Follow the money!

Where are the cops forensic accountants when we need them?

As a quick-eyed reader points out here, if the privately-held Canadian companies whose executives accompanied Harper on his Panda-hugging Tour de Chine  photo op last year did reimburse the government (as many claim they did), where did our money go?
Some of those companies, including gold company Eldorado Gold Corp., said they insisted on paying their own way throughout the trip and are surprised to hear they appear on a government expense list.

“Our CEO Paul Wright paid ALL his expenses (meals, cab fares, accommodations and any other expenses) incurred on the trip,” Nancy Woo, vice-president of investor relations, wrote in an email.

“We, too, would find it an unreasonable expense for the taxpayer.”

Financial giant Manulife said it was their corporate policy to reimburse the government for any major expenses incurred by its executives, and is addressing the matter.

Whose deep, deep CON pockets did those thousands of dollars surreptiously slip into?

No wonder PMSHithead and his corrupt band of cheaters, liars, fraudsters and thieves are in no hurry to staff the position of Parliamentary Budget Officer.

No, Priscilla, Abortion Does NOT Cause Insanity

Well, isn't this an amazing case of synchronicity? Or -- donning tin-foil hat -- a case of extremely well-planned coordination?

Just as UK MPs are preparing to vote on letting religious nutbars 'counsel' women seeking abortions, yet another pseudo-scientific study is released on the causal connection between abortion and mental health.

Recalibrate your SHRIIEEEEK-o-meters! Abortion increases your risk of insanity by 81% !!!!!!11! Or even by 230%!!!1!!!1

At least this source puts quotation marks around 'linked' and bothers to refer to real scientists.

Abortion and mental health 'linked'
Having an abortion increases the risk of mental health problems by 81%, according to a new study.

Compared to women who have not undergone a termination, those having one are significantly more likely to suffer issues, it found.

Furthermore, around one in 10 cases of mental health problems among women may be due to abortion.

Experts from the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists (RCOG) said their own research had found women were not at higher risk of mental health problems compared to those who fell pregnant accidentally and went on to have a baby.

The latest review of studies, published in the British Journal of Psychiatry, is cited as the largest ever estimate of the mental health risks from abortion. It included 22 studies from 1995 to 2009 involving more than 877,000 women, of which almost 164,000 had had an abortion.

The research was carried out by Priscilla Coleman, professor of human development and family studies at Bowling Green State University in Ohio.

She found that while the overall increased risk of mental health problems was 81%, the results "indicate that the level of increased risk associated with abortion varies from 34% to 230% depending on the nature of the outcome (whether women abused drugs, alcohol, or suffered depression, and so on)".

Prof Coleman concluded: "The strongest effects were observed when women who had had an abortion were compared with women who had carried to term and when the outcomes measured related to substance use and suicidal behaviour."

The Royal College of Psychiatrists is currently carrying out a systematic review of the impact of abortion on women's mental health. Results will be published this autumn.

A spokesman for the RCOG said: "What this research does not fully examine is if these women had pre-existing mental health complications such as dependency issues and mood disorders before the abortion."

Dear Priscilla has been spanked for her methodology and ideology more than once and by very prestigious sciencey-facty types, but for unfathomable reasons, her crap keeps on getting published.

Hell, I am not a trained scientist and even I know that correlation does NOT equal causation. And so should everyone who graduated high school.

But the media can't resist the headlines and many, like this one don't arse themselves to find a reputable person to counter the bullshit.

And, of course, the fetus fetishist bloggers are all over it.

Again.

From the wiki link:

Some other researchers have been unable to reproduce Coleman's results on abortion and mental health despite using the same dataset, and have described her findings as "logically inconsistent" and potentially "substantially inflated" by faulty methodology. The American Psychological Association (APA) and other major medical bodies have concluded that the evidence does not support a link between abortion and mental health problems, and APA panelists charged with reviewing the evidence were similarly critical of the methodology of Coleman's studies.

Science IS hard, Priscilla. To get the real, grown-up sciencey people to take your work seriously, such studies have to be well-designed and bear up under scrutiny.

When the facts do not support her desired conclusion, instead of going back to the lab bench and trying to improve the design, Priscilla just rejigs the numbers. She's been at this game for nearly a decade.

Really, isn't it time for 'peers' on peer-review committees to politely decline to participate in this charade?

I'm looking at you, Canadian Medical Association Journal, as well as the British Journal of Psychiatry.

