News Corp. Whistleblower is Dead

So if you haven't heard, Sean Hoare -- the former News of the World reporter who blew the whistle on the Rupert Murdoch tabloid hacking cell phones -- has been found dead in his home. The police -- fresh off of losing two top officers to the scandal, and being investigated for corruption -- say that the death is "unexplained", yet somehow not suspicious.

Well gee... Mr. Hoare had evidence that a major media company, several British policemen, and probably some politicians, were breaking the law in truly reprehensible ways. It has already shut down one newspaper, cost many people their jobs, and gotten a dozen or so powerful people arrested. This scandal has even touched the Prime Minister's office to such a degree, that David Cameron is facing calls for his resignation. That's not even getting into the damage this could do state-side to Fox News, given that there are allegations of 9/11 victims/survivors having their voicemails tampered with as well. And now the man responsible for all of that, has died under mysterious circumstances, and the police are showing no interest in finding out how and why he died.

Does anyone still think I'm just being paranoid?

Noise of the World

Retirement or not, I really have to comment on the sizable dent put in Rupert Murdoch's empire of sleaze and propaganda. The owner of Fox News has had to shut down his UK tabloid "News of the World" in total disgrace, after it became public that several of its employees hacked the voicemails of not only celebrities and royalty, but dead British soldiers and victims of the 7/7 terrorist attacks. Not only that, but they've allegedly deleted voicemails belonging to murdered schoolgirls -- including girls whose killers have yet to be caught.

Now, for those of us who actually have moral compasses, it goes without saying that this is beyond disgusting. Whether you're liberal, conservative, or anything in between, this should seriously sicken you -- and for the most part, that has been the reaction. Even if Murdoch is tap-dancing his way out of personal responsibility, he does seem to recognize that this looks bad (hence why the paper has shut down, after 160+ years). However, Murdoch's most rabid supporters -- especially Faux Noise fans -- don't agree.

While they are in the minority -- and doing nothing to change anyone's minds -- I am nonetheless seeing neo-cons whining about some kind of liberal conspiracy, or an attack on free speech, or even claiming that this scandal was completely made up. They usually say something rather pathetic to make these points like "here are the liberal loonies, at it again..." -- proving that not only are the most die-hard right-wingers sociopathically immoral, but have roughly the same intelligence and class as a schoolyard bully.

Let me explain a few things:

1. Not only has the British Conservative government called an inquiry into this (albeit reluctantly), not only has News of the World voluntarily shut down, but several of its former and present staff have been arrested. Therefore, this is not a fake issue.


2. NOTW's staff have been accused of not only sabotaging the investigations of murdered children but effectively robbing the graves of the very people that you conservatives deify to make it look like you have souls (ie. dead soldiers and terrorist victims). You don't need to be a liberal to be infuriated by that -- you need to have not only a respect for the law, but BASIC HUMAN DECENCY.


3. This is not about free speech. Even in democratic nations, YOU ARE OBLIGATED TO BE RESPONSIBLE for what you say. Even in the notoriously lenient America, you can be arrested for making threats, you can be sued for lying about people in public (not that those things matter to Fox News fans) and YOU WILL DEFINITELY BE ARRESTED FOR SPYING ON PEOPLE AND MESSING WITH MURDER PROBES.

Any of those things should be blatantly obvious to anyone with the kind of morals and respect for law and order that conservatives accuse the rest of the world of lacking, yet -- not surprisingly -- they are the only ones who not only don't get it, but are celebrating it. That alone, tells you why people are increasingly fed-up with today's right wing.

That's it for me.

June's Morons of the Month

Oh, here we go...

• Vancouver Canucks fans (and various troublemakers) for reacting to the Stanley Cup loss by -- once again -- starting a riot. *sighs*
• The Canadian Stephen Harper Conservative Government for 1) being the only major nation to NOT ban the export of asbestos (even though Canada is ridding it from all of our buildings, including where Emperor Harper lives and works). 2) Shrugging off a police investigation into shady spending from his government, as a Liberal whine-fest (um, these are the same guys who hammered Paul Martin and Jean Chretien over AdScam). 3) Continuing to flip off the Canadian people, whom they assaulted and oppressed at G20 last year.
• Toronto Police Chief Bill Blair, the Police Service, Ontario Regent Dalton McGuinty, and their apologists for continuing to claim they did NOTHING wrong, despite ever more clear evidence of them assaulting and jailing -- without lawyers -- over a thousand Canadians at G20, who broke no laws. This includes the Nazi-like arrest, stripping, beating, and caging of a man who simply made a smart-assed remark about the summit.
• Sarah Palin for her completely dumb-assed grasp of history... and her followers, for refusing to read a fucking book on Paul Revere.
• Facebook for their upcoming -- and universally LOATHED -- auto-photo tag feature. HOW MANY TIMES HAVE THESE GUYS BEEN FLAGGED ABOUT PRIVACY?? Why aren't they getting the message??

Canadian Corruption

Wow, what a week!

