An Internet Explorer Tip

For all the people out there using Internet Explorer, here’s a tip on how to block specific websites that could harm your computer, or, in this case, hurt your brain with sheer illogic and spite:

Step 1, open up the Tools menu and click on Internet Options.

Step 2, Click on the Security tab and choose the Restricted sites option, as shown in this screengrab:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Step 3, Click on the Sites button above. Put the following text into the dialog box that opens up.

Never accidentally read the National Post again!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This will save you from ever accidentally reading Blatchford’s trolling columns again, and will prevent your computer from accidentally providing advertising revenue to Canada’s seminal worthless rag.

Interesting news from the propaganda front:

Kory Teneycke resigns from Quebecor

Kory Teneycke, former mouthpiece for Prime Minister Stephen Harper, is leaving his high-powered role at the Sun news organization — replaced by another familiar Conservative name, onetime Brian Mulroney spokesperson Luc Lavoie.

In a surprise move, Teneycke delivered a terse statement on Parliament Hill this morning announcing he is leaving his jobs as the Sun Media’s political news boss in Ottawa and vice-president of development at Quebecor.

I guess having the ear of the P.M. was more of a detriment to the Fox News North crew than an asset? I haven’t been following this news closely, for two reasons: 1) People complaining about Fox News North seem to forget that we already have the (C)onservative TV. Stevie’s propaganda arm is already well stocked with flying monkeys, as the Puffster and Pamela Wallin can attest. One more channel short on facts and high on vitriol would not change the ravaged landscape that is Canadian Television Media that much. Also: 2) I don’t subscribe to cable, so Fox News North wouldn’t actually be getting any money from me.

On that note, I recommend the rest of you quit cable, too. I’m not going back until the cable companies come up with a more compelling business model than “pay for all this shit you don’t want so you can watch the one or two shows out that are actually worth some attention”. No thanks. I can stream the exceedingly rare good stuff from their host sites, and I don’t have to pay for 22 hours of useless, vapid reality TV and well-coiffed E-news. Been there, not doing that again.

But I digress.

I wonder what the real reason is for Kory quitting? I guarantee that “I’m bringing our new nascent channel all sorts of attention and press” isn’t the real reason. Oh poor Fox News North! Getting all sorts of free publicity and exposure to potential advertisers before they even exist! I imagine that 99% of existing channels would kill to have a Kory Teneycke gathering “bad” attention for them. In that business, there’s no bad press, only exposure, coverage, and attention. Three things FNN wants! No, I’m not buying that excuse, sell me another.

I suspect the reason, is this.

According to the release that just hit my inbox, Avaaz has “formally requested that the Ottawa Police and the Royal Canadian Mounted Police begin a criminal investigation to determine the identity of the individual responsible for adding fraudulent signatures from an Ottawa IP address to the organization’s “Stop ‘Fox News North’” petition.”

Indeed, Kory. Perception is reality.

If women were men…

(KNN) — A judge could determine Friday whether to allow an Oklahoma law to go forward that will post information online about men who get prescriptions for Viagra in the state — an act critics say would be harassment and an invasion of privacy.

“We don’t feel that the government should be able to run a grand inquisition into men’s private lives,” says Jennifer Mondino, an attorney challenging the law on behalf of the New York-based Center for Reproductive Rights.

State Sen. Todd Lamb helped draft the Elderly Male Sex Life legislation and describes it as “a common sense measure with bipartisan support.” He says the left has tried to skew the law’s intent through a campaign of misinformation.

“We’re not trying to embarrass anybody, hurt anybody or make anybody’s identities known. That’s not the purpose of the legislation,” the Republican lawmaker says.

“We want to collect hard data that can be a useful tool in helping prevent future unwanted pregnancies.”

The law requires doctors to fill out a 10-page questionnaire for every prescription offered, including asking the man about her age, marital status, race and years of education.

One section of the “Individual Viagra Prescription Form” says the man must state her reason for seeking a prescription and answer this checklist.

The reality.

The last “ism”

is the one against atheism. Fox News “reports” that a city alderman in North Carolina is being attacked for being an atheist in a state in which it is actually still mandated that a person believe in “God” (definition not provided) to hold elected office. According to Fox, there is still a statute in the state constitution that

disqualifies officeholders “who shall deny the being of Almighty God.”

Obviously an attempt to invoke such a statute would immediately meet with, and eventually lose an appeal at the Supreme Court level, but it would incite hard feelings on both sides of what I will call the Idiot Divide for lack of more empathic language in my vocabulary for such bullshit.

If one sees in this the kind of small-town Terri Shiavo-like issue to rally the troops I would not be the one to call you cynical.

The Republic for Which it Spams…

Ma Belle Mére, as is her habit, has passed on to me the link to an interesting website, sponsored by the Liberals, which describes the Harper government’s usage of taxpayer funds as vote-buying capital. Not only interesting, but I love the name – kudos to the unidentified staffer who came up with this one. Ladies and Gentlemen, I give you: The Cheque Republic.

