The Nexus of Assholery

Res Ipsa Loquitur

noreply@blogger.com (Patrick Ross) — Fri, 25 Apr 2014 14:00:00 +0000

The thing speaks for itself. If this doesn't speak to you, you're not listening.

Knee-Slappers in Canadian Legal History: April 23, 2014

noreply@blogger.com (Patrick Ross) — Thu, 24 Apr 2014 20:04:00 +0000

It's been quite a while since I've had anything to update on my case. But today I'm going to briefly share something of a funny anecdote.

Yesterday, while under examination by Robert Day's Saskatchewan lawyer (whom I will not name here as a matter of courtesy), I was asked if Day's Tweets regarding any legal hearings were restricted to Tweets about whether there had been hearings.

Well, you be the judge of that:

Well, shucks.

Does it look as if the premise of the question is true? You be the judge. (That's just one example, BTW.)

Mr Day's lawyer also cannot pretend to have not known about this. It was featured in my affidavit. That makes this particular line of questioning a little befuddling. At least to me. Perhaps to you, too? Feel free to let me know.

This, BTW, is just for starters. New developments are currently developing. More on them as they do.

Paying Tribute to a Comic Genius

noreply@blogger.com (Patrick Ross) — Mon, 22 Jul 2013 14:00:00 +0000

Five years ago today, one of the funniest men to ever exist passed away.

RIP Mr Carlin.

My Human Face

noreply@blogger.com (Patrick Ross) — Thu, 08 Mar 2012 05:49:00 +0000

"Thank God for granting me this moment of clarity/
This moment of honesty/
The world will feel my truth"

I actually intended the last post on the Nexus to be my last post on the Nexus.

But then it occurred to me that there was more to say. And considering what I've shared up to this point, I don't see much point in stopping now.

What I showed the world yesterday was something that you rarely see in political blogging, what you rarely see in politics period: a human face.

I'm not suggesting that politics is the realm of deeply cynical, inhuman people -- although I'm sure that helps. What I mean by it is that those of us follow the path of politics, by whatever means they choose to follow it, face certain stark realities. Certain facts of life.

Perhaps the top amongst them is that there are many of us who convince ourselves that we cannot afford to show any ounce of common human frailty. To do so is to provide an opportunistic opponent with the chance to attack them with it. And so it is with us.

I'm as frail and human as the next person. The particular frailty I've suffered from for at least the past five years... but likely for even longer than that. Is one that strikes 1 in 5 Canadians. How common is that?

It should make it remarkably easy to admit to in the public eye. But I can speak to this out of experience: it isn't.

In our vocation, it can take lives. It's already taken lives. It took the life of Dave Batters. His wonderful wife, Denise, is taking up a fight that has become bigger than all of us now, although it really encompasses us all.

Sure, a blessed 80% of Canadians can hope to live their lives without ever experiencing depression. But considering the statistics, we can all know this: none of us will live without being untouched by it.

It might be your friends. It might be your family. But someone you know will experience depression.

Is that scary to you? It's scary to me.

But what's even more scary to me is how easy it is to hide -- especially from yourself. Kenny Powers said it, on the very night I decided to come clean about my depression, on an episode of East Bound and Down. Paraphrased thusly: "you pretend that everything's OK, but deep down, you really know how fucked up you are."

Say what you will about the fictional Mr Powers. I can tell you for a fact this is true.

So do we need a national suicide prevention plan? Absolutely. But what we need every bit as much is to do away with this social taboo on showing our human faces. To show people that we are, indeed human. That we have our frailties. That we have our -- * gasp!* weaknesses.

Even as I write this there are small fish, who fancy themselves sharks, circling. They think they smell blood. They think they have a meal on their hands.

These people don't need to be named. Some of them are so bereft of shame that they've found the nerve to bare their teeth on a post about depression and suicide.

But I promise you this: whatever they may think, they won't be eating. I still have plenty of two things in me: life, and fight. I may be only human, but the least I can do is live like being human is worth the trouble.

Last, but not least, to my detractors: this isn't over. Expect me.

My Own Inconvenient Truth

noreply@blogger.com (Patrick Ross) — Tue, 06 Mar 2012 17:00:00 +0000

Part of this is going to read like a suicide note, and there's good reason for that.

There's no sense trying to tip-toe around the fact any longer, so I'm just going to put it out in the open:

Continually, throughout the last five years, I've been suicidal. As much I wish this wasn't true, it is. It's extremely saddening to look back on five years of life lost, spending days at a time in a non-functional state. I don't know how many people who are reading this knows what it's like to make the decision whether they're going to live or die, but I've made that decision. Hundreds of times over.

How deeply and seriously did I contemplate the idea of ending my own life? In 2008 I planned how I would do it if I ever did. Having a large extended family, including -- at the time -- three nephews, I decided the best way to do it would be to just disappear. Entirely. I would destroy my wallet and any identification in it, then cut my wrists and jump off the middle of the High Level Bridge. The basic idea was to do it in winter, and hope that if my body were ever found, it would be unidentifiable.

Looking back, I realize this wasn't a spontaneous decision. An individual I frequently shared page space with at the U of A Gateway took his life the precise same way. Truthfully, I've always been mystified with it: he had the best years of his life ahead of him and, despite some mistakes he had made, his future looked like it was a very bright one. At least from where everyone else was standing. He thought differently.

For years, it has continued to mystify me: someone who seemed to have it all, who seemed to have every reason to live, who decided that he didn't want to. It's the same old story you hear all the time: it's always the ones you least expect.

The tragedy of it is actually thousandsfold. Seeing someone so gifted commit suicide makes it seem easier to make that choice yourself, particularly if you don't think of yourself as sharing those particular gifts. Maybe it seems to make suicide seem less ignoble. This, of course, is not a rational response. Suicide really never is.

Don't mistake the decision to disappear entirely if I ever did commit suicide for anything that it isn't. When you have young children in your family that weighs on your mind when making these kinds of decisions. It definitely weighed on mine. I felt it would be easier for my sister and my parents to explain to them that their Uncle Patrick had simply disappeared. Imagine explaining the suicide of a family member to your kids, grandkids, neices, nephews, what have you.

It was a naive thought. Let's face it. It wouldn't have been that hard to see through. Not to mention there was a certain element of cruelty in it that wiped out any enthusiasm for it as an alternative to a suicide replete with a note.

But the decision not to kill myself never solved the underlying problem. Or problems. It wasn't until fairly recently that "I'm not going to kill myself" literally came to mean "I want to live." That probably sounds strange, but it's how it is.

