Prog Blogs Thingy Thursday Night

Impolitical, CC (Canadian Cynic), myself, and a few others will be getting together Thursday after work (six or sevenish), at a super-secret downtown location. Beers and discussion will be on the agenda. We're keeping it mild, and it'll be a relatively early evening, as none of us are as wild and crazy or even as mobile as we used to be. Since my many, many unpublished novels remain unpublished, I won't be autographing those. However, if readers want to print out the BCLSB post that most changed their life, I will be happy to sign that. As Jose Canseco charges $25 for marking up a baseball, you will realize that a my paltry $5 fee is a deal that can't be missed. Email Imp or myself ( at bigcitylib@hotmail.com) for vetting and, if you are very lucky, a message revealing the super-secret location, which cannot be revealed upon pain of death because the enemy is everywhere.

Cheers,

BCL

Off To Prog Blogs Event

...where we will be discussing the current state of the revolution and considering strategy and tactics. The rules are the usual: if I give a secret signal later this evening, my followers should be prepared to rise up and kill. Otherwise, have a nice weekend.

Looking at the most recent polls, however, I suspect our broad-swords will remain sheathed.

BigCityLib BANNED By Federal Government!

OhMyGawd, I'm in tears! I feel like I've won an Oscar, and the wife is saying I've finally made the Big Time! As reported at The Galloping Beaver, BigCityLib Strikes Back and several other illustrious progblogs have been blocked on staff computers at Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada:

Not sure if anyone else has reported on this: I am a federal civil servant and (while on a break!) noticed that the Galloping Beaver, Calgary Grit and BigCityLiberal are all now blocked from government desktops (at least in my Dept - AAFC). This wasn't the case 2 wks ago.

And a bit lower down:

A quick survey around some of the other Internet comment sites and forums suggests that other progressive sites and blogs are also blocked on some government computers. The coincidence of discovering that TGB, Calgary Grit, BigCityLiberal and Bread and Roses are blocked on computers at Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada (and some other federal government locations) is just too much to let slide by without a few words.

I agree that it can't be "adult content" that triggered the block. While B&R and this blog sometimes "work blue", and B&R is just packed with raunchy feminists (visit the site and you can almost hear Patti Smith playing in the background), Calgary Grit is probably one of the nicest guys in the sphere.

In any case, you can run but you can't hide, Stephen Harper! When this blog is finished with you, your government will be in ruins, and your philosophy in disgrace!

Update: National Newswatch has picked up the story. He's running it as a question "Grit blogs banned...?" so we look less silly if its nothing more than an IT snafu.

Will Free Dominion Target ProgBloggers?

I was going to let this subject lie for a few days, but then I came across a Free Dominion thread entitled "Evidence Collecting in Support of FD's Defence", and felt I must warn my blogging brethren! Essentially, it appears the folks at FD will be trolling the Net for examples of left-wing extremism, which they will then post somewhere on the FD forum, and employ (in a manner to be figured out later, I suppose) in Connie's formal defense:

By doing this FD will be able to demonstrate that Bill W's comments do not in any way reach the level of "hatred or contempt" contemplated in s. 13 of the CHRA, as interpreted in the 1990 SCC "Taylor" decision.

They're really after the poo flinging monkeys at rabble (an effort Connie, who seems to have a decent working relationship with the rabble moderators, does not particularly support), but I also came across a reference to myself:

Gee, HERE's a guy who skates on the EDGE....

...followed by the entire Progblog link list, these being the folks I am apparently "in thick" with. So if you get an unfamiliar retard threatening to fink you out to the CHRC, or linking you back to FD, that's how they found you. I, personally, am shaking in my boots. I sure hope they don't find posts like this one, where I express my love for Saddam Hussein.

PS. Why doesn't anyone on ProgBlogs say cool shit about me like that? "Ooooh! BCL, you skate sooo close to the very edge!"

Update: The first pundit chimes in, some guy from WorldNetDaily that I've never heard of named Tristan Emmanuel. And I am not impressed:

Students of history will have heard of SMERSH. It was a forerunner of the KGB, a Communist Party commissariat under Josef Stalin.

Well, Canada has its own commissariats, in the form of Human Rights Commissions.

Some people refer to them as "kangaroo courts," but that is misleading because they really are dangerous.

Kangaroos not dangerous? This clown has obviously never had to box with one of them. Fool! They only look cuddly.

Update: They've found McLelland. Oh My!