December's Morons of the Month

Stay tuned for the 2011 Douchebag of the Year, to be awarded on New Year's Eve.

• Hamilton Mayor Bob Bratina for giving his friend/chief of staff a $30,000 pay raise, and lying about whose idea it was.
• Lowe's Hardware Stores for caving in to the a Florida hate group, that threatened them for advertising on the TLC show "All American Muslims".
• The US Congress (and Barack Obama) for seriously toying with the idea of expanded police powers (basically Patriot Act PLUS).
• Fox News for saying that the new Muppets movie, is teaching kids to embrace communism. Seriously.
• Ann Coulter and Jeremy Clarkson for calling for union strikers and Occupy protesters to be shot.
• Charles McVety (and other "family values" assholes) for continuing to call for queer kids to be bullied at school, even if it means those kids take their own lives -- basically, a quiet way of calling for genocide.
• Conservative MP Jim Hillyer for miming shooting at the opposition, when voting to axe the gun registry.
• British PM David Cameron for sabotaging the European economy, by vetoing a treaty that was going to fix it.
• The Harper Government for doing what no other nation in the WORLD has done -- pulled out of the Kyoto Accord.

Sour Grapes

For better or worse, one of Canada's most vulgar visible icons, is hockey lover Don Cherry. As most of us know, he is the long-time co-host of CBC's "Hockey Night in Canada", and known as much for his humongous mouth as for wearing outfits that can be used as test patterns. He's gotten into hot water over the years for racist and homophobic remarks, as well as emceeing Toronto Mayor Rob Ford's inauguration with a vow to stomp out "left-wing pinkos" (ie. anyone with a brain and basic manners). A full list of his controversies can be found here.

Anyway, he's gotten into some shit again, for going after some recently retired NHL players who -- like many others -- have said that fighting in hockey should be abolished. Specifically, when former enforcers Chris Nilan, Jim Thomson and Stu Grimson spoke out against the increasingly violent turn in Canada's national sport... he called them "pukes", "hypocrites" and "turncoats".

Now leaving aside that I never understood why a game whose object is to shoot a piece of rubber into a net, needs regular brawls, this was the most stupid and callous thing that Cherry could have ever said. In the last couple of years we've seen more and more incidents of truly good players (including national hero Sidney Crosby) being sidelined -- potentially for good -- by repeated and vicious blows to the head, often coming totally out of nowhere, and with enough force that without helmets they would probably have been killed instantly. The carnage has gotten so out of hand that this past summer saw no less than three NHL enforcers die in their twenties, two by their own hands.

Simply put, not only is the game getting a lot rougher than it ever should have been, but it is literally ruining -- and ending -- lives that have barely even started. And for pointing out the obvious -- that this cannot and should not go on -- one of Canada's leading voices in hockey is dragging through the mud, people who've actually been in the trenches. That's akin to calling a World War II veteran a traitor, if he says that war is often an exercise in getting a lot of people killed for stupid reasons.

And before anyone counters this by pointing out that Cherry used to play and coach hockey himself, SPARE ME. The last time he ever put on a pair of skates was in 1972, and the last time he coached was sometime in the eighties. If hockey's gotten a lot meaner in the last two or three years, then it's DEFINITELY gotten meaner in the last thirty as well. Simply put, the guy's hands-on experience with the game, is severely out of date.

Finally... if he's going to slam people who actually get paid to smash people's brains in, for having a change of heart, what exactly does Cherry propose to do instead? If he loves turning hockey into gladitorial combat, then let's see him get on the ice himself, putting his life on the line for a glorified game of ping pong. Considering that he's 77 years old, and clearly not in peak shape anymore, it would be interesting to see how well he can take these sort of hits. He could even put it on his next "Rock 'Em, Sock 'Em" video... if he has the intestinal fortitude.

Canada's Cards of Patriotism

You've got to love how the Harper Conservatives got elected by bitching about big government, and yet are acting more and more like Big Brother all the time. Yes, even more than when they tried to censor our movies for secret reasons, started censoring the press, fired people for disagreeing with them, trying to steal a ballot box, and spying on/arresting/assaulting people for protesting Dear Leader.

