Flypaper

Asshat.

David Warren - the moron inventor of the flytrap theory:

The sore thumb of the U.S. occupation -- and it is a sore thumb equally to Baathists and Islamists, compelling their response -- is not a mistake. It is carefully hung flypaper.

...

This is exactly what President Bush wants. To engage them, away from Israel, in mortal combat. To have an excuse for wiping them out -- a good, solid, American excuse, from which Israel has been extracted. The good news is, Hizbullah's taking the bait.

Guess London is fair bait too, hey Warren.

Obsessive rantings? We've heard this one before...

While our friend has taken 4 weeks off, the hatemail keeps pouring in. Today's Ottawa Citizen published a particularly hilarious letter. The money line is the second sentence. The rest of the letter is dead on too.
________________________

The Ottawa Citizen
February 22, 2005

Re: Same-sex silliness, Feb. 20.

I thought it would never happen, but I actually agree with the writer of your Sunday Spectator column. Rather than skimming through the obsessive rantings of David Warren, (the usual Sunday guy), Peter Zimonjic presented a straight-forward, no-nonsense refutation of the various reasons raised to oppose same-sex marriages.

This viewpoint was an extremely pleasant diversion from the emotional and sometimes hysterical letters to the editor predicting the end of the world if gay people obtain exactly the same rights that heterosexuals have enjoyed for hundreds of years. Like Mr. Zimonjic, I will be happy when the same-sex marriage law is passed and we, as a society, continue to stumble into the 21st century.

Judy Girard,
Ottawa

An open letter to the Owners of the Ottawa Citizen

Dear Ottawa Citizen Owners,

How is it possible that you continue to give David Warren a paycheque?
How is it possible that David write a full Column and still not say a single thing?

Here's how David accomplished it this week.

Step 1. Describe how your readers detest you, think you are a moron, complain about your bigoted, emotionally based arguments and conclude by adding more fuel to the fire.

Step 2. Talk about a topic that you claim to love, yet state not ONE SINGLE FACT. Wow. That takes true skill.

Step 3. Talk about how science cannot explain, and yet, support and encourage those who work in the field?

Step 4. Talk about how you don't believe in evolution, nor do you believe in Biblical Creationism... umm... hunh? Ok... so what was it you did believe in then? Oh. I get it! You're the first opinion writer that refuses to give us your opinion! Very unique approach!

Then why did you waste 5 minutes of my life telling me absolutely NOTHING!

Grrrrrr.... no insight. No information... No opinions other than stating what HE doesn't believe in.
Catholic Christian eh? I dunno man. If you don't believe in Creationism...

Why do we read such drivel... why waste our lives! Please, please, someone, stop the madness!

The More Things Change...

Peter C. Newman, on the Ottawa press gallery in 1957:

As I got to know them better, I realized that most of the gallery members were failed romantics who were spending the wrong years in the faith. They had become stenographers instead of investigators, agreeing on the story "line", operating as a captive Rat Pack. Their idea of journalistic fairness was to remain scrupulously passive, reporting most stories not as they happened but as they were presented...
They were dedicated mainly to not being struck off the guest lists for the prime ministers' annual garden parties and to staying on the "A" roster of invitations for diplomatic parties.

- from Here Be Dragons: Telling Tales of People, Passion and Power

Christianophobia: or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Being a Victim

Warren's Dec. 19 column, entitled "Christianophobia" is hilarious. In a Helen Lovejoy-esq kind of way. The fear mongering, the bold proclamations, the impending sense of doom. It's all in the column. Who will think of the children, indeed...

Warren's desire to always place himself and his merry band of followers as victims is a consistent theme in his work. Problem is, it just doesn't cut the mustard.

Sure, Christians are persecuted. I don't quibble with that. It's not right. Shouldn't happen.

But we've got to remember the scope. When Warren starts trotting out the plight of the poor Sally Ann bell ringers, it's just not on par with another story that broke the day before his column.

This one.

