Thanks, Bob Geldof

In honour of the Live 8 concerts this weekend, we watched History Television's Turning Point tonight, which was about the Ethiopian famine of 1984 and the Band Aid and Live Aid events which Bob Geldof invented. Though a depressing subject, it was ultimately a story of success and achievement.
It never made sense to me, as a child, to be told that I had to eat up because people somewhere else were starving -- my reaction was, OK, then please send them my corn soup because I hate it.
When I was a child, and on into adulthood through the 60s and 70s, the general attitude among just about everybody I knew was that conditions in Africa were simply not solveable. The only people who seemed to care about Africa were some aid agencies and church ministers. We watched the clumsy "teach a man to fish" public service spots on TV at midnight, but they didn't seem to relate to our lives. Basically, there didn't seem to be anything that we could do about it except give a few bucks to Oxfam every now and then. In the 60s, we thought we were all changing the world, but we weren't really having much effect.
Those attitudes changed when Geldof did his record and his concerts.
It was unheard of in 1984 that a rock musician should care so much about Africa, and that he should be able to organize such extraordinary events, and that he could singlehandedly raise so much money. Now, its almost unheard of that musicians and artists would not devote some of their time and talent to fundraising for various causes.
In the interviews for the TV show we watched tonight, Geldof displayed a broad and deep knowledge of what is necessary to help Africa and what the world needs to do about it. Not only has he raised hundreds of millions, but he also has made sure it is being spent properly, and directly on aid projects.
I am impressed, too, that the United States is also showing some leadership here -- Bush seeks to double aid to Africa . The attitude I grew up with -- that Africa is hopeless -- is no longer an acceptable approach for anyone in the west to take -- and that is remarkable progress.

What will happen next?

When I saw the silent, staring troops at last night's speech - and watched some half-hearted handshakes and unsmiling faces in several of the officers near the stage after the speech -- I wondered what they might be thinking of what they heard.
So I looked up North Carolina's main newspaper, the Charlotte Observer, to see if they had any comments. Here is what their editorial said in Bush's dodge

Rising insurgent violence, conflicting accounts of the facts and a steady stream of American deaths have sharply heightened anxiety. That's reflected in recent polls that found eroding support for the fighting in Iraq.
Even in North Carolina, home to four major military bases with more than 10,000 troops in Iraq, a new statewide poll conducted by The News & Observer and WRAL-TV found 42 percent of active voters think the war has been worth it, but 49 percent say it has not. That's a sharp dip from January 2004. Two points in particular demand specific responses from Mr. Bush.
- Last weekend, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld told Americans that insurgencies often persist for 10 or 12 years. Given that, what kind of U.S. involvement will be required over that long haul?
- Gen. John Abizaid, the top Middle East commander, has said he expects Iraqi security forces to be able to lead the fight against insurgents by next summer. Will the White House begin withdrawing troops at that time?
Fort Bragg, home to the 82nd Airborne and Special Forces, would have been the ideal place for straight talk. Of the 1,740 men and women who have died in Iraq, an estimated 174 -- one in 10 -- came from North Carolina military bases. Tar Heel families have been asked to carry a heavy burden to support the war in Iraq. They have responded with courage and sacrifice. Yet, understandably, the killing and dying have worn on their resolve. North Carolinians -- like all Americans -- need to know to what to expect. What a shame their president would not level with them when he had the chance.

There is one problem with demanding truthful answers from the Bush administration. They don't have any.
They cannot describe what Americans can expect, because they don't know.
In 1968, following the Tet offensive I am not sure whether anybody in the US could envisage what failure in Vietnam would look like. In actuality, it did NOT consist of the US military losing significant battles and retreating, like the Germans did in WW2. And it did not consist of a long military stalemate and a ceasefire, like Korea ended. Instead, there was escalating bombing and escalating death tolls without any progress on the ground, followed by gradual brutalization of the troops and dissolution of the US army as an effective or respected fighting force (fragging, drug addiction, draft dodging, anti-war marches), accompanied by increasing corruption and lack of credibility in South Vietnam's government leading to the general belief that this was not a government worth supporting, and finally, the gradual turning of the South Vietnamese peasants and villages toward support for the Viet Cong, whether willingly or unwillingly.
It was only after the US pulled most of its soldiers out in 1972 and 1973 that the South Vietnamese army began losing battles and territory, to the point that the North occupied the South in 1975 and the last Americans flew out on the helicoter from the embassy roof.
Billmon today writes a lengthy post Failure is an option, which discusses some of the aspects of failure in Iraq:

