Open Letter to Mr. Gilles Duceppe

Mr Duceppe,

I am concerned that you and your party are playing a game of partisan politics at the expense of both your own constituency and Canadian voters as a whole. Throughout the electoral debates of last year, and repeatedly in interviews and parliamentary discussion, you made it clear that the Bloc Québécois wished to work for the good of both the people of Québec as well as the rest of the nation. In addition to succession issues, your platform seems to be in favour of bolstering support for the Kyoto Protocol and the move to a sustainable economy that it represents, increasing corporate responsibility in terms of business ethics and taxation matters, strengthening public education and healthcare through proper funding, and keeping government out of the personal lives of Canadians in regard to reproductive issues and same-sex equality.

By siding with the Conservative Party in an attempt to topple the Liberal government, you are supporting a political platform that is antithetical to your own. It is true that the Liberals need to be chastised for the sponsorship scandal, and losing their tenuous minority government would be appropriate censure in that regard. However, I do not believe that the majority of Québecers wish the Conservatives to gain any degree of power as a result of your party’s actions. The Conservative Party threatens to impose a cultural recession on the country, as their ideology seeks to maximize gains for the wealthy and minimize the rights and freedoms of minority groups.

An election in June would have a Conservative minority government as a likely result. If the Conservatives do indeed get into power, they have promised to kill support for Kyoto, increase tax cuts for the wealthy at the expense of social programs, and begin the move toward two-tier health care. This platform is wholly against the populism at the ideological heart of the Bloc Québécois. Obviously, most Canadians would expect your party, as well as both the Liberals and the NDP, to oppose Conservative platforms. This would lead to yet another non-confidence motion against the Conservative minority government, and would ensure a Parliament that remains paralysed. Maybe Canada will enjoy the distinction of yearly elections until this mess of representational government is sorted out.

It is time to move beyond majority leadership and begin to embrace coalition governments. Almost universally, parties in majority governments have proven themselves arrogant and untrustworthy. I implore you to work with the Liberals and the NDP to ensure that the position of the Bloc Québécois is represented in Parliament. Only by working together while simultaneously challenging each other over differences will the political parties serve the will of the Canadian public and provide a stable and prosperous Canada.

I understand that you seek the interests of your party above others, but for the good of all Canadians including Québecers, please do not allow short-sighted party gains to be realized by sacrificing the social programs and collective freedoms that all Canadians now enjoy. The recent actions of the NDP have shown that you can indeed influence the governing party to incorporate aspects of opposition platforms while retaining political independence.

Let the Bloc Québécois be a party of inclusion by working to ensure common goals beneficial to all Canadians, rather than one of exclusion by difference and partisan power politics.

Thank you for your time.



M. Duceppe,

Je suis concerné que vous et votre partie s’engage dans un jeu de la politique partisane aux dépens de votre propre collège électoral et d'électeurs canadiens en général. Dans toutes les discussions électorales l'année dernière, et à plusieurs reprises dans les entrevues et la discussion parlementaire, vous avez indiqué clairement que le Bloc Québécois a souhaité travailler pour le bien de Québec aussi bien que le reste de la nation. En plus des issues de succession, votre plateforme semble être en faveur de l'appui du protocole de Kyoto et du mouvement à une économie soutenable qu'il représente, augmentant la responsabilité de corporation en termes d'éthique d'affaires et issues d'imposition, renforçant l'éducation publique et les soins de santé par le placement approprié, et gardez le gouvernement hors des vies personnelles des Canadiens en vue de les issues reproductrices et l'égalité des couples de même-sexe.

Par le dégrossissage avec le Parti conservateur afin d'essayer de renverser le gouvernement libéral, vous soutenez une plateforme politique qui est antithétique à vos propres. Il est vrai que les Liberals doivent être châtiés pour le scandale de patronage, et perdre leur gouvernement effilé de minorité serait censure appropriée à cet égard. Cependant, je ne crois pas que la majorité de Québécois veulent que les Conservatives gagne un degré de puissance en raison des actions de votre partie. Le Parti conservateur menace d'imposer une récession culturelle au pays, en tant que leurs recherches d'idéologie pour maximiser des gains pour le riche et pour réduire au minimum les droites et les libertés des groupes de minorité.

