America, thy middle name is "Convenience"!

From the LA Times: "WASHINGTON— A U.S. official says Al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden has been buried at sea."

As the wreckage of the World Trade Center buildings were cleared from Ground Zero in record time, locked away in secure scrap yards and then hastily sold to Third World countries, so too has the body of Osama Bin Laden been tidily dispatched to the watery depths.

The gift that keeps on giving

Headline from MSNBC: Many Worry Bin Laden's Death Could Spark Attack

Talk about making use of every part of the swine -- even its squeak!

American intelligence and politicians have spent 10 years wringing every last bit of malevolent usefulness out of omnipresent Osama Bin Laden.

Now, even in death, Bin Laden is proving useful.

Osama Bin Oswald is Dead: High Fives All 'Round American Psy-ops Shops

In a coincidence so contrived it might have come out of a James Cameron film, American psy-ops (psychological operations) technicians have finally pulled the plug on their most successful bogeyman yet: Osama Bin Laden.

With waning support of its foreign wars, declining confidence in its intelligence community, the American public was ripe for the latest psy-ops coup.

Will Canada have its own election debacle like Florida in the 2000 US presidential race, or Ohio in 2004?

A "vote mob", availing of Wednesday's special ballot at the University of Guelph was unceremoniously interrupted when Michael Sona -- communications director for Guelph Conservative candidate Marty Burke -- attempted to confiscate the ballot box.

From the Guelph Mercury:

“[Sona] tried to grab for the ballot box. I’m not sure he got his hand on the box, but he definitely grabbed for it,” said Brenna Anstett, a student, who at the time of the reported incident was sealing her second of two envelopes containing her vote.

Student Claire Whalen was just about to receive her ballot just before 5 p.m. when the episode unfolded.

Prancing with the 'Tards

Look at this preening, pandering ass.

Charlie Sheen displays his custom Detroit Tigers jersey with such sureal swagger, you'd think he'd just skinned it off a mother lion protecting her young on Woodward Avenue.

Interview with Prime Minister Stephen Harper

Prime Minister Stephen Harper demonstrating his technique for strangling baby seals.

Inside the Hotdog Factory had the privilege -- nay, the honor -- to be vetted, background checked, cavity searched, Facebook scrutinized in order to sit down with Prime Minister for an exclusive interview.

Fashion Week in the Hotdog Factory

This modest piece titled "Archangel" elegantly showcases the wearer's navel, while diminishing the distraction of the face (human faces are so 1980s).

"Torpedo of Truth" torpedoed

While dying the death of a thousand self-inflicted cuts in Detroit, Charlie Sheen can be happy about one thing: he didn't pull a Michael Richards.

Things got bad, but not that bad.

Charlie Sheen's "Torpedo of Truth/Failure is Not an Option" tour opened and tanked in Detroit.

The only person who didn't see disaster coming was Charlie Sheen. The organizers, I'm sure were indfferent, because once Sheen took the stage, they would, Sheen told a heckler in the audience, "Sorry dude, already got your money.".

Dear Voting Public, you're not getting it, so let me lay it out for you

A few years back I was on the boardwalk in Brighton Beach, England. I approached a series of concession stands and as I walked down the line, observing the selections, I noticed something:

The walls separating each concession stand had an open doorway in it.

Then I noticed something else: Not every concession stand was manned by a counter person.

As I walked down the line, passed pizza counter, the hotdog counter, ice cream counter, fish and chips counter, I noticed something else:

The entire line of concession stands was being worked by a single, breathless teenage girl who ran from counter to counter to counter, taking orders, making food, pouring drinks, making change, and then fleeing through the open doorway to whatever other counter.

The concession stand is symbolic for the shallow variety and illusion of choice in our democracy. No matter which counter you go to, the same face is there to greet you, the same hands are there to make your food or pour your drinks. Everything is equally over-priced and of all the same dismal quality.

The girl behind the counter is representative of our political class, which I think should be more accurately labeled, the Scoundrel Class. They will pander, run through whatever doorway, make whatever promises are necessary in order to get from you what they want: votes.

That's the easy part of this analysis.

Here's the hard part:

Conservatives want one thing -- to control the populace. That's why conservatives tend to be religious, militaristic and put forth the lie of being "fiscally responsible."

Conservatives are religious because that's yet another club to which to belong in order to look down on others. All things being equal amid a group of people, a fantastic row can be started by invoking religion. It's the last and greatest divider of people.