Just. Don't. Publish. This. Crap.

ADDED: Someone with a head for stats might be interested in this (seemingly) thorough explanation of Priscilla's lying with numbers.

What's Palin lyin' about, exactly?

IMHO, I suspect that deep-down, she wanted the pregnancy to end in still-birth or miscarriage.

Palin wore Spanx or whatever to hide it, and when her labour came on unexpectedly, she deliberately avoided giving birth at hospitals that would have provided her fetus with the best chances of survival.

Her behaviour is not consistent with that of a woman reconciled to a difficult pregnancy and taking all precautions needed to ensure the safe delivery of a fragile fetus in an environment that provided the most advanced medical resources and support.

By her own account, Sarah Palin's pregnancy was a "high-risk" one: she was 44 years old, and it was her seventh pregnancy (she had had two previous miscarriages); the baby had Down's Syndrome and was about to be born prematurely.

The fact that Palin, despite the obvious complications, embarked on a ten-hour plane journey from Dallas to Anchorage with a stopover in Seattle, bypassing the first-rate Baylor Regional Medical Centre in Dallas with a neonatal intensive-care unit (NICU) situated ten minutes away from the conference she was attending, is mystifying – even more so since Palin then elected not to attend Providence hospital in Anchorage, which is also equipped with excellent NICU facilities that would have ensured a safe delivery for her premature son. [...]

This issue is not about misogyny, as Megan Carpentier claimed in her recent commentary in the Guardian. We are not misogynist and we have no interest in examining Sarah Palin's "vagina". The majority of our readers, supporters and researchers are female, and they are usually women with experience in giving birth. There are also many readers who have medical backgrounds who strongly question Palin's account of Trig's birth. [...]

The questions about Sarah Palin's pregnancy are relevant, because they raise issues of trust about a woman who almost became the vice-president of the US and who still has a large following and political influence. Journalists who now quickly declare this matter "closed" without having examined the evidence should be reminded that former McCain campaign manager Steve Schmidt is on record saying that Palin's book Going Rogue comprises "not 70%, but 100% fiction".

From here.

Fear, loathing, prevarication & tupperware terrorists.

Global TV's @PeterHarris shares on Twitter a number of interesting observations as he follows CLSH's campaign to BC.


For example, Con supporters who attended a Harper event at a church in Burnaby were subjected to a rigorous security search that included their plastic food containers. Contempt Party leader gave a speech that was fully translated into Cantonese. Then the pastor asked gawd" to build a wall of protection for Harper 'from evil actions... evil people... evil intentions'" and, one would imagine, evil tupperware.

Earlier in the day, SHithead said $11 billion in cuts weren't critical to balancing books by 2015 and continued to avoid answering questions where he would cut to find savings. Yet, when the issue of trusting him with a majority came up, Harper said voters should constantly question any politician - with the exception of CLSH, obviously.


Harris also said that Contempt Party leader met "with half dozen student protestors after his event today and talked about student debt and climate change"; no indication whether these *protestors* were pre-registered, screened, vetted and body-searched in case they were carrying terrorist tupperware.


Update: The Burnaby Alliance Church is evangelical, of course. More about the event, here.

Don't like that quote?

There's plenty more where that one came from.

Rusty Idols wrote a powerful post, well written and researched.

Add Dr Dawg's piece about the Contempt Party's shrieks of injury, it's a one-two gut punch to the Cons' self-righteousness.

You can almost imagine the Con Attack Parrots™© screeching: "But, but, but, but ... even if it was our party that lowered the bar, with regard to attack ads and that provided Parliamentary reports replete with words out of context and fudged info, we're the only ones who can do it! Those are OUR MISRULES!"

eh. I left a comment at Rusty's and the word verification was "plizeday" - which will shurely be the very special cracker jack plize MinJKenney will get on May 2nd - "Surplise! You're out of a job!"

Cannon and his Teensy Tunisian Obfuscations

This has been quite the week for Con-generated Convolution in the House of Commons, and it's not over yet.


On Monday, BQ MP Jean Dorion presented a clear query regarding the assets held by the Ben Ali family in Canada, here:

Mr Speaker, it took less than 24 hours for Switzerland to freeze Mubarak's assets. Europe and Switzerland also dealt quickly with the assets of Tunisian dictator Ben Ali and his entourage. Members of the Ben Ali family have been in Canada for weeks now and we still do not know whether Canada has frozen their assets.

