Google - huge, fat and arrogant

Well, the Nazis at Google are still at it.

My friend has a small business in the art field. Her company name is "last name+art" - such as, for example, "spencerart", and not unreasonably she relies in large measure on email.

So it was some time ago that she tried to register her name as username for a Gmail address - for example, spencerart@gmail.com:

- it was "unavailable".

- it is not being used by anyone.

- it simply is not available to her because someone at Google has some sort of nefarious interest in it.

She has asked several times for an explanation, from the people who run gmail, and she has faxed a letter to Larry Page, one of Google's founders, asking him why his company is withholding her name and what it intends to use it for. She was not expecting an answer from him and so it did not exactly bother her that she got none.

But "the gmail team" are something else.

After receiving no response several times, she wrote:

"I WANT TO KNOW WHAT YOU PEOPLE INTEND TO DO WITH
MY BUSINESS NAME
--- The Google Team
wrote:

> Hello,
>
> Thank you for your response.
>
> While we appreciate your interest in the
> username "******art," we're
> unable to reveal further information for
> privacy reasons.
>
> Sincerely,
>
> The Google Team"

as far as I can see this arbitrary, high-handed and snot-nosed approach by the Google Nazis requires some explanation, which is not forthcoming as the gmail team appears to have the same arrogant attitude as Louis XIV - his motto may have been l'etat, c'est moi, but theirs clearly is "l'internet, c'est google".

Today, I tried the following:

I entered first and last name, Flora Huntingdon, with the username huntingdonart@gmail.com:

"Get started with Gmail
First name: flora
Last name: huntingdon
Desired Login Name: huntingdonart
Examples: JSmith, John.Smith



huntingdonart is available @gmail.com"

So now tell me why "huntingdonart" should be available, but hers, a legitimate business name, is not.

Do not hold your breath while awaiting an answer. After all, Google is so enormous a business that it can - and does - get away with whatever it perceives as being in its interest - and you, paeon, be damned, even if your name belongs legally to you.

MCCAIN - SABOTAGED BY HIS OWN PARTY?

Even to an only mildly interested foreigner whose politics are - to the minds of most Americans - stuck to the far left wall, the recent debacle within the Republican Party was puzzling.

That a man of John McCain's calibre should choose, as running mate, an unknown - to him - untested, venal, fourth-rate neophyte hick like Sarah Palin, is too bizarre for comfort. At worst, it indicated a fatal hubris, a cynical political trick to pick up votes from that great, unwashed, amorphous entity known as the "base" (a truly appropriate word in at least two of its meanings). At best, it suggested that the man was getting a bit old and fuzzy thinking had set in.

Now that the extent of the damage to the Grand Old Party is beginning to be revealed it is time to think about this person's "anointing" as a "star" by the very political insiders against which she railed so strenuously.

The Obama phenomenon - that a politician could speak in rational, adult terms, to an audience presumed to be equally rational, equally adult - is something new in politics. Even the revered JFK had bags full of dirty tricks, or rather, his father, who bankrolled his campaign, did.

But Obama, to warm to whom it took us some time, never deviated from his intent to keep the discussion on that narrow path. Time and again there were opportunities to turn into a pit bull - lipstick-wearing or not - to attack his opponents, particularly once Palin entered the arena. But he resisted. Since it is necessary to be attacked so that it may be returned in kind, this sort of refusal to play by the established rules must have been intensely frustrating to the GOP strategists. Their purpose, after all, is to return the party to power, by hook or by crook.

Knowing that there is a significant doorstop in the White House, a drag on their fortunes, not a dead duck so much as an albatross, some of the high muckety-mucks in the party must have realized that they were not going to win.

These people are the same ones that were highly antagonistic to their own candidate. Make no mistake about it, McCain was, and is, deeply distrusted and reviled by a large chunk of the party. The man, after all, had integrity in buckets, the man never hesitated to tar and feather his own, if need be. The man, in other words, did not embrace the concept of standing behind one's party at all costs. And that did not endear him to a number of major GOP players. Oral Roberts, for example, refused to permit him to speak at his university. . . so much for intellectual freedom.

The majority of people are weary of the Republicans. Eight years of Dubya is more than eight years too many. The excesses and criminal activities of the last eight years are now coming home to roost on the Republicans' heads, and they might squat there for a long time. But - hey! perhaps some within the party thought McCain would make a fairly good scapegoat.
He is old, after all, and won't be back in four years, or eight. Hardly universally loved by party members, he could wear a target on his back without taking too many of his clique with him. And, as he is loyal, and a gentleman, he is unlikely to speak out against his own.

