On Morsi, Democracy and the "Freedom Agenda"

What better day than the Fourth of July to discuss yesterday's events in Cairo, which saw Egypt's first elected president deposed.

I carry no water for the Muslim Brotherhood, but there's no shortage of supposedly conservative nonsense out there that begs responding to. Fox News Republicans and their moronic fellow travelers in the idiot blogosphere have managed over the last year, and especially in the last 24 hours, to be both hypocritical and hysterical. And like most bitches with the vapors, they need to be sent to their fainting couches for a good long time.

Although I thought it would have something to do with a change in foreign policy toward Israel, I predicted that the Egyptian military would depose Mohammed Morsi since he was first elected. Most of my freedom loving friends thought me a knave, a fool, or both. Y'know, because Obama.

The unmitigated balls of some of these people, talking about freedom in the Middle East! The simple fact is that the single greatest retarding factor for democracy in the Muslim world has been American foreign policy. But lets look at places where "freedom" has been imposed at gunpoint, specifically Iraq and Afghanistan. Are things looking good in either country? I think the consensus is that they are not. Any country that requires a massive foreign military presence to sustain its "freedom," absent third-party aggression, is ultimately doomed.

My friend Richard at Eye on a Crazy Planet wrote about this earlier today. Sadly, he was almost spectacularly wrong and wildly ahistorical on almost all of his points.

Richard does hint at a couple of things that I generally agree with, specifically that some dictatorships are better than others and that freedom just isn't for everyone, but he never actually comes out and says so. Instead, he seems to believe that the rest of the world should get a vote on the kind of government a given country should have, Israel excepted.

Here are some of his sillier points;

Though bolstered by support from the foolish and ineffectual administration of US President Obama,  Morsi's slip into acting like a democratically elected dictator made him more popular in The White House than it did in Cairo. Massive nightly demonstrations that exceeded those at the end of the reign of Hosni Mubarak were proof of the popular discontent in Egypt.

Um, not exactly. The U.S foreign aid under Obama changed not at all than that from Nixon through Bush 43, meaning that the overwhelming majority of it went to the military.  Oh, and that's the same military that deposed Morsi yesterday. Think that would happen with its money cut off? I don't. And didn't most of the Right go ape when Obama "abandoned" Mubarak, when it wasn't giving credit for the Arab Spring to President Bush?

Something to remember when considering that is that elections don't always lead to democracy. The other duly elected Muslim Brotherhood government, that of Hamas in Gaza, proves that once in power, Islamists, like fascists before them, will suspend democracy to retain their power for as long as they can hold on to it by force.

Though the so called "Arab Spring" in Egypt happened in the 21st Century, that country was less prepared for democracy than the American Colonies were more than two centuries earlier.

When was Hamas elected again? Oh right, in 2005, when the Bush White House ignored the protestations of both Mahmoud Abbas and Ariel Sharon as part of his idiotic "freedom agenda."

And why was Egypt "less prepared for democracy than the American colonies were more than two centuries earlier"?

Well, in part, that's because the American colonies didn't have the State Department, the Pentagon and the CIA  constantly subverting the necessary conditions for democracy in the decades prior to 1776.

Furthermore, lets not pretend that the early days of the Republic, where anyone other than landowning white males were disenfranchised for decades was particularly Athenian.

But things are different now, right? They sure are. There are no shortage of people howling about a supposedly unreconstructed Kenyan Marxist routinely steal elections through the offices of the ACORN and the New Black Panther Party.

Jokes aside, history is sort of import here. And the history is chilling.

Institutions that are essential to democracy, like an educated population, a healthy system of rival political parties, a constitution that safeguards rights and an independent judiciary are all democratic facets Egypt had.  The only political organization that was organized was the Muslim Brotherhood, which used mosques and madrassas to force-feed subservience to the faithful and a country that is more than 95% Muslim.  Rural Egyptians welcomed Morsi's tyranny of devout Islamism that was a bludgeon to the cosmopolitan citizens of Cairo who have spent the last weeks protesting en masse.

The embarrassing fall-out of the Egyptian coup is that after decades of the west acting superior and lecturing the Muslim world about democracy, the reality is that both they and we are better off if, in Egypt, it takes a time-out.

Until the death of GamAl Nasser, Egypt was in the Soviet sphere of influence. When the United States took over as its patron, Nasser's designated successor, Anwar Sadat, was give the same free reign to suppress his people by Washington that Moscow had. In fact, the CIA had trained Egypt's secret police to crush any democratic alternatives to regimes of Sadat and Mubarak. That left only groups like the Muslim Brotherhood  as any kind of governing alternative.

Because of Cold War politics, America foreign aid was never predicated on Egypt's developing the kind of social conditions necessary for the kind of democracy that it took the United States 180 years to perfect. Successive American administrations - and especially traditionally conservative ones - wanted a police state in Egypt.

This is exactly what we saw in Iran, after the United States overthrew the only democratic government it ever had. As the great Dan Carlin has said, when you replace Mossedegh with the Shah, you wind up with Khomeini.

Richard's idea of a democratic "time-out" is as adorable to me as it is fascinating. After all, it's worked out so well in Pakistan, with its eight military coups in sixty years. On top of all their fantastic democracy, we also have their nuclear weapons and the Taliban, all subsidized - albeit indirectly - by the American taxpayer.

What Richard doesn't do is show us where a democratic time-out has worked in anybody's interests, particularly the country being put in the corner. That certainly wasn't true in Iran.

But, Richard tells us ... Hitler!

Morsi is a maniac who adheres to the murderous Muslim Brotherhood creed. Though we seem hypocrites to welcome his removal, what if the same had happened in Germany in 1934?

Adolf Hitler came to power the year before that in a fair election. The last fair election Germany was to have until after the Second World War and the millions of deaths to which the result of that election eventually led.

Certainly there would have been an outcry from some quarters in the west if the German Army, seeing Hitler's insanity, had chosen to remove him the year after he was elected. But millions of innocent lives and untold devastation would have been averted if the Wehrmacht had taken such a bold step.

There are a few problems with this theory.

First, Weimar Germany was an almost total democracy that didn't persecute democratic alternatives to the existing government, which was the case in Egypt.

Secondly, the rise of the Nazi Party was due entirely to economic conditions, not political ones. Absent hyperinflation and the Depression, it's unlikely that an Austrian misfit like Hitler would have ever come close to power in Berlin.

Third, the Treaty of Versailles made such a theoretical coup by the German military, which was limited to 100,000 troops, impossible. The army was actually outnumbered by Hitler's political army, the SA, which was three million strong.

It was only after Hitler's clandestine remilitarization of Germany that he disposed of the SA on the Night of the Long Knives, at which point, the SS was a professional military force sworn personally to him.

Lastly, there's no guarantee that if Hitler hadn't subverted Germany, the communists wouldn't have. The economic conditions in 1930s Germany made democracy all but impossible. And since remilitarization was the clearest path to economic recovery, as it was under the Nazis, it's difficult to see how a gutted army would revolt against that.

I really don't want to be a prick to Richard, who I actually like a lot, but history is sort of import in discussing matters like this.

