An oral history of Belle and Sebastian’s seminal record ‘If You’re Feeling Sinister’ (VIDEO)

Pitchfork finally justifies its existence (after the jump):

Around the Internets

Late-night flotsam and jetsam:

Original Sin

Obama Is Wrong: Gerrymandering Isn’t to Blame for the GOP Fever

Has Obama Kept His Open-Government Pledge?

Neocons vs. Realists Is So 2008

Foucault’s Boomerang: The New Military Urbanism

Throwing Light on the Dark Side of Dorner’s Rampage

At Least 20 CIA Prisoners Still Missing

We’re All Terrorists Now

No, don’t skip the drone debate

The Art of Infinite War

Drone Wars: Tactics in Search of a Strategy

Keeping Drones in Context

Saudi Money Shaping U.S. Research

The girls are not alright

Suicide by self-immolation a rising trend in France

The Bulgarian Turn

Exit music:

 

I’m Not Sayin’ (I’m Just Sayin’)

The following nugget was buried at the bottom of a follow-up CP report on how CIDA helped fund the Ugandan aid work of the virulently anti-gay Crossroads Christian Communications (in full PR damage control mode now that its homobigoted Evangelical slip is showing) to the tune of half a million dollars last year:

Francois Audet, director of the Montreal-based Canadian Research Institute on Humanitarian Crisis and Aid, said he believes Crossroads is far from the only group with controversial opinions that receives CIDA money.

“There is, for sure, other hidden treasures, other organizations who do ideological propaganda with public funding from Canadian aid — and what is worrying is that CIDA does not check this,” Audet said in an interview.

Audet said that his own research on how CIDA allocates its funds shows that between 2005 and 2010, funding for religious non-government organizations increased 42 per cent, while secular groups saw an increase of just five per cent.

“I have the clear impression — and I am not the only one in the scientific community — that behind this, there is a deliberate strategy to finance the groups ideologically close to the actual Conservative government,” he said.

Hey, careful now — publicly musing about hidden Harpercon agendas is almost guaranteed to give the Queensway set the serious vapours. The last thing we need on a Tuesday (or any other day for that matter) is an especially vapourous Canadian punditocracy. Their regular pinheaded emissions are gaseous enough as it is.

I highly doubt Ottawa’s atmosphere can handle any more pollution.

Related: To be fair, not all Jesus-friendly NGOs are on board the CIDA gravy train:

In the past few years [KAIROS],  the Mennonite Central Committee and the Catholic Organization for Development and Peace have all seen CIDA funding cut:

CIDA’s shift away from working with long-time and often church-based development partners to financing private sector projects such as those of the mining companies has been in the works for several years.

In November 2009, CIDA cut off funding to the ecumenical social justice group KAIROS, which had been a long-time partner in development. Neither CIDA nor its minister Bev Oda would provide any explanation beyond saying that CIDA’s priorities had changed and KAIROS did not meet them.

Then in February 2012, CIDA turned down a proposal by the well-respected Mennonite Central Committee (MCC) for $2.9 million for each of three years to provide food, water and income generation assistance for people in India, Bangladesh, Vietnam, Haiti, Bolivia, Mozambique and Ethiopia.

In March 2012, it became apparent that CIDA had also cut off the Catholic organization Development and Peace (D&P). CIDA, which had provided the organization with $44.6 million in the years 2006-11, chopped that amount by two-thirds, to a total of $14.5 million over the next five years.

Dorner Manhunt Leads LAPD To Mistakenly And Recklessly Fire On Two Women In Pick Up (VIDEO)

“It’s 100 percent clear that they had no idea who was in that vehicle and just lit it up.”

More from AP (h/t).

Saturday Playlist

Da Blooze:

Concert Of The Day (After Dark)

Venom, live 1985:

Bonus: Celtic Frost, live San Diego 1986:

Stick a Fork in Senator Brazeau….

Innocent until proven guilty and all that, but things ain’t lookin’ good for the Brazman:

Senator Patrick Brazeau will be formally charged with domestic assault and sexual assault later this morning, following a brief appearance at the courthouse in Gatineau, Que.

Brazeau, who appeared in court wearing a black suit and white dress shirt, did not have his lawyer present for his first appearance at about 9:15 a.m. ET Friday.

Also (re: this):

If at #CTV's report is so important/relevant/factual, I'm sure they will look for me tomorrow in Parliament. I'll report back tomorrow.—
SenPatrickBrazeau (@TheBrazman) February 07, 2013

I hope the good Senator dressed those words with ketchup before chowing down in his holding cell.

Update: Tim Harper (h/t Zerb):

In the ensuing years, each time [Brazeau] displayed a stunning lack of judgment or acted in his typically boorish and bullying manner, he took to blaming the messenger.

When Canadian Press reporter Jennifer Ditchburn reported on Brazeau’s woeful attendance record in the Senate — he was within days of being fined for his absences at the time — he took to Twitter to slag the reporter.

“Change the D to a B in your last name and we’re even! Don’t mean it but needs saying,” the juvenile Brazeau told Ditchburn on his Twitter feed.

In recent weeks, Brazeau must have seen it all coming apart.

The Star caught him mocking Attawapiskat Chief Theresa Spence at a Conservative fundraiser and CTV Ottawa bureau chief Robert Fife found Brazeau was allegedly gaming the system, illegally claiming his father’s house as his primary residence so he could pocket a housing allowance.

Wednesday night, hours before police responded to the disturbance at Brazeau’s home, Fife reported that the senator had allegedly listed his mailing address as that of his ex-father-in-law’s house to gain an aboriginal tax exemption and Brazeau predictably branded Fife a racist.

[...]

Somehow, Brazeau seemed to think he could simply brazen his way through all this as charge was heaped upon charge, complication was piled upon complication and his enemies proliferated.

He has invited Canadians to once again heap scorn upon a discredited institution but, in this case, Canadians have no one to blame but Harper.

Co-sign.