why? for the love of god... why?

clearly the only reason that this product is bad is because it's sexist:

i mean, why is there only a sex toy for male dogs? (yes, prudes, it's a sex toy for your dog..obviously)
hypothetically speaking, the sperm resevoir poses no real problem--i mean, why would it?
also, i'm sure most people wouldn't even have a problem with watching their beloved dog use a fake dog's bod to fulfill their every desire.
no, the real problem is that there is no counterpart for female dogs because that is just a travesty. how much longer do we have to watch our female dogs hump legs furiously before we grant them real satisfaction with the use of an anatomically correct male dog sex toy?

female dog owners of the world unite! now is the time to demand action on this horrible crime against female dogs everywhere!!

(props to MM for posting this first!)

now it all makes sense

sarah palin delivered her farewell speech to alaska the other day and officially left the world of politics in the same way she came into it: with a long, confusing, rambly, and weird speech that makes no sense.

but i watched a video today that explains everything and i think that now we can begin to look at the palin era in a new light.

palin's original farewell speech:



the way all of palin's speeches should be delivered:




first auto-tune the news, and now poeticizing palin.. the world isn't such a dire place after all.

we will out LOL you...

here at pamphleteers we love a lot of things. we also think that most things are the best idea ever. sometimes you see something that is a culmination of all of the things you love most and that's what we saw last night.

these are pictures from london(ontario) pride which, like many pride festivities across the country and world, have annual homophobe protesters who want to rain on the parade-literally.

apparently these protesters, whose signs are totally boring, arrive at pride every year and pronounce their hatred of all things homosexual. jesus, apparently, is not fond of the gays and basically we're all going to hell.

it's usually common practise to ignore these kinds of protesters especially consider they aren't really protesters at all, they're just hateful freaks who think that hatred is a political issue, it's hard to engage with them because they hate you and only want to yell at you about burning flesh and all that.

that's why this counter-protest is completely genius:

the "LOL" and "J/K" signs were made up by activists jeffrey andrus, rick telfer, and andrew brett right before the pride parade.

according to jeffrey andrus, one of the activists involved: "the reaction to the signs was totally positive in the crowd. we wanted to take a negative situation and turn it around in a non-violent, non aggressive way and i think that we were very effective at doing that."

agreed. not only are their signs hilarious but their effectiveness comes from the fact that they completely cancel out the message of the homophobic signs by making them a silly internet meme.

apparently before they realized that these men were actually protesting their hate signs one of the older men in the background complimented the signs and told them "good for you guys" because they thought they were there to support them. after they realized that the signs weren't there in support and were actually overtaking their own protest this man went up and allegedly kicked one of the young men holding an "lol"/"jk" sign.

that's right, he kicked him! these homophobic protesters should be kicking themselves because instead of making some kind of anti-gay conversion impact they're just going to be remembered as an Lolcat.

a complaint was made to the police but the kicker just said that the signs made him so angry that he couldn't help himself and so the police apparently gave the pride participants with the "lol"/"jk" signs shit for... wait for it... ENTICING the homophobes.

we all know that it doesn't take a lot to "entice" a "straight" homophobe, a few foot taps under the bathroom stall door and they're yours , but honestly london police? this is a legitimate complaint about physical assault during a completely peaceful protest.

why not ask the homophobic protesters to clear out since they obviously can't control their limbs? why support their violence?

it is the opinion of this pamphleteer that all too often homophobic protesters get away with their bullshit, which often includes acts of physical violence. why? because they're often older people? they're usually white people? upper/middle class people? if pride participants walked up to these homophobes and kicked them because they were so angered by their signs they surely would have been arrested.

the beauty of this protest is that these activists didn't need to use physical violence to get their message across and they didn't let these nasty homophobes get away with the usual bullshit.

we posted awhile ago about protests in front of the mormon church and included a video of michael moore's segment on protesting sodomy laws

this protest is in the same vein. using creative and peaceful means these activists threw a wrench in the homophobe's plans by just being present. by making it more difficult for homophobes to just stand there with disgusting signs, maybe protests like these will start to make them reconsider such tactics and realize that if they want to do things like stand on street corners, picket funerals, try to take away rights, or just condemn a lifestyle then they're going to have to come up with a new strategy because we're on to them and in the long run our collective awesomeness will prevail over their dull and tired hatred.

story covered on london fuse . ca : "pride protesters pwned"

family members charged, media goes nuts.

when i first read the news about four women found dead, their car submerged in the kingston locks i thought it was really strange. how did the car get there? anyone who has seen the kingston locks had the same reaction because it seems practically impossible for the car to have been where it was.

