Canadian Cynic posted again about this right-wing religious wingnut today and invited readers to click through to his website to discover how “completely bugfuck crazy” he is. Hardly an exaggeration as it turns out. Take this suggestion he’s contemplating if elected to Congress (which surely won’t happen):
I’m considering discussing divorce aids and my plans for a “Derrenger’s for Dildos” policy to put guns in American women’s hands instead of divorce aids. Presently, when a criminal is arrested for a weapons crime, the prosecutors seek orders to destroy those weapons. What a waste! Put our criminal prisoners to work modifying those guns to be smart-guns that can only be fired when the female owner is holding it so that children don’t hurt themselves and so that criminals can’t use them (unless they use the woman’s hand). When a women turns in her stash of divorce aids, then give her a free gun to defend America when the jihadists follow us home.
Yikes! Where do you even begin with something like that?
Saturday, April 26, 2008
Wingnuttia in Excelsis
When Blockheads Attack
Poor Patrick… like Charlie Brown forever attempting to connect with the football held by Lucy, he tries ever so hard, but seems doomed not to win an argument. Perhaps he’d have more luck flying a kite. I really shouldn’t waste my time on this loser, but it would be remiss of me to allow his arrogant taunts to go completely unchallenged.
In his latest attempt to prove how absolutely brilliant he is, he takes our friend Canadian Cynic to task for a snarky observation made in passing a while back about the hypocrisy of Charles McVety. First, he contends that CC “never said anything about the tax-deductibility of donations to religious organizations.” Well, considering this was completely obvious to everyone but Patrick and was reinforced by a graphic of McVety’s advertisement wherein it was stated “All donations are tax deductible” it hardly needed to be spelled out in order for the reader to get the point. And what was the point? It most certainly wasn’t, as Patrick seemed to have imagined for some reason, that “that McVety uses the internet to solicit donations for the Canada Christian Coalition.” No, it was simply pointing out the alleged “hypocrisy” of someone like McVety complaining about his tax dollars going to “subsidize porn” as he put it, while at the same time being “subsidized” by virtue of being a tax exempt religious organization.
Now, Patrick’s contention is that the sort of tax exemption McVety’s organization enjoys is entirely different from that of the situation applicable to domestic films because: “Tax deductible donations to religious organizations provide individuals with a choice regarding what their tax dollars will support. Largely unaccountable production grants to, in particular, pornographic films -- like Bubbles Galore, which received a $100,000 production grant -- offers the taxpayer no choice.” He then accuses CC of having made a “false equivalency” between the two.
This of course is an utterly specious argument because the issue at hand is the proposed amendment to Bill C-10, which is what McVety has been publicly crusading of late to change. Therefore, we’re not talking about “production grants” at all, but rather about “tax credits” — a big difference. The dispute over C-10 involves a proposed amendment to The Income Tax Act that would allow the Heritage Minister, or a government committee, to deny tax credits to productions deemed offensive and “contrary to public policy.”
Whether tax exemptions or credits constitute a “subsidy” is debatable — in some ways they are very much like subsidies, and there are other ways in which they are not. For whatever it’s worth, the SCOTUS has regularly treated tax exemptions as a type of subsidy. For example, in the 1983 case of Regan v. Taxation With Representation of Washington, the Court noted that tax exemption, credits, and deductions are “a form of subsidy that is administered through the tax system.”
Be that as it may, if McVety maintains that the current system of allowing tax credits to films that he deems as being “pornographic” constitutes a “subsidy” then logic dictates that he too is enjoying a “subsidy” at the taxpayer’s expense (including many people who may find his brand of Judeo-Christian zealotry offensive). Hence the hypocrisy. Now, had the discussion actually been about production grants (which the Calgary Herald article in question wasn’t), that’s another matter altogether.
I think it’s quite clear who’s “terminally not so bright”… and sorry, but it’s not ME Patrick. Maybe in future, before you go complaining about the “lost art of getting one’s point across” and then start laughably thumping your chest about the “ass kicking” you’ve purportedly delivered, it might help if you had your basic facts straight instead of charging off half-cocked and making a completely asinine fool out of yourself — again.