So we can look at Palin in another light. Dumb as a stump but photogenic, ignorant but capable or rousing the rabble, she made a convenient anchor. And by the sounds of it, McCain permitted this anchor to be affixed firmly around his ankle without a peep. In one fell swoop the people could be given "hope" by the "star quality" of this "fellow maverick"; after the inevitable defeat McCain could be conveniently blamed for picking her and thus "sealing the party's fate".

Sounds possible. Yes, we know that there is an enormous difference between possible and probable. But it is plausible and it remains a tantalizing possibility.


As for Palin, she is finished. No amount of tutoring, no amount of whitewash, rebranding or reinvention can return her to the supposedly squeaky-clean state in which she was presented to the world. Listening to the prank call by two Quebecois comedians one is struck by the number of opportunities she was given to realize that it was a hoax, opportunities she did not take because she is DUMB AS A STUMP.

One cannot do much with deadwood except to burn it, or ignore it and leave it to all the little critters that will, over time, turn it into something useful. Over a loooong time.

Meanwhile, though, there is something to be said to John McCain:

Time cannot erase the sacrifice you made for your country, nor can it dull the keen edge of the gloss of your honour. But perhaps time can eventually wash the stain of the Palin choice from your name, because of all the available, talented, photogenic, young, intelligent people from which a future leader could have been chosen, hers should have been the last to be considered.

Time To 'Get Real'

The historic election of Barack Obama to the presidency of the United States, a mere century and a half after the country
imperfectly and unwillingly shook off the idea that one man could own another, will be seen as a step every bit as significant as that of Neil Armstrong when he set his boot down upon the dead dust of our moon.

Not only significant for the election of a man with black skin, this election also marked the first time a candidate tried to hew to the road of adulthood, respect and reason. Whereas John McCain, out of desperation, yielded to the Rovian thuggery of playing to the lowest common denominator, Obama brushed off more than a few incitements to return the favour in kind.

Perhaps there is yet hope that people from a broad sweep of backgrounds, contexts and ancestries can join together to make common cause against the evils that are capable of tearing apart the fabric of their society.


We all know that the wolf is at the door, accompanied by wolverines and other predators, and we hear the not-so-distant strains of the piper. So we must gather ourselves together and work from our commonalities rather than our differences. Surely anything is preferable to the throat-grabbing, head-bashing anger that rose up in the dying embers of the McCain campaign, that marred his generous and eloquent concession speech. One wonders what might have happened if that one, the real McCain, had continued his electioneering, instead of the one that opened a Pandora's box of antagonisms and dislikes.

Coaxing hope out of the bottom will not be as difficult as it might have been first time around, however, for hope has been one of the keynotes of Obama's campaign. It is something positive and constructive to seize upon as a guide to the complex repairs that must be made to so many aspects of US - and global - business, society and industry, that were let slide in the mirage of the past eight years.

Yes, the US has a historic choice, a man whose skin is black.

Yet one feels that it is also important to note that this black man has no genetic or emotional associations to the desperate struggle that split the country for so many decades; he is not a descendant of slaves, nor of free black Americans, and thus comes to the table - to the presidency - free of any taint or motive from historic grievances, wrongs to avenge, or other unresolved issues.

In a way he is unique - an African American whose route to the table is not through the terror of slavery or the
long fight to overcome prejudice; who can undestand from first-hand experience what it means, yet by virtue of his ancestry has stood, paradoxically, to the side of both black and white American society and in it. Everyone - even those who voted for the Republican party rather than the man - should be prepared to roll up their sleeves and get to work without, for once, thinking about other people's politics, religion, choice of decor or ancestry. The damage done under the mindless watch of the albatross in the White House is severe and pervasive, whether in an illegally founded war upon the wrong country or the wholesale destruction of the financial sector. The next three months cannot pass quickly enough.

Improvin' the Wannabe Decider

So the Republican National Committee spent $150,000 on improvements to Sarah Palin?

We knew that some major work was needed but we didn't think it would cost that much.

The RNC must have felt that outfits at JC Penney or Target - surely the type of store likely to be patronized by the 'frugal' governor - were unsuitable, considering that she is runnin' for vice-president.

We have news for the RNC: you can dress her up all you want but you cannot hide the fact that Mrs Palin is dumb as a stump. Not that this is necessarily a negative quality - heaven only knows how many dumb but attractive women are in surprisingly elevated positions as wives, girlfriends, actresses, singers, members of one board or another, but they usually have somethin' that Mrs. Palin does not, namely a pleasin' personality. There have been comparisons to a pit bull - but the canine does not have her nasal whine, which even strenuous coachin' by a former actor cannot completely subdue. We are reminded more forcefully of Bart Simpson's Grampa's false teeth as they are clamped tightly onto a fan blade, sending Bart very nearly into orbit. In that same way Mrs Palin seizes hold of somethin' and refuses to yield, even when the RNC is goin' into a cataplectic fit upon hearin' her lies about Obama "pallin' around with terrorists".


