Today I finally read Michael Swanwick's time-travel dinosaur orgy novel, Bones of the Earth. And fine, fine stuff it is, infused with an iridescent love of learning, science, and inquiry. And dinosaurs. I shall digest it now...

While I do so, if you haven't already (if you aren't in the science-fictional 'loop' I dimly perceived this summer), you can read John Clute's review, written in his unique, inimitable, tall, Canadian style.

A Canadian Alliance MP, Larry Spencer, just said some extremely stupid things about homosexuality. This should come as no surprise whatsoever. The Alliance has a long and colourful history of homophobia and intolerance, going right back to the Bad Old Days of Stockwell Day, a long and extensive list of whose pronouncements--sourced, even!--you can find right about here.

The interesting thing about the Canadian Press story on Spencer is the encyclopaedic attention to detail, while adumbrating Spencer's offensive remarks. They were quite thorough. I admire that.

And it just gets wackier.

Spencer is officially the Canadian Santorum. But whereas in the US the only consequences for our Santorum so far have been the association of his name with the frothy mixture of lube and fecal matter which is sometimes the by-product of anal sex, the Canadians sacked theirs. Perhaps it was unimaginative of them, but one can't help but find their solution ultimately more satisfying...

Shitfoam comes, and shitfoam goes, but a good sacking is forever.

Tony Blair has managed to make Michael Howard look like the very quintessence of compassion.

I mean, really...What was Labour thinking? I'm not big on children as a rule, but even I feel an immediate, visceral revulsion towards the idea of taking children away from their parents when these parents haven't done anything to prove themselves obviously unfit. It's actually hard to think of a measure that'd be easier to hate on such short notice. I mean, look at this...

I'm almost speechless, although obviously not quite. It's difficult to say exactly how repulsive and contemptible this proposal is.

Read about it here.

Jesus fuck.

UPDATE (28 November): Michael Howard talks about feelings and fairness. I'm sure Margaret Thatcher would be spinning in her grave, if she were dead.

All these questions involve human beings and human feelings. We need a system that is fair and a system that is effective. And we need language that is measured and proportionate.

On a completely tangential note, Toronto's mayorial election may spell good news for the federal NDP and its leader, Jack 'Nance' Layton.

What I was really poking around for, though, was information on the privatisation of BC Rail.

This struck me, because I'd distinctly remembered reading in the BC Liberal Party's manifesto a promise that they would not sell or privatise BC Rail. As you can read right here. Where it says that they will:

• Not sell or privatize BC Rail.

Which seems fairly unambiguous.

My knee-jerk gut reaction was to grumble 'Shame, shame, what is the world coming to, why back in my day,' and so forth, because privatising things generally leads to trouble, distress, and the British rail system. But, to be fair, knee-jerk socialism is no substitute for informed decision-making. It could be that this was a really swell deal after all. It's a deal on freight service, rather than passenger, so it seems at first glance as if it's less likely to dick over the public.

So I started looking. I looked coolly and dispassionately. I would like to say I weighed the arguments pro and con with a careful and critical ear, but on matters of business and finance, I do not know my own fundament from a hole in the proverbial ground. I can listen to people who do, though, and having done so, it seems as if the purchaser, Canadian National, is making out like a bandit.

CN is paying $1 billion for BC Rail, the government trumpets. Only it isn't, actually, as the papers are pointing out. CN is forking over $750 million itself, and promising another $250 million to come from corporate tax write-offs inherited from BC Rail (which apparently has a pool of some $850 million in write-offs). So this $250 million won't really be coming to British Columbia from the company, but in effect from the rest of Canada, in tax revenues from CN the federal and provincial governments will be losing. Which doesn't seem like a terribly nice thing to do. CN is in effect paying $750 million for a 60-to-90-year (its choice, so make that 90) contract to operate all that infrastructure. The province will technically retain ownership of the railbeds, but CN will get to haul all the freight over them. This is not an unprofitable venture. As it stood, BC Rail had already been turning a profit; by the end of the third quarter of 2003, it had raked in over $70 million. According to the Vancouver Sun, CN expects to turn a profit of $100 million a year. This figure may or may not be reasonable and accurate. The BC government cites some $30 million in debt interest and $40 million in maintenance costs that this deal will supposedly save the province; but if the railroad is already profitable, it is hard to see how this actually counts as saving anything. It seems as if this is a very good deal for CN, but not nearly so good a deal for the province. If it was determined to sell, or 'partner up', or however they want to describe it, it should, at the least, have gotten a much higher price. Let's do a lot of rounding, and be generous. For the province to break even on this deal over the 90 years of the contract, BC Rail would have to average no more than about $11 million in profits over that span. Going by its recent performance, BC Rail would be likely to exceed this by quite a margin.

Unless something awful happens in the next 60 to 90 years, which is entirely possible. If miraculous cheap anti-gravity renders railroads redundant in 2008, the province will have made out like a bandit. Will rail take it up the dumper enough to bring BC out on top? We will see. I would not feel comfortable gambling a large sum of provincial money on it.

