The Rintrarian Archive

It is regrettable that anyone has to die, ever. People seem to love and care for other people, unless those other people are foreigners, believe different things, have alternate life styles or live in gross and disgusting sin. Then people hate people and people kill people. Then people die and the people who die are missed by people who love them. People who kill people have people who love them. People who die at the hands of other people have people who love them. People who love people and kill other people are people nonetheless and should be thought of no less than any other person. The person who dies at the hands of another person is a person too. So how can a person who loves and is loved by people kill another person who loves and is loved by other people?

2000 American soldiers dead in Iraq. 2K. That is regrettable. These soldiers had friends and family that loved them and will miss them. But these soldiers were part of the American Armed Forces whose job it is to risk their lives. It is still sad. But these soldiers also killed, maimed and threatened the lives of others who were doing what they thought to be a good and honourable goal. It is, in my opinion, not right that any person should kill another person. I wish the war would end. I wish. I wish.

President Bush has a sure-fire way to bring about the end of this war and it does not involve putting them putting their pansy-ass tails between their legs. The solution: MORE RESOLVE.

That is right. Resolve. But what does “resolve” mean?

1. decide: bring to an end; settle conclusively
2. conclude: reach a conclusion after a discussion or deliberation
3. purpose: reach a decision; “he resolved never to drink again”
4. answer: understand the meaning of; “The question concerning the meaning of life cannot be answered”
5. make clearly visible; “can this image be resolved?”
6. find the solution; “solve an equation”; “solve for x”
7. resoluteness: the trait of being resolute; “his resoluteness carried him through the battle”; “it was his unshakable resolution to finish the work”

So, to bring the war to an end the US needs to settle it conclusively. Or it needs to make the war clearly visible. Or to find the solution. But my money is on 7. Good ol’ lucky number 7. Bush wants the US to stand fast and be unshakable. Like a lamb to the slaughter. Like Jesus to the Cross.

I figure that Bush is actually onto something here. If the US stops immigration because it is scared of outsiders (I hear Bush has the new “Prussian Blue” album on his Ipod and his favourite song is Aryan Man Awake) then the population would only grow as per natural means. With the whole “No-Sex is Good Sex” campaign going on then the population would be set at a fixed number.

With the US population not growing, and more people being sent to die in Iraq it appears that the number of people left to mourn would be shrinking. This also means that the resolve of the American people would be more concentrated and ready to explode on the World like a teenager’s pimple face on a mirror. This is a brilliant plan. But it demonstrates a lack of fore-thought.

Bush is pro-Intelligent design but what he is practicing here is Darwinism. The weak and stupid are being killed off in Iraq. The poor and the elderly are dieing due to supposed “Acts of God.” The rest of the poor and elderly are dieing due to the cost of prescription drugs. Bush is building an uber-mensche race ready to conquer the world as soon as the resolve of the American people has reached capacity.

Rumour has it that Bush and Cheney have constructed a thermometer of sorts which indicates the level of resolve of the American people. Also, according to an anonymous source, it appears that there is an White House collection to help pay for Ms Rice’s surgery. Apparently they are wanting the same surgeon that turned Michael Jackson white. Supposedly the unnamed doctor has fixed the procedure to prevent the side-effects of child molestation and denial that plagued the world’s most famous white African-American.

The Brazilians voted against a ban on guns. Why, I do not really know. But it shows a distrust of the government which, by the way, I understand. I do not trust the government. Neither do the people in New Orleans. Hurricane Katrina (an ill-planned disaster by the US government) and Rita (the presidentially appointed hurricane designed to fix the mistakes of Katrina) wreaked havoc and now the citizens are pissed.

Not only are people distrusting the government when the government does not respond appropriately, the government is distrusted when they are the cause of something. If the Valerie Plame affair is any indication then the government does many things to back-stab Americans. I know I am not American. I may even be Un-American. What I also know is that the Bush Administration has been very secretive because they claim that anything they say can jeopardize national-security. But leaking a CIA operative’s name does exactly what they would be wanting to prevent. I wonder what the conversation during the circle-jerk was like when they decided to do what was done.