Some of the latest stupidity is that they're trying to enshrine in our laws, the right to fly a Canadian flag... um, is this really needed? Can someone honestly show me an example of a person being ordered to not fly the Maple Leaf? No, it doesn't count if someone's flying it upside down. Of course, this doesn't stop G20 commandant turned Conservative puppet Julian Fantino from insisting that it's a freedom being threatened by those pesky pinkos that the far-right sees in their bowls of soup.

But the reason this is especially dumb, is that Foreign Affairs Pitbull John Baird -- I'm not kidding, this guy looks like he has rabies, doesn't he? -- recently got caught ordering gold-embossed business cards, that don't mention Canada at all. I'll repeat that: a minister from the very nationalistic Canadian government, has a business card that has no reference to the country that he works for. I'll remind you, this is from the same government that refers to itself as either the Harper Government or the Conservative government, and very rarely as the Canadian government.

So nevermind that this is also the government suddenly obsessed with making us look and sound like we're still a British colony, now the government that accuses everyone else of being unpatriotic pork-barrellers, is itself unpatriotic and pork-barelling. Then again, there could be another reason that the CRAP government wants to take us back to pre-Confederation times: that was roughly the last time that any Conservative cabinet was good for the economy. Enough said.

Some Republicans Love Dumb Laws

Did you know that in Florida, it's illegal for unmarried couples to live together? I didn't, until just a few minutes ago. Apparently it's punishable by a $500 fine, and up to 60 days in jail.

As you can imagine, a law that outdated, ridiculous and likely unconstitutional isn't enforced anymore. In fact, I just read a posting from someone claiming to be a Florida police officer, who says that his partner was laughed at by their supervisor, for trying to uphold it.

To give the Republicans some credit -- for once -- one of their Florida lawmakers is attempting to repeal it. Not surprisingly, he's running into opposition from Focus On The Family, Governor Rick Scott, and Rep. Dennis Baxley (the latter of whom, are also Republicans).

Rep. Baxley in particular -- former senior member of the Christian Coalition -- is quoted as saying “I’m not ready to give up on monogamy and a cultural statement that marriage still matters”.

This is a statement being made a lot, but I'm saying it anyway... for a party that claims to hate intrusive government and love the Constitution, it seems that many Republicans sure love to invade the private lives of American citizens.

That's to say nothing of how absurd it is to claim that this -- like, say, gay and interracial marriage -- is a threat to marriage as a whole. Most couples that live together, do so as a prelude to getting married (seriously, just how ignorant is the Christian Right?). Even the ones that don't eventually marry, are usually no less monogamous than the ones that do (and frankly, when conservatives speak out about the spousal abuse and infidelity in their traditionally married homes, then they may get on a high horse about the rest of us).

If Republicans really respect American values -- including FREEDOM -- then they need to prove it by either backing off of laws like these, or quitting office. The American way of life, does not allow for the kind of perversion that they wish to impose.

April's Morons of the Month

With the election dominating Canadian news this past month, I'm going to just get this out of the way...

Stephen Harper and the Conservative Party, for (among other things) their repeated attacks on Canadian voters. This is not merely rhetoric -- for those who don't know, the ReformaTories have taken to spying on people who are pre-registered for his campaign stops, and having the RCMP (illegally) eject them for anything in their Facebook histories that doesn't totally fit the Conservative line. The offending criteria include having casually posed for pictures with Liberal Leader Michael Ignatieff (and presumably other opposition leaders/candidates), having attended other parties' rallies in the last few years, and even having been in environmental groups.

In addition to this, their candidate in Guelph (Marty Burke) apparently had his communications director (and University of Guelph majordomo) Michael Sona disrupt a legitimate advance poll and allegedly try to STEAL A BALLOT BOX, all because they discovered that someone at Elections Canada had jumped the gun and held the poll without getting full authorization first. (see story) To date, no charges have been laid in the incident -- and no evidence has surfaced to support Conservative claims of partisan materials being circulated at the poll. Of course, Guelph Campus Conservatives initially boasted about this incident, until Elections Canada ruled that the poll was operated properly and thus the votes all counted. At that point -- particularly after Harper claimed to support EC's ruling -- any and all comments GCC's members made on Facebook against the poll, disappeared.

