I've Seen Things You People Would Not Believe

It's a line from Blade Runner. Rutger Hauer follows it with some babble about ships afire and such. But after a little while on the internet i can say the same thing. Unlike Rutger's character, however, my experience has all the scarring and none of the cool factor.
  Until now i had never seen anyone die, or be tortured, or severely beaten, or set afire (repeatedly). I hadn't seen mass insanity, or mindless violence or parents murdering their children in cold blood. Now I have. I didn't go looking for this stuff, i was directed to it by other bloggers. They didn't send me there for a thrill, they sent me to educate me that such things exist in this world. It is a lesson i needed but one which i resent.
  I don't know what the point is in complaining here, maybe i thought i would sum it up in some one line lesson. I got nuthin'.  I wont link any of these sites, though God knows i should. It brings home the fact that we are probably the most sheltered society the world has ever known. Maybe that realization is the message i wanted to relate.

Speaking truth to the hypocritical

No, I am not advocating for equal rights of fathers who don't want to be.

Stupid theories of the week.

I notice that more and more blogs are not allowing comments. While i can understand the motivation, it is a little frustrating when one cannot comment on fellow bloggers' (a liberty, i know) stupidity. So I will have to put it in here, in list form to make me feel better:
      1. The liberals and Bloc are tanking, the NDP are taking up the slack. It's all good. The problem i have is with those who are now trying to explain how the liberals are losing because, well, there is no place for them anymore. They have become irrelevant, they have no platform, etc. etc. I am, admittedly no expert on party policies, but even i can tell you there is a world of difference between the liberals and the conservatives, and an even bigger planet's worth between the libs and the NDP. Read their platforms, listen to their statements and play back their actions over the last 10 years. If you still don't see where the liberals fit in, stop blogging about it. you are just too damn dumb.
      2. I read today (again) some little tirade about welfare abuse by polygamists. Are people stupid or just ignorant? Is it really a polygamy issue? There are a lot of polygamist relationships out there, secular ones too. The parties in such relationships are entitled to welfare, in all its splendorous incarnations because they have no other means of support which are legally recognized. This is not an outrage, nor is there any reason to start pulling ones forelock over the fact that many of these unrecognized 3rd parties collect welfare by not declaring that they actually can and do receive financial support from their husband. True, its welfare fraud. However, it is also true that as crimes go, welfare fraud has got to be second only to speeding when it comes to offenses we tend to wink at. For example, as a landlord (for more than 20 years) i can attest that more than 75 percent of my tenants who collected welfare did so while living with a working partner. Had i reported them, what would have happened? How would it have been proved? If found guilty, how would the offender have been punished? Does the expression "blood from a stone" mean anything to you? 
   If you are worried about polygamist welfare fraud, then lift the law against polygamy, institute a system of taxation and inheritance for such marriages and thus remove welfare from the equation, just like we do with regular marriage. It is just plain stupid to pretend that polygamy is the problem here.
      3. Is it our very nature as canucks that we can't admit when one of our own does a good job? I should say : when one of our POLITICIANS does a good job (we go out of our way to praise our artists or writers regardless of actual merit).  Stephen Harper has led the country with a minority. He did so through a global financial crisis. He is still well regarded as a leader (see the polls on that one). However, the consensus in the press seems to be that he has only prospered in the absence of any real opposition. Sigh. Perhaps that's not stupidity, but it is a hell of a lot of cynicism.

You gotta have kids to understand this one, or still be one.

The last one pretty much describes my home life for several years in the early days of child rearing.
http://lolsnaps.com/news/3928/0/



I could cry.

How I Found Out I Am A Racist.

When they first declared their intention to let native bands use sentencing circles on native law breakers i was pretty upset. A s if the Canadian legal system wasn't lenient enough. Of course when i found out that the native justice would only be used for native on native crime i was appeased.  That's it. That's all the evidence required.  For all you folks who support this piece of segregationist nonsense, ask yourself why. Do you support it as some sort of recognition that native criminals will be better served by native judges juries and sentencing protocols (which would make you a racist), or do you just not care because its what they want and you think appeasing them appeals to your white guilt without threatening your own safety (which makes you an idiot)?
    Face it folks, almost all of us are racists. There is a lot to be said about semantics here. As an exercise, try substituting the words 'race' or 'racial' for 'culture' or 'cultural' in any discussion  and see what i mean.

Dear America: We Suck. Love Nato

Sorry but i really do think a few nations ought to be more than a little ashamed. If you can't kick Libya's ass, what the hell did you spend your military budget on?

Can You See Where This is Going?

I recently read a story about how a couple ( from Norway or Sweden i think) could no longer foster children because they were serious Christians, and therefor would not approve of homosexuality. The child involved was not gay, and the couple had fostered a number of children before, quite successfully. At first glance i thought, hmmm well i suppose. On further reflection I have my doubts. For one thing, i thought we were supposed to tolerate gay behaviour, not accept or promote it necessarily.  Quite aside from that there is the question of where this sort of regulation could go.
   It isn't like our own little racism regarding fostering children. Here in Canada we try to foster certain kids according to race, on the assumption that... actually i can't even explain the logic other than : we are racist when it comes to natives. I think folks figure it isn't racism if you call it culture rather than race.
  No, the problem here is religious indoctrination, or as parents and sane people would call it: teaching our children. If the state wont lend a practicing Christian or Muslim a kid or two to foster because it doesn't like their beliefs that's one thing. One thing does lead to another however, and i wonder what 'another' might entail. Are we talking about  a future where the state prohibits parents from indoctrinating their kids into their religion?  Nah, that could never happen, except it already does in some places, like the USA for example. Of course we are talking about non traditional religions in the US case (wicca ) but I can certainly see the danger here. If a supposedly enlightened western state sees fit to regulate the beliefs of those people who care for wards of the state, it is only a matter of time before someone asks whether the same should not be done for all kids.