PunkAssBlog.com

I admit to being slightly obsessed with Omar Khadr’s story. Many of us here in Soviet Canuckistan, the one major U.S. ally unwilling to say a peep about America’s human rights violations in Guantanamo Bay, are slightly obsessed with Omar Khadr’s story. I’m not sure if the Khadr family—”Canada’s First Family of Terrorism”—gets as much [...]

“Commemoration: al-Nakba 1948,” Sue Goldstein (2008). My photo does not do the piece justice, I’m afraid.
Cognitive dissonance, said developmental theorist Jean Piaget, is the only way one ever learns anything. The discrepancy between what we already know or believe and new information that we encounter hits us repeatedly. There’s a tendency to initially reject that [...]

How good of a 1930s housewife are you?

Gentlemen, beware! I scored a -8. I scored a -13 by “Doesn’t like children,” he means “Doesn’t actually intend to spawn.”
I’d really like to see what the husband’s chart looks like.
Hat tip: neeuqdrazil.

Pastel is the new black.
Please tell me that this article was written by a bored, possibly drunk AP writer having a lark and trying to see what he or she could sneak past the editor.
Prairie skirts are in fashion this season, while dusty pastels and neutrals are being introduced to offset trendy bold colors and [...]

If you’re outside of Canada, you might not be hearing much these days about the case of the Toronto 18, or the Toronto 17, or the Toronto 11 (the number of suspects charged keeps dwindling as the case against them collapses). They are 15 men, mostly in their early 20s, and five kids, all Muslim, [...]

Hey, I wonder why more women aren’t into sci-fi and fantasy.
In LiveJournal Land, an interesting hoopla has erupted around The Open-Source Boob Project. The story starts at ConFusion in Ann Arbor, an annual sci-fi, fantasy, anime, gaming, comics, etc., convention. If you’ve ever shown up at a con wearing a set of boobs, you know [...]

Disclaimer the first: I do not think that either Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama will govern the U.S. in a manner distinguishable or necessarily preferable to that of a white male politician.
Disclaimer the second: Besides, I have a bet riding on a McCain victory, though it’s a bet I hope to lose.
Disclaimer the third: And [...]

Drawing by Sami al-Haj, imprisoned Al Jazeera cameraman
After over two years, the U.S. military is finally releasing AP photographer Bilal Hussein. Hussein, guilty of practicing journalism while Arab, had been imprisoned without evidence or charges, and presumably will be released without apology.
These days, holding folks for no reason, indefinitely, is apparently no big deal. (Even [...]

Here’s one, from the Canadian Union of Public Employees, that should put a smile on your face:

Of course, we here in Canada recognize this as satire. I’m not sure that it reads that way to Americans. What do you think?
Hat tip: Audra Williams
And here’s one that really won’t put a smile on your face: American [...]

Mother Jones has gotten a hold of some of the music that U.S. troops use to “induce sleep deprivation, “prolong capture shock,” disorient detainees during interrogations—and also drown out screams.”
Lovely.

I find the use of Rage Against the Machine and Springsteen particularly abhorrent (not only because of the artists’ politics, but because I happen to [...]

If we need to have fascism, can it at least be well-dressed fascism?
Okay, so this fellow Scalia has actually managed the unthinkable, which is to change my mind on the ethics of torture. Previously, as you may recall, I had the sane belief that torture was always unethical, under any circumstances. But this good judge [...]

A few people have asked for my thoughts on the TDSB’s decision in favour of black-focused schools. Sonjaa and Troubleinchina both wrote good posts on the subject, and I recommend reading those too.
I’ll preface this by saying that this is a divisive issue in Toronto, particularly within the black community and the activist community. It’s [...]