The Folly In A Donald Trump Ban

So, the UK is deciding whether or not it will ban Donald Trump from entering the country. They are doing this because, well, Donald Trump is a loud mouth idiot who said he would close America's borders to Muslims if he was elected.

Now, of course, this is a stupid, stupid thing to say. Yes, Donald Trump is an idiot who says stupid, idiotic things.

But here is the deal, and why I think it's pretty hypocritical of the UK to look at banning the guy.

Donald Trump is a loud mouth presidential candidate. He isn't a leader. He's a candidate, and one that most likely will not make it into power.

Meanwhile, the UK is letting in actual leaders with real power from countries like Saudi Arabia or China that have actually DONE far worse than Donald Trump could possibly do. So, this idea of banning a loud mouth for saying stupid things while letting in horrible dictators who have done horrible, horrible things seems to be a waste of time and energy.

I do not like Donald Trump. I believe earlier even I referred to him as an idiot. And yes, indeed, he is an idiot. But isn't a despot. He isn't a brutal dictator. He hasn't sent people to their death for blasphemy. He hasn't sent anyone to any labour camps. He hasn't actually done anything but express a rather stupid, stupid idea.

Seems rather ridiculous to me to rush to ban the guy. Call him out for what he is: an idiot! But, it is completely hypocritical to tell him he can't come in, but openly embrace far more horrible people. 

Screw You, Engle.

Oh geez, this guy. I wish I had more energy tonight to waste on this, but I don't. So, I'll just let this giant egotistical mouthpiece spew his bile and be done with it. Why does he always sound like he just got off of 4 day bender in a motel, where he smoke and drank everything he could get his hands on? He probably woke up an hour before this, groaned and remembered that he had to go yell at some punk ass kids for a while about something that he will make up in the car as he goes. Why do people listen to this guy?? And what's with his little bobbing and weaving WWE wrestler thing he has going on sometimes? He really should be wearing spandex or something, no? I expect him to take out a folding metal chair any minute and start wacking people with it. Boy do I loathe this man.

Fluid Hair Fuck Up

Holy GEEZ! Have you seen this ad for Fluid Hair Salon in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada? Okay, let me just say straight out, this ad idea is messed up beyond all belief. How on earth did someone think that this could possibly be a good ad idea!

The owner of Fluid Salon, Sarah Cameron says, "Is it cutting edge advertising? Yes. Is it intended to be a satirical look at real-life situations that ignites conversation and debate? Of course. Is it to everyone’s taste? Probably not."

Um, what?? Is it cutting edge advertising? No. Other than showing up a beat up women and a mean looking dude, this looks like your typical crappy Vogue magazine ad. Blah. Satirical look at real life situations?? Huh? If by satire you mean "Ha! This woman with a black eye is hilarious! You should not look at her black eye though, you should be looking at her hair, which we did! Isn't that hair great?! We are such a great salon! She looks great even when beaten black and blue! We are awesome!" Is it to everyone's taste? I would seriously question anyone who likes this ad, or who decides to go to this frickin' salon based on this ad.

Sarah Cameron seems to believe this is art. Well, whatever. If she believes that, that is her view. Art, advertising, any way you cut it is a bad, bad idea for a campaign to promote a salon. Essentially it is a glorification of violence that make hip-hop videos look tame, selling a crap salon run by an arrogant women who seems to think her salon is adding to the artistic edginess of the world through a crappy paid advertising campaign. It is nothing more or nothing less. She got a New York ad agency to do this up for her. She has to justify spending those big bucks I suppose. "Abuse? No, no, no...ART! It's art! Controversy? Oh, THAT. Well, if it sells my salon, then I'm all for it! Look at me! Look at me! Look at my salon! You will love us and become life long customers because we spent all of this cash on an ad campaign from...NEW YORK CITY! Aren't we cutting edge?"