The longer Mrs. Palin is left loose in the public eye, the more she grates, whether she is denyin' that the RNC spent the equivalent of at least a one-bedroom condo on her appearance, or she is tellin' tall tales about the vice president's function in the Senate - "A vice president has a really great job because not only are they there to support the president's agenda, they're there like the team member, the teammate to the president. But also, they're in charge of the United States Senate, so if they want to they can really get in there with the senators and make a lot of good policy changes that will make life better for Brandon and his family and his classroom. And it's a great job and I look forward to havin' that job.”

Admittedly she was talkin' to grade three students but this deep misunderstandin' of the role of the vice president vis-a-vis the Senate - to cast the decidin' vote in times of a tie - also shows how inflated and self-aggrandizin' a view Mrs Palin has of herself. Can she blame it on the Alaskan air? You betcha! Is Alaska not the place where cabbages grow to the size of Volkswagens?

We have previously noted that Mrs Palin is hyper-ambitious. In her own mind, at least, she appears to be well on the road to the White House - whether via the increasingly less likely route of accompanyin' an elderly candidate and prayin' for the unsayable as others pray for rain, or perhaps in 2012, as candidate for the Republican Party. On this point one must hope, in all earnestness and with all sincerity, that the Party will irrevocably scotch that stupid idea if they wish ever to return to significant power. One Decider was more than enough. Mrs Palin may look sexy to a lot of men but to the Party itself she must be an ever heavier, more obvious albatross.

Froggie Did a-Courtin' Go...

Watching the debate last night, between would-be vice-presidents Joe Biden and Sarah Palin, we were struck by Palin's relentless glorification of her man, John McCain, and the high-keyed, almost manic manner in which she presented herself. It was more than a contrast to her dull-seeming, ill-informed appearances with CBS's Katie Couric; it was as though she had stepped through a door into another universe and come out as SuperMom.

There is no denying that this woman can cram; there is no denying that she can work a room even from a stage. But the aura of the enterprise had more than a whiff of futility about it. The idea, that someone can go from "hockey mom" to small-time mayor to vice-president in a couple of years and a few short hops is uniqely American and calls to mind - in this instance, at least - the movie "Election" in which Reese Witherspoon exhibits the same relentless drive to get to the top. And it rings alarm bells. All these alarms, as has been expressed in the domestic and international media, concern the possibility that she could become president by default, should McCain die or become incompetent in office.

That she can acquire and regurgitate any number of facts in a short time cannot obscure the fact that a president also requires judgment and tact, must at times keep the cards close to the chest, that at times s/he must dance on knife edge while juggling many balls. And we are not convinced that she is as capable as that. Hollywood aside, the real world is messy, full of loose ends and unsatisfactory conclusions, and even the best-informed, smartest, most sympathetic person can and does make mistakes that can have drastic consequences that don't make themselves felt immediately. And the likelihood of this occurring in a Palin fantasy - we can't bring ourselves to say "Palin presidency", it simply is absurd - is rather higher than an Obama presidency, even if she is livelier and prettier than he is.

In her recent meetings with heads of state, Palin has been guarded and supervised to within an inch of her life, as the saying goes. We would venture to guess that the amount of time she has spent, since being nominated, alone or with just her family, is rather slim. So that the question becomes - who will supervise her if she should by chance be elected?

Ms Palin spent many minutes throwing out cliches that reminded us of The Simpsons, of all people, specifically Montgomery Burns and his railing against the elected officials and "fat cats" whom he will unseat and eject from "the state house". As pointed out numerous times by Joe Biden, McCain, by his quarter-century presence in Washington, D.C., cannot help but be considered in that same group, cannot help but be called to account for his many votes supporting the organizations, corporations and people that Palin dispatched with obvious distaste. In her need/desire/cool calculation that she present herself as being a true outsider, Palin is overlooking the fact that all politics is compromise, and those who would not compromise should not be there. So that her protestations that she would clean up Washington are hollow and outright silly. What will she use, Miz Clean?


As for calling the sub-prime mortgage mess the consequence of "predatory lenders" (repeated several times) that simply shows the simplistic view of someone who does not know, or appreciate, or understand the complexity of the mess that was kick-started by George W. Bush after 9/11, when he told the American people that salvation and protection from terror would come through shopping. The mess highlights a societal problem: casting borrowing as a sinful or shameful activity that a true American would not deign to undertake also creates an environment in which borrowing, and its consequences, are never properly addressed or analyzed or taught. By subsequently cloaking the spending - which surely would have to be underpinned by lending at some point, for almost everyone - in patriotism, Bush set the average American off on the road to perdition. As with the White Rabbit, Americans merrily followed their leader's advice and now find themselves in freefall down the rabbit hole. "Predatory lenders" - a favourite phrase of Palin's - were just one set of many that contributed to the unwellness of the U.S. banking/credit system, as were the media that extolled the savvy and virtues of "managers" who were taking home, in some cases, a million dollars a week. And whose army of tax experts undoubtedly found a number of ways to reduce that dreaded figure, taxable income.

