Rick Salutin nails it

Rick Salutin's rabble column: Embrace Ottawa's dysfunction tells it like it is.
I tried to cut it down, but I have ended up posting almost all of it below -- its just that good:

. . . some of our political traditions are being desecrated. The question is: Do you care? . . .the Martin-Layton deal . . . provides childcare, housing, urban relief, and a balanced budget — exactly what voters say they want! Finally they get it — and Parliament is dysfunctional? Paul Martin was dithering. Now he's acting. So it's time to pull the plug on him? As for democracy, the Liberals and NDP polled a majority of votes last election: 52.4 per cent, versus just 42 per cent for Conservatives and the Bloc. So their deal makes democratic sense. Chantal Hébert wrote in her column for the Toronto Star, “There is no longer any question about how far Paul Martin is willing to go to avoid a snap election.” How far is that? Well, he's actually giving citizens what they say they'd like, and what he promised to do. Why must he be punished for it? So what if fear made him do it? Stephen Harper got pressured into backing off on abortion. That's politics — in fact, that's democracy . . . Motives don't matter. At least not for most people.
Columnists may be exceptions. They live by their opinions, they hate backing down, maybe it means more to them than the benefits of public childcare or urban renewal. They are incensed when voters indicate they might be willing to be “bought off” or “bribed with their own money.” Excuse me, but isn't that the point of taxes: to spend on behalf of the taxpayers for things they couldn't purchase by themselves?
Poor voters. They may be disgusted by the sponsorship mess, but must weigh the temptation to voice their rage, against the dire effects if they replace a Martin with a Harper. Do it and you will not get childcare or urban transit or tuition relief. And all this at a time when the system is finally starting to deliver for citizens. Me, I'd string the catastrophe out as long as possible. A dysfunctional Parliament may be as good as it gets. . .
Lies? Peter MacKay, Conservative deputy leader, lied with gusto and signed a pledge not to merge his party in order to become PC leader, then reneged and didn't even look sheepish. Conservative MP Rahim Jaffer's head seems ready to explode in Question Period; but he had an
aide impersonate him on radio and lied about it when he got caught. They're outraged? I'm outraged that they're outraged! This is the worst scandal in our history? Canada was born in scandal. Ever hear of the CPR? . . . from this scandal voters may gain a little ground in areas that matter to them. If this be dysfunction, make the most of it!

Winning hearts and minds

Afghanistan: Protests on insult to Qur'an spread:
Over the past three years, Rumsfeld and the military have been able to intimidate the American media into accepting a brazen stream of lies about Iraq.
Remember these whoppers? "things are getting better every day in Iraq", "why aren't you reporting the good news, like the schools?", "we don't torture people, its just a few bad apples", "extraordinary rendition? of course we would never send people to places where they will be tortured!", "we know exactly where the WMD are", "we're very close to capturing XXX - we almost got him last week", "Iraqi oil will easily pay for the costs of the war", "they'll greet us with flowers in the streets" -- and the greatest one of all: "we can't wait for the smoking gun to be a mushroom cloud".
So now they think they can just leak this ridiculous spin and all of the Muslim outrage will go away: "Military officials said privately this week that they believe some former detainees are embroidering tales of abuse to stir anti-American passions."
Oh sure, guys -- the Guantanamo interrogators beat people and drowned them and shaved their beards and sexually humliated them and smeared them with menstrual blood to shame then. But of course they didn't tear up the Koran and flush it, nope, never happened -- these spooks are such devout Christian men and women, they just have too much respect for the Muslim religion ever to do such a thing.
Or if it DID happen, why then it must have been the prisoners themselves who did it -- manipulative Koran-injurious behaviour.
So maybe this talking point will shut up the American media and the pro-republican bloggers and the talk show hosts and the Christian Right.
But the rest of the world just won't believe it. And Google news now lists more than a thousand stories about the riots, from newspapers and media outlets all over the world.