Here you can listen to an interview with someone who seems to know how these tax break thingies work, via CBC BC.

According to this Vancouver Sun story, CN was the worst possible choice of buyers.

And so forth.

So, all in all, it looks like it was a bad idea. My socialist gut was right after all.

Who knew?

(Mildly updated at 11.47pm.)

Catprin.

CATPRIN, a tailor for cats. Ever imagined dressing up your lovely cat into a fabulous beauty? You don't have to dress her everyday, in fact she might not feel comfortable with a dress on for days. Just dress her up only on special occasions like her birthday, takes a photo and that should leave you lots of memories and fantasies.

Yeah, humans can be pretty scary. Like octonions.

Turkey and Gravy Soda.

May whatever blind idiot gods govern this benighted cosmos have mercy upon our blighted, damnable souls.

You can find this on eBay. It seems to be a Washington thing.

I think I might rather drink my own ass.

If you don't read John Baez's survey article on the octonions, then the terrorists have already won.

Can you think of a better way to spend a chill winter's night than meditating upon the octonions with a snifter of brandy and a spaniel, or perhaps some kind of cat? Possibly a rabbit? Or a Sigmund Freud action figure? (They also have Pope Innocent III.)

(Incidentally, Innocent's scroll reads 'Sons of *Something*, kiss my ass.' Although I'm not sure the word 'asinus' carried anal connotations...I would try to find out via Google, but I'd probably just wind up with porn.)

I can't stress how important it is that you go read Mr Happy and find yourself pointed to this here flowchart, laying out explicitly and definitively for all time the intricate nexus linking elementary particle physics with cosmology.

23 November marks the anniversary of the first broadcast of the BBC's Doctor Who, possibly the most thoroughly enjoyable television programme I have ever encountered.

Yes! You heard me.

I defy any person now living to name a superior.

It ran for twenty-six jolly old science-fictional-fantasy-ish-oid seasons, so it has something for just about everyone. Strange new worlds, interpersonal dynamics, coming-of-age angst, false gods, camp, silliness, men with beards, cuteness, intelligence, kiddie appeal, women in leather (if you're into that kind of thing), Nazis, John Cleese, a musical number set in the Old West, bad American accents, pacifism, mystery, enchantment, whimsy, anti-Thatcherite pro-gay allegory, just about the best villains ever, tea, Sylvester McCoy...

...And a good solid dose of reassurance. That's the best part, I think. Evil is beaten, again and again, by good-natured anti-establishment bohemians who abhor guns and the taking of life and are always kind to small animals, children, and the oppressed. It portrays an intrinsically moral universe in which truth, justice, equality, and tea come out on top. And every single sapient being in the universe has a British accent.

This year marks the fortieth anniversary of Doctor Who.

In honour of this, the BBC decided to do sod-all.

Except...

BBCi did commission this sort of cartoon thing, to webcast. They seem quite excited about it. Richard E. Grant is doing the voice of the Doctor; the firm that did Dangermouse is supplying the animation; Sir Derek Jacobi has a little bitty role as the Master. A chap called Paul Cornell, who wrote some very well-received Doctor Who novels for Virgin Publishing in the mid-Nineties, scripted it.

Being an incurable geek, I decided to watch the two parts available so far.

Unfortunately, it's a bit crap.

Sad, really.

There's this aggressively bad new version of the theme music...And the animation isn't really all that animated. Richard E. Grant seems to deliver all his lines through a mouth full of contempt; he's really abrasive to listen to. And the Doctor is drawn to be noticably ugly, for some reason. And the pacing's terrible. Being a mere webcast, after all, it is not all that lengthy. Everything's all squished together; there's no build-up, no time for any sense of mystery to develop, no time for real characterisation...

Just sort of...crap.

Oh well.

Let us all cross our fingers and hope very, very earnestly that the real honest-to-God live-action really really real television series will be good again when it comes back in 2005.

UPDATE (27 November): So I listened to the third part today. Still not very good, unfortunately. Richard E. Grant's delivery is still dreadful. Whimsical Doctory lines come out sounding horribly unconvincing. The bit with the Master was fun, though. Rather than face slow, painful, ultimate death, the Master chose to bung his mind in a robot body and become the Doctor's house-boy. I think they get up to wacky shenanigans.

Despite my burning obsession with all things Canadian, and Paul Martin's coronation as Emperor of All the Canadas, and the new Liberal government's dire financial straits in Ontario, and David Orchard's pending lawsuit to halt the Alliance-PC merger, I have still been paying attention to the race for America's presidency. Since I am technically an American. And live here. And have a vote. And everything. These 'primary' things are coming up soon. I'm not sure why a lot of the Democratic hopefuls are still running. Like Joe Lieberman. No-one really liked him when he was a vice-presidential candidate; no-one really seems to like him now. I think all he has going for him is the name-recognition thing. Or this Richard Gephardt character. He's pretty boring, too. Boring helped our incumbent Unelected Fraud get into office in the first place. And John Kerry; what's up with him?