I should have started getting help five years ago when this really got bad. But admitting these kinds of things to yourself, let alone to another person, is a very daunting prospect. Intimidating, even. Sometimes the natural response to it is to just keep on acting like nothing's wrong. There's a reason why these things go undetected by others for so long. I think that's why.

Likewise, there are some things that just don't seem as large on the radar screen as they should when you're suffering from that severe a depression. Maybe the events of the last two years shouldn't have even qualified for that. But looking back on it, I've found myself incapacitated every time the opportunity came to act and take ahold of this whole, sad thing.

In a lot of ways, it's my own fault. Not getting help when it really mattered was my own fault. That's part of what being an adult is.

But being an adult is never saying you're wrong when you're right. And there is one thing that I will never accept: everything I said about Robert Peter John Day that was meant to be believed by anyone was true. The only way Canadian Cynic could realistically think otherwise is if he's started to believe his own hype. There's no default judgment in the world that can convince me otherwise. The plaintiff has had numerous opportunities to try to convince me, and he's failed. Remember this is a default judgment. And there is evidence the Ontario court did not hear. Juicy evidence. Comments from the plaintiff actually admitting to planning the crime alleged, exactly as I alleged it.

Unfortunately, there are a lot of people to whom the truth of this affair simply doesn't matter: vicious little Pavlovian zombies who salivate at the prospect of an easy meal, never realizing that they aren't even the ones eating. But they so love to see the people they hate suffer -- whether it's justly or unjustly doesn't seem to matter a whit to them -- that they salivate nonetheless.

It's nothing new. Lesser people just love to see other people suffer. I'm long past them.

In all of this, there is one thing that I am absolutely not prepared to tolerate: the idea that any person or persons can maliciously target anyone's children, and then actually profit from it simply because the whistle-blower doesn't have the resources to defend himself out-of-province.

That isn't the kind of country I want to live in, and I don't think any other proper-thinking individual does either. It's too goddamned intuitive.

The malice underlying the suit is also impossible to ignore. Consider this little tidbit, threatening emails by Cynic to a fellow blogger simply for having written about the reported details of the judgement. It seems strange that someone who has allegedly been damaged by allegedly-defamatory blogposts would not want them promptly removed.

Unless the intention is to try to inflict as much financial harm and emotional suffering as possible on an individual who has yet to actually receive the judgement pertaining to him. Then it makes a little more sense in oh so many ways.

This was a judgement which, by the way, I still have yet to ever actually see. Despite the fact that I have asked for it to be shared with me. And at the point this blogpost was written, I had yet to hear so much as a murmur from the plaintiff's counsel regarding this matter. Nor did I hear so much as a murmur from the plaintiff's counsel for months after.

Not bothering to contact the defendant seems like a strange way to serve a default judgment, doesn't it? And it's not hard to read the detail that the first time I received so much as an email from the plaintiff's Alberta counsel followed the publishing of documents indicating my intention to challenge to overturn the ruling.

I still have hope that this can be done. Where there's a will, there's a way. There has to be.

There's a lot that has to be done. The first thing that has to be done is something, like I said, that should have been done five years ago. I have to do what anyone suffering from a mental illness needs to do: get help. Which I will do at the most immediate opportunity. After that, I'm going to have to explore legal options. Sooner rather than later.

I honestly don't know how much help I can hope to receive. I'm sure a lot of people have run out of patience with me, and it's hard to blame them. To those people who I've let down, I am deeply sorry. My stubbornness and inability to face these challenges -- whether induced by depression or not -- has made for a very difficult situation for a lot of people.

Anyone still willing to help should drop me a line at ddp316@hotmail.com. I'd appreciate any thoughts anyone has to offer

But I have to start with saving my own life and take it from there. I literally do not know what lies ahead, but I do know I have to start with getting healthy.

Even if you can't help me, I at least hope you'll wish me the best.

Dan Gardner, the Media Party, and the Disintegration of Modern Journalism

noreply@blogger.com (Patrick Ross) — Tue, 08 Nov 2011 21:26:00 +0000

Some Nexus readers may recall a Byline segment from early October wherein Brian Lilley commented on a segment of Canadian journalism he refers to as "the media party".

In the segment, Lilley actually names a few journalists he considers to be members of the media party. Chief among them is "author, journalist and lecturer" Dan Gardner.

Last night, Gardner witnessed Minister of Citizenship, Immigration and Multiculturalism Jason Kenney refer to unreported crime in explaining and defending the Conservative government's omnibus crime bill. Garner couldn't hold back his objection -- nor, necessarily, should he -- and took to Twitter to voice his objection.

Gardner, who Tweets under @DGardner decided to respond to Kenney's comments by first selectively citing data from the study, then by dismissing unreported crime as "trivial":

Your not-so-humble scribe couldn't resist the opportunity to ask Gardner a few questions about the assumptions he was making. Gardner's ultimate response was that he ultimately would not consider any other data points:

In other words, Gardner refused to talk about any weaknesses in the assumptions he was offering, or even any other information. If it was going to be discussed, it would have to be discussed with other people, because he won't.

There's good reason for this. The survey as a whole says far more than Gardner says it does, and the data points he himself is offering don't necessarily support his claims about it.

There are obvious problems with a response that begins and ends with "not important enough", and it has to do with the respondent's perception of the meaning of that phrase. The question of who the incident in question is perceived to be "not important enough to" is a very real question.

To blithely assume that this means that the victim of the crime in general didn't consider it important enough to report is to also assume that all respondents perceived the meaning of that phrase in a uniform manner. This would be a mistake.

When a response begins and ends with "not important enough", it's every bit as likely that the respondent could conclude that the crime in question was not important enough to the police as not important enough to them personally. In lieu of a better-defined response, either conclusion is equally likely, and it's much more reasonable -- and responsible -- to allow for the probability that those who submitted that response had either of these in mind. Some likely concluded the former, and some likely concluded the latter.

Yet to ask Dan Gardner if the conclusion he reached -- that this response indicates that most of Canada's unreported crime is trivial -- is reasonable considering the ambiguous nature of this data is apparently to precipitate a meltdown on his behalf. If last night's events are any indication, he simply can't cope with that idea.

To ask him about the second-ranked response -- "police could not do anything about it" -- is apparently to make it worse. Gardner's response was that this was a worthy point to be discussed, but that he personally wouldn't. (That the second-ranked response trailed the first-ranked response by less than ten percentage points apparently did nothing to boost the worthiness of this data point in Gardner's eyes.)

