Mark Collins in the comments;
In slightly over one year six Mounties have been killed by gunshots in the government’s senseless and vengeful, Bush-pleasing “War on Crime”. During the same period seven members of the Canadian Forces have been killed by hostile action in Afghanistan as part of Canada’s participation in Bush’s fanatical “War on Terror”.
Surely it is time to realize that these “wars” cannot be won using brute force. It is obviously time for negotiations, the only way to end the fruitless killing…
Canadians want our Mounties to resume their traditional role as peace officers, just as they want our soldiers to be peacekeepers–not legionaires for Bush’s falling Rome.
(Mark blogs at both The Torch and Daimnation).
How does he know what “Canadians want?” Did they take a poll or something?
Those cops died because they did not follow safety procedures. Any cop will tell you the deadliest calls are domestics: why have so many RCMP officers in rural areas been blown away while answering them, while other cops covering the other 20 million of us haven’t been? This is a training issue.
I don’t think George W. Bush really has any input into these domestic disputes. Anyone who would suggest so is probably a serial masturbator with very little to work with.
Wrap the above in sarcasm on, sarcasm off tags if it will help you put things in context.
AWFORFRIGMYEYEBALLS!!! Did someone actually type that crap?
Call me difficult, but I absolutely refuse to wrap sarcasm in tags. I figure those who don’t catch it the first time (especially an example as obvious as this!) can use the practice.
“Call me difficult, but I absolutely refuse to wrap sarcasm in tags. I figure those who don’t catch it the first time (especially an example as obvious as this!) can use the practice.”
Anybody regularly subjected to the CBC or the Toronto Star, to cite only two examples of places where “analysis” like this does appear, can use all the practice they can get.
That’s the beauty of sarcasm as subtle as this example.
Mark (“I want to believe!”) Collins,
It’s time to relinquish your brain to someone who actually wants to use one.
Your logical approach to this subject is devoid of any form of cause-and-effect argument. Laying blame for the murder of the Mayerthorpe and Spritwood RCMP personnel on your incredibly twisted perception of police response as a reflection on the “war on crime” is completely without foundation. If there actually was a “war on crime”, officers would respond to each call as a potential battle situation. That would be a real war on crime.
Now students, it’s time to put on your aprons and gloves for the lab part of out continued dissection of the proposed case put forth by M. Collins. This will be messy and splash goggles are reccommended.
I’m pretty sure I catch the news at least 2 or 3 times a week, and the last time I checked, GWB had not declared a war on disgruntled family members who felt they did not get their share of the inheritance. This jackass just wanted a fight. I can only hope that he can be rounded up, preferrably quite dead so we don’t have to suffer his defense of opression or stories of his upbringing. That sh*t gets old fast.
I’m sure M. Collins is thinking “But you ignored the war on drugs that was the root cause of the Mayerthorpe murders!” (I’m paraphrasing. I’m quite sure you don’t see this as murder.) If the drug cultivation and trade is so noble and peaceful, why did Jim Roszko (get the spelling correct before you commit the image on your forehead at the tattoo parlour) ambush and murder…
…and then take his own life? (Perhaps it’s a HUGE conspiracy.) My guess is that he was a HUGE coward. Choose your heroes wisely.
“Geez, mcleodnine. How are you going to tie this into the Vast Right Wing Conspiracy with regards to Canada’s involvement in Afghanistan by the order of the supreme BushHilterBurton?” Here’s a clue-by-four comin’ straight at ya. I won’t, because there is no connection.
That’s a separate debate
Yes, this is a flame. You laid it up on the table for measurement and I (and I’m sure many others) found you lacking. Pack it away.
*sigh*
Oh. Those links were clicky-things.
