Dumb, but not criminal

My Blahg notes that Conservatives can have stupid ideas too -- Criticism of Grewal continues
This MP apparently thinks it should be OK to give someone a visitors visa if they can post a bond of some fantastic sum like $100,000 -- or, I suppose, they could drop their firstborn male child off at the Canadian airport on their way into the country and then pick him up on the way back.
This pales, of course, in comparison to what is coming out about the sponsorship scandal -- Grewal may be dumb, but it doesn't sound like he is a criminal.

Prizewinner

One of a gallery of cartoons by Nick Anderson, who won the Pulitzer for them.
And while you're at the Pulitzer site, check out the AP photos that the right-wing blogs are making all the fuss about -- "how dare they give the prize to photos which actually show how tough it is for the American soldiers in Iraq?"

Oh, shit

Separatism's unlikely ally
Quebecers were angry enough last spring about the idea that they could be bribed into continued loyalty to confederation by a few garden show sponsorships.
Thus, 50 seats for the Bloc last June.
But now its even worse.
The Toronto Star notes that there is no real secret about what the Gomery inquiry is hearing, publication ban or not. Since 2002 the Star has been publishing stories about the story behind the story of the sponsorship scandal ". . . Liberals took a system they inherited from Brian Mulroney's Tories and fine tuned it until federal advertising, polling and communications contracts worth millions were being used to pay the party's bills in Quebec and beyond."
So let me get this straight -- the Liberals have been saying for the last year that they secretly spent millions in sponsorships because they were trying to keep the country together. But actually there was a secret inside the secret. They were actually secretly spending the money to help the Liberals continue to get elected.
Oh, Quebec will hit the roof. And the rest of us should too.
I suppose Chretien and Galiano could have talked themselves into seeing this as "keeping the country together" by preventing the Bloc from getting elected.
Sorry, folks, that ain't gonna cut it.
The Star writes "Should Gomery find that Liberals were breaking the law as well as the rules not to rescue the country but to hide the costs of campaigns before passing the bills to taxpayers, the already diminished brand will be in the dumpster. For those who care more about the country than the party, the consequences are ominous. Strategists are already connecting the dots that lead from another strong Bloc Quebecois election result to leader Gilles Duceppe's expected defection to the Parti Quebecois, then to the anticipated defeat of Premier Jean Charest's unpopular Liberal government and, finally, to another referendum. Instead of crushing separatism, the Chicago tough-guy tactics used on Chretien's watch have given new life to a cause prematurely judged to be on life support . . . Nor is the rubbery asymmetrical federalism preached by Stephen Harper and practised by Paul Martin reassuring. Facing a strong, impressively deft Duceppe, a weak prime minister would have trouble resisting the transformation of an already loose federation into one worth considerably less than the sum of its parts; or worse. That's the opposite of what Chrétien wanted, intended and spent his long life in politics trying to achieve. But once unleashed, dark forces are hard to control and the genie of the Quebec sponsorship scandal is now wandering free, wreaking havoc. By the time its evil work is done, Jean Chrétien, the life-long separatist-fighter, may find his place in history rewritten as the movement's misguided secret weapon."

"Nice little courtroom you've got here, judge."

Senator Links Violence to 'Political' Decisions
Nice little courtroom you've got here, judge. It would be a shame if something were to happen to it.
You know how these things go, judge. Its not me you have to worry about now, its my boys.
You know how they get when they're angry.
And judge, I'm sorry to say you've made them pretty angry with all these constitutional decisions you've been making, thinking that's your job now to tell us God-fearing patriotic American citizens whether what we want to do is constitutional or not. Like deciding all the witnesses who said Terri Schaivo wanted to die were right, and accepting all those doctors saying she was basically brain dead. And before that, telling states they couldn't execute teenagers even if they wanted to. And even telling Texas that they couldn't prosecute gay men for having sex.
You just can't be doing that kind of thing anymore, judge, making decisions like that just as though it was your job. Its not, not any more. You got to just be leaving that kind of decision up to me and the boys, or you'll be sleeping with the fishes. Kapishe?

Sad, isn't it.

Ahenakew: didn't know he was being taped when he called Jews a "disease"
"David Ahenakew says he had no idea he was being taped when he told a reporter that Jews were a 'disease' and he never figured his comments would be published."
Excuse me -- this man was speaking to a reporter, and he had been a politician for, what, two decades?
As noted later in the story, "The Saskatoon StarPhoenix reporter who taped the conversation, James Parker, testified that his recorder was right in Ahenakew's face . . . "

Gom-mercy

Peace, order and good government, eh?: Reserving judgement for now
POGGE has the links for the inquiry testimony and also some wise advice: "What people are reacting to is hearsay and anonymous second-hand reporting on testimony from someone who's facing criminal charges and apparently decided to sing like a bird. He may have told the truth and he may have tried to spread the blame as widely as possible. I'm inclined to reserve judgement until things settle down and we get some decent, sourced reporting on what's going on."
But it does sound pretty bad for the liberals.

