"Demon-hearted Splittist" Recruits Child Soldiers in Seattle

Parental Advisory: Since you can't see my eyes rolling, be advised that the title above is ironic/sarcastic/not serious, eh? They say that sarcasm is a form of anger. Maybe it's passive-aggressive. So, OK, I have some issues. But I'm still mystified by the Chinese government's inability to see the disconnect between their accusations and the whole of the Dalai Lama's career since leaving Tibet.

Having said that, here's a transcript of part of Democracy Now's broadcast from April 15/08. His Holiness is in Seattle giving teachings and generally being a nuisance I guess, but he took some time to subvert the minds of 15,000 young Murricans. Here's what some of them had to say:

AMY GOODMAN: We wrap up today show with the reflections of three kids from Seattle, Washington, who heard the Dalai Lama speak yesterday. The Tibetan spiritual leader addressed over 15,000 children at the Key Arena in Seattle.

AMY GOODMAN: Hi. What’s your name?


PHIL: Phil.


AMY GOODMAN: And how old are you, Phil?


PHIL: I’m twelve years old.


AMY GOODMAN: And who were you just watching?


PHIL: The Dalai Lama.


AMY GOODMAN: And what does he mean to you?


PHIL: He means the future, because he represents hope. And we also—a lot of people at our school, we love to see someone who can set a good example. And because he—even though he’s a leader of Tibet and he’s exiled, he still does good throughout the world. I think that really means a lot. And I really hope that one day everyone will see as he does, that we need to have compassion, and we need to have hope.


AMY GOODMAN: And what school do you go to?


PHIL: Seattle Country Day School.


AMY GOODMAN: Seattle Country Day School?


PHIL: Seattle Country Day School.


AMY GOODMAN: What’s your name?


ELEANOR: I’m Eleanor.


AMY GOODMAN: And how old are you?


ELEANOR: I’m eleven.


AMY GOODMAN: And what did you think?


ELEANOR: Well, I think that it’s a great opportunity for all of us to be able to see someone who speaks with such wisdom and experience. And I’m really glad that I was able to learn from his powerful words.


AMY GOODMAN: What did you learn?


ELEANOR: I learned that there is such thing as a place where everyone can be happy and help each other. And he is a motivation to create that world.


AMY GOODMAN: Where is that world?


ELEANOR: That world is in the future. That world’s in the future.


AMY GOODMAN: And what’s your name?


SHAY: My name is Shay.


AMY GOODMAN: How old are you?


SHAY: I’m eleven.


AMY GOODMAN: Where do you go to school?


SHAY: Seattle Country Day School.


AMY GOODMAN: And what did you think of the Dalai Lama today?


SHAY: I think he’s very wise, and I think he had a message that everyone should hear, and everyone could be compassionate no matter what religion you are, or you’re atheist or whatever. And I think it was a great opportunity for us to see him.


AMY GOODMAN: Will you remember this day?


SHAY: Yeah, I definitely will.

AMY GOODMAN: Kids at the Key Arena yesterday. It was packed with children, ages three and four up through high school. But this in theSeattle Times: on Monday, when the Dalai Lama awarded an honorary degree at the UW, University of Washington, students will get to ask him his views on compassion, peace and relationships, but not on the Chinese political situation or Tibet. UW officials last month asked students to submit possible questions for the Dalai Lama’s campus visit. About sixty students responded, including eight who wanted to ask about China or Tibet, but when UW officials handpicked fourteen students to ask questions at the event, politics were deliberately left out.

It says here the Dalai Lama was awarded an honourary degree. We wonders, yes we does, what sort of degree...political science maybe?

And BTW, check out Democracy Now whenever you get a chance. You can download free transcripts of the shows, or podcasts, even video. They have excellent coverage of many issues that concern Murricans and other citizens of the world, but be warned. Democracy Now is unremittingly leftist/liberal/progressive, and the show would probably scoff at the idea of a demon-hearted Dalai Lama.

How Many Photos Are "Enough"?

I mean, I'm just curious...

Credit: Doug Mills/New York Times

Iraq War Turns 5

I hope I never have to use the headline: Iraq War Turns 50.

I have only one other thing to say, since there is not much that is original which can be said. Some of us foresaw from the beginning what a travesty this would be. Some of us sensed the lies without having any way of confirming our intuition.

This is what I have to say, after five years: The Murrican media should hang their heads in shame.

Yoni School (US) Election Watch Pt. 8

Super Tuesday!

