Credit where credit is due

While I fundamentally disagree with Andrew Coyne on many, many things I think he may be the last sane small "c" conservative in the public marketplace of ideas. He is unquestionably a conservative who favours smaller government, lassiez faire economic policies and fiscal conservatism and no fan of the "dirty hippies." He is not a doctrinaire "my-party-right-or-wrong" movement conservative who toes the party line, but a reasonable, educated and generally sensible man, the kind who disappeared from the Conservative Party of Canada along with Joe Clark and Robert Stanfield.
Speaking on the weekend at the Manning Centre's conservapalooza, he took a horsewhip to the Conservative Party of Canada.

Nevertheless, there was a party, once, that believed in these things, to a somewhat greater extent than the other parties. That party called itself conservative, whether with a small or a large C, so I suppose you could call the things it believed conservatism. But you are no longer that party.

(snip)

That party was against breaking election promises. That party was against patronage and pork-barreling. And that party was against corruption and political dirty tricks. I don't know whether you are still that party.

This isn't a question of incrementalism, but of going in entirely the wrong direction. It isn't just that you failed to do the things you should have. It is that you did things you should not have. And, what is worse, you did them, not reluctantly or shamefacedly, but enthusiastically. You didn't just sell out. You bought in.

How long before the CPC-SunNews wurlitzer starts calling him a Liberal stooge?

Tweet

the dog daze of bloggerdom

It is hot and wet in Tokyo and I have almost nothing to say about anything except to note that setting the air conditioner to 25+ degrees Celcius is not only inappropriate, it could be considered grounds for divorce and/or justifiable homicide. Screw the enviroment, damn the expenses, I want it cold enough in the living room that the ice in my glass doesn't completely melt before I add the gin -- It was 33 degrees here the other day with a humidity level of holyfreakingshityougottabekidding and a yellow sand & smog level that required an aqualung -- and this is only June. Thank Jebus, Mohammed and Buddha we are leaving before it get really hot in August.

In the meantime - go amuse and enlighten yourself.

Fox anchorblonde's job "just like the being president"

Fox fans on Facebook

Driftglass does the usual up-one-side-and-down-the-other-with-a-pickax-handle on the babbling Babbitt  of the bourgoisie and brings to mind what we talk about when we talk about snark

This just in, 40% of poll respondents certifiably goofy

I'd love to see God prove he exists by doing some smiting. I'd also love to see the pretzel logic used to admit Karl Rove to the country while trying to keep so many others out.

A great photo of the courageous G20 security forces in action

Finally, if you read nothing else all week, go and have a look at this excellent piece by Skipper Dave - a man who knows the complexities of command -  on why Stanley McCrystal is lucky just to have been fired for his insubordination and not put against a wall and offered a cigarette -- and he doesn't even mention that the man is a war criminal .

And they don't shed on the rug either

A little something for our friends Dan and Tammy at Jackson Street Books:

"Outside of a dog, a book is man's best friend. Inside a dog, it's too dark to read"
-Groucho Marx

Books I am reading now:

• Nixonland (still dipping into it a bit at a time - a fantastic modern political history of the United States)
• Against the Day (after 18 months-the longest I've ever spent reading any single book-I'm finally nearing the end of this Thomas Pynchon epic.)
• Appaloosa (a nice little western by Robert B. Parker, recently made into a film written and directed by Ed Harris, who stars along with Viggo Mortensen)
• The Rum Diaries (Hunter Thompson's semi-autobiographical novel of expat journo life in Puerto Rico, soon to be a major motion picture)

Books just finished:

• Resolution (Sequel to Appaloosa)
• The Tonto Woman and other stories (great collection of Western short stories by Elmore Leonard, including Three-ten to Yuma, an office discussion of which started me on the whole Western kick recently)

What's on your summer reading list?

What if Jack Chick were possessed by the spirit of H.P. Lovecraft?

I want to print a stack of these up to leave by the door to swap for copies of The Watchtower. They might make a nifty companion piece to the Gideon Bible you find in your hotel room too!
(a wave of the tentacle to PZ Myers at the fabulous Pharyngula)

