The Crippled Dog and the Cruel Monsters in Iraq

The other day I ran a video that showed how American convoys drive around Iraq. One of my blogging buddies said he had hoped it ended with an IED explosion. Kaboom.

I told him I would never show an IED explosion killing or injuring American soldiers. And there are a lot of them. Because while I hate the Bush and Cheney war criminals with every bone in my body. I hate to see our neighbour's kids die.

Or be horribly injured.....
















Like this young soldier who lost half his head.

Or this one who will never be the same again...












Just ask his mum how much that hurts....

In fact I was going to write something about the new dangers American troops face from weapons like this one. That can go through a humvee like a knife through butter.

Or why a new generation of IEDs is so deadly, thanks to something called a shaped charge.That can take out a tank.

Just so everyone knows what they face every day. So you can understand some of the things they do.

But then I changed my mind....I still don't want most American soldiers in Iraq to be killed or wounded.

Just these guys.....



Sometimes horror stories like this one....... or this one.tell you all you need to know about the war in Iraq.

But sometimes how you treat a poor miserable crippled Iraqi street dog.... that has probably had to scrounge for scraps all its pitiful life without even a pat on the head from a human... tells you a lot too.

These soldiers aren't liberators. They never were liberators. They were just pawns in a monstrous war that never should have happened. Many of them are just victims like so many Iraqis. Some of them will be victims long after the war is over.

But some of them are monsters. And the longer this war goes on the more monsters there will be.

If I was an American I wouldn't worry about the war in Iraq. For them it will soon be over. I'd worry about their poor wounded kids for whom that war will never end.

And I'd worry about what's going to happen to their own country.

When those monsters come marching home....

Fucking Kyoto and the Plan to Bomb Bomb Iran

Canada in February....how hard is it to worry about global warming in this country when it's minus 17 degrees centigrade outside? Answer: really hard.

Especially when you know that Stephen Harper's Big Oil pimps aren't going to do anything to control greenhouse emissions. So Canada can only get warmer. And Big Oil can only get bigger....

"Baird promised to regulate industry which accounts for about half of Canada's emissions. He says this will be done using intensity targets which require companies to produce fewer emissions per unit of output - BUT COULD STILL ALLOW TOTAL EMISSIONS TO INCREASE...."

Huh? I know these oil pimps are never going to kiss the Kyoto. But that's a farce.

But maybe it's just as well...... I mean how much time can you spend worrying about the fate of future generations? You gotta save some time to worry about us.... and more urgent problems. Like where are we ordering out from tonight.? Who is getting the beer...and the weed? And of course the plan to bomb bomb bomb....bomb bomb Iran....

Now that's something to REALLY worry about. But as for all this Kyoto shit....like most Canadians...I think I'd rather pass....

I mean am I REALLY going to give up my love for fast cars and motorbikes....or stop flying planes? Am I really not going to jump on to a big stinky polluting jet and head for a sunny beach in March? Or not heat my home or my igloo? Or not spend half an hour in a hot shower.....after an older guy has had his way with me? Or not crank up the air conditioning in the summer...at the first drop of sweat on my brow....or my bum? Am I really going to take public transit out to IKEA and bring home a new toilet bowl.....on the bus?

Nah.....not a chance....and I don't think many other Canadians will either.... so I'm afraid we're going to have to be honest and tell the rest of the world....that if they want to kiss the Kyoto to go ahead. But we just can't....coz even if we don't freeze in the dark....we might be really really inconvenienced....

Like being forced to take showers in our underwear...

And if the Kyoto goody goodies don't like that....then we'll just have to hit them with the cruel facts of life.

Energy hogs are energy hogs. Oink. Oink. And we can't change even if we wanted to. Coz we're the oil whore of Amerika. Oinkety Oink. We live in The Great White North.

And life is harsh...

Oh Canada.......(sigh).....does anybody in Florida ....or Australia....want to adopt me?

But you know what I mean....if the planet is going to burn....and we really can't do anything about it. Just like we can't stop the war with Iran. And all those Iranians are going to be bomb bomb bombed. And all those children who haven't been born are going to die of starvation one day. Or be eaten by other hungry people. As crops wither in the fields. And sea levels rise.