Is anyone in this government able to tell us whether or not Canada has frozen the assets of members of the Ben Ali entourage?

The Minister of Foreign Affairs Lawrence Cannon uttered the standard HarperCon ring-around-the-rosy reply:

Mr Speaker there is a condition that needs to be met, as I have told my colleague many times: the request has to come from the Tunisian government. For example, in the case of Egypt, the request was made to the various countries my colleague mentioned. However, before we can take action, this request has to come from the Tunisian government. We have worked and continue to work closely with government authorities. My colleague, the Minister of Justice, is weighing all the options, and we will pursue this matter with the same intention I have already identified.

Those sentences contain subjects and verbs and yet offer no concrete information in response to a straight question. This is the Minister who puffed himself up 18 months ago and huffed that he would have some strong words for Libyan dictator Moammar Gadhafi. And last year, he lectured survivors of the Haïtian earthquake about transparence and accountability.

Yes or no. Were the Ben Ali family assets frozen? On Tuesday, this was the exchange in the House. MP Dorion tried again:

Mr. Speaker, here we have another example of misinformation from this government. The Minister of Foreign Affairs led the House to believe that he had not received any requests from the Tunisian authorities for Canada to freeze the assets of former dictator Ben Ali or members of his family. That is not true. How can the minister deny the many requests made to the Canadian government urging it to take the necessary steps to freeze the assets of Ben Ali?

Cannon said:

Mr. Speaker, I have always answered my colleague's question clearly. The Tunisian authorities have taken steps. We have encouraged the Tunisian authorities to take steps to allow us to work with them on developing options to freeze the assets of those who are not welcome in Canada.

Dorion:

Mr. Speaker, how could the minister, yesterday, still maintain his story that he did not receive any request, when a press release from the Tunisian embassy, dated January 26, confirmed that: “the Embassy has taken the necessary steps with the Canadian authorities...to freeze and protect assets...that might be held by ousted President Ben Ali, his wife, and members of their families”? What more is the minister waiting for to freeze the assets of the Ben Ali family?

Cannon:

Mr. Speaker, if my hon. colleague reviews yesterday's transcript, he will see that he began his question by talking about Egypt. With regard to Egypt, I told him that we still had not received such a request. However, I continued by specifying once again that we are fully prepared to work with the Tunisian authorities on freezing the assets of those who are not welcome in Canada.

So you have it. Cannon was confused because Dorion mentioned Egypt. The fact is, Mubarak has no family in Canada, and it is the Tunisian embassy that issued a formal request, not Egypt. Cannon is doing what all the other PMO-coached Ministers do: leading the opposition up the garden path.

On Wednesday, the Tunisian ambassador issued a statement:

Canada must be on the side of the Tunisian people and not on the side of criminals, "said Ambassador Mouldi Sakri, in an interview with The Associated Press.

He claims not to have received a formal response from Ottawa despite a request from the end of January of the freezing of assets to countries of the former President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali and his family, including accused of illegal transfers of funds abroad. [...]

"Our hope is that the Canadian government to take urgent measures to safeguard the property until justice is done," pleaded Mr. Sakr.

And if the former Tunisian president and members of his family are not found guilty, their property will be returned, he explains.

Two other requests were made to the Canadian government formally by the Ministry of Justice in Tunisia," he said. One is an international arrest warrant against Belhassen Trabelsi - the brother of former president - now on Canadian soil.

Despite claims that date back more than three weeks, Cannon - when pressed for action - simply answers questions from MPs in the House of Commons that the Canadian government is "evaluating options" with Tunisia.

HarperCon ministers are so well trained in the tactics of NOT giving direct answers. They fill the air with volumes of truthy gabble-fab. They don't appear to answer their mail, either.

Shrieeek!!! LieSite is being sued.

$500,000! Send money! Now!

"At LSN we are completely dependent upon Divine Providence; we usually have just enough in our bank account to get by until our next quarterly fundraiser (if even!). We simply have no money to spend on potentially crippling legal fees to fight this lawsuit."

Raymond Gravel, pro-choice priest and former BQ MP is an individual that we greatly admire, here at DAMMIT JANET! LieSite has been attacking and defaming him for a long time. He served his constituency well during the time he spent in the House of Commons. From here:

[...] Gravel was ordered by the Vatican to either give up the priesthood or leave politics, and he finally announced he would not run in the 40th Canadian federal election, saying that the priesthood was his life. He cited as his biggest regret his inability to pass his private member's bill C-490, which aimed to improve seniors' access to guaranteed income supplements

Thanks to @UnionSt and @AntoniaZ for alerting us to this CatholicCon job.

