To Hell in a hand basket ... ?

Once again, scientific research smacks down RightWing NutJob alarmists' shrieeek and claims that our children are threatened and endangered by the evuls of an "open" society.

In recent years, high-profile cases in which teenagers were arrested for forwarding nude pictures of other minors have attracted nationwide attention. Despite sexting’s reputation as a teenage pastime, surveys now suggest that it is actually more common among young adults than children.

“It only takes one or two cases to make people think this is very prevalent behavior,” said Janis Wolak, an author of the new paper and a senior researcher at the Crimes Against Children Research Center at the University of New Hampshire. “This has been reported as if it were something that everyone was doing, not just in the teen population, but in the young adult population. It’s really not the case.”

Over all, the new report found, 149 youths interviewed for the study, or 9.6 percent, said they had sent or received images that included full or partial nudity in the previous year. Just over 2 percent of those who engaged in sexting said they had appeared in the pictures or had taken them themselves, and 7.1 percent said they received sexual images from someone else.

In most cases, the motivations for sending or forwarding sexual texts were not malicious. Most of the youths who sent such messages said that they did so with someone they were involved in a relationship with, or that their messages were flirtatious gestures to someone they had a romantic interest in.

In fact, the best example of behaviour that can corrupt children's and adolescents' moral compass might be found in the bald-faced self-justified Nixonian dirty tricks used by the Cons.

But, but, but ... Harper's MASSIVE Hard-On Crime Bill C-10 should fix all that, according to Contempt Party members ... ^NOT.

Un grand merci to Rick's tweet.

Speaking of Hot Air

Colour me shocked and stunned that the Harper crew are leading the charge in retreat when it comes to climate change, vigorously beating any stragglers who think actually dealing with a crisis is the better idea. Perhaps unrestrained global warming is the 'chess master' strategy for dealing with malnourished children and elders trying to survive in jerry-rigged shelters at -40 around a rationed-fuel fire.

Honestly, I don't know if this 'governmental' behaviour is willful ignorance or malfeasance on the part of ideologues intent on furthering their power base by callously exploiting shock doctrine. There comes a point when you start thinking 'no one making it to the hotseat of national power is that uninformed' and odds are high when you finally get some information from insiders of the corridors, it turns out they're not.

I am of course, biased. Looking at situations in isolation was punctured 40 years ago. My pinko commie socialist indoctrination was fed by a series of television documentary shows. "The Fabulous Sixties", "Here Come the '70s" (with its iconic theme song and controversial nudity in the credit graphics), "Connections", and finally, "War", the standard-setting analysis of world conflict by journalist and military/political observer Gwynne Dyer.

Dyer has many distinctions, not the least of which is incurring Conrad Black's enmity and subsequent blacklisting from all Black controlled publications. Dyer turned his attention to climate change some years ago. He and Peter Kent are well acquainted through their careers, so I offer this year old perspective presented at UBC, from a voice I trust more than what is coming out of the PMO.

Given the date of the talk, I find the context in how Dyer touches on international interest in Greece, Rome, Spain and Portugal, the countries of most concern *now* for 'threatening' the EU by their economies, very 'connective'.

He also touches on the ire still out there about him in light of his Order of Canada, Ottawa's attitude toward climate change, Alberta's attitude towards the oilsands, Kyoto, China, and what he's finding in the corridors of power out of the limelight.

It's all well and good for the powerful in power suits to take a laissez faire attitude that cuts short term costs. As Dyer notes, it's not the rich that will starve. The Arab Spring was in no small part bolstered by rising food costs among the poor as crops fail, land degrades, water vanishes, inventories are sold for debt not national survival, 'austerity' measures download more costs on to the bottom layers of society, and refugees face trail after trail of tears.

It's a sad fact of human societies that the poorest of the poor are women and it's women that pay first, foremost and deepest, everywhere in the world for the lack of sincere leadership. I donate to Heifer International. HI is so very not PETA-friendly, in that they focus on empowering poor people around the world with agrarian/husbander skills/animals, with particular recognition of educating and organizing women as agents of societal change on a personal/community level. Like Kiva, micro-loans among HI's community associations build bonds and opportunities further.

But none of this and the efforts of similar women-powered organizations (tree planting or stove design) is possible if droughts/floods/wars/ideology destroys the base sustainability of a geographic area.

