July 15, 2011

Harper’s Summer Job

Turns out the Prime Minister is a fan of the ‘Murdoch Mysteries’ period detective show and recently made a cameo appearance on it in the role of a police constable named Armstrong (cute touch there).

Curious. I wonder why he doesn’t adopt the hairstyle he’s sporting on set as it’s an enormous improvement over the usual impervious helmet head coiffure he dons in real life…

Such are the inane speculations we’re left with during the summer here in Canada where, unlike our counterparts south of the border, for as long as the weather is warm, politics ceases to have any relevant significance whatsoever. Parliament recesses for several months and even our political yak-shows on TV simply fold up their tents and completely disappear from the airwaves. It’s a uniquely Canadian phenomenon that has always astounded me.

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July 15, 2011

Obama’s Debt Ceiling Rope-a-Dope

Perhaps it’s just because he appeals to my deeply cynical inclination regarding politics in general, but MSNBC’s Lawrence O’Donnell seems to be providing the sharpest, most insightful commentary these days concerning the strategic machinations behind all the posturing over raising America’s debt ceiling limit.

Only time will tell whether, as Larry contends, that Obama masterfully outmanoeuvred the Republican leaders in Congress with a judo strategy of turning their fundamentalist supply-side ideology against itself…

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July 10, 2011

Beyond Reasonable Doubt

Bill Maher compares the failure of jurors to convict Casey Anthony in the killing of her child with the failure of Republican voters to connect the dots between the U.S. budgetary deficit and the fact that the wealthiest people in America now pay the lowest amount of taxes in the country’s history.

Update: Replaced previous video link because the dicks at HBO took it down. This one has 43,000+ views so may be more enduring.

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July 8, 2011

All Watched Over by Machines of Loving Grace

Filmmaker Adam Curtis returns with a brilliant new documentary series that explores the ways in which many of our modern ideas and conventionally held beliefs have been perversely shaped by the machines we’ve created.

In this episode, Curtis tracks the woefully unintended effects of Ayn Rand’s “objectivist” ideology on the financial markets and technocratic elite of America during the 1990s.

This is the story of the dream that computers could create a new kind of stable world. One that would bring about a new kind of global capitalism free of all risk and without the cyclical boom and bust of the past – one that would abolish political power and create a new kind of democracy through the Internet where millions of individuals would be connected as nodes in a cybernetic system without hierarchical control.

Well, we all know how that worked out, don’t we?

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July 8, 2011

Royal Robots?

Following the opening of the Calgary Stampede and yet another tedious photo-op – this time at the local zoo of all places, apparently to educate the Royal couple about how carbon deposits from the Cretaceous era are ingeniously turned into our leading export commodity – today mercifully ends the nine-day cross-Canada tour by Prince William and Katherine Middleton, aka the Duchess of Cambridge.

Presuming this charming twosome might eventually become our titular heads of state it’s perhaps a good thing that they became somewhat more acquainted with this country, even though most of the painfully staged “events” on their itinerary were far removed from the daily realities of Canadian life.

Speaking as a supporter of the monarchy – at least in principle in terms of it being an abstract political concept – I confess to being more than a little turned off by the ridiculous adulation accorded to the Royal couple by their brain-addled fans; for example, some folks at one stop on the tour who exclaimed that having them pet their dog was the “greatest moment in their life” or many others expressing similarly ecstatic sentiments after having exchanged some inane small talk with the exalted pair on a rope line.

To resolve the conundrum of being pro-monarchy and anti-royal, I propose that the existing Royal Family be gradually replaced by robots. Pension off all of the existing “human” royal parasites and instead substitute life-like animatronic replicas specifically programmed with diplomatic protocols and pandering sub-routines tailored for interfacing with gormless proles at ribbon-cuttings, charity events and such. Would there really be any difference from the current arrangement?

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July 8, 2011

Après Hiatus

Apologies to readers for being MIA from the blog for the past month or so, and especially to anyone that had their comments hung up in the dreaded spam filter awaiting moderation. Work has been consuming almost all my time of late, forcing me to crowd out personal distractions such as blogging, but I can no longer stand the self-imposed discipline, so I’ll try to resume posting on a more regular basis.

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June 5, 2011

Posties Sign Own Death Warrant

I have nothing against postal workers or unions in general, but going on strike during the midst of an economic recession is, in my opinion, completely insane.

Like many others I suspect, if Canada Post were to cease operations altogether, I wouldn’t miss their “service” in the least. After all, the only thing they deliver to my doorstep is junk mail and utility bills. The former I can quite happily live without and the latter could more easily be replaced by an e-mail notification from my utility providers.

If anything, this pointless strike should spur more small businesses and people in general to transition all of their vital transactions to e-commerce alternatives. There is no sensible reason in this day and age that pension cheques and even welfare payments can’t be done by means of automatic deposit.

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June 5, 2011

Democracy in America

Another day, another nadir of utter stupidity…

“This is what democracy looks like,” the dancing assclowns shouted in defense of their right to behave like jackals at public memorial sites.

Meanwhile, their country is in a total shambles… $15 trillion in debt, 3 “official” wars (several other undeclared ones) are ongoing, 14 million are unemployed, 45 million people are on food stamps (about the same number without any health insurance), 1 in 7 children are homeless, and America boasts the most fantastic income disparity in entire world…

Nice to see that these “democracy” activists have their priorities straight.

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June 5, 2011

Gunsmoke

The passing of James Arness (aka Sheriff Matt Dillon) the other day reminded me of this excerpt from the Adam Curtis documentary “The Power of Nightmares” dealing with the curious TV viewing habits of Leo Strauss, the influential political philosopher whose teachings some have argued fostered the foreign policy adventurism advocated by neoconservatives within the Bush administration.

More interesting to me than the tenuous connection of Strauss to neoconservatism however, is his apparent endorsement of what have been called “noble lies” – myths leveraged by political elites for the sake of maintaining a cohesive society. The notion traces its roots back to Plato’s Republic and the ridiculous tale told by Socrates to explain the metallurgical origin of the different stratified classes of citizens in his proposed republic.

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June 5, 2011

No Stopping Harper

Brigette DePape, the now former Senate page, who gleefully abused her position by flashing a “Stop Harper” sign during the Throne Speech, attempts to explain the reasons behind her inappropriate stunt:

Noble though Ms. DePape’s intentional act of civil disobedience may have been, to claim – as she repeatedly did in this interview – that “three quarters of Canadians disagree with the Harper agenda” is just flat out incorrect.

The sorry fact of the matter is that the majority of Canadians really did vote in support of spending untold billions of dollars on dubious military hardware, vastly expanding the penal system, eliminating gun control, continuing the pointless wars in faraway lands, surrendering national sovereignty for the sake of a phantom “perimeter security” zone that will be negotiated in secret, engaging in so-called “free trade” agreements that accelerate the race to the global bottom line, and maintaining massive transfers of wealth in the form of egregious corporate welfare to “job creators” that are nothing of the sort.

What a pitiful commentary that the available political alternatives to that “agenda” were actually deemed by a majority of voters to be a less desirable offering…

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