"I don't understand it"

Harper asks Canadians for 'strong mandate'
Just another example of Tory policies that are actually opposed to Canada's best interests: "Polls in Windsor suggest the usually left-leaning city is set to elect its first Tory MP in 50 years. 'I don't understand it,' said Lewenza, whose union has officially endorsed local NDP candidates. 'I'm frustrated because they seem to be doing better than they've ever done in this area,' he said of Tory contenders. Lewenza says Harper's plan to cut business grants in exchange for lower business taxes will drive investment elsewhere. Such government support is crucial if Canadian auto plants are to compete globally, Lewenza said. 'Every other state looks at it as an investment. Harper looks at it as a subsidy. I don't understand it.' On Monday, Liberals offered millions in aid to automakers as the campaign entered the home stretch toward the June 28 vote. Lewenza said voters wanting to vent frustration with the current government should think twice before handing power to the Tories. Meting out such so-called punishment could wind up costing thousands of jobs, he said. "
For the most part, the Conservatives haven't had to defend their platform at all in this election campaign -- the media is more interested in Harper's zingers against the sponsorship scandal than in the patchy, inconsistent piece of fiberboard that Conservatives are calling their platform.
The section that Lewenza is referring to says
"• Cut wasteful corporate subsidies in order to reduce taxes for all businesses." - whatever that means.
Lewenza isn't alone -- basically, no one knows where they fit in the Conservative plan.
Witness the stunning lack of content about farming, agriculture, trade, subsidies, BSE, and all the other issues that are crucial to the Prairie economy.
There only one reference to Agriculture that I can find --
"• Support Canada’s farmers, fishers, and forestry workers."
Now, this sounds nice, but to lump farmers, who have hundreds of thousands of dollars invested in their land and machinery, in with fishermen, who I guess own their boats and licenses, and with forestry workers, who maybe have to buy their own boots -- well, it shows a profound misunderstanding about Canadian agricultural production. This is ridiculous and meaningless, and it trivializes what farmers do.
I had thought there was also something in the platform somewhere about dumping the Wheat Board, but now I cannot find it -- and dumping the Wheat Board would be a disaster for western agriculture.
But I did find this one --
"• Become an environmental world leader by focusing on clean air, clean water, clean land, and clean energy."
What is "clean land" -- does this mean outllawing pesticides and herbicides? Eliminating the use of GM seed, like Monsanto's roundup-resistant canola?
No one knows because no one -- including as far as I can tell, any of our media in Winnipeg, Regina, Saskatoon, Calgary or Edmonton -- is demanding that Harper or any of the Prairie conservative candidates here explain it.

Olympics coming

Well, its a sign that the Olympics are approaching when I start reading stories about it. I love the Olympics and try to watch as much as I can -- and darn it, I'm in for another year of watching softball at 3 am, because its being played on the other side of the world. My only criteria for a "good" Olympic site is one where I don't have to watch in the middle of the night.
I remember during Sydney, idly flipping over to the triathlon at about 5 am for no good reason, listening to the Canadian announcers describing the event but no one mentioning any Canadian participants in the swimming and biking legs. Then watching the final sprint -- and there came Simon Whitfield, amazing the announcers as well as the rest of us -- Its a Canadian! -- and there I was, shouting at the TV, Go, Go, Go! What a memory, and to think I would have missed it if I hadn't been watching at 5 am.
So I haven't really been following what is going on in the States, but the Washington Post has a nice little update site -- see this story about Marion Jones,Jones Wants Public Hearing and check the sidebar on the right which sums up what has been happening there. You know, if this were Canada, all of it would be headline news every day, but I haven't had the impression that the US news outlets are making a big deal about it. Anyway, I am glad that the US is finally taking the doping issue more seriously, at least judging by the list of major athlets already suspended and the ones being investigated -- I recall lots of criticism of the US in Sydney for letting athletes participate who had maybe tested positive but were appealing and they weren't telling anyone about it.
And just for everyone's reference, here is the Canadian Olympic Committee's Athens site.