Oh what a treat I had today! On Super Tuesday, of all days, I got to listen to pretty much all of Lush Bumraugh's radio show. I guess maybe it's not news to the Murricans, but it was a bit surprising to me that Lush is frushtrated these days. Things are not going hish way. In fact, I think Lush Bumraugh thinks the Republicans are heading firmly down the flusher.

It's a sign of trouble when the leading so-called "conservative" radio talk-show host in North America spends almost his entire three hours fulminating against the man who is apparently the leading Republican runner, Sen. John McCain. (Ah, we here in Canaduh have it so much nicer, where McCain refers to a brand of French fry from PEI...) Bumraugh never actually said so, but he clearly prefers Mutt Romney to McCain. He accuses McCain of Liberal Democratic leanings. Which is disastrous for Republicans, since the Democrats are supposed to be the ones who have Liberal Democratic leanings. But there you have it. On Super Tuesday, Lush Bumraugh spent three hours attacking (or at least disparaging) a Republican! He barely mentioned the two leading Democratic candidates. (So, maybe the Republicans are sensing defeat, and have already taken to squabbling among themselves?)

Now, to me this spells trouble for the Republicans. Either that, or it's just that Lush is, at the moment, concentrating his efforts on convincing registered Republicans to vote for the Republican candidate he prefers. When that's all done, one way or the other, perhaps he'll turn his attention to the Democrats.

I love listening to Lush Bumraugh. Not because I agree with him. But he's a masterful broadcaster. He's bombastic. He's abrupt. He's loud. He's intimate.

Yes. Intimate. He hunkers down to the golden microphone in the EIB studio and can sometimes modulate that gruff voice into the warmest teddy bear you could ever want. And he talks to his friends. All those tortured conservatives who have nowhere else to turn -- 20 million of them or so -- and need good ole Lush Bumraugh to validate their opinions and make them not feel so lonely. Why, to hear him talk, you'd think that the USofA had not been ruled by a Republican president for the last 7+ years! You'd think the Democrats were in the White House. You'd think the Murrican mainstream media had never once abdicated its duty of responsible journalism, its duty of speaking truth to authority. You'd think Fox didn't exist! And people like Sean Hannity and Bill O'Reilly (two certifiable bigots IMHO...).

Lush Bumraugh is a great improviser. If he went seriously into improv comedy, rather than playing at it the way he does, I'm sure he could get himself a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in no time. He's a marvelous talker and the pearls of wisdom slip easily off his honeyed tongue. I'm sure he goes into the show with a few ideas about what he wants to talk about, but he's not like other talk show hosts I listen to. They organize themselves into time slots and topics. "OK, this topic here, then the break, then that topic there." He takes a few phone calls from all across the country and charms everybody he hasn't already ravaged. He flows from one subject to the next in an uninterrupted stream of conservative consciousness.

Lush Bumraugh is all politics all the time. Why, he even managed to turn an ad for a tankless water heater into a political screed! Marvellous stuff. And he's also all editorial all the time. I don't think I know of anybody else who can spend that much time offering little but his own opinions. Remarkable, I say.

So I like Lush. Bumraugh. I'm not sure I could listen to 3 hours of him every day. But every once in a while it's a real treat to hear him, and to hear how the persecuted minority (conservative Republicans...) is managing to survive in such a hostile world.

Afro-Centric Schools

Update: Jan.30/08
Last night the Hawgtown Board of Education voted in favour of establishing an Afro-Centric school.

A couple things about this:
Why did they decide that Afro-Centrism was the way to go?

1. Apparently, the dropout rate of Afro-Centrist students is about 40%. That's pretty high, motha. It means that Hawgtown's school system is failing its students. Especially the Afro-Centrist ones. (No mention of whether the students themselves are failing their futures.)
2. No one has come up with a better idea. This, according to the leader of the Ontariario NDP (Notquite Deceased Party), Howard Hambone.
3. A high school girl interviewed on the radio said that calling this proposed school "segregated" was offensive. Let's not forget that it's the Afro-Centrist Cultural Community that's asking for it. And further, we can all agree that the theory and the policy are not "segregationist" OK? But the practical effect will almost certainly be such.
   

Something I forgot to mention in the original post: If we think the system is inadequate, or the Afro-Centrist Cultural Community thinks their needs are being somehow neglected, what will be said if this idea doesn't work? I'll tell you. It will be said that the financial and educational needs of the Afro-Centric school were neglected. They didn't get the resources they needed. They were failed by the Hawgtown School Board.
There is a major public debate going on in Hawgtown these days about the proposed establishment of what is being called an "Afro-Centric" school. In other words, a school mostly for black students with a curriculum that would be slanted towards the Afro-Cultural slice of the Canajun multi-cultural mosaic, but still fulfilling the curriculum requirements of good old Ontariario.

