Tasering Testicles Toronto style - police abuse, lack of legitimacy, & Cairo I hear you calling

"A Toronto cop's threat to Taser suspects' testicles was..."

I said it then, and I'll say it again: the use of Tasers by our law enforcement agencies are a problem.

In the hands of too many wrong & weak-minded cops, Taser's are nothing but a bullying control tool that too often result in either torture, coercion, or death. A "too-ready" tool in the arsenal of our state-sponsored paramilitary organizations (i.e. police), Tasers are too often being employed to deprive us of our rights, our liberties, and our lives. Yes, that even includes the rights of criminals! Because even the guilty in Canada should be free from any form of state sanctioned threats of torture. And anyone who believes otherwise is a fascist.

If incidents like this keep up, more and more Canadians will start refusing to submit to any legitimate questions from police. Fearing abuse, even the innocent will start resisting any threat of detention by the authorities. Not on the grounds of they are innocent, but sadly on the grounds that it does not matter if we are innocent or not! After all, who wants to take the chance of being Tasered in the nuts if they are, in fact, innocent? Who will risk not being able to give the "right" answers to question's posed by bully cops? Certainly, not me - cause while my nutsack may not be a big hairy deal to anybody else, it is mine, and it does deserve to be left unmolested by anyone other than my wife!

It's time all police forces across Canada took a good look in the mirror. They collectively need to decide if they are: protectors of Canadian rights, or are they violators? If the answer is the latter, beware Canadian cops. Beware because some of us will simply stop respecting your faux claims to authority - and the cost will be high. If our Canadian police continue to operate as if they are above the law they will absolutely lose their claim to social legitimacy. Law abiding Canadian citizens have had enough. We need to believe in our rights and in our the laws AND we need to know that our state-sanctioned "protectors" of the said law will NOT violate our rights! Otherwise, all is lost. With each new tale of police abuse our fragile democracy is further weakened. Our "rights" become farce, the state losses legitimacy, and we all are placed at risk .... and then that real trouble begins. Cairo, I hear you calling...

You know our world is imperfect when...

We poor Canadians certainly face many problems. A broken parliamentary system, rife with erratic and self-serving leaders. Endemic abuse at the hands of usury bankers. An inherent inability to provide fairness and justice for all. A spill-over of undue and banal US influences that leave the kind of taint only Hannibal Lechter could love. Too many petulant and misguided wieners. And, too many idiots!

These, and a myriad of other challenges, are undoubtedly concerning - at least to a certain extent. But before we start feeling too sorry for ourselves; read this item from South Africa:

TB Patients Sell Sputum to Grant Fraudsters

September 14, 2009 - by Brenda Nkuna

Cape Town — Desperate for an income, unemployed people are paying TB patients for sputum samples so they can dupe doctors into getting them onto the social grant system.

TB-ridden residents in Khayelitsha charge R50 to R100 for sputum samples in a ruse which involves 'sputum sellers' keeping a stash of sample bottles smuggled out of government clinics which are then handed, with the infected sample, to unsuspecting health workers.

Using the infected TB sample, healthy people get a card from the clinic indicating they have TB and use this to fraudulently obtain a temporary disability grant ....

Enquiries in Khayelitsha quickly revealed three TB infected residents willing to sell their sputum in order for fraudulent grants to be obtained.

This reporter approached one of them, a 54-year-old man who legitimately receives a disability grant for his illness, who sold two bottles with sputum samples for at total of R50.

He said on average he made about R500 per month selling his sputum to people wanting to fraudulently obtain grants.

But he said business was "not good" because so many people were infected with TB in the township, which meant he had a lot of competition.

Paid R50, the man, who cannot be named in order to protect his identity, provided two samples of fresh sputum, each in a health department bottle obtained from a stack he kept in his bedroom.

Going to the Nolungile clinic in Site C, Khayelitsha, for a TB test, this reporter was given two bottles by a health worker who said a sputum sample in each bottle was required for the tests.

The health worker did not insist the sputum be coughed up in front of them so it was easy to swap the bottles with those which contained the purchased samples.

Fortunately for the sputum seller, but unluckily for this 'client' the samples came back negative, indicating that the man who sold the sputum had likely been taking his TB medication.

.... some TB patients deliberately neglected to take their medication in order to remain on the grant system, in effect trading their health for money. .... [giving rise to incidences whereby] patients abandoning their six-month course of medication led to multiple drug resistant (MDR) TB or even extreme drug resistant (XDR) TB.

The World Health Organization's Global TB Report 2008 ranks South Africa fourth in the world for TB infection, with an incidence rate of 940 cases per 100 000 people - a major increase from 338 per 100 000 population in 1998.

The Western Cape health department said there were 50,156 TB cases in the province in 2008...

*** Don't know about you, but I am starting to believe that maybe (just maybe) the world is a relative place. And that, on any given day, we should all remember that some (though not all) of our problems aren't really all that bad?

The Bank of _ _ nada? Carney's Bong Philosophy.

car·ney - n. Informal Variant of carny.

car·ny also car·ney
n. pl. car·nies also car·neys Informal

1. A traveling amusement show; a carnival.

Mark Car-ney
Christian name
1. Governor of the Bank of Canada (present)
2. A source of amusement?

The Bank of Canada's Mark Carney has admitted that, in order to figure out how this economy really works, one has to get "down in the weeds". However, we can only hope the repressed tall foreheads at the Bank of Canada have learned their lesson - - To wit; while it may be fun to try and divine the future using a crystal ball during a Gonzo-esque bongathon - in the end, it is but folly. How else can we be expected to reconcile the following?

January 22, 2009 - "the bank sees a rebound to positive activity by the third quarter of the year, when it forecasts two per cent growth and 3.5 per cent expansion in the last three months of the year. . . . .
'We are comfortable with our forecast, he [Carney] told reporters at a news conference in Ottawa."

April 22, 2009 - "Bank of Canada Governor Mark Carney says the recession likely will persist longer than he previously thought, . . . [and in a different article] . . . Governor Mark Carney, ... blamed the faster-than-expected economic collapse on the failure of U.S. President Barack Obama's administration to stabilize the banking industry and the deterioration of demand for exports." [* guess it always nice to have someone to blame?]

And today? Well, on April 23, 2009 we hear Carney now saying the Bank of Canada may have to devise a plan that will see it buy up "private-sector debt in credit markets that are "temporarily impaired."

"Temporarily impaired"? Ha, ha, ... sounds like a freaking Cheech & Chong euphemism. Mr. Carney, if you and your bongathon directors are really thinking of giving more money to this nation's banking oligarchy, be aware, it will do nothing to alleviate this mess. Our e'ffn banker's have enough of our money already! Further, the only thing that is really "temporarily impaired" is your sad, misguided, belief that the status-quo of wealth diversion in this country should be allowed to stand. To adopt any new measures that would see you give over even more of this nation's wealth to the Royal Bank (etc.,) so they may continue to report monstrous profits would be obscene. The banks in this country don't need anymore help.

How about seeing if your "toolbox" and our Tory government will allow you to give some of the country's money to those most in need - the people?