The thought that someone with such simplistic notions - even if she is a quick study - should have the possibility of stepping into the Oval Office as anything but a visitor is enough to give one full-body shivers.


Her constant repetition of the grand numbers of barrels of "gassanoil", at least some of it "clean and green", underscore the fact that this woman, and the party she represents, have their heads in the sand as far as the real crisis in energy supplies goes. One longs for a true debate, one in which the cliched and rehearsed responses are stripped away to reveal what she actually thinks.


Was the debate structured to require or permit the speakers to address the moderator rather than one another? It seemed more a series of interchanges with PBS's Gwen Ifil than an actual debate between two candidates that ought to be considered equal. This structure gave the advantage to Palin, who looked beyond Ifil, beyond the live audience to the viewers at home. She presented herself as a "hockey mom", a wholesome presence full of gosh darns, and gee whizzes, and dropped endings that fairly screamed "I am one of you!" And she cast herself as loyal follower of the chosen candidate to the extent that we thought she would follow Howdy Doody, had he been selected as the party's candidate.


Palin is a big frog in a little pond who, through circumstances, has been transported to the ocean.
We hope that the safety net keeps her from falling into it, as much for the ocean as for the frog.

Shake that Tambourine, Boy, them End Times is a-Comin!

One finds it difficult to accept that in the Republic, which advertises itself as the freest place on earth, whose citizens like to think of themselves as the most skeptical of men - a large chunk of the population accepts what it is told, believes that their Glorious Leader does not lie, that everything is honourable and above board. But then these are also the people who used to queue for the most recent installment of Bat Boy, who fawn over image, who lap up awards shows, who believe equally in God, the Almighty Dollar, and Survivor. And that Mrs Palin is capable of fulfilling the duties of her office following the inevitable moment when McCain decides (pardon, Shakespeare) "to die, not to sleep".

It would be interesting to hear from these believers. Do they believe also that the world is only a few thousand years young? That Satan really stalks the land and the only way to fight him is to be obedient, that is, to vote Republican? Was that silliness not swept away by the most recent fresh gust of Reason?

Do these believers not understand the difference between truth and lie?

Truth is that Mrs Palin, as mayor of Wasilla (pop. somewhere between 5,469 and 9,780), hired a lobbyist and travelled to Washington annually to support earmarks for the town totaling $27 million or $2,760.7361963190184049079754601227 per resident - earmarks that she now attacks so violently she appears to be frothing at the mouth.

Truth is that, in her two years as governor, Alaska has requested nearly $750 million in special federal spending, another $1,119.3144422903859843922794167029 per resident, by far the largest per-capita request in the country. Is this, perhaps, what made her stand out to the backroom boys? the audacity of so enormous an amount, for such paucity of beneficiaries? Was she already laying the groundwork for her ascension to power?

Do they accept without question, without verification, that Mrs Palin told the big bad boys in Washington that she didn't want $398 million for a bridge from Ketchikan to an island with 50 residents and an airport? (In case you are interested, that amounts to $7,960,000 per resident. And why would those fifty residents need an airport?)

Firstly, her hackles went up only after the plan was ridiculed nationally as a "Bridge to Nowhere".

Secondly, she now has ensconced herself in the lap of the Big Bad Boys, has sold out whatever integrity she might have had, has named her price to Lucifer - or whichever Devil is on duty at the moment.

Yes! - and these people probably also are the ones who believe that we are in The End Times. wooowoooowoooo!

Let's put it plainly, folks:

if this is End Times, then you need look no farther to find the forces of evil than >D'oh< bya, Cheney, Halliburton Co., Rove, Abu Ghraib, Abramoff, Cunningham, DeLay, Foggo, Foley, Gonzales, Griles, Kerik, Libby, the National Security Agency, Renzi, Tobias, Wolfowitz. Better yet, you can follow your mousetracks on a page laid out visually - http://www.slate.com/id/2165783 - or you can just read about it at http://www.slate.com/id/2165980". Or visit http://www.halliburtonwatch.org, which chronicles all the known misdeeds of the corporation that is tied so intimately to the (vice) president.

This is where Satan and the gang hang out, these are their evil deeds, and if you are old enough to remember Seven Days In May, or the Manchurian Candidate, or any number of similar fictions, this is why you can weep:

* because the Forces of Evil have sold out your country;

* they have put greed and profit ahead of the dignity and respect that should be every person's right;

* have been destroying the legal, moral, ethical foundations that made the US a truly different place, once;

* have lied nakedly to friend and foe alike, in the service of Mammon and of power;

* have readily taken your children - your future - and sent them to Iraq to fight a war predicated on a mountain of lies. (Lest you think we know not our Bible, ask yourselves how appropriate this quotation is: "What have you done? Listen! Your brother's blood is crying out to me from the ground.")

