Robert Dziekanski, the RCMP, and an anniversary

Presented without comment:

Really can't argue with that, can you.

Constable Kwesi Millington.
Constable Gerry Rundel.
Constable Bill Bentley.
Corporal Monty Robinson.

You guys proud of yourselves?

Moon 'em, Mahmoud

OK, so let me make sure I've got this right:

Israel bombs the shit out of Lebanon, flattening towns and neighbourhoods and killing hundreds of people, and nobody says anything.

Iran – for all its other faults – helps finance the reconstruction and relief efforts, but Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's visit is "provocative?" Supporting Hezbollah is undermining Lebanese sovereignty?

I hope he visits southern Lebanon. In fact, I hope he goes right up to the border fence, looks the Israelis in the eye, and then drops trou and moons them.

Best use of the word "socialist" this month

I've written recently about the need to win back the words, with this one being perhaps the most important, given the way the Venomous Loser^TM at the Toronto Sun flings it about so carelessly.

So it's especially heartening to see things like this.

It adds a little frisson to the schadenfreude.

All right, all right. I know. Cheap shot. More substantive post to come soon.

A tale of two tweets

Because I'm pretty sure he'd rather be at home enjoying a restful day in the company of friends and family.

Also: a terrific post from Rusty Idols contrasting our own G20 asshole cops with the riot cops in Belgrade, who stood up to a bunch of homophobic thugs. Yes, that's Serbian police, being progressive.

Let's get their names

I'm speaking of the moral pygmies otherwise known as the prosecutor and Justice of the Peace involved in revoking Alex Hundert's bail.

Better and more eloquent observers than I have already noted the context for this asinine, insulting and overbearing development. But it's not just about an organized and calculated campaign to criminalize dissent and make people reluctant to speak their minds. What's particularly galling about this is the smug arrogance of the state functionaries; they know what they're doing is bullshit, they know we know, and they know there's nothing we can do to hold them accountable. (At least not in the formal institutional sense, but more about that in a moment.)

It's the same kind of attitude we saw from the hordes of asshole cops who were indiscriminately abusing and brutalizing people during the G20 clusterfuck. We're doing this because we can, and we're not even trying to hide how much we're enjoying it. Arbitrary, bullying pricks.

So. The prosecutor and the JP: today's Little Eichmanns ^TM. Not much point in hoping for a meaningful institutional response (as Alex Hundert's case shows), but at least we can expose them for what they are: banal little cogs in the apparatus of repression, deserving of nothing more than our scorn and our pity.

H/t Dr. Dawg, pogge and Cathie.

Update: The Justice of the Peace in this travesty is one Inderpaul Singh Chandhoke, whose 30 years on the bench apparently haven't fomented an appreciation of basic logic, let alone the Charter of Rights.

Big h/t Dr. Dawg. More to come. Let's see if we can name and expose the prosecutor and the security manager at Metro East Detention. Maybe there's work for them at Abu Ghraib.

Crazed terrorist threatens to down aircraft in suicide attack

Gosh darn those dirty brown people with funny names!

Terrified passengers on a London-bound flight froze in their seats as a crazed man ran through the aisle of the Qantas jet screaming: 'You will all die!' 

Praying and yelling in a foreign language, the man threatened to kill himself and the passengers on the fully-laden jet several hours after it took off from Melbourne to fly to London via Hong Kong. 

Flight attendants managed to jump on the man and restrain him as he threatened to open an emergency exit door, shouting: 'It is God's will'.

From the Daily Mail.

Wow. So why isn't the media going apeshit over this? This is Fox News / Sun Media / National Putz whacking material, for Chrissakes.

Oh. Apparently he was an Israeli, and the foreign language was Hebrew.

Never mind.

What's that you're saying? Bias? In the lamestream media? Facts inconveniently deviating from the approved narrative? 

Sorry, I'm just not understanding you. Your lips are moving, but I can't hear what you're saying.

(Big h/t to Dr. Dawg, Cathie from Canada and ootpoot.)

Lazy leftie takes advantage of the hard work of others

Not so fast, stereotype lovers: That would be me, linking to good posts from other progressive bloggers.

Stageleft:: The Clearest Statement of Conservative Philosophy You Will Ever Read

What matters is that we are going to ram through a bad and unpopular decision that lines up nicely with My Party's Ideology, justified by my lies. 

And you fucking idiots will sleep right through it.

Beautifully succinct, and perhaps it even picks up on Salutin's suggestion about the influence of  Leo Strauss on the Harpoonians. But maybe I'm just still in mourning.

DAMMIT JANET:: Did the good guys just win one?

No juice and egg on their face. Not quite the hog's trough banquet they were expecting. 

Let the market decide. And I'm betting this venture is falling flat on its eggy face.

What the hey. Karma doesn't always have to be a bitch ...