More analysis

Analysis: On-line panel calls the debate

I thought these opinions were interesting, too -- worth reading.

Monetary union?

The CTV coverage is here and the CBC coverage is here
The CathiefromCanada instant analysis and one WTF moment:
The Winnah!! -- The CBC "At Issue" panel (Alan Gregg and Chantal Hebert) thinks Martin won by not losing, and the CTV Ottawa bureau chief Craig Oliver thinks Harper won by not losing. CTV's instant poll had Harper winning the debate, while Martin won the "Which leader would make the best prime minister" question. Go figure!
The Difference -- As much as Mike Duffy's CTV panel tried to blather about how the debate wasn't going to make any difference, I did think that the divisions between how the Conservatives would run the country, and how the Liberals would do it, were made clearer. Gregg and Hebert both agreed that the race is wide-open now, and we'll see a lot of campaigning in the next two weeks, particularly in Ontario.
The WTF Moment -- Did anyone else notice this? At one point near the end, Harper started to talk about the US-Canada relationship and said that one of the points for discussion should be "monetary union". No one picked up on this -- I think one or two of the others were yapping at the time -- and there is no reference to it in the post-debate news stories. But that's what he said!
UPDATE - hey, POGGE heard it too -- it was in the midst of a health care discussion segment, when they were talking about US corporate health care.

Yearning for dictatorship?

Whiskey Bar: Room Service
Wow - here are some prophetic quotes posted by Josh Prophet on Billmon's comments site:
"'You don't get everything you want. A dictatorship would be a lot easier.' Describing what it's like to be governor of Texas. Governing Magazine 7/98.
'I told all four that there are going to be some times where we don't agree with each other, but that's OK. If this were a dictatorship, it would be a heck of a lot easier, just so long as I'm the dictator,' Bush joked. CNN.com, December 18, 2000
'A dictatorship would be a heck of a lot easier, there's no question about it, ' [Bush] said. Business Week, July 30, 2001.
Is this what the republicans mean about being "on message"?

"He looked frightened."

Torture and Rumors of Torture: Archive Entry From Brad DeLong's Webjournal:
I'm reprinting most of this post, which consists of notes taken by writer Rick Pearlstein of a talk given by Seymour Hersh at the University of Chicago:
He asserted several things that he says he didn't have nailed down enough to write, but that he was confident of.... [snip]He connected the dots, and spoke of the CIA secret prisons we haven't heard about yet: 'We're basically in the disappearing business.' He made the first of several criticisms of our humble profession: 'there's no learning curve in America. There's no learning curve in the press corps.'... Unsurprisingly, he flagged the extraordinary importance of the WSJ memo revealing the government's plans to torture, including its assertion that it's not against the law if the president approves it, and mocked the New York Times headline "9 Militias Are Said to Approve a Deal to Disband," suggesting in its stead, "Bush Administration Offers Hoax in Hopes of Convincing U.S. There's Some Peace." His assessment of the postwar settlement: "It's going to come down to who has the biggest militia will win."... [snip] "NATO's falling apart in Afghanistan now." And this was one of the most stunning parts. He had just returned from Europe, and he said high officials, even foreign ministers, who used to only talk to him off the record or give him backchannel messages, were speaking on the record that the next time the U.S. comes to them with intelligence, they'll simply have no reason to believe it.... He lamented of his journalistic colleagues, "I don't know whey they don't just tell it like it is."... He said the people most horrified by the way the war was planned were the military commanders responsible for protecting their troops.... He talked about the horror of the 1000 civilian deaths in Fallujah (but was careful to note the Marines were doing their job, placing the blame with their superiors).... He talked about how hard it is to get the truth out in Republican Washington: "If you agree with the neocons you're a genius. If you disagree you're a traitor." Bush, he said, was closing ranks, purging anyone who wasn't 100% with him. Said Tenet has a child in bad health, has heart problems, and seemed to find him generally a decent guy under unimaginable pressure, and that people told him that Tenet feared a heart attack if he had to take one more grilling from Cheney. "When these guys memoirs come out, it will shock all of us."... He said that after he broke Abu Ghraib people are coming out of the woodwork to tell him this stuff. He said he had seen all the Abu Ghraib pictures. He said, "You haven't begun to see evil..." then trailed off. He said, "horrible things done to children of women prisoners, as the cameras run." He looked frightened.
And read some of the comments following this post.
Frogsdong, we need your help now, because its either laugh or cry!