He just doesn't get it

How to demonstrate your fitness to govern:
First, paralyze Parliament
Second, demand that the Liberals resign because Parliament is paralyzed.
And you know what this is all in aid of, don't you?
Harper himself is actually the one who is paralyzed -- paralyzed with fear about how his restless MPs will react when they realize that their leader's hysterical tirades against the Liberals have boxed them into an impossible position -- they can either vote in favour of the budget, after a month of pontificating about how the Liberals have lost the authority to govern. Or they can vote against the budget and bring down the government, leaving all those Conservative MPs. and candidates, to explain to their constituents why they didn't want Canadians to get all that extra money for the military, for cities, for day care. for equalization.
It sort of limits your campaign options when you cannot make speeches about how a Conservative government would spend extra money on the military, on cities, on day care and on equalization.
Oh well, I guess your MPs can always make speeches about how you stopped that awful gay marriage bill. That will go over well, particularly in Ontario and BC.
Steve, smarten up -- remember you cannot get any more seats in Alberta, that where you need them is in Ontario and BC.
All this demonstrates is that Harper seems to be incapable of thinking strategically or acting responsibly. Harper's over-the-top rhetoric had narrowed his options now to one -- to try to force a non-confidence motion before the budget bill can be introduced. And how is he trying to do this? By announcing he is going to adjourn the house every day between now and then. Huh?
Oh, Steve, if your're trying to prove to Canadians that you can do a great job of boxing your own party into a corner. where your MPs will continue to get paid for refusing to work, you've certainly done it with this tactic. Commons grinds to a halt
But Harper's problem could still be solved -- that Globe story points out that "The NDP has offered to pull one or more of its MPs on Thursday so that MPs battling cancer can miss the vote without affecting the final result. Conservative House Leader Jay Hill said the party will consider the offer, which is called pairing." Well, of course, this is the solution.
He should graciously accept this pairing arrangement for his ill MPs, which shows how mature and parliamentary and caring he is. Then all he has to do is hope and pray that the NDP and the Liberals pull a dirty trick and break their word.
This would get the budget passed and out of the way, so he could defeat the government later on a less popular bill when people would no longer care how his MPs voted on the budget. And it would also give the Conservatives an absolutely great campaign issue - the Martin liberals claim they have already cleaned up their party but look how untrustworthy they really are!
But no. He is resolute in rejecting any strategy which could help him or his candidates during a campaign. "Mr. Harper said he would prefer that the ailing MPs be allowed to cast their own votes. 'I am told, though, that [former prime minister] Joe Clark lost the vote in 1979 because people said they would pair and then they reneged on that commitment in the last minute,' he said."
He just doesn't get it. That's what he WANTS to happen this time.

Framing the fillibuster

Hey, the democrats are finally "framing" the fillibuster issue in the simple, clear language that ordinary Americans will hear and understand -- the ones who don't have time to read a Harper's-style article, but who can understand the basic problem if it can be framed in a way which is meaningful to them.
Here's one example from a Harry Reid speech quoted in Daily Kos Reid to Frist: Let's vote:

Instead of accepting that success and avoiding further divisiveness and partisanship in Washington, the President chose to pick fights instead of judges by resubmitting the names of the rejected nominees. (emphasis mine)

And NAACP's Julian Bond yesterday on Hardball also described the whole fillibuster issue clearly and easily:

The precedent in the Senate is, they have operated by the same rules and the same standard for all these many years. And President Bush has enjoyed unusual success. He‘s had more of his judges confirmed than his last three predecessors. Now, all a sudden, because they can‘t win under these old rules, under the present rules, they want to change the rules. Why don‘t they work on changing the votes?" (emphasis mine)

What a jerk!

Budget vote set for May 19
But this isn't good enough for His Arrogance Mr. Harper. Oh, no, no.
Waiting a week to demonstrate the nation's contempt for the liberals by a descisively crushing vote of 153 to 152 just isn't good enough. He wants to vote on a confidence motion NOW, NOW, NOW!!!
The fact that this unseemly partisanship will screw up the Queen's visit to celebrate Saskatchewan's centennial means nothing to him, nothing at all.
Nope -- its just so much more important that the Conservative Party NOT be placed in the uncomfortable position of having to vote against Martin's budget, which is the best budget the nation has seen in more than a decade. So Harper doesn't want to have to campaign in an election which his party can be said to have instigated by voting against the budget. And obviously, Harper's political manouvering is just so much more important than measely old Saskatchewan -- we only have a few hundred thousand votes, and our government is NDP, so why should he care about us anyway?
He might as well have told us to "fuddle-duddle".


This photo from the Globe and Mail shows Harper glaring at Martin yesterday in the Commons.

Here's some good news - for the Chretien liberals

PM's honesty an issue as Tories lead in poll
I haven't followed the Gomery Inquiry testimony, except for reading the Globe coverage and hearing occasional testimony on the evening news. But its been my impression that the 'sponsorship liberals' who are testifying are happy to smear themselves as long as they can also skewer Paul Martin and his supporters as well -- with the long-term goal, I suspect, that Martin will lose the election and have to resign and then they can get one of Chretien's people into the leadership. Now, who this would be, I wouldn't have a clue, though I also suspect that people like Tobin and Manley would be happy to come in out of the cold if they thought they had a chance. Sorry, Tobin is a quitter, and Manley still looks too much like Beeker on the Muppets.

The Hollow Men

Here it is, in a nutshell -- the basic problem with the Bush administration.
At an event in Holland, Bush was asked whether there would come a day when the Patriot Act was not needed any more. He said "[We] must balance the government's most important duty, which is to protect the American people from harm, with the civil liberties of our citizens."
He has said this type of thing before -- he has used this description of his job to justify every post-911 monstrosity from the Patriot Act to the preemptive strike doctrine to the Iraq War to Guatanamo.
But he is wrong. Here is the oath that each president takes as he is sworn into the presidency: "I do solemnly swear that I will faithfully execute the office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States."
His duty as president is not to the people but to the Constitution. It is only through his commitment to protect the Constitution that his people can also be protected.
But Bush just doesn't get it, and neither do the people around him. "Protecting the people" is the corrupt justification for illegal acts that we hear in the speeches of every tin-pot dictator from Stalin to PolPot to Idi Amin. The idea that one person is actually responsible for protecting an entire nation is romantic megalomania. It leads to the pretense that the country is surrounded by and infested with enemies who must be beaten regardless of any illegality. Without the Constitution, in fact, the very concept of illegality becomes hollow. Thus Bush turns Americans into a nation of hollowmen who promote the demonization of Muslims and pregnant women and gay people, deny the legal authority of judges, support religious zealots, and justify torture.