Although I don't know the details of the civil suit, I would make an educated guess that, as with similar cases, Gravel's lawyer asked LieSite to retract its defamatory remarks and to publish an apology. Upon its refusal to take action, the next step was to sue LieSite for damages and legal costs.

Imagine LieSite's dilemma: Admit the stuff it publishes is lying bullshit or hit up its readers up for half a million dollars?

ADDED by fern hill: GUESS WHO is SHRIEEEEKING?????11!!! (That's a link through Twitter -- two clicks but should be immune to fetal pr0n redirect.)

BP covered up past platform blow-out.

Thanks to Wikileaks, the world now knows that BP has had previous problems with its drilling equipment, before its MASSIVE oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, on its Azerbaijan gas platform.

Also revealed is the fact that BP covered it up so successfully not even its business partners knew about it.

The constant truthiness and lying lies of corporate executives and political leaders, all exposed by Wikileaks.

More Con jobs and lying liars.

It's getting to the point where no cover-up so stinky or no lie so MASSIVELY obvious from the Con jobs and the lying liars could be a straw that breaks the camel's back.

The media routinely reports these gaffes, fuster clucks and deliberate obfuscations; it seems at this point the Canadian public expects dishonesty and incompetence from Harper's New©™ Government and has become jaded.

First, from Montreal Simon, we hear more confirmation that Bev Oda is not only a Con job, but a total idiot as well.

A whodunit mystery captured Parliament Hill Friday after the international co-operation minister said she didn’t know who tampered with a document that bears her signature but one she is not certain she signed.

A two-page memorandum recommending the approval of $7,098,758 in funding to the church group KAIROS for its human rights activities was originally signed by two top bureaucrats at the Canadian International Development Agency in September 2009. But someone — it’s unclear who — handwrote “NOT” between the words “you” and “approve” on the memorandum’s last line. [...]

“It’s like a Clue game. We have the minister in the committee with the pen that says she signed it and killed the deal,” said NDP foreign affairs critic Paul Dewar. “I think the minister needs to come clean … she used the department to explain away what was in the end an ideological position.”

Liberal foreign affairs critic Bob Rae said the document was tampered with and changed retroactively so it would look as if CIDA was recommending the faith-based group be chopped. “If you put 'not' in front of a cheque or if you put 'not' in front of a number on a cheque, it is called fraud,” he said.

Then this Con-veeenient (imagine Preston Manning saying the word) event, which blasted the credibility of the last functional Commons Committe that Stevie's bullies had not yet managed to destroy.

It might be Grand Guignol theatre - diverting and crudely funny as hell - if it weren't the future of our country that Stevie Spiteful is willfully and malevolently screwing up.

Wikileaks is vital.

In a world where this kind of bald-faced lying and covering-up has become the standard modus operandi, where our own public broadcaster is subverted by the odious antics of millionaire spouting his vile rightwing spleen, Wikileaks is vital.

Fatwa Flanagan continues to perform his stupid aw-shucks schtick.

As Buckdog said:

If Mr. Flanagan joked about a bomb in his shorts at the Edmonton Airport, should we expect the security guards to merely laugh and slap good old Tom Flanagan on the back for being such a funny joker?

Fatwa Flanagan and other members of the Old Con Boys Club keep behaving like this because their sense of entitlement ensures they can get away with hoodwinking the public.

Until Wikileaks pulls back the curtain and the whole world can see the 'bomb' Fatwa Flanagan's concealing is a smelly old dud that a mega-dose of Viagra couldn't revive.

Here's one blowhard who's really funny and who gets what's comin' to him.



Bonus: Go read Alison at Creekside. Now.

Extra bonus added by fh: Go sign another fun Avaaz petition. Because it gets up the rightwingnutz's noses. Organizers are aiming for one million signatures this week.

Win/win for Republicans. (Update)

As pastor Jones continues his flip-flop about whether or not he will burn a pile of qu'rans tomorrow, teabaggers and other fringe elements in the Republican party are jubilating.

If Obama does nothing, they win. If he stops the event, they win.

