Snarling "Merry Christmas!"

at the top of their lungs! Christmas war of words in US Ah, those Christian Rightists -- striking the decisive blow for truth, justice and the American way. God bless us, everyone.

Grooming tips!

Even though I am far away from the New York scene he often writes about, I enjoy James Wolcott - he is one of those writers, like Garrison Kellior, whose writing is vivid and personal and truthful, a tremendously difficult thing to pull off.
Read this one for the New York sense of the Kerik thing. Bernie, We Hardly Knew Ye -- I particularly liked the parting shot at pandering Democrats: "I'm glad the press is having a dance party with this, because God knows the Democrats are frozen at the steering wheel. I just saw a segment on MSNBC . . . pitting a Republican strategist against a Democratic one, and the Democratic spokesman--who goes by the name of Michael Brown--seemed to have washed down his weeny pills with warm Ovaltine. Instead of kicking Kerik and Giuliana between the uprights for three points, Brown fretted that vetting process for cabinet candidates was 'going too far,' and that we were in danger of discouraging people from public service. Oh no, we wouldn't want to discourage philandering, pocket-lining, deadbeat no-show bully-boys like Bernard Kerik from having the opportunity to muck around with our civil liberties in the name of 'national security' and hold bigshot press conferences. I mean, if that sort of thing were to continue happening, people might start mistaking the Democrats for an opposition party and thinking that the press has an adversarial role to play, and we don't want that to happen, it might actually lead to signs of life in that mausoleum we call the nation's capital . . . I don't understand the self-emasculation of so many Democratic strategists, what they're afraid of, why they concede so much in advance. Give them an opening, and they close it like a silk kimono, ever so demure. What are they in politics for, the professional grooming tips? "

What's that smell?

Do I smell a wiff of grapeshot in the air? This column Sun Ottawa Bureau Columnist: Greg Weston - Thinking the unthinkable in the House - reads like a challenge -- OK, all you religious righters, its time to start with the pressure on all your MPs to vote against the same-sex marriage bill and maybe you can defeat the bill! Oh, and wouldn't Canada's religious right just LOVE to get energized over this issue, start the fundraising, run an ad campaign on TV and radio, get interviewed here and in the US media. And wouldn't the media just LOVE to have a controversy to write about.
Hurry up, Paul -- lets get this done!

So quit already!

Federal Minister threatens to quit over gay marriage bill - so quit already and don't let the door hit you on the way out.
Considering that everyone has known this legislation was coming for the last two years, its taken him a remarkably long time to make up his mind. "'I'm not going to say publicly what I'm going to do,' Mr. Efford told the CBC. 'I first owe it to the church leaders to meet with them and then I owe it to the Prime Minister to meet with him before I make any public statement.'" I guess talking to the CBC isn't "a public statement"?

Perfect timing

Isn't it nice that the Scott Peterson circus is over, so the media can now cover the Bernie Kerik circus -- The Missteps Cited in Kerik Vetting by White House. But don't worry, Bernie - something outrageous will happen later this week to send the flash crowds somewhere else.

Tampon tax? To the barricades!

My initial reaction to this story - MP takes on tampon tax - is: doesn't the NDP have more important things to worry about? What about those homeless people dying in Jack Layton's riding of whom we heard so much during the campaign? What about Aboriginal housing in the north? Or, come to think of it, in Winnipeg itself (Wasylycia-Leis' riding)?
I know the NDP are on top of social issues, but is THIS the burning social issue of the day? And if taxing women's products is discriminatory, well what about toys -- after all, they're used only by children! And wouldn't parents love it, particularly at this time of year, if there were no taxes on toys. And what about Mennen - used only by men, most likely! And Grecian Formula! And what about Centrum Silver, taken only by people over 55, so that makes this tax discriminatory, too. In fact, now that I am 55, I would like a law that exempts everything I buy from taxes -- yes, pass that one, Judy, and the NDP have got MY vote for sure!

The wrong side of history.

Klein pushes for same-sex plebiscite Ahh, Ralph -- marching firmly toward the wrong side of history.
The stupid thing about the referendum idea is that this ship has already sailed -- the courts have already ruled that gay marriage is a civil rights issue, and that gay people have the right to marry. So it doesn't matter what a referundum says, rights are rights, period.
Might as well try to have a vote on banning chinooks, Ralph.