And I missed the Irony tags. I was just about to say
“Oh, Look. A shiny object!”…
owl.
i don’t know how those RCMP could have been any more safe with current equipment issued to police. they were wearing their bullet proof vests, and they out numbered mullet head three to one. in every conceivable way these police had the upper hand, but there is no predicting the actions of a mad man.
from a dozen or more posts back:
Alan Colmes Unfurls His Nightwings
“Following the debating “techniques” of some of the more extreme commentors here and elsewhere, (not just on conspiracy theories, but on virtually any hotly debated topic) one often sees this “something not quite right going on there” trait in other aspects – cognitive problems that include an inability to recognize hyperbole and SARCASM, along with serious issues with reading comprehension.”
..and not just on the left apparently.
Recently I’ve been participating on the Globe & Mail’s ‘Feedback’ sites, and it’s scary…..the vast majority of respondents write stuff like this and they’re SERIOUS!
The prevailing levels of historical misinformation, and downright ignorance, are astounding…..how did it come to this?
The Mounties who died were in rural detachments. Sadly, a lot of people –who are barely people– with severe “problems” have moved out of the cities into rural areas. These thugs and their drugs cause a real problem. Most of the rural cops are familiar with typical rural problems, which are minor. Suddenly they are faced with armed and VERY violent dangerous offenders.
It is a training issue, at least in part. It is also an issue of society having an armed and dangerous underside that is no longer mostly-limited to the inner cities.
Blaming a war-on-crime for this problem is dumb, real DUMB!
That evil George Bush.
Is there nothing he’s not responsible for?
Why, just this morning I found the Bakerloo Line into Embankment so hot and overcrowded that I was forced to take the Jubilee Line to Westminster.
You just know Bush was behind my discomfort.
Curse him and his International Zionist co-conspirators!
Can we not get a senior RCMP member to confirm whether current training methods discourage proactive deployment of service revolvers or shotguns?
The problem here, Kate, is that there are a sufficient number of intellectually challenged leftists about that, in the absence of info to the contrary, what Mark wrote, actually makes sense to many many people, and is what many Canadians actually believe… And the ugly part is they get to vote too…
Several points here: 1) No police force in Canada uses service revolvers anymore – they are all equipped with semi-automatic handguns of at least 15 round capacity (minor variations, but no revolvers). Both shotguns and handguns are short range firearms. Next to useless against a rifle. (Old military joke – the purpose of a handgun is to fight your way back to your rifle…)
The officers were shot in the head, both of them. For the shooter, this was a turkey shoot. The RCMP out west does need to look at defensive approaches to armed individuals with rifles. I suspect most of their gun training involves exchanges with handgun users, not with perps with rifles, the normal urban experience.
Proactive deployment of deadly force is effectively prohibited in Canada. Even defensive use of deadly force is on a short lease. While condoned by the criminal code, defensive use of deadly force will land you in a heap of grief even if the circumstances are entirely justified. Police, and even civies (if they absolutely can’t run and hide (I’m not kidding)), are expected to ramp up the use of force through what is known as the force continuum – warn, threaten, use minimal force, escalate only if each level doesn’t work. Against a shooter, you go through those stages rather quickly.
It is extremely difficult for a regular police officer to approach and defend himself against a skilled shooter. The force will have to look closely at why both of these officers were shot the same way – this speaks to a training or cover issue for at least the second officer. Having said that, if you’re out in the open in such a scenario, you’re in trouble.
Adding to the above – for most of Canada’s history, police have relied on the basic moral premise of Canadians that to wantonly act to kill someone was wrong, and hence, they had reasonable assurance that there was no significant immediate personal danger to the officer. In the “good old days” a cop arrived as more of a mediator, only getting involved when there were serious issues of law or safety involved. Now, the implied premise if police are called, is someone is going down. This is a significant shift in the role of police, and is very adversarial to society.
Shootings of this type we are seeing are much more troubling for police, partly because they may signal an important moral shift, one which is extremely difficult to deal with, or they may just be a “statistical aberration”, albeit deadly, that complicates investigation of domestics, an already tricky situation.