Ad agencies in New York don't make art. They make campaigns. They sell junk and ideas. They aren't interested in the viewer in anyway other than seeing them as a target audience who will buy stuff from their clients. That's what puts money in their pockets and what puts money in the pockets of the clients. Can they be artistic? Yes. Are they art? That's up for debate. Is this art? In the eyes of Sarah Cameron it is. So, ladies, be sure that after your man has beat you to a pulp that you go to Fluid Hair Salon! You will be so glad that you did because even though your man treats you like scum, Fluid Hair will make you feel alright, and you will look good even after a thorough beating!

The Not So Suprising Vancouver Riots

It's not like there are hasn't already been plenty written about it, but I may as well put my two cents in on the topic of the Vancouver riots.

So, last night, I thought I would turn on the final game of the Stanley Cup playoffs to see who would wind being champions and subsequently heroes to legions of hockey loving people. I haven't watched hockey in at least two years, and I can't say I am a huge fan of the sport. But, because Vancouver was involved and seemingly every other Canadian was watching the game, I thought I should as well just in case the subject came up in the future while talking to fellow Canadians and I wanted to participate in the conversation.

I watched hockey for one hour. It wasn't a great game as far as I am concerned, though I admit I don't really know how to judge a good game. Anyway, it didn't really matter. The long and the short of it is that Vancouver lost and the other guys won and then all hell broke loose and I ended up watching one hour of bad hockey and three hours of top notch rioting.

You may have seen the images and the videos and the reams of analysis that have already blanketed television sets, newspapers and computers across the country. If not, then you probably don't have television, newspapers or a computer. Here is a nice little summary of events from the CBC.

Okay, with all of that out of the way, let's get to the opinion part of this. Did people really expect this not to happen? I wasn't even in the city and I expected there to be a riot, or at least some disturbances, win or lose. Why? It's hockey. Now, that may sound unfair to say. It's not like there haven't been other Stanley Cup wins and loses that haven't ended in complete anarchy. What gives? Well, sure, all out riots like this one don't happen everyday which is good. But, I don't think it is far off to say that what happened is partly related to the culture of violence associated with hockey.

We got an arrogant, big mouth, redneck on the national TV (one, Mr. Don Cherry) glorifying violence on the rink and calling those who don't fight "pansies" while hundreds of thousands lap his moronic alpha-male BS up like milk in a....I don't know...thing that milk is in. When a fight happens on the ice, the crowd goes WILD and of course it's shown on the highlight reel during the sportscast with slack jawed, gelled up, fake tanned sports announcers commenting on the "nice left shots" or whatever being used by the buffoons beating the snot out of one another. After a fight, the players head to their penalty boxes, which are more like King's throwns, where people worship at the foot of the tough, brave heroes that end up in there after trying to knock what's left of the opposing teams teeth out for whatever the frick reason.

Then, THEN, you add alcohol into the mix. Who sponsors all of this? Beer companies. Who makes millions off of this? Beer companies. What do these fans do while watching hockey? Drink beer. Drink beer and go WOOOOOO! There is a lot of of WOOOOOOing and high fiving among drunk hockey fans I have come to notice. Oh the alcohol that flows. What was the first thing that happened to trigger the riots? Beer bottles were thrown at the giant screens put in downtown Vancouver so people could watch the game. That's rather telling, isn't it?

So, then comes the finals in Vancouver, with big screen TV's and thousands upon thousands of people flooding into the city to watch the game on them. It's a beautiful night, the beer is flowing, the WOOOOOOOing is at a fever pitch and the hockey is on. And it's not JUST hockey. It's THE event of the year...the final game of the playoffs and the local team can win it all, or lose it all. And they lost it all. And that completed the creation of the perfect storm.

BOOM. The rest is history. Fans riot, burn cars, burn jerseys, burn themselves, burn others, break stuff, steal stuff, jump on stuff, drink more stuff, do a whole lot more WOOOOOOOOOOOOing, fight each other, fight police, fight dogs, fight whatever gets in their way,  drink some more, throw around some porta-potties, some newspaper boxes, some construction material, some other rioters. Oh it was a joyous night, wasn't it?

It has happened before, it happened last night, and it will happen again. Next time, try not to look so surprised.

High Seas Drama: The Slaughter of Truth by Israel, Turkey, and Pretty Much Everyone Else.

You know what I'm tired of? PR folks thinking that we are all morons.