I'd like to see Bush try to take communion!

This -- Bush Asked for Vatican's Help on Political Issues, Report Says is appalling. Josh Marshall also has some additional detail.
How stupid are the Roman Catholic bishops these days, that they would fall into this kind of trap, and on behalf of such an immoral administration. The bishops tried to pull this in Canada, too, when Chretien moved to support gay marriage, but Chretien shut them up by saying that he governed on behalf of the Canadian people, not on behalf of his religion. And the Canadian media couldn't be tricked into doing some kind of 'communion watch" on Chretien or Martin.
But I wonder if Bush is now going to start listening when the Pope says the Iraq War is immoral -- and I wonder just when Bush is going to say mea culpa for all those executions in Texas -- and I wonder what guidance Bush will be seeking from the Pope in determining whether its OK for US troops to torture people?

I think its priceless

Kerry, on Radio, Hails Stem Cell Research
So, with all the Reagan tribute stuff on the Bush-Cheney website, with a week of national mourning and wall-to-wall coverage of the Reagan Legacy, etc etc. what's the one thing which his family wants as a permanent, lasting memorial? Approval of stem-cell research to investigage and perhaps cure Alzheimers.
And what's the one thing that the Bush Republicans dare not approve, because their religious right base think it is murder? Stem-cell research. And what's one thing that Kerry, the evil democrat, is promising? Stem-cell research. So I presume the Reagans will be campaigning for Kerry now?

Here's two questions

U.S. responsible for global crisis, Annan says
Reading this story, two questions occured to me:
If Brian Mulroney had been Secretary-General, would he have handled the Iraq crisis the same way Annan did?
And would the Bush administration have been more likely to have listened to him?

How could they do this to the dogs, not to mention the people?

Use of dogs to scare prisoners was approved Its funny, but sometimes people will get more outraged about abuse of animals than of people -- so maybe THIS will finally outrage the US radio-talk-show hosts who think Abu Ghraib was a fraternity hazing.
This is so cruel for the dogs, who naturally love and respect people. This is animal abuse, as well as prisoner abuse -- how could any responsible handler allow his dog to be used this way? Good for dog handler Kimbro that he wouldn't allow it.
We have two dogs now, yellow labs, and their trusting good natures would be ruined if they ever were encouraged to attack people. Actually, I'm not sure you could get a yellow lab to attack a person, no matter what the provocation.
Compare this miserable story to the stories of how many dogs gave their lives following 9/11, when they got so ill from the dust as they searched for survivors but they wouldn't quit. And in Oklahoma City, I've read that the rescue dogs were getting so depressed and unhappy about not finding any survivors that their handlers had to set up some fake "survivors" for the dogs to find. That's just the way dogs are.

So what else is the US Justice Department doing?

