Last April the think tankers here at Falling Downs wondered how the Towellers 'o Terror were getting all those Toyota trucks that are a staple of their propaganda videos.
This week ABC News asked the same question, followed quickly by CBS and CNN. That's right, the professional journalists just took an extra six months to vet the story, I guess.
Wednesday, October 7, 2015
Tuesday, October 6, 2015
After 14 years, America's longest war getting longer
And they still haven't won!
Nor will they by making it longer.
US Army boss in Afghanistan, General John Campbell, announced today that "we need a new Afghanistan plan."
No shit.
Here's a plan, General Campbell; fold the tents and go home. Fourteen years is more than long enough!
Remind us what this war was about... sorry, after fourteen years, the memory gets foggy.
Bringing them democracy? Fail.
Liberating the women? Fail.
Letting the kids fly kites? Fail.
Letting girls go to school? Fail.
Crushing terror? General Campbell said today there's more terrorists in the place than fourteen years ago.
Epic fail.
Securing the terrain for oil and gas pipelines? After fourteen years of failure, the stuff isn't worth enough to warrant getting it out of the ground and building pipelines, and if you had to, you could pipe it out of North Dakota, where the US Army hardly if ever has to machine-gun the locals to maintain order.
With all respect, Mr. General, America doesn't need a new plan.
America needs to go home.
Nor will they by making it longer.
US Army boss in Afghanistan, General John Campbell, announced today that "we need a new Afghanistan plan."
No shit.
Here's a plan, General Campbell; fold the tents and go home. Fourteen years is more than long enough!
Remind us what this war was about... sorry, after fourteen years, the memory gets foggy.
Bringing them democracy? Fail.
Liberating the women? Fail.
Letting the kids fly kites? Fail.
Letting girls go to school? Fail.
Crushing terror? General Campbell said today there's more terrorists in the place than fourteen years ago.
Epic fail.
Securing the terrain for oil and gas pipelines? After fourteen years of failure, the stuff isn't worth enough to warrant getting it out of the ground and building pipelines, and if you had to, you could pipe it out of North Dakota, where the US Army hardly if ever has to machine-gun the locals to maintain order.
With all respect, Mr. General, America doesn't need a new plan.
America needs to go home.
Canada takes anti-Roma racial profiling to Budapest
The CBC has a telling story on view today about the lengths the Harper gang is going to keep Roma out of the country.
Do a little research and it won't take you long to discover that Roma people pretty much get the dirty end of the stick in many European "Nations of Virtue." Hungary is one of the least hospitable countries on the continent for the Roma. Indeed, before Harper and company got tough on crime and brownish people, Roma were often successful in petitioning Canada for refugee status.
Guess those days are over!
Seems the Canadian Border Services Agency has a team in Budapest to screen Roma who are lined up at the airport for flights to Canada. They can have every relevant travel document in perfect order but be denied their trip simply on some CBSA flunky's suspicion that they could be Roma.
If they were doing this in Canada it would be considered a disgrace. It would violate the Charter of Rights. This policy would be facing multiple court challenges in short order.
So why are we doing it in Hungary?
I guess "Canadian values" don't travel well.
Do a little research and it won't take you long to discover that Roma people pretty much get the dirty end of the stick in many European "Nations of Virtue." Hungary is one of the least hospitable countries on the continent for the Roma. Indeed, before Harper and company got tough on crime and brownish people, Roma were often successful in petitioning Canada for refugee status.
Guess those days are over!
Seems the Canadian Border Services Agency has a team in Budapest to screen Roma who are lined up at the airport for flights to Canada. They can have every relevant travel document in perfect order but be denied their trip simply on some CBSA flunky's suspicion that they could be Roma.
If they were doing this in Canada it would be considered a disgrace. It would violate the Charter of Rights. This policy would be facing multiple court challenges in short order.
So why are we doing it in Hungary?
I guess "Canadian values" don't travel well.
Britain First?
There's long been an element in Britain that feels uncomfortable around brown faces or Polish accents. Now that the globalization of Britain is well and truly past the point of no return, these folks are shit-haemorrhaging all over the place at the Polish accents coming out of brown faces!
They want to roll back the clock...
Back to bangers and mash.
Back to warm beer.
Back to an era when Polish accents were heard in Poland and brown faces lived in the colonies.
Back to an era when the sun never set on the Empire!
... it's a little late to worry about all that.
They want to roll back the clock...
Back to bangers and mash.
Back to warm beer.
Back to an era when Polish accents were heard in Poland and brown faces lived in the colonies.
Back to an era when the sun never set on the Empire!
... it's a little late to worry about all that.
At last! A good news story about the IDF!
Seems like way too much IDF news of late has been bad, worse, or worse than bad...
Hardly a day goes by without headlines announcing that yet another unarmed Palestinian child has been murdered by a member of the Israeli Defence Forces.
But at last we have a good-news story!
Yes, the team of investigative reporters at Haaretz has discovered that demand for the sperm of Israeli combat soldiers has been on the up-tick!