So, you may have heard about the little incident involving Israels infamous IDF, and the Gaza Flotilla headed to, well, Gaza. Nine people were killed when things went horribly wrong. What exactly happened, we may never know. But, it sure didn't take long for the "spin" to kick in as, again, PR, representatives, politicians, etc. seemingly assured themselves that we are all complete and utter idiots who will just buy anything anyone says as long as they say it enough times.

The event that happened on the Mediterranean was bad enough, but to hear the post event rhetoric has just been excruciatingly painful, and fraught with hypocrisy, over the top exaggeration, confusion, accusations and finger pointing and, for the most part, just out and out crap. Israel says it was doing what it did in self defense, and the people that were dropped onto the ships in international waters were justified in killing 9 people. Turkey's Prime Minister has called the event Turkey's 9/11 after the killings occurred on the Mavi Marmara, a Turkish ship. Turkey's 9/11?? The condemnation from Turkey is understandable and all, but completely hypocritical given their own dismal human rights record. So, as Turkey tries to spin this into the greatest disaster that may have ever happened, Israel is insinuating that these boats were essentially filled with terrorists, they had to act in self defense and the killings were justified. And WORSE, there are claims that there is no humanitarian crisis in the Gaza strip! DAMN YOU ALL! Quit talking to us as if we are complete morons and idiots! Stop with the PR propaganda. It's INSULTING! Let the facts come out, would ya? Let us get a relatively TRUTHFUL understanding of what happened! Don't keep feeding us your well planned, well rehearsed, polished and pretty prefab pablum! Let us find out the truth. I don't believe we will ever know the complete truth, but, as long as we can get all of the PR crud out of the way, we can start to piece together something relatively CLOSE to an unbiased, impartial look at the events. Just spewing the same lines over and over and over and over and over again with the belief that people will just stop questioning and accept what is being spewed out is arrogant and disgusting.

No more propaganda! And that goes for you too, big corporations, governments and special interest groups everywhere. Every time anyone tries to push their biased crap, question it. We are constantly bombarded: The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and the war on "terror" in general, the killing of Tamils civilians in Sri Lanka, the crisis in Darfur, the problems in the Gaza strip, the Catholic church sex abuse...oh, the list goes on and on and ON. Toyota has a brand new advertising campaign showing how much the people who build Toyota vehicles LOVE the product they are building and care so much about your safety! It is painful to watch. They are only saying it because they got BAD publicity when they screwed up with their cars. But, they want to turn their image around and protect their "brand". Screw the brand. Protect the people. I don't want to hear about the "brand" anymore. I'm tired of PR. I'm tired of spin. Quit treating us like idiots...you idiots!!!

DOCTOR Becker, I Presume?

I can't figure out if this guy is a half full or half empty kinda guy, and when I say that, I mean...IN HIS HEAD!

Here is a letter to the editor from my hometown paper, The Chronicle Journal, in Thunder Bay, Ontario, Canada (http://www.chroniclejournal.com/includes/datafiles/print.php?id=256703&title=Why%20I%20don%E2%80%98t%20support%20the%20cancer%20industry) from Tuesday, April 13th, 2010. It goes as follows:

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From www.chroniclejournal.com

Letters to the Editor
Why I don‘t support the cancer industry
Sunday, April 11, 2010