Terror suspect freed: documents I'm beginning to wonder about the US Justice Department. This is a department with a proud history -- they won civil rights cases against Klansmen when nobody believed it could be done. But under Ashcroft, there's something bizarre going on here -- they're spending their time developing justifications for torture instead of dealing with real cases. They demand that the Patriot Act be extended, but they don't even seem to be trying to convict anyone of terrorism in court -- they're either just locking them up without a trial, or shipping them out of the country.
A couple of years ago, they did prosecute the Lackawanna Six though it is still unclear whether they really had a case, or whether the guilty pleas were just the result of government threats -- and there's been the shoebomber case and that case against the Canadian fellow running the arms training camp, which was laughable, but that's all I can remember reading about.
So is it that these lawyers and prosecutors are so incompetent that they couldn't win a case? I cannot believe they wouldn't get convictions -- the US is so scared of terrorism, a jury would convict even if the evidence is difficult or complex or has a few holes.
More logically, I suspect, they haven't been able to gather any actual evidence of terrorism against these people, just a bunch of hearsay and rumour and profiling -- but they followed the political bidding to make some high-profile 'show" arrests anyway because everyone believes there are terrorists hiding around every corner.
In searching for "terrorist convictions" by Google, I came across this December 2003 press release from the ACLU, which said:
. . . more than half of all 879 terrorism or anti-terrorism-classified convictions since 9/11 resulted in no jail time. Only 23 convicts received sentences of five years or more . . . since 9/11, 80 international terrorism convictions resulted in no jail time and 91 received sentences of less than a year (suggesting) that even successful prosecutions that the government claims are linked to terrorism are for very minor crimes . . . the ACLU said, the report raises serious questions about the premise of the Justice Department’s post-9/11 focus on preemption and prevention: how does aggressively prosecuting alleged terrorists who do not end up behind bars contribute to the interdiction of terrorist acts?
And I found the April, 2004 issue of the Atlantic with this short article about how the Justice Department defines terrorism:
In the two-year period following the World Trade Center attacks, federal investigative agencies referred significantly more cases classified as "terrorism" (3,500) to prosecutors than in the two years prior to the attacks. More such cases (730) were also prosecuted, and more convictions were won (341). Yet during the two years after the attacks, only sixteen people were sentenced to five years or more in prison for terrorism—fewer than during the two years preceding 9/11. Moreover, this "terrorist" tally includes not only the would-be shoe bomber Richard Reid but also such threats to national security as a Georgia man who detonated a pipe bomb in his girlfriend's empty car and a Texas man who conspired from his prison cell to assassinate a federal judge. Other facts cast additional doubt on the efficacy of the Justice Department's wide net: for instance, federal prosecutors deemed only 41 percent of the terrorism referrals they received worth pursuing (whereas 68 percent of all criminal cases referred to the department were prosecuted); and the majority of terrorism convictions (276 out of 341) resulted in no prison at all or sentences of less than a year. Even among those convicted within the narrower category of "international terrorism," the median sentence was fourteen days—the stuff of traffic violations, not al-Qaeda operations.
Not very impressive, is it? Back in the 50s, Americans convinced themselves there were communists in every closet, just waiting to pounce. Are 'terrorists lurking around every streetcorner' just the same myth?
UPDATE: And maybe the myth also explains the memos -- imagine the frenzy these attorneys and prosecutors and FBI and CIA must feel when they just "know" the US is harbouring terrorists, terrorists everywhere, yet they just can find any, or get anyone to admit knowing one or helping one? So they start thinking that maybe with a little "persuasion" they'll find all the terrorist cells . . . and suddenly there they are, having a Pinochet Moment as they justify the righteousness of beatings, dog attacks and electrodes.

Keep on truckin' Martha

Stewart seeks new trial, citing witness I think Stewart deserves a new trial -- as I recall her trial last winter, there was no smoking gun. It was the cumulative weight of the circumstantial government case that convinced jurors to convict -- that, and their resentment at her "rich bitch" lifestyle. Personally I don't think she should have been found guilty. But anyway, the fraudulent ink testimony went a long way toward creating the appearance that Stewart was lying. Good luck, Martha.