Update: The delusional retardation never stops. Remember, this absurd argument was all based on a passing remark that was painfully obvious to all but the most profoundly thick sort of person. What kind of pathetic reject would engage in meandering rants, spanning four posts made up of untold thousands of words from an initial observation that was actually just a pretty trivial bit of casual snark about the hypocritical double-standard of Charles McVety. A lonely wanker with a dismal blog that nobody reads, that’s who — aka Patsy “Doughy Pantload” Ross.
The Trudeau Haters
How utterly despicable. You can bet there are a lot of “Conservatives” secretly delighted by this cowardly act of defilement.
The hostile animosity against Trudeau never ceases to amaze me.
Kids! (And how to avoid them…)
Isn’t it a curious paradox that there seems to be so much objection to advertising condoms, while sexually transmitted diseases, teenage pregnancy and abortion remain at unacceptably high levels? It’s quite baffling.
“These networks are celebrating a free sexual lifestyle in their programming, but refusing to talk about it in their advertising. The big problem in this country is we’re hedonistic in our behavior and moralistic in our attitudes. We don’t have an open discussion about our sexuality, and the price of not being open is millions of sexually transmitted infections.” — Michael Weinstein
Animation Nation (Part 1.1 – 1.2)
BBC documentary from 2005 on the history of the British animation industry.
The first part “The Art of Persuasion” looks at the early use of animation for propaganda.
Goodbye to the Normals
Young Magnus has decided to leave home. He’s all packed, he’s planned his trip to America, and now it’s time to say farewell to Mum and Dad. Amused by these juvenile escape plans, his parents wave him off down the street...
Friday, April 25, 2008
Real Time: Jeffrey Sachs Interview
“We just wasted this whole time… and moved closer to disaster.”
Depressing stuff. Eight years of squandered opportunities and a trillion dollars of misplaced investment on failed wars. And somehow or other our so-called “conservative” friends are either willfully ignorant and/or blithely unconcerned…
The Machine That Made Us (Part 2 & 3)
Ah, the things we learn… It seems that while beavering away on his new invention, Guttenburg attempted to fund his project and pay the bills through the sale of “magic mirrors” to the less fortunate pilgrims trekking to bask in the divine healing rays cast off by the holy relics and ecclesiastical treasures such as the “Cross of Lothair” the “Bust of Charlemagne” and the “Persephone sarcophagus” housed at the gothic cathedral of Aachen.
Meet Brandon Rosario
Remember that name because, for quite obvious reasons, I suspect we might well be hearing a good deal more from this incredibly amusing and highly talented young fellow in years to come.
But for now, Brandon has caused something of a controversy at girl #3’s school here in Victoria with his sarcastic and somewhat unconventional pitch the other day to become valedictorian. Personally, I thought it was an absolutely brilliant, highly commendable and thoroughly entertaining performance. Alas, it seems not everyone saw it that way. All too predictably, the pettifogging minions of “political correctness” were vaguely concerned by some of the offhand and deliberately challenging remarks he made and now their congealed turd of manufactured outrage has, quite appropriately, landed on the pages of our local dog trainer.
As reported in the Times Colonist “the 17-year-old Belmont Secondary student urging fellow students to vote for him as class valedictorian is being investigated.” According to Sooke school district spokesman Ron Warder, this is being done in order to see “whether or not there needs to be discipline.” Investigated? Discipline? If this proceeds at all it will be amusing in the extreme to discover the precise nature of the offenses alleged to have been committed. It’s understood the matter is being taken “very seriously” by school officials... whatever that means.
“In the back of my mind, I can’t help but worry that all this is going to do is put emphasis on the blind approval of some vacant, empty, middle-brow, shallow speech that we’ve all seen and heard before. You all know the one I’m talking about… where the guy walks slowly across the stage like he’s hot shit, and then gives everyone a brain hemorrhage with some self-satisfying, grandiose statement about life and transition and the pursuit of true happiness. I mean, this is your school… look around.”
The “Conservative” Party: Bloodthirsty Sharks
MEANER, HUNGRIER, BIGGER AND THIS TIME… PREHISTORIC!