True patriot love

Oh, Canada, I am so proud of you. The same-sex marriage legislation will be a shining moment in our history. The Toronto Star notes in What's traditional about marriage? Change that "Acceptance of homosexuality among Canadians has increased exponentially over the past 15 years, says Environics Research Group vice-president Keith Neuman. "Back in 1987, only 10 per cent of Canadians generally approved of homosexuality. It's now up to almost 50 per cent," says Neuman, whose group has conducted extensive polling on the issue. "We've seen a real sea change over the last 15 years towards something that was really stigmatized ... to something that most people are saying they're fine with." And this growing acceptance of gays and lesbians has translated into a majority opinion in favour of same-sex marriages, Neuman says. About 57 per cent of Canadians support the right of same-sex couples to marry, according to Environic's latest poll on the issue."
And all in just 15 years. PFLAG says that the best way to end discrimination against gays is when someone knows a person who is gay. So this is also a credit, and a tribute, to the Canadians who have 'come out' over the last 15 years, so that hundreds of thousands of Canadians will know someone who is gay. I think, also, that the Gay Pride Parades have made a difference -- the first such parade in Saskatchewan a few years ago was banned, as I recall. Now, politicians from all sides of the House march in them and everyone is proud of the Saskatchewan parade. They've been held alternate years between Regina and Saskatoon, but sometime soon I'm sure that both cities will have them every year.
Gay or straight, everyone is welcome -- our family marches in the Gay Pride parade every year, and my 90-year-old aunt waves from her balcony.

We wanna war!

IAEA Leader's Phone Tapped notes that the phone taps "show ElBaradei lacks impartiality because he tried to help Iran navigate a diplomatic crisis over its nuclear programs." Well, of course we can't have THAT, a peaceful solution, can we? Got to fire that guy.
The Bush administration is like the family with the bratty kids in the mall --
"We wanna war, Mom!"
"But you already HAVE a war, in Afghanistan. Remember?"
"Yes, but there isn't anything there, really. Its not much fun. We wanna 'nother one, a bigger one."
"Be quiet now, children, we really can't afford it just now."
"But Mom -- just one more, just Iraq, it won't last very long and it won't cost hardly anything, and Iraq is really scary, Mom. We HAFTA have a war with them. And Winston had one, and Franklin had one, so we want one too, wanna, wanna, wanna, wanna..."
"Oh, allright, allright, go ahead -- anything to keep you quiet. "
"Mom?"
"What is it NOW?"
"Just one more, ple-e-e-ease, pretty please? This is the last one, really, we'll never ask you again, but we really ne-e-e-ed another war again."
"Now look, you kids, I've just about had it with you. You're already had two wars and they're costing me a fortune, and now you want another one? Aren't you ever going to be satisfied? Well, enough is enough, I'm really putting my foot down this time, the answer is NO!"
"But Mom -- those guys in Iran are going to beat us up if we don't go to war first!"
"But you said Iraq was scary, too, and . . ."
"But Mom, this is different. Iran is REALLY REALLY scary and none of us can even TRY to be friends with them."
"Now kids, is that true? Has anyone tried?"
"Sure we have, Mom, but they just pretend to listen, they don't really like us Mom. So we gotta have a war and you can't say no, you just can't! We gotta go to war, Mom, gotta, gotta, gotta, gotta . . . "
"Well, I guess . . . as long as it keeps you busy. But this is absolutely the LAST time, and I MEAN it . . ."

And we'll have fun, fun, fun 'til FCC takes blogging away

The press consistently demonstrated both mystification and resentment of blogs and bloggers throughout the American election campaign, but this Blogs: New Medium, Old Politics takes the cake.
CBS 'chief political writer' David Paul Kuhn smears bloggers generally and Atrios in particular as "unethical" because they have both political opinions and day jobs. Then in passing he notes "Beginning next year, the F.E.C. will institute new rules on the restricted uses of the Internet as it relates to political speech. "
Well, I TOLD YOU SO -- welcome to China, everybody.
Atrios himself points out the inaccuracies and errors in this story. This reporter should be embarassed to have made so many mistakes. But he won't be. He has a larger agenda, you see, which is to put bloggers out of business.
He sets up a straw man, claiming that bloggers pretend to be neutral but are actually partisan. Well, excuse me, but the most popular bloggers, from Atrios to Kos to Instapundit to Powerline have NEVER been "neutral" -- large or small, we're all partisan from the get-go, and unashamed of it. Why blog at all, unless we have a point of view to promote?
But this, of course, cannot be allowed -- why, people might start thinking that freedom is on the march!
The US right wing has succeeded so well in cowing the mainstream media (except for Keith Obermann) that they frequently adopt pathetic circumlocutions and patently false equivalencies just to avoid any accusation of "being partisan" (read, Democrat). Remember how hard it was for any reporter during the American election campaign to ever state plainly that Republicans were actually lying in their election ads?
But the dreadful "partisan" accusation hadn't managed to stop the bloggers -- who are still doing outrageous things like questioning the Florida and Ohio votes. So now its the bloggers' turn -- and the press, which should be supporting both free speech and the freedom of the Internet, is going along with it. No doubt reporters are tired of getting hammered by both the right wing and left wing blogs for their cowardice and inadequate research, as well as being envious of how powerful some bloggers, like Atrios, have become in affecting American public opinion. And it was bloggers, after all, who not only succeeded in bringing down Dan Rather but also in stopping Clear Channel's Kerry-bashing broadcast.
So of course, bloggers must be stopped. It's only fair, really -- why should we have all that fun?

