(Un-) Holy Crap

So, there's an online "Christian" encyclopedia-thing called Christopedia. You can find it here.

This is their entry on Barack Obama as of 8:14 local time tonight. And oh, you better believe this is going to get changed fast now that it's out. Here's an excerpt. Warning: it is pure, evil hate:

On November 4, 2008, the nigger defeated John McCain in the general election and became the first niggerid-American to be elected President of the United States.^[1][1][1][1] In his victory speech, delivered before a crowd of many thousands of his supporters in Chicago's Grant Park, the nigger proclaimed that "change has come to America."^[1]

The nigger's assigned Secret Service codename is "Renegade."^[1][1] "Renegade" was first used to describe someone who had turned from their religion, coming from the Spanish word renegado meaning "Christian turned Muslim."^[1]

And it goes on and on and on and on and on.

Who is the constituency for this website? Who's reading this stuff? Who's sharing these ideas? Is it a small group of fringe militia types? thirteen-year-old boys thinking they're funny? Or something more widespread?

I don't know. But after reading this, just knowing this is out there, I will say, yeah. Sure all this shit-talk coming out of sewer-mouthed, conservative American bigots about the black president and his health care plan isn't motivated by racism. Surrrrrrre.

Fake-Christian psychos. Well at least I have a topic for this week's editorial. Let the angry typing begin.

(Found on Slog.)

31 Days of Horror: Eyes Without a Face

It's a dark night outside Paris as a nervous woman (Alida Valli) drives along a quiet road. She keeps looking at her passenger in the backseat. The passenger is wearing a trench coat and hat and appears to unconscious or at least in one of those endless sleeps that one never wakes up from. The car gets closer to the river and stops, the woman gets out and drags the body from the backseat into the river.

And so begins the 1960 French film Eyes Without a Face (Les yeux sans visage) - a tale so dark and twisted yet so beautifully photographed it's almost hard to believe that it's a horror story. But it is a horrifying story. Brilliant surgeon Dr. Génessier (Pierre Brasseur) is summoned by the police after the body has been found. His daughter Christiane has been missing - she was in a horrific car accident that destroyed her face - and was thought to be suicidal. Dr. Génessier identifies the woman as his daughter. The police are satisfied but puzzled. Another girl is also missing and except for the missing face the body is almost a perfect match.

Directed by Georges Franju, this film, despite it being somewhat subdued, still managed to cause quite a bit of controversy when it was originally released. It's not as gory as most of its modern day contemporaries but there are still a couple of very squeamish scenes. One of the scenes is a particularly nasty surgery scene that I won't go into details with. Needless to say it didn't get the praise that it deserved when it was initial released. In the U.S. it was cut and released under the title The Horror Chamber of Dr. Faustus. I'm not sure who Dr. Faustus is but that's the name that was chosen. The movie is available from the Criterion Collection uncut but a word of warning. The DVD contains Georges Franju's 1949 short documentary Blood of the Beasts (Le Sang des bêtes) - which takes a look at a slaughterhouse in Paris. You will never eat food again after watching this documentary - just stick with this brilliant horror movie.

This Week at City Hall

Monday, October 5
City Council (5:30 pm): Considering a motion from Councillor Browne to have staff look into how to make the current parking regime function better. Also hearing reports from staff on abuse of residential garbage receptacles and on the city's bike path system.

Tuesday, October 6
Finance and Administration Committee (12:15 pm): Looking at the sale of some North Central lots to Habitat for Humanity and at the 2009 External Audit Planning Memorandum.

Wednesday, October 7
Regina Planning Commission (4:00 pm): Considering a street closure of a road on the west side of the Creeks development. Also looking at the rezoning of lands to accomodate Phase 4 of Harbour Landing. Paratransit Advisory Committee (5:30 pm)

Thursday, October 8
Environment Advisory Committee (5:30 pm): Considering meeting times for 2009 through 2010.

As alway you can download full agendas and reports on the city's website.

The Road Out of Poverty?

Received a press release today from the uber-right wing Frontier Centre for Public Policy about a new report (link here) by one of its researchers touting the benefits of car ownership to help alleviate poverty. Apparently, the more mobile a person is, the better able they are to (1) search for a job (2) get to work (3) take a different job with another employer with better pay and benefits.

That's certainly our position at prairie dog, with respect to the part about mobility being a key component of economic (and social/cultural/psychological/physical/political) well-being anyway. As for the suggestion that car ownership is the best means to achieve that goal, well, that's where we part ways with the Frontier Centre.

I live and work in downtown Regina. I don't own a car. For eight months out of the year (mid-March to mid-November) I cycle pretty much every where I go. For four months of the year I rely on Regina Transit. Yeah, the service sucks, and is in desperate need of being upgraded. But outside of the odd new set of tires and tubes for my bike, I spend roughly $240 a year on transportation (four monthly bus passes at $60 a pop). Automobile ownership, meanwhile, imposes a significantly greater financial burden in the order of $8000-$10,000 a year minimum, not to mention the immense toll motor vehicles take on the environment and civic infrastructure.

You want to improve people's employment prospects, how about facilitating their ability to move about cheaply and efficiently through walking, cycling and public transit?

Lamebook

I don't know about you, but I'm getting a little bored with Facebook. And that was before all my friends started getting their status lines spammed with an ad for colon cleanser. But they're all apparently 81/2 pounds lighter, so I guess that's good. I had to spam myself, that's how lame I am.

