really call em poor, eh?!?!.

Anyways, I sent the man a copy of the letter I sent to the Star a few weeks ago on the same thing - so we'll wait for it to appear in the Globe and everyone will be enlightened HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHA just joking - man oh man.

Actually one shouldn't laugh so much - these people are dangerous - what he's actually doing here, as he reveals at the end, is trotting out more reasons to put off or drop altogether the idea of changing the Canadian voting system to PR, saying that if young people aren't voting because they don't know about The Great War, or the dropping voter turnout is really only a chimera due to faulty voters' lists or immigrants' ignorance of "true democracy", then changing to PR would not solve the "problem". And as anyone who has spent any time in the courts knows, this is exactly the point of this kind of writing - to give those who will eventually do a "study" on changing the electoral system to PR a good selection of excuses to choose from when they recommend against it (they don't have to be really good reasons, any old shit will do to justify denying the people something, as any old shit will do to justify doing what the corps want that will fuck everyone else - ie the idiotic idea of "trickle down" as a justification for lowering taxes) - it took me awhile to catch on to the "adversarial system" in the courts and how and why it was there - but that's it, the same idea as what Ibbotson is up to here - the 'best and brightest" HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA minds in the legal system slave over all the law books (at $500/hour, the fucking thieves), and eventually provide the "judge" with lengthy arguments to justify ANY fucking thing he wants to do.

But that is a story for another day, and this day has about run its course. Is that shrimp on the BBQ tonight? wowser - next time!