. . . Bush has managed to make himself right at last: Iraq indeed has become the central front in the war against Al Qaeda (although the eastern front in Afghanistan is heating up quickly, and there's always the risk of a breakthrough on the Southern front -- Saudia Arabia -- or the Western front -- the Maghrib and/or Europe.) But saying that Iraq is now the central front in the war on terrorism is neither an argument nor a strategy. At the moment, it's pretty clear the Cheney administration and its pet military commanders don't have a strategy, other than to pin their hopes on a political process that is going nowhere slowly, and that in any case is extremely unlikely to break the insurgency's base of support -- at least, not before it breaks the American volunteer army. It's not at all clear that sending more troops to Iraq would make the situation any better . . . the U.S. military has made itself enormously unpopular in Iraq -- even among those who reluctantly accept the need for its presence. It's hard to see how putting more jittery, haji-hating American soldiers on the streets of Iraq is going to help peel away the insurgency's "soft support" or induce more Sunnis to cooperate with a government led by Shi'a fundamentalists. However, without more troops, it seems inevitable that Iraq will continue to descend into chaos and (ultimately) something close to Hobbes's war of the all against the all . . . the mindless chants of "failure is not an option" are starting to sound like the desperate prayers of the terminally ill. Failure is always an option -- particularly for morons who launch a war of choice under the impression that they can't possibly lose it. Is the war hopelessly lost? I tend to think so, although I'm realistic enough to admit that I don't have all the facts, and couldn't interpret them all correctly even if I did. I know there are some military analysts whose opinions I respect who think the war is lost . . .

Billmon goes on to discuss several sane and effective options for the US to get the troops out while protecting its flanks, though of course he notes at the end of this discussion "A sane, effective strategic response is probably impossible as long as the current gang remains in power. But you already knew that."
So what is the scenario for failure in Iraq? Here is what I think might be how failure will happen in Iraq:
- There will be a loss of 'civilization' throughout Iraq as people are forced out of the cities and into refugee camps due both to the disentegration of municipal services (water, power, sewer), the decline in living standards as the economy disappears, and the Fallujification of more cities in retaliation for insurgent attacks.

- Though the facade of a central government in Baghdad may continue, the existing government is too corrupt to be effective. Most of Iraq will be governed by religious and tribal dictators and their local militias. At some point, these militias may start fighting each other for territory or resources.

- And I think there could be a US military 'mutiny' unless Cheney and Rumsfeld start listening to the US military leadership in Iraq, who are trying to negotiate with the insurgency, to calm things down long enough to start getting their US troops out. At some point, the UN or Europe or Iraq's neighbours may also have to step in to persuade the US to get out.