Une élection en juin aurait un gouvernement du Parti conservateur de minorité comme résultat probable. Si le Parti conservateur entrent en effet dans la puissance, ils ont promis de tuer le soutien de Kyoto, d'augmenter des réductions des impôts pour le riche aux dépens des programmes sociaux, et de commencer le mouvement vers la santé à deux niveaux. Cette plateforme est complètement contre le populisme au coeur idéologique du Bloc Québécois. Évidemment, la plupart des Canadiens s'attendraient à ce que votre partie, aussi bien que le parti Libéral et le NPD, s'oppose aux plateformes conservatrices. Ceci mènerait à encore un autre mouvement de non-confiance contre le gouvernement conservateur de minorité, et assurerait un Parlement que les restes paralysés. Peut-être le Canada appréciera la distinction des élections annuelles jusqu'à ce que ce désordre de gouvernement représentatif soit trié.

Il est temps de se déplacer au delà de la conduite de majorité et de commencer à embrasser des gouvernements de coalition. Presque universellement, les parties dans des gouvernements de majorité se sont prouvées arrogants et peu fiables. Je vous implore pour travailler avec le Parti libéral et le NPD pour s'assurer que la position du Bloc Québécois est représentée au Parlement. Seulement en travaillant ensemble tandis que simultanément provocant des différences d'excédent veulent la volonté politique rendre service au public canadien et fournissent le Canada stable et prospère.

J'ai appris que vous cherchez les intérêts de votre partie au-dessus de d'autres, mais pour le bien de tous les Canadiens comprenant Québecers, s’il vous plait ne laisse pas des gains myopes de partie être réalisés en sacrifiant les programmes sociaux et les libertés collectives que tous les Canadiens apprécient maintenant. Les actions récentes du NPD ont prouvé que vous pouvez en effet influencer la partie régissante pour incorporer des aspects des plateformes d'opposition tout en maintenant l'indépendance politique.

Laissez le Bloc Québécois être une partie d'inclusion en travaillant pour assurer des buts communs salutaires à tous les Canadiens, plutôt qu'un de l'exclusion par différence et politique de puissance de partisan.

Comme note latérale, je fais des excuses que mon propre Français écrit n'est pas sur le pair avec la façon dont vous souhaitez et méritez d'être adressé. Merci de votre temps.

Quintin Hewlett

maybe it is rotting our brains after all

Hey kids, I above many will defend the right of the screen to coexist with our mental landscape. But some rational controls need to be put into place.

Capitalist culture tends to disallow overt tyrannies, at least in terms of identifiable individuals. What we have wrongly come to accept, however, is the use of television as a tool for the normalization of propaganda. When the American president can produce fake news reports and citizen round tables and have these lies spread by every major network, we're long past the days of the "inocuous" untruths of advertising culture (yes 1950s tv doctor, smoking IS good for me). What we have come to normalize as daily viewing is in fact the interpellation of a population to a specific form of citizenship, one in which individual judgement and agency is muted in favour of hierarchical values which ensure market profiteering. This hierarchy serves no politial purpose except the upwards mobility of wealth from abstract production units -- aka the citizenry -- to the luxury classes.

And here I was thinking that democracies were supposed to tailor themselves to the maximization of educational, political, and economic rights of every individual within the population in order to ensure long-term national stability and prosperity. Stupid, stupid Q.

When normal people live in a state of "i'm not good enough"-depression thanks to advertisers reinforcing and ultimately profiting from this nervous identity, there's something wrong with watching television. I mean, there seems to be a decent amount of people who actually can't seem to accept what their bodies are doing for them in the sexiness department. They complain about their looks and buy all sorts of bullshit remedies, while at the same time engaging in a lifestyle of shit-food and no exercise which ensures the necessity of the entire body-image industry.