Unfortunately, I can’t take credit for the analogy. Actually, it comes directly from one of the most rabidly fanatical supporters of the “Conservative” Party who’s apparently quite delighted to compare this witless collective of flabby, slavering douchebags to the “godless, rampaging killing machines” of the deep. It seems that falsely smearing Liberal MP Marlene Jennings, notwithstanding the fact that Elections Canada spokesman John Enright has already said that her campaign expenses have been reviewed and approved by the agency, is all just a routine part of the sleazy, malicious “counterattack” envisaged to shift attention away from the CPC’s own alleged malfeasance.
Update: Oh, according to the “Trusty Tory” it seems the Gomery Commission was nothing but a “charade”… So let me translate this for you. If the Liberals throw open something to a complete public inquiry into alleged wrongdoings by their party, it’s a just a sham. But if the “Conservatives” stonewall, obfuscate, run, hide, scurry down the back stairs, blame everyone and their dog for their scheming clusterfuck gone awry, then make wild, unsubstantiated charges about a vast nefarious liberal media conspiracy attempting to unfairly demonize them, it’s called “accountability” and “leadership”… Allrightee then. Glad we could straighten that out!
The Best Premier Oil Money Can Buy
Priceless. Greenpeace pranks Ed Stelmach's fundraising dinner at the Edmonton Convention Centre. Much better than a botched pie in the face.
Coming soon to an underwater drive-thru near you!
Introducing sQuba, the worlds first diving car that not only drives on roads autonomously with a push of a button (thus without a driver, passenger or further assistance — don’t ask why), but can also transform into an amphibious vehicle which can be submerged in water up to 10 meters (33 feet). Again, the point of this function is rather mysterious.
An electric motor with powerful torque drives the rear wheels, while the propulsion on the water is ensured by two propellers in the stern and two powerful jet drives in the bow propelling the vehicle under water while diving. When underwater, the driver and passenger are enclosed in the vehicle thanks to light weight body components made of futuristic Carbon Nano Tubes and are supplied with fresh breathing air by the self-contained on-board system.
The Amazing CN Tower!
Here you go Crabby. (And it won’t cost you a $100 either.)
Update: This certainly isn’t the most “mature” post I’ve ever made, but I don’t think I can be accused have sunken to this sort of level of infantilism (more here and here, if you’ve got the stomach for it).
“Operation Chaos”
“The dream end of this is that this keeps up to the convention and we have a replay of Chicago 1968 with burning cars, protests, fires, literal riots, and all of that. That’s the objective here.” — Rush Limbaugh
After singing his “WHITE Christmas tune” he went on to say: “Riots in Denver, the Democrat Convention would see to it that we don’t elect Democrats.” That’s the best thing that could happen to the country, said Limbaugh.
Today’s modern “conservatives” ladies and gentlemen...
Our Destructive Forests
“British Columbia’s pine-beetle devastated forest is belching out enough carbon to equal Canada’s average annual forest fire emissions, says a new report from scientists at the Ministry of Natural Resources Canada.”
Crap. Well, so much for that whole “carbon sink” idea… Kind of ironic when one considers that the proliferation of the pine beetle in the first place is attributed by some to global-warming that has largely eliminated the lengthy winter freezes that would otherwise have arrested spread of the pest.
More here. But not to worry, the “Conservatives” have a solution:
The Machine That Made Us (Part 1)
“The slightly more hands-on than I expected story of Johannes Gutenberg and his marvelous machine…” — Stephen Fry
“Exterminate! Exterminate!”
Attention Rob Nicholson: Respectfully submitted, here’s the perfect solution to address the Conservatives’ ever-pressing concerns about
Imagine the benefits of having small armies of radio-controlled “Bumbots” vigilantly patrolling the streets of Toronto, Vancouver and Montreal. This innovative crime-fighting device, with a proven track record of frightening off crack-addled junkies, homeless losers, and all manner of suspicious human refuse would be an invaluable addition to the CPC’s efforts to make our streets safer for “People who work hard, pay their taxes, and play by the rules”… Moreover, just think how much fun it would be scaring the living shit out of these scofflaw social wastrels — barking out incomprehensible commands in a blaring electronic (“Dalek”) voice, unexpectedly blinding them with spotlights and then recording their horrified reactions on live video... Oh, and best of all — remotely pissing on them with a pressurized water cannon.