Women do the majority of subsistence farming around the world. Given choice and voice, women prove over and over they do not want to populate past the supplies and effort needed to sustain and empower the children they already have. But, in place and as refugees, not only are women the major caregivers of living children at risk but, unable to access options to control their own bodies, bear the additional hardship of becoming pregnant in crises absent of support.

Harper has given us his pious crocodile tears stance on maternal and child health in the 'developing' world, but ably separates it from the consequences of his 'Underpants Gnomes'* ideological stances on climate change. I suppose it's not that different from his ability to separate consequences of governmental ennui on other maternal separations.

"The woman stone-facedly answered question after question from national media; about living in a home with no heat; about her husband who spat up blood when he tried to cut firewood; about her dream of having a place to put some nice little mementos and the dream of being able to wash her dishes.

And then the media asked her about her children. She remained stone-faced for a moment as she described how they had been taken away from her and shipped to foster homes hundreds of kilometres away because, as a mother living in a shed, she couldn't take care of them. That was five years ago. And then she started to weep - deep, painful, gut wrenching weeping. Rachel crying for her children because they were no more."

*1. Deny anything can be done by human effort to alleviate science-proven crisis. Use holdouts as a personal excuse to do nothing. Diminish anyone saying 'let's at least try and die falling forward' Point at condors.
2. ????
3. Profit!!!

The Liar-in-Chief & His Lying Liar Minions

Watch John Duncan lie about how long the Feds have known about the dire conditions at Attawapiskat here. (Added bonus: Charlie Angus arrives just in time to be blamed for keeping it all a big sekrit.)

Now read former Indian Affairs Minister Chuck Strahl -- a CONtempt Party member!!!! -- tell the truth here.

The federal department responsible for First Nations has known about the worsening living conditions at Attawapiskat for years, says former Indian Affairs Minister Chuck Strahl.

In an interview with CBC Radio's The House, Strahl tells host Evan Solomon the crisis at Attawapiskat "has been a slow moving train-wreck for a long time."

However, the current Minister of Aboriginal Affairs and Northern Development John Duncan said this week that officials in his department were unaware of Attawapiskat's housing problems until Oct. 28, despite having visited the community several times in the past year.

But Strahl, who retired from politics earlier this year, paints a different picture.

"It was not good when I was there, and I don't think it's appreciably, or any better now. That was well known, everybody knew it was a very difficult community for a bunch of reasons."

Attawapiskat "was always a problem," said Strahl.

Well, hush my mouth. CONtrary to all appearances, CONtempt Party members can so tell the truth.

This should be the *official* portrait of the Liar-in-Chief.



Image source with background on this honorary chiefdom.

Le Rove est mort, vive le Rove Nouveau!

Thanks to our buddy JJ at unrepentant old hippie, we got a bug in our ear about marketing wiz-kid and wordmeister Frank Luntz.

Luntz discussed his use of the term, "energy exploration" (oil drilling). His research on the matter involved showing people a picture of current oil drilling and asking if in the picture it "looks like exploration or drilling." He said that 90 percent of the people he spoke to said it looked like exploring. "Therefore I'd argue that it is a more appropriate way to communicate." He went on to say "if the public says after looking at the pictures, that doesn't look like my definition of drilling—it looks like my definition of exploring—then don't you think we should be calling it what people see it to be, rather than adding a political aspect to it all?" Terry Gross responded: "Should we be calling it what it actually is, as opposed to what somebody thinks it might be? The difference between exploration and actually getting out the oil—they're two different things, aren't they?"

It makes us wonder if Ezra Levant's well-funded *ethical oil* gig was an attempt to use Luntz' template for language re-engineering.

About 18 months ago, we suggested Karl Rove might be approached by Stevie's Contempt Party to provide them with a little war room coaching. As luck would have it, Rove's been quite busy putting out fires and preventing, at times not so successfully, Republican candidates' meltdowns. So ...

In April this year, Emily Dee at Voices for Democracy posted this. So the accountability (and accessibility + transparence) thing was a fucking smoke screen - suggested by Luntz. Very meta, that.

Rove is old school. Grow bigger and bigger lies: even when their fraud is unmasked, voters will be too embarassed to admit even to themselves they were taken in by the con job.

Luntz uses distraction. Locate voters' buttons then push those to shift focus on to the chosen distraction.