Why has this issue come up? Because it seems the Afro-Cultural youths are not responding well to typical Canajun educational practices. They feel alienated. So they join gangs and collect guns and randomly shoot the innocent. They hang out in housing projects and terrorize the neighbours, also predominantly Afro-Cultural. So they need their own school to tell them where they came from. The current party line on the school is that it wouldn't be exclusively black. Whites, Asians, Indians, etc. would not be barred from attending this school. That's the theory, anyway. But we all know that the point of a theory is to disprove it. And it sounds to me like what is being suggested amounts to a segregated school, for all practical purposes.

What's surprising to me is that most of the push for this school is coming from some (but not all) members of the Afro-Canajun community. Far be it from me to hold up the US as a shining example, eh? But I seem to remember something about a US Supreme Court decision way back in 1954 called Brown v. The Board of Education (of Topeka, Kansas) which reversed the earlier policy of many many states to operate legally-mandated segregated schools. Part of the argument in that case revolved around whether official segregation was just a way of ensuring that blacks received inferior education.

Here in Canada, apparently it's the other way around. Here we are, Alice Through the Looking Glass. I guess it's only appropriate that we would mirror the US, in reverse. It's our way of asserting independence from the behemoth to the south. It's the obstreperous Canajun way.

But I have a question: What the hell does "Afro-Centric" mean in the context of Canada? In Hawgtown, where the debate is raging, there must be black students from every country on Earth that has black people. So they all came from Africa originally? OK. But my guess is that most of the Hawgtown black students actually came from Jamaica or Trinidad or one of the other Caribbean islands. Or were born of parents who did. Do they identify as Afro-Canadians? Not bloody likely! Yes, there are lots of Somalis, Kenyans, Nigerians la la la. Or children of them. But the diversity of the black population precludes any exclusive identification of "Afro-Centricity". So what are they going to be taught?

I don't know. It just seems to me that this is an idea that has went fifty years ago.

(I should say, by way of clarification scarification darification sparification, that the Yoni School where I am currently deposited is fully integrated desecrated desiccated cheesegrated. The only criterion we all meet for sure is that we are Wayward Poets. Everything else is gravy wavy navy knavey.)

Iran & World War Three? Pt.II

I hope the NY Times don't mind. I'm including this image of its front page from Nov. 15, 1969:

As you can see, on this day 38 years ago a quarter of a million people gathered in Washington to protest against the Vietnam war.

Oh, how times have changed!

Now, I ask myself, what's the difference between then and now.

I come up with really only one answer: fear.

The quarter-million Murricans (and many others) of 1969 feared neither the Vietnamese nor the Communists nor their own government. Such is not the case today. Murricans now fear Muslims (and that's a whole lot of the world's population these days) whether they live in Afghanistan or Saudi Arabia. They fear Mexicans. They fear their own government.

It's possible that this is not simply paranoia, I admit. Sometimes fear is the "rational" response. But if you allow the fear to rule you, then the logical consequences of that response become irrational.

There is some reason to fear the government. The Bush administration has made a concerted effort to feed that fear, to restrict the rights of US citizens (all in the name of security...and is there any as a result?...) I think most westerners (and that includes the Murricans) believe that they live in freedom. Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Most, gazing off into the distance of the Middle East or Africa or China, don't recognize the repression in front of their noses.

Of course there is government repression in the US. In western Europe. In Canada. We may admit that it is relatively milder than so-called dictatorships in other regions, but it is repression nevertheless. Just ask those who do attempt to protest or demonstrate their opposition to unwarranted or unrepresentative government actions. Ask the people who protest against the Security and Prosperity Partnership right here in North America. (And some of these people are not even saying "Don't do it!" They're just saying, "Tell us what the hell's going on, tell us what your plans are!" Is this not anti-democratic? Is this not repression?)

The usual response to demonstrations and protests in the West is not so far different from what has outraged us recently in both Burma and Pakistan. The police (let's call them "security forces" as the media like to do for other countries) let it go on for a while (as long as it's not too rowdy) and then at some point determine that things must be shut down...for security. If anyone objects to being shut down, they are pepper-sprayed, tasered, arrested, beaten, charged and convicted. But of course, that's OK, because they're our police. They're not those brutal riot gangs in Rangoon.