This be the verse

I didn't realize until I read Amanda's Pandagon post at Feminist Blogs, but April is National Poetry Month.
Now, I've been waiting for an excuse to put this poem on my blog. It's not personal -- actually, my own parents didn't do too badly by me, and neither did my husbands, though of course we both have some loveable quirks to this very day! And our kids still like us, as far as we can tell. But I think its a great poem, nonetheless:

This Be The Verse - Philip Larkin

They fuck you up, your mum and dad.
They may not mean to, but they do.
They fill you with the faults they had
And add some extra, just for you.
But they were fucked up in their turn
By fools in old-style hats and coats,
Who half the time were soppy-stern
And half at one another's throats.
Man hands on misery to man.
It deepens like a coastal shelf.
Get out as early as you can,
And don't have any kids yourself.

Good Bad Ugly

Just a quick roundup of the good, the bad, and the ugly:
Good - "Our regulation says that if a woman goes to a pharmacy with a prescription for birth control, the pharmacy or the pharmacist is not allowed to discriminate or to choose who he sells it to or who he doesn't sell it to. No delays. No hassles. No lectures." Illinois Pharmacies Ordered to Provide Birth Control
Bad - "Your attempt to intimidate judges in America not only threatens our courts, but our fundamental democracy as well." DeLay Wants Panel to Review Role of Courts
Good - ". . . there's something about historical depth of human experience that Catholicism represents that commands my respect, even if the church's behavior doesn't always earn my admiration. . ."Shoes of the Fisherman
Bad - "The many anecdotal reports of voting irregularities create a context in which the possibility that the overall vote count was substantially corrupted must be taken seriously." National Election Data Archive Project (thanks to Frog for this story)
And here's the ugly:

"Its about hierarchy, power and control. It is not about life."

You MUST read this Juan Cole gendered analysis of how the Schavio case connects theoretically to the Iraq invasion. Gender-based analysis of power relationships uses the theory of patriarchy (rule of the fathers) as the structure for social analysis. It applies in all sorts of areas where, at first glance, the male/female dicotomy does not seem evident or applicable but wherever relations of power are central to understanding. The insights this type of analysis provides are unique and meaningful:

How does Bush square all the violence he has unleashed in the world with his praise of 'life?' What is the link between war-mongering and being 'pro-life?' It turns out that anti-abortionism is not about life at all. It is about social control. It helps establish a hierarchical society in which men are at the pinnacle and women kept barefoot, pregnant and in the kitchen. Likewise, the Schiavo case was in part about the religious Right dictating to Michael Schiavo how he must lead his private life. This campaign is not really about life at all, as the examples of the raped woman or the woman whose pregnancy puts her life in danger demonstrate. It is about control, and the imposition of a minority's values on others. And that is why the Iraq war is the perfect symbol for the anti-abortionists. Colonial conquest is always a kind of rape, but now the conquered country must bear the fetus of Bush-imposed 'liberty' to term. The hierarchy is thus established. Washington is superior to Baghdad, and Iraq is feminized and deprived of certain kinds of choices. And that is also how the Schiavo case makes sense in the end, because the religious Right feminized Michael Schiavo, made him into the pregnant woman seeking an 'abortion,' and wished to therefore deprive him of choice in the matter. If hierarchy is gendered, then the persons over which control is sought are always in some sense imagined as powerless women. Powerful non-fundamentalist men and uppity Third World countries that won't do as they are told are ultimately no different from feminist women seeking an abortion. All must be subdued, in the view of the Christian Right. It is about hierarchy, power and control. It is not about life.

Robert's rant

I missed this My Blahg story from Wednesday: BISHOP CRIES FOUL OVER HUMAN RIGHTS COMPLAINTS What a great rant.
Robert first quotes what the Bishop actually said: "Since homosexuality, adultery, prostitution and pornography undermine the foundations of the family, the basis of society, then the State must use its coercive power to . . . curtail them in the interests of the common good," Henry wrote.
Its not surprising that the bigotry in this remark has resulted in human rights complaints against the bishop, who throws "homosexuality" in there with behaviours of choice like adultery and pornography, and with illegal activities like prostitution, and then demands that they all be made illegal.
Then Robert gets into his rant: "Let's get one thing clear. This is not about Bishop Henry's beliefs. It's about his attempt to generate ill will toward a segment of the community with outrageous rhetoric; an increasingly common occurrence which is being spearheaded by those who claim to abide by religious teachings in this country . . . Drop the dangerous rhetoric that serves only to demonize people who have caused you no harm nor foul . . . "
Right on, Robert.

Links

The "links" section on this site lists the blogs that I myself enjoy reading or use for reference -- it's the simplest place for me to have all these listed.
You may notice I have shifted things around on the Links bar, created some new categories, and also cleaned up some of the formatting (though I am pretty incompetent about fiddling around with the template tool.)
I have added a few new blogs, too, ones that I have come to enjoy reading - Juan Cole and Blondsense and feminist blogs and and suburtan guerrilla and next hurrah and poor man, as well as a couple of additional Canadian blogs Rigorous Intuition and Sean Incognito. And Penguin Papers is back.
Next, I am thinking about put each section into alphabetical order, so I can find things.
Any suggestions for other blogs I should be reading regularly?
And how about your own blogs? Sometimes when people post comments, I remember to check out and bookmark their home blogs, but sometimes I don't have time and then I forget to go back, so I would appreciate a URL for your own blog, too.

