Hang 'em High

Oh I say - wonder if this Jeffrey Epstein death while in US federal custody will be used as a bargaining chip by Julian Assange to keep from being extradited to the US from Britain.

Killer Cars

I want to know how it is that manufacturers can make cars that go faster than our speed limit of roughly 100km/hr.

Somebody should sue the bastards.

He Who Pulls the Trigger

When a socially isolated young man falls down an online white male nationalist ideology rabbit hole I doubt it takes very long to radicalize him.

So it's probably a minor miracle given the ease with which young American men can get mass shooting weaponry that there aren't even more deaths caused by white nationalism inspired mass shootings.

In the US it's the insane availability of guns, for sure, but the NRA (which we should all by know now has been laundering Russian mob money into the Republican Party for years) owns a lot of politicians - mostly Republicans, but Democrats, too, so effective gun control is a no go zone.

Heck, the NRA even owns the odd Social Democrat, I suspect.

Cripes, and never mind just American politicians, the NRA probably owns more than a few Conservative Party of Canada leaders. But without knowing who funded Stephen Harper's leadership campaign, that'll just have to be an educated guess.

They sure were keen to destroy our gun registry, though, weren't they, those Alberta Reform turned Conservative Party of Canada governing politicians.

But Toronto just experienced a terrible weekend of black gang violence, too, didn't it. Young black men shooting each other with illegally obtained hand guns. And bystanders have been killed in their supposedly targeted shootings, including toddlers and children on school buses, and are no less dead than the dead in the mass murders committed by young white male nationalists.

They seem to be acting out gangster life as depicted in some popular culture - The Wire? - but that's just what it looks like to me, maybe.

And then there are the men in their andropause years, so late 30s/early 40s, who use guns to murder women in or out of their lives, sometimes their children, too, before turning the gun on themselves.

Young men in Asian gangs, too, lest I forget - they've managed to kill a couple of children in their supposedly targeted shootings of each other, too, haven't they. That's up here in good old Canada, too, with our public healthcare and public education, although sure, gaps galore to fall through that our governments seem reluctant to fill by doing their jobs on behalf of everybody and not just wealthy corporate donors to political campaigns.

It's all terrorism, really, men using easily obtained guns - whether legal or not - to assume life and/or death power over the rest of us. I suppose when we aren't gunned down because of their misogyny or racism or just plain shitty aim/bad eyesight we should count ourselves graced by the universe.

Right, governing politicians?

Dear Stephen Harper

I'm curious, since you now head up a cabal that exists for the express purpose of electing authoritarian nationalist governments, what was the IDU's role in electing Donald Trump POTUS?

Asking for a friend.

Danger, Danger, Will Robinson!

We still don't know who funded Stephen Harper's leadership campaign but we do know that the #1 priority of the Conservative Party of Canada he created was to destroy our gun registry and all its data.

Because that's exactly what Stephen Harper's Conservative Party of Canada did as soon as it was able to cheat its way to a majority government.

How soon we forget the bribery, extortion, robocalling, Pierre Poutine, and silencing of public servants sworn to protect the public interest.

And Rebel Media isn't journalism. It's a bad actor, complicit in causing chaos and inciting white nationalist violence via the dissemination of fake news and white nationalist propaganda. And one of its founders is running the Conservative Party of Canada's campaign.

Other former associates of Rebel Media are intricately involved in the nightmare unfolding south of the border.

I'm reading now in the rabbit hole I fell down that the mass shootings in the US are coordinated, young white men targeted online for radicalization, local law enforcement corrupted by white male nationalist ideology, QAnon just one element of the conspiracy to cause mass casualties and death.

All of it, of course, promoted by Donald Trump 24/7 on Twitter and at his white nationalist rallies across the US.

And why is the supposed President of the United States 24/7 on Twitter and holding white nationalist rallies across the US.

Stephen Harper, the former Prime Minister of our liberal democracy, Canada, currently heads up an outfit promoting cooperation between white nationalist governments.

I think we seriously underestimate here in Canada the danger posed by politicians and their promoters on the Right.

These are not your Grandpa's Conservatives, people. Wake up, please.

Nice Life Ya Got There...

... Shame if somebody should break into your house and...

Donald Trump isn't attacking "Baltimore". He's threatening Elijah Cummings that he can have his house broken into any ol' time he wants and maybe he did just that.

He's a fucking mobster.

Kathryn's Annual August 1st Haiku

The cicada sings
Its dying song of summer
Die quieter please