A few years ago, former Premier Mike Harass of Ontariario put up barricades outside the Legislature. He didn't like the idea of people protesting there. At the figurative House of the People! He essentially instigated riots by trying to suppress the voice of the citizens of Ontariario. I had a hard time convincing some of my friends that the sight of police on horseback with riot sticks in front of our Legislature was something to be alarmed about...that the state was committing violence against its own citizens.

The people of 1969 may have been hippies and so-called radicals. But there is no doubt they had courage. They pushed back against a regime that did not seem to have their best interests at heart. Of course, many of those people are still around. But I wonder, have some of them become the people who need to be pushed back against?

As for the rest of us, I fear too. I fear that we have become hypnotized by technology, by media, by bland repetition of the Big Lie, by trivial pursuits, the latest iPod, the latest iPhone, the latest XBox, the latest celebrity scandal, the latest Hummer. And I lament. I lament that we have been cowed by fear. By complacency. By surveillance. By corporate power. By government power.

And I dread. That we have become sheeplike in our acceptance of authority.

White House Press Conference References the Dalai Lama

It's been a long time since I posted. Busy. But I noticed this in my surfing. The first part is a discussion of the award to be presented to the Dalai Lama by the US Congress, and the President's intention to attend this presentation over Chinese objections.

Charles Simic, US Poet Laureate

Charles Simic has made it to the top of the potic heap, appointed Poet Laureate in the US. I don't know much about him, only the name. Here's a link for info and poems of his. And here's the NY Times telling us all about it.

I don't know much about his po-tree. I'm a little more familiar with Robert Pinsky, who preceded him and appears now on the right side of the page.


And who is the Canajun Poet Laureate? Hmm...that seems to be a complicated question.

Is it this man?


His name is John Steffler and he's the Parliamentary Poet Laureate. Whatever that is.

Is it this woman?
Her name is Pauline Michel and she was the Parliamentary Poet Laureate before John Steffler. Her term ended in Nov/06

Turns out the question is not so complicated after all. This man, George Bowering, was the first Parliamentary Poet Laureate, whose term ended in 2004. And who wouldn't choose a man who has the Peace Tower growing out of his shoulder?


Naturally it was in the last place I looked, but the article about George Bowering indicates that Canada's Poet Laureate is in fact called the Parliamentary Poet Laureate. I didn't know that. But then, what I don't know could fill a good-sized blog.

For example, I've never heard of Pauline Michel or John Steffler. Are they good potes? Dunno. Who'm I to judge? I'm just a street pote, locked up for misspelling and general surliness. I have several what I call "shopping list" pomes. People seem to like them. I've never been in the Parliament buildings.

I have, however, visited the Golden Boy who faces west from the top of the Ledge in Winterpeg. And they have buffaloes in the foyer! Or perhaps they're bison. There used to be also a statue of Louis Riel naked somewhere on the grounds, but they might have moved that.

Yes, in fact it's now located at Collège universitaire de Saint-Boniface, which is in ze French Quarter of ze city. Lovely place. In a Manitoba sort of way. (This photo above reproduced under the GNU Free Documentation License.)

You see, they put me in the Yoni School for Wayward Poets partly because I have trouble being serious about serious po-tree. You know, Po-tree with a capital P. I read Robert Pinsky's book, The Sounds of Poetry...from back to front. It made just as much sense to me as the other way around.

Is it a good thing to have a Parliamentary Poet Laureate? Dunno. Seems to me whenever you get Parliaments involved it's a taxing experience. But I heard George Bowering often on Mothercorp, so I guess that's good. Anything to raise the moral, ethical, spelling and potic standards of the Canajun peeples. And, you can actually apply for the job. So that's at least one person who makes a living off of po-tree. Even if it's at the expense of Canajun taxpayers who apparently prefer hockeyhockeyhockey. (Don't get me wrong. I like hockey fully as much as the next Canajun kid who once caught a puck with his mouth...)

On the other hand, serious potes always seem to have universities attached to them. Helluva thing to drag around, don't you think? Much better just to have a dog. Dogs always love you, especially if you feed them. They're not quite as heavy as universities. And they're almost as good as having tenure.

The Parliamentary Poet Laureate's tenure is apparently two years. A dog can live 15 or 18 if you treat it right and take it to the vet for its shots.

I wonder if Parliament would consider creating the post of Parliamentary Dog Laureate? A husky, that's the ticket! A team of huskies! And a sled! To pull the Poet Laureate around the Great White North! I think I'll send my MP an email...

Maybe I'll even apply for the job.