I'll tell you what's up with him.

He's not Howard Dean.

Also, he is not Wesley Clark.

These are men who rock. Other would-be world leaders who wish to learn the ways of rocking would be well-advised to observe these men in action. They are like Elvis. Elves. Two Elvises.

I started off pretty lukewarm to Clark, because of the whole military thing, but I have warmed to him...I watched several of his television appearances. I loved his FOX interview...The penis-in-a-suit interviewer of course tried to impugn his patriotism and accuse him of failing to support our troops because he'd called Iraq a bad idea. However, it seems to be the case that four-star generals, for some unfathomable reason, do not suffer such attacks in silence, or break down crying for their mothers when confronted by the massed armies of FOXdom. Clark, in short, ripped the guy a new one. (By which I mean rectum. Rectum? He darn near killed 'um!) It was extremely satisfying to watch. Clark did it with style, too. Nothing histrionic. I think he has a very good television presence. He has a sort of kindly grandfather or county doctor or parish priest air to him...I think it's all in the hair. His hair is a source of great power. I also saw him on a programme hosted by a 'Letter Man' who is apparently some form of 'television' personality. Clark has this earnest gee-whiz John Astin quality that I'd imagine Americans would eat up as if it were *insert your favourite naughty bit here*. He would make an excellent cult leader, with his hair, his air of benevolent wisdom...I'll bet he could give the Mormons a run for their money. I could see his face on the packaging of mass-marketed name-brand magic underwear.

Clark has the underwear going for him, it's true...But he still isn't Howard Dean.

Howard Dean definitely has the cool uncle thing going on. If you're my age. Or maybe he's more like your teenaged daughter's best friend's pretty cool father. You would definitely feel comfortable letting him drive your kids to the mall. You would enjoy having him as your neighbour somewhere comfortably suburban; on summer days you would walk out your front door to get the newspaper, and he would greet you cheerfully while he watered his lawn. I wonder if he fishes? Hypothetically, you could imagine yourself angling with him on a little boat somewhere, wearing hats covered in lures or hooks or whatever it is fishermen cover their hats with. He has a likeable real-person image much unlike that of George Bush, pampered sissy-boy supreme.

Howard Dean does not hate you.

This is something I look for in a president.

George Bush hates me.

Being gay makes it pretty easy to pick a side, politically. The Republican Party as a whole hates me. The Democrats, on the other hand, are slowly and uncomfortably but inexorably coming to back me up. Unless you have some serious self-loathing issues, the choice is obvious, really.

I'm a flaming anarcho-socialist. Dean's a middle-of-the-road kind of guy. We aren't ideological soulmates. Dean wouldn't give us Canadian-style health care or a healthy dose of nationalisation. But that's okay. I can deal. Dean is a decent human being with a fighting spirit who stands for meaningful but incremental changes. He's not a revolutionary. But I do think he would help make things better.

He seems as if he'd put substantial effort into environmental policy...That turns me on. And not just because I'm a tree-hugging hippie peacenik. There's a strong component of self-interest to this. I'll live to see 2050. That's a pretty long while from now. A lot could go wrong. As an avid science-fiction consumer, I have read countless visions of a dystopian blighted near-future Earth withering beneath the onslaught of a total environmental collapse, and I'd really prefer, all things being equal, if these visions did not in fact come true. There's the global-warming thing. Which does actually seem to exist, thank you very much. There's the air-quality thing. The clean water thing. The oil thing. Lots of things. The weather has been pretty consistently unseasonable for a while now, a year or few for sure. At least it has been for a several-mile radius around me. I'm not sure about you. It snowed in Seattle this week. I went out one morning, Wednesday maybe, to catch my bus and found a thin but nontrivial crispy layer of the stuff on peoples' cars and lawns. And we got totally pissed on in October, after a dry, dry summer. Normally it only drizzles here; this rain of which I speak kicked our asses, collectively. I think 20 October was the wettest day on record.

Why, when I was your age, grumble, grumble.

Anyhow. If you don't want to hunt eels from little boats on the flooded and submerged streets of a post-apocalyptic Manhattan a few decades from now, I'd suggest you give Doctor Governor Mister Howard Dean a look.

It's funny to think about 2050 actually arriving...Perhaps even funnier than it was to realise 2000 had come round at last. We're living in the future. We're going to have to start living with all kinds of crazy way-out shit you thought would never come up in the real world. Some day, we will run out of oil. That's just the way it is. Some day, we will have to deal with melting ice caps. And some day, they will try to remake Chinatown. It can't hurt to start planning for it now.

One of Canada's lesser-known exports is evil. In fact, a very significant fraction of Canada's annual evil production is earmarket for foreign consumption, like Celine Dion, and commercials starring William Shatner. The domestic market just isn't what it was, these days. Ever since Stockwell Day was booted out as leader of the Alliance, the evil market has been positively stagnant. The evil industry is looking at hard times; they ask themselves, looking back at the glorious successes and shining fortunes of their past, will they ever again find an evil commodity so marketable as press mogul Conrad Black?