Did "Borking" Begin With Bork?

Judge Robert Bork died on December 19th at the age of 85, an occasion that I expected Republicans to take advantage of by ratcheting up their constant pissing and moaning about how unfair life is. Modern conservatism, a philosophy that's supposed to be based on rugged self-reliance, is seemingly defined today by high decibel whining.

If you don't think that there's nothing funnier than the sight of a guy holding a copy of Atlas Shrugged and complaining about how he just can't get a fair shake from the Washington Post, you probably don't have a sense of humor at all. Or you're not very bright. Whichever.

Contemporary Republicans also don't have a particularly solid grasp of history, which is probably why the outrage machine wasn't sent into overdrive with Bork's death. With the exception of ranting about Woodrow Wilson, today's Republicans barely acknowledge anything that happened prior to 1980.

Worse than that, although they hold the memory of Ronald Reagan on the same kind of Olympian pedestal that Barack Obama has himself nominated on, they don't seem to remember very many facts about his presidency. The Reagan that I'm constantly preached to about on Fox News and blogs isn't the Reagan I remember being president. As a matter of fact, it isn't the Reagan presented in the innumerable (and often fawning) memoirs of those that served in his administration.

That the passing of Robert Bork didn't get the kind of coverage I would have expected it to was more than likely due to the fact that nobody really remembers him. Given modern attention spans, 1987 may well be 1587.

I like Richard over at Eye on a Crazy Planet quite a bit. We don't agree on a whole lot, but he's a good writer and seems like good people. And he's the only person I'm aware who started the debate about Bork that I've wanted to have, but have been too lazy to start myself.

The contemporary conservative wisdom about the Bork nomination, which Richard reinforces, was that it was all the Democrats fault. They started fighting dirty to win an ideological battle that didn't previously exist.

Smarter Democrats will now concede that going after Bork on ideological grounds was a mistake. Firstly because Republicans would shortly become better and meaner at it, and expand well beyond Supreme Court nominations. Secondly, the Bork nomination probably could have been defeated without resorting to philosophical guerrilla warfare.

Were they half as bright as they thought they were, Ted Kennedy and Joe Biden could just as easily made Bork's hearings an exploration of his role in the Saturday Night Massacre as they were about nonsense like abortion. Presented properly, especially with Watergate still being the very recent past in 1987, it could have killed Bork's hopes of sitting on the High Court. And it was the Saturday Night Massacre that finally convinced most people that President Nixon could and would be removed from office.

Nixon, through Attorney General Elliott Richardson, appointed the very first Special Counsel, Archibald Cox to investigate the exploding Watergate scandal. As soon as the existence of the president's secret taping system was exposed, Cox demanded the tapes. Citing executive privilege, Nixon not only refused to hand them over, he ordered Cox to stop asking for them, violating his pledge to Richardson to stay out of the investigation. Cox ignored the order and subpoenaed the tapes.

On Saturday October 20, 1973 Nixon ordered Richardson to fire Cox. Richardson refused and resigned. Nixon then passed the order to Deputy Attorney General William Ruckelshaus, who also refused and resigned. The third-ranking officer in the Justice Department was the Solicitor General, Robert Bork, who carried out the order and was made Acting Attorney General for the balance of the year. The Cox firing was subsequently found to be illegal and Nixon named Leon Jaworski special prosecutor.

The Saturday Night Massacre was the predicate for Nixon's eventual resignation because it smacked of obstruction of justice, an obstruction that Bork carried out. While it's true that Bork was later confirmed by the Senate to serve on the U.S Court of Appeals, the Supreme Court is a very different matter.

You know who agrees with this line of thinking? Republicans. I know that because they used very similar logic in trying to defeat Eric Holder's nomination to be Attorney General in light of his role in Bill Clinton's midnight pardon of Marc Rich.

As a matter of historical fact, Democrats weren't the first ones to play dirty pool with the Supreme Court. That honor again goes to President Richard Nixon, with an able assist from congressional Republicans.

Nixon and Chief Justice Earl Warren had loathed one another for nearly twenty years when the former was elected president. Wanting to deny Nixon the opportunity the name the next chief to the Court, Warren resigned not long before the 1968 election. Lyndon Johnson then nominated his longtime crony and fixer, Justice Abe Fortas to the position.

Fortas had received speaking fees from American University (which weren't illegal, then or now) which Republicans and Dixiecrats used to filibuster the nomination, the first time that had happened in a Supreme Court nomination. A subsequent, more serious scandal forced Fortas to resign from the Court entirely in 1969

Nixon was determined to have as many friendly seats as he could on the Court (and finally wound up with four.) After Fortas resigned, the president, through then House Minority Leader Gerald Ford, engineered an attempt to impeach Justice William O. Douglas for outside income similar to Fortas'.

However, in his testimony before the House Judiciary Committee, Ford also cited as grounds for removal Douglas' opinions in an obscenity case and some outside writings, making the impeachment transparently political. One of Ford's most famous quotes "An impeachable offense is whatever a majority of the House of Representatives considers it to be at a given moment in history" comes from the Douglas matter.

With the exception of two singularly unqualified Nixon nominees (Clement Haynsworth and G. Harrold Carswell,) Democrats hadn't seriously impeded Republican nominees to the Supreme Court. Antonin Scalia, for example, was confirmed by a Senate vote of 98-0 just a year prior to Bork's nomination.

But I'm sure that they remembered how the GOP launched the first filibuster against Fortas and tried to impeach Douglas. When they had a clear shot at a vulnerable Republican nominee in Robert Bork, they took it. In retrospect, I'm only surprised at how patient they were.

As I said earlier, I like Richard and Eye on a Crazy Planet quite a bit. But I would respectfully suggest that the history is considerably more complicated than his post implies. This wasn't started in 1987 and it wasn't started by Democrats. The Official Republican Narrative would have you believe otherwise, but that narrative is frequently untrue.

When Richard says that "With his death, now might be an appropriate time to look back and see if there is a way to start healing a still debilitated process," he seems to imply that self-examination is a process that should be exclusive to Democrats.

Unsurprisingly, I disagree. Republicans and conservatives have spent the last year getting their asses kicked from one end of the country to the other. In large part this is because of a deeply odd alternate reality bubble that they've built around themselves. But as we all learned on November 6, denying reality doesn't make it any less real.

Republicans have spent decades now denying their more unsavory characters and actions. Not only do you have a hard time finding a conservative who will say that President Reagan actually broke the law in trading arms for hostages, it's a challenge to find a Republican who'll admit that Nixon was president at all.

But Nixon wasn't alone. He had the full support of his party in Congress and not a few conservative southern Democrats that would soon become Republicans in his judicial wars. They knew exactly what they were doing, and they had to know that there would be consequences for it someday. They just didn't care. It shouldn't surprise anyone that liberals would one day exact their revenge, as they did on Bork and Clarence Thomas.

Anyone who thinks that this problem is going to rectify itself unless both conservatives and liberals engage in some self-examination is either dishonest or delusional.