Update on Gettysburg

I was listening to a documentary on Mothercorp the other day about the assassination of Lincoln and it reminded me of my post about Gettysburg earlier this month.

I learned something I didn't know. Here it is: Washington DC is surrounded on three sides by Maryland, which is south of the Mason-Dixon Line, and on the fourth side by Virginia which joined the Confederacy. If Maryland had joined the Confederacy too, it would have meant that the capital of the United States was entirely surrounded by the enemy. And Maryland was by no means undivided in its support of the Union. So what did Lincoln do? He declared martial law in Maryland. To prevent the possibility of secession. There is still controversy over this, I think.

As a matter of fact, Lincoln carried out several radical actions within months of his inauguration. Indeed, the beginning of his term coincided with the dissolution of the Union and the start of the Civil War.

Here's a partial timeline:

November 6, 1860: · Lincoln elected 16th President of the United States

December 20, 1860: · South Carolina becomes first state to secede from the Union

February 9, 1861: · Confederate States of America formed in Montgomery, Alabama

March 4, 1861: · Lincoln inaugurated in Washington, delivers First Inaugural Address

March 29, 1861: · Orders reinforcements sent to Fort Sumter

April 12, 1861: · Confederate forces open fire on Fort Sumter, beginning Civil War
April 17, 1861: · Virginia secedes from the Union
April 18, 1861: · Lincoln invites Robert E. Lee to head Union armies; Lee declines and resigns post (Now here's an indication of how volatile things were. Lincoln asks Lee to head the Union forces...Lee who is about to become the most famous Confederate General!)

April 27, 1861: · Suspends writ of habeas corpus (!!! Oh, those Republicans, eh?)

May 10, 1861: · Declares martial law in Maryland

There was a great deal of outrage in Maryland over this action which many considered unconstitutional. Don't forget that a primary cause of the Civil War was the dispute over states' rights. And John Wilkes Booth came from a well-established (although not solidly pro-Confederate) Maryland family.

Suspending habeas corpus? Declaring martial law? Suddenly it's less of a mystery why Booth shouted the motto of the state of Virginia after he shot Lincoln: Sic semper tyrannis. Thus always to tyrants!

Born on the Fourth of July

From a New York Times editorial published today:

Ideas have a way of recommending themselves by the behavior of the men and women who hold them, and this is no less true of nations. The question isn’t simply whether we can project our ideal of freedom around the world. The question is whether, by who we are and how we behave, we can make the freedom that animates us compelling to others.

A Quarter for Your (Paranoid) Thoughts

Really, this is too much!

AP reported yesterday that some visiting US Army contractors spotted an outlandish coin while travelling in Canada, and they considered it to be so suspicious that they filed espionage reports about it.

The suspicious coin turned out to be the one shown here, the famous (only in Canada, you say?) "Poppy" quarter, the first colourized coin in the world.

It caused quite a sensation (only in Canada, you say?) when it was issued in 2004, because the government chose TimHo's to be the main distributor of the coin...proving once again that Canajuns really are all TimHoes.

I don't like to be too critical but sometimes you just have to shake your head. We Canajuns are often astounded at the appalling ignorance of our Murrican neighbours to the south. You know, the home of Mom, apple pie and a Commie under every bed.

Especially if it's a Canajun bed. (Didn't some Yanqui senator call us the Republic of Canuckistan or something like that? Clever enough, and lots of Canajuns got a laugh out of it, but it was deliberately inflammatory. But never mind, quite a few loose-mouthed Canajuns are also guilty of that form of idiocy with regard to our Friendly Giant neighbours.)

The poppy is the symbol (only in Canada, you say?) of war remembrance and it is inspired by this pome, written by a Canajun, and proclaimed by the Arlington National Cemetery as "one of the most memorable war poems ever written". Arlington National Cemetery is, I believe, one of the better-known institutions in...where was that, now?...oh yeah, the Excited States of Murrica. (So that must mean that not all Murricans are appallingly ignorant, praise the Lord! and pass the ammunition...)

In Flanders Fields
By: Lieutenant Colonel John McCrae, MD (1872-1918)
Canadian Army

IN FLANDERS FIELDS the poppies blow
Between the crosses row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.

Now, I don't expect the average Murrican to know this pome was written by a Canajun, or to know the pome at all, for that matter. It's a Canajun institution, for sure, and most Canajuns don't know all the words. But neither do I expect Murricans to come to Canada and proclaim, "Hmm, that's a mighty suspicious pome! We better test it to make sure it ain't gonna blow up!"