The investigator into who is to blame, Patrick Fitzgerald has been very tight-lipped about his investigation. What is becoming clear is that Karl Rove, “Scooter” Libby, and very possibly Dick Cheney are somehow involved. What a bunch of idiots. If the name was leaked as part of a personal vendetta it seems that too many people are going to be taken down.

I dislike government but I dislike the Bush government most of all. It appears that Dick and Rumsfeld wielded an incredible amount of power in the whole Iraq thing. There is something about some alleged purchase by Iraq from Niger that was the impetus for the Iraq war. Something about WMDs. And then there is something about the US selling the materials Saddam used to do things that the US now says were very very bad. The US involvement in Saddam’s atrocities is very understated. The US government’s reasons for war are very inadequate. All of these are reasons not to trust these bastards.

But, as Fitzgerald’s report is about to be released sometime this week it seems that the Republicans are setting the propaganda machine on “Spin”. It seems that, whatever the outcome, the Bush Administration will be trying to say and do things to make everything appear as if things were in order. As I have said at other times and places, everything a politician does is a pre-election gimmick. And there is no place on earth where this is more true than in the US.

As far as people I don’t trust go, I don’t trust anyone with a gun. This is especially true if they say “I don’t want to hurt you.” Then why are they pointing a gun at me. The government in Brazil wanted to ban gun sales. To me this makes sense. But the people voted against it. I figure they wanted to protect themselves from another Dion in the world. (Celine wants another kid.)

I also do not trust those people who keep emailing me to help them get their money that is locked in Nigeria. A plane crashed in Nigeria and I figure they have got my money on that plane. The person going to the Nigerian capital probably was going to get his money. Now I will never see mine again. Damn.

Because there are so many people to not trust in this world, I have decided that it is best to focus on one group of people. Politicians. They control so very many facets of my life and I do not like it. The US government, un-accountable to Canadians and other non- or un-Americans, controls far too much. With the war in Iraq based on lies, the government doing so many shady things to try and look good (but failing), and Bush being entirely incompetent it only seems right to distrust the government.

With the bird flu now in Britain it seems that the flu is an unstoppable force. In fact, some pigeons from Canada were flown (via airplane, not self-propelled) to Australia and some bird-flu anti-bodies were found in them. Mind you that it was only anti-bodies and not the real thing. But people are starting to get scared.

And that is where I come in. I remember a joke a friend of mine told me when I was in grade 7. And it goes like this:

Some tourists stopped on the side of a corn-field and started talking with a farmer. Some birds were flying overhead and one of the tourists asked “What kind of birds are they?” To which the farmer replied “That there is called a Flue.” And the tourists all pulled out their cameras and started snapping pictures.

Suddenly one of the tourists screamed. “What is this?! What is this on my head?!” To which the farmer replied nonchalantly “That is Flue shit on your head.” The tourist wiped it off and promptly fell over and died. A second tourist screamed, wiped the Flue shit off her head and she died. The same happened to a third tourist.

Suddenly, a Flue shit on the farmers head but he appeared to just ignore it. The tourists all seemed puzzled because the farmer did not wipe the shit off and the farmer did not die. The farmer noticed their curiosity and said, very calmly, “If the Flue shits, wear it.”

My advice is to just go on with your damn life and stop worrying about the damn bird flue, or monkey pox, or killer Americanized bees, or the Bush administration. To every thing there is a time. To everything there is a season. The Bird Flu will have its season but it will not last forever. The only thing that is forever is nuclear radiation and, seemingly, Aids. Once the Bird Flu hits North America and claims its first victims there will be a solution. Pat Robertson told me so, because Jesus loves us and hates the rest of the world.

I love the news. At least when something is on the news that I would like to read or watch. If I don’t like what is on the news then I don’t love it. Right now I think I like the news. Maybe even like-like the news. Not that we are going steady or anything. I mean, the news is ok.

I really like the news when it has the Conservatives on. In my humble opinion, the Canadian Conservative Party is more fun than a bunch of guilt-ridden, closet homosexual monkeys in a barrel.

Much like a kitten on a hard-wood floor the Conservatives want to get somewhere but all they do is slip, slide and fall on their asses. This is not to say that the Tories are pussies (they are) but that they think they know what they are doing yet they don’t realize that all they are doing is spinning their wheels and having a hissy-fit.