When real social and political issues remain mute in the mass media and Janet Jackson's 0.876 second nipple flash is the topic of hours of public discourse and governmental censure, there's something wrong with watching television. I mean honestly people, are we still idiots about the nudity situation? Just turn on Showcase or Telelatino/RIA on any given night and boy do those babies deliver.

When tens of millions of Americans can be convinced to support an illegal government (re: un coup d'état avec l'ironie d'un silence assourdissant, November 2000) which continually (Iraq) and flagrantly (Guantanamo Bay) displays its brutal disregard for human life, while at the same time championing itself as the moral high-ground in the debate over medical ethics (Terri Shiavo), there's something wrong with watching television.

When people disregard the testimony of scientists concerning climate change -- the results of which they should be able to see right out their fucking windows -- or health risks posed by commercial and inductrial processes in favour of what the news media tell them are the Commandments of our collective business concerns, then it's time to switch off the damn television already.

There is quite a lot of well produced television which will stimulate, educated, and entertain. Like all aspects of culture, choose your exposure wisely and reduce the bullshit amount of time that is forked over to sitting and watching light move on a box. Far too many people, however, fall into the work-commute-tv-bed trap checked only be their increasing avarice towards themselves.

Take back the night, kids. Think of new things to do with your time, even if only for a night.

some things i stole from Artopia tonight, and from your bandwidth right now

These are pictures, naturally. In order to conserve bandwidth for those of you who don't yet have broadband -- are any of you still around? -- I've decided to force you to follow the link. It's not really that scary a procedure, unless you really think about it.








Graeme Weir, Untitled






Denis Fafard, Untitled


Brent P , "Leaves"


Judi Burgess, Dawn 1994



Steve Mazza, Untitled


Darren Abbott, Intrusion

and now for something completely different

Joys of precious, precious crude. If there's anything that has proven its use time and time again it's our good buddy crude oil. See there's so many cool things that we can make our little pool of hydrocarbons do. Gasoline, naphtha, kerosene, natural gas, benzine, diesel fuel, and the wonderfully enDOWed family of petrochemicals, including plastics, fertilizers and all things poly-, all spring from oil like Athena from the mind of Zeus. The mind in this case are the minds of our most friendly of oil industry scientists, heroes for all (is this what Ward Churchill meant when he called the World Trade centre employees "Little Eichmanns"?).

Here's the skinny:






What a beautiful world of joy and friendly chemicals! See? All those little poly-carbons are saving the world and civilization as we know it.
Or something.

So what happens as oil becomes increasingly scarce? Will we continue to enjoy the fruits of our civilization as democratically as are the current standards? It seems as though our civilization is on the verge of a new form of depression, wherein all that we have come to accept as a token of modern culture will come into question. Food and clothing will be more expensive. Electricity might become prohibitive if alternative energy sources are not optimized. More than likely, the totality of our living standards will have to be redefined. In other words, it's time to get used to a new industrial process.

Oh, the hurt transition will bring...

Happy Earth Day/Lifetime



oil depletion, The Guardian

Death From Above

MP3: Death From Above - If We Don't Make It, We'll Fake It

The kids are really starting to get into this Toronto duo, with a recent appearance on Conan O'Brien highlighting a quick American jaunt. The band's latest stay at the Underground in Hamilton proved to me yet again why DFA deserves every bit of adoring teeny love.

Their kind of quick hitting rock works best like tequilla shots: quick and absolute. DFA kept the preliminaries and band chatter to a minimum, preferring the low moan of a distorted bass to any "thank you, you're beautiful" gestures typical of bands whose rise seems inevitable.


Jesse F. Keeler rocks sideways


Sebastien Grainger


Which brings me to this: how to shoot a show. Those two pics above, they are "normal" shots, with a flash and its resultant artificialities. I, however, hate flash photography with a passion, and am always seeking natural light. This brings a new problem though, summarized by my idiodic forgetfulness in relation to my tripod.


Sebastien Grainger

See how the blurriness takes over from what was otherwise a cool composition. Also, the crowd is hidden by their lack of stage lighting (part of the whole lack of being in the band phenomenon) and so we get to avoid their hideous, monkey-like faces; just look at those three kids in the second photo above. Hideous.