Knowing that mike collins IQ must be below that of a flea we can always count on liberal idiots like him shooting off their mouths like this
Kate:
You have to get yourself some brighter minions. This group is fried.
Mark: Good work as usual. But, I’m afraid wasted on this lot.
Mark Collin’s spoof on our Liberal MSM is exactly right. And that’s a big problem. The CBC talks just like this; CTV talks just like this; the majority of our journalists and TV reporters and newspaper columnists talk just like this.
Check out the column by Jane Taber, a constant on Mike Duffy’s show, in the Globe and Mail of today. It’s a long monologue against Harper, filled with innuendo, selective editing, and focusing on Liberal and other attacks against Harper.
It moves directly into the emotional, the Montreal family killed in Lebanon, informs us that the Canadian Arab league has condemned Harper for his indifference, informs us of how many Liberal MPs are telling us that Harper isn’t moving fast enough to get the 40,000 Canadians in Lebanon out of the country. Pure propaganda. No questions, no analysis.
I have some questions. Why are there 40,000 Canadians in Lebanon??? THis is two, three, four, five times as many as other countries. No wonder it takes two days more to arrange their evacuation that it does for the 5,000 from another country.
What is going on? Why 40,000? Then, we find that most are residents not visitors. What is going on? Why are so many Canadian citizens permanent residents of Lebanon?? Jane doesn’t ask this question.
Then, we find that already over 20,000 have applied to the Cdn Embassy to leave. That’s a lot of arrangements to arrange. Jane doesn’t question this; doesn’t wonder about this large number.
Then, the Canadian Arab league comments against Harper are inserted. They hold Harper responsible for the Montreal family deaths. Jane doesn’t question this obviously illogical statement.
Then, she’s onto Lloyd Axworthy’s comments, onto saying that ‘some G8 don’t agree with Harper, but refers to only France. Hmm. Does Jane remember that Lebanon was once a colony of France, and that France would like nothing more than to, with itself as head, go back into Lebanon and ‘police’ it?
On and on and on…no questions, no analysis. Just propaganda.
The CBC over the past weeks has been in ‘full anti-Harper, anti-Bush, anti-American mode’ with constant ‘special hour-long broadcasts’ focusing on these issues. Those documentaries the CBC produces are pure Soviet-Chinese-N.Korea style propaganda. That’s our public news system – a pure propaganda system. Funded by us, the taxpayer, to brainwash us in propaganda.
And, like good members of this Canadian Animal Farm, many of us believe what we are told.
The CBC talks just like this; CTV talks just like this; the majority of our journalists and TV reporters and newspaper columnists talk just like this.
The trolls do too. They pop in here with a one liner – generally some politically correct statement parroted from the MSM – and when asked to explain or expand, they can’t, because political correctness requires no thinking.
A good editorial of today, from the Toronto Sun. Note the G8 plan:
“First, the return of the three kidnapped Israeli soldiers unharmed. Second, an end to the shelling of Israel by Hezbollah and Hamas. Third, cessation of Israeli military operations and an early withdrawal from Gaza. Fourth, the release of Palestinian politicians arrested by Israel.”
Seems straightforward and sensible to me.
And, a comment on civilian deaths:
“civilian casualties in war are as old as war itself and Hamas and Hezbollah target innocent Israeli civilians as a matter of policy. When they kill, it’s never an accident.
Beyond that, Canada cannot base its foreign policy on the latest civilian casualties in a war zone. We cannot lean to one side one day, to another the next, based on where the latest civilian casualties come from”.
Again, seems sensible to me. We can’t, as a nation, be without principles and follow the Liberal/NDP mode of being a mechanical weathervane rooster, crowing whichever way the wind, at the moment, blows.
And, we can’t, as a nation, be without principles and follow the Liberal/NDP mode of being a mechanical reactive rooster, with mechnical crow that is able to say only one thing: ‘it’s all due to the Americans’.
Since when has Canada become a mechanical rooster blowing in the wind?