Local health authorities in Gainesville should consider taking Jones into custody for a psychiatric examination. Someone who enjoys sucking up media attention as he does - and doesn't have the excuse that he's an entertainment figure with a product to flog or a politician seeking public office - without regard for the violent consequences his actions will trigger, must have a couple of screws loose.

Here and there, individuals in the media are raising valid and thoughtful points about this event, instead of throwing fuel on the fire, as it were.

My prediction: if Terry Jones is not found to be mentally incompetent and stuck in a padded room for an indeterminate time, the Tea Party Hatriots will recruit him to run for political office.

Update: Terry Jones's daughter still lives in Germany. Spiegel interviewed her.

Q: It is true, then, that the church in Cologne ousted your father itself?
Jones: Yes.

Q: Did he leave Cologne willingly?
Jones: It was a mixture. We confronted him and demanded that he correct his errors. But he didn't give in. When we brought up the church finances, he disappeared the next day.

Q: Are you still involved with the church that he left behind? Jones: No.

Q: Do you believe your father is serious about burning the Korans?
Jones: I do. My father is not one to give up. As his daughter, I can see the good-natured core deep inside him. But I think he needs help.

Q: Is your father a megalomaniac?
Jones: I'm afraid he is. As his daughter, it is difficult for me to say that. [...] I don't know what's going through his head. I think he has gone crazy. But I am convinced that he thinks his plan is both correct and good.

Q: He has indicated that the final decision will be imparted to him by God. Does he see himself as someone who is in constant contact with God?
Jones: Yes. He was constantly comparing himself with Moses.

Who will take responsibility for ensuring Terry Jones gets medical care?

How can you tell if a Con MP is lying?

His lips are moving.

MP Steven "Blarney" Blaney just spoke on Radio-Canada about the release of National Defense documents relating to the handing over of war captives to the Afghan authorities.

He regurgitated well-rehearsed ReformaTory Attack Parrot™© points:

1. Opposition MPs cannot be trusted with top secret, sensitive materials.
   
2. Disclosure of this information endangers our troops in Afghanistan.
   
3. There were witnesses to the Parliamentary Committee who told "stories".
   
4. Opposition MPs hate our soldiers.

This is why we say:


They LIE.

They lie they lie they lie THEY LIE!

They LIE! They lie, they lie, they lie, they lie!

It's the ReformaTory Anvil Chorus.

They LIE.

They lie they lie they lie THEY LIE!

While the Conservative government treats Rahim Jaffer publicly as a pariah, messages and calls between senior officials and the former MP over the past year show he was handled inside as a friend and even a "priority."

More than 60 pages of government documents obtained by The Canadian Press Wednesday paint a picture of a busy, cheerful businessman reaching out to people he knew within government. [...]

At least six ministerial offices were contacted by Jaffer over the past year, and that includes previously unknown communications with Public Works and the office of Diane Ablonczy, minister of state for seniors. The documents were tabled with the Commons government operations committee, and with the lobbying commissioner and some with the ethics commissioner.

In his emails, Jaffer was often describing renewable projects he was working on with his partner Patrick Glemaud, and the responses were swift and often personal.

From here.


They LIE.

They lie they lie they lie THEY LIE!

Oh, and make sure you take in the deliciously apt Monty Python skit over at Canadian Cynic: Adscam! Adscam, fer Chrissake! too.

But, but, but ... Planned Parenthood! Shrieeekkk!!!

In the combox after Does the Catholic Church foster a Culture of Pedophilia? Steve left this comment -

Planned Parenthood is no better, frequently covering up rape. See one example below :http://www.socon.ca/or_bust/?p=6510 What you won’t see this on the cover of the New York Times. Don't drink the Kook-Aid.

That would be blogger Steve who, in his own words says he will "accept all the teachings of the Catholic Church and I look to the Pope for my marching orders".

Steve got his speaking points from SoConAndNutz. Take notice that he doesn't answer, refute or challenge a single word about the culture of pedophilia in his religious institution.

It's quite the claim, considering it originates with Lie-Là Rose's production company, by way of the National Cash Catholic Register.

This edited video recording is touted as "The New Sex Abuse Scandal - All Caught on Tape". It displays a time code that reads 2005.10.23 - although the content of the 'news release' at LiveAction suggests this a new undercover sting operation. (Earlier posts about Lie-Là Rose here.)

So. It's recycled and re-purposed material - a diversion tactic intended as a distraction from the evull New York Times' coverage of the obfuscation campaign the Catholic Church patriarchs are deploying to evade responsibility for the decades of harm that their pedophile priests did.