He is a baron now. Not unlike Vladimir Harkonnen.

Conrad Black gave up his Canadian citizenship to accept a peerage in Britain. What an ingrate. He had Canadianness just dropped right into his lap at birth, and did he appreciate it? No, sir! There are starving socialists in Washington who'd kill to be Canadian, and Black casts aside this wond'rous gift like an empty tube of lubricating jelly. And all to become part of an atavistic vestigial prosthesis dangling feebly from the anus of civilised society. It's like he renounced a lifetime's supply of chocolate for a tube of Cheese Whiz and some pork rinds.

I would not cross the street to piss upon him if he were on fire.

Though I am sure that, were he to find himself unexpectedly alight, he would refuse my micturary assistance in any case.

It pleases me that his right-wing media empire is crumbling.

Bush's steel tariffs may cause Europe to declare war on Iowa in retaliation.

There are a lot of really fine articles about octopi on the National Geographic site.

Here we learn that the nerve bundles in the tentacles of octopi may be capable of some low-level processing without the central brain.

Here we learn of an octopus species that not only changes its colour and texture, but has a wide array of tricks at its disposal to mimic predators like lionfish and sea snakes, and may tailor its mimicry to the species of the potential threat it is trying to fend off. Clever creatures, these octopi.

And here is an octopus species so sexually dimorphic that the female is up to 40,000 times heavier than the male. They mate by exchanging severed tentacles filled with sperm, which the female squirts as from a turkey baster over her eggs.

And here, via YAWL, is a snail plated with iron.

Go octopi!

It's a fact: the fundamental group of any topological group is abelian.

Let X be a topological group, with identity element e. Let f and g be paths at e(continuous maps from the unit interval I into X, whose value at both 0 and 1 is e). Denote the ordinary multiplication of paths with a stop: f.g is just the path obtained by following f, and then following g, and reparametrising appropriately to obtain another path. Now, there is another natural multiplication on paths, induced by the group structure of X: denote this by *, where (f*g)(t)=f(t)g(t), where juxtaposition represents the group multiplication. Since multiplication is a continuous operation, this is indeed a path at e. Now, I put it to you that this operation is well-defined not only on paths, but on homotopy classes of paths: suppose f is homotopic to f^~ via a path homotopy F, and g is homotopic to g^~ via a path homotopy G. Then let H(s,t)=F(s,t)G(s,t); this is again a path homotopy, between f*g and f^~*g^~. Which is all well and good.

Now, let c_e denote the constant path at the identity. It should not surprise you to learn that for any paths f and g at e (not path classes, mind you), f.g=(f.c_e)*(c_e.g). Now let's pass to path homotopy classes: [f].[g]=[f.c_e]*[c_e.g]=[f]*[g]. Eureka! The new operation * is absolutely identical to the old operation . on the level of path classes. Which is good. We might as well forget about . altogether, and treat our fundamental group now as having its operation defined by *. Which makes everything very easy indeed. Inversion is a continuous group operation, so for any path f at e, the inverse path f^-1 defined by f^-1(t)=(f(t))^-1 is again a path at e. To show that the fundamental group of X is abelian, one must find a homotopy between f*g and g*f for any paths f and g at e.

But this is the very essence of simplicity! We want to get our homotopy H(s,t) by multiplying f(t)g(t) on the left by something that is the identity when s=0 and is f^-1(t) when s=1, to kill off the left f; and we want to multiply on the right by something that is the identity when s=0, and is f(t) when s=1. Furthermore, we need to fix H(s,0)=H(s,1)=e for all s. There's an obvious way to accomplish this. Just let H(s,t)=f^-1(st)f(t)g(t)f(st). When s=0, this is just f(t)g(t). When s=1, this is g(t)f(t).

And we're done!

It's a snap.

From the Toronto Star:

Foreign Secretary Jack Straw said people were entitled to demonstrate, but questioned why those who planned to march against Bush had not protested Saddam Hussein's regime.

"What bothers me is the fashionable anti-Americanism that's around," he told British Broadcasting Corp. radio.

"Many more people, I guess, will be demonstrating about the United States and the action which the United States has had to take since Sept. 11 than ever demonstrated against the brutal, vicious, horrible regime of Saddam Hussein.''

Mr Straw went on to say how appalled he was by the hypocrisy of 'liberal' Americans who were thinking of voting against President Bush next year: 'Many of these so-called "people" will be casting votes against President Bush while having never once voted against the brutal, vicious, horrible tyrant Saddam Hussein.'^*

.
.
.

^*satire

Artesian wells are all Noetherian.

They satisfy the ascending chain condition.

The Marijuana Party urges you to support the NDP. The Globe and Mail has the story. Hear and see Jack Layton in a clip posted to Pot-TV. He looks like Jack Nance. I respect that.

If Seattle were part of Canada, the NDP would have just won this city's votes.