To that infamous list you can add two more who would sell out not just their own souls but those of everyone they can hoodwink into voting for them.

If you believe that you are in the End Times you should consider that these two are, themselves, part of that cabal that has been running the U.S. into the ground.

If you do not, you are probably already much likelier to vote for Barack Obama, who is, after all, an imperfect being, a man, but one who does not have ties to the above.

Even if "End Times" is the farthest, most obscure thought in your head, you can be sure that this election is much more important than many recent ones. It is as much a contest between Reason and Stupidity, Honour and Dishobour, Sobriety and Venality, as it is between left vs. right, Democrat vs. Republican, et vs. cetera.

Every single characteristic that made the United States a great and generous place, an idea that was capable of burning down the barricades of stupidity, prejudice, ignorance, bigotry, hatred and animosity, is at risk of being destroyed. If you cannot force yourself up off the sofa to vote this November you may be asking yourself, in the new year, how you could have missed all the signs and portents.

It's End Times, all right, End of Republican Times.

HEATHER, WEATHERIN' THE PALIN* RAGE

*quick now - what's red white and blue? ohnonononono, guys, we aren't talking about the Stars and Stripes. We're talking about the newly acquired "star" candidate of the Republican Party, Red as in neck, White as in Pal(e)in and Blue as in why isn't everyone voting Democrat!?

Our compatriot and fellow journalist Heather Mallick, surely one of the better writers that the Globe and Mail let go, in a fit of someone's pique, recently wrote a column about the Republican Convention. (Read it, it 's engaging and entertaining - http://www.heathermallick.ca/cbc.ca-columns/a-mighty-wind-blows-through-republican-convention.html) In it she cited yet another terrific columnist, John Doyle, who called Mrs Palin an Alaska hillbilly, and that, along with a number of other statements, appears to have ignited a "firestorm" on the right, who seem always to have their panties in knots about something(http://ca.news.yahoo.com/s/capress/080920/world/us_cda_palin). Someone named Greta Van Susteren repeatedly called her a pig - well, she is on Fox News, what else should one expect? Fox prides itself on being the deliberately dumbest, most ignorant, most prejudiced television entity around and it is all about money.

And the ignorami commented with such stupidities as "Canada is made up of small towns and many if not most trace their ancestry back to their 'redneck cousin' and they still have relatives here in the U.S." - dream on, bozo, Canada is a cosmopolitan country made up of virtually every nationality on the planet. We too have our rednecks, who currently are gearing up to vote for one Stephen Harper, who is probably your wet dream boy.

And calling us morons - why, that shows that your vocabulary has reached a grade four level. Keep up the improvements and you ought to be getting out of grade school in time for retirement.

Way to go Heather, we are standing right with you.

The U.S., we are told, is the home of the brave, and still - let's hope - the land of free speech. So let's examine Mrs Palin a little bit more.


Mrs Palin is a type, all right, a power-hungry, I'll-smack-you-upside-the-head-if-you-don't-behave type of mom, a hockey mom all right but the kind whose great loud mouth is used to drown out other hockey moms. One who cloaks her desire to run everyone's life with the piety of religious belief. We have known her many a time in our years of being a different type of mom. One can sense her coming before one even has her in view.

One sees it in the glint in her eyes as she is traipsing across the U.S., a country conveniently shell-shocked by last week's self-immolation of Wall Street. It is nakedly obvious that she smells power. One can hear the wheels grinding, the calculation - every day he gets a day older and a step closer to the grave
>chortle< and then!

and then, ladies and gentlemen, we truly will have an ignorant person, small-minded in the extreme, beholden to some of the darkest, slimiest powers behind the shaky throne upon which she is thrust, and with her finger too damn close to the button for our comfort.


Mrs Palin will be debating Democratic vice-presidential candidate Joe Biden but this has come about only after the Republican Party held out for a tightened debate format, one that will consist primarily of yes-no questions that require nothing of her but that she remember which is which.

One supposes that it is actually fruitless, perhaps even stupid, to assume that she might have some coherent thoughts that have not been put into her head by one of the boys still sniffing "eau de W" on his nose.