None of this, by the way, touches on the many cases of vandalism against Liberal and NDP supporters... or how the Conservatives very rarely attend all-candidates events (like electoral debates)... or how Stephen Harper has the nerve to continue claiming that Canadians don't care about this election, or the record-making contempt ruling, even after Canadians tuned in to the leaders' debates and attended advance polls IN RECORD NUMBERS.

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Still on the subject of the election, Sun News (aka "Fox News North"), for proving less than 12 hours into its broadcasting career that it is a Harper propaganda station that doesn't give a damn about really reporting news. For example, on the first day of its rather pathetic programming, pundit Charles Adler claimed repeatedly on his show that the Harper government was overthrown over its budget... Even though the budget never made it to a vote, and everyone paying any attention to the election at all knows that Harper was overthrown over contempt.

Then there was their overtly ripe smear attack on rising-star Jack Layton of the NDP. Two days ago, Sun Media exclusively "broke" a story from an anonymous ex-cop claiming that Jack Layton was found naked in a Toronto massage parlour, in the late 1990s. Since nothing in this story suggest that Layton was arrested -- or even did anything illegal -- the cop in question sat on this "story" for the eight years that Layton was leader of the NDP, and only decided to come out with it on an extremely biased tabloid channel in the final days of an election that Layton could very well win... well, even Conservative supporters agree that this smells fishy (Harper's cult, on the other hand, just takes this as gospel).

Incidentally, since this information was leaked without the permission of the Toronto Police, they are having the OPP investigate it -- and Layton has implied that he may take legal action of his own, once the election is over.

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Donald Trump -- trying to be the Republican candidate for President, next year -- for reviving the Birther nonsense over Barack Obama's birth certificate. Keep in mind, that even GLENN BECK thinks that this is a stupid obsession. Anyway, when Obama's long-form birth record was released -- which would be totally unnecessary for any other president -- adding to the long list of documents explicitly proving that he was born in Hawaii, Trump took credit for its release... and then went after Obama's schooling, for some reason.

Rumours that Trump then demanded proof that Hawaii is a state, cannot be confirmed -- which I hope is a good sign -- but for looking like a complete racist idiot, he's been attacked by both sides of the political spectrum. When even staunch Republicans are embarrassed by this guy, I hope it's safe to say that his presidential aspirations are dead.

Autopsy on the First PM debate

The Canadian federal election, had its English-language leaders' debate, last night. According to those who actually WATCHED the thing, Harper was calm but also visibly irritated at even being there (plus making some other remarks I will destroy in a minute), Ignatieff said the right things but was quite bland, Duceppe took up space, and Layton seemed more focused on attacking Ignatieff than Harper (even if he did make some good zingers at Harper's expense too).

I'm going to comment more on Layton in the next Bored on the Corner episode, but what was the point of using a MADE UP statistic about Ignatieff's attendance in Parliament? First of all, Ignatieff -- while still more absent than the other leaders, which is a big problem -- is there quite a bit more than the 30% that Layton is claiming. Second, why was Layton even attacking Ignatieff in the first place? I apologize in advance, for making my next video redundant, but ISN'T LAYTON TRYING TO BE THE PRIME MINISTER? What's the point of going after THE LEADER OF THE OPPOSITION? Not only is this a total waste of time, but you can make a really good argument that Layton just stole enough votes from the Liberals, to put Harper back in power on May 2nd!

Which leads me to Harper's continued asshattery... During the debate, he had the nerve to flat out DEMAND that Canadians give the Conservatives, a majority government.

Um, why?

After five years of messing up Canada's finances, doing nothing about the economy, of disrespecting Canada's institutions, of vilifying even common Canadian voters if they give a thought to the "wrong" party, lying to the public, obstructing the public, wasting BILLIONS of our dollars on totally useless projects, and quite literally breaking the law on several occasions... you have the SHEER GALL to point a gun to our heads and order us to give you even more power??