It becomes difficult to avoid reaching the conclusion that, in the canon of the far-left media, these are forbidden questions. "Does the data actually indicate what you're saying it does?" That question is forbidden. "Isn't the second-ranked response also worthy of consideration?" That question is also forbidden.

What seems to emerge, in Dan Gardner's case, is that of a man who has not embraced journalism as a means with which to provide people with information or even ideas. Rather, he's embraced the journalistic enterprise purely as a means of political advocacy. Nothing else.

It's hard to escape the conclusion that Gardner is simply a card-carrying member of the media party. The media party has an agenda, and in this case it's in preserving the soft-on-crime, hug-a-thug policies that they claim have reduced crime in Canada, but in reality have not. The Stats Can study itself states that in no uncertain terms -- victimization in Canada has remained stable.

In support of that agenda, Gardner sets out to turn public attention away from specific data points that do not support that agenda, and toward data points that seem to support it only if they go unexamined.

It's one thing to insist that Canadians aren't reporting specific crimes because they're "not important enough", whatever that might mean to the individuals who offered that response.

To insist that the unreported crimes are trivial is remarkably obtuse when one considers what those unreported crimes are:

Of the crimes unreported in Canada, the number one is break and enter. That is not a trivial crime. The second is motor vehicle or parts theft. That is not a trivial crime. The third is robbery. That is not a trivial crime. The fifth is physical assault. That is not a trivial crime.

The fourth was vandalism. That could be a trivial crime, but not necessarily. The sixth and seventh were theft, or personal property and household property respectively. That, too, could be a trivial crime, but not necessarily.

It's not up to Dan Gardner to decide if the unreported victimization of Canadians is trivial. It's up to each individual victim to decide that for themselves and admittedly, many of them might reach that conclusion. Many might not.

But this is how the media party operates: they assume that they speak for Canadians as a whole, then they pretend to.

In the end, Dan Gardner's impotent response to the questions he was asked was to label your not-so-humble scribe a "troll". Basically it amounts to an accusation that the questions over whether or not Gardner has given ample consideration to the meaning of the data points he offers is "inflammatory, extraneous, or off-topic", as Wikipedia would have it.

The questions over whether or not Gardner is accurately interpreting the data offered by this survey are very clearly on-topic. It's simply a question that he considers forbidden: it's entirely reasonable to ask in the face of ambiguous data with a wide berth of potential meanings, but it seems to be Gardner's belief that no one is allowed to ask that question.

To this end, Dan Gardner is wrong. People have the right to ask these questions, and if Gardner, demanding merit in the public eye, refuses to discuss them, then it's he who has abandoned the lofty aspirations of journalism.

It's not what one would expect from a journalist. But it's precisely what one would expect from a member of the media party.

The Scandal Machine Backfires: Sask NDP Admits to Electioneering on Voting Day

noreply@blogger.com (Patrick Ross) — Mon, 07 Nov 2011 23:34:00 +0000

When the NDP issued this press release, one can imagine the reaction they hoped to elicit was one of outrage.

Instead, they've drawn attention to what seems like a potential violation of Elections law. The press release, which claims that Saskatchewan Party staffers, including Deputy Chief of Staff to Premier Brad Wall Terri Harris, was issued on November 7, 2011. It claimed that the staffers had been spotted removing NDP door-hangers mere moments after they had been placed:

"The Sask Party operatives were removing NDP literature which helped the senior renters know where and when to vote, and offering rides to voters in the bad weather.

'I think she’s seen me,' said Rogochewsky upon being spotted by NDP team members, who had already noticed that literature seemed to be disappearing from doorknobs minutes after it was placed there."

The problem for the NDP is obvious. It's illegal to campaign on election day, and if they're in a seniors' apartment complex anywhere in the province hanging partisan material on door knobs, they're in violation of the elections act.

Certainly, it's awfully nice of them to offer rides to seniors. They can quite easily do that without leaving partisan material behind.

Any Saskatchewan Party staffers encountering the NDP leaving such material behind are certainly not obligated to allow the NDP to break the rules to the Saskatchewan Party's disadvantage. This is, of course, presuming that what the NDP claims is happening at all.

Considering that the NDP were already lying to the people of Saskatchewan before the writ was even dropped, they'll need some evidence. There's no reason to simply take their word for it.

When Does a Single Interview Cancellation Constitute a Ban?

noreply@blogger.com (Patrick Ross) — Mon, 07 Nov 2011 21:41:00 +0000

The attention-hungry continue to falsely martyr themselves

There's no martyr like a self-made martyr. Over the last year, Canadians have seen far more self-made martyrs than anyone really needs.

Now Margie Gillis, Franke James and Brigette DePape have some strange company among them: Fog of War author Mark Bourrie.

According to Bourrie, he'd been scheduled to appear on Michael Coren's show on the Sun News Network. Later on, that interview was cancelled.

Quickly following the cancellation of his interview, Bourrie wrote a blog post for Ottawa magazine claiming he had been banned.

"Well, that’s it. I’m banned," Bourrie claimed. "I am lower than low, mere scrapings from the bottom of the dog walker’s boot. Yes, I’m not fit to be on the Sun News Network."

"My publicist booked me on Michael Coren’s show a couple of weeks ago. Last Wednesday, I got an e-mail saying the interview had been cancelled by Sun TV," Bourrie continued. "It wasn’t Coren or Coren’s producer who made the decision. Someone higher up had killed the booking and banned me from Sun TV."

The evidence Bourrie offers? Precisely none.

This author hasn't yet had access to Bourrie's book to give it a fair consideration of its merits. So your not-so-humble scribe won't automatically lump Mr Bourrie with mediocre self-made-martyrs like DePape, James or Gillis.

But Bourrie's martyrdom seems no less self-made.

Simply put, one interview cancellation does not a ban make. Bourrie's planned interview on Sun News could have been cancelled for any number of good reasons. Here's a very good one, and a very plausible one: perhaps the topic of episode on which Bourrie was scheduled to appear was changed.

This author doesn't know this to be the case. Nor does this author have any evidence to support it. However, under the evidence already offered -- Bourrie's complaint that his interview was cancelled -- this explanation is no more and no less plausible than Bourrie's.

The obvious difference is that Bourrie's explanation simultaneously lionizes himself while portraying himself as a victim. Bourrie's explanation unfortunately precludes any other possibility that doesn't require Sun News to be the bad guy of the story.