Jesse F. Keeler on synths

Again, what a nice shot ruined by my stupid incompetence. Bad me. See, no matter how much you prop yourself up on walls, amps, or PAs, the natural light photo in relative darkness requires a tripod. I let the team down, and I feel that turning on my flash to expose those fucking ugly kids is my wholly and karmically justified penance.

Good show. Bad baby.

artopia 2k5

american sense of self

I am continually amazed by the reach and subtle power of propagandistic discourse. It's even more fun to watch how the present state of consumer capitalism has rendered propaganda as a standardized formula, and a means by which such ideologies enter into daily life. Fascist Italy was hindered by the need for monolithic depictions of the leader. In the modern culture of consumption, the god-head of fascism is replaced by the negation of the self among citizens through advertising. Instead of wall-sized murals of Hitler or Mussolini, a carapace of the citizen-subject is rendered in order to be destroyed by inadequacy in relation to the product offered.

This process can have funny consequences. A 1948 Lux Radio Theatre adaptation of Hitchcock's Spellbound was introduced by show producer William Keighley:

"While most people think of motion pictures as typically American, it is nevertheless true that our neighbours overseas have contributed much to their development: new ideas, new technical approaches, and new stars."

"I was talking to [European actress Alida] Valli... and one of the things that impressed her on arriving in this country was the abundance of everything. From motorcars, to good soap flakes. And to millions of people, good soap flakes mean Lux. Which reminds me again how much we take our luxuries for granted. While in many other countries, housewives must rely on any kind of soap that they can get, here they are always sure of the safe and easy care of precious washable fabrics by saying Lux."

No wonder America developed an isolated sense of itself. An insular approach to identity is always-already fostered throughout mass culture. Perhaps this inward gaze was fostered as a reaction to the gesture beyond oneself which lies at the heart of many of the communications technologies that were developed over the course of the 20th century. God only knows what will emerge as computer technologies continue to mature.

why Pat Metheny hates Kenny G

I found an interview with guitarist Pat Metheny in which he takes Kenny G to town. Now, it's not like Metheny is the height of taste himself -- most of his output on Geffen is a little weak, although I myself kind of appreciate 1994's Zero Tolerance for Silence and was probably the only person in Hamilton who actually bought the CD in its initial month of release. Kenny G on the other hand has evidenced a consistency that Metheny only wishes he could achieve: the G-man is shit on every single one of his releases.

Then there's this picture of Metheny from the Sadowsky Guitars page:



Holy. Fucking. Nightmare.

Kenny on the other hand knows what people want to see, and gives it to them every time (unless that something is pinups for failed-op trannies who are into those Vuarnet shorts that child molestors wear at the beach, right Pat?).

See this publicity pic of the Royal G?



Well, when confronted by random fans in a restaurant -- God only knows how excited they got when they learned that the restaurant had a working toilet -- like a pro Kenny knows what to do:



Graceful poise, little smile, and the hand-that-speaks-for-god resting delightfully at the chin, reminding everyone that our man Kenny is both a woodwind musician and a chronic fellator of the big industry dangler.

Now please once again look carefully at the above picture of Pat Metheny. In case you were blinded by its sacred beauty, here it is again:




Naturally, a man who is not so immediately photogenic gets pissed by the success of TeenBeat-bound Kenny G. No dorian mode harmonic triads will be able to compete with those G-tastic dimples. Kenny tells all comers: keep yo' lydian suspended licks at home, sucka! I gots me some bitches that need some sweet Kenny G-spot G.

RUMBLE!



So who would come out on top in a fight to the death? Let's test the preliminary weigh-in.

Pat Metheny: "You suck"
Kenny G: "I so fucking suck"

It seems that Kenny can't either fight or play music, as his preoccupation with all things craptacular keeps his eye off the prize.