The Constitution didn't foresee political parties and avoided a parliamentary system, in part, to preclude them. President Washington repeatedly warned against their establishment without success. The system was able to endure parties that it wasn't designed to accommodate because America historically had long periods of one-party dominance.

In the last twenty years that's become less and less true. Not only are there more "wave elections" at any other time in American history, they're coming closer and closer together. As the balance of power is dramatically upended more frequently, partisan warfare increases exponentially and the system starts to break down.

If you prefer a government that does nothing, that's great. Unfortunately, the U.S government hasn't "done nothing" for a century now. Its foreign and military policies are overextended to the breaking point and the balance sheet is disastrously out of whack. A broken political system, under these circumstances, will eventually destroy the country.

I agree with Richard that the story of Robert Bork should be studied, but there's a context in the decades that bookend the defeat of his nomination that shouldn't be ignored.

History is the study of trends, not incidents. In strict isolation, Franz Ferdinand was just some obscure Austrian that happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. Within the context of greater trends, his assassination was the opening salvo of the First World War.

Robert Bork is emblematic of a larger trend that began long before his nomination and continues to this day.

Sacks for Sandy

One of my favorite ways to entertain myself is to let trivial inconveniences affect me like there's an unavoidable catastrophe about to befall the world. Usually, it's something like the Internet going out for an hour or drinking so much during the day that I have trouble keeping my luscious prick hard on orgy night. Like I said, trivial stuff.

 

Anyhow, I love things like that because my staged fury is such an awesomely hilarious spectacle that it really should be witnessed first hand. If I so much as stub my toe, it can launch me into a 25-minute tirade about how the Salvadoran death squads of the 1980s weren't necessarily right, but they weren't completely wrong, either. Come to think of it, it's not unlike this here blog that you read religiously each and every day. Just considerably louder. And with my annoying voice in the mix. Seriously, be thankful that I'm not a podcaster.

 

But there are people out there who really have had a seriously bad time of it lately, and they don't use it for comedic effect.

 

I\ve been reading Michele Catalano off and on for years now. She writes her ass off, so I suggest that you read her, too. She's pretty fearless at the keyboard and you don't see enough of that.

 

Michele lives on Long Island, New York. When Hurricane Sandy hit the eastern seaboard on October 29, her home was without power for something like three weeks. It was a harrying time, but she and her family were safe and I'm not aware of any major property damage on her end.

 

Michele was lucky. A lot of people in New York and New Jersey weren't.

 

Instead of counting her blessings and resuming everyday life as much as possible, Michele and Leah Reich decided to do something for the people least able to cope with the aftermath of Sandy: children.

 

Imagine that you're a little kid, leading a predictable, suburban life and suddenly, everything's gone. Your home, all your possessions, everything that you think makes you you when you're that age is destroyed. Everything around you is destroyed, too. Your neighbors are all in the situation that you are, too.

 

Imagine that you're under ten and you're faced with death for the first time. Violence rips out of the skies and ends lives around you, while also taking everything that's familiar to you. Do you ever feel safe again? How do you cope? Does anyone out in the world even care what you're going through?

 

Michele and Leah, being awesome people, do care about those children. And they want them to know that Mother Nature isn't going to take their Christmas away from them. Not on their watch.

 

They set up Sacks for Sandy, pretty much all on their own. Their goal is really simple. They want to deliver 1,000 presents to kids who lost everything to Sandy, and they want to have it done by December 22. And Michele and Leah have made it easy for you to help. The Sacks for Sandy website has an Amazon Wishlist that you can buy something from, or you can just donate cash through an attached PayPal account.

 

I thank each and every one of you for coming here every day, and there are lots more of you than there used to be. For the newer readers, I'd like to explain for a second how I like this place to work.

 

If you look around, you'll notice that I don't have a donation button or a "tip jar." I don't have an Amazon Wishlist. The fact that so many of you busy folks give me your attention is more than enough for me. I don't want your money and couldn't bring myself to ask for it if I needed it.

 

But very occasionally, I'll ask you to get behind a nonpolitical cause that most rational humans can get behind. It's always something I see that grabs in me in a way that I can't let go of. The only thing that I ask of you in return for my hours of work, news analysis and exquisitely crafted dick jokes is to do something nice for a stranger every once in a while. More often than not, it's causes for kids that I direct you to.

 

This one is kind of special to me because I've admired Michele at a distance for a decade now. She has no idea who I am, but I dig her writing in a big, bad way and I respect that she's putting aside the upheaval in her own life from the storm to give a bunch of kids that lost everything a Christmas. As you know, I don't step up for just anyone in the blogosphere, so you should know that she's good people.

 

She's been taking pictures of the deliveries for her Tumblr page as they come in the mail, and Sacks for Sandy is suceeding even more than I think she expected. In less than a week, they've doubled their target number of gifts from 500 to 1,000.

 

I wouldn't be able to thank you good people enough if you chipped in. Actually, I want my readers to literally overwhelm Michelle and those kids with your kindness and love. According to Blogger, there are about 1,900 of you every day. At any given time, a couple of dozen of you are reading one post or another.

 

If just a third of you chip in a little bit, that's over six hundred gifts or donations, easily breaking Sacks for Sandy's goal. Imagine if this little community alone put Sacks for Sandy in a position where they could raise their target to 1,500 or even 2,000? How cool would it be if we did that? If just a tenth of you give, that's still 190 people doing something deeply neat for a kid that may have lost everyhing.

 

Look, I get that this is a terrible economy and everybody's feeling a little pain these days. I'm personally cash-poor right now, which is why I'm writing this up. If you can't give to Sacks for Sandy, bring the cause to the attention of people that can.

 

If you're someone I know personally, consider your contribution to Sacks for Sandy your gift to me this year. You'll be getting off easy, being that I'm such a pain in the ass to shop for.

 

If you want to reprint this post on your blog, feel free. The same goes for tweeting it or favoriting it on Facebook. Better still, write your own. After all, I'm not a particularly good writer. You could probably be more effective at this than I am. Start a fundraiser at your office for them. If you own a successful business, offer to match the contributions of your employees. Tell your friends and family.

 

You can do a whole lot without spending a dime, if you don't have it. There's always someone you know that does. Your helping out with a gift or a donation is fantastic, but if you can get two or three other people to do the same, that's heroic.

 

The point is that all of you can do something to help out Sacks for Sandy. The fact that you're here in the first place means that you're somewhat tech-savvy. I imagine that most of you have Twitter and Facebook accounts and I know for a fact that a lot of you have blogs of your own.

 

I understand how charity exhaustion works, which is why I don't do this very often. But when I do, you should know that it's important to me. I'm fairly lucky in that I draw a fairly diverse crowd. Some of you come here to get a slightly different slant on politics. Others come for the stupid celebrity stuff. Others still for the naughty bits that I post from time to time. Some of you just hate me personally. We could all get together and have a truly epic bar fight one night!

 

Because you all come here for different reasons, you all have different circles of influence. And when it comes to something like Sacks for Sandy, you can do something magnificent. You can let a little kid know that the world really isn't ending.