Well if we lost so few in afghanistan can we move everyone from Winnipeg there.
We have far more people killed each year in Winnipeg than there since day 1.
Bush’s war on crime ??????
Were crimes tolerated before the evil Bush?
Oh, yes, of course, the Liberals were in power
ha ha.
How can it be considered satire when it mimics exactly the tone and content of posts over at the G&M? I once posted an entry saying, in effect, “who are we to impose our values on others — multicultural Canada should welcome terrorists whose values include killing and maiming”. Not only did posters not recognize the satire, they agreed so whole-heartedly with the first part of the argument they couldn’t muster a decent response to the second, beyond “I can’t believe I’m reading this”.
ET asked: I have some questions. Why are there 40,000 Canadians in Lebanon???
I was asking myself the exact-same extremely incorrect question: 40,000 “Canadians” or 40,000 “Lebanese-Canadians”?
Over here physically for 6 months + a day, over there mentally all year? The Canadian Immigration Hotel concept?
Well, not knowing who or what Mark Collins is, I certainly needed the /sarcasm on tag. Detected no satire here at all, just a straight-forward expression of the default Axworthian soft-power pantywaistery. I therefore dub myself an unworthy minion of sda requiring immediate replacement who sees obtuseness where wiser folks say irony.
AwCrap, that’ll teach me to come here while half asleep. (Hanging his head in shame)
…or is this some subtle irony ????
I see so much drivel that it’s hard to tell whether it’s real or not.
A rug, for dogs sake. An elderly man rug hooking? Men do not rug hooks. What kind of value is a rug to Bush? He will just wipe his texas snakeye boots on it. …-
Grateful Afghan spends year making rug for Bush
An elderly Afghan man spent a year making a rug and an Illinois military reservist is trying to get it to its intended recipient — U.S. President George Bush. via neale news …-
Bukhara-carpets.com -Tribal Carpets of Afghanistan. Afghan Rugs.
Tribal Carpets and rugs of Afghanistan. Background of the carpet making areas in Afghanistan in some perspective, and to help identify some of the more …
http://www.bukhara-carpets.com/making/afghanistan_tribal_carpets.html – 19k –
This damn map is upside down! I think I can understand why, but it’s very disconcerting.
You can fool some of the people…
Mark
Ottawa
Lol – Mark, you deserve a beer from everyone who fell for this. (At least Richard came back and figured it out!) Kate – I agree about the sarcasm tags – it’s much more fun this way (even though it’s mostly fellow righties who are missing it, it’s still a lot of fun).
Just a thought about the police officers killed and the current world situation. Police officers in small communities in Canada generally know everyone in the community from an almost social point of view. They very seldom have to use force in dealing with people that they see on a daily basis. They become very trusting of people. When someone eventually goes over the edge the consequenses are dire. Part of the reason for this is that we as a society have allowed this to happen. Our past governments, mainly Liberal, have placed us in jeopardy. We have eroded the moral fibre of the country by allowing the ‘hug-a-thug’ mentality to dictate the changes that have brought us to this end. In this country we have effectively muzzed the sheepdogs that protect the flock over the last 50 years. Liberal policies have allowed a once safe civilized society to descend into a hole where people cannot walk down the main street of the country’s largest city during a festive holiday. Now these same policies that have brought us to the point where public general safety is at risk are being advocated on the world stage. We are as the bystanders in the movie “High Noon”, this time we had all better get behind the guy with the badge because the alternative is quite unimaginable.
Mark,
Great summary of the leftist mind. Or rather lack of one.
However, some of the comments posted here are reducing my faith in Conservative thought. If you can call it that.
ET,
The 40,000 so-called ‘Canadians’ represent the Liberal immigration policy. Citizenship doesn’t actually require you to be, you know, Canadian – or for that matter to even live here. As long as they promise to vote Liberal – sign them up and send their welfare cheques to their homes in Lebanon, Pakistan, Syria, etc.