If Mark Bourrie wants to know what a real media ban looks like, this author has a story for him. Unfortunately for Bourrie, it doesn't make him out to be the martyr he seemingly wants to be so desperately, so he may not be interested.

LGR Advocates, You Have Some 'Splainin' To Do

noreply@blogger.com (Patrick Ross) — Thu, 03 Nov 2011 20:12:00 +0000

Long gun registry not the life-saver they claim it is

With Canada's far-left scrambling to save the long gun registry by any means necessary, it seems the facts just aren't lining up to support their arguments.

When the Globe and Mail put crime data recently released by Stats Canada into a chart, the conclusions became unavoidable. Those who claim the long gun registry saves lives -- as former Liberal MP Mark Holland used to delight in doing -- have some serious explaining to do.

The chart reveals that the last time more long guns than hand guns were used in homicides was waaaaaay back in 1990. (The L'Ecole Polytechnique massacre happened the previous year.) The bill authorizing the long gun registry was passed in Parliament in 1995, and the registry itself was established in 1996.

There's good reason for this. As the numbers have it, murders involving long guns have been steadily declining in Canada since 1984 -- twelve years before the LGR ever existed. There were occasional spikes in homicides involving long guns, but the general trend has been a decline since 1984.

During the same period of time, murders involving handguns -- which the law has required to be registered since World War Two -- have remained stable.

This is very clearly a difficult question the champions of the LGR desperately need to answer. They have relentlessly attributed the reduction in homicides involving long guns to the registry. Yet not only does the decline pre-date the registry, the handgun registry has no noticeable effect.

It's clear that registration has not had the magical properties LGR advocates have attributed to it. They have some serious questions to answer, some serious explaining to do -- although previous experience with these individuals suggests they will simply decline.

There Is Something Deeply Wrong With Some of These People...

noreply@blogger.com (Patrick Ross) — Wed, 02 Nov 2011 05:23:00 +0000

If you were to ask any of them to their face, the far-left in Canada are the champions of rainbows and puppydogs. Their leaders are all "inspirational", and their causes in the best interests of "99%".

But scratch the surface of some of these individuals, and what is left underneath is a complete lunatic. Stark, raving, mad. And brutish to the core.

For evidence one needs look no further than the individual who identifies himself as @HarrisAJackson. The "A" apparently stands for "Ace".

Okay then.

As it turns out, Ace is an advocate for the long gun registry. There's very little wrong with that, in and of itself. But how Ace deals with political defeat leaves a lot to be desired. He tweeted:

"Wonder how many hard core Cons will think deregulation of the long gun is a good idea, when they're [sic] son or daughter ends up dead? We can only hope its a conservative victim, since those with brains and national pride are fighting to keep it alive."

Ace subsequently insisted he didn't wish gun violence on anyone, but screencaps have the final say:

(Following several Tweets of this image directly to him, Ace still couldn't figure it out.)

Even while objecting that he hadn't wished gun violence on anyone, he literally couldn't stop. Couldn't help himself.

This issue has keenly focused the mania of individuals like our dear Ace. Irrational rage that would otherwise have thrashed helplessly across the Twitterverse is now brought to bear on this singular issue. For the first time, we can see just how disturbed these people are.

And Harris Ace Jackson is very disturbed indeed. The civilized approach to the issue of the long gun registry is -- whether one supports it or opposes it -- to wish for no gun violence. Ace has adopted a very different approach: he simply wishes the gun violence to be aimed at a very specific group of people.

It's sick. It's evil. It's reflective of someone crying out for help.

His LinkedIn profile identifies him as "Senior Analyst at UFO Investigator Citizen Reporter". He lives in the Vancouver area.

If you, or anyone you know, knows Harris Ace Jackson, reach out. Let him know about any mental health resources in his area, and urge him to seek help before he does something he may not be mentally healthy enough to regret.

Fuck It. Let Greece Burn

noreply@blogger.com (Patrick Ross) — Tue, 01 Nov 2011 19:38:00 +0000

Greek leftism becoming a global parasite

Imagine, if you will, a close cousin or younger brother who just can't seem to live within his means.

Once a year, every year, he comes with his hand out, begging for a not-insubstantial amount of money to sustain his grandiose lifestyle.

After several years of indulging them, hoping they'll get their shit together, you finally decide enough is enough. You tell him that you'll only help him if he stops going to the pub every night, and drinking himself into a stupor while his bills go unpaid.

Stunned by the ultimatum, he instead tells you that he'll have to take a referendum of his barfly buddies before he's willing to make that kind of a commitment. Bankrolled by your generosity, he frequently buys rounds for the bar. They like that. One thing firmly in his favour is that he has a guarantor for all his bills, and that someone else will ultimately be on the hook if they go unpaid. From his point of view, his worst case scenario is that you and his other creditors go unpaid.

Substitute Greece for the bum in question and you have precisely what happened in Greece today. After the European Union worked tirelessly to come up with a bail out package and a stabilization plan for the Greek economy, Greek Prime Minister George Papandreou told the EU that he and the people of Greece will have to think about it.

The Socialist Party has already declared the deal "dead".

So it's time for the EU to take a different approach: kick Greece out of the Eurozone and the European Union, direct their bailout package toward cutting the losses of Greece's creditors while they foreclose on every debt-backed piece of property or capital in Greece.

Enough is enough. It's time to let the far-left parasites in Greece burn in the economic fire they started. Far-left socialism, as it's manifested itself in Greek politics, has become a cancer on the global economy. It's time to excise the tumour.

Don't Circle the Wagons Now, Jimmy... Redux

noreply@blogger.com (Patrick Ross) — Mon, 31 Oct 2011 14:00:00 +0000

The longer the Occupy movement -- spawned by Occupy Wall Street, and imitated and co-opted by now-countless others -- goes on, the more necessary the comparisons between it and the Tea Party become.

It's on this note that the Occupy movement has now reached two key milestones that were used by far-left antagonists to condemn the Tea Party.

The first is the participation in an Arizona Occupation rally of JT Ready, an infamous Arizona neo-Nazi. He brought his militia, the Arizona Border Guard, to Occupy Phoenix rally. More frighteningly, they came armed with AR-15 assault rifles.

Desperate to mitigate the damage, some contemporaries of the Occupy movement attempted to describe Ready's participation as a "counter-protest". Ready himself, as well as the Arizona Border Guard made themselves clear: they were there to -- in their words -- "use their second-amendment rights to protect the first-amendment rights of Occupy Phoenix".