Conservatives are militaristic because they don't believe in negotiation, debate, conversation, sharing ideas, seeing both sides, listening, or otherwise engaging their minds in anything other than a self-serving endeavor.

Conservatives are militaristic because they want to take what they want. They don't want to buy it, or barter for it. They want what they want, and they want to take it.

Conservatives preach "freedom" but really only want to control people. Hence the call for building more prisons in Canada as the crime rates are dropping. A definite case can be made that harsher sentences should be handed out to our murderers and rapists and white collar criminals. But the fact remains, the rate of crime in Canada is decreasing.

Conservatives want more prisons because they want to put more people into them. Hence, "mandatory minimums" for people caught with the dreaded offender of civilization: marijuana.

Conservatives preach "freedom", but want to control who people marry, what they put into their bodies. Moreover, conservatives want to control what is taught in school so that it's complimentary to conservative

The Liberal Party of Canada is an object less in self-sabotage. Prime Minister Stephen Harper has served himself up like a badminton birdie to the Liberal Party more times than can be counted:

• Proroguing Parliament three times as PM;
  
• Criticizing the appointment of senators while part of the official opposition, and then appointing more senators than any other prime minister in history after becoming PM
  
• Non-chalance over the Bev Oda affair
  
• Being slapped down in the UN when Canada sought to be on the Security Council
  
• Now, Stephen Harper announces he won't answer more than five questions a day from the Canadian press
  
• Hell, someone put together a list of 100 Reasons NOT To Vote For Stephen Harper's Conservative Party

The PayPal Penitentials

It takes an amalgamation of the worst human tendencies to create a corporation.

There's a reason why scientists perform experiments on rats anytime they want to learn something new about human beings.

PayPal, for instance.

We just receive email, but there's nobody here to reply

Billboards showing a message that read "Judgment Day is Coming May 21, 2011" began showing up in my city a couple of months ago.

The only indication as to who was behind these signs is a single Web address: FamilyRadio.org.

JUDGMENT DAY IS COMING . . . (but we're not prepared to talk about it)

A billboard sign in my city has been saddled with the sad and stupid message "Judgment Day is Coming May 21, 2011."

No, it's not. You know it. I know it.

The measure by which a man's soul is judged

The Web Designer and the Cop

When I'm not fighting for truth and justice on this blog, I am an ordinary, workaday Web designer.

On a daily basis, dealing with clients, I'm asked to violate the basic tenets of Web site: Links to pages that say "Coming Soon" or "Under Construction"; pages that look like eye charts due to the multitude of different sized text, differing fonts and even differing colors to emphasize various bits of information; linking to multiple pages -- usually a jazzy Flash piece -- when best practices dictates I should just link to the end page.

Putting the "Mind" in "Minden" one white supremacist at a time

From Canoe.ca: "MINDEN, Ont. — A private Canada Day weekend party in Minden, Ont., with the theme 'White Village to White Village' is being unfairly portrayed as a white supremacist gathering, its organizer says."

White supremacists get such a bad wrap.

They go to all the trouble of living life as several different races, trying it out as a black person, Asian, Native Canadian, maybe even Indian. Then, when they tabulate their experiences, and decide that life as a caucasian person was preferable, everyone gets all pissy and judgmental.

"Seek the truth and the truth will set you free"

In our post-fact, Fox News world, "truth" is not only relative, it's virtually irrelevant in some quarters.

The photo posted here is demonstrably fake.

It's purported to show an immigration rally in Arizona and to reveal the true feelings of illegal immigrants in America.

The truth of the matter is, this photo wasn't even taken in Arizona, but in Los Angeles.

As to the incendiary message on this marcher's sign -- it is fake.

Globalization

A positive side to childhood obesity?

Dude, where'd you get that sign?

Who would be crazy enough to carry a sign like that in Joe Arpaio's Arizona?

No one, apparently.

This photo is a fake.

What gives Stephen Harper the strength to face the day?

One malty bowl of Tar Sands Cereal gives prime minister Stephen Harper all the nutrients he needs to face another day as the untrusted leader of a minority conservative government.

Most people couldn't get out of bed with that awaiting them, but Stephen Harper can.

Sure, his faith in Jesus plays a small role, but it's the earthy, fossilized taste of Tar Sands Cereal that really gets his motor running!

Bring out the Tarzan in you with Tar Sands Cereal!