so when i read the news yesterday and saw that the mother, father, and brother had been charged with murder and conspiracy it kind of made sense. in canada the statistics on domestic violence and child abuse are off the charts. we have a huge problem in this country where children are abused or murdered, molested or neglected at a disturbingly high rate.

when i read that the kingston police were suggesting that this murder was an "honour killing" i realized that, despite how blatantly these deaths highlight our national and global problems with violence against women and children, they were going to be defined as something else, as something that isn't native to this country, as an imported problem.

the family in question is originally from afghanistan. when you're afghani parents and you kill your daughters(or are accused of killing your daughters), you've killed them over honour/their behaviour/tradition etc. when you're just a plain old canadian and you kill your child, you're a murderer and you did it for more complex reasons or you're just plain crazy.

also, media, let's not act like abuse in this country perpetuated by white people isn't the same thing as an honour killing. they share the same strong root in an overall sexist world where women are devalued and treated like property or garbage. when a little while girl is murdered, we don't automatically start yelling "honour killing! it was an honour killing!"

my colleague elle and i were discussing this and she mentioned how differently the media is covering this as opposed to how they have been covering the tori stafford dissapearance/murder. in the case of tori stafford they constantly displayed her photo and commented on her cuteness , what a pretty little girl she was and when they finally identified the child's remains the police chief warned parents about the "evils" of the world and suggested they keep their little girls safe.

to even suggest that tori stafford had been the victim of an honour killing would have been received as beyond ridiculous and completely improbable. but had tori stafford been a little afghani girl, the coverage would have shifted. tori stafford's murder is the result of "evil", of someone's craziness and badness, but the three sisters from montreal's murder is a result of "culture" and this distinction separates both crimes from their structural root.

according to reports, child protection services had been called to the home of the montreal family several times because of possible abusive behaviour, "honour killing" is still abuse, it's still murder, and i think the media needs to stop using it as an excuse for 'canadians' to act as though things like that don't happen here, in this country.

in the toronto star andrew chung wrote that "the application of the phrase "honour killing" can be contentious, particularly for minority communities that fear being collectively tarred by the violence of a small number of people."

i agree, but i also think that the term honour killing should be contentious because it separates out certain abuses from others instead of forcing us to look at the broad and wide-ranging issues of violence against women and child abuse.

"i get my first free woman reward, yum: mayonnaise!"

this is from the july 1st daily show, kristen schaal on whether or not france should ban the burqa.

it's pretty much the funniest thing i've seen in a long time, and also smart:

http://watch.thecomedynetwork.ca/the-daily-show-with-jon-stewart/exclusives/#clip192767

i guarantee hilariousness- ness....

this is something i've been waiting for a long time:

http://xm301.blogspot.com/

breaking news on huffington post

awhile ago we posted about censorship at the huffington post and how ridiculous it was that they decided a certain video wasn't newsworthy when they publish such trash and pretend like they don't publish trash at all.

in honour of said video and post, the pamphleteers present 'this week on huffington post'.

here are five of the top, hard-hitting, newsworthy stories on the huffpost this week:


1."ten foods that will improve your mood"

for real, FOOD can improve your mood. it can because the huffington post says that it can. or rather "divine caroline" the blog says it will. here are only a few of the foods that will lift your waning mood and make you happy: turkey, salmon, beans, milk, and chocolate.

actually, i think those foods just make you fat, farty, or sleepy. but the huffpost has decided that this is newsworthy and so we must believe.

2. "david gregory caught combing hair before 'meet the press'"

oh tragedy. how embarassing. just like the lipstick application debacle of 2008 the unspeakable has happened: a news anchor has been captured preparing to be on television.

in this case it's a man. and he's combing his hair. it's alright, you can take a second to recover, i know it's shocking.

he combs his hair. breaking, news.

3."woman performs diy plastic surgery, suffers consequences"

oh my god. thank jesus that the huff post alerted me to the dangers of diy plastic surgery, i was just preparing my scalpel.

4. "kate major: john gosselin's night out with another kate"

who is john gosselin and why is his puffy face of any importance to the news or my life?