. . . Remember us -- if at all -- not as lost
Violent souls, but only
As the hollow men
The stuffed men . . .

This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
Not with a bang but a whimper

Yay, Steve!

Victoria's Steve Nash, at only 6'3", is not a dominating figure on the court -- until the tossup. Then his absolute DETERMINATION to get the ball kicks in. It is a joy to watch.
We always knew he was the best player in the NBA; now the sports world has recognized this too.
The Reuters story describes the Canadian reaction -- joy, joy, joy:

News of Nash's selection received unprecedented coverage in Canada, knocking the country's bid for a third consecutive gold medal at the ice hockey world championships out of the spotlight. His honor was compared to golfer Mike Weir's victory at the 2003 U.S. Masters and Jacques Villeneuve capturing the Formula One drivers' title . . . Leaked news of his selection made the front pages while the official announcement was broadcast live on national sports channels and radio.

And the story ends with this tidbit: "Soft-spoken and thoughtful, Nash is not afraid to express his opinion and wore an anti-war T-shirt to a news conference during the 2003 NBA all-star weekend." Way to go, Steve.
UPDATE - Height is now correct!

Gravity and evolution - both 'just theories"

Thanks, Phong, for telling me about this terrific article - UBC geneticist proves evolution:
Here is how it ends -

Since Darwin published Origin of Species in 1859, many religious leaders have gone to great lengths to convince the public that the concept of evolution is a theory, not a scientific fact. Their reasons for this are understandable: evolution stands in direct opposition to Biblical mythology. When I asked Darren Irwin whether his research had established evolution as a fact, his answer was enlightening: "Scientists are never able to completely prove any theory. Science is a process by which incorrect theories are shown to be incorrect, leaving us with the theories that are most consistent with the evidence. The theory of evolution is one of the most successful theories ever, in the sense that it is highly consistent with abundant evidence. We understand the mechanisms by which evolution operates, and these mechanisms have actually been observed on short time scales. This establishes evolution as a more successful theory than the
theory of gravitation. The theory of gravitation is also consistent with evidence, but we don't yet know how it works. The theory of gravitation, however, does not contradict religious doctrine, and so is universally accepted. "

Born to be gay

Gay Men Respond Differently to Pheromones
Let's stop pussyfooting around the main question, like this article does. Yes, its genetic, goddammit! Pretending that it isn't so you can continue to discriminate against gay people is just vile, vile behaviour.

Stupid is as stupid does

In Kansas, A Sharp Debate on Evolution: ". . . a strategy letter from a Kansas Citizens for Science member . . . said the way to defeat the anti-evolution forces was be to portray them as political opportunists, evangelical activists, unprincipled bullies and ignoramuses."
Yes, that sounds about right.

Good, bad, ugly

Good:

VE Day in Ottawa, 1945

Bad:

Mike Keefe, Denver Post

Ugly:

Andy Donato, Toronto Sun

Picking a fight with Russia to avoid facing the truth in Washington

Hmmm -- people like Armando are asking WTF is Bush doing talking about who did what to whom 60 years ago and how freedom is on the march in Eastern Europe and how, by the way, the left-wing hero Roosevelt sold out the Baltic states. And Steve Gilliard is explaining here and here the backstory and how right-wingers have been mad at Roosevelt for years about this supposed sellout. All this has pissed off Putin to the extent that he is appearing on 60 Minutes to attack Bush
But it still didn't make any sense -- why is this coming up NOW, including the last minute plan for Bush to drop into Latvia and Georgia for a couple of needlessly inflammatory speeches? The only explanation I have seen is that Bush is paying back the Baltic states for their support in Iraq. But this still doesn't explain why this is happening right now, when Bush could have said these things anytime in the last three years or the next three.
But I just realized one other thing -- picking a needless fight with Russia over events of 60 years ago means that now everybody is completely distracted from this story about the events of three years ago: 88 Members of Congress Call for Immediate Answers about Secret Bush/Blair Pre-War Deal .
The Bush/Blair deal is, of course, an impeachable offense, involving the high crime of lying to Congress and the American people to start an unjustified war just to gain control of Iraq's oil and to protect Israel. By sucking Russia into attacking Bush, the Bush administration also tricks the American public into a knee-jerk patriotism which requires that the real story of Bush's betrayal of the trust of the American people will continue to be ignored.

Got milk?

Is there some double secret code word in these Louie Louie lyrics that I cannot find? A Michigan school superintendant says they are too "raunchy" for 12 to 14 year olds. But at least these lyrics don't refer to "milking" stallions.

Stop, please, in the name of humanity!

Bride reveals why she ran away
I have one comment about the latest revelation in the year's top non-news story:
Try to imagine how little I care.