Things I noticed

Things I noticed in Bush's speech.
This strikes me as a terrible idea. " . . . we are embedding Coalition 'Transition Teams' inside Iraqi units. These teams are made up of Coalition officers and non-commissioned officers who live, work, and fight together with their Iraqi comrades. Under U.S. command, they are providing battlefield advice and assistance to Iraqi forces during combat operations. "
Considering that the Iraqi recruits are apparently riddled with insurgents who join to ferret out plans and steal equipment, who is going to protect these American lieutenants and sergeants from sharing the fate of the Iraqi recruits? An awful lot of Iraqi troops-in-training are getting blown up or shot in the head.
So are they ever leaving or what? One of the main points in Kerry's OpEd in the New York Times today was that Bush should declare that the US had no intention of staying in Iraq. So I watched the speech to see if Bush would make this promise. He said "a major part of our mission is to train them so they can do the fighting and our troops can come home" and "We will stay in Iraq as long as we are needed - and not a day longer."
Iraq as the new Gettysburg? And note the next umpteenth rationale for war -- not WDM, not regime change, not democracy, nope, now its because the terrorists are there -- "we fight today because terrorists want to attack our country and kill our citizens - and Iraq is where they are making their stand. So we will fight them there ... we will fight them across the world - and we will stay in the fight until the fight is won.' I'll bet that is news to Iraq 'But, but, but -- the terrorists weren't here until YOU were here, so if you'd leave, THEY would leave, and we could get on with building our country again and . . . oh well. . . '
The Lincolnesque tone was just a little over-the-top" . . . to those watching tonight who are considering a military career, there is no higher calling than service in our Armed Forces. We live in freedom because every generation has produced patriots willing to serve a cause greater than themselves. Those who serve today are taking their rightful place among the greatest generations that have worn our Nation's uniform. When the history of this period is written, the liberation of Afghanistan and the liberation of Iraq will be remembered as great turning points in the story of freedom." And so that government of the people, by the people and for the people shall not perish from this earth.

'I'm not sitting at the back of the bus anymore"

I phoned my daughter tonight to celebrate with her about the gay marriage vote. She said "Mom, I feel like I'm not sitting at the back of the bus anymore."
Exactly. Yes, exactly.
Not that gay marriage was actually banned anymore in eight provinces anyway, because of the court cases.
But its one thing for a judge to declare that gay marriage is constitutional, and its another thing entirely for the elected leadership of the country to demonstrate in such a concrete way their support for gay rights, their recognition that gay people are fully Canadian.
The Globe story, Same-sex marriage bill passes says:

It was [Pierre Trudeau] the late Liberal prime minister who decriminalized homosexuality in 1969, and whose Charter of Rights and Freedoms became the legal cudgel that smashed the traditional definition of marriage. Barely two years ago the Liberal government was still fighting same-sex couples in courts across the land. It changed its tune amid an onslaught of legal verdicts in eight provinces that found traditional marriage laws violated the charter's guarantee of equality for all Canadians. "(This) is about the Charter of Rights," Prime Minister Paul Martin said earlier Tuesday. "We are a nation of minorities. And in a nation of minorities, it is important that you don't cherry-pick rights. A right is a right and that is what this vote tonight is all about.

Open mouth. Change feet.

Harper under fire for same-sex comment: Harper does it again -- he just cannot seem to squelch his 'inner Reeeformmm'.
This time Harper said "Because [gay marriage] is being passed with the support of the Bloc, I think it will lack legitimacy with most Canadians. The truth is most federalist MPs oppose this. It's only a deal with the Bloc that's allowing it to pass."
So who did he think he was going to win over with this line? Quebecers? The majority of the country that supports gay marriage? Former Progressive Conservative voters? He derides the Bloc, yet he himself was quite willing to defeat the Liberal/NDP budget bill with a Conservative/Bloc alliance.
This remark sounds like the Conservatives are experiencing a resurgence of the get-French-off-the-cornflakes-box crap which doomed the old-line Reform supporters in central Canada.
Needless to say, Quebec will not be forgetting this one quickly. Here's the Commons reaction:
Giles Duceppe: "We're elected. Our mandate is every bit as legitimate as any member who sits in this chamber. That's what they call democracy." The Conservatives could help end the Bloc's influence by supporting Quebec independence, Duceppe wryly suggested.
Jack Layton: "Mr. Harper is essentially saying that Quebecers' votes don't matter - aren't on an equal par with the rest of Canadians. So he wants to deny equality to same-sex partners, and he wants to deny equality to Quebec voters. Maybe Mr. Harper should think about why people aren't listening to him by just simply looking at what he says.' "
Scott Brison: "This is another case of Stephen Harper trying to divide Canadians and pit one group against another. For him to imply that federalists are not as supportive of human rights and equality as separatists is truly offensive."
And Joe Clark, who was Grand Marshall of Calgary's 2001 Gay Pride Parade , might well be heard muttering "I told you we shouldn't have done it. I told you".
UPDATE: I realized today, hearing Harper still harping on this, that he is actually saying this just so that he can tell his Reform/Christian right/Focus on the Family supporters that he "won" because gay marriage wasn't supported by a majority of what he terms "federalist" MPs. Its just a pathetic political spin game so his fundraising won't suffer. What he and the rest of the conservative party don't seem to realize (likely because they have no Quebec members) is how seriously angry Quebecers are about his remarks -- take a look at Scott of Montreal's comments in the "Comments" to this post.