sunday papers

• At last a lazy morning to peruse the news and what to my wondering eyes does appear but Stephen Harper's scofflaw government getting its arse handed to it yet again for it unmitigated bullshittery in the case of  Abousfian Abdelrazik.  The spooks at CSIS are looking worse and worse in this and other cases too, with the judge ruling that CSIS had Abdelrazik picked up by the Sudanese, knowing he would be tortured. Thomas Walkom has a good column on the pattern of the Harper government flouting the law when it comes to sucking up to the U.S. over their war on the human rights of people they don't like, and the Mop & Pail has an editorial to the same effect.
• A nicely done, but depressing piece in the Toronto Star on how Ontario schools are shafting problem kids. It's the start of a series, so stay tuned.
• Canadians may not want an election this summer, but the pollsters say two-thirds of us want someone other than the Conservatives in charge. 
• The conservatives are proposing mandatory minimum sentences for drug crimes and idiot Liberals having swallowed the "we must not look soft on crime" bait, are going to back them. This didn't work when Ronald Reagan introduced it in the '80s - it led to the current situation in which the United States jails five times as many people as that paragon of anarchic freedom, The People Republic of China.  Being wrong is apparently no reason to change your approach so the Conservatives will keep blowing holes in the bottom of the boat, hoping this one will finally let the the water out.
• Because being in Stephen Harper's Cabinet means never being able to say you made a mistake. Maybe there's a 26-year-old aide somewhere that Harper can pin the economy on.
• The last time this happened, I ended up moving to Japan to find a job. Guess what? They aren't hiring over here either this time.
• Virgina now hip-deep in crazy, with levels not yet at peak: Newt Gingrich and Mike Huckabee address a crowd of the faithful at Rock Church in Virgina Beach, causing even the Iranian Ayatollahs and Israeli ultra-orthodox Zionists to agree on something at last - Many Americans are clearly as mentally impaired as rodents found in lavatories. Some highlights of the speeches:

  "The notion that we are just one of many among equals is nonsense," Huckabee said. The United States is a "blessed" nation, he said, calling American revolutionaries' defeat of the British empire "a miracle from God's hand."

  "I am not a citizen of the world," said Gingrich, who was first elected to the U.S. House from Georgia in 1978 and served as speaker from 1995 to 1999. "I am a citizen of the United States because only in the United States does citizenship start with our creator."

   

Round the blogosphere today

• The Divine Ms. Z wants to know why the OPP are not pursuing charges in the case of the Kopp Killer.
• What the hell was Jose Canseco thinking? Did he think they'd let him bring a Louisville Slugger in the ring or something?
• Falconcam!
• Dustin Hoffman as Paul Giamatti's father in a movie based on one of my favorite books by one of my favorite writers? My only question is when is the premiere and who's legs do I have to break to get a ticket?
• Along with loyalty oaths, Israel wants to ban dissent.
• Mr. Mills wants you god damn kids to get off his lawn.

More to come

Deep bench

I've said it so often, but it still bears repeating: The Liberal Blogosphere has a very, very deep bench. Whether it is must-read stuff from the old masters or a fine debut from the newest kid on the block, the best place to start is the blog roll here or there or any of your other favorite blogs.

Required Reading



Things you need to read this week include:



Top ten Hunter S. Thompson quotes



People who deserve it -- 'it' being a punch in the face



Stuff white people like -- Funny because it's true



A Town Called Dobson -- great political comic strip


A blog for those who like the cute animal pictures, but can no longer stand the lolcatz text

This week in Blogtopia



While I've been spending much of my time since the U.S. election dining on the sweet schadenfreude of the wingnuts the funniest thing I've seen all week, and there have been some doozies, is what Brad over at Sadly No! is responding to here. I don't really have anything to add to his response except to note that there are more than a few people out there who have made careers or started successful businesses making large amounts of money marketing products built around the gaffes and misstatements of George W. Bush. I am beginning to wonder if Hindraker is a Swiftian parody and I am the last one to get the joke.

Speaking of douche bags, I give you Rep. Paul Broun who this week compared Barack Obama to Hitler and said the president-elected want to build his own Gestapo to establish a Marxist dictatorship and seize everyone's guns. Broun's previous claim to fame was introducing a bill to ban the sale of Playboy on military bases to protect soldiers, sailors and airmen from moral corruption.

And while we're on the subject of douche bags, I give you Raphel Alexander, who has long been an annoying sanctimonious prick and whose pretentious prosings read like a bad parody of William F. Buckley. Raph currently in a pissing match with Red Tory, who, not suffering douche bags gladly, called a spade a spade and Raph a racist. Raph, if you walk like a duck and quack like a duck and complain that Asian immigrants make you feel icky and claim "natives in Canada were a primitive and culturally stagnant people", don't be surprised when you get a metaphorical load of birdshot in your half-bright racist knucklehead ass during duck season.


You want Remembrance Day messages? None are better than these from PSA and and fellow ink-stained wretch Boris.

Oh, and do yourself a favor and go enjoy the world's most dangerous professor, he is in fine form of late.

Required Reading

Sincerest form of flattery and bullshitting
We shouldn't be that surprised by this as Steverino has never, ever had an original idea, but really the bit about the 'roos should have tipped us off. Over at McMagazine, Kady O'Mally, Chris Selley and Aaron Wherry discuss why it matters and what it all means while Andrew Coyne visits a large river in Egypt.


The trifecta
Driftglass on the Choler of Money and the Newtering of the bailout, and yet another reason Tom Friedman is a douchebag.


"Everytime I think I'm out, they pull me back in"
Everyone's favorite Professor of Dangeral Studies has suspended his retirement from blogging to help us through the current crisis.

Harper fails to eat own baby
900 ft. Jesus shows us it isn't just Churchy Spice who uses her children as campaign props. As with all great Republican ideas, Steverino has adopted this one too.