Ain't gonna happen

Schiavo kin remain divided after her death"The Schindlers plan to launch a campaign to change state laws so people with severe brain damage, such as Schiavo's, meet a different fate . . . "
So state legislators are going to pass laws requiring the parents or the spouses or the hospitals or the health insurers or the HMOs to shell out hundreds of thousands of dollars, year after year, just so someone's "persistent vegetative state" wife or husband or child can continue to piss brainlessly down a tube until all the relatives die off or disappear and the insurers go bankrupt?
Ain't gonna happen. And it shouldn't happen. It is pagan, not Christian, to revere life at all costs, to worship life.

It's all lies, I tell you, lies!

Daily Kos runs what is, unfortunately, an April Fool story - Tom DeLay Alleged to be Democratic Forgery.
In addition to Tom Delay, the story lists all the other things which true-believer republicans consider to be "media-driven forgeries".
Here's the list -- the Schiavo GOP talking points, Bush's national guard records, Bush's drunk driving records, the torture of Iraqi prisoners, the torture of Guantanamo prisoners, memos that argue for the legality of the torture of those prisoners, extraordinary rendition through countries that torture prisoners, voting irregularities, GOP staff convictions for voting irregularities, the latest North Slope oil spill, any other North Slope oil spills, Republican foreign junkets, openly conservative college professors, CAT scans, teen sex, Christians who do not vote Republican, Harkin Energy, Halliburton, reports that Iraq had no weapons of mass destruction, Iraqi civilian casualties, the ongoing Iraqi resistance, the First Amendment, the falling dollar, European protests of American policies, peak oil, Iran-Contra, global warming, glacial melting, the deficit, test failures in the 'Star Wars' missile defense program, the podium decorated like a crucifix at the Republican National Convention, Mary Cheney, Red Lake, the ongoing recession, stem cells, reports of the failure of Texas 'No Child Left Behind' laws, preferential treatment of Saudi nationals after 9/11, Bush's crappy performance in the first debate, Bush's crappy performance in the second debate, Bush's crappy performance in the third debate, Paul O'Neill, the Nobel Prize, Bin Laden at Tora Bora, Clinton-era budget surpluses, Pakistani-based nuclear proliferation, numbers that show Social Security is not in crisis, numbers that show Medicare is in crisis, Ken Lay, Ken Lay's airplane, pollution from coal-fired power plants, the militia movement, 'Got Wood?', warlord-protected opium production in Afghanistan, the historic separation of Church and State, years in which the stock market does not rise at the rate of 6%, anthrax, gay penguins, typewriters that can center text, poor people, dinosaurs, James Guckert, and any memo entitled "Bin Laden Determined To Strike In U.S."

Goalposts moving again

They're doing it. They're actually doing it. It looks like the US is planning on declaring Victory in Iraq and leaving. The Financial Times reports "A top US general on Wednesday said the Pentagon could begin large withdrawals of troops from Iraq as long as the level of violence in the country remained low until national elections, scheduled for the end of the year . . . "[If] the elections go OK, violence stays down, then we ought to be able to make some recommendations for us to be able to bring our forces home," Lt Gen Smith said at the Pentagon."
I guess the 50 to 60 attacks a day reported by General Casey less than a week ago, is now an 'inoperative' figure.
And note how the goal posts are moving again. Though the article notes that Bush himself has said US forces will remain until Iraq can provide for its own security, the generals quoted in this article aren't saying that at all. Rather, the new measurement of success appears to be only whether attacks on American soldiers are declining.
And I'll bet the daily attacks will decline pretty quickly once the US commanders in Iraq find out about the goalpost move. They'll make sure their troops just stop going on patrols. As soon as those elections are over, then whoosh, they're outta there.
After all, as somebody-or-other once said, no one wants to be the last man to die for a mistake.

The Frightened Man

William Pitt writes at Truthout about George W. Bush, the Frightened Man: "It is not terrorism that motivates George, or patriotism, or even profiteering. It is fear, pure and simple: Fear of the truth, fear of the world, fear of any data that collides with his faith-based bubble-encapsuled worldview, and fear most of all of the people he would represent. You can discover what your enemy fears most by observing the means he uses to frighten you. Now we know, and the knowledge is deeply and profoundly disturbing."
I believe this to be true.
As I sat watching the press conference Bush held just before he went to war in Iraq, it gradually dawned on me that I was watching a terrified man -- so scared, he could hardly speak. How horrifying to realize that the President of the United States was a coward who wanted every American to be as afraid as he was -- ". . . we live in a dangerous world. We live in new circumstances in our country. . . . I know [people] remember the tragedy of September the 11th, but I hope they understand the lesson of September the 11th. The lesson is, is that we're vulnerable to attack, wherever it may occur, and we must take threats which gather overseas very seriously . . . "
And that was BEFORE anyone had seen the seven minutes when Bush, confronted with an unprecedented demand for courage, could do nothing but sit frozen with fear.