Oh, my sides hurt. A perfect example of why one should read the comments before commenting. Not only to make sure you aren’t just adding a pointless, hand-waving, “me too!” but to make sure you aren’t stomping on a big flmaing bag of poo.
Snerk!
Flaming, flaming bag of poo. I really did graduate from high school. I promise. I *hate* not having editing privileges! 8^ D
Peter Worthington has a good article in support of Israel.
And the US has to evacuate only about 8000 of 25000 in Lebanon. The rest want to stay. Of course they have to reimburse the US gov’t to get out. Think our “Canadians” are paying for their trip?
LOL Mark, great job.
As soon as I read the first sentence I knew something was up, and since I read your comments here and at “the torch”, I realized your wry humor was at work.
And hey, I’ve fallen for it on another blog once, so it’s to be expected, we’re not perfect.
Just like I’ve learned NEVER to ask a woman if she’s expecting…never again.
If I ‘d known who Mark is–I do now!–I’d have known for sure that he was spoofing. When I sent my comments at the original thread, I did make a disclaimer. . .
Satire is just about impossible to do these days when reality looks just the same. E.g., A leftie idiot–I said Mark was an idiot IF he meant what he said [I later said he wasn’t when I realized he didn’t!]–would have made exactly the comments Mark made, but in earnest.
It seems that the line between reality and insanity these days is just a sliver. Actually, the actor John Cleese (Monty Python, Fawlty Towers) has lamented the death of satire: He said it’s virtually impossible to do when mindless pap mimics everyday reality.
Mark’s line, “Canadians want our Mounties to resume their traditional role as peace officers”, really made my antennae start to twitch and I thought maybe he was just kidding. But I wasn’t sure: As many others have pointed out here, there are lots of deluded Canadians–I know many of them!–who altogether believe such nonsense.
Kate, I think you’re great and I have the utmost respect for you, but I think your total poo-pooing of any sarcasm alerts is somewhat elitist. YOU know who most of us are. YOU knew that Mark was spoofing. I THOUGHT he might be, hence, the disclaimer I made. If I hadn’t made it, though, I’d have been quite humiliated.
Any reasonable conservative–or jaded liberal– might have mistaken Mark’s comments for the real thing: Why deliberately leave “the good guys” open to embarrassment?
Mark:
I just want to let you know that the Central Committee is pleased with your recent moves in the direction of progressive thinking. A rehabilitation certificate will shortly be sent to you, and a bottle of Victory gin.
Dear Dr.: I’m a Scotch man myself but even better Remy VSOP; Courvoiser will not do.
Otherwise the Moose is loose.
I reject any central committee. One reason I was a difficult federal public servant–in a bipartisan sense.
And I am confident your “Central Committee” is virtual not Marxist: pomo, poco or, gasp, both? Let’s do the desconstruct.
lyrics.duble.com/lyrics/A/the-animals-lyrics/the-animals-mess-around-lyrics.htm
Meanwhile the Velvet Fog is getting sentimental over you.
Kisses,
Mark
Ottawa
Lookout, That was an elegant recovery.. and it made me chuckle, but don*t worry about it.
Embabarrassment and worry are both just so much wasted energy. Both can be avoided by just getting busy.. moving on.
Cleese is correct of course, but I say if satire fails to be recognized, then there is the question of whether the author is really able to instill the subtle keys the way any good author should.
Be interesting to see an accurate survey of just what percentage of viewers think the Simpsons is simply a cartoon. TG
Dr. Dawg, You probably know the central committee only sends out bottles of quota achievement Vodka. Your satire is impeccable.
TG
Thanks, TG, for your kind response and friendly advice. I had a chuckle too!
Checking back here 12 hours later, and reading the first handful of posts after mine, I felt a little humiliated that I had been taken in by a “satirist.”
That’ll teach me to have one more drink while posting, I thought an hour ago.