Gay Pride Worldwide

Thirty five years of Gay Pride:

Toronto


Los Angeles


Calgary

The Unitarian Church banner

Rio de Janerio


San Salvador


Berlin


Paris


Phuket, Thailand


San Francisco

It's a mad, mad, mad, mad world

Hmmm -- I hadn't realized that the US Department of Agriculture was now being run by the same people who used to manage the drug testing for the US Olympic Team.
AP is reporting that that US cow first tested positive for Mad Cow LAST NOVEMBER. But a second test was negative and the USDA for seven months refused the demands of consumer groups and scientists that a third test be done to settle the case. Finally, the USDA's inspector general, an official whom AP describes as the department's "internal watchdog," ordered the third test -- and the Secretary of Agriculture was pissed. The test was underway before he knew about it -- and, presumably, before he could stop it. The third test was positive. And now, to put a better spin on it, the USDA has announced it will do the third test on any other conflicting results it finds in the future.
But I think the Inspector General should watch her back.
The AP story describes the chain of events: "Troubled by the conflicting test results, the department's inspector general, Phyllis Fong, ordered the Western blot test this month. By the time an aide notified Agriculture Secretary Mike Johanns, the testing was under way . . . Johanns, amid an uproar from the cattle industry, was irked that she did so without his knowledge or consent. 'From my standpoint, I believe I was put there to operate the department and was very disappointed,' he told reporters Friday morning. By that afternoon, the verdict from Britain was in: The cow had mad cow disease . . . Johanns, who took over the department in January, said the government will use both the IHC and Western blot tests from now on when initial screening indicates an animal may have the disease."
The whole story still leaves a bad taste in my mouth, methaphorically speaking.

Take it to Karl

Here's a new blog, started on Friday and has already had 16,000 visitors: Taking the Fight to Karl: American Service Men and Women Mad at Karl Rove
Oh poor Karl, what tiger have you unleashed?
And here's what the New York Times had to say, too.
UPDATE: Q makes a point in Comments that needs to be posted:

As Basil Fawlty would say, "thank you N.Y.Times, thank you so bloody much".
When Richard Clarke (ex. terrorism czar) walked out of the mad house saying 'I told the president invading Iraq made as much sense as invading Mexico, as neither had anything to do with 911 or terrorism'... no concern to the N.Y.Times.
They chose to side with the nut house while hundreds of blogs were reporting the truth and countries like Canada and the anti war movement and the democrats etc. and the professionals on the ground, the U.N weapons inspectors were all cautioning that something was very wrong here....The N.Y.T and other corporate media chose to fan the flames of a war with unnamed source reporting and all of the the white house bullshit they bought into.
They could write a thousand of these honest op-ed pieces now and not make up for their blame in the greateast con in American history. One that has caused untold suffering and distraction from the real culprits behind 911, who are dead or are recuperating in Pakistan( where sovereign borders are mysteriously respected while the C.I.A steals "suspects" throughout Europe without permission or invades Iraq, a sovereign nation etc.......but it was a nice article anyway.

And Roger Ailes makes the same point, though not as well, in his post: "Number Four - We share moral responsibility for the deaths of Americans and Iraqis in Iraq by publishing the lies of William Safire and Judith Miller."