It's quite a trip, seeing a federal politician giving an interview to anything called Pot-TV...

'...And welcome to Pot-TV.'

'Good to be here.'

Matthew Yglesias has things to say about Canada! He posits that, culturally speaking, non-Southern Americans and non-Quebecois Canadians are pretty much the same, which, in some respects, is certainly true...Canadians watch Survivor too, and listen to techno, and so forth. Day-to-day life is more or less the same, up there and down here. Outside of Quebec, the accents you're likely to hear are no more exotic than you'd find in Maine or Wisconsin or on the set of Fargo. But he goes too far! Quoth he:

Another way of seeing this is that if Québec were to seceed, Canada would have competitive two-party politics between the Alliance and the Liberals much like our two-party system in the US (complete with annoying NDP/Green types).

...Which is just silly.

I feel I would be remiss in my duties as Official Go-To Guy for Canadian local politics (anointed in the comments to Mr Matthew's post by no less a personage than the puissant and benevolent Patrick Nielsen Hayden, though I'm pretty sure I won this crown by default) if I did not raise my voice in defense of the NDP.

The NDP is not some Johnny-come-lately protest party of disaffected young people. The New Democratic Party is a real, viable, and active part of the Canadian political scene, with a heck of a lot of history behind it. Which is actually quite interesting. So I'll tell you about it.

The Ontario NDP has a rather extensive (by Internet standards) set of pages devoted to the party's history and origins. (A few of them, alas, don't seem to be there...But, mirabile dictu, I've found a backup.) And, warming the heart of dedicated readers everywhere, they offer an extensive bibliography. The NDP grew up from the most unlikely roots...A sort of union between Progressives, labour, and farmers. The NDP as such came into existence in 1961, but it evolved pretty directly from much older movements. Some of these, the United Farmers of Ontario and the Independent Labour Party, actually managed to win the Ontario provincial elections and form a government, way way back in 1919, the year of the Winnipeg General Strike. They held onto power for a few years, and later rallied round the socialist banner with labour and farmers' movements spanning Canada to form the Co-Operative Commonwealth Federation, an avowedly socialist party originally run by James Shaver Woodsworth, an MP for Winnipeg. (There's been a lot of Winnipeg in Canadian progressive politics. How curious that progressivism should sprout up in the prairies...) How socialist were they, you ask? Read their Regina Manifesto of 1933 for yourself, and see! They supported a planned, socialised economy, achieved through democratic reforms without violence. The CCF met with some real political success, electing MPs and winning power in Saskatchewan in 1944, under the short yet passionate Tommy Douglas. The democratic socialist CCF government lasted five terms in Saskatchewan, which I find an utterly gobsmacking feat in a rural, prairie province. Of course, the Cold War was not kind to the CCF; the damnable Stalinists were giving socialists everywhere a bad name. The CCF reinvented itself as a much less extreme party, dropping the Regina Manifesto's commitment to the abolition of capitalism and the creation of a centrally-planned economy, officially becoming the grudgingly capitalist but socially-democratic (as opposed to democratic socialist) New Democratic Party in 1961. You can see yourself how their views have evolved over time, through the declarations and manifestoes kindly assembled by the NDP Socialist Caucus. The NDP has been for over forty years a viable, visible, and influential party of the genuine left; though they haven't formed a government or official opposition on the federal level, they've come close to opposition status, and they have formed provincial governments in British Columbia, Ontario, Saskatchewan, and Manitoba, the latter two of which are still in NDP hands. (There may have been others, in the Atlantic provinces, but I don't think so, and I didn't feel like checking.)

They still tell the fable of Mouseland.

The next federal election probably won't be too kind to the NDP, but the party remains a political force with a genuinely useful role to play, not to mention its vitality on the provincial level. There really isn't anything in the US to compare with it.

There are a lot of things about Canadian politics that brook no comparison. The Republicans in the US have never gone through anything like the massive and amusing meltdown and factionalisation the Canadian Tories experienced after Jean Chretien's Liberals came to power, the Tories themselves slipping into obscurity, the firebrand quasi-populist asshole Reform Party raising up in the prairies and becoming the Alliance yet completely and pathologically unable to get a break anywhere east of Manitoba (though Reform did manage one MP from Ontario, once...once), and the weird regional dynamics of the conservative-with-a-small-c parties on the provincial level like the Saskatchewan Party and the BC Liberals (who are not liberal; mainly free-enterprise, anti-labour, small government, low tax pro-property rights types; though they did promise not to go around privatising anything)...Even if and when the Tories and the Alliance hammer out all the details of their reunion, and even if Quebec was magicked off the face of the Earth by tea-time, you would still not end up with anything remotely approximating the American system, with a runaway conservative party pissing in the eye-sockets of democracy, and the putative liberals desperately trying to remember where they'd hidden their proverbial cojones...What you'd end up with would be, well, Canada. The Liberals would still be pretty unstoppable, the NDP would still be considerable, the Conservatives would still get smacked down like the punk little bitches they are.