Buying themselves credibility

"Buying yourself a job" used to be something that was noted somewhat critically. If no business would actually hire you to work for them and no university would actually associate itself with your project and no organization would actually elect you to lead them and no denomination would actually call you to their pulpit -- if instead you just created your own high-sounding "institute/centre/council/church" and picked your own title as "the CEO/president/director/pastor" and rented a place and printed up your own letterhead and created your own website -- well, it used to mean that you didn't really have much credibility.
But I have noticed lately that a number of the "Christian Right" spokespeople in the US appear to have bought themselves their own jobs -- check out the Medical Institute for Sexual Health which is running the inaccurate abstinence programs that are being criticized now, and the Media Research Centre, Parents Television Council and Conservative Communications Centre which has auto-generated thousands of indecency complaints to the FCC, and the Grace Christian Church which recently published its anti-gay magazine in the Washington Post. Self-employment projects, every one.
They seem to be pretty well financed. And they don't seem to have any problem with credibility any more -- they speak before Congress, and get lots of media interviews, and no one asks them any questions about self-employment.

Living in a dream world

Kos points us to the Report of the Defense Science Board Task Force on Strategic Communication, published without any media notice in September.
Its content is pretty devastating -- it is filled with statements like "messages should seek to reduce, not increase, perceptions of arrogance, opportunism, and double standards" and "U.S. policies and actions are increasingly seen by the overwhelming majority of Muslims as a threat to the survival of Islam itself" and "when American public diplomacy talks about bringing democracy to Islamic societies, this is seen as no more than self-serving hypocrisy".
Now that this report has reached the blogs, we can expect the NYT and Wash Post to pick it up and trumpet it, and its going to be difficult for the usual suspects -- talk show hosts, Christian rightists and Republican politicians -- to 'partisanize' and discredit this report.
But in the end, the report is really pretty pointless. It concludes: "Strategic communication . . . must be transformed with a strength of purpose that matches our commitment to diplomacy, defense, intelligence, law enforcement, and homeland security. Presidential leadership and the bipartisan political will of Congress are essential."
Well, and what are the chances of THAT? Fugedaboudit -- ain't gonna happen!

I think we can now conclude

that there is already a civil war going on in Iraq, between the "insurgents" and the "collaborators". It just hasn't been officially announced yet.
Today in Iraq and Juan Cole report on the dozens of Iraqis killed by insurgent bombs in the last 24 hours.
Cole also notes the destruction of several Iraq cities by American bombing. This will result in hundreds of thousands of refugees wandering the countryside without resources - there aren't any aid organizations left in Iraq now who can help them.
So maybe those Pentagon plans for a humanitarian crisis will come in handy by Christmas, after all.
And yes, I often speak cynically in this blog about Iraq -- but in reality what is going on over there now makes me feel sick at heart -- not only what the poor Iraqi people are suffering but also what the American soldiers are going through. It just has to stop! Though America must continue to pour money into Iraq, they must get their soldiers out. There is no hope of peace there as long as the Americans stay.

Trashing the UN

So according to Google News, there are now 500 news stories about how awful the UN is and how Kofi Annan should resign - like this one Boston.com / News / Boston Globe / Opinion / Op-ed / Annan is a symptom of UN's sickness...
So what provoked this sudden outburst of indignation at the UN -- from a press which has given the Bush administration a free pass on everything from the Saudi-911 connection to Abu Gharib to Halliburton?
Well, I think there are three reasons:
First, Kofi Annan dissed Bush when he described the Iraq war as illegal, and Bush will never forgive such a remark.
Second, the Iraq elections, if they are even held at all, are going to be a disaster. There will be so many problems with the vote that the UN will have a hard time accepting Iraq's newly "elected" leader as legitimate -- if it is, for example, our old pal Chalabis. So trashing the UN now will reduce its credibility in questioning of the Iraq "vote".
Third, and likely most important, the Bush administration is gearing up for war with Iran in 2005 or 2006. The Security Council is so far refusing to get suckered in to any sanction resolutions which the US could later use as justification for another preemptive war. So discrediting the UN becomes an important opening salvo in the PR campaign to convince the American public to go along with the new Iran war.
Depressing, isn't it.

Techno-ghosts

This was in Yahoo News Technology section - Woman Auctions Father's Ghost on eBay
Well, I guess you could describe EBay as "technology" but I had never thought of "ghosts" in that category! Maybe there really are Ghosts in the Machines now. And if you believe this one, how about a grilled cheese sandwich that looks like the Virgin Mary? Naah, no one would ever believe that!