And yet one can't have just the presidential candidates debating, especially not in a year when the Reaper is in the precinct. One hears him rattling around occasionally, when McCain has one of his blank moments, reminiscent of Keats's "drowsy numbness", in which he looks entirely lost - the same look Aunt Violet had shortly before she decamped entirely to Neverland. McCain's hiding behind his obviously fresher memories of forty years ago, his aimless, doddering aura, also recall Baudelaire - "Où coule au lieu de sang l'eau verte du Léthé" - where [in whose body] flows, instead of blood, the green water of Lethe - Lethe being the Greek personification of forgetfulness, oblivion. Before we leave him there, let's all remember that Lethe is the root of our word "lethal". Anyone need a definition of that?

It is curious that simply being a Republican is not in itself lethal this election year, given the corruption, lies, and gallop toward totalitarianism of the Bush years. It's old news that the election of 2000 was stolen, the Democratic candidate of 2004 was deliberately sabotaged, the dismantling of rights guaranteed by the Constitution continues at breakneck speed, and it's startling that none of these evinces even a yawn from the broad populace. Perhaps they, too, have dipped their oars into the waters of Lethe.

Stephen Harper The Brrrrrrrrrrittle Without The Peanuts

I've just had a look at a blog by our local Member of Parliament, who beat the Liberal incumbent last time around by 246 votes. This should have told him that the last Canadian election was a protest vote against a party that had been in power for a very long time and which was being racked by a scandal or three (note to self: find a government that has had no scandals -LOL. . . LMAO!!!) - but he chose to read it a different way. He took his election to mean that he had been elected for being himself - not bloody likely - and that as one of the Chosen, diligently blowing hard in Ottawa, he must let the people know it - time after time after time after time. . .yea, even unto eternity.

So he flooded local mailboxes with flyers purportedly outlining the government's work for which we should be grateful, but which were, in fact, political advertising.

Ordinarily one would say out, out, damned ad! and throw the thing into the recycle bin.

Except for the little matter of free franking privileges that are one of the often misused perks of our MPs. Boy! were they misused or what? In the first months we tossed at least a half dozen flyers, notably four in one week, but then we began to readdress them to the Prime Minister's Office, with choice comments for his perusal. As if . . .

. . . hmmmm. While it is highly unlikely that Stephen Harper reads every piece of mail coming to his office, he is known to micromanage his government's operation. As a matter of fact his most recent feat, calling an election more than a year before the new fixed date for elections - which he himself engineered via a bill that his minions voted for - amounted to the same pouty sour grapes of a five- or six-year-old saying "I'm taking my ball home" because the others weren't playing his way. Harper tried to blame it on the other parties, but fact remains that he claims he can't govern with the minority he had and so we must elect again. Wake up, Steve - there will be much egg on your face when another minority takes up the reins. But this is a digression - we sent the junk mail to the PMO, each and every time we got another advert.

Soon there was a small item in a local newspaper which took the local MP to task for abusing his free franking privileges - proof that we weren't the only ones ticked off by this petty criminal behaviour.

What? You think labelling it "petty criminal behaviour" is excessive? Not according to the Tory playbook. The party of Stephen Harper is one seeking to criminalize every transgression, no matter how minor, and to exact stiffer penalties so that the criminal is "justly" punished. So, yes, our local MP was stealing postage for flyers that had no relevance to any government work, but much to his ongoing self-advertisements.

What? You think this is a bit too rigid? There's the rub - the Prime Minister of Canada is himself too rigid, too inflexible, vastly unimaginative, and for one who has - at the very least - aligned himself with the religious right he has yet to pay a lot of attention to the teachings of one Jesus who counselled forgiving the transgressions of others as a way to be a better person.  

But then, the religious right is not about Christianity, it's about fire and brimstone and revenge and getting the God of Old to do their dirty work when someone irks them. (Even the MP in question adheres to the religious right.) And Harper simply won't bend, because he can't bend, because he lacks imagination and humanity.

This is not too harsh. Harper - like Duh-bya - is rigid to the point of brittleness. He may have a far better, more polished intellect than the leader of the free world, but he is not any more able to imagine other possibilities. (We think he might be this way because he had a bad experience at then-notoriously snobbish Richview Collegiate, teen years and high school being major factors in the formation of one's adult personality.) And this rigidity causes him to micromanage not just the government but also his campaign. This election is not about parties, it is all about HIM - Stephen Harper. Everywhere one looks there is Harper, heart and soul and corpus of the Conservative Party of Canada.


WOULD YOU TRUST THIS MAN?

We don't see anyone except Harper, cozying up to the fireplace, philosophizing and ruminating - and possibly chewing his cud once the camera moves away. He thinks, perhaps, that he is showing his softer, warmer side, his human side. But he is simply showing - again - that he has only one. He is a nearly two-dimensional being like those in Edwin Abbott's great book, Flatland (except that it might, in Harper's case, be subtitled A Non-Romance in One Dimension). And this assault of Harper-style "hominess", which makes one feel about as warm and fuzzy as a cobra might, is showing also that, emperor or not, he has no clothes. It highlights that Harper's machinations are trite and predictable, that he will get others to do his dirty work - insulting and mocking people for their ethnicity, moral values, unfortunate ingestion of a food-borne poison - even as the ads connect "Harper" with "warmth" and that he will jettison his subordinates if publicity threatens to swamp his boat.