More straws in the wind

Well, about once a week now I see another news story that convinces me the US is trying to surrender in Iraq so they can get their military bases built in peace.
Here is this week's version -- today's AP story Report: US Secretly Met with Insurgents
This report quotes the Times of London saying that a Pentagon representative met with Anwar al-Sunnah Army, Mohammed's Army and the Islamic Army in Iraq "and declared himself ready to find ways of stopping the bloodshed on both sides and to listen to demands and grievances" . The paper goes on to say "The U.S. officials tried to gather information about the structure, leadership and operations of the insurgent groups, which irritated some members, who had been told the talks would consider their main demand, a timetable for the withdrawal of U.S. forces from Iraq . . . During the June 13 talks, the U.S. officials demanded that two other insurgent groups, the 1920 Revolution and the Majhadeen Shoura Council, cut ties with the country's most-feared insurgent group, al-Qaida in Iraq, according to the report."
That the US is negotiating with four or five insurgent groups sounds perhaps more promising than it is. In a column at the end of May, Gwynne Dyer noted some of the problems that would arise with any negotiation, like for instance that there are 75 insurgent groups in Iraq:

At the moment, the Sunni Arabs do not have a credible collective leadership with whom the government could negotiate even if it wanted to, and there's not much point in trying to negotiate with the insurgents, either: some 38 different groups have claimed attacks against US troops. Nor will sealing the frontiers help, as the great majority of the insurgents are Iraqis moved by some combination of nationalism, Islamism, and/or Baathism. (The International Institute for Strategic Studies recently estimated that there are between 20,000 and 50,000 insurgents, organised in some 75 separate units.) Another election might ease some of the strains if substantial numbers of Sunni Arabs chose to participate next time, but it is far from clear that they would, and in any case the timetable is slipping fast. Current deadlines foresee completion of the new constitution by 15 August, a referendum on it in October, and new elections in December (assuming that the referendum says 'yes'), but three months were lost in haggling between Kurds and Shias over government jobs and now that schedule is most unlikely to be met. In fact, it will be surprising if they can even agree on a new constitution by the end of the year -- and Sunni Arab views will scarcely be represented at all. So the violence will probably continue at around the current level for the next six to nine months at least, and beyond that the future is simply unforeseeable. Whether you choose to call this a civil war or not, the fact is that almost all of the insurgents are Sunni Arabs, while the new Iraqi army and police forces are overwhelmingly Shias and Kurds. So long as the insurgency continues, the Shia leadership is unlikely to demand the immediate departure of American troops -- and so far, the US still seems determined to stay.

The 400-lb gorilla is this: no matter what is negotiated and with whom and how many elections are held and what constitution is adopted, the insurgency will not end until the US army leaves. And if those 16 'enduring'bases are an indication, the US is not intending to leave.
At what point will the world step up to the plate, and tell the US and Britain that they have no right to continue to occupy Iraq?

The lost boys

The General doesn't do this very often, but yesterday he spoke out in his own voice:

When you're the father of two beautiful daughters, your house becomes a gathering place for young men. That was certainly the case when my daughters were in high school. We were lucky, most of them were good kids. I spent quite a bit of time with them and got to know them very well.
Now they're coming home from war. The all American boy with a heart of gold talks of his hate for 'hajis' and wishes we could nuke the place. The class clown sits in his room all day staring at the Cartoon Channel while self medicating with pot and booze. The nice liberal Jewish boy who melted my wife's yenta heart tells us in a dispassionate, far-away monotone that 'killing those animals was like stepping on ants.' Our 'son' screams at night. My heart breaks for these boys we adopted in their teenage years. They've lost their souls. And for what?
War does this to people. That's why it should never be entered into unless there is no other alternative. That wasn't the case for this war. As far as I can tell, we invaded Iraq because Bush and the necons wanted to be remembered as great men like Roosevelt or Lincoln, or perhaps more accurately, Augustus. It's there in the subtext of PNAC papers for all to see. The oil is just gravy. That's evil.