When 44% of Americans are supportive of restricting the civil liberties of Muslims in the US, we've got problems. Big problems. Who makes up this 44%? Apparently it's:

• Republicans (shocking!),
  
• TV news viewers (Breaking news... 4 dead in massive pile-up on I-95... may be terror-related. More after these words from our sponsor...) and;
• The self-described "highly religious". (These ain't Hindus and Buddhists, folks....)

So the day after this story, Warren trots out a lame-ass column on Christianophobia?

Nice timing. Jerk-off.

David Warren, mental midget

David, David, David. You've admitted to much.

"Excuse me, I'm stupid." you proclaim.

Yes. Yes you are.

Let me make it crystal clear for you David.

My values are mine. Your values are yours. Apply your values to your own life. I'll apply mine to mine. God will judge you based on your living of your life. Is it perfection? Oops! Not good enough for God. Sorry.

And what does it say about a state that doesn't allow for the views of others? Wanna live in Iran? I hear they don't allow abortions either (legally anyway).

For those values that as a society we see we want to globally introduce and legislate, we do. For example, murder. Murder is easily seen as something we as a society we want to prevent and punish those who commit murder (there are, of course, exceptions to that, like for instance when someone kills to prevent being killed, or kills accidentally and without malice or intent). 99.9% of us (excempting the especially mentally ill who might disagree with me) think murder is wrong, and we can all agree on that. Done deal.

But just because your particular reading of the Bible (by no means universal sir, many others read the same book you do and come to different conclusions), you decide for everyone that God thinks that a clump of a dozen or so cells has the same importance and value as a fully grown child or woman, well, that's a bit harder swallow. How do we resolve a conflict like that? How do we resolve other conflicts like this in our country?
1. Ensure that our state is a pluralistic, inclusive and just society (as per the Charter of Rights and Freedoms). That's what seperates us as a country from Iran.

I appreciate your point of view as I have held that view in the past as a child.
But after growing up and realizing that I live in a imperfect world with imperfect people who live imperfect lives, sometimes we need to make compromises. Just like God did when he told Moses that he would grant the Jews rights to have divorces. Imperfect, grey rules for imperfect people. But the point was it preserved their society and made their lives better. Sure, it wasn't God's intention for people to have divorces, but hey, people suck.

Sure, its nice and easy and black and white to tell a 11 year old girl who was raped that she should keep that group of cells for 9 months and take a year off of school because its illegal to have an abortion, but is that really what all would agree to? Or what God would desire and intend? You know though, right? You are sure enough that you know what God wants, right? Hey, I heard the church used to say slavery was OK too. Oops.

See some shades of grey man! Life is grey. Life isn't quite so black and white as you so badly want it to be.
And besides, what would you rather accomplish David? Seriously, ask yourself this question.

Do I want to make abortion illegal, or do I want to reduce the number of abortions in Canada?

If you truly want to reduce the number of abortions in Canada, making them illegal isn't going to get you there. Women since the beginning of time have found ways to have abortions with or without help from the state, with or without it being legal, and even more shocking have committed infanticide because of unwanted children.

Dead babies, or a few cells removed? If you got your way I wouldn't at all be surprised with dead babies found in trashcans on a regular basis. Society puts massive pressures on women.

Want to reduce abortions? Glen Stassen makes the case that the number one priority is to make sure women are secure, economically and socially. Makes sense, doesn't it! So, does that mean you are going to lead the charge to raise minimum wage and ensure a more progressive tax system in Canada, ensure large swaths of social housing is built and a welfare program that is the envy of the world.... you gonna get right on that, hmm David?

Jerk-off's like you want to make the issue o-so-simple. Just because people like Martin and Kerry see a more nuanced solution like dealing with the root causes, you accuse them of having wanting consciences.

Cats and Dogs Living Together!

David Warren must be off his meds again.

That's the charitable explanation for his foaming-at-the-mouth diatribe against gay marriage (in which he also gets in a few shots at the Charter of Rights and Freedoms) in his Sunday column.