 

There's really only one thing I can tell you. It'll be the most important Christmas gift you give this year. I can guarantee you that.

 

I promise that you'll be getting insight and dick jokes from me for years to come. But there comes a time when I want something in return. And this is that time.

 

 

Their Own Worst Enemies

When the Liberal Party of Canada was stomped almost to death in May of last year, the smarter of their partisans started making noises that indicated that they were at least self-aware enough to know what their continued survival would require. At the top of their list were two self-evident items: "stop the civil war" and "no more stunt leaders."

It is my considered opinion that the Grits made a fatal mistake when they essentially browbeat Bob Rae from seeking the permanent leadership. He is easily the most formidable figure in the party today. He has more and more varied political experience than all of the other federal leaders combined.  Not only has he run two political parties, he's been an opposition leader, he's headed a majority government and, most importantly, he negotiated an accord to unseat a minority Conservative government, which is something that could come in handy at some point in the near future.

Most Tory partisans around the country suggested that Rae would be the easiest Liberal to beat. This is because most Tory partisans never think things through and always think that their guy is going to win. This is utterly academic at this point, but I think that if Rae won the permanent leadership (and it's hard to imagine that he wouldn't have,) Stephen Harper would have declined to run for another term. And Harper is the Conservative Party of Canada. There is no groomed or natural successor, just a machine hack, like Jason Kenney.

As I've said before, Rae's perceived greatest weakness - his term as the NDP premier of Ontario - is actually his greatest strength. Yes, Rae ran staggeringly high deficits at Queen's Park, but they barely compare to the deficits that Harper himself created after blowing his way through a $13 billion dollar surplus with political stunts.

Imagine Harper bringing Rae's deficits in a televised debate. All Rae would have to do is turn to Harper and say, "I was a socialist back then, and socialism tends to create deficits. What's your excuse?" I've gamed such an exchange out for years now, and I can't think of a way that Harper could reply to that without looking foolish.

Stephen Harper is not an idiot. If I can envision that exchange, chances are that he can, too. And it would be the most devastating moment in a debate since the "You had an option, sir" debacle in the 1984 debates.

After Rae was effectively forced out of contention, the LPC immediately did what they always do, and what is partially responsible for putting them where they are now, they started looking for a stunt leader-messiah figure. Luckily, they didn't have to look very far. After all, they have Justin Trudeau.

If I were a Conservative strategist (and it's important to remember that Harper was a strategist before he was a candidate,) I'd be licking my chops for the opportunity to run against Trudeau the Younger.

Trudeau has run nothing larger than a classroom, teaching teenagers the one thing they require absolutely no help with, drama. Even though he has served in Parliament longer than his late father did when he won the leadership, Pierre was also a high-level Cabinet minister when he won the prize. So far as I know, young Justin hasn't sponsored or introduced any legislation. His father introduced revolutionary changes to the Criminal Code of Canada before assuming the leadership.

More importantly, Pierre was cool where Justin is hot. The elder Trudeau was unflappable, especially on television, whereas the son is a hothead with a pretty formidable temper. When Justin gets angry, he says and does remarkably stupid things.

Aside from being pretty, his genealogy and his ability to beat the tits off of an Indian senator that smokes more than even I do, Justin is known for exactly two things; an interview where he suggested that Stephen Harper might force him to become a Quebec separatist, and screaming that Environment Minister Peter Kent is a "piece of shit" in the House of Commons.

We're only now learning the depth of the opposition research that the Tories have on Trudeau and their skill in deploying it.

The riding of Calgary Centre is the, well, center of the Conservative universe. There's a surprisingly close by-election there tomorrow. Last week, Trudeau supporter (and the brother of Ontario's disgraced soon-to-be ex-premier) David McGuinty said that Alberta Conservatives should "go back to Alberta," causing an immediate appearance problem in a riding that the Grits might actually win for the first time in nearly 40 years.

The very next day, remarks by Trudeau from a 2010 interview were put out by Sun Media, almost certainly leaked to them by the Tory war room.

“Canada isn’t doing well right now because it’s Albertans who control our community and socio-democratic agenda. It doesn’t work,” Trudeau said.

When Lagace asked whether Trudeau believed Canada was better off “when there are more Quebecers in charge than Albertans,” Trudeau replied in the affirmative.

“I’m a Liberal, so of course I think so, yes. Certainly when we look at the great prime ministers of the 20th century, those that really stood the test of time, they were MPs from Quebec ... This country — Canada — it belongs to us.”

Oh. That can't be good for the party's prospects in Alberta, and therefore the country, can it?

Look, I don't know why any right-thinking person would run for the Liberal leadership. The party is broke, demoralized and without their traditional place in Canadian politics. Anyone that has read Peter Newman's When the Gods Changed: The Death of Liberal Canada knows that rebuilding the party is going to be a near impossible task. The next Liberal leader is very probably going to be the last.

Please don't tell me about polls that show a Trudeau majority government restoration for the Grits. Polling about hypothetical elections with hypothetical leaders are nothing more than, well, hypothetical. And that's doubly true when you're talking about a candidate that the public knows little more about than that's hawt and has a cool last name.

As I mentioned earlier, whenever Justin opens his mouth, there's a really good chance that something crazy and stupid is going to pop out. The odds of it happening grow exponentially when he's pissed off.

Yet even with a party whose wheels have fallen off to the point that they've lost over a 100 seats in three elections, some of their more flamboyant commentators are trying to impose a litmus test. Specifically, contenders are being told that if you've lost a previous election or even your seat in Parliament, you needn't apply for the leadership. Unsurprisingly, that excludes every candidate but Trudeau and the still undeclared Marc Garneau.

That thinking goes beyond stupid and veers into the insane.

I should note that I'm not a Liberal supporter. I'm on the record as saying that the party's physical existence sickens me and that the world will finally be a better place when they're finally buried.

But, as you would assume by his nom de plume, Calgary Grit doesn't share my views. In fact, he's on the record as saying that this "only sitting members need apply" standard is wildly silly.

John Diefenbaker: This guy could put together losing campaigns more consistently than the Toronto Maple Leafs. Before being elected, he lost twice federally, twice provincially, and once for Mayor. Despite being a five-time loser, the Tories went with Dief in ’56, and he rewarded them with the largest majority in Canadian history.

Mackenzie King: Even though he lost his seat in both the 1911 and 1917 elections, the Liberals put their faith in King at Canada’s first leadership convention in 1919. King would go on to become the longest serving PM in Commonwealth history…losing his own seat twice more along the way.

Jack Layton: Jack beat out three candidates with seats at the 2003 NDP leadership convention, even though he’d never been elected to any position higher than Councillor. He’d lost in his bid for Mayor, finished fourth in the 1993 federal election, and lost by over 7,000 votes in the 1997 federal election. Despite this track record of defeat, the Dippers went with Jack and he rewarded them by becoming the NDP’s most successful leader ever.

Brian Mulroney: Brian hadn’t even won a City Council election when he became PC leader, and had lost in his previous leadership bid. In his first ever election, he won over 200 seats.