That's what makes the Harper Government the jungle cat of the House of Commons!

Japanese Nuclear Power Plants

Dr. Toshiro Yakashuma -- the father of the Japanese nuclear power program -- seen in this file photo from the 1950s, posing with the first iteration of a Japanese nuclear power plant.

Known as "The Smiling Nuclear Power Plant," the robot-sized prototype, itself, was never a viable source of nuclear energy, but the research that went into it proved invaluable, later, in the creation of the Japanese nuclear power industry.

The Smiling Nuclear Power Plant was, however, a hit with school children across Japan when it was taken on subsequent PR road trips to promote the Japanese nuclear power program.

In 1983, The Smiling Nuclear Power Plant was found to have been leaking plutonium the entire time it was in public relations use.

Newt Gingrich in danger of becoming a pedophile

From Slate.com: "In a wide-ranging C-SPAN interview in September 2010, Newt Gingrich reflected:

'There's no question at times of my life, partially driven by how passionately I felt about this country, that I worked far too hard and things happened in my life that were not appropriate...'"

If Gingrinch's pulsating patriotism while Speaker of the House was so blindingly intense that is caused to commit adultery, the rigors of running for president will surely drive him into the depths of pedophilia.

It's interesting that the more fervent Gingrinch's patriotism, the more odious his actions become.

When he wins the presidency (with Sarah Palin as his Iago VP), Gingrich will probably celebrate the moment by dropping down onto his hip and licking his own ass like a dog.

So great is his patriotism!

It's your turn to be heard!

Yes, you can polish a turd -- the bible gets a make over

From Yahoo! News: "Nearly 50 scholars from all faiths and a committee of Roman Catholic bishops have labored since 1994 over the first fresh edition of the New American Bible since 1970, the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops said."

​Available starting on Ash Wednesday, this update "is . . . a new way to look at an old love," says Mary Sperry, an oversees Bible licensing facilitator. "We really believe this will reinvigorate religious belief among our young people!"

As the updated Jesus would say, "Oh, it so will!"

Some of the updates bible readers can look forward to include:

One more letter to the CRTC about UBB

To the CRTC regarding Notice #: 2011-77 – Call for comments – Review of billing practices for wholesale residential high-speed access services File number: 8661-C12-201102350

I vehemently oppose usage-billing billing with regard to accessing the Internet in Canada.

The CRTC has failed Canadians on this issue.

BREAKING: America's fake, corporate news being outpaced by real news

From Business Insider: "Hillary Clinton Says Al Jazeera Is Putting American Media To Shame"

[Clinton] says a major reason the State Department needs money is because "we are in an information war and we are losing that war."

Clinton said private media is not good enough to handle the job: "Our private media cannot fill that gap.
. . .

"Al Jazeera is winning."

Doesn't Hillary Clinton know that news is a "loss leader"?

Shortage of Priests Forces Catholic Church to Make Hard Choices

The population of Catholic priests has been declining precipitously for decades.

At the current rate of priests dying, leaving the priesthood or going to jail for crimes of sexual abuse, against the dwindling number of men entering the priesthood, it is estimated that by 2050 half the churches in the western world will not have their own parish priests.

To combat this looming prospect, Pope Benedict announced today that the Catholic church would begin accepting atheists for ordination.

The most uncool acronym in law enforcement: SIU

From the Toronto Star: "Police forces across Ontario are thumbing their noses at the provincial agency that investigates cops, refusing to cooperate with or even respond to the Special Investigations Unit, documents obtained by the Toronto Star show.

"A trail of letters written by SIU director Ian Scott to the province's chiefs of police show his mounting frustration at not being able to hold officers accountable."

GOP, you're doing it wrong

Georgia state Rep. Bobby Franklin is making headlines with his proposed "uterus police" idea.

According to Daily Kos, Rep. Franklin wants his uterus police "to investigate miscarriages, and [require] that any time a miscarriage occurs, whether in a hospital or without medical assistance, it must be reported and a fetal death certificate issued. If the cause of death is unknown, it must be investigated. If the woman can't tell how it happened, [then] those Uterus Police can ask family members and friends how it happened. Hospitals are required to keep records of anyone who has a spontaneous abortion and report it."

The last word on Dennis Taylor, Bedford Book Banner

There are more male babies born in the United States each year with three testicles, than there are adults who move to ban books in that country.