Though Frank Luntz may have the support of the 1% his marketing sleight-of-word is not exactly *scientific-y* foolproof.

And as Canadian Cynic would gleefully point out: Ladies! He's available AND unattached!

Oh. Wait. Like Jason Kenney?

When we updated this post about ConJobs dirty tricks to unseat Liberal MP Irwin Cotler, we added links that are worth re-posting.

Susan Delacourt tracks how the reformaTory media control unfolded, here and here.

And Alison at Creekside gives credit to other bloggers keeping track of the Harper Government™© obfuscations.

Blame the wife.

In the wake of the Hermain Cainwreck, Slate has produced a round-up of male politicians who blame the wimminz for their decision to quit - often minutes ahead of the tar-and-feather brigade coming for them.

Today’s political candidate has a new means of saving face should he find himself facing an insurmountable obstacle to victory. If he wants to drop out of a race or back away from considering a run, he needn’t admit weakness, not anymore; all he needs to do is pass the buck and blame his wife. Cain did this on Wednesday, when, in the wake of allegations that he had a lengthy extramarital affair with a woman named Ginger White, he said that he needed to discuss the fate of his presidential campaign with his wife [...]

How awkward for Gloria. But while Cain’s use of the wife-as-escape-hatch strategy may be particularly egregious, he isn’t the first to lay this sort of responsibility at his spouse’s feet. Earlier this year, when Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels announced that his wife and daughters—“the women’s caucus,” he called them—had vetoed a presidential run, the reasoning actually sounded believable, given Cheri Daniels’ well-documented aversion to the spotlight and the growing media attention to the Daniels’ past marital problems. (In the ’90s, she divorced Mitch, married another guy, and then came back.) Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour didn’t directly invoke his wife in deciding not to run earlier this year, but he hardly needed to: Unnamed family friends did that work for him, telling reporters that she was a definite factor in the decision. [...]

But the Reluctant Wife excuse is also a matter of strategy and convenience, a kind of shorthand that stops further questions. In this sense, the strategy recalls the way politicians and CEOs always claim they’re resigning to spend more time with their families. It’s not necessarily that the excuse isn’t true, but it may not be the entire story.

The wife-as-escape-hatch, if artfully done, can work on two levels. It makes a candidate seem attentive to his wife’s concerns, but suggests no diminution of his own testosterone-fueled ambitions. It’s the campaign-trail equivalent of the swaggering guy who threatens to take a swing at another guy in a bar, but manages to avoid the fight by bellowing ”Hold me back!” He gets to be manly and competitive and a good guy, all at the same time.

Pussy-whipped, by implication and/or hiding behind Mommy's skirts. Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose.

"I want MY justice!"

Just when you thought the Contempt Party couldn't be any more leg-humping contemptuous and arrogant, along comes Tony "Cashmere" Clement to crank it up a notch.

[...] the Treasury Board president is demanding an apology from the NDP, which levelled the accusation last week.

"Now they've been shown to be a bunch of liars and I want my justice," Clement said Tuesday, moments after being cleared by House of Commons Speaker Andrew Scheer.

Clement added that "a liar should apologize" and even hinted at legal action should New Democrat MP Charlie Angus refuse to apologize for initiating a "smear campaign full of lies." [...]

The issue arose last week when the NDP noticed that the official transcript, known as Hansard, had been altered to delete Clement's response of "sure" when asked if he would publicly disclose all the applications from municipalities in his riding for a share of the $50-million G8 legacy fund. [...]

Clement told reporters his repeated use of the word "sure" is a verbal tick, a way of hesitating while he formulates his response to questions, much the same way other people use "you know" or "OK." He said he had no intention of agreeing to the NDP request to produce the application forms for funding.

Boulerice said Clement's continued refusal to produce the documents shows the NDP has nothing to learn from Clement "about telling the truth."

Methinks the knave doth protest too much and way too vigorously. The Politburo will be coming along shortly to check Tony's meds, as per Stevie's instructions, to avoid a messy melt-down.

Merci to our friend in car-wreck hilarity, canadian cynic.

Move along now.

So. This morning Con Justice Minister Rob Nicholson said the families of murder victims (and "lifelong victims' right advocate"?) can now STFU "move on with their lives".

That would be just ducky with us if it meant Pierre-Hughes Boisvenu would now be shutting his lying yap.