Jean Chretien, Paul Martin, John Turner: Although they had perfect records in their own ridings, all three lost a leadership race before becoming Liberal leader. Losers.

Stephen Harper: Harper did not hold a seat when he ran for Canadian Alliance leadership in 2002. At that time, he had a rather uninspiring “1 win and 1 loss” record when it came to local elections – and remember, that’s a .500 record from a Calgary conservative. 

If you love history the way I do, you might start to see a pattern developing here.

The fact is that Liberals, being Liberals, haven't asked themselves what happens if Trudeau doesn't win the leadership, which is entirely possible. We're still a long way from April 14, 2013. And who can say what landmine statements are in Trudeau's past and future, waiting to go off? If Justin manages to blow his own legs off, who takes over? If he assumes the leadership mortally wounded, what happens to the party before the 2015 election puts it out of Canada's misery forever?

All things being equal, it would probably be better if the next leader wasn't a sitting MP. The biggest tasks that the next leader is going to have are raising a boatload of money and recruiting candidates that aren't laughingstocks, which often happens to third parties. Just ask the NDP.

The single most devastating attack on Micheal Ignatieff didn't come from Stephen Harper. It was launched by then-NDP leader Jack Layton, who tagged Iggy for almost never being in the House. Do they really want to face that in the next leader's debate?

Moreover, who exactly going to pay attention to the third party leader in Parliament? It's not like the NDP's Audrey McLaughlin and Alexa McDonough set the world on fire with their parliamentary performances. Progressive Conservative Joe Clark was a former prime minister who managed to remain "Joe Who?" and Peter MacKay abolished the party entirely without anyone noticing. Ed Broadbent and the aforementioned Mr. Layton were only paid attention when they were significant risks to displace the Liberals.

The LPC is so damaged that the new leader can't be in the House of Commons if he or she wants a halfway credible election machine. But a leader who is also an MP will be savaged for not being there.

Any reasonable analysis suggests that it's better for them to not have a leader sitting in the House, who everyone will ignore, anyway. If nothing else, a sitting Liberal leader will get all kinds of local news coverage when he or she visits, which is the kind that an upstart should want! When exactly was the last time the Parliamentary Press Gallery elected a prime minister, anyway? Oh, right ...

There's an (albeit outside) chance that Teenage Jesus won't win his stunt leadership bid. And if he wins, I don't see a scenario where a murderous cyborg like Stephen Harper doesn't annihilate him in an election. And who builds the party if Trudeau wins and is chained to Parliament Hill?

The LPC's guru-making consultant class is not just wrong, but stunningly so. And that shouldn't surprise anyone. They've been the driving forces behind the Grit's Forty Years Civil War and the party's steadily diminishing electoral returns over the last decade.

Keep listening to them, and you won't exist at all in 2016.

It Hath Arrived! Thoughts on Lindsay Lohan and Playboy

I'm of the considered opinion that everybody should have a friend like Elisson. The man is an outstanding blogger, single-handedly popularized the 100 word story and is a world renowned expert on all things cheese-related. In a world almost entirely without heroes, Elisson stands alone .. except when he's holding up my own personal Jesus, Velociman. I'm honoured and pleased that Elisson has ever bothered to read my nonsense, let alone say the extraordinarily nice things about it in public that he has.

Having said that, there are things that can tear even the closest friendships asunder. Like when Elisson commented that  Lindsay Lohan's titties looked "awfully saggy." I was enraged for months, almost to the point of violence. But I came to understand that the whole point of friendship is overlooking the things that divide you, like how metaphysically wrong your friends may be about certain things.

Look, the rap on LiLo for years has been that she has big fake udders. Not that I give a shit. I think that implants age better than the real thing, and the science is with me on that.. But if a lady chooses to get implants, she should endeavour to get them with just the right amount of sag, lest she wind up looking like a fucking cartoon.That's just common sense, people.

But what if her ginormous jugs are, as I suspect, real? The fact that a 25 year old starlet looks like a 42 year old MILF (albeit the hottest one this side of Julia Ann) says something important to me, specifically that she knows how to live! I learned while still in the crib that old women who look young are never to be trusted, but that young women who look old before their time should always be treasured for the ability to please a man. Verily, they know it all, teenagers. They've lived in ways that most of you never will.

Most of you by now understand that I feel a special kinship with La Lohan. With our shared love of vodka, cocaine and vehicular mishaps that can easily be blamed on a black kid, how can I not? That's just the way love works, as any well-adjusted adult will tell you. I know that Paula Abdul used to sing about opposites attracting, but how well did her marriage to Emilio Fucking Estevez work out, huh? And because Lindsay and I are medically incapable of being each other's liver donor, that's enough to make us perfect together! I really have thought this through, folks. She's the Nancy Reagan to my Ronnie, the Nancy Spungen to my ... Oh, I guess I should re-think that one, huh? If memory serves, that love story didn't end particularly well.

That being said, I wasn't as excited as you probably thought I would be about Lindsay appearing in next month's issue of Playboy. Don't get me wrong, the prospect of seeing her naked always makes my testicles rattle like Jerome Green's maracas on those great Bo Diddley records, but Playboy is just the wrong forum for it.

After all, who in the fuck does Playboy, anymore? I actually do read Playboy for the articles, which is a terrible thing to say about pornography! A titty mag should never be a literary journal, and that's exactly what Playboy has always aspired to be.

To remain relevant, I posit that Lindsay needs to be edgy in something other than a criminal justice-related way. And Playboy just hasn't been edgy since the early 1970s. That's why I always thought that she would be far better off appearing in her altogethers in a magazine like Black Tail. Fans of irony everywhere would love her for it.

As absolutely everyone on earth expected it would, Lindsay's spread (so to speak) has leaked online. I'd post the pictures myself but two things get in the way of my doing so. First, I can't post nudity because far too many of you crazy bastards read this dopey blog at work. I'm just not funny enough for anyone to lose their job over it. Second, I understand that Playboy is highly litigious and I've had quite enough of twisted old cunts threatening to sue me over utter fucking nonsense for the time being. It's rather exhausting.

But I'd be remiss if I didn't offer my thoughts on the pictorial, wouldn't I?

A number of blogs have insulted LiLo over her apparent lack of areola of any kind. I on the other hand find it novel and really quite endearing. There's a lot to said for tiny nipples on huge knockers, and if you need a giant bullseye on a titty to know where your teeth are supposed to go, you probably need to mature as a lover. And most of the bloggers who make that criticism are probably too far advanced in their faggotry to convince otherwise, anyhow.

As is true with areolas, pasty-skinned, redheads shouldn't have public hair. I'm pretty sure that's in the Bible. Probably in Leviticus. But you won't know if Lohan does from the Playboy pictures, which is a goddamned shame. When you know more about a given girl's twat from paparazzi pictures of her getting out of a car than you do from Playboy, that tells you everything you need to know about the sorry state of modern mainstream pornography. No friggin' wonder the Hefner family wants to take the company private again. The stock must be fucking worthless. And if it isn't, it should be!