Harper is unlikely to permit further mass mailings of pouf pieces, unless originated by himself. Our local MP - who resumed flooding our mailboxes with irrelevant bits of paper a short while later - should remember that. We don't have a lot of hope on that point as he strikes us as terribly naive and jejune. Perhaps he will be re-elected. But he still will serve at Harper's pleasure. Hm - "Harper" and "pleasure" in the same thought? not bloody likely.

The Time Has Come, The Walrus Said, To Talk of Many Things . . .

I watched the Republican plebes throw themselves wholeheartedly behind a woman about whom they know nothing, who has a very thin, questionable record, who - given her presidential running mate's age and medical condition - has a realistic chance of becoming president by default. That in itself is cause to make one worry.

And I watched John McCain's acceptance speech. The man was an automaton, his "smile" a grimace that came on and flashed off on cue, if a bit tardy.

I do not agree with the facile, superficial commentators who wrote or spouted testosterone-soaked, gushing, positive appraisals of Sarah Palin. I do not agree with the editorialists who painted McCain as a marvellous old trooper dipping into the fount of honour and gilding himself with his well-advertised heroism.

This election is not about Vietnam, McCain's role in it, or even his continued references to it. People forget this very easily as someone like "hockey mom" is trotted out as a diversion, just as the heroics of 40 years ago are a diversion. And it would appear that the Democrats are flailing mightily as they are falling, for they appear to have forgotten what this election is about. In that sense the Palin diversion, and the "old soldier getting his turn at the trough" are working better than expected, I'm sure.

This election is about the usurpation of power from the people of the US and from the Congress, first of all; about the arrogation of power by Bush and Cheney from the Congress and the judiciary; about the callous disregard for rights, truth, a country's integrity, honour and ethos. And the callous disregard of the rights of foreign citizens such as Maher Arar, who, technically, were never on American soil.

It is about the fundamental dishonesty of the leaders of that government, REPUBLICANS, ALL, who pile high the lies and innuendoes justifying what can never be justified - the intrusion into, and intervention in, the affairs of a sovereign state, thereby setting horrendous precedents which will some day be used against the US.

It is about the "leaders" of that government plundering the treasury to enrich private corporations, while simultaneously exempting the rich from their share - which is measly enough, especially once their accountants and lawyers squirrel away most of the remaining income, so that you have the ludicrous situation of multimillionaires paying little or no tax.

It is about the "leader of the free world", by his actions, inactions, stupidities and arrogance squandering most of the goodwill that the entire planet felt toward the US in the aftermath of 9/11.

It is about the subsequent disillusionment and suspicion of not just the US but its friends and neighbours - never mind more cynical elements - that permits the continued existence of the firm belief that 9/11 was stage-managed by the government - well, what are people to think when Cheney was "directing" events from the bunker while Bush sat empty-eyed, enraptured by the story of the little goat, for more than three minutes after he had been told of the attack?

It is about the REPUBLICANS' favourite mantra - deregulation/small-to-no government/get-it-while-you-can - leading to a financial crisis so dangerous that it might yet swamp our collective boat, in which the government has had to step in to rescue companies that rapaciously and cold-bloodedly lied, stole, manipulated financial information, duped investors. Companies that are "too big to be allowed to fail" because of the damage that would ensue.

It is about the millions of Americans for whom "home" will have a very different, bitter meaning, and for whom "house" will be a dream too far.

It is about the thousands of people who still live in fetid trailers in mosquito-infested, waterlogged parking lots, unable to return home.

It is about the fact that the number of people without health care now equals one and one half times the population of CANADA.

IT SHOULD BE ABOUT WAYS TO PREVENT THE COUNTRY FROM SELF-DESTRUCTING. It should be about finding the best complement of people who are capable of working together to rein in the many wild steeds that are about to pull the country to bits. It should be about the candidates presenting ideas and assurances about the present, and the future, so that the electorate might have a sense that there is a future to look to.

It should be about reassuring the world that the US is a country of laws, of ethics, of morals, that gives a fair chance to those who risk everything, that has compassion and assistance for those who need it. And it should be about electing someone who is not only reasonably healthy, but is mentally agile enough, and physically strong enough, to undertake this most challenging work and see it through to the conclusion of the upcoming term.

THE TEXTILE WARS: ON TO COURT!!!

Occasionally something happens that is gratifying beyond one's wildest dreams. Readers who have had an eyeful of the textile wars know that this entire fracas originated in a fraudulent sale over eBay of 20 yards of "Scalamandre" velvet, such substandard stuff it did not deserve the label "velvet", let alone Scalamandre. As in the disturbances that wash outward when you drop a big stone into a pond, the ripples of this particular purchase are making waves, still.