Which is what the US Army contractors did. (Or, rather, the Defense Security Service.) They suspected nano-technology! I suspect that nano-technology represents the size of the intellects involved.

What I want to know is: What the hell are US Army contractors doing in Canada anyway? I thought the war was somewhere else. What? Were these maybe a coupla Blackwater Boys on vacation in Niagara Falls, spending the combat pay they earned protecting VIPs in Baghdad? One of them buys a pack of gum and gets the quarter in his change? And, we Canajuns being so friendly (he wasn't being shot at by desperate Iraqis), he didn't realize he was in a furrin country where the money might be different?

And then, to compound the stupidity (and the arrogance) they label this coin a secret weapon that was somehow planted on them. In Canada. Which is the country that has had the longest-standing friendship with the US and is, in fact, an ally in that other adventure in Afghanistan. I ask you, should we be surprised when the US gets a bad reputation around the world? A nation that has considerable difficulty distinguishing between true friends and enemies.

Then again, maybe it was just four guys from Detroit on a weekend jaunt to the casino in Windsor who decided to play a practical joke on the Defense Department, just to see how far it would go...

Should Virginia Tech Have Been Locked Down Sooner?

My answer to that is No. And here's the reason why:

All over the airwaves today, people have been questioning the decision of the police and the university administration not to lock down the school immediately after the first two murders. Now far be it from me to defend the police, locked up as I am here in the Yoni School for Wayward Poets, for I am a child of resistance to authority, an inveterate Naysayer. "No" is the most common word in my vocabulary. But this second-guessing so soon after the event is really too much.

A little common sense tells you to look at the timeline. The first shootings took place around 7:15am. The second wave occurred just after 9:00am. So there was a space of about 2 hours. The police arrived at the first scene fairly quickly, I believe, and secured that building. Other law enforcement agencies -- the FBI, the state police -- would have been informed, I presume. But in two hours, it's only logical that the investigation -- and all of the detail that involves -- would really only have just begun. Think of it: securing the building, identifying the crime scene and securing that, looking for witnesses, canvassing the building, who knows what-all. And up to that point, as far as anyone could tell, they were looking at a double homicide. Not some lunatic who was preparing to gun down another 50 or so.

Think of how much you accomplish in 2 hours on any given day. With tasks not nearly as complex as a murder scene. And then tell me that they should have foreseen what would happen next...

The only other possible solution would be to shut down everything every time there's a murder just in case he/she decides to strike again. Which is silly. And you know people would find fault with that too.

So I say, cut 'em some slack.

Say It With Pictures

IM BUSH

DON'T EN HIM

(Tag As: Gratuitous Political Statement by Know-Nothing Canajun/Alien Observer)

Really, I don't know whether Bush should be impeached. The evidence is not really all in, is it? But lies to Congress would qualify as grounds, wouldn't they?

I do believe neither we outsiders/ostensible allies/friends nor the Murrican people should continue enappling his behaviour, though. Nobody likes to be called an enappler.

Yoni School (US) Election Watch Pt. 6

Is Al Gore in Favour of the Draft?

I can't remember whether I wrote about this before. Maybe I did. But there's a strong movement going on among US Democrats to draft Al Gore. He's riding pretty high since the release of An Inconvenient Truth. That movie is nominated for an Oscar. And Gore himself has been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize! (I'm not quite sure how an environmental campaign qualifies as contributing to world peace, at least not in the specific sense, but there you go.)

The Democrats For Gore have an online petition, presumably to convince Gore that there's lots of support out there, just waiting for him to commit. I think you have to be Murrican to sign it, though.

It's not just the Yanks who are now slobbering over Gore. (In fact, the Yanks may not be slobbering over him at all...that remains to be seen...) It just so happens that Gore is doing his Inconvenient Truth slide show at the University of Hawgtown tonight. I heard that tickets (at $20 per) sold out within minutes and as of earlier today, scalpers were asking $400! Oh, if only those were campaign contributions!

I'm tellin' ya, somethin's gonna happen yet! Clinton and Obama watch out! Gore may just sneak up the middle.

Meanwhile, in a matter only tangentially related, today is the anniversary of the assassination of Malcolm X in 1965. (And, ironically enough, of the publication of The Communist Manifesto in 1848.) The Mothercorp radio program The Current today interviewed Austin Clarke, the Barbados-born Canadian novelist and winner of the Giller Prize in 2002. Clarke actually interviewed Malcolm X in 1963 for the Mothercorp, and then spent a day with him just a few months before he was killed. He had some interesting things to say about that period of Murrican history, about Harlem in those days, and about Malcolm's career as a civil rights leader.