Forget about Miss Lindsay's intimate grooming habits for a second. La Lohan is said to have been paid a million dollars for these pictures. And it's not like her career trajectory is going up these days. She's about where Robert Downey, Jr. was a decade ago, uninsurable and under the constant threat of immediate incarceration. For a million dollars, we should all be able to visually inspect her for cervical cancer! This is a dire economy and modesty is just not acceptable marketing. Who doesn't know that?

I'm always amazed that what a gorgeous ass Lindsay has. So fixated are we on her majestic mammaries that we too often overlook what the other side of her has to offer. It's tragic that's it just sitting there, ignored, when it should be desired, bitten, licked and fucked endlessly. And a dynamic little dumper it is. If nothing else, the Playboy shoot does give it some attention, albeit far from enough.

I also know from some experience that pasty-skinned natural redheaded girls have the prettiest assholes that you're ever going to see in your entire life. They're just the pinkest little things in all of creation. But don't go to Playboy to learn this. No, those useless pricks just had to go waste a perfectly good teachable moment that could have brought humanity a little closer together. Take it from me, if you've never seen a redhead's rectum, I implore you to so at the earliest opportunity. You'll thank me for it. They're tasty, too!

The Lohan pictures are about as good as you would expect them to be. She's a remarkably well-built girl, especially when you consider her now legendary extracurricular activities. My only problem is that Playboy didn't fully exploit her current financial woes to give us the full-airport-cavity-search that we truly deserve. As celebrity exploitation, they're wonderful. But as pornography, they're a huge disappointment. I jerk off to hotter things than this twice before dawn every day. I just can't lie to you.

For these pictures to be considered truly epic, they would have had to have been shot by Paul Little. Sure, we can all do without the urine and vomit that ultimately sent the erstwhile Mr. Hardcore to the federal pokey, but the shots would have at least been interesting. The man really could wield a specula like no other.

Of course that shouldn't be taken to mean that I don't have a giant erection looking at Lindsay Lohan naked. Because I do.

Am I sharing too much?

Another special appearence

By Raymi's ass!

Jesus Christ and all the Dwarves in Disneyland, that thing is just spectacular. It takes my breath away every time I see it. It speaks to me in a secret language that only I can understand. It says things to me. It lets me know what it wants, what it needs, in ways that the English language is simply inadequate. You know that something is special when communication transcends language, which is why it's so rare.

Although I've never met Raymi (who is considerably younger than I am), I think her marvellous, marvellous dumper instinctively knows the almost spiritual experience that my mighty. mighty rimjobs bring to everyone that experiences them. There aren't a lot of things that I'm famous for - God knows that that hot girls are endlessly bored by my political pontifications - but when I finally have the good sense to die, I hope that I'm remember for all of the mystical feelings that my mouth has given the women in my life.

It seems only proper that they would go forth and tell the villagers about my gift until it becomes the legend it properly deserves to be. The menfolk that I leave behind should be inspired by my example and learn to slurp on their lady's naughty bits until it changes the way she views life. If my time on this mortal plain has served any purpose at all, I hope that would be it. And Raymi's perfect posterior has a lot to do with that.

I've strived to always avoid being spiritual in public, but things like Miss White's delicate ring piece make that impossible. And you know what? It should! How tragically empty would life be if we simply survived from day to day, never knowing that there was something better out there for each of us? Yes, we make it through the day, but to what end? Why?

As an atheist, Easter has always been a difficult time for me, a sad and tragic period that deprives me of the sense of redemption so freely bestowed upon my theist friends. But this year, I have found something to celebrate, something greater and more powerful than I will ever be. There is nothing false about the idol I worship, oh no! All of life's beauty is contained within it, and few things inspire me to truly evangelize the way it does. Sure, human resurrection is impressive, but let's not get carried away with ourselves.

Mine eyes have seen the glory of Raymi's beautiful butt cheeks and I would freely die for their sins, both real and imagined. After all, how could I not? Just take a gander at how they look in those shorts! That video is nothing short of a revelation, and I hope that you all gather your families around this weekend and see the majesty in it. It might just bring us all closer together as a great family of man and it'll probably be the holiest you do over the holiday.


in the fade from raymi lauren on Vimeo.

Christ, I'm adorable. Is it any wonder that I'm an internationally renowned Lothario?

Oh, Raymi: A NSFW sonnet

I was going to write a bunch of poetry about Raymi the Minx's naked ass, but I suddenly remembered that I suck at poetry. It's really better for everyone that way, I promise.

But gadzooks, look at that thing! (NSFW) It's damned near perfect. I fall in love with her just a little more each day.

That is all.


Update: Apparently, no it isn't. There are two more reasons to adore Raymi here and here. Since a thong is worn, I deem them Safe for Work, yet still among the most beautiful things I've ever seen. Brings tears to my eyes if you absolutely must know. It's an almost religious experience for me.

Upperdate: The good and great Jay Currie writes the poem that I never could.

It walks in beauty, through the night,


Oh my God, it's really tight,

Raymi's ass is a thing of beauty,

Busting it is Skippy's duty.



A duty hard and slightly lonesome,

To bust a butt so very winsome.

But there it is, you can do no other,

Skippy, suit up, and bust that mother.



Though Raymi, with girlish thoughts, may demur,

At the thought of Skippy's lust, impure,

Her fear, forthright, at her impalement,

Should be disregarded as barely salient.



Thrust forward Skippy and do your duty,

Really trash this thing of beauty.

And when you're done; the Raymi ass adjusted,

Remember that to the net she has entrusted.

Her bottom cherry, to be busted.

Fiberoptics and the Ace of Spades

As I write this, I have three different referrers running on this blog, each of which gives me a different number of how many hits I'm getting. It's truly bizarre. Sitemeter, for example, counts both Postcards of the Hanging and the old Enjoy Every Sandwich blogspot place, and it shows me getting considerably fewer hits than Statcounter and Blogger's built-in monetizing counter, both of which just look at traffic coming here. In any event, I get anywhere from 300-500 people a day here, and probably closer to five hundred, since Sitemeter's numbers make no sense whatsoever. And that makes me one of the least read writers in all of Christendom.

I only bring that up because the mysterious Ace of Spades is among the most read, certainly among primarily political bloggers. When I first started blogging in 2003, Ace was one of the templates that I worked from in forging my identity. Of course, that didn't work out because he's smarter and funnier than I am, and the thought of having half a dozen co-bloggers cluttering everything makes me insane. He's also heavily partisan and I'm not. But he's a very, very good read and sometimes comes up with some truly genius stuff.

That's why this post jumped out at me, if only because it proves a theory I wrote about in some detail five years ago.

Long story short, Ace is mystified by a 1986 law that allows the government to peek at e-mails that are more than 180 days old and stored on an external server, which is to say nearly all of them, without a warrant. To get at newer e-mails, or anything off of your hard drive, law enforcement would still need a judge to okay it. Ace is further outraged that the Obama administration is imploring Congress to leave it that way.

That ignores one very important fact: that the Electronic Communications Privacy Act is pretty much obsolete. It was effectively gutted, along with the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, by the National Security Agency's warrantless surveillance program which was ordered by President Bush.