By the way, if you're wondering, the consequence that Harper is threatening, is yet another election, in a short amount of time. Leaving aside for a minute, that this is coming from a guy who's been in CONSTANT election mode, since becoming the Leader of the Opposition (and is single-handedly to blame for the constant elections, due to his corrupt behaviour)... Harper's threat won't necessarily come true. In a Parliamentary democracy, if a freshly-elected government, doesn't have the confidence of the house, the Governor General can and very often will just ask the opposition to form the new government instead. And while it's true that our current GG (David Johnson) was appointed by Harper, he is also a constitutional expert who has already refuted Harper's claims that coalitions are illegal and undemocratic.

So in conclusion... if Stephen Harper wants a majority from Canadians, he needs to earn it; Michael Ignatieff needs to learn how to think on his feet and be engaging on live television; and Jack Layton needs to remember what the hell is most important to Canadians (and what side he's really supposed to be on).

Harper's Election Blunders

Parting Words (final regular episode)

Defiling Huck Finn

Hydro, Climate, and The War

Atheists are NOT NAZIS, Your Holiness

If you haven't heard, Pope Benedict mentioned in a speech to Queen Elizabeth that he felt the Church was threatened by "secular extremists" and thought that atheists are no better than Nazis.

(we'll just get this out of the way now: what was Benedict's summer job, again? Oh right, the Hitler Youth... And what faith were most Nazis, including Hitler? Roman Catholic... And what did the Catholic Church do during Hitler's reign? Oh yeah, pray for its success...)

Now look, I might as well say what's been on my mind for some time: GODWIN'S LAW IS OVERRATED. It's well intended, but the fact is that if you've been out in the real world you know that there are a lot of people out there who think that everyone who isn't the same nationality, skin colour, religion, or sexual orientation as themselves should be wiped out. That's not an exaggeration or "liberal bias", it's the truth -- ever heard of the Aryan Brotherhood (or anything coming out of Ann Coulter's mouth)? Heck, if you've seen my video or blog on the Qu'ran burning campaign started in the United States, you'd know that there's some disturbing parallels to the Third Reich becoming more and more common in American conservatives.

Anyway, to directly address The Pope's point... There are definitely extremists in every belief system -- and for all intents and purposes, that includes Atheism -- but to say that every Atheist is an extremist is utterly untrue and disingenuous (great, another clergyman who can't follow Jesus' teachings to save his life...). In my experience, most Atheists just want organized religion to butt out of the government, and to leave them alone personally.

If anyone in any belief system deserves to be compared the Nazis, it's the fanatics (and possibly the fundamentalists) that appear in nearly EVERY religion (the most obvious evidence of that are groups like Al Qaeda and the Westboro Baptist Church). Then again, acknowledging that would need The Pope to acknowledge that Mother Church is fallible (which goes against ecumenical policy), and it would arguably require saying that The Pope's most devoted followers could be a problem. So yeah, I'm not holding my breath.

Look, is it really too much to ask that the leader of the largest religion in the world, actually try to teach his followers to be PEACEFUL instead of thinking everyone's out to get them? With an attitude like that, it's only going to be a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Gay Blood

PETA Pinheads

Sarah Palin's Delusions

So Sarah Palin's memoirs come out this week -- do your own jokes -- and among other things, she slams the media for supposedly being biased.

Are you freaking kidding me? Even if every reporter outside of Fox News is magically liberal-biased, apparently the thought has never crossed her mind that she wouldn't have been so easily painted as a complete twit if she didn't act like one in the first place. Take it from a seasoned video editor -- you can't create something that big, out of thin air.

I'll also never understand why the die-hard conservatives STILL think that Palin would be good for any public office (even though the Republicans mostly have the sense to stay away from her now). I'm sorry, I do try to be fair to "the other side" when I can, but with her it's impossible: never mind her politics, she's so stupid that she actually makes George W. Bush look like a genius. I don't buy the books claims about her being well-read, there is NOTHING going on upstairs, in any picture or footage I've seen of her.

To be fair, maybe that's not all stupidity -- people have been known to go nuts with cabin fever in remote parts of Alaska, so maybe she just snapped and no one did anything about it. Either way, I wouldn't trust her to keep an eye on an empty parking lot, never mind run a large country and its soldiers.