5. "your boob tape is showing: when celebrities come unglued"

in the past few weeks we watched iranians revolt in the street, a cultural icon perish, the unveiling of an unprecedented american health plan, the 40 year anniversary of the moon landing, and we entered what seems to be the billionth week of a garbage strike in toronto.

none of this matters, because celebrities glue their boobs to their shirts. but sometimes this doesn't work and we can see the tape/glue which disintegrates our idea of the perfect celebrity body and its attainability.

curse you boob tape, curse you.

gay pda is the best weapon ever, maybe?

i read this on the advocate today: "kiss ins continue against lds church".

apparently "lgbt activists" are holding a series of kiss-ins to protest the detaining of a gay couple who were kissing on church property in salt lake city.

according to the couple who was detained, they kissed on the cheek and were take away by church security and cited for trespassing.

according to the church: "there was much more involved than a simple kiss of the cheek...they engaged in passionate kissing, groping, profane and lewd language, and had obviously been using alcohol."

honestly, i wouldn't be surprised if a gay couple did go on church property and proceed to do something lewd after the lds church practically funded the prop 8 campaign in california that made gay marriage illegal again(although, it has been pointed out that focus on the family-which is not mormon- donated more than six times the amount that the lds church did to the prop 8 campaign.) the point is whether or not the couple should have been detained.

from any normal perspective, no, they shouldn't have. but this is the mormon church we're talking about here and not only do they not enjoy the gays but they also don't enjoy the alcohol or the "lewd language".

and so the kiss-ins continue. it's an interesting concept for a protest and if you haven't seen michael moore's version of it from "the awful truth", then you should watch this immediately:

needless to say, i think the lds church would have a pretty big issue with the sodomobile rolling up onto it's lawn.

this is my favorite part of that clip: "you guys are headed straight for hell in a faggot's handbasket."

it seems like a good idea to follow these anti-gay protesters and make each of their protests as difficult as possible.

but i still feel ambivalent about the kiss in/sodomobile idea. my first reaction is that it's great and hilarious, directly confronting homophobes with a sight that will haunt them for the rest of their closeted and hateful lives.

on the other hand, people kill glbtq people because of their actual or potential public displays of affection and i guess i wonder whether or not such displays or protests are either the ultimate in political statements or the opposite. i suppose it doesn't have to be one or the other.

probably not the best advice...

according to the toronto star this morning, israeli soldiers invading the gaza strip in january received no real guidelines or rules of engagement and were encouraged to "shoot first ask questions later."

breaking the silence, an israeli organization that collected testimony from IDF soldiers on the front lines of what was called operation "cast lead" is releasing a book containing the stories of 26 israeli soldiers.

"If you're not sure – kill," confessed one of the soldiers who gave his testimony anonymously "The firepower was insane. We went in, and the booms were just mad. The minute we got to our starting line, we simply began firing at suspect places. In urban warfare, everyone is your enemy. No innocents. It was simply urban warfare in every way."

the assault, which left more than 1.300 palestinians and thirteen israelis dead, has been defended extensively by the state of israel which claims that it warned civilians to flee.

as well, despite both amnesty international and human rights watch accusing israel of war crimes in the assault, former commander of british forces in afghanistan col. richard kemp has stated that the IDF did more to diminish civilian casualities than "any other army in the history of warfare."

the head of breaking the silence, yehuda shaul(a veteran of the IDF), says that

"Very few soldiers ever heard in the briefings, `Guys – be careful about innocent people...That's the most disturbing and disappointing thing." he notes that this particular invasion of gaza was a marked departure from previous IDF practices, stating:

"Cast Lead was something different...we had an opening-fire policy... `You see something you're scared of – you shoot...' we were shocked, this is not the IDF I know."

when one soldier is asked to sum up his overall reaction to the three week operation, the toronto star reporter writes that he "waxed philosophical" when the soldier responded:

"how people are able to watch others die or suffer, how terribly easily you can grow indifferent to this. It's like you can turn yourself off, the guy's dead, let's move on."

unfortunately, what this book reveals is that soldiers respond in a way that is completely opposite to the philosophical: they live the reality of being unable to feel empathy for another human being, they feel indifferent to being responsible for death or suffering, and that probably that kind of desensitization doesn't just stay in the war zone.

there are a lot of blogs etc that post pictures or stories of IDF soldiers helping palestinians: shaking their hands and dressing their wounds. of course this happens. IDF soldiers are people as well(not to mention that they have mega public relations probably), but when captions on pictures are labelled "IDF soldier pets palestinian cat" we have to wonder how far people are willing to stretch to prove the soldier's humanity when governments and militaries do so little to protect that humanity in the first place.

an interesting choice of words...