Speaking of lame: the best thing about Facebook will always be links from your friends. So, from Facebook pal Trevor Cunningham, I present: Lamebook, an ever-growing collection of squeam-producing status updates and ill-advised public conversations. Enjoy!

Six In The Morning

1 THE IRAN NUCLEAR SITUATION: A 'SPLANATION The Guardian's Julian Borger lays out everything you need to get a handle on the situation. (Guardian)

2 MISSING AND MURDERED WOMEN REMEMBERED Regina mourners hold a candlelight vigil in Victoria Park. (Leader-Post)

3 INSANELY CUTE LITTLE DUDES RELEASED INTO WILD 34 epically-adorable black-footed ferrets were released in Grasslands National Park in southwest Saskatchewan Friday. It's an attempt to get the highly endangered species back on solid footing. Get it? "Footing"? Black "footed" ferrets? Ahhh, you're no fun. Also, these wiggly little rascals eat the crap out of prairie dogs. But, SO CUTE!!! (CBC)

4 FREEDOM = POISONED BY BEEF Oh, that country to the south of us. Some poor woman ate an e-coli-tainted burger and now she's paralysed. Good thing beef inspections are voluntary and not mandated by government, though. That'd be socialism! (New York Times)

5 NOT TICKLED BY IVORIES Liberal party leader Michael Ignatieff likes Harper's piano playing, doesn't like his track record on culture. (Toronto Star)

6 FORTY YEARS AGO THINGS BECAME QUITE SILLY The greatest comedy troupe in the history of the universe celebrates a big anniversary today. Have a video! We'll post one every day this week.

Pick of the Day: Two Hours Traffic

I previewed this gig in the Sept. 24 issue of prairie dog. It was kind of a last minute assignment so there was no time to track down anyone from the PEI-based band for an interview. I gave their 2007 Polaris Prize-nominated CD Little Jabs a listen when it was released, but I don't think prairie dog received a copy of their 2009 CD Territory. If we did, somebody must have bogarted it before I could give it a spin. I did listen to the disc on-line though while I was writing the preview.

Joel Plaskett produced both albums. Two Hours Traffic don't have his song-writing chops. But they don't produce pop fluff either. Here's the video for their song Jezebel. (YouTube)

Joining Two Hours Traffic at the Exchange tonight are the Danks (YouTube) and Spiral Beach (YouTube). So overall, a pretty strong bill.

31 Days of Horror: The Signal

The horror genre is littered with low budget independent films. 90% of these movies are complete and utter crap. But every so often somebody comes along and makes a masterpiece. In this case it's actually three directors - David Bruckner, Dan Bush and Jacob Gentry along with producer Alexander A. Motlagh who have managed to create a smart, effective and horrifying low budget movie.

The Signal was made for only $50,000 and shot over 13 days. This 2007 film is told in three chapters or transmissions. Each director takes a turn directing one of the chapters. Despite each chapter being told in a different genre: pure horror, black comedy and thriller-love story, the movie isn't all that disjointed. Everything flows together - it's one movie that you are watching instead of three short films.

The movie opens with a cheap looking horror movie - the kind that are prevalent for the low budget horror genre before the movie switches to the real film. The story is simple. On New Year's Eve there is a signal that is suddenly being broadcast on every TV, radio and telephone. And it's driving people crazy. Not just "What's that annoying noise?" crazy, but irrationally, murderously crazy. Within this is the story of a married woman who is having an affair. She is about to run away with her lover when the signal hits causing chaos everywhere. The film follows her journey along with her husband and her lover within each of the chapters.

Despite the low budget, the cinematography is amazing, the acting is brilliant and the gore effects are quite realistic. There's a scene involving a head in a vice grip that looks pretty authentic.

This is an amazing low budget film that deserves wider recognition.

Beatles Revisited

I hesitate to post this, but after what happened at the National Arts Centre in Ottawa Saturday night it seems our esteemed prime minister might have a shred of humanity in him after all. And no, I'm not referring to the cute kitty in the photo which he probably throttled, cooked and ate after the picture was taken. (YouTube)

Michael Moore: Jesus Was A Socialist

In a column posted this a.m., Michael Moore points out the contradictions between Christian values and American social and political reality:

I have come to believe that there is no getting around the fact that capitalism is opposite everything that Jesus (and Moses and Mohammed and Buddha) taught. All the great religions are clear about one thing: It is evil to take the majority of the pie and leave what's left for everyone to fight over. Jesus said that the rich man would have a very hard time getting into heaven. He told us that we had to be our brother's and sister's keepers and that the riches that did exist were to be divided fairly. He said that if you failed to house the homeless and feed the hungry, you'd have a hard time finding the pin code to the pearly gates.

I guess that's bad news for us Americans. Here's how we define "Blessed Are the Poor": We now have the highest unemployment rate since 1983. There's a foreclosure filing once every 7.5 seconds. 14,000 people every day lose their health insurance.

Full thing here. (Huffington Post)

And Americans are concerned that there are so many atheists nowadays. Well guys, don't be surprised that the hypocrisy, stupidity, insanity and general viciousness of your nasty little fairy tales are offputting to those of us who value decency. But hey, give us a call when you finally get this "though shalt not kill" thing figured out.