Not to mention all the other meaningful differences between America and Canada, like Canada's First Nations population, Canada's at times halfhearted and grudging but still meaningful bilingualism, its absence of American arrogance, its humble view of its place in the larger world, its far more reasonable football rules (the Blue Bombers are 11 and 7) and spelling...

And it's just so gosh-darned nice up there!

I rest my case.

I was walking towards the HUB, the University of Washington's student union building, for a spot of lunch today, when I spied a gaggle of LaRouchians peddling their intellectual smut from a card table by the side of the path. Since one of them was cute, I accidentally made eye contact. Never make eye contact. They will swoop down upon you like vultures upon a fresh and steaming carcass. Or George Bush on a bottle of Southern Comfort, laced with cocaine, Iraqi oil, and the blood of the exploited working class. I tried to play my standard 'Get Out of LaRouche Free Card', and claimed to be a Communist; normally a LaRouchian will recoil from Communism like Michael Howard from a clove of garlic. (I should get a little hammer and sickle pin, and brandish it like a crucifix at them next time.) This time, I'm not exactly sure why, it didn't work. He was made of sterner stuff. Perhaps it was the strength of character and intestinal fortitude lent to him by his goatee. At any rate, I got an earful of Genuine LaRouche Thought^TM before I made my escape...

It's pretty funny stuff.

Now, from my last brush with these silly sorts, I knew Lyndon LaRouche had some kind of weird obsession with mathematics; he likes to name-drop people like Georg Friedrich Bernhard Riemann and Johannes Kepler, claiming, in typical schizoid nutjob fashion, that he and he alone truly understood the discoveries of these intellectual titans, and that modern mathematicians and physicists wilfully distorted and castrated their work. He seems to dislike Newton quite a bit, and attaches a quasi-mystical significance to the complex numbers. You can find a lot of such silliness in Riemann for Anti-Dummies, which, though not by The Man himself, was recommended enthusiastically by one of his vapid and brainwashed minions. It is, as they say, all complete pants. It is also quite long. So is this article, in which LaRouche has a go at maths in his own words. This, too, is rather long and boring. But it involves some LaRouche trademarks, like a rabid insistence that only he properly understands these things, and that most other figures in the field (in this case, maths) were malicious hoaxsters and frauds, and that it's all tied to some kind of conspiracy involving Napoleon Bonaparte somewhere along the line. Also, he thinks empiricists and free-trade types are pro-Satanic. He's big on Satan.

When LaRouche claims institutionalised maths is an oppressive monolith that squashes original thought outside its rigidly-defined channels, you can read it as code for 'I'm going to accuse anyone who points out flaws in my laughable logic and the huge gaps in my understanding of being a dogmatic malicious tool of a Vast Conspiracy.'

Satan, Napoleon, Riemann...You might be asking yourself at this stage if there's anyone or anything LaRouche hasn't worked into his schizoid conspiracy theories. No. No there is not. In this little gem, which is blessedly short, LaRouche claims the neocons are the intellectual children of an occult Freemasonic conspiracy founded by the Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte. They apparently run the editorial board of the Wall Street Journal.

And, as I learned from my surreal little conversation today, there is room enough to spare for the Queen in all of this. Apparently, the LaRouchian told me, the Queen of England is at the head of a cabal or conspiracy of British bankers and financial interests, linked to that very same occult Freemasonic Martinist cult, who have been using capitalism for centuries to manipulate economies across the world and subvert our natural, American, LaRouchian, Founding-Fathers-mandated economic system, which he attempted to describe, without actually making any sense or saying anything substantive. The Queen wields vast and terrible power, particularly over Canada. (And all without the Canadians realising. How fiendish.) The way to fight the Queen and her creeping evil is to revitalise America by constructing a huge network of maglev trains, travelling at 600 miles an hour.

No, really.

Here you can find Rosicrucians, Robert Fludd, gnostics, and Cathars, linked to usury and some kind of artistic repression. LaRouche has had a long and chatty career; he's managed to work everything in somewhere. It's almost impressive, in its way, his ability to name-drop. I'm sure the Knights Templars and the Gay Mafia will pop up sooner or later.

He's creepy, yet simultaneously funny. Loonies are like that. Just keep your hands and feet away from his mouth.

LEGAL NOTICE: I am not accusing LaRouche or his supporters of being diagnosably insane, before anyone gets any bright ideas about lawsuits. I am just accusing them of being stupid and silly.

Michael Portillo will be standing down from the House of Commons at the next election. This makes me very sad. Who will be the butt of the political ass jokes now? Prince Charles? It just won't be the same.

I'll just bet he goes into television.

Michael Portillo, you will be missed.

Just for a lark, I took the Political Compass test to see where they placed me. I figured I'd come out on the hard libertarian left, and I did.

Economic Left/Right: -8.50 Libertarian/Authoritarian: -7.79

No surprises there. Though there are plenty of people farther to the left, and more libertarian, than I am.

