Why am I on the Blogging Dippers?!!? - Solved

Uhm guys, I quit the NDP and the Blogging Dippers years ago - about 3 years ago to be exact.

I noticed today, as I was trying to figure out what was wrong with the Prog Blog feed not updating that I'm still listed.

Guys, please read my last few posts on the idea of stimulus - I am NOT a Dipper any more.

I did send an email to Rob and to someone else way back when, but it didn't work.

So let let me ask again:

Can someone please remove my blog from the Blogging Dipper's aggregator?

Thanks

Mike

Update:

Thank you Northern BC Dipper for removing me.

Your Tax Dollars at Work - now with Mea Culpa Update

Mea Culpa Update:

When I'm wrong, I'm wrong.

I am willing to man up and admit it. In my anger below, I called for Shaidle to be removed from the show and clearly, from what stageleft tells me at his place and in IRC, that would have been a huge mistake. La Shaidle, for all her bluster, was totally out of her league, and it showed. If I were an opponent of the Atheist Bus Campaign, I'd be writing angry letter's to TVO to complain about showing their side to be so bad by having a pitiful boob like her representing it. It wasn't close to fair.

My fear was that, once again as has happened in the past, she would get all of the cachet, all of the respectability, all of the credibility one gets from being on such a show, without having to defend or reveal the vile opinions she is known for while hiding behind the seemingly inocous label of "religious writer". That is, she would reap the benefits of exposure in TVO without any of the risks of exposure.

Well, apparently Steve Paiken and the other guests proved me wrong.

I'm still a little upset at TVO for the poor vetting job they did. And I think the email and phone calls from earlier today served to alert everyone at TVO what to expect - I think it would have been a very different show had we not wrote or called.

That being said, I should not have called for her to be taken off the program. That was wrong. Simply informing TVO of her stances and requesting they call her on it and challenge her beliefs should have been enough.

I won't make that mistake again, because clearly, and ironically for Shaidle, free speech and freedom of the press works. Better than any ban, better than having her forced off the show.

Irony is not dead.

=================================================================


Via Scott Tribe and Warren Kinsella, we discover that, perhaps as part some effort to stimulate the economy n Toronto, Kathy Shaidle of "Five Feet of Fury" (formerly Relapsed Catholic) is scheduled to be a guest on TVO's "The Agenda" discussing the Atheist Bus Ads coming to Canada.

Of course, as they have done in the past, TVO will likely (mis) label La Shaidle as a "Religious Columnist" or "Catholic Writer". And, they likely won't challenge her on her beliefs, such as these:

· On Islam: "...your religion is fucking retarded...ungrateful beligerent foreign savages...These are people who love watching beheading videos on the internet...A sick, sick religion. Basically Scientology with bombs. Pathetic whiny losers."
· On Muslim and Pakistani immigrants: "Muslims...most of them can't even read...What we really need to do is stop immigration from Pakistan and other crazy Muslim countries filled with illiterate, violent tribal peasants..."
· On Muslim children: they are “parasites.”
· On a group of Muslim students who object to some statements by Mark Steyn: they are “motherfucking parasites.”
· On Muslims: "Muslims always have to be on top, in reverse proportion to their ability to do anything with competence or creativity."
· On Indians: they are “parasites” who “extorted tax dollars [for] booze, smokes and junk food. Not to mention free everything else, including university educations they don't bother getting.”
· On blacks: “…there is nothing ‘compelling’ about a black man impregnating a white woman. In more than one Toronto neighbourhood, that's what they call Saturday night.”
· On the only people who can get excited about Barack Obama: “black, stupid or both.”
· On Jamaicans: “Just think of how much Jamaican immigrants contribute to our culture and economy: monotonous, illiterate music that all sounds the same, filthy hairstyles, those little tricoloured Rasta doohickies.”
· On the blacks of New Orleans: they are “pathetic losers” who cannot have their IQs raised “a single point.”
· On the poor: they are poor because they are “too lazy and stupid to a) finish high school and/or b) keep their pants on.…I don’t care about the poor. They’re no more real than Bigfoot.”
· On AIDS: “From the beginning, AIDS activism has been more about mainstreaming the gay "lifestyle" than saving lives.”
· On Sikhs: "Backward foreigners [who] shit on hand that feeds them...Unable to invent their own iconic product due to too much time spent worshipping monkeys and cows, setting women on fire and obsessing over imperceptible differences in each other's skin colour..."
· On blind people: "Giving blind people real jobs...is not working out."
· On Chinese: "[They are] spitting and shooting snot on the sidewalk...throwing broken crates of rotten bock choy all over Spadina Avenue [and] eating dubious, illegal foodstuffs" [and cause SARS.]