And people wonder why parents won't let their boys enlist.
I disagree with the General in one respect. I don't think that it is war itself which does this to young soldiers, it is killing civilians.
And American soldiers have been killing civilians in Iraq for the last two years.
These young men are shooting up cars full of women and children at checkpoints. They're breaking into homes and manhandling screaming grandmothers. They're arresting thousands of prisoners and they have no way to tell which ones are actually enemies, because they have to think of every man they see as their enemy. Whenever they walk along a street, they have to be ready to kill. These soldiers have to develop a brutal, callous disrespect for every single person they see who isn't American. Soldiers also targeted civilians in Vietnam -- and that war brutalized soldiers to the point that ordinary American boys committed the My Lai massacre and how many others.
In a righteous war these soldiers and their families can find some solace and healing in the belief that the sacrifice of their basic humanity was worthwhile. But Iraq is not a righteous war and the soldiers know it.

Best.

Cam Cardow, The Ottawa Citizen


Patrick Corrigan, The Toronto Star


Brian Gable, The Globe & Mail


Brian Gable, The Globe & Mail


Steve Benson, United Media

Hey, hey, LBJ, how many kids did you kill today?

Bush, Bush, bring 'em back. They're not your bitches in Iraq!

What Wolcott says:

Historical parallels have lost their spine-stiffening efficacy. We're all Churchilled out, this isn't 1939 or 1865 or 1776, the disaster is unfolding here and now and in front of our eyes and if Republican conservates want to perservere despite eroding support then they should pull all those future lobbyists and leeches out of the Heritage Foundation dorm and march them over to a recruiting station, where they can learn how to shoot off something besides their Rush-quoting mouths.
Here's what I'm wondering. Bush is making a major national address on Tuesday about Iraq. With each speech he masticated about Social Security 'reform,' approval for his non-existent program sagged. His sixty-day sales tour was a Willy Loman flop. Suppose he makes a rallying call on Tuesday and his poll numbers subsequently drop even more? I recall when LBJ would go before the nation with a televised address to shore up support on Vietnam, and it was too late, the nation had had enough. I'm not saying that will happen next week--Bush's speechwriter may whip enough eloquence for a temporary boost in the polls--but suppose it does? If Bush comes forward, and the American people recoil, I suspect a line of perspiration will begin to form even along Bill Kristol's thin upper lip.

You get the idea

This interview transcript is titled Bartlett defends Rove's comments But it doesn't sound like it to me. White House press secretary assistant Bartlett sounds more like he is parsing and dicing Rove's remarks to imply now that they didn't actually mean what Rove clearly had meant. "Well Norah I must say I'm at a loss why some of these top Democrats in the Senate have made these accusations, in fact, if you look at Senators Clinton and Schumer and others, who responded after 9/11, did so in support of President Bush's pursuit of the war on terror. What Karl Rove was pointing out -- and he was quite specific I might add -- in his speech, was that MoveOn.org, a liberal organization, that put out a petition and a statement right after 9/11 saying don't respond militarily, show restraint, that's exactly what he was talking about."
Funny, that's not the way it came across at the time.
That said, no political party should miss the meta-narrative accusation, the overall frame for a specific attack. The Democrats miss this in the US and the Conservatives miss it here.
Democrats seem to feel they have to respond to an attack with some kind of detailed, academic statistical analysis -- like when Kerry's people said "How dare you say he voted to raise taxes 600 times; it was actually only 180, maybe 200 tops!" So now Rove says the Dems were wimps after 9/11, and the Dems sputter about how they all voted for some congressional resolution. Instead they should have a reply that shows their pride in being democrats and their willingness to lead. Try something like this: "We gathered outside on the steps of the Capital on that terrible day and we led the singing of God Bless America, even though we did not know whether Washington might continue to be attacked. We've been demonstrating ever since our commitment to make Americans safer by persuading President Bush to establish the Department of Homeland Security and the 911 Commission . . . ' You get the idea.
The Conservatives here fall into the same trap. After last night's vote, instead of wallowing in their own anger, they should have recognized and dealt with the meta-narrative accusation -- that Conservatives don't know how to run a government. Dealing with that narrative would have required a response 'more in sorrow than in anger' about such unseemly shennigans, and a focus on the future "Yes, the Liberals tricked everyone tonight to sneak their budget through, but in the long run this budget will be a bad deal for Canada . . . " You get the idea.

