Tuesday 30 October 2012

Romney’s Snake handlers







“they will pick up snakes with their hands; and when they drink deadly poison, it will not hurt them at all; they will place their hands on sick people, and they will get well." Mark 16:18



If Romney wins or should I say steals the 2012 election, then you should know about his posse of crazy fundamentalist snake handlers which he will bring into his administration.  In the area of education, a former Republican organizer who is touted to have the inside track into a high profile Department of Education position is Dr. Gary Cass, currently head of the Christian Anti-Defamation league after being an executive member of the San Diego Republican party. His book, “The Bible and The Blackboard: Biblical Solutions for Failing Schools” is required reading for conservative critics of the present educational system.




“Suicide, drug abuse, promiscuity, teenage pregnancies, and abortion are all linked to the morally bankrupt public education philosophy that prevails in our nation's schools. The Bible and the Blackboard provides a profound look at the public school system's fall from a time when, in some cases, the Bible was a textbook, to the present, where Christian worldviews are outlawed from the classroom.”


I sure that Clarissa and Z are unaware that they are working in “perverted factories of unfaithfulness” as his lecture in the video states but in the event of a Romney victory they’ll soon find out.  Better watch out for the Kool Aid too but at least the healthcare cost overruns will be solved. There have been so many flavors of rape expounded by Republican candidates this year that everyone is confused so fortunately Daily Kos has put out a handy chart of rape types which is free to be copied and placed on your fridge door.
 


And all you Satanic pro choice Obama lovers are going to burn in hell!

 

World’s Worst Hotel





  The Hans Brinker Budget Hotel in Amsterdam has won the travel agents’ award again as the world’s worst hotel. A typical comment from the Tripadvisor website:


We stayed in this hostel in April 2012 on a Topdeck tour of Europe. I'd read other reviews of the hostel before we got there, so was a bit nervous. Unfortunately most of the reviews I'd read were completely true. The rooms were like prison cells, with rickety old beds and metal lockers that didn't close properly. Walking down the hallways was like walking through an abandoned old hospital. I could have forgiven the barren, echoing rooms if they'd been super clean, but they weren't. The shared bathroom was the kind that you wear thongs in just to wash your hands. Luckily the bed sheets were clean (or so they looked). The breakfast was minimal and gross. The only saving factor was that it was within walking distance to the main tourist attractions in Amsterdam, very close to a bike hire store and down the street from a cafe that makes potent brownies. I would recommend that, if you have a choice, go somewhere else!


        Room Tip: Choose a good room...at another hostel!


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If you check their website, you’ll find the following legal notice posted.

Legal note: The Hans Brinker Budget Hotel does offer cheap accommodation in Amsterdam but cheap accommodation herein describes ‘inexpensive relative to others in the sector’ but not (under hotel regulations & guides the Netherlands brief #4569. 67887. 89) ‘good’ accommodation or indeed ‘pleasant,’ ‘hygienic’ accommodation or any derivation thereof. Those wishing to stay at the Hans Brinker Budget Hotel, Amsterdam, do so at their own risk and will not hold the hotel liable for food poisoning, mental breakdowns, terminal illness, lost limbs, radiation poisoning, certain diseases associated with the 18th century, plague, etcetera.

Why go? It does provide relatively cheap accommodation close to some well known tourist attractions in the city and the clientele mostly stoned on legal pot after a night of debauchery in Amsterdam’s red light zone usually don’t notice the lack of amenities. Also if I get a thousand hits on this post then the hotel will pay me ten Euros (really!)

P.S.

The hotel was named after a character in a novel by American author Mary Mapes Dodge entitled, “The Silver Skates” who wants to win a prize of silver skates by winning the Dutch speed racing  competition but only owns a pair of wooden skates.

  

Monday 29 October 2012

Moving to Canada




I saw this article in Business week today about Americans planning to move to Canada after the impending US election. One section states:
 



Randolph McTavish, Deputy Commissioner of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, also warned Americans against trying to slip across the border in the hopes of passing as Canadians: “It is very difficult, if not impossible, to pretend to like hockey.” Mr. McTavish said that he was sympathetic with those who might flee across the border in search of a new life and socialized medicine, but added, “At the end of the day, forty-seven per cent of Americans is more than Canada can handle.”

 
—Andy Borowitz, “Canada Tightens Border,” The Borowitz Report, The New Yorker, October 9, 2012.

The question that  the article raises is who will be the ones leaving because for the first time both the Obama and Romney camps have their bags packed if the other side wins. Usually the story is the tree hugging liberal hippies are the only ones planning to leave and the Google trend chart below demonstrates how in November 2004 when the Bush side won (the large peak on the left) the disappointed Democrats planned to leave for Canada but in November 2008 when Obama won there was no peak.  This time is different. In a Guardian news story in June of 2012, Republican Americans threatened to leave if Obama care was passed. As one pundit in the article said, “That’s like saying you’re moving to Hogwarts because you don’t believe in magic.” The meme is in full force on the web right now but will it really happen? According to a CTV news piece, it’s all about high unemployment in America and lower college tuition in Canada.


I think that one reason American right wingers consider relocating to Canada is the governing Conservative party of Stephen Harper having a majority in parliament. They don’t understand that conservatism in this country is a far cry from the Republican brand. On July 11, 2012, the finance minister, Tony Clement dedicated a new 2.5 million dollar visitor center in Gravenhurst, Ontario for the birthplace of Marxist hero and martyr, Norman Bethune.  An article in the Globe and Mail said:



Norman Bethune, who died while tending Mao Zedong’s troops in 1939, is an unlikely Conservative hero. But Bethune’s ideological impurity is offset by his value to Ottawa’s strategy in China – where the colourful Canadian expatriate is a national hero, memorialized by Mao himself for his “spirit of absolute selflessness.”

This is equivalent to one of Romney’s retainers celebrating the dedication of a statue to Fidel Castro and calling him a great hero of the Cuban people. This center’s construction cost was paid by the Harper government’s economic action plan.
 



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