So Metheny wins almost by default. Now, Mr. Metheny, can you please donate a copy of your CD with Jim Hall (on Telarc) to your competition? Consider it a trojan horse of sorts, as either Mr. G will get better in his own playing or, more optimistically, his head will explode with that most beautiful noise so familiar to Kenny G: pop.


Some more highlights from Metheny's hatred:

"when Kenny G decided that it was appropriate for him to defile the music of the man who is probably the greatest jazz musician that has ever lived by spewing his lame-ass, jive, pseudo bluesy, out-of-tune, noodling, wimped out, fucked up playing all over one of the great Louis's tracks (even one of his lesser ones), he did something that I would not have imagined possible. He, in one move, through his unbelievably pretentious and calloused musical decision to embark on this most cynical of musical paths, shit all over the graves of all the musicians past and present who have risked their lives by going out there on the road for years and years developing their own music inspired by the standards of grace that Louis Armstrong brought to every single note he played over an amazing lifetime as a musician. By disrespecting Louis, his legacy and by default, everyone who has ever tried to do something positive with improvised music and what it can be, Kenny G has created a new low point in modern culture - something that we all should be totally embarrassed about - and afraid of. We ignore this, "let it slide", at our own peril."

"if I ever DO see him anywhere, at any function - he WILL get a piece of my mind and (maybe a guitar wrapped around his head).


You can see the full interview here

Viking Moses + Picastro + Great Lake Swimmers @ the home of Pete + Tim

MP3: Great Lake Swimmers - When It Flows

Hamilton is quickly gaining a reputation for cool shows at unbeknownst venues. We can thank Pete Hall of A Northern Chorus and Tim Lidster for kindly providing space for a few indie upstarts and those of us who like them.

Last minute addition Viking Moses brought a sense of spirituality and pagan mystery to an otherwise bluesy set, played while kneeling on the floor with head upturned Charlie Brown-style. It was immediately clear why neo-folk icons such as Devendra Banhart, Will Oldham, and Little Wings have taken kindly to this Las Vegas drifter. Alone with an acoustic, many ghosts from our American past were invoked. As I was listening from the next hallway so as not to disturb with my entry, I have no photographic evidence of his haunting performance.

Picastro surprised me with a very good sense of tension-through drone. Liz Hysen kept her voice low, yet she provided a degree of melodic juxtaposition that served the music quite well. Most of the songs they played were relatively static, although on occasion they would dip into the Godspeed slow-swell-to-climax formula. I can see them fitting in nicely with the Kranky records crowd, and their upcoming released on Polyvinyl should bring some new fans to the party.


Zak Hanna of Picastro


Liz Hysen of Picastro

Tony Dekker has expanded his solo act into a four-piece for his new release coming this August on Misra records. The new set list has quite the Mark Kozelek/Neil Young feel to it, and the band country-rocked accordingly hard. Dekker's voice is still as pretty as ever, and despite the hushed feel of his debut release, he indeed has the strength to be heard quite readily over the band. After the success of Kozelek's Sun Kil Moon project, is the indie world prepared for another trad-rock release? Based on this performance, Dekker certainly has both the integrity and the attitude to find the audience he deserves.



Great Lake Swimmers



the pretty lights of Tony Dekker

As a side note, at the show I was shown a photoalbum from one British soldier's tour in Afghanistan during and after the first world war. While the context is quite different, it was interesting to note the continual process of colonial imposition made so personal and so immediate (and yet time itself is here mediated by both the physicality of yellowing paper and the monochrome scale of the imagery). Something as simple as the folds in an officer uniform that was worn for a portrait evokes a grand narrative of daily intensities. It's scary how much the colonialized world can be seen as a readymade by some people, and a modifiable entitlement by others.

Lidster, it's time to get this piece of history online.

one room, some gin, a gun, and the beady eyes of a supposed past

I just finished watching Robert Altman’s 1984 film on Nixon called Secret Honor, concerning the final years of his life after the very public disgrace of his resignation. Ten minutes have passed, and already here I am writing a ‘memoir’ (it seems that the ghost of good old Tricky Dick has infiltrated my life as well). It does make me wonder whether I will myself one day be holed up in my apartment dictating manifestoes and testimonies to a practically non-existent audience. Oh wait: this right here that I’m writing is a BLOG, and there ain't nobody listening to me neithers...