Peeping Tom in St. Catherines

I've let this slide for far too long. Look, I'm not one of those who insists on fire and brimstone for everyone who commits a crime, but there are a lot of days when someone does break the law in Canada, and I want to smack some of the authorities upside the head for how they react to it. My current favourite is this guy in St. Catherines named James Cedar, who was caught on a security camera peeping into someone's living room, and masturbating while watching two teenage girls. Naturally, their mother called the police, and not only was he charged with criminal harassment, but he voluntarily confessed -- kind of hard not to, mind you, but I digress. You'd think this would be an open and shut case, but for some reason the Crown attorney dropped the charges, and the excuses being given for it just get dumber and dumber all the time.

The first reason for it was -- are you ready for this? -- Cedar wasn't using night-vision equipment, or a ladder, to spy on the girls. Exactly what difference does that make? Peeping on girls is peeping on girls, isn't it? Then the Crown said that it's because this was supposedly his first offence. Now leaving aside for a minute that this is actually NOT true -- he once drilled a peephole at a KFC that he used to work at -- it's not much of a secret that sex offenders have a very high re-offending rate, and that peeping usually escalates into much worse things. A great case in point is Paul Bernardo, another St. Catherines peeper, who is now known as the worst serial rapist and murderer in Canadian history.

But the one that takes the cake is one that was just made public in the last week: the Crown felt there was no reasonable prospect for conviction. Did you catch that alright? Let's recap: James Cedar was caught on VIDEO -- VERY CLEARLY -- snooping around his neighbour's yard, peeking through windows, while he's playing with himself. He confessed to the police what he did. He left finger and face prints on the windows. What more does the Crown need, to actually be there when it happens??

The scary thing is that at the rate this fucker's going, they might get that chance. Ever since all of this started, the man has sued his victims for putting up that security camera, routinely harassed them, and has put up cameras of his own, some of them pointing right at the family's bed and bathrooms. The police have been very diligent about this, but when the local prosecutors don't know their asses from their elbows, not much is going to be done about this. The funny thing is that much of Ontario is asking these chuckleheads just what the hell they're waiting for, and no one seems willing to answer that. That's our justice system at work, folks. By the way, while I'm usually hesitant to take a page from Perverted Justice.com's rule book, if you want to have a word with the St. Catherines Crown office, their phone number is 905-685-4293. Enough said.

Harper doesn't follow Canadian news?

http://www.thespec.com/News/CanadaWorld/article/658989

Honestly, I'm not in the least bit surprised -- most conservatives these days (Canadian and American alike) prefer to only hear what they want to hear, rather than actually look at the world around them and find the facts.

Nominate a Douchebag

Coyotes Cock-Up

Godless Girl Guides?

You know something, as secular as I am, I can't help but thank God for the Canadian Family Action Coalition. That's because, as dangerous and insane as I truly believe they are, they at least give me something to do, through these rants and ravings of mine. The latest thing happened last week, when the Girl Guides of Canada proposed changing its oath, to remove references to God or faith. This means that now the guides promise to be true to themselves, and Canada, and to help others. Admittedly, the change may be redundant, since the guides are allowed to substitute "God" with whatever faith they wish... but sure enough Charles McVety and his goons are still mad as hell.

McVety's shtick for years has been to cry that Christianity is somehow being erased from Canada, just because non-believers are becoming more vocal about not wanting to be ignored by public institutions -- you know, that little thing called "Freedom of Belief", which McVety falsely claims that Atheists, Pagans, etc. don't have. I swear, leave it to this idiotic hack to not only make a mountain out of a molehill, but to make it sound like Christians are being put in prison camps, just because people actually expect this country to follow its own laws.

Leaving aside that being religious does not guarantee living a moral life -- as the entire Christian Right makes abundantly clear -- the proposed new pledge, still mandates helping other people and doing honourable deeds. Their Guiding Law still demands the Girl Guides to be honest and trustworthy, not waste resources, respect themselves and others, protect their communities, and live with courage and strength. For anyone who actually cares about what Jesus taught in The Gospel, this should be more than enough. Yet, because a reference to one specific belief system is being taken out, to follow that very law, Mr. McVety is crying that the world is going to end.