I must admit I am continually amazed at the intellectual gymnastics performed by conservative hacks like Warren. He's a vocal and enthusiastic cheerleader for an illegal war that has resulted in the deaths of tens of thousands (if not hundreds of thousands) of civilians, and he's an ardent supporter of a president who has barely a passing acquaintance with the truth; mention the words 'gay' and 'marriage' and he's wiping spittle off his monitor and ranting about 'moral rot' and 'rights troughs' (don't ask). In WarrenWorld, causing the deaths of innocents is okay and lying is a virtue, but two men picking out china patterns at the Bay is the end of civilization - polygamy is next, followed by Santorum-style threesomes with Rover and the budgie.

In order to prove he's not a bigot, however, Warren pulls out his conveniently anonymous and self-hating gay friend, who "longs to lead the charge back into the closet". This friend is, by happy coincidence, a resident of a southern Red State, where he lives a quiet, happy, life of illicit pleasure with his partner - as long as they don't get uppity and hold hands at a baseball game.

The whole 'slippery slope' argument is, in my opinion, pretty stupid. Amp over at Alas, A Blog had the best response to this in a cartoon he did last year. This same argument has been trotted out for years; as Amp says, 'this slope isn't nearly as slippery as you think it is'.

And would it be too much to ask for these defenders of 'traditional marriage' to specify exactly which tradition they're talking about? Should we go back to the 'tradition' that held that married women couldn't hold jobs? That married women were property? Or maybe we should go all the way back to the biblical tradition of marriage, where a man could marry as many women as he wanted. Oh, wait, that's polygamy isn't it? Isn't that at the bottom of the 'slippery slope'? You see how confusing this gets.

The truth is, there is no such thing as 'traditional marriage'; the institution has been evolving almost from the time it was first invented, and no doubt each evolution prompted cries about 'moral rot' from the David Warrens of the day. The church no longer has exclusive ownership of the institution; straight couples have access to the same marriage benefits whether they got married by a priest in a church or by a clerk at city hall. This is not an issue of 'marriage rights', it's about equal treatment under the law.

Oh, and it probably goes without saying that people who call for a defense of 'traditional marriage' ought to be able 'defend' their own marriages. Glass houses and all that...

If only I had a newspaper column, or something

In today's column (Exporters of Democracy should be colour blind) , David Warren has a single good idea; alas, it's buried in amongst a lot of misinformation.

Let's separate the wheat from the chaff, shall we?

He quotes Salama Nimat, suggesting that the elections in Palestine and the (still theoretical) elections in Iraq are 'the first two free and general elections in the whole History of the Arab world'.
While the use of the terms 'free' and 'general' probably allow for some room for argument, this statement seems odd: the elections in Palestine are, after all, scheduled to replace Yasser Arafat, who was, um, elected as president, in 1996.

Iran, also, has regular elections. In fact, sometimes, the good guys even win.

But wait, there's more! Not only are the elections in Iraq going to be 'free and general', apparently:

He [Nimat] is so indiscreet as to mention that the only places in
the Arab world where the media are truly free are now - Iraq and
Palestine.

Free media in Iraq? You've got to be kidding:

Iraqi security officers stormed al-Jazeera's Baghdad offices and sealed the
newsroom with red wax at the weekend after the US-backed interim government
banned the Arabic television station from broadcasting in the country.

And al-Jazeera's not the only Arab-based media outlet to run afoul of the U.S in Iraq:

Al-Arabiya did have an unembedded reporter, Abdel Kader Al-Saadi, in Falluja,
but on November 11 US forces arrested him and held him for the length of the
siege.

Perhaps Mr. Warren has a different idea of the meaning of 'free media'.

Anyway, he then goes on to suggest that democracy is in demand, and asks the following question:

Why then, are we only interested in whether Ukrainians may vote freely? Why
aren't we engaged - emotionally, intellectually, and morally - when freedom,
independence, and democracy are at issue in many other countries?

