grylliade.org Free minds. Free markets. Free beer.

FWIW, The new X-files movie would've been a great stand-alone episode, if they'd tightened the pace and done some work on the dialogue.

Wingdings!! So that's what they're for. I always wondered. That makes perfect sense.

It is pretty crazy the large number of people in any country that believe stupid and crazy shit. And that don't know simple shit that everybody should know.

A lot of countries I go, there are people who show me videos of how stupid American people are. And my response to that is that yes, there are a lot of dumb people in the US. But there are just as many dumb people in other countries. They are just dumb in different subjects.

The Canadians have a show about how dumb Americans are. Part of the show proving how dumb we are is a question about a Canadian province, and while watching that, I though the show proved how stupid Canadians were for thinking that any American had a reason to know about that province.

Anyhow the world is populated by idiots. Idiots that hopefully are skilled in some task other than voting. And they contribute to the wealth of the world by performing their task and then watching their version of American Idol.

david icke in your area
causin' mass hysteria

That's because we have Fox News instead.

I have previously expressed my contempt for Rick Mercer & his "Talking to Americans", however the greatest shame of it is that the program is on CBC - which is 100% owned by the Canadian government. (The 'official' policy is that the government will not interfere with CBC content, which means that the network is defacto controlled by its leftist bureaucrats.)

Actually, we have had Members of Parliament make insulting remarks about the US. (Carolyn Parrish referred to GWB as an idiot.) However, since neither they nor your members of the HofR form the government executive, I'm not particularly perturbed.

I am perturbed that a government owned network allows programs which appeal to bigotry, just as I thought Rumsfeld should have been fired for the "Old Europe" crack at France and Germany. It's one thing to play domestic politics with foreign policy when you are merely a representative of a District or Constituency, it is quite another to do it when you are part of the Executive. It would have been quite in order for the governments of France and Germany to inform the US government that the Secretary of Defense was persona non grata and advise that no representative of their governments would meet with him in any capacity.

Agreed about Rumsfeld et al, but shutting down programs which "appeal to bigotry" would be a dangerous precedent indeed. Who's to say what "bigotry" is? We can probably agree that "black guys are stupid" is a bigoted statement. But "Americans are stupid" is more ambiguous ... was it acceptable to say this the day after Bush's re-election in 2004? What if a Canadian is pissed off because a TSA flunky just confiscated his $3,000 laptop; can he acceptably make a few "stupid American" cracks then? Or must every comment be headed off with a disclaimer: "Some Americans are stupid bed-wetting cowards who will gladly abandon their freedom in the name of Fighting Terrists (sic), but of course you will find many upstanding individuals amongst that group." Is it bigotry for a comedian to joke about how men take sports too seriously, without a disclaimer than some men could give a shit either way? Was I being a bigot when I told Ali that in order to be a Real American^TM, he had to take personal responsibility for winning World War Two? If so, is my bigotry mitigated by the fact that I myself am American? Would the same comment be more offensive had it been typed by a non-American?

I agree there is no grounds for censorship or even political interence. I'm just saying it bugs the hell out of me when it is being paid for by my taxes.

And I don't really mind jokes that poke fun at a national stereotype, so long as it is done in a joshing, friendly way. [Florida joke: What's the difference between a canoe and a Canadian? Ans: A canoe tips.] I get upset with pandering to the mean-spirited anti-Americanism in my country, which is at the level of anti-semitism in the 1950s. It is perfectly acceptable here to say that Americans are stupid, bigoted, violent, arrogant, inconsiderate bullies who are only concerned with money. (My general response is: With a view to history, what other nation in the world would you rather have as neighbors? The Russians? The Chinese? The French? The Germans? The English?) I find it disgusting; it is more disgusting that a supposedly responsible "public" network should go along with it.

Ali

Yes, it is satire. But there is an intent to defame that is lacking in say, their jokes about the Queen. There is also a leftish twist to every joke. When they make fun of Jack Layton, for example, it is never because his policies are idiotic, it is because he is not leftish enough. It is taken as given that only a liberal cares about the poor. It is taken as given that anyone from Alberta is a redneck bigot (unless they are condemning the Alberta Government).

I was actually going to suggest the Egyptians. :-)

I gather you don't visit lonewacko's web page or spend much time on LGF, then. ;)

I will grant that there are some pretty repulsive people on the right. (Rush Limbaugh. Michelle Malkin and Bill O'Reilly, for example.)

But I find just as many revolting people on the left: Noam Chomsky, Naomi Klein, Michael Moore.

My biggest beef with the CBC is that the opinions of the latter group are treated respectfully while those of the former group are not.

I find the far-right worse than far-left in this country, for the simple reason that you can still live a conservative life in a liberal country, but you can't live a liberal life in a conservative country. Heterosexuality wouldn't be oppressed by the state if the Kleins and Chomskys got their way, but homosexuality would be if the Limbaughs and Malkins did.

I'm going to quibble with you on that, as, once they are in power, leftists tend to be every bit as sexually oppressive as rightists. cf The whole 'pornography exploits women' meme that feminists have made part of the left-liberal agenda. (And Chomsky seems to have bought into.) Look at the Soviet Union and China - two of the most sexually oppresive places on earth. I do not think that I am unfairly conflating the left with totalitarianism here. I beleive that the impulse to control personal behavior that is endemic to the left eventually extends to controlling sexual behavior given time and the opportunity to do so.

Smacky

I agree that there must be limits, but I don't think the left would stop at "if you are consenting adults, do what you like." On the contrary, I think leftists would be just as willing as rightists to ban anything "icky" as "anti-social behavior."

"You like to flog yourself? That is unhealthy. It is a Threat to Society and must be stopped." is an attitude every bit as common on the left as on the right. The only difference is that the right puts it higher on its agenda.

Chomsky is, within his field, a genuinely brilliant man. I don't personally believe in the deep-grammar rationalism that undergirds his work and I also think the fact that Pinker holds his work in such high regard is just one more reason to be critical of Pinker, but Chomsky's insight about how any natural language user's "generative grammar" entails being able to compose and understanding an infinite number of meaningful statements (sentences, propositions, etc. depending on your philosophy of language) is really quite remarkable and significant.

His politics, OTOH, are simply beyond the pale. He is perhaps the most breathtakingly obvious living example of how stupid smart people can be when they stray from their area of expertise. For the most part, he's simply a political polemicist, unwilling to debate the issues calmly or fairly, embarrassingly ignorant of economics and and utterly closed-minded and unwilling to admit even the possibility of his own error.