Secret Honor
Robert Altman, 1984, USA [Criterion, 2004]



Frankly, I didn’t think that a stage play – and a one-actor play at that – could make an adequate transition to the screen. Typically, the intimate conversational setting that is afforded by live theatre is more conducive to the conventions of the “one-actor play” than the temporal and material distancing of subjectivity that is cinema. And yet, since I consider him to be among the forefront of North American directors of the past few decades, there was no real reason for me to question Altman’s abilities. Three Women and MASH are among my most favourite films, and while Secret Honor does not have quite the impressive scope of either of those films, it serves to elaborate an analysis of modern culture which I feel is very prescient.

At the point of Nixon’s life in which the movie opens, Milhouse has sequestered himself in his house with some gin, a handgun, and some technology to aid in his seclusion. A neo-White House is constructed, with ex-Presidents lining the walls of his office, as well as an apparent secretarial staff as signified (and perhaps solely so) by the technologies with which Nixon has surrounded himself. Philip Baker Hall (the library nazi from Seinfeld, for you pop-co kiddies) gives a brilliantly prolific non-stop monologue of legal defence, confession, historical analysis, and nostalgic reverie. What emerges from this clearly delusional man who seems to have come to the extent of his sanity is a sense of pathos and subtle vulnerability that tears down Nixon’s mystique as Republican Nazi and humanizes him considerably.

This is, however, not my favourite depiction of the man, as there is indeed something sublime about Futurama’s Macross-Plus Nixon.



In narrative terms, the film/play concerns the absolution of this most-hated of ex-Presidents. While his actual rants are clearly the product of a mind pushed to delusion, Nixon quite rightly interrogates the complicity of the American population and the entire political system that is American democracy. Most important in this regard is the typically absurd strategies which emerged from the paranoia of the Cold War. American politics sought to control the population against the invasive tyrannies of communism through guidance, forced or otherwise (the country is after all a republic, and not a true democracy in the technical sense). Nixon felt that he was a scapegoat to this process: an axe-man who was himself martyred. America wanted a suicide for its most important martyr, and Nixon himself was determined not o follow this script.

I myself am more interested in Altman’s portray of Nixon as a prisoner of technology, forced to relate to other people only through a technological medium, which in this case is the magnetic tape which recorded his monologues. His compulsions seem to betray him as an Idoru construction: a psychology of non-existence except as re-presented back by a technological form. Would Nixon have killed himself if he had been denied access to the technology to record his thoughts? This sense of absolution through the transmission of identity to a future generation is a concept Derrida once described as the jouissance of archival inscription, a particular mark which he analogized to circumscription – itself a technology of inscription, medical technology, a means for ensuring continued (non-infected) reproductive health and ultimately the monitoring of such within the public sphere. Quite rightly, Altman focusses quite a bit on this technological archive, with several important sequences which highlight the security cameras which Nixon has aimed away from the outside world and onto himself. These monitors are precisely the “Jury” to which Nixon himself appeals for forgiveness throughout the film. I cannot in this context ignore the practical issue of Altman recording the play in this context. I don’t wish to elaborate too broadly here, yet Altman seems to be indicting himself as a passive observer of not only political action in this instance, but of subjectivity itself; the camera as critique of psychological drives, and more importantly as a compulsion made particular by individuals (filmmaker, viewer, etc).

Altman’s films typically delve into hybrid subjectivities, and yet there remains a dislocation in Secret Honor that I myself find very appealing for biographical art products. Too many bio-pics try to immerse the viewer into a sympathetic collusion with the supposed psychological motives of the subject in question. Altman chose to passionately indict our voyeurism as one and the same as Nixon’s desire to rationally control the irrational, a strategy that was to have dire political consequences for the 20th century.