Sweet tap-dancing Babeee Jay-Zeus. Are there any straws left for these lying liars to clutch, in their frenzy to defend the Vatican Taliban?

more MASSIVE lies?

Why are rightwing and religiously deranged zealots massively bent towards the qualifier MASSIVE?

"There's a sucker born every minute" is a quote widely attributed to P. T. Barnum, a US showman and erstwhile politician who perfected in the 19th century many marketing and public relations tactics that survive to this day. In fact, one might say that Karl Rove and his acolytes have taken the basic three-ring circus leitmotif "More, more, more!" to nausea-inducing depths.

Which is probably why this nugget of faux-journalism from Lies-Site abounds with the adjective massive. (Our emphasis.)

The flow of medical supplies waiting to be distributed to tens of thousands of earthquake victims in Haiti was delayed for weeks by a massive supply of condoms dominating the space of the main storage facility there, an eyewitness with insider information has told LifeSiteNews.com (LSN).

The central pharmaceutical supply center, known as PROMESS (Program on Essential Medicine and Supplies), is home to the operations of the World Health Organization (WHO)/Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) in the area. "Without PROMESS we would have had a second catastrophe," Dr. Alex Larsen, Haitian Minister of Health, said at the PROMESS warehouse recently.

However, the glut of condoms at that same warehouse delayed the massive influx of aid pouring in from around the world, according to an inside source, and may have cost lives. The source reported that shipping containers of medical supplies were unable to be unloaded, sorted and distributed since an enormous supply of condoms clogged the facility till early February, when the condoms could be removed. The condoms were estimated to take up about 70% of the space in the 17,000 sq. ft. warehouse. [...]

Nicholas Reader of the UN's Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said he was "not aware" of the problem, and directed LSN to the World Health Organization for more information. Paul Garwood, the communications officer for emergencies and humanitarian affairs at the World Health Organization, also said he was unaware of the issue. Garwood forwarded the request to colleagues in Haiti, who have not responded as of press time. While WHO officials are not speaking specifically about the condom clog, they have in more general terms admitted logistical hardships in dealing with the influx of supplies.

"Trying to both respond to the massive health needs in Haiti following the quake and organize the large volume of supplies entering the country has been a great challenge," according to WHO/PAHO representative in Haiti, Dr Henriette Chamouillet.

The scenario of medical supply buildings in the developing world taken up mostly by condoms and severely lacking in health care supplies is not new. [...]

The United Nations strategy of massive promotion of condoms as the primary solution to the AIDS crisis is reflected even in recent reports, with no sign of letting up.

For cultures which value life, and family, the condom push into their cultures is highly offensive. Carol Ugochukwu, President of United Families of Africa in Enugu, Nigeria, commented in a 2000 interview noting that Western delegations at the United Nations were trying to "exterminate the whole race" with their promotion of condoms.

Strange how that "anonymous inside source" has no official credentials, except possibly those of a card-carrying christofascist member of the Catholic Church, like SoWrongOrNutz and Blob Blogging Wingnut. And interesting how nobody could be located to substantiate the LSN claim.

There were many outrageous delays in getting the physical resources, the appropriate provisions and humanitarian aid in time to save the hundreds of lives lost under destroyed buildings and from the lack of timely medical interventions and potable water supplies. But the odious bias and distortions on display in this piece of propaganda about the conditions in Haïti is exemplary.

Lies-Site should be given the P. T. Barnum award for finding an original way to spin the same-old Vatican Taliban anti-condom screed by exploiting the human tragedy in Haïti.

The pic of The Fetus©™ fetishizing circus clown was taken from this rightwing blogsite.

Attention SUZY ALL-CAPS: your panties are on fire – again.

Sadly, not in any good (or bad-girl) way.

Blob Blogging Wingnut often screeches about feminists who don’t and won’t use the vocabulary employed by The Fetus©™ fetishists in their propaganda. SHE believes that’s a reveal and SHE claims “the refusal to use plain language, the substitution of euphemisms and rhetorical evasions, is an infallible indicator that a speaker or writer feels uncomfortable with the truth”.

Anti-abortionists like SUZY ALL-CAPS believe that their truthiness is the same as the facts.

Those who don’t share HER beliefs know HER claim about feminists is pro-lie truthiness. Consider the following words.

Egg. Sperm. Fertilization. Zygote. Embryo. Fetus.

Spontaneous abortion. Miscarriage.