In the days after 9/11, Americans - and Republicans in particular - were howling to give the government the power to do pretty much whatever it wanted, so long as the word "terrorism" was included somewhere in the sentence. Everything was a secondary consideration to monitoring and stopping al Qaeda.

The only problem is that these things have a tendency of not staying limited to terrorism. The PATRIOT Act has allowed for thousands, maybe even millions, of searches without warrants, the vast majority of which have nothing at all to with al Qaeda, or even terror generally. It is now a regular tool of everyday law enforcement, and one that isn't going to be given up anytime soon.

If you read James Bamford's The Shadow Factory: The NSA from 9/11 to the Eavesdropping on America you quickly come to understand that the NSA program was even more insidious. You see, the NSC has to go through all incoming fiberoptic traffic to find anything specific relating to foreign intelligence. So in the months after 9/11, they installed "taps" on the fiberoptic trunk stations as they enter the United States in Northern California, Florida and New Jersey.

Here's where this gets tricky. Let's say that you're a housewife in Idaho and you call the housefrau next door on your cell phone. That signal doesn't go directly from your phone to hers. It actually relays throughout the fiberoptic network, leaving and then re-entering the United States before it gets to your neighbour's phone. The same is true of your e-mails and any instant messaging you do. Therefore, almost all communications in the U.S - including those involving only American citizens - are necessarily being intercepted by the NSA.

Remember, President Bush did this entirely in secret, relying only on his Article Two "Commander-in-Chief" powers. The fact that it directly violated FISA, NSA's charter - both of which were acts of Congress - and the Fourth Amendment wasn't given a second thought. In fact, when the program was exposed by The New York Times in late 2005, Republicans like Ace were enraged ... that the program was exposed by The New York Times.

I wrote about the program fairly extensively and critically at the time at Enjoy Every Sandwich, and my more partisan commenters went nuts defending the whole exercise. I was told, by people whose entire political philosophies revolved around distrust of the government, that the government would never misuse the technology or the data. At the time, the extent of the non-terror related PATRIOT Act searches remained unknown, but it was known that the law was being applied to tax and organized crime cases, even then.

One of my constant refrains at the time was that Republicans will be fine with this power so long as it's a Republican president wielding it. But when they're stuck with a President Hillary Clinton (as seemed likely at the time), their tune will change in a hurry and they'll find their inner civil libertarian right quick. And that appears to have happened.

But if it's any consolation to my Republican friends who are worried about the government getting at your old cloud data without a warrant, don't be. The federal government can snoop into what you're doing right now without one. And you spent month after month arguing that they should be able to.

Feel better?

A Home Away From Home

So I started writing a little essay this morning about the death of American talk radio with an eye toward posting it here. The further I got into it, the more pleased I was.

So I got to thinking, "Why put it up here?" When I couldn't answer that question, I submitted it to the great Mike Brock to see if it would be suitable for The Volunteer. As it happens, it was and I couldn't be more pleased by that. You can read my first post there now.

Other than for a very brief time nearly a decade ago, I've never participated in a group blog before and the idea actually makes me really nervous. That's doubly true with the serious and gifted folks at The Volunteer. I respect and admire everyone there and I'm honoured to make any small contribution I can.

You might notice some stylistic differences in my posts over there, not because of any restrictions placed on me, but because I want to try to branch out and see if I can do this without making constant dick jokes or references to forcible drowning. I've been talking about it for a couple of years now and it's time to give it a try.

Let's see what happens, shall we?

The Mexican Dating Game & The Path to Romantic Conquest

I'm a pretty ugly man, so I can't score girls that can't speak English, which is too bad because I think we'd get along just fine. For such women to see the positive aspects about me, I'd have to take off my pants and I don't think I can legally get away with that for much longer. My Vincent Gigante act is wearing thin with the authorities and it's only a matter of time before the jig is well and truly up. Among other things, The Man is determined that I never be happy.

If you watch the above video (which I stole from Dirty Rotten Whore, a blog that you shouldn't go to when you're even thinking about work), you'll see a Mexican version of The Dating Game called 12 Corazones. I haven't the slightest fucking clue what the point of it is, but the "prize" wearing the Tauro button is the most breathtakingly hot thing I've ever laid eyes on.

I have no idea what Tauro is saying, and quite frankly, I don't care. I think I like her a whole lot better that way. Jesus Christ and all the Dwarves in Disneyland, just look at her. I don't think I've ever seen anything like it. The combination of such a perfect, adorable face and that banging brick shithouse of a body is something that might just cure my atheism.

I watched the video nearly half an hour ago, and my penis is still threatening to rip through my pants and beat me about the head. I've seen it happen before and lesser mortals don't usually survive it. Tauro is just that awesome. On further reflection, I think that I'd even throw a hard fast one onto the host of 12 Corazones, but only in the ass. I am, after all, a gentleman with a reputation to uphold. But it just might impress Tauro into being my incoherent Charlie McCarthy.

More likely, I'd have to get rich. Soon. Girls like Tauro, even if they don't speak a lick of English, aren't likely to fall for the whole "poor is the new rich" line that I use on women who actually have seen me naked. In short, I'll have to break my long-established tradition of being a broke motherfucker with a huge putz.

So I think I'm going to be a diet guru for broads. Women are forever dieting, so the market has endless possibilities. I've also noticed that people on diets have no will power because dieting is a big pain in the ass. So I'm going to write my very own diet book called "Get Thin While Doing The Same Shit You're Doing Now." I've found that if you appeal to humanity's inherent laziness, there's no way that you can't not succeed.

Anyhow, I was telling my girlfriend about it earlier, because I think that she'd dig Tauro just as much as I do. She seemed interested, really interested. How could she not? I'm a compelling guy, as you've probably noticed in reading the last six paragraphs.

Then she started asking questions.

"So, how does this diet work," she wondered.

"That's the beauty of it, " I thundered. "It's the easiest way to lose weight ever!"

"Okay, and ...", my beauty prodded.

"Vodka and buggery, three times a day for a month! Could anything be more simple?"

"Um, I'm not so sure about that ..."

"If you're worried, don't be. I'm pretty sure that bourbon would work just as well. I know that vodka isn't for everybody."

This is foolproof. This is going to change my way of living like nothing has before, and Tauro will be my little Mexican oven-mitt. More importantly, my girlfriend and my mom are going to be so proud of me!

"We're Sending Our Love Down The Well"

I mentioned earlier this week that my friend Andrew Lawton is seriously ill. His condition remains unchanged, but Wendy regularly speaks to his brother and I can tell you that his friends and family deeply appreciate your kind thoughts. I'm sure that you understand what a hard time this is for the Lawton family, particularly at this time of year. Having lost my father four years ago this past Friday, I'd like to express to them my deepest sympathies for what they're going through.

The good folks at Brass Balls Radio have put up a podcast in tribute to our fallen friend (media link, click to listen, right click to download), featuring Wendy Sullivan, Jimmie Bise and the world renowned Kathy Shaidle. Listening to it, you really get a sense of how much people really love and admire Andrew. The kid has made a hell of a impact with some pretty serious people.