Note: since Criterion DVDs are ridiculously expensive in Canada (this one lists for around $60) thanks to a distributor who adds too much of a markup, I got my copy of Secret Honor from the Hamilton Public Library. Whoever is purchasing DVDs for the HPL, my hat is off.

defendMarriage.ca - Oh Holy Mercy

There was a small protest in Dundas this morning concerning the issue of marriage equality, which to my casual gaze maintained the relative inefficacy of dialogue in this matter.

The extent of my learned research* into the defendMarriage.ca argument is this:

1. God lives on high, and we mere mortals must accept its divine providence.

2. This God made its wishes most clearly known by means of a literal interpretation of some forms of the Christian bible, which are of course translations of translated texts which themselves had been translated from Latin which in turn had been translated from Ancient Greek. People who believe that the Earth is 6000 years old don’t like hearing this.

3. Homosexuality was the end of many ancient civilizations, most notably the twin cities of Sodom and Gomorrah, who (I guess) had sought a pre-Canada-in-2005 civil union against the rational forces of heterosexual decency and order. For this they were broken by stone and purified by fire.

4. If gay couples can get married, then what it stopping them from entering my home and raping my babies? [note: this is an actual quote from a defendMarriage.ca supporter]

5. Homosexuals (men, in particular) are far too fond of arguing to allow them access to marriage. This would be like giving candy to a baby, or the same baby to a lion to rape it, or something.

6. Gay marriage is to the decline of civilization what lion baiting with Christians was to the decline of popular sports.

7. Talking to superstitious people should be covered by OHIP, as I nearly bottled myself with some random garbage in order to bring a sense of sanity to the proceedings.

8. Christian groups ostensibly use their money to help the poor and suffering. In reality they increase suffering by inflicting these buses on us.



Hideous. You know, these people keep appealing to the sanctity of marriage as a means to preserve the Children who are our Future. Kids don’t fucking like eyesores.

9. Kids don’t fucking like eyesores.

9a. There are vastly fewer young people in these Christian movements than old ones. Just look at the chairman of the American site.



Hideous. If that man doesn't beat his wife and kids into submission with something the size of his thumb, then I'm the Pope's feeding tube.

10. Why are we even listening to these people? If you don't know anything about cars, you can't go to a mechanic and demand that he or she understand why you think cars will forever run on gas excreted by Unicorns. It's called fucking off until you have at least some semblance of an argument that others might come to see as "possible" and not as some latent form of dementia. Maybe that's the reason why people in the anti gay-marriage crowd don't bring up any legal discourse to justify their positions. Verdict: there is none.

11. Nobody should argue with these people, it's better to just let them make fun of themselves like that kid in 3rd grade who would eat the lice from his own head while singing about sparkles.


*Note: research consisted of talking to the defendMarriage.ca supporters who were at the event. This was a mistake for several reasons. One cannot assume superstitious people to be telling the truth; neither can one disallow the possibility that these same devil-believers are under the continual assumption that they are face to face with the devil when they are talking to you. In both instances, the sample data have been tainted by people who live with their hallucinations in a welcome to my tea party kind of way.

(how many) x ppl = ?

One of the most comprehensive reports on climate change has been released by the United Nations, and can be found in its preliminary stages here.

1,300 researchers
from 95 countries
and 22 scientific academies

So, once again I have hope that more people can start to believe in the increasingly powerful manner in which human civilization bears down on the planet. It is true that the economic and industrial progress that occurred in the 20th century allowed many positive trends for a majority of humans in wealthy countries. At the same time we cannot ignore the drastic reduction in our planet’s ability to provide the ecological foundation for that wealth and progress.

It’s time to seriously consider the implications for sustainable economies. This consideration necessarily must scale to the individual. It seems that the leaders of our corporations and many in government wish to take a “wait and see” approach, which of course follows in line with a belief in the infallibility of the free market. Are we to allow the welfare of millions to fall prey to a market which is designed to provide a disparity of income across a population?

More importantly, many scientists continue to warn us that the very foundations of our economy are ecological. Our future prospects depend on the adoption of sustainable development.

Could this be the LAST CHANCE! for MANKIND?!? Stay Tuned...