How are we going to explain all this to the children who are alive today? That the scientists warned us...but we let the politicians play their stupid games....because we didn't really want to change the way we lived our lives?

Global warming will hurt the poorest countries most. Trying to head it off or reduce it's impact will hurt the richest.

I think we better explain all of this to the children now.

So they're not disappointed later...

How Not to Make Friends in Iraq....

Just jump in a U.S. army humvee and go for a drive....



No new friends....but about fifty new enemies.

In less than three minutes. Holy Surge!!!

No wonder they're wosing...

The Attack of the Climate Change Deniers

So after six years of work some of the world's leading scientists have produced a report on climate change that tells most of us what we already know. That global warming is real....and that humans are to blame.

With the added detail that we've already done enough damage to scorch the planet for a thousand years.

So what are the ReformCon Oil Pimps and Climate Deniers doing? Attacking the Liberals. Over and over again. Repeating the same tired message like a bunch of Stalinist stooges.

And sending the nasty fat neocon hawk John Baird to ....of all places....Gay Paree..

















Uh oh...this could be really embarrassing.... The last time we sent Rona Ambrose to a Climate Change conference..... and she spent all of her time doing the Can't Can't and attacking the Liberals.... the civilized world was just shocked.

This time they are going to laugh at us. Or spit at us....

And who can blame them? What can you say about a country that would place the future of its children in the hands of a criminal gang of Big Oil pimps and climate change deniers?

A gang of neocon crazies who draw their inspiration from Oil Pimp Think Tanks like the Fraser Institute

Which has launched an all-out assault on the Climate Change report.

"There is no compelling evidence that dangerous or unprecedented changes are underway...there will remain an unavoidable element of uncertainty as to the extent that humans are contributing to future climate changes...and indeed whether or not such change is a good or a bad thing..."

Talk about the Attack of the Climate Change Deniers...By an institute pumped full of dollars by ExxonMobil.....just like these Yankee Oil Pimps are.

"Scientists and economists have been offered $10,000 each by a lobby group funded by one of the world's largest oil companies to undermine a major climate change report due to be published today."

In Canada Big Oil not only bought themselves an institute for Climate Change Denial. They also bought themselves a government....

History has made the future of the planet the hill the next election will be fought on.

For the sake of the future...for the sake of the children.

Let's make it the hill these oil pimps die on....

Stephen Harper:Oil Pimp and Dangerous Idiot

I switched on the tv this afternoon just in time to watch Stephen Harper turn green. Not because that fat Oil Pimp was trying to look like a born-again environmentalist. That cabaret act is over....

But because he had to kiss the Kyoto. And publicly admit he now now believes in the science of climate change. Smooch. Slobber. Smack.

"This government has made it clear in the election campaign that we accept the science and that's why we're acting."

Ooh boy...after spending his whole life as a climate change denier that REALLY must have hurt. No wonder he looked so green. Woohoo!!!!!! I love this show!!!!

Although I must admit this little Bairdy almost ruined it....


By jumping up and down during question period blaming everything on the Liberals.

If this nasty little neocon hawk doesn't get its claws trimmed soon....we're going to have to cage it. Or turn it into a boa....

As for the Alberta Oil Pimp Climate Change Denier and Environmental Impostor .......he's going to have to convince his most fanatic ReformCon supporters he's not a traitor. Good luck.

"Now that the prime minister has publicly changed his mind to bend to the current wind, we’ll all pay for it."

I hope so.... how about twist in the wind? BTW have you ever considered the Reform Party? Mwahahaha!!!!

Doncha luv the planet? Just when these filthy cons thought they could take turns raping it up the kazoo.It turned around and bit them. Just like Iraq bit Chimp Bush. Ouch!

Although that does remind me....the Oil Pimp may have his hands full convincing his rabid wingnuts that he's not a traitor. Just an impostor and a liar.

But he's also going to have to convince the rest of us that he's not a dangerous idiot....

















You see something in Harper's infamous but revealing letter kinda jumped out at me...

"It (Kyoto) is based on tentative and contradictory scientific evidence about climate trends."

