Straight from enduring TorStar Rosie DiManno’s stomach-churning screen on the terrorists in our midst, I came upon Toronto Muslim, Murtaza Hussain’s insightful comments in The Guardian. It is a curious experience to feel that the benign normality of your life is constantly held hostage to forces outside your ability to
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The Disaffected Lib: Just What is a Weapon of Mass Destruction Anyway?
If a jury-rigged, pressure cooker bomb is a “weapon of mass destruction” what does that mean for our own, far more generous use of force against others? This is no longer a moot question. Dzhokhar Tsarnaev has been charged with using a weapon of mass destruction, a capital offence. Isn’t
Continue readingThe Disaffected Lib: It’s Time to Reinstate the Cucking Stool
Canada, for reasons obscure and probably troubled, has not just a tolerance but a positive fondness for professional scolds. There is a gaggle of these haughty merchants of sanctimony and rebuke who inexplicably flourish at our major newspapers. They have names like Wente, Blatchford and, in the case of the
Continue readingThe Disaffected Lib: When Big Money Flows from Taps
“If you can find ways to invest in water, you will be extremely rich because we do have a serious water problem in many parts of the world like India, China, the southwestern part of the U.S., and west of the Red Sea.“ Jim Rogers, 18 April, 2013 Jim
Continue readingThe Disaffected Lib: Did Joe Oliver Just Declare War on British Columbia?
A solid and steadily growing majority of British Columbians want nothing to do with Alberta’s bitumen pipelines crossing our province to our coast. Fewer of us still want bitumen-laden supertankers plying our pristine northern coastal waters or Vancouver’s inner harbour. According to our federal government’s reptilian industry minister, Joe Oliver,
Continue readingThe Disaffected Lib: Joe Oliver’s Blowjob
Joe Oliver got a freebie from Claudia Cattaneo in the pages of the Financial Post. In an extraordinary puff piece, ‘A Battle of Canada’s Future: How Joe Oliver has become Canada’s energy pitchman,’ Cattaneo praises ol’ Joe for firmly standing up to those whom Joe finds are “inimical to Canadian
Continue readingThe Disaffected Lib: Don’t Sugar Coat It, Maggie
Ah, Margaret Thatcher, the giggles just go on and on. There were not many people in this world that Maggie liked and a good many that she despised, among them the Irish. She even toyed with the idea of cleansing Northern Ireland of its Catholic population. Did Margaret Thatcher have
Continue readingThe Disaffected Lib: Sphincter of the Week – Surprise, He’s a Brit; No Surprise, He’s a Tory
Our Sphincter of the Week award goes to Midhurst county councillor, John Cherry, a Tory of course, for his opposition to a proposal by Brixton’s Durand Academy to expand to a disused school building in Stedham, West Sussex. I’ll let councillor Cherry take it from here: “Ninety-seven per cent of
Continue readingThe Disaffected Lib: American Taxpayers Paying the Price of Climate Change
Their Congressional representatives may dispute it, call it a hoax even, but the U.S. government is doling out big money in relief for those hit by climate change impacts. According to environmental corporate watchdog, Ceres, crop insurance payouts for last year’s drought cost every American man, woman and child $51.
Continue readingThe Disaffected Lib: Big Story – British Columbians Speak Out
RCMP in suburban White Rock foiled an apparent burglary/home invasion after receiving reports of two males trying to break into a home. The suspects took off but inside the officers found – wait for it – 8,000 pot cookies. And here are some of the comments from the CBC web
Continue readingThe Disaffected Lib: On Climate Change, Money – Or Its Absence – Talks.
I can give you six hundred and seventy four billion reasons to believe the scientific consensus on climate change. $674,000,000,000.00 – that’s the amount the top 200 energy companies spent, just last year alone, on exploring for new fossil fuel reserves. Gee, that sounds an awful lot like two-thirds of
Continue readingThe Disaffected Lib: Nuclear Fangs for the F-35 – Obama’s Light Bomber
Don’t Worry, This Will Only Hurt for a Second The United States is refurbishing 200 nuclear bombs for use aboard the F-35 light attack bomber. The old B-61 gravity bombs are being converted with new tail fin assemblies that will transform them into guided weapons. They’ll be kept at various
Continue readingThe Disaffected Lib: Learning to Live Within Your Own Skin – Japan’s Grand Experiment
The Japanese have become perhaps the greyest of the greying nations of the developed world. This is discussed in The World Today, the public journal of Chatham House, perhaps the world’s most venerable and certainly most prestigious think tank. Everybody knows that Japan is ground zero for global ageing. The
Continue readingThe Disaffected Lib: Happy 420
It’s 4/20, or 420 or 4:20 a day of celebration in downtown Vancouver at the Vancouver Art Gallery and other centres such as Haight-Ashbury, Parliament Hill and Major Hill’s park in Ottawa. It’s the day when people gather and celebrate marijuana and the cannabis culture. They sell it, they buy
Continue readingThe Disaffected Lib: Bill Maher’s Anti-Islam Smear
On his RealTime programme last night, Bill Maher couldn’t wait to get into his shopworn, anti-Islam theme about the Muslim faith being unique in promoting violence. As I listened to his diatribe I so wished I could ask him just one question. Since the turn of this century, how many
Continue readingThe Disaffected Lib: They Took Suspect 2 Alive – What a Relief
Dzhokhar Tsarnaev is in police custody, hours after his brother, Tamerlan died following a gun battle with his pursuers. I had feared the 19-year old Dzhokhar would either be brought down by police or take his own life which might have left many questions unanswered. Now at least the authorities
Continue readingThe Disaffected Lib: Vulture Capitalism is Alive and Well
For all the lofty reports lately of a capitalist reformation and new age economics that recognize natural and social capital in addition to financial capital, there’s this. In the U.S., five states are poised to begin actively poaching California companies. What is the weakness they’re lining up to exploit? Why
Continue readingThe Disaffected Lib: Monckton Down Under
The Eyes Have It? He holds an arts degree and a journalism diploma from the mid-70s. He fantasizes himself being a member of Britain’s House of Lords even though being ordered by the House to “cease and desist” making the utterly untrue claim. Lately Britain’s equivalent of a Thurlingian prince
Continue readingThe Disaffected Lib: Iceland Shills for Chinese Voice in Arctic Affairs
The timing must be entirely coincidental. Iceland just became the first European country to conclude a free trade agreement with China. The China-Iceland FTA covers trade in goods and services, investments, and various other areas. Specific provisions on investment, movability of citizens, sanitary and phytosanitary measures, technical trade barriers, rules
Continue readingThe Disaffected Lib: Extreme Weather Funnies – Chicago Sewer Geyser
Chicago was hit by a deluge, some say of apocalyptic proportions. One of those “storm of the century” events that now seem to occur a couple of times a year to welcome us to our planet’s new climate state. The Chicago downpour was so intense it overwhelmed the city’s storm
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