Book banners are edge cases -- so far at the fringe that you could fit every book banner in the country on Gilligan's Island, with room to spare.

So, when a book banner comes round the Hotdog Factory passing himself off as some ordinary person who's just looking out for the welfare of his kids, I say liar.

The Conversion of Bedford, New Hampshire

As it turned out, the City Council and mayor of Bedford, New Hampshire were as spineless as the city's school board administration.

So, when citizen activist, Dennis Taylor, showed up at the City Council meeting to argue that city garbage collection was unconstitutional, Mayor Shrimpton heaved a sigh and said, "Well, maybe you think you could do a better job?"

"I bet I could!" Dennis said.

Promise Keeper Camp 316

On the third day of his retreat at Promise Keeper Camp 316, someone had taken one of the Thad Vurman's Fruit Roll-ups.

This was yet another sign of the malaise Vurman's life had fallen in to since he married for the third time.

His previous two marriages ended -- according to Pastor Pat -- because Vurman had failed to establish suitable patriarchal dominance in his households. His kids had Facebook accounts, his first and second wives each had jobs and drove their own cars.

The Lesson of Bedford NH

The lesson of Bedford, New Hampshire is this: If you don't like something, banish it.

Is there a book that makes you feel oogey inside -- not good oogey, but bad, weird oogey? Ban it.

Is there a country you don't like, or don't understand, where the people don't look like you and speak a weird language you don't understand? Invade it. Shock-and-awe it.

Book Banning in Bedford -- Knowledge, don't come around here no more

To Bedford Superintendent of Schools Tim Mayes:

I read with great alarm and more than a little revulsion Greg Kwasnik's article "Sex passage gets another book pulled in Bedford", regarding Aimee and Dennis Taylor's efforts to have Sara Gruen's novel Water for Elephants taken out of the school library -- on the heels of their "victory" in getting Nickel and Dimed removed from the library stacks.

Dennis Taylor Book Banner Responds to a Writer Who Criticizes Banning Books

From Dennis Taylor, book banner, Beford NH, after receiving the 1st Quarter Dick Cheney Award for Corporate Malevolence:

Thank you for your spineless analysis of my fight to prevent my children from reading pornography in Bedford, NH. Not only do I know that such reading is wrong for my son, I know that it is fundamentally morally wrong to give graphic descriptions of oral sex to fifteen year olds. Do you have a moral compass with regards to the age at which your child may read or see pornography? If you do not, you are nearly the equivalent of a child molester--someone who would sex up a child at any age. If you do have such a compass, you and I aare on the same page, but we may disagree as the age. As far as the award, I would like to speak to your group at the award ceremony and am willing to debate any of you at such an event.

Dennis Taylor
Bedford, NH

* * *
You're welcome, Dennis.

1st Quarter Dick Cheney Award for Corporate Malevolence Goes to New Hampshire Couple

Aimee and Dennis Taylor of Bedford, New Hampshire are the first quarter recipients of the Dick Cheney Award for Corporate Malevolence.

The Taylors are the notorious, self-deputized censors of Bedford NH, who successfully had the book Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting by in America by Barbara Ehrenreich banned from their school's library because the author referred to Jesus Christ as "a wine-guzzling vagrant and socialist."

It seemed that a book telling the truth of what it's like to scrounge a living in America on minimum wage pricked the Taylor's devotion to Reaganomics, Mom and Apple Pie.

The Taylor's new target is the novel Water for Elephants by Sara Gruen.

Obama's first manful act as president

Yesterday, President Obama perpetrated his first manful act as president when he garroted ex-president, George H.W. Bush, in front of witnesses at the White House.

American preparedness and ingenuity during the Egyptian revolution

Obama's speech had the Egyptian people been crushed by the military and Mubarak remained in power

"You take on the bull, you get the horn. Clearly, these rioters were fomenting terrorism -- just look at how terrified they made Glenn Beck -- and sought to overthrow their lawfully serving dictator, who has been a steadfast friend in the region to the United States for the past 30 years.

Bible/Constitution-thumping GOP comes to Washington and wants to ... redefine "rape"

As with any political debate in America, the bizarre undertaking by Repugnicans to "redefine rape" is about money.

From Mother Jones:

[T]the 'No Taxpayer Funding for Abortion Act,' a bill with 173 mostly Republican co-sponsors that House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) has dubbed a top priority in the new Congress, contains a provision that would rewrite the rules to limit drastically the definition of rape and incest in these cases.