Prof. Orna Sasson-Levy, head of the sociology department at Bar-Ilan University and a researcher of military and gender issues, believes that “the combat soldier embodies a set of qualities that are perceived as befitting Israeli men: physical strength; determination; courage; dedication; commitment; discipline; and mental health. He’s not just tall or successful, but encompasses many qualities combined. It’s hyper-masculinity.”
Indeed!
Hyper-masculinity is just the ticket if you're hoping to breed the next generation of uber-mensch who won't flinch at the prospect of shooting an unarmed teen in the back.
Hardly a day goes by without headlines announcing that yet another unarmed Palestinian child has been murdered by a member of the Israeli Defence Forces.
But at last we have a good-news story!
Yes, the team of investigative reporters at Haaretz has discovered that demand for the sperm of Israeli combat soldiers has been on the up-tick!
Prof. Orna Sasson-Levy, head of the sociology department at Bar-Ilan University and a researcher of military and gender issues, believes that “the combat soldier embodies a set of qualities that are perceived as befitting Israeli men: physical strength; determination; courage; dedication; commitment; discipline; and mental health. He’s not just tall or successful, but encompasses many qualities combined. It’s hyper-masculinity.”
Indeed!
Hyper-masculinity is just the ticket if you're hoping to breed the next generation of uber-mensch who won't flinch at the prospect of shooting an unarmed teen in the back.
Monday, October 5, 2015
Towel-heads of terror threaten very fabric of Canadian society
Yup, that's Big Steve's story, and he's gonna double down on it. Never mind that his vendetta against that niqab-clad woman has now suffered three straight losses at the Federal Court of Appeal.
But that's not going to slow down the Harper train for long. Nosirree, Big Steve is promising real Canadians, the old stock, that his party will change the law within 100 days of being re-elected, making the paranoid niqab ban immune from both the Court of Appeal and the Supreme Court of Canada.
Oddly enough, this comes out on the same day as Harper is boasting about entangling Canada in yet another "free trade" agreement.
Now, coming from the shop floor as I do, I verily believe that these free-trade agreements have done infinitely more damage to the fabric of Canadian society than some woman in a niqab ever will.
Back in the day, new immigrants got a bumpy ride. That was true of every group of newcomers who ever washed up on these shores. Once your old-stockers had decimated the native population, the land was wide open for settlement, and the huddled masses from your overseas shitholes took the bait right quick.
You got here and you fought for a grip on the bottom rung...
That was true for the Scots and Brits looking for new pastures after the enclosures. That was true for the Irish fleeing the potato famine. That was true for the Jews fleeing the pogroms in Eastern Europe. That was true for my folks after the WW 2. That was true for Jamaicans and Sikhs and folks of every creed and colour.
But none of them had to face a government so determined to exclude them that even after the Federal Court of Appeal rules against them three times in a row, that government promises to change the law of the land to keep them out.
It's not immigrants or refugees threatening the fabric of Canadian society...
It's Stephen Harper.
But that's not going to slow down the Harper train for long. Nosirree, Big Steve is promising real Canadians, the old stock, that his party will change the law within 100 days of being re-elected, making the paranoid niqab ban immune from both the Court of Appeal and the Supreme Court of Canada.
Oddly enough, this comes out on the same day as Harper is boasting about entangling Canada in yet another "free trade" agreement.
Now, coming from the shop floor as I do, I verily believe that these free-trade agreements have done infinitely more damage to the fabric of Canadian society than some woman in a niqab ever will.
Back in the day, new immigrants got a bumpy ride. That was true of every group of newcomers who ever washed up on these shores. Once your old-stockers had decimated the native population, the land was wide open for settlement, and the huddled masses from your overseas shitholes took the bait right quick.
You got here and you fought for a grip on the bottom rung...
That was true for the Scots and Brits looking for new pastures after the enclosures. That was true for the Irish fleeing the potato famine. That was true for the Jews fleeing the pogroms in Eastern Europe. That was true for my folks after the WW 2. That was true for Jamaicans and Sikhs and folks of every creed and colour.
But none of them had to face a government so determined to exclude them that even after the Federal Court of Appeal rules against them three times in a row, that government promises to change the law of the land to keep them out.
It's not immigrants or refugees threatening the fabric of Canadian society...
It's Stephen Harper.
What's so great about signing "free trade" deals all over the place?
I'm from the generation that saw first-hand the manifold blessings of the original Canada-US Free-Trade Agreement back in '87. The ink was hardly dry on that master-work when it was superseded by NAFTA, and the deluge of Canadian jobs heading for Mexico began in earnest.
Now we've got the usual suspects singing hosannas over the grand-daddy of all free trade deals, the biggest free trade deal the country has ever reached.
And this is allegedly a good thing.
Bear in mind that the TPP has its genesis in the US conniving to carve out a Pacific trading bloc that would exclude its number one economic rival, China.
Bear in mind also, that while the TPP signatories may indeed account for 40% of global trade, China and India by themselves account for another 40%, and neither are part of the TPP.
What we're really doing is throwing all our eggs into one basket, and joining a trading bloc dominated by an empire in decline.
How smart is that?
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