Once one has it directly from the horse's mouth, one quickly becomes relieved that most of the participants at the Occupy Phoenix rally asked Ready and his militia to leave. Some, however, attempted to "reach out" to Ready, feeling a sense of socialist-to-socialist solidarity with Ready.

One elderly woman present was reported to have remarked "I kind of like socialism."

Okay then.

The other incident also involves an armed individual, but fortunately does not involve Nazis. A man was spotted at Occupy Atlanta with an AK-47 assault rifle, which prompted the city to order to crowd to disperse.

Some may remember the infamy of racebaitgate, in which MSNBC selectively edited footage from a Phoenix Tea Party event in order to portray a black man with an AR-15 assault rifle as a white man bent on assassinating the President for racial reasons.

(Contessa Brewer has since been dismissed from MSNBC. Dylan Ratigan, sadly, remains.)

Some may also remember a ThinkProgress video which fabricated evidence of Tea Party racism. Among them was a man proudly extolling his devotion to Nazism.

When the source video was identified, it was revealed that the video was actually of this man being chased out of a Tea Party rally. Think Progress shamelessly stood by the video despite the extent to which it was discredited.

Now, no one should expect Occupy Phoenix to physically chase armed militiamen away from their rally. The reasons are obvious.

But the mixture of armed individuals and a movement that promises to occupy public space over the long-term -- permanently, if need be -- is an alarming development, and should be alarming even to the most devoted Occupation enthusiasts.

Simply put, what started out as a laudably-peaceful protest is now taking on the vestiges of an actual armed occupation.

This is where the input of the aforementioned Occupation enthusiasts becomes so necessary.

Jim Parrot -- who by now needs no further introduction around these parts -- is as dedicated an Occupation enthusiast as they come. He even renamed his blog "Occupy Let Freedom Rain" at one point, likely until he finally realized he had always occupied that space.

He also previously promised that he won't circle the wagons to protect his own when they are wrong.

Having so deeply embraced the Occupation movement, he has made it his own. Perhaps he'll have something to say about this.

His previous forays into not circling the wagons were less than successful. But perhaps he'll do better this time.

Maybe. Just maybe.

No Explanation Required... Unless You've Confused the Issue

noreply@blogger.com (Patrick Ross) — Mon, 31 Oct 2011 03:11:00 +0000

Religious belief that homosexuality is sinful not at odds with notion homosexuals shouldn't be bullied

The Toronto Star is reporting that Ancaster-Dundas-Flamborough-Westdale MP David Sweet is refusing to explain his participation in a recent "it gets better" YouTube video produced by John Baird.

This is as it should be. No explanation is required.

But for those obsessed with headhunting for Conservative MPs, Sweet's participation is as infuriating as Baird's. For a time, Baird was criticized for making the video while not being publicly fabulous enough. Baird refused to take the bait, so now the headhunters are on to their next target: David Sweet.

“For them to stand up and say, ‘It gets better, just hang in there kids,’ is so disrespectful and disingenuous and shows they’re out of touch with the community,” complained EGALE Canada executive director Helen Kennedy, who also complained the Tories aren't doing enough to satisfy the legislative demands of the LGBT community. “They actually have the power and authority and the responsibility to make it better. We’re talking about politicians who enact legislation, who bring in bills to the legislature, into the House of Commons to make a difference in everyone’s life and in particular in the case of our LGBT youth and the community in general and they’re not doing that.”

Of particular complaint has been Sweet's 2002 remarks that he believed homosexuality is a sin.

“Yes, absolutely,” Sweet agreed at the time. “We take the Scriptures as the word of God. We look at homosexual behaviour and say that’s not what’s prescribed in the Scripture.”

Some look at these comments, then look at Sweet's participation in an anti-bullying video, and suggest he has something to explain. They're absolutely wrong, on the most fundamental of logical pretenses.

Simply put, a religious belief that homosexuality is sinful -- a notion with which this author actually vociferously disagrees -- is not tantamount to a belief that homosexuals should be bullied. Nor is it at odds with a belief that homosexuals should not be bullied, because no one should be bullied.

The attitude adopted by those who believe Sweet has anything to explain seem to presume that Christians have some kind of moral duty to condemn anyone who sins on an existential basis. While some extreme religious sects seem to believe this to be the case, for the average Christian it isn't so.

Rather, Jesus Christ mandated that sinners are to be treated with compassion. So if one believes that homosexuality is sinful -- again, this author vehemently does not -- one's moral duty as a Christian is to offer them compassion and guidance.

Your not-so-humble scribe would posit that David Sweet is wrong about homosexuality. It doesn't disqualify him from speaking out against homophobic bullying, just as John Baird isn't disqualified for not being "out" enough.

If Helen Kennedy and her compatriots can't wrap their heads around that idea, that's their problem, not David Sweet's. Vis a vis his participation in the "it gets better" video, Sweet has nothing to explain, and so should explain nothing.

Canadian White Board: Still Making Up the Rules As They Go Along

noreply@blogger.com (Patrick Ross) — Thu, 27 Oct 2011 20:32:00 +0000

CWB determined to maintain its own power, no matter what

The farce perpetually surrounding the Canadian Wheat Board has reached an impressive new high in

"This Harper government has acted illegally and unethically in its attacks on the Canadian Wheat Board and it must be stopped," declared Canadian Wheat Board chairman Allen Oberg. "We have no choice but to take this stand on behalf of farmers. We will not be intimidated by bullying tactics."

A Wheat Board chairman lecturing anyone on bullying is itself a spectacle in unintentional comedy. It was, after all, the Wheat Board that had farmers jailed for daring to demand the right to market their own grain. But what's most remarkable about this most recent episode is the extent to which the CWB is willing to go in order to make up the rules as it goes along.

In 2007, the Wheat Board won a challenge against an attempt by the federal government to remove the Board's monopoly on barley marketing by claiming that any change to the board had to made through an act of Parliament.

Now, the board is claiming that the changes can only be made following a plebiscite among grain farmers. A plebiscite not unlike, say, the one held in 2007 when farmers voted to eliminate the CWB's barley monopoly.

The CWB itself has already shown that it's opinion is that the results of any plebiscite don't matter, and that it could act however it pleased. Now that the government is poised to ignore the results of a plebiscite the CWB set up to support the maintenance its own tyrannical powers, it suddenly insists that the will of farmers must be respected.