Eventually, though, the interview with Clarke moved around to developments in the US election race...Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama. It was here that he made a most astonishing statement: that he would not be surprised if Obama were assassinated!

He said this quite straightforwardly, without much preamble. It was stunning...and it went by so quickly it could easily have been missed.

But what a thing to say! Here the US is poised, potentially, at a supremely historic moment: the possibility of electing either a woman as president for the first time, or a black man for the first time. That the possibility even arises is a profound statement about the evolution of Murrican society. But Clarke is suggesting that the US is not quite ready for such radical choices, that atavistic tendencies will resurface, and that by default one of these choices will have to be eliminated (with extreme prejudice, as they say.) What a statement to make on the anniversary of an historic assassination, one of a series in an era of disastrous political killings.

CIAFBICIAFBICIAFBI

A little bird told me that Mental Blog has had a visitor located in Arlington, VA. Just a hop and a skip from Langley, no? HQ of CIA, right?

Now, I know there's been some noise recently about how guvment and security agencies are going to be spending hard-earned tax dollars monitoring blogs.

So is this a coincidence, now that I prominently featured the initials CIA and FBI in my CSIS post?

Let me make it perfectly clear, Mr. Mole. CIA means Culinary Institute of America. FBI is quite obviously the French Baking Institute. (See my previous post about Fortuneless Cookies...)

OK?

Is CSIS a Front for CSIS?

We're all good Canajuns, right? Except for those of us who aren't. But those of us who are certainly know about CSIS. That's the Canajun Security Intelligence Service. CSIS was created in 1984 out of the ashes of the RCMP intelligence service when it was revealed that those guys were arsonists, and not very good ones at that. In fact, it was a good move, from the prestige perspective. After all, what self-respecting country keeps its national police and its intelligence service all under one umbrella? The Murricans have the FBI and the CIA. Britain has MI5 and MI6. Now we play with the big boys...RCMP and CSIS.

So, imagine my consternation when I happened to be reading an online article from The Economist about the prospects of the US attacking Iran (as if they weren't already busy enough) and I saw a reference to CSIS in Washington, DC! That really bought my eye (as Eric Idle is wont to say), so I immediately abandoned the Iran article and began to burrow into the dark recesses of the Washington cabal.

The CSIS in DC is called The Center for Strategic and International Studies. But is it, really? I think it's much more sinister than that. I think the DCCSIS is in fact the secret controlling body behind our own CSIS and that our top-secret intelligence agency has been infiltrated by the Murricans. How else do you explain the identical acronyms? What strategies are they studying? And in what international arena? We all know that the Murricans sometimes cast a jaundiced eye at its placid neighbours to the north...a distrustful eye...a ravenous eye. Isn't it quite possible they are studying strategies to deprive us of our rights under International law, our rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, our constitutional rights under the First Amendment?

I have discovered photos of some of the people involved in CSIS. Here's the first one to take note of:
This is Zbigniew Brzezinski: Counselor, Center for Strategic and International Studies [CSIS]; former US National Security Advisor and from 1973-76, Director of the Trilateral Commission.

You see! National Security Advisor! It stands to reason that he would be involved in Canada's Security Intelligence Service. And as Director of the Trilateral Commission, who knows what he was getting up to! The Trilateral Commission's connections to the Bilderberg Group, the Illuminati, various Freemason cells and countless other shady organizations is well known. Mr. Brzezinski may have worked for Democrats, and he may look honest to you, but can you pronounce his name? Can he? And would he do so on a Bible while giving testimony about his machinations within CSIS?

The second man to watch out for is this one: No, this is not Lord Baden Powell, the illustrious founder of the Boy Scout movement. Instantly recognizable, this is former US Secretary of State Colin Powell, seen here making some remarks to CSIS as early as March 5, 2003. We are led to believe that it is the DCCSIS, but except for the tiny logo above the "I", which could easily be a forgery or a decoy, there is no indication whatsoever that the remarks were not being made to CSIS in Ottawa. And what might have been the substance of those remarks?

Here's a short excerpt from his opening:

And I am very pleased to be here at CSIS and look around the room and see so many, many old and dear friends, and especially David Abshire. And this gives me a chance to, once again, thank CSIS for all the work that it has done over the years to research issues of interest to Americans, of interest to people around the world; and, through the hard work of the many people who have been here over the years, produce products that have helped shape the times in which we live. So it's a great pleasure to be back at CSIS, and, in that regard, then, it makes it the perfect place, really, to discuss the issue of the day, to address the grave and growing danger posed by Saddam Hussein and his continued pursuit of weapons of mass destruction.