"It focuses on carbon dioxide, which is essential to life, rather than upon pollutants..."

How could a so called leader be so wrong and so dum ignorant about something so important?

As if carbon dioxide wasn't one of the main greenhouse gases responsible for global warming.

As if scientists weren't aware at the time he wrote his crazy little letter that carbon dioxide levels were jumping alarmingly

"A recently issued report by the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) of an unexpectedly large increase in carbon dioxide levels from 2002 to 2003 has raised concerns that the earth may already be entering a time of rapid and abrupt climate change.

Another more ominous possibility exists - that some of the increase could be due to a feedback effect that is amplifying the rise expected from human activity and that might kick our gradual warming trend into high gear...."

In short....if global warming causes oceans and plants to absorb less carbon dioxide...we may have only years....not decades to do something about it. And try to limit the damage.

Oh yeah....and if you ever wondered what a planet with too much carbon dioxide looks like...it looks like this one....











If we want to save our world all we've got to do is remember this....Stephen Harper is an Alberta Oil Pimp and a Climate Change Denier.

He put his right wingnut ideology before science. He put the interests of Big Oil before the interests of the world's children. And he was so stoopid ignorant he didn't even know what he was talking about.

He isn't a real leader just like he will never be a real environmentalist. This country can't afford him and his wacko government any longer.

And neither can the planet...

Stephane Dion and the Alberta Oil Pimps

I must say I find it quite amusing to see the nerd Stephen Harper accusing the nerd Stephane Dion of being a useless nerd on the environment ....with those ridiculous attack ads. Especially since I also believe they are going to backfire.

".....They show the Conservatives are worried about Dion but more importantly, they'll simply reinforce Canadians' perception that the government isn't serious about the environment and views it as a PR battle to be won...."

And then there's the whole idea of running Canadian attack ads in an American football game. That's so tacky and American it's got to hurt them.

But what I can't understand is why the nerd Dion is doing such a pathetic job of fighting back. It's pretty clear the ReformCons are out to destroy his environmental credentials. Or in filthy Con talk..... make him appear as bad as they are.

So I think he should be taking off the gloves. Instead of sounding like a Jesuit priest on crack. Or looking like St.Sebastian

And so does Tom Axworthy.

Dion must respond immediately. The Liberals should cut their own series of ads, linking Harper’s Republican Lite game plan to the negative politics of disunity that so disfigure the electoral process in the United States. Dion cannot allow an impression to grow that he is a scholarly and honourable man not quite up to the cut and thrust of modern politics...Dion must show that he cannot only take a punch, but give one back..."

Now somebody please tell the wacky professor......

He still seems to think that Parliament is some kind of university where you can convince even your sworn enemies that you are ALWAYS right.(yawn) Instead of a House of Pigs where you try to kick the filthy neocons in the nuts.

He needs to understand that he isn't addressing a classroom of university students anymore. Now he's speaking to the rabble. And for them one image is worth a thousand words.

So for example when Harper calls you a useless nerd who didn't do enough about climate change, You don't argue with him about who did what or not. You just call him a yankee stooge neocon who denied climate change was even a problem. Just like Chimp Bush did. Even as the planet burned...

And to make sure it sticks ...you call him an Alberta Oil Pimp as well....

















Canadians may not know that Harper has been a climate change denier all his life. A tool of the Alberta oil companies who pull the strings in the Conservative Party. A parrot of the Calgary oil executives who are selling out our energy interests. And making Alberta the Oil Whore of Amerika.

They may also not know that Harper has fought any kinds of controls on greenhouse gas emissions because the oil companies didn't want them. Or that he once called Kyoto a "socialist scheme"

"Kyoto is essentially a socialist scheme to suck money out of wealth-producing nations...."

Or that Harper belongs to a church that believes the world is going to end any day. And that fighting global warming is pagan "earth worship" that could delay the return of the "Messiah."

Or that until recently Harper publicly mocked the science of climate change just like Stockwell Day did.

But something tells me Canadians are going to find out what kind of a phony born again environmentalist Stephen Harper really is....on YouTube ......and when they do ...I'm sure they'll recognize a yankee blowing Alberta oil pimp when they see one.