In order to do this, they're willing to go back on the legal arguments they've already offered, and insist that it really should be left up to farmers. Unless farmers want something the board doesn't want. In which case, the will of farmers should be ignored.

The Wheat Board has already cast its die on this matter: they cast it in 2007. It's time for a Canadian court to stand up and finally make the CWB play by the rules as they are, not the rules it desperately wants to make up as it goes along.

If You Want to Do Better, Mr Lingenfelter, Apologize

noreply@blogger.com (Patrick Ross) — Wed, 26 Oct 2011 21:27:00 +0000

Lingenfelter pretends to shy away from negative campaigning

During the Saskatchewan leaders' debate last night, many people noted that there was a noticeable lack of some of the staples of political debates. The leaders seemed to entirely decline the talk over each other, and mostly stuck to promoting their own policy ideas to the people of Saskatchewan.

NDP leader Dwain Lingenfelter insisted that, for his part, it's been a deliberate campaign tactic.

"I watched the Ontario election and less than 50 per cent of the people came out to vote," Lingenfelter said. "I think part of it was because of all the negativity — negative ads, personal attack ads. Maybe I can change that. I'm going to try."

Good. If Lingenfelter is going to try to be the politician who disavows negative campaigning, he can start by apologizing for the dishonest ad in which the NDP fabricated a quote by Premier Brad Wall.

His party eventually replaced the ad, but they've never apologized for it. They've accused the Saskatchewan Party of being "childish" in objecting to the ad, but they've never apologized.

So now Dwain Lingenfelter knows what he must do: apologize for his party producing a campaign ad that was a blatant lie, and promise to never do it again.

Occupy Toronto: Gross

noreply@blogger.com (Patrick Ross) — Wed, 26 Oct 2011 21:00:00 +0000

The Best Thing About Being Stubborn, Mary Walsh, Is That You Always Know What You'll Be Thinking Tomorrow

noreply@blogger.com (Patrick Ross) — Wed, 26 Oct 2011 20:50:00 +0000

Mary Walsh pretending she did nothing wrong

Apparently, the shock that she isn't funny -- or talented -- is too much for This Hour Has 22 Minutes "comedian" Mary Walsh.

In the wake of her invasion of Toronto Mayor Rob Ford's privacy, frightening his six-year-old daughter, Walsh is refusing to admit that she's done anything wrong.

The best thing about being stubborn is that you know what you'll be thinking tomorrow. Apparently, what Walsh is thinking today is that she was trying to give Ford advice.

“He obviously was not going to listen to any advice I had ... or have anything to do with us whatsoever,” Walsh complained. (The detail that no one in their right mind would the advice of a tragically unfunny comedian is clearly one that has entirely evaded her.) “I’m a 60-year-old woman with a plastic sword. I was just going to give him a bit of friendly advice.”

If Walsh was really trying to offer him some friendly advice -- everyone who isn't entirely numb between the ears knows full well she wasn't -- she might have attempted to get in touch with him at City Hall. As she told Sun News' Joe Warmington, she didn't even try.

This Hour Has 22 Minutes producers explain that they asked Ford to appear on the program in August. He declined. So their decision was to ambush him at his home. Now they're stubbornly refusing to admit that they crossed the line.

When Walsh and the producers of 22 Minutes have become so disjointed that they can't keep their behaviour firmly on the rails, it's time to go. If they won't resign, it's time for CBC to fire them.

Jason Unruhe on Muammar al-Gadhafi's "Black Migrant Workers"

noreply@blogger.com (Patrick Ross) — Tue, 25 Oct 2011 19:55:00 +0000

From the man who brought you "the Cultural Revolution was just a big debate", comes this stupidity:

For the record, Unruhe is also cheering on Saif-Gadhafi, as he promises to win one back for the bad guys and bring his own unique brand of tyranny to Libya.

The CBC, Unhinged

noreply@blogger.com (Patrick Ross) — Tue, 25 Oct 2011 19:42:00 +0000

No laughs to be found when comedy comes second to politics

The CBC has a problem with its comedy. Or, rather, a new problem.

For a very long time, the biggest problem with CBC's comedy was that -- unless it was airing Just For Laughs -- the comedy mostly just wasn't funny. Rick Mercer would have the occasional moment, but the political sanctimony of what was passed off as comedy overwhelmed any sense of humour.

This Hour Has 22 Minutes has long been exhibit A in the sheer unfunniness of CBC's comedy offerings. The cast of 22 Minutes has long been made up of untalented hacks more interested in grinding their own political axes than in making the audience laugh. They could elicit the occasional giggle from left-wingers who found their offerings ideologically soothing, but very little from anyone whose political opinions veer even slightly to the right of a Phish concert.

(BTW, Phish sucks.)

Mary Walsh has pretty much set the bar for unfunny comedy on 22 Minutes, but in recent years she's had some competition from Geri Hall. Consider a Sun News Network parody featuring Margaret Atwood in which Hall and Atwood take token potshots at the fledgling news network and generally take turns at being incredibly unfunny.

Apparently "the home of real news spoken by fake blondes" is Hall's idea of a rolling-on-the-floor laugher. And while some cretins delighted in it, most rational people quickly tire of watching something that makes it clear that it's a malicious hit-piece cobbled together by far-lefty "comedians" who were outraged by a challenging interview that wasn't nearly as outrageous as they want to pretend it is.

That the CBC had previously employed Krista Erickson, the target of the comedy sketch-cum-smear, only further reveals just how unhinged the cast of 22 Minutes has become. In dumping so eagerly on a former CBC journalist -- one who served the CBC, although not without controversy, until she chose to go elsewhere -- is making an undeniable statement about the quality of journalism at the CBC.

They're evidently unafraid of dumping all over their own colleagues in order to direct their rage at a former colleague, now turned adversary by way of her employment at a rival network, one one which differing viewpoints have proliferated.

But just how unhinged has the cast and crew of 22 Minutes become? Just ask Toronto Mayor Rob Ford.

Cue the terminally-unfunny Mary Walsh once more. In staging an "ambush interview" for the show, Walsh wasn't interested in waiting for Ford at Toronto City Hall. No, instead she decided to ambush him in his driveway, as he was taking his 6 year-old daughter to school.

Walsh apparently frightened Ford's daughter, and to be frank: who wouldn't be? To behold Walsh, in the pitch of her demagogic fury, raving at the top of her lungs would frighten a lot of adults. Adults, fortunately, are well-equipped to deal with the appearance of a crazy lady on their drive way. Children, not so much.