Old and dear friends! Issues of interest to Americans! ("And what about the issues of interest to Canajuns?" you may well ask.) Shaping the times in which we live! And again with the weapons of mass destruction! Will it never end? Not long after his appearance at CSIS, the US invaded Iraq. We all know the kind of pressure Canada was under to tag along. Make no mistake. There are powerful influences at work within CSIS.

Next, there is this man: Assistant Secretary for Western Hemisphere Affairs Roger Noriega speaking to the Center for Strategic and International Studies [CSIS] on December 3, 2004 about President Bush's freedom and opportunity agenda for the Americas. (State Dept. Photo)

Canada is certainly in the Western Hemisphere. Did you know there was an Assistant Secretary assigned to its affairs? Just who is this assistant secretary working for? And why is he promoting the US President's "freedom and opportunity agenda" to CSIS? What does CSIS care about freedom and opportunity? It's an intelligence service. They should be out spying! We wonder, as well, if there is any relation to the infamous former president of Panama, Manuel Noriega.

Last on my list of "persons of interest" is this man:
Dr. Bates Gill, Freeman Chair at the Center for Strategic and International Studies
Now, who does this remind you of? Let me show you.

Bates Gill
Bill Gates

Is this a coincidence?
There's even a physical resemblance.
OK, OK, Bill Gates and Microsoft is another conspiracy altogether...or is it? Do you wonder if CSIS is peering at us through Windows? And what sort of vista is it that presents itself to the plumbers populating Parliament Hill?

My last bit of evidence relating to this nefarious CSIS undertaking is this: a photograph of CSIS headquarters in Ottawa:


Notice anything unusual about this?
The photo on the right is a Stealth bomber.

All right, what if I do this?

It should be crystal-clear that CSIS headquarters in Ottawa is designed in the shape of a Stealth Bomber! What could be more symbolic of the Murricans' attempt to absorb our intelligence by stealth? In just the same way that they soak up our oil, crave our water, co-opt our comedians!

Finally, the CSIS in Washington claims to be a think tank. Think Tank indeed! If you planned to invade a nation, wouldn't you send tanks? And Canada is a sitting duck. We've sent all our tanks to Afghanistan. Perhaps "Think Tank" is code for "Intelligent Design Electronic Self-Propelled Tank." Think tank. Isolation tank. Sensory deprivation tank. Tanks for the memories. All of them related! Somehow.

No, fellow Canajuns, we must be wary. We must be vigilant. We must resist the infiltration of foreign CSIS domination.

Take action now! If a CSIS agent comes knocking at your door, as he/she inevitably will, make sure you ask for proper identification. And don't let 'em in!

Unless they have a warrant and read you your Miranda rights.

Was It Worth It?

I picked this photo off the Internet five years ago. It always made me uneasy somehow, and I'm not sure why. Too glib? Too irreverent? Too morbid?

I don't know. But I kept it. Now I know why. Because, five years later, it's the question I ask the perpetrators of 911. Leaving aside the myriad conspiracy theories, let's assume the official story (Osama bin Laden & al Qaeda) is the truth. How many Muslim deaths have resulted from that one outrageous act? Tens of thousands, we're told. Was it worth it? Has the situation of any Muslims throughout the world changed for the better because of it? Is death really a victory?

But meanwhile, I have a question for the US and the rest of the west too. Was/Is our response really the correct one? The number of American soldiers killed in Iraq has already exceeded the number of those who were killed in the World Trade Center.

I remember saying to many people at the time that I thought that the American people were essentially good-hearted, open-hearted, generous people. They didn't deserve this. And yet, somehow they (or their governments) lacked skilfull means. Even before 911, I thought that so many actions of the government with respect to foreign policy were wrong-headed. Not just Bush. Or Clinton. Or Reagan. Or Whoever. Historically wrong-headed is what I mean. So that what often presented itself was US support of brutality and dictatorship, rather than the fine spirit of the American people.

So what happened after 911? Two countries were invaded, one of which didn't really have anything to do with 911. And the other has been a pit of quicksand for successive invaders over decades. And occupiers are rarely popular.

911 shut me up for a long time. There was nothing to say when compared to the insanity of it, the hatred, and the subsequent rage for revenge. Really, it's a sadder, more constrained world we live in now. Perhaps that was the goal. Nothing succeeds like excess.