After hearing the incredible Malalai Joya speak the horrible truth about Canada's Excellent Afghan Adventure on Wednesday, reading Lawrence Cannon's baldfaced lie about Hamid Karzai being "a legitimate president" the next day made me simultaneously laugh, cry, gag, and seethe with rage.

I learned yesterday that my cousin Rob is shipping out to Afghanistan in January.

Tomorrow, I will undergo the first of several surgeries to remove numerous ticking cancer bombs from my back.

I made a dermatologist freak out upon viewing them. She said "wow!" (yes, complete with bang) four times in succession, then touched at least six spots that scared her with barely a few seconds' glance. I was more amused by her reaction than anything else; I already knew they had to go at some point.

Barring a freak tumor discovery, I have nothing to worry about tomorrow. It's outpatient surgery at a clinic mere blocks from home. Never mind me; I'm wishing everyone else luck in dodging misfortune and sickness, in light of ?!'s H1N1 misadventure and the various bugs going around work that have somehow left me alone for the moment.

It's like the late '90s never ended. With the IMF back to being the boogeyman, how much longer will it be until we're all back to openly challenging disaster captialism in the streets and the halls of debate? I want that "we are winning" feeling back. If we can avoid a repeat of the early part of this decade... well, a person can dream, right?

Nestor Makhno, call your agent.

Hey default_diva, think you can get one more wicked concert together for this? Need a sound wrangler?

To the driver who blew past the crosswalk I was in the middle of, with red stoplights blinking overhead, during a shower earlier today:

We're both damned lucky your careless, reckless ass didn't lose control as you barrelled through the crosswalk without even slowing down. I hope your engine dies in the middle of downtown during evening rush hour.

Love,
auditorydamage

EDIT: Even worse - do battle with Avid Media Composer's dumbshit bugs for eternity. That's about as cruel as I can be at the moment.

Paging George Orwell. George Orwell to the white courtesy phone, please.

If I don't trust people under authority of The Gubmint with the power to watch everything, I sure as hell won't trust people acting under the authority of a private entity with that power. I wouldn't be surprised to find out this is some bass-ackwards effort by the UK Home Office to outsource the mass surveillance program.

It's not often that a commemtator openly admits to skewing statistics in order to make a point. Leave it to Toronto's third-shittiest major newspaper[0] to provide such amusement:

From the beginning of the recession last October through April – the worst of the economic crisis – the number of unemployed Canadians increased by 567,000, and 462,000 Canadians were added to the EI rolls over the same period.

While not a strict apples-to-apples comparison (the data reflect net rather than gross labour force changes), this implies that slightly more than 80 per cent of the net increase in unemployment was "covered" by a corresponding increase in EI beneficiaries. This improves to nearly 90 per cent if we focus our attention on the 25-and-over demographic group, which comprises the vast bulk of families.

And if you focus on the people who didn't lose their jobs, the economy looks awesome!

[0] To be clear, all of Toronto's major newspapers are shitty in their own ways. The Globe wishes it was the New York Times, the Star wishes it was the Washington Post and settles for being a wimpy Liberal Party organ, the Sun is written in crayon, and the National Post remains a sad joke pretending to be a newspaper for the self-imagined economic elite.

I can't believe the guy behind ATI is still at it.

It's good to see that not everyone gave up as they got old.

Jonathan Torrens will never be able to shake the appellation "Jono".

When I'm done on this rock, I want nothing more than an untreated pine box with holes in it and six feet of dirt on top. I'd like to be recycled back into the food cycle. Some people react with surprise and tell me it's illegal, I should get cremated, etc.

After reading this article, I no longer feel as if I'm somehow being unreasonable for wanting a relatively cheap, quiet, relatively ecological exit. I'd prefer the money be spent on a drunken, boisterous celebration.

I suppose I should get this written down at some point, though hopefully it won't have to be applied for another seventy years or so.

I'm in the middle of a 24-hour fast in preparation for a visit to the doctor's office tomorrow morning. Nothing but air has passed my lips since 1 am this morning.

My co-worker's ifthar meal smells awesome.

I wonder what scary things the nice lab workers will discover in my bloodstream...