Unwanted pregnancy. Voluntary termination.

Desired pregnancy. Expectant mother-to-be.

Giving life. Giving birth.

Premature labour. Death in childbirth.

Is that language plain enough for you, SUZY? Those are objective terms that describe clearly the possibilities that potentially fertile women face.

Feminists deal honestly with these plain truths and realities. We don’t gloss over them or pretend they don’t exist.

SAINTE-NITOUCHE – like other pious women – has chosen the comfort of religious doctrines that control HER reproductive potential and choices. Yes, choices. Even though SHE wants other women to be deprived of the right to self-determination. If HER religious beliefs regarding abortion are as universal as SHE maintains, why not leave it to whatever cosmic deity that may (or not) exist to pronounce judgment?

Feminists challenge the domination of religious dogma, whether judaic, christian or islamic and their gynophobic tenets.

Yet Blob Blogging Wingnut blathers on, determined to “prove” that white is black and up is down.

“Feminists don't really support abortion as a means to save women from childbirth. After all, childbirth has been rendered pretty safe in this day and age.

They just want abortion, period. Regardless of whether it reduces maternal mortality or not.”

There are 4 untruths in those four sentences from SUZY ALL-CAPS. All are predicated on her belief that abortion is an abhorrent and universally evil intervention. Thus anyone who supports access to evil is also abhorrent and evil. In her view, there is no justification for abortion, but any tactic that enforces pregnancy from fertilization to birth is justifiable.

Antonia Zerbisias debunked the misleading interpretations that The Fetus©™ fetishists have concocted in response to research produced by World Economic Forum's recently released Global Gender Gap Report. This makes her the target of attacks by the religiously deranged – such as Blob Blogging Wingnut.

Pregnancy can be fraught with complications ranging from problems with fetal development to medical conditions triggered by the reproductive process. Sometimes unexpected events that occur during labour are life-threatening.

Pregnancy, labour and childbirth have been rendered “pretty safe”? The term “pretty safe” is not a valid scientific observation. There are a number of women for whom pregnancy is not “pretty safe” in Canada and in other countries. Using this expression is cruel, ignorant and a deliberate obfuscation of current trends with respect to women’s reproductive health.

Seeing / Hearing / Comprehending Nothing.

After reading Canadian Cynic: The irony is just crippling we suggest that Sandy Cruxiform - indeed, any and all species of blogging Con jobs - slap this picture on to to their sites, as a warning to readers who stumble upon their site, a visual reminder of the flips and spins and reversals and contradictions and sheer stupidity that constantly besiege them in these most perplexing times.

Because not all of them are capable of memorizing the PMO speaking points in order to be an effective Attack Parrot™© like John Baird and his fellow ReformaTories.

And the Maurice Vellacott Award goes to ...

those manly, virile, and likely R.E.A.L. fathers4justice fellows commenting after the CBC news story about Christopher Little being found guilty on two counts of first-degree murder.

The erudite:

Murder is horrible for everyone.......cheating is alos horrible, against the law in many places(I know Iknow not here). Many posters are saying that the cheating is irrelevant? Are u nuts? Being cheated on puts people in horrible mental states...our society's way of thinking is still too primitive to understand this fact. I am not defending this murder or saying I am an advanced thinker (lol), but seriously....do you expect people to behave civily after this? This is assuming they were together since CBC stated she was having an afair....

The conspiracy theorist:

Maybe the two women were having the affair. It makes no sense for him to have killed both of them. Had he killed his wife for the affair it might make sense, had he killed her lover it might make sense. But why bother to kill the ex wife of the lover. How would that make any sense. Something is not right about this one.

The men's rights advocate:

What substantial evidence did the jury have that convicted Chris Little of this this double murder without a doubt?

And his sidekick:

I am a female and currently knows of a single father involved with the Ontario Justice system in a family law matter. The biasness towards the single father is beyond believable for 2009. I do not believe that there is evidence beyond the shadow of a doubt in the Chris Little case. In regards to the evidence against Chris Little, infidelity causes a person to do strange things. However, I do not believe he committed a double murder.

The wimminz-are-more-evul dude:

If it had been a woman who'd killed her cheating husband, what do you want to bet that the sentence wouldn't have been nearly as harsh? She probably would have cried in the court room about how upset she was, claimed he was abusive, that she let her emotions get the better of her and didn't know what she was doing, etc., and probably would have only been charged with manslaughter and got parole!