It's a good listen and one that I recommend to you all. Hopefully, you'll continue to keep Andrew in your thoughts and prayers over the holiday season. I know how much it means to his family, just as it did when you kids thought of me when I lost my dad at this time of year.

It's hard not to be maudlin under circumstances like these, but the Brass Balls crew pulled it off beautifully, celebrating Andrew and expressing their very best wishes for the speediest of recoveries. I hope that you can spare an hour to listen and appreciate just how much everybody loves Andrew.

Because Mr. Lawton is in intensive care, he cannot receive flowers, but if you'd like to send a card, you address it to;

Andrew Lawton, Patient
Victoria Hospital, Critical Care Unit
800 Commissioners Road East
London, Ontario
Canada N6A 5W9

I can speak from experience as to how much his family would thank you for it.

Another Reason to Read Raymi

Even as a toddler I was celebrated for my appreciation of a beautiful woman's ass. As a matter fact, I became somewhat famous for it in the early 1970s. Random adults would gather around my stroller and watch me mutter dark oaths to myself whenever a particularly plump posterior passed me by.

"That boy, why, he's a dumper daredevil," they'd proclaim to my parents, who never failed to beam with pride. "Maybe someday he'll be the greatest one of all!" And I did. It has made me the toast of Al Gore's fabled Interwebs and has been the source of endless self-regard. I understand that pride is a Deadly Sin, but there are things that would sinful to overlook, and my skill at pinpointing a delectable derriere is one of them.

Of course, nothing comes without certain drawbacks. My gift has been known to take a physical toll on me from time to time. For example, when I see an ass as beautiful as Raymi the Minx's ensconced in and lovingly separated by a particularly saucy thong, there's a profound and frightening reaction that builds within me. I've been told that it's not unlike witnessing an exorcism.

First, my eyes roll back in my head and all of my body hair stands on end. My entire body begins to quake as if it had been passed through a particle accelerator. If you listen closely, you can hear the boiling and bubbling in the cauldron of my nutsack. Finally and unavoidably, everything within ten metres of me is caked with my genetic stew. Okay, the last part could be avoided, I suppose, but I'm allergic to pants. I have a note from my doctor, dammit!

Never let anyone tell you that the life of a libertine is easy, especially one such as myself who, like Jesus, has enough love for everyone. It's more ... draining than you can ever know.

Anyhow, that's one of the reasons I read Raymi. How about you?

Let's All Join Hands And Vote For Raymi Again!

You know what the single biggest problem with the blogosphere is, other than not everyone is me? The fact that there are innumerable beautiful women blogging and almost none of them get naked, which means I have to seduce them.

Oh, I've done it time and time again. But it's hard work, given that I'm ugly, broke and not that bright. I'm also getting old - old in body, spirit and mind. I'm just really lucky that I have a massive wang and can do push-ups with my tongue. Otherwise, I don't know what I'd do.

Well, the lovely and talented Raymi the Minx - perhaps the greatest and most famous of Toronto's bloggers - gets naked without even being asked (Link super-NSFW). It's a Christ-like sacrifice she makes every day to make our lives just a little bit better. I still can't believe that no one has founded a church devoted to her worship yet. I'd do it, but I'm crippled by laziness and compulsive masturbation.

When last I brought Raymi to your attention, I asked you all to vote for her in a local blogger poll. You did, and she left a comment telling me that I'm awesome, which is incredibly observant. Not only do I like that in a girl, it makes my testicles rattle like maracas, just like the ones Jerome Green played on those great old Bo Diddley records. And, as any girl will tell you, there's nothing sexier in a man that that.

Anyhow, Raymi's vying to win the People's Choice award in the Canadian Weblog Awards - the very people who named me only the second funniest Canadian blogger two years ago. Even though she's kicking ass mightily, she'd like you to vote for her and so would I.

The last time I helped out, she said I was awesome. But that was only a local poll, and this one's national. So I figure if I bring a lot of votes her way, she'll let me sew my face between her beautiful buttocks (also NSFW). After all, Christmas is coming and I've been nice this year.

Just don't tell my girlfriend, okay? She hits me sometimes.


Update: Welcome Raymi readers! There sure are a lot of you, aren't there? Hopefully you're all just as hot.

For Jay

Jay Currie is one of Canada's greatest bloggers. He also seems like the kind of guy that appreciates female fitness. Also, he's been a pretty good friend to me and this blog over the last year.

As a reward to him, I offer ... Kristina Rose. How can any red-blooded man not adore a the 2010 XRCO Nominee for "Orgasmic Analist"? It just isn't possible, I tell you. It. Just. Can't. Happen.



As always, Rosario Dawson is just for me.

Welcome The Volunteer

If you're like me, whenever you find a smart, well-written blog with an independent point of view, you want to hold it close and never let go. As you might have noticed, they're fewer and further between than ever before.

That's why I encourage you all to go take a look at The Volunteer. You'll love it so much that you'll bookmark it and check on it several times a day. I only found out about it from the great Dr. Dawg last weekend, and it's already one of my favorites. The writers there are everything I want to be when I grow up.

And I'm honoured that they've already put me on their blogroll. I'll add them just as soon as I figure out how I damaged my template so badly.

Do yourselves a favour and head on over. You'll be glad you did. They're way smarter than I am and I'm in a period where I'm sickened by my own blog and hate everything that I write.


Update: The problem with my template is that I can't add new links. Thankfully, there were a few dead ones there, so The Volunteer and Dawg have both been added.

It's That Time of Year Again!

As you've likely figured out by now, I love women. I love them so much that they make me ache and quiver in my naughty places upwards of 63 times a day. Some folks think that's shallow, but I don't. I think it just makes me someone who physically reacts to beauty in ways that make it obvious how much I appreciate it. And, restraining orders aside, I think that women are flattered by that.

I primarily consider myself a vagina man, as most of you already know. If god created anything better than that, He kept it to Himself. There's no place I'd rather keep my fingers, face, mighty wang, keys and cigarette lighter than between a woman's legs.

However, I don't love the ham purse to exclusion of everything else. Just mostly. I'm a connisuer of the female form in its totality, which means that I love breasts as well. Any modern gentleman will tell you that the way into a woman's pants is through her breasts. Playing with, sucking, biting and pinch them will make everything that follows that much easier. If you lack the patience for foreplay, I recommend that you have a really nice car.

Anything that harms a woman's a titties is something I consider to be a personal enemy and something that should be defeated at all costs. That's why breast cancer has to be destroyed, annhilated and reduced to nothing more than a bad memory. It's a terrible disease and one that I'm sure that you join me in wanting to cure.

As it is once again October - Breast Cancer Awareness Month - I'm proud to announce that I'm stealing the ideas of teaming up with Girl on the Right to help out for a second year. I may not be posting on this every day because doing it last year gave me a cramp. But I will be doing it regularly through the month.

Wendy wants you to know that if you purchase selected items through Amazon.com, they will donate some of the proceeds to the cause.

Help out. You'll be glad you did. And so will Shay Lauren!