Never mind Paypal for the moment, let's just give them a light slap for now - their turn will come. eBay, on the other hand, persists in trying to be a rapacious monster that devours everything in its path.

Case in point: anyone who wishes to sell to Australia or to the United Kingdom, from North America, must accept the purchase price via Paypal. Meaning that Paypal (and therefore eBay, which owns Paypal) gets a cut for handling the transaction, and another cut because sellers who use Paypal must accept credit card purchases, from which Paypal helps itself to another slice.

That's a lot of musts and cuts. Stay tuned.

Meanwhile, speaking of cuts, this blog revealed in May that Junior Wollstein - the Divalicious, poor misguided one - Chris Wollstein had created a site called Frabriccut.com, and was trading on the long-established name and site of Fabricut.com, a legitimate company selling legitimate, properly identified fabrics.

Added 29/7/08: Well, it was not Junior this time but Senior - Ed Wollstein, owner of Boca Bargoons.

This blogger sent an email to Fabricut.com, asking for a formal comment from the company. Meanwhile, an industry insider, who has been absolutely priceless to us in the tracking down of fakes and fakers, also reported the website to the company, with the result that we have this little gem pop up on a search (We never did get a comment from Fabricut even after two requests.):


Fabricut, Inc. v. Belyeu et al
Plaintiff: Fabricut, Inc.
Defendant: James Belyeu and Ed Wollstein

Case Number: 4:2008cv00286
Filed: May 15, 2008

Court: Oklahoma Northern District Court
Office: Trademark Office [ Court Info ]
County: Tulsa
Presiding Judge: Judge Gregory K Frizzell
Referring Judge: Magistrate Judge Sam A Joyner

Nature of Suit: Intellectual Property - Trademark
Cause: Federal Question
Jurisdiction: Federal Question
Jury Demanded By: 15:1125 Trademark Infringement (Lanham Act)

Now you might ask yourself why Chris Wollstein's name does not appear here. As The Divalicious informed us, in this instance he kept his nose clean. But note this: The Divalicious has gone into full guerrilla mode, carrying on business as "Guerrilla Enterprise Developments", and this entity is also named in the lawsuiut. Strangely, one James S. Belyeu is nominal frontman for the Divalicious Guerrilla, who has taken to posting personal emails between himself and his father on his blog. They really are too puerile and boring for us even to put in a link.

The trademark infringement suit is poetic justice. One wonders how far gone the Divalicious actually is, to think that in this electronic time he can try to undercut a legitimate business by stealing their name.

And so we come full circle: stealing names is not a great idea. And a French court thought so, too. Earlier this week is levied a fat little penalty against eBay: 40 million Euros must be paid by eBay to LVMH Moet Hennessy Louis Vuitton SA because eBay permitted the sale of fake French luxury goods. eBay - as readers of this blog also know - is always claiming that it only acts in the capacity of a "classified ad department" of a newspaper.

We've worked at enough newspapers to know that no ad department operates this way, no ad department also takes a cut of the selling price. That is what auction houses do and eBay - whether they like it or not - eBay is an electronic auction house that has been lax in the way it polices sellers.

One look at the site any day at all should persuade even the dimmest bulb at eBay's management that there can't possibly be that much authentic merchandise around - Tiffany, which sued eBay in the U.S. earlier this year and which still is waiting for a ruling, did some searches and found that ninetyfive percent of all "Tiffany" being sold was fake. The money is in selling the fakes - nobody is going to sell fake Walmart merchandise. So it is entirely possible that an enormous amount of the so-called "luxury" merchandise is simply fake.

eBay had the nerve to claim that Tiffany perhaps didn't do enough policing - we, eBay claimed proudly, spend twenty million dollars per year on policing. That isn't a whole lot of money for the size of the operation.

It is possible but usually worthless to report possibly fake auctions to eBay, which conveniently leaves no room for a person to elaborate on what might be fake. A recent sweep through eBay - advertising "Look what you can get for a dollar" - found dozens of fake "gold" rings with fake "gemstones" and fake "diamonds" and though they were reported they were not pulled, not one. If it were possible to say "the diamond is not a diamond because one can look through it to the fake gold of the setting", perhaps then eBay's "police" would take action. But the people they hire seem to be selected for their ability to follow a script and nothing more.

We are not going to diss the people working for eBay who after all need a job. It's the management of the company that needs to change, so that fake diamonds, fake Louis Vuitton, fake Tiffany, fake Scalamandre and such will be weeded out. And the likes of the Divalicious Guerrilla Chris Wollstein will not have another platform on which to put the foundations of his questionable empire.