Just another pit bull EA

Over at The Blogging of the President, Glenn Smith, the founder of the Texas organization DriveDemocracy, puts Karl Rove in perspective:

Karl Rove's un-American attacks on those who disagree with him deserve the condemnation they're receiving. I've known him for 20 years, and I'm not surprised he said them. He's a socially inept but patient thug whose willingness to haunt the nation's dark political alleys for years, waiting for the right time and the right victims, is too often taken for unparalleled political intelligence. Being attacked by Rove is a little like being criticized by the Boston Strangler. At least you know you're alive . . . Rove's a hack. His strength comes from his immorality. . . . I've been on the road in America for much of the last two years. I'm asked all the time about the need for Democrats to find their own Karl Rove. If we ever find such a monster in our midst, we should exile him. . . . it troubles me that so many people believe he really is a political genius. He's just pathological. For years I've suspected that Rove is stuck in an adolescent rage, taking revenge upon the Civil Rights marchers (whose courage he couldn't match), the anti-war organizers (who beat him), and those who believe in and struggle for democracy (who drove off Nixon). I don't recommend therapy for Bin Laden. But Rove might give Dr. Laura a call.

I have worked in lots of offices over the years, and its a common phenomenon -- the bitchy executive assistant, constantly "on guard" to protect the boss, manipulative, fiercely partisan, who thinks that promoting the interests of the boss is an acceptable excuse to trample over everyone in their path.
I wonder why some people are like this. The only other place I have seen this type of person is when I was a zone commissioner for children's softball. Some of the parents acted like cheering for their own child gave them a license to be rude, offensive and abusive to the children on the opposing team.
So maybe these are both just examples of how some people will indulge their inner pit bull as long as they can justify their abysmal behaviour with the excuse that they aren't doing it for themselves, oh no -- its all for my boss, or my child - or my dear leader.

Bring out the faba beans

The Globe and Mail: Liberals win surprise budget amendment vote
Well, I can't quite understand how the Liberals did it, but apparently they held a quickie budget vote at midnight, and forced through the NDP-Liberal budget amendments. And the Bloc supported them. And it was all in aid of getting the gay marriage vote done next week.
So the Bloc is on the side of the angels as far as I am concerned on this issue -- I'm still a tad pissed at the Liberals for their hesitancy last week.
Anyway, back to our story -- just this morning, it looked like we were heading for another one of those death-of-a-thousand-cuts budget showdown votes like last month's squeaker.
But wiser heads prevailed, I guess, proving that the ONLY people in the WHOLE COUNTRY who wanted a summer election were the 99 Conservative MPs.
For some reason, the Tories were just a tad pissed to lose this vote: The Globe says they "reacted with unfiltered rage."
First, they started in with the sexual metaphors "Conservative deputy leader Peter MacKay described his foes as a menage a trois between separatists, socialists and power-hungry Liberals." Of course, I'm shocked, SHOCKED, that the Conservatives even know what a menage-a-trois IS.
Then they brought out the big guns -- they used the dreaded fictional serial killer comparison.
The Globe quoted MacKay as saying "We have to start thinking that Hannibal Lecter is running the government and they'll do anything they have to do to win."
Needless to say, "Liberals could barely contain their glee in response. 'Its not surprising that Hannibal Lecter should spring to mind for Mr. MacKay given the growing number of Conservatives who believe the party should soon eat its own leader,' said Scott Reid, the Prime Minister's spokesman."
With faba beans and a nice Chalbis.