Merci bien, Belle Mére!

Fumble!

Allow me, for just a moment, a brief episode of schadenfreude…

His Bloviatedness, Rush “Pass the Painkillers” Limbaugh, has been dropped from the group bidding for ownership of the St. Louis Rams. Although not available for comment about this event, Mr. Limbaugh characterized the opposition to his potential part-ownership of an NFL franchise thus:

”This is not about the NFL, it’s not about the St. Louis Rams, it’s not about me,” Limbaugh said. ”This is about the ongoing effort by the left in this country, wherever you find them, in the media, the Democrat Party, or wherever, to destroy conservatism, to prevent the mainstreaming of anyone who is prominent as a conservative.

”Therefore, this is about the future of the United States of America and what kind of country we’re going to have.”

Wow. Whatever medications you’re taking, pass ‘em down. It has nothing to do with Liberal/Conservative, Rush; what it has to do with is that some people, make that many people, despite your delusional assertions to the contrary, hate you.

Hate. You.

The fact that the National Football League felt squeamish about letting you be even a minor player in the ownership of a team says something about the integrity of the league – or at least something about their desire to steer clear of unnecessary problems.

And you, sir, are an unnecessary problem.

Senator Graham, I believe your petard is ready…

The Huffington Post reports that Lindsay Graham, Republican Senator from South Carolina, faced some angry “tea bag” “patriots” in a town hall meeting on Tuesday for agreeing to work with Democratic Senator John Kerry on a climate change panel. The HuffPo link above includes a video showing the Senator facing his heckling rednecks constituents as he tries to justify siding with the enemy sanity.

The video is not that interesting in and of itself – town hall “meetings” produced more spectacular and better organized abuse this summer as astroturf outrage was manifested against improving the healthcare system. However, the incident is intresting for what it represents – the ultra-right beginning to turn against the mainstream elements of the Republican Party.

Leadership abhors a vaccuum, and the Republicans, still in complete disarray since the election, have allowed Glenn and Rush to effectively take the party helm, and they’ve responded straight from the Republican playbook – right down to race-baiting, religion-stoking, and conspiracy theories. The critical difference is that when the Republican Party does it, it does it ultimately to deliver the vote, which means keeping things somewhat moderated in order to capture a little bit of the independent vote. Glenn and Rush have no such responsibility, and no such restrictions – they need only keep the ratings up and the sponsors happy. This is dangerously limiting to public discourse and in the end dangerous to the Republican Party, happy as it is to try to harness the “grassroot” rage to fill the coffers in this off-election year.

Episodes like this one, which will become more and more frequent, especially if Obama begins to (finally) deliver on some of his platform, show that the whacko “patriots” are no more loyal to the GOP than they are to the USA or the Constitution, bleatings to the contrary aside. 

If it wasn’t for the fact that the American public will pay the price of political deadlock as the Party of Pussies attempt to outpolitic the Party of No, it would be hysterical to watch the flames kindle around the Republican Party, because this is exactly the kind of thing that can tear them apart, petards and all.

How the book industry works…

Wonder how Sarah Palin’s book, only four months in the writing typing and still not released for another month gets to be a best seller? Conservative groups buy crates of them and give them out for free, that’s how!

Get ye to The Daily Show

Last night (July 27) on The Daily Show, Jon Stewart got Bill Kristol to admit that the federal government *can* provide better health care than the private sector.

What is it that Jon Stewart v Bill Kristol reminds me of? Oh yeah:

With a Move Showing Staggering Levels of Genius…

..The fiddler locks up the crotchety old man and nervous old lady vote. If there’s  anything that shows that the NS Conservative party has both run out of ideas and conceded that no-one under 65 is going to vote for them anyway it’s this. Really Rodney, I know it’ll play well with the old folks who vote for you, and God knows, they don’t like the looks of those teenagers, but with all the PR disasters of the last few years to make up for this is the best you can do? A curfew? Giving them ATV’s didn’t pan out, so now maybe you’ll remind them that they’re pariahs until they hit middle age?  Sure, it’s a safe bet, chasing votes by pissing off people who are too young to vote for you anyway and it does appeal to the “hang’em high” crowd, which seems to be the natural constituancy of the Canadian conservative. However Nova Scotia is suffering from a steady and damaging drain from the younger end of it’s population which is doing a number on it’s labour pool. Is there someone in the Conservative party who can explain  how reinforcing the “As soon as I can do it I’m outta this backwards-ass dump ” viewpoint is going to solve this problem? Or have they decided that as this demographic will be leaving shortly anyway  they can safely be fucked over. Not that I would blame anyone for leaving the low wage ghetto that is Nova Scotia but that’s another post. This will be a stupid, barely enforcable law that will leave the province open to court challenges from any15 and under kid with parents can find a lawyer with even a minimal grasp of how the constitution applies to age specific laws. Rodney has just stated his willingness to screw the province’s future and embrace a costly lawsuit or two just to get a couple of votes and keep those damned kids off his lawn.