Shaidle is as much a "Religious Writer" as Joseph Gobbels is a "Marketing Expert" or David Duke is a "Race Relations Guru". Having her represent, obviously, the Christian side of this debate should be an insult to Christians - as wrong as I think they are, I'm quite certain this bile spewing little hateful creature certainly does not nor should not speak for any Christians.

Frankly, I'm getting a bit tired of my hard earmed money being stolen from me then used to give legitimacy to scum like Shaidle without challenging her preposterous beliefs.

There are many more reasonable people out there who can represent whatever point of view she represents. Shaidle should not be given ANY legitimacy for ANY view. Especially not by a publicly funded station.

To that end, I am asking people to contact TVO - write here or directly at askTVO@tvo.org or call them at 1.800.INFO.TVO or 416.484.2665 - and demand that

• Kathy Shaidle be removed from the show and replaced with another guest, due to her hate filled view points; or
• Steve Paikin challenge her disgusting views and that she be properly labelled as the far-right bigot she is.

I'm going to both call and write.

Kathy Shaidle can say whatever uniformed hate-filled nonsense she wants. She just can't do it with my tax money and she can't hide behind the pleasant sounding "Religious Writer" moniker to do it.

Update:

La Shaidle is getting scared and trying to strike back. Here's my response from Scott's comments, unabridged:

LOL, what a toad.

Clearly she is feeling the heat, so she's trying to stir more support form the mouth breathers at SDA.

Well as a former Torontonian that loved spending time on Spadina, allow me to respond:

"Countless Chinese people in Toronto DO hoark on the sidewalk — which is a known spreader of disease."

Well, as do many white folks in the subway. At least the Chinese immagrants are courteous enough to wear surgical masks when they are actually sick, no matter what it looks like.

"They DO leave broken crates of bok choy on Spadina"

Well, they leave lettuce in Kennsington Market, and dead fish in St. Lawrence market. So what?

"And they DO eat what are, in my humble opinion, dubious, possibly illegal foodstuffs."

Well they do eat food that is also quite delicious. No one really gives a flying fuck what your spit-flecked opinion is. Its not like you are known for your culinary expertise anyway.

If anyone want's great Szechuan, to to Kom Jug Yuen on Spadina just south of Grossman's (where lots of white guys spit on the floor). The food is fantastic, and I don't care what it is.

"Ever eaten street food in Beijing? Ever left your house, let alone the country?"

Not Beijing, but in Boroda, Mumbai and Cartegena many times. Quite good if you go to the right place. Meanwhile, the worst food poisoning I ever got was from a Red Lobster in Ottawa. In short, Kathy, yes, so piss off.

"Try harder. The truth is often unpleasant."

No the truth is merely true. Your twisted vision is what is unpleasant.

"Frankly, I wish TVO WOULD cancel me tonight. I’d rather stay home and watch Falling Down again."

No, you want them to cancel because you are afraid you'll actually have to answer for your crap now, instead of spewing it in a hermetically sealed echo chamber like SDA or on a commentless blog like your own without being held to account. You're afraid people will finally see you for what you are and your little cyber pan-handling will end when the rubes who have been giving you money see you for what you really are.

You know, I've almost changed my mind. I hope you go on and Paikin takes you to town.