Oh. Wait. Boisvenu holds one of those Harper-appointed patronage-awarded Senate Seats, right? And the Cons' Hard-On Crime Bill C-10 must pass through the Upper Chamber shortly.

That means he still has some water-carrying to do for Stevie's Contempt Party and their reformaTory cronies.

Nonetheless it does seem those set props tearful survivors of crime victims the Politburo/PMO once regularly trotted out for photo ops with PMSHithead have joined the growing ranks of the unemployed.

Attawapiskat vs gazebos

Must-read blog post from Alison at Creekside: Attawapiskat vs gazebos.

Linky goodness to other insightful articles + illuminating graphic illustration that compares the housing budget allocated to Attawapiskat and Clement's G8 slush fund.

Happiness Is. . .

I love words and yesterday I learned a new one from commenter liberal supporter.

Hoplophobia.

I'd never heard of it. Well.

Never heard of hoplophobia? Most people haven't. The made-up word to describe people who fear guns hasn't caught on. Not even longtime gun enthusiasts are familiar with the term.

Not for lack of trying on the Gun Lobby's part. I googled and got about 53,000 hits.

From Wikipedia:

Firearms authority and learned writer Colonel Jeff Cooper coined the word in 1962 to describe a "mental disturbance characterized by irrational aversion to weapons." Although not a mental health professional, Cooper employed the term as an alternative to slang terms, stating: "We read of 'gun grabbers' and 'anti-gun nuts' but these slang terms do not [explain this behavior]." Cooper attributed this behavior to an irrational fear of firearms and other forms of weaponry. He stated that "the most common manifestation of hoplophobia is the idea that instruments possess a will of their own, apart from that of their user." Writing in an opinion piece, Pittsburgh Tribune-Review columnist Dimitri Vassilaros asserted that the term was intended by Cooper as tongue-in-cheek to mock those who think guns have free will.

Funny, innit? Gun nuts calling the sane people nuts.

Here's somebody working that corner. Scroll down for an entry titled: 'The Last Refuge for Hate: Gun Hate', described as 'Author seeks to add “hoplophobia” to DSM, the official directory of mental ailments'.

Oh, look here. A supposedly real psychiatrist on 'Raging Against Self Defense: A Psychiatrist Examines The Anti-Gun Mentality', by Sarah Thompson, M.D.

I couldn't read all of it. But this bit jumped out at me:

The Common Thread: Rage

In my experience, the common thread in anti-gun people is rage. Either anti-gun people harbor more rage than others, or they're less able to cope with it appropriately. Because they can't handle their own feelings of rage, they are forced to use defense mechanisms in an unhealthy manner. Because they wrongly perceive others as seeking to harm them, they advocate the disarmament of ordinary people who have no desire to harm anyone. So why do anti-gun people have so much rage and why are they unable to deal with it in appropriate ways? Consider for a moment that the largest and most hysterical anti-gun groups include disproportionately large numbers of women, African-Americans and Jews. And virtually all of the organizations that claim to speak for these "oppressed people" are stridently anti-gun. Not coincidentally, among Jews, Blacks and women there are many "professional victims" who have little sense of identity outside of their victimhood.

Niiiice.

So, then I got to thinking, if there's a phobia, there should be a philia.

Bingo.

Too many people hold the mistaken impression the primary purpose of arms is for military or criminal pursuits. The purpose of this site is to provide an outlet for one person (that would be me) who sees firearms as more than the caricatures seen on the network news; I see them as tangible pieces of American history, physical artifacts of Clausewitz's "politics by other means", representative products of the industrial revolution, and an intrinsic component of the American identity. Arms, and particularly firearms, are usually high tech in terms of production, and can be high art in terms of design and execution.

Firearms appeal to our higher senses of aesthetics and justice, while simultaneously appealing to the more primitive, limbic part of our brains – the part that is attracted to bright shiny objects that rattle when shaken.

As John Amber, former editor of Gun Digest, famously put it, they are "a magnificent obsession".

Just as I was backing quietly out of there, an email announcement of this StatsCan report pinged into my inbox.

In 2009, the vast majority (93%) of Canadians aged 15 years and older living in the provinces said they felt satisfied with their personal safety from crime. This proportion was similar to 2004, the last time this survey was conducted.

Crime, I'm not terribly scared of. Gun nuts Hoplophiles? You betcha!

Image source, a site called 'Happiness Is a Warm Gun'.