Moral choices

Great column THE GHOST OF TET - Like Vietnam, Iraq was never the media’s to lose.
by Matt Taibbi refuting conservative arguments that Americans are spineless losers.
Let's get something straight. The people who marched against the Vietnam War were not holding signs that said, 'We Can't Win!' They called for withdrawal, both before and after Tet, because they came to believe that the war was wrong. [emphasis mine] They protested not because our saturation bombing of the North and our Phoenix assassination programs and our toxic defoliating campaigns in the South were ineffective. They protested because they were effective, because they killed so many people so efficiently . . . .America would never have considered giving up after Tet if Vietnam had been a moral war. We would have fought to the last man no matter what setbacks came our way. We would do so now in Iraq."
For some mindsets, a war is neither moral nor immoral, its just winnable or not. Winning, in this way of thinking, is a justification in itself for the war. Taibbi is pointing out that Americans are capable of making a moral judgment about a war regardless of how many soldiers are dying.
When the history of this war is written, I hope the behaviour of the US commands in Fallujah, Najaf and Sadr City will be shown for the act of humanity I think it was. Now, this is my evaluation from thousands of miles away, only reading news stories, but it appears to me that the US soldiers who could have "conquered" these cities decided that killing thousands of Iraqis to do so would be an immoral act, a crime against humanity --and indeed history would have seen it that way. In pulling back they ultimately put their own soldiers at risk, because these cities are now "free zones" where resistance fighters prepare more bombs and attacks. The Marines, I think, knew this would happen, but they negotiated a settlement and pulled back anyway because the alternative was too horrible for a moral person to stomach.
I wonder what these soldiers think of the Pentagon chickenhawks who write quibbling memos justifying torture -- of course, it isn't them or their children who are at risk of being tortured in return, it is these young men who are now fighting this war for them in Iraq, and who are making the hard choices that the Pentagon and administration leadership are apparently too chicken-hearted to make.

What you see is what you get

So much for the "hidden" agenda.
If Canadians elect Harper as Prime Minister, it won't be because they don't know what he will do. Council of Canadians chair Marg Barlow quote from several recent Harper speeches in Harper, a Bush in Tory clothing and concudes "Stephen Harper is a pro-American hawk . . . Under a Harper government, Canada would lose the right to set its own labour, environmental and security standards. Most disturbing is his proposal to negotiate international trade agreements with the very superpower whose corporations want to come to Canada and deliver our public services on a for-profit basis. Stephen Harper has also called for a continental energy strategy . . "
So lets add it up:
1. Harper supports aligning our security, military, and immigration standards with the Bush administration (the ones who think the president can ignore US laws if he thinks there is a bogeyman under his bed.)
2. Harper wouldn't stop his caucus from making it more difficult for women to have abortions
3. He will let his caucus change the law so that discrimination based on sexual orientation is OK
4. He will withdraw the gay marriage law from the Supreme Court and possibly end up using the notwitstanding clause to outlaw gay marriage
5. Again, if his caucus pushes it, he would allow changes to the Official Languages Act,which will alienate Quebec.
All of this is now quite clear, thanks to the verbal slip-ups of Conservative MPs and Harper's own speeches.
And, as is also quite clear, he's not much of a leader -- he cannot or will not control his caucus no matter what outrageous, hurtful, divisive things they say.
So if Canadians vote for him now, they know exactly what they will get.
The tragedy is, maybe this is what they want.

Bush, have you no shame?

NOW do you get it? Now do you see why the bloggers listed on this page, joined by other bloggers from all over the world, have been ranting and raving about the Bush administration? The DOJ memos turn the American constitution inside out in attempting to provide so-called legal cover to justify government by presidential decree and justice by torture.
The Washington Post editorial Legalizing Torture thunders "There is no justification, legal or moral, for the judgments made by Mr. Bush's political appointees at the Justice and Defense departments.(emphasis mine).
It continues " Theirs is the logic of criminal regimes, of dictatorships around the world that sanction torture on grounds of 'national security.' For decades the U.S. government has waged diplomatic campaigns against such outlaw governments -- from the military juntas in Argentina and Chile to the current autocracies in Islamic countries such as Algeria and Uzbekistan -- that claim torture is justified when used to combat terrorism. The news that serving U.S. officials have officially endorsed principles once advanced by Augusto Pinochet brings shame on American democracy . . . "
The "bad apples" are in the Department of Justice and in the White House.
UPDATE -- I changed the headline from "America" to "Bush", when comments rightfully pointed out that more than half the country voted AGAINST this guy, and millions of Americans are working hard to get rid of him. Go for it, people!