Don't you?

Memes, Monsters, and The Third World War

When I was a small boy my dad and I were driving through the countryside near my home, when two jets from a nearby air force base collided in the air just in front of us. One crashed into a wood on the other side of a hill. The other one came down in a field just next to us.

My dad told me to stay in the car, while he and other drivers ran to see if they could help. But I got out of the car, crossed the road, and saw the pilot's body burning in the field.

When he got back to the car my father made me promise not to tell my mother what I had seen. But I told my sister, she told mum, and my father got really mad. He told me I should never tell others more than they need to know. So you don't hurt them when you don't have to. I guess it's a Scottish thing...

Then I saw the movie Lord of the Flies and that made an even stronger impression on me. I saw what happened to that other Simon...you know the one who stared too long at this guy...

When the plane fell out of the sky Simon found out that The Monster wasn't really a monster. He was just a dead pilot hanging from a tree. And that The Monster was really us. But when he tried to tell the others......... they killed him.

But what do you expect? He told them more than they needed to know. You don't tell monsters they are monsters. Duh?

He should have kept his mouth shut....and bought himself some time. So he could have secretly....and hastily...built himself a raft. And escaped from the island.

Which I guess is a long winded way of explaining why I hate memes...

One....they force you to tell people things you hadn't planned on telling them.....two they sound too much like those exploding breast implants. And three I'm lazy...and some of them are too much like work...

But when I was tagged by that scandalous Old Hippie I figured what the heck....just this once.. Not just because I love her. But because I thought being asked to list Six Weird Things About Me would be easy. Right?

Wrong. There were so many things I had to leave out. But here's the short list.....

(1) I was stabbed by a Protestant bigot when I was a boy...for hanging out with Catholic guys and cheering for a Catholic football team....even though I was a Protestant. Celtic forever!! But now I'm an atheist I spend all my time attacking bigots in the Catholic Church.What?

(2) I'm afraid of heights...but I love to fly. I think I've already described what happened when I once climbed the cross on Mount Royal. I think I'd rather fly through a storm with two feathered propellers than do that again. Or lean too far over a high rise balcony. And as for the glass floor in the CN Tower forget it!

(3) Once I was so shy, and said so little they were praying I wasn't autistic. Now I can't keep my mouth shut....and they're all praying for a relapse. I'm still too shy to pass on a meme though.....although I just might give Slappy twelve hours from the time I post this to register his objection....in writing. Or face the consequences...

(4) I rail against the institution of marriage. I believe in total sexual freedom. I see sex as something playful and fun. And I'm always encouraging everyone to fuck like bunnies. Gays and straights. But as for me I'm practically married...I can't keep up with my friends. All I need is one guy to sleep next to....and two or three dozen others to play with now and then. And for me that's more than enough...

(5) I don't drink. I know this might NOT sound weird. But when you come from a drink sodden culture like I do. And from the heart of Scotland's Whisky Country...and you have the family and the friends I do...believe me it's practically bizarre. Although I hasten to add that if they made a bagel that makes you drunk....like this one gets you buzzed. I'd eat it!!

(6) Although I'm a happy optimistic person I keep feeling that disaster is about to strike. Last year I got so wound up over the bird flu I didn't order chicken from Swiss Chalet for a month. And practically starved... And these days I can't help feeling we're on the verge of the Third World War. That Chimp Bush really is going to attack Iran. And nothing is going to stop him. And we're all going to get barbequed. Just like the chickens!!

But that's probably because sometimes I think I'm that other Simon.....The one on Pig Head island. It's like a dream. Or maybe it's a past life. Just like the one Bruce had. Just not so complicated...

Anyway...in this dream I find out who the monsters really are. But I don't tell the other ones. I pretend I'm one of them. While I build a raft out of coconut trees lashed together with pig guts. And on a moonless night paddle out to sea.

Then ....of course....sharks eat the guts ....and my raft falls apart. But I am rescued by a handsome fisherman who takes me to live in his tree house on another island. Where everything is peaceful and beautiful. And there are no monsters. Or pigs...... just the survivors from a gay cruise ship that went down during a wild party on the bridge...

And I live happily ever after....