Despite this, I think I might be some kind of Communist. Or maybe an Anarchist. I can't quite decide. Maybe I'm both. Maybe I'm politically schizophrenic. Maybe I'm silly.

I must say, I'm not quite sure what the astrology question was supposed to measure...Perhaps they need to add a third axis to their compass. For idiocy. Idiocy transcends left and right, authoritarian and libertarian. It really is a dimension all its own.

If you're feeling up to it after the excitement of today's election action and adventure in a sparsely-populated Canadian province haemorrhaging young people which you will probably never hear about again, sort of like a Canadian Iowa (oh, it brings back memories! Did you know the guy who played Gopher on 'The Love Boat' once ran for Governor of Iowa?)...

Via YAWL, here is possibly the greatest website ever.

"A Nice Cup of Tea and a Sit-Down"

Can't get enough of that sweet Canadian politicking? Watch the results of the Saskatchewan provincial election as they come in! Last time I checked, the NDP had 20 seats sewn up and was leading in 11 more, enough to bring them into a fourth governing term. The Saskatchewan Party had 12 seats and was leading in 14 more. Both party leaders handily retained their seats.

Make that 22 and 11 to 16 and 11...There are only 58 seats total--it's a small province; humans aren't big on Saskatchewan generally--so 30 would land the NDP a small but meaningful majority.

The Liberals aren't leading in a single riding, the scoreboard says. Although other reports claim their leader is just barely, barely ahead in his own.

The Saskatchewan Party is full of spammers.

There are some fringe parties in Saskatchewan, but they aren't very interesting. Not like the Marijuana Party.

Make that 23 and 11 to 16 and 8, advantage NDP. Keep your fingers crossed.

The urban areas are overwhelmingly going for the NDP; the rural areas are turning out for the Sask Party. Surprise, surprise. This is why you should live in cities. Or maybe it's because you live in cities. Or perhaps both. Which came first, the chicken or the egg?

UPDATE: The digital magazine New Winnipeg appears to have a hottie skater as its News&Media Director. Oh, and they have a feature on Mayor Glenn Murray's proposed overhaul of Winnipeg's tax system. (Winnipeg is in Manitoba, not Saskatchewan. This is because nothing is in Saskatchewan.)

Shizz...The NDP has 29 seats, to the Sask's 26, three still in play. The CBC is calling it an NDP victory. Their theory is that, though people wanted a change of government, they hated Sask Party Leader Elwin Hermanson too much to put him in charge. The Liberal leader has slipped just behind the NDP challenger in his riding.

It's all over but the dry-cleaning, folks.

I have deliberately avoided finding out anything about the signs I sometimes see nailed up to telephone poles, reading '1-800-GOT-JUNK?'

I do this so I may continue to live in a state of delightful uncertainty as to whether they're talking about rubbish, Chinese boats, heroin, or male genitalia.

I fear the reality would turn out to be far more prosaic than the idea of a service that will respond to telephone requests to haul away your unwanted phalli on an old-fashioned but very seaworthy Oriental vessel.

Tomorrow is a provincial election in Saskatchewan, in which, so they say, the reigning New Democratic Party is neck-and-neck with the right-wing Saskatchewan Party. Please, for the love of God and all that is holy, don't vote for the Saskatchewan Party. Do you want to be severely creeped out? Then try reading some of their platform. Their plan to deal with juvenile crime?

Boot Camps for Repeat Young Offenders

Repeat young offenders need to learn respect for themselves,for others and for
other people ’s property.A Saskatchewan Party government will establish Strict
Discipline Young Offenders Camps,sometimes known as boot camps,for
chronic young offenders involved in property crimes and car thefts.

That's right! They'll deal with juvenile delinquency by locking the kids up in boot camps. It's a stroke of genius.

If you think you're living in 1913.

Which, apparently, the Saskatchewan Party does.

* * * * * * * * * * * *

SASKATCHEWAN TRIVIA: The city of Saskatoon was mentioned in the Doctor Who novel Alien Bodies by Lawrence Miles. I think militia groups from the US were out to destroy it. Bloody Americans...

I have long wondered if the other members of the Royal Society sometimes referred to Elias Ashmole as 'Ass-mole' behind his back. It seems like it'd be pretty hard to resist.

I had a deeply unpleasant nightmare about Tony Blair Friday morning. I was seeing through his eyes. He was in a bathroom, trimming his fingernails; the nail of his left pinky had grown to grotesquely huge and deformed proportions, coming to resemble a scythe. After trimming it, Blair began to reflect on a Commons speech he'd given, in which he'd said how deeply he felt and regretted every serviceman's life lost in the Iraq war. He then began to vomit explosively, profusely, and continually into and around the sink until he very nearly passed out.

Which is all rather appropriate, really.

I really dreamt this. I'm not making it up.