But after reading all the comments and going back to Collins’ original a few times, I was right even in my semi-refreshed state. His post was undetectable as satire (unless you knew the poster) because it is the same tone we hear from the MSM every hour, on the hour, coast to friggin coast.
The tone was only a single notch above (below?) that adopted by the Globe and Mail today as it covered Harper’s reaction to the Israeli situation: Harper “refuses” to reconsider his position. Harper refuses to back down. Harper refuses to be nuanced like Chirac. Harper refuses to see sense and appease the terrorists as the Liberals did.
The joke’s on me, but it’s not funny. Our leading media outlets are so far gone, you can’t satirize them. That’s scary.
Okay, okay. I still feel like an idiot.
Don’t feel like an idiot, owl: But I know how you feel!
CBC Radio (2) news at 6:00 a.m. Virtually ALL of it was designed to diss the Conservatives. Cases in point:
1) The “confusion and chaos” at the Beirut port where thousands of Lebanese Canadians are waiting to be evacuated. CBC reported (lovingly) that these people were complaining that the Canadian government’s not being efficient enough. (Why not just stay in Lebanon, then, if all you can do is complain?) Late in the report, the newscaster happened to mention that the government’s officials HAD ASKED the passengers to STAY PUT until called to come to the port. (In fairness, I think, like those who disregarded this request, I’d have done so too.)
Context NOT given: a) Lebanon is a WAR zone! Under such conditions, evacuations of thousands of people at short notice are usually somewhat compromised and, therefore, may be a little disorganized. b) The government officials would be LIBERAL appointees, not Conservative ones. (duh) c) It’s the Liberals who created the dual citizenship situation, whereby very large (hmm) numbers of Lebanese Canadian citizens spend part of the year in a country occupied by a terrorist group. Don’t claim these people didn’t know. d) No mention that it was Hezbollah, in Lebanon, which has not been brought to heel by either the Lebanese government or UN troops there (hmmm, again), that started all this.
2) Some Lebanese Canadians, who made it back to Edmonton from the war zone with much difficulty, blamed the Conservatives for their and their family’s plight. One of them was quoted as saying, “The Consrvatives are unlikely to get my vote next election.” As if this person hasn’t already been bought by the Liberals!
And if the Liberals hadn’t supported Palestinian terrorists all along, while leaving Israel to its fate, maybe Lebanon would be a safer place.
The CBC is simply an anti-Conservative propaganda machine. The sooner it gets chucked, the better. Oh, for a Conservative majority!
“It’s the Liberals who created the dual citizenship situation”
Umm, no. I’m perfectly happy to thump away at the Liberals when I think it’s warranted but the “dual citizenship situation” was not of their making.
“…whereby very large (hmm) numbers of Lebanese Canadian citizens spend part of the year in a country occupied by a terrorist group. Don’t claim these people didn’t know.”
It’s not illegal for Canadian nationals to spend any or all of their time overseas. But you’re absolutely right about Lebanon. It’s a big stretch for a Canadian (least of all one of Lebanese background) who chooses to live and work in such a country to claim to be ignorant of the dodgy situation there.
I’m reminded of all the Brits who insist on going to places like Sri Lanka for their holidays and are then so surprised and shocked to find themselves stuck at the Colombo airport in the midst of a firefight between government troops and Tamil Tigers.
Most Western countries provide constantly updated travel warnings on dodgy locales through their foreign affairs ministries.
But of course, who pays attention to anything like that when you’re packing the suntan oil?
Mark,
Good one, but I think I can help you a bit in perfecting the art of satire. You see, the problem with your post is that it sounded too much like the things we hear every day from the barking moonbats. The trick is to start with something that sounds like something they would say, and then carefully expand the argument to it’s ludicrious (though logical) conclusion. But in order for it to be percieved as satire, you must go absolutely over the top, ending by saying something that logically flows from their own arguments, but which is so shamefacedly ridiculous that even they would never dare say it……
On second thought, never mind.