This is nuts -- as if McVety's lying and buffoonery in trying to block pro-gay films from being made in this country wasn't embarassing enough, he keeps playing the damnation card on a piece of complete trivia. Given that his group claims to be concerned with Family Values, maybe they ought to focus on something that really matters in that area, like the fact that more and more families these days live below the poverty line, or can't get a doctor -- oh no, I forgot, they say on their own web site that public assistance and health care are evil socialist views. But I digress -- Charles, stop making an ass of yourself, and save your hot air for things that actually matter, instead of continuing to defile everything that your Lord and saviour stood for. Enough said.

Miley and The Octomom

Since yesterday was Mother's Day, I'm taking this occasion to once again slag poor upbringing. These days, especially in the public eye, it's hard to find a better example than Nadya Suleman, aka "The Octomom" (TM). Yeah, I know I'm a bit late to the party on that one, but let's face it, this dingbat will probably be right up my alley, until the day she fricking dies. Just like celebrity culture and so-called "family values" will be, until the day I die.

I mean, it's really hard to take seriously, someone who entered the public eye looking like a complete idiot, and went downhill from there. Since keeping up is a bit of a challenge, let's recap: in 2001, she had six kids through in-vitro fertilization. This is hectic enough for most people, but she had the added problem of being both single and unemployed at the time. Not to mention, one of her children is autistic, and with all due respect to autistic people, raising a handicapped child is a full-time job by itself. You'd think that she'd stop here, and focus her energy on the family she's got, but no; she decides to get another implantation, deliberately carrying and delivering eight more babies, thus the nickname "Octomom" (TM). By the way, not only has she not held a single job in over ten years, but she was on public assistance when she had the octuplets. Even better, but she's been relying on friends and elderly family members to help make this little circus of hers work.

But of course, since indignant righteousness is one of humanity's defining qualities, she cannot understand why her life has turned into a tabloid feeding frenzy, public relations nightmare, and a drawn-out punchline, ever since she first made the news. Well look, numbnuts, I'll explain it to you: you're barely in a position to have any kids at all, yet you took it upon yourself to spawn a small city, while so many people right now are either starving, or sleeping in a gutter somewhere. On top of that, instead of actually acting like a mother to the kids you already had, including one with severe problems, you decided to breed even more, making it impossible to nurture any of them properly, especially when you're on welfare. That's not being a responsible parent, that's being Grade-A stupid. Add to that, the fact that not only have you actually trademarked the term "Octomom" (TM), but you're actually agreeing to a reality-show deal, like those self-absorbed pricks on Jon and Kate Plus 8, and people are right to wonder if you're just after this for fame and fortune. I can guarantee lady, in fifteen or twenty years, most -- if not all -- of your kids are going to be seriously screwed up by all of this exposure, so if I were you I'd either close down the show completely, or make sure you save up every last cent for a good psychiatrist. You're going to need it.

Speaking of funky family values, last week Miley Cyrus added her name to the list of celebrities claiming that they will abstain until marriage -- I use those words, because Britney Spears, Katie Holmes, and several others said the same thing and didn't follow through on it. Anyway, Cyrus says that her statement, is due to her strict Christian upbringing... is this the same upbringing that she had, when she posed in those half-nude photos, some of them in very creepy poses with her dad? Anyway, if Cyrus wants to set a wholesome example, fine -- she can put her money where her mouth is, by volunteering in shelters for homeless women and teen mothers. Especially teen mothers who were kicked out of their homes, thanks to some barbaric notion of shame to the family -- you know, a strict Christian upbringing. Miley, if you're going to get on a soapbox and talk about Jesus, first do what He did, and actually help those who are already in trouble. Then you're in a much better position to preach about morals and decency.

So as I close this tribute to those who continue to make humanity the biggest practical joke in the cosmos, let me say thank you to those who do know what parenting is about: those who encourage their children to explore, and to question, and to develop their own personalities... as opposed to just being puppets for narcissists that are starved for attention. Thank you, for not being like these dimwits. Enough said.