Until the Third World War starts....

Now isn't THAT weird?

The Other Horror of the Pig Farm Murders

I see a lot of Canadians have already had enough of the Robert Pickton trial. They'd rather not know what happened to all those women.

From the comments in the Globe and Mail:

“No decent person could desire the ghoulish level of coverage you give to this sorry event."

Even though the ugly truth is because so many other so-called decent Canadians looked away for so long, so many women died.

That's the other horror of the pig farm murders.

It's not just a story of a monster and his victims.  It's also a story of a police department and a city that didn't do enough to stop him until it was too late. Because most of the victims were natives, drug addicts, sex trade workers, or just desperately poor. 

As if they weren't as human as other Canadians. As if their lives didn't count.

But of course they did. They all had families, loved ones, friends and dreams just like everyone else has Just like Sarah de Vries did....












I  watched a documentary about her life on Radio Canada. And I found it incredibly moving

It included an interview shot five years before she disappeared. In the clip she is shooting up and talking about her life on the street.

"You've got three ways you can go. You can go to jail. You can wind up dead. Or you can end up being a lifer down here. It's not a fun life..."

If you understand French you can watch the documentary here. Or just that interview by fast forwarding to 3:55 in the documentary.

Or you can zoom just slightly further ahead to 4:45 and watch the most haunting scene of all....














When a few days before Christmas in 1997 a CBC crew is filming some carollers in the Downtown Eastside, and Sarah stumbles into the shot.

She stares at the carollers as if recalling happier times.

Later she writes in her diary:

"Christmas is here again...this year I regretfully announce there will be no tree, no decorations, possibly no turkey dinner. Depression sinks deeper with every new thought....the emptiness grows...last void.... rapid and silent..."

Those were the last pictures ever taken of her. Four months later she vanished. It took years for the police to take her disappearance, and the disappearance of so many other women, seriously.

But as you can see in the documentary, thanks in large part to Sarah's mother and her sister Maggie they eventually did. And the horror of the pig farm was finally exposed.

And now, after all that , the trial finally gets underway...and already many Canadians have had enough?

Oh boy. I guess that answers Sarah's question... 















"Will they remember me when I'm gone...or will their lives just carry on? Will the tears fall from their eyes? When they try to say their goodbyes..."

Her loved ones never got a chance to say their goodbyes. Or even bury her remains. All police found was a trace of DNA. And life does just carry on.

But when this trial is over we need a public inquiry. Not just because murder is murder. And justice is justice. But also because as a society we need to confront  our human failures so we can overcome them.

So all those women didn't die in vain. So something good comes out of this shameful Canadian horror show.

So it never happens again....

Chimp Bush and the War with Iran

Uh oh.....panic in Washington. The Republican Reich is falling apart. The Chimp is in the bunker. And now he's not just stoopid. He's absolutely nuts. Now he's not The Decider, he's The Decision Maker.

Now he isn't blaming Saddam or Al Qaeda for the debacle in Iraq. Now he's blaming Iran.

"American troops in Iraq have authority to kill or capture Iranian agents deemed to be a threat, officials said Friday in describing a tougher stand toward Tehran and its suspected meddling in the nearly four-year-old war."

Oops....I hope that doesn't mean kill this Iranian agent. That could be messy.

"Those who suspect Sistani's true intentions are quick to note that the country's most powerful man is not even an Iraqi, but an Iranian...."

The Chimp and his chumps just don't get it. The Shia in Iran and Iraq have ties going back centuries. The Iranians will always be in Iraq. Just like the Iraqi Shia will support Iran if it's ever attacked by the U.S.

Just like Bush and Cheney appear determined to do. Not just strike at the nuclear installations. But crush Iran with a massive show of military might.

"Weapons of mass destruction will provide the rationale for military action, though it won't be limited to attacks on a few weapons factories. It will include limiting Iranian retaliatory capability, using bombers to destroy up to 10,000 targets in the first day of any war, and special forces flying in to destroy anything that's left."

Bush and Cheney may be gambling that the American people will close ranks behind them in the face of the terrorist wave that would follow. Or maybe they really believe that history will prove them right. That oil WAS everything. And Amerika had to have it. Or die.