A lot of shit has hit the fan over the G8/G20 issue alone; not only is the RCMP investigating the questionable spending (for whatever that's going to be worth), but the Toronto Police Service and Canada's attorney general have been hit with MULTIPLE lawsuits over their treatment of innocents. Specifically, the young woman who was threatened with arrest by "Officer Bubbles" (real name, Adam Josephs) is suing, as well as a man who had nothing to do with the protests but was jailed, stripped, beaten, and denied a lawyer, seemingly just for making a flippant remark about the summit.

Not only that, but newly-released documents show that -- as many had suspected -- the protests were infiltrated by various police agencies. One has to wonder if any of these agencies were involved in the only real protester violence, that weekend: the Black Bloc riot that the police were ORDERED to let happen, by persons unknown.

One also has to wonder about Toronto Police Chief Bill Blair, who was quoted in every newspaper today, as claiming that his cops were unprepared for the number of people. BULLSHIT! There were AT LEAST twice as many cops there as protesters, and they certainly looked like a well-oiled machine when it came to sweeping up and pounding people who were just standing in the street!

On another note... after a year's delay, some of the Afghan detainee documents were released. However, very little in the way of new information was made public, because the Harper Conservatives single-handedly declared the issue to be over. Mind you, what WAS made public is that Stephen Harper and his cabinet were made aware, that prisoners captured by Canadian soldiers were indeed being tortured when transferred to Afghan authorities. Whether or not Harper did anything to stop the abuse, is unclear. However, he certainly has gone out of his way to make sure this issue is not discussed or investigated.

Now, I'm not a legal expert, but I'm pretty sure that when you condone or assist in a war crime, that makes you an accessory. Even if no one in Canada can or will take Harper to task over this, the International Criminal Courts ARE looking into this. I hope forward to seeing what they have to say.

Harper's G8/G20 spending "revealed"

So now we get to see the G8/G20 report, that a lot of Canadians wished could have been released during the election.

As you might know, Parliament approved about $1.1 billion for the joint summits (which, incidentally, is a worldwide record). This was supposedly for security and infrastructure investments. However, not only was the majority of the money spent on things that have NOT been accounted for, but about half wasn't spent AT ALL.

In other words, the Harper Conservatives funneled hundreds of millions of tax dollars, and just let it vanish.

...um, I believe that's called FRAUD!

Sarah Palin's History Lesson

So if you haven't heard, apparently Sarah Palin claims to know more about American history than the actual people who wrote history books, and the people who spent years at university to learn how to properly understand it... or for that matter, anyone who can actually read the English language.

We all know about Paul Revere, right? He was a hero of the American revolution, famous for warning his comrades that the colonial British troops were coming to arrest them? You know, that thing called The Midnight Ride (though some of the details were embellished as it became legend). I'm Canadian and even I know about that -- so would any grade-schooler in the states, I hope (despite the best efforts of Texas).

Well, according to Failin' Palin, this is not true. Behold the following video -- recorded in Boston, no less.

Wow, I bet that went over real well.

But wait -- THERE'S MORE!

Apparently, Palin's gestapo zealots supporters in the Teabaggers Tea Party Terrorist Group Patriots have taken to tampering with Wikipedia, to change their Paul Revere article to reflect Palin's claim. Not surprisingly, the editors took exception to brand-new claims that Revere was effectively a traitor, and on top of that tried to protect rights in a Constitution that didn't exist yet. Especially when those claims are only substantiated by someone who honestly thinks that Africa is a country.

So let me get this straight... when moderates and liberals who are educated and sensible enough to pass a basic I.Q. test, simply repeat the exact text of a historical document, that is considered eeebil sochulist revishunism. However, when a clearly idiotic lunatic and her personal militia just pull random statements out of their asses, we're expected to bow down to them?

And conservatives wonder why the rest of us think they're idiots??

Stop Harper

A bit of a kerfuffle was made this week, over Emperor Harper's first throne speech, since being rewarded for contempt of Parliament with absolute power. Not so much over the speech itself -- though I personally am bothered by his promise to set up a Religion office, and scrap an effective gun registry, as well as bemused by his latest faulty economic promises. The controversy is over a Parliamentary page named Bridgette De Pape, holding a sign that said "STOP HARPER", right where Harper and other political big-whigs (and the media) could see it.

The 21 year old woman was quickly removed and fired for the stunt -- which is appropriate punishment -- but I still applaud this young lady for having the guts to take such a direct and public stand. We have seen many times over, that Harper and his supporters view the 75% of Canadians who didn't vote Conservative as a virus to be wiped out. I personally have seen HarperCons talk about killing every last one of us, and have been threatened and stalked over my statements. In this last election alone, we saw the Conservatives spy on and assault people who had any history at all with another political movement, and try to actually remove a ballot box (I'll remind you that this is the only party to my knowledge, to be charged with cheating in at least one election). Then there's that whole issue of who cut the brake lines of Liberal supporters in the 2008 election...

Sure enough, Harper has some supporters who feel that making disgusting put downs is the appropriate way to handle someone exercising their freedom of speech.

Check out this comment.

And this one.

This one too.

These are the kind of people that Canada just allowed to dominate us. Thanks a lot.