What's become the most remarkable thing about the confrontation is just how much the 22 Minutes cast and crew just don't get it.

“We were actually surprised at how humourless his response was,” remarked 22 Minutes producer Michael Donovan.

Perhaps if Ezra Levant were to turn up on Donovan's driveway, waving around a plastic sword and shoving a microphone in Donovan's face while his children are present, Donovan would better understand.

Does It Get Better?

noreply@blogger.com (Patrick Ross) — Fri, 21 Oct 2011 14:00:00 +0000

Maybe not... if you're John Baird

Following the suicide of yet another bullied gay teen -- it's been happening with heartbreaking frequency lately -- one would expect that LGBT activists in Canada would welcome Foreign Affairs Minister John Baird taking a stand to stop homophobic bullying.

Think again.

Baird responded to the suicide of Jamie Hubley in both a statement in the House of Commons and in a YouTube video produced as part of the "It Gets Better" campaign. In both cases, speaking out against homophobic bullying.

Many hardline LGBT activists haven't welcomed Baird's stand against this scourge of the LGBT community. Instead, they're angry that Baird would dare denounce homophobic bullying.

To various LGBT activists, Baird has a dirty little secret.

Except that it's not really dirty, and not really a secret. Really, they're just determined to denounce him no matter what. No matter what.

So in the wake of Baird's statement and video, self-described LGBT activists took to Twitter to denounce him as allegedly hypocritical for being an allegedly closeted gay man.

"Okay, I'm still livid," fumed Ariel Troster. "John Baird isn't even brave enough to come out and he's telling youth #itgetsbetter?"

"If it gets better then GET OUT OF THE F*CKING CLOSET JOHN BAIRD, YOU HYPOCRITICAL COWARD," raged @Kyle_A.

"If Min John Baird really wants to set a good example for Gay teens he should finally come out of the closet himself," declared @RustyBoyRobot.

It's a confusing response to such a laudable act by Baird, one that belies an odd autocratic attitude by some LGBT activists towards their own: simply, that they demand the right to dictate to John Baird how he will live his life.

To claim that Baird is "closeted" would overlook the fact that Baird's sexuality is common knowledge to many of those who follow Canadian politics. But although Baird has never been secretive about his sexuality, he has been quiet about it. There's a difference.

Baird prefers to live his private life in dignity as he sees it. That's not enough for some militant LGBT activists, who demand that he live his life as they see fit: as some kind of human billboard for the Canadian LGBT community.

Not only is it shameful, but it threatens the simple moral principle that motivates any conservative who supports equal rights -- equal meaning precisely that: equal -- that people have the right to live their lives in any law-abiding manner they choose.

Homosexuality, as serious-minded Canadians know, is not a choice. But how someone chooses to live as a homosexual is. Not every Canadian LGBT should be herded onto a gay pride float once a year if that isn't how they want to live their life.

If John Baird prefers to live his private life, well... privately, that's his right. It isn't for militant LGBT activists -- or anyone else -- to dictate to him that he should do otherwise.

The numerous individuals trying to politicize this issue and deny John Baird the credit he has earned for his laudable stand against homophobic bullying should all be absolutely ashamed of themselves.

Lizzie May: Not in Favour of a Fair Distribution?

noreply@blogger.com (Patrick Ross) — Thu, 20 Oct 2011 22:42:00 +0000

Green Party leader pretends to be a target

With the NDP already pledged to oppose legislation to grant additional Parliamentary seats to Canada's fastest-growing provinces -- namely, Alberta, BC and Ontario -- it was only a matter of time before the rest of the opposition found a way to justify opposing the bill as well.

Green Party leader Elizabeth May seems to have found her pretext: as with so many things, the self-absorbed May considers the bill to be an attack on her, directly.

Waving around a Conservative Party newsletter in which Saanich-Gulf Islands Tory Bruce Hallsor notes that the re-distrubtion may make it easier for them to beat May in the next election.

May seems to think the newsletter is incriminating, but all she's offered is what is currently just idle speculation.

Of course, the detail that the Globe and Mail's projections are not based on any proposed re-districting -- no such proposals exist until independent commissions have done their work -- but only on votes cast in the past election will almost certainly be ignored by May.

In the end, it's purely intuitive: the party with the largest share of the vote in each of these provinces will reap the biggest reward. The Tories dominate in Alberta, are strong in BC, and swept Ontario in the 2011 election.

When one considers where the additional ridings need to be added to account for population growth -- in Northern Alberta, central BC, and suburban GTA -- it's not at all surprising that the strength of the Conservative vote in these areas would yield victories for Conservatives.

It's the just the way things are right now. If the work of these independent commissions concludes that the boundaries of Saanich-Gulf Islands should be redrawn, it's just the way it will be. To tailor the process just to suit May would be a dereliction of the commission's responsibilities: namely, to produce a re-distribution that is fair to all constituents, not just to May.

If Elizabeth May and the Green Party don't like it, perhaps they should campaign harder in those areas, and propose policy that will appeal to, as opposed to repulse, those voters.

NDP Response to Saskatchewan Party Ad "Childish"?

noreply@blogger.com (Patrick Ross) — Thu, 20 Oct 2011 14:00:00 +0000

Prior to the beginning of the 2011 Saskatchewan election, the NDP released an ad that featured a fabricated quote, portrayed as from Saskatchewan Party leader (and Premier) Brad Wall.

When challenged over the blatantly deceitful ad, NDP House Leader Kevin Yates dismissed the Saskatchewan Party's complaints over the ad as "childish".

Now, the Saskatchewan Party is running an ad the NDP insists is untrue.

The ad notes that Nexen, the oil company NDP leader Dwain Lingenfelter worked for, moved its head office to Calgary, and insists Lingenfelter did it.

Then-Nexen CEO Charlie Fischer insists that Lingenfelter didn't make the decision to move Nexen's head office to Calgary. But as it turns out, Lingenfelter was still involved.

To move the Nexen head office to Calgary required repeal of the Wascana Act, which stipulated that the head office of the company had to remain located in Saskatchewan. Wascana Energy had formerly been known as SaskOil.

Lingenfelter lobbied Kindersley MLA Bill Boyd to support the repeal of the Wascana Act. (Boyd isn't clear on whether or not ne actually supported the repeal.)

Dwain Lingenfelter's involvement in the reloaction of Nexen's head office, however, is undeniable. The NDP's response to this ad is childish and over the top. After all, unlike the NDP, they didn't lie.