As perhaps you are aware, the UK's Tories very recently worked up the nerve to plunge into their leader Iain Duncan Smith's back the dagger they'd been polishing and fiddling with and dropping and hiding behind their backs and flashing about to impress girls for ages now. In a moving display of party unity, it seems everyone has come together to coronate Michael Howard heir to Mr Duncan Smith's throne (a porcelain throne). The Virtual Stoa is just chock-a-block with timely information on Howard, including a link to a 1997 interview conducted by the BBC's Jeremy Paxman in which Howard dodges a direct question something like 14 times and comes across as an odious little kitten-strangler, which he is. You should watch it; it's funny.

Here in an article for The Observer you can snigger naughtily as Michael Portillo^* speaks approvingly of Howard's 'rod of iron'. It's actually a rather interesting read, since Portillo is one of the 'modernising' Tories whose agenda Howard does not appear to embrace. Porty laments that Howard is no 'bright young thing' like Blair was when he took the Labour helm; perhaps he fancies Tony. Read the last paragraph, particularly; Portillo gets in a solid age jab to Howard's gut, then suggests Howard's greatest accomplishment might be in keeping the party from bleeding to death 'til he can anoint a young, dynamic, sexy successor.

Heavens know Howard's not going to win the Tories any elections, horrid Thatcherite prune that he is. He actively repulses swing voters, leaving many actually less likely to vote Tory than they would've been under IDS, if such a thing can be believed.

Oh, Tories...You do warm my heart, with your wacky antics. And your inability to win. And your new undead vampire leader. Someone should make a sitcom...Or maybe work Howard into a Buffy: The Vampire Slayer spinoff. Oh! Oh! All about Giles! And Willow! In England! Yes! It's too perfect. Willow and Giles, battling a vampiric conspiracy at the very heart of the Tory Party, led by evils from the dawn of time bent on resurrecting the lifeless bodies of Margaret Thatcher and Vampire Queen Victoria with the blood of fresh young voters...

*: Michael Portillo makes an excellent butt, if you will, for gay jokes because he's publicly admitted to being a cock-hound in his university days. It gave the world some very entertaining anti-Portillo campaign slogans, and served as a bottomless fount of inspiration for Chris Morris. I would like to see him emerge as Tory Leader, just to see how the Conservatives would react to having Portillo on top, if you will.

David Lynch is even weirder than you think: he's a devotee of Transcendental Meditation out to raise $1 billion to build 100 peace palaces around America in which crowds of Transcendental Meditators will whip up the fresh, creamy karma that will bring about instant and total world peace, no strings attached.

But he's still going to make disturbing films filled with sex and violence.

Did you know that Transcendental Meditation is already helping to keep America safe? One of the world's leading centres of Transcendental Meditation is located right in the heart of the heartland, in my home state of Iowa. I speak of none other than Fairfield, Iowa's Maharishi University of Management, home of the Golden Domes of Pure Knowledge. I quote:

The Golden Domes of Fairfield Iowa are the world's largest facility for the development of higher states of consciousness through the Transcendental Meditation and TM-Sidhis Program, including Yogic Flying. Practicing this program in large groups has been found to more quickly develop the full potential of the individual, the state of Enlightenment. From the campus of M.U.M., near the population center of the United States, the group generates the Maharishi Effect.

This field effect of consciousness, emanating from the heartland, is America's first line of defense, helping to avert negative intentions before they rise to action. The calming influence of coherence helps provide national security and invincibility, overflowing from the USA through every nation, the basis of world peace.

As the world's most generous contributors to Maharishi's programs for World Peace, Americans have enjoyed great support of Natural Law in return. Since the inauguration of the Golden Domes in 1997, when the country was deeply in debt and doubt during the cold war, America has grown to become the most creative, inventive, strongest, and wealthiest nation on Earth.

The Golden Domes are America's major Peace Keepers. But at some times, we have taken this protective shield for granted. In the months before September 2001, as attendance waned in the domes, national consciousness coasted towards dullness. It was said that "America's luck run out" as support of natural law ran out. Terrorist thoughts were able to come to action. Following this, a great push to increase attendance has helped America become stronger than ever.

I saw the Golden Dome once. It was smaller than I expected.

In 2001 the Mahrishis incorporated their very own suburb of Fairfield, Vedic City.

Probably the healthiest city in America, the City is the home to the College of Maharishi Vedic Medicine of Maharishi University of Management and The Raj, America’s flagship health center and spa based on the natural, prevention-oriented Maharishi Vedic Approach to Health^SM.

That ^SM is by far the best part.

They even printed up their very own Vedic currency, the Raam Mudra. Each one is officially worth $10. The Raam also circulates in the Netherlands. (These are legally the equivalent of the Disney Dollars distributed at any of that eponymous firm's fine theme parks.)

My memory may be playing tricks on me here, so this may be nothing but an urban legend...But I recall hearing, in the murky depths of antiquity, that at least some students in Fairfield were taught authentically ancient Vedic algorithms for carrying out multiplication, as opposed to the usual technique. (At least I assume it's usual...) While, as I say, I cannot authoritatively confirm this, I wouldn't be at all surprised.

Iowa isn't just for corn any longer.

It's also for amusing crackpots.