For example, right now the Tories are wanting the government to stop Canadians from joining the Iraqi insurrgency. I guess that is not too unreasonable. At each recruiting centre for the Insurgency a Canadian government representative could stand guard. Or, upon re-entry into Canada, the border guards could ask if the traveler has recently joined any uprisings, insurgencies, terrorist organization or if they are now a card-carrying member of any of these types of groups. I can’t see any reason why this is not possible. Such a reasonable request for such a huge problem. There are at least none and at most 10 Canadians fighting in Iraq against the US. Those numbers are mind-boggling. I mean I can not even picture numbers so big.

What Mr. Stockwell Day wanted to know was why Paul Martin has not condemned the actions of all those people. Because, as we all know, if the Prime Minister does not like what you are doing then you will stop. If the Prime Minister condemns these people they will return to Canada with their tails between their legs and say they are sorry. Or else they will burn in Hell-fire because the PM Office has obtained franchise right to condemn
people to hell. The White House owns the franchise.

Speaking of goverments that follow through on promises, the Liberals have devised a system to prevent scandals like the one they are in right now. Regular All-Cock (Reg Alcock) has delivered his promise that this will work wonders and he has added a guarantee: other governments will follow suit. Do we get our money-back if he is wrong?

But the opposition parties think this is all a pre-election ploy. The funny thing is that everything a politician says is a pre-election ploy. The funny-ass conservatives just don’t seem to have the hang of it. They yell and scream at Dingwall over his expenditures even though they were legit (at the very least mostly legit). Even if they were not legit at least he brought more money in than he took out. But the Conservatives are little-picture people. And everyone know what they say about little-picture people: they are just little-people. (Not to offend any actual little-people by the comparison, I am talking about their . . . well . . . brains. Yes, their brains. Little brains.)

And speaking of petty, stupid, arrogant, immoral, obnoxious, idiotic, unreasonable, irresponsible and . . . my next post will be about the US.

Politics is a fascinating thing. Politics, as a thing, does not exist. I have a BA in Political Science. Politics is not a science. Politics is trying to outwit, out-manouvre and destroy others around you with their consent. During election time a politician will tell us why they are the answer to all our problems. After the election the winning party will tell us why we were wrong about what our problems were and that they will fix the actual problems. The opposition parties will then tell us what they would have done with their set of actual problems. They are all wrong. Our problem is with politicians. I have been, at one point or another, a member of several parties. My ideas have changed over time. Oddly enough, in my idealistic days I would have voted Conservative. But thank god I turned 18 after that phase. But at no point what-so-ever have I ever thought that the leader of the party I supported was the man that was going to fix all of our problems. He or she will not. He or she is doing a difficult job.

The job of being a politician is to not fix problems but to try to propose and pass a solution while someother people try to stop them.

If I were a politician I would try to stop Stephen Harper from ever getting on the ballot. Some suggest that Harper is in fact a god. Maybe not God, but at least the saviour for Canada. Harper is an idiot.

On the Conservative website there is a posting defending their leader. At the end it suggests that Harper’s politicking is a sign of “conservative intelligence, not conservative stupidity.” I submit that conservative intelligence is the same thing as conservative stupidity. To suggest that they are different is to suggest that there are fragrant and stinky pieces of shit

On another Conservative person’s web-site it is suggested that the Culture in Canada is the reason why Harper and the Conservatives are having trouble. It is not their idiocy or the fact that Conservativism is a crack-pot ideal but the fact that:

The west has been in a progressive leftward swing since post World War II. Now that the baby boomers are middle aged, they control our media, our corporations, our entertainment and values. Their defining experience was Vietnam. They are the politically correct. They are the New Left.

The funny thing is the defining point for the Baby Boomers in the US was Viet Nam and look at where they are? Not the same place as Canadians. Maybe it is the culture in Canada. But it is not Viet Nam or even Roe V. Wade. Those are American issues. In Canada we have a different history and looking to our distant cousin America for guidance is a mistake. Conservatives seem to try to find something, anything, to blame for their failures. The Liberal Media, the culture, the attacks on Stephen Harper’s intellectual ability, the accusations that Harper is a robot.

The article cited above also reminds us that “Culture defines politics, politics does not define culture.” If this is true then maybe it is time for Harper to turn in his badge and gun, and ride into the sunset. The culture in Canada has defined you as obsolete. The culture in Canada will not be changed by making gay-marriage illegal. The culture of Canada does not need your help. I said G’Day Sir!