But We Mustn't Call it a Coalition...

noreply@blogger.com (Patrick Ross) — Wed, 19 Oct 2011 22:48:00 +0000

Nathan Cullen proposes "coalition lite"

With Nathan Cullen contesting the leadership of the NDP, it's as fair a question to answer as for any other candidate:

What, precisely, does Cullen have to offer?

As it turns out, the answer is "very little". To date, Cullen's offering in the leadership campaign is "beat Harper", and not much else. To whit, Cullen is recommending that the NDP run "joint candidates" to defeat Conservative candidates.0

Is it coalition lite? Or merger lite?

It doesn't seem to matter to Cullen. To him, it's the prefect way to pander to a wider variety of left-wing voters.

"I believe now is the time to respond to the call from people of all walks of life, who hate that Stephen Harper can change our country for the worse with support of less than four in 10 voters," Cullen declared. "For me, the greater cause is that the wedge politics of the Stephen Harper government are killing us. ... We need to find a way to speak past the narrow political interests of parties from time to time."

A very real question must persist over whether or not those same people liked it when Jean Chretien was able to govern Canada with the support of less than four in ten voters. It also seems necessary to remember that it was that same Chretien government that slashed healthcare and education funding.

Yet the NDP -- whose bread-and-butter issue is healthcare -- never pulled out all the stops to team with their fellow opposition parties to put a stop to that in 1997. Very curious.

Non-ironies aside, this is an idea that only could have come from the NDP at a time when they're ahead of the Liberal Party, both in seat count and in popular support. In this sense, Cullen is very opportunistic with an idea he very clearly hasn't thought through.

For example, with whose caucus would a joint candidate sit? The Liberal Caucus? The Green Party Caucus? The NDP caucus? As an independent?

The only way an idea like this can be said to even remotely work would be within a formal coalition -- and Canadians have already shown what they think of that. Even if Cullen hasn't learned his lesson in this regard, his fellow leadership candidates seem to -- they've all given the idea their staunch disapproval.

This, along with the detail that joint candidates would require participation from another party. The Liberal Party is practically guaranteed to refuse.

Cullen will almost certainly remain undeterred.

"I have no problem going up against Stephen Harper one on one," Cullen declared. "This just makes it a slam dunk."

Not many Conservatives would worry much about a Stephen Harper/Nathan Cullen match-up in a federal election. Cullen's half-baked ideas are nothing to worry about.

Desperation is Not the Answer

noreply@blogger.com (Patrick Ross) — Mon, 17 Oct 2011 21:31:00 +0000

NDP running on rent control in Saskatchewan

With his leadership already a disaster and an election already in progress, there's nothing Saskatchewan NDP leader Dwain Lingenfelter can do but try to put an optimistic face on it.

Although he tried to fire his supporters up by forecasting an NDP victory in the 2011 election, Lingenfelter and the NDP are simply desperate.

They were desperate when they produced a campaign advertisement that fabricated an anti-labour quote by Premier Brad Wall. And they're desperate when they turn to rent control as a key campaign plank.

The party has pledged to throw $320 million at a housing strategy in Saskatchewan which will basically combine government-funded housing developments with rent control.

This is remarkable, when all they really have to do is leave the market alone to work; which is something that, for all its occasional frustration, is something that has always worked far better than government intervention.

As a policy, rent control has been destructive everywhere it's been implemented. It discourages property owners from offering housing units for rent, and discourages the construction of additional units. It produces a social loss.

Of course, with the levels of support in Saskatchewan being what they are, this isn't a policy the NDP has a prayer of ever being able to implement. It's simply desperate pandering to its own base, to the crowd who turned out for events such as Occupy Saskatoon.

By offering up a policy such as rent control, Lingenfelter has certainly boosted his chances of getting those people out to vote. But the average citizen of Saskatchewan, who are quite pleased with the job Wall has done as Premier, is the vote that Lingenfelter needs. He's just guaranteed he won't be able to get that vote.

If Dwain Lingenfelter really wanted to lead the NDP to victory in Saskatchewan, he would have dispensed with this policy as quickly as it was dreamed up. But Lingenfelter must, by now, know that he can't win this election.

He's simply embraced the politics of desperation, clearly did so long before this election, and should have resigned as NDP leader the second he did.

Herman Cain's AFP Association Sure to Set Off Koch-Obsessed Loonies

noreply@blogger.com (Patrick Ross) — Mon, 17 Oct 2011 21:02:00 +0000

Far-left lunatics certain to target Cain over Americans For Prosperity

Quite often, politics is a game of non-revelations as much as it is a game of revelations.

Such is the case with the recent non-revelation that Republican Presidential candidate Herman Cain has had a long association with Americans For Prosperity, a political advocacy group that has enjoyed generous financial support from Charles and David Koch.

For the far-left the Koch brothers are the favourite political bogeymen, supporting various conservative political causes. That they are also billionaires makes them easy targets for those willing to overlook the extent to which George Soros -- also a billionaire -- generously financing various left-wing causes.

It's no great secret that Cain's candidacy as a Republican was sure to trigger the deepest racial ethos of the far-left. No lesser a far-left whacko luminary than Janeane Garofalo would publicly surmise that Cain was being paid to run for President. Perhaps now she'll be emboldened to suggest that maybe, just maybe, it's the Koch brothers allegedly paying him.

Certainly, it's a hilariously stupid suggestion on its face. But Garofalo has been both a reliable and shameless source of this kind of commentary.

This is the kind of thing that one can expect to see now that the Koch brothers cat is out of the bag.

Of course, Cain's long association with AFP has never been a secret. In 2005-06, Cain was involved in the AFP's Prosperity Expansion Project, travelling the United States to speak to fledgling AFP chapters.

Any suggestion that the AFP was simply a front for corporate greed, or a stidently pro-Republican organization would be quickly swept aside that AFP opposed the automaker bailout administered by George W Bush.

Details, details.

For those among the American far-left who draw every breath obsessed with the Koch brothers, nothing so mundane as facts will be enough to allay their hysteria.

But in the end, that will likely be as much an asset to Herman Cain. Cain's fundamentally rational approach to economics will only appear more rational next to the crazed fantasy-based ideas set forth by those who will rave incessantly about Cain's remote connection to the Koch brothers via Americans For Prosperity.

In an era where politics is quickly becoming about sorting out rational people from the crazies, the reaction by the anti-Koch left will only solidify Herman Cain's standing in the former camp, and the anti-Koch left's standing in the latter.