"PRIDE GRANT A POKE IN THE EYE"

apparently a conservative mp from saskatchewan, brad trost, got all pissy this week because the conservatives supported pride week at a federal level.

tourism ministry diane ablonczy has been "disciplined" for contributing $400'000.oo to to toronto pride.

according to trost, "the pro-life and the pro-family community should know and understand the the tourism funding money that went to the gay pride parade in toronto was not government policy, was not supported by... a large majority of the mp's."1

bitch, please.

bitch, PLEASE.

does he even have any clue how much tourism pride week in toronto brings to this country? this isn't a case of toronto reaping all of the benefits, people from all over the world come to canada for pride festivities and this douchebag has the audacity to claim that it shouldn't be supported by the government?!

tracey sandilands, the exec. director of pride toronto pointed out that $397'500.00 of the contribution went towards items such as "improved access for disabled people, infrastructure spending and 'top calibre' entertainment."2

so what is he complaining about? a lot of the gays at pride have families, probably some of them vote conservative even.

and, apparently the toronto pride application was so amazing that the tourism minister insisted on coming to toronto to present the cheque. her appearance "with transvestites" inflamed a lot of tempers apparently.

stephen harper should be thanking his fucking lucky stars that this woman decided to do what she did. toronto pride provides a HUGE stimulus to the city, the province, and the country and it would serve the conservatives well not to come across as such goddamned bigots once in awhile.

i can guarantee that if brad trost spent five minutes with my friend chad he would change his tune pretty quickly, tear off his shirt, rub on some glitter, and have a dance off with a hundred other sweaty, proud men.

conservatives + university administrators + yorku= same old story..

george w. bush famously said:

"there's "an old saying in tennessee-i know it's in texas, probably in tennessee-that says, fool me once, shame on-shame on you. fool me-you can't get fooled again."

we don't always all agree with a lot of what bush did, or any of it, but i think we can all agree that he's right on this one. maybe once we get fooled, we should stop getting fooled by the same thing over and over and over.

case in point, as always, york university.

according to CNW, some intrepid students secured emails through a freedom of information request which revealed the conservative(surprise!) MP peter kent, MPP peter shurman, and "senior york university administrators" had been interfering in the york federation of students election(yfs) this year.

the yfs election was no picnic. it was tense and some people played dirty but in the end it seemed that the right person had won and maybe all would be well at yorku for a little while longer.

we all knew that certain people had certain affiliations with certain administrative offices, but maybe we didn't realize the extent to which certain people were involving themselves in a student election.

according to the report:

"During the elections, Robert Tiffin, York University's Vice-President Students, warned the students' union not to disqualify candidates who were caught violating the elections rules because the University and members of Parliament "werewatching the election closely." MP Peter Kent was later found to have assigned a key staff member to intervene in the election on behalf of a team of candidates. Both politicians appeared to ask if York would throw out the results, despite no evidence of wrongdoing or any authority to do so."

what the fucking fuck?!

the president of the YFS, Krisna Saravanamuttu, stated:

"The York Administration and members of the Conservative Party have no right or authority to interfere in the elections of the students' union simply because they disagree with student criticisms of their policies... University administrators and Conservative politicians interfering in student elections is like an employer attempting to select union representatives. Their objective in silencing opposition is quite obvious here."

sing it, Saravanamuttu.

apparently the emails revealed "persistent inquiries from key political staff on behalf of mpp shurman and mp kent about the results" of the YFS elections but what is most troubling is that this isn't really an isolated incident but is just another development in a series of incidents involving politicians and the university.

earlier this year, a conservative mp was recorded giving a talk to students on how conservative students could set up "front groups" on campus that seemed progressive but really use them to
advance the conservative party agenda and undermine actual progressive groups on campus.(read more about that ----> still think we're paranoid?)


Saravanamuttu also stated that "students have the democratic right to choose their own representatives without the university administration and the Conservative Party interference... tax-payers would be pretty shockedto learn that their money is being used in this way."

i agree, but also, students and taxpayers need to start demanding action when their democratic rights and tax dollars are being overturned and abused.

i think robert tiffin's request that a party breaking the election rules not be disqualified is enough to demand his resignation over.

i also think that the conservative party should be answering for their seediness and interfering.

robert tiffin: rjtiffin@yorku.ca

president shoukri: presidnt@yorku.ca(yes, it's spelled without the 'e')

MP peter kent: kentp@parl.gc.ca

MPP peter shurman: http://petershurman.com/home/index.php?option=com_contact&Itemid=3

stephen harper: pm@pm.gc.ca

email tiffin and shoukri, ask why they think it's acceptable or at all appropriate to interfere in a student election. why is it alright to not demand that participating parties follow election rules?
why do they feel like they can do this with impunity?

email kent and shurman, and ask them the same thing. what makes them think they have any right to be involved in a student election at york university? do their children attend the university? my guess is that, no, they don't. so maybe they can explain it to us.

email stephen harper and ask why he's let the conservative party get so out of control and what he plans to do about it.

i'm with george w. bush on this one: fool us once, that's your fault.. but, once we've been fooled, you can't fool us again.