The Canadian Conservative Party is a bunch of idiots. That should be enough. It is as simple as the Conservatives are themselves. But I will explain. Business leaders and the Conservative Party are claiming that Prime Minister Martin’s approach to the Softwood Lumber dispute is “dangerous”. I don’t believe that politicians know anything at all and that they are, generally speaking, functionally illiterate and increasing retarded. To say that, though, is to insult the illiterate and the mentally-challenged but it is true.

Paul Martin went to NY and spoke to CNN, the Wall Street Journal and to the Economic Club of New York, With the Tories and economic hacks yelling “treason” or someother ill-planned attempts to cast a negative light on the PM, the Wall Street Journal has positioned themselves on the side of Canada. Why is it that the Tories and the business knuckleheads hate Canada? Why are their interests so incredibly tied into that of GWBush’s penis?

Paul Martin, even though I dislike all politicians, appears to have finally pulled his head out from the sand and has finally told the US what he thinks. Enough massaging GWBush’s testicles and finally telling him that we will kick him in the nuts if he continues like this. I only hope that Martin has the balls to actually follow through. Just like in golf, the follow through is the important part. I hate golf, but I hate GWBush more.

Bush does not believe in diplomacy. Martin even acknowledged his own departure from it in this case. Canada has won several NAFTA tribunals and the US says it will not heed them. The US “tried” diplomacy in Iraq even though what they really wanted was war. The US “gave diplomacy a chance” with NAFTA tribunals but never listened to the result. It is like decided something by flipping a coin. If you don’t like the result then flip it again.

There are two scenarios I would be interested in knowing how they would ende. The first is: What if the FTAA actually was implemented and would the US treat those poorer nations the way they are treating Canadians? The Second is: What if Canada shut off its energy export to the US?

The first scenario I would never want to have play out. The second I hope it does.

rintrah.ca is based, at the moment, out of good ol’ Winnipeg. Winnipeg is important hub for transportation as it is located in the centre of Canada. Interestingly, in 1917-18 there was a flu pandemic which, because Winnipeg was a hub then too, played an important role in western Canadian settlement. All immigrants to the west stopped in at Winnipeg until they were cleared by the immigration office. People who waited in line camped out for long long periods of time. This fact is why the richer people were the farther they lived from the railroad tracks. Even to this day that is the case. And maybe the noise. But mostly because if you were an immigrant and were waiting you would want to stay close to the immigration office.

Just as in 1918, Winnipeg today is still killer. This is due, in part, to this site because what I write is killer. But this is also do to the fact that, in cities 500,000 or larger, Winnipeg is the deadliest in Canada. The 2004 rating for Canada is 4.89 homocides per 100,000 people. But the deadliest area with 100,000 or more people is Regina. Regina has 4.98 murders per 100,000.

Sometimes when I walk down a back alley to the gas station I question why I live in Winnipeg. I read the graffiti on a dumpster that says “Nancy Sews” and the addendum that says “This Means You Dave” and I think of all the creative and wonderful people here. Then someone comes along and spray paints some other tag overtop and I get angry that someone would defile the very pure thing Dave and Nancy had. And now Skid’s name is gone too.

Winnipeg is a nice city. It is unique and, in many ways, grotesque. I like it. My theory as to how the murder rate can be reduced requires Jerry Bruckheimer to start a CSI: Winnipeg. This would ensure that the law enforcement would have the proper tools to deduce whodunit. As well, the agents on CSI always know everything. I figure that Peter Falk would make a great CSI agent.

But that is only the first part of fixing the homocide problem in Winnipeg. The first part only fixes the problem of proper law enforcement. In my opinion the police in Winnipeg are just as racist as Americans are. The second step is to have Extreme Makeover and the Queer-Eye folks re-make the downtown and north-end areas over. Hell, the Canadian government is letting Martha Stewart into the country. She could help out too, as part of her community service or something.

It is time that celebrities stop trying to fix one-time problems like Hurrican Katrina and Rita, and finally fix on-going issues like crime. Celebrities, as always, are our last hope. Celebrities are super-heroes and there is nothing that they can’t fix.