Chalk one up for Fox News in debunking the latest specious nonsense being recklessly floated by America’s most famous quitter; sleazy, opportunistic grifter, and populist teabagging celebrity, Sarah Palin.

Hey, credit where it’s due…

Over the years, we’ve heard a lot of highly inventive excuses why bloodthirsty right-wing war-hawks and hateful wankers cowardly refuse to put their money where their bellicose, incessantly gibbering mouths are, but surely this is one of the most preciously lame of all:

I believe Canada needs to grow up and become a republic. I am sick of the monarchy, and will not serve in Canada’s military because they swear an oath of allegiance to the crown, rather than our nation. This means that if the British were to invade Canada, our military would, by law, aid the British invasion. Whether or not they would do that as individuals, I don’t know.

The monumental stupidity of this craven, self-serving thesis defies description.

Trust hateful right-wing ideologues and inveterate Islamophobes like Michelle Malkin to exploit the tragedy at Fort Hood for their own cynical purposes — in this case to not only demonize all Muslims, but also to broadly denounce the “false god” of cultural “diversity” (which is kind of ironical considering the source). Also nice how she snuck in a little Nazi reference there…

Perhaps a more sensible response might be that of Sean Linnane (pseudonym of a retired U.S. Army Special Forces Combat Diver, NCO now serving in other capacities…) who argued that focusing on a murderer’s creed misses the point:

Terrorists all the same, regardless of ideological or political stance – that is all posturing. Example: in the 1980s the Great Socialist People’s Libyan Arab Jamahiriya mounted a bombing campaign against U.S. and British targets in Europe. Several of the bombings were carried out on their behalf by the Baader-Meinhof gang, a secular group of Communists…It doesn’t matter whether it’s Islamic-themed, or Neo-Nazi, or Communist-inspired, terrorism is always the same: it is sheer lunacy, plain and simple.

The fact of the matter is that fanatical zealotry and other such varieties of mental derangement come in all forms.

Lovely sentiments, indeed… were it not for the pesky little fact that 94% of funding flowing through the Enabling Accessibly Fund has been directed to projects located in Conservative ridings.

Apparently, the vast preponderance of disabled people in Canada just happen to live in areas of the country that voted for Stephen Harper. Imagine that… what a strange coincidence!

Representative John Shadegg (R–AZ) shamelessly uses someone’s baby as a prop during the healthcare debate in Congress this past weekend.

Word is that “Maddy” also wants Target gift cards for her 2nd birthday…

Just for the hell of it…

Contemptible though it may be regarded by some trendy critics, I really miss this neo-vernacular, “progressive” or “art rock” style of music.

Seeing as Prince Charles and his haggard consort have descended on our humble burg in recent days, this seems like an appropriate documentary to share.

George S. Stuart reads from his marvelous historical monologue 400 Years of English History about the namesakes of the Prince of Wales.

I would love to see the entire DVD of this lecture series as it’s always immensely delightful to see history brought back to life in such a seductively charming, humorous, and vibrantly immediate way.

From the esteemed travel writer’s website: Rick Steves sees the current prohibition on marijuana as a misguided policy causing more harm to our society than good — much like the Prohibition against alcohol did in the 1930s. In these recent articles and interviews, Rick explains why he believes that, assuming a society measures the effectiveness of its drug policy in harm reduction rather than people locked up, America would be better off decriminalizing marijuana.

Might I suggest that this yet another popular (albeit somewhat contentious) issue the Liberals should be actively promoting as part of whatever the hell their platform might be in some future election… Aside from the moral justification and sensible pragmatism of such a policy shift, if governments are anxiously looking to tap into lucrative new sources of tax revenue in order to reduce the national debt and curtail their annual revenue shortfall, this would be a superlatively logical place to begin prospecting.

Another Republican chickenhawk shows his true colours…

The Daily Kos’ Markos Moulitas managed to get former GOP Colorado congressman Tom Tancredo to abruptly walk off The Ed Show mid-interview by alluding to the fact that Tancredo, an enthusiastic supporter of the Vietnam War, nonetheless successfully evaded service at the time by citing mental illness as an excuse. “I did not get a deferment because I was too depressed to fight a war I supported in Vietnam. I’m a veteran,” said Moulitas.

The Chronicle Herald, the Ottawa Citizen and journalism students from Ottawa’s Algonquin College have crunched the numbers of the government’s economic “Action Plan” and unsurprisingly find that Conservative ridings received more than half of the $8.5 billion announced under the Building Canada infrastructure stimulus program.

However, aside from the wild disparity between certain ridings (as illustrated in the RMR video), generally speaking, it doesn’t seem there’s really much of a story here. As noted in the article, “The riding that received the most money — a whopping $247 million — is Liberal Ken Dryden’s York Centre, which benefits from a third of the largest single infrastructure project in the country, the $697-million York Subway Extension.”