Summer is just around the corner and so is the Walk for Cancer and the Run for Cancer and a multitude of requests for donations to help the cancer industry find a cure for cancer.
This multi-billion-dollar-a-year industry has been operating for so long that employees have been retiring after comfortably working their entire lives in it.
So, please leave me off your request list because I refuse to support the search for a cure.
There is no cure for cancer!
After spending billions of dollars a year for more than 60 years, if there were a cure for cancer, don‘t you think they would have found it by now?
How many decades must we search before we finally admit there is no cure and there are better areas to research?
We need to spend less time and money looking for a non-existent cure and put more emphasis on earlier detection, education, prevention and treatment.
Look at our archaic treatment methods – surgery, chemo and radiation. These treatments haven‘t changed for more than half a century.
The objective of these primitive treatments is to poison the body almost to the point of death so that the weaker cancer cells are destroyed and hopefully the body recovers. Sometimes, it doesn‘t and even when it does the results can be extremely debilitating and painful. Is this the best we can do after more than half a century?
For decades we‘ve known that cigarette smoking kills half of all smokers and yet we still allow the sale of cigarettes. That‘s insanity! We need to help smokers stop smoking.
We know that exercise, weight control, better diet and screening can reduce cancer by more than 50 per cent so why are we wasting time and money looking for a non-existent cure?
Cancer has always been with us – it‘s found in Egyptian mummies and dinosaur bones. It cannot be eradicated but it can be drastically reduced.
Cancer industry spokesmen tell us that we are making great strides and that cancer patients are living longer. Yes, they are living longer not because they found a cure but because of better education, prevention and earlier detection. That‘s where we need to spend our money. And, we need to develop better than primitive treatments.
You might think I‘ll change my mind if I get cancer. Wrong! It‘s not a matter of if I get cancer; it‘s a matter of when. You see, three of my grandparents died of cancer (we aren‘t sure about the fourth), both of my parents had it and my father died of it. If nothing else kills me, my chances of dying of cancer are 100 per cent. That‘s why I won‘t contribute a cent to searching for a non-existent cure. I‘ll start contributing when the majority of research is directed toward education, prevention, earlier detection and better treatment. After all, my life depends on it and so might yours.

Gerold Becker
Thunder Bay

______________________________

Well, Dr. Gerold...and I PRESUME that you are a Doctor, seeing as you seem to know it all, you frickin' know it all. Where do I even START! Well, let's start here. As someone who has had cancer, and has been cancer free for many years now, all I can say is...SHOVE IT UP YOUR FRICKIN' BUTT! That is exactly what happens to me every year or so. I had colon cancer. I get regular colonoscopies. They have been saving my life. When my grandfather got colon cancer...HE DIED. There were no other options. Obviously the billions Dr. Becker speaks of has gone to SOMETHING. For example, genetic testing, to see WHERE the cancer comes from and what can be done about it and how the future might be different for later generations of my family, and others. I've been involved in that ever since I was diagnosed with colon cancer. After surgery, I did have chemotherapy and am DAMN GLAD I did! Why? Because it saved my life. Sure, it wasn't fun, but, gosh darn it, neither is dying, you bone head! And, thanks to research, they have been figuring out how to best administer chemotherapy to do the most good for the least discomfort...DR. BECKER! So, that money is just being thrown out the window making lives like mine BETTER. When I was having my chemo, I was part of a trial drug program, to test if a new medication could FURTHER help folks like me. But, apparently, nothing has changed in over 50 years, according to DR. FRICKIN' BECKER! Apparently he feels that more money has to be spent on education and prevention. No kidding, Doc! You don't say? Hey, have you not looked around to see that this is happening!??? Maybe he hasn't noticed all of the breast screening programs that have sprung up as just ONE example? Maybe he hasn't watched, sayyyy, a television in his lifetime. You will find plenty of information on that thing, DR. BECKER. I presume the guy doesn't have the internet. No, couldn't. If he did, he could possibly look this shit up and actually know what the heck is talking about. Perhaps his head is stuck so far into a pit of vomit that he doesn't realize the efforts that are being made by many cancer charities in doing EXACTLY what he blabbered on about (you know, the education thing, and the prevention thing) WHILE giving cash to those trying to figure out how to find a cure. Sorry Mr. pessimist Dr. BECKER! You are SO right. We should abandon all hope, especially now when there IS progress being made, because you can't be bothered to actually research and find out that, yes, indeed, there IS progress being made. More and more people ARE surviving, and living longer lives cancer free. Sounds pretty good to me. Would this have been possible without research? Mmmmmmmmmm. According to DR. FRICKIN' BECKER, no! I beg to differ. I HAVE been on the receiving end of the progress that is being made. Thank GOODNESS for the donations that have gone towards cancer charities and such. What I think DR. FRICKIN' BECKER should do is read a book or something, and maybe learn about what is going on around him! It is clear he hasn't done this. What kind of Doctor IS this guy, anyway??