Blog Mountain and Democratic Vistas

If the 2004 Presidential Election put blogging on the mainstream media map down south, I'd wager to say that the recent publicity leak fiasco with the Gomery Inquiry will have a similar effect here in Canada. Today's Globe and Mail has the story, complete with an interview with the Minneapolis blogger 'who is concerned about publication bans and restrictions on freedom of information'. Now I don't have a lot of sympathy for the crooks in question, but I don't see why the public absolutely needs to know the details now. Is this really a question of principle when most of the public is just consuming the inquiry like it's pornography anyway? I don't know what's more infuriating, the fact that this ass thinks he knows which civil liberties take precedence in Canada (first it's publication bans, then it's our fair treatment of homosexuals...), or that he would say something like this (being interviewed in today's Globe):

First off, I think it's a terrible thing that you guys can't publish this. This is the type of thing that a free press exists for, is to hold their government accountable.

First off, that's exactly what the inquiry is for (well, that and a whole lot of political maneuvering, but that's another matter altogether). Second, someone should tell this guy "with a libertarian bent" that the reason for the publication ban was to ensure certain citizens' rights to a fair criminal trial. Finally—and maybe most important—if he wants to talk about government accountability, maybe he should start with his own wretched House.

I won't be linking to his blog, not out of fear of reprisal from the Government, or out of respect for the stupid inquiry, or even to protect those individuals who probably deserve to go to jail. No, I just don't want to subject anyone to the workings of his sad little mind. I will, however, reproduce an image found in an ad on his page for a site that touts 'Finally, Some Decent Conservative T-shirts':
Yes, 'decent' is definitely the word I would use here. Oh, America. Some appropriate words from an American man who had just a tiny bit more insight into the many pleasures of diversity:

I say we had best look at our times and lands searchingly in the face, like a physician diagnosing some deep disease. Never was there, perhaps, more hollowness at heart than at present, and here in the United States. Genuine belief seems to have left us. The underlying principles of the States are not honestly believed in, (for all this hectic glow, and these melodramatic screamings,) nor is humanity itself believed in. What penetrating eye does not everywhere see through the mask? The spectacle is appaling. —Walt Whitman

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So keeping the rising Power of the Pathetic Blog in mind, I present the following. Go see Black Mountain on their current tour, if you can. Bloc Party was in town last night, but it was the Black Mountain show that had members of Arcade Fire, Wolf Parade, and the Unicorns in attendance. Maybe it's because Bloc Party really is just a half-decent UK guitar-rock hype band with a good drummer, and maybe it's because Black Mountain kicks some serious live ass (see below for the record review), and maybe both. But it doesn't really matter why those musicians were there. What matters is that I'm pretty sure about the kicking live ass part.