Yeah, dude. Violent men never get just a little slap on the wrist for vicious crimes they committed.

And finally, last but not least, Mr Misconstrue-and-blame-the-gold-digging-unfit-mother-bitch-who-got-what-she-deserved:

Let me see you cheat on the guy, bring you girlfriend to the matrimonial home as possible witness so you can protect your finical interest encase the guy assaults you, but you miscalculated this guys rage and you lost your life and the life of your girl friend, thank god the children were not harmed.

Christopher Little was found guilty of planning and carrying out the "honour" killing of his estranged spouse and he was also found guilty of killing a second woman as a means to evade responsibility for his actions.

The Gynophobe Award is named after Maurice Vellacott in recognition of his recent public statements regarding abortion, namely that it is used as "part of a male agenda to have women more sexually available". Vellacott, a former pastor, claims that women tell him "stories of being badgered, harassed and coerced into getting their abortion by boyfriends, partners, parents and employers". Maurice likes women when they're victims.

When women make choices that he doesn't approve, he says that those are not "real choices".

Uppidate: More on MV's warped perspective, one that emphasizes the victimhood of women and the predatory nature of the male gender. Huh? And neocons like Blob Blogging Wingnut and R.E.A.L. women call pro-choice feminists "men-haters"? Grand merci, big city lib.

There SHE goes again, right?

From this blogpost about the plight of women who face heart-wrenching second or third term abortion decisions Blob Blogging Wingnut selectively cites:

"A lot of pregnancies I see at work are wanted, even if they aren’t planned, even if the boyfriend is a jerk and the woman is still in school or even on drugs. Some women really want the baby, but it’s the circumstances and the future that they don’t want, and that tells them that they won’t really be able to support this pregnancy."

SHE claims:

Pro-lifers dedicate millions of dollars to help these women bring their wanted pregnancies to term.

Millions of dollars? Oh yes, under Bush, The Fetus©™ fetishists received funding to establish 'Pregnancy Crisis Centres' which are fronts for anti-abortion groups. Directors and some staff of these agencies were paid big bucks while exploiting volunteers who did the front line work. Very little of that money was actually spent to directly benefit pregnant women or to support them and the children who were born. Those who asked for help were discouraged or distracted or harassed and delayed from exercising their choice to have an abortion in the first trimester. Then, more revenue is generated for zygote zealot organizations when connected christian adoption mills (such as this one, or worse) succeed in selling perfect white babies with no defects to the highest bidders.

There's fundamentalist christian profiteering for you.


Furthemore: o solo mama provides a link to this powerful investigative report about christian adoption mills, it may be one that fern already addressed in one of her many posts about the callous practices of crisis pregnancy centres.

Another inappropriate and violent testerical FAIL.

In his blogpost today, C.C. draws our attention to what can happen in the US when you mix ignorance, testosterone enhancement and islamophobia, Dear idiot wankers: This is YOUR fault. From here:

Marine reservist Jasen Bruce was getting clothes out of the trunk of his car Monday evening when a bearded man in a robe approached him. That man, a Greek Orthodox priest named Father Alexios Marakis, speaks little English and was lost, police said. He wanted directions.

What the priest got instead, police say, was a tire iron to the head. Then he was chased for three blocks and pinned to the ground — as the Marine kept a 911 operator on the phone, saying he had captured a terrorist.

Police say Bruce offered several reasons to explain his actions: The man tried to rob him. The man grabbed Bruce's crotch and made an overt sexual advance in perfect English. The man yelled "Allahu Akbar," Arabic for "God is great," the same words some witnesses said the Fort Hood shooting suspect uttered last week.

"That's what they tell you right before they blow you up," police say Bruce told them. Bruce ended up in jail, accused of aggravated battery with a deadly weapon. He was released Tuesday on $7,500 bail.

Marakis ended up at the hospital with stitches. He told the police he didn't want to press charges, espousing biblical forgiveness.

But Tuesday, Bruce wasn't saying sorry.

Marakis forgave Bruce, even though his assailant never apologized or expressed contrition. Now that is true christianity, unlike the ideologically-fuelled hate that various rightwing nutters, fundamentalist religious zealots and christofascists like Pat Robertson are shrieeeking.

We think that police should press charges against Bruce nonetheless. That man is a ticking time bomb and a threat to the public although it's likely his next victim will be his wife. We wonder what excuses to justify his violence he'll invent then.