The CRTC's vision of journalism in Canada after CRTC 2011-14

From the Globe & Mail: "A CRTC proposal that could make it easier to broadcast false or misleading news has prompted confusion and criticism among opposition MPs and consternation in at least one of the unions that represents Canadian journalists."

CRTC plan to lift ban on false news prompts political investigation

The game's on at Pedophile Park!

From The Windsor Star: "A convicted sex offender has bought the rights to have parts of Amherstburg's new recreation complex named after him.

"Jim Massen, an 80-year-old retired television and appliance repairman and farmer, donated $50,000 to the town's Rotary Club for the new Miracle League baseball diamond for disabled children. For that, the diamond's score clock will have his name on it."

Bristol Palin's plans for the future

From Wetpaint.com: Bristol Palin's Abstinence Speech Canceled Due to WashU and Kate Walsh's Protest

"Bristol was scheduled to speak out about abstinence at the school, but after a small student uprising she’s been disinvited."

Donald Rumsfeld's Autobiography

Noted war criminal Donald Rumsfeld has published his long-awaited autobiography in which he dodges -- with the docile, lithe flexibility of a teenager or career liar -- any and all responsibility for his actions in government.

FTD's "The Revolutionary Bouquet"

Is a strategic, geopolitical partner on the verge of overthrow?

Are people rioting in the streets, calling for his head?

Egypt's leader, Hosni Mubarak -- considered a "family" friend to Hillary Clinton and a chum to Dick Cheney -- is facing just such a situation.

What is America to do?

Support the hated leader? Act against the Egyptian people who are seeking more freedom? Or, let Mubarak sink into the muck?

FTD has taken the guesswork out of these awkward social moments.

Comments to CRTC's call for comments re: CRTC 2011-77

Telecom Notices of Consultation Open for Comment

The Internet is not a utility.

Light users of the Internet ARE NOT subsidizing heavy users.

The earth is round and revolves around the sun.

These are truisms not even a corporate lawyer or lobbyist can dispute.

Yet, these are things about which the CRTC apparently has no knowledge.

New international symbol added to visual lexicon

The International Organization for Standardization announced today that it was designating the business suit as the International Symbol of the Son-of-a-Bitch.

"For the last 75 years, the business suit has come to represent greed, avarice, deceit, obfucscation, war-mongering, spiritual bankruptcy and general Dick Chenery," said Move Jargon, of the IOS communications wing. "Therefore, the IOS in its capacity for designing, recognizing and otherwise designating international symbols recognized around the world, that the suit from this day forward indicate to all who see it: here there be sons of bitches."

The Internationa Order of Suit Wearers were quick to denounce the IOS's decision, saying, "The business suit as we know it has always been and will remain dapper!"

Santa Claus Brings Order to Bill O'Reilly

From LA Times Blogs: "Bill O'Reilly ... has been the butt of a thousand jokes after confronting an atheist on his show with irrefutable evidence of the existence of God--using as his evidence the fact that the tides come in and the tides go out."

What the lamestream media is not reporting is that Bill O'Reilly also still believes in Santa Claus.

It seems incredible that a full grown adult -- a broadcast journalist, no less -- could hold such a belief, but Inside the Hotdog Factory is happy to scoop everyone else on this story.

If there's one thing everyone knows about Bill O'Reilly it's that he's a guy who looks for the source of order in a system.

To the CRTC and proposal 2011-14: Canada needs MORE truth in its news, not less

To the CRTC regarding its proposal to "ease" the ban on publishing or broadcasting false or misleading news in Canada:

Broadcasting Notice of Consultation CRTC 2011-14 calls for "easing" the ban on the broadcasting or publishing false and misleading news in Canada.

What kind of gaggle of compromised, corrupt fools would even consider such an idea?

"We don't have a monopoly on wisdom" - Highlights from Konrad von Finckenstein's testimony before the Commons

A Conservative Party of Canada Production

She was a young, beautiful woman who joined the wrong party and trusted the wrong man.

Canada's elite athletes of greed

Hands Off Our Internet!

Dear Fellow Canadians:

We live a good life in the "True North strong and free."​

We are accepted as friends around the world. Even Americans travel with a Maple Leaf patch sewn onto their backpacks because that symbol is the universal shorthand for: "I come in peace -- and most likely to party."​

Recently, a darkness has fallen upon our great land.