You know what? That's an excellent question, and Warren's answer - that it's because Ukrainians are white - is a pretty accurate answer. Unfortunately, Warren then goes on to suggest that its all the fault of the nasty Europeans, and if people with yellow and brown skin want help, its 'the Bush administration or nothing'.

Yeah. The Bush administration is so sympathetic to the plight of brown people with democratic aspirations. Was Haiti so long ago?

The American response to the genocide in Darfur?

Moreover, as the East African Standard in Nairobi reported on September 10:
"There is no appetite in the U.S. government or among other major powers for an
international military deployment to try to stop the violence."
Quoted in
that story is Colin Powell: "There is nobody prepared to send troops in there
from the United States or the European Union or elsewhere to put it down in the
sense of an imposition force."

And as for the as for Africa's biggest problem, the devastating AIDS epidemic, the Bush administration's response has been to extend the global gag rule to organizations eligible for AIDS funds.

The world's continued neglect of Africa's problems (and they are legion) is a disgrace, and one we should all be ashamed of. But why is David Warren complaining?

There is no huge Western media uproar about Zimbabwe, for instance.

Here's a hint, David - you're part of the 'Western media'. If you want to make Zimbabwe and issue, what's stopping you?

Lets ignore some facts on the ground in Iraq

David Warren refusing to acknowledge reality. Again. He really has a knack for it.

David doesn't muse on what it might take to hold legitimate elections in Iraq (like Stability, a functional police force, an internationalization of the election to assist) so that both internally (the Sunis, Shiites and Kurds) and externally (nations both in and out of the coalition of the un-willing') the election may be seen as legitimate.
Would hold legitimate an election in an unstable, unprotected nation where kidnappings take place daily and car bombs go off as regularly as George Bush smirks?

Nope, David Warren doesn't go there (coward). He decides to lecture today (David has three modes of operation. Lecture (blah de blah blah blah), Opine (I believe blah de blah blah blah) and Full Venom Spitting Mode (They are eViL! blah de blah blah blah).). Too bad he doesn't have a thinking mode.

How about some Reality (with a capital R): From Juan Cole at Informed Comment:

Reuters reports that guerrillas in Mosul cleared two churches and then blew them up. There were no injuries, but extensive damage was done to an Armenian and an old Chaldean church. Mosul, a city of 1.2 million, has a substantial Christian population (Christians form about 3 percent of the Iraqi population).Christian leaders in Iraq have threatened to form a militia for self-protection. The guerrillas have targeted Iraqi Christians on more than one occasion, associating them with the Christian foreigners now occupying Iraq. (This association is unfair, since the Chaldean Christians represent a culture that is older than Islam in Iraq; but such links are made).

This is the predictable fall out from an invasion, more stuff that David Warren didn't think to mention. Wait a sec. Maybe he just didn't think at all.

Compare and contrast shall we? Here's David's pile of filth for the day. Even the title is misleading "Iraqi Democracy is unlike ours". Give me a break. A 4 year old could have framed the issue more discretely. Here David is, attempting to entice you, the reader, to believe his unbelievable premise that Iraq actually has or will ever have ANY real democracy. A subliminal way to help you swallow that unbelievable premise is to frame is argument by saying "Hmmm.... I know that Iraqi's don't have democracy, but maybe if I say "Iraqi Democracy is unlike ours" people might accept the fact that Iraqis don't actually have it that bad.... I mean, they have some kind of democracy, right?

Don't be a sucker. Stop reading crap like Warren and start reading real news like from Juan Cole.

Man. I didn't even get past the title this time. Maybe tomorrow I'll put on my hip waders and dive right into the filth. But I wouldn't recommend it.

We are coming for you David Warren

Be warned Mr. Warren. We are sick of your thrice weekly rants. We refuse to let your filth go on uncontested. The Anti-Warren Crew has decided that we are going to shadow write your crappy columns and let people here other more sane points of view on the crappy topics of which you speak.
Enjoy your fame Mr. Warren. We hope you enjoy it.