Enjoy your session tonight. I expect it will be your last invite to TVO.

Typical cowardly behaviour. When you are about to be held to account, scream and yell and try to divert attention away from yourself.

Pitiful.

Upperdate:

So, who thinks Chet is right? Anyone? Yeah, I thought so too....

Anti-Stimulus Trifecta

Its no secret that I think that all of the various economic stimulus plans are simply a bad idea. None will work, and in my opinion will make any recession or depression longer and deeper, not shorter.

Over at the Foundation for Economic Education (FEE), they have 3 excellent pieces that do an excellent job at refuting the "Stimulus Madness!" that has gripped governments not only on both sides of the border, but around the world:

1. My friend Sheldon Richman's The Goal is Freedom: Smoot and Hawley Return shows how the infamous "Buy American" portion of the package is merely a repeat of Herbert Hoover's ill-fated Smoot-Hawley Tariff, widely accepted as one of the causes of the speed and depth of the great depression.

"When laws prohibit or limit the purchase imports, foreigners have fewer dollars and therefore fewer opportunities to buy American exports or to invest. The Americans who would have benefitted from those transactions lose out. So while protectionism is defended as a way to help the American economy (at the expense of foreigners), in fact it is special-interest legislation that helps only a small well-defined interest group at the expense of many other Americans. If people generally understood this, they would not fall for protectionist appeals."

Its odd that for all the daily comparisons to the depression we are seeing, no one seems to have noticed that the US Congress and President Obama are acting more like Hoover than FDR (not that acting like FDR would be much better).

2. William Anderson questions the very idea of government spending - especially bailing out failing companies and industries - to create jobs in his Not So Fast!: The Fallacy of Production for its Own Sake:

"...jobs simply are a means to the end of consumption; they are not ends in themselves. People become confused because they fail to recognize the connection between production and consumption. Yes, jobs produce income for individuals, but they can provide real income only if the job contributes to the production of goods people are willing to purchase."

So simple an idea, yet something that few people get.

3. And to shore it all up, FEE links to an article first published in 1957 (warning: PDF), an excerpt from economist Frederic Bastiat's classic 1850 Pamphlet That which is seen and that which is not seen.

"From all the benefits attributed to public spending we must deduct all the harm caused by preventing private spending—at least if we are not to go so far as to say that James Goodfellow would have done nothing with the five-franc pieces he had fairly earned and that the tax took away from him; an absurd assertion, for if he went to the trouble of earning them, it was because he hoped to have the satisfaction of using them. He would have had his garden fenced and can no longer do so; this is what is not seen. He would have had his field marled and can no longer do so: this is what is not seen. He would have added to his tools and can no longer do so: this is what is not seen. He would be better fed, better clothed; he would have had his sons better educated; he would have increased the dowry of his daughter, and he can no longer do so: this is what is not seen. He would have joined a mutual-aid society and can no longer do so: this is what is not seen. On the one hand, the satisfactions that have been taken away from him and the means of action that have been destroyed in his hands; on the other hand, the work of the ditchdigger, the carpenter, the blacksmith, the tailor, and the schoolmaster of his village which he would have encouraged and which is now nonexistent: this is still what is not seen."

I'm quite sure my stance will not make me popular with my progressive friends, but I cannot support an orgy of spending, a return to long, deep deficits - no matter how well intentioned - when the effect will be the opposite of what is wanted. Sometimes, perhaps, we should rely on sound economics rather than wishful thinking to help people.

Right now, the road to economic hell is being paved with gold by the very governments trying not to.

There's a bailout comin' but it not for you.

Neil Young - Fork In The Road

Update: I've removed the embedded video from MySpace because it plays automatically when loaded and that if friggin' annoying a hell. Please follow the link above....friggin' MySpace...

What Neil said:

"There's a bailout coming but it's not for me
It's for all those creeps watching tickers on TV...
There's a bailout coming but it's not for you
It's for all those creeps hiding what they do"

Amen.