Or maybe The Chimp is now so crazy he thinks he's paving the way for The Rapture.

All I know is that if the Congress and the American people don't stop these neocon maniacs in the next few weeks..... sometime in February...... we could be living in an even scarier world...

Which reminds me...it is the weekend...and I'd hate to end on such a note of doom and gloom. I mean think of it this way...the world may be on the brink of disaster. But the Republican Reich is already there. These nazi neocons aren't just tearing themselves apart. They're imploding and exploding at the same time. Oh what a beautiful sight!!

Besides if we're going to be cowering under our beds soon...now is the time to live it up!!! You know...do fun things....drink a lot...have lots of sex, or just dance a lot like this guy did....

Oh what a beautiful world!!!

Enjoy it while you can...

What are we hiding in Afghanistan?

I'm happy to see the group of MPs who have been held under virtual house arrest at our military base in Kandahar, have been granted temporary parole. Allowed to travel about a kilometre outside our little Alamo....to tour an Afghan army base.

The group had been confined to the Canadian base at Kandahar airfield since they arrived on Tuesday, under orders from Defence Minister Gordon O'Connor.

"Technically, they went outside the wire, but they were still within a secure perimeter of the airfield......"

Wow!!!! I'm impressed. Although by the way O'Connor and his chickenhawk Generals decide these days what Canadians can or cannot see you'd think they had something to hide. And maybe they do...

The truth is our media coverage of the war in Afghanistan is a joke. All we get are live hits by reporters out of our Kandahar base repeating what the military tell them. Or the jingoistic reports of Christie Blatchford and Rosie DiManno. About how manly our soldiers are.

Or little photo-ops at some dinky project, with a rent-a-crowd of Afghans pathetically grateful for practically nothing. Not that they dare say anything else with heavily armed Canadian soldiers all around them.

But then a few days ago a group of Canadian reporters decided to give the military a miss....and travel way beyond the wire into the Forbidden Zone. And what this guy saw there haunts me still....

"The roadside between Bazar-e Panjwaii and Sperwan is one never-ending graveyard..."

Hundreds of piles of fresh stones mark each new plot. Bits of green and white burial shroud tied to two-metre-high sticks have been tapped into the arid soil near some of the graves; green symbolizing Islam and white for the Taliban.

Many of these people were local farmers, coerced by Pakistani-based insurgents into fighting better-armed NATO soldiers or whipped up into a religious froth by Taliban claims of western outrages.

The farther we went up the road, the tighter the knot in my stomach became - especially as we passed flattened compounds, burned fields and a mosque that our guide told us had been used until just recently as a Taliban command post...."

I don't think it's possible for anyone to hate the Taliban as much as gay men do. We're the ones they threw off tall buildings. Or crushed under brick walls. So I'm a sucker for the noble part of our doomed mission. And war is hell and people do get killed.













But massacring legions of local farmers wasn't part of the bargain. A road lined with the graves of scrawny dirt poor people ....who died on the land where they were born..... isn't the kind of monument I want Canada to leave behind in Afghanistan.

But as I've mentioned before that's what happens when you don't have enough soldiers to do the job. If we had a stronger force we might have been able to encircle small groups at least, and talk them into going back to their fields. Or paying them to do that .....or whatever.

But since we don't. And we can't afford to take casualties like we did last year ...for political reasons. We just call in the American planes and helicopters. And they kill them all.

Just like they killed this other group of Taliban recruits. The ones wearing plastic bags instead of boots.

Just like they end all their battles. Not with a bang but a boom.....

And we're flattening mud compounds....just like the Soviets used to do....

I don't know if Canadians really care about the war in Afghanistan.....unless our soldiers are killed. Right now it is what's called a "neutral" issue. But we're killing a lot of people in that country so we have a moral responsibility to take a close look at what we're doing.

If we're going to have a real debate we need to know what's really going on there.

Any attempts to hide the truth will only come back to haunt us later. But by that time it might be too late.

Our Afghan Highway to Hell won't just be paved with good intentions.

It will be lined with the bodies of tens of thousands of Afghans.

If we don't care about that now...one day we will....